T.G. Oskar
2013-12-12, 12:40 AM
At a glance, it feels like too much, but given how the composite classes behave, it wouldn't be game-breaking. However, once analyzed carefully, the suggested quadra-stalt would have a major problem, exactly like our friend the Monk has. Let's analyze it bit-by-bit:
Chassis: The suggested class would have a d10 Hit Dice, full BAB, good Fortitude and Reflex saves, proficiency with all simple and martial weapons plus the hand crossbow, and proficiency with all kinds of armor and shields, including tower shields (except the exotic forms of armor and shield, because they exist later). This isn't really surprising, but it's a good start; very little difference from the core Paladin or Fighter, except for the hand crossbow tacked in.
The skill list, on the other hand, would be HUGE. The Rogue's skill list is pretty vast, and you're adding in several Knowledge skills (Dungeoneering, Geography, History, Nature, Nobility and Royalty, Religion), Heal, Survival, Concentration, Ride and Handle Animal. You get some of the "broken" skills in the game (Forgery as it cannot be blocked unless for another Forgery check; UMD for using magic items, Handle Animal to rear various beasts and even some 1 or 2 Int magical beasts), plus many decent ones. You're mostly missing some Knowledge skills and Spellcraft.
1st level: The suggested quadra-stalt would get one daily use of Smite Evil, an Aura of Good, the ability to Detect Evil, two bonus feats (the Fighter bonus feat and Track, from the Ranger), one favored enemy, Wild Empathy, trapfinding and one dice of Sneak Attack. Assuming the basics, you get pretty strong at combat (that bonus feat has to be on a Fighter bonus feat, which means you're probably aiming for one that enhances your fighting style, and Sneak Attack means you deal extra damage with your weapons), but you're better at certain creatures (your favored enemy and evil creatures, mostly). Against an evil-aligned favored enemy, if hiding, once per day you can pretty much auto-kill it (Smite ensures you hit, Favored Enemy + Smite + Sneak Attack means you deal a minimum of 4 damage + Str modifier + 1 from your weapon). Outside of combat, you can calm animals, detect creatures of evil alignment and search/defuse dangerous traps, not to mention follow your quarry (AKA following the DM's rails).
Removing the alignment restraints, you get the ability to smite one creature of your choice, an aura based off your alignments, and the ability to detect creatures of one alignment, but choosing which alignment to detect. That's pretty nice, actually.
Level 2: Prepare, because HERE is where the problems begin. You get another Fighter bonus feat, Evasion, your choice of combat style (archery or two-weapon fighting), your Charisma to saving throws and Lay on Hands. For starters, you'll notice that Evasion and your combat style will depend on you wearing light armor, so unless you have a Mithral Breastplate around, you'll lose on some of the benefits, which means slightly lower AC than a Fighter or Paladin. Second, you depend on, at least, Strength, Constitution and Charisma (the latter for Divine Grace and the success rate of Wild Empathy, not to mention the attack bonus from your Smites). That means you have Wisdom, Dexterity and Intelligence as your potential dump stats, but the loss of Int will hurt your Int-based skills (of which Disable Device and Search are two) and your skill points, and with that HUGE skill list, it's bound to hurt.
Level 3: Here you get Endurance as a bonus feat, your second dice of Sneak Attack, immunity to fear and disease, and your first instance of trap sense. While you get little, this level really ramps up your defensive qualities (your already formidable Reflex saves will be even HIGHER against traps, by stacking Divine Grace and Trap Sense), and you get some nice immunities. So far, so good.
Level 4: Here you get Turn Undead, another Fighter bonus feat, Uncanny Dodge, an Animal Companion, and your first few spells. Assuming a unified spell list, you get all Paladin and Ranger spells, as early as possible you can cast them. Going merely by the basics, you need Wisdom to cast any spell, so that's ANOTHER ability you need to add. If you chose, for some strange and odd reason, the Archery combat style, you need Dexterity and Intelligence as well. Congrats; even if you change spellcasting to Intelligence, you're as MAD as the Monk. Your best bet to minimize MAD is to allow your spellcasting to be based off Charisma, as that gets loads of use, wear a mithral breastplate to depend as little as possible on Dex, and go TWF with decent weapons; that way, you're mostly depending on Strength, Constitution and Charisma. That'll hurt your skill points, but it's as best as you can pull off.
