ChefOrc said:
I have a few questions on this PrC because a player of mine has just taken his first Alienist level (conjurer 6, Alienist 1).
I've been playing a high level alienist for over a year now so I think I can help you with a few insights into the class - see Story Hour in sig. if you want to have a good laugh at the exploits of Lucifus Cray.
ChefOrc said:
1) How powerful do you think this PrC is, both compared to a straight up wizard and compared to other arcane PrC ? Given that a conjurer has very little to sacrifice to get in that PrC (just a few skill points in knowledge the planes), the Alienist looks simply stronger than a normal wizard.
A conjurer has had to dump two schools from their repertoire. This can bite at lower levels but rounds out nicely at higher levels. However this is not the alienist.
An alienist in 3.0 was overpowered. The 3.5 Alienist ends up being nicely balanced. Taking the psuedonatural template off of the "interesting creatures" was needed to reduce the power of the class (I mean a psuedonatural osyluth is a very very scary thing in 3.5) I can remember producing a few of these puppies after 3.5 was introduced but before complete arcane came out. I think this was a good move power wise but unfortunately, it took a lot of the flavour out of the creatures you could summon. I mean here's a specialist summoner who can now only summon vanilla creatures. In hindsight, I think a balanced list of bizarre and weird creatures especially for the alienist would have been more suitable.
However, even after the changes, a bunch of true striking Giant Stag Beetles should create a certain fear in the DM's stomach. Here is a cadre of nastiness that can really wreck an NPC's day. Five of these babies at +32 to hit dealing 4d6+12 each before giving them further buffs is pretty nasty. Lucifus Cray (my character) calls them his private Hit Squad.
ChefOrc said:
2) Does the pseudonatural template give darkvision to the summoned creature? I am asking because this ability is not listed in the pseudonatural abilities, but it is part of outsider traits. Basically, I am not sure if having the type outsider (which comes with the pseudonatural template) automatically provides outsider traits.
The Psuedonatural template say:
A psuedonatural creature uses all the base creature's statistics and abilites except as noted here. Even though the creature's type changes, do not recalculate hit dice, base attack bonus or skill points.
Thus as far as I see and have played, they get Darkvision from the Outsider Type.
ChefOrc said:
3) How do you manage the communication between the summoned creatures and the mage (to let him order the creature around)? Do you allow the "far realms language" to be learned as any other language?
We do something a little weird here but it makes sense. While technically, any creature with intelligence 3 or higher can understand common, Paul the DM and I decided upon needing tongues to reliably communicate with these strange creatures. It simply did not make sense to us that a creature from the far multiverse could speak the version of Beltratian we decided was "common" in our world. Thus Lucifus Cray has a permanent Tongues in effect upon his person (it's at a puny 13th caster level too and yet it still has not been knocked off by numerous dispel magics). We took the tongues approach because we figured there were billions of multiverse languages. From a strict rule point though, I believe the alienist is able to communicate with these creatures using common.
ChefOrc said:
4) The description in Complete Arcane does not say so, but I assume that a creature with the pseudonatural template also has the augmented and extraplanar subtypes, is that right?
Correct and correct.
ChefOrc said:
5) Pseudonatural vermins loose the mindless ability because their intelligence is raised to 3, right?
Tricky one. Technically, the mindless ability says:
No intelligence score, and immunity to mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns and morale effects.
Does this connect having no intelligence score with being mindless? In terms of flavour maybe, but the way how we ruled it was to keep all the mindless abilities with the new intelligence score. In other words it keeps the abilities it had, but the psuedonatural ability overrules the intelligence. Due to this however, we have ruled that Lucifus can't communicate with mindless creatures, they are pretty much let loose and attack perceived enemies the best way they know how.
In the end, I can thoroughly recommend the Alienist in a game where roleplaying is encouraged. They are a lot of fun to play and the 3.5 version is nicely balanced (if a little more vanilla due to what they can summon.
Mortarion said:
Would it be unbalanced to give an alienist the ability to summon anything from the summon monster spells as a pseudonatural creature. Which means that he can for example summon an pseudonatural water elemental.
Yes it will unbalance. Work out the CR's and you will see that adding up to +2 to the CR will unbalance certain creatures. Too much bang for the buck so to speak.
Mortarion said:
If this is unbalanced, what could be done to balance the Alienist? Maybe remove some other class features but in that case, which ones?
In our game we came up with the following feat:
ALTER SUMMONING [GENERAL]
Prerequisite: Spell Focus (Conjuration), Augment Summoning
Benefit: The Summoner may swap creatures that are on their Summon Monster or Summon Nature's Ally list for alternative creatures. With a day's study represented by a spellcraft check (DC 10 + Spell Level + Monster's HD), the Summoner may swap out a creature on their list for an alternative creature. This new alternative creature must be certified by the DM before it's introduction is allowed.
Note: this does not result in the Summoner being able to summon more creatures than they would otherwise be entitled to; it merely alters the types of creatures that they can summon.
This allows the summoner to gain some interesting creatures (at the expense of former creatures on their list). However, more importantly it gives the DM the power to allow or not. We worked out the CR's of all the creatures and we follow a CR or lower for CR approach. In other words, if you want to summon a CR 7 creature, you need to swap out a creature who has at least a CR of 7. Sorry to break into House Rules here but perhaps this is a good solution for the original poster.
Best Regards
Herremann the Wise
PS: If you're reading this thread, you most likely have an interest in Alienists. May I point you to my Story Hour - I'm sure you won't be disappointed in the exploits of my alienist Lucifus Cray, exploring the very issues I address above.
