Looking for feedback : The Blured Spear, a Wuxia Fighter-Illusionist (prestige class)

[Destil]

This is a custom prestige class I've drawn up for a player in my Thursday night game (I'm also a player but the DM tends be very happy when players contrubute stuff like this). The player is a Fighter 1 / Illusionist 4 right now, originally he was going for spellsword or something. Part of the problem is his stats aren't amazing by any reguard, Str / Dex / Con all 10 - 12, Wis & Cha 14ish and 15-16 int. So overall not the most powerful PC, though since he's taken that level of fighter he's been using a spear a lot in combat. So here's my concept:

A blured spear focuses on mastery of polearms with highly flexible hafts, the spear bending in their hand as the opponent's perception is bent to their will.

The blured spear

Requirements: Ability to cast displacement, Weapon Profficency with the spear, glave, ransur and gisurme and Weapon Focus with at least one. 9 ranks in jump or tumble.

Level      BAB Fort Refl Will  Special                                                 Existing Spellcasting
   1        +1   +0   +2   +2    Flowing style 10%
   2        +2   +0   +3   +3    Leaping thrust                                           +1 level
   3        +3   +1   +4   +4    Mislead the mind, strike of the unseen +1d6              +1 level
   4        +4   +1   +4   +4    Swifter than sight                                       +1 level
   5        +5   +1   +5   +5    Flowing style 20%
   6        +6   +2   +5   +5    Spear mastery, strike of the unseen +2d6                 +1 level
   7        +7   +2   +6   +6    Strike of the unknown                                    +1 level
   8        +8   +2   +6   +6    Hall of mirrors haray                                    +1 level
   9        +9   +3   +7   +7    Flowing style 30%, strike of the unseen +3d6
   10       +10  +3   +7   +7    Pierce the body, cloud the mind                          +1 level

Class Features
Weapon and Armor Profficency: The blured blade gains no profficency with weapons or armor.

Class Skills: The blured blade's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Escape Artist (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Move Silently (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Swim (Str), and Tumble (Dex).

Skill Points per level: 2 + Int modifier.

Hit die: d6.

A note on spears: The term spear is used to refer to any reach polearm (spear, glave, ransur or gisurme).

Flowing style: When wearing light armor or no armor you add your spellcasting ability score modifier as a dodge bonus to AC, this bonus can not excede your blured spear level. Your arcane spell failure is also reduced by 10%. This increases to 20% at 5th level and 30% at 9th level.

You can also preform the somatic components of spellcasting with flowing motions of a reach polearm. You replace the material components with no listed cost with a focus: a silk ribbon or tastle, tied just behind the blade, worth at least 5 GP per spell level you can cast (so to cast 3rd level spells the ribbon must be worth at lesat 15 GP, for example).

Leaping thrust: As part of a charge you can leap through the air at your opponent when wielding a spear with which you have Weapon Focus. Once before your next action if you are attacked you may make a jump or tumble check and use this in place of your AC (if higher).

Strike of the unseen: Your strikes with a spear cut deep, if you can sneak up on your foe invisible. You deal an extra 1d6 damage to while you are invisible. This bonus to damage not apply to creaturess immune to critical hits, with concealment or thoes that retain their Dextarity bonus against your attacks.

Swifter than sight: When makeing a full attack with a spear you may make one extra attack, but all attacks for the round are made at a -2 penelity to hit.

Mislead the mind: The flowing, flexible motions of your spear strike from unexpected angles, misleading attackers. You gain a 10% bonus to miss chance granted from illusion magic (such as ''blur'' and ''displacement'') against melee attacks. This bonus only applies during a round you attack or cast a spell with a spear.

Spear mastery: You can change your feats to match whatever spear you have at hand. You must spend one hour of pratice with a spear of the new type. Elegable feats are Weapon Focus, Weapon Spec, Improved Weapon Focus, Improved Weapon Spec and Improved Critical.

Strike of the unknown: You use the unpredictable motions of your spear to prevent your foes from tracking you don. After attacking while invisible the opponent can't pinpoint your square, they only know your general dirrection.

