Bonedice Ltd. Presents: Cool variants for PCs/NPCs <3.5>

[~LuckyBoneDice~]

First, I play a lot of D&D (2 games/week, and DM one additional) and adore how PCs dispise Paladin, Ranger, Duskblade, and Hexblade for their strict-ness. Here's my answer to this:

Variant 1: Templar (Paladin) - These paladins see magic as a weapon to vanquish evil. You sacrifice your resiliency and combat abilities to obtain greater understanding of your deity's power (HD as wizard, One Martial Weapon, No heavy shield, and Medium Armor for casting as a cleric and 1 domain)

Variant 2: Hermit (ranger) - These rangers are more in tune with nature and its power. You sacrifice resiliency, hatred, and your martial training in favor of your innate connection to the natural world (HD as wizard, Lose Favored Enemy, and Combat Track for Druid's spellcasting)

Variant 3: Knight of Dusk (Duskblade) - More mage than knight, the Knights of Dusk are specialized in Anti-Caster combat, weilding magic themselves. You sacrifice your armor and resiliency in favor of the power to slay evil casters (No armored casting and hd as a wizard for full casting from modified wiz/sorc list [touch spells and abjuration only]

Variant 4: Cursed Knight (Hexblade) - A pariah, Cursed Knights are more dangerous cursebringers. You sacrifice your Hexblade's Curse, your familiar, and your resiliency so your magic is more diverse (No Hexblade's Curse, Familiar, and HD as a Wizard for casting from Luck and Trickery domains as a cleric, full casting, and partial invocations as a warlock/dragonfire adept = CK lvs / 2)

More will be added soon...

[~LuckyBoneDice~]

Looking for feedback

[Mulletmanalive]

So you removed the limitations of the classes and...turned them into something completely other?

The heck?

Seriously, it's the narrow focus and behavioural codes that people generally have trouble with. Why would i play a Templar when i can barely use any of my abilities because they require to hit rolls, have no hp to actually use them in melee anyway and have worse spellcasting and everything else all around than a cleric of the same level?

I'd love to say something constructive because this kind of response frustrates me when I see it but you've turned a bunch of specific classes into slightly messier versions of other classes. I'm really not following.

[Pink]

Most of these seem less like variations on the base classes and more so like variations on cleric, druid, wizard and such. In almost all cases it seems that it would be just better to play a full caster than anyone of these. Also, your descriptions don't necessarily seem to fit what you're actually doing with the variations. Cursed Knight is more dangerous at curses so it...loses the curse ability?

I don't see that a whole lot of thought was put into these, or understand their purpose.

[~LuckyBoneDice~]

So you removed the limitations of the classes and...turned them into something completely other?

The heck?

Seriously, it's the narrow focus and behavioural codes that people generally have trouble with. Why would i play a Templar when i can barely use any of my abilities because they require to hit rolls, have no hp to actually use them in melee anyway and have worse spellcasting and everything else all around than a cleric of the same level?

I'd love to say something constructive because this kind of response frustrates me when I see it but you've turned a bunch of specific classes into slightly messier versions of other classes. I'm really not following.

These are to make my players more likely to play them. Seriously, templar's full casting is valuable to the point one of my players, a former DM said its overpowered

[Pink]

These are to make my players more likely to play them. Seriously, templar's full casting is valuable to the point one of my players, a former DM said its overpowered

But by doing though you've either taken away the class abilities that make these class's unique (favoured enemy for rangers, curse for hexblade), or made them unfit for the features you've left in (smite and channel are close combat, and a d4 HD doesn't give much chance for a lot of front line fighting.).

It seems you've tried to apply balance by just making everyone a wizard.

[~LuckyBoneDice~]

But by doing though you've either taken away the class abilities that make these class's unique (favoured enemy for rangers, curse for hexblade), or made them unfit for the features you've left in (smite and channel are close combat, and a d4 HD doesn't give much chance for a lot of front line fighting.).

It seems you've tried to apply balance by just making everyone a wizard.

