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View Full Version : Pathfinder Champion [Paladin Redux, PEACH!]



Admiral Squish
2017-05-26, 04:41 PM
So, it's been a while. I just recently joined up with a new pathfinder group, playing core only, and started playing a paladin because I had a concept I liked, but I was rather forcefully reminded why I don't generally play core only. There's a lot of things about the paladin class that bug me. I don't like vancian casting, I don't like arbitrary /day limits, and I don't like how rigid the 'lawful good only' part of a paladin is, and I don't like that you have to wait 'till 5th to get a proper mount. So, here's something I threw together in the last couple hours to illustrate my ideal version of the paladin.

Champion

Skill Points: 2+ Int modifier
Class Skills: Acrobatics, Bluff, Climb, Craft, Diplomacy, Handle Animal, Heal, Intimidate, Knowledge (religion, plus any one other), Perception, Ride, Sense Motive, Swim.


LevelBABFortRefWillSpecial
1st+1+2+0+2Divine Agent, Smite, Miracle
2nd+2+3+0+3Divine Grace, Damage Reduction 1
3rd+3+3+1+3Miracle
4th+4+4+1+4Divine Courage, Damage Reduction 2
5th+5+4+1+4Miracle
6th+6+5+2+5Divine Health, Damage Reduction 3
7th+7+5+2+5Miracle
8th+8+6+2+6Divine Resolve, Damage Reduction 4
9th+9+6+3+6Miracle
10th+10+7+3+7Divine Purity, Damage Reduction 5
11th+11+7+3+7Miracle
12th+12+8+4+8Divine Resistance, Damage Reduction 6
13th+13+8+4+8Miracle
14th+14+9+4+9Damage Reduction 7
15th+15+9+5+9Miracle
16th+16+10+5+10Damage Reduction 8
17th+17+10+5+10Miracle
18th+18+11+6+11Damage Reduction 9
19th+19+11+6+11Miracle
20th+20+12+6+12Ascension, Damage Reduction 10


Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: Champions are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, light, medium, and heavy armor, and shields (except tower shields)

Divine Agent (Su): You have sworn yourself wholly to the service of your god, and in return, they have made you one of their champions on the mortal plane. Choose a patron deity. Your alignment must be within one step of your chosen deity’s. You must swear to follow your deity’s moral code (if they have one). A champion of a chaotic, evil, good, or lawful deity has a particularly powerful aura, corresponding to the deity’s alignment, as a cleric.
Your connection with the divine allows you to perform great feats in your deity’s name, but your power is borrowed. Your deity will be watching your actions closely, and may take their power back should you fail to live up to their standards. If you knowingly violate your deity’s moral code, abuse your champion powers for personal gain, or try to use your champion abilities against their fellow servants, you will lose your deity’s favor, and they will take back the power they granted you. If you lose your deity’s favor, you immediately lose all supernatural abilities granted by your champion levels, and cannot take further levels in champion. You may attempt to regain your deity’s favor by spending 24 hours praying and repenting for your transgression, or by receiving an atonement spell from a cleric.

Smite (Su): As a swift action, the champion can channel their god’s power into an attack. The next melee attack the champion makes gains a morale bonus to attack equal to their charisma modifier, and deals an additional 1d6 points of damage per level of champion they possess. If the champion does not make a melee attack before the end of their turn, or misses their attack, the smite is wasted.

Miracle (Su): The champion gains the ability to perform some form of divine miracle, chosen from the list of miracles below. The champion must meet all prerequisites for a miracle in order to select it.

Divine Grace (Su): The champion gains a morale bonus to all saving throws equal to their charisma modifier.

Damage Reduction (Su): At 2nd level, the champion gains damage reduction 1, which is is overcome by their deity’s opposed alignments (a neutral good deity would grant DR 1/evil, a lawful evil deity would grant DR 1/good or chaos, etc.). This damage reduction increases by 1 at 4th level and every even-numbered level thereafter.

Divine Courage (Su): The champion gains immunity to fear effects.

Divine Health (Su): The champion gains immunity to all diseases, including supernatural and magical diseases.

Divine Resolve (Su): The champion gains immunity to charm spells and spell-like abilities.

Divine Purity (Su): The champion gains immunity to poisons of all kinds.

Divine Resistance (Su): The champion gains spell resistance equal to 10+ their champion level.

