Hit Die: d6 Proficiencies: Simple Weapons and Light Armor Skill Points: 4 + INT modifier Class Skills: Discipline, Heal, Hide, Listen, Lore, Move Silently, Persuade, Pick Pocket, Appraise, Tumble, Craft Trap, Bluff, Craft Weapon, Craft Armor High Saves: Reflex, Will Low Save: Fortitude BAB Progression: 3/4 (same as Rogue)
Requirements
Alignment: Any non-evil Feats: Alertness, Iron Will Skills: Discipline (4 ranks), Lore (6 ranks), Persuade (8 ranks), Search (4 ranks)
From the manual's description of Harper Scouts:
Harpers are members of a secret society dedicated to holding back evil, preserving knowledge, and maintaining the balance between civilization and the wild. Harpers learn arcane spells and many skills to help them in their duties of espionage, stealth and reporting information. Many Harpers are bards, but by no means all. Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer and Wizard are common vocations for Harpers, as these classes tend to have versatility and mobility. All have some skill at manipulating others, a resistance to outside mental influences, acute abilities of perception, and a talent for solving problems.
Not all Harpers are members of the Harper prestige class, and rank within the organization does not depend upon a character’s level in this or any other class. However, most of the higher-ranked Harpers have at least one level in the Harper prestige class.
Special Abilities
Level 1 Favored Enemy**: A Harper selects a favored enemy just as a ranger does. Upon reaching 5th level as a Harper, the bonus against her first favored enemy increases to +2, and she gains a new favored enemy at +1.
Level 2 Deneir's Eye: The Harper gains a +2 holy bonus to saving throws against traps.
Sleep: gains the ability to cast the spell Sleep once per day.
Level 3 Tymora's Smile: Once per day, the Harper or a target receives a +2 saving throw bonus on all saving throws for 5 turns.
Cat's Grace: gains the ability to cast the spell Cat’s Grace once per day.
Level 4 Lliira’s Heart: The Harper gains a +2 holy bonus to saving throws against mind-affecting spells.
Eagle's Splendor: gains the ability to cast Eagle’s Splendor once per day.
Level 5 Favored Enemy**: The Harper Scout gains a second Favored Enemy choice, just as the Ranger.
Invisibility: gains the ability to cast the spell Invisibility once per day.
Craft Harper Item: The Harper gains the ability to create two types of potions. The Harper can create one potion per day, either a Cat’s Grace potion or Eagle’s Splendor potion. To create either potion the Harper must spend 60 gold and 5 experience points. These potions allow a Harper to better support her agents and allies.
**This bonus feat may also be used to select Curse Song.
EPIC LEVELS
The Harper Scout prestige class is restricted to 5 levels only and cannot become epic in the HS class. However, there are some considerations with regards to epic levels:
If taken in epic levels (after character level 20), the Harper Scout's level 1 and level 5 bonus feats (normally only useable to select Favored Enemy or Curse Song) may be used to select any of the following feats:
Favored Enemy Curse Song Epic Will Epic Skill Focus*** Great Dexterity Great Charisma
***Any skill for which the character has at least 20 ranks may be selected with this feat except Perform, Use Magic Device, and Animal Empathy, as these are all class-restricted skills.
Quirks
Interesting quirks of the class include:
the ability to select from a variety of epic feats as the HS bonus feats, if the levels are taken in epic levels (see above). This can be handy to grab some extra DEX or CHA for characters that rely on these abilities, as well as offering the chance to boost skills (with ESF) as well as the Will save, a notoriously weak save for many classes.
both of the HS spell-like abilities (Cat's Grace and Eagle's Splendor) stack with spells or potions of the same name. This can serve to give a character the chance to approach the +12 ability boost cap with no magic items whatsoever. Couple this with the ability to make your own potions of Eagle's and Cat's and you have a character that can potentially boost both DEX and CHA by up to 10 points at any time, without items.
The HS Favored Enemy cannot be chosen as a duplicate of the Ranger FE, if you have Ranger levels. For example, if you have Ranger as a base class and have already chosen FE:Undead, you cannot choose Undead as your HS Favored Enemy.
Just to clear up any questions about Bane of Enemies: The Bane of Enemies bonuses apply to HS Favored Enemies as well as the Ranger FEs. However, the bonuses to Damage, Taunt, Spot, and Listen checks from every 5 Ranger levels do not apply to the HS FEs.
Final Thoughts
This prestige class, while much maligned, has a lot to offer the clever character builder. While offering plenty of roleplaying possibilities, it also offers the chance to grab some extra Epic feats, if the class is taken in epic levels. As well, it gives access to some skills that may not be available as class skills to the base class and, if the levels are taken pre-epic, can also serve to boost a character's weaker saving throws. All in all, this is one of my favorite prestige classes and one which (IMHO) deserves much more respect and consideration than it receives. _________________ It's rogue, dammit, ROGUE!!!
Two small additions:
1) Harper Scout bonus feats: Also as bonus feats available are 'Improved Combat Casting' and perhaps more important 'Lasting Inspiration'. Also 'Curse Song' isn't a epic feat so it can be taken pre-epic instead of a FE feat.
2) Tymora's Smile: The harper scout was supposed to go epic and Tymora's Smile was supposed to become better with more HS levels (+2 to saves at level 6,9,12,15,..). The HS can't go beyond level 5 but there's a small bug in the Tymora's Smile script: instead of using HS levels to determine the bonus the divine champion (=CoT) levels are used. So a HS(3)/CoT(6) would receive a +4 bonus to all saves, a HS(3)/CoT(9) would receive a +6 bonus,... Keep in mind however that both the normal CoT bonus from 'Sacred Defense' and the bonus from Tymora's Smile count towards the +20 cap. _________________ Character Build Calculator(works with Excel, Open Office) 2.83: updated to NWN 1.69.
*agrees with everything above*
Just found out about the CoT/HS "feature" A few days ago. It would work great with a paladin or cleric combination and enable a builder to go as far as 8 great dexes or 6 and a skill or anything you want, so the feat list is flexible. Easy to imagine as an rp build too.
A further addendum: it has just been reported (and verified in a leveller using the debug commands by the person reporting this) that the HS Favored Enemy bonus increases to +2 at HS level 4 (even though the second FE is granted at level 5, if chosen). Also, the second Favored Enemy gets the +2 bonus, not +1 as reported in the manual. _________________ Wave upon wave of demented avengers marched cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream...
Two small additions: