Feytouched

[matelener]

So, I've been toying a little bit with Feytouched class, I liked intially the RP theme behind it and got my character to the last PRC level (as a 8 sorc / 9 feytouched). I didn't expect wonders but I have to say in all honesty that this class misses the power mark by quite a bit (at least for me!).

1) PRC Requirements

Fey heritage: it can only be picked on level 1, which means that if you're not human or halfling, you're gonna miss out on Spellcasting Prodigy - for DC sorcerers that's huuuge. It's -2 CHA = -2 epic feats, in terms of spellcasting.

Spellcraft 11: Feytouched can be picked earliest at level 9. That's 2 extra dead sorcerer levels, unless you dip something silly like Palemaster / Blood Magus / Shadow Adept. Fun fact: each of those is far more powerful than Feytouched and easier to qualify at the same time.

2) No progression

This PRC character-wise progresses... nothing? In Pnp, Feytouched is a 1/2 CR fey that potentially could be used as a playable race/template. Meanwhile, here you spend 9 levels on a heritage-themed PRC inspired by it and you arrive nowhere near a true fey. I personally wish it was more of a "transformative" PRC like dragon-disciple or pale-master is, even at the cost of CL. Though, there are also glaring dead levels at 2/4/6/8, screaming: "insert something here".

3) Feystep

Cool ability that seems to exist in PnP in various editions as a move/bonus action teleportation. Here, unfortunately it has a cast time and that makes it unreliable as the "oh shit!" button. Etherealness either from boots clicky or a scroll is plain better.

4) Fervent touch

+1 Enchantment DC. Not the best school of magic (DC spells are useless against anything with mind-affection immunity, which is quite common), but it's fitting and the bonus itself is a nice small perk. With emphasis on small.

5) Wild Embrace

And the best for the last... Free +3 CL! Well, not really free and beside that - how much is +3 CL? It affects spell duration, SR penetration, damage dices and spell DC.

Spell duration - that's barely noticeable and becomes less and less important as levels go on.
SR penetration - again, less noticeable with more levels, against high SR targets you're not gonna bet on +15% extra penetration anyway - instead you're gonna use dedicated spells like assay resistance or mord
Damage dices - almost all spells are damage capped and that +3 CL is useful only during leveling.
Spell DC - +3 CL is +1 DC. Which is a bonus, merely partially offsetting the loss of Spellcasting Prodigy.

The worst part is, this is not free CL. You will actually lose random spells in your casting streaks and 3 rounds (!) of combat, 2 of which you spend confused - that can be a death sentence in many situations. Or, you could play it safe and waste some rounds toggling Wild Embrace ON/OFF and wait out till the debuff resets, then, that +3 CL bonus will affect uh... maybe 15% of your spells?


All in all, this PRC gives less than... 3 levels of shadow adept, pretty much. And sorry that this turned out to be more of a feedback thread rather than a suggestion one but I hoped I gave some constructive points nevertheless.

[Zkenic]

Feytouched might not be the most powerful PRC, but it definitely has a few perks to it and is involved in getting the highest DC enchantment builds you can go for. Also keep in mind the medium base attack bonus and d6 HP, which can help bulk up sorcerers. So just to give an example build for Feytouched.

Feytouched Powerbuild
6sorcerer/9feytouched/10Shadow Adept/5archmage - Human

base endgame
Strength 10
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 10
Wisdom 8
Charisma 18 28 (32 buffed)

Feats
1: SCP
1: Fey Heritage
3: True Believer
6: Extend
9: SF - Enchantment
12: SF - Illusion
15: SF - Spellcraft
18: GSF - Enchantment
21: ESF - Enchantment
23: Fey Power
25: Cha
27: Cha
29: Cha

Enchantment spells - CL 38 (42 for SR). DC 35+spell level = 10base+11cha+1SCP+1Fey power+1Feytouched+2Shadow Adept+6epic CL+3ESF
With that Enchanter can do DC 42 fort death spell (Nybor's Stern Rebuke), DC 42 AoE sleep with Hiss of Sleep, DC 44 Dominate Monster.

1) I do agree that it does suck to not be able to take SCP if you arent a human/halfling, as that is one of the foundational feats for all DC builds, but Fey Power makes up the same DC difference, and with human/halfling you are able to have the same DC as Aasimar's extra +2charisma.

2) I could see that, adding things like immunity to charm or other fey-esc mechanical buffs, but that would be a rework of an already custom class.

3) You can have both. Feystep is a very useful spell to have. If you see monsters coming you can use it to get away, but it also lets you get around doors and traps and things like that. Having an infinite dimension door is quite powerful, probably one of the best parts of the class.

4) It is only 1 DC, but the way you powergame in NwN2 is to stack as many +1s together as possible. I agree that enchantment isnt the best school of magic, but if you are going an enchanter you want high enchantment DCs. Its not really a specialization that can ignore DCs, unlike conjuration or frost mages.

