Hoplite Fighter Subclass

[Ben Cummings]

Recently got back to making some homebrew subclasses after many months off. I've come across a hoplite subclass in the past, but it seemed too wordy for my taste, so I wanted to make my own iteration. I am going for a tank/control class that feels like heavy infantry that can either hold it position or dislodge the enemy from theirs. Let me know if the ability seem appropriate for the theme, if the wording is correct, power level is balanced, or anything else that could be done to improve the class.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hoplite

For hundreds of years, the Hoplite dominated the battlefield, crushing lighter infantry and repelling cavalry with a nigh impenetrable phalanx formation. With advances in tactics and technology, as well as the expense of maintaining such well trained and equipped infantry, the hoplite has fallen out of fashion. Some wealthy kingdoms maintain a small retinue of elite hoplite troops, and, most notably, hobgoblins have maintained the use of the hoplite as the backbone of their army, providing them a level of security while surrounded by hostile neighbors.

Phalanx Grip: Starting at 3rd level, long hours of training have made you an expert with the pike. In your hands, a pike loses the two-handed quality, deals 1d8 piercing damage, and gains the versatile (d10) quality.

Push Back: At 3rd level, you learn to batter away your enemies with your shield. As long as you are wielding a shield, you may use a bonus action to shove a creature within 5 ft. of you. If the target is the same size as you or smaller, you gain a +2 bonus to your Strength (Athletics) check. If you successfully push your target away, you may move into the space it has occupied as part of the bonus action.

Shield Wall: Starting at 7th level, you have become an expert at defending yourself and those around you with your shield. While wielding a shield, you and each ally within 5 ft. of you gain a +1 to armor class. This bonus can only be gained once even if adjacent to more than one character with Shield Wall; this ability increases to +2 at 15th level. In addition, you gain a +1 bonus to armor class while within 5 ft. of an ally with a shield. You may gain this bonus up to 2 times. The bonus provided by you or an ally does not apply if either individual is incapacitated, grappled, restrained, or prone.

March of the Victorious: At 7th level, vigorous military training allows you to push through exhaustion while marching. While traveling on foot, you and up 10 other allies within 30 ft. of you gain advantage on Constitution saves to avoid exhaustion from Forced March.

Spear Wall: At 10th level, those who charge your position meet first the deadly point of your pike. Creatures provoke an attack of opportunity when they enter a space that you threaten with a pike or spear. If you hit the creature with this attack of opportunity, you reduce the creature's speed to 0.

Press Forward: At 15th level, you use your pike and shield to force your foes backwards. When you successfully shove a target with a weapon or shield, you automatically deal damage to that target equal to your Strength modifier + the magical item bonus of the shield or weapon you are using. This damage is of the type of the weapon (bludgeoning in the case of shields).

Under Heel: Starting at 15th level, you crush your enemies under your feet as you relentlessly push forward. You may move through spaces occupied by prone enemies, though you may not end in your turn in an occupied space. If you move through a prone enemy's space, you may deal bludgeoning damage equal to your Strength modifier to that enemy. Spaces occupied by prone enemies count as difficult terrain.

You Shall Not Pass: At 18th level, you may push back wave after wave of foes. When you attempt a shove action as part of an attack of opportunity, you do not need to use your reaction. You may use this ability a number of times equal to your Constitution modifier per a round.

[luuma]

I've also made a roman fighter lol, with many very similar features! I like that its combat features don't have any sort of limit on uses (romans are endurance fighters, after all)

I think I would give it a very, very slight nerf on its 3rd level feature by also removing the Heavy property from the pike - otherwise it lets you use Great Weapon Fighting while wielding a shield, which seems a touch strong. I think you'd have to word it like "you can wield a pike in one hand. While you do so, it loses the Heavy and Two-Handed properties, and its damage die changes to 1d8". I'd probably also make it grant spears the Reach property.

Beyond that, I think it could maybe do with some added noncombat stuff at 3rd level, and I'd maybe want it to overlap less with the Shield Master feat.

[Ben Cummings]

I've also made a roman fighter lol, with many very similar features! I like that its combat features don't have any sort of limit on uses (romans are endurance fighters, after all)

Thanks! I appreciate you taking a look at it.


