so this is my second atempt at making a prestige class. i am quite please with it. any constructive criticism is welcome.
The origin of the Order of the Lost Blade is drawn from the legend of Lucien Kellanson, a devotee of Iomedae who ventured into the foothills of the Mindspin Mountains to rescue a child kidnapped by orcs. While tracking the orcs three ogres ambushed and attacked Lucien — they knocked his sword from his hand and mocked him. Lucien called on Iomedae for guidance, and miraculously he slew the ogres with only his hands and feet, and was able to retrieve his lost blade. In gratitude, he founded the first monastery of the Lost Blades, where others might honour Iomedae and master war in all its forms.
For a Lost Blade monk, combat is both meditation and art — a monk finds union with Iomedae through battle. After attaining the rank of swordbrother, a Lost Blade monk wanders the world as a soldier, adventurer or mercenary. While many of these monks protect the weak and innocent, others join in any struggle they find. Occasionally, Lost Blades may fight on both sides of the same battle. The ultimate goal is to attain enlightenment through conflict, and the cause of the battle and the consequences of its outcome are sometimes a secondary concern.
Organization: The majority of the inhabitants of a Lost Blade monastery are initiates, also called sword bearers. After passing gruelling mental, physical, and doctrinal tests, an initiate is granted the title of swordbrother (or sister). If he masters body and blade, a swordbrother can return and claim the title of blademaster. The blademasters instruct the initiates and manage the monastery under the direction of the abbot.
Many Lost Blade monks have served valiantly in the Mendevian Crusades or holding back the orcs of Belkzen on Lastwall’s northern border.
Monasteries: The primary monasteries of the Order of the Lost Blade are located in Firrine (Lastwall), Vigil (Lastwall), and Nerosyan (Mendev). Smaller monasteries are scattered across the Inner Sea, and the order has recently established an outpost in Magnimar (Varisia). Lost Blade monasteries are austere, fortified buildings. Every monastery contains a forge; to attain the rank of bladebrother, a monk must forge his own sword.
Hit Die: d10.
Requirements: To qualify to become a lost blade swordbrother, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.
Alignment: Lawful good or Lawful Neutral.
Deity: Must be a follower of Iomedae.
Skills: Craft (Weapons) 5 ranks.
Feats: Whirling Steel Strike, Master Craftsman.
Special: Armor Training class feature, Flurry of blows class feature, Evasion class feature. Must have joined Order of the Lost Blade. Must have crafted his own masterwork longsword.
Class Skills: The lost blade swordbrother's class skills are: Acrobatics (Dex), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (engineering) (Int), Knowledge (history) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Perception (Wis), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis)
Skill Ranks per Level: 3 + Int modifier.
Level BAB Fort Ref Will Class Features
1st | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Aescetic Warrior, Armored Martial Artist, Monk Weapon training
2nd | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Armor training, ki focus
3rd | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Mettle, Quick Draw
4th | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | bonus feat
5th | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | Monk Weapon training, ki intensifying
6th | 6 | 3 | 3 | 3 | Armor training
7th | 7 | 4 | 4 | 4 | Improved Evasion
8th | 8 | 4 | 4 | 4 | bonus feat
9th | 9 | 5 | 5 | 5 | Monk Weapon training, Improved mettle
10th| 10| 5 | 5 | 5 | Armor training
Ascetic Warrior (Ex): The class levels of a lost blade swordbrother stack with monk levels for determining the effect of his AC bonus, flurry of blows, fast movement, and stunning fist class features.
Armoured Martial Artist (Ex): At 1st level, a lost blade swordbrother learns to move more effectively while wearing armor, enabling him to evade attacks as proficiently as if he were merely wearing light robes. As long as the effective armor check penalty of any armor worn is reduced to 0 by the armor training class feature the lost blade swordbrother retains his monk AC bonus, as well as his fast movement and flurry of blows abilities. This ability has no effect on using a shield or carrying a medium or heavy load.
Monk Weapon training (Ex): At 1st level, whenever a lost blade swordbrother attacks with an unarmed strike or any weapon he treats as a monk special weapon, he gains a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls. This bonus increases to +2 at 5th level and again to +3 at 9th level.
Armor Training (Ex): Starting at 2nd level, whenever he is wearing armor a lost blade swordbrother reduces the armor check penalty by an additional 1 (to a minimum of 0) and increases the maximum Dexterity bonus allowed by his armor by an additional 1. Every four levels thereafter (6th, and 10th), these bonuses increase by an additional 1 each time, the maximum reduction of the armor check penalty and a increase of the maximum Dexterity bonus from armor training gained from fighter levels and levels of lost blade swordbrother can never be higher than –4 and +4 respectively.
