Joystealer

[Anomander]

Joystealer

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Hit Die: d6

Level	BAB	Fort	Ref	Will	Special
1st	0	0	2	2	Joystealer Body, Figment of Reality, Drain Emotions, Emotion Dependency, +1 Cha
2nd	1	0	3	3	Fey Body, Unheartly Grace, +1 Dex, +1 Cha
3rd	1	1	3	3	Fey Mysteries, Hit a Raw Nerve +1d6, +1 Cha
4th	2	1	4	4	Sense Emotions, No Hard Feelings, +1 Dex, +1 Cha
5th	2	1	4	4	Whispers from the Soul, Hit a Raw Nerve +2d6, +1 Cha

Skills: 6+int modifier per level, quadruple at 1st level. Class skills are Craft, Bluff, Disguise, Diplomacy, Hide, Intimidate, Knowledge (nature), Knowledge (the planes), Listen, Perform (any), Profession, Sense Motive, Sleight of Hand, Spot, Survival, Tumble, Use Magic Device.

Proficiencies: A Joystealer is proficient with all simple weapons, shortbow and longbow.

Features:

Joystealer Body: The Joystealer loses all other racial bonus and gains fey traits (basically low light vision) and the incorporeal subtype. It is a medium sized fey with a flight speed of 30 feet (perfect) and has an incorporeal touch attack as a natural weapon dealing temporary Charisma damage.
At HD 1 the Joystealer's incorporeal touch attack deals 1d2 temporary charisma damage.
At HD 3 the Joystealer's incorporeal touch attack deals 1d3 temporary charisma damage.
At HD 5 the Joystealer's incorporeal touch attack deals 1d4 temporary charisma damage.
At HD 8 the Joystealer's incorporeal touch attack deals 1d6 temporary charisma damage. She may now elect to deal ability drain instead of ability damage.
At HD 12 the Joystealer's incorporeal touch attack deals 1d8 temporary charisma damage. She can now affect creatures immune to ability damage and ability drain, but it deals only half Cha damage/drain to such creatures.
At HD 17 the Joystealer's incorporeal touch attack deals 2d6 temporary charisma damage.

As an incorporeal being, it doesn't have a Strength score and gains a deflection bonus to AC equal to its Charisma modifier. It uses its Dex mod for melee attacks, and can get custom magic incorporeal gear by paying a 10% extra on the price.

Figment of Reality: A Joystealer's incorporeality is initially hampered by their weak connection to the ethereal plane, slowly segregating it from the bounds of a physical existence.

At 1st HD the Joystealer can be harmed by all forms of attacks and can attack others as if she was corporeal. She can interact with unattended corporeal objects for one round three times per day and cannot fly higher than 5 feet off the ground, plus an additional 5 feet per 2 HD. She cannot completely hide within objects and interacts with water as if she had a swim speed equal to her fly speed. She cannot chose not to be heard by Listen checks though she receives a +5 circumstance bonus on move silently checks.

At 5th HD the Joystealer loses the ability to interact with corporal objects but can now fly and interact with water as per the incorporeal subtype and receive a +10 circumstance bonus on move silently checks.
Nonmagical attacks made by corporeal creatures at the Joystealer and melee attacks made by the Joystealer against corporeal targets are now ineffective.
Magical weapons and spells used by corporeal creatures against the Joystealer have a 10% chance miss chance, increasing by 10% at 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th HD (maximum of 50% miss chance, except for positive energy, negative energy, force effects such as magic missile, or attacks made with ghost touch weapons, as usual)
Magical weapons used by the Joystealer against corporeal targets have the same miss chance if they aren't ghost touch weapons.

At 10th HD, the Joystealer is affected by the incorporeal subtype as normal.

Drain Emotions (Su): Once a Joystealer has reduced a creature to 0 Charisma, it can drain emotions from that opponent completely as a standard action at a range of 5 feet per HD.
A creature so drained can't be affected by morale bonuses or penalties, can't rage, and cannot benefit from any other ability derived through inspiration or emotion. The affected creature is also immune to fear effects.
The drain emotions effect can be countered only by finding and destroying the Joystealer who caused it or by casting a Remove Curse spell on the afflicted creature within the area of a Hallow spell.
At 9th HD the spell needed becomes Break Enchantment instead of Remove Curse, and the caster must succeed a caster level check against a DC of 11+HD of the Joystealer.

Additionally, the Joystealer may attempt to steal emotions from a target she has inflicted with at least 1 point of Charisma damage within the last hour.
Twice per day per Joystealer HD, as a standard action, the Joystealer may drain the emotions of any one target within range of Drain Emotions. The target creature must succeed on a Will save with a DC equal to 10+1/2HD+Cha modifier or receive a Calm Emotion, Crushing Despair, Good Hope or Rage spell effect with a duration of one round per HD.
Unlike the spells they emulate, the morale bonuses and the penalties of these effects increase by 1 at every fourth HD.
At HD 5, whenever the Joystealer deals charisma damage it may inflict the target with this ability by spending daily uses normally.

