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Ivogel
2016-11-20, 05:47 PM
Any balance fixes would be greatly appreciated!

Class features

As a knight, you gain the following class features

HIT POINTS
1d12 per Knight level
Hit points at 1st level: 12 + your constitution modifier

PROFICIENCIES
Armour: Light armour, medium armour, heavy armour, shields
Weapons: Simple, martial
Tools: None
Saving throws: Strength, Wisdom

Choose 2 skills among: Athletics, animal handling, persuasion, history, insight, intimidation, perception

LV1: Knight protector, Formally trained
LV2: Fighting challenge, reliable combatant
LV3: Knightly order feature
LV4: ASI
LV5: Extra attack
LV6: Test of Mettle
LV7: Knightly order feature
LV8: ASI
LV9: Bulwark of defence, Call to battle
LV10: Knightly order feature
LV11: Improved Fighting challenge
LV12: ASI
LV13: Iron Will
LV14: Daunting challenge
LV15: Knightly order feature
LV16: ASI
LV17: Superior Fighting challenge
LV18: Knightly order feature
LV19: ASI
LV20: Knight of legend


lv1:Formally trained: Versatile weapons you use one-handed deal their damage as if 2-handed.

Knight protector:You gain the protection fighting style. You may use this ability even if you are not wielding a shield.

lv2:Fighting challenge:As a bonus action, select one opponent within 30 feet. For the next minute, against the selected enemy, add half your proficiency bonus (rounded up) to your saves, melee damage and AC. Whenever you disengage from your target or use an attack action to attack anyone other than the target of your fighting challenge, your fighting challenge ends. you can use your fighting challenge once per short rest

At Lv11, twice per short rest, when you damage an opponent affected by your fighting challenge and you don't have any temporary hit points, you gain temporary hitpoints equal your knight level

At lv 17, 3 times per long rest, when you affect an opponent with your fighting challenge that opponent must make a wisdom saving throw (8+proficiency + cha modifier) or be stunned for 1 turn.

lv2: Reliable combatant: once per turn, whenever you roll a 1 on an attack roll you can reroll it. You must use the new result.

lv6: Test of mettle: once per short rest, as a bonus action you can cast the spell ‘compelled duel’ (DC 8 + Proficiency + charisma modifier) you don't have to concentrate on it.

lv9: Bulwark of defence: Any opponent who starts their turn within five feet of you (10 feet if using a reach weapon) has their speed halved until the start of their next turn

lv9: Call to arms: once per short rest, as an action, you can make all allies (including yourself) within 60 feet retry a save against fear. They gain a bonus equal to your charisma modifier to their save. They must be able to see or hear you.

lv13: Iron will: You have advantage on wisdom saving throws

lv14: Daunting challenge: once per short rest, as an action, each hostile creature in a 60-foot cone with a challenge rating lower than your character level must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw (DC 8 + proficiency + Cha modifier) or drop whatever it is holding and become frightened for one minute. It can retry its save at the end of its following turns.

lv20: Knight of legend: Your proficiency bonus increases by +2



Knightly orders


The order of the Sword
The order of the Sword is a brutal knightly order known far and wide without mercy that cleaves through opponents with their mighty weapons.

Lv3 Great cleave
During your turn, whenever you incapacitate an opponent affected by your fighting challenge, you may move up to your speed and immediately make one other attack. If the attack hits, after dealing damage, you automatically activate your fighting challenge on this opponent.

Lv7 Order representative: Your knightly order inspires fear in anyone. You gain proficiency in the intimidation skill if you haven’t already. If you already do you can choose any other skill from the knight skill list. Double the proficiency bonus for the intimidation skill with people who know your knightly order.
Also, you can use your fighting challenge twice per short rest.

Lv10: Find the gap: once per long rest, When activating your fighting challenge, for the next minute your critical range is 18-20 against opponents affected by your fighting challenge.

Lv15:
Never outnumbered: Twice per long rest, you can affect up to 4 opponents with your fighting challenge at the same time.

Frightful presence: When you affect enemies with your daunting challenge, they have disadvantage on their saving throw to remove the frightened effect at the end of their turns.

