Help me design a Wayfarer prestige class (now in its third iteration)

[RangerWickett]

I don't get the reference (don't use Eberron either) however I simply disagree that dimension door isn't placed at 4th level for a reason. You are proposing Dimension Door Lite which is going to do most of the things you want Dimension Door to do. In some respects it is even better because you can cast this spell on someone else and let them Dimension Door away without you having to be there and because it is a Swift Action to be activated and could be cast before combat.

Dimension door lets you take others with you, and travel a great distance. You cast it as a standard action and your turn ends.

Wayfarers step lets any one person travel the distance of one or two move actions. You cast it as a standard action, and spend a move action to use it. If you're 10th level (6th level character plus 4 levels of Wayfarer) you can cast it on yourself as a swift action and teleport as a free action. If you cast it on anyone else it still takes a standard action to cast.

[Actually I think I'll change the wayfarer ability so that if you cast it on yourself, you can cast as a swift action and teleport as part of the same action. If you don't want to teleport that round, you have to use a swift action later.]

Your proposed brokenness, where your rogue buddy moves up, sneak attacks, and retreats in one round is not viable. However, a wayfarer could give his buddies a bit more mobility, a type of teamwork I encourage. And yeah, a rogue/wayfarer could move up, sneak attack, and retreat as a swift action. But that's his schtick, and it's only available at 10th level.

You seem to be concentrating on the effect it would have if cast in combat. However it's much more useful out of combat or before combat. It lets you walk right out of prison. It lets you instantaneousl climb a cliff. As expressed it lets you walk right into a bank vault. First level players using abilities like that will completely break many intended challenges. And cast before combat it can be used to huge effect for only a 1st level slot. I'm not so much worried about the first level caster casting it in combat (although out of combat it's still pretty broken for a 1st level caster) as I am about the 10th level casting it (with a 60ft teleport range) and it only costs him a 1st level slot.

Sorry. I did not explicitly state it, but I assumed a short-range teleport would be limited to line of sight. And the spell lets one person bypass these challenges. I could at most see it as a 2nd level spell, on par with spiderclimb, but certainly no higher.

Your DC for Abduct still isn't completely clear. Is there an ability modifier on the DC (i.e. a Wizard applies int bonus to his DC's)? If so, which ability score does it use?

A wayfarer sorcerer with Cha 16 uses dimension door, and wants to bring along an enemy who is adjacent to him. Dimension door is a 4th level spell, and he has a +3 Charisma modifier, so the save DC is 17. Likewise, a wayfarer wizard with Int 16 would have the same save DC.

 

[StGabe]

Dimension door lets you take others with you, and travel a great distance. You cast it as a standard action and your turn ends.

Wayfarers step lets any one person travel the distance of one or two move actions. You cast it as a standard action, and spend a move action to use it. If you're 10th level (6th level character plus 4 levels of Wayfarer) you can cast it on yourself as a swift action and teleport as a free action. If you cast it on anyone else it still takes a standard action to cast.

However, as you have it defined it can be cast out of combat up to 10 rounds before it is used (1 minute duration). Now that you have made it a move action to activate it's true that you can't sneak attack and use it in the same round however you still teleport out right away next round.

Sorry. I did not explicitly state it, but I assumed a short-range teleport would be limited to line of sight. And the spell lets one person bypass these challenges. I could at most see it as a 2nd level spell, on par with spiderclimb, but certainly no higher.

Yes. I suggested you add this in my initial criticism and it is important to have this explicitly stated.

A wayfarer sorcerer with Cha 16 uses dimension door, and wants to bring along an enemy who is adjacent to him. Dimension door is a 4th level spell, and he has a +3 Charisma modifier, so the save DC is 17. Likewise, a wayfarer wizard with Int 16 would have the same save DC.

Right, I imagined you meant that (although it's a non-standard way to define this, generally a prestige class would have its own attribute for this) however you need to make this clear "The DC is equivalent to what it would be if the caster cast it with as an arcane caster of any arcane class that he has levels in" for example.

I could at most see it as a 2nd level spell, on par with spiderclimb, but certainly no higher.

Spiderclimb won't let you teleport through windows, out of jail cells, etc. Dimension Door has some slight advantages (you can take a few people with you, but not a lot, and you can go further) but as you've defined this it is also superior in other ways (usable as a move action if cast before combat, caster doesn't have to teleport or even be near the person who does the teleport). However, generally, the things that make Dimension Door a 4th level spell are its abilities to break/trivialize a lot of challenges like being locked in a prison cell. Dimension Door isn't an amazing combat spell and you could compare it to Spiderclimb too if you just want to think about combat. This is, IMO, definitely at least a 3rd level spell.

