Complete Champion Review-like thing.
Posted: Sun May 13, 2007 7:01 am
Here's my thought and summary of various things from Complete Champions.
Alternative Class Features:
Barbarian: They get to trade fast movement for some ability based on an animal. These abilities include Pounce. Also, improved grab. This seems like a pretty good deal to me.
At 7th level, they get to trade their DR for various things, like +1 hp per class level(which is paired with improved grab), a +1 dodge bonus for AC (which continues to grow in lieu of the normal DR, and is paired with a +4 to Hide and MS checks from the first ability), a scaling DC (10 + .5*class level + Str mod) area effect that causes the “shaken” status (paired with Pounce). Not all that great, since I can’t imagine staying in the class for this long.
They can also trade improved uncanny dodge for a once-per-day, very brief, use of a bunch of sensory effects (darkvision, see invis, +2 to spot and search). Uh...no thanks.
Bard: Can trade “fascinate” for a song that adds the bard’s Perform rank to healing spells, but only ones that are cast. It also doubles healing from rest if used right before going to bed.
They can also trade inspire competence for a song that basically casts Protection from evil.
Cleric: At 7th level, they get to trade a 4th level spell slot to gain basically lay-on-hands for 5*(caster level + 1) points a day. Uh. No please.
Fighter: 4th level or higher feat level trades the feat for the ability to align whatever weapon the fighter is using at will as a free action.
8th or higher trades a feat for the ability to dump Will save points to gain AC as an immediate action. Just what the fighter needs: a way to make it easier for him to be mind-controlled.
2nd level or higher trades a feat for the ability to halve his BAB to gain a Wis bonus as an immediate action. Not terrible.
Monk: Ki strike(magic) become good or evil aligned, and does an extra 1d6 damage to the opposing alignment.
Still mind becomes a flat +2 bonus to spells and effects from all chaotic creatures and all creatures that oppose your other alignment. The monk trades seem like no brainers.
Paladin: Trade spell casting for feats(from a list, but PA is on it) at 4th, 8th, 11th, and 14th. Good if you were going to bail at 5th.
Trade mount for a bunch of things that only work underground. Some of the abilities are pretty good, if a little late in coming (D-door at 15th, for example).
Ranger: Dump spell casting for feats, same levels as Pally, but from an arguably better list.
Trade wild empathy for speak with animals and plants. Sort of a “who cares?’ all around here.
Trade companion for a 1/4 level bonus on a bunch of skills, plus commune with nature 1/day. Doesn’t work in towns. Since the ranger’s animal companion is pretty much a one-hit wonder, this seems pretty good.
Rogue: Trapfinding for adding your Wisdom bonus to appraising religious objects. Also allows free identify of magic items made using cleric/pally spells 1/day. This sort of kills the class entirely, so I’d go with “no” on this one.
What was it Frank said about trading out trap sense? Oh yeah. “I’ll take it”. And this ability is pretty solid: It allows you to sneak attack undead at half your usual sneak damage.
They can also trade improved evasion to grant evasion to everyone around them. IME, improved evasion is a pretty pointless ability: People with evasion don’t fail all that many Ref saves. So I’d take this one.
You can take as a rogue “special ability”doing 2 points of positive energy damage per die to undead on a sneak. Doesn’t allow you to sneak undead, just does 2 points of damage per die that you would have done. Not sure how it interacts with the 3rd level ability. Probably stacks. With both, you’d actually be better at sneaking undead than you would the living.
Sorcerer: Trades familiar for an invincible, ghosty thing that heals and protects you if you store spells in it. Seems okay.
At 5th level, the sorcerer can not learn new spells to take a domain. Granted power, spells added to list(only castable once a day each though), permanently know one less spell of each level(which are replaced by the domain spells). Find a domain with a good spell list and a good domain power and you’ve got something here.
Wizard: Trade bonus feat for domain power.
Trade bonus feat to gain spontaneous divination. You can seriously trade a feat to be able to burn equivalent level spells to cast ANY divination on the fly. Hooray!
