Class building advice


Homebrew and House Rules


I've been going back through some classes I've built and I want to hear some more experienced opinions on this.The class can be found here. It's my attempt at creating something that can force opponents to attack them. The key class feature for this is Demand. As currently written, it says:

"As part of a charge or as a move action, he may draw the attention of his foes with a Demand. This ability can only affect one target of the Sentinels choice within 30 ft that can see or hear him. If the target of this Demand attacks an ally while within the threatened area of the Sentinel, they take a -4 to their attacks. However, the Sentinel also receives a -4 to AC against the target of his Demand. In addition, the Sentinel may add ½ of his level in damage to any attacks he makes against a single opponent designated when he issues his demand. This extra damage applies to each attack he makes against this target until 24 hours passes, or one of the two are dead. The Sentinel may add this damage once per day at 5th level. He may apply this damage once more per day for every three Sentinel levels he possesses.

In addition, at level 8 he gains the Stand Still feat, even if he does not meet the prerequisites, however, Instead of making a combat maneuver check to stop the creature from moving, a Sentinel with this ability can elect to make a normal attack instead. If this attack is successful, the target must stop moving. In addition, any opponent who the Sentinel has issued a Demand to that attempts to cast a spell within the threatened area of the Sentinel receives a -2 to the DCs of those spells, and adds +2 to the DCs of any concentration checks they must make. The concentration check increase grows to +4 at 11th level."

My question is: would it be too powerful to change the first section so that the demand applies to all enemies within 30ft that can see or hear him (while keeping the extra damage to a single target), but the attack roll, and AC penalties applied reduced to -2? I'm also open to other suggestions.


Not sure why it double posted.


What I'm seeing isn't much different than a Cavalier with the Order of the Shield and Antagonize here. The wording is also a bit convoluted, and if you have to use "In addition..." and its ilk (further, additionally, etc...) more than twice in an ability, it's probably getting too long for one ability or needs its effects split among multiple levels. A good practice is to take the pseudo-legalese that Paizo employs in their books and try to fit your own thing in with their lingo. Often (when their editors aren't on vacation), this makes things easier to parse, and sometimes helps you see if something shouldn't be split into two abilities because of length.

I don't think giving things that aren't attacking the class a -2 penalty within 30 ft is that rough, but without a chance for a save that's definitely too much. The action economy is also a bit too efficient here for something the class would gain at level 1, since you've tied it to a move or charge action, essentially making it free until iterative attacks come into play. If you don't want this to take the place of an attack, a move action seems appropriate at lower levels. Upgrading to swift later can give a sense of progression.

Split this into two separate abilities.

It also needs to have a save associated with it, or some check, so that the Sentinel doesn't just get to spam free debuffs that have no chance of messing up or being refused. I assume you're going for a sort of MMO or videogame "taunt" or tank concept, right? Enemies in Pathfinder need to be able to resist or ignore the threat that the character poses. A DC 10 + 1/2 Sentinel level + Charisma or something could work, or make it an Intimidate check.

I say keep it single target for lower levels (1-7 or so), and put in AoE later. You're essentially doing Dazzling Display here. Also, I think having it at range might be a bit much. If it read, "Whenever the sentinel strikes an opponent in melee, that creature must succeed at a Will save (DC 10 + the sentinel's level + his/her Charisma modifier) or attack the sentinel on its next turn. The creature must make a meele attack, a ranged attack, target the sentinel with a spell, or include the sentinel in a spell's effect," I'd say that's a bit more balanced. If they can use it 1/day at range that gives the player a resource to manage, or if they get to debuff x/day that can also be interesting.

Tanking is hard in a d20 table-top RPG. Give this a sense of progression; where at 1st level they can keep one big thing off the party, by 10th level they can keep a horde at bay.


Well, it's been an entire month but I finally got back around to this.

Here's a link to an updated version of the Sentinel class. At the moment I'd like to know if the abilities, wording and format are sufficiently cleared up and separated for ease of understanding. I'd also like any ideas for additional things the sentinel can do while the Demand is active. Despite only having three options for effects at the moment, I've formatted and separated the alternatives in bullet-points at the moment in case any good ideas crop up in this thread/in my mind (it'd be a first).

As before, all (constructive) criticism and suggestions are welcome!


Bumpitty?


You should reorganize the listing of class features so they are in order according to the level they are gained.

Proficiencies
Change the wording to match standardized language. Depending on wether or not you include proficiency with tower shields, you can copy & paste from either the fighter or paladin.

Unflinching Gaze
A sentinel adds 1/2 his level as a (bonus type) bonus to Perception checks. When making a check to determine awareness in a surprise round, a sentinel can roll twice and use the more favorable result.

Shield Expertise
A Sentinel gains a +1 bonus to AC when he uses a shield. At 6th, 12th, and 18th level, this bonus increases by +1.

Diehard
You should consider scrapping this. There are few abilities in the game more likely to put a character into dead, dead negative hit points.

