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?

---

• Compared with a rogue, the prof is probably a little better for skills. He has a wider range of skills, plus the copious skill feats, but he is missing some of the really strong rogue skills. In terms of combat, however, the prof is severely lacking in DPS, and a little worse off for magical and AoE attacks (although probably not martial combat, where the armor will help).

• Compared with a cleric, the prof is a little worse in combat. He has the same HP and damage (cleric weapon restrictions are mostly flavor), but he has more limited armor selection. Which means the Prof basically trades the clerics great casting abilities for great skills, which may be a poor trade. Of course, cleric is the most powerful class in 3.5 by a pretty big margin, so lets keep that in mind.

• Give a +3 bonus instead of +2

• Make target flat-footed until beginning of next turn

• Grant temporary hit points

• Perform 2/3/4 aid another actions as a full action

We might also grant special abilities from above based on skills and not on AC10 attack rolls, but I'm not sure its worth the complication.

• Hit Dice: d8
• Armor: Medium and Light
• Remove Evasion, Improved Evasion, Uncanny Dodge, Improved Uncanny Dodge, and bonus feats on levels 7 and 13.
• Add ability: 'Tactical Proficiency': At level four, and every fourth level thereafter, gain the ability to use another Aid Another action each round. This action can be used in any way that Aid Another could generally be used. All Aid Another actions in a round can only be used on a single target. Bonuses from multiple Aid Another actions do not stack. Using any number of Aid Another actions is a standard action, and the actions must all be performed at the same time (i.e., no movement between actions). At levels 2, 7 and 13, the Professional can augment his Aid Another action by choosing from the following list:
  • Rallying Boost: The target gains Professional's Charisma bonus temporary hitpoints for one round. After the round, the hit points are lost. If this puts the target into the negatives, he suffers all applicable penalties. This ability may only be in effect once per target--later uses of Rallying Boost on the same target before it expires will maintain the ability, rather than adding more hit points. This ability cannot be used on allies who are unable to hear the Professional (by virtue of deafness, unconsciousness, or similar effect)
  • Snap Out of It: A designated, adjacent ally gains an additional Will save against a mind-affecting ability. This ability can only be used once per round, and only on the same round, or the round immediately after the mind-affecting ability takes effect.
  • Look, Over Here!: For one round, a designated enemy that the Professional threatens becomes flat-footed with respect to a designated ally, removing the enemy's Dex bonus to AC (and, hence, allowing sneak attacks) on the ally's round.
  • Competence: On an Aid Another in Combat action, add a +3 to the ally's attack roll or AC, rather than +2.
  • Vulnerability Guard: Prevent an opponent from making a single opportunity attack against the ally before the start of your next turn. This may only be used once per turn.
• As part of Professional Development, the Professional may instead choose to augment his Aid Another ability, as above.
• As part of Professional Development, add the following option: You Can Do Better: On a successful Aid Another action involving a skill check, you may instead opt to make a check against DC 20 to allow the ally being aided to reroll and keep the better of two results. This may be used only once for the task in question, and cannot be used on any check whose result is normally kept secret (Spot checks, Move Silently checks, and so on).
• Remove "Roguish Knowledge" as a Professional Development option.

• Allow an ally adjacent to you to make a 5 foot step without provoking an attack of opportunity (possibly has be adjacent to you before and after step?)

5-foot-step as part of a larger move, I suppose? -Slitherrr

• Prevent an opponent from making a single opportunity attack before the start of your next turn
• Aid checks (in skill or combat) against DC 15/20/25 to grant +3/4/5 bonuses (really this just a different phrasing of suggestions we all made)

WRT multiple "aid another" uses in a single turn... I would suggest modeling it after extra attacks gained in melee. Ie. The player can take a full action and use all his aids and take a 5-foot step, or can take a move action and make a single aid. Along that line, I would say gets extra aids at 6/11/16 when a war would get extra attacks, or at 8/15 with the prof's extra attacks. Also, maybe allow mixing aids and attacks in the later case?

--- From GM:

• Balance Issues. These abilities are, on balance, WAY overpowered. With no cooldown or use limits, this class becomes a major spoiler.
  • Abilities should be cantrip/slight advantage level. Major enchancements must remain the pervue of caster classes. Something that gives a short term CH bonus to HP might be acceptable, but something that gives 1d8+CHR is clearly TOO powerful. (Yes, durations are longer on spells. However, spells by their very nature have an opportunity cost balancer built in as you can only cast a small number of whatever spell we're talking about, and only by not preparing some OTHER spell.)
  • Likewise with the "Snap Out Of It", which is not only better hands down than Remove Fear, but also a MAJOR spoiler for any and all caster classes. Repeated retries, *AT A BONUS*? That's a vanilla ability that shuts down even the highest level spells. Clearly not what the class is designed around, or even thematically proper.
  • I don't mind aid checks, or even a professional who gives better bonuses, +4? +5? Clearly outside the realm of balance.
  • The goal should be to make the Professional more SURVIVABLE at combat, not necessarily more THREATENING, at least in my mind. Small bonuses to allies is a PERFECT fit, but the trouble is going to be finding (a) appropriate abilities that are (b) balanced.
  • Buffs need to be single target. Party buffs are the realm of the Bard.
  • "Interrupt Abilities" and other rule benders should stay in Prestige Classes. Things that break the flow of combat, allow move/action interruptions, etc. (such as the Traveler's abilities) should be the rarest of rare abilities, for reasons of both balance and flow.

