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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Greywander's Avatar

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    Nov 2017

    Default Oath of Heroism (super hero paladin subclass)

    I was looking at builds for a super hero type of character, specifically a flying brick type who is characterized by being a champion of JUSTICE! I sort of had All Might from My Hero Academia in mind, as he's sort of a toned down version of Superman. Initially I thought a Redemption paladin would work pretty well, but it was still lacking some of the specific traits I was looking for. Eventually, I decided to see if I could homebrew a custom paladin oath that would just get me the specific traits I wanted.

    I decided on paladin as the base class for reasons outlined in this thread. The other major features I wanted were something like the Armorer artificer's thunder gauntlets, and some kind of mobility powerup, particularly with either flight or good jumping. You can probably also see a sort of parallel with the Redemption paladin, in that you're getting abilities at the same level that accomplish a similar goal, if by a different method.

    The Oath of Heroism

    Let me go over my thought process for a few of these.

    Oath Spells
    I don't want to explain each of these, but it's mostly a mix of things that are geared toward protecting the innocent (or your allies) (hence something like Dimension Door, which is good as an emergency evac) with some things that boost your combat ability. I'm not set on most of these, so if you want to suggest different spells that you think might be more appropriate I'd be willing to listen.

    Channel Divinity
    Why yes, that is a 60 foot knockback (in tier 4). Isn't that awesome? You can literally punch someone so hard they need a Dash action to get back into the fight. Knockback was one of the more tertiary things I felt was kind of important for this super hero archetype. Throwing people through walls seems like a normal part of any fight scene involving a hero like this. This could be an issue if you could do it more than once, but since it's limited by your channel divinity, it should be fine.

    I'm not really sold on the other option though. If I can, I'd like to make it more interesting. As it is, it's functional at least.

    Fist of Justice
    This gives you half of the thunder gauntlets, with some tweaks. A lot of super heroes of this style fight with their fists, but even though the unarmed fighting style is available to paladins, they can't smite with just their fists. This lets you do that. I left the damage as bludgeoning so you can pick up Crusher for even more knockback. I also made them count as light weapons so you can dual wield them. Paladins don't get TWF style, so the damage isn't great; in most cases you're probably better off using a shield, though that might change later on. Otherwise, this is mostly just a cosmetic change, as the fists are equivalent to most other one-handed martial weapons.

    Justice Smash
    See previous comments on the channel divinity. It's like a Repelling Blast that uses a spell slot, and requires you to be in melee. As far as I'm aware, there's no reason this wouldn't stack with the channel divinity option, either, allowing you to knock someone 120 feet back if you burn a 5th level slot and use Banishing Smite (a 5th level smite spell). Since that burns both your 5th level slots and your channel divinity, I'm fine with it.

    I am Your Opponent
    The other half of the thunder gauntlets. You get this later than the artificer does, but many paladins get a defining feature at 7th level (see Redemption and Conquest subclasses). You now have a good reason to ditch the shield, as this allows you to force a third target to attack you or suffer disadvantage. It's tricky though, because it doesn't always make a big difference who the enemy is attacking; all you're really changing is the order in which the party goes down, with you being the first one (this will become more important later). So you might want to keep the shield after all.

    To use this effectively, you need to make sure you're giving the enemy nothing but bad options. Ideally, your party members should all have enough AC that attacking them with disadvantage is actually meaningful. At the same time, you need to have high AC yourself, preferably with some kind of damage reduction or resistance. HAM works very well here. You can also use positioning tricks, especially with the knockback on your smites, e.g. knocking an enemy into the reach of your rogue, so they can either attack the rogue with disadvantage or provoke an OA from the rogue while getting back into melee with you.

    Swift Justice
    This is the mobility that the paladin just couldn't seem to get access to. I'm considering replacing the jumping bonus with a fly speed that only works during your own turn (like the eagle barbarian's), allowing you to "jump" from place to place, but requiring you to land at the end of your turn. The move speed buff can also be helpful for staying in melee with creatures you knock back.

    Heroic Resolve
    The Redemption paladin gets regeneration, we get this. Honestly, this might actually be too strong. It's basically a souped up Undead Fortitude that uses a CHA save instead of CON, and doesn't have a way to bypass it. What makes this potentially OP is just how stupidly high our bonus to CHA saves is. If we've maxed out CHA (which we should have), then we'll have a +15 to our CHA saves, soon to be +16 at 17th level. An enemy needs to deal at least 12 damage in a single hit, or else they can't actually kill us. Also, this goes up if we have HAM.

    That said, this ability does have a somewhat strange effect on difficulty. Something like a horde of kobolds is basically a non-threat; although they can drop your HP pretty fast with so many attacks, they can't actually kill you because they can't do enough damage in a single hit. Something like a dragon is a moderate threat; it's strong enough to kill you, but has to get your HP down first. But a dragon and kobold horde together becomes a deadly threat; even though the kobolds can't kill you, they can get your HP down fast and then let the dragon deliver the final blow.

