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Homebrew Elven PrC - Seeking Critique
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<blockquote data-quote="Khaalis" data-source="post: 1744907" data-attributes="member: 2167"><p>Thanks again for all the input. This will really help making the class fit into the niche and power level we are looking for.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ok a few comments here for comparison. Personally I feel that Arcane Strike is rather weak, except that it allows a gish to make up for in melee combat what it gave up to get spells. The attack bonus added to the damage bonus is the real balancing factor, along with the fact that there is no way to resist the additional damage short of an anti-magic field. Also, I have never seen a power’s duration based on BAB before.</p><p></p><p>As for the powers being given, comparing them to Arcane Strike isn’t quite fair. As we all know, class specific abilities are usually more powerful than a ‘standard’ feat. Instead we should look at other abilities that act in the same manner. Currently this was loosely based off of the Bladedancer’s weapon enhancement abilities from <u>Oriental Adventures</u>, but since it seems to be causing issues, we should re-examine the structure of the ability.</p><p></p><p>The next best idea would be to give a simple and standard class ability that grants a Spell-Like Ability.</p><p></p><p>We can do this based on the Artificer spell “Lesser Weapon Augmentation”. This is a 2nd level spell that grants Any special weapon ability of up to +1 bonus or 10,000gp value (such as shock or keen) and lasts for 10 minutes per level to one weapon. If we divided that to 2 weapons, it would be 5 minutes per class level (max 25 minutes).</p><p></p><p>However, when I initially looked at this, unless you are in a dungeon crawl where encounters are stacked upon one another, in most adventures the difference between 1 minute per level and 5 minutes per level means little to nothing. In most cases you only encounter a combat a few times per day and spread out by hours.</p><p></p><p>My personal take on the power, taking all comments into consideration would be as follows.</p><p></p><p><strong>Lightning Blades (Sp):</strong> At 2nd level, the stormblade gains the ability, once per day per stormblade level, to temporarily imbue their blades with magical energy as per the Lesser Weapon Augmentation spell except as follows. This ability is a standard action that provokes an attack of opportunity and last for 1 minute per stormblade level. The stormblade's weapons deal an additional +1d6 points of bonus electricity damage on a successful hit, acting as the <em>shock</em> weapon enhancement. This ability only applies when the stormblade is using the Stormblade Style and only when the stormblade wears light or no armor. They lose all benefits of this ability when wearing medium or heavy armor.</p><p></p><p>OR</p><p></p><p><strong>Lightning Blades (Su):</strong> At 2nd level, the stormblade gains the ability, once per day per stormblade level, to sacrifice a prepared spell or spell slot to temporarily imbue their blades with magical energy. This ability is a standard action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity and last for 1 minute per spell level sacrificed. The stormblade's weapons deal an additional +1d6 points of bonus electricity damage on a successful hit, acting as the <em>shock</em> weapon enhancement. This ability only applies when the stormblade is using the Stormblade Style and only when the stormblade wears light or no armor. They lose all benefits of this ability when wearing medium or heavy armor.</p><p></p><p>In general the trade off is that the Spell-Like ability will last a little longer than the Supernatural version and does not cost spell slots, but DOES provoke an AoO which makes it harder to use in combat.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Thanks for all the great detail here.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Blossom of Light is a unique power built as follows. We wanted something with just a little more panache than simply Shock & Shocking Burst. So we looked around and saw Thundering. I took the <em>“Subjects dealt a critical hit by a thundering weapon must make a DC 14 Fortitude save or be deafened permanently.”</em> from the +1 Price Thundering and added it to Blossom of Light. Since the effect is simply the use of the <em>Blindness/Deafness</em> spell I swapped out blind for deaf. As for the duration, it is the same as Thundering and the save is very weak. DC14 at the minimum level of 10th level… </p><p></p><p>However, if it seems too much, I will consider simply reverting back to Shocking Burst and basing it off of the correlating spell-like ability with a longer duration.</p><p></p><p>Also, what would be your Summary Evaluation of the revised version in Post #6?</p><p></p><p>Thoughts?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Khaalis, post: 1744907, member: 2167"] Thanks again for all the input. This will really help making the class fit into the niche and power level we are looking for. Ok a few comments here for comparison. Personally I feel that Arcane Strike is rather weak, except that it allows a gish to make up for in melee combat what it gave up to get spells. The attack bonus added to the damage bonus is the real balancing factor, along with the fact that there is no way to resist the additional damage short of an anti-magic field. Also, I have never seen a power’s duration based on BAB before. As for the powers being given, comparing them to Arcane Strike isn’t quite fair. As we all know, class specific abilities are usually more powerful than a ‘standard’ feat. Instead we should look at other abilities that act in the same manner. Currently this was loosely based off of the Bladedancer’s weapon enhancement abilities from [u]Oriental Adventures[/u], but since it seems to be causing issues, we should re-examine the structure of the ability. The next best idea would be to give a simple and standard class ability that grants a Spell-Like Ability. We can do this based on the Artificer spell “Lesser Weapon Augmentation”. This is a 2nd level spell that grants Any special weapon ability of up to +1 bonus or 10,000gp value (such as shock or keen) and lasts for 10 minutes per level to one weapon. If we divided that to 2 weapons, it would be 5 minutes per class level (max 25 minutes). However, when I initially looked at this, unless you are in a dungeon crawl where encounters are stacked upon one another, in most adventures the difference between 1 minute per level and 5 minutes per level means little to nothing. In most cases you only encounter a combat a few times per day and spread out by hours. My personal take on the power, taking all comments into consideration would be as follows. [b]Lightning Blades (Sp):[/b] At 2nd level, the stormblade gains the ability, once per day per stormblade level, to temporarily imbue their blades with magical energy as per the Lesser Weapon Augmentation spell except as follows. This ability is a standard action that provokes an attack of opportunity and last for 1 minute per stormblade level. The stormblade's weapons deal an additional +1d6 points of bonus electricity damage on a successful hit, acting as the [i]shock[/i] weapon enhancement. This ability only applies when the stormblade is using the Stormblade Style and only when the stormblade wears light or no armor. They lose all benefits of this ability when wearing medium or heavy armor. OR [b]Lightning Blades (Su):[/b] At 2nd level, the stormblade gains the ability, once per day per stormblade level, to sacrifice a prepared spell or spell slot to temporarily imbue their blades with magical energy. This ability is a standard action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity and last for 1 minute per spell level sacrificed. The stormblade's weapons deal an additional +1d6 points of bonus electricity damage on a successful hit, acting as the [i]shock[/i] weapon enhancement. This ability only applies when the stormblade is using the Stormblade Style and only when the stormblade wears light or no armor. They lose all benefits of this ability when wearing medium or heavy armor. In general the trade off is that the Spell-Like ability will last a little longer than the Supernatural version and does not cost spell slots, but DOES provoke an AoO which makes it harder to use in combat. Thanks for all the great detail here. Blossom of Light is a unique power built as follows. We wanted something with just a little more panache than simply Shock & Shocking Burst. So we looked around and saw Thundering. I took the [i]“Subjects dealt a critical hit by a thundering weapon must make a DC 14 Fortitude save or be deafened permanently.”[/i] from the +1 Price Thundering and added it to Blossom of Light. Since the effect is simply the use of the [i]Blindness/Deafness[/i] spell I swapped out blind for deaf. As for the duration, it is the same as Thundering and the save is very weak. DC14 at the minimum level of 10th level… However, if it seems too much, I will consider simply reverting back to Shocking Burst and basing it off of the correlating spell-like ability with a longer duration. Also, what would be your Summary Evaluation of the revised version in Post #6? Thoughts? [/QUOTE]
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