Lv18:
Brutal execution: Whenever you score a critical hit or incapacitate an opponent, every hostile creature within 10 feet must make a constitution saving throw (DC 8 + proficiency bonus + Cha modifier) or be stunned for 1 turn.


The Order of the Shield
The knights of the order of the Shield throw themselves into battle, to fight their foes and more importantly to protect their allies.

Lv3: immovable object: on your turn, as an action, you may choose to take up space as a creature one size category larger (a medium createre would now take up 4 squares) until the start of your next turn. While in this stance you may take 1 extra reaction, your opportunity attacks have advantage and you have advantage on strenght saving throws and strenght checks.

Lv7:
Order representative: Your knightly order inspires trust. You gain proficiency in the persuasion skill if you haven’t already. If you already do you can choose any other skill from the knight skill list. Double the proficiency bonus for the persuasion skill with people who know your knightly order.

Also, you can use your test of mettle twice per short rest.

Lv10:
Team riposte: When an enemy misses an ally within 5ft of you with a melee attack and has disadvantage because of your protection fighting style, it's turn ends immediately and your attacked ally and yourself have advantage on attack rolls against it until the start of it's next turn.

Your call to arms also works against charm and stun effects.

Lv15: defensive stance: twice per long rest, your test of mettle can affect up to 4 creatures within 30 feet of you. When an opponent affected by your test of mettle tries to move away from you it has disadvantage on it's saving throw.

Lv18: Living anvil: Your weapon damage dice are doubled when making opportunity attacks



The order of the Golden Spurs

The order of the Golden Spurs focuses on mounted combat and devastating charges.

Lv3: Golden Spurs:

You’re an expert in finding and appraising horses. In a city, you know where to find the best horse breeders, and have advantage on haggling (persuasion) to buy a mount.
You also gain the mounted combatant feat.

Lv7: Order representative: You gain the animal handling skill if you haven’t already, if you do you can choose any other skill from the knight list. Double the proficiency bonus for animal handling for animals that serve or could potentially serve as mounts.

You can calm wild animals using animal handling and can train them as your mount.
After gaining the animal’s trust it takes 1d4+1 days to train them to be your mount. You need specialized equipment such as special saddles for some mounts.

Your knightly order can offer you warhorses for yourself and your companions free of charge. They are trained for battle and will find their way back to the nearest stable if left alone

Lv10: Improved training: Your mount’s constitution and strength score both increase by 4
Charge: while mounted and wielding a lance, you gain the benefits of the charger feat.
You can choose to deal both damage and shove a creature 10 feet when your charge attack hits.

Lv15: Critical charge: Double all weapon damage dice when mounted and charging an opponent and hitting with your lance. you use your mount's strenght score in place of your own for damage only.

Lv18: Great critical charge: If you charge while mounted and hitting an opponent with your lance, it must make a STR saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency + mount’s strength modifier) or be stunned for 1 turn and knocked prone in addition to being shoved 10 feet

CunningKindred
2016-11-20, 07:52 PM
I've just given it a little read through but I think there might be some major issues with balance throughout and it might be overly complicated to play. I think its a very good idea for a class however. Could be made into something quite fun with a few more drafts.


lv1:Powerful grip: Versatile weapons you use one-handed deal their damage as if 2-handed. You can also use the great weapon master feat and great weapon fighting style with versatile weapons one-handed.

This seems very powerful. The sacrifice of your second hand is one of the major balancing aspects for getting the additional damage with such a weapon. As a rule, Feats are an optional rule and though I suppose you should consider them when designing a class this class option seems too involved with an option a player might not even be able to permit and likely won't be able to purchase until 4th level. Perhaps you can swing a versatile weapon one handed and get the additional benefit by using your bonus action to do so (although this might be too weak a benefit for the bonus action).


lv2: Knight’s challenge: You have a number of knight’s challenge uses equal to (knight level + proficiency bonus) divided by 2. Your knight’s challenges are used to fuel various knight abilities. Your knight’s challenges refill after a long rest

This is a very clunky mechanic for the number of uses. You would probably be best with just class level uses renewable with a long rest or even better, since the class is martial and therefore should probably be simple to use, just two uses renewed with a short rest. You can afford to make the abilities more potent then in and of themselves. Knights, I think, are likely to pick out only a small number of opponents for such dramatic attention and not go around calling out people all over the court throughout the day.



lv2:Fighting challenge: Select one opponent you can see and expend 1 knight’s challenge use. For the next minute, against the selected enemy, add half your proficiency bonus to saves, damage and AC
At Lv11, whenever you hit a target of your fighting challenge with a weapon attack, you can attack once more as a bonus action
At Lv17, you can expend 2 uses of knight’s challenge to target up to 4 enemies.

