PDA

View Full Version : Fighter PrC: The Mercenary



Xulin
2013-07-30, 03:18 AM
The Mercenary
Hit Die
d10

Requirements
Base Attack: +5
Skills: Bluff 3 ranks, Knowledge(Local or Nobility and Royalty) 3 ranks
Feats: Endurance, and 2 other feats from the below list
Brutal Throw, Cleave, Combat Reflexes, Exotic Weapon Proficiency, Improved Grapple, Improved Initiative, Improved Unarmed Strike, Power Attack, Quick Draw, Weapon Focus, Zen Archery.

I wanted to keep the skills and feat costs relatively easy. The deisred optimum entry is fighter, as only a fighter (or a human as awesome as they are) will have the 3 feats + BAB to get in at 6th level.

Class Skills:
Bluff, Climb, Craft, Gather Information, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge(Local), Knowledge(Nobility and Royalty), Listen, Ride, Sense Motive, Survival, Swim
Skill Points at Each Level: 4 + Int modifier

Class Features

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Mercenaries are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, light and medium armors, shields (except tower shields), and one exotic weapon of their choice.

Shrewd Dealer (Ex): You gain a competance bonus to diplomacy checks equal to your class level, but only for the purposes of negotiating contracts for mercenary work.

A flavor ability - I don't want mercenaries to be Diplomancers, so it's very limited in scope.

Well-Worn (Ex): You understand the need to balance armor with mobility, and learn to take the best advantage of medium armor as a result. At 2nd level, you gain +5 to your movement speed while wearing medium armor. In addition you gain a +1 armor bonus to ac while wearing medium armor which stacks with your regular armor- this increases to +2 at 5th level and +3 at 8th level. This bonus is the result of your ability to move in your armor to take hits on more protective parts of the armor, as such, you lose this bonus if you are flat-footed or denied your dex bonus to AC.

I feel that 3.5 in general gives medium armor a pretty bad shake - people either wear light or heavy armor. And them medium armors people wear tend to be of the mithral variety (I hate mithral for this reason). The mercenary, at least should be decked out in medium armor. I wanted to mitigate the penalties while making it better overall, so this is mainly a numbers bonus *yawn I know*. Perhaps I should add a Trick related to armor somehow...

Tricks of the Trade (Ex): At 1st level and every 3 levels afterward (4th, 7th, 10th), you learn a special trick that you can perform in combat. You must select the trick learned when you gain the level, and once selected, the choice cannot be later changed. You can't select the same trick more than once, unless otherwise specified.

I tried to make abilities that would synergise well with mainstream fighter tactics, but I'm still looking to add more Tricks of the Trade to this list, and I'm open to suggestions. In particular I'm trying to come up with decent capstone abilities, but those are always the hardest it seems.

Blinding Strike: As a full round action, you may make a single attack with a slashing weapon. If your attack is successful, your opponent must make a reflex save (DC = 10 + class level + your Wisdom modifier) or be blinded for 1d4 rounds. You may now use your exploit weakness ability against blind opponents.

Skull Cracker: As a full round action, you may make a single attack with a bludgeoning or slashing weapon. If your attack is successful, your opponent must make a will save (DC = 10 + class level + your Wisdom modifier) or become dazed for 1 round. You may now use your exploit weakness ability against dazed opponents.

Painful Thrust: As a full round action, you may make a single attack with a piercing weapon. If your attack is successful, your opponent must make a reflex save (DC = 10 + class level + your Wisdom modifier) or be staggered for 1d4 rounds. You may now use your exploit weakness ability against staggered opponents.

The point behind these abilities is to give the mercenary a mechanic for being relevant in combat aside from the simple "I hit it with my sword" or "I trip it" types of effects. Making the attack a full round action, I feel makes it a choice, to balance it out against other combat manuevers. The reason the effects and saves are separated by weapon type is to encourage weapon versatility, and also targeting different saves for tactical assaulting of other defenses.

Infighting: While in a grapple, you may attack with a light weapon without penalty. In addition, you may add your Exploit Weakness damage to your damage with a light weapon against an opponent you are grappling.

Light weapons in the hands of strength characters should be viable too! You can make a grappler fighter, but it seems like a waste to just have him use the standard unarmed damage bonus. More stabs!

Master at Arms: You are treated as having the weapon focus feat in every weapon with which you are proficient. While this does not increase your attack rolls, it allows you to qualify for feats and prestige classes which have weapon focus as a prerequisite. In addition, you may apply the effects of the following feats with all melee and thrown weapons with which you are proficient, as long as those effects can be applied legally:
Greater Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Specialization, Improved Critical, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization

I think this ability is pretty fair. It does nothing by itself, but makes certain feats more viable - perticularly any of the weapon style feats (why multiple weapon focuses why???). It's also good for segwaying into other "I learn a trick" classes, like the Master Thrower or Exotic Weapon Master.