I think I would give it a very, very slight nerf on its 3rd level feature by also removing the Heavy property from the pike - otherwise it lets you use Great Weapon Fighting while wielding a shield, which seems a touch strong. I think you'd have to word it like "you can wield a pike in one hand. While you do so, it loses the Heavy and Two-Handed properties, and its damage die changes to 1d8". I'd probably also make it grant spears the Reach property.

I went back and forth on this quite a bit. I wasn't too worried about the Great Weapon Mastery since the class and the feat compete over Bonus Actions. The -5 to hit, +10 damage might still be a bit on the powerful side. Removing Heavy opens pike use up to halflings and other small folk might be goofy, but probably not broken. I like your solution. Perhaps, "In your hands, Pikes lose the Two-Handed quality. While wielded in one hand, pikes lose the Heavy quality and deal 1d8 piercing damage.

I wanted to stick to pike, as the traditional hoplite spear was between 8 and 15 ft. long. As the modal was widely adopted around the Mediterranean during the Classical Era, there is a lot of variation. It seems some hoplites may have carried a shorter spear for throwing (or a couple of javelins), along side the longer pike.


Beyond that, I think it could maybe do with some added noncombat stuff at 3rd level, and I'd maybe want it to overlap less with the Shield Master feat.

A good point. I figured the bonus action shield slam would make Polearm Master and Great Weapon Master less appealing (Polearm Master would be particularly goofy one handed), though it is a pretty direct ripoff of the Shield Master feat.

The easiest solution for non-combat stuff at third would be to move March of the Victorious down to that level. The other consideration I had was +1 AC from shields if you weren't wearing Heavy Armor to better represent the classic hoplite gear. I am open to other suggestions though.

[Nuptup]

My biggest concern with this is that some of the class identity you're going for here is literally just taking existing feats and trimming only the part you want out of them.

Push Back, the level 3 class feature is just a better version of the shield master feat.

Spear Wall, the level 10 is just a the good parts from both Sentinel (Stop movement) and Polearm Master (Attack when entering reach).

Other than that, you're allowing a melee shield fighter to have full shield AC (+2) combined with longsword damage (1d8) while giving them reach which is only available on 2-handed weapons except for the whip (which is limited to 1d4 for a reason). I feel this subclass would be better off using the spear as it is with no math changes and focus on giving flavorful options instead of flat math benefits. As it sits, you have given a fighter a huge power increase, allowing full plate plus a shield, plus passive +1/2 if allies shield up (while granting those allies bonuses also), and having a full 1d8 weapon damage and reach. That is a MASSIVE level 3, even ignoring the fact that the bonus defenses come in at level 7.

March is flavorful, but will likely never see use because only you can do it, not your party, so it's a dead-level. This would be better as half of a level 7 ability, or baked into the level 3 stuff and forgotten about.

Press Forward is fine and flavorful, but I would make it only work with a shield since that's the goal and to remove the magic scaling.

Under Heel is also fine, maybe add that targets have disadvantage when making opportunity attacks when you trample them.

You Shall Not Pass simply doesn't work in the rules of the game as a baseline because the opportunity attack reaction specifies making an attack and nowhere in the rules does it specify you can replace that attack with a shove or any other type of special attack action, thus making this not work. I also think this is poorly planned as you can cause enemies to provoke your opportunity attack from pike reach, which would be your only range increment, making a shove impossible and you can't delay an opportunity attack until they get adjacent because it's no longer "Entering your range with the pike" so this just doesn't work.



My suggested changes would be as follows.


Phalanx Stance: Starting at 3rd level, long hours of training have made you an expert with the spear and shield. In your hands, a spear is more deadly than the average foot soldier, increasing it's damage to 1d8 when wielded in 1 hand with a shield in your other hand.

You have also learned to batter away your enemies with your shield. As long as you are wielding a shield, you may use a bonus action to shove a creature within 5 ft. of you. If you successfully push your target away, you may move into the space it previously occupied as part of the bonus action.

