PrC: Blackwater Guerilla

[Mike Sullivan]

I got inspired to do some swamp-based classes from seasong's excellent "Black Healer" PrC. This class probably needs balance/review. This PrC uses "Blackwater" as a gneneric name for a big swamp that exists somwhere in the campaign world -- slot in a different name as appropriate.

Blackwater Guerilla

To those living on the edge of the Blackwater, the enormous swamp has a poor reputation. Disease rolls off its stagnant waters, crocodiles lurk waiting for the unobservant to stray too near, and, and any number of fell creatures prowl its interior.

But there are those who live within Blackwater, who have made, if not peace, then a fragile truce with the swamp, living off its riotous explosions of life. The Blackwater tribes are defended from physical threats by the Blackwater Guerillas, tribal warriors well-versed in the hit and run tactics of the densely covered swamp.

Requirements

The secrets of the Blackwater Guerilla are not written anywhere, not taught by any large, monolithic organization. Traditionally, a promising young hunter will apprentice with an existing Guerilla and learn the ways of the swamp gradually, over the course of many years.

The Blackwater tribes are fairly xenophobic, and are not likely to teach their secrets to outsiders. However, it has happened before that a patient foreigner who has lived with the Blackwater tribes for some time has gained enough trust to be taught a few of the Guerilla's secrets.

Game Requirements:

+5 or better BAB, 4 Ranks each of Hide, Swim, and Wilderness Lore, plus find an existing Blackwater Guerilla willing to teach them.

Statistics

Alignment: Any
Hit Die: D8

Class Skills: Craft (Int), Climb (Str), Hide (Dex), Intuit Direction (Wis), Knowledge (Nature), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), and Wilderness Lore (Wis). They get 4 + Int bonus skill points per level.

Arms & Armor: If they were not already, a Blackwater Guerilla becomes proficient in Light Armor, Shields, Simple Weapons, Shortswords, and the Blowpipe. They have no restrictions on what weapons they may use.

[color="limegreen"]Lvl BAB     Fort    Ref     Will    Special
1   +1      +2      +0      +0      Poison Use, Slowing Poison
2   +2      +3      +0      +0      Poison Resistance
3   +3      +3      +1      +1      At Home in the Swamp
4   +4      +4      +1      +1      Spring Attack
5   +5      +4      +1      +1      Damaging Poison
6   +6      +5      +2      +2      Sleeping Poison
7   +7      +5      +2      +2      
8   +8      +6      +2      +2      Improved Damaging Poison
9   +9      +6      +3      +3      Ambush
10  +10     +7      +3      +3      Paralytic Poison[/color]

Poison Use

Blackwater Guerillas can safely apply poison to any appropriate weapon without having a chance to poison themselves.

Poisons

Blackwater Guerillas learn to make poisons of the sort that can be applied to any bladed (slashing or piercing) weapon. None of the poisons are particularly effective when ingested (eaten or drunk. +10 circumstance bonus to the victim's Fort save). Making a batch of poison (ten doses) takes the Guerilla an hour of cooking and careful measuring. The materials necessary to make the poison can be purchased for 5 gp at a well-supplied herbalist's shop, or can be improvised with a Wilderness Lore check. The DC of the Wilderness Lore check is 10 in the Blackwater, and subject to the DM's discretion elsewhere.

The Fort save to resist all of the Blackwater Guerilla's poisons is 10 + Blackwater Guerilla class level + the guerilla's Int bonus.

Slowing Poison

At first level, a Blackwater Guerilla learns to make a lethargy-inducing poison. Victims hit by such a weapon who fail a Fort save suffer a -2 penalty to their to-hit rolls and AC for the next hour.

Damaging Poison

At fifth level, a Blackwater Guerilla learns to make a conventional damaging poison. Victims of the poison must make a Fort save, or take 3d6 damage. Even a succesful save causes 1d6 points of damage. Victims who fail their initial save are subject to a secondary effect five rounds later -- a save at the same DC, or take 1d6 additional damage.

