Author Topic: Pale Master Summons  (Read 3711 times)

ethinos

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Pale Master Summons
« on: June 01, 2011, 09:30:10 PM »
Any chance of changing a Pale Master's summons? Did some looking and noticed that the other prestige classes with summons (Blackguard & Shadowdancer) have much better summons in relation to the level received.

Here's how they compare:

Pale Master
Level 4 Ghoul
Level 6 Shadow
Level 7 Ghast
Level 8 Wight
Level 9 Wraith/Mummy Warrior
Level 10 Spectre

Blackguard
Level 3 Ghast
Level 5 Succubus
Level 7 Doom Knight
Level 9 Vrock

Shadowdancer
Level 3 Shadow
Level 6 Shadow Fiend
Level 9 Shadow Lord

    When you compare the three classes, note that:
    • Being a prestige class, the Pale Master summons are typically gained at levels that already make them ineffective and only useful as extremely short-lived cannon fodder
    • While the Pale Master also gets Animate Undead, these summons are mostly useful as cannon fodder too.
    • The level 3 Shadowdancer Shadow has 30/+1 damage reduction and Turn Resistance +10, whereas the Level 6 Pale Master Shadow has 5/+1 and Turn Resistance +2
    • At level 3 the Blackguard gets the same summons a Pale Master has to wait seven levels to get. And it's not even a good summons.
    • At level 5 the Blackguard gets a succubus that has: "20/+2 damage reduction, and 20/- acid, cold, and fire damage resistance, as well as 100% immunity to electrical damage. In addition, this creature is immune to poison and has a spell resistance of 12. A succubus' slam attack drains a single level on-hit. This creature can cast a number of spells as spell-like abilities (cannot be countered or interrupted) with a caster level of 12. These abilities are charm monster, clairaudience/clairvoyance, darkness, and doom, each usable three times per day. In addition, this creature can summon tanarri once per day." At level 10, a Pale Master gets a slightly stronger shadow that has ability/level drain, +3 AB, and 45 hit points.

    The summons of a Pale Master are vastly underpowered compared to others that the other classes get. Now, looking at the PnP version of the Pale Master, a couple of the abilities stand out and I think the Pale Master could stand to benefit from having the current Animate Dead and Summon Undead reworked.

Quote
Animate Dead (Sp): Starting at 2nd level, a pale master begins to exercise control over the undead. Once per day, he can use animate dead, as the spell, without need of a material component. Use the pale master’s highest arcane caster level as the caster level for this effect. All other level restrictions of animate dead still apply. For example, a 6th-level sorcerer/3rd-level pale master can animate up to 16 HD of undead with a single use of this ability. Likewise, he can control up to 32 HD of undead created using this ability, the animate dead spell, or both.

Considering that Pale Master levels after level one are added to the Arcane class levels for effective caster level, the total hit dice of animated undead can get high pretty quick for our server. However, looking at the other classes, almost all of the summons are effectively the prestige class level +1 worth of HD. At level 5 they summon a 6HD creature. At level 9 they summon a 10 HD creature. The Pale Master class doesn't follow this and pretty much lags behind by several levels worth of comparable HD at each level. If we could get summons in a comparable fashion, things would be better. Come to think of it, the Animate Undead spell could also use a bit of an upgrade along these lines.

Quote
Control Undead (Sp): Once per day, a pale master of 5th level or higher can gain control over an undead creature (with Hit Dice equal to or less than his highest arcane caster level) by making a successful touch attack against it. The undead creature receives no saving throw to resist this effect. The control lasts for 1 round per class level. When the duration expires, the undead creature returns to its former allegiance, if any. The newly controlled undead can still be turned or rebuked as normal. This effect is otherwise identical to the control undead spell. This ability is in addition to the number of undead a pale master can control using his animate dead ability.

