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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9820614" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/ed5881189cc4.webp" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> Chapter 5: Character Base Classes Part 3<a href="https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Devil" target="_blank">Image Source Unknown but taken from the Forgotten Realms Wiki.</a>This is split into 2 sections (technically 3): Monster Base Classes, NPC Classes, and Multiclassing Characters.Fiendish Brute is a rather simple 10-level class. It gets natural weapons and a scaling natural armor bonus, and increases 2 of its ability scores by 1 every odd-numbered level. It also gets bonus feats from [General], [Monster], and [Fiend] categories every even-numbered level.Thoughts: The Fiendish Brute is highly dependent on the bonus feats to see how it shapes up role-wise. And the feat categories above don’t use the scaling process that [Combat] and [Skill] feats do, so they vary quite a bit in power. For instance, you can either get a 3d6 bonus damage on a grapple check via Constricting Fiend, or Slime Trail which makes any square you move through count as being affected by the Grease spell and you get +4 to escape grapples. Both of which are nice and situationally useful, but then you have much more broadly useful feats such as Dominions of the Infernal which can potential summon a boatload of low-CR fiends to mess with action economy, or Fiendish Invisibility which grants permanent invisibility but with an Achilles Heel of some sort (invisible only when not flying, only in bright illumination, etc). Of course these feats have varying levels at which they can be taken, but the vast majority can be taken very early as the highest [Fiend] feat is at 6th level. As for the [Monstrous] tag, it appears to be an unfinished prototype, as the only 4 mentions of it in the entire Tomes don’t reference what it means in and of itself, only have it in relation to an existing feat or discussing a character’s available feat options. Presumably they can be taken by any monstrous class, but that’s RAI rather than RAW.Conduit of the Lower Planes represents the more supernatural side of the Fiendish Brute, being a creature with a plane of origin or whose ancestors come from the Lower Planes. Like Brute it only goes up to 10th level. They gain a Fiendish Sphere option at every odd-numbered level, plus some open-ended Bonus Feats, immunities to certain damage types and +10 to a certain skill check depending on their plane of origin, and their 10th level capstone cast and know spells as a 6th level Sorcerer.Thoughts: It’s more powerful than Brute at things that don’t involve Hulk Smash, and the +10 bonus on certain skill checks makes it a great option for builds involving said skills. Of course, some planar origins have better options than others: Abyss’ Survival bonus and Electricity immunity are more situational Hades’ fear/morale immunity and bonus to Hide, while Acheron’s compulsion immunity and Intimidation bonus is great on a lot of different builds.True Fiend is a full 20th-level class that is an all-in-one package of “build your own fiend.” Their low-level class features are very defensive-minded, giving them a host of immunities and Damage Reduction plus telepathy for utility, with the mid and higher levels focus more on summoning. They get a Sphere at every 4th level and a bonus feat at 11th.Thoughts: While the low-level traits are pretty decent, the True Fiend is rather lacking when it comes to “punch.” The Fiendish Brute has better staying power via its Natural Armor Bonus, and both it and the Conduit get more customization options across levels via more frequent Sphere and feat access. Thus, the True Fiend feels more like a class you start out in to get some good low-level abilities and then multi-class into something else. As for the Summon, it kicks in at 9th and 15th levels and only summons certain fiends of its type at a percentage chance, so it’s not something you’d focus your entire build around and instead serves as a nifty tool to pull out.Genie stands out as a clearly non-fiendish class. They gain innate planar traits depending on which of the four elemental genies they are, with more powerful traits at higher levels. Their Sphere access is untyped, meaning that they can take any of them. Beyond this they get Plane Shift at will at 3rd level but between the Material and Elemental Planes, and specialize in conjuration/summoning abilities.Thoughts: The at-will Plane Shift is very abusable, as the Genie can effectively dump creatures in the middle of nowhere in the Elemental Planes before going back to the Material Plane, which is where most D&D campaigns take place. To say nothing of its 7th level ability where Major Creation becomes permanent for anything lasting more than 12 hours, letting mid to higher level genies effectively create post-scarcity economics for world-building. They can cast the Wish 3 times per day at 11th level, which is in line with the Tomes’ Wish Economy, but it also opens up the dilemma of enemy spellcasters using Planar Binding on the Genie PC to capture them, something which many players might feel is “cheap.”The class is rather lacking in straightforward offensive attacks and powers unless they specifically take Spheres granting them this, so a player will still need to make sure that they can contribute directly in combat rather than presuming that their core features give them such right off the bat. The 15th-level Greater Summoning has a 30% chance to “summon a creature of a level higher than her own,” which is heavily subject to DM Fiat given that it’s not as limited by creature type like the fiend classes are.There are only two NPC classes in the Tomes, which serve as replacements for those of the same name for the ones from the DMG. The authors believe that high-level NPC Classes are an oxymoron, so theirs only cap out at 5th. They are the Adept and Warrior and represent magical and mundane minions respectively. The Adept isn’t an actual spellcaster of the Vancian kind, instead gaining a primary Elemental Attack with a debuff dependent upon its energy type, and their class features further improve this attack plus some defensive buffs. The Warrior, in comparison, gets stuff like proficiency with all weapon and armor types of their race/culture, can continue fighting below 0 hit points when bleeding out, and a Command Rating for the “elite mook” types at 4th level. Adepts and Warriors who attain enough personality to become named characters trade out their class for a real PC class.Thoughts: I like the Tome’s take on NPC classes. While 3rd Edition’s desire to have stats for “regular people” is an understandable one, building them in the same manner as PCs was always weird, not to mention wildly underpowered to the point that their level didn’t map at all to the “Challenge Rating minus 1” standard set out in the DMG.Multiclassing Characters is the final section of this chapter. The Tome authors discuss how the imbalance of Linear Warriors Quadratic Wizards incentives martial characters to multi-class, while primary casters can remain relevant in staying in their original class. The book provides some quick and dirty improvements, notably getting rid of XP Penalties for multiclassing and expanding it so that Favored Classes instead grant access to Racial Substitution Levels of the appropriate races. The authors also talk about how multclassing can be used to get very high modifiers via excessive multiclassing, and give out the “1 skill point for 1 skill rank” fix on cross-class skills.Thoughts: Everyone hated the experience penalties for multi-classing, so this is a sensible change. The rest of the proposed changes look good as well. My only problem is that I cannot find what sourcebook Racial Substitution Levels are located, and Google is failing me in that it’s only bringing up unofficial homebrew. Presumably the authors are referring to Racial Paragon Classes from Unearthed Arcana, but as 3.5 has so many damn rules and classes it’s possible that they might be referring to something else.Thoughts So Far: I like the NPC Classes, and the Monstrous Classes look serviceable but need a bit of a fine touch to ensure that they’re built appropriately, much like any class that specializes in giving out a bunch of options. Once again we see the handing out of at-will spells at disproportionately lower levels that can have huge resource management/world-building implications, a recurring pet peeve of mine.Join us next time as we dive into next chapter with everyone’s favorite 3.5 building blocks: Feats!</blockquote>

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