The Curse was dropped because its finicky at best, and favored enemy was dropped for the same reason.

I lowered the HD so my XDM wouldn't throw a tantrum

[Glimbur]

Variant 1: Templar (Paladin) - These paladins see magic as a weapon to vanquish evil. You sacrifice your resiliency and combat abilities to obtain greater understanding of your deity's power (HD as wizard, One Martial Weapon, No heavy shield, and Medium Armor for casting as a cleric and 1 domain)

Alternately, I could play a cleric, and get up to heavy armor, better HD, two domains and cleric casting. Then I could burn a feat for a Martial Weapon if I really wanted to. Divine Grace and Lay on Hands and even the Special Mount aren't as good as the benefits a cleric has over this.



Variant 2: Hermit (ranger) - These rangers are more in tune with nature and its power. You sacrifice resiliency, hatred, and your martial training in favor of your innate connection to the natural world (HD as wizard, Lose Favored Enemy, and Combat Track for Druid's spellcasting)

Or I could play a druid and get better HD, a better animal companion, and Wildshape. Those things are better than the skills, BAB, and saves the hermit ranger would bring to the table.


Variant 3: Knight of Dusk (Duskblade) - More mage than knight, the Knights of Dusk are specialized in Anti-Caster combat, wielding magic themselves. You sacrifice your armor and resiliency in favor of the power to slay evil casters (No armored casting and hd as a wizard for full casting from modified wiz/sorc list [touch spells and abjuration only]
Or I could be a wizard and get the wizard list, which is better than full BAB and other duskblade features.


Variant 4: Cursed Knight (Hexblade) - A pariah, Cursed Knights are more dangerous cursebringers. You sacrifice your Hexblade's Curse, your familiar, and your resiliency so your magic is more diverse (No Hexblade's Curse, Familiar, and HD as a Wizard for casting from Luck and Trickery domains as a cleric, full casting, and partial invocations as a warlock/dragonfire adept = CK lvs / 2)
This is a little trickier to directly parallel with base classes. The best approach is probably Wizard with reserve feats instead of invocations and Arcane Disciple instead of cleric domains, but that requires some Wis also which increases MAD.

These variants seem... lackluster.

[Mulletmanalive]

These are to make my players more likely to play them. Seriously, templar's full casting is valuable to the point one of my players, a former DM said its overpowered

You'll forgive the fact that these classes really aren't in any way connected to the originals. Most could be replicated easily with judicious limitation of spell selection on Wizard, Cleric or Druid [all of them infact]. That aside, the term Templar is a term for a knight, a defender of a temple. If he's that flimsy and incompetent in combat, who the heck would knight him. That's like giving a knighthood to Cliff Richards...oh, wait...

[Pink]

The Curse was dropped because its finicky at best, and favored enemy was dropped for the same reason.

I lowered the HD so my XDM wouldn't throw a tantrum

I just don't understand why you made the variants at all if you're just taking away what makes them unique. If it's as incentive for players to play a 'paladin' and such, I don't think it succeeds, because in essence what they're playing is so much more a cleric.

For that matter, if the reason your players don't want to play them is because they are underpowered, even with those changes, they will still suffer. If someone wants to play a full divine caster, cleric and druid are still better options.

[~LuckyBoneDice~]

I just don't understand why you made the variants at all if you're just taking away what makes them unique. If it's as incentive for players to play a 'paladin' and such, I don't think it succeeds, because in essence what they're playing is so much more a cleric.

For that matter, if the reason your players don't want to play them is because they are underpowered, even with those changes, they will still suffer. If someone wants to play a full divine caster, cleric and druid are still better options.

maybe I should give them all their normal stuffs and give em d12s for hd.

[Dust]

Maybe you should also try being more humble in order to keep your reputation intact.

I mean, seriously, who does '<My Name here> presents:' in a thread title even as a joke? Especially when the homebrew stuff contained within isn't worth a second glance.

[Hyooz]

maybe I should give them all their normal stuffs and give em d12s for hd.

