Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Sulacu 06-14-07, 07:18 PM	The Sivatar, Multi-Armed Warrioress The Sivatar weaves her path of war against lawfulness through the divine spark of the deity that granted her her preternatural physiology. Through time, as the Sivatar unlocks the secrets of her profession, she will be granted additional limbs through the power of her divinities, until finally she will become a mortal avatar and a purveyor of chaos, change, freedom or destruction. Prerequisites Alignment: Any chaotic Base Attack Bonus: +8 Feats: Martial Weapon Proficiency (Scimitar), Two-Weapon Defense, Two-Weapon Fighting Special: Character must be admitted into the cult of Siva and must have withstood the ritual of becoming Sivatar. Table: The Sivatar Level BAB Fort Ref Will Special 1st +0 +2 +2 +0 Extra Arm, Multiweapon Defense, Multiweapon Fighting 2nd +1 +3 +3 +0 3rd +2 +3 +3 +1 4th +3 +4 +4 +1 Extra Arm 5th +3 +4 +4 +1 6th +4 +5 +5 +2 Weapon Synchronicity 7th +5 +5 +5 +2 Extra Arm 8th +6 +6 +6 +2 9th +6 +6 +6 +3 10th +7 +7 +7 +3 Extra Arm, Mortal Avatar Hit Die: d8 Class Skills: 4 + Int mod per level. Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Listen (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Cha), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str). Class Features All the following are class features of the Sivatar: Armor for Unusual Creatures: A Sivatar is considered non-humanoid for the purpose of wearing armor. Armor for a Sivatar costs twice as much as the same armor for a normal humanoid. Proficiency and Combat: From 4th level on up, the Sivatar cannot use shields anymore, as the off-hand side of her body grows its second arm. Due to the interference of each arm, a Sivatar is unable to wear bucklers. Regardless of the number of arms that a Sivatar has, she can only use one two-handed weapon, one double weapon or one ranged weapon at the same time. Extra Arm: At 1st level, after the ritual of ascension has been completed, the Sivatar neonate gains an extra arm. This third limb will grow out from under the arm that houses her primary hand in the course of a week. Once the limb is full grown, it functions just like the Sivatar's two normal arms and can perform the same activities. At this point, the extra arm is for all intents and purposes part of the Sivatar's body and if dismembered can be regrown via spells that incite regeneration like any normal limb. For the purpose of attacking, the new arm is treated like a second off-hand. The Sivatar gains further limbs at a 3 level interval; at 4th level, she gains a fourth arm under the arm that houses her original off-hand. At 7th level, she gains a fifth arm above her original primary hand's arm, and at 10th level she gains her sixth and last arm above her original off-hand's arm. The growing of an extra arm cannot be hampered by hostile spellwork, as it is cultivated through the influence of a deity. For each additional arm bequeathed by this prestige class, the Sivatar gains +4 to Climb checks and +2 to Intimidate checks. As these bonuses are inherent from the change of her physiology, they may be regarded as a racial bonus. Multiweapon Defense: When wielding a one-handed melee weapon in more than one arm (not including natural weapons or unarmed strikes), a Sivatar gains a +1 shield bonus to AC for every off-hand arm that carries a weapon. When she is fighting defensively or uses the total defense action, this bonus becomes +2 for every off-hand arm that carries a weapon. Multiweapon Fighting: At 1st level, the Sivatar gains the Multiweapon Fighting feat. Weapon Synchronicity: At 6th level, when all of a Sivatar's arms carry the same kind of one-handed melee weapon, she gains a +1 competence bonus on attack rolls. This bonus does not apply to attacks of opportunity. The bonus from Weapon Synchronicity stacks with Weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Focus, if applicable. Mortal Avatar: At 10th level, the Sivatar becomes a mortal extension of her deity's power. She no longer takes penalties on her ability scores for aging, and can not be magically aged. She is forevermore treated as an outsider with the native subtype, and all weapons wielded by the Sivatar become chaotic aligned for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. She still needs to eat, drink and sleep, and she can still be brought back from the dead as if she was a member of her previous creature type. Now, this is my first prestige class, so there might be quite some balancing issues. So I have come asking for some good criticism. For one, I want to incorporate some Chaos domain spells in the class, in order to further attune it, but I don't know if the balance allows for it. The Sivitar Class can, in its entirity (Epic progression included) be found HERE (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Sivatar_%28DnD_Prestige_Class%29). Thanks in advance :)
Sulacu 06-15-07, 09:06 PM	Time for the daily BUMP.
