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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Fighter Archetypes-- Balefire Knight and Marshal



Grod_The_Giant
2018-12-27, 03:56 PM
Balefire Knight

Mystic Fire: Beginning at 3rd level, you learn to harness elemental flames in your fighting style. You learn the Control Flames and Produce Flames cantrips, as well as the following special abilities. Constitution is your casting stat when relevant, and save DCs are equal to 8+Prof+Con.

Flame Bolt: When taking the Attack action, you may use a bonus action to launch a bolt of flame at a foe. You may also replace any number of weapon attacks with bolts of flame. These attacks are either melee spell attacks or ranged spell attacks with a range of 60ft, and deal 1d6+Con fire damage on a hit. To use this ability, you must have at least one hand that is either empty or wielding a weapon.
Burning Vigor: When you use your Second Wind ability, all adjacent targets take fire damage equal to the amount of health you would recover. A successful Dex halves this damage.
Scorching Passion: When you use your Action Surge ability, increase all fire damage you deal by 2 until the end of your turn.


Fire Spray: Beginning at 7th level, when taking the Attack action, you may replace any number of weapon attacks with sprays of fire. If you do, all targets in a 15ft cone must make Dex saves or take 2d6 fire damage per attack you give up. For example, a 7th level Balefire Knight can normally make two weapon attacks when taking the Attack action. If he makes one weapon attack, he deals 2d6 with his fire spray. If he makes no weapon attacks, he deals 4d6.

To use this ability, you must have at least one hand that is either empty or wielding a weapon.

Mystic Force: Beginning at 10th level, you may replace half the damage your subclass abilities deal with force damage. You also learn the Mage Hand cantrip.

Fire Burst: Beginning at 15th level, when taking the Attack action, you may replace any number of weapon attacks with bursts of flame. If you do, all creatures in a 5ft radius centered anywhere within 60ft must make Dex saves or take 2d6 fire damage per attack you give up.

To use this ability, you must have at least one hand that is either empty or wielding a weapon.

Dire Flame: Beginning at 18th level, the damage of your Mystic Bolt increases to 2d6+Con, and your Fire Spray and Fire Burst abilities increases to 3d6 per attack you give up.

To use this ability, you must have at least one hand that is either empty or wielding a weapon.


Corrosion Knight: Learn Acid Splash and Infestation cantrips. Your abilities deal acid damage instead of fire, but their damage dice are reduced to 1d4.
Death Knight: Learn Chill Touch and Spare the Dying cantrips. Your abilities deal necrotic damage instead of fire, but their damage dice are reduced to 1d4.
Frostfell Knight: Learn Shape Water and Frostbite cantrips. Your abilities deal cold damage instead of fire.
Thunderbolt Knight: Learn Dancing Lights and Shocking Grasp cantrips. Your abilities deal lightning damage instead of fire.
Soul Knight: Learn Message and Vicious Mockery cantrips. Your abilities deal psychic damage instead of fire, but their damage dice are reduced to 1d4.
Toxic Knight: Learn Poison Spray and Infestation cantrips. Your abilities deal poison damage instead of fire, and their damage dice are increased to 1d8.
Sunfire Knight: Learn Sacred Flame and Light cantrips. Your abilities deal radiant damage instead of fire, but their damage dice are reduced to 1d4.
Thunderclap Knight: Learn Gust and Thunderclap cantrips. Your abilities deal thunder damage instead of fire, but their damage dice are reduced to 1d4.


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Marshal

Art of War: Beginning at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in two of the following skills: History, Insight, Intimidation, or Persuasion.

Aura of Battle: Beginning at 3rd level, you can draw on your raw charisma to project an aura, affecting yourself and all allies within 30ft. Projecting an aura is a bonus action; you may stop projecting it as a free action. An aura must be concentrated on, as with a spell, and lasts for up to 1 minute.
At 3rd level, you learn three auras from the following list. You learn one additional aura at 7th, 10th, 15th, and 18th level.

