[CUTE PrC/Feats] Slingshot Master & Lessons

[Fax Celestis]

Told you I'd make it.

Slingshot Master
Prerequisites: Profcient with Slingshot, Weapon Focus: Slingshot, Precise Shot, BAB +6
{table]
[tr][td]Level[/td] [td]BAB[/td] [td]Fort[/td] [td]Ref[/td] [td]Will[/td] [td]Special[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]1[/td] [td]+1[/td] [td]+0[/td] [td] +2[/td] [td]+2[/td] [td]Precise Shot +1d8[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]2[/td] [td]+2[/td] [td]+0[/td] [td]+3[/td] [td]+3[/td] [td]Trick Shot[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]3[/td] [td]+3[/td] [td]+1[/td] [td]+3[/td] [td]+3[/td] [td]Precise Shot +2d8[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]4[/td] [td]+4[/td] [td]+1[/td] [td]+4[/td] [td]+4[/td] [td]-[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]5[/td] [td]+5[/td] [td]+1[/td] [td]+5[/td] [td]+5[/td] [td]Precise Shot +3d8[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]6[/td] [td]+6[/td] [td]+2[/td] [td]+5[/td] [td]+5[/td] [td]Marble Shot[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]7[/td] [td]+7[/td] [td]+2[/td] [td]+6[/td] [td]+6[/td] [td]Precise Shot +4d8[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]8[/td] [td]+8[/td] [td]+2[/td] [td]+6[/td] [td]+6[/td] [td]-[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]9[/td] [td]+9[/td] [td]+3[/td] [td]+7[/td] [td]+7[/td] [td]Precise Shot +5d8[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]10[/td] [td]+10[/td] [td]+3[/td] [td]+7[/td] [td]+7[/td] [td]Marble Mastery[/td][/tr]
[/table]
Class Skills (4+Int): Balance, Climb, Concentration, Escape Artist, Hide, Hold I, Listen, Move Silently, Play, Spot

Precise Shot: When performing a full attack, you may voluntarily reduce your number of attacks this round by one. If you do so, you add 1d8 damage to all your remaining attacks this round. This increases by 1d8 every two levels (2d8 at 3rd, 3d8 at 5th, etc.) up to +5d8 a 9th level. You may not use this ability in conjunction with Manyshot or its variants, though you may use it with Rapid Shot.

Trick Shot: While performing a Precise Shot, you may ignore an opponent'spartial concealment, if any.

Marble Shot: Even though Mommy told you not to, you've learned how o shoot marbles with terrific accuracy. Your slingshot bullets are always considered to be adamantine in addition to their normal type.

Marble Mastery: You are now so precise with your slingshot bullets that you can hit an ant off of a doll from three hundred yards...or so you say. Your lingshot bullets are always considered to be adamantine, mithral, silvered, starmetal, and magic in addition to their normal type. In addition, they ignore the first five points of any DR they do not automatically overcome.
[hr]
Swimming Lessons [General]
Your Mother has signed you up for swimming lessons, and believe it or not ou've learned something. You receive a +4 competence bonus on Swim checks. In addition, Swim is always a class skill for you.

Music Lessons [General]
Your Mother has signed you up for music lessons, though she quickly leanred to regret it when she heard you practicing. Choose one Perform skill (such as Perform (Dance), Perform (Piano), Perform (Violin), Perform (Recorder), Perform (Tambourine), Peform (Singing) or Perform (Tuba)). You receive a +4 competence bonus on Perform checks related to the chosen instrument. In addition, the relevant Perform skill (but not all Perform skills) is always a class skill for you.

Art Lessons [General]
Your Mother has signed you up for art lessons. Now she can't find her fridge, since its buried underneath all your creations. Choose one Craft skill (such as Craft (Pottery), Craft (Painting), Craft (Watercolor), Craft (Macaroni Art), or Craft (Sewing)). You receive a +4 competence bonus on Craft checks related to the chsen art. In addition, the relevant Craft skill (but not all Craft skills) is always a class skill for you.

[Elrosth]

Oh, very nice.

Heh. On the description for your Art Lessons feat, I just pictured your mom's fridge buried under this huge mound of pottery. Do you suppose other instruments would be allowed for the Music Lessons feat, such as a recorder or drums? Oh man, tamborines. Tamborines in the hands of a small child is a terror few parents could brave.

In regards to the slingshot, would other ammunition be possible? I don't know what you might use off the top of my head, but it might be fun to get some alternative ammo in there somehow.

