Social Power Source - Courtesan

[Quickleaf]

Inspired by andarilhor's thread, I've begun brainstorming about a "social" power source. The original thread began here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=237311

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“Social” Power Source
Other Names? Esteem/Influence/Prestige/Status/Regency/Nobility

Social powers derive from knowing how to use privileged status to one’s advantage. Social characters use their connections, reputation, psychological manipulation, and political power to topple their enemies. Prestige and intrigue replaces training, magic, or faith to grant courtiers, knights, and courtesans their power. Social powers are called ???

Powers are called...? Dictums, Dominions, Edicts, Mandates, Spheres, Ruses, Intrigues

SOCIAL CLASS CONCEPTS

Courtier [controller]: gifted at court intrigue, psychological manipulation, friends in high places, bend the law, their fighting style would be more swashbuckling, perhaps changing the terrain with zones like a fallen chandelier or a wave of betrayal

Thane/Knight [defender]: feudal lord holding land and providing military service to the crown, their fighting style would be based around creating defense zones, issuing duel challenges to worthy adversaries while able to keep minions at bay, and specializing in facing masses of foes

??? [leader]:

Courtesan [striker]: (see below)
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As my first "social" class, I've decided to experiment with the courtesan...

COURTESAN
“Are you shocked to know the king you slew was your father? Perhaps I manipulated you, but I have inherited his throne as regent matriarch – did I neglect to mention? His dying act was to marry me. You wouldn’t slay your mother-in-law too, would you?”

COURTESAN CLASS TRAITS
Role: Striker. You slip among your enemies as if you were one of them, turning them against each other while you lure your true prey into your waiting palm. Once isolated, you whittle away at your prey’s mind; if successful you may leverage them against your foes, but if you fail a quick poisoned dagger or throwing fan separates them from their mortal coil.
Power Source: Social
Key Abilities: Charisma, Intelligence
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Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, leather
Weapon Proficiencies: Dagger, short sword, sickle, hand crossbow, and chose one superior light blade (katar, rapier, ring-knife) OR one superior ranged (blowgun, shuriken, or throwing fan)
Bonus to Defense: +2 Will
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HP at 1st level: 12+Constitution score
HP per level gained: 5
Healing Surges: 6 + Constitution modifier
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Trained Skills: Bluff, Insight and 3 others from the class list below
Class Skills: Acrobatics, Athletics, Diplomacy, History, Intimidate, Perception, Religion, Stealth, Streetwise, Thievery
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Build Options: Graceful Courtesan, Sly Courtesan
Class Features: Courtesan’s Mark, Courtesan's Tactics, Enemy Within

Gifted in etiquette and guile, courtesans move from one benefactor to the next, infiltrating social circles to spy on their enemies…and just as often their allies. Betrayal is their past time, victims played like the fine chords of a harp. At times courtesans serve as high-priced assassins, though they prefer to ruin foes without resorting to violence. However, once blades are drawn, they prove to be devious combatants, sowing discord among foes and leveraging weaknesses to lure foes to their doom. Few can say whose side a courtesan truly belongs to, or what really drives their plays for power – those who know have long since fallen silent to blade or blackmail.

As a courtesan you weather the inevitable questioning of your moral character with poise, an unreadable veil across your face as you plan your next scheme. You could be the recently freed servant of a deposed king, a reluctant prisoner of war seeking to return home, a worldly entrepreneur secretly blackmailed into assisting the throne, or a gifted dancer sent to kill the marquis oppressing your people. Or perhaps you truly are willing to betray and manipulate anyone in your rapid rise to power.

With a bladed fan up your sleeve and a knowing smile on your face, you pull the strings of vain tyrants, making them dance to your whim. Can you stay one step ahead of those you have crossed?

Characteristics: Courtesans are most effective when able to speak to a target they’ve singled out with their allure. By maintaining combat advantage they can freely move among foes to reach their target.
Religion: Corellon, Ioun, and especially Sehanine are worshipped by courtesans.
Races: Humans, half-elves, and tieflings, who know all too well mortal susceptibility to temptation, make potent courtesans.

