Spartan Class

[Meleemaster]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iiEsib9ekpxxuus2bb-IDONVjTIj1_3XH483UXTwFVs/edit
I have been designing a Base class called the Spartan and have been wondering if anyone with some experience with making classes to give me some pointers on how to make it more balanced or to tell me if I'm making a balanced class. I've been designing and balancing and building this class from scratch for almost a year, It is a fun class with a lot of flavor, I just want to make sure it's a well balanced class.
Thanks for reading!

[Ralcos]

I really like this class!

I'd recommend that you organize the class features a bit better and make Fortitude a Good Save (Like you have for Reflex).

Class Feature
This class feature does this.

Class Feature II
This class feature does another thing.

Anyhow, continue to make good things for D&D.

[Oracle_of_Void]

I like the idea, but there is one complaint: The whole religion part of the spartan code. That would encourage players to be obnoxious and murderous, which can be very impractical to a party. I understand the roleplay value, but then spartans would be roaming around town begging for converts and then gutting them. Other than that, I like the idea and I would like to play it :smallsmile:.

[AttilaTheGeek]

The not-bad-but-not-good fort save is weird. Since it is a Spartan, after all, I'd recommend raising it to a good save.

2+INT mod skills is tough to deal with. Think about all the skills a Spartan wants: Intimidate, Knowledge (Arcana / Nature / Planes / Religion) to identify foes, and Ride. There are also skills that a Spartan would love if they had room: Jump, Swim, Climb, and the like. And then there are skills that one might want to invest in to represent their character personally being good at something. Are you okay with no Spartan ever* having more than two or three of those skills?
*Unless you're high enough level to afford a headband of +6 INT, which comes in the late teens.

Speaking of skills, that's a pretty small skill list. Now, I don't know anything about the actual Spartans, but have you considered Ride, Handle Animal, Perform, Profession, or Survival?

Weapon and Armor proficiencies are worded strangely. Why say "all weapons except exotic weapons" and "all armor except heavy armor" instead of the more standard "simple and martial weapons" and "light and medium armor"? Also, "all shields" allows them to use tower shields, which is usually restricted. Is that intentional? If so, I recommend adding a quick "including tower shields" at the end to make it more clear.

Well, now that that's done, on to the actual class features!

I'm just gonna go through the articles of the Spartan Code one by one.

Much like the Knight, a Spartan has a code of honors and responsibilities that he must follow.

O...kay? This doesn't actually say anything. What happens if he doesn't follow them?


A Spartan spares no one, if a spartan is provoked or stricken in combat, he will not spare the assailant’s life. If he does, he loses his ability to use his Spartans Challenge abilities for the next 24 hours.

That's a little bit brutal, but okay. Grammar nitpick: "Spartan's challenge should have an apostrophe. Also, you're inconsistent about whether or not "Spartan" is capitalized.


A spartan doesn’t accept followers of other religions as people, he believes that they are less than him. He will always try to convert anyone who doesn’t follow his religion. Those who do not convert, he will kill.

Woah woah woah. I want you to take a step back. Imagine you're a DM. You decide to take a risk with a new campaign you're running and allow players to request reasonable homebrew. Now imagine one of your players comes to you and says "I want to use this class that requires me to kill literally everyone I see unless they follow my religion." As a DM, would you really want a character like that in your campaign? Nine Hells, even the Antipaladin doesn't do that, and I've never seen a DM let a player play one of those.


It is a disgrace to not avenge your fallen allies, if you dismiss or ignore the death of even one ally you lose your ability to use your Spartan’s Challenge abilities for 12 hours.

This is cool and flavorful, but its implementation is open to an uncomfortable amount of interpretation. What does it mean to "dismiss" the death of an ally? If a member of your party is killed by a town guard because you tried to burn down the local temple, are you then obligated to attack the entire town guard? If a friend dies of old age, is a spartan required to venture to your campaign's underworld and fight death?


A spartan waits for no one when traveling.

What purpose does this serve? How does this requirement make the class more effective or flavorful? Like the last tenet, it's also open to a lot of interpretation and could lead to bad things.

Here's an example of the spartan code in action. The party (under the rather generous assumption that the Spartan can find a party to get along with) walks into a new town and sits down at the tavern. Let's say the Spartan orders a drink, and from there they are obligated by their class features to try to convert the bartender. Now, I can't imagine that every bartender would say "yeah, sure, random stranger, I'll follow your religion", especially if it's a particularly demanding one. And then, oh, whoops, the Spartan has to kill the bartender. Inevitably, it's fair to say the town guard would get involved. The spartan is required to use lethal force against everyone who attacks him, so this can only end one of two ways. Either the party kills the entire town guard and everyone who fights in the bar, or the spartan dies and the rest of the party surrenders. They can't even escape because the spartan is forced to kill everyone who attacks him and, under a certain interpretation of that tenet, can't run away! Either you run a game in which the party kills everyone they come across, or the spartan dies when they try to order a drink. This isn't a false dichotomy or a particularly convoluted example either: the spartan's actions are so dictated by their class code that they actually had no choice but to attack everyone. Notice that throughout this example, I only made two assumptions: one, that at some point the spartan will not be able to convert someone to their religion, which is bound to come up eventually- it's impossible to convert literally everyone you see- and two, that a larger force will get involved in response to the spartan trying to murder someone. Under only those two reasonable assumptions and the simple premise of ordering a drink at a bar, the spartan is required to cause all this destruction. And they'll probably die in the process.

As a prospective DM considering allowing a player to use the Spartan in a game, I'd stop reading right there and say no. I can't ever see any DM letting a player play this in a campaign unless they were all the most Chaotic Stupid murderhobos around.

[Meleemaster]

AttillaTheGeek, I do see these problems, I wrote a first draft for the Spartan's Code and then never edited it in the entire progress of making this class. I've made some changes that make it a more practical character for a party. About the skills, I agree. I initially had the skills at 4+int modifier, and I threw in the "Precise Blow" class feature to give a bit of an incentive to have a medium or higher int score. I did word the weapon and armor proficiencies a little strangely, I will fix that and any of the other errors in the text.

[Oracle_of_Void]

I thought of something else. Is there a reason that your ancestral weapons are upgraded at level 20? I mean, for game reasons, I understand, but how about in-universe? The shield and spear you've been carrying around for 19 levels all of a sudden become much better? I think the class description should address that.

[Extra Anchovies]

I thought of something else. Is there a reason that your ancestral weapons are upgraded at level 20? I mean, for game reasons, I understand, but how about in-universe? The shield and spear you've been carrying around for 19 levels all of a sudden become much better? I think the class description should address that.

I think a progressively upgrading weapon, one that scales with class level, would make more sense in both fluff and crunch.

[Meleemaster]

I think a progressively upgrading weapon, one that scales with class level, would make more sense in both fluff and crunch.

I like that idea, once I get my computer fixed I'll take a look at what I could do about that.