New prestige class: Devildriver

[The Nightmare Man]

An interesting idea.

Will we be seeing any fluff for this class?

[Mortepierre]

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Still, a bit too 'martial' for RL to my taste. I would rather use the Divine Exorcist PrC (from Legacy of the Blood), although I could see yours being more suited to domains such as Sri Raji <ponders>

[Shoon VII]

interesting concept, there is alot of stuff that combines aspect of the Excorcist prestige class from Complete Divine and yet has monks abilities. this, i believe, is a problem. there is no significant way of distinguishing this Prestige class from the other. in order to qualify for this class, a PC would have to be (ideally) a multiclass monk-priest or a priest who spent all of his/her Feats on combat related abilities.

you may want to tailor this particular exorcist to combat w/ fists rather than combat w/ spells. rather than having Dismissal or Dispel Evil as a prerequisite, consider having Axiomatic Strike (Complete Warrior) or Ki Strike (lawful) as prerequisites. that would change the flavor of the class, i understand. this can be rationalized as the monks dedication to combating the forces of entropy and chaos that many fiends represent.

rather than Turn Undead, you could grant the class Rebuke Outsider (esentially the same thing but focuses exclusively on fiends).

Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2005 11:12 pm Post subject:

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"A devildriver exists to combat the actual entity, outside of it's current host, not neccessarily their individual forms of attack."


Since thefocus is on combat, all of those extra turning feats can be converted to bonus fighter feats or bonus monk feats. my biggest critique of the class is that it is too close to other kinds of excorcists i've seen written up. i think the idea is sound, however, but it needs to be tweaked a bit for more martial PC's like monks, fighters, etc.

i also agree w/ Wiccy that Fists of Agony is overpowered. this can be changed to make the ability the equivalent of the Smite ability with the exception that it works on Outsiders with the Evil subtype.

[Mad Skipper]

I'll fiddle with those thoughts and introduce a different version for those who are anti-anime. Joke. The anime part, not the other version. Truth be told I was thinking about taming this class down a bit as it were. More reason now I guess.

Also, I will drop the Extra Turning in exchange for a little more combat-oriented abilities. Stay tuned.

Thanks for the help.

And, what does this mean: "Will we be seeing any fluff for this class?"

[Mad Skipper]

-Class requirement Feat (Fists of Iron) added.

-Class requirement Feat (Ghostsight) added.

-Class requirement Spells dismissal and dispel evil removed.

-Class Skill (Scry) removed.

-Skill Points at Each Level added (!).

-Class Feature (Spells per Day) removed.

-Class Feature (Fists of Agony) altered.

-Class Feature (Turn Undead) altered.

-Class Feature Extra Turning replaced with Bonus Feat.

[Malus Black]

And, what does this mean: "Will we be seeing any fluff for this class?"

Stuff like a small introductory text, information on the sort of characters who would be likely to pursue the class, secret organizations of devildrivers, allies, foes, mysteries, and so on.

[The Arcanist]

Hi, i think the class is very good, but dont you think the devils hide ability is too much? i mean DR 20? against undead? beware vampires and vampire hunters! the first are in for a pounding, the later are out of a job! hehehe...

sorry about that, but still, if most of its fights are wreaking spirits out of innocent victims, perhaps he doesnt need it at all?

[Malus Black]

Ah, I forgot about the Devil's Hide ability. I was meaning to ask if the DR is X/- or X/something. If it's X/- then I agree that it is very powerful, even at low levels. After all, the Dwarven Defender only has a 6/- DR at 10th level, and while this DR applies to all foes and is as such more useful than Devil's Hide, there's quite a lot of undead and demons (I assume you include all evil Outsiders in that category) in Ravenloft.

[The Arcanist]

as i understood from the first post its X/"extraplanars with the evil descriptor and undead"

and especifically that part about undead in RL can be too much, thats why i ask you, the focus of this class is wreaking the fiend/undead/other out of a helpless vicitm, and as has been stated the possessor is limited in its grapple by the hosts abilities, so how hard can it be to grapple a 4th level aristocrat or a 5th level expert?

Thats why i say that IMHO that it might be better to scratch this ability, its not like the PRC doesnt have any other abilities, in fact it has a lot of them.

[Mad Skipper]

The DR is there because if it wasn't, then any evil outsider would pulverize them in combat once they have been wreaked from their victim-host. Don't forget, it's a tooth and tooth battle that goes on between the two. One-hundred percent devildriver, one-hundred percent possessor.

And given that their special ability is hand-to-hand combat, the chances of them wearing armor of any significance would be generally slim. The DR somewhat balances this.

But with that much said, maybe the DR should be reduced...

- Class Feature (Devil's Hide) altered.

[Mad Skipper]

And, what does this mean: "Will we be seeing any fluff for this class?"

Stuff like a small introductory text, information on the sort of characters who would be likely to pursue the class, secret organizations of devildrivers, allies, foes, mysteries, and so on.

If that's the case, then yes. I'm working on it. I have the grandmaster's "temple" drawn and sitting on my desk right here and now.

But fear not, devildrivers don't exist beyond a handful of souls. Only when one dies and is reincarnated--or, thought to be--does another seek and bring back to the grandmaster to retrain.

Religious beliefs, structure, etcetera is actually the thing that's been slowest coming out of my head, but hopefully the pace will pick up.

[Mad Skipper]

and as has been stated the possessor is limited in its grapple by the hosts abilities, so how hard can it be to grapple a 4th level aristocrat or a 5th level expert?

On average, not hard at all.

So that's why a clever possessor--one who knows the existance of devildrivers--would naturally choose a more capable specimen. One able to resist the meddlesome devildriver until any one or all of its goals are achieved, but equally unable to challenge its vile possession.

Player characters and characters of like potential not excluded.

If the DM wants it, the devildriver can have a very tough time with their Wreak class feature, a struggling battle unto itself really. And then all Hell, quite literally, will break loose once the fists and claws start flying...

[Malus Black]

as i understood from the first post its X/"extraplanars with the evil descriptor and undead"

No, you misunderstand. Damage reduction is presented in the format X/Y, where X is the amount of damage subtracted from an attack, and Y is the type of attack that bypasses this. For instance, a creature might have DR 5/Gold, meaning that every attack does 5 points less damage than it would otherwise (except in the case of energy attacks, which bypass DR), but a gold weapon would bypass this reduction. This is why DR X/- is so rarely found, as nothing will bypass this reduction.

Mad Skipper, the revised ability looks far more balanced, while still being very useful for the devildriver. I'm looking forward to the fluff.

[Stygian Inquirer]

Mad Skipper, I think you might have made a mistake on the Fortitude Save numbers. They seem to go all over the place. I was wondering whether fortitude is supposed to be a good save or a bad save?

[Mad Skipper]

The Fortitude Save fluxuates like it does because of the Hand of Doom Class Feature. My reasoning being, a minus to Constitution is a likewise minus to Fortitude Save...

And, for some reason, I'm still able to go online. Weird.