[PEACH] Exalted Defender (name pending)

[ChudoJogurt]

Exalted Defender
A radiant knight of Good deity of War and Protection, the devoted defender is bound by the sacred vow to protect innocents from Evil, combining his knowledge of Martial discipline and deep Divine devotion he is a terror to the things that go bump in the night.

Prerequisites:
To qualify to become a Devoted Defender, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.
Alignment: NG or LG
Base Attack Bonus: +5
Skills: Knowledge (religion) 3 ranks
Feats: Sacred Vow, Power Attack //Maybe I'd switch it to Ironheart Aura. Doesn't work for my current campaign and characters, but it's thematically better.
Maneuvers: Must have knowledge of a Stance from a Diamond Mind, Iron Heart or Devoted Spirit schools. //Intentionally vert mild. Might tighten it to specifically Devoted Spirit.

Stats:
Hit Die d10.
Skills: 2+Int.

Comment:
This class is made for my second go of a campaign that created Adamantine Mind.
This time it's a Divine/Martial combo, meant to protect allies, do Good, and deal obscene amount of damage to evil creatures, with slight nudge towards two-handed-weapon-ness.

Big table:
"Level""Base
Attack Bonus""Fort
Save""Ref
Save""Will
Save""Special""Maneuvers known""Maneuvers Readied""Stances Known""""""""1st""1""2""0""2""Diehard, Smite Evil 1/day""""""-""""""""2nd""2""3""0""3""Selfless Defence, Divine Grace""1""""""""""""3rd""3""3""1
""3"" Resist Enchantment""""1""""""""""4th""4""4""1""4""Evil-Castigating Stance""1""""""""""""5th""5""4""1""4""Energy resistance 5, smite evil 2/day""""""1""""""""6th""6""5""2""5""Aura of Courage""1""1""""""""""7th""7""5""2""5""Sacred Flames""""""""""""""8th""8""6""2""6""Energy Resistance 10""1""""""""""""9th""9""6""3""6""Smite Evil 3/day""""1""""""""""10th""10""7""3""7""Invincible Defender""1""""1"""""""""
Maneuvers:
the class progressess initiator levels, and can learn Maneuvers and Stances from Desert Wind or Devoted Spirit schools
Selfless Defence:
By sacrificing a readied/granted Devoted Spirit Maneuver as an immediate action, she can switch places with an adjacent ally, taking damage in their stead. The ability must be used after the attack/saving throw roll was made but before the damage is rolled. She doesn't get to use her own AC, or her saving throws. It can protect from an area attack, but only if the orgiinal place of the Devoted Defender is outside of the area.
Evil Castigating Stance:
When in Devoted Spirit Stance, a single use of Smite Evil instead is applied to all her attacks until the beginning of h nerext turn.
Resist Enchantment Exalted Defender gains +2 on saving throws to resist enchantments. Any orders that would cause him to directly physically harm innocents or allies are treated as if they were suicidal for the purposes of resisting magical or supernatural commands.
Energy Resistance:
Resistance to Fire and Cold 5, becomes 10 at level 8. Doubled when in Desert Wind stance
Sacred Flames:
Fire damage from Desert Wind maneuvers ignores Energy Resistance for Evil enemies. It's multiplied x1.5 for evil outsiders and undead
Invincible Defender:
Once/day, While within sight of allies or innocents who are being threatened by his enemies, the defender will not lay her weaoons -- even unto death. She is not treated as disabled at 0 hit points, nor is she treated as dying at —1 to —9 hit points. Even if reduced to —10 hit points or less, she continues to fight normally until either the fighting stops, all her allies are dead or captured/otherwise not further threatened, or she is removed from the scene such that she's no longer within 30ft of any threatened allies. At that point, the effects of her wounds apply normally if they have not been healed, and the Devoted Defender is exhausted. This ability does not prevent death from massive damage or from spell effects such as slay living or disintegrate.
Other stuff as paladin as appropriate.
If the character has uses of Rage or similar ability (Defensive stance, etc) the number of uses stacks with Invincible Defender.