COURTESAN CLASS FEATURES
Courtesan’s Mark: Once per encounter as a minor action, you can designate one enemy within your line of site as your mark. Once per round you may attempt to leverage your mark in one of the following ways:
• Mark moves it full speed toward you during its move action
• Mark will not target you with an attack this round
• Mark allows you to pass by, not taking any attacks of opportunity against you
Your mark also tries to defend you, though to what extent depends on your level.
You can designate one enemy as your mark at a time.

Level____________Extra Effects (cumulative)
1st-10th_________Mark aids your defense (+2) and provides you with flanking benefits
11th-20th________Mark interposes itself between you and other enemies attempting to harm you; any attack on you has a 50% chance of hitting your mark
21st-30th________Mark actively defends you from its erstwhile allies

Courtesan’s Tactics: Courtesans manipulate foes in a variety of ways. Some use their charm to bedazzle foes while others rely on their bedeviling intelligence. Choose on of the following options:
Bedazzler: You may use Bluff to feint in combat as a minor action, and your feint targets a number of adjacent enemies equal to your Charisma modifier. You may attempt to feint a number of times per encounter equal to your Charisma modifier.
Bedeviler: You may use Bluff to feint in combat as a minor action, and your feint targets a number of adjacent enemies equal to your Intelligence modifier. You may attempt to feint a number of times per encounter equal to your Intelligence modifier.

Enemy Within: When you have combat advantage from a feint against an enemy, you may forfeit your +2 attack bonus to instead appear as an ally of that enemy until the end of your next turn (provided you don’t attack them), whether through spontaneous misdirection or premeditated infiltration. Your enemy does not attack you and you can move past without provoking attacks of opportunity.

 

[Alex319]

I wonder what the powers will look like? The whole idea of a class based on "confusing the opponents into fighting for you/not attacking you" seems like an interesting idea but could use a lot of work.

The first thing I notice with this class is that the Courtesan's Mark ability seems extremely overpowered.

Courtesan’s Mark: Once per encounter as a minor action, you can designate one enemy within your line of site as your mark. Once per round you may attempt to leverage your mark in one of the following ways:
• Mark moves it full speed toward you during its move action

So you can force the opponent to waste his move action? And possibly provoke several AOs? Or even go into a pit or something? And the opponent has no way to defend against this ability? And using this ability doesn't even take an action? And you can do it every round? No thanks.

• Mark will not target you with an attack this round

Now this one is closer to earth. It's similar to the fighter and paladin marks except it works in reverse. But the fighter and paladin marks don't completely control the other opponent; it just gives them a penalty. As for this one, perhaps something similar: maybe say that if the enemy attacks the Courtesan, the Courtesan gets to roll a Charisma vs. Will "attack", and if it "hits" the enemy is fooled by the Courtesan and refuses to attack (wasting his action). But you also have to decide what happens if the Courtesan and other non-Courtesan allies are all targeted by an AoE.

Level____________Extra Effects (cumulative)
1st-10th_________Mark aids your defense (+2) and provides you with flanking benefits

+2 to all defenses? That seems overpowerd by itself. And is there any restriction on where the mark has to be in order to aid your defense?

11th-20th________Mark interposes itself between you and other enemies attempting to harm you; any attack on you has a 50% chance of hitting your mark

Any restrictions on where exactly the mark has to be to do this? And again this seems very powerful for an at-will ability that you can use every round. Also, how does this work with AOEs?

21st-30th________Mark actively defends you from its erstwhile allies

Please clarify what this means. Does it mean the mark attacks its own teammates. Now this is WAY too powerful - it allows you to turn an enemy against his team automatically!

Courtesan’s Tactics: Courtesans manipulate foes in a variety of ways. Some use their charm to bedazzle foes while others rely on their bedeviling intelligence. Choose on of the following options:
Bedazzler: You may use Bluff to feint in combat as a minor action, and your feint targets a number of adjacent enemies equal to your Charisma modifier. You may attempt to feint a number of times per encounter equal to your Charisma modifier.
Bedeviler: You may use Bluff to feint in combat as a minor action, and your feint targets a number of adjacent enemies equal to your Intelligence modifier. You may attempt to feint a number of times per encounter equal to your Intelligence modifier.