Feats:
New feat type: Domain Feats. You can’t take more than 2, generally take ones available to whatever god you follow, clerics can dump a domain to take a domain feat(and thereby be able to get a 3rd domain feat). They all seem to be named X Devotion. So assume those are the domain feats. You can take the same Domain feat multiple times for multiple uses. Also, you can burn turn attempts (the number of attempts burned varies) to get another use, so don’t take the Domain feat twice if you have turn attempts since Extra Turning is better.
The Reserve feats use the spells from a specific domain, and require access to the domain.
Air Devotion: +1 to AC per 4 character levels + 50% miss chance for projectiles targeting you. For 1 minute a day.
Animal Devotion: +2 Str(+2 per 6 levels) bonus OR +5(+5 per 4 levels) land movement bonus OR +5*(levels/5) to overland flight speed, OR 1d3 Con damage bite attack. For 1 minute.
Awesome Smite: It’s Awesome! Well, I haven’t actually read it yet, honestly. So let’s see what it does. Requires smite, PA and +6 BAB. Tactical feat. Must use a smite attack and PA to activate the various abilities, and only one at a time. First up, penetrate double your Cha bonus of most DRs(not - or epic). Second, a hitting smite give a free trip attempt with no trip-backs. Third, ignore miss chance while smiting. Well, it’s not fighting on the side of Awesome, but it isn’t terrible if you’ve already met the prereqs.
Battle Blessing: Wow. This is actually pretty good. You cast paladin spells faster. Standard actions become swift, full round become standard.
Bestial Charge: Tactical feat. +4 BAB, wild shape as pre-reqs. Must charge round after wild shaping(or same round if you’ve got swift wild shape). First ability: Pounce! or an additional +1 on all attacks if your form had it anyway! Second ability: If you have a serpent form, you get an extra 5 feet of reach for this charge attack. Yay. Third ability: You can charge in nifty zig-zag patterns, if your form have 4+ legs. You take this for the Pounce ability. And that’s probably more than enough incentive.
Chaos Devotion: randomly gain a bonus to your AC or to your to-hit bonus. Lasts a minute, but the size of the bonus, as well as what it will be going to is re-rolled every round. Strikes me as of questionable value as a desperation move, on the other hand you could make it work in tandem with Combat Exp to push it straight to AC if you needed to.
Charnel Miasma(Reserve feat): Death domain. Causes people to be shaken then panicked. Only hits one target at a time though. Probably not worth it.
Death Devotion: Holy crap. This one is actually good. When used, your weapon inflicts negative levels(1 per 4 levels, minimum 1, max 5). That’s just mean.
Destruction Domain: Every time you hit your opponent you ablate his armor or natural armor while using this ability. Meh. Better off with touch attacks.
Earth Devotion: Uh...Allows you to ignore difficult terrain or create difficult terrain. Not really worth a feat.
Elemental Essence(Wild): Burn a wild shape use for an extra 1d6 elemental damage and resistence 5. Must pick an energy type with feat. Not worth it.
Evil Devotion: Grants DR/good and makes weapons evil-aligned for all allies within 30 feet for a minute a day. The DR is trivially low, so this is probably a waste.
Fire Devotion: Allows you to self-immolate for a minute. minor bonus fire damage, but it does set people on fire, which is fun, if pointless.
Fragile Construct(Reserve feat): Destruction Domain. Reduces DR of constructs and hardness of objects.
Good Devotion: Just like Evil, only reversed.
Great and Small (Wild): You can grow or shrink one size. It is unclear if this works while Wild Shaping.
Healing Devotion: Fast healing for a minute. Yay.
Holy Potency: Tactical Feat. BAB +4, spontaneous cure or inflict, turn or rebuke. 4 moves. 2 positive energy, 2 negative energy. Positive #1: You get an attack or Str check bonus the turn after you cast a cure equal to the cure’s spell level. Positive #2: Turn undead round #1, cure undead round #2 does half the turning check in extra damage. Negative #1: Same as Positive #2, only rebuking and inflicting on living creatures. Negative #2: Inflict round #1, attack round #2 has a damage bonus equal to double Inflict’s spell level. All in all, not that great.
