Pale Master and WF discussion

[Gol]

I just wanted to go over some of the benefits from Pale Master in PnP that I hope to see in the PrE...

In PnP, it's a 10 level Prestige Class. I'll hit the highlights that actually transfer to DDO meaning...

1 - nothing
2 - nothing that translates (Animate Dead)
3 - nothing that translates (Darkvision)
4 - 10% ASF reduction
5 - +4 Fort Saves vs spells that effect only living creatures
6 - +4 Strength, special attack 1/day
7 - disease immunity, stunning immunity (and stuff that doesn't translate)
8 - 20% ASF reduction, special attack 1/day
9 - nothing that translates (Undead Cohort)
10 - immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, death effects, critical hits, ability drain, energy drain, and anything that damages Str/Dex/Con

How I hope that translates to a 3 level PrE (effects not stacking)
1 - 10% ASF reduction, +2 Fort
2 - 15% ASF reduction, +4 Fort, +2 Str, disease/stunning immunities
3 - 20% ASF reduction, +4 Fort, +4 Str, <long immunity list as above>

What I hope this means for Warforged...
35% base ASF on adamantine body
-20% ASF via Pale Master
-15% ASF via Enhancements
= 0% ASF in Adamantine Body

Well heck, if I can get 0% Adamantine body....

Warforged Juggernaut (PnP Version)
Prereqs: Adamantine Body, Power Attack, and a non-DDO feat.
Benefits:
1 - nothing that translates
2 - immune to crits, +1 attack when charging*
3 - immune to charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects. immune to all healing spells
4 - immune to death and necromancy effects, +2 attack when charging*
5 - immune to ability damage and ability drain

Now some of this is handy. Some we already have, and some is provided by the Pale Master. What will be interesting is how they implement the whole charging issue. But what I find most interesting is the immune to all healing. Well, we're talking about WF wizards. Who cares? I heal myself anyway.

Let's review the Immunities of both these PrEs.
Charms (Charm Person/Monster)
Compulsions (Good: Hold Person/Monster, Dominate, Fear, Command, Feeblemind, Hypnotism, Mind Fog, Otto's, Power Word Anything, Suggestion, Touch of Idiocy. Bad: Good Hope, Greater/Heroism, Rage)
Phantasms (Phantasmal Killer)
Morale Effects
Death Effects
Necromancy Effects (Harm/Inflict, Finger of Death, Horrid Wilting, Poison, Ray of Enfeeblement/Exhaustion, Slay Living, Waves of Exhaustion/Fatigue)
Healing School (All Heals, Cures, Lesser/Greater/Restoration)
Ability Damage
Ability Drain
Level Drain
Poison
Sleep Effects
Paralysis
Critical Hits (Fortification not required. This is simple immunity.)
Stunning

The various Symbol of X spells also fall under these categories - every single one of them.

That's a lot of immunities. Just about the only thing you have to worry about is direct damage. Well, WF Wizzies have Reconstruct for that.

Anyway, feel free to discuss. I have renewed hopes for my Arcane Psycho (Wiz 18 / Fig 2) build

[wrinyn]

I just wanted to go over some of the benefits from Pale Master in PnP that I hope to see in the PrE...

In PnP, it's a 10 level Prestige Class. I'll hit the highlights that actually transfer to DDO meaning...

1 - nothing
2 - nothing that translates (Animate Dead)
3 - nothing that translates (Darkvision)
4 - 10% ASF reduction
5 - +4 Fort Saves vs spells that effect only living creatures
6 - +4 Strength, special attack 1/day
7 - disease immunity, stunning immunity (and stuff that doesn't translate)
8 - 20% ASF reduction, special attack 1/day
9 - nothing that translates (Undead Cohort)
10 - immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, death effects, critical hits, ability drain, energy drain, and anything that damages Str/Dex/Con

How I hope that translates to a 3 level PrE (effects not stacking)
1 - 10% ASF reduction, +2 Fort
2 - 15% ASF reduction, +4 Fort, +2 Str, disease/stunning immunities
3 - 20% ASF reduction, +4 Fort, +4 Str, <long immunity list as above>

What I hope this means for Warforged...
35% base ASF on adamantine body
-20% ASF via Pale Master
-15% ASF via Enhancements
= 0% ASF in Adamantine Body

Well heck, if I can get 0% Adamantine body....

