Café de Nuit

The Keepers are a secret organisation of peoples, natural or not, dedicating their life to fight, learn more about and eventually to killing Strahd himself!
Throughout the text i made reference to "Strahd`s agents", it imply any creature, living or not, that is either controlled, summoned, created or employed by Strahd including himself! A Keeper is always aware that he`s in the presence of a Strahd`s agent.
I designed this pcl with the idea in mind that the Keepers exists only for some specific goals, aformentionned above, so it is very focused and likely to be boring and weak outside a campaing not centered around Strahd and the domain of Barovia. For timesake i won`t give background about the organisation since it as already been published,

Gazetter Vol. 1, p. 38 -ww15020
Fobidden lore box set, Cryptic allegiances booklet (p. 23-31) -tsr1079

Keeper of the black feather (KbF)
hit dice: d8

Class skills:
Knowledge (history), (local), (religion), (monster lore [undead])
Gather information, sens motive, bluff, decipher script, hide, search, spot.

Skill points at each level: (4+ int. modifer)

Weapon and armor: all armors and sheilds, all simple and martial weapons

Requirements:
Knowledge (history [Barovia]) 4 ranks
Knowledge (local [Barovia]) 4 ranks
Gather information 4 ranks
Feat: Courage
Special: Must have survive an encounter with Strahd`s agents. Must be approached by a member of the order.

Class features:
Base attack bonus: (average)
Base save: fort (poor), ref (poor), will (good)

level 1: Favored ennemy +2, investigator, raven familiar
level 2: Summon raven ally (1X/day), inspiring resolve (1X/day)
level 3: favored ennemy +4, Bluffed turning
level 4: inspiring resolve (2X/day), Summon raven ally (2X/day)
level 5: Favored ennemy +6, afflicted wereraven

Favored ennemy: +2 bonus to hit, on saves and when using skills against Strahd`s agents. +4 at 3rd and +6 at 5th.
investigator: Investigator feat for free
Raven familiar: Same as a wizard`s familiar except that the raven confer darvision 10` when in body contact with is master.
Summon raven ally: Once a day the keeper can choose to summon a number of raven equal to is KbF level. At is disposal are normal ravens (1/4 hit dice), dire ravens* (1 hit dice) or giant ravens** (3 hit dices). Duration equal to character level. 2 times per day at level 4.
Inspiring resolve: As prayer save that you can only affect your allys and Strahd`s agents, you are NOT affected. Duration of 1 round/ KbF level. 2 times per day at level 4.
Bluffed turning: Works only against undead with int. score. You made a bluff check opposed to the undead sens motive check, can "bluff" only one undead at the time. If the undead fails it flees for 10 rounds, if it cannot flee OR if you win the check by 15 or more it falls to the ground and is helpless for one round. You can use "bluffed turning" a number of time per day equal to your charisma bonus.
special: You cannot "bluff" an undead that won the check against you in the past. Against an undead that you succesfully "bluffed" in the past you get a +2 bonus to your bluff check. Undead gains their "save resistance" as a bonus to their sens motive check.
Afflicted wereraven: Now that you`ve attained the upper level of the organisation, the members of the inner circle rewards you with the gift of the father. During a sacred ceremony you are, on your own will, afflicted by a natural wereraven of the inner circle. You become then an afflicted wereraven and since you`re aware of your new condition you gain automatically the "control shape"*** skill as a class skill.

*Gazetter vol. 1 (p. 126)
** Silver Marches, forgotten realms campaing accessory (p. 121)
***Monster manual v3.5 (p. 303)

Hope you enjoy and tell me what you think!

Is it that you just dont know what to think or it`s just [deleted by management] so bad that you don`t even bother to answer at all?

your thoughts on my (KbF) prestige class please!

Barovian gravedigger wrote:Is it that you just dont know what to think or it`s just *** so bad that you don`t even bother to answer at all?

No, you just need to give people more time to read through and respond to your post. The fact that you've only give people a few hours on a Sunday evening doesn't exactly allow them much time to provide you with feedback (especially on a slower day like Sunday).

On a separate note, make sure to watch the language for future posts. I certainly can understand your frustrations, but it doesn't excuse the particular choice of words.

Just a quick thought :

Bluff Turning :

If the undead fails it flees for 10 rounds, if it cannot flee OR if you win the check by 15 or more it falls to the ground and is helpless for one round.

So it is actually better (in many if not most situation) to let the undead place to flee and not to win the check by 15+ as doing this makes the undead only helpless for one round - which is not so advantage, as you can't crit or CdG them in this round (with the possible exception of vampires and wooden stakes). You could go with 1 round of helplessnes (if you want to keep the flavour) and then add - say - 3 (or 5 or charisma bonus, or...) rounds, where the undead cowers.

I like your PrCl and might playtest it, since I am planning a bigger campaign over in Barovia next year. *THE Strahd campaign, ending with a battle for Castle Ravenloft...* Thank you, your little oeuvre spared me work to do it myself!