Sleeping Poison

At sixth level, a Blackwater Guerilla learns to make a soporific poison. It has an onset time of five rounds. If someone is hit by a weapon poisoned with the sleeping poison, they must make a Fort save, or fall unconscious. The poisoned sleep lasts only ten minutes.

Improved Damaging Poison

At eighth level, a Blackwater Guerilla can make a more potent version of the damaging poison. It is like the damaging poison in all ways, except that the the damage is 5d6 if the subject fails the save, 2d6 if they make it, and the secondary damage is 2d6 as well.

Paralytic Poison

At tenth level, a Blackwater Guerilla learns to make a powerful poison which seizes up the target's muscles. Victims of the poison must make a Fort save, or take 4d6 damage and be paralyzed for two hours. Even those who succeed in making their saving throw take 2d6 damage, and suffer a -2 to their attack rolls and armor class for the next ten rounds. Multiple doses of the Paralytic Poison do not accumulate in their attack and armor penalties, nor does Paralytic Poison and Slowing Poison "stack."

Poison Resistance

At 2nd level, the Blackwater Guerilla gets a +4 bonus to all saving throws versus poison of any kind.

At Home in the Swamp

At 3rd level, the Blackwater Guerilla gets a +4 familiarity bonus to Spot, Listen, Hide, and Move Silently rolls while in swampy environments. In addition, the guerilla gains Free Action when dealing with natural impediments of any kind -- even magically animated natural impediments like the spell Entangle.

Spring Attack

Blackwater Guerillas are masters of making hit and run attacks. At 4th level, they gain the benefits of the feat "Spring Attack" when wearing light or no armor, even if they have not satisfied its prerequisites.

Ambush

At 9th level, the Blackwater Guerilla becomes a master of attacking from surprise. Whenever the Guerilla gets an action during a surprise round, he gets a full action instead of a partial.

* * *

So. Any comments? Overpowered? Underpowered? It's meant to be a fairly simple fighter/ranger-variant, less-oriented on brute force and more on hit and run tactics and, of course, poison use.


LOTS OF EDITS: Getting a color that worked.

 

[Witness]

A Little underpowered IMHO...

Suggest they receive an immunity to natural or non-magical poisons and a bonus to saves against magical poisons. Also they should get something like Sneak Attack; not an ability that causes extra damage, but increases the necessary Fort save against posion when they attack an unaware opponent with a poisoned weapon.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

A Little underpowered IMHO...

Suggest they receive an immunity to natural or non-magical poisons and a bonus to saves against magical poisons. Also they should get something like Sneak Attack; not an ability that causes extra damage, but increases the necessary Fort save against posion when they attack an unaware opponent with a poisoned weapon.

Thanks for the response, Witness.

In terms of the underpowering, could that be fixed simply by increasing the DC for their poisons? Would you all regard the current 15 (or 10) + Class Level as inappropriately low? High? What? That's one balance issue I don't know much about.

The "increased DC from Sneak Attack" thing is interesting. Again, I'm a little lost as to how difficult to make save DC's in general.

Should they get, say, Fighter Feats once every three or four levels?

 

[Xarlen]

I find it a little underpowered. All they get is some poison stuff. If they are going up against things that are resistant to poison... well, they're screwed.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

I find it a little underpowered. All they get is some poison stuff. If they are going up against things that are resistant to poison... well, they're screwed.

This is true. On the other hand, if a spellcaster goes against something with a high spell resistance, or even antimagic like a Beholder or spell immunity like a Rakshasa, they're pretty well screwed, yes?

Still, I'm not ruling out other abilities. What if they got actual sneack attack? (Though, as I think about it, the creatures which are immune to poison are also likely to be immune to sneak attack -- elementals or the like).

How about uncanny dodge or evasion? Or maybe even an alternate rage-like ability that increased Dex instead of Str and Con?

 

[seasong]

Hey Mike, I like it!

