User talk:Luigifan18:Viewtiful Monarch (3.5e Prestige Class)

That Progression

Ur-Priest and that Beholder thing use this progression, and are among the cheesiest cheese around because of it. The BAB requirement at least can't be worked around (I think), which fixes the larger half of the problem, but I can't help but suspect that the progression is still bad for other more insidious reasons. --Foxwarrior (talk) 04:17, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Beholder mage I've heard of (yeeesh), but what's an ur-priest? --Luigifan18 (talk) 04:30, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Complete Divine/Book of Vile Darkness Cleric Atheist with essentially this progression, but you can get into it easily at level 6. --Foxwarrior (talk) 04:34, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I honestly had no idea that any other classes had this progression. I came up with it off the top of my head, thinking "hmm, this is basically a wizard with caster level issues, but full spellcasting progression, a decent base attack bonus, and a bunch of special abilities... I'll give it fewer spell slots to balance it out." --Luigifan18 (talk) 04:36, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

It's not full spellcasting progression; full spellcasting progression gives one spell level every 2 levels. --Foxwarrior (talk) 04:38, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Since this is a prestige class, I had little choice but to compress it. It does start pretty late, though, so it gets high-level spells roughly when a wizard does anyways. (And what is its spellcasting progression called?)

*sigh* I was going somewhere with that, but I seem to have forgotten. Anyways, this isn't like the Viewtiful Shogun where I can actually show you a video of the inspiration. There's pretty much no footage of the final battle in Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble, much to my chagrin. --Luigifan18 (talk) 04:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

It's generally known as fast progression (though if you're asking for the purpose of the tags, I don't know, full is fine. I'm not apt to mess with the tags. Maybe Other?)

In an effort to de-cheese the ur-priest I made the False Prophet (3.5e Prestige Class). Did you see what I did to kill the cheese? -- Eiji-kun (talk) 05:49, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

That's only one level different from this class, Eiji. I guess you (almost) agree with Luigifan. --Foxwarrior (talk) 05:51, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

To quantify my unease: when leveling to 8, getting 1st level spells is nothing: a level 7 character is an encounter level of 7 with or without a level 1 Wizard companion, and buying items for the 1st level spells you want doesn't put a very significant drain on your monetary resources. Getting 9th level spells at level 17 is so great a level 17 Wizard has nothing other than spells; seven levels in other classes is probably better than none, even if they're only the first 7 levels.

If I was going for a delayed good casting progression, I'd probably start at 3rd if you enter at level 8 or 9, then get 4th at the next level, then one spell level every two class levels thereafter. --Foxwarrior (talk) 06:43, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean Fox, though I admit I haven't really looked in depth in Luigi's class. I postly commented to answer what kind of progression it was (fast) and offer my solution to the problem fast progression has. The cheese with Ur-Priest isn't (just) fast progression but that people go Something/Ur-Priest 1/Cool PrC 10, avoiding the underwhelming Ur-Priest class features while reaping the benefits of fast progression in the PrC of your choice.

I agree with your analysis that getting 1st level spells late game is not important. The trick with making fast progressions like this is to provide other features at early levels, making the low level spells extra, and then ease up on high levels when you've caught up your spell progression with other casters. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 07:23, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Ease up on high levels? I point you to the lack of high-level spell slots - only 2 each for 7th, 8th, and 9th-level spells at level 10. Yeah, there's VFX Refresh, but by the time she gets that, she's character level 30. And considering the VFX abilities, the spellcasting as a whole is basically extra. (VFX Mirage in particular... yes, Queen Heinderella really does that in Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble, and it's exactly as annoying as you'd think. You have to use your unwieldy VFX Slide to touch her images in the background while they rapidly fire energy orbs at you, and she does it every time you knock off one of her life bars. Even on the lowest difficulty level, she does it at least twice. Fun.) --Luigifan18 (talk) 15:20, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Just looked at the False Prophet; that's a clever solution to dipping you cooked up, Eiji. Not getting high-level spells without actual levels in false prophet is a nice way to force people to go all the way. But as for progression differences between that and Viewtiful Monarch... uh, more orisons, fewer low-level spells, and more high-level spells?!? I know the False Prophet doesn't have as many class features as the Viewtiful Monarch, but come on. That... just seems unfair to the wizard, who has to slog all the way through a featureless class with poor BAB and pitiful hit die just to sling around utterly reality-wrecking magic 4 times in a day. --Luigifan18 (talk) 17:01, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

The False Prophet is one level slower, and 2 9th level spells per day +high Charisma is still enough spells to wreak all sorts of havok. --Foxwarrior (talk) 18:34, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

→Reverted indentation to one colon

Still less than a wizard, though. Which is kinda the point. I don't see how the False Prophet's progression is slower - theoretical spell slots means that the character can still cast spells of that level, it just needs a better ability score than usual. And I should have made it clearer, but just like with the Viewtiful Shogun, level 8 is when you're supposed to fully meet the prerequisites; I made the BAB requirement +7 because I figured a lot of characters might dip into a class with a weaker BAB progression for extra skill points, and I didn't want that to be too much of a setback. I'm not quite sure what the order of events is when leveling up (I may need to look that up again), but I think that the 1st level of Viewtiful Monarch will be at least the 9th character level.