With these abilities and a reasonably high Bluff skill, Courtesans will be getting CA on almost every attack. Is this really what you want? (And whatever you do, please don't let rogues get access to this ability via multiclassing.)

Enemy Within: When you have combat advantage from a feint against an enemy, you may forfeit your +2 attack bonus to instead appear as an ally of that enemy until the end of your next turn (provided you don’t attack them), whether through spontaneous misdirection or premeditated infiltration. Your enemy does not attack you and you can move past without provoking attacks of opportunity.

Can you do this to everyone you Feinted, without using up any extra actions? Please be advised that with Courtesan's Tactics, almost all the adjacent enemies will be Feinted most of the time. Is this really what you are looking for?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Ah, damn, I thought this would be about the idea of a "non-combat" power/class system and non-combat roles for characters...

 

[Quickleaf]

I wonder what the powers will look like? The whole idea of a class based on "confusing the opponents into fighting for you/not attacking you" seems like an interesting idea but could use a lot of work.

Agreed about the class feature being overpowered, and thanks for the feedback. Really this is an experiment to test the viability of a social power source class - does the idea make sense? is it playable? is it possible to run with the idea enough to fill in powers for 30 levels?

The idea behind a striker is that it can bypass multiple foes to take out a single high-powered target...
Rangers use guerilla tactics, striking and retreating
Rogues tumble amongst their enemies, avoiding blows to make a sneak attack
Warlocks use ranged attacks and become invisible/teleport
Courtesans walk among enemies unmolested, turning them on each other

Courtesan's Mark
Encounter * Minor Action
Designate a target within your line of site as your mark. Once per round you may attempt to manipulate your mark on a successufl Charisma vs. Will check. If successful, choose one of these effects:
* Pull mark towards you a number of squares equal to your Intelligence modifier
* Target must make a Will vs. Charisma check to attack you, including using area of effect powers which target you
Sustain (Minor)
* Mark allows you to pass by, not taking any attacks of opportunity against you.

Additionally, your mark will also act to defend you when adjacent to you, the extent depending on your level.

Level____________Adjacency effect (cumulative)
1st-10th_________When adjacent to you, mark provides you with +2 AC against all opportunity attacks
11th-20th________When adjacent to you, mark interposes itself between you and other enemies; any attack on you has 50% of hitting your mark
21st-30th________When adjacent to you, mark provides you with flanking benefits against other enemies

You may only designate one target as your mark at any time.

Courtesan's Tactics
I changed 3 aspects of Bluff rules with this feature - perhaps too many?
1. Bluff (feint) is a standard action --> I made it minor action
2. Feint one adjacent enemy --> I made it feint multiple adjacent foes
3. Feint once per encounter --> I made it feint multiple times per encounter

I need to decide which of these to sacrifice in order to balance it so courtesans don't get CA on every attack.

Enemy Within
Maybe I'll change this to just trade the +2 of CA to avoid OA from feinted foe, and cut the part where "the enemy doesn't attack you".

(And whatever you do, please don't let rogues get access to this ability via multiclassing.)

Good catch.

Ah, damn, I thought this would be about the idea of a "non-combat" power/class system and non-combat roles for characters...

sorry to disappoint

 

[HalWhitewyrm]

Aaron, you want to just use this thread to hash out all the Social power source ideas, or to have one per class?

 

[Quickleaf]

Aaron, you want to just use this thread to hash out all the Social power source ideas, or to have one per class?

Daniel, I say any and all social-based classes are welcome, though if someone wants to work on a non-combat based class it would probably be better to open a new thread for that. The classes I'd like to focus on in this thread would be PHB compatible. What nifty idea are you cooking up?

 

[HalWhitewyrm]

After returning from Gen Con, my mind is pretty fried at the moment. I'll come back to read through what you've done so far and see if I can add anything good to it.