Holy Warrior (reserve): War Domain. Damage bonus equal to highest War domain spell mem’d.
Imbued Healing: You stick a “kicker” effect onto your heals based on your domains. A lot like the Combat Medic guy from Heroes of Battle, only a lot bigger variety of effects. Doesn’t seem to raise the level of the spell.
Knowledge Devotion: Gives you a Knowledge skill of your choice as a class skill, which might be handy for sorcerers who need Knowledge(planes) for a PrC or whatnot. Grants attack and damage bonuses after knowledge check on creatures faced. This is a free action done at the beginning of combat and is an insight bonus. This is definitely worth taking, if you are somehow a fighting type with a lot of knowledges. This isn’t like the other devotions, really. You don’t have to expend anything to make it work.
Law Devotion: +3(then +5 at 10th, then +7 at 15th) sacred or profane bonus to AC or to hit. Lasts a minute, can be switched each round as desired. Pretty much better than Chaos version, IMO, especially at higher levels.
Luck Devotion: You can raise below average damage to ½ the maximum. For one minute. I’ll pass.
Magic Devotion: You basically get Eldritch Blast, but only once a day.
Mitigate Suffering (Reserve): If you have a cure or restoration mem’d, you can temporarily fix ability damage.
Plant Devotion: You can become plant-like for a minute a day.
Protection: Level dependant sacred/profane AC bonus to all allies with 30 feet, for a minute a day. That’s not too bad, I guess.
Protective Ward (Reserve): Protection Domain. When you have abjuration spells mem’d you can get AC bonuses. Takes a standard action for a round worth of AC bonus though. Not worth the trouble.
Retrieve Spell (Divine): Burn 1+spell level turn attempts to recall previously cast spell.
Spiritual Counter (Divine): Burn 2+spell level turn attempts to counter a spell as if you had the same spell memorized. Must be have access to spell to do this. A bit pricey.
Spontaneous Domains: Cast domain spells spontaneously after leaving domain slots open. Seems too weak to bother with.
Strength Devotion: Gain a slam attack, and adamantine DR pen for a minute a day. Cheap to increase uses.
Sun Devotion: For one minute a day, deal +character level damage to undead.
Swift Call: summon mount quicker. Yay.
Swift Wild Shape (Wild): Wild Shape as a swift action. Pretty self-explanatory, I guess.
Touch of Healing (Reserve): Heal people up to half max hp points by touching them.
Travel Devotion: For a minute each day, use swift actions to move up to your speed. This seems very good.
Trickery Devotion: You make an illusionary double of yourself that runs around messin’ with people’s heads. Last a minute per level, and gets better as you increase in level. Not too shabby.
Umbral Shroud (Reserve): This feat blows.
Venom’s Gift (Wild): sticks weak Str poison on all natural attacks for a round per caster level. If it was better poison, maybe.
War Devotion: Changes bonuses and penalties for fighting defensively. Lasts a freakin’ round. Screw that.
Water Devotion: Summon water elemental by pouring water on the ground. Lasts a minute. Not too bad.
Prestige Classes:
Fist of the Forest: Crazy nature unarmed combat type. This seems to be either a Monk or Barb PrC for the most part. Weirdly, this class is exactly what I needed for a character I played about 2 years ago. Not that great, but you get in early (4th level meets prereqs) and the class is only 3 levels long. You get Full BAB, Good Ref and Fort, Con to AC while unarmored, improved unarmed damage, a weird Dex rage ability, fast movement that stacks with the Barb ability, uncanny dodge, and a couple other things. The RP requirements kinda blow. For a fighting class PrC, it’s probably better than whatever you were doing before.
Forest Reeve: Mostly a Ranger PrC. First level, you can make your weapon a +1 weapon for a minute a day by spending a move action, fast movement, and some minor healing abilities (self-only). If you want to track things through the forest, this is a good class. If you don’t, it’s not. 5 levels, full BAB, good Ref. Probably to be avoided, unless you are trying to do something specific.
