With respect to prestige classes -- this one doesn't give spellcasters an extra level of spellcasting ability to their existing class, but does have excellent (albeit weird, Ernie-style) spellcasting ability itself. Anyways, I came up with this earlier and had run a draft version past the Andersons, then took that feedback and smoothed it out and toned it down just a little, resulting in a Drakaran prestige class which basically combines monkish advancement with spell use.
Spirit Friend Prestige Class:
A spirit friend generally begins as a monk, or as someone with multiple knowledge skills as class skills, often multi-classing. The spirit friend is a mystical martial artist who has gained powerful friends in the Spirit World, who grant her knowledge of magic which crosses the boundary between arcane and divine spells, as well as a variety of special gifts or 'boons'.
This delving into the secrets of magic as revealed by the spirits does result in somewhat slower progress in the combat arts (smaller hit die and slower BAB advancement), but the spirit friend does continue her monkish training in some regards. (Her saving throws do represent her continued mastery of her body and mind through martial arts and meditation.) The magical training provided by the Spirit World is diverse and eclectic, and requires the use of all of the spirit friend's mental faculties in one way or another.
Requirements:
Alignment: Any Lawful
Base Attack Bonus: +4
Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike (or monkish class ability)
Skills: Knowledge (arcana) 6, Knowledge (religion) 6, Knowledge (spirits) 6
Special: Spirit subtype, or be taken as a student by another Spirit Friend.
Hit Die: d6
Class Skills:
Alchemy (INT), Animal Empathy (CHA, exclusive), Concentration (CON),
Craft (DEX), Heal (WIS), Intimidate (CHA), Intuit Direction (WIS),
Knowledge (all skills, taken individually)(INT), Profession (WIS), Scry
(INT, exclusive), Spellcraft (INT), and Spot (WIS).
Skill Points at Each Level: 4 + INT modifier.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: no new proficiency gained.
Spells Per Day
Lvl BAB Fo Re Wi Special 0 1 2 3 4 5
--- --- --- --- --- ------------------------------ -- -- -- -- -- --
1 +0 +2 +2 +2 Monk Abilities, Spirit Sight 2 1
2 +1 +3 +3 +3 Spirit Boon 3 2
3 +1 +3 +3 +3 Sudden Action 3 2 1
4 +2 +4 +4 +4 Spirit Boon 3 3 2
5 +2 +4 +4 +4 Spell Secret 4 3 2 1
6 +3 +5 +5 +5 Spirit Boon 4 3 3 2
7 +3 +5 +5 +5 Spell Secret 4 4 3 2 1
8 +4 +6 +6 +6 Spirit Boon 4 4 3 3 2
9 +4 +6 +6 +6 Spell Secret 5 4 4 3 2 1
10 +5 +7 +7 +7 Spirit Boon 5 4 4 3 3 2
Spells:
Monk Abilities:
A spirit friend's BAB stacks with other monkish BAB for
determining rate of unarmed attacks gained, and her levels stack with
other monkish levels for determining unarmed damage, AC bonus, and
speed. She does not gain other monk abilities from advancing as a
spirit friend.
Spirit Sight:
This is the same as the ability gained by a 2nd level
shaman.
Spirit Boon:
At every even level the spirit friend receives a special
boon from a spirit associated with a shaman domain. The spirit friend
must select a domain to which she does not otherwise have access and
from which she has not yet received a boon. She receives the granted
power of that domain, and in addition, may select one domain spell from
that domain's list, of a level she is able to learn, and add that to her
list of known spells at that level. For instance, a spirit friend could
select Flame domain at 2nd level, gain the Flame Ward domain ability,
and add Burning Hands (the 1st level domain spell for that domain) to
her list of known 1st level spells, as she is currently only able to
learn 0th level and 1st level spells so that is her only option from the
domain list. At 4th level, she could select the Fury domain, gain the
Smite ability from that domain, and select either the 1st or 2nd level
spell from that domain list to add to her known spells.
Sudden Action:
This is the same as the ability gained by a 1st level wu jen --
if she already has this ability, she may now use it twice per day.
Spell Secret:
This is the same as the ability gained by a wu jen every three levels,
except that it does not need to be accompanied by a taboo.
It may be applied to any spell the spirit friend knew prior to advancing
to the current level.
From: Eric Anderson
Subject: Spirit Friend
The Spirit Friend class has a very nice combination of skills & abilities. In the description, E3 notes that a monk taking the class is giving up hit points & BAB to get spellcasting and some special abilities. (A monk is also missing out on some cool special abilities of his own.) But this is a strong spellcasting class (one that gets a new level of spells every other level), so perhaps we should look at it from the perspective of a Wu Jen or Sorcerer. Compared to being a Wu Jen, a level gained in this class gives a bigger hit die, a wider selection of spells to choose from, and more skill points. Plus monkish saves, speed, AC and unarmed damage. Wow! If you could *start* as a Spirit Friend, that would rock.