Hall of mirrors haray: Your mirror images make their own motions, distracting any opponent within reach. Each round you have a mirror image within reach of an opponent you may make an attack roll against AC 10 as a free action, if you succede your mirror images aid another, granting you a +2 bonus to hit. You (and your images) must wield spears to use this ability.

Pierce the body, cloud the mind: Three time per day you can quicken an illusion spell targeting yourself for free as part of a full attack with a spear.

 

[jasin]

This is a custom prestige class I've drawn up for a player in my Thursday night game (I'm also a player but the DM tends be very happy when players contrubute stuff like this).

That's pretty cool, both on your part and that of the DM.

Flowing style: When wearing light armor or no armor you add your spellcasting ability score modifier as a dodge bonus to AC, this bonus can not excede your blured spear level. Your arcane spell failure is also reduced by 10%. This increases to 20% at 5th level and 30% at 9th level.

I don't think they need armour and their best stat to AC and the ability to cast in armour.

If you're going for a wuxia feel, just give them Int/Cha to AC. They still get mage armour on top, for some pretty impressive AC.

You can also preform the somatic components of spellcasting with flowing motions of a reach polearm. You replace the material components with no listed cost with a focus: a silk ribbon or tastle, tied just behind the blade, worth at least 5 GP per spell level you can cast (so to cast 3rd level spells the ribbon must be worth at lesat 15 GP, for example).

Cool. Although, you might just price the tassel at 50 gp and have it work for all spells. It's still a negligible expenditure for a 7th-level character, you don't need to track whether of what level it is, and the description of the ability is a bit simpler.

Leaping thrust: As part of a charge you can leap through the air at your opponent when wielding a spear with which you have Weapon Focus. Once before your next action if you are attacked you may make a jump or tumble check and use this in place of your AC (if higher).[/b]
This is pretty powerful. Jump can get pretty high, especially for someone like a hasted wizard.

Strike of the unseen: Your strikes with a spear cut deep, if you can sneak up on your foe invisible. You deal an extra 1d6 damage to while you are invisible. This bonus to damage not apply to creaturess immune to critical hits, with concealment or thoes that retain their Dextarity bonus against your attacks.

Again, why not make it simpler and just make it sudden strike under a different name (because strike of the unseen is cool): +Xd6 to anyone who's denied Dex to AC. Invisibility is still the most convenient way to do this.

Hall of mirrors haray: Your mirror images make their own motions, distracting any opponent within reach. Each round you have a mirror image within reach of an opponent you may make an attack roll against AC 10 as a free action, if you succede your mirror images aid another, granting you a +2 bonus to hit. You (and your images) must wield spears to use this ability.

All mirror images grant a single +2 bonus, I hope?

I like the idea behind the ability, but in practice, it's "+2 to attack when you have mirror image on", at the cost of an extra roll each round. I'd like it better if it were something more situational, but more useful when it does come up. Not sure what, though.

Pierce the body, cloud the mind: Three time per day you can quicken an illusion spell targeting yourself for free as part of a full attack with a spear.

Why only yourself? Attacking someone and casting hallucinatory terrain is just too good an image to disallow.

Overall, it might be a bit powerful: good BAB, 7/10 spellcasting, flurry, sneak attack (kind of) and assorted misc specials. Flurry would be the first thing to drop, IMO: the charge ability is so nice they'll want to be charging most of the time anyway, and someone with 5 levels of wizard doesn't need another -2 to attacks. So it shouldn't even hurt them that much, and it won't be "WTF, they also get flurry!?"

But then, over the years, I've gotten more tolerant of (apparent) overpoweredness. When you have druids in dire bear shape grappling stuff right and left, wizards using time stop, and warblades striking for +100 damage, what's the worst this guy can do?

It'd be interesting to see a class like this especially targetted toward multiclassed beguilers, so it took into account the beguiler's quirks...

 

[Nifft]

Cool idea, and kudos for helping your friend out!

Note that "spear" is not a reach weapon. That's "longspear". I rather like the idea of a class focused on spears, longspears, and shortspears, because they are more popular historically than in D&D... if you're set on glaives and ranseurs, some stuff I say won't make senese.

Since Spellsword, Abjurant Champion and Eldritch Knight are available, you don't need to grant abilities which duplicate them... so I wouldn't give a reduction to arcane spell failure. Let him take a level (or more) of Spellsword for that.

