Making a Tier 1 or 2 martial class [Broken]

[Phosphate]

I just want to see if it can be done (mainly because I'm pretty sure it can).

This has nearly no flavor. Mostly pure crunch.


The Legendary Warrior


Race: any
Alignment: any
Starting Age: simple
Starting Gold: as fighter

{table=head]Level|BaB|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special

1|+1|2|2|2|Marvelous Reflexes, Heroic Toughness, Guile, Heroic Speed, Leadership, Training
2|+2|3|3|3|Evasion, Stability, Mental Clarity, Punishment for the Meek
3|+3|3|3|3|Debilitating Blow 1d4, Battle Vigor, Energy Resistance
4|+4|4|4|4|Bonus Feat (Shuffle), Mettle, Armor Wear Mastery, Heroic Perception, Swipe
5|+5|4|4|4|Guile, Battle Presence, Stun Immunity, Ease of Motion
6|+6/+1|5|5|5|Precise Attack, Second Wind, Debilitating Blow 2d4, Trap Connoisseur, Heroic Survival
7|+7/+2|5|5|5|Counterstrike, Greater Threatened Space, Heroic Swiftness
8|+8/+3|6|6|6|Bonus Feat (Shuffle), Improved Evasion, Natural Skill, Escape
9|+9/+4|6|6|6|Debilitating Blow 3d4, Pounce, Joust, Duress
10|+10/+5|7|7|7|Guile, Improved Mettle, Immediate Reposition, Wake The Dead
11|+11/+6/+1|7|7|7|Powerful Build, Mortal Strike, Weaken
12|+12/+7/+2|8|8|8|Debilitating Blow 4d4, Bonus Feat (Shuffle)
13|+13/+8/+3|8|8|8|Massive Wounds, Heroic Healing, Giant's Leap
14|+14/+9/+4|9|9|9|Battle Vision, Annihilating Strike, Dash
15|+15/+10/+5|9|9|9|Guile, Debilitating Blow 5d4, Tireless, Improved Duress
16|+16/+11/+6/+1|10|10|10|Bonus Feat (Shuffle), Maximized Strike
17|+17/+12/+7/+2|10|10|10|Greater Battle Presence
18|+18/+13/+8/+3|11|11|11|Energy Immunity, Debilitating Blow 6d4
19|+19/+14/+9/+4|11|11|11|Whirlwind
20|+20/+15/+10/+5|12|12|12|Bonus Feat (Shuffle), Legend

[/table]

HD: d20

Class skills: all of them
Skill points per level:12+int mod

Weapon and Armor proficiencies: A Legendary Warrior is proficient with all weapons, all types of armor and all shields.


Marvelous Reflexes: A level 1 Legendary Warrior gains Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Mobility, and Spring Attack as bonus feats. He need not meet their prerequisites.

Heroic Toughness (Ex): A Legendary Warrior gains DR/- equal to his class level, and a bonus to AC equal to half that. This bonus to AC is not removed when the Legendary Warrior is helpless or flat footed.

Guile (Ex): At level 1, 5, 10, and 15, a Legendary Warrior may choose any of his mental stats. Then, he may add the modifier either to his AC, to his attack roll, to his damage roll or to one of his saves. The same stat cannot be added to the same place more than once.

Heroic Speed (Ex): Increase the base speed of a Legendary Warrior by 5 feet for every 2 class levels.

Leadership (Ex): A Legendary Warrior gains Leadership as a bonus feat at level 1. He need not meet the prerequisites.

Training (Ex): Starting at level 1, and every level thereafter, a Legendary Warrior may increase one of his stats by 1.

Also, once per hour, he may transfer up to class level points from one stat to another.

Evasion (Ex): As the rogue class feature, except it works with all types of armor.

Stability (Ex): You are immune to ability damage and drain. Also, if they were lower than 12 they become 12.

Mental Clarity (Ex): You gain a +2 bonus to saves against mind affecting effects. If you succeed on such a save, this bonus increases by +2 for an hour. Stacks with itself.