Art of War: When making attack rolls, allies may roll 1d4 and add it to their roll.
Back to Back: When an adjacent ally is attacked, allies affected by your aura can use their reaction to impose disadvantage on the attack roll.
Demand Fortitude: When making Con saves, allies may roll 1d4 and add it to their roll.
Force of Will: When making Wis and Cha saves, allies may roll 1d4 and add it to their roll.
Hold the Line: Allies may take one additional reaction each round, which can only be used to make opportunity attacks.
Motivate Arcana: When making spell attack or damage rolls, allies may roll 1d4 and add it to their result.
Nimble Hustle: When making Dex checks, saves, and damage rolls with Dex-based weapon attacks, allies may roll 1d4 and add it to their roll.
Over the Top: Allies may move fifty percent faster than normal, and opportunity attacks against them have disadvantage.
Stand Fast: At the beginning of their turn, allies gain temporary hit points equal to your Proficiency bonus.
Surge of Might: When making Str checks, saves, and damage rolls with Str-based weapon attacks, allies may roll 1d4 and add it to their roll.
Watch Your Back: When an ally is attacked, they use their reaction to roll 1d4 and add it to their armor class against that attack.
Watchful Eye: When making Perception checks and Int checks and saves, allies may roll 1d4 and add it to their roll.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (a minimum of once). You regain any expended uses when you finish a short or long rest.

Motivate Hustle: Beginning at 7th level, you may use a bonus action to rally an ally within your aura. They may use their reaction to move up to half their speed without provoking opportunity attacks.

Greater Aura: Beginning at 10th level, the range of your aura extends to 60ft, and their bonus to 1d6.

Inspiring Speech: Beginning at 15th level, you may use your action to grant yourself and all allies in your aura temporary hit points equal to twice your level. These temporary hit points last for 1 minute. Once you have done so, you may not use this ability again until you have completed a short or long rest.

Motivate Rush: Beginning at 18th level, when you use your Motivate Hustle ability, you may target any number of allies within range.

JNAProductions
2018-12-27, 07:57 PM
Balefire Knight feels far too combat focused, and too good.

It's incredibly SAD (not needing Dex at all and Strength only high enough to wear good armor), has a ton of AoEs, and in general just cranks out the damage.

It is, of course, FIRE damage (the second-worst damage type above only poison) but that's not a good solution. That's basically saying "In this fight, you dominate; in the next, your subclass is useless."



Marshal looks okay.

Grod_The_Giant
2018-12-27, 08:55 PM
Balefire Knight feels far too combat focused, and too good.

It's incredibly SAD (not needing Dex at all and Strength only high enough to wear good armor), has a ton of AoEs, and in general just cranks out the damage.

It is, of course, FIRE damage (the second-worst damage type above only poison) but that's not a good solution. That's basically saying "In this fight, you dominate; in the next, your subclass is useless."
I mean, it is a Fighter archetype. "Cranking out damage" is kinda what they do . Do you really think the damage is too high? Fire Bolt is basically just a hand crossbow; the AoEs deal an average of 14 (at level 7) or 21 (at level 11) damage as your action, with a save for none. Swinging a longsword, you'd be throwing out ~17 (at level 5) or ~28 (at level 11) before Fighting Styles, feats, anything like that.

SAD is a fair point, though. I can make 'em Cha based, maybe?

Dragons_Ire
2018-12-28, 07:53 AM
Wow! I love the Balefire Knight archetype! Really flavorful. It seems balanced to me, having the spell-like abilities do no damage on a successful save is good. I really, really like this. I will probably offer this as a subclass choice in my future campaigns, if that's okay.

-The fire burst should probably have limited uses based on your modifier, 10ft radius is quite nice.
-The toxic knight archetype provides the Sacred Flame and Light cantrips. I'm thinking this is a copy-paste error?
-It is really SAD, but considering that the only fighting style that does anything for you is defense, fighters have the ASIs to pump another stat anyway, and the fact that it's not really compatible with many of the stronger feats, I think it's okay. Plus, making it CHA-based would encourage more dumb multiclassing (probably a warlock dip, maybe sorcerer).