Holt Warden: More forest-y types! This time, it’s a cleric or druid PrC. Well, actually, it’s a cleric PrC, because it’s not worth the druid’s time. You get a lot of small abilities, based mostly around plants and animals, include a very slow heal effect at character level 8. If you were actually giving up anything to get this, it would probably not be worth it. But if you are a cleric, you aren’t, so go for it.
Mythic Exemplar: I’m not going to categorically say that this class sucks. I’m going to say that it has far too many once a day abilities, it’s really 6 different classes. I’m sure someone could do something with it. I just don’t find it mechanically or flavorfully interesting enough to bother. Of the 6 variants, the marshal guy and the fighter guy seem like the best two, as compared to staying in your base class. The marshal progresses *much* faster in his aura bumps than he would as a marshal, and the fighter get bonuses to opposed rolls, which means he might actually be able to win trip checks. 3/4 BAB, one better than good save.
Ordained Champion: The Lawful Religious Zealot (open to Hextor and Heironeous worshipers only) class. When you enter the class, you can dump domain abilities for fighter bonus feats. You also get a bonus domain (War if you didn’t have it, any other of your deity’s if you did). You lose 2 levels of casting over 5 levels total. You switch your spontaneous casting to the War domain spells, which will eventually be auto-quickened if they were standard actions and sped up to standard actions if they were a full round action. You can store a spell in your weapon that goes off when you hit something, you can burn turn attempts for Wisdom replacing Str for attack and damage mods and Smite attempts, and you can burn spells for extra damage or DR. Full BAB, good Will and Fort. If it wasn’t for the two lost caster levels, this class would rock for a melee cleric. As is, it’s just good.
Paragnostic Apostle: They turn knowledge skills into spell tricks. If I could figure out a use for any of the tricks, this would be a good class for a Dread Necromancer to pop out into, what with full casting and turning progression. Also grants the lore ability. In general, the class loses nothing, and give a bunch of possibly decent tricks. ½ BAB, Good Will save.
Paragnostic Initiate: The “help out your caster buddy” class. Full BAB, Good Fort and Ref. You grant some minor bonuses to your caster friends and get some random other abilities. There is a list that you pick from, one per level. The class is only 3 levels long and you can enter it after 4th level as pretty much anything that doesn’t cast.
Sanctified One: It’s unclear to me who this class is suppose to appeal to, but anyways, you are a devout servant of one of four gods: Ehlonna, Kord, Olidammara, or Wee Jas. You get 2 of 5 levels with casting increases, you get some random extra class skills that vary based on worshiped deity. You get one new ability every other level from a list for that deity. Some are good, some aren’t so good. At first glance, Wee Jas has the best stuff. You get a capstone at 5th that might suck and might not. 3/4 BAB. I’d probably avoid this one, unless you’ve got something that need a specific ability from one of the lists.
Shadow Spy: It’s a stealthy Sun god worshiper! No, really, that’s the class. You’ve got to be a cleric or paladin of Pelor, and you need ranks in Hide, MS, and Gather info. You also have to be able to cast spells. Weirdly, with a high Int, you could enter this class starting 4th levels as a Rogue 1/Cleric 2. Spell casting increases on even levels, 3/4 BAB, good Ref and Will. The abilites include a level based bonus to Hide and disguise, Hide in plain sight that only works in sunlit areas, immunity to blindness, a blinding attack, true seeing, bonus feats, and some anti-lying spells. It’s a little odd.
Shadowstriker: Another 3 level class. Full BAB, Good Will and Fort. Basic idea: Pelor and Heironeous worshipers who like to beat up the undead. They can actually give the undead the shaken condition.
Squire of Legend: Similar to the Mythic Exemplar, there are 6 paths in this class. Levels 2 and 3 get BAB and casting increases, you get one good save. Class is 3 levels long and entry is possible after level 4. The individual versions differ greatly, but again, there is too much once a day stuff. And again, the marshal version seems to have the most interesting abilities.
