Minor Knight Fixes?

[Albions_Angel]

Hi all,

Back again, asking for more suggestions for sub-par fixes for sub-sub-par classes.

So, the Knight. Ive played one. It was... ok. But it had some issues. Namely, the low level challenges didnt seem to work quite how I thought they would, and while I had a ton of fun using them, I tended to fall over before they did what was intended. And when I used one that had a save, everything seemed to save it.

Before I go further, I need to say a few things.

I trust you guys. Your advice is often on point. But I am with players that dont like ToB, and dont like Pathfinder. Please dont ask why. You cant change their minds. I have tried. So no Pathfinder content, no slapping on maneuvers, and no "per encounter" abilities. Thank you.

So, how can I improve the Knight with 2 or 3 (maybe 4 or 5) little changes, without adding spellcasting or special mounts. Is there some sort of temp HP i could grant? What about a single target taunt? Ways I can improve its unmounted combat abilities without slapping on full fighter feat progression?

I like the flavour, I like the idea of knights challenge, I actually like not being able to use flanking, I like soaking damage for allies, I just need it to work a little bit better.

[liquidformat]

So for an extreme change do as I did and just slap it together with the marshal class. They sink well and even both together doesn't end up in a huge power change, just makes the knight/marshal more useful and relevant in and out of combat. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?579414-3-X-The-Marshal-Knight-tier).

Here are a few small changes you could look at. In place of the feat choices at level 2, 5, 10, 15 instead open it up to all fighter bonus feats. This is a minor change but helps a lot as the current choices of feats is insulting.

knight's Challenge: most of the Challenges are CR=cl-2 change this to CL or CL+2, as is this is a pretty worthless ability. (or you could have it scale as you gain bonuses at 7 13 and 19)
will update more after a bit of rereading.

[Karl Aegis]

Fighting Challenge is too weak. Make the numbers bigger.

[Seerow]

Hi all,

Back again, asking for more suggestions for sub-par fixes for sub-sub-par classes.

So, the Knight. Ive played one. It was... ok. But it had some issues. Namely, the low level challenges didnt seem to work quite how I thought they would, and while I had a ton of fun using them, I tended to fall over before they did what was intended. And when I used one that had a save, everything seemed to save it.

Before I go further, I need to say a few things.

I trust you guys. Your advice is often on point. But I am with players that dont like ToB, and dont like Pathfinder. Please dont ask why. You cant change their minds. I have tried. So no Pathfinder content, no slapping on maneuvers, and no "per encounter" abilities. Thank you.

So, how can I improve the Knight with 2 or 3 (maybe 4 or 5) little changes, without adding spellcasting or special mounts. Is there some sort of temp HP i could grant? What about a single target taunt? Ways I can improve its unmounted combat abilities without slapping on full fighter feat progression?

I like the flavour, I like the idea of knights challenge, I actually like not being able to use flanking, I like soaking damage for allies, I just need it to work a little bit better.

So problem with Mounted Combat is without a special mount it's always going to be pretty easy to take your mount out from under you, and that's in addition to the normal problems with mounted combat being hard to use in some places. Putting more focus there I feel like is going to be a bad idea.

Personally I feel like where the Knight shines and what the class wants to do is be a Martial controller. It needs a few nudges in that direction, but I would do something like:

1) Knights Challenge Changes
-Fighting Challenge gets a buff in numbers overall. Something like start out at +2/+2, then each improvement gives +1/+2 more rather than +1/+1 more. So at max level you've got +5 to hit and +9 to damage. Additionally, defeating the target of your challenge restores one use of your Knights Challenge ability.
-Test of Mettle gets an update to impose a penalty on enemies who are able to ignore the effect (either due to being threatened by another creature or passing the save).
-Daunting Challenge goes up to frightening enemies, leaving them shaken on a passed save.

2) Backport something similar to Pathfinder's Combat Patrol feat as a class feature. Let the Knight spend a move action (upgraded to swift at higher level) to increase his threatened area for a round. The increased threatened area should scale with level, and allow the Knight's abilities that usually only affect adjacent creatures apply (so preventing tumbling, creating difficult terrain, taking damage for allies, etc). Also recommend tying in some bonus attacks of opportunity to the feature, just so the Knight can be a better controller despite really wanting to dump dex.

