Horizon Walker

[Spatzimaus]

It's a nicely balanced class as-is, I just think a few of the abilities should be tweaked for flavor purposes. If anything, it might be a bit on the weak side compared to a straight Ranger (boy there's something I never thought I'd say!), but you just have to love the concept of the class.

If you compare a Ranger 15 to a Ranger 5/Horizon Walker 10, they really balance out item-for-item except for the following:
Ranger: Evasion+Camouflage+2 Combat Style Feats+5 spells per day (plus WIS bonus)
Horizon Walker: Five Planar abilities. dimension door every 1d4 rounds and the "mimic alignment" one, to me, easily make up for the lack of spells. The Fire/Cold ones are decent but can be mimicked by a first-level spell. Tremorsense is just plain strange. Oh yeah, and the deciding thing for me: Horizon Walkers get Speak Language as a class skill!!!

Balanced? I'd say so, it's close enough that I'd have no problem letting someone play one IMC.

As for those skill points, the 5 +4 skill boosts you receive will balance out the 20 skill points you lose by taking 10 HW levels. The +4s don't stack with items, but they DO allow you to effectively go beyond the max skill ranks of level+3. If you've maxxed out Hide and then take the terrain that gives +4 to Hide, you'll do nicely. Of course, you'll probably sacrifice two of those bonuses to get Darkvision and the anti-Fatigue thing.

Now what I'm thinking is, a Ranger 3/Rogue 2/Barbarian 2/Horizon Walker X would be the way to go. You keep Evasion, get that tireless Rage thing going (well, once per day anyway), plus Uncanny Dodge and fast movement (and a bit of Sneak Attack). What's not to like?

 

[Tellerve]

I just think the dimension door would make traveling darn nice, granted your disoriented one round after getting out but still you should be averaging over 200' or more for your overland movement. Not to mention you'd be really dang hard to ambush.

Tremorsense is nice, but not as amazing now that darkness spell isn't fully darkness, although it would still make that a nice combo as you wouldn't have miss chances in darkness, darkness spell, or fog etc. Assuming of course they are on the ground, which is where most fighters are during combat.

Tellerve

 

[Terramotus]

Actually, my favorite part about it is that, because you can qualify for it as a ranger without half trying, it makes it really easy for a ranger to take one level in it to represent a terrain specialization.

 

[DevoutlyApathetic]

Platemail Pajamas

I'm surprised nobody has brought up the 'Desert' terrain power. Immune to fatigue? Mmmmm.....tasty. That ability is just evil the way it's written.

That and Underground are going to make my Dwarven Mutt-Tank very happy. Darkvision to rival the dark elves. Mwa-ha-ha.

 

[The Souljourner]

Immune to fatigue sounds cool, but what really causes fatigue besides barbarian rage?

 

[Tellerve]

spells, forced marches, lack of food, heat stroke, excessive cold, and I think a couple other things. It is one of those things that I as a player wish happened more for my type A personality and wanting to have a more "real" campaign world. But oftentimes dm's get really loose with encumberance, food/water, and climate conditions.

The dimension door once every 1d4 rounds I think is just wicked. There isn't a cap on a daily use...I don't see how people think that is all good. And as for fire and cold resistance of 20...what 1st level spell do you have that gives that? Tremorsense is nice, really nice, as unless you can jump from really far out or fly your not going to be able to sneak up on someone. I would mention that I feel someone could make a really difficult move silently check and not alert a person with tremorsense.

Tellerve

 

[krunchyfrogg]

Now wait to you see the barbarian/horizon walker combo. You can get Tireless Rage a few levels early by doing that.

This is what I think will be really nasty. Especially if the DM allows that "Extra Rage" feat. YEOUCH!

 

[Tellerve]

The more I think about this PrC and its unlimited Dimension door per day I just don't like it. That's what I'd call Yeouch. I think if they errata'd it to 1 time per day per PrC level it would still be great but not as amazingly overblown as it is now.

Tellerve

 

[Spatzimaus]

I don't have any problem with the no-Fatigue ability. Sure, it's a nice little perk to have, but it's not even a GOOD idea for a Barbarian who loves raging. Look at what it costs you.
A pure Barbarian needs miminum of level 13 for 8 cross-class skill ranks, so let's ignore that option.
The only classes with K(geography) as class skills are Ranger, Bard, and Wizard. To get 8 ranks from Ranger, you need to spend at least 2 levels (unless your INT is 14, or 12 for Humans). If you're going to do that, you might as well take a third Ranger level to pick up the Endurance for free.
So now you're looking at Barbarian X/Ranger 3/HW 1. Losing 4 levels of Barbarian automatically costs you 1 use of Rage per day, at least one DR and trapsense boost, delays you getting to the Greater Rage ability (the one that makes your Rages 50% stronger) by 4 levels, and keeps you from ever getting the Mighty Rage ability. We're not even considering the drop in HP.

Given this, you're not going to see hordes of Barbarians all wanting to take this class. A Barbarian who chooses this class on its own merits will get a nice little synergy, sure.

As for the unlimited dimension door, you definitely have to keep it unlimited on shifting planes, IMO. The 1d4-round cost keeps it from being abused in combat, so the only real issue to me is overland movement on the Prime. Travelling about ~1000 feet every 15 seconds is pretty fast (45 mph), but no more so than mid-level spells like shadow walk or such (let alone teleport), and you can't take nearly as many people along. Since you have to be at least 11th character level to get this ability, it's comparable.

If you still don't want it unlimited on the Prime, how about "1 use per class level per day, and when used on a shifting plane you don't count towards this limit"?

 

[Hypersmurf]

A pure Barbarian needs miminum of level 13 for 8 cross-class skill ranks, so let's ignore that option.
The only classes with K(geography) as class skills are Ranger, Bard, and Wizard. To get 8 ranks from Ranger, you need to spend at least 2 levels (unless your INT is 14, or 12 for Humans). If you're going to do that, you might as well take a third Ranger level to pick up the Endurance for free.

Or just one level of Ranger to up your Max Rank cap, and then buy a few ranks cross-class...

-Hyp.