Alternative Class Features:
Barbarian: They get to trade fast movement for some ability based on an animal. These abilities include Pounce. Also, improved grab. This seems like a pretty good deal to me.
At 7th level, they get to trade their DR for various things, like +1 hp per class level(which is paired with improved grab), a +1 dodge bonus for AC (which continues to grow in lieu of the normal DR, and is paired with a +4 to Hide and MS checks from the first ability), a scaling DC (10 + .5*class level + Str mod) area effect that causes the “shaken” status (paired with Pounce). Not all that great, since I can’t imagine staying in the class for this long.
They can also trade improved uncanny dodge for a once-per-day, very brief, use of a bunch of sensory effects (darkvision, see invis, +2 to spot and search). Uh...no thanks.
Bard: Can trade “fascinate” for a song that adds the bard’s Perform rank to healing spells, but only ones that are cast. It also doubles healing from rest if used right before going to bed.
They can also trade inspire competence for a song that basically casts Protection from evil.
Cleric: At 7th level, they get to trade a 4th level spell slot to gain basically lay-on-hands for 5*(caster level + 1) points a day. Uh. No please.
Fighter: 4th level or higher feat level trades the feat for the ability to align whatever weapon the fighter is using at will as a free action.
8th or higher trades a feat for the ability to dump Will save points to gain AC as an immediate action. Just what the fighter needs: a way to make it easier for him to be mind-controlled.
2nd level or higher trades a feat for the ability to halve his BAB to gain a Wis bonus as an immediate action. Not terrible.
Monk: Ki strike(magic) become good or evil aligned, and does an extra 1d6 damage to the opposing alignment.
Still mind becomes a flat +2 bonus to spells and effects from all chaotic creatures and all creatures that oppose your other alignment. The monk trades seem like no brainers.
Paladin: Trade spell casting for feats(from a list, but PA is on it) at 4th, 8th, 11th, and 14th. Good if you were going to bail at 5th.
Trade mount for a bunch of things that only work underground. Some of the abilities are pretty good, if a little late in coming (D-door at 15th, for example).
Ranger: Dump spell casting for feats, same levels as Pally, but from an arguably better list.
Trade wild empathy for speak with animals and plants. Sort of a “who cares?’ all around here.
Trade companion for a 1/4 level bonus on a bunch of skills, plus commune with nature 1/day. Doesn’t work in towns. Since the ranger’s animal companion is pretty much a one-hit wonder, this seems pretty good.
Rogue: Trapfinding for adding your Wisdom bonus to appraising religious objects. Also allows free identify of magic items made using cleric/pally spells 1/day. This sort of kills the class entirely, so I’d go with “no” on this one.
What was it Frank said about trading out trap sense? Oh yeah. “I’ll take it”. And this ability is pretty solid: It allows you to sneak attack undead at half your usual sneak damage.
They can also trade improved evasion to grant evasion to everyone around them. IME, improved evasion is a pretty pointless ability: People with evasion don’t fail all that many Ref saves. So I’d take this one.
You can take as a rogue “special ability”doing 2 points of positive energy damage per die to undead on a sneak. Doesn’t allow you to sneak undead, just does 2 points of damage per die that you would have done. Not sure how it interacts with the 3rd level ability. Probably stacks. With both, you’d actually be better at sneaking undead than you would the living.
Sorcerer: Trades familiar for an invincible, ghosty thing that heals and protects you if you store spells in it. Seems okay.
At 5th level, the sorcerer can not learn new spells to take a domain. Granted power, spells added to list(only castable once a day each though), permanently know one less spell of each level(which are replaced by the domain spells). Find a domain with a good spell list and a good domain power and you’ve got something here.
Wizard: Trade bonus feat for domain power.
Trade bonus feat to gain spontaneous divination. You can seriously trade a feat to be able to burn equivalent level spells to cast ANY divination on the fly. Hooray!
