| SageofMaple |
Had several of my players introduced to the idea that Thassilon's Sin Magic was somehow different than regular, modern magic. I went and looked into the Sin Magic webpage on the SRD as a basis for how to approach this thematically, and settled on the idea of creating a PrC based around 2 things: the core concept of Thassilonian magic being hyper-specialization of spellcasting, and that it was tied to a person's core beliefs (ie a wrathful person being a wrath sin mage, a zealous person being a zeal virtue mage, etc).
Thus, we get the Soul Scholar, a 5-level PrC usable by any spellcasting class.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gmz13x9ai59ymp0/Soul%20Scholar%20PrC.pdf?dl=0
Looking for feedback on how it looks, functionally speaking. I want to make sure this is something a player would take. That being said, this isn't meant to be a mix-max build, so any comments about how "losing a level of spell progression is worse than X or Y options, therefore this is bad" won't even be considered. Just that if this is too weak and needs buffing to be usable, or too strong and literally always the best choice are things I want to avoid.
| Dryad Knotwood |
I may not be the most qualified to comment, but there are a few odd things I noticed:
1. Focus: This allows you to choose a school to hyper specialize in... which is fine if you aren't a wizard and can choose a school that is already prohibited by your Thassilonian specialization. It should state that the choice for focus must be the same one as your wizard school specialization if you have one since prestige classes that enhance similar choices tend to limit themselves the same way. E.G. Horizon Walker allows you to specialize further in Favored Terrains and you must choose ones that you've previously chosen in preceding levels. Same thing with Dragon Disciple. Yes, the prestige class you wrote is meant more for roleplaying purposes, but this could still be a weird issue if someone wants to make it be.
2. The first level of spell progression should probably be moved back as the closest equivalent (that I can recall off the top of my head), Agent of the Grave, has almost the same spellcasting progression, but slower.
3. Spark of Self allowing allies to auto-succeed on saves is more powerful than you'd think as even a 9th level spell such as meteor swarm or prismatic sphere don't allow allies to auto-succeed on their saves, plus there are rider effects on the ability as written. Also, you may want to look at them again as equivalent effects aren't as strong. E.G. Charity is more powerful than a 5th level spell (Dispel Evil) as it is an AOE and affects everything in the cone. Also, some of the effects don't make sense for their school, like Sloth making a wall of force, which is an evocation effect rather than conjuration or Wrath making creatures staggered which is more of a transmutation effect. On a second glance, the effects vary in power to a degree that is odd as Temperance heals so little on average (At 3rd level, 10.5/4 = 2.125 hit points healed) it's really just depressing and the auto-succeed on saves part in the ability really shouldn't be on the sin side of things anyway, nor should the virtue side be auto-selective, channeling energy requires a feat to do so and wizards and alchemists who want to be selective with their AOE's also have to choose the option with class features.
The virtuous effects might be helped by looking at the Runeguard prestige class's effects. Furthermore, being usable 1/2 hit dice times per day doesn't really exist in pathfinder for class abilities iirc, it should probably be a number of times per day equal to levels in the prestige class itself.
4. Attunement should really only affect the chosen school as the individual taking the prestige class is doing so to focus on that specific school of magic and it seems weird to have the other ones boosted by Attunement as well.
5. Harbinger of Ancient Ways is possibly stronger than the Incantantrix's Improved Metamagic class feature which only reduces the spell level increase by one. While the ability does only apply to one school of spells, it also adds two more spells to the list of spells that this ability can affect which can allow it to apply to things like say Wish or Limited Wish if the player chooses to do so. And if you combine it with Spell Focus, Spell Specialization and/or Spell Perfection, then things can get silly, especially since Wish can replicate other spells with all of its metamagics likely applying to the replicated spell...
6. This is just garnish, but the class's prerequisites should probably include being able to cast at least 2nd level spells and maybe even Knowledge (Arcana) since all Thassilonian casters were wizards and this prestige class is about adapting that heritage to more recent magic styles.
These are just my 2 copper pieces, take them as you will.
| SageofMaple |
Your feedback is appreciated. Regarding your points:
1. Your point is valid, thankfully this is a home game and my players are all on the same page as me regarding
2. I originally had it where the first level of the class was the non-progression, except then I had a level where all that really happened was gaining +2 concentration and losing 2 schools of magic. I was unsure if that was too heavy-handed, making what was effectively a dead level. I will take your point into consideration, however.
3. I see your point, and will see if I can adjust the effects accordingly. Just a note that the effect of Temperance heals back on the CUMULATIVE total damage dealt to all creatures. (so if it hits 6 creatures for 10 damage, it deals 60 total damage and heals allies for 15). I may adjust this to account for a change in uses per day.
4. The net goal there was to bring the other schools back to par while having the chosen school be 1 level ahead, since this class causes overall spell progression to fall behind by 1.
5. What if I limited it to 7th level or lower? This would prevent the Wish abuse at higher levels.
6. I'll certainly add in 2nd-level spell restriction, but I probably won't add arcana since this is meant to be usable for this specific home game, and only 1 of my players has ranks in arcana. I may add arcana if I ever re-use this in a later campaign.
| Dryad Knotwood |
So, further feedback:
2 & 4: On further reflection, these two are connected and really should just be +1 caster level to the specialized school and an increase in spellcasting. It makes it less clunky and more on theme for the idea of the prestige class being hyper specialization in a specific school. The other thing is, +1 caster level is roughly equivalent to half of a feat, the increase of +2 caster level is roughly one feat with +1 to five schools being 2 and a half feats, resulting in a power increase of approximately 3.5 feats, conversely an evoker at level 8 gets rounds per day of wall of fire damage, a death domain cleric can heal from both positive and negative energy, a fighter gets one bonus feat, a barbarian gets a single rage power, a magus gets the equivalent of +2 caster level for concentration checks, and so on and so forth. The base classes are getting what is roughly equivalent to a feat's worth of power, so Attunement should probably be in line with that.
3: Yeah, most of the effects need overhaul, and should probably be looked at for thematic effects in line with the schools of magic.
5: The problem is more the fact that it adds spells to a school of magic. The only equivalent effect that I can think of to this is a first level wizard power that thematically allows for casting cure spells as necromancy spells rather than as conjuration. The ability you have on the class as written basically allows for bypassing of the prohibited school restriction, which as shown in the lore, the Runelords couldn't do other than by forcing or convincing other spellcasters to cast the spells for them. Or they used Wish to duplicate spells from their forbidden schools, but that tells us that lore-wise, this ability's second half doesn't make any sense. The ability while strong doesn't give off a feeling of being... shall we say unique to the theme and is just good. Expanding on effects specific to the school chosen at first level would probably work better and be more thematic on top of that. The Master Specialist prestige class is probably the best spot to look up reasonably school appropriate effects for this.