A Joystealer cannot steal her own emotions but gains the benefits of the Good Hope whenever she successfully uses this ability.
A Joystealer that gains Bardic Music but may convert two uses per day of this ability into a use of bardic music and one may convert one use of bardic music into a use of drain emotions.

Emotion Dependency (Ex): The Joystealer can eat food but only gains nourishment by successfully using her Drain Emotions or Unlock the Heart ability on a creature. A Joystealer must consume emotions at least once every 48 hours or begin to starve and may elect to inflict minimal Charisma damage on willing "donors" whenever it inflicts any. A Joystealer is usually hungry after a period of 8 hours without consuming any emotion, at which point the color of their eyes take on a deep red hue. Once fed, their eyes return to a golden glow.

Ability Score Increase: The Joystealer gains +1 to Cha at every level, and +1 to Dex at second and fourth level.

Fey Body (Ex): At second level, a Joystealer gains DR/cold iron equal to half her HD.

Unheartly Grace (Su): At second level, a Joystealer adds half of her Cha modifier to all saving throws, and gains evasion, as a rogue.

Fey Mysteries: At 3rd level a Joystealer receives spells known and spells per day as either a second level bard or as a first level sorcerer, but she has a CL equal to her Joystealer level. A Joystealer casting as a sorcerer has three banned schools that may not be changed after their selection.
If she multiclasses as a bard or as a sorceror, the casting progression stacks with the class it emulate. A Joystealer has no restraint on her spells known selection if she multiclasses as a sorcerer but regains them if she later advances her Joystealer level again.

Hit a Raw Nerve (Ex): At 3rd level, the Joystealer's attacks deals extra lethal or nonlethal damage if the opponent is within 30ft and denied a Dexterity bonus to AC (whether the target actually has a Dexterity bonus or not), or when the Joystealer flanks her target. Should the Joystealer score a critical hit with a such an attack, this extra damage is not multiplied.
This extra damage is 1d6 at 3rd level, and it increases by 1d6 at 5th level.
A Joystealer can only hit a raw nerve at creatures able to receive morale bonuses and may be altered, improved and used to qualify for feats and other requirements as if it was the Sneak Attack rogue class feature.
If she multiclasses as a rogue or another class granting Sneak Attack or one of its variants, the extra damage dice stack with Hit a Raw Nerve.

Sense Emotions (Su): At 4th level, the Joystealer gains Blindsense with a range of 15 feet per HD, but may only detect the presence and position of entities able to receive morale bonuses. The Joystealer may concentrate as a standard action to learn the current emotional state and charisma score of targets detected by this ability.
At 8th HD, the Joystealer instantly receives this information without the need to expend an action.

No Hard Feelings (Su): At 4th level, the Joystealer has adapted to the wide range of emotions and enjoys them all, channeling them to energize her soul's ghostly form. Whenever the Joystealer is subject to an effect related to emotions in any way (mostly Fear and morale bonus/penalties effects) she may choose to replace the effect by a surge of healing equal to her Charisma modifier.
At 8th HD, the Joystealer gains the option of converting any mind-affecting effect used upon her into healing as well.
At 16th HD, the Joystealer gains the option of converting any enchantment effect used upon her into healing as well.
This channeling affects only the Joystealer and so area effects inflicting such conditions affect other creatures normally.

Whispers from the Soul (Ex): The Joystealer is an urban fey and so learns to sustain herself without drawing suspicion as to her nature using subterfuge and diversions.
At 5th level, whenever the Joystealer inflicts Charisma Damage, Drains Emotion or Unlocks the Heart, she may choose to make her involvement in the violation subtle and unnoticeable by the afflicted target by succeeding on an opposed Bluff check against the target's Sense Motive. Success makes it impossible for the target to believe the Joystealer is to blame for that attack. Failure gives the target a hunch that it is under the effect of a supernatural effect if it normally wouldn't have come to that conclusion.
Additionally, the Joystealer's own ability to understand people has been enhanced by her intimate relationship with emotions, and adds her Charisma modifier to Sense Motive checks.

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The Joystealer is another instance of a very nice monster in concept that offers too little for its ECL.
The incorporeal subtype was significantly reduced at first level to remove most of what makes it so good. A few uses per day to allow it to interact with corporeal matter made it possible to actually be able to do something once in a while until the party's level reaches a point where Ghost touched weapon become less of a rarity and to allow the Joystealer to participate in puzzle-solving at the earlier levels.
The class was built mostly using trends observed in most other monster classes and to be on par with the pixie and was given a similar prestige class option.
Its a first go at it, however, so it would certainly be subject to adjustments where the need is felt and suggestions are welcomed.

Drain Emotion, while being very flavorful, was pretty much only just that, so I made something more interesting out of it. It may inflict many kinds of status effects but since they all come from the same pool of uses per day, they are much more limited than most monsters' SLA abilities.
The race was tweaked to offer many advancement options, focusing mostly on their favored class as a rogue, the emotion control they share with bards and the innate magic commonly seen in fey creatures, mostly because the Joystealer offered no spell-like abilities of its own.

So if you want to play a twisted fey manipulating and eating people's emotions for a living, the Joystealer is for you.

