Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 JohnLynch Jan 25, 2015 7:37:21	I thought it would be interesting to create a prestige class for 5th edition to see how it would work as opposed to how they worked in 3.5e/Pathfinder. The Sharn Skymage prestige class from Sharn: City of Towers is a fairly simple one that has 5 levels, grants you +2 caster level (I believe for balancing reasons as 3.5e wizards don't get class features) and some special abilities surrounding flying. In order to enter the prestige class you must be level 6 or higher and have a Metamagic feat.   Sharn Skymage (Prestige Class) Pre-requisites: Have spent 6 months studying a manifest zone of Syrania, can cast 3rd level spells and know a spell that grants you the ability to fly (or have an ability or class feature that grants you a fly speed). Hit Dice: +1d6 per Sharn Skymage level. Hit Points: 1d6 (or 4) per level.   Spell Slots: You add all of your levels in this class when determining what spell slots you get.   Improved Flight: At 2nd level all spells that you cast that grant the ability to fly are doubled in duration to a maximum of 24 hours.   Ability Score Improvement: At 4th level and again at 8th level you may increase an ability score by 2 or you may increase 2 ability scores by 1. You may not increase any single ability score higher than 20.   Reflexive Flight: At 6th level you can cast a spell that grants you the ability to fly as a reaction if you start falling.   Extended Flight: At 10th level you don't need to concentrate on spells that grant the ability to fly. The spell instead lasts for the maximum duration.   --- I cut back on the class features, added full caster progression and removed the concentration mechanic for the fly spell at character level 16.    A wizard (Necromancer) 16 gets the ability to control undead, resistance to negative energy, regain hit points when you kill things with spells and get 4 feats. In contrast a wizard 5/Sharn Skymage 10 gets to stack fly with 1 other concentration spell, autopass concentration checks for fly, has fly last for 20 minutes and gets 3 feats. At level 17 the Sharn Skymage gets an extra feat while the wizard gets nothing, but at level 18 the wizard gets to cast a 1st level and 2nd level spell as cantrips and the Skymage gets nothing.   What do people think? Do people think this is too good? Not good enough?
#2 rampant Jan 25, 2015 7:53:22	YOu're going to have to define 'spell that grants you flight' better, because right now it would apply to a whole lot of things that you might not be intending, like polymorph. I think you're better off giving them sepecific abilities regarding flight rather than trying to do it thorugh their existing spells.    I'd like your reaosning on the accelerated ability score upgrades and how those work in regards to feats.    I'd also require acrobatics, planes, or peception, something to show that they might actually be able to manipulate or pick up on the psecial magic of a place like sharn and learn to manipulate it.    Spell Slots, not sure, maybe something like the warlorck instead? Still workign out the multi-classing system with regards to spell to be honest.
#3 cowleymen Jan 25, 2015 18:28:12	would also like to add, that there are no more metamagic feats.     As for Spell Slots Rampant, you could use the multiclass rules, but I think I have a good idea.   For this prestiage class, which seems to be only obtanibale by spell casters (no books on hand), So levels in this class are treated as wizard levels for learning, perparing, and spell slots. But if some one is multiclassing before you take this, IDK how to use it.. Maybe you can choose which class gains the spell caster levels....   I think 5th is a good canidate for the revival of prestige classes.
#4 JohnLynch Jan 25, 2015 18:29:09	rampant wrote:
#5 JohnLynch Jan 25, 2015 18:39:21	cowlymen wrote:
#6 rampant Jan 25, 2015 21:24:09	Sorry had that backwards your guy has less. A 20th level wizard has 5 ability score improvements/feats. A 10th level wizard/10th level skymage has 4 ability score improvements/feats. The multi-class doesn't get that odd one out at level 19.    As for the flight spell definition, there are some issues for example the way it's worded if you cast a spell that allowed someone else to fly but not you it wouldn't be boosted, also what about spells that change whether or not you can fly mid duration, like shapechange, say you turn into a griffon to fly somewhere, then once there turn into a crocodile? What does that do to the duration? Do you have to start concentrating once you turn into a croc?   THe last ability is pretty open to abuse, I'd say no more than one such spell at a time. Even with the flight caveat I know a lot of spells form 3e that granted flight in addition to another buff or two and the ability to layer tons of buff spells is not something I want mages to get back, It's a bit pre-emptive but I'm going to assume that there will be more spells at some point and it's best to write with that in mind.    Overall, I wouldn't spend 10 levels on this class. Reflexive and extended flight are the only abilities of real use to a pure-caster with an interest in flight spells, or in flying in and of itself. Frankly a flying mount or carpet would be a better approach for anyone interested in flying.    A large part of the problem stems from trying to make the abilities into a general improvement to spells cast. I think you'd be better off writing specific flight abilities for the class and/or shortening it to 3-5 levels.