Locking Grasp
I would drop this too. The polearm thing is pretty cool, but its for a niche build, and you can make Steel body a great class feature all on it's own. Maybe you can throw it back in for an archetype.

Steel Body
I suggest improving this feature, if you drop Diehard. At this level a paladin add Cha to all saves, you could add Con to Ref and Will, and grant the sentinel an armor bonus to AC equal to Con bonus, which would be a rare, small perk for when he isn't wearing armor.

Iron Soul
You might as well make it 1/2 level + Constitution modifier Minimum 1).

Vigilant
Its kind of weird granting a Con bonus to your ally's AC. Just make it the shield bonus.


Ciaran Barnes wrote:

You should reorganize the listing of class features so they are in order according to the level they are gained.

Proficiencies
Change the wording to match standardized language. Depending on wether or not you include proficiency with tower shields, you can copy & paste from either the fighter or paladin.

Unflinching Gaze
A sentinel adds 1/2 his level as a (bonus type) bonus to Perception checks. When making a check to determine awareness in a surprise round, a sentinel can roll twice and use the more favorable result.

Shield Expertise
A Sentinel gains a +1 bonus to AC when he uses a shield. At 6th, 12th, and 18th level, this bonus increases by +1.

Diehard
You should consider scrapping this. There are few abilities in the game more likely to put a character into dead, dead negative hit points.

Locking Grasp
I would drop this too. The polearm thing is pretty cool, but its for a niche build, and you can make Steel body a great class feature all on it's own. Maybe you can throw it back in for an archetype.

Steel Body
I suggest improving this feature, if you drop Diehard. At this level a paladin add Cha to all saves, you could add Con to Ref and Will, and grant the sentinel an armor bonus to AC equal to Con bonus, which would be a rare, small perk for when he isn't wearing armor.

Iron Soul
You might as well make it 1/2 level + Constitution modifier Minimum 1).

Vigilant
Its kind of weird granting a Con bonus to your ally's AC. Just make it the shield bonus.

Organization re-organized. Responses in order are: I included Diehard as a way to make going into the stalwart feat line more accessable, though I see the potential issues now that you point that out. Shall we meet in the middle and simply replace it with Endurance? Seems weaker this way too, since front-loading is starting to feel like an issue.

I see your point with locking grasp, but the allowing a solid shield n' spear combo was one of my design goals with the class. If there's a better way to implement this, please shout out a suggestion, but I'm iffy on dropping it ATM.

Steel body changed as suggested, I like the con as AC idea. Feels very cool, and in line with my original idea.

Iron Soul changed as suggested, it's more in line with other abilities of a similar nature, although I can't help but feel this may offer a little too much on the whole now.

You're right about vigilant, that is weird now that I think about it. Any further ideas? Perhaps suggestions for things to do during a Demand? Or is that list sufficient?


Typo's untyped.


Mucho AC
You've got AC bonuses from two different class features - a rapidly increasing one for shield, and one for armor (assuming their Dex is good enough). I feel like you should consolidate these or drop one. Perhaps just an AC bonus when he's using either armor or shield?

Unflinching Gaze
People always put (minimum 1) in here because if not, at level 1 it technically nets you a +0.

Locking Grasp
The reason I suggest dropping this is that between this and the shield thing, you're really narrowing what builds this class is for. Sometimes this is OK, but in this case I think you're forcing it too much. A better way is to give the class appeal for a sword & board, or a 2-hander, or a 2-weapon warrior.

Iron Soul / Vigilant / Demand
First off, I suggest changing the name of Vigilant to Body Guard. Second, I suggest combining Iron Soul and Demand into a single class feature and point pool named Vigilant.

DR
I suggest dropping damage reduction. I know its part of your concept, but isn't the heart of your concept having a high AC to avoid taking damage? DR is usually part of a class without a focus on AC. Getting rid of this would also give you a little more room to other class features.


It might just be because it's late, but I'm not quite sure I follow what you mean by consolidating the two AC bumping abilities. You mean, say, dropping Armor Training (It feels like cheating using a class feature specific to another class anyway) and changing Shield Expertise to a more general + to AC when wearing Armor or using a shield? That sounds do-able.

Whoops, the minimum bonus to perception slipped by during editing I suppose.

With the above change to Shield expertise (would need a new name) would Locking Grasp work out better? The AC bonus for the class no longer being tied to using a shield or heavy armor would theoretically make this another "option opener" rather than something that needed to be taken advantage of.

That is quite the change to the class. I'll start on that tomorrow, but may I ask why you feel pooling all of these things together would be needed?

The DR is there simply because the main focus of this class is to be able to redirect and take hits the squishier folks can't. As it was said, a tank.


For one thing, I mistakenly thought Demand had uses per day. :) never mind consolidating.

Demand's mechanic is pretty clunky. Fort vs CMD is strange.


Ah, I see I didn't remove the x/per day writing in the table.

I set Demand up that way as opposed to a regular combat maneuver (its opposed CMB roll vs. Fort save BTW, not CMD) so as to make it more likely to work against larger enemies later on.

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