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Hello to all! I've come to quite like the stonelord archetype for the paladin, but one glaring issue with the class is it's replacement for the cavalier bonded mount: the stone servant.
It's basically like this: at level 5, it starts as a small earth elemental, and gains one size each 3 levels. Now, while I am unsure whether this is stronger or weaker than a mount (it has been argued that it is weaker), I would like to establish a more gradual progression from small elemental to elder. It would work like the animal companion, with a growth in size every X HD (as appropriate).
A few notes: I dont want this to be cheesy. I want this to be a reasonable (and relatively balanced) thing to propose to any DM. This is manily in the hope that I could customize my mount as others could a paladin mount. I really want this to be ironclad, and I'm looking for ideas to make this work. So far, I've got this:
-The actual HD progression is ok; for 20 levels, the creature gains 16 HD. Matches perfectly with animal companion.
-The elemental gains 9 natural armor for the animal's 12. However, it also gains DR and more NA to start with. This is a toss-up.
-Skills: the elemental will gain more skills (if only because of it's intelligence). Although I'll admit i'm not sure how much they should gain.
-Skill gain is also a toss-up, since eachn elemental size gains significant skill variations.
-It would be nice to control feats.
So here's what I propose: You start, at fifth level, with a 4hd earth elemental (medium). You choose feats/skills. You keep the same HD progression as for an animal companion. When an appropriate amount of HD is gained, it changes size ( so at 9th, 12th, 16th and 20th). You choose feats/skills as for a traditional animal companion.
ANy other ideas?
Dot. I wanna see where this goes.
Well, apparently not far, since nobody is answering.
I think this is a good idea. Could you post a table with your elemental advancement ?
I'll post the advancement soon. But in any case, I've discovered that I was wrong; by checking the monster creation rules, I realised the earth elemental is MUCH more powerful. I still want to see more control on advancement, so I'll continue, but I had greatly underestimated the creature.
Ok, so I've got a table of the advancement. I applied the celestial template as is expected for the stonelords stone servant.
Now, a few notes:
1) I DRASTICALLY underestimated the powers of the stone servant. If we consider all the factors (CR, HD, stats, skills, feats) the stone servant is, pound for pound, at least equivalent to an animal companion. It is quite possible it is drastically better.
2) The preceding table is a suggestion for advancement. At all points marked in yellow (in the table), the "changes" represent the EXACT stats of the elemental suggested (small, medium, large, huge, greater, elder) as compared to a small earth elemental. For everything else (HD, feat progression, skill progression) I based myself on the monster creation rules.
3) I have considered no ability advancements, since the elemental gets significant advancements when it changes size.
4) While most of the content here is homobrew, most of it is not. Even with the regular progression (IE, changing stone servant at each X levels), you get something equivalent to an animal companion.
5) The most important change is that here, you get to choose skill and feat distribution.
Well, I hope somebody finds it useful. It made me discover the stone servant was much more awesome than I had estimated.
I really like this idea.
Stonelord is a awesome archetyp with a destinctiv stlye, only thing which bothered me so far is the elemental, but this would solve it.
Also the elemental IS very strong and in together with the Stonelord it could be even stronger.
Beause of this I would remove the option that the player can choose the feats & skills. Instead everytime the table decide he can get e.g. a feat he can choose from some selected feats (similar to the Rangers Weapon Style feats)
@ Tryn: that could be a good idea. The basic feats of the elder elemental would be a good start, though I'll try to expand the list somehow. Any ideas?
Beginning of list:
Awesome Blow, Cleave, Greater Bull Rush, Greater Overrun, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical (slam), Improved Overrun, Improved Sunder, Power Attack
Toughness, Improved Natural Armor, Improved Natural Weapon (slam), Great Fortitude, Greater Sunder ?
All good ideas kelazan, I'll add them to the list. I'll check out monster feats some more to see if there's anything else useful.