Joystealer Paragon

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Prerequisites: Joystealer level 5.

Hit Die: d6

Level	BAB	Fort	Ref	Will	Special	Spells per Day/Spells Known
1st	0	0	2	2	Improved Fey Body, Heart Strings, +1 Dex, +1 Cha	+1 level of bard spellcasting class
2nd	1	0	3	3	Unlock the Heart, Hit a Raw Nerve +1d6, +1 Cha	+1 level of existing spellcasting class
3rd	1	1	3	3	Heartless Grace, Joy Theft, +1 Dex, +1 Cha	+1 level of existing spellcasting class

Skills: 6+int modifier per level
Class skills are Craft, Bluff, Disguise, Diplomacy, Hide, Intimidate, Knowledge (nature), Knowledge (the planes), Listen, Perform (any), Profession, Sense Motive, Sleight of Hand, Spot, Survival, Tumble, Use Magic Device.

Proficiencies: Joystealer Paragons gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor.

Features:

Spells per Day/Spells Known: From 2nd level on, when a new Joystealer Paragon level is gained, the character gains new spells per day as if she had also gained a level in whatever spellcasting class he belonged to before he added the prestige class. She does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. If she belonged in bardic spellcasting is being progressed the Joystealer Paragon also increase her spellcasting at the first level.

Improved Fey Body (Ex): At first level a Joystealer Paragon's base flight speed increases by 30 feet and she gains Spell Resistance equal to 11 + HD. She may drop or raise her SR at any time as a free action.

Heart Strings (Su): At first level, 3+Cha modifier times per day the Joystealer Paragon can use the fabric of emotions that composes her to bring forth luminescent threads to connect herself to her opponents.
As a fullround action, the Joystealer Paragon may make a ranged touch attack against every creature within 10 feet per HD, avoiding certain targets as she wishes. As a standard action, the Joystealer Paragon may instead make a ranged touch attack against a single creature within that range.
On a successful hit, the heart strings deal Charisma damage as per the Incorporeal Touch attack of two die sizes lower. The heart string remains latched into the targets for as long they remain within its maximum range. Targets may use a fullround action to make an opposed charisma check against the Joystealer Paragon to free themselves from all heart strings binding them. A heart string is immaterial and cannot be sundered.
A Joystealer Paragon may leech emotions from its bonded targets and affect them all with a single use of Drain Emotions.
At HD 15, the Joystealer Paragon may also affect all its bonded targets with a single use of Unlock the Heart.
Note: Whispers from the Soul cannot conceal heart strings.

Ability Score Increase: The Joystealer Paragon gains +1 to Cha at every level, and +1 to Dex at first and third level.

Unlock the Heart (Su): At first level a Joystealer Paragon discovers more advanced ways to steal emotions, leaving their targets in the more complex emotional states if they fail a Will save with a DC equal to 10+1/2HD+Cha modifier. They now gain three uses of Drain Emotions per day per HD instead of two and may expend two uses to inflict one of the following complex emotions:

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Love: The Joystealer Paragon devours all feelings of resentment, hate and dislike of a creature toward another creature or object of the Joystealer Paragon's choosing, provided that it is within line of sight of the target. If someone makes an opposed charisma check with the target, it may be convinced to help the subject of its hatred for as long as its attitude remains Friendly. This effect does not prevent the target's attitude toward the hated subject to improve normally.


Hate: The Joystealer Paragon devours all feelings of attachment, love and desire of a creature for another creature or object of the Joystealer Paragon's choosing, provided that it is within line of sight of the target. The attitude of the target toward the subject of its hatred becomes Unfriendly. If someone makes an opposed charisma check with the target, it may be convinced to act against the interests of the subject of its hatred for as long as its attitude remains Unfriendly. This effect does not prevent the target's attitude toward the hated subject to improve normally.

Courage: The Joystealer Paragon devours all fears from the subject, making it immune to all fear effects and giving it HDx2 temporary hit points for 24 hours.
Multiple uses of this effect only resets the amount of temporary hit points, and never stacks them with other sources of temporary hit points.

Fear: The Joystealer Paragon devours all feelings of confidence and leaves the target under a Fear spell effect for one round per HD.

Clarity: The Joystealer Paragon devours all traumas and negative emotion-based abilities, including fear, charm and confusion effects.
At HD 11, this use also cures the subject of every negative mind-affecting and compulsion effects.

Confusion: The Joystealer Paragon partially devours some conflicting emotions, creating contradictions and confusing the target for one round per HD.
At 15 HD, this effect becomes permanent.

Complete Drain: At 11 HD, the Joystealer Paragon may now devour the entirety of a creatures emotions without first reducing its Charisma score to zero. This, however, makes it immune to most of the Joystealer's abilities.

Apathy: At HD 15, the Joystealer Paragon may permanently devour all positive emotions from a target, leaving only its most depressive thoughts. This works as the drain emotions' Crushing Despair effect, but inflicts double the penalties. The target loses all will to live or to fight, and spends all its actions trying to kill itself at the best of its ability. A creature so drained can't be affected by morale bonuses, can't rage or be affected by any other abilities derived through inspiration or emotion. Its emotional condition cannot get worse.
This can be countered only by finding and destroying the Joystealer who caused it or by casting a Limited Wish, Wish or Miracle spell on the afflicted creature within an Hallowed area and the caster must succeed a caster level check against a DC of 11+HD of the Joystealer. If the creature dies and is returned to life, it is resurrected in this state.

