Fleshwarper- Has anyone tried it out?

[EroGaki]

I'm thinking of making a fleshwarper from Lords of Madness in a 13th level game. Has anyone had any experience with this prestige class? Is it good or bad? I am unsure how useful grafts are, but I am intrigued. I'm probably gonna throw in a few levels of Alienist just for giggles. Thanks all

 

[EroGaki]

Wow, no one has any thoughts? At all?

 

[DiceGolem]

I love the class, but only on paper. I haven't had the ability to actually play it yet.

The one problem is the grafts themselves. The picture says it all - you'll probably be viewed by the populous as the mad scientist from Frankenstein. Grafting isn't exactly common, and most knowledge of grafts are found in the lairs of evil creatures, so you'll be fighting a pretty hard stereotype.

As far as the class itself is concerned, I don't see anything that is overly crazy. The fun abilities are just that, fun, and not too beyond the realm of a nifty PrC.

The grafts themselves are pretty permanent bonuses, some with a penalty (like Fiendish or Mind Flayer grafts). I'd read over the grafts you have available to see if they are something you'd actually like to grant yourself or your party members.

If you're just going for creepy, I'd go straight Alienist!

 

[Three_Haligonians]

I've only ever used one as an antagonist for the PCs of my game.

A significant henchman of the campaign's main villains, the nefarious Dr. Braumstein von Gleamingwand was an enemy the players still talk about.

I modelled him after the typical mad scientist/kooky surgeon idea. Most of his spells were fear inducing, enchantment and other "mind warping" effects. There was a Dragon Magazine that had an article full of spells from one of the mad scientist characters from Ravenloft that was very fitting.

I picked Beholder grafts for him because I liked the idea of big bulging eyes and gaze attack like effects (I went with sleep.. and it did a number on the party).

One of the players couldn't make it to game for a small period of sessions, so I had his character just go missing. When he finally came back, the character had to escape from the mad doctor's lab, after having been abducted and experimented on so the villains could get a one-up on the party.

But, the hands down, best thing about using this type of character was all the weird and messed up "experiments" I could send at the party. Misshapen monsters, people and other animals with weird grafts.. all of it designed to freak the party right out.. and it worked.

So the good news is that I have used the Fleshwarper and it was an awesome experience. The bad news is I did so in a DM capacity - I don't know how much would transfer over to the PC side of the screen. Though I will say, grafts are very expensive (and for a good reason) so having a way to reduce the cost is always a plus.

J from Three Haligonians

 

[EroGaki]

Yeah, the character I have in mind is an Alienist Fleshwarper. Probably go wizard 5/Alienist 5/Fleshwarper 10. I like the looks of the class. I'm going for a creepy, mad scientist type, so both Alienist and Fleshwarper works. My problem is don't know which grafts to take.

 

[Bad Paper]

I played a fleshwarper

and finally let him die because he was too much of a hassle. He was a monk 1/ranger 1/wizard 5/fleshwarper. Also took a couple of aberrant feats, deepspawn and aberrant blood/flexible limbs.

He had a glass jaw, constantly had to have wizard buffs up, thus never actually participated much in combat. The XP pool for grafts is nice and all, but unless you have time to actually use that pool, they will go to waste. house rule on this: instead of the fast jump in grafting speed at Fleshwarper 6, make it linear: x-thousand gp's worth per day at fleshwarper level x.

After his death I replaced him with a half-orc barbarian and had oodles more fun. Fleshwarpers are complicated.