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Phosphate
2012-04-29, 12:26 AM
Here's a class that walks you through several features that basically...get you to choose between different options to get you either closer to a caster or a non-caster.

And I admit that if you take only spellcaster options, it is worse than a full spellcaster, and if you take only mundane options, it is better than most mundane classes, but that's how it goes most of the time.

The Mystical Fighter

Alignment
Any

Hit Die
d8

Class Skills
Bluff, Concentration, Craft, Intimidate, Knowledge (Arcana), Profession, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, Tumble

Skill Points at 1st level
(2 + Int modifier)X4

Skill Points at Each Additional Level
2 + Int modifier

{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special

1st|+0|+2|+2|+2|Diverse Learning, Utility or Accuracy

2nd|+1|+3|+3|+3|Presence or Lightness, Crossroad

3rd|+2|+3|+3|+3|Armored Casting

4th|+3|+4|+4|+4|A feat of mind or body

5th|+3|+4|+4|+4|Diverse Learning, Crossroad

6th|+4|+5|+5|+5|Utility or Accuracy

7th|+5|+5|+5|+5|Presence or Lightness

8th|+6/+1|+6|+6|+6|Crossroad, A feat of mind or body

9th|+6/+1|+6|+6|+6|Diverse Learning

10th|+7/+2|+7|+7|+7|Greater Armored Casting

11th|+8/+3|+7|+7|+7|Utility or Accuracy, Crossroad

12th|+9/+4|+8|+8|+8|Presence or Lightness, A feat of mind or body

13th|+9/+4|+8|+8|+8|Diverse Learning

14th|+10/+5|+9|+9|+9|Crossroad

15th|+11/+6/+1|+9|+9|+9|Guile Edge

16th|+12/+7/+2|+10|+10|+10|Utility or Accuracy, A feat of mind or body

17th|+12/+7/+2|+10|+10|+10|Presence or Lightness, Diverse Learning, Crossroad

18th|+13/+8/+3|+11|+11|+11|Swap of Knowledge

19th|+14/+9/+4|+11|+11|+11|Streak of Grandeur

20th|+15/+10/+5|+12|+12|+12|Crossroad, A feat of mind or body

[/table]

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the mystical fighter.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency
A mystical fighter is proficient with all simple weapons, light armor, and no shields.

Spellcasting: A mystical fighter casts arcane spells drawn from the sor/wiz spell list. He starts off with two 0 level spells and two 0 level spell slots. To learn a spell, a mystical fighter must have a Cha score of 10+spell level or higher. The DC of their spells is 10+spell level+cha modifier. Their CL is equal to their class level.

Mystical Fighters are spontaneous casters and need not prepare their spells in advance. They regain all their spell slots simply by sleeping for 8 hours.

Mystical fighters don't have a rigid progression; they gain spells known, spell levels and spell slots from class features only. A mystical fighter does NOT gain bonus slots from having a high casting stat.

Diverse Learning: At level 1, and every 4 levels thereafter, a mystical fighter may either choose to learn 3 new spells of levels that they can cast (he may only learn 1 spell of the highest level, unless the highest level is 0) or gain one of the features below. If they choose a feature, they also become proficient with one martial weapon of their choice, OR with armor 1 step better. Unless noted otherwise, every feature can only be taken once.



Counterstrike (Ex): Whenever an opponent attacks you in melee combat and misses, you may give up an AoO to attack him back at your full BaB.

Shifting Blow (Ex): Make a melee attack as a standard action against an opponent. Subtract his AC from your attack roll and gain the result as a dodge bonus (or penalty, as may be the case) to your AC until your next round. Cannot be used two rounds in a row. You may take this feature twice, if you do, the restriction no longer applies.

Forked Path (Ex): You may turn once while charging.

Joust (Ex): If you move towards an opponent in a straight line, with no difficult terrain in front of you, and successfully hit him with a melee attack, deal 1 more damage for every square of movement. This can only be applied to a single attack per round.

Off-balance (Ex): All opponents who make an AoO against you must make a Ref save against a DC of 10+class level/2+Str mod. If they fail, they lose their next move action.

Hit and Run (Ex): Attack an opponent in melee as a standard action. If you beat their AC and deal lethal damage, you gain an additional move action this round.

Parry (Ex): Whenever you are attacked, except for a touch attack, as an immediate action, you may substitute your AC with an attack roll.