Level 5: You get another favored enemy, one of the two favored enemies gets better, another use of Smite (and some decent damage with it, for once), another Sneak Attack damage dice, and your Special Mount. Just before reaching the end of E6, your character has two partners (one mount and one companion, so any of the two can flank with you if desired), and your melee attacks are pretty solid. You can't choose Craven (you're immune to fear, after all), though, so not as much as a Rogue would reach. You're still out of spells from your spell slots, though. If you chose Archery, you can attempt to mix it with Mounted Archery and make some use of it (coincidentally removing the need for heavy armor as you'll be out of the fray); however, TWF gets threatened by the sheer power of mounted combat with a lance. The sheer amount of feats, though, should allow you to diversify a bit.
Level 6: The end of E6, and the moment where spellcasters begin to shine. Here, you get another Fighter bonus feat, advance your combat style and trap sense, and...get one use of Remove Disease. Not very good, but levels 4 and 5 are top-notch here.
Levels 7-10: Right in the mid-game, you get two more SA dice, redundant access to Evasion (to be fair, this option could be replaced through ACF), Woodland Stride and Swift Tracker, another use of Smite and Remove Disease, another Favored Enemy, access to 2nd level spells, advanced Trap Sense, two Fighter bonus feats and a Rogue's special ability. Around this moment, the quadra-stalt loses some steam, as the heavy picking is done through spellcasting and UMD, mostly; your damage starts to suffer due to more enemies becoming resilient to Sneak Attack, but FE and Smite help somewhat. By now, you're probably a master of two or three combat styles: Mounted Combat, Archery or TWF, and a third one (potentially PA/Leap Attack/Shock Trooper, or if you have decent Int, CE/Imp. Trip/Stand Still or Knockdown/Robilar's Gambit or Karmic Strike), but being capable of switching between the three won't help that much. Of those, the most favorable would be fighting with a lance, a composite longbow and a reach weapon, since you can net Mounted Archery that way and let Archery be slightly more efficient; if they get too close, then you shift to your reach weapon and trip them to death. You then follow up with charging the ones who escape, cutting their path with your Animal Companion (which, by now, should have changed into a Bear or something).
Levels 11-15: You get your Combat Style Mastery, access to 3rd and 4th level spells, three extra Sneak Attack damage dice, another Rogue special ability, an extra use of Smite and TWO uses of Remove Disease, your mount probably lets you fly by now, another favored enemy, Camouflage and about two extra Fighter bonus feats. Once again, you're surviving because of your spells, but they pale in comparison to those of any spellcaster (Bard included), any armor heavier than light cramps your Hide skills (so Camouflage pretty much fails to work), and you might start to rely more on your mount (as your companion simply can't catch up).
Levels 16-20: You get two extra SA damage dice, your final use of Smite and Remove Disease, your last favored enemy (and a potential bonus of +10 to a single one, or a spread out bonus between two or three), extraordinary Hide in Plain Sight, two Rogue special abilities, capped Smite damage and Trap Sense, and three additional Fighter bonus feats. If you don't notice the trend by now, here's the deal: your mount and Mounted Combat will probably define your offensive even if flying (Archery can help but only barely), your spells are working overtime (and you can't get enough of them), you're MAD no matter what (you're relying on at least 4 stats, ALWAYS, even if you shift spellcasting to Int, unless you focus on melee), and you're limited to light armor or medium mithral armor at most (to allow some of your class skills to work). Dumping Int will SERIOUSLY hurt your skill potential, and with so many good skills to have, you'll have to choose which are the most important.
So, in summary, the MADness and the incompatible abilities hint of the Monk problem, you get most of the Monk's goodies (incredible survivability), and you barely edge away from the Monk because of your spellcasting, your mount, your companion, your boatload of feats, your additional damage from SA and the Rogue's special abilities (which range from additional feats, Crippling Strike for debuffing, Defensive Roll for increased survivability, Opportunist for blended crowd control with a tripper build, and Slippery Mind for increased resistance against your mind-affecting abilities, which target your weakest stat).
