Dean Kimes's page

Made an attempt at converting the Dawnflower Dervish Prestige Class from Wayfinder #1 (Which rocks btw!) from 3.5 to PFrg using the Conversion Guide and other PRG Prestige Classes as a guide.

Let me know what you all think.

Not sure I need this here, but here it is:

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Dawnflower Dervish of Sarenrae

By Lissa “SunshineGrrrl” Guillet
Converted to PFRG by Dean “Arkadwyn” Kimes
Art by Crystal “Immora” Frasier

The Dawnflower Dervish sect of the Church of Sarenrae is a group of combat-oriented clerics working towards the destruction of evil. They wander the world to bring Sarenrae’s light to its darkest corners.
The first of the Dawnflower Dervishes were desert nomads who spread the faith of Sarenrae through their beautiful sword dances. Eventually other priests saw not only the beauty, but also the martial prowess that these dances conferred in combat. They shared this with the head church, which gave the Dawnflower Dervishes official sanction and status.
A Dawnflower Dervish of Sarenrae uses dance as a beautiful but deadly martial art. As the Dawnflower Dervish dances, she channels a fragment of her patron goddess. In this way, a devout dervish becomes a burning whirlwind of divine justice.
Hit Die: d8.

Requirements
To qualify to become a Dawnflower Dervish, a character must fulfill all of the following criteria:
Base Attack Bonus: +4

Skills: Perform (Dance) 3 ranks, Tumble 3 ranks, Knowledge (religion) 5 ranks.

Feats: Combat Expertise, Dodge, Mobility, Weapon Focus (Scimitar).
Deity: Sarenrae.
Special: Ability to Channel Positive Energy.

Class Skills
The Dawnflower Dervish’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Acrobatics (Dex), Escape Artist (Dex), Perception (Wis), and Perform (Cha).

Skill Points at Each Level
4 + Int modifer.

Class Features
All of the following are class features for the Dawnflower Dervish prestige class:

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Dawnflower Dervishes gain no proficiencies with any armor or weapons.

Channel Energy (Su): A Dawnflower Dervish of Sarenrae adds her levels in this class for all abilities related to turning undead.

Flashing Scimitars (Ex): A Dawnflower Dervish learns to move with the grace of fire. She may treat scimitars as light weapons.

AC Bonus (Ex): A Dawnflower Dervish gains a +1 bonus to armor class. This bonus to AC applies even to touch attacks or when she is flat-footed. She loses this bonus whenever she is helpless or immobile, wearing medium or heavy armor, carrying a shield, or carrying a medium or heavy load. This bonus increases to +2 at 5th level and +3 at 9th.

Dawnflower Dance (Ex): Once per encounter, a dervish can use a swift action to enter an ecstatic Dawnflower dance. She must be wielding a scimitar, and her other hand must hold a scimitar or be empty.
In this state, the Dawnflower Dervish adds half her class level (minimum of +1) to all scimitar attack and damage rolls. In addition the Dawnflower Dervish can move up to her normal speed and still make a full attack (instead of a single attack). When making this full attack, the Dawnflower Dervish must move at least 5’ between attacks and may use the Acrobatics skill as normal to avoid attacks of opportunity when making these moves.

While dancing, the Dawnflower Dervish cannot cast spells (except as described under domain dance) or activate magic items that require a command word, a spell trigger (such as a wand), or a spell completion (such as a scroll) to function. She also cannot use skills that require concentration or require her to be still, such as Stealth. She can use bardic performances that utilize Perform (dance) or Peform (singing).

Starting at 1st level, a Dawnflower Dervish can use this ability a number of rounds per day equal to 4 + her Charisma modifier. At each level after 1st, she can dance for 2 additional rounds. Temporary increases to Charisma, such as those gained from spells like Eagle’s Splendor, do not increase the number of rounds that a dervish can use this ability per day.

A Dawnflower Dervish can end her dance as a free action and is fatigued for the remainder of the encounter. A Dawnflower Dervish cannot begin a dance while fatigued or exhausted and cannot dance while under the effects of Rage or Frenzy.

Dance Power (Su): Beginning at 2nd level, a Dawnflower Dervish may choose a Dance Power that reflects one of Sarenrae’s domains. One Dance Power is automatically activated when beginning a dance, and only one Dance Power can be in effect in any given round. The Dawnflower Dervish can change the power currently in effect as a swift action.

