[35 Base Class]Eternal Warrior[PEACH]

[Tyndmyr]

Eternal Warrior

Class Skills: Balance, Bluff, Climb, Craft(any), Handle Animal, Hide, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge(all), Listen, Move Silently, Profession(Any), Ride, Search, Survival, Spot, Swim, Tumble, Use Rope.
Skills Pts: Int + 4
Hit Die: D12
Proficiencies: All Simple and Martial Weapons, All Shields and Armor.

{table=head]Level|Base Attack<br>Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special

1st|
+1|
+2|
+2|
+0|Hindering Blades

2nd|
+2|
+3|
+3|
+0|+2 Con

3rd|
+3|
+3|
+3|
+1|DR1/-, Wall of Steel

4th|
+4|
+4|
+4|
+1|Unstoppable Rampage(1)

5th|
+5|
+4|
+4|
+1|Strike From the Sky

6th|
+6|
+5|
+5|
+2|DR 2/-, +2 Dex

7th|
+7|
+5|
+5|
+2|Arcane Antipathy

8th|
+8|
+6|
+6|
+2|Unstoppable Rampage(2)

9th|
+9|
+6|
+6|
+3|DR 3/-, Slowing Strike

10th|
+10|
+7|
+7|
+3|Versatile Warrior

11th|
+11|
+7|
+7|
+3|Mobile Warrior

12th|
+12|
+8|
+8|
+4|DR 4/-, Unstoppable Rampage(3)

13th|
+13|
+8|
+8|
+4|+2 Con

14th|
+14|
+9|
+9|
+4|Area Denial

15th|
+15|
+9|
+9|
+5|DR 5/-

16th|
+16|
+10|
+10|
+5|Unstoppable Rampage(4)

17th|
+17|
+10|
+10|
+5|Delay Death

18th|
+18|
+11|
+11|
+6|DR 6/-

19th|
+19|
+11|
+11|
+6|+2 Dex, Good Recovery

20th|
+20|
+12|
+12|
+6|Unstoppable Rampage(5), Unstoppable Juggernaut[/table]

Abilities:

Hindering Blades: Area threatened by the Eternal Warrior counts as difficult terrain for anyone the Eternal Warrior designates as an enemy.

Wall of Steel: When wielding a shield, the Eternal Warrior receives double the standard AC bonus for the shield. Magical bonuses, if any, are unaffected.

Unstoppable Rampage: Whenever the Eternal Warrior kills an enemy, he heals for x hp, where x is the current level of Unstoppable Rampage.

(Ex)Strike from the Sky: With a successful hit, instead of dealing damage, the Eternal Warrior may instead elect to suppress all flight or other air movement effects such as feather fall currently active on the target for a single round. A reflex save(DC: Half Eternal Warrior level, rounded down + dex bonus) is needed to avoid this effect.

Arcane Antipathy: At seventh level, the Eternal Warrior gains SR equal to his class level + 10.

Slowing Strike: At 9th level, the Eternal Warrior has learned to slow his adversaries by targeting vulnerable areas. Any enemy struck by the Eternal Warrior has his movement reduced by 10ft for a single round unless he saves(Fort DC Half Eternal Warrior level, rounded down + int bonus). Immunity to Critical Hits, Sneak Attack or other precision damage also confers immunity to this ability.

Versatile Warrior: At 10th level, the Eternal Warrior receives Iron Will as a bonus feat. In addition, he now ignores armor check penalties.

Mobile Warrior: At 11th level, the Eternal Warriors speed is increased by 5 ft. In addition, he may now take a ten foot step instead of a five foot step.

Area Denial: At 14th level, the Eternal Warrior's reach is increased by five feet. In addition, he receives Stand Still as a bonus feat, regardless of if he possess the prerequisites for it.

Delay Death: At 15th level, the Eternal Warrior may, once per day, when subjected to a [Death] effect or damage reducing hp or a stat to 0, instead elect to be reduced to 1 hp and ignore the effect.

Good Recovery: At 19th level, the Eternal Warrior gains the ability to reroll a save once per day.

Unstoppable Juggernaut: At 20th level, when the Eternal Warrior is subjected to unconsciousness or death via hp or ability loss, he remains active for a number of rounds equal to his con bonus before the effect occurs. If the status effect is removed or healed before this happens, the Eternal Warrior remains functional.

