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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nyeshet" data-source="post: 3110838" data-attributes="member: 18363">Development Notes: ((The only difference between the Warrior and the Fighter is 11 feats and a single boost to HD (oh, and the Fighter has Craft as a skill, but the Warrior not having that may be a typo, so I have not counted it). So, I wondered, what would I end up with it I did the same to the Expert? Perhaps a PC worthy version of the class? In exchange for mandating almost half of the class skills available to the Expert I rose one of the poor saves to a medium save - although those not using the Medium save can, of course, return it to a Poor save. It's not a major change, although I think having one save as a Medium rather than two poor and one good helps balance the concept of the class. I added a means of gaining new class skills later, but such would be at the cost of the feats. I think, considering the combat poor nature of the class, that the overall class is balanced - although perhaps a bit below par for typical adventure worthy classes. I could be quite wrong, however, so I decided to post here to see what others thought of it.))ProfessionalHD: d8BAB: MediumProf: Simple Wpns, Light Armor, No ShieldsSaves: 1 Good, 1 Medium, 1 Poor (all chosen at first level to fit the concept)Skill Pts: 6 + IntSkills: Craft, Knowledge (Local), Profession, Speak Language, 6 others chosen at first level to fit the conceptSpecials01 ???02 Bonus Feat or Class Skill03 04 Bonus Feat or Class Skill05 06 Bonus Feat or Class Skill07 08 Bonus Feat or Class Skill09 10 Bonus Feat or Class Skill11 12 Bonus Feat or Class Skill13 14 Bonus Feat or Class Skill15 16 Bonus Feat or Class Skill17 18 Bonus Feat or Class Skill19 20 Bonus Feat or Class Skill??? Not Sure What to Put Here!Development Notes: ((I wanted to put something here, but I did not want to use the bonus feat / bonus class skill option at first level - mostly to prevent level dipping. In the end I likely will put something there. Perhaps I will make it a choice of several options: Bardic Lore, Bardic Knack, Trapfinding, or some other option. I'll have to think about it a bit more.))Bonus Feat: Every even level the Professional can choose a bonus feat so long as the feat involves a benefit to skills or saves. Improve Initiative, although involving neither skills nor saves, is also allowed as a Professional Bonus feat. Development Notes: ((This is meant to cover every +2/+2 skill feat, Skill Focus, all the +2 to a save feats, and any odd feats out there that may grant, say, +4 vs Fear (a highly specific Will save), +2 to Init / +1 to a save (some FR feat if I recall correctly), etc. Listing them is futile, as new feats are forever being made.))Multiclassed Professionals who have taken at least one feat from their other class(es) (such as Fighter, Wizard, Psion, Psychic Warrior, etc) may choose instead to take their even level bonus feat from this additional list of allowable feats. Thus, a Professional / Wizard could - after having taken their first Wizard bonus feat at 5th level - choose for their next Professional bonus feat a feat from the Wizard's list of allowable bonus feats instead.Development Notes: ((I do not see this as all that unbalancing, as the Fighter will lose BAB and eventually progressive attacks to take this route - and would have gained the feats anyway at the same rate of progression had they taken Fighter levels instead, and the caster will lose caster levels, spells known, etc. Note that Rogue specials do not count as a feat list, as the bonus feat option for rogues, as I recall, allows the selection of any feat for which the Rogue qualifies - far more than what I intend. This is intended to ease multiclassing penalties somewhat. A Fighter / Professional, for instance, might represent an officer focused more upon strategy, diplomacy, etc than combat (gaining skills but losing BAB and progressive attacks if taken for more than a few levels), and a Wizard / Professional might be highly skilled in meta-magic and item creation at the expense of casting levels. Note that a Wizard 14 / Professional 6 only gains one extra feat (if only wizard feats are chosen for the bonus feats), and as this 'openning' of the feat listing does not occur until after they have taken their first feat from their other class's bonus feat list, then only a Wizard 5 / Professional 2 would gain first benefit from this - presuming the second Professional level is taken after the fifth Wizard level, of course.))Bonus Class Skill (Ex): A Professional can choose to gain a new Professional class skill instead of choosing a Professional Bonus Feat. So a Professional 2 could choose either a bonus feat or an eleventh class skill, for example. Development Notes: ((One of the Expert's notable traits compared to other classes is their ability to choose their class skills. I wanted to re-emphasise a little of that - especially as I had taken some of it away. However, to gain additional class skills they have to sacrifice their Professional Bonus Feats. So they may have 20 class skills at level 20 or they may have only their original 4 (pre-determined) and 6 (chosen at first level) and ten bonus feats - but they cannot have both. It is an option some will choose but not others. The openness also means that later multiclassing is again somewhat reduced in full penalty, as the Professional / X can simply choose a class skill from X rather than a bonus feat at their next even Professional level - thus gaining that skill as a class skill for both classes and allowing continuous, less restricted, growth in the skill should they continue to gain levels in each class.))_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/So, what do you all think? Is mine effort to raise the Expert to a PC worthy class one of futility? Have I gone too far with some of my ideas or not far enough? I admit the class is combat poor, but note that I made certain the bonus feats could be applied towards save enhancing feats as well as purely skill enhancing feats. I hope this aids in the overall survivability of the class. Granting either a Bardic Lore equivalent (for Know (local) checks, perhaps also for checks for another Knowledge that applies well to their profession) or Bardic Knack (for a MacGuyver-ish feel, perhaps) at first level would aid them notably, but I am uncertain as to which to grant - if either.</blockquote>

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