Some ideas I floated to Slitherrr:

• For Lvl 2 and 4 abilities.
  • INT bonus to AC.
  • INT bonus to HP.
  • Stumbling Block: Usually classes that get weird attribute/status crossovers have several prime stats. (Monk, Paladin, Swashbuckler) Professional essentially is INT primary, CHR secondary, and so this could be a severe balance issue.)
• Post Lvl 6: More powerful single target buffs that can ONLY affect Cohorts.
• Improved Flanking (does not have to be adjacent to give and receive flank bonuses)
• The rerolling skills ability has grown on me, perhaps as a sort of "Improved Aid Another". Instead of a DC 10 to give a +2, hit a DC 20 or 25 to two checks, taking the greater. (Now, of course, the professional would have to have his own ranks in the skill to aid). This sort of goes counter to my "too many rolls" rule, seemingly, but it's only in COMBAT that tons of extra rolls should be avoided.
• Upending Slitherrr's suggestion - Rather than having the professional give a single bonus to multiple people in a round as he grows, allow him to give multiple small bonuses to a single target in a round as he grows.

On that note, another entirely different option for an int/char class is to just give out spells like a bard/ranger/paladin. Then we don't have to come up with a crazy new system, just shoose appropriate spells. --Msallen 14:59, 12 January 2010 (EST)

In your heart of hearts, you know spells do not belong as part of this class. -gm

Yes and no :) No, because if we end up reinventing spells through some complicated and highly-flexible prof dev., we might as well just re-use something that is already there. Spells get re-flavored so much for different classes that we can just do it here--the prof's spells are based on his supernatural charm or something. Yes because I hate playing spellcasters in any pre-4 D&D version! --Msallen 15:13, 12 January 2010 (EST)

And I just hate playing spellcasters, period.-Slitherrr

Ha, spellcasting FTW! "Spells get re-flavored so much for different classes that we can just do it here." Yeah, for classes where it makes sense to give them access to divine or arcane spells. Some classes maybe mimic specific spell effects, such as the pass without trace ability of Wild Gnomes, but that's an entirely different creature from having access to a pick-and-choose spell list. Also: You are mixing up GERMAIN or the DRAGOMAN PRESTIGE with the PROFESSIONAL, there's no "supernatural charm" there. Reread your own introduction to the class. -gm

It does seem, though, that we have a good thing coalescing here. Here's a rough outline that Jones will probably like:

Professional: Lots of skills, mostly talky stuff. Enough beef to survive battles, particularly if splashed with battle classes. (My main problem with Evasion, personally, is not that it's the Rogue's thing, but that it imposes that light armor limitation, making this harder to do). Good Will saves fit with the talky stuff (when persuading, it's always a good idea not to be easily persuaded). Good Reflex saves fit with the "staying alive" stuff. The class only fits in a campaign where the GM is willing to make encounters that have at least some hope of a Diplomacy option, because unlike every core D&D class, the Professional has pretty much no saving grace in battle, to make up for how awesome he is outside of it (this is Jonesy's interpretation, and I'm inclined to agree. Diplomacy, while so very heavily dependent on the GM for effectiveness (it has SO MANY caveats on its use, like taking a minute for each check, being effectively only one-use, and not working on things that are actively trying to kill you), is very easy to stack with synergies from feats and skills). Being able to acquire languages with very little cost is helpful in a lot of ways, but again, only if the GM lets it (it's very easy to plop the characters in a situations where none of them speak the languages in question, with a minimum of hand-waving). Basically, it's the ultimate GM trust class.

Throughout development: Bonus feats that enhance skillmonkey and talky stuff. Levels 2-6: Cantrip-level Aid Another ability enhancements, usable on any ally. -Slitherrr Level 6: Leadership (and the cohorts) come in as an ability that mitigates the fact that the Professional's development makes him severely unsurvivable at higher levels (not enough combat feats to ramp up melee damage, no sneak attack, no higher-level spells, no damage resistance or rage, etc etc etc). The Aid Another enhancements start becoming more powerful, but only work on the cohort (we need a hand-wave for this). I could definitely see some of the Aid Another things sticking around as abilities usable on everyone (the skill check reroll ability is only useful on non-cohorts, for example, because if the GM has any sense, the cohort's skillset will be dramatically different from the Professional's). The Professional Developments, then, should work to further the Professional in his focus, or fill in some gaps. -Slitherrr

---

So now that we've had some time to think about this, some questions:

• Do we want to only focus on improving the survivability of the prof?
• Do we want to only focus on some sort of "improved aid another" set of abilities?
• Would giving more aid another abilities be enough if we made survivability changes?

