| Douglas Muir 406 |
I'm just statting out a Harrower and I have to say, it's kind of an underpowered PrC. Flavorful and all, but underpowered. (Here's the Harrower class from the PFSRD for anyone who wants to follow along.)
Three things jumped out at me. One, a 5th level Harrower gains the Spirit Deck ability, which is basically a short-range magic missile. It's not completely worthless -- it does ignore SR, which is nice -- but its short range (30') and very low damage (average about 2.2 hp per *Harrower* level) make it very weak. You'd likely be 10th level when you get this ability, and it would do an average of about 11 points damage per use. That's pretty lame. (Also, "1 + Cha modifier times/day?" Kind of hard on Harrowers who don't start as sorcerors or oracles.)
Then at 6th level, you get the ability to use Divination as a SLA once/day. Divination is a 4th level spell. Giving an 11th level character access to this once/day is not exactly a powerful incentive to take this class. It's flavorful and thematic and all, but wouldn't it have made a lot more sense to give this to the Harrower around 2nd or 3rd level? Or, alternately, to make the Divination more effective somehow -- do it as a standard action, or with a better chance of success, or some such?
Finally, I notice that a Harrower isn't allowed to combine Harrow casting with metamagic feats. That seems odd, and excessively restrictive. Is there some incredible hack that could happen if these two were combined? The bonuses from Harrow casting are random and, usually, not that big -- most of the time you'll be lucky to get +1 on your save DC or whatever. It's hard to see what the problem would be in letting them combine with metamagic.
Has anyone played a Harrower at length, or made extended use of one as an NPC? What did you think?
Doug M.
| Heaggles |
I have a player playing a Harrower, she seems to be having fun, she is a sorcerer. When it comes to the deck it can be powerful if the right cards are pulled, I think when they made the class they thought that the harrow casting acts like metamagic feats. As a gm I have made a house rule that they can use metamagic feats it just takes one extra spell lv to do so.
| Douglas Muir 406 |
The Tower of Strength ability (3rd level Harrower) gives you +1 damage per die for each card you draw from the suit of Strength. The Tower of Charisma (4th level) gives you +1 on the save DC for each card you draw from Charisma.
(The Harrow deck has 54 cards in six "suits", each of which matches one of the character abilities. In the absence of a Harrow deck, you're allowed to model this by rolling 3d6 and saying "1s are Strength, 2s are Intelligence" or whatever.)
So, a midlevel harrower build would reasonably concentrate on damage-dealing save-or-suck spells -- your classic Fireball and Lightning Bolt, and the like -- because these leverage your abilities. After all, you have about a 40% chance of getting an extra point on each die every time you cast. That works out to, on average, about 10% more damage from blasty spells with d6es. Not huge, but nothing to sneeze at either. You'd be less interested in abjurations, buffs, summons, and such. Not uninterested, you'll want a few, but /relatively/ less interested, because these can't take advantage of your Harrow Casting abilities.
Doug M.
| Douglas Muir 406 |
Okay, this is a slightly unusual take on the PrC. I'm going to start with a rakshasa. -- Yes, a rakshasa. I've had this character in mind for a little while now. If raks can vary in the feats and spells that they take -- and they're intelligent creatures; it hardly makes sense that they would all take exactly the same stuff -- then a rak has no difficulty qualifying to be a Harrower. (Or a bunch of other PrCs.) A rak already casts like a 7th level sorceror, so five Harrower levels will stack on that nicely.
You end up with something that casts like a 12th level sorceror, but is crazy hard to kill. CR is 15, which might be a little high but OTOH maybe not. Let's see how she looks.
We need to swap out a feat for Harrowed, so we'll get rid of Improved Critical (Kukri). In fact, let's ditch those combat feats for other stuff; she won't need Combat Expertise, she has people for that.
LE Medium outsider (native, shapechanger)
Init +11; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +19
AC 31, touch 18, flat-footed 23 (+7 Dex, +1 dodge, +4 Mage Armor, +9 natural)
hp 162 (10d10+5d6+90)
Fort +11, Ref +16, Will +12 (+13 vs. enchantments)
DR 15/good and piercing; SR 25
She starts with AC 27, but she has Mage Armor on at all times, so 31. It's a pity SR doesn't increase with level, but SR 25 is still okay for a CR 15 creature.
Speed 40 ft.
