New Expert and Aristocrat Core Classes

[Nifft]

Hey! Please give these a look-over, and tell me if there's anything wrong with them.

http://klimt.cns.nyu.edu/~fishman/DnD/DHE/new-classes.shtml

The Aristocrat gives HD d8, BAB 3/4, all good saves (!!!), 6 skill points/level (with a good skill list), free Leadership at 6th level, and level-dependant bonuses to Diplomacy, Intimidate and Leadership scores.

The Expert gets HD d6, 6 skill points/level (with all Craft, Profession and Knowlege skills, plus any 6 others skills, as class skills), one good saving throw (chosen at 1st level), and a bunch of bonus Skill Focus (or +2/+2 feats) and some extra class skills over 20 levels.

My goal is to make them as strong as PC classes, but focused on things that PCs probably wouldn't bother with.

Thanks, -- N

 

[Sertimon]

Expert

This one is really cool! Kinda similar to my Expert Advanced Class. I really don't agree with the Average BAB (personal preference; I don't find it unbalancing or anything). I just can't see these guys fighting a lot unless they specialize in hunting or something similar. Since they can choose saves, why not let them choose BAB also? I propose the following solution:

• Average BAB (as rogue); one good save
• Bad BAB (as wizard); two good saves

In the table I find "Class skill +X" somewhat confusing, because when I first read it I assumed that it gave a bonus to one chosen skill. But that was not the case. Perhaps you could just call it Bonus Class Skill or 1st Class Skill, 2nd Class Skill etc. Just personal preference again

Otherwise, I find this class pretty balanced. The only thing concerning me is that this might intrude on the rogue and bard, but perhaps that is your intention with this class?

New suggestions for Skill Mastery: The Expert can use any one skill untrained, even those that normally require training to use. Don't remember where I found this, but it was called "Skill Mastery" in the document that I found it in.

I'll look over the other classes, if you want ...

 

[Dogbrain]

One suggestion:

Remove ALL Craft and Profession skills from ALL other core classes unless that Craft or Profession is INTIMATELY tied to that class. And that does NOT include inanity like making all Fighters into weaponsmiths, either.

 

[Gez]

Here's my own version. Base features aren't changed.

Bonus Feats: At first level, the aristocrat gets a bonus feat in addition to the feat that any first-level character gets and the bonus feat granted to humans. The aristocrat gains an additional bonus feat at second level and every three levels thereafter (5th, 8th, 11th, etc.). These bonus feats must be drawn from the following list: Alertness, Artist, Born Leader**, Cosmopolitan*, Education, Great Fortitude, Iron Will, Leadership, Lightning Reflexes, Luck of Heroes*, Power of the Name**, Resist Poison*, Smooth Talk*, The Voice**, Title**, Wealthy**.
* From the FRCS
** From AU

Important: These feats are in addition to the feat that a character of any class gets every three levels (as per Table 3-2: Experience and Level-Dependant Benefits, page 21 in the Player's Handbook).
Feats that may normally only be taken at first level may also be taken as the 2nd-level bonus feat (but no latter).

Leadership: At fifth level, the aristocrat may choose Leadership as his aristocrat bonus feat, even if he is not a 6th-level character yet. This is a special exception to the rules that only sixth-level characters can gain the Leadership feat.

Ruler's Knowledge: Aristocrats receive an extensive education and is always making attentions to every knowledge that may be useful for him. Knowledge is power, after all. An aristocrat may make a special ruler's knowledge check with a bonus equal to his aristocrat level + his Intelligence modifier to see whether he knows some relevant information about politics, geography or history. This is essentially similar to, and stacks with, bardic knowledge; however it is not focused on the exact same fields of knowledge.

Leader's Voice: Once per day per level, an aristocrat can use his knowledge of diplomacy to produce magical effects with bolstering, peremptory, or disheartening speaches. Depending on the ranks he has in the Diplomacy skill, he can inspire courage in allies, counter magical effects that depends on sound, frighten enemies to make them flee or surrender, inspire competence, make a magical suggestion, inspire greatness, make a magical lesser geas or rally creatures to his causes. An (multiclassed) aristocrat can't cast a spell with a verbal (V) component when performing a speach, but he can otherwise perform other actions that do not rely on voice while speaching. Creatures must hear and see the aristocrat to be affected. As with casting a spell with a verbal (V) component, a deaf aristocrat suffers a 20% chance to fail with leader's voice. If he fails, the attept still count against his daily limit.

