User talk:Snafusam/Purifier (3.5e Prestige Class)

Comments

after removing one ability entirely im now stuck with the question is it balanced (yes i realize it's massive superiority vs undead)... Snafusam (talk) May 19, 2013 09:01(PDT)

I can do a review if you wish so, I did not read the class yet but I can point any issues (and potential issues) as well as providing ways to fix them. --Leziad (talk) 14:34, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

how do you do a review? i was just about to make a pair of level 20's and have them fight each-other. Purifier vs | True Necromancer Snafusam (talk) May 21, 2013 04:42(PDT)

Might not be the best way, i`l just look at it in an objective and critical way, compare it to similar classes and just post the result. --Leziad (talk) 05:26, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Not to mention that pitting it against a True Necromancer puts it in a situation where, to me, it has an obvious advantage. But yeah, the idea of having it fight other things to see what happened was kind of abandoned with the Same Game Test. As for this class, the biggest concern for me right off the bat is how extra turning attempts relate to Divine Metamagic and the cheesy things that the Cleric gets access to. Limitations on hydrokinesis would probably also be good (they seem to be implied, but not specifically stated) to prevent the purifier from drowning the whole world instantaneously (which, ironically, would not kill all the undead in the world). - TG Cid (talk) 17:18, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

your right, this would have an obvious advantage... I have taken a look at the Divine Metamagic and either 1. Don't understand it enough or 2. believe it's limited enough the double turning won't effect it enough. the limitations of 'hydrokinesis' are implied and stated in some places however, left vaguely open so as X-DM can limit it themselves to better fit X-campaign/player. the source which i have based this hydrokinesis never used it to 'potential' because of self-restraint which though some players have, most dont... as for "drown the whole world" I already made this impossible with rates of generation the world has countless ways of dealing with excess water without magic (rivers, lakes, oceans) adding magic into the equation makes this increasingly impossible however flooding a tunnel or water-way would be possible, if the dm doesn't create a water-drain (most tunnles do, its just another one of those little things the DM will have to think about when making his campaign or adding it in on the fly once said character gains X power.)

please give it a run-through and let me know what your thoughts are, hope it's not too much. Snafusam (talk) May 23, 2013 02:40(PDT)

Divine Metamagic (hereafter abbreviated as DMM) allows you to use turning attempts as metamagic levels. This allows you to add levels past level 9, provided you have enough turning attempts, and thus do all the cheesy things that clerics do (like persist divine power every day). So more turning attempts equals more metamagic abuse, which the cleric already gets plenty and does not need more of. That's at least the general gist of it, I believe. For the whole class in general, I am in favor of Prestige Classes being as short as possible. If it works effectively in five levels, there is no reason to extend it to ten, especially when in my experience most "high level" games are around level 14 or so and every level becomes precious. Having to throw more than five levels into any one PrC doesn't sit well with me. For more on this, I made a specific section below - TG Cid (talk) 00:29, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

just looked up this trick and it's the first I've heard of it, though i agree it is very powerful, there are many (VERY MANY) ways for a DM to counteract such things. however i agree with the worry and am currently trying to find a nice way to word a limitation. however these bonus turnings cannot be used for Divine Metamagic.?? i agree that shorter classes are easier for DM/players, do you think i should compress this class into a 5-level prestige? (do you really have an average "high level" of 14? my campaign went from level 1 to 55+ before i recently HAD to kill the entire campaign for a restart (level 3).) Snafusam (talk) May 24, 2013 19:28(PDT)

Oh no you don't. Don't even try and Oberoni this argument. A GM can shut down anything - this is no indication of whether it is balanced or not. - MisterSinister (talk) 02:16, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

I just had to look up "oberoni"... many (VERY MANY) ways for a DM to counteract such things are all legal without "Rule 0".

