D&D 3.5, Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (Full)

[silentspace]

Gryphon - that's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that every character is doing the same thing. We are starting at level 11, not level 1. No one's buying healing potions and then crossing them off saying that they used 15 of them at level 7, 22 of them at level 8, etc. No one has a battered heavy shield with the symbol of Lolth or whoever partly scratched off because it's a good item and it doesn't make sense to sell it. No one has weapon focus (battleaxe) but their best weapon is a longsword because that's what they got. If it will make you happy, I can make easy change - I can drop Improved Initiative and pick up Craft Wondrous Item. Faelar will have to buy the wand now, but afterword he'll still have a few thousand gold left over. I am completely willing to do this, it doesn't make a difference to me one way or the other. It's just no fun when people think you have some sort of unfair advantage.

Edit: IIRC, there is a relatively inexpensive wondrous item that grants improved initiative in Arms and Equipment Guide, so if Faelar crafted that using the extra gold and Craft Wondrous his character would be essentially the same as it is now.

 

[Rae ArdGaoth]

Krug: Very good, sir. And no, it's a Ferrix-unique.

Ferrix: I agree with most of what The Gryphon is saying. The reduced damages make sense and also de-break the crossbow whip thing. I don't think that the great crossbow should be better than a heavy mace. The mace was made to smack people with, the crossbow simply wasn't.

On the charged shot... I honestly think that +10d6 is way too much. Gryph's right about capping it off. +6d6 is a ton of extra damage, even with the psionic focus expenditure. I also somewhat agree with adding the Greater Psionic Shot as a prereq. Or maybe fitting it into the PrC's abilities... or something. I... can't think of any alternatives.

Retain Focus is really freakin' good, on a third look. I think that might even be a good final ability. And yes, the DC for Conc. should be at least 25, if not even higher. Perhaps it should be 25+the number of psionic foci you have expended in the last 2 rounds, or even twice that number.

Reflexive Shot: What he said.

 

[silentspace]

"To use this ability, the psy-arbalester must expend his psionic focus."

I like this. But is that too costly?

 

[silentspace]

On the charged shot... I honestly think that +10d6 is way too much. Gryph's right about capping it off. +6d6 is a ton of extra damage, even with the psionic focus expenditure. I also somewhat agree with adding the Greater Psionic Shot as a prereq. Or maybe fitting it into the PrC's abilities... or something. I... can't think of any alternatives.

On the other hand, if you look at the Pyrokineticist, he gets Bolt of Fire at 3rd level - as a standard action launch a bolt of psionically manifested fire as a ranged touch attack, 60 ft range, dealing 1d6 points of fire damage per class level of pyro. It's a 10 level class. They get a lot of other neat abilities also.

 

[silentspace]

For the 10th level ability, how about the ability to use whatever bonus damage you get on a full attack? I think that will be 3 iterative, 4 with rapid shot, 5 if you are hasted. Too powerful?

 

[Rae ArdGaoth]

silentspace, I don't understand your suggestion for the final ability.

 

[silentspace]

I meant that at 10th level, 1/day, he can make every shot fired in a round a Charged Shot. I was trying to figure out how many shots that would be. But I noticed the PrC has full BAB, so he'll probably get 4 base attacks a round, but not until he's pretty high level.

 

[The Gryphon]

deleted

 

[silentspace]

OK. Just stating for the record that I disagree with you. Wizards craft. They can get item creation feats as bonus feats - so the college's benefits are not that great for a wizard. They are better off taking the item creation feat and not paying extra for crafting. Faelar joined the college because Silverymoon is the only other enclave of sun elves on Faerun, and I wanted him to have some interaction with them. And you can't compare with clerics, because most items have arcane spells as prerequisites. To say that wizards can craft, therefore others should have more money, just doesn't seem right in my book. Item creation is practically a class feature of the wizard class. They start with Scribe Scroll!

And I don't see how spending a year crafting is a stretch. You can't be arguing that your items reflect a lifetime's worth of gold, right? Everyone's gold value reflects buying and selling stuff. As in the examples I gave above, a fighter may have sold other weapons, to buy a battleaxe because he just took a feat in it. A wizard could sell stuff he had and then use it to craft. What's the difference?

I'm not trying to argue, I know where you stand on the issue, I'm just trying to explain that alternate viewpoints are possible, and that I don't agree with yours.

 

[Ferrix]

The reason Greater Psionic Shot isn't a pre-req is that it would push back the entry for the PrC to at least 8th level, something I don't want to do.

Why make Charged Shot only a +2d6 in ten levels, that's a pretty piddling ability as one of the classes main abilities, why would I not just make an altered Order of the Bow Initiate who focused on Crossbows to get the +5d8 precision shot in 10 levels? +6d6 averages 21 damage, +5d8 averages 22.5 damage. Seems I'm actually getting the sub-par ability here, it also has a lower max damage (36 vs. 40), but a higher minimum damage by 1 (6 vs. 5). Consider if I took an OotBI, gave him Wild Talent and Psionic Shot and Greater Psionic Shot, he'd average higher damage than my arbalester with both Shot feats. (1d8+str+4d6+5d8, avg. 41+str) vs. (1d10+10d6, avg. 40.5). And if he failed his Concentration check, he'd still do (1d8+str+5d8, avg. 27+str) vs. an arbalester who failed his concentration check (1d10, avg. 5.5). And if you say he wasted a feat on wild talent, the arbalester basically wastes a feat on rapid reload just to be able to match the effectiveness of being able to fire more than once every other round.

silentspace gave a good example of the pyrokineticist's bolt of fire (touch attack, standard action, 1d6 dmg/lvl, 10d6 dmg at level 10). So I can do +10d6 damage on a single attack per round at 15th level, a 15th level rogue could be doing +8d6 damage on every attack they make in a round if they flank, have surprise, are invisible, feint, etc. A power attacking frenzied berserker power attacking for 5 could be whopping out 2d6+Str (figure 30 str at least in frenzy, +10x1.5=+15 dmg)+20 damage (2d6+35, avg. 42) no problem on every attack in a round. If you put this at 20th level, it would get even more disparity, a 20th level rogue dual-wielding could deal out +10d6 SA six times a round (avg. 210 SA bonus damage), I could get, say 5 attacks in a round (4 attacks base + rapid shot), only one would get +10d6 damage (still avg. 35 bonus damage) and I wouldn't be able to focus for the following round even with Psionic Meditation.

What do you think of my prior proposed Reflexive Shot?

Reflexive Shot (Su): A psy-arbalester with a bolt loaded and cocked in his crossbow is an immediate threat. So long as the psy-arbalester has his crossbow cocked and loaded during a round, he may make a single attack as an immediate action by expending his psionic focus.

It's sort of similar to the opportunity power metapsionic feat *shrugs*. It'd probably make a good feat on it's own with some strong pre-reqs.

I'll change the crossbow whip thing, since I can shoot at point blank range without provoking an attack of opportunity anyways with better damage, it was really just flavor.