Training of the Colossus (Ex): Choose any of the following: trip, bull rush, grapple, overrun, wielding weapons. You are treated as being 1 size category larger for the purpose of any roll pertaining to your choice or, in the case of wielding weapons, to larger weapons. This feature may be taken multiple times, every time, you must choose differently.

Strong Legs (Ex): Increase your base speed by 10 feet. Also, you may always take 10 on Climb checks.

Adrenaline (Ex): Whenever you succeed on a fort or will save, you heal 5 hit points and deal 4 more damage on your next attack (doesn't stack).



Utility or Accuracy: At level 1, and every 5 levels thereafter, you may either choose to gain an untyped +2 increase to your attack rolls or gain +1 spell slot to all spell levels (if you have not unlocked a spell level yet, when you do, you will gain +1 spell slots to it for every instance that you chose this).

Presence or Lightness: At level 2, and every 5 levels thereafter, you may either choose to increase your CL by +1 for the purpose of DC and overcoming SR only, or gain an untyped bonus of +1 to AC.

Crossroad: At level 2, and every 3 levels thereafter, you may choose to either add +1d4 damage to all your melee attacks and gain DR 2/-- (both stacking), or unlock the next spell level. By unlocking the next spell level, you gain 1 spell slot of that level and 2 spells known.

A Feat of Mind or Body: At level 4, and every 4 levels thereafter, you may either gain a metamagic feat or two feats from the fighter bonus feat list. You must meet the prerequisites of those feats.

Armored Casting (Ex): A level 3 mystic fighter incurs only half the spell failure chance of his armor.

Greater Armored Casting (Ex): A level 10 mystic fighter ignores the failure chance of his armor.

Guile Edge (Ex): Add your Int mod either to your melee damage rolls or the damage of your spells that have damage dice as part of their effect. You may change this once per day as a free action. If your int mod is 0 or negative, simply add +1 to both.

Swap of Knowledge (Ex): A level 18 mystic fighter may, as a one hour ritual that requires complete concentration, once per week, change up to 3 spells known into other spells of the same level, and once per day as a full round action, change a martial feature from Diverse learning to another.

Streak of Grandeur (Ex): Whenever you score a critical hit against a foe who has as much HD as you -2 or more, gain 1 spell slot of any spell level, except your highest 2 (unless you have only 1 or two spell levels, then you can).

Baphomet
2012-04-29, 02:17 PM
Rather than gaining BAB with utility/accuracy, you should gain some other untyped bonus to attacks. BAB should never be higher than class levels because it's used for prerequisites for feats and PrCs, and 2 BAB at level 1 is too much. So, let's follow each progression to its limit. A straight fighter build at level 20:
23 BAB
+4 armor
+7d4 damage to all attacks
DR 14/--
10 bonus fighter feats
5 other features
plus some cantrips

Compare that to an actual fighter class:
20 BAB
11 fighter feats
that's it

I'm not saying the fighter is balanced, and I'm not saying I don't like the idea of the class, but there is 0 reason for the fighter class to exist with this. I would scale back the fighter options quite a bit.

Morph Bark
2012-04-29, 02:26 PM
"Select any 15 skills"? That's bad. It's not even a skillmonkey, far from it, and yet it gets twice as many skills than a gish combo would have access to, and in those cases the skills are set in stone. Plus, that combined with the Monk-like chassis makes the chassis way too strong.

zegram 33
2012-04-29, 02:37 PM
shifting blow, parry, and counterstrike make for an almost untouchable character
other than that, interesting idea, but im confused as to how they gain higher spell levels?

to be honest though (and i mean this with absolutley no offense intended, i like the customisation options and hell, one of my homebrews is called "the mage") but its pretty generic. it would benefit from a truly standout ability, either a different one for casting and fighting, or something interchangeable that allows both to fit and back each other up.

i do like the idea, but needs a bit tighter defining, and as stated above, "any 15 skills" is excessive.
maybe draw up a list of skills that can be taken, or just do seperate "fighter" "spellslinger" and "gish" lists

Phosphate
2012-04-29, 03:39 PM
Rather than gaining BAB with utility/accuracy, you should gain some other untyped bonus to attacks.

You are perfectly right. Will change.


I'm not saying the fighter is balanced, and I'm not saying I don't like the idea of the class, but there is 0 reason for the fighter class to exist with this. I would scale back the fighter options quite a bit.