Ascension (Ex): The champion’s service is rewarded by their deity, and they ascend beyond their former mortality. The champion’s creature type changes to Outsider, and they gain the (native) subtype and any alignment subtypes their deity possesses. They retain the traits of their former creature type, such as low-light vision, and gain darkvision 60. If the champion has racial hit die of their former type, they change to outsider hit die, and recalculate their HP, base attack bonus, saves, and skills accordingly. The champion becomes timeless and ageless, and cannot be magically aged. They lose any ability score penalties for aging but retain any bonuses they have accrued. The champion is now permanently bound to their deity, and their powers may no longer be revoked if they lose their deity’s favor.

Aura of Light:
The champion glows with holy power. This glow illuminates a 10-foot radius centered on themselves with bright light, and shadowy illumination out to 20 feet. All allies within the radius of bright light gain a +1 morale bonus to saves charm, fear and compulsion effects. This bonus increases by 1 for every four class levels the champion possesses. The champion can suppress or resume this glow as free action once per round.
-Aura of Brilliance:
Prerequisites: Aura of Light
The champion’s aura of light is particularly bright and pure. The radius of bright light provided by their aura increases to 20 feet, and the radius of shadowy illumination increases to 40 feet. The area of bright light is treated as a daylight spell by creatures vulnerable to light.
-Aura of Healing:
Prerequisites: Aura of Light
All allies in the radius of bright light produced by the champion’s aura of light (including the champion) whose whose hit points are lower than ½ their maximum value gain fast healing 1. This fast healing increases by 1 for every four class levels the champion possesses.
-Aura of Might:
Prerequisites: Aura of Light
All allies in the radius of bright light produced by the champion’s aura of light (including the champion) gain a +1 morale bonus to attack and damage rolls. This bonus increases by 1 for every four class levels the champion possesses.
-Aura of Protection:
Prerequisites: Aura of Light
All allies in the radius of bright light produced by the champion’s aura of light (including the champion) gain a +1 morale bonus to armor class and all saving throws. This bonus increases by 1 for every four class levels the champion possesses.
Blessed Weapon:
The champion’s weapon always finds its mark. Any weapon the champion wields gains a +1 enhancement bonus. If the weapon leaves the champion’s possession for any reason, such as being disarmed, dropped, or thrown, the weapon loses the enhancement bonus at the end of the champion's turn. The enhancement bonus increases by +1 for every four champion levels they possess. These bonuses can be added to the weapon, stacking with existing enhancement bonuses to a maximum of +5, or they can be used to add any of the following weapon properties: Bane, Brilliant Energy, Defending, Disruption, Flaming, Flaming Burst, Frost, Ghost Touch, Icy Burst, Keen, Merciful, Mighty Cleaving, Returning, Seeking, Shock, Shocking Burst, Speed, Thundering, Throwing, Vorpal, or Wounding. Adding these abilities consumes an amount of bonus equal to the property's cost. These bonuses are added to any properties the weapon already has, but duplicate abilities do not stack. If the weapon is not magical, at least a +1 enhancement bonus must be added before any other properties can be added. These bonuses apply to only one end of a double weapon. The champion can change which properties they grant to a weapon by spending one hour in meditation and prayer.
-Divine Blade:
Prerequisites: Blessed Weapon.
In addition to the enhancement bonus, any weapon the champion wields gains an appropriately-aligned enchantment. If the champion serves a good deity, any weapon they wield gain the holy property, if they serve an evil diety, their weapons gain the unholy property, if they serve a chaotic deity, their weapons gain the anarchic property, and if they serve a lawful deity, their weapons gain the axiomatic property. If their deity would qualify for more than one property, the champion must choose one to apply when they select this miracle.