Feats:
New feat type: Domain Feats. You can’t take more than 2, generally take ones available to whatever god you follow, clerics can dump a domain to take a domain feat(and thereby be able to get a 3rd domain feat). They all seem to be named X Devotion. So assume those are the domain feats. You can take the same Domain feat multiple times for multiple uses. Also, you can burn turn attempts (the number of attempts burned varies) to get another use, so don’t take the Domain feat twice if you have turn attempts since Extra Turning is better.
The Reserve feats use the spells from a specific domain, and require access to the domain.
Air Devotion: +1 to AC per 4 character levels + 50% miss chance for projectiles targeting you. For 1 minute a day.
Animal Devotion: +2 Str(+2 per 6 levels) bonus OR +5(+5 per 4 levels) land movement bonus OR +5*(levels/5) to overland flight speed, OR 1d3 Con damage bite attack. For 1 minute.
Awesome Smite: It’s Awesome! Well, I haven’t actually read it yet, honestly. So let’s see what it does. Requires smite, PA and +6 BAB. Tactical feat. Must use a smite attack and PA to activate the various abilities, and only one at a time. First up, penetrate double your Cha bonus of most DRs(not - or epic). Second, a hitting smite give a free trip attempt with no trip-backs. Third, ignore miss chance while smiting. Well, it’s not fighting on the side of Awesome, but it isn’t terrible if you’ve already met the prereqs.
Battle Blessing: Wow. This is actually pretty good. You cast paladin spells faster. Standard actions become swift, full round become standard.
Bestial Charge: Tactical feat. +4 BAB, wild shape as pre-reqs. Must charge round after wild shaping(or same round if you’ve got swift wild shape). First ability: Pounce! or an additional +1 on all attacks if your form had it anyway! Second ability: If you have a serpent form, you get an extra 5 feet of reach for this charge attack. Yay. Third ability: You can charge in nifty zig-zag patterns, if your form have 4+ legs. You take this for the Pounce ability. And that’s probably more than enough incentive.
Chaos Devotion: randomly gain a bonus to your AC or to your to-hit bonus. Lasts a minute, but the size of the bonus, as well as what it will be going to is re-rolled every round. Strikes me as of questionable value as a desperation move, on the other hand you could make it work in tandem with Combat Exp to push it straight to AC if you needed to.
Charnel Miasma(Reserve feat): Death domain. Causes people to be shaken then panicked. Only hits one target at a time though. Probably not worth it.
Death Devotion: Holy crap. This one is actually good. When used, your weapon inflicts negative levels(1 per 4 levels, minimum 1, max 5). That’s just mean.
Destruction Domain: Every time you hit your opponent you ablate his armor or natural armor while using this ability. Meh. Better off with touch attacks.
Earth Devotion: Uh...Allows you to ignore difficult terrain or create difficult terrain. Not really worth a feat.
Elemental Essence(Wild): Burn a wild shape use for an extra 1d6 elemental damage and resistence 5. Must pick an energy type with feat. Not worth it.
Evil Devotion: Grants DR/good and makes weapons evil-aligned for all allies within 30 feet for a minute a day. The DR is trivially low, so this is probably a waste.
Fire Devotion: Allows you to self-immolate for a minute. minor bonus fire damage, but it does set people on fire, which is fun, if pointless.
Fragile Construct(Reserve feat): Destruction Domain. Reduces DR of constructs and hardness of objects.
Good Devotion: Just like Evil, only reversed.
Great and Small (Wild): You can grow or shrink one size. It is unclear if this works while Wild Shaping.
Healing Devotion: Fast healing for a minute. Yay.
Holy Potency: Tactical Feat. BAB +4, spontaneous cure or inflict, turn or rebuke. 4 moves. 2 positive energy, 2 negative energy. Positive #1: You get an attack or Str check bonus the turn after you cast a cure equal to the cure’s spell level. Positive #2: Turn undead round #1, cure undead round #2 does half the turning check in extra damage. Negative #1: Same as Positive #2, only rebuking and inflicting on living creatures. Negative #2: Inflict round #1, attack round #2 has a damage bonus equal to double Inflict’s spell level. All in all, not that great.
