Quote Originally Posted by Wargamer View Post
*STUFF*
Some of this is valid. Wargamer's balance sense, however, is (I feel) severely of.

The thing I will agree with is that the class seems a bit busy. I'd really like to hear what your design goal was, so we can focus the class in that specific direction. For the moment, however, I'll assume that the abilities fit the role you're going for, and discuss them as that.

Form Fitting
Cool. Although I find it odd that he still suffers a movement penalty in Medium armor. Any particular reason for this?

Unlike Wargame, I think this is a perfectly fine ability, even for very low levels. Martial melee classes often need the speed edge to make movement worth it in combat, so I see no real issue with this, especially as you don't have this increase the Dex bonus or reduce the penalty. This is fine.

Bonus Feat
Hm. I see the criticism here. Level 1 in this class is now automatically better than Fighter 1 (better saves, skills, and level 1 perks). I'd rather see the feats dropped (they make poor class features anyway) and have something else given in return.

Armor Focus
Alright. We're looking at a tank class here. Might prove very hard to hit at lower levels, but I'm not overly concerned.

Combat Focus See what I mentioned above about feats. I like the extra bonus here though: that's a fairly nice way of making shield bashing not a huge drain on feats.

Uncanny Dodge
This, Evasion, and Improved Evasion seem very odd for a heavy-armor wearing class. I'd recommend thinking of some other abilities, as these just seem out of place.

Infallible Resolve
With three good saves (why does it get all three good saves?), this is potentially a bit strong. Still, I'm not hugely concerned about it, unless the class naturally gets large save-boosters.

I might also limit it to Fortitude and Will saves, as resolve doesn't make sense for Reflex saves.

Sword and Board Fighting
Cool. Competitive damage, which might be enough to make non-optimized shield fighting decent. Question for this though: on a standard action attack, do you also get a shield bash? Might want to specify.

Rapid Movement
Interesting choice given a heavy armor wearing tank class. What was the reasoning? You get good full-attack options with Sword and Board Fighting, but movement increases detract from your ability to full attack. It's the monk issue again.

Combat Leap
I'd say to just give them Pounce and call it a day. One attack with a bonus to attacks and damage is...meh. Mediocre. Either that, or give no bonus to attack and damage and let them make a full attack when they land.

Keen Senses
...this is very oddly out of place.

Slippery Mind / Mettle
This with Improved Evasion, Infallible Resolve, and all good saves is pushing saves a bit, I think. If you want save defenses, I'd rather see some more interesting active defenses than this much passive stuff.

Cushioned Fall
To little to late. By this level you've got the HP to just absorb falling damage, honestly. By 15th level you could probably justify removing fall damage altogether without it even approaching overpowered.

Aerial Superiority
This is another ability that sort of comes out of nowhere (I still have no idea why this guy is so good at jumping). That said, it's a nice ability, but it probably comes on to late to be particularly useful. The mechanics could also be simplified a bit.

Arcane Resistance
Don't make this saving-throw based: that's really easy to buff past Caster Level values. Make it level based, like all Spell Resistance is. Something like 11+level, although you could probably give this in 5/7/9/11+level increments starting earlier in the class.

Fortification
This is a rather weak capstone. Outright immunity to crits would make a better capstone, although I don't like blanket immunities. This would, in a revision I made, probably be a 10th level ability at most.


OVERALL THOUGHTS
This class is a little disjointed, and I'm not sure you quite know what you want to do with it. Is it a stationary full-attacking tank, a highly mobile battlefield controller, or what? You need a little more focus, so you can tighten up the abilities, which are a little bit to divergent in many places.

The class is probably mid Tier 4. It doesn't have the options required to go to Tier 3, and it is a bit non-synergistic in...well...a lot of areas. Not an especially strong class, all things considered.