At 10 HD even creatures immune to Drain Emotions and Unlock the Heart's effects can be affected by them, but they get a +5 bonus on their saves.

Hit a Raw Nerve (Ex): This is exactly like the Joystealer ability of the same name. The extra damage dealt increases by +1d6.

Heartless Grace (Su): At third level, a Joystealer Paragon adds her full Cha modifier to all saving throws, and gains improved evasion, as a rogue. This ability replaces Unheartly Grace.

Joy Theft (Su): If the Joystealer Paragon has a tiny receptacle on hand, she may now store stolen emotions within one instead of devouring them.
The receptacle must immediately be sealed and can only contain one baggage of emotions. Breaking or emptying the receptacle returns the stolen emotions to their rightful owner and dispels the corresponding Drain Emotions/Unlock the Heart effect immediately. The reasons Joystealer Paragons store emotions are many; they may wish to banter their return, trade them with other Joystealers, mount a collection or to stock up on their sustenance for the hard days.

[oslecamo]

Joystealer Body:Everything looks ok here, you caught up with the standards pretty fast.

Figment of Reality:Ok, you put some limitations, which is always nice, but permanent incorporeability at first level is still somewhat too strong at first level whitout drawbacks (take a look at the ghost I just ported). In this case, altough enemies may still be able to hurt you, as an incporporeal creature you can still merge inside objects, which is extreme utility at this early level.

Drain Emotions:Should probably be divided in two abilities, kinda too long now. Replicating 4 medium-level spells at first level may be  a bit too much, but the quite short durations probably make up for it. Clarify if the 5 HD ability demands any extra action or is free with each suecessful touch attack.

Emotion Dependency:A flavourful drawback, but with barely any game impact since you can choose to deal minimum damage. I supose it's there just for the fluff.

Ability Score Increase: +5 cha and +2 dex over 5 levels, seems ok.

Fey Body: More standard stuff.

Unheartly Grace: Ok, you said you were using the pixie as balance. Then you should've noticed the pixie only gains this at 8th level. Why should the Joystealer gain it 6 levels earlier?

Fey Mysteries: An interesting take, allowing either bard or sorceror spellcasting. It would probably be easier to say that sorceror spellcasting can't pick from two schools than saying it can pick from almost all schools. Still I must ask why spellcasting? The pixie got it because fluff-wise it's suposed to be a specially mystic fey, but joystealers seem more like melee skirmishers, needing to close in melee to eat emotions.

Hit a Raw Nerve: Oh, I like this one! I can just see the joystealer "striking" at oponent's insecurities and phobias. But why just nonlethal damage? Words do hurt! (and nonlethal damage isn't really that useful). Even better, to allow to pick between dealing lethal and nonlethal damage. I would even go as far as to sugest to start Raw neve at first level, togheter with more incorporeality limiations, since otherwise the Joystealer isn't doing much in combat as while they're inflicting HP damage, you're mostly inflicting Cha damage.

Sense Emotions: Nice. I would sugest not needing actions right away, but the class's quite filled as it is.

No Hard Feelings: Clarify what happens if you're hit by an area effect. Do you drain it all and stop it from affecting others, or just yourself?

Whispers from the Soul (Ex): Ah, nice capstone, flavourfull and powerful!

Paragon
The image kinda reminds me of a vampire, with the bloody hand and everything. But it also fits for this and is wicked cool!

Spells per Day/Spells Known: Ok, even if the base Joystealer ends up with the spells, why should the paragon have them? The Pixie paragon has no spellcasting progression, just SLAs.

Improved Fey Body: You may want to add the new " can raise or drop SR as a free action etc". I've been trying to add it to the older monsters as possible.

Heart Strings:Nice and original as well! Clarify that you use a regular action to affect all stringed targets.  Is it suposed to inflict friendly fire?

Ability Score Increase: With this you'll be pulling ahead two Cha points ahead of the pixie, just saying (altough you already were one point ahead with the base class).

Unlock the Heart: So, why does love only works while in line of sight? Also kinda problematic in that the joystealer can just keep stacking people loving her for all eternity. Really needs something to prevent that.

Hate is probably too nasty, turning your oponents against each other always is, in particular because I don't see a way to reverse it (while Charm monster has some break clauses).

Courage seems quite ok, actually somewhat lackluster compared to the others.

Fear is strong, but if it's just one target unless they're stringed I guess it's ok.

Clarity is healbot material, always good to have available altough situational so ok.

I don't see why anyone would want to use the Confusion option when they can just make them hate another enemy or love the joystealer.



Complete Drain is fine if the enemy can still use non-moral actions.

Apathy is a nasty save-or-die, but I guess it's ok at 15 HD.

The clause to ignore immunities gained this early is not (even if you need to wait untill 10 HD). The pixie paragon only gains it at its 3rd level.

