[4E] The Death Knight - A WoW-inspired Shadow Defender (PEACH!)

[Hawk7915]

Firstly sorry for the necro, second absolutely amazing work I think you have combined the unique mechanics and flavor of the Death Knight Class extremely well, I really wish I found this thread when I was working on making my Blackguard earlier on in the year as the Death Knight is my all time favorite class I have played in the last 10 years or so in any game :D, would of convinced my DM to let me make a Death Knight somehow, guess I'll muck around with building one and have it either as backup or ready for a new game.

Thirdly I wanted to ask if your still working on this as in you last post you said you had almost finished the epic destiny for it? also any other imminent changes approaching?

No worries on the necro; I had finished the ED's crunch but forgot to post it. It's up now, with fluff pending.

In terms of changes, at this point the thing needs playtesting. My cursory sweep tells me that Rune Strike (E1) and Death and Decay (D1) are probably too powerful in general and definitely too strong compared to other options in-class, so I'm considering nerfing them, but beyond that I think this is ready for testing.

Still looking through it, but it's great to see some 4E homebrew. This board is choked with 3.5/PF stuff.

I might make it available as a class in the campaign I'm running.

I'd be thrilled for a nonbiased party to test this bad boy out, focusing on a few key concerns I have:

1. Balance: Does the class stand up well compared to published classes, or is it too strong/weak?
2. Role: The DK is supposed to be a "strikerish" defender, lacking in HP and raw AC, but making up for it with high damage and lifestealing. Does it work, or do Toughness and Swift Recovery feel like feat taxes to keep up?
3. Bookeeping: There's a lot of fiddily little bonuses from runes, diseases, summons, and class features. Is it too much?

If your players use the class, keep me posted! Thanks for your interest

[mcsqueeze]

I'm running a game right now and I told my death knight loving friend about this and let him play. So what I gathered so far is that rune strike is not as appealing as the other options. Using an encounter power for a chance to do damage that might end up being just total defense is a little weak when you can just do it outright with another encounter power. I read your comments and remember you saying you wanted a tank that would punish an enemy for not attacking him. Maybe you could change it. It would be worthwhile if you still get the attack off even if they do miss, fitting the theme better, as well as feel more useful.

Also, death and decay is not as op as I expected, but it is still strong. I think you should keep it the same.

For book keeping with the runes, that turned out to be not a big deal, since there is only 3/4.

Anyways, there's some starting data. I really like the feel of this character, as no one ever wanted to play a tank in my group, they all want was damage. I introduced this and he was on it. It also looks fun to play and has wonderful combo potential.
Keep it up!

Sorry if this post had a lot of mistakes I'm doing it on a phone.

[Hawk7915]

Sorry to bump an ancient thread of a defunct game system, but I made a few balance changes:

Spoiler

Show

E1:
Rune Strike: Changed to 1[W], down from 2[W]. As an out-of-turn attack that can turn hits into misses and punish the attacker for trying this felt strong enough without dealing such massive damage. However, added the “Runic” tag and a rider: “Any Rune: add damage equal to Con mod”, since it also didn’t make that an attack called “Rune Strike” wasn’t Runic.

D1:
Death and Decay: It was quite frankly ridiculous to have a friendly multi-marking ranged burst attack that created a permanent friendly zone of 6+ damage a turn at level 1, Unholy Rune or no. Changed it to “until your next turn” and “Sustain Standard: The zone persists”.

E13:
Blinding Whirlwind: This felt pretty weak, and there also was no good TWF attack at this level. Added an additional 1[W] (off-hand) damage as a rider.

Leeching Fever: This felt like it was lackluster and didn’t scale all that well even for a dedicated Plaguebringer. Doubled the healing so that a dedicated disease-spreader can get close to Surge-value healing even in Epic and added an additional effect of “if the target dies before your next turn, you gain an additional Healing Surge” to reward focus firing and set-up.

D15:
Crippling Strike: Having Reliable and a miss effect was poor design. Why did I do that? Removed the “Reliable” keyword.

Unholy Blight: Death and Decay was so over the top insane that the Paragon sequel had to be similarly insane. A moveable friendly zone of ongoing necrotic damage that shreds enemies who do anything besides teleport away or attack you, potentially dealing multiple bursts of damage? Haha okay. This is also “until end of next turn, Sustain Standard”, and I think it’s still really good especially for Plaguebringers.

U16:
Death Pact: Cleaned up the wording to reflect the intent a little.

D19:
Blood-curdling Roar: Unless my math is wrong, “Close Blast 5” is more or less the whole battlefield, meaning this daily is “Mark every enemy on the field AND target a NAD to potentially do a massive push + respectable damage for the size of the AoE. And it was friendly? I think “Close Blast 3” still covers a good swath of a battlefield without making this so silly.

D25:
Frozen Core: Up to 6[W], from 5[W]. Felt like it could use a little extra oomph.

E27:
Asphyxiate: Damage up to 3d10, up from 2d10. Encounter Save-ends Stun is strong, especially at range and with what should be a fairly sizeable slide attached, but even so it targets Fort and this is level 27.

Vampiric Hunger: Damage up to 4[W], healing up to 10 + Con mod. This was really lackluster for a capstone encounter power.

I also added a new D29, one which rewards dual wielders for their patience with a massive quad-attack that spreads Scourges.

[Arthan Lonsword]

Sorry to dig up an old topic but i wanted to thank you for this awesome work.
As I am running a WoW 4e game, this is really helpful. Great work !

Also you refer to "Dark Presence" many times, but I can't find what this is.
Could it be the Dark Command class feature ?