Unless otherwise stated, all applications of leader's voice are mind-affecting, language-dependant supernatural effects that lasts as long as the aristocrat is speaching; and an aristocrat can make a speach last for up to 1 round per aristocrat level.

Inspire Courage: An aristocrat with 3 or more ranks in Diplomacy can use his bolstering voice to inspire courage in his allies. To be affected, an ally must hear the aristocrat for a full round. The effect last as long as the aristocrat speach (up to 1 round per aristocrat level), plus one full round thereafter. Affected allies receive a +2 morale bonus to saving throws against charm and fear effects and a +1 morale bonus to attack and weapon damage roll.

Countervoice: An aristocrat with 3 or more ranks in Diplomacy can use his voice to counter magical effects that depends on sound (but not spells that simply have verbal components). Each round of the countervoice, the aristocrat makes a Diplomacy check. Any creature within 30 feet of him (including himself) who is affected by sonic or language-dependant attack (such as sound burst or command) may use the aristocrat's Diplomacy check result in place of his saving throw if, after rolling the saving throw, the Diplomacy check proves to be better. The aristocrat may keep up the countervoice for up to 1 round per aristocrat level.

Frighten: An aristocrat with 6 or more ranks in Diplomacy can use his voice to dishearten enemies by promising them to their doom if they don't surrender or flee. Every enemy within 90 feet of the aristocrat must succeed at a Will save opposed to the aristocrat's Diplomacy check or become frightened and be forced to flee or to passively wait to be manacled (at the aristocrat's option). Any actual attack against surrendering enemies instantly break the effect. This is a supernatural fear, mind-affecting, language-dependant effect that lasts as long as the aristocrat speach (for up to 1 round per aristocrat level).

Inspire Competence: An aristocrat with 6 or more ranks in Diplomacy can use his voice to increase an ally's self-confidence and give him a greater sense of duty. The ally gets a +2 morale bonus on his skill checks with a particular skill as long as he continue to hear the aristocrat's encouragements (thus, for up to 1 round per aristocrat level). The DM may rule that certain uses of that ability are infeasible.

Suggestion: An aristocrat with 9 or more ranks in Diplomacy can use his peremptory voice to give an order that can't be disobeyed to a creature within 90 by speaching for three full rounds. A Will saving throw (DC 13 + the aristocrat's Charisma modifier) negate this spell-like, mind-affecting charm effect. If the save is failed, the victim is affected by a suggestion, as the spell. The effect lasts for 1 hour per character level, or until completed.

Inspire Greatness: An aristocrat with 12 or more ranks in Diplomacy can use his bolstering voice to inspire greatness to another creature, granting extra fighting capability. For every three levels the aristocrat attains beyond ninth, he can inspire greatness to another creature. This otherwise works like inspire courage. A creature inspired with greatness gains the following boosts (all bonuses are competence bonuses):
* +2 Hit Dice (d10 that grant temporary hit points).
* +2 competence bonus on attacks.
* +1 competence bonus on all Fortitude saves.
Apply the target's Constitution modifier, if any, to each bonus Hit Dice. These extra Hit Dice count as regular Hit Dice for determining effects such as the sleep spell.

Geas: An aristocrat with 15 or more ranks in Diplomacy can use his peremptory voice to give a quest that can't be forsaken to a creature within 90 by speaching for five full rounds. This works like suggestion, above, except the aristocrat must speaks for five full rounds, the save DC is 14 + the aristocrat's Charisma modifier, and the effect is similar to a lesser geas instead.

Rally: An aristocrat with 15 or more ranks in Diplomacy can use his convincing voice to rally NPCs to his cause by speaking to them for five full rounds. Once the speach is made, he can make a Diplomacy check rather than a plain Charisma check to influence NPC attitude toward him and his companion (see NPC Attitude, page 149 in the Dungeon Master's Guide).

Starting Gear: 6d8 × 10 gp worth of equipment.