Soahc 06-16-07, 12:28 PM	Uh well, honestly I'm not a great judge of homemade PrC's. But I can say without a doubt I would never play a game with this chick in it, simply because I believe it to be too and I emphasize too, strong! This is due to two things off the top of my head, the dervish and the thrikreen. Can you imagine an 8 armed thrikreen dancing his way over to you, it would be any fighters nightmare. And if you throw in clay golem template I believe you can add an addition 6 arms through grafting, not exactly sure though. So a character with 16+ BAB will be smoking encounters. Talk about King of smack in a can right here. Anyway, nice try and hopefully you take some of what I said from this to improve on this cool class. In a nutshell Don't give so many arms!
Sulacu 06-16-07, 09:07 PM	The number of arms cannot grow beyond six. This number is based on the likeness of the Hindu goddess Siva. It is difficult enough to get it to balance out, though; any thing I can do to make the class somewhat more bearable? Up the prerequisites? Give it poor BAB progression? d6 hit die? I did figure that this class can only be taken by humanoids, in order to prevent the crazy monstrous humanoids, aberrations and weird templates and what not else abusing it. Minimally at tenth (eighteenth) level, she will have three primary attacks, and five off-hand attacks. Clearly, this class is not made for people to abuse it to such lengths. All I lack is the know how to prevent them to.
Soahc 06-16-07, 11:37 PM	well to make it more balanced I'd suggest the following. 1) remove any additional abilities other than the arms 2) possibly make this an epic only PrC 3) possibly giving it a code of conduct, thus breaking the code results in lost arms and 10 levels:D 2),3) will probably make it more balanced hope that helps
Braekor Dragonfang 06-17-07, 10:39 AM	I don't see any problem with this. you won't get all six arms until level 18 minimum, and the rest of the bonuses are very reasonable. To be honest, I would increase the HD to 1d8 or even 1d10, and give Improved Multiweapon Fighting (as TWF, but extra attack with all extra arms) at level 8 or 9. In addition, lower the BAB requirement to +6, and bump Weapon Synchronicity to 4th level. Why? because this class is balanced by the sheer enormity of the gp cost for 6 magical weapons of even +3 enhancement at 16th level, plus unusual armor, and the fact that you actually need to HIT your opponent X number of times to inflict massive damage, rather than going the Cavalier or Frenzied Berserker Route.
Sulacu 06-17-07, 10:44 AM	Perhaps I should limit the efficacy of the class to when it is using Light weapons, and that, like the whatever it is, treats Scimitars like light weapons. The problem for the class is that besides growing more arms it does not seem to do much else. I know it's a pretty powerful ability to make up to eight attacks in one round, and that is only if the player decides not to take Improved Multiweapon Fighting and Greater Multiweapon Fighting as feats. I made the requirements somewhat steeper, though. - Must be able to cast level 1 divine spells - Martial Weapon Proficiency (Scimitar), Two-Weapon Defense, Two-Weapon Fighting - Must be Humanoid. After taking the class will no longer be considered humanoid for the purpose of preventing class abuse. - BAB: +12 or +16 instead? I mean, make the BAB prerequisite high enough and the class becomes epic anyway. At +16 the only single classer that would be able to take this class before turning epic would be a ranger. The Multiweapon Defense and Multiweapon Fighting is an extension of the prerequisites of Two-Weapon Defense and Two-Weapon Fighting. It would be rather stupid if a Ranger grew a third arm and all of a sudden lost his dextrous weapon handling capabilities. Also these Two-Weapon prerequisites make sure that the Dexterity of the character must at least be 15, which is a large stretch for some brands of fighters, clerics and variant paladin classes. Plus, to give this class some flavor, she needs some chaotic aligned spell-like abilities or such in order to endorse the chaotic aspect of the Sivatar (protection from law x/day, dispel law x/day, eventually maybe cloak of chaos 1/week). Multiweapon Fighting and Multiweapon Defense are a must. If that makes the class to strong, should I simply prevent her from using armor? Otherwise, the only perhaps unfair advantage I can spot is additional magic item space in the form of maximally four new arms each able to carry a ring. Once the arms are there, they are an extension of the Sivatar's physique and may be treated as racial, so I don't know about loss of arms, either. The code of conduct breach idea, I'm sorry, is kind of useless. No class, no matter how insanely powerful, causes you to lose ten levels when you breach their code of conduct. So I'm looking for other ideas to balance her.
Braekor Dragonfang 06-17-07, 10:47 AM	read my above post before you go to the trouble :)
Sulacu 06-17-07, 11:04 AM	Oh, sorry. I didn't see it. Thanks a lot! :D I was hoping that it wasn't too unbalanced and I am glad to see your side to it. I figured the hd to be d8, and my idea behind that is that she is a combat oriented PrC, but not focuses to be overly sturdy like the fighter, paladin or barbarian, and omits this in favor of some minor combat related casting. I wanted to exemplify the chaotic nature of the Sivatar by giving her protection from evil 3/day at 3rd, dispel law 1/day at 6th and cloak of chaos 1/week at 9th. I'm not too sure yet whether that's the best approach, so for now, I'm leaving it open to think of a better method of incorporating spellcasting prowess (+1 to level of existing divine spellcaster class every three levels, perhaps?), but for now it's in the back of my head. Are you sure though that it will still be balanced if I bump BAB requirement back to +6? I kind of like the divine spell prerequisite, so I think I'll keep that. Thanks a lot for your reply :) Edit: I just now noticed that I put Hit Die: d6 in the original post. My mistake. It's d8 now.