Does this need an action to use? I would also suggest that half-proficiency is both clunky in use and perhaps too powerful in this case. If you go with less challenges you can make this a bit more potent, such as:

As an action, you can lay down a challenge to a single opponent. Until that opponent has been defeated or you take a short rest, you gain a advantage on any roll made to avoid fear or intimidation provoked by this one opponent and you can roll your re-roll you damage against that opponent once each round and use the higher result.

The lv11 ability is probably quite reasonable as written I think. Powerful but appropriately so at the level.

The lv12 ability might be better just expanded to: You can now challenge a group of opponents with a single use of your knightly challenge and an action. All your opponents must be able to hear your challenge and you gain the benefits of your challenge against all of the opponent until they are defeated, retreat from the fight or you complete a short rest. All of the opponents must be fighting for the same cause or under the leadership of the same individual.


lv2: Reliable combatant: Whenever you roll a 1 on a D20, you can use a knight’s challenge to reroll it, you must use the new result.

You will probably find it easier to balance the class in general if not all of the traits are tied to the same basic system. In this case you would probably be better off just stating it as: Whenever you roll a 1 on an attack roll, you can re-roll the result. Once you have used this ability you cannot use it again until you have completed a short rest.

Its just going to be easier for a player to keep track of things if he doesn't have a single pool of resources from which every expenditure is a constant balancing act between which ability to use now vs which ability he might need later. That can be time consuming and difficult to track for a player. This way, he knows that when he rolls a 1, he has a chance to re-roll it and he might as well use it because its not going to strip away opportunities to use other abilities later.


lv6: Test of mettle: as a bonus action you can expend one knight’s challenge to cast the spell ‘compelled duel’ (DC 8 + Proficiency + charisma modifier) It does not count as a concentration spell and can be cast as many times as you have knight’s challenges available.

This is very thematic for the Knight but removing the concentration limitation and allowing it to be cast against several opponents is a big deal - probably too big - as it takes one of the Paladins best abilities and makes it so much better.

Perhaps, instead, you could have: At level 6, when you use Fighting Challenge, your opponent must make a wisdom saving throw each time it attempts to move to a space that is more than 30 ft. away from you.

In fact, I would definitely just merge fighting challenge and this power into a single Knightly Challenge power that can be used twice before you need to take a short rest. Its the better name after all. You could then have "you can now use your Knightly Challenge as a bonus action" as another class power.


lv9: Bulwark of defence: Any opponent who starts their turn inside your threatened area has their speed halved until the end of their turn


In fact, this is where I would put that bonus action thing. This power is very similar in tone and style to the effects of Compelled Duel and might be superfluous and time consuming during the game.


lv9: Call to battle: As a bonus action, you can expend one knight's challenge use and make all allies (including yourself) within 60 feet retry a save against fear. They gain a bonus equal to your charisma modifier to their save. You can use this feature even when you yourself are suffering from a fear effect.

Again, I would avoid tying all the powers to the same resource. Either make this one use per long rest or even go for something less powerful but more persistent. Maybe: As a reaction, when an ally make a saving throw to avoid fear within 60 ft. of you and fails the roll, you can make the roll automatically pass. Once this power has been used it cannot be used again until you finish a short rest.


lv13: Iron will: You have advantage on wisdom saving throws

Insanely powerful I think. I would give them another saving throw instead. Say: Fortified Spirit: You are considered to be proficient in constitution saving


lv14: Daunting challenge: As a bonus action, expend one use of knight’s challenge and Each hostile creature in a 60-foot cone with a challenge rating lower than your character level and an intelligence higher than animal intelligence must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw (DC 8 + proficiency + Cha modifier) or drop whatever it is holding and become frightened for one minute. It can retry its save at the end of its turn with disadvantage.