Design notes: This is intended to be a rather high tier melee class. It is expected to outclass almost all melee, and excel in it's area of specialty. I realize this is not quite standard for melee, but I believe it's possible and desirable to have entirely non-magical, non-initiator classes that retain flexibility. However, it is not entirely intended to displace other melee roles, and thus there is a notable absence of high profile abilities like Pounce. Still, it probably shouldn't be in a tier 3-4 game.

It's niche? Not dying. It is a tank as tanks were originally envisioned. The warrior that takes a brutal pounding and keeps going, preventing the others in his party from taking the hits from the big melee gribbly. Let me know if I went too far...or made him too niche. I worry about both of those a bit.

[eftexar]

It is a little focused, however adding some choices to the class would fix that. In fact, you don't need to change anything at all. Just add some more abilities rogue special ability style (but with fighter oriented effects). As of now this class just barely exceeds the power of the fighter. It has the same number of abilities, but the fighter is sort of underpowered to begin with (it grants a bunch feats, when in reality it takes two or three feats to match the effects of many class abilities (so the fighter sort of grants the equivalent of 6 class abilities and calls it a day)).

[Dralnu]

Awesome. I love this. A tank that is a simpler alternative to a Crusader.

I don't see why this class couldn't be played alongside tier 3-4 though. He's very good at tanking, 10ft. step is very nice, but otherwise he doesn't have the versatility of ToB and offers little outside his intended role. Looks high tier 4 to me, maybe low tier 3.

[Tyndmyr]

Hmm, so we have a consistent evaluation of something more along the power level of a well built barbarian.

While not exactly what I originally envisioned...I'm not sure that's bad. My caster classes tend to be tier 3, so perhaps I should just stick with the trend.

Instead of modularizing the class, I could make sister melee classes focusing on different themes....thoughts?

[dethkruzer]

seems rather nice, and unstoppable juggernaut gives it a really... Well unstoppable feel.

One thing that could help is some fluff to go with it, and, while this is my personal opinion, the name just doesn't really suit the class.

[jiriku]

+1 to the suggestion for adding fluff. Right now the abilities don't seem to make sense. I mean, I get why you put them in (to make an effective tank), but I don't get a sense of why an eternal warrior has this particular set of talents. I'm curious about Strike from the Sky in particular -- what exactly are you doing that drops a winged dragon or a mage with a fly spell from the sky with equal ease?

The class starts very strongly in the first 7 levels, but it REALLY drops off fast after that. For example, the 13th level adds less to the character than the 2nd level did, and the 18th and 19th level combined barely add more than the 6th. Look at one of your homebrewed T3 casters, and compare what it gets at levels 18-19 against level 6, and I think you'll see what I mean.

Special notes:
There is a typo in the Reflex save at 18th level on the chart.
Damage per strike scales geometrically with level, so damage reduction should to. At a bare minimum, I'd suggest that at 15th and 18th level, DR should bump by 2 points each.


Philosophy on in-class stat boosts:
Con bonuses scale with level, since they grant retroactive hit points and you can always use more hp and more Fort save. Dex bonuses de-scale, though, since they provide flat bonuses and your armor's max Dex bonus may limit the benefit of a higher Dexterity. Stat boosts are also worth more at lower levels, when they help you meet feat prerequisites (and when meeting a feat prerequisite can mean the difference between getting into a prestige class or not qualifying), than at higher levels, when you've already got many item-based stat boosts and have already picked most of your feats anyhow. For example: +2 Dex at 6th level might help you qualify for a feat, but +2 Dex at 19th level won't do so, because you've already selected all of your feats.

Which is a lot of words to say, you really want to add more at 19th level. :smalltongue:

[Tyndmyr]

+1 to the suggestion for adding fluff. Right now the abilities don't seem to make sense. I mean, I get why you put them in (to make an effective tank), but I don't get a sense of why an eternal warrior has this particular set of talents. I'm curious about Strike from the Sky in particular -- what exactly are you doing that drops a winged dragon or a mage with a fly spell from the sky with equal ease?

Good point on the fluff. I'm going to fluff it up as someone who specializes in avoiding damage and incapacitating/slowing attackers.

For Strike from the Sky, I'm thinking of attacks that entirely disrupt inertia or that strike in such a way as to impart force instead of damage on the attacker(this is an actual thing in real world martial arts). This could range from a special arrow entangling the target and throwing them off balance to literally jerking them from the sky with a spiked chain and hurling them toward the ground.