Holy Warrior (reserve): War Domain. Damage bonus equal to highest War domain spell mem’d.
Imbued Healing: You stick a “kicker” effect onto your heals based on your domains. A lot like the Combat Medic guy from Heroes of Battle, only a lot bigger variety of effects. Doesn’t seem to raise the level of the spell.
Knowledge Devotion: Gives you a Knowledge skill of your choice as a class skill, which might be handy for sorcerers who need Knowledge(planes) for a PrC or whatnot. Grants attack and damage bonuses after knowledge check on creatures faced. This is a free action done at the beginning of combat and is an insight bonus. This is definitely worth taking, if you are somehow a fighting type with a lot of knowledges. This isn’t like the other devotions, really. You don’t have to expend anything to make it work.
Law Devotion: +3(then +5 at 10th, then +7 at 15th) sacred or profane bonus to AC or to hit. Lasts a minute, can be switched each round as desired. Pretty much better than Chaos version, IMO, especially at higher levels.
Luck Devotion: You can raise below average damage to ½ the maximum. For one minute. I’ll pass.
Magic Devotion: You basically get Eldritch Blast, but only once a day.
Mitigate Suffering (Reserve): If you have a cure or restoration mem’d, you can temporarily fix ability damage.
Plant Devotion: You can become plant-like for a minute a day.
Protection: Level dependant sacred/profane AC bonus to all allies with 30 feet, for a minute a day. That’s not too bad, I guess.
Protective Ward (Reserve): Protection Domain. When you have abjuration spells mem’d you can get AC bonuses. Takes a standard action for a round worth of AC bonus though. Not worth the trouble.
Retrieve Spell (Divine): Burn 1+spell level turn attempts to recall previously cast spell.
Spiritual Counter (Divine): Burn 2+spell level turn attempts to counter a spell as if you had the same spell memorized. Must be have access to spell to do this. A bit pricey.
Spontaneous Domains: Cast domain spells spontaneously after leaving domain slots open. Seems too weak to bother with.
Strength Devotion: Gain a slam attack, and adamantine DR pen for a minute a day. Cheap to increase uses.
Sun Devotion: For one minute a day, deal +character level damage to undead.
Swift Call: summon mount quicker. Yay.
Swift Wild Shape (Wild): Wild Shape as a swift action. Pretty self-explanatory, I guess.
Touch of Healing (Reserve): Heal people up to half max hp points by touching them.
Travel Devotion: For a minute each day, use swift actions to move up to your speed. This seems very good.
Trickery Devotion: You make an illusionary double of yourself that runs around messin’ with people’s heads. Last a minute per level, and gets better as you increase in level. Not too shabby.
Umbral Shroud (Reserve): This feat blows.
Venom’s Gift (Wild): sticks weak Str poison on all natural attacks for a round per caster level. If it was better poison, maybe.
War Devotion: Changes bonuses and penalties for fighting defensively. Lasts a freakin’ round. Screw that.
Water Devotion: Summon water elemental by pouring water on the ground. Lasts a minute. Not too bad.
Prestige Classes:
Fist of the Forest: Crazy nature unarmed combat type. This seems to be either a Monk or Barb PrC for the most part. Weirdly, this class is exactly what I needed for a character I played about 2 years ago. Not that great, but you get in early (4th level meets prereqs) and the class is only 3 levels long. You get Full BAB, Good Ref and Fort, Con to AC while unarmored, improved unarmed damage, a weird Dex rage ability, fast movement that stacks with the Barb ability, uncanny dodge, and a couple other things. The RP requirements kinda blow. For a fighting class PrC, it’s probably better than whatever you were doing before.
Forest Reeve: Mostly a Ranger PrC. First level, you can make your weapon a +1 weapon for a minute a day by spending a move action, fast movement, and some minor healing abilities (self-only). If you want to track things through the forest, this is a good class. If you don’t, it’s not. 5 levels, full BAB, good Ref. Probably to be avoided, unless you are trying to do something specific.
