Unbeliever PrC needs help

[Empirate]

Way to go, warn off the mod. I give you ten points for the cojones, but minus a million for common sense.

To adress the PrC itself though:

1. No matter how all-inclusive the magic immunity is getting, this guy is no serious contender for tier 1. Consider: what can he do by himself? No more than a single-class Fighter, basically. He still needs help to get places (like up that cliff, or to the Elemental Plane of Air, or New Zealand), fight off lame-ass bruiser monsters (like a Storm Giant with Crusader levels), and get the girl next door to go out with him. This help can be in the form of magic items (which apparently he may use, although UMD is forbidden to him), or your friendly neighborhood god wizard...

2. The abilities this guy gets are good - but they're also almost all defensive. I can see a little bit of debuffing/BC in the "1/day get rid of an area effect", but otherwise, he's a bit like the so-called "tank" builds that only get 100 AC, and no offensive bite, and who consequently get ignored until the rest of the party is dealt with.

3. Guess what, a primary caster can't meaningfully affect this guy personally, so he'll get a bunch of Undead/mind-controlled thralls/Golems/Summoned Demons/the LAPD to do the job for him. What can the Unbeliever do against that? Well, looks like it's time to whip out that sword again...

4. While getting more and more immune to much (but by no means all. I'm looking at you, Grease and Solid Fog) magic, this guy is giving up on versatility in a major way. At least a straight Fighter gets bonus feats. What does this guy here get? Anti-stuff.


All in all, and I know I'm gonna get stomped on for this, I'd eyeball the Unbeliever to around tier 4. Why so low? Because he can't do much that a standard tier 5 Fighter can't also name as his area of expertise. Because he can't solve a problem nobody else can solve, unless the problem happens to be a clearly visible, non-melee capable spellcaster in melee range, with no way to get out of there and no allies to back him up.


Whoa, EDITing: Almost forgot to say that I really like the class, it's a great example of a very specialized, even niche, warrior PrC, that I'd totally allow at my table this instant. BUT FIX THE ISSUE WITH NOT BEING ABLE TO BE BUFFED OR HEALED! [/needless yelling]

 

[kitcik]

No, I was not being sarcastic.

Sorry, my bad. Hopefully you see this apology as sincere.

Word of warning - be careful dissing the mod.

 

[kitcik]

Yes, this guy is way overboard.

First of all, assuming that a fighter is outclassed by a wizard at high levels (which I don't buy 100% if the fighter has the right magic items, but I digress) and that you want a warrior type who is the equal of a caster with wish or miracle, you have to start by deciding what that really means.

The way this reads, at least with a once-over, is "I can kick a wizard's ass". But is it combat that is really the issue, or is it the caster's ability to seize the narrative of the game and redirect it?

If the wizard doesn't like how things are going where he is, he teleports the party elsewhere. Or takes them to another plane. Or whatever. If the fighter doesn't like how things are going where he is... he rides away on his horse? In this case, the caster can actively redirect the campaign, while the fighter can't, at least not without going through all the rigamarole of getting to the faraway wherever.

Now, the problem is, your unbeliever class doesn't address the narrative control issue, and it overdoes it on the combat stuff.

Let me first say that I truly believe the only way to achieve balance, if that is a goal, is to nerf casters by having real casting times and nerfing Concentration.

However, just for the sake of giving it a shot, I created a PrC that is seemingly "broken" compared to other magic resistant melee builds to see how it would compare.

I agree with your points that winning 1v1 is not a measure of power and that the casters' versatility and "ability to seize the narrative" are more important.

Another thing is, are you going to offer a comparable sort of superbuff prestige class designed for rogues? And another for monks? From a campaign perspective, I see this prestige class as being problematic unless you do the work to prep equivalently powerful stuff for other classes as well.

You wouldn't need to change much. They would be slightly slower to enter due to the BAB requirement, which is fine with me. I woudl just change tje "fighter bonus feats" to progression in certain class features like SA and UA. But, I agree with you.

 

[kitcik]

1. I'm probably missing something here, but 1-on-1 I don't see what advantage this guy has vs. a decently built martial adept of equal HD.
2. There are spells that don't affect the target directly - these are still effective vs. this guy. Also, the loss of benefitting from spells is terrible.

