Can anyone tell me what the harper mage is all about?

[Li Shenron]

One special ability is quite minor.

The other is merely an improvement, a limited number of times per day, in how you use an EXISTING (gained via a Feat) ability: Extend Spell.

As for the FEATS ... as others have observed, quite minor feats, really.



Style doesn't have to come from powers; it comes form being different. Someone who would follow the path of Harper Mage is likely to be slinging markedly different sorts of spells than someone who chooses Elemental Savant (for one example).

Yes, it is just a slight improvement compared to keep advancing in the base class.

I agree then, style doesn't come from power, but if you have basically nothing that you can't already have from base classes (except the minor ability of free extend spell), why designing this PrCl at all? All the first PrCls in DMG had something special, something you could get only by taking level in that PrCl, and nowhere else. Having a PrCl that just give you this from the bard, that from the other, plus a bunch of free feats is IMHO writing a PrCl that doesn't add much to the campaign. That's why I said it doesn't have style.

Ok, from a storytelling point of view you'd be a Harper Mage, and that probably gives you good RP style, but that has nothing to do with the class features. It's just that, for being a member of possibly the most wanted organization in FRCS I would have expected something more unique.

 

[Pax]

Yes, it is just a slight improvement compared to keep advancing in the base class.

I agree then, style doesn't come from power, but if you have basically nothing that you can't already have from base classes (except the minor ability of free extend spell), why designing this PrCl at all? All the first PrCls in DMG had something special, something you could get only by taking level in that PrCl, and nowhere else. Having a PrCl that just give you this from the bard, that from the other, plus a bunch of free feats is IMHO writing a PrCl that doesn't add much to the campaign. That's why I said it doesn't have style.

Note entirely true WRT the DMG prestige classes. The Dwarven Defender is basically a "Calm defensive bastion" descriptor for very much a Barbarian-rage like ability, predicated on standing still, in one spot.

The Loremaster is a Wizard(Diviner) / Bard cross, by and large. There's not much of anything the Loremaster does, that can't be replicated by multiclassing Wizard and BArd, and taking the right skills and spells.

Ok, from a storytelling point of view you'd be a Harper Mage, and that probably gives you good RP style, but that has nothing to do with the class features. It's just that, for being a member of possibly the most wanted organization in FRCS I would have expected something more unique.

That's just a form of special training open only to members of the Harpers.

IOW, being able to CHOOSE that Prestige Class is one of (many) benefits of membership. Other effects of membership are entirely up to the GM, of course.

There are in fact -three- Harper-oriented prestige classes; the Harper Scout (FRCS), Harper Mage (MoF), and Harper Priest (MoF again).

And I don't have a problem with a Prestige Class being "everything you were before, and this nifty extra trick too" -- since you have to sacrifice a bit to meet the prerequisites, most of the time anyway.

 

[Li Shenron]

And I don't have a problem with a Prestige Class being "everything you were before, and this nifty extra trick too" -- since you have to sacrifice a bit to meet the prerequisites, most of the time anyway.

I don't have a problem with it either. I have never run a FRCS campaign, and if I will, I know I won't disallow the PrCl just because in my opinion it is absolutely nothing special.

Still, as a player (and specially keen on arcane spellcasting PCs), becoming a Harper Mage would appeal me from the RP point of view, but not strategically. I'd rather join the Harpers but be something else.

That's because I usually like tying PrCl to organizations which give special trainings comprised of something new and unavailable to anyone else. I think the Dwarven Defender is quite like it, although you are right about the Loremaster (which is in fact still quite a generalist PrCl).