Chameleon: anyone played it?

[Egres]

Hi folks.

I'm trying to convince my DM to allow me to play a Chameleon.

He thinks this PrC is a munchkin class that could ruin the party balance.

Has anyone played it (or seen it in action as a fellow player or DM), in order to share his/her impressions about the class, its playability and its power?

Thanks in advance.

Note: for those of you who still don't know what a Chameleon is, take a look here.

 

[SelcSilverhand]

One of my friends tried to talk me into allowing this PrC but I said no for the same reasons. I didn't like the concept one bit. The following situation was playing through my head when he was pitching the PrC to me: Chameleon Cleric: "Hi Pelor! You probably don't remember me, it's Dave. You know, one of your divine agent fellas. So... I'm just going to borrow some divine power to raise the dead, you don't mind right? Well I'll just be on my way then..."

If you really want to play it here are some things that you can tell your DM to try to convince him that it would have enough penalties to balance being able to play as any class.

1. Armor: Melee or divine focus will let you wear that full plate armor, but you'll need to carry it around somehow when in stealth or arcane form. Even though most druids lose all their abilities while wearing metal armor, your wild focus doesn't have that little cavaet so technically you could cast like a druid in full plate.

2. Ability scores: A lot of class features rely heavily on ability scores. If you want to be combat focused you'll need high strength, arcane and divine have minimum scores necessary to even cast spells, and you'll need a good dex and int for all those stealthy rogue skills. This isn't so bad because of the ability increases that you get at later levels.

3. Divine spells: The divine focus says that you can only prepare divine spells at sunrise, so if in the middle of the day you need a healer and change your class at that point you'll still have to wait till morning to cast anything.

4. Spellbook: Unless you have a wizard in the party who's willing to share all his hard earned arcane secrets, you'll be making your own spellbook. The way I read it is that you can cast any arcane spell from any arcane spell list, you still need to prepare it from a spellbook. That means copying a scroll or spells from someone elses spellbook first just to get access to that spell.


Stock up on wands and scrolls since you can use any of these items as long as they are on your class spell list, and you have access to All spell lists just by shifting your focus...

I personally still hate the class, but I can certainly see why someone would want to play it.

 

[Egres]

Stock up on wands and scrolls since you can use any of these items as long as they are on your class spell list, and you have access to All spell lists just by shifting your focus...

There's a possibility that this is not true:

You can't use any abilities gained from your aptitude focus, ability boon, or mimic class feature abilities to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other option.

Other option...

You don't need to "qualify" in order to use a wand or such, but maybe this is the spirit of this rule.

Aside from rules issues, from what you wrote I think you don't find the PrC unbalancing, but only ...odd when dealing with divine power, isn't it?

 

[Hypersmurf]

I had a character in a PbEM that fizzled, whom I was intending to send into Chameleon eventually.

From memory, he was a Brd1/Clr1/Bbn1/Rog1, or something similar. He suffered from a multiple personality disorder - some of his personalities knew about the others, some didn't, some were more possessive about being in control than others... when the PrC came out, I thought "This is perfect!"...

... but I never got the chance to find out

-Hyp.

 

[Egres]

I had a character in a PbEM that fizzled, whom I was intending to send into Chameleon eventually.

From memory, he was a Brd1/Clr1/Bbn1/Rog1, or something similar. He suffered from a multiple personality disorder - some of his personalities knew about the others, some didn't, some were more possessive about being in control than others... when the PrC came out, I thought "This is perfect!"...

... but I never got the chance to find out

:\

 

[Dr_Rictus]

I'm not sure where the balance issue is here. As far as I can tell on paper, being a Chameleon lets you do a passable job in any role, but markedly inferior at any given time to a single-classed character in that particular role. So it seems like you'd be a perrenial backup character. Which is fine if that's what you want, but hardly overpowered.

Someone want to present the counter-argument on that?

As to the flavor issue, I agree that the class is weird and definitely not for every game. I don't see the divine spellcasting thing as categorically bad, though. Chameleons don't even get spontaneous casting or domains, so if you accept clerics of no particular deity, I don't really see it as a big conceptual leap for a Chameleon to be able to get the sort of really generic divine spellcasting that they do.

 

[Egres]

Someone want to present the counter-argument on that?

My DM thinks that it's a munchkin class cause it has access to (hypothetically) every single spell in the game from 1st to 6th level.

He also adds that he can get many spells at lesser than normal levels.(like Ranger and Paladin spells, not to mention Bards' ones), and with a single focus can use spells from different classes, like druid and cleric spells with a single focus.

Not to mention the abusive caster level: at 15th level you can obtain a CL of 20th!

Note: just in case you ask, I write for him cause he didn't study English at school. (but, reading my posts, you could argue that I didn't too!)

 

[Enamel_32]

Personally, its too much stuff for me to write down on paper for me.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

My DM thinks that it's a munchkin class cause it has access to (hypothetically) every single spell in the game from 1st to 6th level.

Oh whoopee. You can almost do that with a mystic theurge, and nobody who's played one is going to argue that they're overpowered.

He also adds that he can get many spells at lesser than normal levels.(like Ranger and Paladin spells, not to mention Bards' ones), and with a single focus can use spells from different classes, like druid and cleric spells with a single focus.

I was under the impression that it's canon (or at least FAQ) that when a spell is listed for multiple levels, you must take the spell at the highest listed level. A 12th level bard is casting 4th level spells, but a 12th level wizard is casting 6th level spells. This says that 4th level bard spells are balanced for 12th level characters. So if the same spell is listed for a wizard, it should be listed as a 6th level spell. Anyway, if it's not actually a rule, it should be, and wouldn't be an unreasonable compromise to allow taking a class for which this issue might arise.

Actually, reviewing the class, and thinking that Bard spells are probably the big issue, considering the need to cast using a spellbook, and since bards don't keep spellbooks...you're basically stuck casting wizard spells.

Not to mention the abusive caster level: at 15th level you can obtain a CL of 20th!

...and can cast 6th level spells with it. Hardly worth the exclamation point.

Now, I haven't played one, and I do think the concept is a bit lame for anyone who isn't a doppelganger, but I can't say I think this class would be unbalancing.

 

[Egres]

...and can cast 6th level spells with it. Hardly worth the exclamation point.

Well, a 40d6 Disintegrate at 15th level is something to worry about, IHHO.(In His Humble Opinion )