 

[Gez]

The Expert is likewise unchanged, except for new class abilities. He gets bonus feats at level 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20. These feats must be from this list:
* Skill Focus (Select a skill): +3 to these skill checks.
* Greater Skill Focus (Select a skill for which you already have Skill Focus): +5 to these skill checks (overlaps with Skill Focus).
* Routine-Minded (Select a skill for which you already have Skill Focus): +5 competence bonus when taking 10.
* Skill Specialization (Select a single subset of rolls for a skill for which you already have Greater Skill Focus): +5 competence bonus for these specialized skill checks. (Specialized means, for example, crafting a specific kind of product with a Craft skill, using Jump to make running long jumps, using Spellcraft to identify a spell that is being casted, etc.)
* Cosmopolitan (see FRCS).
* Any of the various "+2 to two skills" feats, provided at least one of these skills is on the class skill list.

 

[Spatzimaus]

A few years ago we converted the Aristocrat to a PC-level class for our campaign, too. It was nice to have, so that people who wanted a good class skill list and the ability to lead others didn't always take Bard levels (which gave spellcasting). We also totally reworked the Leadership Feat, but the version below uses the old Feat.
But, we didn't want to make yet another class with a list of bonus Feats. That just gets too easy. So, our changes (latest version):

Background: The term "Aristocrat" is more generally defined to be "rich, connected person". The PC picks one of the following backgrounds: Noble, Merchant, or Crime (the Mob). This affects many of the later abilities.

Optional rule: each has an alignment limitation. Noble can't be Chaotic, Crime can't be Lawful, Merchant has to have some neutrality (CN, LN, NG, TN, NE).

(Possibly add more: Scholar was a suggested one, but we thought it was too limited in scope and overlapped too much with Bardic Knowledge. Clergy was another suggestion; not everyone who runs a church is an actual priest.)

Contacts: (based on d20Modern ability "Favor" for the Charismatic Hero) It's like a CHA-based Bardic Knowledge check, except that instead of finding a piece of information, you're finding the person who can get you something (including information). This check can be done at most once per day (see below).
There's a bonus/penalty applied based on your background and how applicable your connections are.
First, there's a flat -5 penalty if you're attempting something outside your Background (a Merchant who wants to see the King, or a Noble who wants to hire an assassin). Note that there are some things that are outside every background.
Second, there's a question of how many strings you want to pull; for each connection you choose to draw on you get a +1 bonus to the check but can't use this ability again for an additional day. (That is, a +5 bonus disables for 6 days: one for the base ability, plus another five). You can't call in a number of favors higher than your Aristocrat class level at one time, and at the DM's discretion the cap may be much lower outside your home town (where you might not HAVE many contacts).

A successful check gets you access to what you wanted, but you still have to pay any other costs. Just because you found the best weapons shop in the city doesn't mean you get the +6 Brilliant Energy Vorpal Spiked Chain for free, it just means that without this connection you would never have known the shop existed/had what you needed.
For connections involving politics or information, there will usually be some sort of bribe involved. Also, this doesn't mean the target will be favorably inclined towards you; if you manage to finagle a meeting with the King, he might be willing to listen to you for a minute, but if you don't say anything that interests him it might hurt you in the long run.

(In general this is stronger than the Bardic Knowledge ability, but it can't be used as often and can be expensive. Be careful with it, though; if the players want to meet the king and they'd have the pull to arrange it on their own, you don't need to charge the Aristocrat for it, so only use this if it wouldn't be possible through normal channels. Not that you should tell them that, though; if they offer to bribe the chamberlain for a meeting he was going to give them anyway, he'd still take the gold.)

Natural Leader: All Aristocrats begin with something resembling the Leadership Feat, with the following changes:
> All followers and cohorts must be appropriate to the character's background.
> No positive situational modifiers to Leadership score apply to this, although the bonus for high CHA and any negative modifiers still count.
> Only Aristocrat class levels count for this Leadership score.
(Even though you get it at level 1, it won't mean much until you get to level 4 or 5 since you need a leadership score of 10 to get any followers.)

This stacks with the normal Leadership Feat. It's not uncommon for Aristocrats to take Leadership and have multiple cohorts.