    I can see a character like this spending something like half of their adventuring day at 1 HP, since there really isn't a reason to heal them unless they drop to 0 (having another party member on standby with Healing Word is a good idea). I like the image this conjures, of a hero who is pushing themselves past their limits and continuing to fight against what might be a superior enemy. Also keep in mind that you don't get this until 15th level, so you're kind of supposed to be pretty strong by then.

    If I did replace this, my other idea is to reduce all damage taken by an amount equal to your CHA mod. Basically, like with the Redemption paladin, we want a feature here that helps keep you alive while you're tanking (Redemption paladin's tank using their aura, we tank by imposing disadvantage on enemies if they don't attack us).

    True Hero of Justice
    I didn't notice until I'd tried to build this concept using a Redemption paladin, but their capstone is an always-on passive ability, not a once-per-long rest ability like most other paladin subclasses. I kind of wanted to mimic that here, too. I'm not super certain about some of the specific traits put here, but I think some of them work fairly well. Being able to intercept the damage meant for an ally works well with your ability to just not die even while at 1 HP. The monsters will have to force you to separate from your allies before they can take them down. Regaining a spell slot when you pass the save to not die is mostly a damage boost; if you're taking three or four attacks per round, you could recover all of your 1st level slots, and then be able to smite on all your attacks. I think it helps you live out that heroic last stand, where you suddenly get a power up while on your last legs.

    Anyway, let me know what you think. As mentioned, some of these are still in a state of flux and could change. I'm also not sure how well balanced these are.

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Dwarf in the Playground
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    Default Re: Oath of Heroism (super hero paladin subclass)

    I love the flavor here! Onto notes:

    Spells by level:
    1st - Shield and Absorb Elements are also very thematic spells
    2nd - both good
    3rd - Both very good
    4th - Guardian of Faith is another option
    5th - Wall of Force seems out of place, not sure about precedent, but Tenser's transformation or Tasha's Otherworldly Guise seems way more appropriate, even though they are 6th level spells normally.

    Final Justice Smash is redundant with Justice Smash. Suggest changing it to Oath of Glory's Peerless Athlete, very thematic.
    Have Justice Smash use Final Justice's wording.

    I think there is already an "Inspiring Presence" ability out there, maybe change the name to "Rally" as that's always how the hero's second winds are described.

    Fists of Justice
    Change it a bit to something like: "Your unarmed strikes deal 1d6 damage and you can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes. If you have the Unarmed fighting style, the damage increases to 1d8. Additionally, you can use your unarmed strikes with your divine smite feature and with spells that require a melee weapon, such as searing smite or booming blade." Keep magical fists at 5th.

    I am Your Opponent
    Two 7th level abilities are more than any other paladin gets. Pick one. I like this ability more than swift justice.

    Swift Justice
    As above plus constant Jump and Longstrider are too much together. Pick one, and have it apply to allies that start their turn in your aura. "Your movement speed increases by 10 feet, additionally, any ally that begins their turn in your paladin aura increases their movement speed by 10 feet for that turn."

    Heroic Resolve
    I like this, but at this level attacks can easily deal 30+ damage. Over 30 with an additional +5 is an effectively impossible save (as saves don't crit on 20s). I don't know what a lower threshold does for balance, but maybe something like "... DC equal to 5+ the excess damage from the attack that reduced you to zero hit points (OR 5+ half the damage taken). You may use this ability once per short or long rest." You could even say "15 or half the damage taken, whichever is lower." This should be limited to once per short/long rest.

    True Hero
    This is too weak. Look at the other paladin capstones and bring this more in line with them. I like the 3rd ability, but the first two are too narrow and require you to die.
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  3. - Top - End - #3
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Greywander's Avatar

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    Default Re: Oath of Heroism (super hero paladin subclass)

    Thanks for the reply, I'll sleep on this and see if I can make some improvements tomorrow. I want to just comment on a few things tonight before I head to bed.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zaile View Post
    Final Justice Smash is redundant with Justice Smash. Suggest changing it to Oath of Glory's Peerless Athlete, very thematic.
    Have Justice Smash use Final Justice's wording.
    It's partially redundant in that they do similar things, but they can also stack. I really wanted to have a knockback feature that had a lot of knockback, mostly just for the cool factor. By having both we can have both the smaller knockback that we can use more regularly and then the really big knockback that we have at most once per fight. Not sure this justifies having both, but that was my thought process.

    Fists of Justice
    Change it a bit to something like: "Your unarmed strikes deal 1d6 damage and you can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes. If you have the Unarmed fighting style, the damage increases to 1d8. Additionally, you can use your unarmed strikes with your divine smite feature and with spells that require a melee weapon, such as searing smite or booming blade." Keep magical fists at 5th.
    It's worded a bit awkwardly because I tried to mostly follow the text for the thunder gauntlets. You're right that it's probably better to simply reword it to make smites work with unarmed strikes. Also, apparently the paladin doesn't have the Unarmed Fighting style available to them. I should have double-checked that in the first place, oops.

    My thoughts for making them 1d8 light weapons without finesse is that DEX builds still have shortswords available if they want to dual-wield, so STR builds get slightly higher damage. But maybe it's better to accommodate DEX builds that want to punch stuff without dipping monk. I'll think this over. Maybe I can make it 1d6 with finesse and 1d8 without.

