Class Conversion: Avenger from 4e [wip advice welcome]

[Orlune]

As a brief background the Avenger is my favorite class from fourth edition. It hits hard and the fluff for it is fairly cool.

For a while now I've been working on a version of the avenger for 5e so here is an outline of how I went about designing what I have right now. (This is my first full class so if my process makes no sense I would not be at all surprised).

The Avenger is a faith based character who wears light armor and uses heavy melee weapons. This gives us three "key" stats to consider. We have Strength, Dexterity and Wisdom as well as Constitution all as important stats and a hit die of either a d10 or d8. To use large weapons in fifth edition you need to prioritize strength and because the avenger has some magical abilities Wisdom will also be very important. But light armor also incentivizes a high dexterity score. This in combination with the act that almost every melee character needs health and therefore consitution makes the Avenger really MAD (multi-atribute-dependent). This means we can either make the avenger a Dex based character or allow either build path by adding a medium armor proficiency. I personally prefer the later choice as it enables greater agency for the player as to the type of character they want to build. By giving the class more armor options while still making it vulnerable we will make the hit die a d8. With thematically appropriate tool and skill proficiency giving us.

Class Features

Hit Points
Hit Dice: 1d8 per Avenger level
Hit Points at 1st level: 8+ con modifier
Hit Points at higher levels: 1d8 (or 5) + your Constitution modifier per Avenger level after 1st.

Proficiencies
Armor: Light Armor, Medium armor
Weapons: Simple Weapons, Martial Melee Weapons
Tools: Theives tools or poison kit
Saving Throws: Strength, Dexterity (possibly replace dex with wisdom not sure)
Skill: Religion and three from: Athletics, Acrobatics, Arcana, History, Insight, Investigation, Perception, and Stealth.

From here we want to build on the Avenger's core mechanics by mixing thematic abilities from both the rogue and paladin classes. Rogues especially assassins have good access to social abilities a wide range of useful tools and skills as well as burst oriented damage in combat. Paladin's also have strong social abilities and healing. In combat paladins are versatile with good damage, lots of tank and a fair amount of healing. We have already determined that the Avenger will not be a tanky class and the paladin's healing doesn't fit with the assassin role of the Avenger. So the avenger is going to take smites from the paladin. Rogues have expertise sneak attack and thieves' cant at first level. We are taking Expertise from the rogue but not sneak attack or thieves' cant. Now borrowing from the bladesinger from the sword coast adventurer's guide we are going to add an ability similar to the armor class boost from bladesong.

Level 1:
Expertise double your proficiency bonus for 2 of your rogue skills
Armor of Faith: While you are not wearing heavy armor you gain a bonus to AC equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum +1).

Level 2:
Fighting style either Great weapon, Two weapon, or Dueling.
Divine Smite (needs to be re-named to differentiate from paladin) When you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack deal radiant damage equal to your wisdom score

Added Class table 6/6/2016 @ 6:56 pm Central time


Avenger


Level
Proficiency Bonus
Features
Oaths Known
Max Oaths Active


1st
+2
Armor of Faith & ??????
1
1


2nd
+2
Fighting Style & Divine Smite
2
1


3rd
+2
Avenger's Censure
2
1


4th
+2
Ability Score Improvement
3
2


5th
+3
Extra Attack
3
2


6th
+3
Censure Feature
3
2


7th
+3
Defensive feature (Evasion as placeholder)
4
2


8th
+3
Ability Score Improvement
4
2


9th
+4
Censure Feature
5
2


10th
+4
??????
5
2


11th
+4
Improved Smite
5
2


12th
+4
Ability Score Improvement
6
2


13th
+5

6
3


14th
+5
Improved Smite
6
3


15th
+5
??????
7
3


16th
+5
Ability Score Improvement
7
3


17th
+6

7
4


18th
+6
Censure Feature
8
4


19th
+6
Ability Score Improvement
8
4


20th
+6
Capstone Feature
8
4



Credit to Ziegander For the Preset Class table


Because there are no spells that allow an Avenger t do the kind of thing they did in 4e making them a caster would mean writing a lot of spells so it is really just about the same amount of work to give them a mechanic all there own to distinguish them from a paladin rogue multi-class. The most memorable feature from the 4e Avenger was their oath of enmity which in affect gave the avenger advantage against one specific target. Because I find this idea so compelling I think that it should form the basis for the system. This is the part were I want help I need some ideas for oaths.

