Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Fuzzy Logic Inc. 09-14-04, 07:33 PM	False Prophet Toben parted his way through the crowd, arriving at the podium from which he could give his speech. The crowd looked up as the half-elf smoothed out his robes and placed his hands on the lectern that had been set up. "My Fellows! It has come to my attention that there is a blasphemer among us!" A general shudder ran through the townsfolk, "Thats right! And he will not stop until every last one of you have succumb to his evil ways! Who, you ask, is this scoundrel? I will tell you, though it breaks my heart." There was a long pause and several whispered prompts for information before Toben looked at them once more. "It is He!" an elegant finger was pointed in the direction of the Marquis's manor, "The Marquis has been tainted. Will you let him spread his filth and continue to steal your money and ruin your land!?" The crowd burst into a chorus of yells and taunts of the Marquis. The half-elf raised his hands to silence the crowd. "Then, take up your pitchforks, your hunting spears, hoes, shovels, spades! Let us take the house and return the gold to the people! Bring it back here, to the center of town and I will personally divide it amongst you!" The crowd dispersed quickly, heading for home to gather their weapons. Soon, the path up to the manor was lit by hundreds of little torches. The False Prohpet is a wolf in sheep's clothing. He comes to town, performs 'miracles,' collects for the poor, the hungry, the orphans. He stirs the town into a melting pot of ideas. Then, as soon as he arrived, he is gone... as are his so called Miracles. Using his performance skills and knowledges of the religions, the False Prophet travels from town to town, beguiling people and tricking them into handing over their gold and jewelry. He is a master of persuasion and he is capable of sending a whole village on a chase for his personal gain. But, he had better be sly enough to escape capture! Most False Prohpets are former bards, who have lost the taste for song and dance. Using the skills acquired in their previous field, and a good deal of religious research, the Bard can turn the light-hearted nature of the minstrel into one of deceit and lies. Rogues are also not unheard of, their cunning and knack for the sleight of hand helps them take even more from the followers. Rangers, though uncommon, are also known to take this path. Most other classes lack the subtlety or the skill set to pursue such endeavors. Hit Die: d6 REQUIREMENTS Alignment: Any Non-Good Feats: Persuasive Skill: Knowledge (Religion) 10 ranks, Perform (Oration) 10 ranks, Bluff 8 ranks, Disguise 8 ranks. Special: Character must own a suit of Clerical Vestments and a Holy Symbol. SKILLS The skills for False Prophet, and the ability for each, are: Appraise (Int), Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disguise (Cha), Forgery (Int), Gather Information (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge [Religion] (Int), Listen (Wis), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Cha), Spot (Wis) and Use Magical Device (Cha). Skill points gained at each level: 4 + Intelligence Modifier. PROGRESSION BAB Fort Ref Will Abilities 1. +0 +0 +2 +0 Mimic Cleric Spell I, Penny for the Poor 2. +1 +0 +3 +0 False Fervor 1/day 3. +2 +1 +3 +1 Mimic Cleric Spell II 4. +3 +1 +4 +1 Skill Bonus +2 5. +3 +1 +4 +1 Mimic Cleric Spell III 6. +4 +2 +5 +2 False Fervor 2/day 7. +5 +2 +5 +2 Mimic Cleric Spell IV 8. +6 +2 +6 +2 Skill Bonus +4 9. +6 +3 +6 +3 Mimic Cleric Spell V 10.+7 +3 +7 +3 Stirring Oration, False Fervor 3/day Weapon and Armor proficiences - The False Prophet does not gain any additional armor of weapon proficiencies. Mimic Cleric Spell (Sp): - In a world where good clerics pass out healing to the sick and dying, the easiest way to trick the masses is by producing similiar effects. At 1st level, the False Prophet gains the ability to produce effects similar to clerical spells. The False Prophet may use any of the spells on the Cleric spell list as a spell-like ability a number of times per day equal to her Charisma modifier. The duration for these spells is always half the normal time and all variable values are calculated at 50% of normal. At 1st level, the False Prophet gains access to 1st level Cleric spells. Every two levels after that (3, 5, 7, 9), the Prophet may choose spells from the next level (to a maximum of 5 at 9th level). For level dependant effects, the False Prophet is treated as a cleric of half her level rounded up. Penny for the Poor: - By playing to people's emotions, the False Prohpet can get them to reach deeper into their pockets and money-purses. At 1st level, the Flase Prophet earns double the result of her Perform (Oratory) check as explained on page 79 of the Player's Handbook. False Fervor (Su): - At 2nd level, the False Prophet can convince a creature that her cause is worth fighting for and, even, dying for. This ability produces in the individual an effect similar to the Barbarian's Rage ability. However, the subject rages for half as long and, when the Rage is over, the subject is sickened for 1d4+1 rounds. An unwilling target of this ability is offered a Fortitude save (DC 15) to resist the effects. Every 4 levels after 2nd (6 and 10), this ability can be used one more time per day. Skill Bonus: - At 4th level, the False Prophet hones her skills to the point of perfection. The False Prophet gains a +2 bonus on Perform (Oration), Bluff, and Sense Motive checks. At level 8, this bonus increases to +4. Stirring Oration (Sp): - The False Prophet acheives her greatest ability in Stirring Oration. Once per day, the False Prophet can speak to a crowd and convince them that her course of action is the appropriate one. This ability is identical to the Mass Suggestion spell except as follows: the False Prophet may make a suggestion to 30 creatures at once and the effect lasts for 24 hours. All creatures must listen to the False Prophet orate for at least 5 minutes and must understand what she is saying. Subjects of the spell may make a Will save (DC 15) to ignore the effect. --------- This PrC came up as a joke between the members of my gaming group. One wanted to know if I would allow him to impersonate a Religious official and, after some deliberation, I decided that he could. That got me to thinking that there are people that would want to make careers out of this. So, I came up with this PrC. I will be posting some other not so-Holy men PrCs soon, if this one goes over well. Specific comments desired: 1. Should I change the alignment restriction to Non-good, Non-lawful? 2. What other prerequisites should I add? 3. Should I stick with the Mimic Cleric Spell or should I add its own spell table? Made some changes from below.