I'm not sure if you really need to add Sneak Attack damage (let alone renamed Sneak Attack). Unseen Seer is easy to qualify for, and Arcane Trickster exists.

Leaping Thrust is better than a lot of Counters from Bo9S:ToB -- it's probably better than some [Tactical] feat options. But it's in the ballpark of [Tactical] feat options. Let's put that one aside and make a [Tactical] feat for when he's higher level.

- - -

So let's cut the class down to its most basic necessary components and see what's left:

1/ Spearcasting: the ability to cast a spell while holding a specific kind of two-handed weapon. That's cool.

2/ Spear Focus: the ability to share feats between a few related weapons. Cool.

3/ Special effects when you combine illusions and melee combat. Super-cool. Could use a few more of these.

Here's my attempt:

Shadowed Spear
Prereqs:
- Weapon Focus (spear, shortspear, or longspear)
- Ability to cast three Illusion spells, one of which must be 2nd level or higher
- BAB +4

Features:
HD: d6
Skills: 2 + Int -- Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Escape Artist (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Move Silently (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Swim (Str), and Tumble (Dex).

[u]
Level   BAB   F/R/W	Spells		Special Abilities [/u]
1	+0   +0/2/2	--		Spearcast, Flexibility, Penetrating Strike
2	+1   +0/3/3	+1 Arcane	Combat Effect
3	+2   +1/3/3	+1 Arcane	Combat Effect
4	+3   +1/4/4	+1 Arcane	Combat Effect

Spearcast (Su): You can cast Arcane spells even if both of your hands are occupied holding a spear. Motion with the spear replaces your usual somatic components, though you are still subject to arcane spell failure as usual.

Flexibility (Ex): Any feat you have which benefits the use of a specific spear weapon (weapon focus, weapon specialization, improved critical, etc.) benefits all spear weapons (longspear, shortspear, spear).

Penetrating Strike (Su): You charge your spears with shadow-energy, and when you strike a foe, that foe is more vulnerable to your magic. If you have injured a foe with a spear (melee or thrown), your foe suffers a -2 circumstance penalty to Will saves against your next Illusion spell.

Combat Effect (Su): Choose one of these benefits. You may not choose the same benefit twice unless it says you can. These only work when you are wielding a spear weapon (spear, shortspear, or longspear).

• Shadowspear Summons: If you summon a spear-wielding creature with shadow conjuration (or the like), it is +10% more real than usual, and its spear attack deals +1d6 points of cold damage. (Yes, even salamanders.)
• Shadow Mirror: When you are under the effect of a mirror image spell, your images are quasi-real, and they can help you in combat. You may sacrifice an image as an Immediate action to grant yourself a +2 bonus on trip, disarm, sunder, bull rush or grapple checks. If you make a full attack, your images grant you a +1 bonus on your attacks.
• Shadow Insight: You may ignore concealment (but not total concealment) when making melee attacks.
• Displaced Flanker: When you are under the effect of blur or displacement, you may designate a neighboring square once per round on your action. You are considered to occupy the neighboring square for the purpose of flanking, even if the square is in a wall or other obstacle.
• Concealed Riposte: If an opponent misses you due to concealment, you may make an attack of opportunity against that opponent. You may only use this ability against a given opponent once per combat.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Destil]

I'm leaning towards a slightly overpowered class here, and I'm not too worried about certian types of abuse (I would never otherwise allow flury with a two handed weapon and 1.5x str bonus to damage, but this is for a guy without a Str bonus).

There's a few reasons for this -

Low ability scores. My elf druid is at Str 11 Dex 14 Con 12 Int 14 Wis 19 Cha 13; the ranger is at 18 16 14 12 13 11; elf bard 14 14 14 14 14 16 and the half orc monk is something like 21 14 12 8 16 9. Overall he's pretty underpowered in general and not geared towards melee at all, I believe his scores are 10 12 11 16 13 14.

I don't think he knows mage amor... he wears leather and just deals with the spell failure at the moment. We're playing in a 'low magic' setting (fast advancement up to about 5th level but slower after that, spellcasting classes are rare and we've been discouraged from having more than two spellcasting PCs. So finding a scroll of it isn't a given (though once I take craft wand next level I think it'll be fairly high on our to do list, as a wand of mage armor would help most of the party).

