Is This Unbalanced?

Samloyal23 · Mar 21, 2012

This is a special ability for a prestige class I am working on. I'm not sure if making the gains provided permanent is going to be unbalancing. The ability is gained at level 8, to join the prestige class you need a +3 base attack and 3 or more ranks of Survival. Also, should you be able to gain more than 4 ranks of a skill? Is that equivalent to learning a new spell or feat? Thoughts?

Eat The Soul(su)
By eating a murdered victim’s brain you gain his knowledge and power. If either the victim’s Int or Wis is higher than yours, you gain that score for 24 hours. Otherwise you gain a +1 bonus to either Int or Wis. In addition you can gain one skills, feat, or spell known to your victim. If you roll over your Int score you retain this knowledge permanently. Otherwise it is forgotten after 24 hours. If you choose a skill you gain up to 4 ranks in one skill possessed by the victim in life. If you select a feat you must meet all prerequisites. If you choose a spell you must be able to cast it based on your class and level. If the victim you select suffers from any type of mental condition or illness, such a geas, charm, or insanity, you automatically contract it, whether permanent or temporary.

Greenfield · Mar 21, 2012

Permanent skill gains are unbalancing.

Now, if you use the "no stacking" principle it might work. That is, if you gain their skill rank if and only if it's better than yours, it's better. (As a comparison: Taking the same courses in school, over and over again, aren't going to teach you much that's new.)

Even so, I'd make them last a game month, tops. The ability to max out every skill in the game, permanently, is not a good idea.

Sekhmet · Mar 21, 2012

I agree with Greenfield, permanent gains allow for Pun-Puns to exist.
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Pun-Pun_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Build)

RUMBLETiGER · Mar 22, 2012

Now yes, it's out of Savage Species, so take that with a grain of salt, but how about the Illithid Savant PrC as a comparison?

...Which, by the way, in my opinion, is the most powerful, broken PrC EVER. But still exists and is RAW.

"Hm... My Illithid Savant as acquired a Druid's Wild Shape, a Wizard's Casting and... oh, lets go with an Archivist's Casting as well."

Sekhmet · Mar 22, 2012

Yes, Illithid Savant is one of those things that probably wasn't thought through very well.

kinem · Mar 22, 2012

If you have to ask 'Is this unbalanced?', the answer is always 'Yes. Yes, it is.'

Samloyal23 · Mar 22, 2012

So, can we make a permanent change balanced and if not, how long should the effect last?

anest1s · Mar 22, 2012

So...if I catch a thief and eat his brains, then I know his full life...I can work my way to the top of the thieves guilds ranks and take over so smoothly, no one will even notice.

The +1 to the ability isn't really helping (except if it stacks), if it was +2 it would give +1 bonus.

You could make the ability to last for x time after it is first used or until it is discharged...and make a small pool of abilities you can have stored at any given time.

I don't know about illnesses, but they could damage your pool for some time, or last for limited time.

Also, if you want to limit the knowledge a player can get by eating someone who knows too much, you could say that he gets only the last x days memories.

Samloyal23 · Mar 22, 2012

Okay, first tweak...

Eat The Soul(su)
By eating a murdered victim’s brain you gain a portion of his knowledge and power. If either the victim’s Int or Wis is higher than yours, you gain that score for 24 hours. Otherwise you gain a +2 bonus to either Int or Wis. In addition you can gain one skills, feat, or spell known to your victim. If you roll over your Int score you retain this knowledge for 1d6+class level weeks. Otherwise it is forgotten after 24 hours. If you choose a skill you gain up to 4 ranks in one skill possessed by the victim in life. If you select a feat you must meet all prerequisites. If you choose a spell you must be able to cast it based on your class and level. If the victim you select suffers from any type of mental condition or illness, such a geas, charm, or insanity, you automatically contract it, whether permanent or temporary.

kitcik · Mar 22, 2012

Two issues to start:
1) Rolling OVER your Int score penalizes a high Int. Is this your intention?
2) You are going to have a crappy time as DM tracking game time and how many days/hours/minutes it's been since he ate X victim and what impact the loss of that victim's bonuses have (including the possible loss of feats or PrCs taken in the meanwhile that they no longre qualify for). This thing will be a bear to monitor. 4 encounters a day, I am eating them all, effects last weeks... egads!