Again, tie this to a single, potent use of each knight's challenge and make it the lvl 20 power. Say: When you challenge an opponent using your knightly challenge that individual must make a wisdom saving throw or become frightened and drop whatever he is holding. Each round, at the end of his turn, the individual can make another saving throw to regain his nerve.

At level 14 I would offer a third use of knight's challenge before a short rest.


lv20: Knight of legend: Your proficiency bonus increases by +2

No. Its boring and it messes with an aspect of the game that could have far too many unforeseeable side effects. Proficiency bonus should be left alone I think.


Lv3 Great weapon virtuoso: You gain the great weapon master feat.
Whenever you gain an extra attack through the great weapon master feat, you can expend 1 knight’s challenge instead of your bonus action to make the attack.
You don’t need a shield to use the protection fighting style.

Even the two uses per short rest version of Knightly Challenge I've proposed is nothing like as important as a bonus action. Access to the great weapon master feat is probably more than sufficient to make a potent feature at this level.


Lv7 Order representative: Your knightly order inspires fear in anyone. You gain the intimidation skill if you haven’t already. If you do you can choose any other skill from the knight skill list. Double the proficiency bonus for the intimidation skill with people who know your knightly order.

Perfectly reasonable.


Lv10: Find the gap: You can expend one knight’s challenge use to make your critical range 18-20 for this turn

Again, keep it simple. I would just give them a critical range of 18-20 with all two handed weapons or versatile weapons when wielded two handed.



Lv15: Fighting machine: Whenever you score a critical hit or incapacitate an opponent, gain 2 knight’s challenge uses.

If you use the streamlined version of knight's challenge, you might instead say: Whenever you incapacitate or knock out an opponent under your Knight's Challenge you can call out one other opponent with 10 ft. of you currently not under the challenge as a bonus action and extend the effects to them instead.

Although I'm not quite sure how this would fit with the group challenge thing I proposed.


Lv18: Brutal execution: Whenever you score a critical hit or incapacitate an opponent, every hostile creature within 10 feet must make a constitution saving throw (DC 8 + proficiency bonus + Cha modifier) or be stunned for 1 turn.

I would add "opponent that you have challenged with your knightly challenge power" instead of just "opponent"

Just my thoughts.

ClintACK
2016-11-21, 04:43 AM
Knight base class (3.5 inspired)

This looks like a lot of fun. 5e has been missing a "sticky" tank class and this seems to fit the bill.

Thoughts from a first read through:

Knight's Challenge -- Given the number of abilities paid for with this, it feels like you're being way too stingy with these. At 6th level, you get 4 KC per long rest (compare to a 6th level monk with 6 Ki per short rest or a BM fighter with 4 dice per short rest). And without spending a KC, you can't even use Fighting Challenge, which is the key to everything Knightly.
Fighting Challenge -- This feels a lot like Hex or Hunter's Mark, so having it as a free action with (potentially) multiple targets and no concentration feels off. If you don't want to make it a bonus action, maybe make it part of an attack (i.e. when you make a melee attack against an opponent, you can spend a knight's challenge to issue a fighting challenge against that enemy)?
Reliable Combatant -- Halflings get this for free. It feels too weak to justify expending a KC. Maybe make it free, but only while your Fighting Challenge is active?
Test of Mettle -- I do think this should definitely be one target at a time. And probably require that you have an active Fighting Challenge on the target. (Or impose both as a single bonus action?)
The free feat (GWM or Sentinel) didn't leap out at me at first -- but when I started building 6th level martials for comparison it did. The Knight can take an ASI at 4th level and still get GWM or Sentinel, where the Fighter and Barbarian has to pick one or the other. But it doesn't really feel out of line with 3rd level Archetype powers.
Swift reactions -- Does the player have to decide whether to expend a KC on the first OA of the round (while he still has a reaction) or can he use a reaction for his first OA, and then spend a KC for a second OA if another opportunity arises in the round?