Going only with Core (not even the SRD), you edge out from the basic counterparts (Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue) and the Monk. The Barbarian can stand out due to its decent damage potential, unless you happen to charge against the one opponent you have as a favored enemy, and double if it happens to be denied its Dex bonus to AC and isn't immune to SA. The combination might compare to the Bard, but it's quite unfocused. Of course, you're no threat to the casters, not even with your Supermount and your barely decent Animal Companion.
Adding supplements, the quadra-stalt edges out even further: you can go with Battle Blessing to quicken your Ranger spells, you get a well-padded spell list (with Hunter's Mercy for even MORE SA, plus Gravestrike and Plantstrike for your SA needs), Ubercharger gets even MORE deadly with Valorous Lance and Rhino's Rush, and you can take advantage of ACFs to replace some of the redundant stuff (like the second instance of Evasion from the Ranger). However, if compared to, say, a Swordsage or Warblade? Still falls flat, because of the lack of focus. They're probably better outside of battle than a Martial Adept, but inside, they'll have to rely on their limited spellcasting and their companions to succeed, and if the opponent is immune to SA, they lose a LOT of their power. On the other hand, Divine feats make TU a valuable resource. Yet, by this time, they're facing a more robust (and dangerous) Bard, a Factotum that can pretty much match them blow by blow (and reach dangerously close if they get Wild Cohort as a feat), or a Binder (with or without Zceryll).
Core-only, they do a borderline Tier 3-4, because their lack of focus lets them do many good things, but it depends on your choices. With supplements, they're firmly in Tier 3, but Tier 2 has nothing to fear from them. To reach Tier 2, they'd need to have at least the Mystic Ranger's spellcasting potential and Sword of the Arcane Order, with a dash of Mystic Fire Knight on the side. Wildshape wouldn't send them to Tier 2 even if they could, unless they have a way to make their mount combat-worthy (a Griffon, for example), but then they'd lose some of the nice things from the Fighter side of things.
I think the highest potential for the quadra-stalt would imply getting the Dungeon Crasher and Zhentarim Fighter sub-levels for Fighter, the Mystic Ranger spellcasting capabilities but based on Charisma (as you'll rely on Charisma a lot, a divorced-from-alignment Smite (and even then, it'd do little), Wild Shape, a better-progression Animal Companion (half level won't work, and half-level +3 though Nature's Bond barely makes ends meet; perhaps trade for Urban Companion?), subbing one of the Evasions for an ACF and making the remaining Evasion work with at least Medium armor (thus, you can equip heavy armor without troubles) or regardless of armor if you equip a Tower Shield (as it'd provide cover), trade Trap Sense for Spell Sense (your AC and Reflex will be nearly stratospherical, so no need for them), Arcane Hunter, the goodies from Mystic Fire Knight (but not 4th level, as you don't want to replace Turn Undead), Shooting Star Ranger (but again, no 4th level for the loss of Animal Companion, unless your mount is prepared to do triple duty) and Harmonious Knight (free Inspire Courage, Inspire Competence and Inspire Greatness; can you qualify for Song of the Heart now?), the Lightbringer Penetrating Strike ACF, and replace Imp. Evasion for Friend Evasion (now every one of your allies can evade!). That's dangerously close to Tier 2, but still away. Even suggesting to get 10 + Int skill points per day won't take them THAT far. They'd still need to spend feats (of which they get a lot, strangely enough) on Battle Blessing, Sword of the Arcane Order and From Smite to Song to work it out, and maybe ways to get more uses of Smite.
T.G. Oskar
2013-12-12, 02:18 AM
Okay, but how about combining them, not as a gestalt, but into a concept mash-up class, with newly imagined class features that reflect a combination of all four classes' schticks? Some sort of Knight Errant thing with 6 skill points per level, 6th level spells, bonus feats and a three-in-one Favored Enemy/Smite Evil/Sneak Attack mechanic? Y'know, I think it could work...
Egad, the task of combining those into a single class sounds dreadful. :smalleek:
Not as hard as you'd think. So, Zieg: planning something a la PF's Advanced Class Guide?
Well, for starters, the "three-in-one" mechanic would essentially be like PF's Smite Evil: at 1st level, once per day you mark one creature with the Mark of Judgment. For up to a certain time (1 day/class level?), you gain a bonus on skills against the target, you add your Charisma bonus to attack rolls and deal extra damage (perhaps not 1d6, but surely something more than 1 point of damage per class level) against it. The ability would improve with levels, probably in the same way as Skirmish. Detect Evil could exist as a supernatural ability to sense your marked quarry.