The DM is a one prestige class per PC type of guy. And really I agree, since building a single prestige class that has what you want is to me more elegant than ending up as a Wizard 4 / Fighter 2 / Rogue 2 / Abjurant Champion 3 / Spellsword 2 / Elderitch Knight 5 or whatever (mostly because of the issue of rounding BAB and the constant +2 to saves at 1st level).

 

[Destil]

That's pretty cool, both on your part and that of the DM.

I don't think they need armour and their best stat to AC and the ability to cast in armour. If you're going for a wuxia feel, just give them Int/Cha to AC. They still get mage armour on top, for some pretty impressive AC.

I could go either way on this. Though the idea of just splashing some spell-sword levels wouldn't go over too well with the DM I believe.

Cool. Although, you might just price the tassel at 50 gp and have it work for all spells. It's still a negligible expenditure for a 7th-level character, you don't need to track whether of what level it is, and the description of the ability is a bit simpler.

Actually, this is pretty campaign specific, since sometimes simply finding basic spell components is hard in the campaign world. That's the main reason I did it this way.

Leaping thrust
This is pretty powerful. Jump can get pretty high, especially for someone like a hasted wizard.

Yeah, I had a number of different takes on what he could do with the jump skill, not sure what works best, though.

Again, why not make it simpler and just make it sudden strike under a different name (because strike of the unseen is cool): +Xd6 to anyone who's denied Dex to AC. Invisibility is still the most convenient way to do this.

A more powerful, but a more elegant change over all. Not sure how I'd feel about this, I'd be better with it if I remove flurry, though.

All mirror images grant a single +2 bonus, I hope?

Yes.

Why only yourself? Attacking someone and casting hallucinatory terrain is just too good an image to disallow.

It's a bit of a bladesinger ripoff, as I think that's an interesting and useful abilities you can give a figher / mage. The self only is largly balance to prevent full attack & shadow evocation fireball (not too many high level self illusion spells, mislead being about the best... mabye something else to limit it, as I do like that idea myself...

 

[Destil]

Cool idea, and kudos for helping your friend out!

Note that "spear" is not a reach weapon. That's "longspear". I rather like the idea of a class focused on spears, longspears, and shortspears, because they are more popular historically than in D&D... if you're set on glaives and ranseurs, some stuff I say won't make senese.

Was it spear & halfspear in 3.0? Too many editions scrambled up in my head...

Some cool suggestions, any ideas for the tactical feat? I've never build them and am only tengeltly familiar with the general power level and requirements.

I'll have to steal a few of your ideas here, though, and make some revisions...

 

[Sound of Azure]

Southern Dragon style spear fighting!

Leaping Thrust is better than a lot of Counters from Bo9S:ToB -- it's probably better than some [Tactical] feat options. But it's in the ballpark of [Tactical] feat options. Let's put that one aside and make a [Tactical] feat for when he's higher level.

Hmmm.... how about this?

Southern Dragon Style [Tactical]
You are especially adept with pole arms, and can use them to maximize both your offence and your defence.

Prerequisites: Base attack bonus +5, Jump 8 ranks, Combat Expertise, Dodge, Weapon Focus (any pole arm).

Benefit: The Southern Dragon Style tactical feat allows the use of three combat manoeuvres.

Tail of the Azure Dragon: To use this manoeuvre, you must be wielding a pole arm with which you have Weapon Focus for, and be adjacent to your dodge target. Against your Dodge target, when using the Combat Expertise feat, you gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC for each point you reduce your attack rolls by.
Your AC is increased as normal for the Combat Expertise feat for all other opponents.

Vermilion Dragon Strike: To use this manoeuvre, you must be wielding a pole arm with which you have selected the Weapon Focus feat for and charge an opponent from at least 10 feet away. As a free action, make a Jump check. Prior to making the roll, determine the DC of the check: either DC 15 for the chance to gain +1 damage per 5 feet you charged, or DC 25 for the chance to deal +2 damage per 5 feet you charged. If you fail this Jump check, you miss your target, and if you fail this jump check by 5 or more, you fall prone in an adjacent square.
You may deal a maximum of 10 extra points of damage with this manoeuvre. The extra damage gained through use of Vermilion Dragon Strike is multiplied on a critical hit.

