WotC: Bringing You Suck Beyond Suck

[User3]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070327

Jesus H. Christ, I couldn't bring you a worse PrC if I looked through 3rd-party books for an hour.

[Judging__Eagle]

Read the special req:

"Special: The candidate must have spent the entire previous level using all 3rd level or higher spell slots to exclusively cast haste."

AKA: "Only the player who does this in my game will take this PrC that I custom wrote with and for him."

It's a class like the Daggerspell Mage or Invisible Blade.

Meant to provide a PrC for a player who has a cool concept that currently sucks mechanically.

Althought, that class still does suck. The player it was written for won't care since all he cares about is getting his Haste jones on.

[Username17]

It doesn't... it doesn't make you better at casting haste. I don't understand. I really don't understand.

It's a class all about haste and it doesn't make you better at casting haste. I mean, at the level you can take it, you get the ability to quicken spells easier, but you don't get a caster level. But you aren't high enough level to actually quicken haste - so I'm totally lost.

-Username17

[User3]

Here's what's stuck in my craw: the class requires you to be a full blown caster (5 wiz or 6 sor) to take it as early as possible. Got it? Caster, not skirmisher, not meleer but fragile arcane castey guy. Also, this is 3.5 so haste does very little of direct benefit for the caster themselves. An increase to AC, reflex saves and movement is nice but not worth a third level spell all its own. Its not like a caster really needs any of those things; the fighter does, the barbarian does, the rogue does (sometimes). So why - why make a class the requires a full caster to marginally increase his ability to perform a full attack in melee? At the expense of caster levels? A rogue would love this class.... if he qualified for it. But this... yeesh!..

[Cielingcat]

This class is definitive proof that WotC hates us all.

[Leress]

It's like a retard version of Sonic the hedgehog.

[User3]

Kolja Liquette has a history of not being strong in applying balanced game mechanics or knowledge of combinatorial optimization to his creations. He's even admitted his prior errors on the WotC boards to his own chagrin.

So this is pretty much a de rigeur Kolja game mechanic. It's pretty much expected at this point. {shrug}

---

I even tried to toss this crappy spellcaster PrC into a Sublime Chord and Nar Demonbinder chassis (both are at times forgiving of spellcaster PrCs without full SC levels). Neither worked for a variety of reasons such as skill incompatibilities, awkward party role provider, etc.

I hope there is no future trend to have spell-specialized caster classes. While the gnomish shadowcraft mage made Silent Image into a game winner and was interesting (although still rife with blurry rule ajudications regarding greater than 100% "reality" in shadow spells), not many other specialized-spell casters would translate well into a 10 level PrC. Don't forget the underwhelming Teleport Mage PrC in Complete Arcane that is only good for 1 of 3 levels.

[MrWaeseL]

Blurred Alacrity (Sp): At 5th level, a swiftblade's knowledge of the haste spell manifests an additional spell effect. Whenever the swiftblade casts haste, they also gain the concealment and miss chances of the blur spell.

Holy shit. This is the worst ability ever written.

*Why is it spell-like?
*How does it interact with True Seeing and the like?
*How long does it last? (Note it procs on casting, not on being affected by haste)

Jesus Christ.

[RandomCasualty]

1175192847[/unixtime]]Read the special req:

"Special: The candidate must have spent the entire previous level using all 3rd level or higher spell slots to exclusively cast haste."

This is an all-time low, even for WotC.

[User3]

Still better than the Fighter, even though you get cohort-of-a-cohort casting by the end.

[Brobdingnagian]

The Swiftblade

"I don't just suck. I suck way faster than you.

- Some guy playing a swiftblade

How's that for flavour text?

[the_taken]

I love it! It's insinuating something too.

[Cielingcat]

Oh god, why?

[Leress]

I thought the Char Op were to make characters that don't suck, not how do I get to this crappy class the fastest.

Most of the build shown are horrible gishes.

[Cielingcat]

I thought the CO boards were for making random 20th level builds that have numbers that seem vaguely impressive but really suck. Oh, and for idiots to cite in arguments.

[josephbt]

So, after all the crap this class puts you through, at level 10 it bones you once more?
I know that adventurers don't die of old age, but this is simply retarded. Hey there, you're level 10, you're gonna die faster now! Jolly, isn't it?

Was the author going for that air of a rock star - "It's better to burn out fast, than to slowly fade away!"?

[bitnine]

Wow, I've always had an unrelenting hard-on for the haste spell to the point of wanting a class based on just that spell as well as enjoying playing characters who couldn't decide if they were spellcasters or combatants to their great detriment.

Finally, there's a class for me! Nevermind that the capstone ability subsumes a number of the previous granted abilities, it's worth it for that special requirement alone.

[erik]

1175206840[/unixtime]]So, after all the crap this class puts you through, at level 10 it bones you once more?
I know that adventurers don't die of old age, but this is simply retarded. Hey there, you're level 10, you're gonna die faster now! Jolly, isn't it?

I think they're going for the mercy-killing appeal. By level 4 you'll yearn for it.

[Endovior]

Had a chance to try out this prestige class? [URL=mailto:dndfeedback@wizards.com?subject=Swiftblade]Let us know your thoughts[/URL] on how it played or what changes you would make to it.

So much hate... I can't even properly write an angry email about it.

[josephbt]

@Judging Eagle

Your post was bugging me but i couldn't put my finger on it. I remembered just now.

The Invisible Blade. The guy that wrote this hastomancer piece of donkey crap, is the guy that wrote that class. Kolja Raven Liquette.

I remember that the guy complained about WotC butchering his original concept. As far as I'm concerned, no butchering was done. You can't butcher shite.

Here is the original
[counturl=51]Click for hot blady action - NOT[/counturl]

[Endovior]

Eh? What's wrong with the Invisible Blade? (assuming you're referring to the CW Invisible Blade, because I'm too lazy to download yours) Aside from the vague silliness of requiring daggers, it's a solid sneak attack PRC. Free action feint is a decent way to make all your attacks sneak attacks (there are others, but this way you don't die vs True Seeing), so I don't see your problem with this.

[Endovior]

(Checked out your version)

Ahh, the original version saved free action feint to 10th level, and gave out some extra junk in the meantime. I agree, that is worse.

[josephbt]

Glad you read it, i was all fired up to respond.

Anyway, regarding the hastomancer, if you take it all the way to level 10, does this mean that your level 7 ability doesn't work anymore since you're not casting Haste anymore?

[Endovior]

The CW version is a decent class if you're going to be sneak attacking with daggers; but the original version sucked. That's what editing is for.

Beyond that, as written, the hastomancer does indeed lose many of his abilities at 10th level, because he stops casting haste.

[Catharz]

So, how would you make the class?