Here is another attempt at a prestige class for my homebrew world. Please let me know what you think of the abilities and the balance of it.
Here is a nicely formatted Google document.
Here is a less nicely formatted copy.
D8 HD
BAB: 3/4
Saves: Good Fort, Poor Ref, Good Will
Spellcasting: 10/10
Requirements
Skills: Knowledge (Religion) 5 ranks
Spells: Able to cast 2nd level divine spells
Alignment: Any evil
Class Skills
The harrow priest’s class skills are Bluff (Cha), Diplomacy(Cha), Disguise (Cha), Heal (Wis),Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (planes) (Int), Knowledge(religion) (Int), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int) and Stealth (Dex).
Skill Ranks per Level: 4 + Int modifier
Class Features
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A harrow priest gains no proficiency with any weapon or armor.
Spells per Day: At the indicated levels, a harrow priest gains new spells per day as if she had also gained a level in a divine spellcasting class she belonged to before adding the prestige class. She does not, however, gain other benefits a character of that class would have gained,except for additional spells per day, spells known (if he is a spontaneous caster), and an increased effective level of spellcasting. If she had more than one divine spellcasting class before becoming a harrow priest, she must decide to which class she adds the new level for the purpose of determining spells per day.
Soul Well (Su): A harrow priest gains a pool of power known as a soul well, gained from releasing the souls of living beings from their bodies. Whenever a harrow priest kills a humanoid creature with at least half of her total hit dice, she gains 1 point in her soul well. She may have a maximum number of points in her soul well equal to ½ her level (minimum 1) + her Charisma modifier. She may use these points in a variety of ways.
As long as she has at least 1 point in her soul well, a harrow priest may spontaneously convert any 2nd level or higher spell into death knell. Doing so does not expend any points from her soul well.
She can also spend 1 point as a swift action to allow the next spell she casts that round to be cast as if one of the following metamagic feats was applied to it (without increasing the spell level or casting time): Enlarge Spell, Extend Spell, Silent Spell, or Still Spell. She can instead spend 2 points to have her spell affected by Thanatopic Spell or Threnodic Spell.
Additionally, she may spend 1 point from her soul well inplace of a material component for a spell. Each point spent has a value of up to 100 gp. Multiple points may be used for expensive material components. When casting a spell to create or control undead, each blood point is worth 200 gp.
At level 9, a harrow priest does not need to personally kill a creature in order to absorb power from its death. Whenever a humanoid creature with at least half of her total hit dice dies within 30 feet of her, she adds 1 point to her soul well.
At level 10, as long as the harrow priest has at least 1 point in her soul well, she gains a +1 bonus to her caster level when casting spells to create or control undead.
Channel Negative Energy (Su): A harrow priest gains the ability to channel negative energy as a cleric. Her effective cleric level is equal to her harrow priest level for determining the effect of her channel negative energy. If she gains the ability to channel negative energy from another source, her harrow priest levels instead stack with those levels for determining channel negative energy.
Channeling Mastery(Su): At level 2, whenever channeling negative energy to harm living creatures, a harrow priest may also choose to heal one undead creature within the burst radius. The healing is equal to the damage rolled to harm the living creatures. At level 5, the number of undead increases to 2. At level 8, the number increases to 3.
Bonus Feat: At level 3, a harrow priest may select Channel Smite, Command Undead, Extra Channel, Improved Channel, Selective Channel or Spell Focus (necromancy) as a bonus feat. At level 7, she may select another bonus feat, adding Greater Spell Focus (necromancy) and Undead Master* to the list.
*Ultimate Magic
Raise the Fallen(Sp): At level 4, a harrow priest gains the ability to reanimate a fallen humanoid foe or ally as an undead thrall. When a creature dies within 30 feet of a harrow priest, she may choose to expend 1 point from her soul well as a standard action to revive the creature as an undead monster under her control. The creature must have died within one round of using this ability and may not have more hit dice than 5 + her level + her Charisma modifier. The creature is raised as a zombie-like being but otherwise retains all of the class and racial abilities that it had in life. It is brought up to 0 hit points and then healed as if targeted by the harrow priest’s channel negative energy. The creature is treated as undead for the purpose of all spells and effects. The creature remains under the control of the harrow priest for 1 hour or until slain. When the creature is no longer under the control of the harrow priest,it falls dead and can no longer be affected by this ability. It may be raised or reanimated as normal.
At level 8, the reanimated creature gains the advanced simple template and channel resistance +4.
Blood Casting (Su): At level 6, a harrow priest may spend points from her soul well to spontaneously cast a spell she knows. She must spend 1 point per spell level to cast a spell she has prepared or is on her spells known list. Doing so does not use up a spell slot. Spells used to create or control undead have their soul well cost reduced by 1 to a minimum of 1.
Sacrifice the Many(Su): At level 10, a harrow priest may perform a ritual to draw power from multiple sources. The ritual takes ten minutes to perform and the harrow priest may do nothing else while she is performing the ritual. Humanoids slain during this time qualify for her soul well ability, regardless of their total hit dice.