Also, you automatically disbelieve illusions within 30 feet of you without needing to interact with them.

Punishment for the Meek (Ex): If you make an attack roll that beats your target's AC, add the difference between his AC and your roll to the damage you deal.

Debilitating Blow (Ex): From level 3, your attacks have a major impact on your opponent's body. If you strike an opponent in melee and deal lethal damage, he will also receive 1d4 Constitution damage. This increases to 2d4 at level 6, 3d4 at level 9, 4d4 at level 12, 5d4 at level 15, and 6d4 at level 18.

Battle Vigor (Ex): During battle, you are immune to fatigue and exhaustion. After battle is over, if you were fatigued or exhausted before battle began, the condition returns.

Energy Resistance (Ex): A level 3 Legendary Warrior gains energy resistance to all energy types equal to his class level.

Bonus Feat (Shuffle): At level 4, and every 4 levels thereafter, a Legendary Warrior gains a bonus feat. This can be any general feat. He must still meet the prerequisites. Also, he may swap up to all his feats and replace them with others that he meets the prerequisites for (effectively losing the old feats in order to gain the new ones) once per day as a full round action.

Mettle (Ex): As the hexblade class feature.

Armor Wear Mastery (Ex): A level 4 Legendary Warrior adds his full dex mod to AC ignoring his armor's max dex. Furthermore, he ignores its entire armor check penalty, and the check penalty of his shield.

Heroic Perception (Ex): A level 4 Legendary Warrior has such great perception that nothing escapes it. His senses (including low-light or darkvision if he has them) extend out to a radius of one mile per class level. He still cannot see through solid objects.

Swipe (Ex): You may choose to take a -2 penalty on a melee attack to turn it into a swipe. Swipes deal your normal weapon damage, but to everything in a 5 feet circle around you and 20 feet cone in front of you.

Battle Presence (Ex): Roll initiative twice for a level 5 Legendary Warrior: once normally, and once with a -4 penalty. The first result gives his normal round in the round order. The second result gives his reduced round in the round order. In his reduced round, a Legendary Warrior may only use one move action (no standard actions, no full round actions, no swift actions and no free actions).

Stun Immunity (Ex): A level 5 Legendary Warrior is immune to stuns and gets a +4 bonus to saves against being dazed or paralyzed.

Ease of Motion (Ex): A level 5 Legendary Warrior ignores difficult terrain speed penalties and his climb and swim speeds are always equal to his base land speed.

Precise Attack (Ex): A level 6 Legendary Warrior may choose to, as a standard action or as part of a full attack, target a specific part of an opponent's body. He takes a -4 penalty on the roll, and chooses a body part before rolling. If he hits and deals lethal damage, apply the following ability damage depending on target: (also, Precise Attack has a special effect if the damage dealt is higher than 1/4 of the total hit points of the target. said effect is written below after the normal damage)

Right Arm/Left Arm - 2d6 Str damage / +Amputated
Right Leg/Left Leg - 2d6 Dex damage / +Amputated
Torso - 2d6 Con Damage / +Nauseated for 5 rounds
Chest - 1d4 damage to all ability scores / +1d4 more damage
Head - 2d6 Wis Damage / +Stunned for 3 rounds

Second Wind (Ex): Once per day, if the Legendary Warrior would be killed, he may fully heal himself instead. If he was unconscious, paralyzed, nauseated, sickened, petrified, staggered, disabled, dazed, confused, or dazzled, those conditions are removed.

Trap Connoisseur: As the rogue Trapfinding class feature, but with this added effect: a Legendary Warrior never triggers traps, unless he does it on purpose.

Heroic Survival (Ex): A level 6 Legendary Warrior knows how to adapt to any situation. He ignores extreme cold and hot temperatures, receives minimized damage (1 from all dice) from falling, always knows where North is and after a preparation that takes 30 minutes can disregard his breathing for an entire day.

Counterstrike (Ex): Dex mod times per round, if a level 7 Legendary Warrior is attacked in melee, he gets a free attack against his attacker which he must use immediately.

