Lazybones
Adventurer
Although I didn't take Zenna all the way to 20th level, I think my experience with her reflects the general progression of the class, highlighting both its strengths and limitations as a PrC. I'll revise my initial assessment and say that whether or not the class is overpowered depends on the context. I think it's a curve, so depending on what levels you intend to spend the most time at, its either heavily underpowered or overpowered. As a whole, if you're taking the class from 1st to 20th, I think it's more or less a wash, with less power at the lower levels, and more at the higher (even with the tradeoffs in spell level and power that must be made). The group suffered for a long time because as primary caster (other than the periodic redshirt Helmite NPCs), Zenna was generally one or two spell levels behind for some time (so at 7th level, instead of being able to cast 4th level spells in one class, the best she could manage was 2nd in two). But she could also cover two types of spellcasting, and she was really starting to come into her own when she was abducted and killed. I think that had she survived and had time to update her spellbook, she would have become the dominant player in the group around 16th level (i.e. casting 7th level spells in two classes).Elemental said:
I think that the advantages of MT start to outweigh the disadvantages around 10th level. Here the gap narrows somewhat as the effects of the initial six levels you had to put in to get the class begin to recede (they are never fully removed, of course). At this point, she's still a level behind in spell level access, but she can cast 4th level spells in two classes, and her reservoir of spells is huge. Interestingly enough the MT progression ensures that the gap fluctuates; at even numbered levels you pull ahead, because you gain a new level of casting power in two classes (at L10 you get 4th level spells, L12 you get 5th, and so on, whereas if you didn't have the PrC you'd only get spells of one level higher in one class). But at L11 you still only have 4th level spells, but you would have had 6th if you were a straight caster, so it's a bigger opportunity cost. Even so, I think that the prime levels for MT is character level 10 on up, with the class shining at MT levels 8-10. Initially I was going to have Zenna take archmage levels from L17 on, which would have made her pretty much insanely powerful at L20 (casting L9 spells in one class, and L7 in the other, at that point, with almost no opportunity cost for not going pure wizard... a few CL, extra spells, and feats essentially being the price for being a 13th level cleric on top of a maxxed wizard). Alas, plot trumped my dreams of commanding an uber-caster, and it was not to be.
All of these comments are predicated on starting with a Wiz3/Clr3. If your DM allows a class combo with synergistic ability score requirements (such as the OA shugenja + sorcerer, for example), then the class becomes even more potent, because you don't need to spread out your points into multiple spell ability stats. I had to literally plot out every stat increase for Zenna when planning her 1-20 progression, and I think I had to factor in a Tome of Understanding at one point just so that she could cast all of the spells she was eligible to cast. This means that an MT has to sacrifice several points worth of DC in both of her classes, because of the need to split investment in primary spellcasting stats. I think a shugenja4/sorcerer4/MT10 with a maxxed out CHA score would be a pretty damned potent foe (although of course you have to pay two more levels to gain entry into the class in this case).
Of course, Zenna suffered from a few other disadvantages: being ECL +1 on the one hand (and my [admittedly bad] decision to gimp her stats), and the fact that many of the later adventures she was on took place far away from Faerun, and at a pace that was such that she had no time to scribe many new spells into her spellbook. I ruled that MT did not grant the two free spells that wizards get, so she was basically underequipped in terms of spells through much of the later books before her abduction. If I had to do it again, I may have made her a sorcerer instead, and paid the extra level cost. Of course writing her as a CHA-based rather than an INT-based character would have resulted in someone totally different, which would have been interesting. I'm working on an ultra-CHA NPC character right now at the point I'm writing, and he's turning out to be both a challenge and an interesting project. More on him later...
In one sense I'm glad I took out Zenna; the bookkeeping for her as an epic character would have been enough to drive one nuts (as I'm finding out even working Cal and Dana's stats through their higher-level incarnations).
Thanks for the question! Anyway, here's the continuation of the story:
* * * * *
Chapter 428
The initial welcome was far from… welcoming.
The metal door screeched open reluctantly to reveal a large square hall, maybe fifty feet across. On the far side of the room a staircase led up to an open arch that presumably led to another portion of the prison. As the door opened the stench of demodands rolled out over them in an almost overpowering wave, its source instantly evident in the press of bodies that occupied the chamber.
