Shining Blade of Heironeous

[AnimeTheCat]

So, I was looking at this class and quite frankly, I know it's garbage. It does practically nothing that that sucks. BUT! on the very next page there's the Stormlord Prestige Class that is not as garbage that I think would make a great chassis for reworking Shining Blade of Heironeous. SO, does anyone see any negative Mechanical Implications of changing the Shining Blade of Heironeous to the following:


BAB: +5
Spellcasting: Able to cast 1st Level Paladin Spells
Feats: Weapon Focus (longsword)
Patron: Heironeous
Alignment: Lawful Good

SBoH levels and Paladin Levels stack for determining number of uses/attack bonus/damage for Smite Evil, Lay on Hands Pool, and Special Mount Progression.

Then changing the Spellcasting progression to every level granting a new level of paladin spellcasting (if you somehow managed to cheese in without being a paladin, you get nothing).

At level 1, you treat any longsword as if it has an enhancement bonus equal to 1/2 your shining blade of heironeous level (minimum +1) granting +1/2 your SBoH level as an enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls with longswords to a max of +5 at 10th level. This fades as soon as the weapon leaves the SBoH hand. There is no action cost to activate this ability. Also, you gain Resistance to Shock 5.
Next, starting at level 2, any longsword you weild is a shocking longsword in addition to the enhancement bonus from the class.
At level 3, you get access to the Law Domain and it's spells are added to the Paladin Spell list.
At level 4, Resistance to Shock 10.
At level 5, Any longsword you weild is treated as shocking and holy, in additiona to the enhancement bonus from the class.
At level 6, You get Law Devotion as a bonus feat.
At level 7, Resistance to Shock 15.
At level 8, Any longsword you weild is treated as a Brilliant Energy Weapon in addition to shocking and holy and the enhancement bonus. Should the user desire, this feature can be turned off (to allow damage to undead). There is no action cost associated with activating or deactivating this ability.
At level 9, Immunity to Electricty.
At level 10, Channel the Might of Heironeous - once per day, you may summon an Angel (Planetar, Solar, Astral Deva) as if using the Gate spell as a Cleric who's caster level equals you BAB. There is no XP cost to use this ability.

I know this is homebrew, but the Homebrew section rarely gives much insight into actual gameplay/mechanical effects of a class rework.

EDIT:
I needed to rephrase this. I am a DM and this is something that I want to make sure, from other DM's perspectives, that it will not cause undue issues in the game.

[Inevitability]

Only possible problem I can see stems from the free Gate: costlessly summoning Solars is just asking for the game to be broken. Otherwise, it's a decent enough class that probably won't be the most optimal choice for most paladins.

[AnimeTheCat]

Only possible problem I can see stems from the free Gate: costlessly summoning Solars is just asking for the game to be broken. Otherwise, it's a decent enough class that probably won't be the most optimal choice for most paladins.

I saw that concern, but that's at level 15. At that point, the class ability for a paladin to do something once per day is minor in comparison to what wizards, clerics, and druids are already and have already been doing.

It's a 1/day SLA that a SBoH gets 2 levels before a cleric or wizard/sorcerer. Other than the XP cost, it's inferior to a Gate cast by a wizard/sorcerer or Cleric as it's functionality is limited solely to Angels.

[Inevitability]

I guess you're right, though I'd warn against making tier 1 a balance point for what's otherwise a tier 4/5 class. It's very easy to get something not worth the investment in high-power games and too strong in low-power games.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Maybe the visage of the deity line of spells, from the Spell Compendium, is something to look into, as a paladin's version of Rage.

