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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Fire Emblem Lord Class (PEACH)



Protato
2018-06-14, 04:26 PM
Link to class HERE (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DJTYZLc33plDILyQrSkDKcT412cjvIRs2M7kFuMZGb4/edit?usp=sharing).

Well, I've tried to make a base class. It's probably not well-made in the slightest but I hope against hope that it's fine as-is. Of course, if not, I'm willing to change the class or the wording of things as needed. The basic idea for this class is taken from a Fire Emblem lord, a sort of charismatic warrior that rallies others to their advantage, but also has a powerful move called Aether that can restore their health and deal more damage to enemies. In fact, not being able to use that as an attack is what made me create the class in the first place, plus the fact that I felt I had enough room for archetypes to not just make a Fighter subclass. The three archetypes are based after the three protagonists of the 7th game in the series. Lastly, for skills, not all of them came from the Lords, but as Lords don't get 20+ skills in-game, I tried to create my own and to convert Fire Emblem skills from other classes to try and make it work in 5e.

Rerem115
2018-06-17, 03:06 PM
This class is....Dense. In order to keep my thoughts straight, I'll just go down this line by line.

Core
Hit Dice---Okay, so you're a Fighter.
Proficiencies---A Dex Fighter.
Lordly Might---*snort* Okay, jokes aside, I get what you're going for here. It's Ki...Except what is that progression? The number you get per level isn't consistent, and it tops out at 15? Whatever; find a more logical progression and I'll quit my whining.
Rally Bravery---This seems like a bread-and-butter kind of ability. Does it include you? Figure that out, and change it to "creatures of your choice", just to stay consistent. This has the potential to get ridiculous, fast. You can use this 15 times a short rest at high levels, which means that it can mitigate up to 165 damage per person it benefits. Party of 6, that means you effectively heal 1000 health per short rest. That means 3000 health over the course of a day. What. Why on earth are you able to do more for your party's health than a legion of clerics? You need to find some way to make this either weaker or more restrictive, or alternatively stronger and less frequent.
Fighting Style---Move along, nothing to see here.
The Ties that Bind---Is there a range limit? How does this work? Does it stop all movement? Also, as far as level 3 power spikes go, this is pretty lame; while everyone else is getting your archetype, or slinging 2nd level spells, you...Somehow stop your allies from being moved. Upon further examination, it appears that you choose your archetype at 1st level; I'd consider moving archetypes here, and nixing this ability.
Vulnerary---This seems arbitrary and weird, but hey, ribbons gotta ribbon, and at least this one is in flavor and moderately useful.
Supportive---Strong, but a bit team reliant. I like it.
Aether---What. Is it 3 points per Action? 3 points per attack? 3 points per rider? Is it before or after you hit; can you pull a Paladin and use it retroactively? Sol is strong, maybe too strong, especially if it's not on a per-attack basis. Luna is just straight weird. Not sure what you want to do here, but I really don't like this ability. I dunno maybe have something like "spend 3 points: heal 1d4 on each attack you land until the end of your turn" "spend 3 points: deal 1d6 necrotic damage on each attack until the end of your turn"?
Rally Heart---This is your 11th level power spike? Nononono, move Aether here. I don't care what you do to Aether, switch this ability with Aether. Also, maybe define what "acting aggressively" is. *edit* Most classes don't get a subclass feature and a main feature in the same level. I'd shift Aether to here, and just nix this ability altogether.
Rally to Victory---Huh. Okay.
Solidarity---Huh. Okay.
Charming Presence---Look, I'm all for ribbons, but shouldn't there be an ASI here? This is pretty inconsequential anyway; you could probably get away with removing this, or maybe move this to 7th level if you have to have it.
Rally Spectrum---Clean up the language a little, and I'm sold.
Greater Aether---I dunno, add a d8 to each attack or something
Galeforce---This is a capstone I can get behind. It's scary, but it's a capstone, and it's more or less balanced. I might limit it to one attack; one Action could get wonky.
Subclasses
Blade Lord
Unarmored Defense---Hm. It's +1 Studded, which is fine, I guess. I think that if you followed the more common 5e tradition, it would be Dex + Cha, but if you want to avoid multiclass shenanigans, I understand.
Bonus Proficiency---Move along, nothing to see here.
Duelist's Vantage---It's the best part of the Champion's 7th level, with a secondary that uses your resources. Okay.
Swordfaire---This is strong. Like, really strong. I don't think it's broken, especially with the cost, but damn.
Astra---What. This is what I meant when I said this class is dense. If i'm reading this right, you can spend 5 points per attack to attack 5 times. That's 10 attacks in a round. Mix that with Galeforce, and that's 16 attacks with expanded crit range in one round. All right, I'm going to try to calculate that sort of nova. Assuming 20 Dex, Dueling, and a Rapier for everything:

