Talk:Professional (3.5e)
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?
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I think the changes are good; they keep 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. If choosing between Fort and Ref, Ref seems like the more flexible of the two.
It's probably part of what instigated this discussion, but part of the problem with 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
Along with the above, any ability that makes the Professional better in combat in a tactical sense, rather than in a prowess sense, fits what seems like the Professional's real class-defining role in combat, supporting teammates in combat with superior tactics. -Slitherrr
Actually, this has been on the table since the beginning... we just can't figure out which we like better. I think either way fits in with the Prof theme well. I probably haven't played in the late-game enough to know how powerful evasion is. It sounds like your saying that this would probably make the class weaker? If so, do we like the better HP/armor over evasion if we could balance it, or should we stay the course? I do like the idea of incorporating some buffing options to the class--makes it more congruent with the warlord class that was introduced in 4e. We might also look into buffing 'aid another', perhaps by making it a move action? I'm not sure jones would like that though --Msallen 09:28, 11 January 2010 (EST)