That's not what I'm doing. this class has changed so far from what it was supposed to be, I don't even want to play the characters I made it for! I'm THAT sick of all the changes I've made to this class trying to make it acceptable for everybody. I'm through with it, goodbye, next project. Snafusam (talk) May 31, 2013 19:23(PDT)

flooding continued

I have player-P that I know right off the bat would never think of attempting to flood a dungeon (simply unable... not unwilling.) and player-R that are capable wouldn't hesitate for a second to try, another player-K that actually wouldn't do it out of principle, unless required, and if any of said players were to try I would make my player try and reason it (for alignment purposes at least), otherwise it it flow's into the ocean/lake/river and nothing changes, flash flood maybe, but not drown the world. if they were to keep trying it (Player-S) then Pelor might take offense and the incompetent fool be decapitated DOWN COMES THE ANGELS! following a ban of said player playing said type of charactor... (Player-R isn't allowed to be undead anymore and Player-S is pushing hard for some kind of limitation.) Snafusam (talk) May 23, 2013 02:40(PDT)

That's a terrible way to try to justify sharing this ability with potential parties everywhere.

Well, assuming that they can only create one 30-ft radius sphere's-worth of water per round, that's only 0.0000001 cubic kilometers per round. Doubling the volume of the Earth's oceans would take 2,399,100,000 years.

Filling a dungeon, however, would take a couple of minutes unless it had a Peter Jackson LotR-style interior. If that's not using the ability as intended, I don't know what is. --Foxwarrior (talk) 16:29, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

keep in mind, flooding dungeons has always been an option for adventurers, it simply needs the right spells or situation this is no different.

keep in mind the DND oceans usually connect to the elemental plane of water (in a variety of ways) meaning that they can't really "overflow"...

(I don't get the Peter Jackson LotR-style reference. If its to the drain in the helms deep wall, then yes that's exactly what this means.) the method I'm wanting to use to avoid having a dungeon flooded is having a natural cavern beneath it, connected to the underdark you say? Snafusam (talk) May 23, 2013 15:06(PDT)

new edits make flooding much longer to achieve. Snafusam (talk) June 03, 2013 08:20(PDT)

Flood attempt experiment

Lets see how long it would take to flood an Water-tight dungeon with 30'radius (generation max area) of water per 6 seconds (1 round). This would effectively force any air-breathing creature to drown (no fight experience) or be forced out of the dungeons nearest entrance (que fight) destroying any fire/water weak items(scrolls/books/important documents)

1. for my first dungeon I had my level 1 players(playing Adnd) go into a small cave which turned out to be much bigger than expected (as an inexperienced DM at the time I wound up having divine intervention save them many times) the cave was drawn out on a grid sheet and measured by 10 square feet per block, making my first dungeon cave 20x40 blocks x10 square feet. so that's 8,000 square feet. filling the 3770 cubic feet at a time would take (133 rounds) 13 minutes...

2. an later dungeon was called the "sunder canyon" it was more or less a thin yet long canyon with many small holes in the sides which monsters made their homes, the players job was to stand in the center, draw out all the monsters and survive while the local town guard rained down arrows/spells. it's size was 400 feet across and 25000 feet long at a depth of 5000 feet. so, 50,000,000,000 feet squared would take 2758 years to flood this canyon (not including evaporation/creatures drinking or time to sleep/live so you might as well double that, and continue to laugh when they die of old age)...

3. an laberynth, this was a simple maze i made which took 1 sheet of grid paper giving each square 5 feet, 43x33x5=7095/30= 23.6 minutes (lucky me it was already setup for water-drainage...)

so, though an adventurer could potentially flood many dungeons (if water-tight...) it doesn't kill things that don't breath and there are places (sealed/hidden doors) that won't be simply flash flooded and there are many spells (wall of fire!) which would prevent water-flooding... Snafusam (talk) May 23, 2013 19:10(PDT)

10 square feet per block? Do you mean that the blocks were ~3 feet wide, or did you mean to say 10 foot square blocks (100 square feet)? Assuming the latter, that's actually 40,000 square feet. It's not 40000 /30; it's a 30 foot radius sphere. A 30 foot radius sphere has a volume of almost exactly 3770 cubic feet, which means you can fill this cave at a rate of depth increase of 3770/40000 = 0.09 feet per round. So you can fill it to a depth of 6 feet (head height) in 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