    I am Your Opponent
    Two 7th level abilities are more than any other paladin gets. Pick one. I like this ability more than swift justice.

    Swift Justice
    As above plus constant Jump and Longstrider are too much together. Pick one, and have it apply to allies that start their turn in your aura. "Your movement speed increases by 10 feet, additionally, any ally that begins their turn in your paladin aura increases their movement speed by 10 feet for that turn."
    My reasoning was that Swift Justice was ribbon-ish so it should have been okay to get a second feature, but I suppose even just the +10 movement isn't a ribbon. A quick fix here is to just put Longstrider and Jump on their oath spell list. I probably should have done that in the first place. Although, this lets them cast it on other people, not just themselves.

    Heroic Resolve
    I like this, but at this level attacks can easily deal 30+ damage. Over 30 with an additional +5 is an effectively impossible save (as saves don't crit on 20s). I don't know what a lower threshold does for balance, but maybe something like "... DC equal to 5+ the excess damage from the attack that reduced you to zero hit points (OR 5+ half the damage taken). You may use this ability once per short or long rest." You could even say "15 or half the damage taken, whichever is lower." This should be limited to once per short/long rest.
    I was thinking it might make sense to change the DC to 15 + half the damage taken instead of 5 + the damage taken. Since you should have a +15 when you get the ability, then a hit that only does a few damage would still have a small chance of you failing the save (instead of being outright impossible to fail), while at the same time a hit that does a lot of damage would now be possible to actually succeed. A hit that deals 20 damage has the same DC either way (DC 25), so hits that deal less than 20 damage would have a higher DC while hits that deal more than 20 damage would have a lower DC. We would then have to take 40 damage (in a single hit) to get an "impossible" DC 35, which sounds a lot more reasonable.

    Or, I could just swap this out for reducing all damage taken by an amount equal to your CHA mod. In any case, I'd like this to be a feature that functions all day, not just once per short and/or long rest. As mentioned, this subclass kind of mirrors Redemption, and this is when Redemption gets its regen. Regen, damage reduction, damage resistance, or just being hard to actually knock out all have more or less the same end result, just achieved through different methods. I'd have to crunch the numbers, but ideally you'd be surviving about as many extra turns as the Redemption paladin does with their regen, which isn't going to happen if it's just once per short or long rest.

    True Hero
    This is too weak. Look at the other paladin capstones and bring this more in line with them. I like the 3rd ability, but the first two are too narrow and require you to die.
    Yeah, I think I was balking at giving straight up damage resistance, especially because of how it would interact with Heroic Resolve, but if I change the DC for Heroic Resolve to 15 + half damage it should probably be fine to give resistance. Probably just to BPS damage. Or, I could add in the CHA mod damage reduction here. Resistance is better at bringing big damage numbers down, making it easier to pass your Heroic Resolve, but the damage reduction would apply to all damage, not just BPS, and I think resistance to all damage is probably too strong.

    I do like getting the spell slots back when you pass your Heroic Resolve, as this gives you more juice to smite with. My hope is that it really helps the player feel like they've powered up while they're making their last stand.

    Anyway, thanks again for commenting, you made some good points. I think things over before updating the doc.

  4. - Top - End - #4
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Greywander's Avatar

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    Default Re: Oath of Heroism (super hero paladin subclass)

    I made some updates to this.

    Oath Spells
    Bigby's Hand replaced Wall of Force for your 5th level oath spells. I've also added extra oath spells that are self-only, namely, Longstrider, Jump, Enlarge/Reduce, and Fly. These are meant to represent some of your super heroic physical abilities, especially increased mobility. Using Longstrider and Jump together gives the same benefit that Swift Justice previously gave, albeit only temporarily and it costs you two spell slots.

    I'm not really sure about these extra oath spells, as it's different from how such things are usually handled. I figured it's at least worth experimenting with, though.

    Channel Divinity
    Final Justice Smash now lets you autocrit, but you have to decide to do so before making the attack roll. It also adds 1d8 extra radiant damage to the attack. Inspiring Presence has been renamed to Heroic Inspiration.

    Fist of Justice
    Reworked, now makes all unarmed strikes deal 1d8 damage and count as weapons for smites etc. There's no longer any benefit to leaving both hands free, so you may as well wield a shield if you aren't going to use a two-hander.

    Justice Smash
    Now gets extra knockback on a crit, synergizing with Final Justice Smash.

    Swift Justice
    Removed. The extra oath spells are able to provide the same benefits temporarily at the cost of spell slots.

    Heroic Resolve
    DC changed to 15 + half damage taken. In short, it's now possible to fail the save against weak hits, but also possible to pass the save against strong hits. Before, an attack that dealt ~30 damage would have been impossible to pass, now you would need to take ~40 damage to get the same DC.

    True Hero of Justice
    No longer makes you autopass your save for Heroic Resolve while you have more than 1 HP. Now gives you resistance to BPS damage instead. This makes Heroic Resolve much easier to use (you need ~80 damage in one hit for an impossible save), though do watch out for spellcasters and dragon's breath and the like.

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