Fighter, Sentinel Archetype - Critiques will be appreciated

[Bannan_mantis]

I was making a character for a upcoming session and I have a clear idea in mind for what kind of personality he would have, I was thinking of him being a bit of a paladin but less spell casting and more martial fighting along and having the flavour of being a soldier with a large amount of willpower like a paladin. Champion or Brute was initially close to what I was going for but I felt that I couldn't really get the feeling of having a character with undying Willpower, so I hope this is a good alternative and somewhat well made but it probably would be better with changes.

Bravery
Starting at 3rd level, you can use your strength saving throw modifier for any saving throw against being frightened

Iron Body
Starting at 3rd level, as a bonus action on your turn, you can give yourself a +2 to AC and damage rolls until the end of your next turn. When you do so, you also gain 5 temporary hit points. The number of temporary hit points increases when you reach certain levels in this class, increasing to 10 at 10th level and 15 at 15th level. You can use this feature three times, and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.

Strength of Will
Beginning at 7th level, whenever you make a saving throw, roll 1d6 and add the die to your saving throw total. If applying this bonus to a death saving throw increases the total to 20 or higher, you gain the benefits of rolling a 20 on the d20.

Burst of Strength
Starting at level 10, when you perform a action surge you can perform two extra attacks with your bonus action

Undying Willpower
Beginning at 15th level, when you fall to 0 hit points you are still conscious and whenever someone attacks you you must perform a death saving throw. Once you have failed three death saving throws you die and if you roll a natural 20 you can gain 1 hit point.

Survivor
At 18th level, at the start of each of your turns, you regain hit points equal to 5 + your constitution modifier if you have no more than half of your hit points left. You don't gain this benefit if you have 0 hit points.

[nickl_2000]

To be honest, this whole class seems under-powered and kind of boring.

Your 3rd and 7th level abilities are passive and your 3rd level ability is something that may not come up in a campaign very often. Compare your third level ability to other fighter subclasses, they give you something to do in general (spells, maneuvers, arcane shots, fighting spirit). So, I like the idea of being better against fear, but give them something else to do. An ability that can be actively used by the player and has some resources and something to build the class on.

So what would make sense as an active ability at 3rd level for your class
-Stalwart Warrior - Enter a defensive stance that reduces your movement to 0 but gives you a major defensive/offensive bonus. You cannot be knocked prone or shoved in this position
-Rallying Cry - Let out a war cry that bolsters your allies giving them temp HP and allowing them to make an immediate save against charm or fear effects
-Rallying Cry - Allies within 30 feet of you are bolstered by your fighting spirit. For the next minute they gain advantage verses fear saves and a +2 to all damage rolls (or +1 to attack rolls possibly)




Other possibilities
-Fight to the death - even when you are making death saves you are still conscious and can take full turns. However, each time you take damage you must make a death saving throw, success doesn't count towards your 3 success to stabilize.

[Bannan_mantis]

I will say that this is a bit similar to the champion fighter in the way that it can have a good few amount of passive abilities that are pretty powerful but I can see where you are coming from. For level 3 I do like your suggestions and maybe you can gain something like a reaction or a bonus action to increase AC or attack in certain ways. Also level 7 is something which fits this decently well but if you have a better idea for it say.

also, fight to the death is something I like a lot, what level would you recommend that?

Edit: would something like the samurai's fighting spirit work for level 3? with some changes I suppose to fit with the Bravery ability or have the same effects as the Bravery ability

[nickl_2000]

I will say that this is a bit similar to the champion fighter in the way that it can have a good few amount of passive abilities that are pretty powerful but I can see where you are coming from. For level 3 I do like your suggestions and maybe you can gain something like a reaction or a bonus action to increase AC or attack in certain ways. Also level 7 is something which fits this decently well but if you have a better idea for it say.

also, fight to the death is something I like a lot, what level would you recommend that?

Edit: would something like the samurai's fighting spirit work for level 3? with some changes I suppose to fit with the Bravery ability or have the same effects as the Bravery ability


Fight to the Death would be a level 15 or 18 ability. It is somewhat similar to the Path of the Zealot Rage Beyond Death ability at level 14 so that would be fitting.


The Samurai gets their Fighting Spirit 3 times per day, where they get a full turn of advantage on attacks. This is certainly something you can replicate or modify. Here are a few thoughts that come to mind.