The drawback to this class for a Sorcerer (or other strong spellcaster) is that by advancing as a Spirit Friend instead of continuing the previous class the character gets more low-level spells instead of higher-level spells. And a pure Wu Jen can't get in early -- he'd need 8 levels to meet the BAB requirement (plus he'd have to invest a Feat in Improved Unarmed Strike and deal with the alignment thing Jon pointed out). A pure monk doesn't have it any easier -- the knowledge skills are cross-class, so he can't get them until level 9. A Sorcerer has it the worst, missing on both counts. Being multiclassed really helps here -- a Monk 4/WuJ 2 or Monk 6/Aristo1 could meet both kinds of tests without using a Feat. (The non-monk class used to multiclass can be anything that gets the three knowledge skills: Aristocrat, Shaman, Shugenja or Wu Jen.) But having to take those four Monk levels mean the Spirit Friend's best spells are two levels lower than a pure Wu Jen's would be.
And of course, the really limiting thing here is that this character needs all good stats -- all three physical for monkishness, plus all three mental for spells. I suppose a character could get by with weak CHA by learning mostly spells that don't have saving throws (beneficial & knowledge spells, and the occasional spell like Magic Missle). I guess it passes the balance test.
In our current group, the only character on the fast track to qualifying would be Isaku.
From: Ernie Hakey
Subject: RE: Spirit Friend
Thanks Eric --
Spirit Friend:
Good analysis! Yep -- there is a reason you cannot *start* in a prestige class! They are supposed to be better than regular classes in some way...
Note however that a monk in the regular game has KN(arcana) as a class skill, and in OA also has KN(religion) as a class skill, which just leaves KN(spirits) as the cross-class skill being the limiting factor for straight monks, requiring 9th level as you say. SO the level limitation would be in place for them, but it doesn't require 6 ranks in two cross-class skills, just in one. As you note, the way for a monk to short-circuit that requirement is to get at least one level in a class which has KN(spirits) (or 'all' KN skills) as a class skill, which in Drakara then makes it a class skill for the character period, after which the level limit and skill points cost is much less, now mostly limited by BAB etc. A Shaman, BTW, does have the Improved Unarmed Strike as well, so theoretically could become a Spirit Friend.
But as you point out, multi-classed characters definitely have it easier in qualifying. The wu jen alignment question is separate, assuming an alignment change doesn't mess up a wu jen's spellcasting ability, it wouldn't be so bad. One situation in which the prestige class makes sense is for characters with lots of minor bonuses but few high ability scores -- 14s in INT and WIS say make excellent sense for many characters, and would allow even without magic or level improvements access to learning and casting 4th level spells. That sort of character may never, without magical aid, become a hugely powerful straight spell-caster, but could well use this prestige class to add a lot of flexibility. Instead of striving for more and more of a particular stat which started out maybe at 13 or 14, the character could have lots of lower level spells combined with some reasonable combat ability...
I'm glad you think it passes the balance test! It does indeed have drawbacks for many straight spellcasters, but could be selected by others due to the different emphasis -- the character would gain some magical flexibility and martial ability as a trade=off for the higher level spells. And I thought the 'all three mental stats being useful' idea was unique enough and yet playable...given that the highest level of spells gained is 5th, the character only needs a 15 in INT and WIS to be able to take advantage of the highest level of spells provided, and can actually survive with a low CHA as long as the character focuses on spells which do not allow saves. Since many spells (Iron Scarf say) instead require ranged attacks, as either regular missiles or ranged touch attacks, a low CHA actually doesn't prevent some selection of offensive magic, but does tend to reduce the effectiveness of the character's area spells and the like...
As for needing all 6 abilities to be good, well...perhaps the reason a monk or monk/X might become a spirit friend is because although she might have minor bonuses in some physical stats, she doesn't have big bonuses in any of them -- or a decent bonus in one and not much in the other two. I could see a monk who relied mostly on feats, special abilities, and a single good physical stat, counting on that one stat plus weirdness to make her effective. For instance, in Orion's world, I have a cleric1/monkX character, Kat, whose primary physical stat is DEX. She uses Weapon Finesse (unarmed combat) to replace a mediocre (+1) STR bonus to hit, and the fact that she has CON 14 has been balance by poor hit dice, so in essence if she had average rolls she would have about the same hit points with a +0 CON. A Monk can replace one physical ability with a high WIS bonus for extra (and better) AC bonus, and everyone wants INT for skills anyways, so a character who wanted more skills (better Tumble rolls!) could well put her three highest scores in, say, DEX, INT and WIS and still be a fine Monk! And taking a single level in something else which provides KN(spirits) as a class skill would take care of the main level problem... ;)