Braekor Dragonfang 06-17-07, 11:19 AM	Oh, sorry. I didn't see it. Thanks a lot! :D I was hoping that it wasn't too unbalanced and I am glad to see your side to it. I figured the hd to be d8, and my idea behind that is that she is a combat oriented PrC, but not focuses to be overly sturdy like the fighter, paladin or barbarian, and omits this in favor of some minor combat related casting. I wanted to exemplify the chaotic nature of the Sivatar by giving her protection from evil 3/day at 3rd, dispel law 1/day at 6th and cloak of chaos 1/week at 9th. I'm not too sure yet whether that's the best approach, so for now, I'm leaving it open to think of a better method of incorporating spellcasting prowess (+1 to level of existing divine spellcaster class every three levels, perhaps?), but for now it's in the back of my head. Are you sure though that it will still be balanced if I bump BAB requirement back to +6? I kind of like the divine spell prerequisite, so I think I'll keep that. Thanks a lot for your reply :) Edit: I just now noticed that I put Hit Die: d6 in the original post. My mistake. It's d8 now. +6 BAB should be fine. The divine casting and spell-like abilities sound good, maybe even think about adding Chaos Hammer 1/day and bump Dispel Law to 2/day. If you add in divine spellcasting prerequisites, it actually makes you spread yourself out a bit more before PrCing, another good balancing factor, and one hell of a good reason to play a Paladin of Freedom as well as rangers. I like it.
Sulacu 06-17-07, 11:30 AM	That's kinda cool. I haven't thought about it that way, plus the +6 BAB requirement would put it in hand for an 8th level character with moderate BAB progression :). Thanks a lot. I'm going to edit it in now.
Braekor Dragonfang 06-17-07, 11:37 AM	No problem, I just happen to be a rabid fan of anything with more than 2 arms (Thri-Kreen rule!) :D
Sulacu 06-17-07, 11:57 AM	In that case, here is the new and improved Sivatar: Prerequisites Alignment: Any chaotic Base Attack Bonus: +6 Feats: Martial Weapon Proficiency (Scimitar), Two-Weapon Defense, Two-Weapon Fighting Spellcasting: Must be able to cast 1st level divine spells. Special: Character must be admitted into the cult of Siva and must have withstood the ritual of becoming Sivatar. Table: The Sivatar Level BAB Fort Ref Will Special Spells per day/Spells Known 1st +0 +2 +2 +0 Extra Arm, MW Defense, MW Fighting 2nd +1 +3 +3 +0 3rd +2 +3 +3 +1 protection from law 3/day +1 to existing divine spellcasting class 4th +3 +4 +4 +1 Extra Arm, Weapon Synchronicity 5th +3 +4 +4 +1 6th +4 +5 +5 +2 chaos hammer 2/day, dispel law 2/day +1 to existing divine spellcasting class 7th +5 +5 +5 +2 Extra Arm 8th +6 +6 +6 +2 Improved MW Fighting 9th +6 +6 +6 +3 cloak of chaos 1/week +1 to existing divine spellcasting class 10th +7 +7 +7 +3 Extra Arm, Mortal Avatar Hit Die: d8 Class Skills: 4 + Int mod per level. Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (nature, religion) (Int), Listen (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Cha), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str). Class Features All the following are class features of the Sivatar: Armor for Unusual Creatures: A Sivatar is considered non-humanoid for the purpose of wearing armor. Armor for a Sivatar costs twice as much as the same armor for a normal humanoid. Proficiency and Combat: From 4th level on up, the Sivatar cannot use shields anymore, as the off-hand side of her body grows its second arm. Due to the interference of each arm, a Sivatar is unable to wear bucklers. Regardless of the number of arms that a Sivatar has, she can only use one two-handed weapon, one double weapon or one ranged weapon at the same time. Spells Per Day: When a new Sivatar level divisible by 3 is gained, the character gains new spells per day as if she had also gained a level in any one divine spellcasting class he belonged to before she added the prestige class. This essentially means that she adds the level of Sivatar to the level of whatever divine spellcasting class the character has and determines spells per day and caster level accordingly. If a character had more than one divine spellcasting class prior to becoming Sivatar, she must decide to which class she adds each of these levels of Sivatar for the purpose of determining spells per day and caster level. Extra Arm: At 1st level, after the ritual of ascension has been completed, the Sivatar neonate gains an extra arm. This third limb will grow out from under the arm that houses her primary hand in the course of a week. Once the limb is full grown, it functions just like the Sivatar's two normal arms and can perform the same activities. At this point, the extra arm is for all intents and purposes part of the Sivatar's body and if dismembered can be regrown via spells that incite regeneration like any normal limb. For the purpose of attacking, the new arm is treated like a second off-hand. The Sivatar gains further limbs at a 3 level interval; at 4th level, she