[PrC] Disciple of Force

Ferrix

Explorer
Critique, I'd like to have it available to a monk at level 7 without having to be human. There are no psionics if you think it'd better fit a psionicist and it's not for any magic using class. Have at it ;-) Majority of flavor text not here, haven't worked it all out yet.

~Ferrix

[Large]Disciple of Force[/Large]
Disciples of Force are most often monks who learn of the power of force energies and wish to harness them. They are often quite adept at destroying an opponents weapons and armor, using their unarmed blows to disable their opponent rapidly.

Prerequisites:
Base Attack Bonus: +4
Fortitude Save: +5
Will Save: +5
Skills: Knowledge (Planes) 4 ranks
Feats: Improved Unarmed Attack or monks Unarmed Strike, Power Attack, Stunning Blow or monks stunning blow, Sunder, Eagle Claw
Special: Must have been brought to 0 hit points by a force attack.

Disciple_of_Force.gif


Weapons and Armor Proficiency: The Disciple of Force’s BAB continues to improve their unarmed attack rating at the listed rate as well. All of the Disciple of Force abilities can only be used when unarmored and any of the attack abilities are only useable when unarmed. The UA Die Size Mod increases the die size used to determine unarmed damage for the character.

Skills: 4 + Int. Modifier, list as per monk.

Monk Abilities: The Disciple of Force continues to gain unarmored speed and stunning blow attacks per day as if they had continued advancing as a monk

Forceful Blow: The Disciple of Force has the ability to knock a creature back by his unarmed attacks. The Disciple of Force can use this ability once per round. The Disciple of Force must declare she is using a forceful blow attack before making the attack roll (thus, a missed attack roll ruins the attempt). A foe struck by the Disciple of Force is forced to make a Fortitude saving throw (DC 10 + level + Wisdom modifier), in addition to receiving normal damage. If the saving throw fails, the opponent is thrown back five feet per two levels of the Disciple of Force and must make a Reflex saving throw (same DC) or be knocked prone. This attack uses up one of the characters stun attacks for the day and is a supernatural ability.

Rend the Stone: The Disciple of Force is able to sunder an opponents armor, arms and shield. The hardness of all objects are reduced by half. This is an extraordinary ability.

Tearing the Earth: The Disciple of Force gains the ability to direct his attacks in a wave of force through the earth against a single target within range. The range of the attack is limited to 10’ + 5’ per two levels and attacks against non-corporeal creatures or creatures not in contact with the ground automatically miss. This is a supernatural ability and is a partial action.

Resonant Strike: The Disciple of Force’s attacks resonate within a creature for one round. If a creature takes damage from at least one unarmed strike, the following round the creature must make a Fortitude saving throw (DC 10 + level + Wisdom modifier) or take damage equal to a single unarmed strike without any bonuses. This damage is not reduced by any means, damage reduction, etc. This is an extraordinary ability.

Shattering Whirlwind: The Disciple of Force is able to conjure a whirlwind of force energy about himself to protect himself from attacks. Once per day per four levels rounded down he may generate a whirlwind of energy about himself that provides a deflection bonus to his armor class equal to one half his level rounded down and subjects all incoming weapons to a sunder as if the Disciple of Force had attempted to sunder it. This whirlwind lasts a number of rounds equal to his level. This is a supernatural ability and can be manifested as a free action.

Drawing the Water: The Disciple of Force can gather all of his offensive energies and unleash it in one powerful blow. The Disciple of Force sacrifices his iterative attacks to increase the damage potential of a single blow. For each iterative attack sacrificed, add an additional die of damage to the single blow the dice size is equal to the unarmed damage die two steps down. Example: Kell, a 7th level Disciple of Force/6th level monk makes a Drawing the Water attack. Normally he receives four unarmed attacks at +11/+8/+5/+2. He uses the Drawing the Water ability and sacrifices both of his iterative attacks, his main attack now deals 1d12+Str+4d8 damage. If the attack is a critical hit, only half of the bonus damage from Drawing the Water is multiplied, round down dice. Drawing the Water is an extraordinary ability and must be used as a full-attack action, however the Disciple of Force may move up to five feet plus five feet per iterative attack sacrificed during the round he strikes with the Drawing the Water ability so long as it is before the attack.

Grasping the Fire: The Disciple of Force has tapped into the force energies and his unarmed attacks are delivered a moment before he even touches his target. His unarmed attacks gain the [Force] descriptor allowing him to strike incorporeal creatures and his attacks bypass damage reduction and hardness. This is a supernatural ability.

Shearing the Air: The Disciple of Force is now able to extend his unarmed attacks with waves of force energy. He gains an additional five feet of reach with his unarmed attacks and threatens the according area. This also negates potential defensive mechanisms that function against normal unarmed attacks, for example he may now strike a fire elemental without fear of taking fire damage. This is a supernatural ability.

Being of Force: The Disciple of Force has finally reached the ultimate stage of force mastery and infused his own body entirely with force energies. He gains a Force sub-type descriptor to his race. He gains spell resistance equal to his class level plus ten. He becomes immune to spells with the [Force] descriptor and also is immune to disease and poison.
 
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A little too powerful. BAB is way too high, first of all, it should definitely be medium as a normal monk's is. Pull back the requirements a bit, as well. As it stands, only a Monk will ever qualify for this, especially with the UBAB requirement. The feats are restrictive enough to only let a monk in before level 9 or 10.