Your canyon volume calculation was correct, but your sphere calculation still wasn't, so it would only be 921 days. --174.61.170.65 04:10, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

the "block" on grid paper = square... dnd calculates one "square" as 5 foot radius, on my DM-map, i made it 10 feet squared for each square on the DM-map. Where are you getting the calculation for 3770 cubic feet, I'm not getting any number near that. I'm not sure where you started using 'cubic feet' as it has an extra dimension in it's calculations but try and stick with feet squared, I've kept all the calculations to feet squared for this reason. it's presumed that any living creature will attempt to swim, so 6 feet won't cut it. Snafusam (talk) May 23, 2013 21:46(PDT)

Spheres are three dimensional; putting them in units of anything other than cubic feet is weird.

The volume of a sphere is (4/3)πr³. --70.199.243.111 18:15, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

yes a sphere is three dimensional, where does "sphere" come into consideration (the above topic said "sphere" after "radius" which is how it would appear if the purifier were to surround herself with water, however because the purpose is mass-creation it would not be held in place thus it would not actually gain the sphere appearance/quality.)? perhaps it is weird but either way, that's what dnd3.5 uses 99% of the time (to my knowledge).

the ability states Creation: Generate as much water as desired, within 30 feet of self, how it appears can be chosen (even direction traveling when created) Keep in mind, that destruction/evaporation can be achieved as well, at the same rate. and continues to state a number of example generation effects. the above topic realized the 30 feet can be any direction (spherical) however try for a second to imagine how creating water like that would look... a giant water-droplet that's leaking? or an exploding light-bubble? then explain it to the DM/player... Snafusam (talk) May 24, 2013 15:26(PDT)

new edits make flooding much longer to achieve. Snafusam (talk) June 03, 2013 08:20(PDT)

Suggestions

As I mentioned above, this is one of those cases where less is more as far as levels are concerned. I think this could work as a five-level PrC, which will dictate pretty much all of the suggestions I make below.

• You already have create water as a spell courtesy of the bonus domain. I don't feel like giving it as an SLA really does anything for the class, and it also just clogs up the 1st level. For the sake of my five-level suggestion, I am suggesting that it be purged. On that note, what happens to your bonus domain if you already have the Good and Water domain? A probably rare occurrence, to be sure, but I think for the sake of fairness you should get a different bonus domain should it happen.
• Geyser is quite a problematic spell to give, seeing as how the dedicated enemies of the purifier are immune to non-lethal damage in the first place. Kind of a disconnect between mechanics and theme, I think, but not necessarily all bad since it means you aren't totally shoehorned into an undead fighter. That said, I think the spell itself could be improved upon.
• Purifying Prowess is quite a handful; an effective increase in caster level synergizes very strongly with blasphemy and those similar spells that will flat out kill (or at least daze/debilitate) anything with less HD than your caster level, with no save. I would try something else there and scrap that bit, since combined with other effective caster level boosters it amounts to lots of blasphemy abuse.

I will continue to update this as time allows. - TG Cid (talk) 00:29, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

agreed with the create water, and removed it. added an exception for the case of a purifier having both domains. Geyser is a very limited spell i agree it needs buffing (just don't know how to give it without making it too much, considering removing it from class too.), its purpose on this class is to give 'some' power against non-undead, and sense it's non-lethal it won't kill the living. The Zone of consecration turns the geyser into holy water meaning it will deal full damage vs undead. blasphemy is already abused easily, this is no different. thank you for your help ;D Snafusam (talk) May 24, 2013 19:13(PDT)

