Flesh-Crafting Prestige Class: Are there any out there?


Homebrew and House Rules


Now, it occurs to me that we have all these 'a wizard did it' monsters out there, Hippogriffs, Bulettes and worse still, but we don't actually have any NPC-PC Class that can actually, mechanically, pull this off.

The premise I am thinking of is a minimum of a 10th level Character that can enter the Prestige Class, requiring at least 7 ranks in Arcana, Dungeoneering and/or Nature (Two of the above three) and Spell Focus in either Transmutation, Enchantment or Necromancy.

Obviously slanted towards Wizards, but Sorcerers, Witches, Summoners and some Divine Spellcasters could access the Prestige Class. I'm not sure how we could get Alchemists access to the PrC, but then that might be a different aspect we could look at, a Arcane Caster/Alchemist Combo PrC that allows the PC/NPC to turn the arcane knowledge and alchemical know-how into creating monsters for a living!

Now, I'm thinking 'average' Spell Progression, or every Even Level (level 2, level 4, level 6, level 8, level 10) and the ability to fuse two creatures together at first level (minimal control over what abilities the creature has) then greatly improving the ability at 4th level (nominal control over the creature's abilities, ability to imbue minor spell-like abilities) and then perfecting the ability at 8th level (full control over what abilities the creature(s) would develop, ability to imbue moderate spell-like abilities).

Other Class Abilities would be the ability to create Aberrations (baseline) then Magical Creatures (3rd level), Half-Dragons (5th level) Half-Celestial and -Infernal (7th level).

The ability to apply Charm Person to any creature you create as a permanent effect (limited to a number of creatures equal to the primary casting ability, possibly at 1st level, and being able to cast Charm Person under the same guidelines a number of times per day, only affecting your creatures.

Ability to 'enhance' your creatures during the creation phase through applying Transmutation, Enchantment or Necromancy spells, such as Bear's Endurance, Scare or Touch of Idiocy, for example, allowing the creature to be fundamentally tougher, have the ability to scare enemies or have a natural attack that can deliver a temporary penalty to one mental ability score.

Possibly even the ability to create your own homonculus as a bonus ability? Your thoughts, I'd like them!

Silver Crusade

Kind of posting on the go, sorry for brevity, but perhaps some implementation of the Summoner/Eidolon evolution system could be useful with this package?

Tangent:

Spoiler:
I've had this "transhuman" NPC class I've been sitting on for a culture that worked benign fleshcrafting on themselves for art and practical application, and a stripped down and modified version of the evolution system was what I was planning to use. The people with the class could use the points mostly on themselves, while alotting a few for others.


Mikaze wrote:

Kind of posting on the go, sorry for brevity, but perhaps some implementation of the Summoner/Eidolon evolution system could be useful with this package?

Tangent: ** spoiler omitted **

Thank you, that was quite similar to what I had in mind. Apologies for the lax layout of my post, feeling somewhat woozy at the moment, Craybait, my cat is in heat and currently trying to mate with my computer mouse, and watching Lord of the Rings:The Fellowship of the Ring as I wait for the pizza to arrive.

Uruk-Hai Combat Scene ftw.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Hmm... seems like you could save some time if you took bits and pieces from the other classes and applied them to this one. Either the mutagen stuff from the alchemist/mastery chymist or the druid's wildshape could work (aspect of the beast?) for transmuting yourself. The Eidolon stuff might be adapted for other creatures.

I know in Dark Sun 2e had halfling bioshapers, but I don't recall if they made the jump to 3e. Mongoose publishing IIRC had an arcane book that dealt with mixing and matching monsters for 3.0, I believe.


The Book of Madness had a fleshshaper PrC if I recall correctly, all based around grafts and such.


Mikaze wrote:
Tangent: ** spoiler omitted **

Huh, funny enough I have a similar PrC sitting on my harddrive. It has similar mechanics but is set with a broader fluffy explanation for their powers (it can be fleshcrafting, steampunk cyborg parts, magical piercings and tattos, runic scars). I'm waiting for Ultimate Magic to come out before I post it on the forums so I can see if there will be a way for Eidolons to buy spell like abilities as evolutions or if i have to come up with that myself.


HalfOrcHeavyMetal: Dreamscarred Press had a 3.5 psionics-based fleshcrafter PrC with attendant feats and sample craftings; it probably isn't exactly what you're looking for, but it might give you some ideas. I seem to remember an Eberron 3.5 PrC and feats in one of the later sourcebooks that did something similar by grafting elemental aspects to other beings (kinda vague on it since I don't have the book).

Mikaze wrote:

...perhaps some implementation of the Summoner/Eidolon evolution system could be useful with this package?

Tangent: ** spoiler omitted **

You might want to pop over to the Dreamscarred forum and check out the alpha writeup of the Juggernaut base class.

Edit: Linkified.

