Talk:Spider Savage (3.5e Prestige Class)

Franken Kesey Comments

1.Minor: Becoming a Spider Savage has a spelling error. Skills mentioned below table are better if they only link. It already mentions that they are class skills, this does not need to be explained. Weapon and Armor Proficiency: weapon proficiency not mentioned.

2.The ability tank and bonus is highly overpowered. Charisma is a score that most tank anyway, and the +1 to the other scores will greatly affect RNG. Will suggest removing both the tanking and bonus. While we are on the topic of class requirements, adding the Great Fortitude feat will show that much of this class relates to Constitution. Knowledge (Dungeoneering) would be an appropriate skill requirement.

3. As with spider-monk, group more abilities: Monk Features (Improved Unarmed Strike, Unarmed Strike).

4. Produce Webs, Produce Razor Webs, Shoot Webs: all need action types (i.e., Standard Action, Full-Round, or takes X minutes). This will make the mention of flurry of blows irrelevant (because flurry is a full-round, and players can only do a five-foot step with a full round action). Also, can a spider savage shoot razor webs? The stacking features (Produce Webs (stacking), Shoot Webs (stacking)) are unnecessary, instead: “This feature (or shoot webs), stacks with Shoot Webs from other classes.” in the normal feature paragraph.

5. Carapace: really do not like this ability, the whole intent of a spider is speed and cunning not armor. And speed is greatly harmed, with an unfavorable armor bonus. Strongly advise removing this ability completely.

6. Spider Empathy: YES! Only have two questions: 1) why does the spider-monk not have this ability and 2) should intelligence modify the check (replacing charisma)?

7. Summon Spider: fun, and another math problem. I see that the flavor holds well. And have little justification to suggest reducing math problems noting how many are in my own works. However, this could be fixed by giving savages a spider as an animal companion, or simply linking it to summon spider I, and ranking up with level (have an example below). Appears that calling (instead of summoning) is more what you want (difference is calling can be flavored as non-magical), and a later summon spider swarm would be of interest.

8. Poison Strike: does not fit with non-piercing attacks. Spider Palm, uninteresting. Fang is where poison should occur. Could easily get at a much lower level, and needs a poison capability later. Also, craft(poison) is fitting for how much a savage can poison each day (or con bonus) (see examples).

9. Would like to see more mutations before Spider Form. Or even granting Spider Form at an earlier level, which improves to Super Spider at 10th.

10. Sam Kay has some interesting insight on spider articles, check them out.

Examples

Call Spider (Ex): As a standard action, spider savages can call a single spider in area to come to aid (treat like summon spider I but a calling – in other words it is a real spider). This may be done once per day.

• At 6th level, can call a larger spider (treat like summon spider III).
• At 9th level, can call an even larger spider (treat like summon spider IV).

OR

Spider Companion (Ex): Spider savages can have a spider as an animal companion. At 4th level, the spider is a small monstrous spider. The spider can be improved as a normal animal companion, but is always a spider. At 6th level the spider can improve into a medium monstrous spider. At 9th level, can improve to large or tiny sized.

Poison (Ex): At 1st level, spider savages become immune to poison, and get a +2 bonus to the Craft(poison) skill. At 9th level, they can create poison from their own physiology. This poison does 1d6 damage to a selected ability score (chosen at 9th level), with a Fortitude save (DC10 + 1/2 class level + Intelligence modifier) for half damage. Spider savage can poison once per day for every Constitution bonus.

Fangs (Ex): Spider savages gain fangs at 6th level. The fangs deal 1d10 damage (crit 20/x2), and require a standard action to attack with.

• At 9th level, the fangs can either become vampiric or poisonous. Vampiric fangs drain blood when grappling a victim in the round following the fang attack. This will heal the spider savage by 1d6 plus 1 per class level every round (1d6+10 at 10th level). Poisoned fangs can inject the spider savage’s poison (see poison) in the round following the fang attack. Both require standard actions, and all spider savage have the capacity to do both, but can only do one or the other each round.

Um, you didn't sign your last notes, but I know it was you, Franken Kesey, who gave these last bits of advice.

Anyway, I know there's a lot of stuff you didn't like about this prestige class, but I couldn't bring myself to make some of those changes.

Specifically, I liked Carapace too much to get rid of it. I also like Spider Palm, though I still think it could use a small tweak in its details... if you wanted to make any suggestions on that.

Thanks for showing me that a Summon Spider spell already existed (and I'm not kidding about that - I really thought I invented it). The existing spell is a lot cleaner than the one I wrote, so I'm going with that.

Let me know if you think the Poison Fang or Draining Fang effects are too powerful as written.

--Nolanf (talk) 07:30, 20 August 2013 (UTC)