Melee +1 kukri +17/+12 (1d4+3/18–20), claw +11 (1d4), bite +11 (1d6)
Special Attacks detect thoughts
Spells Known (CL 12th)
6th (4/day) - mass suggestion (DC 25)
5th (6/day) - dream, dominate person (DC 24)
4th (7/day) - lesser geas (DC 23), scrying, summon monster IV
3rd (7/day) - harrowing, lightning bolt (DC 21), suggestion (DC 22), tongues
2nd (7/day) - acid arrow, eagle's splendor, invisibility, scorching ray, minor image
1st (7/day) - charm person (DC 20), mage armor, magic missile, sleep, silent image
0th (at will) - dancing lights, detect magic, detect poison, mage hand, mending, message, read magic, touch of fatigue, prestidigitation
Special Attacks: Spirit Deck
She hangs onto a +1 kukri because it's the traditional weapon of raks, but really, if she's forced into melee something has gone terribly wrong.
Her spells are optimized for her role, viz., enchantress who sits at the center of a web of intrigue. This means she's a bit suboptimal in combat; Summon Monster IV and Dominate Person aren't actually that impressive for a CR 15 creature. But she shouldn't be encountered alone. She'll always be surrounded by minions, allies, and charmed and dominated servants. Given a round or two to prepare, she'll also have a mixture of summoned monsters and Minor Images... no more than a speed bump for a high level party but, hey, every round helps.
If it comes to a fight, she opens up with Quickened Eagles Splendor followed by Mass Suggestion and Dominate on likely looking targets. She'll generally use Harrow Casting, hoping for a boost to save DCs and/or damage. If enchantments aren't working, she'll try blasting, also against plausible targets. If those don't work, she runs, leaving her minions and slaves to die covering her exit. (Seriously, fighting against enemies of roughly equal power is really not her thing.)
In a non-combat context, she enjoys using her enchantment spells and Lesser Geases to cause trouble. She also likes summoning monsters and then using them as messengers for the Dream spell: the target is contacted by a fire mephit or some such, and has no idea she's behind it.
Str 14, Dex 24, Con 22, Int 15, Wis 15, Cha 22 (26)
Base Atk +12; CMB +14; CMD 32
Feats Dodge, Harrowed, Improved Initiative, Silent Spell, Spell Focus (Enchantment), Quicken Spell, Still Spell, Skill Focus (Bluff)
Skills: Bluff +33, Diplomacy +18, Disguise +27, Knowledge (Arcana) +7, Perception +19, Perform +16, Sense Motive +15, Stealth +15; Racial Modifiers +4 Bluff, +8 Disguise
Languages Common, Infernal, Undercommon, Varisian
SQ change shape (any humanoid, alter self)
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Detect Thoughts (Su) (DC 23 Will save to resist)
Blessing of the Harrow
Harrowed
She casts Blessing of the Harrow and uses her Harrowed feat every morning. If you don't want to bother rolling, then 2d6 ⇒ (3, 5) = 8: her Harrowed feat lets her add +2 to a single Dex-based roll once/day (Init, ranged attack, Reflex save, etc.) and her Blessing of the Harrow gives her +1 on all saves all day long.
And how does she appear? Why, as a traditional Varisian fortune teller, of course. She's the leader of a Varisian caravan that moves from place to place. As a rakshasa, she's driven to (1) sensual enjoyment of life, and (2) cruel domination of everything around her. While most raks settle in a single location, she has found that leading a wandering troupe of Varisians lets her fulfill both these urges just fine.
She does indeed tell actual fortunes, usually twisting them to spread as much trouble and misery as possible. She also has a network of informants and servants spread across several kingdoms. (If you like, she can be remotely running several guilds of Sczarni; season to taste.) Everyone else in the caravan is terrified of her and utterly obedient to her. If you care to add a bit of backstory,
every 20 years or so, she chooses a young Varisian girl, preferably from some other troupe or settlement, to be her "apprentice". The girl will be trained in Bluff and perhaps a few simple spells, and will become the figurehead fortune teller and "leader". (So, nosy PCs will likely encounter the apprentice.) She stays in the background; Detect Thoughts and Message mean she can sit behind a hanging and coach the apprentice through a session, with Invisibility and her high Bluff and Stealth skills added as needed.
When the girl reaches a certain age, the rakshasa murders her, takes her place, and takes a new "apprentice". She's been doing this for a long time. The Varisians of her caravan are at some level vaguely aware that this is happening, but Mass Suggestions, Dominations and her sky-high Bluff skill means they end up not thinking about it much.
If you want a plot seed, have her make a bad choice for apprentice -- the girl is good-aligned and/or develops some real sorcerous powers of her own -- and then have one of the PCs get involved with her.
If the PCs are low or medium level, then she can be a recurring NPC; she enjoys toying with adventurers. Eventually they may figure out that every visit to the fortune teller seems to lead them into serious trouble somehow, but this may take a while.
Thoughts?
Doug M.