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Jirachi
2017-02-01, 01:21 PM
Sublime Master


"Do you really think that your style can even hold a candle to the inferno of mine?" Tabor Gustav, Sublime Master

Why I made this class: The general idea of making this class was to create a higher powered and more wizard like version of the swordsage, (with a few features stolen from other ToB classes) to create an a class that I believe that Reshar would want to have taken in his early days.


Adventures: Many sublime masters adventure simply because they wish to cultivate the greatest possible mastery of the Sublime way that they can, as well as seeking out new and greater challenges. Her role in the party is much the same as a swordsage, but also she has a few more tricks up her sleeve...

Characteristics: The Sublime master serves as a front line warrior quite well, though Sublime Masters can shine as skill monkeys as well as a spellcaster analogue in much the same way a warlock can.

Alignment: Sublime Masters believe that the path of the sublime way in it's own way, is a path to enlightenment or spiritual truth, and have great respect for the institution of the temple of nine swords. Still, Sublime masters can ultimately be off any alignment, though a slight lawful bent exist due to the grounding in tradition that the way has, though some sages think that there is a neutrality bias inherent in it, becuase the following of the path is much like worshipping nature: It is an uncaring force that only cares for its own existence.

Religion: Many Sublime masters Worship gods of war and grace, as followers of the Sublime way must learn to hone there body into an elegant and lethal machine. If your pantheon includes deities of the sublime way, it is probable that a number of Sublime Masters venerate them, but there is no real requirement.

Background: Many Sublime Masters are ascetic monks who wish to find there own way to enlightenment from refinement of the body and mind in tandem, and discovering more about the underlying nature of the Sublime. Though Reshar may have united the disciplines, there is still much to be figured out regarding where the power comes from.

Races: There is a strong Hobgoblin tradition of Sublime Masters due to the martial nature of there culture.
Humans have a substantial quantity of them as well, as they are the culture most likely to produce martial monasteries that sublime way is transmitted.
Other Classes: Sublime Masters have a positive relationship with other initiators, as they are simply seeking the truth of the sublime way on there own terms. You have great respect for monks, who tap into something that seems to be quite similar to what you sue, and admire there similar philosophy. Beyond that, Sublime masters simply look at what a person has accomplished in life, as deeds speak louder than words to them. However, Sublime masters are occasionally frustrated at members non-initiating martial classes as she may feel that they are simply not dedicated enough to be able to achieve the stillness in the heat of battle.


Adaptation: A DM could change the central disciplines studied by the Sublime Master to best fit the trends of widespread usage. They could also remove the Martial and simple weapon proficiency to make them more monk-like, or remove there armor proficiency and add a AC bonus progression. You should also give proficiency in the base skill that any discipline uses, as getting good rolls is essential for a maneuver. Something similar to Arcane swordsage would likely be inadvisable due to the recovery method exploitation, though the limitation to a small number of spells makes it less unbalanced than you would initially think
Design intentions This class is intended to be around low tier 2, and viable as a weapon user or as an unarmed combatant. This class intentionally is better than the swordsage in many ways, and substantial changes would have to be made to allow other martial adepts the ability to function better than the Sublime Master. The idea is that though you can use manuevers essentially unlimitedly, you can only perform quick combo attacks. Effortless disarm is supposed to be a powerful ability that allows the Sublime Master the ability to
casually deal with mooks and such. Seriously, any character who is a serious challenge to your character should have a secondary weapon.
Design note I am... unsure of what the capstone should be.

GAME RULE INFORMATION
Sublime Masters have the following game statistics.
Abilities: Sublime masters has less MAD then most classes, due to access to the diamond mind maneuvers that allow you to swap a concentration check for a save roll, as well as a number of class features. This means that Sublime Masters only need to focus on Wisdom in order to keep there save DCs high, and dexterity for accuracy.
Alignment: Any
Hit Die: d8
Starting Age: As monk.
Starting Gold: 4d4 x 10 Gp

