“The long-haired Acheans will never take sacred Troy…” [PrC]

[ExHunterEmerald]

This is a very, very flavor intensive class that really doesn’t have a lot of practical use. But I’m doing it anyway. It’s how you know I’m hardcore.
So, without further ado…

CITY CHAMPION

There are those whose every battle and struggle is for one thing—home. Their zeal and determination alone can singlehandedly save a city. They inspire their compatriots, shake their enemies, and carry the weight of an entire way of living on their shoulders. They take up this mantle with honor and pride, swearing that no man or god shall ever bring down the walls they swear to defend.

In order to become a City Champion, you must fulfill the following prerequisites:
Base Attack Bonus: +6
Alignment: Any non-Evil.
Feats: Hold the Line, Leadership
Special: You must have sworn to defend a single city with your life. There also cannot be a living City Champion for your chosen city already.

Skill Points: 2+Int per level
Hit dice: d12
CITY CHAMPION
{table=head]Level|Base Attack[br]Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special

1st|
+1|
+2|
+0|
+2|Home For a Rest, Defender’s Oath

2nd|
+2|
+3|
+0|
+3|Undying Determination

3rd|
+3|
+3|
+1|
+3|Key to the City

4th|
+4|
+4|
+1|
+4|

5th|
+5|
+4|
+1|
+4|Inspiring Devotion

6th|
+6|
+5|
+2|
+5|

7th|
+7|
+5|
+2|
+5|Within a Mile of Home

8th|
+8|
+6|
+2|
+6|Emblem of Hope

9th|
+9|
+6|
+3|
+6| Homeward Bound

10th|
+10|
+7|
+3|
+7|Hectoran Champion[/table]

Home For a Rest (Ex): Whenever you stay within the bounds of your home city, or fight to actively defend it, you regain all your HP with overnight rest, and recover double the ability point damage than normal. In addition, you gain fast healing 2. If you spend an entire week resting in the city, you can recover one point of ability drain.

Defender’s Oath (Ex): You have sworn your honor and your life to your city—and those words have great weight. If your city is ever taken, you must immediately make a Will save equal to 20+your levels in City Champion or die, as soon as you hear of it. If the city is destroyed, you die instantly, but can be revived as normal. If the city is taken or destroyed, you also lose all special abilities granted by the class until you personally have taken part in (successfully) retaking the city.

Undying Determination (Ex): You gain the benefits of the Endurance and Diehard feats while you fight within or to defend your city, even if you do not have the prerequisites.

Key to the City (Ex): Everyone in the city, from the highest noble to the lowest thief, knows that you are its—and their--sworn defender. All those native to your city have a disposition one higher towards you than normal.

Inspiring Devotion (Ex): Your fervor in protecting home symbolizes all that you stand for…and what its soldiers stand for. All allied creatures who can see you gain a +2 on attack and damage rolls, as well as saves to resist fear or mind-compulsion effects. Additionally, you gain a +2 on your Leadership Score. This cannot cause your cohort’s level to match or exceed yours.

Within a Mile of Home (Su): Your attachment to your sworn city gives you a paranormal awareness of it. No matter where you are, you can tell if your city is safe, threatened, besieged, or at war. In addition, you can sense the general “mood” of the city by concentrating. This “mood” is an amalgam of everyone within its walls’ emotions.

Emblem of Hope (Ex): All allies who fight within sight of you gain immunity to fear while you have taken the field. If you retreat from battle or fall before it ends, they immediately lose this effect, and are shaken for 1d4 rounds after. Additionally, you get a +4 bonus to your Leadership score. This cannot cause your cohort’s level to match or exceed yours. This bonus stacks with the Leadership score bonus Inspiring Devotion gives.

Homeward Bound (Su): When your city is endangered, you can literally bring yourself (and your party) there. This ability functions as teleport without error and brings you to a certain part of the city you declare (“The throne room,” “The front gate,” “My estate.” You are aware of what parts of the city are safe, in dispute, or taken. You may use Homeward Bound once a week.

Hectoran Champion (Su): Your devotion is the stuff of epics. You have become the physical embodiment of your city, and your fate is it’s. You do not need to make the Will save if your city is taken. It cannot be destroyed, however, not as long as you live. Surviving people of your city are immune to fear and mind-compulsion effects in battle for it, will organize a resistance, and defend home to death. Their will, and yours, cannot be broken. You never automatically fail a will save on a natural one. Also, you may reroll any failed will save once.

[Matthew]

I think the table may not be working as intended, though I do like the idea of a Fortitude Save that increases 1:1 by Level...