Ki Focus (Su): Starting at 2nd level, whenever a lost blade swordbrother is wielding a longsword he has crafted with his own hand it is treated as having the ki focus magical enhancement.
Mettle (Ex): Starting at 3rd level, a lost blade swordbrother’s supreme focus during conflict allows him to shrug off effects that would otherwise harm him. If he makes a successful Will or Fortitude save that would normally reduce a spell's effect, he suffers no effect from the spell at all. Only those spells with a "Will partial," "Fortitude half," or similar Saving Throw entry can be negated through this ability.
Quick Draw (Ex): At 3rd level, when drawing a longsword he has crafted with his own hand a lost blade swordbrother is treated as having the Quick Draw feat. This ability also counts as having the quick draw feat as a prerequisite for any other feats or prestige classes.
Bonus Feats: At 4th level and then again at 8th level, a lost blade swordbrother may select a bonus feat he meets the prerequisites for.
Improved Evasion (Ex): At 7th level, a lost blade swordbrother’s evasion ability improves. He still takes no damage on a successful Reflex saving throw against attacks, but henceforth he takes only half damage on a failed save. A helpless lost blade swordbrother does not gain the benefit of improved evasion.
Improved Mettle (Ex): At 9th level, a lost blade swordbrother’s mettle ability improves. He still takes no damage on a successful Fortitude or Will saving throw against attacks, but henceforth he takes only half damage on a failed save. A helpless lost blade swordbrother does not gain the benefit of improved mettle.
Through monastic weapon training, you have mastered fighting style that makes use of an unusual monk weapon: the longsword.
Prerequisite: Martial Weapon Proficiency (longsword), Weapon Focus (longsword), flurry of blows class feature.
Benefit: You can treat a longsword as a special monk weapon, allowing you to perform a flurry of blows with it.
it could probably use a decent capstone ablity but i cant think of one at this point.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I like the general idea, although I feel that the implementation is perhaps just a little bit too strict.
I like the flavor of functioning without weapons as well as with them. However, then you turn around and add a LOT of stuff shoehorning people into using longswords. (I'm assuming longswords are an Iomedae favored weapon.) Unfortunately, longswords are rather unimpressive weapons, compared to many of the other options. But! A PrC can actually help us save the longsword from mediocrity!
* You treat the longsword as a monk weapon, enabling flurry.
* PrC levels stack with Monk levels to determine unarmed damage dice.
* If using a longsword, you may substitute unarmed damage dice for longsword damage dice.
That way, you can function quite well without a sword, but using the longsword has a better Crit range than unarmed strikes, and enchanting it is cheaper than an AoMF.
As for the armor training: I like the idea of having Monk AC+Armor, but I'd just let PrC levels stack with Fighter levels to determine armor training. You can even drop the requirement for actual fighter levels. Make sure to also note that you retain all Monk class abilities while ACP < 1, to also include Evasion and anything that wacky archetypes might come up with.
I'd also relax the entry requirements a bit, to enable a bit more flexibility in who joins. I'd require at least:
Flurry of Blows
Improved Unarmed Strike
Weapon Focus (Longsword), implying also proficiency
Alignment: LN or LG
Faith: Iomedae
Joined the order
One of these:
- Craft(Weapons) 6 and forged your own masterwork longsword
- Knowledge (Religion) 6 and won a major battle during the previous level using only unarmed strikes as weapon
Master Craftsman is an absolutely awful feat. Entry requirements for PrCs shouldn't be too annoying, more thematic.
With these changes, the PrC would probably also be accessible to pure Sohei monks and some other wacky archetypes, but those would still need to work on actually learning armor proficiencies, since the PrC doesn't give those for free. I think that's good: it's nice if a PrC allows a bit of flexibility in who joins, as long as they fit the theme. This way, you can be a fighter who takes a Monk level at 6, goes through the trials, and takes up this PrC. However, until he takes a second monk level, he won't get Evasion.
I did not look it it over in depth, but one thing I noticed that is not in line with other pathfinder stuff: Mettle
Unbreakable gets it at level 13, the Inquisitor at level 11 (called Stalwart nowadays) a Lost Blade could get it character level 8 (three levels fighter, 2 levels monk, three levels PrC). Maybe I am wrong and oversaw some entry requirements for the PrC.
To start with, thanks for thew input.