3) Add some extra Cha synergy to the class. I lean towards something like Divine Grace, but another recent thread has been talking about gestalting with Marshall, and I can easily see just slotting in Marshall Auras as a Knight class feature. Or possibly even doing both.


If I spent more time on it, I'd probably also add in new features to go with the Combat Patrol theme, giving the ability to block area attacks hitting allies, a small recovering pool of temporary HP and/or DR, etc. But the above will work as a quick and dirty "make my knight less useless".

[AvatarVecna]

Let's ignore for a moment that "a special mount" would make the Knight's preferred playstyle infinitely easier to manage past level 6, and point out that there's a thread going on right now (and a thread that's gone on before) debating whether stapling Marshal to Knight makes it the Paladin's equal, or if you also need to staple Fighter on. Are there easy-to-describe ways of improving the Knight that don't involve stealing wholesale from other classes?

1) 4+Int skill points
2) Craft, Diplomacy, Profession, and Sense Motive are now class skills
3) Good Fort save
4) Knight's Challenge is now at-will, but you can only have one duration KC going at a time; starting a new one ends the old one
5) CR is now the only limit on any Knight's Challenge targeting other creatures in terms of restricting initial targeting
6) Fighting Challenge gives +2 at lvl 1, with another +1 per 4 levels
7) Fighting Challenge target deals less damage to anybody but you (reducing any damage they deal by twice your new FC bonus)
8) If a Fighting Challenge target falls or flees, the Knight gains (your Cha mod + your Knight level + their CR rounded up) Temporary HP
9) Test Of Mettle gives you a Temp HP equal to the sum total of the CRs of the creatures who fail their saves against it (lost when ToM ends)
10) Test Of Mettle gives you DR equal to your Cha mod for the duration
11) If ally succeeds on save granted by Call Of Battle, they gain your Fighting Challenge buffs against the origin of the effect (although not the reduction in damage effect)
12) Daunting Challenge now has a duration of 5+Cha mod rounds
13) Daunting Challenge can make foes frightened, panicked, or even helpless if they fail their saves badly enough
14) Daunting Challenge can be used again against foes that failed, and fear conditions stack as per 12.
15) Loyal Beyond Death is now a 5+Cha round duration effect that cannot be used back-to-back with itself to extend the duration
16) The Knight's Code is less inherently awful, somehow
17) Shield Block advances every 4 levels beyond 2nd instead of every 9 levels beyond 2nd.
18) Bulwark Of Defense now lets you add your Cha to attack and damage on AoOs
19) Armor Mastery now reduces the ACP by your Cha mod and increases the max Dex by half your Cha mod, in addition to movement benefits.
20) Bonus Feats are gained at 2nd lvl and every 3rd level thereafter, and are drawn from the Fighter Bonus Feat category
21) The Knight counts as a Fighter of their Knight level - 2 for the purpose of feat pre-reqs
22) Vigilant Defender now also grants additional AoOs/round equal to your Cha mod
23) Give it a special mount, be it Paladin equivalent or Druid equivalent

But if I absolutely had to trim that giant list down, I'd say the first three (chassis problems) and the Special Mount you don't want.

[Psyren]

If ToB AND Pathfinder are indeed off the table, the best I can think of without demolishing the flavor or making it a caster is the "gestalt with Marshal" suggestion above.

[Troacctid]

4 skill points per level, more class skills (Diplomacy? History? Spot? Listen? Survival?), and good Fort saves are an obvious place to start. Then you have a couple of issues to deal with.

1. Feat starvation. Add some fighter bonus feats somewhere.
2. Everything is immune to your abilities. Make them affect all kinds of enemies.
3. Mechanics for drawing aggro are generally underpowered. I would add a mark mechanic a la 4e.
4. Shield Block and Bulwark of Defense should apply to all enemies. (Not a significant power fix but it smooths out gameplay.)

Those fixes combined would put the class in a better spot power-wise. From there I'd look at homebrewing ACFs that allow players more options for customization and support different kinds of knights—like a non-mounted knight, for starters.

[Elricaltovilla]

In my opinion, the knight really needs to be rebuilt from the ground up to account for all the changes in expectations that people now have for a "Tank" character in games these days.

[Albions_Angel]

Cool, getting a good feeling from the suggestions now.