[JBPuffin]

I think that merging Rogue and Paladin together may not be the best solution to this - while there are elements of both which apply to the concept, an Avenger and a Rogue honestly don't have that much in common.

D8 hit die
Light armor, Simple and Martial Weapons
Tools: None
Str/Wis saves
Choose two: Acrobatics, Athletics, Insight, Intimidation, Investigation, Perception, Religion, Stealth - Four skills is too many for an avenger, honestly. They aren't roguish skill monkeys, so skill-centric features don't work well for their image.
Paladin spell progression

Avengers are heavy melee fights who wear light armor, so Armor of Faith is a good idea. I think the feature you want, though, is the Monk's Unarmored Defense. It's first level and fits their style better. Additionally, you don't get into the territory a Wis-based Bladesong would, where Druid takes a two-level dip and adds their +3/4 Wis to their Hide AC or whatever, which is a pretty noticeable jump. As for their other first-level feature, I present:

Oath of Enmity
Wis mod times per day, the avenger can call out a target as a bonus action. Until they use this feature again, or five minutes later, whichever comes first, they have advantage on attack rolls against the target. Choose your target well!

Second level, they get spells along the lines of a ranger-paladin mix (Compelled Duel, Hunter's Mark, divine staple spells), Fighting Style, and their first Censure Feature.

I think this sticks closer to the Avenger as he was in 4e while making something compelling to play in 5e. I mean, you're making another half-casting divine, so they need to be better distinguished from their cousins than literally copy-pasting from Paladin and Rogue.

[zeek0]

I just took a good glance at the 4e fluff. I think that this can be well-represented by a vengeance paladin.

A vengeance paladin gets hunter's mark, which closely mirrors oath of enmity from 4e.

Now we need to use the paladin as a striker with large weapons, but light armor. I think this can be done by either a) playing a dex paladin and don't use a huge weapon, b) play a str paladin with medium armor and a moderate amount of dex, or c) house ruling it so that paladins have the equivalent of unarmored defense (dex + cha).

Option (c) doesn't overpower the paladin. Between the options of heavy armor and unarmored defense, heavy armor still usually wins by a bit.

Or, option (d), you make a subclass of the paladin with this as a feature from the start. Then you can adjust things as you wish for a few features, have the fluff represented directly in the features, and save yourself from crafting an entire base class that is super similar to the paladin at the core.

After my rant, I'm warming toward option (d).

I hope that I helped. I would like more of a conversation surrounding this, so let me know what you think!

[This be Richard]

Another option could be to make it a Cleric domain. It's not as sexy as the other options, and it makes it a little more challenging to squeeze out a second attack per round, but I think it could work.
Hunter's Mark could be a domain spell. If you include proficiency with martial weapons, but not with heavy armor, you'll encourage Dex builds.
Extra attacks could come from something like the War Domain's "War Priest" feature, or you could possibly have a level one feature that lets you use a bonus action to make one weapon attack against a target you've singled out.

With that said, I do think that the Vengeance paladin was designed to offer something familiar to people that liked Avengers in the same way that the Battle Master fighter was designed to offer something familiar to people that liked Warlords.

[Sirithhyando]

As a brief background the Avenger is my favorite class from fourth edition.
Was also my favorite in 4th (followed closely by the artificier, but that's not the question here :smallbiggrin:)


I think that this can be well-represented by a vengeance paladin.
And that's the one i had in mind. Paladin Oath of Vengence is, in my opinion, the Avenger from 4th edition. They just didn't put it as a class by itself, but as a subclass instead.


Edit : If you want to make it as a class by itself, i'd put Dex and Wis instead of strenght. Anyway, "armor of faith" works with wisdom so i'd really put Dex and Wis.

[barbecube]

This conversation is veering into territory that I see a lot in class discussions for 5e: "Why not make it a subclass?"