5) Spell duration is three extra minutes on dominate monster, which I agree isnt the most amazing, but is still useful. The main point of +3CL is the SR and DC. There are dragon monsters and beasts with 50SR. It really sucks to cast your big move and roll bad and lose it because of monster SR. More CL is better. As to the +1DC it adds, see point 4.

I do agree that this class is not as powerful as Shadow Adept, but in all honesty that is more a problem of Shadow Adept being over the top, rather than feytouched being too weak. The real benefit is you can stack both.

[matelener]

Feytouched might not be the most powerful PRC, but it definitely has a few perks to it and is involved in getting the highest DC enchantment builds you can go for. Also keep in mind the medium base attack bonus and d6 HP, which can help bulk up sorcerers. So just to give an example build for Feytouched.

Feytouched Powerbuild
6sorcerer/9feytouched/10Shadow Adept/5archmage - Human

Like I said, sure you can rely on those very powerful low requirement evil PRC: shadow adept / pale master / blood magus to not have dead sorcerer levels but if you argue that an existence of a 44 DC build makes this particular class ok then it's a straw man arguement because

- this powerbuilding is open to a very narrow evil path
- The power is in the other PRC, replace feytouched with any other of the aformentioned PRCs and you will arrive at a much stronger build even when it's at the cost of 1-2 DCs (and especially when 1 DC is from WIld Embrace) . For example:

6 sorc / 10 PM / 10 SA / 4 AM
6 sorc / 10 BM / 10 SA / 4 AM
6 sorc / 10 DD / 10 SA / 4 AM

And many other combinations

- achieving Highest enchantment DC doesn't even matter, the school is useless against foes with mind-affection immunity and if something isn't immune then you ensure landing, for example, domination with a mind-fog

[Nemni]

It was pretty intentional to err on the weaker side. It's easier (and more fun) to improve things later than to nerf them after all. Suggestions?

[blowuup]

At the very least, lower skill ranks so that 6 Sorcerer can go straight into the class. All fundamental Casting classes Sorcerers can get in after 6 (besides Archmage which represents Mastery), it should follow the flow of other PRCs.

[KOPOJIbPAKOB]

It was pretty intentional to err on the weaker side. It's easier (and more fun) to improve things later than to nerf them after all. Suggestions?

I once had a feytouched warlock and played with it quite a bit, getting into epics and having all 9 levels of Feytouched. I would say that flavor-wise feytouched is very cool, mechanically it's averagely powerful. Since you asked, Nimne, here below is my review + what I would improve. In short, currently you have much more incentive to dip 3 levels into Feytouched than going full 9 levels.

Feystep
This is, imho, the coolest and the most recognizeable feature of the feytouched. I like it the way it is, I like its unique visual effect, though a few times it teleported me into the wall and I got stuck in textures! But it's more of a walkmesh issue of some areas rather than feat issue. The chance of daze under Witch Sight only lasts 1 round, it doesn't feel like a penalty but rather as as fun flavor and I like it. I guess the only thing I would improve is making it instant, akin to Ki Step and Shadow Jump.

Fervent Touch
I just couldn't feel this damage bonus, it's too small. Pretty much, with maxed out charisma you only effectively get +1 dice of eldritch blast. I think this feat could be made much more useful and fun if during the Wild Embrace its damage bonus was doubled. Btw, does Eldritch Master increase Fervent Touch's damage?

Witch Sight
You're basically getting a free tier 4 invocation slot. I see additional penalties the Witch Sight implies as RP flavor. I mean, mechanically it's not worth suffering bigger chance of going mad, but I like this flavor. What I suggest for sure is removing cooldown from Witch Sight as the original tier 4 invocation doesn't have a cooldown too.

Wild Embrace
Another signature feature of the feytouched. It's underpowered, in my opinion, as the only bonus it gives is +3 CL. For warlock it effectively means only 2 things:
1) +15% chance to bypass spell resistance.
2) +15% chance to resist a dispel.

Pretty much, the best use of the current Wild Embrace is to turn it on, apply your 24h buffs under higher CL, turn it off and forget, since in combat it only shoots your character in their knee without giving enough for it. For instance, once I had a situation when my character's spell misfired and he found himself confused, ICE mode also turned off and my character instantly died in 1 round!

I mean, I'm that weirdo who just kept casting with Wild Embrace because I enjoy these random spell misfires and find them fun, but from a mechanical stand point, you lose more than you gain by casting with Wild Embrace. It certainly needs an improvement. What do you think about making it give additional DC for spells / invocations and doubling the damage from Fervent Touch? With additional, say, +2 or +3 DC and some bonus blast damage for warlocks it would certainly be worth it.