Class Skills
The Sublime Master's class skills: Tumble (Dex), Concentration (Con), Balance (Dex), Sense motive (Wis), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Diplomacy (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Heal (Wis), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (History) (Int), Knowledge (Local) (Int), Knowledge (Nobility and Royality) (Int), Knowledge (Nature) (Int), Listen (Wis), Martial Lore (Int), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Swim (Str), Perform (Weapon Drill) (Cha)

Skill Points at First Level: (6 + Int modifier) x 6
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 6 + Int modifier

CSublime Master


Level
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Special
Maneuvers Prepared
Maneuvers expendable


1st

+1

+0

+2

+2
Maneuvers, Sublime script, unarmed warrior, Finesse
6
1


2nd

+2

+0

+3

+3
AC Bonus
7
1


3rd

+3

+1

+3

+3
Weapon Aptitude, Scribe Martial Script
8
2


4th

+4

+1

+4

+4
Ki Focus
9
2


5th

+5

+1

+4

+4
Sublime Grace, Ki strike (Magic)
10
3


6th

+6

+2

+5

+5
Uncanny dodge
11
3


7th

+7

+2

+5

+5
Incredible maneuverability
12
4


8th

+8

+2

+6

+6

13
4


9th

+9

+3

+6

+6
Sublime Fortitude
14
5


10th

+10

+3

+7

+7
Improved uncanny dodge,Evasion
15
5


11th

+11

+3

+7

+7
Ki Strike (Alignment)
16
6


12th

+12

+4

+8

+8

17
6


13th

+13

+4

+8

+8
True Total defense
18
7


14th

+14

+4

+9

+9
Dimensional Jaunt
19
7


15th

+15

+5

+9

+9
Dexterous hands
20
8


16th

+16

+5

+10

+10
Mettle
21
8


17th

+17

+5

+10

+10
Timeless body,Improved Evasion
22
9


18th

+18

+6

+11

+11
Effortless disarm
23
9


19th

+19

+6

+11

+11
Dual Boost 1/day
24
10


20th

+20

+6

+12

+12

25
10



Class Features
All of the following are class features of the Sublime Master.

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: The Sublime Master is proficient in all melee martial and simple weapons, as well as discipline weapons of disciplines they possess. They are also proficient in light armor.


Maneuvers (Ex, Su): You gain the ability to initiate maneuvers. You need a Wisdom score equal to 10 + maneuver level in order to initiate it, and Wisdom determines your save DCs. Each day, you prepare a number of maneuvers equal to your Sublime Master level + 5. These are the maneuvers you can initiate in the day. You also can initiate a number of maneuvers in an encounter equal to 1/2 your Sublime master level, rounded up. At the end of every turn in which she does not use a spell or supernatural ability, the sublime master regains one maneuver (note that using a maneuver never qualifies for this benefit) . You may also recuperate your maneuvers by using a full round action to make a weapon flourish, (This may be used as a perform (Weapon Drill) or Intimidate attempt) to regain a number of maneuvers equal to your wisdom modifier.
You learn stances at first, second, fifth, ninth, fourteenth, and twentieth level (Same as Swordsage).