(16 x (1d8+7)) x (0.5) + (16d8 x .5 x .3 x 3) + (16 x 7 x .5 x .3 x 3)= 96 + 36 + 50 = 182

Now, this isn't quite accurate, since it assumes all attacks land, but is a good baseline. If you want to be more realistic, you can cut the damage roughly in half. Now, if you have advantage, this starts getting silly. With a 15-20 crit range, if you roll 2d20 to hit, you have a 51% chance of critting. Here's the end result:

(16 x (1d8+7)) x (0.5) + (16d8 x .5 x .51 x 3) + (16 x 7 x .51 x 3)= 96 + 61 + 86 = 243

Now, if you wanted to be really nasty, you could try a more Strength focused route. Say, Half-Orc, and picking up a Greataxe (Hey, Weapon Master exists for a reason) somewhere:

(16 x (1d12+5+1[GWF])) x (0.5) + ((32d12+32[GWF]) x .5 x .51 x 3) + (16 x 5 x .51 x 3) = 104 + 196 + 61 = 361

Just for comparison, a 20th level Champion Fighter has a nova of about 140...With a +3 weapon.

Of course, this all gets much more absurd if you throw any sort of modifiers on top; Elemental Weapon and magical weapons come to mind. Also, may the heavens help the poor soul who's targeted by this if the DM uses any sort of critical hit table.

Long story short, this ability has to go. For one, it's devilishly complicated, and doesn't adhere to the 5e formula. For another, it does frankly absurd amounts of damage. I'm not sure what you should put there; perhaps some sort of super-Saiyan state where for a minute or a round you gain 18-20 crit range and can make an additional attack? Anyway, that's your call, but this has to change.

Knight Lord
Bonus Proficiencies---Move along, nothing to see here, but instead of the tiered system for Animal Handling, just give automatic double proficiency. It's simpler that way, and the players who didn't start with that skill won't feel left out.
Faithful Steed---It works.
Discipline---Um. Huh. That's strong. Really strong. And that's the entry level ability? When you first get it, that's a boost of 4-5 damage, but scales up to 11 damage. For comparison, if those were dice averages, that's 1d8 scaling up to 2d8, but since it's not dice, it's a lot more consistent. How about you spend a point to gain reach and have the option to re-roll the damage dice, a-la Savage Attacker? If you're going to be using a lance anyway, it's a decent boost without being absurd.
Elbow Room---The wording needs to be cleaned up, but otherwise it's fine.
Aegis---Hmm. Again, the wording needs to be cleaned up. Also, I'd probably change the duration to always be until the start of your next turn. It's simpler that way, and you don't have to keep track of as much stuff. Also, for a 10th level feature, it deserves to be that strong.
Rightful King---Honestly, until you get Aether figured out, there's not much I can suggest. Maybe some sort of reaction attack instead? That seems within flavor of a vigilant mounted knight.

Great Lord
Bonus Proficiencies---Move along, nothing to see here.
Death Blow---I'd maybe save this for a later level, but okay.
Aggressor---Seems a little out of flavor for a big, tanky bruiser. You could just keep the smite aspect, and it would be fine.
Greatfaire---Huh. Okay.
Pavaise---You might want to clarify this. Is it spend 3 points for a bonus action dodge, and then 4 points, for a total of 7 for resistance? Or is it 3 points for dodge and 1 more, total of 4, for resistance?