From Fighter, the class would get the bonus feats, but not once every 2 levels. Probably once every three, with the caveat of choosing between Fighter bonus feats, Divine feats and perhaps one or two more (Domain feats?); as well, they'd qualify as a Fighter of a few levels lower. From Paladin, the class would probably get the Lay on Hands from PF (1d6/2 levels healing, can be used to power up Divine feats, you get 1/2 level + Cha modifier uses) and probably Divine Grace or Aura of Courage. From Ranger, you'd keep the Combat Style, but well expanded (think Archery, Mounted Combat, Sword & Board, Two-Handed Fighting, Two-Weapon Fighting), and maybe the tracking abilities. From Rogue, you'd keep...Evasion?
Thinking about the Special Abilities, they'd get them earlier than before, and probably adding up all the features that were left: Aura of Courage could be turned into an Ex version that provides the boon, and similar traits could be added for charms/compulsions, sickened/nauseated and dazed/stunned, Woodland Stride, Swift Tracker and Wild Empathy would probably be special abilities. You could get up to 6-7 class features that way. Potentially, Evasion and/or Mettle could also turn into Special Abilities.
The mount would be the bigger change. It'd be a hybrid of both, but progressing much like the Mount. In fact, the Holy Liberator's Celestial Companion is a perfect example, except for the template; it gives an example of how non-mounts can be powered up. However, you'd get only one companion, not more than one.
Chassis-wise, it'd probably be d8 (you get the equivalent of three d8's per level, with only a single d10 adding slightly more), full BAB, definitely good Fort and Reflex saves, and let's go for 6+Int skill points for the heck of it. The bloated skill list would lose UMD (you get spells to compensate, though) and perhaps a few more, but would probably keep stealth skills, face skills, most Knowledge skills, Survival, perception skills and animal handling skills. The rest are up to grabs; don't really see Trapfinding amongst it, and hence no DD/Open Lock.
Finally, the spells. It'd be a grab-bag of Cleric and Druid spells, with the unique Paladin and Ranger spells placed according to their overall power. It would lack some spells (not sure how many attack spells it would get, if any; Raise Dead/Reincarnation is straight out of the game, though), but otherwise would be a superb buffer. Since it's neither a Paladin nor a Ranger, it'd have some sort of Battle Blessing-esque ability usable only a few times per day.
Just by looking at it, it has a VERY strong Hunter vibe, so no Knight-Errant for you. It could easily be the 3.5 version of PF's Inquisitor, though, but with a bit more oomph. How about that?
Ziegander
2013-12-12, 02:23 AM
The Knight-Errant
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/393_ampersand_1.jpg
Alignment: Any Good
Hit Die: 1d10
{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special |1st|2nd|3rd|4th
1st|+1|+2|+2|+2|Smite Evil (+1d6, +0AC), Track, Trapfinding||||
2nd|+2|+3|+3|+3|Bonus Feat||||
3rd|+3|+3|+3|+3|Smite Evil (+1d6, +1AC)||||
4th|+4|+4|+4|+4|Bonus Feat|0|||
5th|+5|+4|+4|+4|Smite Evil (+2d6, +1AC)|0|||
6th|+6/+1|+5|+5|+5|Bonus Feat|1|||
7th|+7/+2|+5|+5|+5|Smite Evil (+2d6, +2AC)|1|||
8th|+8/+3|+6|+6|+6|Bonus Feat|1|0||
9th|+9/+4|+6|+6|+6|Smite Evil (+3d6, +2AC)|1|0||
10th|+10/+5|+7|+7|+7|Bonus Feat|1|1||
11th|+11/+6/+1|+7|+7|+7|Smite Evil (+3d6, +3AC)|1|1|0|
12th|+12/+7/+2|+8|+8|+8|Bonus Feat|1|1|1|
13th|+13/+8/+3|+8|+8|+8|Smite Evil (+4d6, +3AC)|1|1|1|
14th|+14/+9/+4|+9|+9|+9|Bonus Feat|2|1|1|0
15th|+15/+10/+5|+9|+9|+9|Smite Evil (+4d6, +4AC)|2|1|1|1
16th|+16/+11/+6/+1|+10|+10|+10|Bonus Feat|2|2|1|1
17th|+17/+12/+7/+2|+10|+10|+10|Smite Evil (+5d6, +4AC)|2|2|2|1
18th|+18/+13/+8/+3|+11|+11|+11|Bonus Feat|3|2|2|1
19th|+19/+14/+9/+4|+11|+11|+11|Smite Evil (+5d6, +5AC)|3|3|3|2
20th|+20/+15/+10/+5|+12|+12|+12|Bonus Feat|3|3|3|3
[/table]
Class Skills (8+Int modifier): Appraise (Int), Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disable Device (Int), Gather Information (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (any; taken separately) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Open Lock (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), Use Magic Device (Cha), and Use Rope (Dex).
