Greywander
2021-03-27, 11:48 PM
I was looking at builds for a super hero type of character, specifically a flying brick type who is characterized by being a champion of JUSTICE! I sort of had All Might from My Hero Academia in mind, as he's sort of a toned down version of Superman. Initially I thought a Redemption paladin would work pretty well, but it was still lacking some of the specific traits I was looking for. Eventually, I decided to see if I could homebrew a custom paladin oath that would just get me the specific traits I wanted.
I decided on paladin as the base class for reasons outlined in this thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?629044-Super-hero-build-(Maybe-a-Redemption-Paladin-)). The other major features I wanted were something like the Armorer artificer's thunder gauntlets, and some kind of mobility powerup, particularly with either flight or good jumping. You can probably also see a sort of parallel with the Redemption paladin, in that you're getting abilities at the same level that accomplish a similar goal, if by a different method.
The Oath of Heroism (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nAsG8VRGyzhkO-S0WxSY8cL18Iz7-ef-Mn97sEyOGxU/edit?usp=sharing)
Let me go over my thought process for a few of these.
Oath Spells
I don't want to explain each of these, but it's mostly a mix of things that are geared toward protecting the innocent (or your allies) (hence something like Dimension Door, which is good as an emergency evac) with some things that boost your combat ability. I'm not set on most of these, so if you want to suggest different spells that you think might be more appropriate I'd be willing to listen.
Channel Divinity
Why yes, that is a 60 foot knockback (in tier 4). Isn't that awesome? You can literally punch someone so hard they need a Dash action to get back into the fight. Knockback was one of the more tertiary things I felt was kind of important for this super hero archetype. Throwing people through walls seems like a normal part of any fight scene involving a hero like this. This could be an issue if you could do it more than once, but since it's limited by your channel divinity, it should be fine.
I'm not really sold on the other option though. If I can, I'd like to make it more interesting. As it is, it's functional at least.
Fist of Justice
This gives you half of the thunder gauntlets, with some tweaks. A lot of super heroes of this style fight with their fists, but even though the unarmed fighting style is available to paladins, they can't smite with just their fists. This lets you do that. I left the damage as bludgeoning so you can pick up Crusher for even more knockback. I also made them count as light weapons so you can dual wield them. Paladins don't get TWF style, so the damage isn't great; in most cases you're probably better off using a shield, though that might change later on. Otherwise, this is mostly just a cosmetic change, as the fists are equivalent to most other one-handed martial weapons.
Justice Smash
See previous comments on the channel divinity. It's like a Repelling Blast that uses a spell slot, and requires you to be in melee. As far as I'm aware, there's no reason this wouldn't stack with the channel divinity option, either, allowing you to knock someone 120 feet back if you burn a 5th level slot and use Banishing Smite (a 5th level smite spell). Since that burns both your 5th level slots and your channel divinity, I'm fine with it.
I am Your Opponent
The other half of the thunder gauntlets. You get this later than the artificer does, but many paladins get a defining feature at 7th level (see Redemption and Conquest subclasses). You now have a good reason to ditch the shield, as this allows you to force a third target to attack you or suffer disadvantage. It's tricky though, because it doesn't always make a big difference who the enemy is attacking; all you're really changing is the order in which the party goes down, with you being the first one (this will become more important later). So you might want to keep the shield after all.
To use this effectively, you need to make sure you're giving the enemy nothing but bad options. Ideally, your party members should all have enough AC that attacking them with disadvantage is actually meaningful. At the same time, you need to have high AC yourself, preferably with some kind of damage reduction or resistance. HAM works very well here. You can also use positioning tricks, especially with the knockback on your smites, e.g. knocking an enemy into the reach of your rogue, so they can either attack the rogue with disadvantage or provoke an OA from the rogue while getting back into melee with you.
Swift Justice
This is the mobility that the paladin just couldn't seem to get access to. I'm considering replacing the jumping bonus with a fly speed that only works during your own turn (like the eagle barbarian's), allowing you to "jump" from place to place, but requiring you to land at the end of your turn. The move speed buff can also be helpful for staying in melee with creatures you knock back.