Counter Retreat: If an opponent moves out of one of your threatened spaces to a space out of your reach, you may make an attack with a thrown weapon in hand as an attack of opportunity. If you have the Quick Draw feat, you may draw a weapon before attacking. You gain your exploit weakness damage for this attack.

Thrown weapons are good. I want to basically push this class to Str and Wis synergy - that being said, I prefer thrown weapons as sort of the back pocket trick. I felt this would be an interesting divergance from the normal "punish enemies from moving out of my threatened spaces" ability; I wanted some trick for this without stepping on the toes of other classes like the knight's difficult terrain ability.

Battlefield Charge: When performing a charge, you may move through difficult terrain, and through allied spaces, but you must still be able to move at least 10 feet for your charge.

Makes charges more viable (if you're into that sort of thing), and honestly, this is something that makes sense for a mercenary to have anyway, what with them being on battlefields a lot and stuff.

Survival Instinct: You gain the benefits of the Combat Expertise feat. This counts as Combat Expertise for all intents and purposes, save that you may use it while under the effects of Desperation. In addition, you may qualify

for feats which have Combat Expertise as a prerequisite, but you replace any Int requirements for the feat with a Wis requirement of the same amount.

This is basically Combat Expertise, as a bonus feat, but usable in the mercenaries "rage" ability. Also, I feel that wisdom is more helpful to a warrior/fighter than simple int.

Twin Swing: When carrying a melee weapon in each hand, a mercenary with this ability may make a melee attack with both weapons as a standard action or a charge action. Make one attack roll at your highest attack bonus with a -2 penalty - if you succeed you deal damage as though you hit with both weapons. For this attack, you treat each weapon as a one-handed weapon for calculating power attack damage.

Another ability I want to be careful with, lest I step on some toes. I wanted to give this guy (primarily Str/Wis) a chance for some TWF fun, without the TWF. As such, this works a little differently from the normal shtick. Rather than getting lots of attacks with both weapons, you make one strong hit with both of them at once. Rather than a flurry of attacks, I wanted the off-hand weapon to be a more situational choice - and maybe open up interesting pairings like whip-dagger and short sword, for instance.

Parry: If you're hit by a melee attack while weilding a melee weapon you may attempt a parry as an immediate action. Make an attack roll with your off hand weapon at your highest base attack bonus (light weapons gain +2 to this roll) - if your attack roll beats your opponents roll, you deflect the attack and it misses you.

I know I said you're wearing medium armor, but sometimes that's not enough. Sometimes you wake up hung over in the middle of the woods naked and your only weapon is a stick(club) you found; you'll be glad you took this ability then. Also, this is to help our situational two-weapon fighter by making the light weapon a parrying weapon. I was thinking about making this eat an AoO instead using your immediate action - too powerful?

Desperation (Ex): Through the course of your battles, you've aquired an incredible instinct to survive, which allows you to fight on instinct alone, even while under effects and conditions that would impede you. Beginning at 2nd level, Whenever your hit point total is brought below half your maximum hit points in an encounter, desperation automatically activates. You gain a +4 bonus to your Strength score and a +2 bonus to reflex saves. While desperation is active, you may reroll one attack roll per round, although you must make your decision to reroll before the success or failure of the attack roll has been announced.
While desperation is active, you have the same limitation on actions as a barbarian in rage. Your desperation ability lasts until the end of the encounter, if you fall unconscious, become helpless, or if your hitpoints are healed to above half of your maximum.
At 8th level the bonus to Strength increases to +6, and the bonus to Reflex saves increases to +3.

People who've read PHII may recognise this as being very similar to the Barbarian substitute class feature Berserker Fury. This is intentional - looking at various "Yes fighters suck, no they don't" threads, it seems that daily limits of things like rage tend to put people off. I felt that the Berserker fury ability was actually pretty good, but not so much for barbarians, primarily because it was based on Barbarian levels for the hp whack: to fix that I based it off of total hit points.
One of the design goals I had for this PRC is "No daily abilities". So this is a modified version of that ability - I took some inspiration from a couple of the "rages" to try to create something a little unique to the mercenary. The reroll of an attack is not as good (IMO of course) as the extra attack gained from Whirling Frenzy; the idea with this is, he's not attacking extra agressively, but extra skillfully to try and make every hit count.
May need to add a no-stack clause with rage or rage-like effects.