Exactly, that's the interesting thing. I give this guy seemingly broken abilities, and yet (IMHO) he sucks. If you compare Warblade 5 / Unbeliever 10 to Warblade 15, which is better? It could very well be Warblade 15. It certainly isn't a broken difference in favor of the Unbeliever. Yes, he gets a lot of defense when facing a caster, but at the loss of offense.

It is certainly singificantly better than a straight Fighter 15, but that just says something about fighters IMHO.

 

[Visigani]

Sorry, my bad. Hopefully you see this apology as sincere.

Word of warning - be careful dissing the mod.

If expecting the mods to be civil and polite and to "reprimand" people privately rather than make a public display of it is "wrong" then I most certainly do not wish to be right.

I also feel the same way about exceptionally large highly modified sweat glands on women.

 

[kitcik]

To adress the PrC itself though:

1. No matter how all-inclusive the magic immunity is getting, this guy is no serious contender for tier 1. Consider: what can he do by himself? No more than a single-class Fighter, basically. He still needs help to get places (like up that cliff, or to the Elemental Plane of Air, or New Zealand), fight off lame-ass bruiser monsters (like a Storm Giant with Crusader levels), and get the girl next door to go out with him. This help can be in the form of magic items (which apparently he may use, although UMD is forbidden to him), or your friendly neighborhood god wizard...

2. The abilities this guy gets are good - but they're also almost all defensive. I can see a little bit of debuffing/BC in the "1/day get rid of an area effect", but otherwise, he's a bit like the so-called "tank" builds that only get 100 AC, and no offensive bite, and who consequently get ignored until the rest of the party is dealt with.

3. Guess what, a primary caster can't meaningfully affect this guy personally, so he'll get a bunch of Undead/mind-controlled thralls/Golems/Summoned Demons/the LAPD to do the job for him. What can the Unbeliever do against that? Well, looks like it's time to whip out that sword again...

4. While getting more and more immune to much (but by no means all. I'm looking at you, Grease and Solid Fog) magic, this guy is giving up on versatility in a major way. At least a straight Fighter gets bonus feats. What does this guy here get? Anti-stuff.


All in all, and I know I'm gonna get stomped on for this, I'd eyeball the Unbeliever to around tier 4. Why so low? Because he can't do much that a standard tier 5 Fighter can't also name as his area of expertise. Because he can't solve a problem nobody else can solve, unless the problem happens to be a clearly visible, non-melee capable spellcaster in melee range, with no way to get out of there and no allies to back him up.

I ABSOLUTELY 100% AGREE with everything you have said here. That is why I was in such shock that he got dismissed as broken by the first few posters.

I actually agree on exactly Tier 4 - better than a straight fighter but not as good as a straight ToB class.

To me, this says something important about how strong the Tier 1 classes really are.

Even if I fixed the heal/buff issue and gave the guy full ToB progression in the class of his choice, he would still be like Tier 2 or 2.5.

Whoa, EDITing: Almost forgot to say that I really like the class, it's a great example of a very specialized, even niche, warrior PrC, that I'd totally allow at my table this instant. BUT FIX THE ISSUE WITH NOT BEING ABLE TO BE BUFFED OR HEALED! [/needless yelling]

Thanks, man. I would just add a sentence to the Spell Immunity abilities that they can be turned off at will and that they do not impact healing spells (that way he can get healed if incapacitated, although I guess it would be bad for an undead PC who wants to take this PrC - tought luck).

 

[Visigani]

Because when casters feel threatened suddenly is "overpowered".

 

[Thrallherd]

IDEA!
How about the Unbeliever is completely immune to all magic: whether it's damage, buffs, or magic weapons and armor. No "flaming +4 Greataxe."
I would go so far to make all magic items not work on him. Including tomes. After all, if he Unbelieves magic, he Unbelieves all magic.

Edit: Sorry, I should really make a point to go through and read more than the first page before posting. Please disregard.

 

[Icyshadowlord]

Because when casters feel threatened suddenly is "overpowered".

This is so true that it's not even funny. And I actually like the fact that someone went and tried to show an anti-caster class that works in combat to some extent without any real fear of butthurt casters jumping at him. Though judging from some of the stuff on the first page, that already kinda happened. But yeah, it's sad that the mentality "Fighters can't have nice things because they wouldn't be Fighters anymore" and "You cannot properly nerf casters without breaking the game" are still so damned strong wherever I go. At least in the Den the first one is acknowledged and some people there have tried to deconstruct it...