Elven Greenguard, fighter racial elf archetype.


Homebrew and House Rules


Level Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Ref Save Will Save Special
1st +1 +2 +0 +0 Greenguard Initiate

2nd +2 +3 +0 +0 Bonus feat, Keen Senses +1

3rd +3 +3 +1 +1 Elven Armor training

4th +4 +4 +1 +1 Bonus Feat, Attunement with Nature
5th +5 +4 +1 +1 Elven Weapon Training
6th +6/+1 +5 +2 +2 Bonus feat, Keen Senses +2

7th +7/+2 +5 +2 +2 Elven Armor training

8th +8/+3 +6 +2 +2 Bonus feat

9th +9/+4 +6 +3 +3 Elven Weapon Training
10th +10/+5 +7 +3 +3 Bonus feat, Keen Senses +3

11th +11/+6/+1 +7 +3 +3 Swiftstep I
12th +12/+7/+2 +8 +4 +4 Bonus feat

13th +13/+8/+3 +8 +4 +4 Elven Weapon Training
14th +14/+9/+4 +9 +4 +4 Bonus feat, Keen Senses +4

15th +15/+10/+5 +9 +5 +5 Swiftstep II
16th +16/+11/+6/+1 +10 +5 +5 Bonus feat

17th +17/+12/+7/+2 +10 +5 +5 Elven Weapon Training
18th +18/+13/+8/+3 +11 +6 +6 Bonus feat, Keen Senses +5

19th +19/+14/+9/+4 +11 +6 +6 Swiftstep III
20th +20/+15/+10/+5 +12 +6 +6 Bonus feat, Elven Weapon Mastery

Proficiencies:

The Greenguard is proficient in light, medium armor (But not Heavy), all simple weapons and all shields (barring Tower Shield.)

Greenguard Initiate[Ex]

The Greenguard gains 4 + INT skill points per level. Perception, Knowledge (nature) and (geography), Stealth and Acrobatics are considered class skills for him.

The Greenguard loses Knowledge (Dungeoneering) and Knowledge (Engineering) as class skills.

This ability replaces the Fighter bonus feat gained at 2nd level.

Keen Senses [Ex]

At 2nd level, the Greenguard trains to further enhance his elven senses through connection with the natural order in a meditative exercise of a druidic nature. Once per day, the Greenguard may meditate for one hour uninterrupted to gain a bonus of +1 to his perception, knowledge (geography), survival checks and reflex saves for 8 hours. If interrupted during meditation, the Greenguard's use of his meditation is expended.

At 6th, 10th and every 4 levels thereafter, the Greenguard's bonus increases by an additional +1.

This ability replaces Bravery.

Elven Armor Training [Ex]

Starting at 3rd level, a Greenguard learns to be more maneuverable and agile in armor. This armor must have Elven in its name or must have been crafted by an Elf in order to gain the benefits from this ability.

At 3rd and 7th levels, the Greenguard increases his maximum Dex bonus allowed to his armor by 1 and decreases the armor check penalty by 1.

At 3rd level, the Greenguard may move at his normal speed in medium armor. At 7th level, when wearing Elven (See above) armor, gains the benefits of the Endurance feat.

This ability replaces Armor Training 1 and 2.

Attunement with Nature [Su]

At 4th level, the Greenguard learn to cast spells as a ranger does.

When meditating to regain spellslots and memorise spells, the Greenguard may declare that he is also completing his meditation for Keen Senses to be in effect.

Elven Weapon Training

At 5th level, the Greenguard may choose a single weapon from his Weapon Familiarity racial trait. When wielding that weapon, the Greenguard gains a +1 to his attack/damage rolls, CMB and CMD against disarm and sunder attempts with that weapon.

Every 4 levels thereafter, the Greenguard chooses another weapon from his Weapon Familiarity trait and recieves an identical +1 bonus, however all chosen weapons before the one chosen increase their bonuses by an additional +1.

At 5th level, the Greenguard gains the benefit of the Weapon Finesse feat for weapons from his Racial Familiarity trait or with Elven in their name.