My thoughts on that:

Most of the time, when someone's posting "I want to make a new base class" I think it means that they've thought about making a subclass and found that no base class from the core fits it comfortably. I know that part of my own class-designing process is to say to myself, "If I can make this a subclass, I can save a lot of work." So I think it's wise to assume that this line of thought has been approached and discarded.

On the other hand, 4e makes a lot of really sharp mechanic and role distinctions that 5e does not, and in particular, a 5e base class should be able to diversify itself through its subclasses. For instance the fighter emulates the 4e Fighter and Warlord. I don't see that happening for the avenger. It's a super-specific class without a great deal of internal diversity. That makes it a bad candidate for making into a base class.

So here's my proposal:

Rather than make a whole new base class, let's alter the base paladin chassis to fit. In effect we are making a dual-subclass model like the Warlock's patron/pact setup. We can call the resulting secondary subclasses Orders, maybe? Let's make three: the Order of Hierarchs, the Order of Templars, and the Order of Dervishes.

Hierarch is the core paladin. The role of the hierarch is that of a violent priest. They are there as a fallback when a cleric isn't available. Its features are:

- Lay on Hands (major subclass-identity feature)
- Divine Health (ribbon)
- Aura of Protection
- Aura of Courage
- Cleansing Touch (support ability)

The Templar is a temple guardian; they are tank-like in role and are designed to soak up heavy damage instead of mitigating it with healing and protective features, and finally the Dervish is a temple assassin; they are mobile and sneaky and designed to inflict heavy single-target damage at need. The Vengeance Dervish most closely represents the 4e avenger, but it becomes one of a wider array of options. All that remains is to construct the features for these subclasses.

[Orlune]

On the other hand, 4e makes a lot of really sharp mechanic and role distinctions that 5e does not, and in particular, a 5e base class should be able to diversify itself through its subclasses. For instance the fighter emulates the 4e Fighter and Warlord. I don't see that happening for the avenger. It's a super-specific class without a great deal of internal diversity. That makes it a bad candidate for making into a base class.


I completely agree with you here and with all the other posts.

Instead of calling this a conversion as the mechanics of an avenger are pretty specific to 4e the idea I have is more for a spiritual successor to the avenger. The one thing the avenger had that was cool and unique was the oath of enmity. What I wan to do is expand on that idea and add more oaths. So my idea is that every turn as a bonus action the Avenger can target one enemy with an oath up to a limit based on level. The idea is that as the battle goes on the avenger gets more bonuses against one particular enemy. I'm not sure of an exact wording for the rule yet maybe something along the lines of:

Avenger Oaths
At the start of combat (or as a bonus action) you can choose one enemy you can see to target with an Avenger's oath (or oath of enmity). On each following turn you can use your bonus action to target the same enemy with another oath up to a limit found in the class table. You cannot target another creature with an oath until the original target is killed or you take a short rest.

Basically what I want to do is take the cool mechanic from the 4e avenger and make it the defining class feature for the class.


I think that merging Rogue and Paladin together may not be the best solution to this - while there are elements of both which apply to the concept, an Avenger and a Rogue honestly don't have that much in common.

D8 hit die
Light armor, Simple and Martial Weapons
Tools: None
Str/Wis saves
Choose two: Acrobatics, Athletics, Insight, Intimidation, Investigation, Perception, Religion, Stealth - Four skills is too many for an avenger, honestly. They aren't roguish skill monkeys, so skill-centric features don't work well for their image.
Paladin spell progression

Avengers are heavy melee fights who wear light armor, so Armor of Faith is a good idea. I think the feature you want, though, is the Monk's Unarmored Defense. It's first level and fits their style better. Additionally, you don't get into the territory a Wis-based Bladesong would, where Druid takes a two-level dip and adds their +3/4 Wis to their Hide AC or whatever, which is a pretty noticeable jump.


First I did not think of the druid thing especially since it would technically affect wildshape as well and that would be just broken I'll have to think on that one. Unarmored defense forces an avenger to be a dex build and I would prefer to have both strength and dex builds be viable. If anyone has any ideas please post them. As for skills, Religion and pick two others? Avengers shouldn't be rogues you're right but they should still be skilled and making them take religion is kind of a flavor thing.

