Difference between revisions of "Talk:Professional (3.5e)"

Revision as of 18:32, 10 January 2010

Slith, there is an ongoing discussion about professional that you should be included in and weigh in on. We have a pretty solid second option for this class where we drop evasion, bump the hp to d8, and give medium armor prof (and probably switch ref save to fort). There are a few reasons to do this:

• Jones thinks evasion is the purview of the rogue class (much like the trap/umd skills that were omitted here)
• I think it makes the class more splashable for rogues, while boosting its value to combat classes based on a little more resilience.
• Evasion has a supernatural flavor, while armor prof has a training/education flavor. I think we mitigate this by making the professions "exceptionally attentive" language.

The cons are:

• Is it too powerful?
• Does it mess with any of our respective character plans?
• Which makes more sense?

---

I think the changes are good, it keeps the Professional a good front-line character when splashed with Fighter, and a good sneaky character when splashed with Rogue (or vice versa for either). The extra skills and bonus 2 hp make up for the redundancy of medium armor proficiency in the Rogue's case, and the extra HP and no loss of Evasion make it good for the Fighter case, a flexibility which definitely fits the Professional's style. Armor check penalty matters for five of his skills, so that's a consideration, but the skills that are affected aren't as class-critical as the Rogue's. The stuff that the Professional is really good at, talky skills and general use, aren't affected at all.

I guess the real question is whether an extra 2 hp/level and slightly better armor make up for the loss of Improved Evasion later on. I would vote no, because he doesn't have the HP to soak area spells like a Fighter, nor does he have the resistance spells to protect himself like a Ranger (the Ranger also gets Evasion at level 9).

I suppose one idea would be to give the Prof Monk saves (all three strong), but that seems excessive. I like the good Reflex saves on the Professional, it seems like the more flexible of the two options (Fort and Ref).

-Slitherrr

It's probably part of what instigated this discussion, but part of the problem mixing Fighter and Professional is the lack of the ability to wear that heavier armor--Evasion is just too good to miss out on.-Slitherrr

A thought that reading Germain's page just gave me: an improved flank ability might be interesting (for example, the ability to cause a flanking situation whenever another ally is adjacent to the enemy, rather than just when the allies are on opposite sides. -Slitherrr