I'm not sure why you are so dead set on it being lower anyway. The wayfarer can take this as one of his Expanded Spells if they aren't a caster.

...

I also think that the class probably needs a lower BAB progression and or hit die. Balancewise, it's giving some pretty impressive spell casting boosts that seem to more than replace the lost rogue abilities that, for example, a rogue would give up to become a wayfarer. Consider a 4rogue/1sorceror/10wayfarer versus a 15 rogue and I think you will find that the former is considerably more powerful.

You can just diagreee, that's fine, but I think it would be useful to step back a bit from the class. You seem to be trying a bit too hard to make the class really attractive to players. For example, you seem to be predicating the class around being easy to aquire at a certain point in the module. That's nice and all but I think you need to make sure that it is balanced with other prestige classes with respect to requirements and abilities first and consider that later. If players need a heads up about the prestige class in order to plan for it then maybe you just need to inform them of the prereqs sooner.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I know this is a bit off-track, but I was thinking about my game and how to incorperate the Eberron elements into the adventures.. and it hit me like lightning out of blue sky...


Sorry if this is a bit disjointed, and slanted towards Eberron...


WayFarer's Step, Graft
- The infusion of specially prepared DragonShards grants the graftee the ability to step through planar boundries as a move action. Upon arrival the graftee must succeed at a FORT check vs 15 or become fatigued.

- The basic infusion is a Syberus shard and a Kyber shard. The addition of an Eberron Shard limits the ability to travel on the Prime Material. The graftee may shift his position on Eberron by 10' per character level. Without the Eberron Shard the graftee must succeed at a Concentration Check DC 25 to arrive at the right plane and location.

- Additional beings can be brought along at a cost of a +5 increase of both the Fort save DC and the Concentration DC, per additional character.

- Fatigue increases the Concentration check DC by +5

- Failure of the concentration check results in arriving at a random location on a random plane. If the characters are PCs, this should be a nice opportunity for a side plot, arriving right smack into the middle of a story ala Dr Who.

- The initial graft procedure causes 1D4 CON permanent drain. This loss cannot be recovered via Restoration while the graft is still installed.

Wayfarer's revenge... when a character with this graft breaks with the Wayfarer's guild a contingency effect destroys the Eberron Shard while the character is taking a 'step'. This results in the characters arrival at a random plane...usually meaning the wayward wayfarer does not return.



With this as the entry requirement to the PrC, the class can focus on reducing the penalties for stepping and increase functionality. It allows for non-casters to be members and provides a very clean package for why no-one outside of the Guild knows the secrets of the Wayfarer's step.

Additional abilities could include:
Expanding the range of travel, for instance increasing movement allowance to 10' * twice character level
Decreasing penalty for moving additional characters
etc...

Let me know if my random thought is worth keeping and working on
Non-Eberron games could use alternate graft components with the same results.

 

[maggot]

I'm not a big fan of first-level teleportation either. It is just a solution to too many problems. Locked door: teleport. Entangle: teleport. Web: teleport. Resilient Sphere: teleport. Force Cube: teleport. Grapple: teleport.

True, Wayfarer's step is a standard action and then a move, but that hardly limits its power. The fact that you take damage teleporting might help. But for a standard campaign, I wouldn't go for it.

As for the class, I find it misses something to make it compelling. You coud just take levels in a spell-using class and do better. A simple feat that allows you to take more people with you on a teleport would do half of what this class does. Also, where is the "part circus" in the class. All the abilities deal with teleporation magic.

 

[Owldragon]

I'm not a big fan of first-level teleportation either. It is just a solution to too many problems. Locked door: teleport. Entangle: teleport. Web: teleport. Resilient Sphere: teleport. Force Cube: teleport. Grapple: teleport.

It's ironic that the most debate so far is on something that isn't even part of the prestige class, just a spell that the class uses. My only thought at first was that maybe a cap should be put on the range so it doesn't let you go too much further than you could move normally. Your argument is making me start to wonder about the impact of low-level teleportation, though. It didn't occur to me until now that it could get you out of things like entanglement or grapples, since the spell casting is done first and then you just use a move action to actually teleport. On the other hand, you'd have to cast the spell first to be ready to escape such a condition. I'm not decided yet. I mean, if there was no advantage to the spell, why learn it or memorize it in the first place? And, as has been pointed out, there is a Least Dragonmark that does something similar, and I would imagine that if it was horribly broken, somebody would have found a way to exploit it already.

