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So recently one of the players in my current Pathfinder campaign brought a rather interesting prestige class from the 3.5 Tome of Necromancy to my attention, the Stranger with the Burning Eyes. I thought that the class was an amazing concept, but its core ability "Burning Soul (Su)" seemed much too powerful as written, and the BAB and save progressions did not seem to make sense for a full casting prestige class. I tried my hand at converting it to Pathfinder and fixing the issues. Here is the result.
My conversion might be overly conservative, so some feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Awun
Good to have some free burnin' eyed stranger stuff that ain't an Adventurer's Armory 2 thrice-cuted poppet out there. ;)
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Hmm, I'm thinking that Adventure's Armory 2 beats out the Stranger on the creepy/cute front. Although now that I know they exist I'm sorely tempted to build a poppet themed character.
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Based on various comments, I have made some changes to my conversion.
The second link will reflect the class as it evolves.
I havea few suggestions to the "current" draft. First, I suggest thinking over the requirement for spontaneous casting, as I frankly don't think its necessary. And I also kinda would retool the special requirement thing. Instead of not having a body being a requirement, the requirement is that you must have a body ready to transfer too with your original body being destroyed immediately.
I think this is good for two reasons. First off, it explains how the stranger actually transitions from its previous state to its current. The original never really stated how it got from losing its body after taking the class, to possessing its new body. Further I think this is a better solution than have an incorporeal subtype, as that would imply the stranger could survive without a host, which it can't.
Also, I think the whole recursive possession thing is what's really overpowered. You could just have an infinite supply of bodies, and the victims of it could at any time be repossessed? Frankly I'd think you could nerf that by having it be recursive only back until it's spellcasting modifier if you want to keep that ability.
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I havea few suggestions to the "current" draft. First, I suggest thinking over the requirement for spontaneous casting, as I frankly don't think its necessary. And I also kinda would retool the special requirement thing. Instead of not having a body being a requirement, the requirement is that you must have a body ready to transfer too with your original body being destroyed immediately.
I think this is good for two reasons. First off, it explains how the stranger actually transitions from its previous state to its current. The original never really stated how it got from losing its body after taking the class, to possessing its new body. Further I think this is a better solution than have an incorporeal subtype, as that would imply the stranger could survive without a host, which it can't.
Also, I think the whole recursive possession thing is what's really overpowered. You could just have an infinite supply of bodies, and the victims of it could at any time be repossessed? Frankly I'd think you could nerf that by having it be recursive only back until it's spellcasting modifier if you want to keep that ability.
The spontaneous casting requirement is definitely a hold over from the original.When I was looking into comments on the class it seemed that it may have been intended for Dread Necromancer, which is a spontaneous caster. Removing the requirement for spontaneous casting seems reasonable, but the entry spell requirement would be very easy for a prepared caster.
What if the special requirement read: "You must ritually incinerate your true body while magically possessing another creature.", instead of "Your true body must have been destroyed."?
The reasoning behind making them incorporeal is to account for strangeness of a creature that is completely without a body. I have edited the class to hopefully resolve the issue of the Stranger surviving without a host.
As for the recursive possession issue you bring up, I don't see this easily happening. Abuse of Leadership, dominate, charm, or social sills are the only options I can think of. However, even if a Stranger had an endless supply of old hosts within medium range, or after 8th level long range, each hop carries a chance of death. The Consume ability, seems as if part of its purpose is to soften up current and perspective hosts. Although, I did nerf Consume from its original form.
That sounds all good to me. It resolves my problems.