Areas of personal concern:
I always feel like I make my PrCs too strong, so please comment on power level.
I'm worried that some of the wording might be a little confusing, especially on Soul Well and Raise the Fallen. Please comment if you aren't clear on an ability or can see multiple interpretations on how it works.
Please let me know if there is something obviously missing from this PrC. It's supposed to be a class that converts the souls of living humanoids into raw power to fuel spells and create/control undead. I figure that's pretty obvious, but I want to make the design point clear.
Finally, thanks to anyone who takes the time to look it over and comment.
Most homebrews like this, focus 100% on combat. You also give out free feats like candy.
Prestige classes I would consider to model after Mystic Theurge and/or Loremaster since there are both caster prestiges.
Things to be fixed or removed.
First off your base attack bonus BAB is too high for 10 levels in a divine caster prestige class. The other 2 prestiges I suggest only go to +5 rather than +7.
First, thank you for your response. It's always helpful to get another set of eyes on something. I am going to respond to your points in turn, just so that I don't miss any. Please don't take my tone as argumentative.
At first, I was disagreeing with you on the 10/10 with 3/4 BAB thing because that's what normal clerics/druids/oracles get, but the more I look at other divine prestige classes, the more I agree with you. Most of them with 3/4 BAB only have 7/10 casting, and the 10/10 casting are 1/2 BAB. This is supposed to be more of a casty PrC, so I'll see about dropping the BAB to 1/2.
I did find a few divine PrCs that were 10/10 with 3/4 BAB, but they were relatively sparse on other features, and I don't want this.
Soul Well neat and OP!!!
Why?
I understand there is the condition to getting points, but in the end, youll be able to get them as often as you like.
Because the material cutting components costs given by Soul Well are 100X better than a feat you can take called Eschew Materials.
**** Eschew Material-Spells with material components with a gp cost of more than 1 gp are not affected. An eschewed spell uses up a spell slot of the spell's normal level.
Eschew Materials is not a metamagic feat. It's just a feat, that applies to all spells without increasing the spell level. So this isn't particularly relevant.
But there is more!
Free metamagic feats! Oh this is grand! More free feats! Clerics in 3.5e were using turn undead attempts to do ungodly things like persisting a spell 24hrs plus, just look it up and you'll see its OP.
Also a really strong part about the Soul Well is there is no time limit to how long you can hold SW points, so you could go kill an enormous goblin village and then when adventuring you could raise your enemies. There is little challenge in a level 4 reaping off level 2's. Then again at 10th with Sacrifice the Many, just slaughter them all.
If you want to hold onto your points for several levels and not use your abilities, that's fine by me. Sacrifice the many is not intended to be a combat ability, so it'll require some hostages and set up. I don't think that was made clear enough in the ability. I will rectify that.
The big thing with DMM was nightsticks, not DMM itself, I found. If you limited the number of turn attempts, DMM wasn't a problem. You'll also note that the metamagic feats available are precisely those offered by the spell arcane concordance. Thanatopic and threnodic spell were added, but at an additional cost. Those spells tend to not be the game breakers that 24 hour buffs are. This is my reasoning, at least.
Additionally, with Sacrifice the Many, you have to perform a ritual that takes 10 minutes and you can do nothing else. I should probably indicate that it takes concentration (so no controlling minions), requires chanting (so no giving orders) and provokes attacks of opportunity each round (so likely no doing it in combat). It's intended to be used out of combat to refresh your Soul Well, but it requires having a dozen or so hostages and some friends to kill them for you while you stand vulnerable.
This brings me to my next point, why not just use animate dead spell instead of your RAISE THE FALLEN? I am assuming its because you want to have the animated keep all their special awesome abilities. Well isnt that nice, but its wrong! LOL. Really its just too good even with the 1hr duration limitation.
The reason I didn't use animate dead was because it felt weird using "caster level" or "total hit dice" for the effective caster level, and using "class level" means that you are casting it at 5+ levels below what it would be if you just prepared the spell yourself. I will, however, make it count towards the total number of undead the character is allowed to control.
I think the "in theory" endless enemy reanimation is great for the player, but trash for the table and the DM. Summoners alone are unfun class for everyone but the player. That goes double for necromancers, since they go for more mass than just having big hitters.
I can only pray this is an NPC.
Most evil PrCs are intended for NPCs I find, and this is among them. However, summoning specialists (conjurers, summoners, druids, even clerics if they want) are a viable part of the game. Making the new thrall count towards the total hit dice summonable should prevent that from causing any additional problems not already inherent in the system.
Channel Negative Energy, you say you heal an undead, which in fact hurts them. Simply change the wording to: Channel Mastery-You can additionally target 1 undead with a cast of CNE upon living creatures. You may target 2 undead at 5th level and 3 at 8th.
I'll quote the channel energy description itself, with emphasis added for clarity.