Champion: Depending on your background, this could be called "Bodyguard" or "Hitman". Normally, your cohorts can't be higher than (your level - 1). An Aristocrat isn't as limited. First, the penalty for having a familiar/mount/companion is reduced to -1. More importantly, at every fifth class level (5, 10, 15, 20) the cohort level cap increases by 1, making it possible for the Cohort to be more powerful than its leader.

(That is, a 15th-level Aristocrat can have a Cohort 2 ECL above him. This'd probably be a "special" cohort, like a dragon, or something with a template. Optional rule is that the cohort's class levels still can't equal yours, which'd require this sort of exotic cohort; this way, you don't have an Epic-level spellcaster as a cohort. But, this ability is one of the big ones, to make up for the class' weaknesses in other areas.)

Inspire: Using the Diplomacy skill, the Aristocrat can get his allies/subjects/employees to do better. It works exactly like Bardic Music. The list of abilities depends on your background; the number listed after each is the number of ranks of Diplomacy needed to unlock that ability. The ones with asterisks are new; these are all (Ex) abilities, nonmagical.
Noble: Inspire Courage (1), Inspire Competence (5), Inspire Resolve* (10), Inspire Greatness (15), Inspire Heroics (20)
Merchant: Inspire Competence (1), Fascinate (5), Mass Inspire Competence* (10), Suggest (15), Inspire Mastery* (20)
Crime: Fascinate (1), Suggest (5), Inspire Competence (10), Mass Fascinate* (15), Mass Suggest (20)

The new ones:
Inspire Resolve: An improved version of Inspire Courage; all allies within 90' gain a +4 morale bonus against all mind-affecting effects, and get a +1 morale bonus to attack rolls, damage rolls, and AC.
Mass Inspire Competence: as long as the Aristocrat keeps giving his speech, all allies within 90' get a +2 competence bonus to all skill checks. Any skill incompatible with Inspire Competence also fails here.
Inspire Mastery: as Inspire Competence, with the following changes:
> The bonus increases to +5
> Take 10 may be used even if under duress
> Take 20 may be used even if failure would have consequences
> It works on any skill (as long as the Aristocrat is speaking the entire time needed to use the skill, so long Craft checks are still out.) This might still be counterproductive (for Move Silently, for example).
Mass Fascinate: as Fascinate, except it affects all targets within 120', except those the Aristocrat specifies.

(Each person only gets five options, and slower than the Bard does)

 

[Ferret]

Do you have Adept? If you do it, don't take away the familiar! Please?

 

[Gez]

My adepts use my spellcasting rules, which there are a thread about in this forum.

They get a 2/3 magic progression, giving them eventual access to 7th-level spell slot. They access simple nature spells, and simple spells from one other category (arcane, divine, or psionic) that they choose at first-level.

To cast a spell, an adept need a grigris. A grigri is a small trinket, such as an amulet or talisman. Each grigris contains a spell, and the adept must seize it to cast the spell. An adept cast spells spontaneously, from any grigris she owns.
At each level, they gain a grigris for free, but other must be created. They are a form of magic items that let you convert unprepared spell slots into the spell inscribed in it. They cost (Spell Level)² * 500 gp. (0-level spells count as half-level, so a 0-level grigris costs 125 gp. Then the cost is 500, 2 000, 4 500, 8 000, 12 500, 18 000, 24 500. At epic levels, they may get access to 8th and 9th, who costs respectively 32 000 and 40 500. Then, if they take epic spellcasting, they can create epic grigris, who would cost 500 000 because epic items are ten time the price.)

 

[Nifft]

Do you have Adept? If you do it, don't take away the familiar! Please?

No Adept class. In my world, NPC spell casters with low caster level simply have fewer PC levels and more Expert levels.


So, anyone think my NPC classes as presented are unbalanced? The idea behind the Aristocrat is: Aristocrats are rich, skilled and train to be hard to kill (since so many plots involve plots on their lives).

-- N

 

[Cheiromancer]

Nifft, are you familiar with the Athasian Bard? (If not, go to athas.org and download the 3.5 darksun setting).

I think it would be a good idea to incorporate the bonuses against mind-reading and enchantment that an Athasian Bard gets. Incorporating Bardic Knowledge (affecting knowledge of history, law, nobility and so on) and Bardic music (based on diplomacy) might also be worthwhile additions.