Talk:HellFire Destroyer (3.5e Prestige Class)

Ratings

DanielDraco opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.

I was going to let this article pass by unmolested for now, because you're a new user and I didn't want to discourage you. But then I saw that you set the status as "up for review" -- so, good, you're looking for feedback. That's always a good sign. To be blunt, this isn't good. But if you're just starting, that's natural. And that's what these reviews are for -- to tell you what's wrong so you can learn what not to do. So here's a list to start with. Firstly, some nitpicky details: You refer to the class as a Pyromancer in a few places. Might want to fix that. Your gender references are inconsistent. Your prereqs don't gel to the same level -- you require 7 levels of a spellcasting class, and 5 levels of Knowledge (Arcana). That's not a problem per se, but it's a little weird. Your capitalization is weird. CamelCase is generally not considered a good stylistic choice outside of code, and you've got some flat-out incorrect capitalizations (e.g., "high temperature air Blast," "one Standard action," "the dc of swim and Jump checks,"). In at least one place, you refer to adding Strength instead of Strength modifier to a roll -- an important distinction, even if people can guess what you meant. You blend a lot of American English spellings with British English spellings. Stuff that Actually Matters: Grammar in general. A single grammar mistake doesn't matter so much, but there are pervasive problems here. Full saves, full BAB, and full casting is generally a big big no-no, even at VH. You use a lot of metric measures. D&D, however, uses the U.S. system. 9 meters is not a meaningful measure of distance, 100 kg is not a meaningful measure of matter, etc. Heat Blast does not explain what it actually does. It throws enemies away...but what direction is "away"? How far does it throw them? Are they just pushed, or also knocked prone? Does it target one foe, or everyone in range? Can he specify targets, or is it an uncontrollable area effect? Heat Blast's DC doesn't scale the way save DCs are meant to. The basic guideline is 10 + 1/2 character level + an ability modifier. Anything close to that can work, but there's little reason to not just use that. Hellish Smelter is also vague. You might want to look at spells like transmute rock to mud for guidance on what needs to specified there. Holy hell is Everburning Aura overpowered. He can cast an 8th level spell for 2 Con damage and 8 HP? What if he's undead? What if he's got a wand of lesser restoration? Hell, what if he doesn't have either of those things? It's still really fucking strong when he's just soaking up that damage. It isn't clear how Everburning Aura interacts with prepared casters. Magmatic Armour sucks. He takes damage every round just for a 6.5 average armor bonus? And by the way, when is that 1d12 rolled? Upon casting? Every time his AC is checked? Once per round? Spontaneous Combustion doesn't give any effects of being on fire. An ability that takes 3 rounds to use is an ability that is just never going to be used in combat. Especially when it deals so little damage, which scales so weirdly with character level. Gift of the Blessed Fire is a downgrade. He was already immune to fire, and now you've given him vulnerability. Several abilities are SLAs, but give no spell level. And yes, that does matter. Spontaneous Burst is really really weak for how late it's coming. Thermal Vision is actually pretty cool. Thought you might appreciate one note of praise among this criticism. I have no idea what Incandescent Rain does.

Foxwarrior dislikes this article and rated it 1 of 4.

Heat blast doesn't seem hot. Hellish Smelter is amazingly wimpy; I'd say it was good for getting through walls, but "fuse" doesn't make me think of turning things liquid. Spontaneous Combustion is pretty wimpy too, unless there's no way to stop taking damage. Spontaneous Burst is almost as good as a Maximized Fireball. Volcanic Blow is actually nice. All your spell-like abilities seem to have a 1 round duration, even when they probably shouldn't. Your class abilities really need to be sorted in order of level. I was getting a bit confused.

Responses

Hello, I' ve read the review, it's the first time I create a prestige class, I appreciate the constructive criticism and I am going to fix as many mistakes as possible and as soon as I can --Dragher (talk) 13:35, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

I've fixed EverBurning Aura which now deals 1 constitution damage per spell level, tried to simplify Incandescent Rain, empowered Volcanic Blow, decreased the Bab and save throws values, specified that Heat Blast knocks down enemies, specified the effect of Hellish Smelter and some other minor things (gift of the belessed fire make the HellFire Destroyer Lose his vulnerability, therefore it's an upgrade). Other fixes will come eventually later this week.Sorry about using the metric system and for the grammar mistakes, I am italian. --Dragher (talk) 14:16, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

I'll take a look at the changes later and see if I have anything to say about them. This isn't bad for a first try, by the way -- you should have seen my first class :P