Common ones are:


+2 for Fighting Challenge when first taken, +1 every 4 levels thereafter.
CR or CR+2 rather than CR-2 for targeted things


Special mount keeps coming up. Here is my thinking on why I dont feel comfortable with special mount. I dont want this becoming "Paladin but worse". And the only thing that shoehorns knight into using a mount is Mounted Combat as a bonus feat at level 2 (and a few more feats in the list of feats you can pick from at level 5, 10 and 15). In fact, the Armor Mastery at level 4 actually works against the idea of mounted combat, because it doesnt do anything if you are mounted.

I guess, Id still want to keep animal handling and ride as class skills, and the option of picking mounted feats, but special mount feels too much like trying to force the player to use it, when half the time, the mount wont even fit in most dungeons. I guess, part of me is now thinking "ok, increase bonuses on FC, and the CR on targets, and maybe do something with frequency of use, or temp hp on victory, or something, but I want to make 2, 5, 10, 15 bonus feats" but I want to keep the bonus feats flavoured? So the current list would be - Mounted Combat, Animal Affinity, Diehard, Endurance, Great Fortitude, Iron Will, Quick Draw, Ride-By Attack, Spirited Charge, Trample, or Weapon Focus (lance), as it currently stands, but what about adding (given all the shield bonuses you have to hand as class skills) a bunch of shield related feats? Because sure, when i think knight, I thing loyal and noble warrior in shining armour on horseback with a lance AND A SHIELD. Maybe make weapon focus (lance) into weapon focus (pick one weapon). Or am I trying too hard for "crusader light"?

[AvatarVecna]

The Knight is "Paladin, but very worse" by default. Giving a special mount is one of many ways to make the "very" part of that description less true (although it's one of the big ones).

Edit: to be absolutely clear: if the knight wasn't as focused on mounted combat I wouldn't suggest a specual mount. But because its ability to keep its DPR relevant is dependent on being mounted, the single wealest thing about the class is that its DPR can be draatically reduved if you can manage to hit and kill an AC 14/30 HP animal.

It doesn't matter that Mounted Combat will deflect an attack starting at 2nd lvl, it doesn't matter that you can keep some people from targeting them fkr a little bit starting at 4th lvl, it doesn't matter that you can take half their physical damage for them starting at 6th level, it doesn't matter that you can take all their damage for them once a round starting at 14th level, because starting at 5th level, they are the only thing in your party still vulnerable to Sleep.

Edit: Or y'know, just getting murdered by the melee brutes you frequently have it charge.

[Glimbur]

Offer a special mount but also an ACF to take something else. Maybe abilities that work better in confined spaces. Or marshal aura type things.

[Troacctid]

A lot of players will expect a knight to be mounted, so you want that archetype to be supported. Give players choices so they're not locked into a particular style.

[Unavenger]

I would say that the knight sorta needs to have a list of things that it can take instead of the mounted combat stuff (you may want to give it fighter-list feats).

The changes I'd make are making the Fighting Challenge better (there's a truenamer utterance, hilariously, that gives better bonuses at the levels you get it and its bigger version), making anything that scales off CHA scale off CON instead (you're a tank, not a face), make Call to Battle work on any save or at least any will save, make Daunting Challenge actually have a listed duration, make Bond of Loyalty work on all saves, remove the Code, allow the player to swap out Mounted Combat, change Bulwark of Defence so that it doesn't require that the creature start in your threatened area to work, make Armour Mastery work all at 4th level and give another bonus feat or something at 9th, and give them a choice between a mount and something else similarly momentous, also something at level 18.

[liquidformat]

Special mount keeps coming up. Here is my thinking on why I dont feel comfortable with special mount. I dont want this becoming "Paladin but worse". And the only thing that shoehorns knight into using a mount is Mounted Combat as a bonus feat at level 2 (and a few more feats in the list of feats you can pick from at level 5, 10 and 15). In fact, the Armor Mastery at level 4 actually works against the idea of mounted combat, because it doesnt do anything if you are mounted.

Here is the thing I have a major issue with calling the knight a mounted combat focused character, it gets mounted combat at level two. This in and of itself really ruins the class as a mounted combat class. If I am playing as a human I typically want to take mounted combat and ride by attack at level 1 and spirited charge at level 3. Because knight gives me mounted combat at level 2 I am forced to choose two other feats at level one that aren't related to mounted combat, mounted combat at level 2 ride by at 3 and spirited charge at earliest level 5, that is two levels behind the paladin or range who oh by the way has a class feature to make their mount better than yours by level 5...