And before anyone asks, I know the spell list is really big (maybe getting a little too big), which is why I'm intentionally leaving wish, miracle, and lesser wish off of it. I'm pretty sure that the spell list of a class that has to put effort into learning its spells (like, say, wizard) or can only know a finite number of them (like a sorcerer) should be bigger than the spell list of a class that gets all of its spells for free (like a cleric or druid), but this feels a little ridiculous. (Also, I'm kinda curious about how to determine the crown's price. How much of an 8th or 9th-level character's wealth-by-level would 10,000 gp be?) --Luigifan18 (talk) 21:47, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I just noticed that Eiji mentioned that the Ur-Priest can still progress its spellcasting with levels in class other than Ur-Priest. The Viewtiful Monarch cannot do this unless taking levels in a prestige class that advances arcane spellcasting, and by doing that, she sacrifices access to Viewtiful Monarch class features. --Luigifan18 (talk) 14:45, 5 September 2018 (MDT)

About the spell list...

The Viewtiful Monarch intentionally gets a large range of spells, from the spell lists of various classes. It learns spells like a wizard does, so I feel like a sizable spell list is justified. But this is perhaps a little too much. You'll notice that not all of the wizard's spells are on the list - this is because the Viewtiful Monarch's spells do have a common theme, albeit a broad one. Viewtiful Monarch spells are all meant to be either really impressive to look at or to empower the Viewtiful Monarch to do really impressive things. Spells whose effects are subtle or take a long time to be felt don't get to be on the spell list. Also, spells that deal with religion or the undead generally don't appear on her spell list, and she doesn't get a lot of healing magic more potent than the cure, repair, and inflict series. There are some things that an arcane caster just shouldn't be able to do, after all. With that said... are there any spells I included that don't actually seem to have a place on her spell list? Because I'm not sure that all of the spells I put on the page are really appropriate for the sort of character I'm envisioning... --Luigifan18 (talk) 16:53, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Spell list and notes on spells needs to be on a separate subpage (suggest Viewtiful Monarch (3.5e Prestige Class)/Monarch Spell List). You may also want to put the brown boxes at bottom of page, or on a subpage. It is questionable if they are needed - rules should not be in the boxes, and author commentary adds confusion. --Franken Kesey (talk) 18:05, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

What the hell is VFX Mirage?!?

I was going to answer that question in a sidebar on the Viewtiful Monarch page itself, but trust me, it made the page look really bloated and ugly. So I decided to move it over here. Anyways, the Viewtiful Monarch is directly based on Queen Heinderella, the main villain and final boss of Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble for the Nintendo DS. I took more liberties with the Viewtiful Monarch than I did with the Viewtiful Shogun or Viewtiful Captain (namely, the spellcasting), because Queen Heinderella wasn't quite as versatile or as challenging as the final bosses of the console entries of the series. However, I did make sure that the abilities Queen Heinderella does display over the course of the game (and not just the ones she actually uses in the boss fight) all got represented in the Viewtiful Monarch's abilities. Steal Heroism, for instance, is based on how Queen Heinderella mind-controls the first four bosses into fighting you, then manages to temporarily deprive Joe of his VFX abilities as the battle against her begins. Anyways, VFX Mirage is directly based on Queen Heinderella's most annoying move. Whenever you completely deplete one of her lifebars, Queen Heinderella vanishes and four clones of her appear in the background, wildly spinning their staffs and accurately launching magic orbs at you at an alarming rate (these magic orbs, which Queen Heinderella also periodically fires at you while on the field, are the basis of VFX Shot and Spell Shot). To destroy the clones, you have to activate VFX Slide (VJ:DT's equivalent of VFX Zoom from the console games) by dragging the stylus straight up along the touch screen. (Dragging the stylus in a diagonal direction tends to confuse the game and make it think you're trying to use VFX Split instead.) Unfortunately, this often requires you to take your fingers away from the buttons, getting you hit. Then, once you're actually in VFX Slide mode, you have to somehow get yourself into position so that the touch screen focuses on one of the Heinderella clones, then tap it with the stylus to get rid of it. And all the clones are firing magic orbs at you while you try to do this, and the screen stays in place while VFX Slide is in use; move offscreen and VFX Slide ends! And Queen Heinderella doesn't reappear until all of the clones are destroyed! Yeah... that move is seriously annoying. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be able to last more than 30 seconds in-game, but I suspect this is more of a mercy rule than anything else. However, the Viewtiful Joe games, including Double Trouble, are all 2.5-D, and I suspect that VFX Mirage would be a lot less annoying to deal with in a 3-D playing field since you could close into melee range of the clones and beat the crap out of them with your fists (or whatever your weapon of choice is). Thus, I removed the time limit for the D&D version. But, yeah, that's where VFX Mirage comes from. It's deliberately designed to prolong the fight and annoy the heck out of the Viewtiful Monarch's enemies (as well as softening them up), because that's precisely what it does in the source material. --Luigifan18 (talk) 16:08, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Inspiration Video

Finally, someone put up video footage of the final battle of Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble! The Viewtiful Monarch's special abilities are pretty much all derived from Queen Heinderella's moves. You can get the footage of the battle here. --Luigifan18 (talk) 04:28, 29 August 2013 (UTC)