Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil

[Scraht]

So here I am, looking at this prestige class, Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, right? I have to say, this is one of the most powerful prestige classes for spellcasters I've ever seen. It's ridiculously cheesy...

You can bump out all sorts of nasty effects from the prismatic wall spell, and some personally even as an immediate action. Thus negating basically all attacks possible to the character, because it's spontaneous, you choose the color to fit the occasion. And some of these effects in and of themselves are amazingly overpowered, for example: creating an anti-magic field (bar one or two spells that defeat it) and a disintegrate in regards to attacks (and creatures attempting to cross it), and abilities magical or otherwise.

And there are other abilities, but that is what really irks me.

My questions -

1. Am I overlooking something? Is there something that makes this not as overpowering as I think?

2. Would you allow a player to play this class in your campaign?

3. Would you alter this class in anyway to make it more balanced?

4. Would *you* play this class? (I want to to this one if anyone says no to 2, but yes to 3 )

 

[EyeontheMountain]

1. Am I overlooking something? Is there something that makes this not as overpowering as I think?

Well, start with the required feats. Spell-focus abjuration is one of the weakest feats I have ever seen, and greater is worse.

2. Would you allow a player to play this class in your campaign?

Probably. It would depend on how they went for it. I can think of a couple combos with this I would never allow.

3. Would you alter this class in anyway to make it more balanced

Nope.

4. Would *you* play this class?

I would strongly consider it, espeically Abjurer/master specialist/Initiate is pretty strong.

BTW, that is one combo I would worry about.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

it is one of the most powerful prc for a wiz or sorcerer, but its also the one that requires the *largest amount of useless feats*. think of it as giving up the feats for the classes power.

*edit

 

[GwydapLlew]

I don't think it's particularly overpowered, but it is a powerful PrC. I want to alter it to use Truespeech instead of prismatic effects and then play a Truenamer that takes levels in it. :0

 

[Nonlethal Force]

I agree that it is a powerful class. But it is not a class that ruins the game for the rest of the players (Frenzied Berserker, I'm looking to your and your friends). Nor is it a class that the DM can't challenge. It does take some special planning on behalf of the DM to know when t allow the IotSV to dominate and when to challenge the character.

Would I play one? Yep. Would I alter it as a DM? Nope.

 

[Felix]

The Initiate's powers relate to defense and not attack. It is much harder for an Initiate to harm enemies that don't attack him; at least, his abilities don't make it easier than it would be if the PC were simply a single-classed Wizard.

Add to that Skill Focus: Spellcraft, Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus: Abjuration, and you have a character who has spent a majority of his feats on things that won't benefit his offensive spellcasting.

It would be a great class for a Sorcerer, but they must be at least 10th level to take the first level in the class, and that means that their two 4th level spells must be selected from:

Dimensional Anchor
Fire Trap
Lesser Globe of Invulnerability
Remove Curse
Stoneskin

Not a terribly threatening list of spells. Splatbooks help here, and Globe seems to be a no-brainer for this kind of character, but you won't have a defensively powerful Sorcerer tossing around Walls of Fire and Phantasmal Killers.

However

It is a great NPC class. It'll bug the hell out of PCs who don't know what to do when they have a hard time killing off the enemy spellcaster whose spells are contributing to the longer lives of his minions.

 

[Scraht]

It is a great NPC class. It'll bug the hell out of PCs who don't know what to do when they have a hard time killing off the enemy spellcaster whose spells are contributing to the longer lives of his minions.

This was my secondary thought, while personally I'd rather not have a PC taking this class, as I may personally have difficulties compensating for it, it would make for a rather challenging NPC.

Thanks for the insight everyone, the feat selection had not crossed my mind.

 

[Brain]

I would strongly consider it, espeically Abjurer/master specialist/Initiate is pretty strong.

BTW, that is one combo I would worry about.

Yeah - Master Specialist seems made specifically for IotSV. It gives you the prerequisites and you can enter at 3rd level, meaning a 20th level character could be abjurer 3/master specialist 10/ initiate of the sevenfold veil 7.

I think it's definitely a powerful class, possibly a little overpowered. But letting a player take this class is more likely to increase the fun of the other players rather than take away from it.

 

[Felix]

Yeah - Master Specialist seems made specifically for IotSV. It gives you the prerequisites and you can enter at 3rd level, meaning a 20th level character could be abjurer 3/master specialist 10/ initiate of the sevenfold veil 7.

I think it's definitely a powerful class, possibly a little overpowered. But letting a player take this class is more likely to increase the fun of the other players rather than take away from it.

Again, all the abilities are tied to defense. It's a good thing that it seems more powerful, because defending is generally not as useful as offending.

 

[Garridan]

So, I gave this a whirl and there are some sickening things to do. Try chaos gnome sorcerer with metamagic specialist instead of a familiar. Then I went up as Argent Savant first to make a bunch of force spells into weapons. Then, I went up IotSFV and had too much fun! I would merely grab someone with a bigby's and drop them on a prismatic sphere or bull rush them into walls etc. This made for a way overpowered force/prismatic user as it was extremely offensive and as stated defensive is sick.

It would be neat if there were more prismatic type spells. there are 7 or 8 I believe but that is it. There are a ton of Force spells though and with that class feature that allows you to dispell force descriptors and make them explode indoing so, you have a whole arsenal of offensive or defensive spells. I mean there are force ladders,boxes,weapons,orbs, etc.