The idea of the recuperation mechanic is that you can regain a maneuver by spending your turn fighting normally, in a way that say member of the NPC warrior class could. You can't cast to regain your maneuvers, that would be stupid. But you can do a number of things in the time between.
Sublime script (Ex): You learn manuevers in much the same way an archivist learns spells, and you record them much as a wizard. You may write a Sublime script, in which the method for initiating a maneuver is explained. This allows you to copy from a martial script, erasing the maneuver and adding it to your Sublime script. It costs as much to record a maneuver as a spell of the same level, though no matter what the manuever only takes one page. Thusly, a Sublime master may know any number of maneuvers, but is limited by the number prepared and expendable. You start with 5 maneuvers in your Sublime script, and gain 2 from gaining each level that must be from Desert Wind, Diamond Mind, Iron Heart, Setting Sun, Shadow Hand, Stone Dragon, Tiger Claw, White Raven, though a Sublime master may research any maneuver and initiate it.
Finesse (Ex): At first level, You may treat any non-siege weapon as a weapon that can have the weapon finesse feat applied to it and gain weapon finesse as a bonus feat.
AC Bonus (Ex): At second level, you gain the Swordsage class feature.
Unarmed Warrior (Ex): At first level, you gain the 'unarmed strike' Monk class feature.
Weapon Aptitude(Ex): At third level, you gain the Warblade Class feature, though you may not retrain the weapon that any weapon specific feat applies to.
Scribe Martial Script (Su) You gain the feat of the same name as a bonus feat.
Evasion (Ex): As Swordsage class feature.
Ki Focus (Ex): Strength becomes irrelevant to your maneuverability. Jump, Swim and Climb may substitute your strength modifier for your Dexterity modifier.
Sublime Grace (Ex): To a true master, all things are easy. At fifth level, Whenever the sublime master is required to make a saving throw, they reduce the DC by their Wisdom bonus.
Uncanny dodge (Ex): At sixth level, you gain the Swordsage class feature.
Incredible maneuverability (Ex): As a swift action, you gain a bonus equal to your wisdom modifier x your Sublime Master Level to one Jump, Balance, Swim, or Tumble check you make. Furthermore, gain +5ft of speed per Sublime Master level, as well as the Run feat.
Mettle(Ex): At sixteenth level, you gain the Crusader class feature.
Sublime fortitude(Su): At ninth level, your body has harmonized with the sublime at a profound level, allowing you to substitute your Constution modifier bonus hit points for each hit die with your wisdom bonus. Despite this being a supernatural effect, it makes permanent non-magical changes to the body, making this benefit go away over 1d4 days in an anti-magic field or similar.
Improved uncanny dodge(Ex): At tenth level, you gain the Rogue class feature.
Ki Strike (Magic) (Su): At fifth level, you gain the monk class feature.
Ki Strike (Alignment) (Su): At twelfth level, Your unarmed strikes are considered weapons with one alignment component you possess. True neutral Sublime Masters unarmed strikes are considered adamantine.
Improved Evasion (Ex): As swordsage class feature.
True Total Defense (Su): When you take a full-defense action, you can increase the benefits of defense to incredible levels. Increase the bonus to AC you gain by your level. Any saving throws you make are automatically 20s. You do not provoke attacks of opportunity. These effects last until the start of your next turn. This does not count as a supernatural ability for the purpose of regaining maneuvers. You may use this ability 3/day.
Note that this feature allows you to recuperate expendable manuevers, unlike other supernatural abilities (assuming you don't do anything that would stop you from recuperating like casting a spell)
Dimensional Jaunt (Ex): As a move action, you may teleport a distance of up to 5 ft per initiator level you possess. This effect does not use the ethereal plane.
Dexterous hands (Su): You have concentrated your dexterity to your hands, allowing extreme efficacy and fine control. The threat range of your unarmed strike doubles, and your unarmed attacks gain a enchantment bonus equal to half your dexterity modifier +1.
Effortless disarm (Su): You gain the Effortless disarm maneuver (see spoiler) added to your Sublime Script.
You have gained a basic mastery over time, allowing you to move at the speed of thought. As an immediate action, pause time and disarm an opponent, throwing the weapon (or other, unsecured item) into temporal stasis in the ethereal plane. There is no save, but artifacts and other unique items such as Weapons of Legacy and any campaign fixtures, are entitled to a save to prevent the disarm (DC 19 + Wisdom modifier). Attempts to use this on a divine being automatically fail. Time is distorted dramatically, meaning that the weapon could be anywhere in the infinite Ethereal Plane, meaning that simply popping into the ethereal plane, you have no chance of finding it, you must find it before being able to go get it, with scrying magic or similar.

Dual Boost 1/day (Ex): As swordsage class feature.
Credit to Aimless Polymath for design feedback and phrasing.

Xefas
2017-02-01, 05:06 PM
Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: The Sublime Master is proficient in all melee martial and simple weapons, as well as discipline weapons of disciplines they possess.

Are they proficient in armor and shields of any kind? I'm not sure it says anywhere.

The 16th level on the class table just says "Class Ability" under the Special heading.