The class starts very strongly in the first 7 levels, but it REALLY drops off fast after that. For example, the 13th level adds less to the character than the 2nd level did, and the 18th and 19th level combined barely add more than the 6th. Look at one of your homebrewed T3 casters, and compare what it gets at levels 18-19 against level 6, and I think you'll see what I mean.

I did frontload a bit...anti-flier mechanisms tend to come too late for my tastes in most melee builds, and SR is almost always too little, too late for melee. I considered having some sort of death ward like ability, but ended up going with more general anti-death defenses since there's just so many ways to die out there.

That said, the reach benefit is fairly solid. As you face higher CRs, facing opponents with reach becomes a pretty common thing, and being outmatched in reach is usually unfortunate for tanks.



Special notes:
There is a typo in the Reflex save at 18th level on the chart.
Damage per strike scales geometrically with level, so damage reduction should to. At a bare minimum, I'd suggest that at 15th and 18th level, DR should bump by 2 points each.

Good call on the reflex save...fixed.

I'd rather not get too DR-dependent. It makes a useful element of the class, but I don't want it to be the primary feature. With a D12 hit die, multiple con bonuses, and self-healing on kills, I don't anticipate death by hp loss to be a particularly troubling possibility for the class, and too much DR makes certain builds disproportionately weak, most of which are already not spectacular.

[quote]Philosophy on in-class stat boosts:
Con bonuses scale with level, since they grant retroactive hit points and you can always use more hp and more Fort save. Dex bonuses de-scale, though, since they provide flat bonuses and your armor's max Dex bonus may limit the benefit of a higher Dexterity. Stat boosts are also worth more at lower levels, when they help you meet feat prerequisites (and when meeting a feat prerequisite can mean the difference between getting into a prestige class or not qualifying), than at higher levels, when you've already got many item-based stat boosts and have already picked most of your feats anyhow. For example: +2 Dex at 6th level might help you qualify for a feat, but +2 Dex at 19th level won't do so, because you've already selected all of your feats.

Which is a lot of words to say, you really want to add more at 19th level. :smalltongue:

Hmm, that is a particularly weak level. Added in a daily save reroll. Not the biggest of abilities, but it fits the concept, and it helps against things that the class is otherwise weak against, like mind affecting. I mean, I could slap on mind resisting buffs, but I feel like the metagame already tends to screw mind affecting out of working a *lot* at high levels.

I could probably sneak in another moderate ability at level 15 as well, I suppose. The capstone levels aren't too bad, but there's a bit of a slump before then. Any high level defenses I've neglected?

[jiriku]

Your defenses are quite solid. More active abilities would be nice. For example, perhaps the ability to take an immediate action to deflect a ranged attack or ranged touch attack within your threatened area, or the ability to knock an opponent down (resisted with a Reflex save, which makes it useful against big monsters that are hard to trip, or legless monsters that are normally trip-immune). Maybe the ability to add less commonly used combat maneuvers, like bull rush, overrun, and disarm, as free bennies on a successful attack roll in certain situations. Possibly some sort of debuffing attack so that an eternal warrior can work in concert with a caster throwing SoL spells. Perhaps the ability to attach status effects to your attacks, especially effects that limit the target's options like slowed, staggered, and nauseated.

[Shadow Lord]

I'm the Juggernaut, bitch?

Very cool clas.

[Tyndmyr]

Your defenses are quite solid. More active abilities would be nice. For example, perhaps the ability to take an immediate action to deflect a ranged attack or ranged touch attack within your threatened area, or the ability to knock an opponent down (resisted with a Reflex save, which makes it useful against big monsters that are hard to trip, or legless monsters that are normally trip-immune). Maybe the ability to add less commonly used combat maneuvers, like bull rush, overrun, and disarm, as free bennies on a successful attack roll in certain situations. Possibly some sort of debuffing attack so that an eternal warrior can work in concert with a caster throwing SoL spells. Perhaps the ability to attach status effects to your attacks, especially effects that limit the target's options like slowed, staggered, and nauseated.

Oooh, I like these ideas quite a lot. In addition to adding another active disabling ability, I might make a more dex based class based around debuffing and utilizing underused combat manuevers. I can definitely see an alternate rogue based on such things.