the Hexer, AWESOME!...oh no I take that back

[emanresu]

1st I got to say it looks like 2 people wrote this class.

1st person: this person wrote the class, a genius, creative, probably very good looking, intelligent, well endowed for their gender, probably made those Dos Equis beer commercials and is the most interesting person in the world, all hail #1! When he and/or she was done the Hexer and all its glory was handed to the person whom was to create the entry requirements.

This persons sole responsibility was just to type down some rational entry requirements, maybe a little stringent, maybe overly lenient, whos to say its Dnd. T

2nd person: This mean spirited, spiteful hater of Hexer created entry preqs so outlandish he wept from joy as he typed them (Probably some good doer that didnt want a cool evil class to exist) momentarily pausing to wipe his eyes from the welling tears of joy. He wept, he laughed, he danced knowing the misery he was causing all those that wanted the Hexer to be a awesome evil class....this SOB ruined everything!

Playing in a evil campaign. Naturally I was searching for evilly styled goodies and ran across this beauty of a prestige class. My evil prayers were answered. Full BaB, full casting made it very strong, so the power gamer in me was satisfied. You then read the class abilities, permanent fear...oh sweet! Now thats just wrong or right if your the BbeG for which this class was intended to be. Oh man I was in nerd heaven, geek nirvana, I thought I found it, the perfect bad guy class...ahhh dork euphoria alas!

Then everything went black and I wanted to cry...

How the hell does a player qualify for this class? I mean really, literally, how can you? This is some of the worst, if not the worst entry requirements around. Druid would be the logical choice, right, rather nope! You see the Hexer needs knowledge Arcana, the Druid doesn't get this class skill. So the answer, maybe just a dip in another class, oh no wait a minute, its 10 thats right 10 ranks in Know Arc. That aint no dip! Ok so you would need be a human, then go human paragon and pick knowledge arcana skill, uuhh nope! Hexer has to be a bad guy or primitive race. So go Half orc, then human paragon, then, oh wait now you will be beyond 20th level...chit!

Oh wait it gets worse! You also have to cast lightning bolt AS A DIVINE caster! Lightening bolt is not a divine spell, lightening bolt is arcane. You would need to pick a domain that has lightening bolt in it....ONLY CLERIC DONT QUALIFY EITHER!

Im sure there may be some entry shenanigans out there somewhere, anybody point me in the right direction?

Eman

 

[JasonZZ]

1st I got to say it looks like 2 people wrote this class.

1st person: this person wrote the class, a genius, creative, probably very good looking, intelligent, well endowed for their gender, probably made those Dos Equis beer commercials and is the most interesting person in the world, all hail #1! When he and/or she was done the Hexer and all its glory was handed to the person whom was to create the entry requirements.

This persons sole responsibility was just to type down some rational entry requirements, maybe a little stringent, maybe overly lenient, whos to say its Dnd. T

2nd person: This mean spirited, spiteful hater of Hexer created entry preqs so outlandish he wept from joy as he typed them (Probably some good doer that didnt want a cool evil class to exist) momentarily pausing to wipe his eyes from the welling tears of joy. He wept, he laughed, he danced knowing the misery he was causing all those that wanted the Hexer to be a awesome evil class....this SOB ruined everything!

Playing in a evil campaign. Naturally I was searching for evilly styled goodies and ran across this beauty of a prestige class. My evil prayers were answered. Full BaB, full casting made it very strong, so the power gamer in me was satisfied. You then read the class abilities, permanent fear...oh sweet! Now thats just wrong or right if your the BbeG for which this class was intended to be. Oh man I was in nerd heaven, geek nirvana, I thought I found it, the perfect bad guy class...ahhh dork euphoria alas!

Then everything went black and I wanted to cry...

How the hell does a player qualify for this class? I mean really, literally, how can you? This is some of the worst, if not the worst entry requirements around. Druid would be the logical choice, right, rather nope! You see the Hexer needs knowledge Arcana, the Druid doesn't get this class skill. So the answer, maybe just a dip in another class, oh no wait a minute, its 10 thats right 10 ranks in Know Arc. That aint no dip! Ok so you would need be a human, then go human paragon and pick knowledge arcana skill, uuhh nope! Hexer has to be a bad guy or primitive race. So go Half orc, then human paragon, then, oh wait now you will be beyond 20th level...chit!