Contributor

Oh, it's fairly easy by the Golarion RAW. Sean put a magic item called the Demon Mother's Mask in Gods & Magic. It's relatively cheap, and for just 500 GP you can ditch the "must worship Lamashtu" business to make it work.

It lets the wearer interbreed with other species they usually couldn't breed with.


Prestige class based on getting body modifications, whether it's fleshcrafting, magic tattos or whatever. Here..


Back in 3.0/3.5 (can't remember if it was specific to 3.0 or not), there was a feat I had taken... it was technically a homebrew, but from a compendium of custom feats that were tested and rated on power and balance - I want to say it was called "The NetBook of Feats" or something.

Anyways, there was one feat in there called "Create Wondrous Creatures" or something like that. Maybe Craft instead of Create? It's been a while. Long story short, I had an epic level Wizard by the end (Lv27) that was creating planes of existence (9th level spell in epic handbook), then populating them with whatever he thought would be interesting.

Maybe this bears a re-visit... Perhaps I'll take a stab at a new one.
Creatures weren't loyal to you by default, though depending on how you made them, they'd be happy at least. There were 3 spells you could cast during creation to mood-swing them... I think Charm Monster would make them loyal to you, Limited Wish would make them totally obedient to you, and Wish would make all their progeny (if you gave'em an ability to procreate) totally obedient to you as well.

This is great for someone with a god complex, but the equation for figuring out approximate GP cost vs CR was a bit of a headache, and it certainly caters more to high-level if not epic individuals. Think I had to be 12th or 15th level before I took it - you'd need a relatively lenient DM as well.

Other than that (and the Fleshshaper and Fleshcrafter PrCs mentioned above), I'm not sure if such a thing exists... Frankly it should though. Lots of arcanists get cocky, and this is sort of like the ultimate "Ha-HAH!"
(I totally didn't create or modify each of the creatures I got from Leadership... nooooo... that'd be wrong! ...and fun)


I'd love a class like this myself as well.

It is my dream to forcefully create a whole slew of PC races that tare anthromorphic animals or some other nonsense and force a way for them into our local games.


In one of the upcoming Paizo products there will be a flesh crafter PrC but I cannot recall which one it is.


ntin wrote:
In one of the upcoming Paizo products there will be a flesh crafter PrC but I cannot recall which one it is.

I'll guess the upcoming "Ultimate Magic"

If they also include their own up-to-date version of the previous "Create Wondrous Creature" feat, that would be super awesome.
I'll get around to it... Probably this weekend - working on a new base-20 at the moment, and loving it.

Ævux wrote:

I'd love a class like this myself as well.

It is my dream to forcefully create a whole slew of PC races that tare anthromorphic animals or some other nonsense and force a way for them into our local games.

The older book, "Savage Species" (which sadly didn't see a 3.5 reprint) had a huge section on anthropomorphic type creatures/character, and it was really useful for weird stuff. Used a few of them in a custom campaign world to explain where a few classes were from. Heh. I guess the weak alternative would be Polymorph Other - not like a commoner is going to ever have any way to break out of it, so BAM! New creature of your mind's design! Too bad replication (if possible) would take too long.


Rageling wrote:
ntin wrote:
In one of the upcoming Paizo products there will be a flesh crafter PrC but I cannot recall which one it is.

I'll guess the upcoming "Ultimate Magic"

If they also include their own up-to-date version of the previous "Create Wondrous Creature" feat, that would be super awesome.
I'll get around to it... Probably this weekend - working on a new base-20 at the moment, and loving it.

Ævux wrote:

I'd love a class like this myself as well.

It is my dream to forcefully create a whole slew of PC races that tare anthromorphic animals or some other nonsense and force a way for them into our local games.

The older book, "Savage Species" (which sadly didn't see a 3.5 reprint) had a huge section on anthropomorphic type creatures/character, and it was really useful for weird stuff. Used a few of them in a custom campaign world to explain where a few classes were from. Heh. I guess the weak alternative would be Polymorph Other - not like a commoner is going to ever have any way to break out of it, so BAM! New creature of your mind's design! Too bad replication (if possible) would take too long.

Problem with savage though was that all the anthromorphs had racial hd and level adjustments which made it too clunky to use.

Someway of adjusting a character to the point that there is no racial hd or la would be really good. its the HD that bothers me the most.


Ævux wrote:

Problem with savage though was that all the anthromorphs had racial hd and level adjustments which made it too clunky to use.

Someway of adjusting a character to the point that there is no racial hd or la would be really good. its the HD that bothers me the most.

Soooo... A level adjustment would be ok, if there was no HD requirement in your case?

If so, I'll work on that at the same time I work on a rebuild of CWC.
It'd be useful for me too. Almost done with the class I'm working on... Just need a name, really.


There was an epic spell seed from the 3.0 or 3.5 epic handbook called origin of the species, that let you create a new creature(s) of your own design.

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