Contemplative PRC Questions. LONG

[Junkheap]

Ok, ok, i am a contemplative in a campagin(cleric 10/con 7). Either way, we know this PRC is in DoTF, and the errata is not out yet. Btw i think the errata for it will probably be the size of a new book, but either way, there is no errata.

I am having problems with a few of the abilites the contemplative gets. On one hand they seem way too weak, but the counter point is that they would be too powerfull. Either way, here they are.

To be this class the earliest you can get is is by 11th character level. 13 ranks religion.Not to mention meet a deity bla bla bla.

First problem: Divine wholeness(3rd level ability). A contemplaive can heal twice her current level in Hp each day, and can spread this healing among many uses. Ok, which of the following is it:

1 - 3rd lvl contemplative as "Current lvl" so total of 6 hp!!

2 - 13 lvl currently so heal 26 hp!!

I see is as #2, because honestly what is the point of the ability??? What can you heal in 3e with 6 hp, especially at that level??????? And you can spread it out!! whohoo, 6 hp.

Either way i see it as #2, so does my dm, but everyone else(players)see i as #1 due to the ability saying current lvl.

Second problem: Divein Soul(7th lvl ability). A contmplative gains SR. Her SR equals her class lvl + 10. ok is it:

1 - SR 17(since it is only con's lvl +10)

2 - SR 27(don't really know hy but see below)

I don't know what to take of this because SR 17 at 17th level is totally useless. Any encounter at this level will usually have a higher level spell caster and will need to affect you on a 1. On the other hand SR 27 i think is too good, but acceptable considering you can by rings that would give you higher SR(than 17) and are affordable at this level.

Either way, the DM doesnt want me cleaning up so he made it #1. I am fine with it and either way you see my problem.

To summarize, my Dm and me (and also the players) want to know what is the right way to play other than just ruling what we feel like. Any help would be appreciated. THANX

 

[hong]

Unless stated otherwise, class abilities go by class level. Hence a 3rd level contemplative can heal 6 hp/day (silly though it may be), and a 7th level contemplative has SR 17. Don't worry too much; you have plenty of other abilities with which to kick booty.

 

[durath]

Unless stated otherwise, class abilities go by class level.

This is a true statement. However if you look at the wording to the class abilites I believe it was meant for the contemplative to be able to heal the 26 HP in this case.

The class ability description reads:

A contemplaive can heal twice her current level in Hp each day, and can spread this healing among many uses.

The key words to look at there are "current level". Yes, I realize that current level could mean current comtemplative level or it could also mean current character level, but read on

The divine soul ability states:

A contmplative gains SR. Her SR equals her class lvl + 10.

Here the description specifically states that this ability is dependant upon CLASS LEVEL. IMO if the healing ability had been meant to work off of strictly comtemplative levels it also would have explicitly stated that.

In any case by the rules it is 6 HP healed, but I think it is a safe assumption that errata will fix that.

Junkheap-I think you and your DM have currently ruled reasonably on the ambiguous situation here.

 

[FANGO]

I see this problem as similar to the "Follow the Leader" problem from Song and Silence. This spell, if you don't know, lets you act like the pied piper, making people dance and follow you around. It's a pretty useless spell, though, because of the way it caps. The spell as written states that you can lead up to 1HD of creatures around per bard level, capped at 10 HD (none of which can be bigger than 5HD). The only problem with this is that it's a 4th level bard spell, and bards don't get fourth level spells until 10th level. Anyway, I see the contemplative problem as similar to this...basically, that it was an oversight of the game designers who didn't really think of what the actual effect of the limitation would be, game-wise. Personally, I don't think an SR of 27 at 17th level is all that great...theoretically it will block 1/2 of the spells coming at you, but if the bad guys have higher caster levels than you, or spell penetration, or are using spell-like abilities with ridiculouly high caster levels (this happens with some creatures, death slaad for example), then it really isn't all that bad, especially considering that the contemplative is really supposed to be quite the defensive powerhouse (I mean, they get bad bab, not too great hp, and nearly all (if not all) of their abilities are based on defense, and all they have is divine caster power which everyone says is weaker than arcane power, especially for offense). So I, personally, see no harm in giving them the ability to heal total level x 2 hp per day, or SR of total level +10, because otherwise the abilities really are quite useless (at that level, heal spells are a dime a dozen, and I'd hardly call 26 hp game-breaking).

edit....
I should also add that I have a character with an SR of 27 in a current game I play. We started at 15th level and my character is now equivalent to 20th level in an 18/19th level party (thanks to a fortunate encounter with a deck of many things), and my SR has never worked once. This is where the mention of the death slaads came from, too...we've had several of them sent at our party (part of a storyline), and for some reason they really love trying to implode me (with my +13 fort save...woot). Luckily I pulled some amazing saves on the various times that they did try to get me (prompting me to actually take a level of the contemplative prc so that I could be a little more sure of making those saves...bard/druids with 36 charisma make good contemplatives with the mysticism domain :-D), but I just wanted to reinforce that sometimes SR isn't quite as good as people might make it out to be (because the fact is that that contemplative probably still can't take too many hits from a big enough sword).

 

[FANGO]

okay, that was weird...

removed repost of double edit....or something....but yeah, strange...

 

[nwn_deadman]

I think the SR of 10+contemplative level is good enough for a class feature that cannot be taken away.

Think about magic items.

Since most magic items are created at the lowest caster level for a particular spell, SR 20 at 20th level is not all that bad.

Wand of Lightning Bolts 10d6 10th level caster has only 50% chance to work against an SR of 20.

Wand of Lightning Bolts 5d6 5th caster level has only 25% chance to work against an SR of 20.

This 'power' may not save the contemplative against the 'big shot' enemies but neither will the 20/+1 damage reduction.

Think about it like this.

The contemplative will be very hard for low-level NPC and monsters to deal with.

Immune to poison + disease and damage reduction 20/+1 as well as SR 20 and anything around 5th level or so would stand little chance of even doing 1 point of damage.