[Edit]Oop solved it

[Neek]

The table you have is rather incomplete. What are the Fort saves, the skill points, or even the hit die?

As well, does Inspiring Devotion stack with other City Champions, or can there only be one per city?

[ExHunterEmerald]

Yeah, whenever I edit the post to add some formatting, it eats half the table.
Good thought, though. I think that there should be only one per city. I'll add that on this edit.

[PhoeKun]

...I would love to comment on this. I would.

But as this is very clearly a prestige class designed around the idea that Hector is something worth emulating, I burn with rage at the mere thought of it. Where's the "run around the city in fear" ability? :smalltongue:

Ok, I'm kidding. Sort of. I hate the Trojans, but this is a neat idea.

[ExHunterEmerald]

...I would love to comment on this. I would.

But as this is very clearly a prestige class designed around the idea that Hector is something worth emulating, I burn with rage at the mere thought of it. Where's the "run around the city in fear" ability? :smalltongue:

Ok, I'm kidding. Sort of. I hate the Trojans, but this is a neat idea.

Aw, really? Hector was my favorite hero of the whole shebang. *breaks some stallions*

Edit: Oh, and I remembered skill points and HD. Thanks, Neek.

[Magnus_Samma]

Hn. Seems just a little overpowered to me. A free teleport without error and the bonuses to Leadership (which is easily one of the most abusable feats in the PHB) are maybe a little too much. The fact that anything less than a 16th level character dies if the DM decides to raze their home town is an interesting way to balance this though. I am somewhat confused by the flavor here- do these supernatural abilities come from the character's raw devotion, are they divinely granted, or is there some sort of mechanism inherent in the devotion of the city to its champion? The Trojans were all pretty devoted to their city, but it didn't give any of them the ability to teleport.

The "mood of the city" thing is a little ambiguous, you might want to define that a bit better. I like some of the abilities- Key to the City is good, and Emblem of Hope kind of makes you a Spartan Paladin, that's nifty.

I'm not really sure why you're basing this class on Hector, though- Aeneas was the guy who lead the city's refugees away from Troy's burning hulk and founded Rome. Hector got his butt handed to him by Achilles long before the city fell. :P

[PhoeKun]

Aeneas was a whiny pissant who couldn't accomplish anything without being led around by the hand.

And he didn't found Rome, he laid the foundation for the founding of Rome. Not quite so prestigious...

If you're going to make a PrC based on a Trojan, it should be Hector. But I darn well better see a Sacker of Cities Achilles-based PrC to balance things out...

[ExHunterEmerald]

If you're going to make a PrC based on a Trojan, it should be Hector. But I darn well better see a Sacker of Cities Achilles-based PrC to balance things out...
As long as we're zinging eachother on the heroes, if I made an Achilles PrC, it wouldn't do anything for nine levels and then win D&D on the tenth.

[Neek]

What? Achilles is Lawful Emo. He deserves no PrC. :(

As to this class, that is a good question; how are these abilities given to the character? Is it through divine means?

As to the complaints about this being unbalanced... I think being bound to a city and having your abilities only work in your city a rather big counter-weight. It reduces your effectiveness at adventuring, especially if your DM does not involve your city. Whatsoever. It's like being a Devoted Defender, with no-one to defend.

[ExHunterEmerald]

It's a strength-from-within thing.
I included the ability to 'port to your home city so that if it -was- endangered, you wouldn't need to either pack up and spend months going home from abroad, shell out for a teleport, and to possibly include a plot event for DMs. If that's broken, I could add a "only when city is in peril" thing.
It occurs to me I forgot weapon proficiencies and such. I guess I should edit, but that means I need to fix the table again...

[Mewtarthio]

Hn. Seems just a little overpowered to me. A free teleport without error and the bonuses to Leadership (which is easily one of the most abusable feats in the PHB) are maybe a little too much. The fact that anything less than a 16th level character dies if the DM decides to raze their home town is an interesting way to balance this though. I am somewhat confused by the flavor here- do these supernatural abilities come from the character's raw devotion, are they divinely granted, or is there some sort of mechanism inherent in the devotion of the city to its champion? The Trojans were all pretty devoted to their city, but it didn't give any of them the ability to teleport.

Overpowered? It can teleport to one particular city at level fifteen (minimum, by which point the Wizard has eighth-level spells and could cast the bloody Greater Teleport for you at no cost). It gives you a +6 bonus to Leadership, which incidentally has a nice cap that prevents it from going above 25 and isn't quite as abusable as you make it out to be (unless your DM lets you stat out the Followers personally... *shudder*...). It can only be used to defend one particular city, and beyond that is practically useless (a very bad thing for adventurers, no?). It's an excellent flavorful class for an NPC (imagine fighting along one of these guys... or against him), but it's not overpowered by a long shot.