--Msallen 09:23, 14 January 2010 (EST)

• Yes-ish, but not entirely. We are *tweaking* not *rebuilding*. Evasion tree does not belong, so we need to find something comparable to swap out. I think the replacement should focus on survivability, but that does not exclude other additions or tweaks.
• Maybe, if it can be balanced. I like the idea, but I'm loathe to rebuild the class from the ground up.
• Probably, yeah.

-gm

Well, evasion goes. Uncanny dodge may or may not. I'm thinking we should go the round of aid another increases at whatever levels are sensible (perhaps, 7, 13, 20, so 4 Aid Another actions total?), with, say, choices between two abilities junctures. If we follow Monk/Ranger conventions, then that gives choices at 1,2 and 6 (then 11 and 17 for similar choices), but with the bonus feat lists, it might be more sensible to have fewer aid another selections (depending on how powerful the aid another stuff is). I understand Jones's perspective on having the stuff that affects everyone be, say, cantrip-level stuff if it's in combat, UNLESS we keep the Prof's hp at 6/level and armor at light. If we go the latter route, we're treading strongly into Bard territory, so I prefer the former.

SO.

I propose a choice between these at level 2:

• Snap out of it!: Within a round of an adjacent ally being affected by an enchantment, add (something--Charisma, maybe? Charisma + half Prof level?) to the ally's Will Save roll against that enchantment. If the result is over the DC to save, reduce the duration of the effect by one round. This ability may only be attempted once per enchantment.
• Just Hold On a Little Longer: For (some number) rounds, give a dying, adjacent ally (some number) of temporary hitpoints. The ally will be stabilized for this period of time. If the temporary hitpoints put the ally at 0 or greater hit points, he becomes Disabled for as long as his hit points are not negative. Once the hit points expire, the ally is no longer treated as stabilized unless he has been treated. (This is worded in a complicated manner, but basically, give your guy a couple of extra rounds at death's door, and possibly give him some time to move out of the line of fire).

Then, at level 4, lose Uncanny Dodge and gain this:

• Aid Another gives a +3 to attack rolls rather than +2

Level 6 he gets Leadership, and a choice between cohort-specific Aid Another abilities to go with it, like, say, the skill reroll ability, or the stronger temp hitpoints thing, or something else. Level 8 gets Improved Flanking (rather than Improved Uncanny Dodge). Then we're looking at another Aid Another choice somewhere in between 10 and 20, or possibly two, to keep him alive at higher levels (since his dps will be dropping off sharply in this range, compared to classes that actually beat things up for a living).

How's that sound so far? If that's way too much of a rebuild for gm's taste, then, well, I'm not really sure where to go, mostly because I can't think of a good drop-in replacement for Evasion, and partly because I'm just enamored with this whole Aid Another thing.

-Slitherrr

I like the Aid Another thing in its current incarnation, as well, and it's some good flavor all around and can be worked in somewhere, either as a character ability or even a feat. (Or, best of both worlds, a feat that is part of the professional's bonus feat list) And, yes, even those aid another skills are a lot more balanced. (Though honestly i think a second will or Will -2 or will -4 save to shrug off the effect would be easier and more useful than a save with a huge bonus to reduce the duration by around.)( I think D&D trys to stay out of the realm of having effects than change the duration of someone else's effect in progress. If only for bookkeeping sake. However, yeah, at the end of the day, this convention was called to deal with low level survivability without Evasion/Improved Evasion and it feels like we've gone far afield. Maybe there's nothing that can be done and we're stuck with evasion. That's sub optimal but acceptable if that's all we can do. -gm

I think we should haggle this out in a call! --Msallen 13:21, 14 January 2010 (EST)

I'm okay with that. I'll try to be available later. Skype name is tehwilsonat0r. -Slitherrr

I can skip the gym tonight for this call. What time/zone? I usually don't get home before 7 EST, but I can for this. I worked late last night anyways. Also could do MLK or daytime over the weekend.

PS. read the top of the edit page: WARNING: This page is 31 kilobytes long; some browsers may have problems editing pages approaching or longer than 32kb. Please consider breaking the page into smaller sections. --Msallen 13:27, 14 January 2010 (EST)

I am acidslug on skype, but time must be scheduled in advance if I'm to have any hope of attending.

I shortened a bunch of stuff at the top, keeping some bullet points for reference. If we're really interested exact content of things removed, we can look at previous revisions. -Slitherrr

Matt, I suggested some other times before you borked the page. Any of those work for you? --Msallen 14:39, 14 January 2010 (EST)

What were the times? -gm