Save DCs: Sleeping poison, at 7th level = DC 23.
The blackwater guerilla, if a fighter 4/blackwater guerilla 7, has a Fort save +9, assuming no CON bonus. A fighter 11 has a Fort save +7. A Wizard 11 has a Fort save +3 (saves only on a 20). Might be just a tad high.

I'd go with a DC 10 + blackwater guerilla level + INT (or WIS, maybe) for all of them. This ends up with a reasonably difficult roll for fighters (11 or better in most cases), and a reasonably improbable roll for wizards (16-18 in most cases).

For the rest of it, I would add in some abilities that are useful for guerilla tactics. Fast movement, pass without trace, tracking, "Swamp Lore" (that lets them know where intruders are camping, sense disturbances in the swamp, etc.), the ability to disengage from an opponent without incurring AoO, maybe a Hide In Plain Swamp type ability (able to use a Hide skill even when watched while in a swamp or near a body of water).

Not all of those, perhaps, but a few should help make the blackwater guerilla a really frustrating foe, particularly when combining Hide In Plain Swamp and the blowgun skill.

 

[Technik4]

Interesting Class

What about a Craft (Poison) skill (This skill was detailed in Song and Silence, but you could probably make some house rules along those lines)? After all, rising through 10 levels and learning to make only 4 poisons seems weak.

Knowledge (Herbalism) is a new skill. There is Knowledge (Nature) which details plants and animals, seasons and syycles, and weather and Profession (Herbalist) which involves selling and stocking herbs, thus knowing about them, knowing how to find them (to sell them), etc already. I would go with one of those since I think there is too many dang craft, know, and prof skills as it is.

Your prereqs seem a tad low, I would raise the BAB to 5 and leave the rest at present levels.

These guys seem like rangers, without all the ranger bonuses and a smaller skill list. I would give them d10 for starters.

I can see sneak attack (every 3 levels), uncanny dodge, or some sort of favored terrain ability (thus it would be more of a generic guerilla, but with more applications. The forest guerilla, swamp guerilla, mountain guerilla, etc.). Resistance or immunity to poisons also seems like a shoe-in.

Technik

 

[Mike Sullivan]

Thanks for the feedback, folks. The class has been editted above.

I changed the poison DC's as seasong suggested, and, as Technik suggested, changed Knowledge (Herbalism) to Knowledge (Nature).

I added poison resistance, and an ability to take full actions instead of partial actions during the surprise round. Plus, I'm giving them a virtual spring attack feat (I just thought of that, so I'll edit it into the post right after I send this one). I'm looking for abilities that tie into the guerilla nature of the class without making it a clone of a multiclass Rogue/Barbarian.

Technik: I'm pretty tied to the 1d8 hit points -- I want a class that's a bit less durable than the traditional fighter types. So I'd prefer to ramp up their other abilities to balance rather than going to 1d10 hit points.

 

[seasong]

I still think they need some ability to retreat gracefully - at the moment, they aren't very guerilla, and if they don't win the first round, fighters will chew them up, or chase them and chew them up. Good ambush, but not so good hit-and-RUN.

Otherwise very nice. I like the ambush ability.

 

[Technik4]

"Guerilla-ness"

Perhaps a speed bonus when in light or no armor? Start at +10 for second, maybe 10 more every 4 levels? Besides, in a swamp environment, they still have they +4 bonus to some pretty important skills that you would need to find them if they just took off.

Personally, it seems like this class should have a tracking aspect. Maybe make it a prereq and give them the swamp bonus when tracking in the swamp?

Spring Attack and Ambush are nice, but without animal companion, HD, and spells (favored enemy and swamp bonuses roughly cancel out, imo) I'm not sure if its strong enough). The comparison is because of the BAB and skill list, it seems most alike the ranger.

A final point, since ambush is presently the most powerful ability, I can see people stopping short the last 2 levels. Maybe make it a 9th level ability? Also, it just occurred to me that improved initiative makes a good prereq feat (and perhaps another aspect that is heightened while in a swamp?).

Technik