Channel Energy (Su): Regardless of alignment, any cleric can release a wave of energy by channeling the power of her faith through her holy (or unholy) symbol. This energy can be used to cause or heal damage, depending on the type of energy channeled and the creatures targeted.
A good cleric (or one who worships a good deity) channels positive energy and can choose to deal damage to undead creatures or to heal living creatures. An evil cleric (or one who worships an evil deity) channels negative energy and can choose to deal damage to living creatures or to heal undead creatures. A neutral cleric who worships a neutral deity (or one who is not devoted to a particular deity) must choose whether she channels positive or negative energy. Once this choice is made, it cannot be reversed. This decision also determines whether the cleric casts spontaneous cure or inflict spells (see spontaneous casting).
As you can see, the wording already included in the ability is to "heal undead". Healing means to restore hit points, not to use positive energy.
REMOVE BLOOD CASTING OP!!!
Free spells.... HAHAHAHA. No limits to uses per day? So by 9th player character level you can cast any known spell, and it does not count towards your spells per day as long as you use 1 point of Blood Well, and if your spell kills anything this crazy cycle goes on forever.
I think you misunderstood this ability. You have to use one point per spell level. So spending 1 point gets you a 1st level spell. If you are killing lots of things with 1st level spells when you are at level 11 (see below on entry level), then I want to subscribe to your newsletter. If you are wanting to cast a 4th or 5th level spell, you have to spend 4 or 5 points. If you kill one creature of 6 HD or more with it, you regain 1 point at level 11. Using this ability heavily will drain your pool much quicker than it refills.
Suggestions?Give daily uses to your abilities.
This was intended to be limited by Soul Well. I think I will likely just reduce the maximum pool on Soul Well to something like 1 + CHA instead of 1/2 level + CHA. It means that the pool will not increase much over the course of the PrC, meaning it's unlikely to ever have more than 8 or 10 points in it.
Blood Casting should cost you just that blood. Maybe have it sacrifice a minion with HD equal or higher than the spell's level intended on casting if you want it to free. EX: For a 5th level spell sacrifice a 5HD minion. Or perhaps have it make you sacrifice your own life, ex: lose have you current hit points to cast a spell for free. I think the name should match the ability.
Blood Casting does what you say, except that you'd have to sacrifice 5 minions of 1/2 your level to cast a 5th level spell. Alternately, you have to slay (or, at character level 15, be close to the slaying of) 5 humanoid creatures of 1/2 your level. If you are in the right place, it's possible to regain a high level spell in one combat, but it's not very likely.
For Blood Well the metamagic part of it, make the player choose one of the metas to learn, and not have access to them all. Also having it available at 1st level of prestige or 4th character level is too soon, so I would push it back a few levels. Maybe gain it at 4th Harrow and learn another at 7th and 10th.
The PrC has an entry requirement of 5 ranks in Knowledge (religion) means that no one (even people with nifty SLAs) can enter before 6th level. This is 1 level before a bard could cast the spell the ability emulates, and therefore could use bumping up to level 2, but as illustrated, it's a not a deal breaker comparatively. Spending a soul well point and a swift action to gain a weak/situational metamagic feat? Spending two and a swift action to use a feat you'll probably want anyway? I can see how one might see that it's a problem, but I don't think it will be.
The 10th level part of blood well should force you to use points to raise your caster level, since by 9th level you'll freely earn points in combat for every fallen enemy.
How about something like "when using Blood Casting to cast a spell to create or control undead, your caster level increases by 1"? This forces the spending of soul well points, limits the times that it's used
I applaud you in your ideas, nice stuff, would be fun to role play. Try and think of some ability that adds to skills checks so your not 100% combat focused.
Anyways take my thoughts for what they are, even if you think I am 100% wrong, consider not making a power class but instead something fun to play. Rolling for 5+ creatures is no fun for anyone but yourself, so I would avoid building a heavy summoner type. Your DM and fellow players at your table will thank you.
I do agree that the bonus feats offered at levels 4 and 7 are probably unnecessary. They sort of only there because "dead" levels make me cringe. Swapping them out for a bonus to some skills would keep those levels from being without a new feature, but also lower the overall power of the class a bit.
Thank you again for your input. Even when I disagreed, it was helpful to have another person looking at it to give me ideas on what to do.
So, to recap, suggestions that I'll be implementing:
Drop BAB to 1/2
Lower maximum size on Soul Well
Replace bonus feats with skill boost (probably a knowledge or maybe stealth, as that fits their intended group)
Clarify blood casting ability to be 1 point per spell level, not 1 point per spell
Make raise the fallen count towards total hit dice of undead controlled
Clarify sacrifice the many on what actions can and cannot be taken during the ritual and that it provokes
Add that appropriate candidates for soul well are 1/2 your HD rounded up, rather than down
Possibly move the metamagic portion of blood well to level 2
Bump and an update to the Google document. For some reason, the link above doesn't link to the modified version of the document.