Can someone help me with this custom class?


Homebrew and House Rules


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I made this custom class and I want to see if it is balanced or if I need to change a few things

The class is called blademaster and here is a link to the google doc with all the info: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LPz-XQgTHdm3Tz9xUTwhlMFF08rHSWmlveDgWsO HJc4/edit?usp=sharing

Any help will be great to have.


Fixed link


That's quite hard to make sense of. e.g. 'Strikeable - an enemy attacking gains +2 on ac hit rolls and damage rolls' - what does this mean? Who gains a bonus and against whom, in what situation? The misspellings are easier to make sense of but annoying.

Basically I can't work out what the class does well enough to comment on the balance.


Yeah, this class needs a major rebalance. You're giving what a Fighter archetype at 15th level gets to this class at 1st level, which is all of the TWF feats at the appropriate levels without meeting requirements, and ignoring all TWF penalties. While it's not necessarily a great benchmark to compare to, it's one that Paizo published, which is probably the closest thing you can expect.

As AVR also said, are you seriously giving enemies a +2 to AC versus your attacks, as well as +2 to hit and damage you in an attempt to balance out the first ability? That's what the ability tells us as written. If so, that's an extremely convoluted way to weaken the class to counteract their powerful abilities, when the original penalties (TWF) would serve just as well without making stuff needlessly complicated.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Is there anything elce i should change? Any other balancing issues. Any other ideas you have, let me know before i change anything.


So, I'm guessing you want a class that specializes in Two Weapon Fight and has special maneuvers that it can use instead of normal standard action attacks.
Before anything else, have you any interest in 3rd party products? Because Path of War by Dreamscarred Press would do exactly what you want. Even has a feat for two weapon fighting with two one handed swords.
Maybe it would be better to use that? Maybe just make a TWF using archetype for whichever class strikes your fancy?

If not then some first glaring issues:
Your blademaster has medium BAB. That means he's worse than the base fighter at being a swordsmaster, no matter how much special abilities he has.
Stop using 'sword-like' that's silly and confusing. Use wapons of the Light Blade and Heavy Blade weapon groups. more words, but actually means something in the rules.
Strikeable. Just, why? There's no fluff reason why a blademaster is easier to hit than a wizard, and there's no balance necessity. Again he is not any more powerful than a regular fighter, much less a barbarian or paladin, or Path of War warlord.
Dual Wield should give the Two Weapon Fighting feat, the diminishing of the penalty and the ability to use one handed weapons as light weapons or use a two handed sword like a one handed sword should be granted separately, over the levels.
Sword identification is a neat idea, but a) Perception is not used to identify, you're thinking of Appraise, b) what is the action to identify an enemy weapon? c) take off the part about close inspection, you can already do that with Appraise, give the blade master the opportunity to use in combat.
Cross Block: What is the action to block? Why can he only do it a small number of times a day, does he forget how his swords work?
Don't add +1 to strenght mod. Add +2 to strenght. Also what's with the dismissive "do you really need more than that?" Hell yeah you need more, you're a 3/4 BAB class with no attack enhancer, you're as bad as a rogue in a fight. Actually, with strikeable you're WORSE than a rogue.
Elemental Cut, I can understand not wanting it to stack with other class abilities, but what about other sources of poison (like actual poison) and bleed damage? What about using Bleeding Cut with a Flame Sword? Also, changing damage from slashing to slashing/cold, doesn't help against DR and makes you worse against Cold Resistance. Change all the damage from slashing to elemental and maybe add some extra elemental damage on top.
Perception +2 at 12 level? That's it? Useless level. It's worse than getting a feat because Skill Focus would give you +6 at this level.
Special Strikes which are supposed to be the meat of the class are a real disapointment. They're either way too powerful (Add 1d8+1 attacks to your next Full attack or do 1d8+1 attacks as a standard action? Not sure which is right but both are OP AF) or not worthy of being once a day (everything else). The only I like is Shadow Hunt, one round of Invisibility and Freedom of Movement is pretty cool and worthy of being a once a day thing on a better class but still could be something that could be done more than once a day, just give it a minimun level required.
And you have dead levels at 08 12 and 17, dead levels should not exist on any class without 6th or 9th level casting.

My suggestion, give the class some resource pool, something like grit or an arcane pool and key thing from that. Like spend points to use Hone Edge, Elemental cut etc. Use Special Attacks once per day for free and spend resource points if the blademaster want to do them again.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
VM mercenario wrote:

So, I'm guessing you want a class that specializes in Two Weapon Fight and has special maneuvers that it can use instead of normal standard action attacks.

Before anything else, have you any interest in 3rd party products? Because Path of War by Dreamscarred Press would do exactly what you want. Even has a feat for two weapon fighting with two one handed swords.
Maybe it would be better to use that? Maybe just make a TWF using archetype for whichever class strikes your fancy?

If not then some first glaring issues:
Your blademaster has medium BAB. That means he's worse than the base fighter at being a swordsmaster, no matter how much special abilities he has.
Stop using 'sword-like' that's silly and confusing. Use wapons of the Light Blade and Heavy Blade weapon groups. more words, but actually means something in the rules.
Strikeable. Just, why? There's no fluff reason why a blademaster is easier to hit than a wizard, and there's no balance necessity. Again he is not any more powerful than a regular fighter, much less a barbarian or paladin, or Path of War warlord.
Dual Wield should give the Two Weapon Fighting feat, the diminishing of the penalty and the ability to use one handed weapons as light weapons or use a two handed sword like a one handed sword should be granted separately, over the levels.
Sword identification is a neat idea, but a) Perception is not used to identify, you're thinking of Appraise, b) what is the action to identify an enemy weapon? c) take off the part about close inspection, you can already do that with Appraise, give the blade master the opportunity to use in combat.
Cross Block: What is the action to block? Why can he only do it a small number of times a day, does he forget how his swords work?
Don't add +1 to strenght mod. Add +2 to strenght. Also what's with the dismissive "do you really need more than that?" Hell yeah you need more, you're a 3/4 BAB class with no attack enhancer, you're as bad as a rogue in a fight....

thanks for your input, I like a lot of what you said and I think i'll take some of the ideas that you had.


It looks like you are adjusting things while I am reading this so I will provide more feedback later. A few points though:

  • Rather than saying, “Sword-like refers to dagger and other weapons that have a handle, a hilt of some kind, and a blade. (gm rulings)” I’d recommend saying, “Sword-like refers to weapon in the fighter’s light blades weapon group” (or like light blades and heavy blades). Barring that, I’d write a list.
  • D8, Full BAB breaks the typical HD/BAB paradigm. Not a death knell but wanted to make you aware. Typically it’s d10 or d12 for full BAB classes.
  • If you want a good template for a class you can use this one I made/use: Class Template. Go to File>Copy to copy the template and go nuts :-)


  • Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

    I have competed my overhaul as of now. What I need now is something for 19th lv and more special strikes (just send the effects please, i got the names covered)

    EDIT:it looks like i also need 18, MB

    Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Homebrew and House Rules / Can someone help me with this custom class? All Messageboards

    Want to post a reply? Sign in.
    Recent threads in Homebrew and House Rules