Fire (Su): The dervish’s scimitar(s) ignites with fire, gaining the flaming weapon quality.

Glory (Su): Golden runes appear along the scimitar(s) blade. It deals an extra 1d6 points of damage to evil outsiders.

Good (Su): The dervish’s scimitar(s) glows with golden light, radiating a magic circle against evil.

Healing (Su): The scimitar(s) loses its luster. The dervish may choose to deal nonlethal damage with the weapon without penalty.

Sun (Su): The dervish’s scimitar(s) trails sunlight, which inflicts an extra 1d6 points of damage to undead.

Fast Movement (Ex): At 2nd level, a Dawnflower Dervish gains a 5-feet enhancement bonus to her speed. This bonus increases to 10-feet at 5th level and to 15-feet at 8th. A Dawnflower Dervish loses this bonus if wearing medium or heavy armor, using a shield, or under a medium or heavy load.

Spells per Day: At each level (except 1st, 5th, and 9th), the Dawnflower Dervish gains new spells per day and spells known as if she had also gained a level in any one divine spellcasting class she belonged to previously. She does not gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. If a character had more than one divine spellcasting class before she became a Dawnflower Dervish, she must decide to which class this level increase applies.

Dance Mastery (Ex): At 3rd level, a Dawnflower Dervish may take 10 on Acrobatics or Perform (dance) at any time, even when distracted or under stress.

Spring Attack: At 6th level, a Dawnflower Dervish gains the Spring Attack feat, even if she does not meet the prerequisites.

Elaborate parry (Ex): At 7th level, a Dawnflower Dervish gains an extra +4 bonus to Armor Class when she fights defensively or takes the total defense action.

Tireless Dance (Ex): At 9th level, a Dawnflower Dervish is no longer fatigued after a Dawnflower dance.

Dawnflower Blossom (Su): At 10th level, while performing a Dawnflower dance, a Dawnflower Dervish is affected by all of the Dance Powers she knows for the duration of the dance. While these effects are active, a Dawnflower Dervish radiates Daylight as the spell, except that it dispels spells with the Darkness descriptor of 6th level or lower.

Additionally, once per dance, a Dawnflower Dervish may expend a use of the Channel Energy ability to double her normal number of attacks. While under this effect the dervish may make up to two attacks between moves. This ability does not multiply additional attacks granted by effects such as the Haste spell or the Speed magic weapon property.

Level BAB Fort
Save Ref
Save Will
Save AC
Bonus Special Spell Progression
1st +0 +0 +2 +2 +1 Dawnflower Dance 1/day, Flashing Scimitars, Channel Energy -
2nd +1 +0 +3 +3 +1 Dance Power, Fast Movement +5 ft +1 level existing divine class
3rd +2 +1 +3 +3 +1 Dance Mastery, Dawnflower Dance 2/day +1 level existing divine class
4th +3 +1 +4 +4 +1 Dance Power +1 level existing divine class
5th +3 +1 +4 +4 +2 Fast Movement +10 ft, Dawnflower Dance 3/day -
6th +4 +2 +5 +5 +2 Spring Attack +1 level existing divine class
7th +5 +2 +5 +5 +2 Elaborate Parry, Dawnflower Dance 4/day +1 level existing divine class
8th +6 +2 +6 +6 +2 Dance Power, Fast Movement +15 ft +1 level existing divine class
9th +6 +3 +6 +6 +3 Tireless Dance, Dawnflower Dance 5/day -
10th +7 +3 +7 +7 +3 Dawnflower Blossom +1 level existing divine class

Krome wrote:

The Paizo folx have said they intend to use more myths and base the monsters closer to the myths or try to capture some of the feeling from the myths. So far I think they are doing that real well. I have the feeling they will keep doing so.

I'm glad to hear that. A lot of the gaming industry seems have gotten to the point that they wanted to pretend that their monsters weren't inspired by other sources, which is silly. People WANT things like actual Tengu in their games.

I'm just starting to play a Tengu Swordsage in our Pathfinder game! I really stoked by how well the class fits the theme of the Tengu. I'm curious to see if the class works ok in Pathfinder, imo it's the only class in Book of Nine Sowrds that isn't broken.

Curious if anyone has made a Pathfinderized version of the class?