The "mood of the city" thing is a little ambiguous, you might want to define that a bit better. I like some of the abilities- Key to the City is good, and Emblem of Hope kind of makes you a Spartan Paladin, that's nifty.

The "mood of the city" is presumably the average emotions felt by everyone in the city. Thus, you'd be able to sense great events as well as overall morale. In essence, you can double-click on the city and look at the tooltips on the happiness icon, to use a Civilization metaphor.


I'm not really sure why you're basing this class on Hector, though- Aeneas was the guy who lead the city's refugees away from Troy's burning hulk and founded Rome. Hector got his butt handed to him by Achilles long before the city fell. :P

Because Aneas managed to get rescued by his deific mother and run away very expeditiously, while Hector managed to be a nigh-invincible icon of Troy so heroic that it took an enraged, cheating Achilles to beat him? And you can't blame him for running away from Achilles: The entire Trojan army was running away from Achilles. The guy's that tough. Hector at least stopped running for a proper duel after several laps. Oh, and did I mention that the gods cheated for Achilles? Yeah, I know, stupid useless Paris eventually killed Achilles, but it doesn't really count as corageous if you're using arrows.

Oh, let's not forget that The Illiad ends with Hector's funeral. Not Achilles' funeral. Not the fall of Troy. When Hector dies, the rest of the story is unimportant. Troy's fate is sealed, and there's no reason to continue the story.


As long as we're zinging eachother on the heroes, if I made an Achilles PrC, it wouldn't do anything for nine levels and then win D&D on the tenth.

Don't forget this class feature:

Destructive Wrath (Ex)

If slighted in any way by a superior, the Sacker of Cities must whine, complain, and sulk in his tent for the rest of the war. All his followers do likewise, never participating in a battle unless provoked directly by the enemy, and even then only to deal with the threat.

[jjpickar]

This would make an awesome NPC that the players could meet. In fact I'm "yoinking" (if yoinking is the word "for using it in my campaign") right now.

[ExHunterEmerald]

Ooh, I'm flattered. Let me know how that turns out when they run into him/her!

Oh, and for a flavor thing, you don't need to call the class City Champion. I had it in mind as a Name-of-city Champion sort of thing. IE, Hector would be the Troy Champion.

[jjpickar]

Will do.:smallsmile:

[Neek]

Destructive Wrath (Ex)

If slighted in any way by a superior, the Sacker of Cities must whine, complain, and sulk in his tent for the rest of the war. All his followers do likewise, never participating in a battle unless provoked directly by the enemy, and even then only to deal with the threat.

You forgot the benefit of Achilles Destructive Wrath; you still gain 100% XP from all the encounters.

[Miles Invictus]

Defender’s Oath (Ex): You have sworn your honor and your life to your city—and those words have great weight. If your city is ever taken, you must immediately make a Will save equal to 20+your levels in City Champion or die, as soon as you hear of it. If the city is destroyed, you die instantly, but can be revived as normal. If the city is taken or destroyed, you also lose all special abilities granted by the class until you personally have taken part in (successfully) retaking the city.


An atonement, or similar effect, should allow the player to regain his powers if the city was retaken without his help. Otherwise, the only way to regain them is to let the city fall a second time, and then assist in reclaiming it. Also...what happens if an old City Champion falls in battle, a new hero becomes the Champion, and then the old one is raised?

Other than that...friggin' awesome.

[ExHunterEmerald]

That's a good idea. Thanks, Miles.
ETA: Oh, and I think that the two of them would need to come to an agreement. I need to think on that.

[Foxer]

Absolutely brilliant. I will certainly make use of this in my upcoming epic campaign.

[ExHunterEmerald]

Thanks, Foxer. Glad someone liked it. I've been thinking about the "Sacker of Cities" joke, and it's starting to sound appealing. Would anyone be interested in a series of these?

[Krellen]

One comment:

This class seems far more Lawful than Good. Why can't you have a Lawful Evil city defender, especially in a Lawful Evil kingdom?

[Foxer]

Thanks, Foxer. Glad someone liked it. I've been thinking about the "Sacker of Cities" joke, and it's starting to sound appealing. Would anyone be interested in a series of these?

I got to arguing some Iliad stuff on the D20 forum (do pc classes make armies irrelevant), and I've been interested in running some bronze-age era fantasy for a while now. Having decided I would get off my ass and actually run something, even if it's only a mini-campaign, I would definitely be interested in seeing more Heroic Greek classes and PrCs.

