Epic Alienist

[Pax]

I've just posted to the House Rules forum a possible epic progression for the Alienist, which slowly eases the epic Pseudonatural template into use. I;d love any feedback you guys might want to give me; you can find the post right here.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Jalkain]

I've just posted to the House Rules forum a possible epic progression for the Alienist, which slowly eases the epic Pseudonatural template into use. I;d love any feedback you guys might want to give me; you can find the post right here.

Thanks in advance!

Don't have the epic rules, so can't comment in too much detail, but the basic premise (using the epic pseudonatural template) seems sound. Always glad to see people developing my favourite prestige class!

Out of interest, have you given any thought to how the class might change under 3.5e? Obviously we shouldn't expect a new version of the PrC, but there are a couple of things that logically might change.

1. At 4th and 8th PrC levels, you get +3HP as per the Toughness feats. I've heard that Toughness is being changed to +1HP/level, although of course that is not yet official. I think that this is probably too good a bonus to give the alienist, so maybe just leave it at +3HP?

2. Presumably the DR will change for the 10th level outsider bonus, and also for the psuedonatural template. This should be easily fixed just by looking at the DR for the celestial/fiendish templates.

Sorry to divert your thread slightly, but it was about to slip off the top page!

 

[Pax]

Heck, that's not a diversion, it's feedback!

I don't know wether to be gratified (no complaints) or horrified (no feedback to speak of) by the lack of replies it's gotten over in House Rules.

Generally, I'd say, the two Toughness effects are fine for the Alienist, even at +1hp/level. The +3hp (only) was a bit of a "non-bonus" to me, even doubled to +6hp by getting it twice ... given the inherent, potentially encounter-losing drawbacks ("Mice! BIG mice!!! AAAAAAAAAIIIIIIII!!!!!" *hysterical alienist jumps into arms of barbarian ally (completely ruining his plans for a full raging attack) as a dozen or more albino were-rats swarm the party, triggering the Alienist's insane fear of white rodents* "Please oh please oh please ... save me from the mice!!!!!" *whimper&panic*).

So, altering that to +2hp/level, while it could be powerful ... that, IMO, is only bcause they decided toughness needed to be more powerful. Trust me ... running into your phoobia, if RPed right, can be a drawback not just for you, but for anyone CLOSE to you (the poor, POOR barbarian ... heh ...).

As an aside, it always stuck in my craw that only <i>Summon Monster</i> spells get the benefits of <i>summon alien</i>. IMC, it affects any [summoned] or [called] creatures the Alienist brings about. Makes an Alienist/Druid a scary thought, doesn't it?

 

[Jalkain]

Heck, that's not a diversion, it's feedback!

I don't know wether to be gratified (no complaints) or horrified (no feedback to speak of) by the lack of replies it's gotten over in House Rules.

I think everyone just got scared when they saw a 50 level epic prestige class! I'd be right in there, but I know nothnig about epic rules...

Generally, I'd say, the two Toughness effects are fine for the Alienist, even at +1hp/level. The +3hp (only) was a bit of a "non-bonus" to me, even doubled to +6hp by getting it twice ... given the inherent, potentially encounter-losing drawbacks ("Mice! BIG mice!!! AAAAAAAAAIIIIIIII!!!!!" *hysterical alienist jumps into arms of barbarian ally (completely ruining his plans for a full raging attack) as a dozen or more albino were-rats swarm the party, triggering the Alienist's insane fear of white rodents* "Please oh please oh please ... save me from the mice!!!!!" *whimper&panic*).

So, altering that to +2hp/level, while it could be powerful ... that, IMO, is only bcause they decided toughness needed to be more powerful. Trust me ... running into your phoobia, if RPed right, can be a drawback not just for you, but for anyone CLOSE to you (the poor, POOR barbarian ... heh ...).

Well, I certainly wouldn't object to geting it, but double 3.5e toughness does seem like a very big bonus. Bit like having 2 toad familiars!

I always thought that the 4th and 8th levels were supposed to be a bit useless, more to provide flavour. Some of the other level benefits were very good, and it stopped the class becoming much more powerful than the wizard. As it is, you get familiar enhancement, extra metamagic feats, spells each level, so I think it would be hard to justify too much of a power increase.

I know there's always the prerequisites to consider, but they weren't too bad for the most part. The least optimal one was Alertness. If you had a familiar, you already basically had the Alertness feat most of the time, but you still had to take it anyway to qualify for the prestige class. Of course if you didn't have a familiar, then you missed out on the level 5 benefit.

As an aside, it always stuck in my craw that only <i>Summon Monster</i> spells get the benefits of <i>summon alien</i>. IMC, it affects any [summoned] or [called] creatures the Alienist brings about. Makes an Alienist/Druid a scary thought, doesn't it?

I suppose the reasoning would be that Druids would always be summoning natural creatures, and unspeakble horrors from the far reaches of time and space don't really qualify. But I can see that your appoach makes for some interesting flavour. Insane druids summoning animals that have been tainted by their alienist power... Yes, that could definitely work!

 

[andargor]

Any relationship with this thread?

Andargor

 

[Pax]

Any relationship with this thread?

Andargor

Nope, and the requirement to develop an Epic Spell puts it in the realm of "nice, but useless to me" -- it's an ECL25 arena, and at ECL25, epic spells are too big a chunk of available XP and GP to really consider as "worthwhile investments" ... the ones you could manage to cast won't be noticably better than 9th level spells with a few metamagics slapped on them, so, your XP, GP, and feat slots are often better spent, until you hit 30th-40th level. IMO anyway; YMMV.

Plus, the MetaGnostic is an Epic PrC unto itself. My idea is just an epic progression for the extant Alienist PrC.