Leap of the Argent Dragon: With this manoeuvre, you can combine a jump with a charge against an opponent. To use the manoeuvre, you must be wielding a pole arm and make a charge attack. If you cover at least 10 feet of horizontal movement, you may substitute the result of your Jump check for your Armour Armour Class against attacks of opportunity caused by your movement.

---
For the purpose of this feat, a pole arm is considered a glaive, greatspear, guisarme, halberd, long spear, pike, pole-axe, ranseur, short spear, or spear. You could probably add other weapons such as naginata or nagimaki if you wanted.

 

[Nifft]

Hmm. Let me mush this around a little.

Southern Dragon Style [Tactical]
You are adept with illusion magic and pole arms, and can combine them to maximize both your offense and your defense.

Prerequisites: Base attack bonus +5, Jump 8 ranks, Combat Expertise, Dodge, Weapon Focus (any pole arm).

Benefit: The Southern Dragon Style tactical feat allows the use of three combat maneuvers.

Tail of the Azure Dragon: To use this maneuver, you must be under the effect of an Illusion spell, and wielding a pole arm with which you have Weapon Focus for, and be threatening your Dodge target. Against your Dodge target, when using the Combat Expertise feat, you gain double the normal Dodge bonus to AC bonus to AC for each point you reduce your attack rolls by.
Your AC vs. other opponents is not increased, though you still suffer a penalty to attacks.

Vermilion Dragon Strike: If your opponent misses you due to concealment, you can manipulate your illusory cover to counter-strike where he least expects it. The round after an opponent misses you due to concealment, he is flat-footed against your first attack against him with a pole arm (in which you have weapon focus).

Leap of the Argent Dragon: With this maneuver, you can manipulate your illusory cover when you make a charge against an opponent. To use the maneuver, you must be granted concealment which gives your opponent a miss chance, you must be wielding a pole arm with which you have weapon focus, and you must make a charge attack. On the round after you charge, you may substitute the result of a Jump check for your Armour Class against your target's attacks. This replaces the miss chance granted by your concealment for the round.

---
For the purpose of this feat, a pole arm is considered a glaive, greatspear, guisarme, halberd, long spear, pike, pole-axe, ranseur, short spear, or spear. You could probably add other weapons such as naginata or nagimaki if you wanted.

How's that look? Do my changes make sense? Basically I changed the focus to fighting one opponent, and imposed some penalties (which only matter when facing multiple opponents).

IMHO, double value for Combat Expertise is super-strong. I like your idea about a jump check giving a bonus vs. AoOs when moving, but Tumble does that already... and Mobility covers some of the same ground.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Sound of Azure]

It's certainly more tightly specific to the character in question. For that reason, it's probably better for the OP's friend.

Should this version of the feat require the ability to create illusion effects (or possibly shadow hand manoeuvres)? I just say that due to the reliance on illusions/concealment.

Your changes to Tail of the Azure Dragon make a lot of sense, however, particularly the cleaning up of the language. Double the bonus is strong, I agree. I ended up having be double, since +50% is annoying to calculate (for me, at least). Negating the bonus completely against other targets, yeah... I can see that.

While I like your version of Leap of the Argent dragon, the point of that manoeuvre was to lower the risk to you from an opponent's allies when you make a charge. It's a limited by when you can use it (unlike Mobility), and wasn't intended to help you at all against your target.

Vermilion Dragon Strike is a lot more sneaky. I rather like your version.

 

[Nifft]

Yeah, I can see the value of your version of Leap of the Argent Dragon, mine is really just an attempt to fit the OP's mechanic into a reasonable framework.

Glad you generally like my minor alterations.

Should this version of the feat require the ability to create illusion effects (or possibly shadow hand manoeuvres)? I just say that due to the reliance on illusions/concealment.

I'd like to allow the Rogue with a high UMD check and several wands of blur and displacement to do his thing. Basically the PC who takes the feat better have a reliable way to generate these effects, or he's only screwing himself.

Cheers, -- N