Nope. Still don't. I mean, we don't have a walking skill either so why wouldn't the normal movement related skills apply to Fly?

I think there's a common house rule that tons of people already use, that each + of an enchanted weapon overcomes five points of DR/Magic. I've been using that in my high-level game and it's worked perfectly. I keep all other forms of DR completely by-the-book.

If I had an idea of what goal was being achieved by allowing magic weapons to overcome material DR, I'd be in a better position to comment.

One additional point, is that the +2 damage bonus for having a weapon with both the magic and the material to overcome DR is a little too fiddly for my tastes. It's one of those bonuses that players (from a non-metagame POV) should not be able to know, and will thus not use consistently. And it's one of those things that the DM, assembling a host of Werewolves for battle, is not going to remember what weapons the PC's have, their materials, and their exact pluses.

I'm with Raidou here. Dragon DR is nearly useless without this rule mod.

Too, I think the whole point of a monster requiring a weapon that is both Good and Silver (for example) is to make that monster tougher. If the PC's are too stupid to retreat until they are properly equipped to deal with their foe than they deserve to get pwned by the lower CR encounter. That's sort of the point! You don't have to carry around a "golf bag" of weapons, just get used to the fact that you won't always be doing full dmg and if you really need to do full dmg then plan ahead, spend some time learning about what you might be facing and arm yourself accordingly. I feel no sympathy for the party that dies because they didn't buy any silver weapons when had they asked around they would have known their quarry was likely a were critter, or for the party that goes in without alchemical fire and tries to take down a lair of trolls.

To quote Forrest, "Stupid is as stupid does." Unless your adventure is little more than a run through the alphabet of monsters with no rhyme or reason the PC's should be able to figure out what they need to be effective.

That's probably the worst monk build I have ever seen. Not to mention every challenge selected was contrary to the monks strengths... I especially like how any challenge where evasion comes into play was avoided...and the complaint that they don't get proficiency in unarmed combat, when everyone has proficiency in all natural weapons automatically, was classic.

In fact, I am so inspired that I will come up with a more representative set of challenges, apply them to a 5th level version of each class, and see how they do solo. Given what I've seen in playing 3.x since it came out I will be some surprised if the monk fails to do reasonably well despite this not being his optimal role.

You know what I take it back, after reading a bunch more of these "playtests" it's apparent the entire concept they are based on is pretty much useless except for "trolling". Wish there was a way to filter out things automatically...

Hey there all,

So, I am thinking a lot about the monk as of late. The monk, as I stated before, fills a different role than a fighter. They hit more like a rogue, with a different sort of damage potential. For some reason, and I am wondering why, there seems to be an opinion that the monk does not work, but the rogue, who is based off the same progression, does. The monk has access to some of the same bonuses as a rogue (to hit at any rate), but the monk has quite a bit more defenses (good saves, some immunities, and, in the right build, a better AC).

So, to help me understand the arguments being thrown about here. I am wondering. Where is the flaw with the monk? And, as a secondary question, why are these not the same problems with the rogue?

I have seen a large number of monks played over the past few years, and every one of them has been pretty solid at their role in the party. They are great at harrassing spellcasters (clerics, bards, wizards, and sorcerers) and other, equally classed, combatants (rogues and other monks). They do not stand up as well in a straight up fight with fighters, barbarians, and paladins. But this limitation is more about their niche than their shortcomings.

Once again, I am trying not to come off antagonistic here, but I am not sure I undersand the beef. Help me see the point.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

(As an aside, antagonistic thread titles like this one kinda set me off... which might account for some of my earlier defensiveness. My apologies if things were taken that way.)

Lol, frankly I think the monk works fine. By 9th level flurry of blows has no hit penalty (something a two weapon wielder never gets) so I don't see the whole "flurry of misses" thing at all. Monks have generally been on a par with fighters, they do a little less dmg but they don't have the same weakness fighters do (limited mobility, reliance on wpns, poor saves, few skills).

We'll just have to wait and see once Casting Defensively is implemented in the rules. :)

Has anyone else thought Casting Defensively was broken? By the time a caster is mid level the roll becomes moot generally from what I've seen. Especially now that it is covered via Spellcraft. At lvl 5 for example, 5 ranks, +3 class skill, +3 INT bonus, +2 synergy bonus from Know: Arcana, +4 combat casting = +17 so only casting a 3rd level spell would even require a roll to be made and that's without magical aptitude or skill focus... By level 6 you never need to roll again.