Heartless Grace:And with spellcasting improvement on top, not really confortable with this.

Joy Theft:Seting up the DCs of your save-or-die as skill checks is simply a no. Skills are just too easy to improve.

Well, overall I like where this's going, there's original abilities and you're following the monster's theme, but I also feel like there's some power creep and by 8th level the Joystealer paragon is geting somewhat too scary abilities, in particular the DC=skill check problem.

[Anomander]

Figment of Reality:Ok, you put some limitations, which is always nice, but permanent incorporeability at first level is still somewhat too strong at first level whitout drawbacks (take a look at the ghost I just ported). In this case, altough enemies may still be able to hurt you, as an incporporeal creature you can still merge inside objects, which is extreme utility at this early level.

You're right. I removed the ability to hide into object 'till level 10.
The ghost offers the entire entire incorporeal subtype and ethereality from the get go with the Grave Bond as its only real drawback or limit.
I found a few ways the Grave Bond drawback might be abused to the Ghost's advantage. I'll post on the Ghost page on the matter later.

Drain Emotions:Should probably be divided in two abilities, kinda too long now. Replicating 4 medium-level spells at first level may be a bit too much, but the quite short durations probably make up for it. Clarify if the 5 HD ability demands any extra action or is free with each suecessful touch attack.

I already have. Instead of making all the emotional effects unlock at HD 7, 11, 15 within this ability I made a separate Unlock the Heart ability to split them in two.
The first part of this ability is more flavorful than useful considering the opponent is already defeated when its Cha score drops to 0.
I thought the spell emulating effects were balanced for the early levels in that they had a short duration, could only affect a single creature at a time and needs the Joystealer to enter melee and inflict charisma damage before they can be used.

Emotion Dependency:A flavourful drawback, but with barely any game impact since you can choose to deal minimum damage. I supose it's there just for the fluff.

Indeed. Its mostly there to make the Joystealer's emotion-vampirism acceptable for the party. A good aligned party would be more tolerant of the emotional feeding considering it is necessary for the creature to live. The whole eye color thing is something from the original monster I wanted to keep, since its a clear indicator that a joystealer might want to hide since it helps people identify its race and get a good guess as to whether or not interacting with it could be dangerous. Talking with a joystealer and seeing her eyes suddenly shift to a golden glow gives cause to worry.

Unheartly Grace: Ok, you said you were using the pixie as balance. Then you should've noticed the pixie only gains this at 8th level. Why should the Joystealer gain it 6 levels earlier?

Yes, but the pixie gets Pixie Finesse instead, along with SR that the joystealer acquires later. Unearthly Grace gets upgraded at the level the pixie gets this ability, granting the missing half, effectively getting one solid ability instead of two.

Fey Mysteries: An interesting take, allowing either bard or sorceror spellcasting. It would probably be easier to say that sorceror spellcasting can't pick from two schools than saying it can pick from almost all schools. Still I must ask why spellcasting? The pixie got it because fluff-wise it's suposed to be a specially mystic fey, but joystealers seem more like melee skirmishers, needing to close in melee to eat emotions.

I thought that simply saying that they are banned from three schools would be easier too, but I felt Illusion, Enchantment and Transmutation were the classical fey spells. But I agree that making it easier might be better.
The pixie is more like a ranged skirmisher (invisibility, arrows and some reconnaissance and battlefield control SLAs) while I saw the joystealers' emotion eating as a good foundation to become super-bards.
I then saw in the creature description that some joystealers progressed usually progressed into rogue levels and some became spellcasters (though they might have to spend a feat for the material component issue) and that inspired me to give them more synergy with the bards by advancing their spellcasting.

Hit a Raw Nerve: Oh, I like this one! I can just see the joystealer "striking" at oponent's insecurities and phobias. But why just nonlethal damage? Words do hurt! (and nonlethal damage isn't really that useful). Even better, to allow to pick between dealing lethal and nonlethal damage. I would even go as far as to sugest to start Raw neve at first level, togheter with more incorporeality limiations, since otherwise the Joystealer isn't doing much in combat as while they're inflicting HP damage, you're mostly inflicting Cha damage.

I made it nonlethal only because otherwise it was pretty much Sneak Attack without critical immunity to stop it. Construct and Undead creatures are immune to nonlethal damage anyway, so I thought it was balanced in the end. Almost all of the joystealer's abilities are axed on nonlethal combat and that gives them an interesting weakness, I think.
As much as I like the idea of cutting an head off by literally making someone lose his head with frustration, making lethal damage possible is an option I'd shy away from without giving some other condition that would make it more different than Sneak Attack or Skirmish. And, thanks 

I also considered making it start at level one but I'm running out of things I can cut off of incorporeality to water it down further.
Keeping it one die behind the rogue allowed the build to act like a multiclassed rogue considering they get almost only Sneak Attacks for a while.

No Hard Feelings: Clarify what happens if you're hit by an area effect. Do you drain it all and stop it from affecting others, or just yourself?

Done! Hope it makes the whole thing clearer.

