Post/Author/DateTime	Post
deClench 03-25-05, 06:18 PM	I love the idea of the Alienist, but I don't think the PrC is done overly well. I'm thinking of making an Alienist Druid. Instead of the PrC, it would be accomplished by a feat/feat-progression. Pseudonatural Warping feat: All summoned creatures gain the pseudonatural template. Any animal companion or familiar gains the pseudonatural template. So the Alienist PrC only allows celestial or fiendish creatures to be pseudonatural. I'm sure the rationale was to keep the CR a wash and not overpower the PrC. The template has a scaling CR: up to 3HD, CR+0; 4-11HD, CR+1; 11+HD, CR+2. So I'm thinking that the best way is to make 2 feats: the first warps your animal companion or familiar (must be able to cast 1st level summoning spells); the second requires the first and alters your summoning spells by adding the pseudonatural template (to any creature type). The intention is to make this available to arcane casters and to druids but to have it be balanced and fair. I thought of this when reading Bruce Cordell's latest Dragon article on the Far Realm and thought that a Druid/Alienist/Cerebrant would be terribly interesting. It's the ultimate corruption of nature. Is the concept sound? balanced? How would you expand on it? I am interested in any ideas, but am focused more on the flavor than on any optimization.
Lexarius 03-25-05, 06:43 PM	Flavorwise, a druid/alienist sounds horrible. However, a druid/blighter/alienist sounds perfectly fine. Unnatural and natural just don't mix. Not on purpose and with nature's consent, anyway.
deClench 03-25-05, 06:57 PM	Who's asking for nature's consent? :schemes: Perhaps a third tier feat would allow the corruption of additional (non-summoning) spells in some way. Imagine a druid thats becomes corrupted to the core by exposure to the Far Realm. It's not a rationale choice, they simply can't hope to see things the way they were anymore. Everything they do (all the creatures they summon) are now tainted by this madness. They may not even be concious that anything is wrong with themselves. Or would this have to be like a paladin/blackguard thing? The alienist would effectively be the anti-druid. I would rather that not be the case. Can not nature encapsulate a small fragment of the madness in the Far Realm? :bigeyes: Ftagn. :coolcthul
Lexarius 03-25-05, 09:31 PM	Yeah, that's what I was getting at. Far Realms just isn't natural. It's like asking for feats that let a Good cleric cast spells from BoVD without their deity coming and taking away their toys (spells). Though any given druid can be good or evil, they all have to answer to Mother Nature, who would really rather they didn't burn down forests, wear metal armor, or warp her children into pseudonatural monstrosities. A druid doesn't have to be aware that he is burning down a forest with his Flamestrikes. You could even put an enchantment on him that fools him into thinking he isn't wearing metal armor. But that doesn't help, he still loses his abilities. Which is why I suggested Blighter. It's already the anti-druid, and if he could find a way to pervert nature even further, he'd probably do it in a heartbeat.
Wyrd Bearer 03-25-05, 10:54 PM	This is sort of on topic so I'll ask it here. When an alienist summons a fiendish or celestial animal via summon monster, does the psuedonatural template replace the the fiendish/celestial (as in you take the base creature and apply a different template to it) like I've been playing it or does the creature become a pseudonatural fiendish/celestial creature? Because that makes a huge difference in the usefullness of the monsters summoned.
Lexarius 03-25-05, 11:03 PM	You summon pseudonatural creatures instead of celestial or fiendish creatures. Further, you can't summon non-pseudonatural creatures, so no mephits or howlers (since these aren't converted to pseudonatural, for some reason).
Wyrd Bearer 03-25-05, 11:10 PM	Okay, I was doing it right all along. And thanks, but I knew that the monsters that weren't modified by fiendish/celestial couldn't be summoned as pseudonaturals (that would be way too powerful).
deClench 03-26-05, 01:13 PM	Point taken Lexarius. I'm still going to do it, but I'm going to make it so that the energies of the Far Realm slowly replace the energies of nature. The character will begin drawing their power from the Far Realm (as if a cleric of that plane or Madness in general). Their spell list will remain (whether druid or mage), but the source of said magics will change. This will gradually alter the spells; not mechanically necessarily, but phenomenologically. For instance, an Evard's Black Tentacles might look more like amoebic pseudopods; magic missiles might appear as free-floating eyeballs. Now I can have my cake and eat it too. :cloud9:
Lexarius 03-26-05, 02:02 PM	That's acceptable, I suppose. But certain things shouldn't work right. Example: Reincarnate. Perhaps the creature is reincarnated as a pseudonatural creature, maybe taking some mental penalties in exchange. Or perhaps it comes into being with several of the random appendages from the chart in the article. Commune with Nature probably shouldn't work, at least not outside of a blot.