Greater Threatened Space (Ex): A Legendary Warrior is treated as threatening all squares 30 feet around him. He may move in this area freely in order to deliver attacks of opportunity.

Heroic Swiftness (Ex): Once per round, you may perform any action that is normally a standard action as a swift action.

Improved Evasion (Ex): As the rogue class feature.

Natural Skill: You are treated as having 1 rank in all skills in which you have no ranks, and gain a +10 competence bonus to all other skills.

Escape (Ex): As a full round action, at all times, if you are in a plane other than the material plane you can punch the fabric of space-time and return to the material plane. You may choose where you will end up, with an error of give or take 1 mile.

Pounce (Ex): A level 9 Legendary Warrior may make a full round attack after a charge.

Joust (Ex): A level 9 Legendary Warrior deals 1 more damage to his target for every square he traveled since his round began. If he charged, this changes to 1d4 more damage per square.

Duress (Ex): A level 9 Legendary Warrior may choose to take 10 on any skill check, at any time, even if the skill itself doesn't allow it.

Immediate Reposition (Ex): If a level 10 Legendary Warrior fails an attack roll, he gains a +6 dodge bonus to AC until his next round.

Wake the Dead (Ex): A level 10 Legendary Warrior can simply wake the dead with his shouts. As a full round action, he can either restore an ally to life and full health completely, but the ally must have been dead for less than 5 minutes, or force any corpse to serve you for 5 minutes. This works like casting Animate Dead on him, except it has a range of line of sight instead of touch. Wake the Dead can be used up to 3 times per encounter.

Powerful Build (Ex): A level 11 Legendary Warrior is treated as having the Powerful Build class feature. He may choose to not take this class feature.

Mortal Strike (Ex): If a level 11 Legendary Warrior lands a critical strike, and the target is not immune to criticals, the target dies.

Weaken (Ex): Whenever a level 11 Legendary Warrior deals lethal damage, the target also receives nonlethal damage equal to 150% of the lethal damage dealt.

Massive Wounds (Ex): The damage dealt by a level 13 Legendary Warrior cannot be healed naturally (this includes Fast Healing and Regeneration).

Heroic Healing (Ex): A level 13 Legendary Warrior gains Fast Healing equal to his class level.

Giant's Jump (Ex): A level 13 Legendary Warrior, when using the jump skill, halves all DC.

Battle Vision (Ex): A level 14 Legendary Warrior ignores the concealment of enemies he attacks in melee. Also, he can see invisible opponents within one mile of him, and he instantly knows the HP, alignment, and true form (if polimorphed) of everyone around him.

Annihilating Strike (Ex): Once per day, a level 14 Legendary Warrior may use this feature as a full round action. Kill an opponent within melee range. He is not given a save.

Dash (Ex): A level 14 Legendary Warrior may move 50 feet as a non-action after the end of any other character's round.

Tireless (Ex): A level 15 Legendary Warrior is always immune to fatigue, exhaustion, and sleep effects. Also, he need not sleep.

Improved Duress (Ex): A level 15 Legendary Warrior may take 20 on skill checks at all times, even if the skills themselves would not normally allow it.

Maximized Strike (Ex): A level 16 Legendary Warrior always uses the maximum value of his weapon's damage dice.

Greater Battle Presence (Ex): Instead of the reduced round from Battle Presence, a level 17 Legendary Warrior may have two normal rounds. Also, he can give up his second round to provide an extra round for up to 5 allies within 200 feet of him until the end of the encounter. Those allies will complete their two rounds back to back (consecutively).

Energy Immunity (Ex): A level 18 Legendary Warrior is immune to energy damage and level drain.

Whirlwind (Ex): When a level 19 Legendary Warrior strikes an opponent and deals damage, the damage is applied to all targets within the Legendary Warrior's reach + 5 feet. The Legendary Warrior may purposefully leave certain targets out of this effect.