[JBPuffin]

First I did not think of the druid thing especially since it would technically affect wildshape as well and that would be just broken I'll have to think on that one. Unarmored defense forces an avenger to be a dex build and I would prefer to have both strength and dex builds be viable. If anyone has any ideas please post them. As for skills, Religion and pick two others? Avengers shouldn't be rogues you're right but they should still be skilled and making them take religion is kind of a flavor thing.

Unarmored Defense doesn't force Dex - Wis mod+a positive Dex is as good as medium armor, a fine tier to sit at. 5e simply doesn't do mandatory skills, period - see Cleric and Paladin, who by the logic should also get default Religion proficiency. Also, Elf Avenger, a pretty staple combo in 4e, works just as well here - 12 Dex, 15 Str, 16 Wis (assuming point buy), bump Str next thing and you're golden.

While I do appreciate the notes, I took the above into account when designing the chassis as I did. There might not be Avenger class features as spells, but there are plenty of spells that an Avenger would want (Compelled Duel and Hunter's Mark, Bane, Spiritual Weapon, etc).

Now, the oath thing sounds pretty awesome. Maybe each Censure has a unique Oath, then? Sounds like a good start.



Edit : If you want to make it as a class by itself, i'd put Dex and Wis instead of strenght. Anyway, "armor of faith" works with wisdom so i'd really put Dex and Wis.

See my note in the first post - Dex and Wis are both heavily-targeted saves; all the core classes use 1 common and 1 uncommonly-targeted save. It's why Monk doesn't have Dex/Wis at start. Now if it's light armor and d8 hit die it might work, but then you do enter Orlune's fear of "always Dex build"...or maybe it's vice versa. Huh.

[Orlune]

Unarmored Defense doesn't force Dex - Wis mod+a positive Dex is as good as medium armor, a fine tier to sit at. 5e simply doesn't do mandatory skills, period - see Cleric and Paladin, who by the logic should also get default Religion proficiency. Also, Elf Avenger, a pretty staple combo in 4e, works just as well here - 12 Dex, 15 Str, 16 Wis (assuming point buy), bump Str next thing and you're golden.

While I do appreciate the notes, I took the above into account when designing the chassis as I did. There might not be Avenger class features as spells, but there are plenty of spells that an Avenger would want (Compelled Duel and Hunter's Mark, Bane, Spiritual Weapon, etc).

Now, the oath thing sounds pretty awesome. Maybe each Censure has a unique Oath, then? Sounds like a good start.


Thanks for the feedback I'm glad you liked the oath idea the problem is that for the class to have meanigful choices there need to be a lot of oaths to choose from sort of like eldritch invocations or maneuvers. I also really like the idea of each subclass having a specific oath they can use. Just for starters I'm thinking that there will be these:

Oath of enmity: grants advantage (pretty much the base oath)

The three censures from 4e are pursuit, retribution, and unity. So some oaths for those could be:

Oath of Pursuit: When an enemy affected by this oath willingly moves away from you you may use your reaction to move towards your target.

Oath of Retribution: When an enemy affected by this oath deals damage (makes an attack against??) a friendly character you may use your reaction to a. Make an attack of opportunity against them (deal radiant damage / smite thing????) b. impose disadvantage c. cause fear
Not sure about this one needs some work.

Oath of Unity: When a friendly character makes an attack against a creature affected by this oath a. Add your wisdom modifier to their to hit roll. b. You can make use your reaction to deal your smite damage to the targeted creature.
Not sure about this one either I think I like the second option better but I could be persuaded otherwise.

Some other less fleshed out ideas for oaths:
Something that makes the target treat all terrain as difficult terrain
An oath that compels the target to move towards you
A you deal more damage to them and they deal more damage to you type of ability
An oath that causes fear

Some higher level oaths
An oath that allows you to teleport closer to your target
An oath that gives you a vorpal sword type effect
An oath that pulls you and your target onto the ethereal plane until one of you dies


Still needs some work as always any advice or ideas feel free give it