March of the Victorious: At 3rd level, vigorous military training allows you to push through exhaustion while marching. While traveling on foot, you and up 10 other allies within 30 ft. of you gain advantage on Constitution saves to avoid exhaustion from Forced March.

(Nuptup Notes: removed pike entirely to remove reach, used spear instead and bumped damage to reflect mastery and bring it in line with the longsword. Removed bonus +2 to shove check because it's already strong enough and doesn't need it. Also moved March here.)


Shield Wall: Starting at 7th level, you have become an expert at defending those around you with your shield. While wielding a shield, each ally within 5 ft. of you gains a +1 bonus to their armor class. This bonus can only be gained once even if they are adjacent to more than one character with Shield Wall. This bonus increases to +2 at 15th level. The bonus does not apply if you are incapacitated, grappled, restrained, prone, or are otherwise unable to directly control yourself (Example: Charm Person).

Spartan Living: Starting at 7th level, you have grown accustomed to living a bare essentials life. As long as there is any type of fresh plant life, wild game, or you are in an urban environment, you can subsist for yourself. You also have a knack for finding hidden shelter to weather a storm and gain a +2 to survival checks to find natural shelter and to diplomacy checks to gather information pertaining to shelter and resources.

(Nuptup Notes: removed the interaction with allies who have shields and removed your bonus to AC to keep this subclass inside bounded accuracy ranges. Also added caveat for mind control effects. Lastly I added Spartan Living as a neat out of combat effect to replace March since it moved to level 3.)


Spear Wall: At 10th level, you can ready yourself to accept those foolish enough to charge your position, treating them first to the deadly point of your spear and second to the callous embrace of your shield. As a bonus action on your turn, you can ready yourself to accept a charge. Until the start of your next turn, creatures provoke an attack of opportunity when they enter a space that you threaten with a spear. If you hit the creature with this attack of opportunity, you can also attempt a shove against them with your shield as part of the reaction.

(Nuptup Notes: Removed stopping movement so you can still get good value from sentinel and replaced that with incorporating a free shove. However, I made it require a bonus action to ready yourself as allowing this to be active permanently would be a bit too strong.)


Press Forward: At 15th level, you use your shield with brutal force to batter your foes. When you successfully shove a target with a shield, you deal bludgeoning damage to that target equal to your Strength modifier.

Under Heel: Starting at 15th level, you crush your enemies under your feet as you relentlessly push forward. You may move through spaces occupied by prone creatures, though you may not end your turn in an occupied space. If you move through a prone creature's space, you may deal bludgeoning damage equal to your Strength modifier to that enemy. Spaces occupied by prone creatures count as difficult terrain.

(Nuptup Notes: changed Press Forward to only be triggered with shield shoves and removed the magic scaling. Under Heel now works against any creatures, not just explicit enemies. Wording allows you to not stomp allies, so all good there. Decided not to give disadvantage to opportunity attacks from triggering movement, but i suppose you could if you wanted.)


You Shall Not Pass: At 18th level, you turn yourself into an impassable barrier to hold back the tide of enemies. When you use your bonus action to use your Spear Wall ability, you can make opportunity attacks without using your reaction, and you can use your reaction to make a melee attack against a creature that moves more than 5ft while within your reach.

(Nuptup Notes: Since this didn't function anymore, and half of it's effect was moved to your level 10 feature, I decided to steal directly from unearthed arcana and take the tunnel fighter fighting style and make that busted thing your capstone ability, however it stacks on top of your level 10. So now, you enter your stance as a bonus action each turn, and any enemy that enters or leaves your reach you can opportunity attack (With the free shove on a hit or stop movement with sentinel) any number of times, and you can use your ACTUAL reaction to opportunity attack (And shove/stop) one creature who moves more than 5 feet within your reach (like someone trying to run through your reach to an ally) giving you a chance to prone them or stop their movement with sentinel, and if you fail you get ANOTHER chance when they leave your reach since infinite Opportunity Attacks. Is this broken, yeah, maybe. But.., it's a capstone and the wizard can cast wish. Have fun!)



Thus ends my notes, I hope this helps and whether you agree with these changes or not is up to you. I think it would be fun to play and should be fairly balanced. Let me know what you think!