Legend (Ex): A level 20 Legendary Warrior is the stuff of legends. His Fast Healing changes to Regeneration (receives lethal damage only from slashing), he may use Annihilate and Second Wind once per minute and everyone who is considered an ally by the Legendary Warrior within 500 feet gains a morale bonus to their stat modifiers, saves, attack rolls, damage rolls and AC equal to the Legendary Warrior's number of epic levels+1.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

A very overpowered Tier 4.

It's a COMPLETE beast in combat: it can kill something instantly without a save, deals an effective 250% damage with every attack (100% + 150% nonlethal), instantly kills with critical strikes, and all sorts of other powerful things...

...but outside of combat? Sure, it can use every skill (somewhat pitifully), swap around feats, and avoid terrain, but it lacks the flexibility of even the Warblade. That puts it firmly in the category of capable of doing one thing quite well, but often useless when encounters require other areas of expertise, which sums up Tier 4 in a nutshell.

This thing is f-ing insane in a combat scenario, but still doesn't have much flexibility, or much utility outside of combat. It's WAY to strong IN a combat situation though.

So it's a severely overpowered Tier 4, in my mind.

[Benly]

A very overpowered Tier 4.

It's a COMPLETE beast in combat: it can kill something instantly without a save, deals an effective 250% damage with every attack (100% + 150% nonlethal), instantly kills with critical strikes, and all sorts of other powerful things...

...but outside of combat? Sure, it can use every skill (somewhat pitifully), swap around feats, and avoid terrain, but it lacks the flexibility of even the Warblade. That puts it firmly in the category of capable of doing one thing quite well, but often useless when encounters require other areas of expertise, which sums up Tier 4 in a nutshell.

This thing is f-ing insane in a combat scenario, but still doesn't have much flexibility, or much utility outside of combat. It's WAY to strong IN a combat situation though.

So it's a severely overpowered Tier 4, in my mind.

I would be a little more generous and put this in Tier 3. It has a climb and swim speed, it has no armor check penalty on its physical skills, it has a decent supply of skill points even if it takes mediocre Int and it can take 10 on any skill at any time with a small bonus on top. I'd say that makes it a decent secondary skill monkey, putting it at "quite good at one thing, still useful when that thing is inappropriate".

It is not, however, Tier 1 or 2, while being as you say pretty broken in combat. There is a school of thought which makes this balanced against Tier 2 on the basis that within its specialty it is stronger than a T2 character, but it fails to meet T2 guidelines: "Has as much raw power as the Tier 1 classes, but can't pull off nearly as many tricks, and while the class itself is capable of anything, no one build can actually do nearly as much as the Tier 1 classes." The class itself here is capable of one thing in this weight class and one thing alone.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

I would be a little more generous and put this in Tier 3. It has a climb and swim speed, it has no armor check penalty on its physical skills, it has a decent supply of skill points even if it takes mediocre Int and it can take 10 on any skill at any time with a small bonus on top. I'd say that makes it a decent secondary skill monkey, putting it at "quite good at one thing, still useful when that thing is inappropriate".

I might be willing to concede a low Tier 3, yes. But a very low Tier 3, as I feel more than movement speeds and mediocre skills are necessary to really be Tier 3.

[NeoSeraphi]

Don't use the term "stat". Use "ability score".

You need to be able to use evasion in any type of armor. Otherwise it's just limiting the legendary warrior.

Let's see...some ways to help this guy out:

Flight, a continuous true seeing effect, a continuous mindblank effect, high (like +20) bonuses to all Charisma-based skills, some kind of divination ability that lets you instantly know and prepare for things like a wizard, Leadership as a bonus feat, the ability to grant move/standard/full-round actions to himself or his allies as a swift action, teleportation, invisibility, etc.

[Iferus]

Give it some legendary perception.

Somethink like: hearing whenever his name is spoken anywhere in the world or any other plane, and being able to see and hear the location where his name is spoken for one minute after that. Superman ears :)

And he should be making epic skill checks such as balancing on air to gain more versatility.

