Tell Me What You Think of The Alienist

[Merlion]

I have often toyed with the idea of playing an Alienist. I am a big lovecraft fan and it seems a pretty good way to do a Lovecraftian thing in DnD terms. I would probably do it as a wizard specilaized in Conjuration.
I'd like peoples opnion of the prestige class based on both game balance/mechanics and roleplay/flavour. along with any suggestions (on both those levels) for making/playing one.

 

[Nifft]

Alienists are cool!

-- Nifft

 

[Mr Fidgit]

i like them for flavor reasons, but i've never played one or seen one played so i'm not sure about balance issues...

 

[Merlion]

I think their need to be more already summonable, lovecrafty creatures.

 

[Gez]

When I saw it first, I would have said "poor", but now I have a much better opinion of it thanks to Mostin, my fav character from Sepulchrave's wonderfantabulous story hour. You should go read it. Twice.

But yeah, properly played (in a more Vancian than Lovecraftian way), they are excellent. I've said good.

 

[Pax]

I have often toyed with the idea of playing an Alienist. I am a big lovecraft fan and it seems a pretty good way to do a Lovecraftian thing in DnD terms. I would probably do it as a wizard specilaized in Conjuration.
I'd like peoples opnion of the prestige class based on both game balance/mechanics and roleplay/flavour. along with any suggestions (on both those levels) for making/playing one.

In an Arena, I played a Sorceror-Alienist for a while. He was GREAT fun ... in the Arena.

Outside the Arena ... the Alienist seems best suited for NPCs. It's powers aren't all that stellar (though chock full of style), and it's costs can be quite steep, esepcially for adventuring PCs.

And at Epic levels, well ... the Alienist is bankrupt completely when it comes to "oomf factor" ...

...

But in the arena, Odd Peet was a LOT of fun to write for (and yes, I did the Lovecraftian schtick ... to the MAX; I even listed "Great Cthulhu" as his patron deity on his character sheet, lol).

 

[the Jester]

Alienists are fantastic and extremely well-balanced, imo. The innate penalties are a nice touch- they help to simulate the insanity that is almost certainly taking hold in the character.

I love Lovecraftian stuff- that's part of why I think Bruce Cordell's stuff is so great. I'm gonna run a Far Realms adventure sometime....

 

[wolff96]

Re: Re: Tell Me What You Think of The Alienist

Outside the Arena ... the Alienist seems best suited for NPCs. It's powers aren't all that stellar (though chock full of style), and it's costs can be quite steep, esepcially for adventuring PCs.

And at Epic levels, well ... the Alienist is bankrupt completely when it comes to "oomf factor" ...

I disagree.

I played a Conjuration specialist (Evo barred) Alienist. My primary weapons were summoned monsters and Necromantic spells (primarily Chill Touch w/ Spectral Hand, Vampiric Touch, and Enervation at mid-levels).

Summoned creatures take a while to become powerful. That much is a given. But the psuedonatural template stacked with already decent monsters at mid- to high-levels are quite impressive.

At Epic Levels, I have never played an Alienist. But I would assume that a researched Epic Spell could summon up a monster using the Epic-Level Psuedonatural template... and that would certainly be a respectable monster.

Just the standard summoning spells at epic levels would be brutally powerful -- Gate, Greater Planar Binding, and the other major summoning spells would still have just as much impact as the caster gained in levels. Gate, especially, would become dramatically more powerful as the caster continued to gain HD.

Summoning is all about hiding behind powerful monsters. At epic levels, when the monsters ascend into the realms of ridiculousness, it only makes sense to keep as far from them as possible. Most epic level spells would make just as much sense for the Alienist as for anyone else.

 

[Vargo]

For extra sanity-blasting happy-munchy-fun, take a Cleric with the Knowledge and Madness domains - then grab Alienist when you get the prerequisites down.

Believe me, it gets VERY interesting VERY quickly.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

How effective are pseudonatural elementals?