Additionally, I would note that Wild Embrace doesn't have any visuals, it only has "Wild Embrace activated / deactivated" text in your combat log. I think it would be very cool to add a mode icon near your character portrait, similar to Blood Magic, and also make some subtle VFX trigger everytime your character makes save against Chaos, this would be real incredible.

Twilight Inspiration & Misc
I personally see +1 AC bonus from Twilight Inspiration as a compensation for inability to take Luck of Heroes on level 1. The bonuses are totally random and are mostly a flavor, though Spot / Listen bonus is of course very usesful, but you can't rely on them. I think it could be nice to have it add +1 more AC on level 9, Feytouched is not overpowered and could use such neat buffs.

As for requirements, some said 11 spellcraft is too brutal, I don't know, I guess they might be right, but to me it's not too important.

In conclusion I would say that currently it's more tempting to have a 3 levels of Feytouched dip than going all 9 levels, since Wild Embrace and Fervent Touch are underpowered and Feystep is amazing, but just buffing those 2 feats can do wonders!

[blowuup]

Some ideas to buff the class, obviously not all of them at once, but just to consider.


Fervent touch Add +1 to Illusion spells, too.

Fey Power - The Heritage of the Feytouched grows stronger naturally, granting Fey Power as a free feat.

Low-Light Vision - A Feytouched gains the sight of their ancestors.

Greater Fervent touch - Eldritch blast, Add a random number between 2 and x2 Charisma modifier to its damage. Illusion and Enchantment DCs increase to +2. +1 KOPO

Greater Twilight Inspiration - Luck AC increases to +2. +1 KOPO

Fey Backroad - Feytouched have the innate ability to detect/create Fey Crossroads and travel through Fey Backroads. (Teleport as spell-like ability)

[matelener]

At the very least, lower skill ranks so that 6 Sorcerer can go straight into the class. All fundamental Casting classes Sorcerers can get in after 6 (besides Archmage which represents Mastery), it should follow the flow of other PRCs.

I concur.

Some ideas to buff the class, obviously not all of them at once, but just to consider.

Fervent touch Add +1 to Illusion spells, too.

Fey Power - The Heritage of the Feytouched grows stronger naturally, granting Fey Power as a free feat.

Low-Light Vision - A Feytouched gains the sight of their ancestors.

Greater Fervent touch - Eldritch blast, Add a random number between 2 and x2 Charisma modifier to its damage. Illusion and Enchantment DCs increase to +2. +1 KOPO

Greater Twilight Inspiration - Luck AC increases to +2. +1 KOPO

Fey Backroad - Feytouched have the innate ability to detect/create Fey Crossroads and travel through Fey Backroads. (Teleport as spell-like ability)

Personally I don't like plain additional DC ideas / Fey Power but others are pretty good.

And couple of suggestions from me to the idea bank:
- instant fey step (maybe juggle it onto later levels)
- wild embrace does not fail the spell, will save check happens after the cast, VFX when wild embrace is active, block it from being used together with Shadow Weave / Blood Magic if combinations feel too powerful?
- "becoming pnp feytouched": +2 dex, +2 cha, mind affecting effects immunity, low-light vision

[Zkenic]

At the very least, lower skill ranks so that 6 Sorcerer can go straight into the class. All fundamental Casting classes Sorcerers can get in after 6 (besides Archmage which represents Mastery), it should follow the flow of other PRCs.

I concur.

Some ideas to buff the class, obviously not all of them at once, but just to consider.

Fervent touch Add +1 to Illusion spells, too.

Fey Power - The Heritage of the Feytouched grows stronger naturally, granting Fey Power as a free feat.

Low-Light Vision - A Feytouched gains the sight of their ancestors.

Greater Fervent touch - Eldritch blast, Add a random number between 2 and x2 Charisma modifier to its damage. Illusion and Enchantment DCs increase to +2. +1 KOPO

Greater Twilight Inspiration - Luck AC increases to +2. +1 KOPO

Fey Backroad - Feytouched have the innate ability to detect/create Fey Crossroads and travel through Fey Backroads. (Teleport as spell-like ability)

Personally I don't like plain additional DC ideas / Fey Power but others are pretty good.

And couple of suggestions from me to the idea bank:
- instant fey step (maybe juggle it onto later levels)
- wild embrace does not fail the spell, will save check happens after the cast, VFX when wild embrace is active, block it from being used together with Shadow Weave / Blood Magic if combinations feel too powerful?
- "becoming pnp feytouched": +2 dex, +2 cha, mind affecting effects immunity, low-light vision

The only thing I would be cautious of is adding +2 dex and cha to the class. +2 dex would open up a lot of easier ways to build sorcerer/SD. Add the +2 charisma on top and you'd have sorcerers with 19 dex and the exact same charisma as a DC sorcerer that didn't go Feytouched.