[Maat Mons]

Is there any particular reason CG characters aren’t allowed in? The theme is clearly Good-aligned, but I don’t see why it needs to be non-Chaotic.

Sacred Vow is a pretty terrible feat, I’d avoid using it as a prerequisite. Power Attack is a very good feat, which and melee character should take. However, I still prefer for prerequisite feats to be something the PrC builds on. There’s nothing in the PrC that directly interacts with Power Attack. I’d either add something that modifies Power Attack, like increasing the effectiveness of Power Attack against Evil enemies (a la Favored Power Attack) or find a feat that’s more closely tied to what the class does for a prerequisite. As it stands, this class doesn’t have any better claim to Power Attack as a prerequisite that literally every melee PrC that exits. If you use Iron Heart Aura as a prerequisite, it introduces a stealth requirement of having one Iron Heart stance. That would make this mostly a Warblade PrC, since anyone else would need to spend two feats to pick one up. And Warblade isn’t even traditionally Int-based, like this PrC is.

I don’t really get why Diamond Mind and Iron Heart are part of the prerequisites, but not among the disciplines the class actually grants access to.

Diehard is a terrible feat, but I can see how it’s thematically a step in the direction of the capstone. I’d keep Diehard as a bonus feat, but add some improvements to it between 1st level and 10th level. Maybe you add your PrC level to how negative you can go on HP before you die. Maybe you stop taking 1 HP damage every time you do something more strenuous than a move action. Maybe you stop being staggered at negative HP. Then the capstone just becomes the Delay Death spell.

The class should probably stack with Paladin, if you have it, for Smite damage. Though Smite is an inherently Cha-based ability, and it seems like you’re trying to let Warblades use this class too. Maybe you could have Smite as one option, and something Int-based as another option? You could even have a single feature that changes effect based on which discipline your current stance belongs to. Though most characters would probably just wind up picking one and sticking with it.

Divine Grace is quite good, but if you’re intent on locking the PrC into a Charisma theme, and you still want it to be attractive to Warblades, you might have to do something. Above, I suggested making this PrC compatible with Int-based characters, but you could also design an ACF for Warblade that removes that class’s normal Int focus. You could maybe even replace it with a Cha focus, but you could also leave it ability-neutral. Some benefits the Warblade wouldn’t mind having are proficiency with heavy armor, and proficiency with ranged weapons. It wouldn’t hurt to rip off Pathfinder Fighter’s Armor Training feature, the ability to move at full speed in medium armor at 3rd level, and heavy armor at 5th level. Not sure what you could use to replace the 11th-level and 15th-level features. Maybe rip off some of the Advanced Armor Training options?

Instead of a bonus to resist Enchantments, maybe you should copy Paladin of Freedom’s Aura or Resolve feature?

Why did you pick Cold and Fire as the elements to resist? It doesn’t really match up to either the Angel or Archon subtypes.

[ChudoJogurt]

Alignment: It's about beying loyal, steadfast, and has "Vow" as a prerequisite, so it's not very Chaotic thematically.
It's also fairly paladin-like.

Feats: Very open to suggestions here! Some level of feat tax is fine, but Power Attack is really not thematically aligned to anything, and Ironheart is very narrow, so any ideas welcome.

Maneuver prerequsites: they are there because they are thematically aligned, and I didn't want to lock the class to Crusaders.
They aren't in schools progressed because that's the trade-off of the class - efficacy vs Evil, versus losing some of the Martial versatility. Having 5 schools available would be too much.

Warblade stacking: Not super-concerned about it. Int is very distant third priority for Warblades, so meh.
Also, this makes the entry via Swordsage an option, because one can stack it all to Wis via Serenity.
And Divine features always key to Cha or Wis.

Adding to Diehard: Yeah, that's sensible, I'll give it a thought.

Cold and Fire: In-campaign that keys to godess of Protection and Fire, but also, it kinda makes sense with Desert Wind.