EDIT: I just realized that the Balefire knight doesn't get much out of a lot of magic weapons, and still wouldn't qualify as a spellcaster. That certainly helps. It also gives the player incentive to use some of the more creative items. I like that.

The Marshal is interesting. The auras seem very good. I recommend making them require concentration - a fighter can afford to have a high Charisma, and getting back all uses on a short rest means 2-3 times the uses. I think as written they are maybe too good, as a fighter can afford to use one pretty much every fight.

Everything else seems fine to me.

Grod_The_Giant
2018-12-29, 04:41 PM
-The fire burst should probably have limited uses based on your modifier, 10ft radius is quite nice.
Hmm, true. How 'bout a 5ft radius?


-The toxic knight archetype provides the Sacred Flame and Light cantrips. I'm thinking this is a copy-paste error?
Whoops, yes.


-It is really SAD, but considering that the only fighting style that does anything for you is defense, fighters have the ASIs to pump another stat anyway, and the fact that it's not really compatible with many of the stronger feats, I think it's okay. Plus, making it CHA-based would encourage more dumb multiclassing (probably a warlock dip, maybe sorcerer).
I actually don't think dipping is a huge concern. The blasts being based on the Attack action really encourages you to stick with Fighter for the third and fourth extra attack, while the three level investment minimum makes it less appealing as a dip when compared to Warlock 2.


The Marshal is interesting. The auras seem very good. I recommend making them require concentration - a fighter can afford to have a high Charisma, and getting back all uses on a short rest means 2-3 times the uses. I think as written they are maybe too good, as a fighter can afford to use one pretty much every fight.
Good idea.

Dragons_Ire
2018-12-30, 09:33 PM
Hmm, true. How 'bout a 5ft radius?

Yeah, that seems about right. One other thing: For the Fire Spray and Fire Burst abilities, the wording isn't very clear. Do I get to replace each attack with a separate use of the ability, or do I get one use of the ability which scales based on how many attacks I give up? Or both? I'm thinking the first interpretation is what you intended.



I actually don't think dipping is a huge concern. The blasts being based on the Attack action really encourages you to stick with Fighter for the third and fourth extra attack, while the three level investment minimum makes it less appealing as a dip when compared to Warlock 2.

That's a good point, this subclass does strongly discourages multiclassing. I just don't want another Charisma based caster :smalltongue:

Grod_The_Giant
2018-12-31, 10:16 AM
Yeah, that seems about right. One other thing: For the Fire Spray and Fire Burst abilities, the wording isn't very clear. Do I get to replace each attack with a separate use of the ability, or do I get one use of the ability which scales based on how many attacks I give up? Or both? I'm thinking the first interpretation is what you intended.
I tweaked the wording; hopefully it's more clear now?

Lille
2019-01-03, 05:20 PM
Balefire Knight with Magic Initiate and Ritual Caster: "No, really, I'm a wizard! I swear!"

Does Burning Vigour do damage equal to the natural roll (1d10), or the total roll (1d10+level)?

Also, do Flame Bolt and the other attack-based abilities work if you don't have a hand free? Because as written, it seems like they do. Eye-lasers!

Wildarm
2019-01-04, 11:17 AM
I'm still waiting for a decent Marshal archetype to be officially released. This seems like a good start. I've always liked the idea of a charismatic leader character and found Pally's sort of fit that theme but a bit too specific due to their oath.

Overall the Marshal auras listed seem reasonable. I would remove Watch Your Back though or tone it down. At 10th level you'd be giving +1d6 AC to all allies in 60'. I think that breaks the bounded accuracy model of 5E. Can't think of any mass AC boost like that in the game. Perhaps make it so that your allies can use their reaction to do this for an adjacent ally? Would really fit the theme of working as a cohesive team and give some really good positioning based tactics to consider in the battle.