Stalwart Warrior - You enter a defensive stance as a bonus action on your turn. Until the beginning of your next turn you gain +2 to AC and +2 to your damage. You may do this your proficiency modifier times per long rest
Rallying Cry - As a bonus action during your turn you may scream out a war cry rallying your allies to greater feats of valor. They may use their reaction to move 30 feet towards you without provoking attacks of opportunities, all fear effects are negated, and all attacks on their next turn are taken at advantage. This can be done once per long rest.
Immovable Wall - At the beginning of your turn, as a bonus action, you may plant yourself into the spot. Until the beginning of your next turn, your movement becomes 0 (and cannot be increased) and you become immune to being pushed or knocked prone. Any target that you hit with a melee attack until the start of your next turn gets pinned down and loses all it's movement. This can be done 3 times per long rest.

Just a few thoughts

[Bannan_mantis]

Fight to the Death would be a level 15 or 18 ability. It is somewhat similar to the Path of the Zealot Rage Beyond Death ability at level 14 so that would be fitting.


The Samurai gets their Fighting Spirit 3 times per day, where they get a full turn of advantage on attacks. This is certainly something you can replicate or modify. Here are a few thoughts that come to mind.

Stalwart Warrior - You enter a defensive stance as a bonus action on your turn. Until the beginning of your next turn you gain +2 to AC and +2 to your damage. You may do this your proficiency modifier times per long rest
Rallying Cry - As a bonus action during your turn you may scream out a war cry rallying your allies to greater feats of valor. They may use their reaction to move 30 feet towards you without provoking attacks of opportunities, all fear effects are negated, and all attacks on their next turn are taken at advantage. This can be done once per long rest.
Immovable Wall - At the beginning of your turn, as a bonus action, you may plant yourself into the spot. Until the beginning of your next turn, your movement becomes 0 (and cannot be increased) and you become immune to being pushed or knocked prone. Any target that you hit with a melee attack until the start of your next turn gets pinned down and loses all it's movement. This can be done 3 times per long rest.

Just a few thoughts

alright, thank you very much and I like your suggestions with the Stalwart Warrior stance the most. I feel that I have combined your suggestions with the fighting spirit to create this, I hope it is effective.

Starting at 3rd level, as a bonus action on your turn, you can give yourself a +2 to AC and damage rolls until the end of the current turn. When you do so, you also gain 5 temporary hit points. The number of temporary hit points increases when you reach certain levels in this class, increasing to 10 at 10th level and 15 at 15th level. You can use this feature three times, and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.

I would like to hear your opinion on that, would having that ability with bravery be alright and not too OP?

[nickl_2000]

Sure, I don't see why those would be an issue together.

[Composer99]

I was making a character for a upcoming session and I have a clear idea in mind for what kind of personality he would have, I was thinking of him being a bit of a paladin but less spell casting and more martial fighting along and having the flavour of being a soldier with a large amount of willpower like a paladin. Champion or Brute was initially close to what I was going for but I felt that I couldn't really get the feeling of having a character with undying Willpower, so I hope this is a good alternative and somewhat well made but it probably would be better with changes.

Bravery
Starting at 3rd level, you can use your strength saving throw modifier for any saving throw against being frightened

Iron Body
Starting at 3rd level, as a bonus action on your turn, you can give yourself a +2 to AC and damage rolls until the end of the current turn. When you do so, you also gain 5 temporary hit points. The number of temporary hit points increases when you reach certain levels in this class, increasing to 10 at 10th level and 15 at 15th level. You can use this feature three times, and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.

Strength of Will
Beginning at 7th level, whenever you make a saving throw, roll 1d6 and add the die to your saving throw total. If applying this bonus to a death saving throw increases the total to 20 or higher, you gain the benefits of rolling a 20 on the d20.

Burst of Strength
Beginning at 10th level, whenever you take the attack action with any weapon you can make one weapon attack as a bonus action

Undying Willpower
Beginning at 15th level, when you fall to 0 hit points you are still conscious and whenever someone attacks you you must perform a death saving throw. Once you have failed three death saving throws you die and if you roll a natural 20 you can gain 1 hit point.

Survivor
At 18th level, at the start of each of your turns, you regain hit points equal to 5 + your constitution modifier if you have no more than half of your hit points left. You don't gain this benefit if you have 0 hit points.