Overall Review
You might want to try to define more clearly what you want this class to be. Just looking at the early core abilities, I'd say that you were a sort of mid-line support character, kind of like a Valor Bard. But, you have d10 hit dice and a fighting style, which says more front line, like a Paladin. Then, almost out of the blue, you drop in a goofy sort of smite, and a capstone that's any martial class's wet dream. And then, the subclasses muck it up even more. The first is basically a Dex Fighter/Ranger, which is sort of in character with the base class. The second, though, tags on a mount and goes off in a different direction. The third is perhaps the strongest, and goes for sheer tankiness.

Thing is, this mixing and matching doesn't really work. If you're about battlefield support, then you shouldn't also be a dedicated damage dealer and a dedicated tank. I mean, yes, that's kind of the Paladin's thing; Paladin doesn't support or heal nearly as much as this class does, but that brings up another point. Why not just make this a subclass for either a Fighter, Paladin, or Bard? Boil it down to its core concepts, and that's more or less what this class is; if you want it to be more about doing it's own damage, Fighter, if you want it to be more about support, Bard, and if you want it somewhere in the middle, Paladin. There's no real need to make a complicated base class that has to be specific about each point you want to make when you can just use an already existing base class, and trust the player to build to an archetype from there. Alternatively, you could take the Totem/Storm Barb or Hunter Ranger approach and have mutually exclusive choices on level up to enforce archetype. Hell, you could make this a subclass of Paladin, Fighter, and Bard, so then players really have options. If you keep everything on your current chassis, it does too much too well, and it's just too much fiddling with numbers and levels to really properly fix. I mean, okay, I know that wasn't what you wanted to hear, but that's my take on it.

Protato
2018-06-17, 05:35 PM
Oh wow, that's a lot of things! I'll try and figure out the balance a bit better, especially Astra. I tried to translate it from Fire Emblem where it's stupidly good, but I might reduce the critical range, reduce it to only Finesse melee attacks without reach, or both. As for the rest, I'll give it some more clarification. For example, with Aether its meant to be three points per effect but I wasn't sure if I worded it right. Also, I figured one point per level might be a bit too much, but yeah, it's supposed to be sort of like Ki. Additionally, you can put comments in the document, now, assuming I set it up properly. Thank you for the feedback, this is very helpful, and I'll update the thread once the class is updated.

Rerem115
2018-06-17, 06:07 PM
I was going to say more about Rally Bravery, but it seems you beat me to the punch and edited it a bit. It's probably still the strongest aspect of the class, all things considered. It doesn't "heal" for much, but the fact that it's more or less constantly available, and hits your entire party is what makes it so dominant. Looking at the new changes, it got toned down quite a bit. It's still crazy good, especially as you get more points, but the Charisma investment makes it more palatable. Just remember, temporary hit points, no matter the source, don't stack.

Protato
2018-06-18, 12:08 PM
I might have missed a few things, but I've put a few things here and there. I've taken a few things out and added a few things. Iron Will wasn't mentioned but I changed it up too. You can make it so an ally can't be frightened and has advantage on Charm, and you always have advantage on Charm and Fear. Rally Bravery has been changed a bit, to now effect only one creature per point spent. Death Blow and Iron Mind have been swapped around. Rightful King has been unchanged but Aether itself is different. In the Fire Emblem games, the random chance activation class abilities becomes more likely with Rightful King, so I basically wanted to replicate something similar. If it's still too good (or not good enough, which is less likely) than I'll instead give some sort of reaction attack. Also, Astra's been reworked. You still do half damage, can attack up to five times, and have a higher critical range, but it's only a 15% now and not 25%, and you roll another damage die rather than a flat tripling of damage. Also, it needs to be a Finesse weapon, so no Greataxe cheesing it. Thank you for the feedback, and I hope it looks a lot better now. i might've still missed something, of course, but I really hope it turned out better.