-Bless Weapons:
Prerequisites: Blessed Weapon
As a standard action, the champion can touch a weapon and bless it, granting it bonuses as though they were wielding it for one round per level of champion.
Bonded Companion:
The champion gains the service of an unusually strong, intelligent creature. This companion functions as a druid’s animal companion, using the champion’s class level as their druid level. Bonded companions also have an intelligence of at least 6.
-Call Companion:
Prerequisite: Bonded Companion
As a full-round action, usable at will, the champion can call their companion to their side, summoning them from anywhere on the same plane. The companion appears adjacent to the champion at the start of their next turn.
-Blessed Companion:
Prerequisite: Bonded Companion, Champion level 13.
The champion’s bonded companion gains the celestial simple creature template, and spell resistance equal to 10+ the champion’s class level.
Devastating Smite:
The champion’s smite damage increases by 1/2 champion’s class level. This miracle can be selected multiple times. Its effects stack.
Healing Hands:
The champion’s touch closes wounds and heals the sick. As a standard action, the champion can touch a creature to heal it. If the creature is dying, they automatically stabilize. In addition, the champion has a pool of points equal to 2 x their class level x their charisma modifier. They can spend any number of these points to heal the creature they touch an equal number of hit points. Temporary increases to charisma, such as from eagle’s splendor, do not increase the size of this pool. Each day, the champion must spend one hour in meditation and prayer in order to refill this pool. The champion can use this ability to heal themself as a swift action.
-Divine Touch:
Prerequisites: Healing Hands
The multiplier for the champion's healing hands pool increases by one. This miracle can be selected multiple times, and its effects stack. (3 x their class level x their charisma modifier the first time, then 4 x their class level x their charisma modifier, then 5 x their class level x their charisma modifier, etc...)
-Merciful Touch:
Prerequisites: Healing Hands
The champion’s healing hands can do more than simply heal wounds. When using their healing hands ability, the champion can spend additional points from their pool to heal serious damage or conditions. For every 5 points they spend, they can cure one point of ability damage, or remove the fatigued, shaken or sickened condition from the target. At 6th level, they can spend 10 points to remove the dazed or staggered condition, or cure a disease as with the cure disease spell (caster level equal to champion’s class level). At 9th level, they can spend 15 points to remove the confused, exhausted, frightened, or nauseated conditions, remove a curse as with the remove curse spell (caster level equal to champion’s class level), or remove poison as with a neutralize poison spell (caster level equal to champion’s class level). At 12th level, they can spend 20 points to remove the blinded, deafened, paralyzed, petrified, or stunned condition
-Revive:
Prerequisites: Healing Hands, Champion level 13
If the champion uses their healing hands ability on a creature that has died within one round per champion level, they can bring them back to life. A revived creature has negative hit points equal to their constitution score-1, and the touch automatically stabilizes them. Restoring them from there requires further healing.
-Savior’s Reach:
Prerequisites: Healing Hands
The champion can use their healing hands ability on any creature within 30 feet, as long as they have a line of effect to the target.
Sense Morality:
The champion can detect strong alignments. They can use Detect Chaos, Detect Evil, Detect Good, and Detect Law as spell-like abilities at will. As a move action, the champion can focus on a single object within 60 feet and determine if it’s chaotic, evil, good, or lawful, and learn the strength of its aura as if having studied it for three rounds.
Smiting Arrow:
The champion’s smite can apply to either a melee or ranged attack, at their option.
Smiting Bolt:
As a standard action, the champion can make a ranged touch attack against a target within 60 feet to deal 1/2 their smite bonus damage to the target directly.