thinkhard 09-14-04, 08:15 PM	I like where you're going a lot. YOu might want to base this better off of some existing rules though. Like the suggest ability should be like a bardic mass suggestion, and the rage thing should be more like a bard's inspire greatness. I like it thought.
TheMightyMcClaw 09-14-04, 08:27 PM	Cool. First, to answer your questions: 1. I'd leave the requirements at non-good. It seems like this class should be open to Lawful Evil characters. 2. I would add "Special: Must own clerical vestments." Also, ranks in disguise (for to better impersonate clergy) 3. Definitely stick with Mimic Cleric spell. It's a good, unique ability and contributes to the flavor a lot. Now, my own recomendations: The skill list should be increased, if you ask me. Seeing as it's a rogue-based class it has very few class skills at the moment. Disguise should definitely be on there (for the above reasons), also: Appraise (good for conmen of any stripe), Concentration (for Mimic Spell), Intimidate (some people might start to ask too many questions), Spot/Listen (to keep alert for when the jig is up), Gather Information (to find out about communities to exploit), and Use Magic Device (to impersonate being a cleric, again) all seem fitting. The class abilities all seem very good. I especially like Penny for the Poor and Mimic Cleric Spell. The flavor text is well-written, but the guy sounds more like a 1920's Chinese Communist telling peasants to take back there land than a Preacher exploiting them out of their money.
Fuzzy Logic Inc. 09-15-04, 03:10 AM	thinkhard: I stayed away from the bardic music abilities because I didn't want to fall into making this a bard oriented pretige class (though some may say it already is). The bard's Suggestion (and Mass) require that the targets be fascinated, which this class has no real way of doing, so I just had it mimic the spell. The Inspire Greatness ability had a different feel than I wanted for this class. I wanted most of the things to both have benefits and detriments. Thank you for the comments, though. TheMightyMcClaw: Thank you for your comments. I implemented most of them, as you can see above. I think the skills add to the shady, nere-do-well feel of this class. The Prerequisite for the vestments was also a good catch, I wouldn't have even thought of that. But, now the skill requirement seems rather... high. Anybody else think so?
Adrez Nesnsid 11-21-06, 11:37 AM	1. Should I change the alignment restriction to Non-good, Non-lawful? "Any non-good" seems fine to me, you might as well leave it as is.
helixrat 11-25-06, 02:52 PM	Sounds really good. I've always enjoyed playing the conman, whether it was the shady rogue or illusionists with a penchance for mischief, so this adds a prc that I might enjoy playing around with.
JulesCARV 11-26-06, 11:44 PM	Alignment-wise, I'd leave it unrestricted, actually. A False Prophet might be able to infiltrate a Vecna cult better than a real cleric of Pelor or whatever, since the False Prophet could actually use a symbol of Vecna, and doesn't have to keep a holy symbol of Pelor hidden away. Some issues here -- since the Mimic Cleric Spell effects are Spell-like abilities, a False Prophet can do expensive things on the cheap, without the need for experience or material components. For instance, a False Prophet 5 might cast Animate Dead without the need for Onyx Stones, and a False Prophet 9 might cast Raise Dead without the need for 5,000 gp worth of diamonds. Since False Prophet pseudo-spellcasting is weaker than cleric spellcasting anyway, this might be a reasonable bonus to throw to the class, but I'm just bringing it up. (Wizards caused some issues with the Heir of Syberis (Mark of Making) getting True Creation as a spell-like ability. Ultimately, they errataed it to give it an XP cost)
RandomZombie_01 03-09-07, 05:54 PM	I just don't see a lot of incentive to take this class. The clerical spells are pretty weak at their downsides, and the party cleric will already have way better spells. The abilities are only ok, the hd and bab are low. The flavor is good, but really the class itself dosn't have a lot going for it.
Tuhljin 03-10-07, 12:46 AM	I really like the flavor, but I agree it's a bit underpowered. A few more class features, especially new (unique) ones, would be outstanding. I'm trying to come up with something off the top of my head but the only thing I can think of is an ability to disguise your alignment in some way - a way that doesn't merely make your true alignment undetectable, but fools typical detections into thinking you're a specific alignment of your choice; which alignment that is is up to you and can be changed, say, once at the beginning of each day. It'd be interesting if the "strength of auras" thing (clerics' aura strength as given by detection spells increases with caster level or something, no?) was deceived a bit, as well.