Spells per Day/Spells Known: Ok, even if the base Joystealer ends up with the spells, why should the paragon have them? The Pixie paragon has no spellcasting progression, just SLAs.

Hm. You're right. Perhaps the pixie paragon class intended to progress spellcasting considering the wording of Fey Blood.
If that's not the case, then maybe only progressing bardic spellcasting would work.

Improved Fey Body: You may want to add the new " can raise or drop SR as a free action etc". I've been trying to add it to the older monsters as possible.

Hmm. Maybe. SR by default allows a creature to lower it as a standard action, which isn't so much of a bother considering it never interferes with their own spellcasting. Making it a free action sounds like an ability of its own.

Heart Strings:Nice and original as well! Clarify that you use a regular action to affect all stringed targets.  Is it suposed to inflict friendly fire?

Well, it already requires a Fullround action to activate, so I'm not sure how to make it more clear. Perhaps give the option to affect a single target as a standard action, since it would sort of make sense. Making friendly fire possible was intended to allow party buffs. But not attacking certain targets should be possible, I'll edit to clarify.

Ability Score Increase: With this you'll be pulling ahead two Cha points ahead of the pixie, just saying (altough you already were one point ahead with the base class).

Maybe I missed something but the pixie base class gives a total ability score increase of 8 and the pixie paragon gives a total increase of 4 (total of 12)
while the joystealer base class offers a total ability score increase of 7 and the joystealer paragon gives a total increase of 5 (total of 12)

Unlock the Heart: So, why does love only works while in line of sight? Also kinda problematic in that the joystealer can just keep stacking people loving her for all eternity. Really needs something to prevent that.

I thought limiting it to subjects within line of sight might make it more manageable, or make it possible to make people love someone they never seen or heard of.
I don't see the duration as so much of a problem considering Charm Monster lasts one day per caster level and can become more or less permanent by making  a diplomacy check afterwards. I'll make it clear that the effect only puts the target's emotion to that state, but does not lock into it.

Hate is probably too nasty, turning your oponents against each other always is, in particular because I don't see a way to reverse it (while Charm monster has some break clauses).

Aye. I thought making someone hate another might not be that much of an advantage in battle considering it does not break allegiances and does not make them less hostile towards you  or change the who-to-kill priority order. (I imagined a wizard not caring about affecting a specific ally with his fireball to hit some party members)
I'll drop the attitude to Unfriendly instead, allowing opposed charisma checks to be convinced to act against the interests of the hated subject.
That would effectively make it mirror the Charm Monster effect. A diplomacy/charm monster effect among other things would counter it.

Courage seems quite ok, actually somewhat lackluster compared to the others.

Yeeeah. I thought so too. Maybe have it grant some temporary hit points would be adequate.
Maybe twice the joystealer's HD.

I don't see why anyone would want to use the Confusion option when they can just make them hate another enemy or love the joystealer.

Insanity is a good offensive effect. It takes many Love effects until the target stops trying to kill every member of your party and Hate might not make them stop trying to kill you (I think Hate is better used out of battle). Confusion has a 9/10 chance of not making them act normally, and is mostly to the whole party's advantage.

Complete Drain is fine if the enemy can still use non-moral actions.

It can, but its hard to do anything when it lacks all the emotions that could motivate it to do them.
Its like a Flesh to Stone spell, but the target only gets a heart of stone.

The clause to ignore immunities gained this early is not (even if you need to wait untill 10 HD). The pixie paragon only gains it at its 3rd level.

A inspired most of the order on the pixie but I used trends used by many other monsters.
The pixie gets it at level 8 instead of level 10, though it doesn't just work with only SLA, applying it on its spells as well.
If the order the clause appears at is the actual issue, well, the Cheshire Cat gets it at level 3.

Joy Theft:Seting up the DCs of your save-or-die as skill checks is simply a no. Skills are just too easy to improve.

Absolutely right. Dunno why I thought setting the DC like a bard's Suggestion ability was a good idea. I like the idea of an actual emotion theft from the joystealer, so I'll try to make that fit in there somewhere somehow.

Well, overall I like where this's going, there's original abilities and you're following the monster's theme, but I also feel like there's some power creep and by 8th level the Joystealer paragon is geting somewhat too scary abilities, in particular the DC=skill check problem.

I made a fix to most of the stuff. Thanks for the heads up!
I'll tell you outright that this is you stuff so you got veto on the whole deal. If you'd like something to be removed, added or modified in some specific way, just say so and its done.
Just trying to help with the project a little.

[oslecamo]

Figment of Reality: Seems ok now.

Drain Emotions: Yes, I agree that with the limitations it's ok.


Unheartly Grace:The joystealer is already geting Cha to AC from being incorporeal, and Evasion is definetely worth more than a feat. Boosted saves kinda make up for the SR. However the pixie starts casting at 2nd level so I guess it evens out here.


Fey Mysteries:Well you can always forbid them from banning certain schools. Also, see, around here when I want a monster to have spellcaster synergy I usually give it pseudo-spellcaster (no actual spells, but improved ). The pixie is pretty much the only monster that gets spellcasting, and that's because it was originally done by somebody else and they made a quite good argument about it. Now I'm not saying to remove it from the joystealer it's an option that deserves to be explored, just something to take in mind so you don't start doing it for every monster that may be magic-related.