“Farastu demodands!” Lok warned, even as coruscating beams of pale light lanced out at him. One hit the jam of the door, splaying out harmlessly into wisps of violent energy, but a second caught him in the chest, weakening the genasi. Several of the fiends—there looked to be about a dozen in the room—immediately rushed toward him, their sludge-encrusted claws reaching eagerly to grasp the intruder.
That stopped immediately when Dana unleashed her first holy word.
The farastus screamed and collapsed, their bodies quivering out of all control as they fell to the ground. One of the creatures, the one that had blasted Lok with its ray of enfeeblement had chanced to be in the back of the room, just out of the range of Dana’s spell, and it hastily ran toward the stairs, intent upon escaping the power that had blasted its comrades.
Lok had moved into the room, hindered somewhat by the thick layer of farastu slime that coated the floor. He cautioned the others, who remained clustered by the doorway. Dannel entered, already drawing a bead on the fleeing farastu, and shot it in the back with a white-fletched arrow. The creature screamed in pain, but kept up its flight.
“All of them must be destroyed!” Cal said. Eyeing the floor dubiously, he cast a spider climb spell and started up the wall, intending to circle around and come at the stairs from above.
The demodand had reached the top of the steps now, with two of Dannel’s arrows sticking out from its back. Beorna blasted it with a ray of searing light, and for a moment it looked like it would be enough to take it down, but it staggered up the last few steps and vanished through the arch.
Dana lifted into the air, carried aloft by her magical boots, but Cal cautioned her. “Let it go,” he said. “We should get ready for the help it will bring, however.”
Meanwhile a gristly scene played out on the floor of the chamber, as Lok and Arun put an end to the paralyzed farastus. Beorna trudged across the sticky floor, carrying Mole on one shoulder, while Dannel remained in the entry, covering them with his bow.
They did not have to wait long for the response. Barely ten seconds after the wounded farastu had disappeared, a sick sucking sound drew their attention back up to the arch. A dark form appeared… becoming a bloated, massive figure of a kelubar demodand.
With six arms.
Hexavog did not look happy to see them, and it promptly conjured an acid fog that billowed out from the center of the chamber floor, engulfing Arun, Lok, Beorna, and Mole in the corrosive green vapors.
But having unleashed its destructive power upon them, the demodand quickly came under heavy attack. Less than a second after creating the fog, before the mists could rise up to block the line of sight to the entrance, Dannel shot it with an arrow that vanished into the thick folds of its body, releasing a devastating pulse of electrical energy. Even as that gave it pause, it was engulfed in a painful blast of flames, as a flame strike from Dana caught it up, hurting it despite the considerable resistance to fire that it possessed. This was quickly followed by a lightning bolt from a tiny figure crawling upon the ceiling that Hexavog hadn’t immediately seen. The magic was mostly shadow, which the demodand had recognized, but it still felt a nasty sting from the bolt that it preferred not to experience again.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, two of the enemies within the fog quickly appeared, a dwarf woman waving around a big sword and another gnome, darting nimbly up the steps as if it going to engage Hexavog directly!
Heavily outnumbered, the demodand decided that it would be the better part of valor to withdraw and seek Slouva’s assistance in dealing with these intruders. It wasn’t going to let them off completely free, so as it retreated it hurled a dispel at the flying woman, grunting in satisfaction as her magic faded and she fell into the acid fog. Then it added a quickened fear, which hopefully would distract at least a few of its foes from pursuit. Without waiting to see how effective those tactics were, it retreated back into the core chamber of the prison to call upon some allies. The injured farastu was still there, cowering near the doorway, so Hexavog ordered it to create a fog cloud at the top of the stairs, again to better confound the intruders. The mutant kelubar would have liked to become invisible, but that of course was not possible here.
But even as the pathetic little farastu moved into position, one of the tiny gnomes appeared, moving very quickly for a creature of its unassuming size. The farastu saw it too late, and even as it turned the gnome leapt up into the air, somersaulting into an attack that easily befuddled the demodand. Something flashed in the gnome’s hand, and the farastu collapsed, the hilt of a small rapier protruding from its ruined eye. The gnome didn’t bother to try to recover her weapon, instead drawing forth a tiny knife as she landed smoothly on the stone tiles of the asylum floor.
“Slouva, get down here!” Hexavog shouted, its booming voice filling the vast interior of Skullrot. No doubt the little creature’s friends were already making their way up to join her, but it would not be driven off by one tiny mortal, no matter how fast it was!
Thought became action, and Hexavog leapt forward, multiple arms raised to squash the daring, but foolish, rogue that had followed it alone to her doom.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
