Question about Monster Hunter pclass

[Victor Stark]

I recently joined a home game where I was allowed to create a 6th level PC from Ravenloft (for a RL-based campaign). I decided a vampire hunter would be fun, so I came up with an Expert 2/Ranger 3/Monster Hunter 1. The idea is to play him to MH 5 (to get prepreqs) and then switch to Specialty Hunter (vampires).

However, my GM had an important question about the prereqs for MH, specifically the 5 ranks in Knowledge (planes). To quote the Ravenloft Player's Handbook, page 60:

"Knowledge (the planes): By its very narure, the Land of Mists clouds the minds of those who dwell within. In Ravcnlofr.Knowledge (rhe planes)focuses on the plane of the Realm of Dread specifically, as well as on outsiders, elementals and magic relating to it. This represents an undersranding of the planar fabric of the Realm of Dread, including the Mists, the nature of domains, closed borders, darklords and so on.

"This is an extremely rare skill, known only by a handful of arcane scholars. most of whom are darklords. It is considered a cross-class skill for all classes unless noted explicitly otherwise in Ravenloft material. No player character may begin the game with ranks in Knowledge (the planes), and must be able to back up its purchase during a campaign with experience in the subject and "in game" research.

The DM may allow characters with this skill to have some undersranding of planes aside from the Realm of Dtead {as described in the Player's Handbook). lf so, increase the DC by 10 for such checks."

Now that all that's out of the way....

1) Should Knowledge (planes) be a prerequisite for the Monster Hunter class? It's not at all common or easy to come by. Plus, I don't see the average vampire or werewolf hunter needing it.

2) Should it be replaced with another Knowledge skill? I could see replacing it with either the appropriate Knowledge subskill for the desired creature type (religion for vampires, arcana for constructs, etc...the only one that REALLY requires planar knowledge would be fiends/outsiders), or with Knowledge (Ravenloft). But it sounds like Knowledge (planes) subsumes the function of the 3.0 Knowledge (Ravenloft) skill, so does that even exist?

The same question would apply to the related Specialty Hunter pclass.

Thanks!

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Yes, those rules are kind of a mess. If you keep the Knowledge (planes) prereq, you may want to either lower the number of ranks required for the PrC, or else split Knowledge (Ravenloft) [i.e. DM-eyes-only info like darklords] from Knowledge (planes) [i.e. Mistways, ethereal resonance, fiends, elementals]. Really, the former is what needs to be "top secret", while the latter is simply the Land of Mists' equivalent of physics IRL.

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

I really don't understand why the Ravenloft Player's Handbook had to get rid of the Knowledge: Monster Lore skills from the RLCS. They where a nice flavour-adding touch.

[Victor Stark]

I really don't understand why the Ravenloft Player's Handbook had to get rid of the Knowledge: Monster Lore skills from the RLCS. They where a nice flavour-adding touch.

I think it's because in 3.5 (dunno if it was true in 3.0) the various Knowledge skills are used to determine information about different monster types (religion for undead, arcana for constructs, and so on), so this replaced the function of the Knowledge (monster lore) subskill.

Of course, that still doesn't help me figure out what to do.

There are other changes that bother me more. The one thing that never made sense to me is the mandatory powers check upon advancing a level. IMHO players/PCs should earn a Powers Check through their actions, not a random die roll each character level.

Which is totally off the topic of course...waiting for more answers!

[Rotipher of the FoS]

About the level-advancement Powers checks: They always struck me as a silly overreaction to players' complaints that their spellcasting PCs had to make a lot more Powers checks and suffer a lot more other setting-specific penalties (e.g. dread companions) than the non-spellcasters did. The level-based checks in the RLPHB are applied to those classes which had changed the least, under the Ravenloft 3E rules.

[Spiteful Crow]

Player: I'd like to take a level of fighter.
DM: YOU FAIL A POWERS CHECK! Your character now takes damage from sunlight, silver, and puppies! Your new power is that you can turn babies into gold.

[Nathan of the FoS]

About the level-advancement Powers checks: They always struck me as a silly overreaction to players' complaints that their spellcasting PCs had to make a lot more Powers checks and suffer a lot more other setting-specific penalties (e.g. dread companions) than the non-spellcasters did. The level-based checks in the RLPHB are applied to those classes which had changed the least, under the Ravenloft 3E rules.

Waddya mean, it doesn't make sense that you should slowly fall into darkness as you wander around killing things? Haven't you ever heard that power corrupts? <--you'll have to imagine me doing all of these at once

That's sarcasm, btw, although I suppose it could be expanded into a whole-hearted justification of the idea. If I were inclined to justify it. I think it makes a more natural balance to have magic and magicians be rarer and hence more powerful, although the idea of Ravenloft as a "low-magic setting" seems to have bitten the dust once and for all. (All the NPCs in 3e RL books get their full DMG equipment, or even more.)

***

Er...back to Monster Hunter. Knowledge (the planes) is a really odd pre-requisite for this class no matter how you slice it, so I think it makes sense to swap it out. I think I would make it 5 ranks in any Knowledge, and then make the specialization appropriate for the secondary class (i.e., it has to be Knowledge (religion) for vampires and ghosts, and so forth).

[Jester of the FoS]

I personally ignore the optional rules for class weaknesses (with the exception of altered rules for the paladin, dread familiars and the like).

I'd also ignore the cross class and other restriction on knowledge (planes). It makes sense on paper but in-play things happen differently. Specifically, the only time a Ravenloft character would ever roll that skill would likely be to identify elementals, outsiders and the like. Or figuring out something came from another world. Both rarer occurrences.
Quite frankly you don't need to restrict the number of ranks as no one is ever going to max it out.

I really don't understand why the Ravenloft Player's Handbook had to get rid of the Knowledge: Monster Lore skills from the RLCS. They where a nice flavour-adding touch.

Unlike 3.0 there are a set number of Knowledge Skills instead of a blank as found in Craft and Profession. Each of the skills has a couple purposes and synergies which encourages people to put multiple ranks in multiple knowledges. Adding more knowledges just means that many more skill points that have to be burned.
Monster Lore was a nice touch but given its role was subsumed by all the other skills it became extraneous.

[doctor-evil]

Even having a requirement for 5 ranks in 2 knowledge (non-planes) skills makes the monster hunter class easier to obtain.

Here are the various monsters that the knowledges give your the equivalent of monster lore:

• Arcana (constructs, dragons, magical beasts)
• Dungeoneering (aberrations, oozes)

• Local (humanoids)
• Nature (animals, fey, giants, monstrous humanoids, plants, vermin, werewolves? Hags?)
• Religion (undead)
• The planes (outsiders, elementals)


Knowledge (local) also gives information on local legends, traditions, folklore etc. (~hearth knowledge), which would be useful to monster hunters.

My argument would be to have the requirements be 5 ranks in two knowledges from (from the above), instead of the current Knowledge(planes). This would easily be obtainable by wizards, bards, rangers, priests, monks and those with the university education feat.
Rogues, druids and sorcerors have at least one knowledge as a class skill, but would have to cross class if they wanted to qualify for the PrC at an early level. Fighters barbarians would definitely have to multiclass.

If the monster hunter was the ONLY class that could take Knowledge(planes) as a class skill, that would make it at least feasible for monster hunters to specialise as demon-hunters.