On another note, the sorceror spellcasting option seems plainly superior to the bardic spellcasting right now. Even with two banned schools and losing another level later on, I would say it's still superior as you could get up to 8th level spells later on.

Hit a Raw Nerve:Eerr, constructs and undeads, being immune to mind-affecting, would also be immune to this (yes it blocks morale bonuses). Mindblank would block it as well.

No hard feelings: Good now.

Paragon

Spells per Day/Spells Known:I've wondered that myself sometimes. Well, I don't mind boosting the pixie paragon to clearly keep improving spellcasting.

Improved Fey Body: the problem it's that it makes harder for allies to buff you. You really don't want to be droped in negatives and die because one of your abilities stoped the party's cleric from healing you.

Heart Strings: Good now.

Ability Score Increase: A big bonus to a main score counts much more than multiple bonus to several scores. Altough the diference is not so big here so I guess it's ok.

Unlock the Heart: Love and Heart ok now. Courage now makes the Joystealer quite the buffer

One thing you seem to have missed about confusion it's that if the subject's attacked, they can ignore the confusion role and attack back, so it's not that disabling as other effects. But with the love and hate nerfs it's ok now.

Drain emotions ok.

Good points on the immunity piercing.

Also I think the last paragon level is fine as it is, with a flavourfull ability, increased spellcasting, stat boosts and an ability upgrade.

I made a fix to most of the stuff. Thanks for the heads up!
I'll tell you outright that this is you stuff so you got veto on the whole deal. If you'd like something to be removed, added or modified in some specific way, just say so and its done.
Just trying to help with the project a little.

Now, I prefer discussing changes with other creators even if it doesn't end exactly like I would do it. It helps keep every class original, and I need to keep open for new ideas. Also sometimes it's just better to take some time to think if something's ok or not, and if I change my mind later I can always tell you so.

Now to a more straight up comparison of each classes main strenghts:

Joystealer:
-Medium size with Scaling incorporeability
- +8 Cha, +4 dex
- 5th level sorceror casting with some minor limitations or 6th level bard casting.
- 12 pseudo-SLAs.
-Immunity piercing with said pseudo-SLAs that eventually can pierce immunities.
-Improved Evasion.
-Cha to saves
-Standard SR and DR
-Flight 60 feet.
-Pseudo sneak attack and cha-damage/drain touch.
-Flight 60 feet (perfect).

Pixie:
-Small size, boosted Spot, Listen and Search.
- -2 Str, +6 Cha, +2 Int, +6 Dex
-5th level sorceror casting, negating familiar acess and necromancy but option to learn some diferent spells.
- 11 SLAs (some of which get upgraded)
-Sleep arrows.
-Standard SR, DR a little better.
-Improved charming abilities including immunity piercing.
-Cha to AC (the joystealer get this from being incorporeal)
-Half Cha to saves.
-Weapon Finesse.
-Evasion.
-Flight 60 feet (good).

Ok, a problem I still see here it's that they're kinda balanced, except that the Joystealer ends up becoming incorporeal, and the Pixie has really nothing making up for that that the Joystealer doesn't get in some form.

On the other hand, I guess the pixie could really use some spiffing up(not really much on the realm of fluffy abilities), so expect an improved ported version on the nearby future!

[Anomander]

Hit a Raw Nerve:Eerr, constructs and undeads, being immune to mind-affecting, would also be immune to this (yes it blocks morale bonuses). Mindblank would block it as well.

You're totally right. Here comes the puns dealing lethal damage!

And free SR drop/rise as been granted! (Why not. After all you can only do free actions on your own turn. You cannot drop it for an ally's buff on his turn. If you drop to negatives and fall unconscious your ally would still need to pass through it since you cannot do free actions out of turn or when you're unconscious.)

Fey Mysteries:Well you can always forbid them from banning certain schools. Also, see, around here when I want a monster to have spellcaster synergy I usually give it pseudo-spellcaster (no actual spells, but improved ).

On another note, the sorceror spellcasting option seems plainly superior to the bardic spellcasting right now. Even with two banned schools and losing another level later on, I would say it's still superior as you could get up to 8th level spells later on.

Perhaps pseudo-spellcasting would work better with the concept. I didn't see a monster yet that gave something that felt like pseudo casting but I'd like to see what it looks like and see if I'd better use it instead.
Well, initially it had full bard casting (8th level) against reduced sorcerer casting (5th level). Its actually three banned schools for the sorcerer. They also both have the issue of handling material components while being incorporeal.

Pixie:
[...] - 11 SLAs (some of which get upgraded)

I know you don't mind the current setup, but I'll say for the sake of comparison that:
I count 17 SLAs, most of which can be used 1/day. Averaging them at x1.5, that makes about 24 x HD SLA uses per day compared to the joystealer's 3 x HD uses per day.
The pixie's SLAs are vastly superior in uses and in application. They can do a lot more than mind-toying and are thus more versatile.
The pixie's Pixie Finesse is very powerful because the Cha to AC is a dodge bonus, which stacks with other dodge bonuses and is much harder to increase. Dodge bonus to AC are rare, while deflection bonus to AC is the most common and one of the cheapest source of AC increase.


