[PF, PrC] Silent Saviours: Shield-wielding divine casters who take a vow of silence - RPG Crossing
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Old May 14th, 2017, 05:48 PM
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[PF, PrC] Silent Saviours: Shield-wielding divine casters who take a vow of silence

This is for a homebrew world of mine. Technically, it's actually something I've been working on for the sequel to a campaign I'm currently running, however I've got people interested in playing as them for this campaign, so as well as opinions on its overall balance for PF, if anyone has any suggestions, question or comments about how it'd work as a 3.5 PrC (other than changing HD, skills and save progression for example) then I'd appreciate it. What to do with Channel Energy in particular is a problem, although I'm thinking of just dropping it, or maybe replacing it with a "levels stack for Turn Undead purposes" class feature.

EDIT - I've decided to split up the two classes into the Silent Saviour (full casting, 3/4 BAB, healing focus) and the Silent Soldier (variant casting, full BAB, combat focus).

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Last edited by Makenshi; May 17th, 2017 at 01:17 PM.
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Old May 14th, 2017, 07:36 PM
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You have Aspect as a level 1 ability on the table, but I don't see anywhere what that does?

You also have the channel energy in the level 1 text, but not on the table.


The vow of silence is interesting flavor, but... it's easily made void/null by game play.

I can make clicks and whistles? There's an entire language that exists like that. Doesn't seem like much of a vow, if you can by-pass it by learning a foreign language (I took a vow to never speak English, so I learned Spanish). One skill point in linguistics, and you have made the "downside" of the PRC easily overcome (and not just by you, but by everyone in your party).

Secondly, you can communicate with scripture, poetry, etc.?
Again, seems a cute idea for role play, but... given the sheer amount of poetry in the world, it wouldn't be hard to have most of a common day's phrases/needs ready to go, in the form of a handy quote. There seems no requirement that an entire passage or poem be used, just that you quote scripture or poetry... half a line of a poem is still a quote.

Good morning to you

Shall we gather at the river? Should we meet in the tavern?

Prepare thy selves, brothers, for danger is anon.

Day is done, time has come, to sleep, and say goodbyes.

Go forth, with caution.

My friend

I love you

Get the behind me!

I'll have another.

Look!

Beware!

Set forth your finest dinner.
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Old May 14th, 2017, 07:56 PM
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@ Aspect/Channel: Gyah, I thought I'd sorted that. Channel Energy used to be part of Aspect, but since both sides were identical I separated them. I must have forgotten to change the table.

@ Vow: Not sure where you're getting the language thing. It doesn't mention anything about only applying to a single language as far as I can tell. In fact, it specifically says "any spoken language".

Granted, Vow of Silence is a bit of a misnomer admittedly, as it's a "selective silence". It's partially inspired by the Chanters (not sure if that's what they're called, been a while since I played) from Dragon Age (who only speak through quoting their holy book), and part of the reason for making it so is that silence for a spellcaster is pretty bad and there's no way I'm giving automatic silent spell for everything from the get go. Quoting scripture allows them to still casts spells.

I can see your point about poetry, even though it's for a fictional fantasy world where (realistically) someone isn't going to have the collective works of every poet memorised.

It should be noted that the class feature is supposed to be mostly thematic, rather than a major hindrance (like a true, 3.5 era Vow of Silence's vow), or are you saying that its unbalanced and needs a more restrictive vow to balance it out? If so, what would you suggest?

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Old May 15th, 2017, 09:29 AM
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the language thing comes from their ability to use clicks of the tongue, whistles, etc., to convey communications.

In our real world, there's an entire language based on tongue clicks. Thus, a language that is used to communicate thoughts, emotions, expressions, etc.. Given that is is a language in our world, it could be a language in the gaming world. Then the linguistic skill would allow you to invest a point to learn it. Everyone invests the skill point, and now, your "silent" person can communicate with everyone without hindrance of their vow, and still remain true to the vow (not using words).

If the vow is basically thematic, and has no real game effects, then I think your PRC is overpowered... Essentially, you could be a 10th level Cleric (one of the more powerful PC's in the game), and by sacrificing nothing, gain more feats and abilities than if you remained a cleric. Your spell casting remains the same, you lose nothing in abilities, and you gain silent spell feats far beyond what you could as a Tier 1 cleric.

