Okay, what the hell ARE the Hellknights?

[Timespike]

Class-wise, I mean. It sounds like they're going to eventually be their own base class, but how would you simulate them? Fighter/clerics? LN blacguards? Straight-up fighters? Rangers? Rogues? What's a typical Hellknight look like mechanically under the current rules?

[KaeYoss]

I don't think whether they'll get a base class. Sounds more like a PrC.

As for their current look

I'd say variant paladins (of tyranny) could work, as could fighters or fighter/clerics. Or maybe knights (from PHB2), though that, of course is closed content, so they're not officially like that.

[flash_cxxi]

KaeYoss wrote:

I don't think whether they'll get a base class. Sounds more like a PrC.

As for their current look

I'd say variant paladins (of tyranny) could work, as could fighters or fighter/clerics. Or maybe knights (from PHB2), though that, of course is closed content, so they're not officially like that.

Best way to fix this and use the Hellknights as a base class is to give Paladins a little bit of the 3.5 Ranger treatment: Forget about Paladins being Lawful Good and just make them usable by any alignment. They are the "Holy Warriors" of their Faith, no matter what alignment that Faith may represent. They have to be the EXACT alignment of their Deity (no one step away bu11sh!t like Clerics). I really hope that Paizo does this with their Paladins (they can have minor power differences depending on their alignment, but essentially remain the same). That way "most" Hellknights would just be LN Paladins of Abadar. Of course there may also be LG and/or LE members of the Order, but they would just be Fighters (or Knights/Marshals if you use non-OGL content).

[TriOmegaZero]

Whatever they prefer and are suited to. An organization is not a collective of carbon-copy people. Some will be rangers specialized in certain races, others will be strictly trained fighters, others rogues with heavy training in information gathering and tracking. I see no need to shoehorn them all into a singular mold.

[ReApErMaN8691]

I love the Hellknights, and can't wait till we get some more stuff on them.

I've always seen them as fighters with a few alternate class abilities. I'm still fine tuning the specifics (the Hellknight in my party got killed before I could get anything final, and I've imposed a strong enough impression of the Order of the Nail on my group that they haven't tried to mess with them... yet.) but I see them getting sense motive as a class skill, some abilities tied to the intimidate skill (interrogation and something to tie in to the plain scary Hellknight persona), an altered version of the smite ability (Smite Lawbreaker, or something of that nature), and round it out with some abilities tied their organization's close ties with the infernal realms.

The way I see the Hellknights, I can't envision them as spellcasters. They're a heavy martial organization who have a reputation due to their frightening persona, dogged relentlessness, and great military skill than anything else. Having them as clerics, paladins, or blackguards just doesn't seem right to me. I suppose you could argue they worship law, or even hell, but I don't think their pursuit of law a matter of faith to them. They don't worship law any more than they worship the devils they sometimes work with in the pursuit of law. I imagine they would see worship as almost getting in the way of what they do.

Of course, as we don't have just a whole hell of a lot of info on these guys yet, I could very well be wrong here. Just my take on it.

[Timespike]

Yeah, at this point I think I'd buy an e-book on the Hellknights just to satisfy my curiosity. They're fearsome and ruthless and wear cool, scary-looking armor, but we've got very little else on them. How about it, Paizo?