[Benly]

I might be willing to concede a low Tier 3, yes. But a very low Tier 3, as I feel more than movement speeds and mediocre skills are necessary to really be Tier 3.

I'm curious what out-of-combat versatility the Warblade brings that this thing doesn't. Warblades have rockin' combat (check), decent mobility (check), and stances for blindsense and scent, the last of which is nice but not exactly toweringly huge.

Also, why do you insist that the skills are mediocre? It doesn't have trapfinding (which is admittedly a pretty bad oversight if he's meant to be able to skillmonkey) and doesn't get a factotum's huge bonuses, but outside of trapfinding it's better at skill use than pretty much any other non-factotum base class.

edit: Also, the class needs to clarify how often it can trade out its feats. If it's once per day that's an okay bonus, if it's at will as a full-round action that bears mentioning. It doesn't say one way or another as it stands. Or is it just once every four levels? If that's so, it's kind of disappointing as a class feature.

[Phosphate]

but it lacks the flexibility of even the Warblade

Um...how exactly?



You need to be able to use evasion in any type of armor. Otherwise it's just limiting the legendary warrior.

Oh, naturally. A stupid oversight. Will mention.


Flight, a continuous true seeing effect, a continuous mindblank effect, high (like +20) bonuses to all Charisma-based skills, some kind of divination ability that lets you instantly know and prepare for things like a wizard, Leadership as a bonus feat, the ability to grant move/standard/full-round actions to himself or his allies as a swift action, teleportation, invisibility, etc.

The underlined I will implement, the bold he already has.


Give it some legendary perception.

Somethink like: hearing whenever his name is spoken anywhere in the world or any other plane, and being able to see and hear the location where his name is spoken for one minute after that. Superman ears :)

Brilliant :D.


It doesn't have trapfinding

Oops....will add.


edit: Also, the class needs to clarify how often it can trade out its feats. If it's once per day that's an okay bonus, if it's at will as a full-round action that bears mentioning. It doesn't say one way or another as it stands. Or is it just once every four levels? If that's so, it's kind of disappointing as a class feature.

My first intention was once every 4 levels. But you're right, that's too weak ;)

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

I'm curious what out-of-combat versatility the Warblade brings that this thing doesn't. Warblades have rockin' combat (check), decent mobility (check), and stances for blindsense and scent, the last of which is nice but not exactly toweringly huge.

Superior jumping, AoE effects and battlefield control through status conditions (although that's in-combat), aforementioned blindsense and scent, ability to overcome Damage Reduction and hardness (which helps bypass obstacles)...alright. I'll admit that it's not as great a difference as it seems I implied, but I do think the Warblade is a bit more versatile outside of combat (although not by much), and MUCH more versatile IN combat.


Also, why do you insist that the skills are mediocre? It doesn't have trapfinding (which is admittedly a pretty bad oversight if he's meant to be able to skillmonkey) and doesn't get a factotum's huge bonuses, but outside of trapfinding it's better at skill use than pretty much any other non-factotum base class.

Interesting. I somehow missed this thing getting 8+Int skill points. That's my bad, and thanks for pointing that out. Definitely Tier 3 then. Skills alone can't bring it up to high Tier 3/Tier 4, and the rest doesn't really have the flexibility required, as most of the class is still "Apply heavy object A to facial structure B, but BETTER."

It also feels, to me, like the skill portion is oddly grafted on to a chassis that feels much more like a pure-combat class. I find the 8+ skill points, the all-skills-are-class-skills, and the d20 HD to be really out of place.

[Benly]

Superior jumping, AoE effects and battlefield control through status conditions (although that's in-combat), aforementioned blindsense and scent, ability to overcome Damage Reduction and hardness (which helps bypass obstacles)...alright. I'll admit that it's not as great a difference as it seems I implied, but I do think the Warblade is a bit more versatile outside of combat (although not by much), and MUCH more versatile IN combat.

