The Blademaster (simple blade mode class)

[gooddragon1]

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[Alabenson]

Class Structure: The first thing I notice when I look at the class table is the number of dead levels the Blademaster has. The class gains nothing particularly interesting at level 2, 7, 11, 13, 14, 17 and 19, which is something that probably should be addressed. The class does have a capstone of sorts with Blademode Renewal, which is a plus, but the ability is fairly underwhelming for a level 20 capstone. Otherwise, the chassis itself is reasonably fine for a dedicated beatstick, though I question why the class has an alignment restriction.

Class Abilities: This is where the Blademaster really seems to under-perform. The first of the classes abilities, the eponymous Blademaster, provides a meager bonus to attack and damage rolls with slashing weapons. These bonuses cap out at either +6/+5 or +5/+5 depending on how one reads the ability, but in either case aren't especially significant.
The second and primary class ability is Blademode, which appears to be an ability that provides a brief burst of multiple attacks on a standard action with boosted accuracy. While interesting, the apparent need to essentially charge the ability limits its utility and the ability itself isn't especially powerful for a class' signature ability.
A particular issue with Blademode is the fact that the ability itself is very confusingly written. The ability should really be cleaned up to better clarify how charges build up and how the Accuracy and Prowess portions are tracked and used.
The last ability, Fleet of Foot, is just an increasing bonus to the character's base land speed. This ability is moderately useful level filler, and doesn't really contribute to the class' overall power. At best it has some minor synergy with Blademode, but the ability isn't really worth mentioning otherwise.

Overall Assessment: I'd probably peg the Blademaster as low Tier 5 at best. The class has little ability to contribute outside of combat, relying on a fairly meager skill-list, and inside combat the Blademaster is regulated to a routine of full-attack / occasional burst with Blademode. The class badly needs utility abilities as well as additional combat powers beyond what it currently has.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Agreed that the class is very underwhelming, enough that the fighter would probably feel sorry for it. A big problem with 3e as it stands is that often "weak" and "simple" go hand-in-hand, because fighters were viewed as beginner classes originally (and later the warlocks were sort of viewed as wizards for beginners), so them being weak was fine because players would play them for a while and then graduate to a "real" class. Which obviously turned out not to be the case, as people like fighters and other simple classes in and of themselves for many different reasons.

If you want to make a simple class, you don't have to make a weak one. Just as an example, imagine a class that added half its BAB to its AC and all damage rolls, its BAB to all Str-/Dex-/Con-/Wis-based skill and ability checks and to all saving throws, and 5 feet per two levels to all movement speeds, and that didn't take iterative attack penalties or have limits on AoOs per round. It would be even more simple than this class is (no per-round tracking of AoOs or any resource, no calculating different attack penalties in a full attack, no changing modifiers based on the weapon it wields) yet it's obviously more powerful than most martial classes and has several nice options as a side effect of the large numerical bonuses (usually goes first in combat, has a good chance of seeing invisible creatures, can climb/jump/swim at superhuman levels, etc.) that give new players a few tools to work with and might even make it appealing to more experienced players.

I'm not saying that's what this class should look like at all, just that you shouldn't feel too restricted in handing out class features or worry about being too powerful. It's easy to start with an overpowered class and take things away and/or add limits and restrictions to bring it in line, but hard to work with a weak and bare-bones class to make it stronger and more interesting without simply starting over from scratch.

[gooddragon1]

Every DM has a different balance point they aim for. This is just made for a lower balance point. Though I did improve fleet of foot to make this class somewhat more fun to play at level 1.

A particular issue with Blademode is the fact that the ability itself is very confusingly written. The ability should really be cleaned up to better clarify how charges build up and how the Accuracy and Prowess portions are tracked and used.

If you hit an enemy with melee and you aren't in blade mode +1 accuracy and +1 prowess. At the start of each round of combat +1 accuracy and +1 prowess.

When you enter blade mode you expend any number of points of prowess to make that many attacks. You may choose to expend some amount of accuracy to gain +2 to each of those attack rolls for each point of accuracy spent.

When combat ends, your accuracy and prowess are set to 0.

I think I'll add one more exciting, and possibly mildly frightening class feature: A sword of sharpness effect (sort of) at 7th level.

