Alternatives to Level Advancement...

[Lord Zardoz]

Once again, I have found myself with a bit too much time on my hands. This of course has once again led to me spending a bit too much time thinking.

Obviously, when a person goes up a level, he can choose to continue his current class, or take another class. Or if he meets the pre-requisites, gain levels in a prestige class. Often, someone might pick up just one level in a class. A fighter often takes one level of Barbarian so they can gain the Rage ability. Someone might take a level of Monk to get the Wisdom bonus to AC.

What occured to me is this: Why not introduce another option to the mix. Sort of a prestige class that only has one level of progression? Such a prestige class would grant a few miscelanious abilities instead of the standard benefits of level progression.

Instead of some HP, advancing Saves and Bab, and skill points, you could grant some other one shot abilities. Some examples:

Knight of the Kingdom Fiction:
Benefits:
Gain 4 Ranks in Ride and Etiqute;
Ride, and Etiqute become class skills;
Gain medium armor proficiency and Mounted Combat Feats.
Gain +2 Competence bonus to any Disarm, Trip, Sunder, Bull Rush attempt.

And make that it. No new Hit dice, and no new Saves.

Has anyone else experimented with this sort of thing?

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Crothian]

Sounds sort of like prestige races. Except they cost XP, instead of counting as a level.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Which means I like it better. ^_^

Sounds like a solid concept to me. You could even increase it beyond one 'level.'

It may take a bit to justify taking that instead of taking a level, but the concept is very solid. Likey. Yoinkey.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

It is an intresting tradeoff...

As I see it, it's a way of granting non-standard abilities and bonuses that would otherwise simply burn feat choices. The tricky part is in deciding what to grant and how much. Ideally, these "pseudo levels" should be appealing enough to warrant taking at any level without being unbalancing. They should also be more then just a mishmash of arbitrary feats and skills, and other class type abilities. Those you can get easily enough through regular advancement.

But those things aside, there are a fair number of things that would be nice to gain as a player that you simply do not get. And bundling a bunch of them together to fit a theme would just work out nicely. Here are some thoughts about what might work as nice benefits.

- Gain a Fort save to prevent criticals, DC = final attack roll total (so Die roll of threat+bab+str+weapon magic bonus of attacker)
- Gain Flanking when your opponent is between you and a wall
- Gain arbitrary spell like ability
- Gain access to new skills as class skills
- Prevent opponent 5 ft step if you win opposed roll
- Increase save DC of your spells
- Gain a Vulcan Mind Meld ability
- Gain Cha bonus to HP if Cha is higher then Con
- Opponents who fail will save take attack roll penalty equal to your Cha
- Use Concentration check as Spell resistance as move equvalent action
- +4 bonus to Saves vs specific kind of magical attack (Fire, Poisons, Acid).

Anyway, as I said before, its just an Idea that I had as a result of having Too Much Time To Think.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[kenjib]

I like the idea, but I think that prerequisites would still be a good thing for such a PRC.