Is there any reason that every 10th level Cleric would NOT take this PRC? They lose nothing: no spell loss, no ability loss, no feat loss, nothing.... and they gain special abilities, extra feats, etc.. At 20th level, they are more far powerful than they would have been otherwise, without having to give up anything.
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Old May 15th, 2017, 10:44 AM
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That was my fear and why I've been sitting on the class for a while.

Thinking on it, my options seem to be:
  • Make it harder/more difficult to qualify for (not sure how I'd do this, except perhaps by making it a bit of a fighter/cleric gish).
  • Tighten up the silence aspect (which I'd really rather not do)
  • Get rid of most of the non-silence abilities, except for a few token/weak ones to fill dead levels perhaps (which then makes it a rather boring "free silent spell" class with no real personality otherwise)
  • Insert dead caster levels (at least two I'd imagine), perhaps combined with a little weakening/eliminating of some of the class features too.

I'm actually finding myself leaning towards shifting this to being a warrior/cleric gish, since it would actually suit the God quite well. I hadn't done that initially as one of the other classes (this is one of 3 classes tied to the God) was a warrior type, but thinking about it, that warrior type was pretty much a straight warrior (well, straight, plus some tome of battle abilities, but still, not a caster let alone a divine caster).

Anyway, I've updated the first post with a second version of this, with this in mind. For now I've left the old one there for reference. The changes so far are:
  • Requires +8 BAB, so the highest level Cleric that could get into this and get all 10 levels before the 20 cap is a Cleric 8/Full BAB class 2, while the lowest is a Cleric 5/Full BAB class 5.
  • Requires Improved Shield Bash and Weapon Focus (any one shield). It's not major, but since in my head they were using shields to attack/defend and the spare hand for spells, it seemed appropriate, and wastes a couple of feats for people jumping in just for the silencing effect.
  • Their silencing effect now replaces the verbal component with a somatic one if it wouldn't have one. For example, a Power Word spell (which normally only has a verbal component) would lose its verbal component but gain a somatic one. This would also mean that if you want to cast a Silent and Stilled spell, you'd have to use the normal metamagic feats, as the Saviour's ability would kick in, wasting the +1 level for Stilling the spell by giving it a somatic component anyway.

    Considering the Goddess herself used to communicate through a made up sign language I'm really kicking myself that I didn't put this in sooner to be honest, even if it's not that big of a deal, mechanically speaking.
  • I've left the BAB as it is for now, as making it full BAB would be overkill since an 8th level Cleric that sacrifices two levels to a full BAB class could easily qualify, and I don't think the two lost levels is enough to warrant that increase. If I was going to make it a full BAB class, then I'd be tempted to make it lose a caster level or two, but I'm not sure if that'd be balanced, plus if it loses two then even an 8th level Cleric wouldn't actually get any benefit from one of the capstones, as it wouldn't be able to cast 9th level spells).

I'm still not entirely happy with it though. Perhaps I still need to tone down the Aspect ability, or even get rid of Channel Energy (they can still heal with spells after all), the latter of which would help for a 3.5 conversion too.

What do you think?

EDIT - And I've just remembered that 2 levels of Fighter would give an 8th level Cleric all of its requirement needs through two combat feats (Improved Shield Bash & Weapon Focus: Shield), shield proficiencies and the BAB. I think I'm definitely going to have to get rid of Channel. Yeah, I'm just going to drop that ability entirely.

~MTWC
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Last edited by Makenshi; May 15th, 2017 at 10:51 AM.
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Old May 15th, 2017, 12:01 PM
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Just to weigh in on the silence thing: if it's meant to be a counter to the PRC being powerful, let it be a real drawback. The monk's vow of silence is more restrictive than this, and it grants one bonus ki point. Why not make it so that these characters are literally enshrouded by silence. They cannot make noise, period, even by accident, unless they willingly lower their vow.
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Old May 15th, 2017, 02:25 PM
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I'd really rather not do that, as it's meant to be more thematic than a drawback, as mentioned above, so I'd rather go about altering the requirements and abilities of the class to balance it out instead.

EDIT - Another option as far as making it more of a gish would be basing the requirement not on BAB but a class feature to better control the highest level a cleric could enter without sacrificing casting levels. For example, the Divine Bond class feature (from the Paladin). If I went for something like that, re-jigging the silent casting progression (so that it caps at 8th level +) and having the class levels stack for the purposes of that class feature do you think it would work as a Full BAB PrC, or is the problem still the class features?