While it's true that blasphemy is already quite easily abused, I think this is even more cause to not give a flat increase in caster level. The fact that something already takes place does not create precedent to exacerbate the problem, in my opinion. It is just encouraging clerics to win the entire game for their team outright, which isn't good for anyone concerned. - TG Cid (talk) 16:29, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

hmmm so... completely avoid giving such an ability to directly avoid a common abuse of 2 spells (blasphemy and holy word)? of which one is currently an spell-like ability @ level 10 which controversy suggests that the bonus was given intentionally (same as the true necromancer which this was made to oppose.)... as much as i understand the concern, i have to point out the potential danger of such spells, good clerics using holy word too much risk losing their gods favor and risk killing team-mates (had both happen before). evil clerics abusing blasphemy tend to attract the attention of stronger creatures increasing risk however easier it may be to kill smaller creatures... Snafusam (talk) May 26, 2013 02:47(PDT)

It only risks killing teammates if they are of a different alignment, of course. This can be easily avoided by having a party that is all of the same alignment, and the cleric naturally has other options as his disposal beyond those four spells. Even so, the amount of creatures that quartet alone can easily dispatch is quite high, any of the supposed drawbacks you have alluded to are not mechanically written and thus not universally applicable. If the DM imposes such a control, that is one thing, but that largely hinges on the game in which this is taking place. Because the caster level increase is the universality here, the best option is to get rid of it entirely, since the cleric doesn't need more help being a god.

As I stated previously, I am in favor of this five level crunch, but one drawback is that it magnifies the rate of the flat caster level increase. One of the advantages of shorter PrC's and PrC's in general is the ability to base things off of the player's character or caster level in order to reduce the individual investment necessary in each level of the Prestige Class. I'm not necessarily recommending that you do this in the case of the caster level increase (I still think this should just go) but it does allow you more flexibility.

I have a suggestion for the turning. Remove turning attempts per day entirely; essentially, let them do it at will. Compared to the abuse of DMM spamming, turn undead unlimited times per day is no big deal, since the level that you really need to be to destroy things is very, very much above what most players will achieve unless the enemies are so much weaker that the PC's would crap on them anyway. It completely nullifies DMM as an option, too, which is a good thing. - TG Cid (talk) 13:00, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

I've done a change turning the class into 5-levels, a lot neater, shorter, but not what i was intending it to be :/ it's essentially the same power, just gained quicker at a higher level... from levels 8-13 minimum... (increased the requirements to level 8)... but not sure i like it... thoughts? should I increase the BaB/saves?

'Now' I'm worried about the purifying prowess and holy word at the end feels like its too easily reached, remove holy word and move the zone of concecration down shifting everything down one space? Snafusam (talk) May 26, 2013 03:54(PDT)

Okay this change is very risky, your thoughts? I've altered the purifying prowess ECL to account for multiclassing instead of simply boosting and increased the spells per day gained per level. Removed the holy word at level 5. Snafusam (talk) May 26, 2013 18:23(PDT)

I'm not quite sure what you meant by removing holy word, since clerics already have it available as a spell by default. The new Purifying Prowess does indeed make the class more accessible from other classes, especially considering granting some form of full casting to the paladin is what some VH-level remakes seek to achieve anyway. That said, I think the example requires clarification of the spell levels available to a multiclass paladin/purifier as well as the adjusted effective caster level. That is just as significant, if not moreso. You may also need to consider how the class feature interacts with multiple spellcasting classes. If you have access to more than one (say, cleric and paladin), do they stack cumulatively or do the bonus caster levels only apply to one? Does that also make you a double full caster, or only provide full casting when you don't already have such a thing? There are plenty of opportunities for loose interpretation there that may not be desirable. - TG Cid (talk) 13:16, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

you never noticed that after hydrokinesis there used to be holy word as a spell-like ability given at level (use to be 10) 5. made another couple of examples.it says in the purifying prowess description "classes which do not naturally grant caster levels" meaning that there is no change to those which do grant caster levels and it details the adjustment to the paladin...

when i started this class i simply copied exactly what the true necromancer had (14 level prestige), reversing holy/unholy and making changes from there... at this point, the class is nothing like what i had intended to make. Snafusam (talk) May 28, 2013 15:06(PDT)

