Is the powerlevel of this class ok?

[Gnaritas]

I am creating this class for a new player. Since he is very unexperienced in D&D 3.5 i wanted a class that was not too hard to play and not that many choices to make, yet fun to play and interesting abilities.

I am worried about it's power level though, please give your opinion. I would like it to be at least Tier 4.



Force Field is a deflection bonus to AC, amount as shown in table.
Force Damage is bonus damage added to melee weapon damage, amount as shown in table.
Force Blast is a ranged touch attack dealing Force damage, range and damage are shown in table.
Force Strike is an ability which enhances the Force Adepts melee attacks. It ignores the AC bonuses of all types as shown in the table.
Force Jump is similar to a Dimension Door, but is only useable on himself. As shown in the table, new variations are added, with different range and/or action cost.

I was wondering about what to do with the Force Strike ability at level 18. Would any Force Strike already have a ghost-touch effect given it does Force damage?

[Flickerdart]

Why does it ignore Deflection with only a 2 level dip? That's pretty hardcore. A melee specialist with 3/4 BAB is also questionably useful, since that +10 Force damage is made up by the Fighter's extra 5 BAB that he Power Attacks two-handed with.

The Warlock, however, is quite similar to this class: Eldritch Blast (10d6 by 20th) as a ranged touch attack, Eldritch Glaive as melee that ignores armour and does extra damage. But the Warlock also gets a number of Invocations, giving it considerably more utility. And it's considered a Tier 4 class.

You could condense your Force Adept into a 10-level prestige class pretty easily. Take a look at the Pyrokineticist, which also ignores armour (melee touch attack with 15ft range), also has a pew-pew laser (Bolt of Fire, maxes at 10d6) and a slew of mediocre abilities that are better than nothing. And Pyro also kinda sucks.

The only thing really unique to this class is the Deflection AC, which I would personally retool into something like the Monk's (stat to AC plus a scaling bonus) and the ability to ignore deflection modifiers, which is pretty strong especially for such an early level.

[Yora]

I also think Force strike is pretty hard to keep track of. As a gm, I usually only look at the AC value of a creature and don't scan every single stat block to see if there's a deflection bonus included in AC.

And the save bonuses don't follow either the usual progressions for good or poor saves.

[Flickerdart]

Average saves. Fax makes use of them a lot and I think some official content has them too.

[Thrawn183]

I'll be honest, I think this is too strong. Granted, I don't know what kind of armor and weapon proficiencies this class has, but I'm fairly certain that the character will be able to run around power attacking for full against almost any opponent (+5 weapon, +stat vs. AC=10+Dex), in addition to a flat +10 bonus damage.

Does the class have really weak HD to make up for this?

I know it would take a lot of work, but I'd actually like to see this as something different than just a melee character with a bunch of extra damage and AC. Make a lot of the special abilities based off of the character's Charisma (Force Field, Force Damage and Force Blast)

I would change the order of Force Strike to be more along the lines of Shield, then Dexterity, then Deflection, then Armor, then Natural Armor.

[Flickerdart]

I'll be honest, I think this is too strong. Granted, I don't know what kind of armor and weapon proficiencies this class has, but I'm fairly certain that the character will be able to run around power attacking for full against almost any opponent (+5 weapon, +stat vs. AC=10+Dex), in addition to a flat +10 bonus damage.

And how is that different from Fighters running around power attacking for full against any opponent and hitting because of Shock Trooper for ludicrous gibs? Not to mention that there are many other modifier types (dodge, insight, sacred and profane come to mind immediately). Honestly, AC doesn't matter at levels that high. What matters is dealing damage. There are any number of ways to get touch attacks (Eldritch Glaive, Pyro whip, Wraithstrike, for instance) or +lol bonuses (True Strike). With no good source of bonus damage and medium BAB, this class is weak even for melee.

[Milskidasith]

Basically, it's too strong for low optimization and too weak for high optimization; in low optimization, the fact you autohit is useful, in high optimization, the fact you autohit is a given and your damage sucks.