gains a fourth arm under the arm that houses her original off-hand. At 7th level, she gains a fifth arm above her original primary hand's arm, and at 10th level she gains her sixth and last arm above her original off-hand's arm. The growing of an extra arm cannot be hampered by hostile spellwork, as it is cultivated through the influence of a deity. For each additional arm bequeathed by this prestige class, the Sivatar gains +4 to Climb checks and +2 to Intimidate checks. As these bonuses are inherent from the change of her physiology, they may be regarded as a racial bonus. Multiweapon Defense: When wielding a one-handed melee weapon in more than one arm (not including natural weapons or unarmed strikes), a Sivatar gains a +1 shield bonus to AC for every off-hand arm that carries a weapon. When she is fighting defensively or uses the total defense action, this bonus becomes +2 for every off-hand arm that carries a weapon. Multiweapon Fighting: At 1st level, the Sivatar gains the Multiweapon Fighting feat. Weapon Synchronicity: At 4th level, when all of a Sivatar's arms carry the same kind of one-handed melee weapon, she gains a +1 competence bonus on attack rolls. This bonus does not apply to attacks of opportunity. The bonus from Weapon Synchronicity stacks with Weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Focus, if applicable. Improved Multiweapon Fighting: At 8th level, the Sivatar gains further combat prowess and is able to make an additional strike with each off-hand weapon as per the Improved Multiweapon Fighting feat. Mortal Avatar: At 10th level, the Sivatar becomes a mortal extension of her deity's power. She no longer takes penalties on her ability scores for aging, and can not be magically aged. She is forevermore treated as an outsider with the native subtype, and all weapons wielded by the Sivatar become chaotic aligned for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. She still needs to eat, drink and sleep, and she can still be brought back from the dead as if she was a member of her previous creature type. Spell-Like Abilities: See Table: The Sivatar. Caster level equals Sivatar's level + 6. Spell DCs are Wisdom Based.
Soahc 06-17-07, 02:10 PM	I see you 've made this class even stronger, I suggest you play a thrikreen dervish before improving the class. It's more unbalanced than ever now
Sulacu 06-17-07, 03:54 PM	Yes, well, that presents a problem, because I have one person that says that my class is overpowered, and another that says that it is okay and could do with some buffing. I don't have any preconceptions toward either end, but Dragonfang has given me a lot clearer reasoning behind his arguments than you have. Still, when compared to what a buffed up Frenzied Berzerker can, this PrC seems almost feeble. Anything with a little DR and it'll hardly do damage with its 13 full attacks. Let's look here... Example time (Elite Array) Ranger 6 / Siva 10 with Str 18, Dex 15, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 13, Cha 8 is a 16th level character that has a +13 BAB and 13 attacks. Yes, scary. Say she has 6 scimitars (1d6/18-20/×3), then her attacks are the following (+13 (BAB), -4 (Multiweapon Fighting), +4 (Str or Dex), +1 (Weapon Synchronicity), +1 (Weapon Focus)) Scimitar +15/+10/+5 melee (1d6+4) plus 5 scimitars +15/+10 melee (1d6+2). Now, in the CR 16 range you hardly come across any creature with an AC lower than 30, let alone 25, and consider the fact that most if not all the money that the Siva has is put in the purchase of weapons and armor with an enhancement +5 or less, the most acute attacks are done with less than fifty fifty chance and are even lower when the Siva is forced to fight defensively, which, with some of the monstrous attack bonuses out there is going to be quite likely since this class is pretty useless at medium or high range. It is safe to say that hitting constitutes a 40 % chance when all modifiers are in place, reduced to about 20 % for second attack, and 5 % for third. The estimated damage then, if approached in mathematical context is 19.55 points or if you count in the chance of criticals, 24.74 points, spread over an average of 3 to 4 hits. which means that you're prectically **** out of luck when you encounter any sort of damage reduction or resistance that you're not equipped to deal with. When compared to the simpleton barbarian with 19 Str, a lot more room to buy magic items and a greataxe doing 1d12+10 damage in his hands during greater rage you'll see that the Siva has a lot less wounding capability than your run of the mill fighter. And then we haven't yet addressed the issue of a barbarian slash frenzied berserker with the Monkey Grip feat, a Large greatsword and superior power attack for a much more than fifty fifty chance of landing a devastating 3d6+32 damage with but one of its three attacks, which is more than a Siva is likely to do with all her attacks combined. So really, I'm extremely hardpressed to see how my Siva is too powerful.