New Base Class: Battle Dancer, v.2 - Leave Your Friends Behind

[zeek0]

Want to play a Dex Barbarian? A Strength Monk? River Tamm? Read on!

Months ago I posted the Battle Dancer, a martial alternative. I've since tweaked it, and added a new subclass - Supremacy.

Also, I've started using Word and GIMP to make high quality documents - and I'm proud of what I've been able make.

I still want feedback! The class features a new resource system (Momentum), and has a weird Unarmored Defense option (10+Strength+Charisma), among other oddities. Let me know what you think!

Link (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxfCiPA2FPFAWnBCUmNEVUVJak0/view?usp=drivesdk) (Newly updated!)

[Sariel Vailo]

I like this. Better than the last one.

[auric_gm]

Aesthetics: A

First of all, the layout and the writing is fantastic. This looks and feels like someone could just pop it into the PHB. There were a few minor places where having an editor tighten up the language/make things a bit less awkward wouldn't hurt, but I'm really nitpicking here. Very very nice work!

Necessity: B-

My assessment here is highly dependent on whether you believe the monk class is under-powered, as there's a lot of overlap between the monk and the battle dancer. If you do think the monk is under-powered, then this class becomes more necessary. If not, then it makes it mechanically difficult to justify being a monk if this class is available. Considering how similar the mechanics are, I wonder whether making the Battledancer a subclass of monk would make more sense. If you add something like: "For all ability scores that rely on Wisdom, use Charisma instead" to the subclass, you've gone a long way toward giving the Monk class the same feel and mechanical ability. Use Ki points to power your special battle dancer abilities as they accumulate similarly to the battle dancer's movement points, etc.

There's an argument to be made both ways here, so I only offer this as an alternative way to look at it.

Subclasses: B

I like these, but I feel like the deception subclass loses out to the other two. Unless I'm missing something, almost every ability they have boils down to gaining combat advantage. Not that that's a bad thing, but it feels like it gets short shrift compared to how interesting and varied the other two are.

Mechanics: A

A lot of these look like direct swaps from the monk class (movement for Ki, etc) which I see as a good thing. There's a consistency there that makes things work and flow with out being overburdened technically. Good stuff.

All in all, I like it a lot and wouldn't hesitate to give it a spin at my table if a player wanted to use it. Kudos to some great work on this!

[zeek0]

Your Feedback: A
Honestly, this might be my best feedback ever. I've some responses.

Aesthetics: Thanks! I tried my best to use PHB language. ...I'd actually really like to have nitpicky editing done to clean up awkward phrasings - please feel free to give me feedback here!

Necessity: I agree that this is similar to the Monk, and a conversion would be possible. I could have billed this as a Revised Monk, but I feel that Monk is fine enough. With a new base class I was freer with the features, and freer with the concept - which has less mysticism than the Monk. The possible characters that can be expressed by the Battle Dancer is simply greater. Essentially, I agree with your assessment.

Subclasses: Thanks for this comment in particular. I'll look over the Duplicity subclass, to make the features give different benefits than simple advantage.

Mechanics: I was worried about how momentum might work, but it's good to have a second opinion. If this does end up at your able, let me know how it goes - I have precious little playtesting opportunity.

Thanks again!

[auric_gm]

Your Feedback: A
Honestly, this might be my best feedback ever. I've some responses.

Glad I can help!

I may have some time to take a look at the language stuff this weekend. There were only a handful of spots where phrasing could have been tightened up a skosh. Nothing much to worry about, but I'll take a look.

And yeah, I think we're on the same page with the necessity argument. As much as I love homebrew, I lean toward using core books and play tested material as much as possible as far as mechanics go. I suspect you do too. For you, it seems like the thematics were the main driver behind creating this as a separate class. This makes sense to me.

For the Duplicity class I had a few ideas. For some reason I have monkey style kung fu stuck in my head. While stylistically it's most likely wildly different from what you're going for, the aim of confusion and misdirection is a clear commonality. I'm not an expert or anything, but my understanding is the style encourages the opponent to over-commit, misjudge distances, etc. Mechanically, the opponent could lose one or all attacks in a round, fall prone, lose concentration, become temporarily blinded (or some other condition), or possibly even cause themselves or an ally damage. I personally think this would give a greater variety and utility to the effects the Duplicity subclass could do that is both mechanically and thematically more interesting.

And yeah, the mechanics are solid. That you're basically swapping Momentum for Ki to power special attacks and Charisma for Wisdom for the AC bonus is mechanically sound if for no other reason than having been extensively play-tested.

Oh, and I missed it in my first reply, but nice "Safety Dance" reference in the thread title!