[ExHunterEmerald]

I'll have to give it a shot, then! I'm busy, as always, but I'll see if the gears start a-turnin'.

Some ideas I've had for classes:
Headlong Runner (Achilles)
Sacker of Cities (Achilles)
Peerless Archer (Menelaus)
Stallion-Breaker (Trojans)
Cunning Hero (Odysseus)

I thought about it, and I guess I just couldn't see the same zealous devotion of an evil person for an entire city and every single person inside. If you'd like, feel free to remove the restriction.

[PhoeKun]

You might also try "Master of the War cry" (Diomedes).

In an effort to put my money where my mouth is, I've been working on a "sacker of cities" class, which I hope to have up by the end of the week. Since you seem to be considering such an act yourself, I thought it might be a good idea to let you know.

[ExHunterEmerald]

Oh, god, how could I forget Diomedes?!
Thanks for the heads-up. I've actually got my hands full working on the prestige class contest now, anyway. Maybe you and I can work out a whole series of classes together.

[XtheYeti]

You forgot "Smasher of whatever gets in my way except for Hector" (A-Jax)

[ExHunterEmerald]

Would that have the ability to go insane after someone else takes a magic item you laid claim to?

[Yakk]

Hectorian Champion has a problem.

Tactically, your best bet once you are a Hectorian Champion is to flee, and not defend your city. This makes your city immune to being destroyed.

[Lapak]

Hectorian Champion has a problem.

Tactically, your best bet once you are a Hectorian Champion is to flee, and not defend your city. This makes your city immune to being destroyed.Not to being captured, though, which is potentially a problem. And a slight alteration so that the city is only protected while you are present is possible. And/or a sickening effect on the Champion for every week that the city is in peril in his absence, to encourage him to get back home and fight. 1d3 un-healable Con damage a week while his city is fighting without him would be persuasive.

[Bobbis]

Yakk, but your city can still be taken and all it's inhabitants enslaved. Also, I wouldn't imagine anyone taking this as a power gamer, but only if they were role-playing it; I.E. never fleeing their city.

[Bears With Lasers]

As long as we're zinging eachother on the heroes, if I made an Achilles PrC, it wouldn't do anything for nine levels and then win D&D on the tenth.

LULZ. That was win, man.

[Lapak]

LULZ. That was win, man.To be fair, though, immediately after winning D&D the character would die and be unressurectable, even through divine intervention.

[ExHunterEmerald]

LULZ. That was win, man.

Thank you, thank you, try the caster-based prestige class, it's wonderful tonight.

Oh, and as for Hectoran Champion, yes, your city will never be destroyed if you flee. Its inhabitants, however, yes, can be subjugated, killed, etc.

[Mewtarthio]

What effect does this indestructability have on the city? Surely the attackers can root out every citizen and kill them all, thereby becoming the owners of an indestructable city. And what of the buildings? Does each building become immune to damage? Can the attackers destroy the walls and such?

[ExHunterEmerald]

What effect does this indestructability have on the city? Surely the attackers can root out every citizen and kill them all, thereby becoming the owners of an indestructable city. And what of the buildings? Does each building become immune to damage? Can the attackers destroy the walls and such?
The citizens are still entirely killable, and so the city can be captured. It still falls on the Champion to take it back.
However, you can't destroy the entire thing: Siege weapons always seem to strike at shallow angles and do very little actual damage. Individual, small breaches would be possible, but the walls would for the most part need to be scaled rather than brought down. Most fights for the city would be attempting to preserve as much as possible anyway.

[Demented]

If the City is overtaken, the leader of the army which conquered the city gets an uncontrollable urge to rebuild the city and make it his nation's capitol.

Many cities throughout history seemed to have this problem.

[Holocron Coder]

I do like this. It's a neat idea. For adventurers, it'd be a bad choice, really, but in a war-campaign where the adventurers actually defended a city for the entire campaign, it'd be win.

Or NPCs, aye.

[Yakk]

There needs to be some incentive for the Hectorian Champion to, well, Champion the city.

[ExHunterEmerald]

There needs to be some incentive for the Hectorian Champion to, well, Champion the city.

Fluff-wise, you really can't (and wouldn't) enter the class without the desire to protect it and save it. Look at Hector--defending home, people, and way of life. He was born there, raised there, loved Troy...if it was taken and he yet lived, he wouldn't hesitate to try and take it back, because it was his city.

[Eleven]

Hey
This really cool. I'm wondering what an epic version of this might look like. I can really see one of these guys defending Sigil or something.....