For the grammar, just do your best. When you get to a relatively final version of the class, you can ask someone to go through and clean up the grammar -- I'd be happy to do it myself. As for the measurements, I can understand how it might be difficult to work within the U.S. system, but it's unfortunately necessary; the game works in 5-foot squares and measures weights in pounds (or at least the English edition does), and a class needs to use those measures to fit properly into the game. --DanielDraco (talk) 15:13, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Make Everburning Aura do Constitution Burn and only function if the character can have their Constitution burned (or something similarly unavoidable), and I'll re-review. --Foxwarrior (talk) 18:14, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

I did my best to fix all the major issues marked by Draco, I've also converted all the measures previously calculated with the metric system and changed any "pyromancer" reference to HellFire Destroyer. I've further downpowered EverBurning Aura, which is now unlocked later and deals way more constitution damage and improved the description of the other abilities. --Dragher (talk) 16:53, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Here are the problems with Everburning Aura:

• Undead and constructs have no Con score. They are immune to Con damage, and may cast extra spells all day without penalty. Similarly, wizards in an iron body are just flat immune to ability score damage (they have other drawbacks, but it's still free spells).
• Creatures with Con scores just take some damage. Restoration makes this go away before it would normally heal, allowing them to cast more. And if you don't want to use that spell, you can get lesser restoration in wand form and just spend a couple of charges instead.
• Even if you suffer the damage and don't do anything to repair or mitigate it, it comes back at a fairly quick rate. You can cast a bonus 9th level spell every 90 minutes, assuming you had something to help with the relatively small hit point damage. And while that probably wouldn't help you in a dungeon crawl (not more than once anyway), it's a huge increase in the amount of spells you can throw around per day and would help you when you were doing anything not time constrained.

The solution to these problems, assuming you even agree that they are problematic, is what Foxwarrior suggested above - Ability Burn instead of Ability Damage (including the normal recovery period for said burn) and a requirement that you have to actually suffer the burn for the bonus spell to happen. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 17:47, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Great tip, I've fixed that specifying that constituion burn damage taken by EverBurning Area cannot be healed by spells such as Restoration or in any other way than rest. --Dragher (talk) 18:29, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Is there any chance for this article to get a better mark after all the fixes I've made so far? --Dragher (talk) 19:49, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks fro the advice Foxwarrior, I've promptly added a range to the spontaneous Burst, af for Fluffy Kittens, I invite you to read and (possibly to re evaluate) more carefully the class specications since your criticism is very generic and often baseless. i.e.: you say this Prestige classs is useless for other classes, in fact, this is a prestige class designed for wizards and sorcerers; all the abilities have specific duration and the spell level is written at the beginning of the list. --Dragher (talk) 22:31, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

"The HellFire Destroyer can exceed the spell per day limit of his spellcaster class, if he comes from a wizard class, he may use this ability to cast once more spells that he already prepared." Okay then, so sorcerers, wu jen, and warmages don't get any more spells/day? "He also loses the ability to cast spells with the Cold descriptor, and must surpass a concentration throw with DC: 25 if he wants to cast any spell while partially or totally submerged by water." They do however, immediately lose the ability to use some spells on their spell list- which are not replaced. The spell level of the various SLA's granted is not specified for heat blast, spontaneous burst, hellfire globe, and incandescent rain. The burn durations of spontaneous combustion, spontaneous burst, and incandescent rain are mentioned nowhere. The contact damage of hellish smelter, the non-DOT portion of spontaneous burst, volcanic blow, hellfire globus, and incandescent rain all deal an unspecified type of damage. Inner combustion references nonexistent mechanics. The mechanics of thermal vision are vague; "distinguish illusions and find living beings hidden in the darkness." seems to imply true sight or arcane sight and darkvision of some sort, but you left no mechanics here. The "healed by fire" mechanic of heat drain is repeated in hellfire master. The action used to trigger hellish smelter, inner combustion, volcanic blow, hellfire globus, incandescent aura, and everburning rain is unspecified. The mechanics of hellish smelter contradict the mechanics of rock to lava, which already includes (quite different) mechanics for the lava it creates. Forged by Brimstone means that your character will always win initiative, will always save on anything other than a natural 1, and will not get hit on anything other than a natural 20. Spontaneous burst has a range of 9 feet, and hellfire globus has a range of 6 feet- which is odd, because DND calculates things in 5 ft increments. "The explosion will generate a pyroclastic rain, which will hit everything inside a range of 1d4x150 feet," Is this a Radius, Diameter, Circumference, that many squares in cubic feet, or something else? "at the 4th Round, an Area with the diameter of 30 feet will erupt dealing" Where is this area located, and what does the diameter cover in terms of space- a sphere, a circle, a half-sphere, or something else? None of the damage dealing abilities, except for volcanic blow, scale to level- inconsistent with a VH balance rating.Fluffykittens (talk) 23:16, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