This seems to make the idea that "casting spells in melee is dangerous" is ridiculous...

Thoughts?

Having items that boost INT add to skill points is horribly broken. It completely removes the need to have different skills. Take a 10th level character who buys or find a +2 INT headband. Whenever he needs a particular skill he can just remove the headband, put it back on and voila! 24 hrs later he has 10 ranks in the needed skill. Need a blacksmith tomorrow, no problem, need som know: arcane to research that tome, no problem, need to be able to sneak past some guards tomorrow night, no problem.

Not a good idea!

YULDM wrote:

Don't check back on me on the next hours. I will wait until the long weekend is over before posting anything else. Maybe you will be more open minded then.

Anyway, I have better things to do with my holiday than reading post about how stupid I might be, thinking that the Rogue class is not perfect.

I'll be back.

If, when you come back, you (or anyone else) could show a way within the Pathfinder rules that a rogue could consistently equal or exceed the attack bonus of a same level fighter and still perform a full attack action then it would lend a great deal of credibility to your argument that sneak attack needs to be fixed.

Well, given that the fighter in your example must take an attack bonus penalty in order to do extra damage (power attack) while the rogue does not...and that the difference in attack bonus at 15th level is only 4... I think you already proved that point. It's easy enough to show that if the fighter takes off the same amount to hit as the difference in bab in order to add dmg, then they will both hit the same number of times on average. So a rogue using only one wpn would get an extra 8d6 per attack (avg dmg +28) which is more than the +8 the fighter gains using power attack. Admittedly the rogue cannot always sneak attack, but in reality it is not at all difficult unless a mojority of battles are fought against people with blur potions, rogues, oozes, in the middle of forest fires, on foggy hills, etc.... In order to make the rogue not out damage the fighter you have to take special measures which quickly become irritating as they begin to make less and less sense when you have you 23rd battle on a foggy morning...

Does anyone agree with me that some of those are just odd, and frankly, I've rarely seen anyone picking them for their characters. I mean -- 'Atletic' gives you +2 on your Swim and *FLY* (?) skills (shouldn't that be Climb?) and Stealthy +2 on Escape Artist and Stealth. In my opinion they don't even add any flavour, since a character who takes Skill Focus o n Stealth or puts enough ranks in it is far more "stealthier" than a fighter or a low-level rogue who would pick this feat.

So, I'm suggesting that either the bonuses are more significant (i.e. worth burning a Feat on skill bonuses) and the Feats are tweaked a bit so the benefits match the flavour (i.e. 'Athletic' doesn't really bring flying to mind...) *OR* these Feats are cut from the game altogether.

Some of them might be redesigned as Racial/Background Feats, though.

These feats are extremely useful. I think you are thinking of them in the wrong way, they are not there for min-maxing (which I abhor btw) but to allow characters to be better at something that isn't a class skill for them. Want to play a wizard who sneaks about a lot, getting +2 on hide and move silently is 4 levels worth of skill ranks since those are cross class skills. That's where those feats come in handy.

BoNS is one of the few Utterly Baned books at my table. On the other hand, Binders are so cool - I've been begging for someone in my group to play one!

The Secrets of Pact Magic is also extraordinarily awesome and a nice non-WotC way to introduce it to your campaign.

Here! Here! Bo9S or BS^9 as we call it is th eonly book completely banned from all the campaigns in our group (6). We'd love to find a way to make it not broken, but warblades just ruined it for us.

I am on the side of the people saying SA doesn't need to be nerfed. I recently played a rogue from level four to epic, and there are many, many ways enemies can prevent the full round SA. Most casters can cast See Invis or some other form of negation for Invisibility spells. Beyond that...if an enemy has a reasonable amount of intelligence, it's not going to LET the rogue full round SA on his backside. Between having to move around to keep position, trying to overcome casters hampering skills, and various other gimmicks, I managed to land full round SAs less than five times during the whole campaign (and one of those was the frenzied berserker the DM WANTED me to hit...that fight was un-fun; "You deal a ridiculously high amount of damage; your foe laughs at you."). I guess my opinion is between lower BAB, the many ways that full round attacks can be prevented, and other limitations for SA, it's an extremely rare situation where the rogue can just sit back and unload round after round.

