Orc War Drummer improvements

[wurdpass]

This class isn’t really worth taking. It’s not that it sucks, but you only have four slots and 30 levels for classes and there isn’t really a good reason to spend it on this class.

Divine Champ and Warrior of Darkness are easier to qualify for and provide more to the sort of martial that should want to take this PRC.

Weapon Master, Frenzied Berserker, 12 levels of fighter, 4 levels of rogue, 20 levels of barbarian… there is an opportunity cost to taking a Skill Focus Feat, cross classing skills or using a background when pretty much anything else you might do with those five levels is probably better for a martial fighter.

These two changes would make it at least worth considering. I don’t think with these changes it would be an insta-take mandatory power build ingredient but it wouldn’t be a self nerf either.

1) Increase (or get rid of) the DC cap for Inspire Fear. As a fear effect, immunity will be common. Similar abilities from Blackguard and Warpriest have no save at all. For a martial prestige class and a low Int race, maxing the DC often means compromising on taking other skills.

If the 32 DC is balanced for PvP it’s too low because of gear stacking - and anyway why balance for PvP? If the cap is balanced for PvE I’m not sure why not raise the cap and let the War Drummer’s signature ability apply to PvE mobs. Bosses often are immune to fear or have unbeatable Will saves and if a boss has neither of those then maybe they should take the debuff.

2) Fix Orders to Charge so it properly applies the 1/2 strength bonus to the drummer. Right now it’s pretty weak for a capstone ability. Letting barbarians use it as a mini rage on a cooldown would elevate it significantly.

It wouldn’t be as strong as the capstones of Correllon Champ, Sarol Veldruk, Blade/Deathsinger but it would give a good reason to take the class for a barbarian who is giving up epic feats, epic DR and additional rage uses compared to 30 Barb or whatever they would get from Multiclassing (probably AC).

For PvE this is a nice buff but paladins can run around with +8 strength basically permanent and fighter 12 is also going to be stronger. For PvP, again why balance for PvP, but for PvP a barbarian is going to use their real rage not the mini rage and they wouldn’t stack.





As a race locked PRC that someone at some point spent time implementing, why not show the class a little love so it gets some play. This isn’t suggesting new features or coding but just making the existing features work a little better for the class and the current balance environment.

The orc races, the only ones who can take the class, are already kind of subpar. Three of the four are some of the few races with net negative stat adjustments. Two of the four have light blindness which is tough on the surface, and if they play UD have to compete in an environment balanced around 2 ECL races.

Intelligence is important for power builders because of Combat Expertise and normal players/ RP builds for skill points. This class doesn’t need a buff to make up for orcs being kinda weak, but I don’t think there is a huge risk of making the class too strong and popular because its race locked to a low tier race.

And regarding suggestion two above, this could do something to make the orc races a good pick for playing a barbarian which is the favored class for most orcs and is very on brand for RP. As it is, other races arguably make better barbarians - mostly because you need Combat Expertise for a good melee build. And the dwarf barbarian prestige class is better than the orc one, that can’t be right.