At 9th level, he may add his DEX mod instead of his STR mod to damage with weapons that can benefit from Weapon Finesse. This does not stack with the Agile enchantment.

At 13th level, even weapons that can not benefit from Weapon Finesse may substitute their STR mod for DEX for attack/damage rolls.

This ability replaces Weapon Training 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Swiftstep[Ex]

At 11th level, the Greenguard may surpass the limit of his already impressive elven agility to take an additional five foot step as an immediate action once per day.

Every 4 levels thereafter, the amount of times the Greenguard may activate Swiftstep increases by 1.

When all uses of Swiftstep are expended, the Greenguard is fatigued after the end of combat until he rests for an hour or regains uses of his Swiftstep.

This ability replaces Armor Training 3, 4 and Armor Mastery.

Elven Weapon Mastery

Must be selected from the Weapon Familliarity racial trait.

This ability replaces Weapon Mastery.

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So... something like that? The image I have in my head is a mixture between the LOTR elves, wielding elven curved blades and banded mail armor, slashing away at the orcish armies with grace and lethality mixed with a Legolas-ish, forest elven feel.

Sort of like specialised rangers, but a bit less supernatural*, a bit more gritty and quite a bit more deadly in combat in the sense that they do not focus on one single enemy, but train to defend the forest against them all.

The Dex thing reaaaally helps the concept of dex-based elven curved blade wielding fighter, which seems to be falling behind quite a bit. And you can still take Weapon Finesse at level 1. You can simply switch it out for another feat by level 4, as per the Fighter ability to do so, and then take Elven Weapon training to gain its benefits for free.

Greenguard Initiate is generally a fair trade off, similar to what Lore Warden or Tactician did with their 1st level bonus feats. The new class skills are balanced by the fact that you've lost other class skills and just about every non-elven (Weapon Familiarity), but instead greatly specialized in said weapons.

Keen Senses is an attempt to bring the Greenguard a little bit closer to his Ranger cousin in terms of naturey survival abilities and give his reflex save a steroid, considering you'll most likely be investing heavily in dextirity over strength. (At least 13 strength is still recommended for Power Attack, at least.)

I reaaaaaaaaally wanted to squeeze Woodland Stride in there somewhere, but I just couldn't find anything, esepcially with granting 4 levels of spellcasting already being a rather large boon.

Swiftstep is something to represent that fluid, agile and on-the-move feel this class should have, but different to the Mobile Fighter (Who gets his main shtick at level 11, and that's the same level a Barbarian gets his Beast Totem pounce, anyway. Just too subpar, to be honest. While there's no pounce here, this is a mechanic meant to make this class alot harder to catch or get away from.)

DEX turning into the main attacking stat (Even if as late as level 9. I couldn't do much about that, because of how the Fighter archetypes are usually built.) helps mitigate the sudden need for WIS this archetype has, giving it quite the MAD status.

Another balancing factor is that you are essenitally forced to pick a class with -2 con. However, the +2 int helps meet Combat Expertise prerequisites and +2 dex is just overall sexy for this archetype.

*(What with their evasion, hide in plain sight and just about literally every single agile class ability you could think of being stuck on their already stupendous 2 good saves, fighter level HD, full BAB and feat prerequisite bypassing, as well as a pet and so on.)

So there you have it. It feels pretty solid to me, but perhaps there's too many shticks in this archetype. Or perhaps it has some glaring design flaw I'm blind to.

Criticism, suggestions and reviews are wholly welcome!


It is elven, so I like it. However... The class skills should just be changed, not replacing a feat for them. While Keen Senses is cool, you kill it a bit with the meditation requisites I think. Just allow them their keen senses, though a more apt name like Attunement to Nature might be a good idea. ;)

Attunement with Nature is where you start to get broken... You either have a good BAB, or you can cast spells... Not both... Sadly, either play a Ranger, or play a Fighter without spells...