Well unless you are standing in the corner of a room, if you are a solo type encounter, there is no way for you to prevent the rogue and his buddy from flanking you unless you are either A) a higher level rogue yourself, or B) constantly readying an action to move in the event you are flanked. Believe me our DM has tried numerous tactics to avoid getting nailed for a full attack SA...all with no success. Any foe who can take a full attack from our rogue for more than 1 round of unluckly to hit rolls is pretty much going to TPK us instantly. Creatures 3-4 CR above our party level go down in 1-2 rds of combat max. The rogue routinely does over 75 points a round even with the odd misses thrown in. No way a fighter of the same level could hope to do that kind of dmg without critting on every blow. The rogue is a whole 1 BAB below a fighter of the same level, but even if he was a straight rogue he would only be down 3 BAB. So using 2 wpn fighting he'd be down 5 BAB, exactly what a fighter using power attack at 5 would be down on his attacks...the dmg gain for both is not remotely equal, the fighter gains +10 dmg per attack (2), the rogue gains +5d6 per attack (4) so +20 dmg possibly, vs +70 dmg possibly with average rolls on the 5d6. So exactly how is this remotely close to balanced? Just because the rogue can only do it when flanking or having surprise? Flanking is almost a certainty. Not to mention that the rogue can also carry a 2hd weapon and have power attack and use that at a slight disadvantage to the fighter...

Has the current 3.5 sneak attack actually been a problem for people... other than conceptually? If it plays OK, why not leave it as-is? We're primarily looking for things that don't work or have serious conceptual problems that can be fixed while maintaining general backward compatibility.

I think weakening the rogue's sneak attack would be going off at too much of a tangent. The problem I've always seen is it being too weak around certain theme monsters (undead and constructs) that tend to have adventures, even campaigns, built around them thus nerfing the rogue.

I really think we have to keep in mind what Paizo is trying to do here.

I would say "Absolutely!" In our current campaign there is absolutely no point in using any iconic single monsters. When an 8th level character can easily kill off even CR10 critters in a single round I thik you have a problem. (4 sneak attacks at 7d6 (5d6 from sneak attack)) All he needs is anyone to flank in the rare case when he loses intiative. His max damage is approx 130pts and with +13 on his lowest bonus attacks, hitting anything short of a dragon like AC is not an issue. The hydra in question was only hit 3 times, but since 2 of those were crits with his keen rapier, it didn't matter. No one else in the adventuring party even got to move. Love to know how an 8th level wizard or 2hdd fighter could even come close to doing that.

Alas, it is true. If the sorcerer got the powerful paint coat that the wizard got, it would be smooth sailing for 'em from here on out. But, since they didn't, it looks like we will have to wait it out for Paizo to make improvements or wait for somebody to make their own feasible sorcerer fix.

Agreed. What the Sorcerer really needs is an additional spell per spell level based on her bloodline (at a minimum). A free reserve feat based on bloodline at mid levels would also be good. I don't mind the sorcerer learning spells one level later than wizards, but they need more (better) compensation for that slower learning. Also, sorcerers need a similar mechanic to cantrips that wizards get to keep them in line. Sorcerers need something to bring them more in line with Beguilers, War Mages, etc. who have a large list of spells known albeit not as flexible overall.

So I am somewhat nervous about extending sneak attack to work on creatures that were previously immune. While I sympathize with the plight of rogues caught fighting something they can't sneak attack, it is the combo of sneak attack and two weapon fighting that most needs balancing I believe.

It is far too easy for a relatively low level ranger/rogue multicalss to deal out completely obscene amounts of damage to the point where no solo monsters or mob leaders are at all viable as opponents. Even at 8th level with a mere 3d6 of sneak attack the character can deal out 4 attacks at 5d6 apiece with the aid of a lesser energy crystal on each weapon. There are other combinations that are even more frightening in this manner such as swashbuckler rogues who can pull off the same feat at 7th level and with even larger damage bonuses. Up to 5d6+5 with only 14 Str/Int and a +1 wpn, at +11/+11/+6/+6 tp hit with wpn finesse...

Such characters become virtual living cuisinarts against which creatures several CR in excess of them cannot even stand toe to toe for a single round if someone provides a convenient flank. Sneak Attack really needs to made into a special std action rather than adding to a normal attack as it does now.