PrC Idea

[xigbar]

I was looking BoVD just now, and reading the drug rules. I was also thinking about Bane, the Batman villain. I was wondering why there were no PrC's centered around an ability to become overly-powerful for a set amount of time (like an advanced rage of some kind) and with "side-effects" afterwards. I came up with something like this.

Name Pending;

Mania Blooded
Prerequisites:CON 15, BAB +5, Endurance, Iron Will, Must have experienced some kind of addiction problems to a drug.Any non-lawful.

Full BAB, Good Fort/Will, Bad Ref, 4+Int Skill Points/level, d12 Hit Dice

1st: Blood Assimilation, Bloodied Frenzy
2nd: Toughened Body
3rd: Improved Bloodied Frenzy
4th: Pushing the limits, Alert Frenzy
5th: Greater Bloodied Frenzy

Blood Assimilation: When you first become a Mania Blooded, you must undergo the ritual of Blood Assimilation. This requires a caster able to cast the Infuse Blood spell. (details to be written up later.) After undergoing this ritual, your attacks are treated as magic for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction. You also radiate with a faint magical aura to anyone using the detect magic spell.

Bloodied Frenzy: By drawing blood from themselves with any slashing weapon, a Mania Blooded may go in to a Bloodied Frenzy. Doing so causes 1 point of temporary Constitution damage, and a +8 bonus to Strength, Dexterity, and Wisdom. At 3rd level, these bonuses improve to +12, and at 5th level, to +16. This effect lasts 1 hour per Mania Blooded level . You must wait 1 hour to use this ability again. During this time, you suffer a -3 penalty to all scores, and are treated as carrying a heavy load. You do not add your strength modifier to damage taken by the slashing weapon.

Toughened Body: By now, your body has become so use to the punishment, that it has toughened your skin. You now add your Constitution modifier as a Natural Armor bonus to your AC. You cannot lose AC from a negative Constitution modifier.

Pushing the Limits: At the cost of an additional point of Constitution, you may increase your scores by 2 more each time you activate Bloodied Frenzy, to a maximum of your Mania Blooded class level. This adds an additional -1 penalty to your scores per extra point spent when the effect ends.

Alert Frenzy: Your mind races at such a high speed that it reacts to impending danger before your concious is aware of it. When in a Bloodied Frenzy, you add your Wisdom Modifier to your AC as a dodge bonus.

Thoughts?

 

[Rampant]

You do not add your strength modifier to damage taken by the slashing weapon.

What's this about?

Well the primary issue i see is that it's not very Bane-like.

It doesn't mechanically represent bane's abilities at all.

There's no drug dependence, very little of his inhuman ability to absorb damage, and too much dexterity and wisdom being boosted.

Furthermore it's rampantly OP with its hours long super frenzy and low requirements.

 

[xigbar]

What's this about?

Well the primary issue i see is that it's not very Bane-like.

It doesn't mechanically represent bane's abilities at all.

There's no drug dependence, very little of his inhuman ability to absorb damage, and too much dexterity and wisdom being boosted.

Furthermore it's rampantly OP with its hours long super frenzy and low requirements.

The drug dependence would have been part of the spell that I'm yet to write. And, Bane was just a small spark for the idea. I also assume someone isn't going to swing full speed when drawing blood, so no STR mod. I can add in a DR ability, if you'd like. It's not really OP. It makes melee combatants temporary speed freaks, casters will still give them the shaft.

I'm thinking of adding a chance of extra CON damage after the Frenzy, to make it more risky, so that if you over use it, you could die.

 

[Rampant]

Ok as for the cutting yourself bit you need to put those sentences together, by the time you reach the bit about the damage to initiate you've been codswalloped by the bonuses too much to remember that bit. Also traditionally a player using a cut yourself ability have a set amount of damage they must do instead of a random hit, because otherwise they'll just get the smallest weapon that could possibly qualify and pinprick themselves for little to nothing.

Look compared to the frenzied berzerker, who is pretty much supposed to be the uber-rage factory, this is much more powerful at lower preqs. In order to justify this much uber power you gotta have stricter requirements for entry, and maybe string the class out into a full 10 levels, and even then you might have to tone it down.

Next up lets talk about the frenzy itself ok the bonuses are impressive, but it's kinda dull. I mean sure the +8 to attack, damage, ac, ref, will, and a lot of skills is cool, but there are a lot of rage classes, feats, and items out there that just keep piling on those kinds of bonus. Let's try something a little less overdone shall we? Like the ability to hit spaces instead of individual characters while raging, or knock -back/-down effects, or something.

 

[xigbar]

That's fine. This is just what I wrote up on the fly, so it's subject to change. The reason the bonuses are high is because they're offset by a penalty. Imagine getting hit by something that drains CON, and getting down in one hit? Yeah, you're a speed freak for a while, but not without some obvious weaknesses.

 

[Rampant]

Yeah about that, it's really easy to offset ability damage, so don't count on that to balance this out on its own.

Furthermore it's generally considered bad form to have an ability score as a PrC requirement. The generally accepted method is to require a feat that has the requirement of a certain ability score instead.

 

[emoplato]

So he adds 16 to three attributes and suffers -3 to the rest scores. How does that work? Also why would it be like carrying a heavy load? Also hours!!!!!!!!!! Dude, you need to revamp some things man.

 

[xigbar]

So he adds 16 to three attributes and suffers -3 to the rest scores. How does that work? Also why would it be like carrying a heavy load? Also hours!!!!!!!!!! Dude, you need to revamp some things man.

The bonuses go away at the end of the effect, so he loses 3 to those as well. Where would you recommend I change it to? 10min/level? 1min/level? I'll be changing heavy load to exhaustion. Feel free to tell me doesn't work, but to actually tell me what you think should be done about it.

 

[Empirate]

You ever look into Frenzied Berserker (complete warrior)?

 

[emoplato]

The bonuses go away at the end of the effect, so he loses 3 to those as well. Where would you recommend I change it to? 10min/level? 1min/level? I'll be changing heavy load to exhaustion. Feel free to tell me doesn't work, but to actually tell me what you think should be done about it.

Well, first, I am not you. I don't know what is your vision of this PrC is. I need to know what that is to give you seem real suggestions. As Empirate pointed out there is the Frenzied Berserker in the Complete Warrior. So, how do you want to make it different than that? It seems to me you want an element of beneficial addiction yet almost uncanny paranoia. Am I right or not?