As I said before, replacing mounted combat and your other three bonus feats to simply be any fighter bonus feat of the knights choosing is a simple fix that gets rid of the crappy attempt to force you into being a mounted combatant without the right tools at the right level.

Sure you could add in a scaling mount to the class but that wouldn't change the fact that being a mounted combatant is a trap with this class.

[Seerow]

A lot of players will expect a knight to be mounted, so you want that archetype to be supported. Give players choices so they're not locked into a particular style.

Maybe to support this without being paladin lite, you focus more on the riding aspect of being mounted, and just make your mount effectively untargettable.

Give an ability that lets the Knight share his defenses with his Mount. Share AC/Saves and use shield Ally to absorb damage for them.

Start adding extra abilities later that do things like allow squeezing without penalty while mounted so you can take your horse into a dungeon, and increased movement speed. You could even do things like treat your reach as though you were a creature of your mounts size, giving you that extra area of control.

Basically let the Knight be a rider who uses a mount but the mount doesn't need to be awesome on its own. He can jump onto any trained horse and have similar capabilities.

[Psyren]

Honestly, if your group is okay with homebrew fixes but not PF, I would simply bring a Cavalier (complete with scaling Mount, Challenge, and Orders to choose from) into the game and call it a homebrew Knight fix that you found. They don't have to know it's from Pathfinder after all.

[Albions_Angel]

Im not about to port in Pathfinder and lie to my table about it, though. For a start, I might at some point be able to convince them to play 3.P and backporting just limits available options if that happens. But I appreciate the thought.

Ok, so, in addition to better FC bonuses, better CR limits, good fort saves, how about I do this:

At 1st level, you pick a specialisation (like a ranger, but level 1 instead of level 2). This grants you a pool of feats to pick from at 1st, 2nd, 5th, 10th and 15th.

One pool would be mount themed, with mounted combat feats - The Valiant Charger
One pool would be shield themed, with shield combat feats - The Nobel Defender
One pool would be... survivability themed? Diehard, Toughness, that sort of thing? - The Stalwart Bastion
Maybe another pool focused on weapons? The Knight Errant?

Its not quite the freedom of a fighter, but as fighters are actually useful at my tables (not through homerules, just because its that level of play), I dont want it to be fighter+ any more than I want it to be paladin-.

That way, I have homeruled some numbers into a better spot, and added RAW mechanics with some flavour. Minor changes. Better class.

Ill throw in better skills/points and the ability for knights challenge to actually work on anything that can reasonably read body language (so animals, magical creatures, etc.). Takes the list of things that cant be challenged from "nearly everything" to "oozes, plants, mindless undead and vermin", which seems reasonable. Thats no more than I did to fix the truenamer.

[Fizban]

Knight: Fort save is now High, gain tower shield proficiency, Call to Battle overturns fear save automatically and grants a new save against another ongoing effect if any, Daunting Challenge frightens on failed/shaken on successful save (lasts 5+cha rounds). Shield Ally works on spells and other effects at 10th, Improved Shield Ally does the same immediately.

Addendum: I've also a general reminder that any class with bonus feats can ask for appropriate feats from other books. In particular, feats like Allied Defense (Shining South) and Constant/Dutiful Guardian (Drow of the Underdark) are highly appropriate.

I disagree with the suggestion to increase the Fighting Challenge buff. It's already superior to Inspire Courage (same bonus but one level sooner), so unless you have Inspire Courage optimization at your table, it's already a full BAB guy who buffs himself as well as a Bard could. Similarly, I disgree that the class is feat starved. Everything is feat starved compared to Fighters and variant classes that give you whatever bonus feat you want.

I don't understand suggestions that the Knight is focused on mounted combat. It's not. It gets Mounted Combat as a bonus feat pretty much just for flavor, and can choose a couple more derived feats if they want. People have noted how few bonus feats there are and yeah, they are. One mounted combat derived feat at 5th, 10th, and 15th is not a focus. You'd be better off ignoring it completely and taking Great Fortitude, Iron Will, Endurance, Diehard, etc, because they have concrete bonuses and qualify you for other tanky feats. The designer probably did mean a mounted combat focus with those feats, when they shouldn't have, but expanding the options is enough.