Proficiencies: A Knight-Errant is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, with light, medium, and heavy armor, and with shields (including Tower Shields).
To be more in line with something WotC would ever consider publishing, reduce the HD to d8, the saves all to average (start at +1, end at +9), and reduce the skill points to 6 per level.
Smite Evil (Ex): When a Knight-Errant attacks an evil creature he adds his Intelligence bonus to the attack roll and deals 1d6 extra damage with a successful attack. This extra damage increases by 1d6 at 5th level and every four levels thereafter.
Starting at 3rd level, against the attacks of evil creatures a Knight-Errant receives a +1 bonus to AC and saving throws. This bonus increases by 1 at 7th level and every four levels thereafter.
A Knight-Errant gains a +1 bonus at every odd class level on Bluff, Gather Information, Listen, Sense Motive, Spot, and Survival checks when used against evil creatures.
Track: At 1st level the Knight-Errant receives Track as a bonus feat. He may use the Gather Information skill in order to Track creatures in an urban setting.
Trapfinding (Ex): A Knight-Errant can use the Search skill to locate traps when the task has a Difficulty Class higher than 20. Finding a nonmagical trap has a DC of at least 20, or higher if it is well hidden. Finding a magic trap has a DC of 25 + the level of the spell used to create it.
He can also use the Disable Device skill to disarm magic traps. A magic trap generally has a DC of 25 + the level of the spell used to create it. A Knight-Errant who beats a traps DC by 10 or more with a Disable Device check can study a trap, figure out how it works, and bypass it (with his party) without disarming it.
Bonus Feats: At 2nd level, and every even level thereafter a Knight-Errant gets a bonus combat-oriented feat in addition to the feat that any 1st-level character gets and the bonus feat granted to a human character. The Knight-Errant is treated as a Fighter of his class level when gaining feats in this way. These bonus feats must be drawn from the feats noted as fighter bonus feats. A Knight-Errant must still meet all prerequisites for a bonus feat, including ability score and base attack bonus minimums.
These bonus feats are in addition to the feat that a character of any class gets from advancing levels. A Knight-Errant is not limited to the list of fighter bonus feats when choosing these feats.
Spells: Beginning at 4th level, a Knight-Errant gains the ability to cast a small number of divine spells, which are drawn from his list of spells known (see below). A Knight-Errant does not need to choose and prepare his spells in advance.
To cast a spell he knows, a Knight-Errant must have an Intelligence score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a Knight-Errants spell is 10 + the spell level + the Knight-Errants Intelligence modifier.
Like other spellcasters, a Knight-Errant can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. His base daily spell allotment is given on the table above. In addition, he receives bonus spells per day if he has a high Intelligence score. When the table above indicates that the Knight-Errant gets 0 spells per day of a given spell level, he gains only the bonus spells he would be entitled to based on his Intelligence score for that spell level.
A Knight-Errant does not automatically learn new spells as he gains levels; however, he may learn any spell as a divine spell and add it to his spells known when he successfully identifies an active spell effect or a spell as it is being cast using the Spellcraft skill, or when he successfully deciphers magical writings, such as a scroll, a Wizard's spellbook, or an Archivist's prayerbook, using the Spellcraft skill. A Knight-Errant does not record his spells known in a spellbook, rather he memorizes them. He may only memorize a number of spells of each spell level he is able to cast up to his Intelligence modifier. Anytime he could learn a new spell, he may forget an old one if he wishes.
Through 3rd level, a Knight-Errant has no caster level. At 4th level and higher, his caster level is equal to his Knight-Errant level minus 3.
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