Superior jumping is a mobility advantage which I would put in the same bin as the climb speed and swim speed - there are some things that high jumping can do that climb speed + ignoring difficult terrain can't (hop over a pit of lava), but then there are also some things that a climb speed and swim speed can do that high jumping can't (climb a wall of arbitrary height, anything involving aquatic combat). Overcoming hardness is nice, but fairly limited unless you plan to actually just drill your way through a dungeon.

The warblade is more versatile in a fight, but for purposes of tier placement I think all that really matters on that front is that both are powerful in combat. "Swing weapon, enemy is gibbed, repeat as desired" is boring but it gets the job done as far as winning fights goes.


It also feels, to me, like the skill portion is oddly grafted on to a chassis that feels much more like a pure-combat class. I find the 8+ skill points, the all-skills-are-class-skills, and the d20 HD to be really out of place.

As I've said there are a couple of skill-based class features. The +2 to all skills is a little silly (it should probably scale) but taking 10 on all skills, including ones that don't normally allow taking 10, is pretty good. So is ignoring armor penalties for a character who's supposed to be a hybrid heavy-fighter and skillmonkey.

There's definitely a lot more fighting than utility in the class features, though, which the OP should address if he wants tier-boosting versatility.

[Phosphate]

Ahh, done. Also increased skills to 12+int per level and made him become invulnerable to ALL ability damage very early, and made him have a minimum of 12 in all stats. Also made him able to take 20. Also have +10 competence bonus.


By the way, don't forget that he can swap away ANY of his feats (including the feats he gains automatically at first level: Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, and Leadership) so that's an instant bonus.

About him not bypassing DR/hardness: your opponents will die from ability damage too quick to matter.

[Reluctance]

Fly.

Go on an extended underwater adventure.

Travel to another plane. Survive and/or get around there. Make your own.

Change the battlefield so that a swarm of enemies can't just run around you.

Bring back the dead.

The skill points and the ability to rejigger your build at will make this a strong T3. You're still either at the mercy of spell effects (Abrupt Jaunt laughs at Annihilating Strike), or dependent on triple-digit epic DCs to pull off (Balancing on a cloud, Escape artist out of a Wall of Force, etc.) Until then, though, you don't quite get the level of "yes, there's a spell for that" that you have to leap to get into the real power games.

[Phosphate]

Fly.

Go on an extended underwater adventure.

Travel to another plane. Survive and/or get around there. Make your own.

Change the battlefield so that a swarm of enemies can't just run around you.

Bring back the dead.

You're still either at the mercy of spell effects (Abrupt Jaunt laughs at Annihilating Strike), or dependent on triple-digit epic DCs to pull off (Balancing on a cloud, Escape artist out of a Wall of Force, etc.) Until then, though, you don't quite get the level of "yes, there's a spell for that" that you have to leap to get into the real power games.

The bolded you can already kind of do - first with Giant's Jump, second with Greater Threatened Space. The underlined I will add. The italics are kind of not an issue: he doesn't really care about spell effects, since he trumps everything with a save via his high saves, kills everything that is conjured with brute force, instantly disbelieves all illusions left and right and when he is in a situation he did not prepare for, all he needs to do is run away. With his vastly increased speed and immunity to difficult terrain, that's a trife. As for epic DCs...he can beat them easily. He has a +10 competence bonus on ALL skills he has ranks in, he can always manage to max his favorite skills (what with a minimum of 13 sp per level), all his stat modifiers are in the positive and from level 15 he can take 20 on everything (which beats all DCs up to 49 on its own...if the relevant modifier is +1, which is hardly the case for him due to Training. And don't get me started on how broken Aid Another is when you use it in conjunction with leadership).

[Reluctance]

I could point flaws, but point conceded. Class features can fill the same design space that spells do. Even without the overpoweredness here; refluff appropriate spells into abilities, and grab some o the ones here. Take an NPC warrior, and let him grab one or two such moves per level. So long as the moves scale appropriately, you'll rival a sorcerer. (Keep in mind that you will have to be silly at times. Kicking reality in the nards hard enough to alter it to your liking, mimicking Wish, is an appropriate ability to grab at level 20.)