Note that Shield Block is, by the standard game's estimation, worth a feat per +1 itself. It's Dodge, but with a shield, and you get it multiple times. Basically every one of the Knight's class features is worth a feat, just not the high power combat feat combos some people expect from other warriors, and most of them are pretty well unobtainable by anyone who's not just casting spells. You can work through combos with general feats just fine, and if it takes a bit longer that is fully appropriate, because the Fighter is supposed to be king of feat combos. The most I would do is turn Mounted Combat into a choosable bonus feat.


The last big thing I'd consider is their Shield Ally ability. It only works for adjacent allies, which gets annoying as soon as you consider employing greater size and reach, and goes very much against many player's desire to run straight at things instead of holding formation. Expanding it to threatened area is a no-brainer, but you might go one further and allow them to also *move* with it. For full power, you could make it a free move (instead of having it cost the move action of their next turn). This combines with the Knight's relatively unnoticed ability: speed. One of the only effects in the game that lets you flat ignore the speed penalty of heavy armor, a Knight gets full AC and full speed, without paying for expensive +3 armor abilities. Taking that speed and turning it into the effective range at which they can guard allies, where your attacking an ally means the big heavy armor guy zips straight over, diverts the damage, and then pounds you next turn, seems like a feel good moment.

[Psyren]

Im not about to port in Pathfinder and lie to my table about it, though.
For a start, I might at some point be able to convince them to play 3.P and backporting just limits available options if that happens. But I appreciate the thought.


"Lying" is a strong word :smalltongue: I just find it odd they would allow compatible online or homebrew, but not online with a specific label on it.



At 1st level, you pick a specialisation (like a ranger, but level 1 instead of level 2). This grants you a pool of feats to pick from at 1st, 2nd, 5th, 10th and 15th.

One pool would be mount themed, with mounted combat feats - The Valiant Charger
One pool would be shield themed, with shield combat feats - The Nobel Defender
One pool would be... survivability themed? Diehard, Toughness, that sort of thing? - The Stalwart Bastion
Maybe another pool focused on weapons? The Knight Errant?


I'd probably do specific weapon feat chains, like swords, polearms, or bows - "knightly" weapons essentially.

[liquidformat]

One pool would be mount themed, with mounted combat feats - The Valiant Charger
One pool would be shield themed, with shield combat feats - The Nobel Defender
One pool would be... survivability themed? Diehard, Toughness, that sort of thing? - The Stalwart Bastion
Maybe another pool focused on weapons? The Knight Errant?


The Valiant Charger seems fine, should The Nobel Defender also have armor themed feats there are some in RoS among other places, The Stalwart Bastion seems a bit weak but nothing wrong with it, perhaps also do a lockdown knight focusing on trip related feats?
I still think just opening up the feats at 2,5,10,&15 to all fighter feats would be an easier way to get a similar result without breaking anything. Knight already gets feats at those levels this change just makes the choice gives more customization but really isn't stepping on the fighter's feat any more than the class does anyways.

[Psyren]

The Valiant Charger seems fine, should The Nobel Defender also have armor themed feats there are some in RoS among other places, The Stalwart Bastion seems a bit weak but nothing wrong with it, perhaps also do a lockdown knight focusing on trip related feats?
I still think just opening up the feats at 2,5,10,&15 to all fighter feats would be an easier way to get a similar result without breaking anything. Knight already gets feats at those levels this change just makes the choice gives more customization but really isn't stepping on the fighter's feat any more than the class does anyways.

You could remove the prereqs, that would justify the narrower focus.

[Blackhawk748]

I disagree with the suggestion to increase the Fighting Challenge buff. It's already superior to Inspire Courage (same bonus but one level sooner), so unless you have Inspire Courage optimization at your table, it's already a full BAB guy who buffs himself as well as a Bard could. Similarly, I disgree that the class is feat starved. Everything is feat starved compared to Fighters and variant classes that give you whatever bonus feat you want.

I think it needs the buff, simply because its an opportunity cost as the buff isn't in isolation, it uses you Challenges which get used for other things. Also, it should be better than Inspire Courage as that boosts all of your allies that can hear or see it (which can get silly with any amount of imagination) while the Challenge just buffs you, and doesn't stack with Inspire. So it starting at +2/+2 and going up but +1/+2 every increase is fine, as you are just being self suficient with you Damage output, plus it helps keep your damage in line with the Two Handers.