Warforged Juggernaut (PnP Version)
Prereqs: Adamantine Body, Power Attack, and a non-DDO feat.
Benefits:
1 - nothing that translates
2 - immune to crits, +1 attack when charging*
3 - immune to charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects. immune to all healing spells
4 - immune to death and necromancy effects, +2 attack when charging*
5 - immune to ability damage and ability drain

Now some of this is handy. Some we already have, and some is provided by the Pale Master. What will be interesting is how they implement the whole charging issue. But what I find most interesting is the immune to all healing. Well, we're talking about WF wizards. Who cares? I heal myself anyway.

Let's review the Immunities of both these PrEs.
Charms (Charm Person/Monster)
Compulsions (Good: Hold Person/Monster, Dominate, Fear, Command, Feeblemind, Hypnotism, Mind Fog, Otto's, Power Word Anything, Suggestion, Touch of Idiocy. Bad: Good Hope, Greater/Heroism, Rage)
Phantasms (Phantasmal Killer)
Morale Effects
Death Effects
Necromancy Effects (Harm/Inflict, Finger of Death, Horrid Wilting, Poison, Ray of Enfeeblement/Exhaustion, Slay Living, Waves of Exhaustion/Fatigue)
Healing School (All Heals, Cures, Lesser/Greater/Restoration)
Ability Damage
Ability Drain
Level Drain
Poison
Sleep Effects
Paralysis
Critical Hits (Fortification not required. This is simple immunity.)
Stunning

The various Symbol of X spells also fall under these categories - every single one of them.

That's a lot of immunities. Just about the only thing you have to worry about is direct damage. Well, WF Wizzies have Reconstruct for that.

Anyway, feel free to discuss. I have renewed hopes for my Arcane Psycho (Wiz 18 / Fig 2) build

Heh...throw in 2 levels of rogue instead of fighter and those pesky dd spells get wiped out as well. I was wondering about the Pale Master. It would be interesting if they used a special touch related attack as per different undead to make up for some of the non-translated abilities....

Good synopsis...To get this right, I'd have to take ten wiz levels before taking pale master levels?

[Angelus_dead]

How I hope that translates to a 3 level PrE (effects not stacking)
1 - 10% ASF reduction, +2 Fort
2 - 15% ASF reduction, +4 Fort, +2 Str, disease/stunning immunities
3 - 20% ASF reduction, +4 Fort, +4 Str, <long immunity list as above>

Keep dreaming...

I'll take a minute and come back with a prediction of what it might be. It's hard for me to guess, but it won't be that.

[Korvek]

Let's review the Immunities of both these PrEs.
Charms (Charm Person/Monster)
Compulsions (Good: Hold Person/Monster, Dominate, Fear, Command, Feeblemind, Hypnotism, Mind Fog, Otto's, Power Word Anything, Suggestion, Touch of Idiocy. Bad: Good Hope, Greater/Heroism, Rage)
Phantasms (Phantasmal Killer)
Morale Effects
Death Effects
Necromancy Effects (Harm/Inflict, Finger of Death, Horrid Wilting, Poison, Ray of Enfeeblement/Exhaustion, Slay Living, Waves of Exhaustion/Fatigue)
Healing School (All Heals, Cures, Lesser/Greater/Restoration)
Ability Damage
Ability Drain
Level Drain
Poison
Sleep Effects
Paralysis
Critical Hits (Fortification not required. This is simple immunity.)
Stunning

Er, just out of curiosity, would I be correct in assuming that the immunity to morale-based effects includes immunity to morale bonuses?

The inability to benefit from GH or Inspire Courage would be annoying to say the least.

[Angelus_dead]

I'll take a minute and come back with a prediction of what it might be. It's hard for me to guess, but it won't be that.

It's being difficult to guess what DDO's Pale Master might do, because the D&D prestige class is quite bad. I'll try again to come up with something- it will probably involve commanding undead and the special touch attacks, plus some resistances. It also might take some features from other (better) classes on the same theme, like True Necromancer, Master of Shrouds, or Dread Necromancer.

However, it's easier to predict that your plan for an ultra-armored warforged tank won't work. Unlike the summary you posted, Pale Master doesn't really get reduced ASF; he reduces the ASF from specific named magic armors, which all look like goofy Halloween costumes. In the D&D rules it can't apply to anything heavier than Hide Armor or a Breastplate, and there's absolutely no way it could work on Adamantine Plating as part of your body.