noob
2017-05-26, 07:52 PM
While it gets correct class features the lack of spell-casting is a major problem:A lot of the polyvalence of the paladin was coming from its spell-casting and you did not gave that polyvalence back with the miracles.
So I think it needs a list of miracles that gives more possibilities.

nonsi
2017-05-27, 01:04 AM
.
Very nicely done. Simple and elegant. Always felt that it should be possible to make a decent Paladin w/o spells :smallsmile:


1. You should classify the Champion's class abilities as (Ex) / (Su) / (Sp). This also simplifies managing the consequences noted in Divine Agent.
2. Blessed Weapon should eventually allow you the option of wielding a holy avenger.
3. Since the Champion doesn't have spells, it needs a wider list of class skills. Since it's a holy warrior, I'd first focus on some mobility skills like Climb, Jump and Swim (in PF, Jump falls under Acrobatics, which is weird to me, because mounted warriors need quick-mount capabilities).
4. Miracle should have more swift-action options, mostly to make things more interesting combat-tactics-wise. Otherwise the Champion's use of swift-action is reduced to a boring "deal more damage to enemy" / "heal self" routine.

pi4t
2017-05-27, 10:13 AM
Hmm. The miracles don't seem to be very well balanced against each other, and some of them have what seem likely to be typos:
Aura of Light: While flavourful, this doesn't seem to be very strong. In fact, it's beaten by a cantrip! (Light can be cast on things other than your own body, providing more options.) I'd suggest giving some sort of mechanical effect, possibly merging it with Aura of Brilliance. Unless it's supposed to be a tax, of course. The convention in Pathfinder appears to be to spell out the dimmer light levels further around, too, so the wording of the ability implies that you shed bright light within 10ft, and nothing at all beyond that.
Aura of _____: As written, the bonus increases based on the number of Champion levels the ally has. That seems...odd. Typo?
Aura of Might is probably stronger than Aura of Protection, though it's not hugely significant. Remember that giving a weapon a +1 enchantment (which Might mimics) costs twice that of giving an armour a +1 enchantment.
Bonded Companion: Very powerful compared with the other miracles, particularly since it doesn't have to be a mount. Consider that an animal companion was considered worth a sorcerer bloodline arcana, 1st level bloodline ability (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/sorcerer/archetypes/paizo---sorcerer-archetypes/wildblooded/mutated-bloodlines---paizo/sylvan/) and a feat (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/boon-companion), and the bloodline in question has still been ranked as one of the top ones by the main bloodline handbook available. And this is even better than a normal animal companion. Might be worth splitting this one up into two miracles in some way, or adding some restrictions, just so we don't find every optimised Champion getting an animal companion.
Blessed Weapon: Should be before Bonded Companion because alphabetical order. As written, this doesn't stack with any enhancement bonus the weapon has already - is this intentional? If so, it should probably be spelled out (since most abilities of that type in Pathfinder do stack, eg the Magus's arcane pool), and is...a bit odd, honestly. If it is meant to stack, then why not just make it an untyped bonus, or make it actually increase the weapon's "+" rating? Either should have essentially the same effect.
Blessed Weapons: This is a big increase to power, especially combined with Divine Blade; if you're taking Blessed Weapon you'll almost certainly take this soon after. If it was worth it to take a miracle to get to buff one weapon, it's worth it even more to take one buff all the other weapons in the party!
Revive: Why -9hp? Remember that in Pathfinder, you die at -con score hp. Thus this ability would actually not work on creatures with below average con scores!
Smiting Bolt: This seems...kind of bad, compared with Smiting Arrow. Yes, it targets touch AC, but you miss out on all the bonuses of using a bow - to hit bonuses from the weapon, and the rider damage. And you then miss out on half the damage of the smite. And you can't use it as part of a full attack.

I'd also agree with Noob: this character has very little to offer outside combat, and even during combat he's only useful against enemies who aren't using more complicated tactics like setting up miss chances, flight, etc. Perhaps offer more miracles that offer out of combat utility, too?

Admiral Squish
2017-05-29, 09:57 AM
Yeah, the miracle list is a tad short at the moment, like I said, I literally just threw this together over the course of a few hours. I may add some more, but looking at the paladin spell list (at least, the core spell list) there's not much in the way of out-of-combat utility in there.

Will definitely add (su) tags. Completely forgot about those.
Also forgot the class skills... Will add those.
Oooh, yeah, that's a good point. I'll see what I can come up with in terms of swift actions.

Yeah, balance is always tricky. Some of them will be more powerful than others, but I don't want the difference to be so dramatic that some will be automatic picks.
Aura of Light was mostly intended as a tax. I wanted something simple and generic that would provide an aura I could build on for more abilities. I'll see if I can come up with something basic to add to it. Also, I debated about adding a region of shadowy illumination, but I figured I didn't want people to get confused as to which radius provided the bonuses. I suppose I could add a line or two...
Aura of ___: I'll definitely fix the aura wording.
Aura of Might: Maybe I'll add a save bonus to the protection aura.
Bonded companion: definitely a troublesome one. I really want the companion available at level 1, as it's kinda a defining feature for builds, and I hate it when classes delay stuff like that. Not really sure how I could nerf it, either.
Blessed weapon: It's written so as to not stack, it's basically greater magic weapon, but limited to your own weapon, and the idea was based on the 'bonded weapon' paladin feature. I suppose making it stack would be a nice way to make it more powerful, but then, that might be overpowered when you get the blessed weapons...
Revive: Forgot about that. I wanted it to bring them back on the verge of death again, so you still had to spend points from the pool to bring them back to consciousness. Not sure how to word it to make that happen, though... I might just make it -1 and stable, for simplicity's sake.
Smiting Bolt: The obvious comparison would be warlock. While 1d6/level damage is achievable in other classes, typically it involves some sort of resource, so having it be at-will was problematic. I figured warlock was a solid balance-point to work off, so here we are. Aiming at touch AC is a really powerful bonus.

Again, I'm not really sure what to offer in terms of utility. Paladin spell list is kinda bare-bones and combat-focused. I'll take a look at the full non-core list and see if I come up with anything appropriate.