New Prestige Class(es)? (Elemental Disciple concept)

[TSL-Aquilus]

Hello all!

One of the things I love about this server is the breadth and depth of custom content bouncing around. However, imho there's always scope for more when it comes to core content, at least if you ask me, so I just wanted to open a thread here to ask some questions and air some ideas.

Starting with the ideas: in 5th Edition, the Player's Handbook introduced the Monk Way of the Four Elements, a monk tradition focussed on elemental magic. Unlike most of the other subclasses in 5e (assassin, hexblade, eldritch knight, etc.), I can't find a direct predecessor for the Way of the Four Elements in 3.5 - the closest seems to be either the Wu Jen or the Shugenja from Oriental Adventures, but these are both more traditional spellcasters than the Way of the Four Elements in 5e. As such, I was wondering whether the Way of the Four Elements concept could be viable back-worked as a 3.5 prestige class (given its presence in the 5e PHB makes it canon).

My best first-pass at the concept is in the Spoiler tab below, adapted for the NWN2/BGTSCC context:

Hidden: show

Requirements

BAB: +6
Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike, Stunning Strike, Great Fortitude
Skills: Lore: Arcana 4, Lore: The Planes 6, Spellcraft 4

Class Features

Hit Die: d6
BAB progression: Medium
Saving Throws: All High
Proficiencies (Weapon/Armor): None
Skill Points: 6 + Int / level
Class Skills: Concentration, craft alchemy, diplomacy, hide, listen, Lore: Arcana, Lore: Local, Lore: Religion, Lore: The Planes, move silently, parry, spellcraft, spot, and tumble

Class Abilities

Level	Features gained
1	Elemental Attunement, Elemental Strike +1
2	Elemental Resistance 5, Stunning Strike progression (+1)
3	Minor Elemental Art
4	Stunning Strike progression (+2)
5	Elemental Strike +1d4
6	Major Elemental Art, Stunning Strike progression (+3)
7	Elemental Resistance 10
8	Stunning Strike progression (+4)
9	Elemental Strike +1d6
10	Mythic Elemental Art, Stunning Strike progression (+5)

Elemental Attunment
Specifics: At first level, the elemental disciple chooses one of the four elements (air, earth, fire and water) which they learn to channel with their ki. The choice of element affects the elemental disciple’s other class features.
Use: Automatic

Elemental Strike
Specifics: At first level, the elemental disciple channels their chosen plane through their fists, causing their unarmed strikes and attacks with monk weapons to deal elemental damage (air = sonic, earth = acid, fire = fire, water = cold). This damage is equal to +1 elemental damage at 1st level, +1d4 at 5th level, and +1d6 at 9th level.
Use: Automatic

Elemental Resistance
Specifics: At second level, the elemental disciple gains damage resistance 5/- to their chosen element. At 7th level, this damage resistance increases to 10/-.

Stunning Strike progression
Specifics: At 2nd level and every 2 levels the elemental disciple gains in this class, they gain an additional use of their Stunning Strike feature.
Use: Automatic.

Minor Elemental Art
Specifics: At 3rd level, the elemental disciple can expend two uses of their stunning strike to channel their chosen elemental plane to cast an elemental spell at a caster level equal to your elemental disciple class level. Levels in the monk class also count towards your caster level for this spell.

• Minor Art of Air – Rushing Wind. The elemental disciple of air can expend 2 uses of stunning strike to cast the expeditious retreat spell.
• Minor Art of Earth – Grounded Step. The elemental disciple of earth can expend 2 uses of stunning strike to cast the foundations of stone spell.
• Minor Art of Fire – Cinder Strike. The elemental disciple of fire can expend 2 uses of stunning strike to cast the burning hands spell.
• Minor Art of Water – Healing Touch. The elemental disciple of water can expend 2 uses of stunning strike to cast the cure light wounds spell.

Use: Activated.

Major Elemental Art
Specifics: At 6th level, the elemental disciple learns to channel more powerful elemental magic. Casting a major elemental art spell requires expending 4 uses of stunning strike, and the spell is cast at a caster level equal to the elemental disciple’s class level + any levels in the monk class.

• Major Art of Air – Clenching Winds. The elemental disciple of water can expend 4 uses of stunning strike to cast the hold person spell.
• Major Art of Earth – Mountain’s Endurance. The elemental disciple of earth can expend 4 uses of stunning strike to cast the stoneskin spell.
• Major Art of Fire – Phoenix Fire. The elemental disciple of fire can expend 4 uses of stunning strike to cast the fireball spell.
• Major Art of Water – Desert’s Pull. The elemental disciple of water can expend 4 uses of stunning strike to cast the dehydrate spell.

Use: Activated.

Mythic Elemental Art
Specifics: By 10th level, the elemental disciple can channel incredibly powerful elemental magic by the power of ki. Casting a mythic elemental art spell requires expending 7 uses of stunning strike, and the spell is cast at a caster level equal to the elemental disciple’s class level + any levels in the monk class.