I know what you mean Dark whisper but once the undead is to the ground and helpless, you or one of your teammate, could simply cut is head off, set him on fire, splash it with acid, of stake him.
And if you don`t have any means to destroy it, it might juste be the 1 round the party needs to drink some potion, dispel some bad effect or just get the hell out and run.
One way or the other i think it will keep with the flavor of Ravenloft and surely add to the story line!

Dark Whisper wrote:Just a quick thought :

Bluff Turning :

If the undead fails it flees for 10 rounds, if it cannot flee OR if you win the check by 15 or more it falls to the ground and is helpless for one round.

So it is actually better (in many if not most situation) to let the undead place to flee and not to win the check by 15+ as doing this makes the undead only helpless for one round - which is not so advantage, as you can't crit or CdG them in this round (with the possible exception of vampires and wooden stakes). You could go with 1 round of helplessnes (if you want to keep the flavour) and then add - say - 3 (or 5 or charisma bonus, or...) rounds, where the undead cowers.

Well, playing Advocatus Diaboli :

could simply cut is head off, set him on fire, splash it with acid, of stake him.

The first one would very much be a CdG - which won't work against undead (again, with the possible exception with vampires), while setting it on fire or splashing it with acid could also be done during actual combat (as setting on fire would requiere an ally to already have a flaming torch or similiar in hand or the cooperation of at least two allies and splashing someone with acid is a viable combat action).

This makes this ability a possible good choice in a fight with a vampire, but (next to) useless (if you have a good bluff mod and the (non-vampie) undead a bad sense motive mod) against all other undead, that are not affected by cutting of their heads/stacking them.

If you want to keep it for flavour reason, go on. I'm just pointing it out in for general play.

And if you don`t have any means to destroy it, it might juste be the 1 round the party needs to drink some potion, dispel some bad effect or just get the hell out and run.

Which could also be done, while the affected undead is cowering. Additionally, it would make this class ability worth using against (one out of a group of) other undeads.

But it is your choice.

Ok... i got it, a "coup de grace" is a critical hit for rule purpose, so unless i have a vampire on the floor and a stake in my hand i can`t instantly kill an undead.
I know were not here to dicuss the validity of the rules but let`s face it, a fighter could take the head off of an helpless 5,000 pounds giant but could not do the same to a 5`2"/ 135 pounds ghoul... anti-flavor in Ravenloft if you want my two cents!

So what would you suggest then, simply let go the idea of a kind of "panic-freezed" undead OR giving the KbF the ability to simply bypass the rule for undead to be immune to criticals for that specific case might be good to!

what do you think?

I don't think it's so much that a fighter can't lop a ghoul's head off when it's lying on the ground as it is that lopping a ghoul's head off won't bother the ghoul nearly as much as it would bother the giant to have its head removed. Nothing more disappointing than coup-de-grace-ing a ghoul only to have it continue clawing at your leg. And I don't really think that's against the flavor of Ravenloft, particularly.

I think having it cower is in keeping with the ability - after all, that's what turned undead do when they can't flee, and the "Bluff Turning" ability is just convincing it that it's been turned, right? Alternately, you could have it be stunned for a bit, perhaps? (Even though undead can't normally be stunned, this could be an exception.)

Barovian gravedigger wrote:Ok... i got it, a "coup de grace" is a critical hit for rule purpose, so unless i have a vampire on the floor and a stake in my hand i can`t instantly kill an undead.

Baring spells and special, magical weapons (like a weapon of disruption), no.

I know were not here to dicuss the validity of the rules but let`s face it, a fighter could take the head off of an helpless 5,000 pounds giant but could not do the same to a 5`2"/ 135 pounds ghoul... anti-flavor in Ravenloft if you want my two cents!

As MatthiasStormcrow already wrote it won't affect many (most) undead, if you cut off their heads. They don't die from it - and are not even greatly affected by it.

So what would you suggest then, simply let go the idea of a kind of "panic-freezed" undead

To quote myself :

Dark Whisper wrote:You could go with 1 round of helplessnes (if you want to keep the flavour) and then add - say - 3 (or 5 or charisma bonus, or...) rounds, where the undead cowers.

OR giving the KbF the ability to simply bypass the rule for undead to be immune to criticals for that specific case might be good to!

You could say it is a matter of personal taste, but in my campagin, I will not allow any feat, PrCl, Spell or Item (with the exception of those already in the DMG) that allows a (N)PC to make crititcal hits against undeads (or plants, or constructs).

You'll have to decide for yourself, but I would recommend against breaking that general rules (undead are immune to critical hits) - especially not, if that breaking come from a PrCl, that is so easy to take levels in - which leads me to another point for your PrCl...

How comfortable are you with afflicted theriantrophes with control shape as class skill and 7 levels ? Because that's what you're facing; the earliest characterlevel that allows you to take levels as KbF is - 2. You can fulfill all requierements on level 1 and start taking KbF-levels with your second character level (I would have to check class skills for all possible combinations in 3.5, but it works like this : human wizard, INT 10+; Knowledge history & local (Barovia) 4 points each, Courage and the cosmopolitan feat (? or how is the feat called that adds a skill to your class skills ?) and spend another four skill points on Gather Information).

Either the designers or a book stated, that a PrCl should be constructed so that it can't be taken befor character level 6...