It's a full casting progression PrC with other assorted benefits Fluffykittens. The other stuff doesn't need to scale to level for that to remain a VH PrC, the full progression on its own is almost enough. Even if it is inconsistent I don't see it as a problem. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 23:25, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

There are plenty of little bugs and inconsistencies, such as the lack of scaling damage on the abilities, the nonstandard BAB FORT and REF, and the poor grammar. These are overshadowed by larger issues, such as use of gibberish for mechanics "the Ac and all the save checks""Until he is inside the Globus he cannot cast any invocation spell.""by reducing to a half his Constitution he can increase his Force by the same amount of reduced constitution for 1d10 rounds", as well as balance issues, such as the large +bullshit bonuses to various things the class is frontloaded with.Fluffykittens (talk) 23:35, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Non-standard progressions and unclear mechanics and such are problematic, I wasn't disputing those. I just don't care about a lack of scaling damage in secondary abilities on a full progression caster PrC. It's like complaining that there isn't a cherry on top of your cupcake sandwich. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 23:39, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

While not every class feature a character gets needs to be as good as every other, damage abilities that don't do enough damage to matter are not very fulfilling to keep track of. --Foxwarrior (talk) 23:46, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I would say that it isn't so much a complaint about no cherries on one's cupcake sandwich, as it is a complaint about a getting whole assload of parsley on one's cupcake sandwich; there's a lot of stuff which adds no substance and just kind of gets in the way. --DanielDraco (talk) 00:10, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. I just took a look and will now eat my words, because they're done in a weird way here. Like the save and bab progressions. With permission Dragher, I wouldn't mind fixing the progressions up for you. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 00:18, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

@DanielDraco An even better analogy would be a pile of parsley with an unknown pastry underneath it. I don't know if it's a cupcake, an ice cream cake, or a shit twinkie, but there's a load of parsley on top of it.Fluffykittens (talk) 08:40, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Fixed the Bab,Ref,Fort and will according to the rulebook standards, next I will empower all the spell like ability by upscaling the damage according to the level and give them a determined spell level. --Dragher (talk) 08:44, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Ps: FluffyKittens, your analogies are funny, however, I wonder how they can contribute to improve my class. --Dragher (talk) 08:59, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Want advice? Change heat blast to simply the ability to cast gust of wind as an SLA at will (less bookkeeping). Turn flame armor into either a deflection or enhancement bonus (+bullshit bonuses to natural armor can easily fall off the RNG). Modify hellish smelter so its mechanics are identical to rock to lava, with the only difference being that it is a SU ability (rock to lava already uses the srd lava mechanics, so adding your own on top of that is just causing problems). Scrap hellish endurance and replace it with fire immunity (a +4 bullshit bonus to all physical stats isn't very flavorful, and a fire using mage should get fire immunity early on). Change spontaneous combustion so that it activates as a free action 1/round(instead of a free action 1/who the fuck knows) and sets the target on fire, using the SRD rules (use SRD rules whenever possible, instead of making up your own. There's a reason the exception-based design of 4E failed miserably.). Replaced Forged by Brimstone with something that doesn't sexually violate the RNG. Turn magma armor into a reactive shield that does retaliatory damage and does not damage the caster (the current version adds armor of an unknown type, which causes problems with touch/flatfooted attacks, also, more than one outright armor buff in class features can result in an untouchable character). Replace inner combustion with something that makes mechanical sense ("by reducing to a half his Constitution he can increase his Force by the same amount of reduced constitution for 1d10 rounds" is utter gibberish mechanically). Fluffykittens (talk) 19:56, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Much Better. If you're going to use the spell template for the powers, it would be a good idea to make a separate page for them.Fluffykittens (talk) 01:11, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I've eliminated all those abilities which gave the subject more random statistics and save throws, but I still wanted this class to be powerful at close quarters fights without recourring to magic so replaced those bullshit abilities with a limited transformation into a Golem, what do you think about this compromise? --Dragher (talk) 09:25, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Much Better. It would be even better just to turn the golem ability into a boost that can be activated at will and removes your spellcasting ability and buffs your character up (see: shapeshifter druid, PHB2)Oh, and incandescent means light caused by heat, so "incandescent rain" doesn't make any sense. Fluffykittens (talk) 10:29, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

The new effect of magmatic armour doesn't give any random AC bonus nor self damage, but gives a level-based damage reduction and spell resistence. --Dragher (talk) 14:44, 16 November 2012 (UTC)