Elven Weapon Training is also overkill... They are getting feats on top of feats... While I understand not wanting to be a generalist with weapons, it is thematic for the elves to be wide ranged in their weapon choices, from bows to swords to spears to great swords... And if you are playing the dextrous elf type, you probably already took weapon finesse and such anyhows by that level...

Swiftstep is cool, but too costly... Fatigued for using it is too much. There is already a nice limit on times per day, that is enough...


The thing is, that ranger is alot more "broken" compared to the fighter. They are able to simply bypass prerequisites with ease, spellcast, have a pretty strong pet, evasion, improved evasion, hide in plain sight, woodland stride, 6+int points, a bunch of class skills, two good saves, d10 hit die and full BAB.

Why is adding ranger spellcasting to this class broken, in comparison to the ranger, who is essentially a fighter with a bunch of extra shticks, no heavy armor and spellcasting?

I feel like the two classes are mostly equal. The Greenguard is even lagging behind a bit.

The problem is, Keen Senses is too out of line with other bravery replacements to be granted just like that. It gives too large of a bonus to too many things. So limiting it with a meditation seemed feasable for me.

I sacrificed one feat, because that's how other archetypes achieve 4 + int skillpoints.

On another note, no one ever said elves are supposed to have variety. If you want variety, look to the human who has Martial Versatility feats, allowing him to spread Weapon Focus to an entire group of weapons and so on. Elves have several dedicated weapons in their weapon familiarity. As a race, you don't get martial weapon proficiency, only the ones listed in there, which are Longsword, Longbow, Elven Curveblade and the rest. That particular comment was based on your own subjective opinion entirely.

Pathfinder, when making classes, counts each proficiency granted to a class at the start as a feat they gain. So the more profieciencies you have when taking one level of the class, the less the class will have going for them. (This isn't true for either Ranger or Paladin.) I decided to justify the additional feats granted with those class abilities, as well as the spellcasting, by taking away quite a few of the proficiencies.

Yes, you either play a fighter or a ranger, however archetypes like the Viking Exist, who gain the rage class feature at level 5 and rage powers as well, virtually copying the barbarian with a level tax. I don't think it's that bad to make a similar concept.

-----------------

Conclusion:

I don't agree with simply granting keen sense and the bonus skill points for free, because that is also considered as broken, in my opinion.

Swiftstep is a pretty strong ability. And such abilities are usually granted to fighter archetypes higher up in their level progression and with a cost. The fatigue is more so a thematical element, to represent that by exerting yourself in such a way, you may put yourself at a disadvantage.

The spellcasting mimicks the Ranger, without their Favoured Terrain and Enemy (You can change your favored enemy targets with a spell, essentially making it work like weapon training on steroids, with a single spell.) I don't see how that's so broken.

Elven Weapon Training might be overkill, but it is more so tailored to make wielding the elven curved blade a much more effective option and to make use of its special finessable ability. You can still use any weapon that is in the elf's weapon familiarity, which is about the variety elven thematics give us. Regardless, if we take away Dex to damage, fine by me. That just makes this archetype that much more MAD, so perhaps that'd balance things out.

You can make two 5 ft steps per round with this, essentially. It helps you get full-attacks in active combat, so I'd say it's too strong not to place a limiter on it. I could change the fatigued condition to a fortitude save with a 15+ DC where you are fatigued if you fail it after every step. Would that be fair?

P.S. About Weapon Finesse. Fighters have the ability to switch a feat they've learned once every 4 fighter levels. You can simply switch out Weapon Finesse and then get it again through the Weapon Training.


I was wrong about Rangers, I had forgotten that they do get a full BAB and only 4 levels of spells. Rangers tend to be weaker than Fighters primarily because they have more stats to focus on, in particular the Wisdom attribute. So, if you want a fighter to have some magic, you have to define the spells, specify the attributes, how their spells are learned, prepared, etc...