[zeek0]

I've updated the document.

For me, theme was important. I wanted a martial class that didn't seem to rely on mysticism. But I was also looking for a different resource system, one that felt more fluid in combat (it feels odd to me that, after she's done it too often, a battle master can't do a trip attack and a monk can't dodge). A new class was the best way to make it all come in one package.

Cool idea about the monkey style. I think that this is represented through Feint and Sidestep, with some flavor tweaks. I think that I'll alter the flavor text for the Duplicity expression, to hint at this possibility.

[Amnoriath]

This is a very optimized class, all abilities pertaining to battle and many of them improved versions of other classes or come earlier. A standard two-weapon fighting dancer can accumulate 33 momentum points far before a monk can have these amount of ki points per rest period. While most battles won't be 10 rounds it goes to show that you will always have momentum to use even in the low levels. You then give them a better improved smite(radiant is a different type of damage ergo it doesn't factor into a critical) who can attack more than a Paladin, better AC than a monk, better movement than a barbarian or a low-mid tier monk,..etc. Overall it feels like you wanted to make a better battle class.

[zeek0]

This is a very optimized class, all abilities pertaining to battle and many of them improved versions of other classes or come earlier. A standard two-weapon fighting dancer can accumulate 33 momentum points far before a monk can have these amount of ki points per rest period. While most battles won't be 10 rounds it goes to show that you will always have momentum to use even in the low levels. You then give them a better improved smite(radiant is a different type of damage ergo it doesn't factor into a critical) who can attack more than a Paladin, better AC than a monk, better movement than a barbarian or a low-mid tier monk,..etc. Overall it feels like you wanted to make a better battle class.

I intended to make a class that fills in the gaps that current classes don't handle: Dex barbarian, Str monk, armored puncher, etc. But, you're right, I did muck up the balance.

I think that some of your comments can be refuted (improved smite appears to be crit-able, AC is mechanically equal to a monk).

But you helped me by pointing out that resources are simply gained too quickly. A momentum point is less valuable than a ki point or a superiority die, but the sheer volume gained outstrips the lessened value.

I also wanted a different resource system, that involved gaining/losing points with the flow of combat (ki is too mystical for my tastes, and both ki and superiority dice have a hard time explaining why you can only do cool things a few times before a rest).

I'm interested in ideas about how to get a resource system like this to work. I'll post here with some ideas later.

Thanks for the help and comments!

[Amnoriath]

I intended to make a class that fills in the gaps that current classes don't handle: Dex barbarian, Str monk, armored puncher, etc. But, you're right, I did muck up the balance.

I think that some of your comments can be refuted (improved smite appears to be crit-able, AC is mechanically equal to a monk).

But you helped me by pointing out that resources are simply gained too quickly. A momentum point is less valuable than a ki point or a superiority die, but the sheer volume gained outstrips the lessened value.

I also wanted a different resource system, that involved gaining/losing points with the flow of combat (ki is too mystical for my tastes, and both ki and superiority dice have a hard time explaining why you can only do cool things a few times before a rest).

I'm interested in ideas about how to get a resource system like this to work. I'll post here with some ideas later.

Thanks for the help and comments!
1. I think the problem here you are forcing this class to be all of them and not to be itself across the four pillars. As such you have a battle heavy base class with strong sub-classes to get those choices.
2. Not if they are armoured and shield, unarmoured AC is an option, but the monk takes it further in that extra movement is lost if they don't use it. Also a monk takes a bonus action for its Dodge, yours doesn't. Perhaps I needed to look more closely at the poison critical ruling, but yours does attack more than a Paladin.
3. Exactly, I think they should start out with 1 immediately gaining one and accumulate 1 each turn they take movement.

[zeek0]

Thanks again!

Alright, then let's simplify things; get back to the core concept (I tried too much for flexibility, and that diffused the theme).

We'll remove armor proficiencies (though I did like that armored warrior art). I'll even consider tying momentum to being unarmored. This should mend the AC concern.

Momentum is gained too often, and it's kinda swingy. Instead, we can give one momentum point each turn, with a stored limit of three. The Battle Trance subclass can be altered so it has some other benefit, perhaps a bonus to hit. This limits their resource considerably, while still making it generally available.

It's a small line, but precise strikes only adds damage on your turn (but, I'll revisit this - less momentum makes this less of a concern, and adding precise strike damage would keep Counter relevant).

My assumption about the Monk is that the bonus action is because it's a much stronger ability - dodge all creatures v. one creature.

This is brainstorming at the moment - I'm away from my computer for the weekend. But I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts on my proposed changes!