Since my recommendation for Animate Undead would effectively replace the current Summon Undead with a similar but improved function, the current Summon Undead should be replaced with the PnP Control Undead, which is at its heart a Dominate Undead type of ability without a saving throw (though I'd imagine an undead PC would still get one).

So, to summarize, instead of two lame summons, the Pale Master would get Animate Dead summons comparable to the other two prestige classes with summons, and a dominate undead type of ability.
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Re: Pale Master Summons
« Reply #1 on: June 01, 2011, 10:02:27 PM »
Just to clarify, a level 6 Shadow Dancer in PotM does not receive a Shadow Fiend Summons.  It's been changed and it's either a level 3 or possibly level 4, shadow.


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ethinos

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Re: Pale Master Summons
« Reply #2 on: June 02, 2011, 01:16:31 AM »
Strange. I can't find any refererence where the class was changed from it's default NWN status, and only found two direct mentions of changes to the Summon Shadow abiliy in the Changelog:

November 8, 2009
Quote
- Revised the Shadowdancer's Summon Shadow ability.

December 4, 2009
Quote
- Made a few fixes and improvements to the Shadowdancer summoned shadow.

Edit: Found this, but still not really relevant:

Quote
  Altered class features

-Summon shadow: if a shadowdancer dies, any shadow she has summoned immediately becomes chaotic evil. These shadows are under the control of the slain shadowdancer's shadow (see below).

-Death's Shadow: when a shadowdancer dies, within 1d4 rounds her shadow animates as a chaotic evil shadow with Hit Dice equal to the shadowdancer's level. The character cannot be raised or otherwise restored to life until the shadow has been destroyed.
« Last Edit: June 02, 2011, 01:25:29 AM by ethinos »
Torgan Ironshield: Battlerager and smith
Wirth Darmington II: Roguish noble
Kurgh: A simple herdsman

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Re: Pale Master Summons
« Reply #3 on: June 02, 2011, 01:48:06 AM »
Strange. I can't find any refererence where the class was changed from it's default NWN status, and only found two direct mentions of changes to the Summon Shadow abiliy in the Changelog:

November 8, 2009
Quote
- Revised the Shadowdancer's Summon Shadow ability.

December 4, 2009
Quote
- Made a few fixes and improvements to the Shadowdancer summoned shadow.


Both of these refer to changes to the summoned shadow and the summon shadow ability and it was changed from the normal NWN progression and duration at those times.


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Axra

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Re: Pale Master Summons
« Reply #4 on: July 06, 2011, 05:46:40 PM »
Would make sense for a PM to have better summons to be sure >.> They -are- meant to be fricken necromancers and they dont exactly have the combat prowess like a BG or SD to make up for it (depending).  BG expecially.

Silvi Wildflower

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Re: Pale Master Summons
« Reply #5 on: August 12, 2011, 07:42:52 PM »
Would make sense for a PM to have better summons to be sure >.> They -are- meant to be fricken necromancers and they dont exactly have the combat prowess like a BG or SD to make up for it (depending).  BG expecially.

+1

I agree completely.

firebrand

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Re: Pale Master Summons
« Reply #6 on: August 16, 2011, 07:28:28 PM »
The only disagreement I would have with the argument of levels is that Pale Master can be accessed as a PrC at a overall lower character level than Blackguard or Shadow Dancer

Blackguard needs a BaB of 6 which means 6 levels of a fighter class.

Shadow Dancer needs 10 ranks in hide which means they need 7 levels of a class with hide as a class skill.

Pale Master needs 3rd level arcane spells which means they only need 5th level Wizard.

So on par a Level 3 Blackguard is character level 9. A level 4 Pale Master is also Character level 9 a level 3 Shadow Dancer is character level 10.

I do agree though the the progression vs power is a little skewed because once your character level 20 then all things considered the Pale Master does get a little screwed in that regard seeing as they give up extra spell levels in order to get their abilities. The Blackguard and Shadow Dancer are not similarly hindered.
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