If they try to add that idea to DDO, they'd probably just add a passive Armor or Natural Armor bonus to the Pale Master. Alternatively they might follow the D&D rules directly and create specific named armors to which the ASF applies. Their motivation to do that would be the artwork: it create motivation for Pale Masters to dress up in comical corspe-motif costumes.

[Gol]

If they try to add that idea to DDO, they'd probably just add a passive Armor or Natural Armor bonus to the Pale Master. Alternatively they might follow the D&D rules directly and create specific named armors to which the ASF applies. Their motivation to do that would be the artwork: it create motivation for Pale Masters to dress up in comical corspe-motif costumes.

Fair enough, but I'm sure Turbine is aware that a large portion of Wizards are Warforged. I really hope they wouldn't do anything that would be so useless to so many wizards.

At the same time... is a blanket ASF reduction really overpowered? Even if it was a blanket reduction, how great is the benefit, really? During the mod that it ASF was broken, I picked up Adamantine Body on my WF Wizard just to test it out, but found it was a complete waste of a feat (at the time). The DR 2/- isn't worth anything, and let's face it, Wizards will never get AC high enough to matter.

Either way, as long as it gives a Strength boost, I'm all over it. Anything else is gravy. Possible un-madstoned (ie, retains casting) Strength on an 18/2 build:
18 base + 5 levels + 1 enhancement + 6 item + 4 Pale Master + 2 tome + 2 rage spell = 38 Strength.

[Angelus_dead]

Fair enough, but I'm sure Turbine is aware that a large portion of Wizards are Warforged. I really hope they wouldn't do anything that would be so useless to so many wizards.

On the other hand, Turbine is also aware that WF wizards have advantages that others can't match, and they might decide to use additions like Pale Master as one way to add a little balance, by giving it immunities that are redundant with the Warforged race.

At the same time... is a blanket ASF reduction really overpowered?

No, an ASF reduction is not too powerful, especially if it only applies to armor and not shields. As you note, wizards can't usually get enough AC to notice.

I expect Turbine will instead hold back from a generic ASF reduction more for artistic reasons than game balance: they don't want Pale Master to permit wizards to trot around in Full Plate or Adamantine Body because that runs counter to the visual image they have for wizards (and necromancers).

No, I think that if they make a specialty that helps wizards wear armor (and otherwise perform in melee), it will be something that hasn't been listed yet- something where a fighter-mage "gish" was a real theme of the class. It might be called something like Eldritch Knight, Spellsword, Swordmage, Abjurant Champion, Dragon Disciple, or even the Eberron-specific Knight Phantom.

But that probably won't come from Pale Master. As a guess, I think it will provide resistances, a passive AC bonus, some touch attacks, and most importantly a benefit to casting Necromancy spells such as 10,20,30% fewer spellpoints and cooldown timer. The reason I predict a good bonus to Necromancy is to help wizards compete better with sorcerers in terms of beating a normal quest with your spells. Right now wizards are overall disadvantaged compared to sorcerers, because DDO doesn't have enough good spells to make spell flexibility important compared to more mana and casting speed.

[Angelus_dead]

Ok, here's Pale Master as I might make it, but it still needs work. This is intentionally not too close to the book version of Pale Master (which is a little lame), and pulls in elements from other necromancy classes, plus Necromancy specialist wizards. (One difficulty I have when proposing specialties is that I'm reluctant to put too much good stuff at tier 3, because I want players to enjoy it through more of their leveling).

Pale Master 1
requires Spell Focus Necro, plus much other junk
Your necromancy spells cost 10% fewer spellpoints, and have 10% less casting time and cooldown. Your negative energy spells do 10% more damage, and you have Inflict Light/Mod/Ser Wounds in your spellbook. You can expend a Black Onyx gem and 30 sp to summon a powerful Ghoul who functions as a hireling. You have a +2 bonus on charisma skill checks against Undead.

Pale Master 2
Your necromancy spells cost 15% fewer spellpoints, and have 20% less casting time and cooldown. Your negative energy spells do 10% more damage, and you have Inflict Crit/MassLight/MassMod Wounds in your spellbook. You are immune to ability damage from disease (but still get infected and look gross).
You don't consume the regular material component when casting Create Undead, and the interval to break control is doubled. You can expend 5 Black Onyx gems and 60 sp to summon a powerful Mummy who functions as a hireling. You have a +3 natural armor bonus to AC. You have a +4 bonus on charisma skill checks against Undead.

