One of the other players in my group expressed interest in taking the Dragon Disciple prestige class. Unfortunately, she's a sorcerer with the fey bloodline, and therefore can't take it without basically rebuilding the character to use the draconic bloodline. At this point, that would require some pretty serious retconning to account for things she's already done, so it's not in the cards.
That being the case, I took a stab at making a Fey Disciple prestige class. Here's the class description, with discussion of my reasoning afterwards. Any feedback (particularly on balance issues) would be welcome.
=============== Begin class description
Fey Disciple
Role: caster
Alignment: Any, but strongly skewed towards chaotic.
Hit die: d6.
Requirements:
Race: Any non-fey.
Skills: Knowledge (Nature) 5 ranks.
Languages: Sylvan.
Spellcasting: Ability to cast 1st-level arcane spells without preparation. If the character has sorcerer levels, she must have the fey bloodline. If the character gains levels of sorcerer after taking this class, she must take the fey bloodline.
Class skills: The fey disciple's class skills (and the key ability for each) are:
Acrobatics (DEX)
Bluff (CHA)
Climb (STR)
Diplomacy (CHA)
Fly (DEX)
Knowledge (geography) (INT)
Knowledge (local) (INT)
Knowledge (nature) (INT)
Perception (WIS)
Sense Motive (WIS)
Swim (STR)
Skill Ranks at Each Level: 6 + Int modifier.
BAB 3/4
Fort poor, Reflex good, Will good
Spell progression same as Dragon Disciple (spell casting increases all levels except 1, 5, and 9).
Abilities by level:
1 Fey Blood, DR 1/cold iron
2 Ability boost (CHA +2), bloodline feat
3 Fey Magic
4 Ability boost (CHA +2), DR 3/cold iron
5 Fey Magic, Unearthly Grace, bloodline feat
6 Ability boost (DEX +2)
7 Fey Magic, DR 5/cold iron
8 Ability boost (INT +2), bloodline feat
9 Fey Magic, Nature Form 3/day
10 Unearthly Grace
Fey Blood: A fey disciple adds her level to her sorcerer levels when determining the powers gained from her bloodline. If the fey disciple does not have levels of sorcerer, she instead gains bloodline powers of the fey bloodline, using her fey disciple level as her sorcerer level to determine the bonuses gained. This ability does not grant bonus spells to a sorcerer unless she possesses spell slots of an appropriate level. Such bonus spells are automatically granted if the sorcerer gains spell slots of the spell's level.
Damage Reduction (Ex): As her fey blood stirs, a fey disciple begins to manifest more sensitivity to cold iron. At 1st level, a fey disciple gains damage reduction 1/cold iron. At 4th level a fey disciple's DR increases to 3/cold iron, and again at 7th level to 5/cold iron. This DR does not stack with the DR granted by the Soul of the Fey sorcerer bloodline ability.
Ability Boost (Ex): As a fey disciple gains levels in this prestige class, her ability scores increase as noted on Table: Fey Disciple. These increases stack and are gained as if through level advancement.
Bloodline Feat: Upon reaching 2nd level, and every three levels thereafter, a fey disciple receives one bonus feat, chosen from the fey bloodline's bonus feat list.
Fey Magic: A fey disciple's growing connection to the natural world grants her access to magic not normally available to sorcerers. At 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th levels she may select two spells from the Druid spell list and add them to her list of spells known. These are in addition to the spells she would ordinarily gain from level advancement. The selected spells must be of a level the fey disciple can cast. The selected spells are treated as arcane rather than divine spells, including suffering from arcane spell failure chance due to armor, but function normally as per their spell descriptions in all other respects.
Unearthly Grace (Su): At 5th level, A fey disciple adds one half her Charisma modifier as a racial bonus to all her saving throws, and as a deflection bonus to her Armor Class. At 10th level the bonus equals her full Charisma modifier.
Nature Form (Sp): At 9th level, a fey disciple may assume the form of a plant or animal. This ability functions as Plant Shape I or Beast Shape I, respectively. For purposes of this ability, treat the fey disciple's Caster Level as equal to her effective sorcerer level for purposes of her bloodline. She may use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 plus her CHA modifier.
=============== End class description
And now some discussion of my reasoning.
The key thing about a dragon disciple is that they're slowly becoming more like a dragon: they get stronger, tougher, and acquire draconic abilities like breath weapons, wings, blindsense, and so on. That manifests in the form of:
- An increased hit die -- d12 instead of d6
- A few new class skills
- 3/4 BAB instead of 1/2
- Good Fortitude and Will saves
- +3 bonus to natural armor (over a few levels)
- The ability to shape shift into a dragon.
I figured fey would work similarly. But of course fey have different attributes than dragons. I spent some time reading through the Fey creature type description in the bestiary, plus a few sample fey monsters (dryad, nymph, mite, satyr). It seems to me that the signature abilities of the fey (in terms of game mechanics) are:
- They're attractive and forceful (high CHA, good will saves)
- They're limber (high DEX, good reflex saves)
- They have DR bypassed by cold iron
- They have a close connection to the natural world
It didn't make sense to give a Fey Disciple a hit die increase. The default hit die for fey in the bestiary is a d6, which is identical to the default sorcerer hit die. However, fey generally get 6 + INT skill points per level, so I gave them that instead of a larger hit die.
Fey Disciples get ability boosts in the same way that Dragon Disciples do, except that instead of STR/STR/CON/INT, they get CHA/CHA/DEX/INT. Dragons are much more likely to get physical than fey, who rely on force of personality, magic, and speed.
Fey Disciples slowly gain DR bypassed by cold iron. This is meant to be equivalent to the increase in natural armor that dragon disciples get, but it doesn't stack -- each increase in DR replaces the older value -- because DR is basically always in effect until you run into somebody with the appropriate weapon or a generic +3 weapon.
The breath weapon, wings, and blindsense abilities that dragon disciples get didn't have any direct fey equivalent. So instead I gave them three abilities that reflect an increased connection to nature:
1) They get to add a few Druid spells to their spell list.
2) They get some an ability called "Unearthly Grace".
3) At 9th level they get a spell-like ability to do just a little shape shifting.
Druids get their spells from nature, so it made sense to limit spell selection to those lists. Note that this potentially gives the Fey Disciple access to healing spells, which could be very helpful.
Unearthy Grace came straight out of the description for Nymphs. It's a pretty strong ability (especially for a high CHA character, which any Fey Disciple would be!) so I toned it down slightly by granting half the ability at 5th level, and the rest at 10th. Even so, I'm still uncertain that it's properly balanced for a PC.
I wasn't sure what to do about base attack bonus. By default, Fey get 1/2 BAB progression, which is the same as a sorcerer. So my initial impulse was to keep that. But taking away three levels of spellcasting AND not giving them a BAB increase felt punitive compared to the dragon disciple -- dragon disciples lose three caster levels, but get 3/4 BAB plus all the other goodies. At the same time, using a 1/2 BAB progression and granting them full spell progression felt like too much -- those caster levels are the primary penalty a PC would take for going into the prestige class. So I stuck with a 3/4 BAB, as in Dragon Disciple.
It seems pretty powerful to me, but then, so is Dragon Disciple. Things that might be done to nerf it a bit include, say, using 4 + INT skill points instead of 6 + INT, giving only 1 Druid spell at each of the Fey Magic levels instad of 2.
Thoughts?