As for the abilities, they are simply a little too strong. Between normal magic items and the abilities, the DoF gets awesome ranged attacks, great damage, good defenses, and some neat specials. Especially Drawing the Water, which adds far too much damage. Grasping the Fire isn't particularly out of line for a high level ability, but breaks a lot of internal rules and would allow the DoF to do wacky things to objects (esp. with Drawing the Water and Power Attack).

Now that I've torn you a new one far more than I like, I've reconsidered and maybe this is an appropriate Epic class. Besides that, I'd say you need to pull maybe 3 abilities out of the class and lower the UA damage progression.

-nameless
 

No epic. Blah to epic.

Changed Tearing the Earth to a partial action so you can move and strike with it once but not perform a full attack action involving it. (There only actual ranged attack).

Removed the UBAB requirement probably will change the attack progression down a step.

A monk can get it at level 7, 1st level feat Power Attack, 3rd level feat Sunder, 6th level feat, Eagle Claw.

I lowered the bonus damage to two steps down the unarmed damage progression for Drawing the Water. So it is at most a bonus d12 per iterative sacrificed. I sort of liked the idea of sacrificing extra attacks for a single more powerful attack, it makes sense to me. Any ideas to work it out? Maybe a straight d8 per iterative sacrificed?

The abilities are spread over 13 levels, and there are 9 abilities, why would I pull some out? That seems decent compared to some classes which get abilities every level.

About the unarmed damage, the monk damage increases a die every 4 levels except when it hits 20th level. Why? I wonder that too. So it going a step above the 1d20 to 4d6 doesn't seem that out of place (the 4d6 comes from the step up size wise from S&F).

Shattering whirlwind I changed to once every four levels, so at most it can be used three times in a day instead of six times a day with a deflection bonus of +6 at most (note this doesn't stack with other deflection bonuses) and they don't continue receiving the monk AC progression. Seems more reasonable.

They usually focus on destroying objects or weapons an opponent wields and armor to disable their opponent quicker. What internal rules does it break? They are supposed to be able to mess up objects, one of the focuses of the class.

~Ferrix
 
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Ferrix said:
<snip some stuff that I agree with>

I lowered the bonus damage to two steps down the unarmed damage progression for Drawing the Water. So it is at most a bonus d12 per iterative sacrificed. I sort of liked the idea of sacrificing extra attacks for a single more powerful attack, it makes sense to me. Any ideas to work it out? Maybe a straight d8 per iterative sacrificed?

The extra attacks are at a lower bonus, so its much more likely that each extra iterative attack misses. It's also one of the reasons that Power Attack isn't totally broken; you even out your attack chances on the high end, and on the last attacks you're almost guaranteed to miss. Trading in all those tough shots for a virtually guaranteed single big hit (which also is more likely to cause massive damage, or to overcome high DR) isn't balanced and is a major bonus.

The abilities are spread over 13 levels, and there are 9 abilities, why would I pull some out? That seems decent compared to some classes which get abilities every level.

About the unarmed damage, the monk damage increases a die every 4 levels except when it hits 20th level. Why? I wonder that too. So it going a step above the 1d20 to 4d6 doesn't seem that out of place (the 4d6 comes from the step up size wise from S&F).

The classes with abilities at every level usually have minor ones or progressive ones at each level. Yours has many major abilities that don't overlap on each other. Almost every one of them could concievably be the pinnacle ability of the PrC, and they don't ramp up during the progression. As for the damage progression, a d20 is already much larger than the biggest normal PC weapon. Making an alternate monk with even bigger damage kind of makes the regular monk look worthless. I mean, where's the tradeoff for choosing this PrC?

Shattering whirlwind I changed to once every four levels, so at most it can be used three times in a day instead of six times a day with a deflection bonus of +6 at most (note this doesn't stack with other deflection bonuses) and they don't continue receiving the monk AC progression. Seems more reasonable.

First of all, he gains significant bonuses to sunder, and even the hardiest weapon would stand little chance. It makes the DoF not only much harder to hit, but a failed attack probably means that the attacker can't take a second swing. The deflection bonus to AC (which is as high or higher as can be granted by the most powerful magic) is just icing on the cake, and 3 times per day is many more times that is usually necessary.

They usually focus on destroying objects or weapons an opponent wields and armor to disable their opponent quicker. What internal rules does it break? They are supposed to be able to mess up objects, one of the focuses of the class.

Completely negating DR and hardness is something that no other ability does. The monk already gets a Ki Strike to bypass DR, why not use that? DR is set up so DR and weapons go hand in hand to see which trumps the other. Blatantly bypassing that has compatibility issues. Ignoring hardness also makes weird things like digging through mountains easy, even easier than the most powerful magic can muster.

All in all, you just have too much power concentrated in this class. I don't want to flame you, but this is like playing a Dragon Ball Z character in Conan's world. I can't really break down the class and tell you what you should change because the implementation of the concept is simply too generous. By taking this PrC over a monk, the PC gains HUGE offensive bonuses, HUGE defensive bonuses, and some utility against the classic monk foils.

I hate bursting people's bubbles, but to balance this class in most normal settings, it would need to be redone from the ground up... YMMV of course.

-nameless
 


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