Ivogel
2016-11-21, 01:42 PM
Thanks for the feedback guys,

You are right that it's a bit much to take in but that's because the knight class in 3.5 is a bit of a mess in the book, i tried to get the same concept to 5e but it might be more complicated than other classes in 5e.
Still, i disagree that the knight's challenge resource is difficult to keep track of.
You simply need to use a tally system for one resource, much simpler than the vancian magic system where you need to keep a tally of all your prepared spells.

anyway, thanks for the feedback, i made some changes to the class

- cha modifier increase to knight's challenges/long rest
- order of the hammer is now focused on the fighting challenge
- order of the anvil is focused on the test of mettle ability
- order of the hammer & anvil now no longer grant feats at 3d level but a similar ability.
- fighting challenge higher level abilities changed
- Regain 1 knight's challenge after a long rest for hammer & anvil knights
- powerful grip renamed to formally trained and now only changes the damage die to the 2-handed one

CunningKindred
2016-11-21, 04:01 PM
Still, i disagree that the knight's challenge resource is difficult to keep track of.
You simply need to use a tally system for one resource, much simpler than the cancan magic system where you need to keep a tally of all your prepared spells.

I did not mean that it is difficult to keep track of (although maybe I did say that. I was rather tired when I replied to your post). More precisely I meant that its complicated. Which is not necessarily a bad thing but might be in this case. You are quite right when you say that your system is no more complicated than the spellcaster or even the monk for that matter. My issue is that I think 5E avoids such things as often as possible and only uses these kinds of complicated systems when thematically they are either unavoidable or even desirable. 3rd ed had a tendency (especially toward the end) to use these kinds of systems all the time because they offered diversity and flexibility but that is not always what you want and I think that's the case with the Knight.

When a player sits down to play a wizard he is seeking versatility and wonder but is that what a player wants when he chooses to play a Knight. I don't think so. He's probably far more focused on a singular vision of righteousness and a small selection of abilities that should work - always work - when he needs them to.

In 5E the system leans far more toward singular abilities that maybe cannot be used as often but which are potent. I think its best to give a Knight's player a selection of cool and flavourful abilities and then encourage him to use them throughout play. A singular source of points does not do that. That encourages him to choose which abilities to use and it means each must be balanced against each other if they all hope to see play.

For example, give a player 5 points and say he can spend them in various way to use option a, b or c then he will likely find that he prefers option c more than the others (either because he likes it more himself or because its better due to a game design issue). Give him one use each of a, b and c and he will work all three into the game as often as possible and in so doing you have encouraged him to act and behave in a certain manner appropriate to the style and flavour of his class.

Personally, I would break down the class abilities into those exclusive sets. Make sure that the player has a set of abilities that he wants to use to represent his nature as a Knight. It'll be much easier for you to design because if c is better than a that doesn't matter as much because the knight still has a single use of "a" so he might as well use it when he can, even if it is not as impressive as "c".

And as for Knight's Challenge, make it the centre piece of the class. Make it a growing, powerful, singular ability which makes the player go "wow" each time he uses it, that makes the other player's at the table go "wow" each time he uses it and one which grows as he levels up so it never grows boring or tired. Importantly, though, it doesn't need to be something he uses all the time. Make it something he uses only once or twice a session and he and the others at the table will appreciate it all the more when it does come up.

This is just how I would do it. But if you do want to go with a single resource pool you probably can't go wrong with just using the twice your level challenge points like the monk. Its nice and simple and it doesn't risk making one ability score too influential on the general utility of the class.

CunningKindred
2016-11-22, 03:32 AM
I've just posted a martial archetype based on the code of conduct thing that old 3.5 Knight followed. Its not really the same as what you've been doing but I thought you might want to have a look. I'd post you a link but I'm not allowed to yet. Still too new :smallamused:

Ivogel
2016-11-22, 06:41 AM
Edit: posted a version 2 underneath version 1 that omits the knight's challenge mechanic and is instead more dependant on short/long rests

Ivogel
2016-12-08, 06:09 AM
Finalised version: omitted the knight's challenge mechanic and is now a short rest dependent class, made a few more tweaks and changes