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Last edited by Makenshi; May 15th, 2017 at 02:33 PM.
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Old May 17th, 2017, 12:27 PM
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I think, especially with losing channeled energy, the PRC is much more balanced. It's still a good option for one of the more powerful classes in the game, but it's no longer first-order optimal (that is, clearly the best choice).

Also, I just had a funny idea of a "silent" saviour who would write and publish his own poetry, and work in lines he wants/expects to say, and then just constantly quote his own work.
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Old May 17th, 2017, 01:21 PM
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Heh, as you were posting I've ended up changing it again. I've actually split it into two classes now:

One is a healing 'cleric' class (Silent Saviour) with now gains a gradual spell combat-like ability (although I'm not sure if I've erred too much on the side of caution with this, especially with the lost caster levels it gains), the other is either a divine caster/fighter gish class or a granted, you could potentially qualify with a Ranger with the right traitsPaladin class (Silent Soldier).

Better? Worse? About the same?

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Old May 17th, 2017, 04:57 PM
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Split classes look good. The Silent Saviour makes sense.

Silent soldier...the variable casting chart looks weird to me, and you get free silences up to 4th level spells, but a cleric 10/silent soldier 10 has 7th level spells, which, I mean, if you're taking all these RP restrictions and challenges on, ontop of losing caster levels, to use a weird niche combat style, you think at least you'd get free silences on all your spells?

It's also kind of odd that they don't have move silently/hide. You have silent warriors that can't move without clanking down the hall. You'd think that existing in silence would teach you to be cautious of noise rather than ignorant of it.
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Old May 17th, 2017, 05:07 PM
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@ Variable Casting: Really, its mostly designed with Paladins in mind, hence why it taps out at 4th level casting. The problem is that without tying it to specific class features (none of which would make a huge amount of sense with the class/are advanced by it) there's no way to single it out to a Paladin, and even then I'd rather not rule out a Ranger if they wanted to take the right feats (probably not the best choice for them admitedly). That means that you have to make it lose caster levels in case a Cleric gets a hold of it and gets that boosted HD/BAB without any drawbacks, which will then weaken the Paladin/Rangers's (already not exactly amazing) spellcasting.

Maybe it'd work because of the BAB limit (even a multi-class cleric can't qualify for it and get all 10 levels without getting into Epic levels after all) but I'm trying to err on the side of caution.

@ Silent Levels: Somewhat related to above, but basically, if a Paladin/Ranger goes for a Silent Soldier then those higher level silent spells are dead levels to them and the class is really designed with them in mind, not clerics.

@ Stealth: Simply put, neither are stealthy classes (that's for the Silent Slayer). As far as move siently goes, Absolute Silence is basically perfect move silently at will, since it surrounds them in silence so no one even has a chance to hear them coming. Granted, it also means they can't hear anyone, but as I said, they're not a stealthy class by design.

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Old May 19th, 2017, 03:23 AM
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@Variable casting: Re looking at the pre-reqs...make it 9/10ths or 8/10ths casting all the way through, make the class abilities a bit stronger in a couple ways, especially the 8th-9th-10th, and don't worry that much if a cleric goes Cleric 12/This 8?

@Stealth; Hmm, okay. Fair. And it invites this interesting RP location where one of these guys prefers to keep silence on all the time even when totally unnecessary because they don't like the noise they make, to the annoyance of the party.
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Old May 19th, 2017, 04:35 AM
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A Cleric couldn't qualify at 12th level, the earliest a pure cleric could qualify due to the BAB requirement is 14.

I'll have to think about the class abilities.

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Old May 19th, 2017, 05:40 PM
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Oh yeah, sorry. Forgetting my BAB chart and doing it off the top of my head.

So backload some of the last few levels with stronger abilities and just make it full casting. Problem solved.
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Old May 20th, 2017, 01:19 AM
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Any time you cut one caster level, you make it a choice. If you cut two (thereby, truly setting the straight caster back a full step), you make it a very hard choice.

If you cut more than two levels, you rarely get full casters to go that route, unless you really boost them a lot with the PRC abilities. Loss of two caster levels to a straight caster is BIG.

So, your making the first level a dead level (loss of caster level) helps, a lot. adding a second loss in the first 5 levels really makes it a good, solid decision/choice to be made, which I think is a good thing, for balance.

If I have to think two seconds before jumping, it's too easy/powerful. if I have to think hard, it's probably good. if I think "no way ever", then it's probably too weak for the loss, and won't be used.
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