Or, and this is a crazy idea, you could address the particular aspects of the classes that cause them to be underpowered or whatever, and address them in a unique and interesting way that retains the unique abilities and ideas behind each class instead of 'fixing' everything by giving it a d4 HD and full casting.

[Pink]

Now now dust, no need to be mean, I think the criticism is brutal enough already.

As far as what you should change to make them more powerful, well, I wouldn't really go about just increasing HD size.

The question you should ask is why your players don't want to play these classes. If the reason is "they aren't full casting classes" I don't think you're going to be able to do much. If a person wants to play a cleric, they want to play a cleric.

If the reason is "they're underpowered." You have options.

For paladin, you can either use crusader from tomb of battle: book of the nine swords. Or, I believe there was a good homebrew reworking of them on these boards by fax celestis.

Duskblade...I think its decent as it is personally.

Hexblade, difficult, however there was a fix out there by a wotc designer that gave them a bit more ability, as well as the dark companion class feature from phb2.

Ranger, I'd personally suggest combining this with scout, using gestalt rules.

Sorry I can't give links, browsing by phone.

[Dust]

Let me see what I can do regarding those links.

Fax's Paladin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33551). However, I've always liked this one (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19528002/The_Rebalanced_Paladin!_%28Thread_2%29) as well, so take a look at both.
Here's (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4741774) the suggested fixes for the Hexblade I've always gone by, though it's not even remotely official.

I still stand behind my prior statement, however. Must be the lack of coffee makin' me grumpy.

[DracoDei]

Maybe you should also try being more humble in order to keep your reputation intact.

I mean, seriously, who does '<My Name here> presents:' in a thread title even as a joke? Especially when the homebrew stuff contained within isn't worth a second glance.
I considered it more a quirky naming method (which is the convention around here from what I can tell).

Can't comment on the quality of the work one way or another.

[~LuckyBoneDice~]

Here. I'll lower the HD by one size (originally, Templar was supposed to be full caster with D8, as was hermit, Knight of Dusk and Curse Knight were d6s with no lost class features) and retain all of the good class features. That way, Oh Almighty Dust isn't hurling insults half as much

[Sairyu]

Here. I'll lower the HD by one size (originally, Templar was supposed to be full caster with D8, as was hermit, Knight of Dusk and Curse Knight were d6s with no lost class features) and retain all of the good class features. That way, Oh Almighty Dust isn't hurling insults half as much

Why don't you try to make them more original, instead of just changing HD and making them all casters. For example, lets look at Templar.

Templar: D6 HD, no paladin class features, full casting as a cleric. Basically, a cleric with no heavy shield proficiency (can you even do that? Normally it's yes, no, or yes but no tower shields), no heavy armor proficiency, one less domain, and a lower HD.

If you don't believe me (for some reason), proficiencies are from http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/cleric.htm


Clerics are proficient with all simple weapons, with all types of armor (light, medium, and heavy), and with shields (except tower shields).
The only advantage is that you get to pick a martial weapon and... yeah. Do you at least get full BAB?

Why don't you try something like d8 HD, Paladin BAB/saves and class features, casting progression as a sorcerer (choose x known divine spells/level and add bonus spells to his known spells from the chosen domain), drop the code of conduct if you have a problem with it, and reduce his martial proficiencies to 1 weapon.

His HD no longer cripples him as a front line fighter (even though 8 still isn't so hot, his spell-casting can compensate for this) and full BAB lets him actually hit things. Full casting makes him stronger and making him cast like a sorcerer differentiates him from a cleric and fits better for a martial class (smaller spell selection with easier preparation). Like any other Paladin though, he suffers horribly from MAD (moving his casting stat to CHA would make him a lot better).

The point is though, at least he isn't a d6 HD cleric clone with worse class features/proficiencies and MAD.

[WeLoveFireballs]

A lot of these variants would look better as Prestige Classes. Also how do you explain the high BAB for Hermits? Hermits don't have anything to fight except animals and they aren't going to kill them.