Holt Warden: More forest-y types! This time, it’s a cleric or druid PrC. Well, actually, it’s a cleric PrC, because it’s not worth the druid’s time. You get a lot of small abilities, based mostly around plants and animals, include a very slow heal effect at character level 8. If you were actually giving up anything to get this, it would probably not be worth it. But if you are a cleric, you aren’t, so go for it.
Mythic Exemplar: I’m not going to categorically say that this class sucks. I’m going to say that it has far too many once a day abilities, it’s really 6 different classes. I’m sure someone could do something with it. I just don’t find it mechanically or flavorfully interesting enough to bother. Of the 6 variants, the marshal guy and the fighter guy seem like the best two, as compared to staying in your base class. The marshal progresses *much* faster in his aura bumps than he would as a marshal, and the fighter get bonuses to opposed rolls, which means he might actually be able to win trip checks. 3/4 BAB, one better than good save.
Ordained Champion: The Lawful Religious Zealot (open to Hextor and Heironeous worshipers only) class. When you enter the class, you can dump domain abilities for fighter bonus feats. You also get a bonus domain (War if you didn’t have it, any other of your deity’s if you did). You lose 2 levels of casting over 5 levels total. You switch your spontaneous casting to the War domain spells, which will eventually be auto-quickened if they were standard actions and sped up to standard actions if they were a full round action. You can store a spell in your weapon that goes off when you hit something, you can burn turn attempts for Wisdom replacing Str for attack and damage mods and Smite attempts, and you can burn spells for extra damage or DR. Full BAB, good Will and Fort. If it wasn’t for the two lost caster levels, this class would rock for a melee cleric. As is, it’s just good.
Paragnostic Apostle: They turn knowledge skills into spell tricks. If I could figure out a use for any of the tricks, this would be a good class for a Dread Necromancer to pop out into, what with full casting and turning progression. Also grants the lore ability. In general, the class loses nothing, and give a bunch of possibly decent tricks. ½ BAB, Good Will save.
Paragnostic Initiate: The “help out your caster buddy” class. Full BAB, Good Fort and Ref. You grant some minor bonuses to your caster friends and get some random other abilities. There is a list that you pick from, one per level. The class is only 3 levels long and you can enter it after 4th level as pretty much anything that doesn’t cast.
Sanctified One: It’s unclear to me who this class is suppose to appeal to, but anyways, you are a devout servant of one of four gods: Ehlonna, Kord, Olidammara, or Wee Jas. You get 2 of 5 levels with casting increases, you get some random extra class skills that vary based on worshiped deity. You get one new ability every other level from a list for that deity. Some are good, some aren’t so good. At first glance, Wee Jas has the best stuff. You get a capstone at 5th that might suck and might not. 3/4 BAB. I’d probably avoid this one, unless you’ve got something that need a specific ability from one of the lists.
Shadow Spy: It’s a stealthy Sun god worshiper! No, really, that’s the class. You’ve got to be a cleric or paladin of Pelor, and you need ranks in Hide, MS, and Gather info. You also have to be able to cast spells. Weirdly, with a high Int, you could enter this class starting 4th levels as a Rogue 1/Cleric 2. Spell casting increases on even levels, 3/4 BAB, good Ref and Will. The abilites include a level based bonus to Hide and disguise, Hide in plain sight that only works in sunlit areas, immunity to blindness, a blinding attack, true seeing, bonus feats, and some anti-lying spells. It’s a little odd.
Shadowstriker: Another 3 level class. Full BAB, Good Will and Fort. Basic idea: Pelor and Heironeous worshipers who like to beat up the undead. They can actually give the undead the shaken condition.
Squire of Legend: Similar to the Mythic Exemplar, there are 6 paths in this class. Levels 2 and 3 get BAB and casting increases, you get one good save. Class is 3 levels long and entry is possible after level 4. The individual versions differ greatly, but again, there is too much once a day stuff. And again, the marshal version seems to have the most interesting abilities.