[Fax Celestis]

I've experimented with slingshot ammo, and have found that marbles are indeed the best. Not only are they heavy, but they're almost perectly spherical and therefore very aerodynamic.

As for the lessons, I suppose I could change the wording a tad.

[Elrosth]

Yeah, I figured marbles would be best. I was just wondering if there were other things you might shoot that could do things other than just be a good bullet.

One thing I did when I was little was collect those little puffball mushrooms. You know, the kind that when you step on them a big poofy cloud of brown spore stuff came shooting out? A couple times, I tried taking them and dipping them in glue. Then when they dried, they were a little bit firmer. It was also important to get glue that'll crack instead of bend. If you needed more weight, you could suspend things in the glue on it, like maybe little BBs or strips of heavy paper or something. It was hard to give them enough weight, but if you pulled it off you had this slingshot spore grenade that would poof on whatever it hit.

Paintballs would be similar. There are probably other things, I was just wondering if that might be interesting or if that'd just be too much to worry about for it to be useful.

[Yuki Akuma]

...Doesn't this belong in the main CUTE thread?

[Mephibosheth]

I like the class a lot, Fax. I could definitely see a Storybook Hero taking levels in this, especially if he/she emulated someone like Tom Sawyer. My only question is why you allowed multiple attacks when making a Precise Shot. The ability seems very similar to the Order of the Bow Initiate's ability, which requires a standard action. Then again, I've often heard people comment on how OotBI is underpowered, so...

Also, I assume the extra damage from Precise Shot is precision-based damage, and therefore doesn't apply to constructs, undead, oozes, and other things immune to sneak attacks and criticals. Is this the case?

As to the sling bullet debate, the current incarnation of the Slingshot lists differing rules for three ammo types: marbles, stones, and Lego bricks. The main difference between the three is range increment, with stones as the baseline, normal ammo, marbles having an increased range increment, and Lego bricks having a range increment decrease. So, those are the current rules (for what it's worth). I think that any kid specializing in the slingshot to the degree that this PrC represents would definitely pick up and rely on marbles. Rules for slingshots can be found here.

Nice job Fax!

Mephibosheth

[Elrosth]

On the ammo, I know. I was just tossing ideas out.

And yeah, you should probably put this in the main CUTE thread.

[Fax Celestis]

Right, I allowed multiple attacks with precision damage for the reason you just listed: because archery/ranged attacks have repeatedly gotten the shaft and I thought they deserved something.

I didn't post this in the CUTE thread because the CUTE thread s over 50 pages, and I hear from the Mods Above that it's easier to keep track of stuff when it's in shorter threads. It's also fallen off the front three pages.

Finally, Precise Shot is indeed precision damage. I just forgot to delineate such while typing this up.

[Elrosth]

Good point. I think someone in the thread (Yuki maybe?) said that the 50-page thing was for in-character stuff. That sounds odd though...

Perhaps we should start yet another thread for the sandbox? That doesn't sound too fun. Unlike our other threads, that transition would be extremely messy...

Or maybe we should just make a new sandbox to discuss general ideas, and we could submit fully fleshed-out ideas like you did here with the [CUTE] tag. And then when we get to the evaluation part like we're doing with the Dreamer, we could use [CUTE: Evaluation]. The old sandbox could just sink back and be used for linkage for our original material.

[belboz]

The 50-page limit is a *rule* for IC stuff only, IIUC. However, the rationale behind it applies more generally: Since an entire thread is displayed when you reply, threads over 50 pages become increasingly unweildy to reply to.

I wouldn't be opposed to a new sandbox thread, personally. I'm not sure the transition would be too terrible...it mostly means that I'd need to be careful to start updating and bumping the compendium again. (Which it's just about time to do--I'd promissed myself an update every time the main thread reaches 5n + 1 pages, which it's about to do.

I hate to clutter up the board with too many separate CUTE threads...evaluations aren't too bad, because there won't be more than about one of them a week, but I'm not sure a new one for every new idea would be well-received.

Anyway, sorry about that, because that's all sort of off-topic for this thread, which is about Fax's excellent prestige class and feats. For "Core CUTE", I might prefer that the feats be fluffed in a way that doesn't assume a particular time period (since we've got at least three different concepts for time periods to base the "real world" on, all of which I think are good). But the ideas and crunch are certainly compatible with that.

[Fax Celestis]

I don't see how clutter'd be an issue, considering that as it stands, CUTE is smaller than MitP.

[belboz]

A good point. Objection withdrawn.