[ot]Magnamund - Lone Wolf Series

[Frostmarrow]

Ok, here is my Kai Lord prestige class Have a look, tell me what you think, and let's work on it.

I liked it very much, I have some minor quibbles with it though. If I may:

It's customary to first make a version that works without psionics and later add that for those who want it. I mean in MM the mind flayer has psionics but they are presented in a way that let's you use them without the PsH. I guess the Mind over Matter ability is the same as Mage Hand for example.

The weaponskill of the Kai Lord is essentially the Weapon Focus feat. Why not present it as such?

The alignment should be any good in my opinion. The Lone Wolf does not strike me as Lawful by any means. I can see why you think it should be LN, though as the Kai order is very monkish.

I don't think it is necessary to pay 5,000xp for the basic training. There are loads of very intricate and sophisticated PrCs and none have this. The requirements are the basic training, no?

I don't think Favored Enemy is necessary as this makes having a level of Ranger absolutely necessary.

All in all, I'm impressed. I particulary liked the requirements (except for the above). I think the save boosting feats are perfect. Moreover I liked the ESP-bonus from Sixth Sense very much.

Edit: Perhaps ESP-bonus should read insight?

 

[Eternalknight]

I liked it very much, I have some minor quibbles with it though. If I may:

It's customary to first make a version that works without psionics and later add that for those who want it. I mean in MM the mind flayer has psionics but they are presented in a way that let's you use them without the PsH. I guess the Mind over Matter ability is the same as Mage Hand for example.

The weaponskill of the Kai Lord is essentially the Weapon Focus feat. Why not present it as such?

The alignment should be any good in my opinion. The Lone Wolf does not strike me as Lawful by any means. I can see why you think it should be LN, though as the Kai order is very monkish.

I don't think it is necessary to pay 5,000xp for the basic training. There are loads of very intricate and sophisticated PrCs and none have this. The requirements are the basic training, no?

I don't think Favored Enemy is necessary as this makes having a level of Ranger absolutely necessary.

All in all, I'm impressed. I particulary liked the requirements (except for the above). I think the save boosting feats are perfect. Moreover I liked the ESP-bonus from Sixth Sense very much.

Edit: Perhaps ESP-bonus should read insight?

To address your points:

1) Unfortuneatly, I think psionics is necessary. The Kai abilities of Mindblast and Mindshield, plus many of the abilities later on, suggest that the Kai are a psionic class.

2) The reason I did Weaponskill as it is, and not as weapon focus, is because the two are slightly different (wepaon focus dosn't give +1 to damage). Plus, the Magnakai prestige class builds on this.

3) The reason I did lawful is the fact that I think the regimented nature of the Order requires it. Certainly a chaotic character wouldn't fit.

4) I wanted to make the prestige class hard to attain, although on second thought I don't think it is as powerful as I originaly thought. I will remove that.

5) See above. I wanted it to be hard to attain.

6)Consider it to be changed to insight bonus

Thanls for the suggestions and the compliments.

 

[GrimJesta]

Bumpeth.

-=G=-

 

[dagger]

Let the brainstorm continue!

I have some ideas on classes and such as well, here ya go.


Magic:

I think the magic system is going to have to be changed up to reflect left hand magic and its opposite right hand magic.

Classes:

I dont see a reason you couldnt make the Kai lords a core class. Some of the classes could be included but you dont really need all of them. Especially both wizard and sorcerer. I dont know, the class thing is a tough one.

 

[dagger]

Let the brainstorm continue!

*double post action*

 

[Staffan]

I don't think Kai Lord should be a prestige class. In the books, prospective Kai Lords are trained from a very young age, and that training includes Kai abilities from the start. To me, that's core class material, not prestige class.

 

[Eternalknight]

(For some reason I can't use my customary teal font...)

My way of thinking on the Kai Lord is this: It would work perfectly well as a core class. The first 10 levels would be Kai Disciplines, the next 10 Magnakai. Then the Grand Master disciplines could be epic feats available only to those who have mastered all 10 Kai and all 10 Magnakai disciplines.

However; to me the Kai Lord suits the role of a prestige class better. If the Kai is a core class, then shouldn't the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star, the Elder Magi, etc be core classes too? That's just me though.

Quick poll: Should the Kai Lord be a core class or a prestige class? If the majority say core, I will rewrite mu Kai Lord class as a core (it won't be too difficult).

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

Re: The Kai problem

Something I was thinking was that maybe a base class of Kai Warrior can be made. Make it a multi-class track, like in that one Dragon article and some of the guys in Lords of Darkness - not sure what the classes would be - possibly paladin and psychic warrior?

If it was to be a prestige class, I could see a very minor one - say 3-level (if you remember from the books, Lone Wolf essentially skipped 3 ranks/levels between the Kai-Magnakai and Magnakai-Grand Master series). The 3 levels of, for example, Kai Lord would allow for mastery of the final Kai discipline, and the first 2 Magnakai. So levels 1-9 would be Kai levels, and 13-19 would be Magnakai levels.

So the progression would go something like this.

1. Fig1
2. Fig1/Psw1
3. Fig2/Psw1
4. Fig2/Psw2
5. Fig3/Psw4
6. Fig3/Psw3
7. Fig4/Psw3
8. Fig4/Psw4
9. Fig5/Psw4
10-12. Kai Lord PrC levels
13. Fig7/Psw6
14. Fig7/Psw7
15. Fig8/Psw7
16. Fig8/Psw8
17. Fig9/Psw8
18. Fig9/Psw9
19. Fig10/Psw9
20+. Grand Master PrC levels

...if that makes sense. I think Lone Wolf ca. the Grand Master series (13-20) is clearly an epic-level character. I believe it was said that Lone Wolf was one of the only (if not THE only) Kai to have ever advanced so far.

Only thing about the Magnamund setting is you could have it suffer from "Buffy syndrome" - i.e. the Kai'll be so good, there'll hardly be anyone who doesn't want to take the class. We'd need a balancing factor - although being hounded by minions of the Darklords day and night is balance.

About the priest thing - I've been thinking that we should likely use a system akin to one used for divine intervention in The Crusades historical supplement - a percentage chance modified by other factors. This way, it could work for all classes.

And Eternalknight, is there any way you can get your Kai PrC into another format, say .wps? I'd like to check it out, but I keep getting some weird error message.

 

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

ROCK ON!

This is simply wonderful--I have a fair number of those books and loved playing them when I was younger. They were great for a D&D-starved middleschooler!

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

I've got converted stat blocks for giaks, gourgaz, kraan, helghasts, vordaks, crypt spawn, doom wolves, drakkarim, drakkar deathnights and zlanbeasts.

The only comment I have on this is that I disagree somewhat with doing stat blocks of drakkarim. Basically, drakkarim were just another variety of human, just huskier and more warlike (stats of a half-orc?). I see most drakkarim warriors as simply NPC warriors with the drakkarim racial mods - and furthermore, the Death Knight and Zagganozod as non-player PrCs.