Oh wait it gets worse! You also have to cast lightning bolt AS A DIVINE caster! Lightening bolt is not a divine spell, lightening bolt is arcane. You would need to pick a domain that has lightening bolt in it....ONLY CLERIC DONT QUALIFY EITHER!

Im sure there may be some entry shenanigans out there somewhere, anybody point me in the right direction?

Eman

This class was pretty much written for the Adept NPC class.

 

[the Jester]

This class was pretty much written for the Adept NPC class.

Exactly this.

 

[emanresu]

youve gotta be kidden me, why the hell would they put this in as a class for pc's? If thats the case they wouldn't get lightening bolt until 8th level, with only 2 skill pts a level they would have to get a higher int score, a lot of those races gimp the int score and couldn't qualify for the Hexer a 10 level class before 10th level.

well yah I guess that would work but now its a piece of crap

 

[Savage Wombat]

This is exactly what Monte Cook complained about with people not understanding the "point" of PrCs. Building a class solely for the combo effect with a particular class was not what he intended with the concept.

 

[emanresu]

Are you suggesting I dont understand the point of prc classes? I think you need to elaborate whatever point you were attempting to convey.

 

[Crothian]

This is exactly what Monte Cook complained about with people not understanding the "point" of PrCs. Building a class solely for the combo effect with a particular class was not what he intended with the concept.

We saw a lot of this in 3pp. Plenty of writers did not understand the point of PrCs and one might argue the point of them was changed because so many bad ones were written. I am amazed though that it seems Pathfinder has gotten them right though it is possible there are 3pp examples that are just as bad.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Are you suggesting I dont understand the point of prc classes? I think you need to elaborate whatever point you were attempting to convey.

No, I'm saying that this PrC's designers didn't understand the point of PrCs. Saying "I'm going to create a class that makes orcish witch-doctors more powerful, but I have to limit it so that it's not broken when applied to a cleric or wizard" is not the original (i.e. Monte's) intent for the rule. Monte's intent was "I think my world would be cooler if players could aspire to be Purple Knights of Iforgotthename and have it mean something in their character abilities".

There's nothing wrong with power-building characters (if that's the game you and your friends want to play). But the person who built the Hexer this way deliberately made it over-powered to shore up a weak NPC class, and then had to nerf it to keep you and your friends from using it. Which, as I'm sure you agree, is kind of pointless.

 

[Derren]

one might argue the point of them was changed because so many bad ones were written.

That is sadly a common problem for D&D. Many people only play for power. They optimize their PCs (not min maxing, just normal optimizing) and they look only at what splatbook material makes their PCs stronger.
Taking something because of story reasons or even making a character who is not a combat powerhouse is completely alien to them. And those people have slowly took over D&D as WotC caters to them more and more.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

There are several ways for a character to gain one of the needed types, and even humans can get one from a template. The Master +0 LA Race List has several monstrous humanoids and such. The Player Race List for +1 and +2 LA handbook likewise has several races available. LA buyoff from Unearthed Arcana is the most-used option to work with LA. Uncle Kitty's Guide to Template Shenanigans has a pretty good list of templates, including ones that change the creature's type.

Lightning Bolt is also on the shugenja list as a Fire spell oddly enough, but it's a 4th level spell which means it's gotten at 8th level for that particular class. Full progression in that class is likely more powerful than progressing adept.

As far as skills go, this handbook goes over most and perhaps all of the ways to get a certain skill to be a class skill. Wilderness Lore is updated to be Survival in 3.5, so a way to get Survival as a class skill would work for a shugenja to qualify with only one class needed.

Aside from Adept and Shugenja, I don't see any divine class that gets Lightning Bolt as a divine spell. Druid gets Call Lightning, not Lightning Bolt. However, there are ways to turn it from an arcane spell into a divine one such as with the Southern Magician feat, and as mentioned earlier humans are just a template away from being one of the needed race types.

The Extra Spell feat can also work to get Lightning Bolt as a known spell. In that case it's possible to enter Hexer as a cleric by either taking the Travel or Weather domains to get Survival as a class skill. The catch with that is it would be at 7th level since that's when clerics get 4th level spells, while the next feat after the one at 6th would be at 9th level. It being possible to enter as a cleric means plenty more prestige classes are open to bridge the gap between 5th and 10th levels.

And of course there's the Archivist too. Since Lightning Bolt is a divine spell for adepts, all that needs to be done is have the archivist get a scroll of the spell and scribe it into the prayerbook, and also get Survival as a class skill. Qualifies at 7th no problem.