Heroic Resolve
The Redemption paladin gets regeneration, we get this. Honestly, this might actually be too strong. It's basically a souped up Undead Fortitude that uses a CHA save instead of CON, and doesn't have a way to bypass it. What makes this potentially OP is just how stupidly high our bonus to CHA saves is. If we've maxed out CHA (which we should have), then we'll have a +15 to our CHA saves, soon to be +16 at 17th level. An enemy needs to deal at least 12 damage in a single hit, or else they can't actually kill us. Also, this goes up if we have HAM.
That said, this ability does have a somewhat strange effect on difficulty. Something like a horde of kobolds is basically a non-threat; although they can drop your HP pretty fast with so many attacks, they can't actually kill you because they can't do enough damage in a single hit. Something like a dragon is a moderate threat; it's strong enough to kill you, but has to get your HP down first. But a dragon and kobold horde together becomes a deadly threat; even though the kobolds can't kill you, they can get your HP down fast and then let the dragon deliver the final blow.
I can see a character like this spending something like half of their adventuring day at 1 HP, since there really isn't a reason to heal them unless they drop to 0 (having another party member on standby with Healing Word is a good idea). I like the image this conjures, of a hero who is pushing themselves past their limits and continuing to fight against what might be a superior enemy. Also keep in mind that you don't get this until 15th level, so you're kind of supposed to be pretty strong by then.
If I did replace this, my other idea is to reduce all damage taken by an amount equal to your CHA mod. Basically, like with the Redemption paladin, we want a feature here that helps keep you alive while you're tanking (Redemption paladin's tank using their aura, we tank by imposing disadvantage on enemies if they don't attack us).
True Hero of Justice
I didn't notice until I'd tried to build this concept using a Redemption paladin, but their capstone is an always-on passive ability, not a once-per-long rest ability like most other paladin subclasses. I kind of wanted to mimic that here, too. I'm not super certain about some of the specific traits put here, but I think some of them work fairly well. Being able to intercept the damage meant for an ally works well with your ability to just not die even while at 1 HP. The monsters will have to force you to separate from your allies before they can take them down. Regaining a spell slot when you pass the save to not die is mostly a damage boost; if you're taking three or four attacks per round, you could recover all of your 1st level slots, and then be able to smite on all your attacks. I think it helps you live out that heroic last stand, where you suddenly get a power up while on your last legs.
Anyway, let me know what you think. As mentioned, some of these are still in a state of flux and could change. I'm also not sure how well balanced these are.
I decided on paladin as the base class for reasons outlined in this thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?629044-Super-hero-build-(Maybe-a-Redemption-Paladin-)). The other major features I wanted were something like the Armorer artificer's thunder gauntlets, and some kind of mobility powerup, particularly with either flight or good jumping. You can probably also see a sort of parallel with the Redemption paladin, in that you're getting abilities at the same level that accomplish a similar goal, if by a different method.
The Oath of Heroism (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nAsG8VRGyzhkO-S0WxSY8cL18Iz7-ef-Mn97sEyOGxU/edit?usp=sharing)
Let me go over my thought process for a few of these.
Oath Spells
I don't want to explain each of these, but it's mostly a mix of things that are geared toward protecting the innocent (or your allies) (hence something like Dimension Door, which is good as an emergency evac) with some things that boost your combat ability. I'm not set on most of these, so if you want to suggest different spells that you think might be more appropriate I'd be willing to listen.
Channel Divinity
Why yes, that is a 60 foot knockback (in tier 4). Isn't that awesome? You can literally punch someone so hard they need a Dash action to get back into the fight. Knockback was one of the more tertiary things I felt was kind of important for this super hero archetype. Throwing people through walls seems like a normal part of any fight scene involving a hero like this. This could be an issue if you could do it more than once, but since it's limited by your channel divinity, it should be fine.
I'm not really sold on the other option though. If I can, I'd like to make it more interesting. As it is, it's functional at least.
Fist of Justice
This gives you half of the thunder gauntlets, with some tweaks. A lot of super heroes of this style fight with their fists, but even though the unarmed fighting style is available to paladins, they can't smite with just their fists. This lets you do that. I left the damage as bludgeoning so you can pick up Crusher for even more knockback. I also made them count as light weapons so you can dual wield them. Paladins don't get TWF style, so the damage isn't great; in most cases you're probably better off using a shield, though that might change later on. Otherwise, this is mostly just a cosmetic change, as the fists are equivalent to most other one-handed martial weapons.