• Mythic Art of Air – One with Wind. The elemental disciple of air can expend 7 uses of stunning strike to cast the ethereal visage spell.
• Mythic Art of Earth – Bind to Rock. The elemental disciple of earth can expend 7 uses of stunning strike to cast the flesh to stone spell.
• Mythic Art of Fire – River of Flame. The elemental disciple of fire can expend 7 uses of stunning strike to cast the empowered wall of fire spell.
• Mythic Art of Water – Flood the Lungs. The elemental disciple of water can expend 7 uses of stunning strike to cast the drown spell.

Use: Activated.

Everything above is draft / provisional, but just wanted to give a picture of the idea.

Anyways, moving on to the questions which I had:

1. Are the developers/moderators open to new custom content, or is it basically about refining what is already there at this point?
2. Are the developers/moderators and the community in general open to the kind of "back-worked" content above, or is all custom content restricted to that which is adapted directly from original 3.5e PnP materials?
3. Are the developers/moderators open to, or the community at large interested in, the kind of concept outlined above, or is this just my personal vanity project?

If all of the above are affirmative, I would love to run with this idea further, check balancing, work out remaining kinks in the above draft, then take a spin at coding it etc. I have a rough grasp of NWScript and the basics of custom class work, so I would be more than happy to take the brunt of the work on it, although obviously as I am a relative noob to scripting it would probably require one of the development team to look it over and fix any gaps or inefficiencies in it before being in any sense playable.

If all of the above are negative... well, I tried

[chad878262]

Are the developers/moderators open to new custom content, or is it basically about refining what is already there at this point?

Open to adding new content, yes, open to doing the work? well there hasn't been a lot of interest lately. If you want something done....

Are the developers/moderators and the community in general open to the kind of "back-worked" content above, or is all custom content restricted to that which is adapted directly from original 3.5e PnP materials?

Some of our stuff is adapted from PnP, other is homebrewed. I encourage you to check out the races and classes on the wiki as even some of the vanilla stuff has been changed on BG, either to better align with PnP (or as the staff sees it) or to better balance for a PW environment like what we play in.

Are the developers/moderators open to, or the community at large interested in, the kind of concept outlined above, or is this just my personal vanity project?

This is a fairly broad question that any individual can only answer for themselves. However, I'll give you my personal opinion. Please take this as constructive criticism as that is what it is meant to be, but sometimes tone can be difficult to read in written form so I'm just calling out I am not trying to pick on you or in any way discourage you from working on this.

1. It's way OP for this server. All high saves, 6 SP per level, adding spellcraft to the already impressive list of Monk skills with mechanical benefit, on top of new abilities like ability to apply stoneskin or what-have you is simply too much. monk 30 is already a very powerful build and there are loads of ways to build them and be able to easily solo all content, but for that 1% specifically designed to require a party (or spending a metric ton of gold).

2. Monks have had more love than most base classes with the Monk of the Long Death Kit and Drunken Master so I'm not so sure most would want to see that where any additional new PRC's/Kits come from.

3. Some of the stuff you suggest may not be possible from a technical perspective. I'm not sure about stunning fist, but I know other monk goodies (like greater flurry of blows or adamantine fists) can only be achieved by reaching the appropriate Monk level. Even with a kit like monk of the long death you have to go Monk 16/MotLD 14 if you want Greater Flurry of Blows and Adamantine Fists.

In short, any idea you want to theory craft on the forums is more than welcome, but as it stands what you suggest has some technical limitations to consider, some power level issues that would need to be addressed and would require either yourself or someone else to 'do the work' should something 'get legs' and have a chance of being added.

Meantime, here is the link to the wiki (which can also be found in the top left of the forums where the little button says "wiki"): https://wiki.bgtscc.net/index.php?title=Main_Page

[TSL-Aquilus]

Thanks for this response - really helpful, actually, to give me some perspective on this!

On the "doing the work" side - I'm sorry if I didn't make this clear in the pitch above but I was fully intending to try and do that myself. My only concern was that, having only worked with custom content for solo play before, some of the work-arounds that I'm used to might be too clunky for a PW server and risk delays/lags etc., but this could be an ungrounded worry - as I say, scripting for a PW context would be new territory for me.

As for your comments on the proposed class idea itself - fair, fair, very fair The point was not so much "here is a definitive thing" as just spitballing concepts and seeing how they would go down.

Regarding what is and is not mechanically possible I was kinda planning to change the features as I found out (e.g. dropping the stunning fist progression if it turned out that couldn't be done). I like to start bold and then cut/drop when I run face-first into limits in the system

Regarding the monk already having plenty of love - that's actually a very fair point and I might just run this idea around a bit in my head to see if I could make it have broader appeal, or drop this idea entirely if I can find something else which seems more fit for a "gap" in the current set of content.

Still, good to know that it's at least in principle possible to introduce new custom content if someone besides the dev team is willing to put in the work - and good to know there are more capable people than me who will point out where an idea has gone a bit off the rails!