deClench 03-26-05, 02:19 PM	Another good point. I'll have look over the druid list and see which spells just wouldn't work. If there are simply too many then the character would need some other bennie or a unique spell-list. I'm guessing though that most can be flavorfully modified. OTOH that could be the balance for the slight improvement to summon spells... and shapechange! "I shapechange into a pseudonatural giant alligator!"
psionichamster 03-26-05, 04:05 PM	well, your two feats would basically give your druid the "benefits" of the alienist class (sans 2 meta. feats, 6 hp, and timeless body-which is of limited benefit in most games anyways) rather than losing wis, taking an eventual -10 to dip., handle animal, and bluff checks, you take NO penalty so no, this isn't balanced not unless there's some kind of penalty for the new power (hell, just a pseudonatural animal companion would be NASTY...sr 11+hd, truestrike 1/day, the resistances?, and outsider status for polymorph effects?) namaste, the hamster
deClench 03-26-05, 08:23 PM	The whole point, psionichamster, was to avoid the existing PrC because there's not much use there in my mind -- even flavorwise. You don't think it's balanced? Bear in mind that the supernatural template is only a CR+2 at high levels; at low levels its a CR+0. Also, it blows a feat. To me, the feats are akin to metamagic feats or Augment Summoning or Boost Construct. Maybe it's a bit much. So what requirement would you have to allow for a balanced pseudonatural animal companion? What if it takes 2 feats to get, would that be fair? Or an accompanying -2 to Wis? That would hit the druid hard, but it would maintain the flavor.
psionichamster 03-26-05, 11:32 PM	for an arcanist who wanted a pseudonatural familiar, i would allow them to take "improved familiar" and apply the template to it at the CR is not the real power measure...it's what you could do with it. need something taken down real quick? ghoul touch, cast on your pseudofamiliar (this means 3rd lvl caster) truestrike, it's NOT going to miss... now it's paralyzed there are a number of potential abuses not to mention the cost/benefit ratio of Alienist (2 feats, ranks in know (ok, these are probably normal concerns for a summoner-arcanist, but still)) for a druid who wanted *solely* to have a pseudonatural familar, how about "obtain familiar" and "improved familiar" with a human druid, that means lvl1 feats are gone (assuming you waive the prereqs for imp. familiar, since it's not really adding that much to the critter itself) and you now have a decent enough ability with that familiar it'll progress along with the normal rules (using the wiz. familiar table) along with the druid. that's a pretty steep price to pay, but the RP problems with that are kinda screwy...you've got a druid, paragon of balance and nature, walking around with a twisted, far-realms-ish critter (pretending to be "almost" normal, most of the time) on his shoulder i'm not really getting the drive behind this charcter, beyond "i want to be able to summon nature's ally: pseudonatural style" those feats, imo, at least, would allow this to happen...but, i just can't see this happening in a "realistic" way... that's not to mention the other druids' reactions, your animal companions' or any other critter you talk to. part of the deal behind alienist is that you give up a bunch to be able to bring in lots of creepy, powerful monsters (yes, they are more powerful than the fiendish/celesital versions...i know, i've got a wiz5/alienist4 right now)... part of what you give up is your "normalcy" and some sanity (the skill check penalties and wis loss) for that, you get 5 feats, (toughness 2x, extra slot, and 2 meta feats)...more than you would as a wizard, definitely more than a sorc... i would like to help more, but i am just having too much trouble getting my mind around a druid summoning things from other planes...especially one of madness, chaos, and "alternate lifeforms" namaste, the hamster
deClench 03-27-05, 05:27 PM	Not really interested in the familiar as much as the animal companion. Of course part of the drive is to summon pseudonatural creatures. Why else does one take the alienist PrC? Look, this will likely be an NPC. They get exposed to a blot (ala Cordell in Dragon) and things just break from there. The character starts breaking down because of the things they've seen/experienced and they start subconciously drawing their power from this far realm which is slowly transforming their lives and surroundings. Of course this would affect how the character is viewed by nature and other druids. That's what makes RPing so much fun. I didn't think people would be so against this, o well. Right now I'm thinking of running it useing the Beast Totem feat progression in the ECS as a model. One fairly inocuous first feat "Pseudonatural Totem" gives you some minor electric/acid resistance. Then two second tier feats that give you your "Totem Wild Shape" and "Totem Companion." And maybe a third tier feat to alter your summoning spells. I would probably rule that all 3 items (wild shape, companion, spells) are already altered in a sensual way, even before the feat, but are not mechanically altered until after the feat. So for instance your summoned creatures look twisted and disgusting, but don't actually have the pseudonatural template until after you take the appropriate feat. I think precedents are there with the Blackguard and the Ur-priest. For flavor, look to something like Event Horizon (Sam Neil's character but with MUCH less emphasis on the pure evil) or Akira (Tetsuo). The intent is for mad and twisted and even sad, not necessarily evil. I'll have to go see how this works, especially in conjunction with Cordell's Cerebrant feats.