EDIT: On second thought, it's too frightening.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Every DM has a different balance point they aim for. This is just made for a lower balance point. Though I did improve fleet of foot to make this class somewhat more fun to play at level 1.

Not intending to be rude here, but at what "lower balance point" does a class weaker than a fighter/monk and with fewer interesting options than the Complete Warrior samurai fall such that it can function in a party at all?

I mean, yes, monk/fighters can be fiddly with the fighter's many feats and the monk's grab-bag of class abillities so they don't meet your requirement of simplicity, but a monk 12/fighter 8:

• ...ends up with +40ft speed, instead of +30ft;
• ...starts off at 1st level with 2 attacks every round for free, when the blademaster doesn't get an extra attack until 3rd and has to build up and expend prowess to get 2 attacks in a round;
• ...ends up with 6 attacks every round for free, as opposed to the blademaster who could build up 5 prowess in one round making 4 attacks and then spend the prowess next round to make 9 attacks (average 6.5 attacks per round, requires him to hit with 3 attacks) or build up 6 prowess over 2 rounds and then make 10 attacks in the 3rd round (average 6 attacks per round, requires him to hit with 4 of 8 attacks over 2 rounds);
• ...and with a very basic Weapon Focus/Weapon Specialization/Greater Weapon Focus/Melee Weapon Mastery feat chain (using just his bonus feats, he still has the same number of normal feats the blademaster does) the monk/fighter ends up with an attack routine of +21/+21/+21/+16/+11/+6 before ability modifiers, compared to the blademaster's +25/+20/+19/+18 (if he wants to shore up his iterative attack hit chances) or something like +31/+26/+15/+10 (if he wants to focus on his main attacks) during Blade Mode, and in either case the monk/fighter hits with more attacks on average.

And the monk/fighter has self-healing, teleportation, special defenses, and such on top of all that. The only place where the blademaster shines is that he can make up to 4 attacks on a standard action by spending 6 prowess (which works out to an average of 4 attacks per round on a full attack/full attack/standard action pattern, meaning it basically gives him a free move action every third round), but when he gets his second attack on a standard action (6th) things like Snap Kick or Dual Strike for two attacks on a standard and Pounce or Travel Devotion for move+full attack are available, and some have been for a few levels now.

Another example:

I think I'll add one more exciting, and possibly mildly frightening class feature: A sword of sharpness effect (sort of) at 7th level.

EDIT: On second thought, it's too frightening.

Edge of Sharpness is +1 threat range (just like the Ferocity barbarian ability, also available at 7th) and +1/2 level damage (up to +10 at 20th level...yay?) to a Dex-limited number of attacks. That's basically half of Improved Critical (though it stacks with Improved Critical, which is nice) and half of Leap Attack or another Power Attack-multiplying feat...and you consider that to be "too frightening"?


Look, I'm not saying that the features the blademaster has are bad. They're great for making the blademaster feel like "I'm a better warrior than the dedicated warriors, as long as I have my trusty sword!", which is what you're going for. But three passive and one active ability do not a class make, and you could honestly probably halve the levels for everything (Blade Mode 1 at 1st, Fleet of Foot +15 at 2nd, Edge of Sharpness at 3rd, Blade Mode 4 at 6th, and so on) and fill the higher levels with more abilities and no one would really bat an eye--and that wouldn't make the class more complex, since everything but Blade Mode right now is something you calculate into your modifiers on your sheet and don't have to ever fiddle with again.

[Alabenson]

While Edge of Sharpness does add a smidgen of power to the class, it doesn't really address the larger issues the Blademaster has and in fact adds a new issue in the form of increasing the number of stats the class needs to keep up.

The main problems the Blademaster has are that it lacks any interesting options either in or out of combat. The only active class feature the Blademaster receives is Blademode, and that amounts to giving the player the choice of either "make a melee attack" or "make multiple, more accurate melee attacks", assuming of course that the Blademaster has Blademode points to spend. What the class desperately needs are options, both for out of combat and for additional options in combat beyond "I make a basic melee attack".

[Goaty14]

But three passive and one active ability do not a class make,

Perhaps make it into a 5 level PrC?