Exploit Weakness (Ex): Starting at 3st level, you gain the ability to take advantage of certain gaps in your opponents defenses. When you make a melee attack an opponent who is prone, flanked (not neccissarily by you), or does not threaten melee attacks (such as an opponent equipped with a longbow), you deal an additional 1d6 damage. This bonus to damage increases by an addtional 1d6 damage at 6th, 9th levels.

The primary purpose of this ability is to give the Mercenary a sort of extra damage mechanic that I can base other class abilities off of. Originally I was thinking of a 1,4,7,10 progression, with tricks on the 3,6,9, but I decided against that. More tricks less straight up bonus damage! One thing to note is that this is not precision damage. But maybe it should be?

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

1st|+1|+2|+0|+0|Shrewd Dealer, Tricks of the Trade

2nd|+2|+3|+0|+0|Well-Worn +1, Desperation I

3rd|+3|+3|+1|+1|Exploit Weakness 1d6

4th|+4|+4|+1|+1|Tricks of the Trade

5th|+5|+4|+1|+1|Well-Worn +2

6th|+6|+5|+2|+2|Exploit Weakness 2d6

7th|+7|+5|+2|+2|Tricks of the Trade

8th|+8|+6|+2|+2|Well-Worn +3, Desperation II

9th|+9|+6|+3|+3|Exploit Weakness 3d6

10th|+10|+7|+3|+3|Tricks of the Trade
[/table]

Things to do:
Add more tricks, and capstone tricks.

Xerlith
2013-07-30, 03:38 AM
1. If you add a table, it'll be much easier to read.
2.

Requirements
Base Attack: +5
Feats: Endurance, and 2 other feats from the below list
Skills: Bluff 3 ranks, Knowledge(Local or Nobility and Royalty) 3 ranks
Brutal Throw, Cleave, Combat Reflexes, Exotic Weapon Proficiency, Improved Grapple, Improved Initiative, Improved Unarmed Strike, Power Attack, Quick Draw, Weapon Focus, Zen Archery.

Clarify it.
For example.


Requirements:
Base Attack: +5
Skills: Bluff 3 ranks, Knowledge(Local or Nobility and Royalty) 3 ranks
Feats: Endurance, and 2 other feats from the below list:
Brutal Throw, Cleave, Combat Reflexes, Exotic Weapon Proficiency, Improved Grapple, Improved Initiative, Improved Unarmed Strike, Power Attack, Quick Draw, Weapon Focus, Zen Archery.

Xefas
2013-07-30, 03:59 AM
Posters whose names start with 'X', represent.

Here's your table:

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

1st|+1|+2|+0|+0|Shrewd Dealer, Tricks of the Trade

2nd|+2|+3|+0|+0|Well-Worn +1, Desperation I

3rd|+3|+3|+1|+1|Exploit Weakness 1d6

4th|+4|+4|+1|+1|Tricks of the Trade

5th|+5|+4|+1|+1|Well-Worn +2

6th|+6|+5|+2|+2|Exploit Weakness 2d6

7th|+7|+5|+2|+2|Tricks of the Trade

8th|+8|+6|+2|+2|Well-Worn +3, Desperation II

9th|+9|+6|+3|+3|Exploit Weakness 3d6

10th|+10|+7|+3|+3|Tricks of the Trade
[/table]


Just paste the code:


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

1st|+1|+2|+0|+0|Shrewd Dealer, Tricks of the Trade

2nd|+2|+3|+0|+0|Well-Worn +1, Desperation I

3rd|+3|+3|+1|+1|Exploit Weakness 1d6

4th|+4|+4|+1|+1|Tricks of the Trade

5th|+5|+4|+1|+1|Well-Worn +2

6th|+6|+5|+2|+2|Exploit Weakness 2d6

7th|+7|+5|+2|+2|Tricks of the Trade

8th|+8|+6|+2|+2|Well-Worn +3, Desperation II

9th|+9|+6|+3|+3|Exploit Weakness 3d6

10th|+10|+7|+3|+3|Tricks of the Trade
[/table]

Xulin
2013-07-31, 12:24 AM
Ah, Thank you Xerlith and Xefas. I'm unaccustomed to forum posting in general, so your tags were of great use.

What do you think of the class itself?

Huh, yes, we are all 'X' names aren't we. X is so cool you can sign with only that, after all :smallwink:

Xerlith
2013-07-31, 03:20 AM
Yeah. :smalltongue:

As for the class itself, I guess I can't really say anything bad about it. It's balanced, I guess, and gives some more so desired options to the Fighter.
Definitely needs a capstone though.