Looking for Feedback on New Class - War Prophet

[nflchampion]

Hey everyone,

I'm running an open-world, sandboxy post-Kingmaker game set 500 years after the events of our previous Kingmaker game, and things are going pretty well! We're trying a low-magic feel with an E8 cap, and I like the general feel of it so far.

One problem I have run into, however, was that one of my parties basically ended up being entirely paladins and clerics. The channel energy problem becomes amplified at low levels, and here it was starting to become infuriating. I looked for a while to see if there was a decent counter to channel energy, and couldn't find one. So instead of looking, I decided to just come up with a custom NPC class to counter it. Luckily for me, the lore of the game already had the perfect character for this role: the War Prophet.

Here's a link to the custom class:

https://kingmaker-regicide.obsidianportal.com/wikis/doom-prophet

If anyone has any feedback or suggestions, I'd be glad to hear it. I'm looking forward to seeing how my PCs deal with these new "philosophers of war" on the battlefield and beyond.

[Cheapy]

Hmm, I hope to do a read through tomorrow.

[Cheapy]

Oook, it was shorter than expected.

I stopped reading after I got to Chant. This is extremely over powered and will just cause resentment and an arms race.

You should talk to your players! You need to have fun too, and based on this class, that isn't really happening. :-)

[nflchampion]

I am having fun with the game, but at the same time I was looking to create a class that could provide a unique and interesting check on the channel energy ability and a new challenge for the players. Keep in mind that the war prophet has to continually chant during this process, and that if their concentration is broken so is the effect.

You quickly came to the conclusion that the chant ability is overpowered, will cause resentment, and will cause an arms race. Can you explicate? Further, can you think of ways to improve the ability? Does it need a usage cap, or some other limit I'm not thinking of? I'm honestly looking for feedback here, as this is a thematic class within the our campaign's narrative and I think it could be interesting if constructed right.

[Oceanshieldwolf]

War Prophet Link

Linked for you...

[Oceanshieldwolf]

Hmm. Well, as an NPC class it has a lot of stuff that seems unnecessary - Gather Crowd, Philosopher's Wisdom, Philosoher's Readon, Magical Logic, Incite Violence. I would handwave all that in an instant as a GM running one.. A million times/daily. But for a PC class, whoah - lotsa fun but supremely OP. Some by themselves (Philosophers Reason) but taken altogether this is like a Mythic divine bardic antimage.

I really like the theme of this, and shutting down some abilities is okay, just not sure i'd got about it this way. I would make the added Concentration check thing rather an added diffucult to Concentration that ocurs while the Doom prophet is chanting, and maybe even a small add to DC while near a doom prophet regardless of whether they are chanting or not.

Basically, not an extra check, but a check that occurs without the prereq of close combat - so Combat Casting won't help - a weird guy chanting is all; that is also more difficult than a usual Concentration check - say +5 to all the DC's on CRB table 9-1.

* How would a chant started after an ongoing effect is started affect it?

* As the publisher of the Direlock shutting down casters is an interest of mine. Still yet to create the channel-smasher, but this is food for thought...

* Three of these guys could toast your party, especially if they are assigned some mooks to soften the PCs up, and if just one of the Doom Prophets are hidden/unassailable but still able to affect with chant.

[nflchampion]

Those are all great points. When I was talking to a couple of players in my group we were trying to think of ways to break the game with these guys, and the best one guy threw out there was "I use my scroll of Stone Shape and NOW YOU CAN'T GET ME!"

I'm thinking of ways to limit the Chant power, because it seems too strong. My thought is that it would lock channelling within the effected area, but that I would increase the range increment by 10' rather than 30' every two levels. I also think that I need to choose between stopping continued divine casting within the range or stopping previously cast effects within the range. My thought is that it would function like an antimagic field, so previously cast/continuous effects would be eliminated while in the field, but resume once outside of it.

I think I would get rid of the limit on new casting altogether if I used this method. Or maybe I should just make it a more difficult Concentration check like you thought?

One thing we discussed when we were brainstorming this yesterday was the idea that it could be a concentration check that is at 30 feet with 5 foot increment increases, and within this it would require DC checks to cast at all/a secondary check to keep the effects of older magic by the carrier of the magic based on the caster's Concentration check. But I'm really not sure what would be the best and I'm looking for feedback.

Is there a better way to limit this? My thought was that this was a generally underpowered PC class, but you identify it as near Mythic level. How can I capture the theme but better limit the power?

As far as three of these guys smashing a party, in the campaign there aren't a lot of them, and they travel alone to lecture on the philosophy of war. Where they find an amenable party, they join in to maximize the war and bloodshed. But they generally fight alone. Attack their HQ, though...