For example:
Level 1: Get (Su) free action lesser visage of the deity transformation effect, duration 3 rounds + CHA mod, 1/day. One free Smite per transformation, using already-present Smite ability (make class prerequisite).
Level 2: Extra daily use: 2/day.
Level 3: Spell-granted energy resistance increased by class level. Base resistance is 10 for lesser/greater, 20 for regular (yeah, it's a little strange), so increases up to 30.
Level 4: Upgrade to visage of the deity effect. This spell normally allows you to Smite Evil 1/day, but remove that (already have free Smite). Extra free Smite per transformation: 2/use.
Level 5: Extra daily use: 3/day.
Level 6: Spell-granted SR increased by class level. Base SR is 20, or 25 for greater variant, so increases up to 35 @ ECL 15-20. Potent, but temporary.
Level 7: Upgrade to greater visage of the deity effect. Energy resistance remains at 20+class level, does not drop to 10+class level. Extra free Smite per transformation: 3/use.
Level 8: Extra daily use: 4/day.
Level 9: Each use grants 2*class level temporary hp that last for the entire transformation. Spell-granted DR improved to DR 10/evil (instead of DR 10/magic).
Level 10: Extra daily use: 5/day. Extra free Smite per transformation: 4/use. Double ability score boosts from transformation.


Kind of aims to fix the problem with Smite Evil (really low number of uses) but might go too far (way many uses, can full attack and Smite x4). You can make it 1 free smite/round max, which would still be fairly good, I think.

Oh, and yeah, it's quite strong. But then I like high-level paladins to be quasi-archons, and archons are badass. If the high SR bothers you, you can remove it, reduce the scaling, or slightly increase the class prerequisites (for example, prereq base attack +7 would push the SR 35 benefit to ECL 17, with SR 29 at ECL 16, which is fine considering the competition with 9th-level spells).

[The Viscount]

I'm similarly wary about gating solars, since they all cast as 20th level clerics.

Other than that I like the improvements you made to the class, especially the attention you paid to brilliant energy.

[Seerow]

I would note that you are making basically everything in the class passive. I would add at least one active limited use ability to the class. ExLibrisMortis' suggestion of Visage of Deity as a Rage analogue is a solid one, though honestly seems like a good candidate for a separate prestige class rather than a rework of Shining Blade. To keep something more similar to the original intent of the class maybe a lightning themed smite analogue. I'd do some sort of bursty lightning damage style attack, X/day or even 1-2 times an encounter, deal a big chunk of bonus electric damage (scaling with level) as a standard action. Higher levels can add status riders or even chain lightning style area effects.


Other possible add-ons for the class:
-Electric Damage may be treated as Electric or Sonic, whichever benefits the character more (making damage harder to negate)
-Stunning/Deafening effects. If you're going for the thunder-god flavor, go all in on it IMO.
-Immunity to Stun/Deafen effects
-Add interesting Electric/Sonic spells from other spell lists to the Paladin spell list, bump casting progression up to full. For example, Lightning Leap, or that spell that lets you throw a melee weapon and hit all enemies in a line with it (not sure if the latter is lightning themed but would still fit here).

[lord_khaine]

I do agree on the bad idea of letting the Paladin get a free -win- card every day level 15-16.
The idea of instead giving spell like abilities, perhaps once per encounter? sounds like a much more cool idea.


For example, Lightning Leap, or that spell that lets you throw a melee weapon and hit all enemies in a line with it (not sure if the latter is lightning themed but would still fit here).

These 1-3 times per encounter is a great idea. Perhaps add lightning bolt or chain lightning?

Perhaps add either instead a permanent Deva as cohort, or a ½ celestrial transformation ability as capstone instead?

[AnimeTheCat]

So am I gathering that the Lightning Resistance is kinda meh and it should/could be easily replaced with something else?

Something like:
Lightning Double - You create a lightning double of yourself as a free action that will go to an enemy of your choosing within 30 feet of yourself. The double lasts for a number of rounds equal to your Charisma modifier. The double is exactly like your character in every way, except it only deals lightning damage and can't use any spells or special abilities that you posess. It may only move, attack, and serve to threated opponents. The only exception to this is your smite ability which it can only do in the same turn that you smite. You have complete control over your lightning double. This ability can be used once per day per SBoH level and only once per encounter.

Then go on to make adjustments/modifiers to this class ability.

Something like that? It gives the class a force multiplier as a free action a limited number of times per day. Put share spells on it later? Spitballing here, because I truly didn't think about that. I was just cannibalizing the Stormlord PrC for a better Shining Blade.