IMO Burst of Strength is too strong. It's like having your next Extra Attack come 1 level early. Sure there's the opportunity cost of using your bonus action for the attack, but off the top of my head I'm hard pressed to think of anything better than "get an extra weapon attack, especially at will and with any weapon I please" (aka greatsword with fighting style and feat, or longbow with fighting style and feat).

As I recall, the similar features are:
- Berserker 3rd-level feature, but that's only usable while raging, and even then you have to take a level of exhaustion.
- Monk Martial Arts & Flurry of Blows, but both of them only grant unarmed strikes, and Flurry requires the expenditure of ki.
- The conditional bonus action attack you get with the Great Weapon Master feat, but that's a conditional attack: you have to manipulate circumstances to earn it.
- The bonus attack you get with Polearm Master, but that attack only does 1d4, not your full weapon damage.
- Two weapon fighting, but unless you get the feat you can only use light weapons, and if you do get the feat your damage is topping out at 1d8 (+ability mod if you have the fighting style).

All that's to say that bonus action attacks that you can take along with the Attack action are either:
- at will, but limit the damage somehow (two-weapon fighting, Polearm master, Martial Arts)
- better damage, but limited usage (Berserker rage, Flurry of Blows, GWM circumstantial attack)

This is both at will and best damage.

Edit: Oh, yeah, the rest of the subclass. Otherwise, this is fine. +1d6 to saving throws might seem like much at first glance, but paladins give +Cha to all saving throws to themselves and their friends within 10 (and eventually 30) feet a level earlier, so it's fine.

[Bannan_mantis]

Hmmm, you have a good point about that. I was thinking that burst of strength did seem a tad bit too OP, would something like this work better? Fits with the hard to kill soldier theme of it so far.

Burst of Stamina
Starting at level 10, when you use your second wind ability you can regain twice as much hit points as normal

I don't think that's too OP for a level 10 ability in my opinion from how second wind is once per long rest. Also I was looking the class a bit more and realised that Undying willpower might be a bit OP with 1d6 to saving throws, so should I move it to level 18 and give something else at level 15?

[Composer99]

Hmmm, you have a good point about that. I was thinking that burst of strength did seem a tad bit too OP, would something like this work better? Fits with the hard to kill soldier theme of it so far.

Burst of Stamina
Starting at level 10, when you use your second wind ability you can regain twice as much hit points as normal

I don't think that's too OP for a level 10 ability in my opinion from how second wind is once per long rest. Also I was looking the class a bit more and realised that Undying willpower might be a bit OP with 1d6 to saving throws, so should I move it to level 18 and give something else at level 15?

Considering champions and brutes get a second fighting style, battlemasters' Superiority Dice upgrade, eldritch knights get a spell slot and impose disadvantage on saving throws against their spells until the end of their next turn... you should stick with an offensive boost, especially since this subclass is already very defensively-themed.

You could probably even go with a bonus action or reaction attack option - as long as the circumstance triggering it is reasonably infrequent.

[Bannan_mantis]

hmmm, you have a good point there. To give this more offensive options would something like this work?

Burst of Strength
Starting at level 10, when you perform a action surge you can perform two extra attacks with your bonus action

(not so sure if this is a decent ability but it fits thematically)

[Xyrz]

Iron Body
Starting at 3rd level, as a bonus action on your turn, you can give yourself a +2 to AC and damage rolls until the end of the current turn. When you do so, you also gain 5 temporary hit points. The number of temporary hit points increases when you reach certain levels in this class, increasing to 10 at 10th level and 15 at 15th level. You can use this feature three times, and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.

I feel like the AC bonus doesn't matter, or I might be missing something here. "as a bonus action on your [current] turn, you can give yourself a +2 to AC and damage rolls until the end of the current turn." Unless a creature has some sort of reaction or opportunity attack, you cannot really get a lot of benefit out of the AC bonus since the bonus ends the exact same round that you activated it. Maybe it would be better to have it end at "the start of your next turn".

[Bannan_mantis]

I feel like the AC bonus doesn't matter, or I might be missing something here. "as a bonus action on your [current] turn, you can give yourself a +2 to AC and damage rolls until the end of the current turn." Unless a creature has some sort of reaction or opportunity attack, you cannot really get a lot of benefit out of the AC bonus since the bonus ends the exact same round that you activated it. Maybe it would be better to have it end at "the start of your next turn".

Ahhh, my bad that was what I meant. Thank you for pointing that out

[Xyrz]

No problem!