Forsaker prestige class? Your experiences?

[Legildur]

Okay, I lost my last character in Rappan Athuk and need to generate a new 7th level character with some heavy hitting power. The Forsaker prestige class from Masters of the Wild has some appeal to me, but I'd like to get a feel for survivability and contribution to a party.

Is it worth taking? When should I take it? etc. Do the restrictions cripple the class?

I could either take a 3rd level human Barbarian or Fighter with all the prerequiste feats (Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes and Iron Will) before progressing to a Forsaker.

What about items? Can't use magic, so probably take either dwarven full plate, or possibly adamantine full plate and an adamantine greatsword or greataxe.

 

[RogueJK]

A Forsaker is pretty hard to play in a party which uses magic. You need to destroy magic items to get some of your powers, so your buddies won't be very happy with you destroying their hard-earned loot. Plus, you won't get along very well with any of the party's spellcasters. A truly fanatical Forsaker probably wouldn't allow anybody that he adventures with to use magic, and may even go so far as to attack his companions if they decide to cast a spell or use a magic item.

Forsakers make better NPCs or enemies than PCs, IMHO. It's up to you, though... I just think there are much better ways to be an effective tank.

If you do play a Forsaker, you'll want to stock up on Healing Salves. These can be found in Tome & Blood. It's an alchemical paste which heals 1d8 HPs. They cost 50 gp each.

 

[gfunk]

For the ultimate in melee min/maxing go for the Frenzied Beserker from Masters of the Wild. Deathless Frenzy is truly a beautiful thing to behold.

 

[kreynolds]

For the ultimate in melee min/maxing go for the Frenzied Beserker from Masters of the Wild. Deathless Frenzy is truly a beautiful thing to behold.

Oh hell yes! Given the fact that Frenzy stacks with Rage, these boys can be downright NASTY!!!

 

[med stud]

Even a little bit TOO nasty sometimes, considering that they will attack their allies when there are no more enemies

The PCs can adapt a tactic some orcs used in an adventure I ran. The orcs brought their Frenzied berzerkers to the battle in chains, and released them on the PCs

 

[Illuminae]

How to make the Forsaker playable in 3 steps:

From my experience:

STEP 1: (RULE 0) FORGET ABOUT MAGIC DESTRUCTION. Thats unplayable, in terms of both mechanics and role-playing.

STEP 2: TO MAKE ITS SR WORTH ANYTHING, TURN IT 10 + CHARACTER LEVEL INSTEAD OF CLASS LEVEL, AT LEAST.

STEP 3: GET A KNOWLEDGE (MOSNTERS) SKILL, AND THE MOST IMPORTANT: USE IT TO KNOW IF A MONSTER (USUALLY UNDEAD) HAS ANY KIND OF PERMANENT ABILITY DAMAGING ATTACK, AND IF THE ANSWER IS "YES", RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!!!!!

Hope it helped

 

[reapersaurus]

Unless the Forsaker has SR from their race, or some other non-magical source that i can't find, then the class is almost worthless.

The HUGE drawback is the loss of ALL magic.
That's amazingly limiting.
And the SR of 11+ Forsaker level is way too small to stop anything on its own.

Plop on the insulting restriction of having to destroy magic items to fuel a class ability, and you've got one badly-thought-out PrC.

Solution: Allow a race other than drow to have SR.
Use Healing Salves, as mentioned.
Drop the requirement of destroying magic items.
It really is a silly notion that to be an effective Forsaker, you would properly carry around a stash of magic items to destroy each day...

 

[Mordax_sighs]

Can't speak about Forsakers, but avoid Frenzied Berserkers like the bloody plague. We quit Rappan Athuk when the team Barbarian took it, and kept killing a PC each fight. I tried to coordinate Calm Emotion spells, but the other PCs were morons...

(Remember: you have to save vs. Frenzy if you just take damage: all enemies have to do is pelt you with arrows to take out the party.)

 

[Illuminae]

my mistake

 

[Thanee]

The Forsaker is completely silly, just forget about it!

Best part is, that you can run around with a party of wizards, clerics and whatnot, who use massive magic all the time and not really care about that.

Oh and Illuminae, that's really bad, right, since the Forsaker would not accept a cleric's restoration spell! *LOL*

Bye
Thanee