#7 cowleymen Jan 26, 2015 0:36:20	JohnLynch wrote:
#8 JohnLynch Jan 26, 2015 0:54:51	cowlymen wrote:
#9 cowleymen Jan 26, 2015 3:08:28	JohnLynch wrote:
#10 rampant Jan 26, 2015 7:19:44	JohnLynch wrote:
#11 JohnLynch Jan 27, 2015 0:50:19	Alright, here's version 2. I've cut it down to 4 levels, granted known spells known for each level and reduced the effects to just the fly spell. Hopefully this hasn't made it too powerful.   Sharn Skymage (Prestige Class) Pre-requisites: Have spent 6 months studying a manifest zone of Syrania and can cast 3rd level spells. Hit Dice: +1d6 per Sharn Skymage level. Hit Points: 1d6 (or 4) per level.   Spells Known: At 1st level you know feather fall. At 2nd level you know fly. At 3rd level you know levitate. At 4th level you know wind wall. If you already know one of these spells from a different class, you may instead learn a spell from that class's spell list of the same spell level.   Spell Slots: You add all of your levels in this class when determining what spell slots you get.   Reflexive Flight: At 2nd level you can cast fly on yourself as a reaction when you start falling. This immediately halts your movement unless you choose to wait until you've dropped a certain distance. If you chose to fall more than 10 feet before casting the spell you take 1d6 falling damage for every 10 feet you fell.   Improved Flight: At 4th level fly is no longer a concentration spell for you when you cast it.   --- Current logic is that the pre-requisites are largely story based and to gateway you from learning spells at too low a level. This fits the design principles of 4th edition's Paragon Paths and what WotC have mentioned about for 5th edition prestige classes.   Spells known can be a good way to potentially get some cross-class spells. A 1 level dip into Sharn Skymage would be helpful for wizards and sorcerers (which matches the flavour of the setting) for feather fall but shouldn't be horribly overpowered. Spells Known works like the bard/ranger/eldritch mage class feature. The "learn a different spell from that class's spell list" is basically swapping it out without having an extensive spell list for the Sharn Skymage.   Reflexive Flight is the same and is intended to be the same power level as a 6th level wizard's class feature.   Improved Flight is intended to be on the same power level as an 8th level feat. It's versatility has been drastically reduced to only work with fly so hopefully that stops it from being a no brainer while still allowing the party to have fly up when necessary (at a significant cost).   I've removed Extended Flight as this wasn't on par with a feat (IMO) and I was struggling to make it as good as a feat.
#12 rampant Jan 27, 2015 8:28:18	Better, but the essential problem remains, you're asking them to devote whole class levels to this, and you're focusing ona  very llimited subset of spells and not really expanding on what those spells can do. If you're gonna specialize the class like that you need to give them somehting really spectacular to do with that spell, and maybe even allow them to always have a limited verions on. Casting fly better than other people is nice but it's not worth four levels, especially since you're not doing anything really interesting with it.   I think trying to use the spells as the primary carrier might be the main problem, spells are by nature highly limited, and trying to use a single spell to carry even a limited class like this is a tricky proposition.    I'd suggest either cutting it down to 3 levels, or expanding back out and devising unique abilities independent of the flight spell. Maybe the ability to fly x ft as a bonus action whenever you cast, or the ability to evade while in the air, just think up a few thigns that would be a bit more dynamic.
#13 cowleymen Jan 27, 2015 11:37:54	rampant wrote:
#14 rampant Jan 27, 2015 17:37:27	Ranger was a sub-par arcane archer back in 3e as well, well frankly the arcane arecher was sub par in 3e, but that's a different concern.  Th epoint is that splashing a few fighter levels worked better because the archery feats in 3e were vital to an archer build.    BUt yeah a prestige class has to do somethign pretty spiffy to justify deviating form the main class and sub-classes.
#15 AlHazred Jan 28, 2015 11:51:26	The way I've been converting prestige classes to 5th edition for my Eberron home game, is by turning them into feats, or possibly very short feat trees.   My experience in 3rd/3.5 was the a prestige class was either an expansion ("a wizard with One Extra Cool Thing" or "a rogue with One Extra Cool Thing") or a combination ("a cleric/wizard multiclass that has synergy") of the existing stuff. The primary rule of 5th edition design seems to be Keep It Simple, so the combination prestige classes go away (like the Mystic Theurge) in favor of regular multiclassing. With the expansion classes there are two options: either turn the One Extra Cool Thing into a feat, or, if the prestige class is strongly tied to an existing class, turn it into a subclass.   For instance, consider the exorcist of the Silver Flame, from the Eberron Campaign Setting. It's a 10-level prestige class that is usually taken by clerics and paladins, and gives them extra exorcism abilities as well as adding the fire type to their holy damaging effects (and vice versa). It also granted increasing levels of darkvision, detect thoughts, and you picked a signature weapon that got extra damage types and did extra fire/sacred damage. This is a lot of different abilities. I would leave out the darkvision, since it's granted by a number of subclasses, and there's a common 2nd level spell to get it; it looks like the sort of thing that might be it's own feat at some point, possibly with some additional minor ability. I'd also leave out the weapon-specific stuff, since that treads on the abilities of the Tempest domain and War domain Cleric and the Paladin. That leaves the actual bit about mixing damage types (fire/sacred in 3rd edition) and getting extra exorcism ability. These I'd turn into a single feat: The trick is to make it different enough from other abilities that do the same thing (in this case, the dispel evil and good spell). Normally, I wouldn't "short-circuit" a path to an ability this way, but dispel evil and good is a 5th-level abjuration spell, and the impression I get from reading the books is that exorcism is supposed to be relatively common in Thrane, the stronghold of the faith of the Silver Flame. This ability duplicates a 5th-level spell, so I have reduced its power: it only affects possessions, whereas the dispel evil and good spell also affects charm and fright. It also allows the possessing creature a saving throw. Flame of Censure Prerequisite: Must worship the Silver Flame You have been granted the ability to channel the power of the Silver Flame to combat evil in Eberron. You gain the following benefits: If you have the Channel Divinity ability, you gain one additional use. Otherwise, you have one use of Channel Divinity. As your action, you may expend a use of Channel Divinity and touch a creature you can reach that is possessed by a celestial, an elemental, a fey, a fiend, or an undead. The possessing creature must make a Wisdom saving throw against a DC of 8 + your Charisma bonus + your proficiency bonus; this saving throw is made at disadvantage if the creature you touch is currently in a place consecrated to the Silver Flame. If the possessing creature fails its saving throw, the creature you touch is no longer possessed.
#16 rampant Jan 28, 2015 17:23:59	Any reason it needs to be creature specific? There are dragons, giants, and even humanoids capable of possession.