Motivate Care may be a bit too strong. Up to 5 Temp HP each round to everyone is pretty strong in lower tiers. This is like casting Heroism as a 4th-6th level spell.

Motivate Rush breaks action economy. Letting you use your bonus action every round to let everyone get an extra half move and attack is WAY too strong. Perhaps make it take down your aura when you use it this way? You could still spam it but at the cost of your bonus actions, losing your aura every other turn and your total number of aura uses per short rest.

Pretty much the only ability of the subclass has is to keep one aura active. Similar to the champion archetype, I could see that get boring fast. Particularly if there is one aura that is just straight up ideal for your team. Maybe spice it up with some extra features like:

- Master Tactician: Be able to use your action surge to grant an ally an extra action. Or your action surge grants an ally a reaction attack.
- Natural Leader: Proficiency in some commander type skill(s) - Intimidation, History, Insight or Persuasion
- Inspire the Soul: Be able to use your second wind to grant others the option to - Negate a critical, Make a death save or regain HP
- Keen Insight: Use your bonus action to grant advantage an attack or disadvantage for an enemy
- Lead by Example: If you make a saving throw against a spell or effect, all allies in your aura may also automatically succeed against the same effect(maybe too strong but would be really cool for a Marshal).

Grod_The_Giant
2019-01-04, 02:32 PM
Balefire Knight with Magic Initiate and Ritual Caster: "No, really, I'm a wizard! I swear!"

Does Burning Vigour do damage equal to the natural roll (1d10), or the total roll (1d10+level)?

Also, do Flame Bolt and the other attack-based abilities work if you don't have a hand free? Because as written, it seems like they do. Eye-lasers!
Heh. Burning Vigor should work off the total roll; the Attack based abilities are supposed to be able to be channeled through a weapon. I'll revise the text.


Overall the Marshal auras listed seem reasonable. I would remove Watch Your Back though or tone it down. At 10th level you'd be giving +1d6 AC to all allies in 60'. I think that breaks the bounded accuracy model of 5E. Can't think of any mass AC boost like that in the game. Perhaps make it so that your allies can use their reaction to do this for an adjacent ally? Would really fit the theme of working as a cohesive team and give some really good positioning based tactics to consider in the battle.
That's an interesting idea. It should definitely use your reaction, at the very least.


Motivate Care may be a bit too strong. Up to 5 Temp HP each round to everyone is pretty strong in lower tiers. This is like casting Heroism as a 4th-6th level spell.
Fair. I'll tone it down a bit.


Motivate Rush breaks action economy. Letting you use your bonus action every round to let everyone get an extra half move and attack is WAY too strong. Perhaps make it take down your aura when you use it this way? You could still spam it but at the cost of your bonus actions, losing your aura every other turn and your total number of aura uses per short rest.
How about "one target can move their full speed and attack, or everyone in your aura can move half their speed?"


Pretty much the only ability of the subclass has is to keep one aura active. Similar to the champion archetype, I could see that get boring fast. Particularly if there is one aura that is just straight up ideal for your team. Maybe spice it up with some extra features like:
A fair point. There's some variety with the different aura types, and Motivate Hustle, but... yeah, I'll see what I can do.


- Master Tactician: Be able to use your action surge to grant an ally an extra action. Or your action surge grants an ally a reaction attack.
- Inspire the Soul: Be able to use your second wind to grant others the option to - Negate a critical, Make a death save or regain HP
Those kinda feel like they're stepping on the Purple Dragon Knight's toes. Admittedly that subclass is a stinking pile of garbage, but still.


- Natural Leader: Proficiency in some commander type skill(s) - Intimidation, History, Insight or Persuasion
That's not a bad call.

Wildarm
2019-01-04, 03:28 PM
Those kinda feel like they're stepping on the Purple Dragon Knight's toes. Admittedly that subclass is a stinking pile of garbage, but still.


Yeah, an improved PDK is what I was thinking would fit the Marshal class. Honestly, I think you could probably straight up add the aura ability onto the PDK and call it a day. :)