Justice Smash
See previous comments on the channel divinity. It's like a Repelling Blast that uses a spell slot, and requires you to be in melee. As far as I'm aware, there's no reason this wouldn't stack with the channel divinity option, either, allowing you to knock someone 120 feet back if you burn a 5th level slot and use Banishing Smite (a 5th level smite spell). Since that burns both your 5th level slots and your channel divinity, I'm fine with it.
I am Your Opponent
The other half of the thunder gauntlets. You get this later than the artificer does, but many paladins get a defining feature at 7th level (see Redemption and Conquest subclasses). You now have a good reason to ditch the shield, as this allows you to force a third target to attack you or suffer disadvantage. It's tricky though, because it doesn't always make a big difference who the enemy is attacking; all you're really changing is the order in which the party goes down, with you being the first one (this will become more important later). So you might want to keep the shield after all.
To use this effectively, you need to make sure you're giving the enemy nothing but bad options. Ideally, your party members should all have enough AC that attacking them with disadvantage is actually meaningful. At the same time, you need to have high AC yourself, preferably with some kind of damage reduction or resistance. HAM works very well here. You can also use positioning tricks, especially with the knockback on your smites, e.g. knocking an enemy into the reach of your rogue, so they can either attack the rogue with disadvantage or provoke an OA from the rogue while getting back into melee with you.
Swift Justice
This is the mobility that the paladin just couldn't seem to get access to. I'm considering replacing the jumping bonus with a fly speed that only works during your own turn (like the eagle barbarian's), allowing you to "jump" from place to place, but requiring you to land at the end of your turn. The move speed buff can also be helpful for staying in melee with creatures you knock back.
Heroic Resolve
The Redemption paladin gets regeneration, we get this. Honestly, this might actually be too strong. It's basically a souped up Undead Fortitude that uses a CHA save instead of CON, and doesn't have a way to bypass it. What makes this potentially OP is just how stupidly high our bonus to CHA saves is. If we've maxed out CHA (which we should have), then we'll have a +15 to our CHA saves, soon to be +16 at 17th level. An enemy needs to deal at least 12 damage in a single hit, or else they can't actually kill us. Also, this goes up if we have HAM.
That said, this ability does have a somewhat strange effect on difficulty. Something like a horde of kobolds is basically a non-threat; although they can drop your HP pretty fast with so many attacks, they can't actually kill you because they can't do enough damage in a single hit. Something like a dragon is a moderate threat; it's strong enough to kill you, but has to get your HP down first. But a dragon and kobold horde together becomes a deadly threat; even though the kobolds can't kill you, they can get your HP down fast and then let the dragon deliver the final blow.
I can see a character like this spending something like half of their adventuring day at 1 HP, since there really isn't a reason to heal them unless they drop to 0 (having another party member on standby with Healing Word is a good idea). I like the image this conjures, of a hero who is pushing themselves past their limits and continuing to fight against what might be a superior enemy. Also keep in mind that you don't get this until 15th level, so you're kind of supposed to be pretty strong by then.
If I did replace this, my other idea is to reduce all damage taken by an amount equal to your CHA mod. Basically, like with the Redemption paladin, we want a feature here that helps keep you alive while you're tanking (Redemption paladin's tank using their aura, we tank by imposing disadvantage on enemies if they don't attack us).
True Hero of Justice
I didn't notice until I'd tried to build this concept using a Redemption paladin, but their capstone is an always-on passive ability, not a once-per-long rest ability like most other paladin subclasses. I kind of wanted to mimic that here, too. I'm not super certain about some of the specific traits put here, but I think some of them work fairly well. Being able to intercept the damage meant for an ally works well with your ability to just not die even while at 1 HP. The monsters will have to force you to separate from your allies before they can take them down. Regaining a spell slot when you pass the save to not die is mostly a damage boost; if you're taking three or four attacks per round, you could recover all of your 1st level slots, and then be able to smite on all your attacks. I think it helps you live out that heroic last stand, where you suddenly get a power up while on your last legs.
Anyway, let me know what you think. As mentioned, some of these are still in a state of flux and could change. I'm also not sure how well balanced these are.