StGabe is right that the limitation to line-of-sight should be explicit; that would get rid of some of the problems, like getting past a lot of locked doors (a first level spell that's as good as knock as well as having other uses would definitely be overpowered). RangerWickett, do you think limiting it to line-of-effect as well would be too much? Having it blocked by things like a resilient sphere would counter other concerns, but I don't know what you actually have in mind for the spell. What do you really want people to be accomplishing with the spell?

Also, StGabe, I think the reason RangerWickett would like to keep the spell the way it is as much as possible might have something to do with the fact that it's already been published that way in the Burning Sky Player's Guide, back in January (same wording, down to requiring a standard action to cast and a move action to teleport). "Errata" is such a nasty word.

As for the class, I find it misses something to make it compelling. You coud just take levels in a spell-using class and do better. A simple feat that allows you to take more people with you on a teleport would do half of what this class does. Also, where is the "part circus" in the class. All the abilities deal with teleporation magic.

I do agree with this. The class could use some more flavor, something to show the "part circus" part of the concept. Maybe some sort of magical augments to Balance, Jump, and Tumble skill checks? As it is, the abilities the class grants seem to fit more with the WotC version of Wayfarers than with the Wayfarers you've portrayed in the background information and Lyceian Arcana.

 

[Gabester]

I am compiling a list of spells available to different priests for a variant priest class I have made for my campaign and as such I've been pouring over the Player's Handbook and Spell Compendium looking for spells with the right flavor that are well ballanced. A couple spells to compare this 1st level spell to:

Invisibility (swift): similar behavior (activate single-round invisibility), however it has overall less utility especially out of combat and it's a 2nd level spell
Amorphous Form: let's you get through cracks, windows, etc., but while it grants some combat bonuses is largely a bad thing to cast for combat (prevents spellcasting, loses your armor bonus, etc.). This is a 3rd level spell.

Standard spells to compare it too:
Spiderclimb: better duration but far more limited in what it will let you bypass. 2nd level.
Fly: Ok but not amazing for combat (guess that depends on the combat) but lets you get a lot of places you couldn't otherwise. 3rd level.
Gaseous Form: Similar. 3rd level.
Dimension Door: as stated, only a slight improvement over the given spell for most situations and 4th level.

I see nothing even close as a 1st level spell. Expeditious retreat? Yeah, right. There's just no way this is 1st level. Even if there is some ability in some sourcebook otherwise that is also broken. That a mistake was made the first time it was published is also not a good reason to continue with it. I could see an argument that it seems to be better than most similar 2nd level spells because of it's extremely broad utility but yet at the same time not quite as good as say Gaseous Form. That would put it at 2 1/2 basically. I don't know what you want to do from there. I would either buff it a bit to make it clearly a 3rd level spell or consider some other slight restrictions on it.

 

[RangerWickett]

Okay, did some checking:

In Complete Psionic, a 1st level power lets you teleport 10 ft. as a swift action.

In PHB2, a 2nd level spell lets you teleport 5 ft./2 levels.

I originally thought the "standard to cast, move to teleport" was a drawback. People seem to disagree. The question is whether the psionic power is broken, or the PHB2 spell is weak. Sure, it's something not available in core, but would it really disrupt a game or unbalance it?

I obviously want to keep it 1st level. I would rather make a weaker version that is 1st level than take the current version and bump it to 2nd.

 

[maggot]

Comparing psionic powers and spells isn't an exact science. Also the power you mention (Dimension Hop) is only available to the Freedom Mantle, requiring a feat for most character to access it (or taking a class that provides a Mantle and selecting that specific mantle).

 

[StGabe]

IMO, always best to compare to core spells when possible. They are the best playtested and balanced. Comparing against psionics is, as mentioned, problematic. IMO, it's clear from the core spells that the power level is far higher than you are positing. Your ability is more versatile and has more than twice the range of the 2nd level spell from the PHB-2. That further asserts its current status at 2.5 (although actually I don't think I'd had that PHB-2 spell to my campaign for the same reasons I wouldn't want this spell to be level 1).

 

[RangerWickett]

What I really want is a valid 1st level teleportation spell. Any suggestions?