Drain Touch, 0 AP, req Pale Master 2
By spending 10 sp you can steal strength from a touched enemy. For 60 seconds it suffers the effect of Ray of Enfeeblement, and if the debuff is successful you gain a +4 Profane bonus to strength for 60 seconds.

Pale Master 3
Your necromancy spells cost 20% fewer spellpoints, and have 30% less casting time and cooldown. Whenever an enemy fails a save against your necromancy, you gain temporary hp equal to 2 per spell level. On a melee natural 20 you paralyze the target (fort DC 13+int negates). You have Inflict MassSer/MassCrit Wounds, Harm, Despair and Wrack in your spellbook. You are immune to negative levels from energy drain. Your Drain Touch gives you +1 to spell DC and penetration against the creature struck. You can expend 25 Black Onyx gems and 90 sp to summon a powerful Wraith who functions as a hireling. You have a +5 natural armor bonus to AC and DR 5/Blunt. You have a +6 bonus on charisma skill checks against Undead.

Soul Touch, 0 AP, req Pale Master 3
By spending 30 sp you can curse a touched creature with -2 saves and SR against necromancy, -75% divine healing, and +50% negative energy damage. This lasts for 60 seconds.

Despair: lev 5
A single target freezes from terror. Will negates, FOM won't help, but Fear Immunity does.

Wrack: lev 5
A single target is shaken, blind, and prone from pain. Separate fort saves negate each penalty.

But wait, there's more! The following two feats would make all that a lot more interesting. Note that neither feat is a prereq of the other.

Lesser Tomb-Touched Soul
requires base Will save 4, read the Libris Mortis (a single-use rare-drop tome)
Your body has been corrupted by the power of undead, and you take 50% less healing from positive energy, but allied negative energy effects give you 50% healing. Enemy negative energy effects do 50% damage.

Greater Tomb-Touched Soul
requires base Will save 4, read the Libris Mortis (a single-use rare-drop tome)
Your body has been corrupted by the power of undead, and you take 80% less healing from positive energy, but allied negative energy effects give you 100% healing. Enemy negative energy effects do no damage.

[Xyfiel]

My wizard has 62 ac selfbuffed tyvm, with room for 2 more from item/tome. 0%ASF.
I am interested if there will be an ac boost, only reason I would take the PrE.

[wrinyn]

My wizard has 62 ac selfbuffed tyvm, with room for 2 more from item/tome. 0%ASF.
I am interested if there will be an ac boost, only reason I would take the PrE.

can you list your equip and such to show the numbers please? I'm just curious to see if I can get close to that....

[Gol]

No offense, AD, but...

/yawn at that. I'm hoping for a more literal implementation of the Pale Master PrC for myself, though I understand where you're coming from with that flavor.

[Xyfiel]

10 base
11 dex (33 currently need a +3 tome)
4 Icy rainments
4/7 shield spell/+5heavy mithril shield
2 alchemical ritual
5 expertise
4 natural (tensers/madstone)
1 haste
3 chattering ring
4 insight weapon
4 deflection (Icy)
7 bracers
62

8 bracers
12 dex
64

60 twf, 64 S&S
and if I really wanted to, I could take twd or dodge

[Gol]

But if you cast a spell (IF you can cast a spell with those Boots on), you automatically lose 5, and you'll be missing either potency or lore.

Yeah, if I stripped all the Wizard/Caster gear off my wizard, I could come close to 60 too.

[wrinyn]

But if you cast a spell (IF you can cast a spell with those Boots on), you automatically lose 5, and you'll be missing either potency or lore.

Yeah, if I stripped all the Wizard/Caster gear off my wizard, I could come close to 60 too.

Heh...is AC 45 worth it around level 10-12 (GHold). Obviously this would be supplemented with all of the Buffs as well.

[rimble]

But if you cast a spell (IF you can cast a spell with those Boots on), you automatically lose 5, and you'll be missing either potency or lore.

Yeah, if I stripped all the Wizard/Caster gear off my wizard, I could come close to 60 too.

Well, he's clearly got some melee Weapon Finesse Wizard thing going on. A relevant data point, but probably not what most of us are looking for.