The pixie could certainly use some fluff ability though. Maybe something folklore inspired. It did lose its memory loss arrow. Perhaps allow her to make some kind of fey-dance taking X minutes long ritual around a creature they affected with their sleep effect to make them wake up without memories.
Considering a pixie could just coup de grace them instead, it would be a mercy/trickster thing to do.

[oslecamo]

And free SR drop/rise as been granted! (Why not. After all you can only do free actions on your own turn. You cannot drop it for an ally's buff on his turn. If you drop to negatives and fall unconscious your ally would still need to pass through it since you cannot do free actions out of turn or when you're unconscious.)

Droped SR only returns in the next round.

Fey Mysteries:Well you can always forbid them from banning certain schools. Also, see, around here when I want a monster to have spellcaster synergy I usually give it pseudo-spellcaster (no actual spells, but improved ).

On another note, the sorceror spellcasting option seems plainly superior to the bardic spellcasting right now. Even with two banned schools and losing another level later on, I would say it's still superior as you could get up to 8th level spells later on.

Perhaps pseudo-spellcasting would work better with the concept. I didn't see a monster yet that gave something that felt like pseudo casting but I'd like to see what it looks like and see if I'd better use it instead.
Well, initially it had full bard casting (8th level) against reduced sorcerer casting (5th level). Its actually three banned schools for the sorcerer. They also both have the issue of handling material components while being incorporeal.

Pseudo-spellcaster monsters include the Succubus, Lich, Centaur (Khan Wild Soul), Antromorphic Animal (Nature linked apotheosis), Conflagration Ooze, Lantern Archon, Ulgurstasta, Verdant Prince, just out of the top of my head.

Pixie:
[...] - 11 SLAs (some of which get upgraded)

I know you don't mind the current setup, but I'll say for the sake of comparison that:
I count 17 SLAs, most of which can be used 1/day. Averaging them at x1.5, that makes about 24 x HD SLA uses per day compared to the joystealer's 3 x HD uses per day.
The pixie's SLAs are vastly superior in uses and in application. They can do a lot more than mind-toying and are thus more versatile.

Well the Pixie gets some nice utility, but nothing specialy exciting. Detects and extra languages are nothing to write home about. The joystealer meanwhile gets powerful party buffs combined with some healing. Entangle is powerful at early levels but eventualy becomes irrelevant. The Pixie gets invisibility, but incorporeability is considerably superior and much harder to negate.

Not to mention, the pixie's SLAs, being actual spells, will have to punch trough SR, something the Joystealer's Su abilities don't care about. The only real advantage leftover is extra uses, but still, 3/day per HD will only be a limitation in battles at early levels. The pixie really has not much use in casting Detect Evil in battle.

The pixie's Pixie Finesse is very powerful because the Cha to AC is a dodge bonus, which stacks with other dodge bonuses and is much harder to increase. Dodge bonus to AC are rare, while deflection bonus to AC is the most common and one of the cheapest source of AC increase.

Deflection isn't that common, it's just popular because it counts as touch AC unlike most other AC bonus. Armor and shields are cheaper. And dodge bonusa, altough also useful for touch AC, are lost when you're flatfooted while deflection is always up.

The pixie could certainly use some fluff ability though. Maybe something folklore inspired. It did lose its memory loss arrow. Perhaps allow her to make some kind of fey-dance taking X minutes long ritual around a creature they affected with their sleep effect to make them wake up without memories.
Considering a pixie could just coup de grace them instead, it would be a mercy/trickster thing to do.

That sounds a good start.

[Anomander]

I see what you mean with pseudocasting now. It could work well but I'd have to figure a new 3rd level ability. 

The Pixie gets invisibility, but incorporeability is considerably superior and much harder to negate.

Eventually. Figment of Reality removes most of the advantages of it until level 10. Ghost touch and force damage are pretty easy to acquire by the time Figment of Reality makes incorporeality reliable defensively. Especially with the augment crystals.

Deflection bonus to AC is indeed the most common. Deflection is the cheapest bonus to stack on your gear no matter the class and there are many spell buffs increasing it. Dodge bonus to AC remains about as good as untyped bonus to AC.

Perhaps the pixie should be tiny instead of small. I know the original monster is small sized but it always seemed out of place to me.

[oslecamo]

Ok, I'm willing to acept the ethereality+ delayed spellcasting+goodies, however full bard casting is too much. It should be delayed at least 1 level.

[Anomander]

You're right. Edited.

[FireInTheSky]

Skills: 6+int modifier per level, quadruple at 1st level. Class skills are Craft, Bluff, Disguise, Diplomacy, Hide, Intimidate, Knowledge (nature), Knowledge (the planes), Listen, Perform (any), Profession, Sense Motive, Sleight of Hand, Spot, Survival, Tumble, Use Magic Device.

It's a PrC, so it doesn't get the quadruple at 1st.