Also I like the idea someone had which increased your threat radius to help keep the Knight "sticky" with their aggro. This also lets you keep looking like a typical knight and not have to use a Polearm to do your job.

[Fizban]

Alternatively, your other abilities consume uses that could be used for buffs. The other obvious point of comparison is rage, which while frontloaded with +2/+2 or +2/3, and never goes higher than +3/3 or +3/+4 (depending on hands). But the fact that the Knight isn't problematically frontloaded is a good thing. A better comparison might be Weapon Spec line, specifically Weapon Mastery from PHB2 itself. That jumps to +4/+4 at 8th, but again tapers off to a max of +5/+6. And I generally don't things that suggest you need to "keep up" with two handed damage, because two handed damage isn't expected. At best I might go for an extra +1/+1 at 1st, solely because a lot of people feel inferior to Barbarians and most don't seem to ban the ridiculous 1st level Inspirational boost (under my changes that spell is 3rd level, and the base IC progression is 1+1/5- my solution for the Knight's buff not being as good as what a Bard could give him is "try another party comp or Bard ACF")

Inspire Courage works on other people because that's needed to get the buff on the full BAB guy, otherwise it'd just be a slap in the fact to the guy whose job is combat that you get bonuses which make you as good as him. Being able to buff other people seems to be the clear unifying reason a bunch of other base classes have 3/4 BAB despite lack of spellcasting or skills, including the Dragon Shaman from the same book.

[Thurbane]

My 2 cents: for a small fix, 4 skill points/level, and give them the Aristocrat skill list.

Knights have one of the most truly awful skill lists of any base class. It makes the Fighter seem decent.

[Albions_Angel]

Ok, I let this mull for a while and here is what I am thinking. Hope this isnt considered necro...

Before I move into it, people suggested making the CR of targeted enemies CL +2 rather than CL -2, but because KC targets creatures with CR GREATER than that limit, making that change REDUCES the number of enemies you can target, right? Isnt that wrong?


4 + Int skill points
Aristocrats skill list
Targeted knights challenges that target creatures that cant be affected dont use a daily use
Fighting Challenge (FC) starts at +2, rises by +1 every time it should
FC works on all creatures with an int score and a basic understanding of body language/general threats. If you can call out an ogre, you can call out a bear.
FC gives opponent -2 moral to atk/dmg vs opponents that arnt knight. Scales same as knight moral bonus
Test of Mettle (ToM) has same target requirements as FC.
Creatures that fail their ToM save, but choose to attack opponents that threaten them, do so with -2 moral penalties to attack/dmg (them being attacked ends ToM as normal)
Full armour mastery happens all at once (4th level) 15' (typically) extra movement isnt a lot.
Call to battle changed to Immediate action
Daunting Challenge (DC) same target requirements as FC
DC causes Feared on failed save, shaken on success (??? most unsure about this one)
level 2, 5, 10, 15 are free fighter bonus feats


Thoughts?

[liquidformat]

DC causes Feared on failed save, shaken on success (??? most unsure about this one)


Looks pretty good from a cursory glance will have to reread the abilities themselves to do a deeper dive. Let's quickly go over escalations of fear
Shaken<Frightened<Panicked<Cowering

Goal in fear builds is to get to cowering as quickly as possible. By level 12 we will be in the thick of things that ignore fear affects (not sure if this is officially a fear affect but I believe it is). Given the fact that there will be a lot of enemies out their immune to this I believe it might be ok to give this a further power up.

DC: Causes frightened on failed save, shaken on successful save. If save is failed by 5-9 become panicked instead of frightened, if save is failed by 10 or more then enemy is cowered.

I don't think you will often come across enemies that will fail by 10+ outside mobs but this does give you some nice return on a credible threat that rolls a 1.

[liquidformat]

So I have been looking things over here are some thoughts:

FC: -2 attack/damage seems a bit high and makes FC extraordinarily powerful, you are already giving +2 Will saves,attack, and damage. To also apply -2 scaling to -5 at 19 that is quite powerful. Then again the fact that it is pretty easy to avoid the penalty by simply focusing attack on the knight might make it alright?...

For ToM: Change the ending criteria from attacking to damage from a different person. It isn't a huge change in power but I think it better fits the ability.

I would leave the armor mastery as is and instead look at the shield block ability changing that to being against all enemies instead of just one...