I designed this archetype specifically for the main villain of a mini-campaign I just recently ran this past week. It was inspired in part by the Scar Enforcer prestige class (Races of Destiny, 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons).
Critiques, comments, praises, condemnations, let me know!
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In a time when elves and humans distrust one another and live in enmity, half-elves can find themselves lost in the crossfire. either society accepts them and both suspect half-elves of colluding with "the enemy." Triumphs and successes are first accredited to their allies of purer blood, while failures, treacheries, and tragedies are quickly blamed on the proclivities of the "sharp-ears" or "half-apes."
Not all half-elves are willing to accept the life of a second-class citizen at best, or a grueling future of slavery at worst. Instead, they choose to become the predators - half-blooded agents of wrath and retribution striking out against those who oppress and violate the dignity of their people.
Through often painted by authorities as a unified group of terrorists, mostly as a means of propaganda in the hope of inciting greater public fury against them, half-eared stalkers are hardly an organized band. Many operate alone, avenging slights committed against their own person. They expect no support and do not provide it to others In fact, it is not unheard of for lone half-eared stalkers to come into bloody conflict when they discover that they have marked the same victim.
Structured bands of half-eared stalkers exist only in the larger cities, and even then only as long as someone with the strength or force of personality is able to reign in the self-centered righteous anger that is common to so many o their numbers. Such groups often gather the resources to support their criminal activities through theft, extortion, intimidation, and assassination.
At the GM's discretion, a half-eared stalker may substitute one or both of these terrain options depending on where the elves or humans of his ancestry make their homes. For example, a half-elf who can trace his elven heritage to aquatic elves living along the banks of deep rivers might gain favored terrain bonuses in aquatic terrain instead of forests. Another descended from shepherding human nomads might replace the urban option with plains.
If both races share territories of similar terrain, then the half-eared stalker gains only that single choice of favored terrain. However, he begins with a +3 bonus instead of only a +1 bonus.
If the target of the smite has at least one racial feat, the bonus damage on the first successful attack increases to 2 points of damage per class level. Regardless of the target, smite ancestor attacks automatically bypass any DR the creature might possess.
The smite ancestor effect remains until the target is dead or the next time the half-eared stalker rests to regain his daily use of this ability. If the half-eared stalker accidentally smites a foe without the elf or human subtype, it is wasted to no effect. At 10th and 16th levels each, the half-eared stalker may smite hi ancestors once more per day.
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This class could easily be adapted to fit any bout of racial tension where humans and another race mingle. For example, you could tweak it to cover half-orcs and half-elves with the following changes.
-Favored enemy bonuses apply against humans and orcs, while favored terrain bonuses apply while in both urban terrain and one of the following: Hills, mountains, or underground.
-The half-eared stalker's bonuses to track apply against humans and orcs, while his bonus on Disguise checks also applies only against humans or orcs.
-Smite ancestors allows him to smite humans and orcs, and he is not negatively affected by being considered a human or an orc.
This class could easily be adapted to fit any bout of racial tension where humans and another race mingle. For example, you could tweak it to cover half-orcs and half-elves with the following changes.
That should read "to cover half-orcs," not half-orcs and half-elves.
Herpderp.
I don't think a loss of spell-casting is necessary. This is already losing a lot of versatility for it's benefits so a penalty on spellcasting might be too much. By the way, just got Races of Destiny for myself. I also love the flavor of the Scar Enforcer.
I don't think a loss of spell-casting is necessary. This is already losing a lot of versatility for it's benefits so a penalty on spellcasting might be too much. By the way, just got Races of Destiny for myself. I also love the flavor of the Scar Enforcer.
See, I've personally never agreed with the idea that versatility is that much of a benchmark for power. This is a game about cooperation between characters with different skills that can overlap each others strengths and weaknesses, not about individual characters who can do half the campaign each on their own.
The ranger is a special study in the case of versatility, anyway. The only real "versatile" ability he gets is the bonuses to track. Wild empathy is very specific and, barring the use of templates or in the case of another character's animal companion, starts to become increasingly useless as the party gains levels and animals start trickling out of the encounter tables in favor of other creatures with higher CR's. Favored Enemy and Favored Terrain have potential versatility, but just like spellcasting the character can only pick a specific number of options and all other options become meaningless because he does not have them.
You are correct in some ways, though, because the half-eared stalker was intentionally designed to have fewer FE and FT options than standard rangers, but I had originally intended to make the bonuses he does receive stronger than other rangers can hope to have when it comes to those options. Sort of an idea that since he doesn't split his training among so many enemies and biomes, he can focus that same amount of energy into specializing. I eventually sacked the idea, but your critique does make me consider reworking the bonus progression to head back there.
As far as the limitation on tracking goes, that is a considerable effect on the character's skill usage that a player should understand before making the decision to play a half-eared stalker. But personally, I think there are three factors that help to mitigate the impact of that loss:
- First, though the effects only apply to a limited number of creatures, he gets additional uses out of tracking those creatures than, again, other rangers could ever hope to have.
- Secondly, if you take a half-eared stalker and drop him in the middle of nowhere without any aid from society, he can survive as easily as any other ranger. But the point is that his skill set thrives in civilization - and I'm not just talking about the city streets of humans. The forest homes and villages of the elves are civilization just the same. And when he is in these environments, where he belongs, he becomes what some might think maddeningly effective.
- Third, I intentionally did not work an alignment restriction into the half-eared stalker to allow for a wider number of character concepts. I did bat around the idea of giving it an "Any Non-Lawful" restriction, but decided against it. Despite this, even a good or lawful half-eared stalker is likely to run afoul not only of law enforcement but also most heroic characters - even other PC's of the same party - if they ply their talents without consideration. For this reason, I suspect most half-eared stalkers will be NPC's, either dangerous allies or outright villains, and will be applied in whatever sense best suits the campaign.
I would change the favored bonus to be the same as a normal Ranger. He sacrifices getting to choose his Favored Enemy/Terrain... no reason his bonus should be lower also.
I would not however give him a larger bonus then what a normal Ranger would get. After he gets Instant Enemy then every enemy is an Elf or Human. The reduced spell casting for a smite ability is pretty balanced. Normal Favored bonus but limited to Human/Elf/Forest/Urban is balanced.