I guess my real problem with the archetype is that, when you think of "Elven Fighter" with a nature theme, as described here, you think Ranger. It's like you're rebuilding the wheel basically. :/

That being said, I do like the idea, just not with magic. Fighters just aren't suppose to have magic... and maybe that's me just being old-school, but I can't make that leap. There's the Magus, the Paladin and the Ranger (and a few others)... when you add magic, you make a new class (or archetype one of those classes).

Now, I -could- see doing something like Minor Magic and Major Magic (Rogue Talents) for a racial fighter class... This would mesh well as an Armor Training replacement, in my opinion...

As for skills, sacrificing a feat for it is fine, I just don't think it's necessary... I realise that some archetypes, like tactician, do indeed sacrifice a feat to do the extra skill points, but based on the theme, giving it as a freebie seems ok. I think Fighters in general should have had more skill points, so perhaps I'm just biased in that opinion.

Keen Senses is not better than Bravery. Will saves are combat saves, skill checks are rarely in a threatening situation. If you wanted to balance it, I'd just say that you only get the +1 in situations where you could take 10. (Ie: you attune yourself at the moment, not in the morning and it somehow last all day)

As for my subjective opinion, yes, pretty much anything anyone posts on a forum in regards to house rules will be subjective opinion. :P I still don't see a thematic reason to lose the weapon familiarity features, in particular when the objective seems to be the ability to create a combat character that only relies on a single attribute. There's a reason that Rogues (as dextrous as you can get in a class) still use Strength to determine damage. I don't believe anyone would be ok with letting all weapons be dex-based for damage. So, back to point... it does however make sense to keep Elven Fighters with weapon mastery.

And finally in regards to swift step, you realise that levels 11 to 15, just using swift step once, will cause fatigue immediately, right? The ability to swift step becomes useless if you're fatiguing right away... So, as I was saying, it's not really needed. The limits on per-day usage will keep people from using it when they probably should, for fear of not having it when they really need it. That makes it a deterrent at the same time as a bonus. It balances itself out. :)


I specified that the Fighter learns his spells the same way as the Ranger does, meaning that he needs Wis to cast them, just like the ranger. I did specify, yes.

Just compare with the ranger here for a moment. I can't see the ranger being weaker than the fighter. He hasn't got a single thing going for him that is weaker than the fighter, be it saves or just about anything. He has roughly the same amount of feats available to him and a pet companion on top of it.

So Bravery gives you a will save bonus against fear effects only, not just in general. So, not sure. I somehow can't compare something as minor as a bonus against one status effect as a class feature to a bonus in skill checks and reflex saves. (Note that spellslots also last until used just from meditating.) But I'll adjust it.

You misunderstand what I meant there. This fighter has his Weapon Familiarity trait allow his to be proficient in Longbow, Longsword, Curve Blade and the rest of the ones available in his racial trait. His Training also focuses specifically on those weapons, not the rest. Let me actually just...:

Weapon Familiarity: Elves are proficient with longbows (including composite longbows), longswords, rapiers, and shortbows (including composite shortbows), and treat any weapon with the word “elven” in its name as a martial weapon.

As written in the Elf race, meaning that these are the weapons that the Greenguard would be proficient with and would be able to choose from.
These weapons are also considered traditional for an elf, as stated in...:

Elven Battle Training (Combat, Elf)
You have been specially trained to wield a variety of traditional elven weapons.

Prerequisites: Base attack bonus +1, elf.

Benefit: You have received special training with traditional elven weapons (longbows, composite longbows, longswords, rapiers, shortbows, composite shortbows, and any weapon with the word “elven” in its name). You receive a +2 bonus to your CMD against disarm and sunder maneuvers directed at one of these weapons you are wielding. In addition, if you are wielding one of these melee weapons, you may make an additional attack of opportunity each round (this bonus stacks with Combat Reflexes).

So thematically speaking, I don't see the problem.

You could alternatively enchant your weapon with Agile, giving it DEX to damage, just the same as this class feature, but with more hassle and less grace.

Point taken with swift step. I'll take the fatigue out of there. (Although, at level 11 a DC 15 fortitude save is very easy for a fighter.)

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