Jirachi
2017-02-01, 07:30 PM
Thanks for the feedback, it is no editted.

aimlessPolymath
2017-02-02, 12:21 AM
Feedback, most of it on things you may wish to fill out more:

You also can initiate a number of maneuvers in an encounter equal to 1/2 your Sublime master level, rounded up.

Part of the maneuvers section. What do you mean by this? Ordinarily, a initiator works by preparing specified maneuvers, then expending them, i.e. they have $Maneuver1, $Maneuver2, and $Maneuver3 prepared, then they expend $Maneuver1, then they have $Maneuver2 and $Maneuver3 available. The formatting of your table implies that their "maneuvers prepared" is very similar to a swordsage's maneuvers known. Is this intentional? What does maneuver preparation mean?

Also, you described regaining expended maneuver slots by "any non-supernatural usage of your action". What does this mean? Many maneuvers are extraordinary in nature- is the intent to be able to regain one maneuver for free every turn by performing only extraordinary maneuvers?
Alternative wording would be "At the end of every turn in which they did not use a spell or supernatural ability, the sublime master regains one maneuver". If you want to exclude maneuver usage, it would be "At the end of every turn in which they did not use a spell, supernatural ability, or maneuver, the sublime master regains one maneuver".

You may alternatively wish to copy, paste, and modify boilerplate maneuver readiness language from another class. Swordsage copied in:


Maneuvers Readied: You can ready four of your six maneuvers known at 1st level, and as you advance in level and learn more maneuvers, you are able to ready more, but you must still choose which maneuvers to ready. You ready your maneuvers by meditating and exercising for 5 minutes. The maneuvers you choose remain readied until you decide to meditate again and change them. You need not sleep or rest for any long period of time to ready your maneuvers; any time you spend 5 minutes in meditation, you can change your readied maneuvers.

You begin an encounter with all your readied maneuvers unexpended, regardless of how many times you might have already used them since you chose them. When you initiate a maneuver, you expend it for the current encounter, so each of your readied maneuvers can be used once per encounter (unless you recover them, as described below).

You can recover an expended maneuver by using a fullround action to quickly meditate. Doing this does not provoke attacks of opportunity. If you complete your meditation, you can choose one expended maneuver to refresh. It is now available for use in a subsequent round.



You learn manuevers in much the same way an archivist learns spells
Should clarify that they can copy from martial scripts.


Sublime Grace (Ex): Your wisdom gives you an almost supernatural understanding of your body, giving you a bonus equal to your wisdom modifier to all saves, even if you are not using a conventional save roll. (i.e. Diamond mind maneuvers)

Another, possibly less awkward wording would be "To a true master, all things are easy. Whenever the sublime master is required to make a saving throw, they reduce the DC by their Wisdom bonus."
Is this meant to double the Wisdom bonus to Will saves? On top of good Will saves? To be honest, the only Diamond Mind maneuver I could see you needing is the Fortitude one, since the other two are a) good saves, and b) operate off a primary ability score.



You may apply a bonus equal to your wisdom modifier x your Sublime Master level to any Jump, Balance, Swim or Tumble check by expending a swift action. Furthermore, your gain an alchemical bonus to speed equal to 5 x your Sublime Master level feet and the run feat.

Reword: "As a swift action, you gain a bonus equal to your wisdom modifier x your Sublime Master Level to one Jump, Balance, Swim, or Tumble check you make. Furthermore, gain +5ft of speed per Sublime Master level, as well as the Run feat". That said, holy gonzales that's a lot of speed and skill checks. You'll probably be making most of the Epic DC's by 14th level.


Ki Strike (Su): Your unarmed strikes are considered to be magical and have one alignment component of your alignments (if you are True Neutral, it may emulate a material of your choice) for the purpose of over coming damage reduction.
You could probably move the magic aspect of this to an earlier level.