I would homebrew the fighter into a better class. But that's just me.

In my opinion, NO CLASS SHOULD BE TIER 5.


"Select any 15 skills"? That's bad. It's not even a skillmonkey, far from it, and yet it gets twice as many skills than a gish combo would have access to, and in those cases the skills are set in stone. Plus, that combined with the Monk-like chassis makes the chassis way too strong.

I was just lazy. I will add actual skills soon.


shifting blow, parry, and counterstrike make for an almost untouchable character

You have to wait a lot to get them all.


other than that, interesting idea, but im confused as to how they gain higher spell levels?

They start with level 0 spell slots. At the first crossroad, if they go magic, they gain 1 slot of level 1. And the next crossroad that they gain 1 slot, it's a level 2 slot. And so on and so forth.


to be honest though (and i mean this with absolutley no offense intended, i like the customisation options and hell, one of my homebrews is called "the mage") but its pretty generic. it would benefit from a truly standout ability, either a different one for casting and fighting, or something interchangeable that allows both to fit and back each other up.

Ok, maybe I'll add somesuch in the empty levels. But as for it being generic, the title itself tells you that there's no fluff here ;).

Kane0
2012-04-29, 07:05 PM
Hey, looks pretty good. But a little PEACH/question time from me

- Why all three good saves?
- Why 7th level spells total if you take all crossroads? Most gishes get 6th level as their highest
- Why did you pick Cha for casting?
- Why 2 fighter feats instead of one metamagic feat? And how would metamagic interact with the way you are doing spellcasting?
- Needs some abilities spread out a little. You have a good spread for the first dozen or so levels bu then it gets really cramped together followed by dead levels. You should be able to rearrange them easily enough.

I should be able to give some more detail later on. Hope this helps!

Phosphate
2012-04-30, 12:54 AM
- Why all three good saves? Cause it fits. High will cause all casters have high will, high fort cause they're sturdy on the mundane side, high ref cause their Diverse Learning evokes agility
- Why 7th level spells total if you take all crossroads? Most gishes get 6th level as their highest. If you take all crossroads as magic, it will most probably be much less a gish and much more an actual caster
- Why did you pick Cha for casting? Look up mystic on google.
- Why 2 fighter feats instead of one metamagic feat? And how would metamagic interact with the way you are doing spellcasting? Because metamagic feats are superior to fighter feats. And metamagic works perfectly ordinarily.
- Needs some abilities spread out a little. You have a good spread for the first dozen or so levels but then it gets really cramped together followed by dead levels. You should be able to rearrange them easily enough. Since they're progressions...dunno. I believe it would be easier to create new features for the dead levels than anything.

I should be able to give some more detail later on. Hope this helps!

Sure, thanks.

Btw, one of the things I want out of this class is for it to work nicely unoptimized, i.e. regardless of your choices it's still solid Tier 4.

EDIT:


Level 3,4,6,7,9,10,13,14,15,18,19 - 1 feature
Level 1,2,5,8,11,12,16,20 - 2 features
Level 17 - 3 features

Seems well spread out to me.
Reduced skill points to 2.

Phosphate
2012-05-01, 01:28 AM
So, further opinions?

Baphomet
2012-05-01, 01:54 AM
I still feel like the fightery options are a bit much.
+8 to attack rolls (pretty damn good)
+4 AC (meh)
10 bonus fighter feats (only one less than a straight fighter)
7d4 + Int bonus weapon damage (pretty damn good)
DR 14 (really damn good, a barbarian tops out at 5)
Cantrips that you can cast in any armor and which you regain with crits (meh)
five other abilities (potentially pretty damn good)

Don't you think this is just so many leagues better than the other fighty things out there?

Phosphate
2012-05-01, 02:21 AM
Don't you think this is just so many leagues better than the other fighty things out there?

Nope, warblades are still SLIGHTLY better.

Kane0
2012-05-01, 05:42 AM
How do you figure?

Im looking at it and id say this outranks a warblade just slightly in damage and gets a few other things on top that are not int dependant, and also grants feats.

I can see why youd have Fort and Will as high saves, but ref on top of that seems a bit much.
And those three abilities at level 17 seems to stand out above the rest. The ones and twos seem good as they are.

Kane0
2012-05-01, 05:45 AM
Double Post. My bad.