Spells per day

It seems that the spell gain per day is like saying for every level you get you get 2 levels. If you were to go 8 cleric/5 purifier you're effectively a level 20 cleric (ignoring all the other bonuses) by level 13. I feel like prestige classes need some form of niche that they fulfil, rather than just being all around better. It just seems way too strong to me. --Sabre070 (talk) 16:48, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

to a point i agree, however recently there have been more and more classes which do both. Snafusam (talk) May 28, 2013 15:06(PDT)

Seconding the spell advancement being bullshit. There are a few multiclass patch prestige classes that advance two separate casting tracks and there are some justifiably reviled "replacement progression" prestige classes that offer a fast progression because they need to catch up to the old one (Ur-priest, beholder mage), but there aren't any that I am aware of that double down on an existing progression like this. If you want people throwing around True Res and Implosion and Gate and Miracle at CR 12 instead of CR 17, well, you're crazy. It's a terrible plan on a PrC like this and needs to drop to +1 per level, full stop. They can acquire those spells post PrC, at the appropriate level. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 02:58, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Edit - When Cid suggested a 5-level crunched version of this PrC, he almost certainly meant only the abilities and not the spellcasting progression. Since the pile up happened after that compression, it's possible that it was just a misunderstood side effect of that, but it's still an extremely bad one that should be corrected. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 05:16, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

The divine tide was ment to correct that problem while not causing a seperate problem entirely. however that failed horribly, thanks for out-doing yourselves ghostwheel & danieldraco. Snafusam (talk) June 01, 2013 01:48(PDT)

You're... welcome? Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but all we did is comment on something that looked a little silly. Rather, why post on a public wiki that's specifically created for quality control and constructive criticism and then get upset when people do just that? :-3 -Ghostwheel (talk) 13:48, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what problem you're even referring to. If the problem is that they don't ever get to the higher level cleric spells, well, that's not actually happening with or without this class feature. When they finish with their 5 purifier levels they can just go back to getting more cleric levels or grab a different divine spellcasting advancing PrC and get the spells at the appropriate level. All divine tide does is allow them to stop being a cleric (or be less of a cleric before they get to purifier 6), and that's extremely weird.

Alternately, if the problem is that they're getting abilities in the class before the spells that you think should go along with them (like if you wanted purifying prowess to be a thing that people got at the same time as miracle or whatever), then that's a problem with the ability advancement and you should go back to a 10 level version (it's saved in the history if you just want to restore it, let me know if you need help finding it). If it's causing problems or no longer fits the structure you wanted for it then it should go, whether it's liked more by some people or not.

If the problem is something else, I'm out of guesses and you'll need to be a bit more explicit. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 15:12, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Divine Tide

...Wow. So a Tome Fighter 13 / Cleric 1 / Purifier 6 gets level 20 cleric spellcasting as well as the Tome Fighter goodies... that's pretty incredible. O.o --Ghostwheel (talk) 20:49, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, that class feature more or less makes you gestalt. It doesn't matter if you don't get the non-casting features of your divine spellcaster, because it's a freaking spellcaster; those other features are garnishes, and removing them does not balance this. --DanielDraco (talk) 21:00, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

These would not work, at least not in the general logic sense. tome fighter doesn't have concentration/spellcraft as class skills so minimum level for that would be 20+, a level one cleric would not give high enough spellcasting to get the former or current spellcasting requirements(also level 1 cleric shouldn't be able to get high enough concentration/spellcraft ranks, unless the tome fighter has an int modifier of 14). also note that the divine tide only effects on levels "gained" meaning after the ability is gained. Snafusam (talk) June 03, 2013 08:20(PDT)

So it's intentional for you to finish Purifier and then move into non-casting classes? Because the thing where you move back into cleric or a different cleric PrC looks like a stupid move after that class feature. Do you not think it weird that a cleric PrC strongly encourages you to stop getting cleric levels at the end of it? - Tarkisflux ^Talk 03:51, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Moves

All sorted. No worries on the weirdness, it takes time to get this wiki stuff down. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 04:23, 1 June 2013 (UTC)