True Total Defense (Su): You gain the ability to supercharge your body to absolutely incredible levels of maneuverability. As a standard action, true total defense give you the following benefits: You may take 20 on any saving throw roll (including the diamond mind maneuver save replacement roll), you gain a dodge bonus to AC equal to your Class level, and you do not provoke attacks of opportunity. You may use this feature a number of times a day equal to your Dexterity modifier.
Reword: "When you take a full-defense action, you can increase the benefits of defense to incredible levels. Increase the bonus to AC you gain by your level. Any saving throws you make are automatically 20s. You do not provoke attacks of opportunity. These effects last until the start of your next turn. This does not count as a supernatural ability for the purpose of regaining maneuvers."
Note that a 20 on every saving throw is an automatic success. Also, you probably can take out the immunity to attacks of opportunity, since you'll have +17 total to AC at the level you get this feature
Also, you should probably set it to a static uses/day- Ability score bonus uses is really uncommon. 3/day sounds fine.


Dimensional Jaunt (Su): You gain dimensional jaunt as a bonus feat, though you do not have to have a 4th level teleportation spell in reserve in order to use it and you replace 'highest level teleportation spell' with 'initiator level' and you may use it as a move action and you do not gain a competence bonus to your caster level for teleportation spell.

You can probably just replace this with "as a move action, you may teleport a distance of up to 5 ft per initiator level you possess".


I'll go for a second pass later to try to catch a few other things. In particular, the powerlevel of this class is way above what it needs to be.
Flagged:
-Weapon aptitude- reword to simplify.
-Sublime Ascendant- outer-planes flavor doesn't fit.
-Dual Boost- copying capstone?
-Dextrous Hands- bizarre scaling method
-Class balance- Better than swordsage in every way which matters. (slower maneuvers/encounter, but regains them way faster + automatically)
-Formatting: add level gained to every class feature- aids with balance
-Levels gained: Gets Dual Boost before swordsage, Evasion + Imp. Evasion before swordsage, mettle before crusader, etc.
-Effortless disarm- looks like a maneuver, not a class feature
-Stances gained- copied from swordsage?

Jirachi
2017-02-04, 04:19 PM
Thanks for the Criticism, Aimless Polymath!
I am aware that it is better than the swordsage in most ways that matters, and will consider nerfing.
I just wanted to avoid making an awkward list (spell-like abilities would not be covered, nor would psionic effects).
The idea is to make them more like wizards (in the sense that they have a book that they copy effects from, and that they can change the maneuvers they have available at a given time (not just having a list known, but you can learn any manuever, but may only 'prepare' (as a swordsage does) a certain amount to prevent spontaneous casting from anything in your book).
The phrasing was intended to allow your wisdom modifier to your will save twice.
Though it is true that good saves are important, I would think that the lack of critical failures and superior bonuses on skills (your save bonus is always less than your max skill ranks) might make it desirable.
I am also aware of the fact that you start to go into epic usages, and I think that considering that long duration flight like overland flight has been online for a while it wouldn't be problematic.
Effortless Disarm was just a thing that I wanted a member of the class to be able to do, and I thought it would be awkward to add a maneuver to there list. Would you suggest that I rephrase it as adding it as an manuever to there list?
Stances gained was copied from swordsage, as it is already done satisfactorily.
Class features moved.
And yes, I have no idea what I was thinking with Sublime Ascendants. The idea was that after much time wandering, they have moved on to planar horizons.
No, it works the same way that the gods take x for a d20 roll does, it is not considered a critical.

Zale
2017-02-05, 03:08 PM
Maneuvers (Ex, Su): You also can initiate a number of maneuvers in an encounter equal to 1/2 your Sublime master level, rounded up. At the end of every turn in which she does not use a spell or supernatural ability, the sublime master regains one maneuver (note that using a maneuver never qualifies for this benefit).

Wait, wait, so they have to go a turn without using a maneuver to regain a maneuver?

That's an interesting design choice? Most classes don't punish you for using your class features (Truenamer besides).

Anyway, besides that this looks like a Swordsage+ via the Wizard.

Effortless disarm is kind of scary as a no-save, just suck ability, but otherwise this seems to have acceptable levels of power.

I mean, it's better than most of the other ToB classes, but I took that to be the intent. It's still probably not better than a similarly optimized sorcerer or something, so I think it would work fine with the caveat that there should be a note stating that it's intentionally more powerful than all the other ToB classes.