Since posting this and thinking about it some more I have become less and less pleased with the way it plays, the way I envisioned the class playing was like Ziyi Zhang’s character jen yu in crouching tiger hidden dragon, especially in the tea house scene (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0HlLqilGcM), using a longsword (in her case a jian, which is sort of halfway between a rapier and a longsword from what I understand) in one hand with the other free with a focus on mobility and multiple strikes (maybe not as wuxia as that though). as such I am probably going to remove mettle and improved mettle, at the very least, and I might remove stunning fist from ascetic warrior and replace it with a fighters armor training, with the qualifier that it doesn’t apply to a shields ACP and never to heavy armor the way a fighters does (this is more aesthetic than anything else, I have this picture of a monk wearing an armoured coat or breastplate over monks robes wielding a longsword one handed while jumping and spinning and such), and subsequently ki focus and ki intensifying as well.
I don’t know what you mean about the longsword, yeah its kinda bland aesthetically but in terms of mechanics its no slouch, and for what I was aiming for it is the best choice. yes the longsword is the favoured weapon of iomedae but that connection came after I had thought up the initial concept as a result of some things that happened in a game I am playing in at the moment. Also I though replacing the longsword damage with unarmed strike damage to be kind of excessive, make me think whats the point of having a longsword at all.
You are right about the strict requirements though, I tend to prefer prestige classes that combine 2 classes into something cool, such as the rage prophet (barbarian/oracle) or the metaforge (soulknife/aegis), and fighter/monk is how I approached this class. In terms of starting feats, whirling steel strike I think works pretty well, requiring weapon proficiency (longsword), weapon focus (longsword) and flurry, it was originally from the 3.5 eberron campaign setting though I bumped it to treat the longsword completely as a monk weapon (including fighter weapon group) instead of just applying to flurry of blows. you are definitely right about master craftsman being a crappy feat on its own, the point was to give incentive to get craft magic arms and armor later on the point of that was to build on the “has to craft his own sword” idea, I like the concept of the order being self sufficient in terms of crafting and enchanting their own equipment because in a fantasy world like pathfinder any martial organization that doesn’t have access to magic weapons and armor are at a distinct disadvantage, but it is a pain to get master craftsman and craft magic arms and armor as regular feats so how about craft magic arms and armor as a bonus feat at 1st level?
I am also toying with a capstone, call it Enlightenment through Conflict or something, where the monk adds his wisdom bonus to his initiative score at the end of every round, improving his place in the initiative order, and when he is on the top of the initiative order giving him extra actions for every x number of initiative points he is above the next highest person in the initiative order maybe and extra swift for 5, an extra move and swift for 10 and an extra full round for 15. just an idea I got from initiative passes from shadowrun. What do people think? Too hard to keep track of?
|
|
I find stuff like Master Craftsman to be just very awkward. The church of Iomedae has clerics; those should be the people making magic items for them. Clerics are actually great at magic weapons; they get most of the "required" spells automatically, and they can use the weapons/armor themselves quite well.
Personally I like slightly looser PrCs like Eldritch Knight, with requirements based on style/theme, but some flexibility on how to get in. For this PrC, a cleric/monk wouldn't strike me as strange either.
Have you considered making this a "short" PrC, like this one, which looks like another Iomedae-PrC? Don't feel obligated to go 10 levels if you can get the message across in 3.
The thing with longswords being underwhelming is that base damage dice of a weapon don't matter all that much; you often get bonus damage that's as much or more as the base damage die. So the big issue with weapons is crit range.
Consider a longsword vs. scimitar; both martial one-handed weapons. Longsword is 1d8, 19-20/x2; scimitar 1d6 18-20/x2. A dedicated melee fighter will have 18+ strength, a +1 or better enchantment, power attack, and several buffs/enchantments/feats going, altogether getting a damage bonus of 8+ going easily. The scimitar's longer crit range is going to end up doing a lot more damage than the longsword.
I feel that strong alteration would be to allow all swords that are one handed to be used if crafted by the user (this prestiege sounds a swordsman who uses many quick strikes, not brutal heavy striker, hense, no two handed weapons) Maybe make the qualifyer "a one handed slashing weapon, this does not include light slashing weapons." this would help differentciate this class from the duelst and swashbuckler. I feel the strongest swords that come into this catagory (the bastard saword and katana) require an exotic weapon proficency feat, which would balance it. The reason for this would be to allow as much room for creativity as possible; you can have a wandering samurai or a dirty fighter that fights simularly to Bron for game of thrones.
I would also add a class feature that lets you treat any sword that you have weapon focus for as if you were unarmed simular to what the blade of sword saint allows.