Warcrafter Prestiege class (PEACH)

[Phi'Shaw DM]

Okay this is something I just found that I had been working on back in 3.5 and thought would work really well for my current campaign but need some help with it.

Warcrafter
"You call that making war? Let me show you how it's done."

Joseterant was out number by the orcs six to one, they didn't stand a chance. Feeling the rage build in him he could already see how this was gonna go. First his javalin would take one, he'd still be standing but gravely wounded. He would close with his long spear and three orcs would respond with axes and the other three, including the wounded one would draw thier bows. One of the axe wielders would go down by his longspear before even getting close enough to use his ax. That's when he would switch to his great ax and he would fell the first orc in one swing and leave his ax in the second. Before either body hit the ground his swords would be out and he'd close with the first two archers. They would grab for thier axes but one would die by his longsword and the other injured with the short sword before they had time to get on the offensive. The wounded orc would begin to flee but it'd be too late. Two darts would catch him in the back before he got far. That would only leave the javilen wounded orc who would already be running. His bow would take him down before he got far. 

A warcrafter is a master of not one weapon or tactic but of them all. He uses weapons as tools of war as easily as a master carpenter uses a hammer. At home on a battlefield a warcrafter is a wonder to behold. Fluidly he moves through a battle easily changing weapons, tactics, and even foes in a grisly dance of blood. A warcrafter does not become attached to any weapon, nor does he train anymore with one weapon than another. A warcrafter is just as deadly with a dagger as he is with a great ax. He uses the right weapon for the task at hand and when the situation changes so does his tool. As he progresses he not only has the weapons he's carrying at his disposal but also those dropped by him or even his fallen enemies. 

Warcrafters tend towards either law or chaotic alingments.  Drawing both the practiced perfection of the monk or the wild chaotic swings of the barbarian, a warcrafter is rarely neutral. They can be either good or evil. 

Requirements:
Bab +5
skills: balance 8 tumble 8 craft(weaponsmith) 5
Feats: quick draw, power attack, combat reflexes
Base land speed greater than a normal member of thier race. 
Special: must have killed enemies with at least three different weapons, or natural attacks. 

Hit Die: d10

Full attack progression
Reflex good save

Skills:  acrobatics climb craft knowledge(engineering) perception swim 
Skill points 2+int mod

Special abilities:

Enhanced weapons: starting at first level any weapon that a warcrafter wields that he is profcient with gains an enhancement bonus of +1. Ranged weapons confer this bonus to thier ammunition. Weapons are also considered magic. This bonus only applies while the warcrafter holds the weapon or in the case of thrown weapons until they finish thier attack after being thrown. This bonus improves by +1 for every odd level. At seventh level the warcrafter chooses one aspect of his alignment(law, chaos, good, evil) his weapons are now considered that alignment for purposes of overcoming damage reduction. True neutral characters may pick any alignment. Once choosen this choice cannot be changed. 

Improved movement: at second level the warcrafters speed is increased by 10ft. This improves any movement bonus granted by a class ability such as a barbarians fast move. Any restriction that would cause the warcrafter to loose thier orginal movement bonus also applies to this movement. The bonus increases to +20 at sixth level

Mobility: a warcrafter gains mobility as a bonus feat at fourth level even if he does not meet the prequisits for it. If he already has mobility the bonus to ac increases by +2 for a total of +6 versus AoO caused by moving. 

Cleave:a warcrafter gains cleave as a bonus feat at sixth level. If he already has cleave then he gains great cleave. If he already has great cleave he can now take a 5' step between cleave attacks. 

Momentum strike: At fifth level when attacking with a weapon that he did not attack with on his previous attack or a creature he did not attack with his previous attack a warcrafter gains an additional d8 damage on a succesful attack.  He can get this bonus multiple times in one turn as long as he attacks with a different weapon or a different creature. This bonus increases to 2d8 at tenth level.

Weapon kip up: a warcrafter can pick a weapon up off the ground as a free action or as part of a move action through a square. 

Battle balance: a warcrafter can take 10 on acrobatics checks in battle even when he normally wouldn't be able to do so. Once per day he can take a 20.

Name not decided: at nineth level a warcrafter can unleash devistating power from his attacks. Anytime he scores a critical threat a warcrafter can choose to increase the multiier of his weapon by one. If he does so he must roll a d3 and on the roll of a 1 he destroys his weapon.  This decision is made before the roll to confirm. Even if the confirm misses the weapon can be destroyed. In the case of natural weapons a warcrafter instead takes a -4 penalty to that natural weapon roll for the remainder of the encounter.     

Sorry for the format, I'm posting from my phone so I'm limited on my patience for text formatting.

[Phi'Shaw DM]

Bump.

[wraithstrike]

Phi'Shaw DM wrote:

Requirements:

Bab +5
skills: balance 8 tumble 8 craft(weaponsmith) 5
Feats: quick draw, power attack, combat reflexes
Base land speed greater than a normal member of thier race.
Special: must have killed enemies with at least three different weapons, or natural attacks.

Are those skills restrictions for the total modifiers or just ranks?

Quote:

Hit Die: d10

Full attack progression
Reflex good save

The D10 make it seem like he is a frontline combatant so being able to deal with fort saves should be his good save. He will more than likely have the HP to survive any blasting spells anyway.

Quote:

Skills: acrobatics climb craft knowledge(engineering) perception swim
Skill points 2+int mod

Quote:

If he is coming from a monk or barbarian then I would give more skill point and/or increase the skills available.

Quote:

Enhanced weapons: starting at first level any weapon that a warcrafter wields that he is profcient with gains an enhancement bonus of +1. Ranged weapons confer this bonus to thier ammunition. Weapons are also considered magic. This bonus only applies while the warcrafter holds the weapon or in the case of thrown weapons until they finish thier attack after being thrown. This bonus improves by +1 for every odd level. At seventh level the warcrafter chooses one aspect of his alignment(law, chaos, good, evil) his weapons are now considered that alignment for purposes of overcoming damage reduction. True neutral characters may pick any alignment. Once choosen this choice cannot be changed.

If he can make his weapons magical then it should be labeled SU. What is the flavor/fluff behind this magical ability?

Mobility: a warcrafter gains mobility as a bonus feat at fourth level even if he does not meet the prequisits for it. If he already has mobility the bonus to ac increases by +2 for a total of +6 versus AoO caused by moving.

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Cleave:a warcrafter gains cleave as a bonus feat at sixth level. If he already has cleave then he gains great cleave. If he already has great cleave he can now take a 5' step between cleave attacks.

This sounds cool on paper, but I don't think it will come up that often for the 5 ft step to become viable.

Quote:

Momentum strike: At fifth level when attacking with a weapon that he did not attack with on his previous attack or a creature he did not attack with his previous attack a warcrafter gains an additional d8 damage on a succesful attack. He can get this bonus multiple times in one turn as long as he attacks with a different weapon or a different creature. This bonus increases to 2d8 at tenth level.

This makes TWF better. I would have to look at it closer to see if it might be OP or not.

Quote:

Weapon kip up: a warcrafter can pick a weapon up off the ground as a free action or as part of a move action through a square.

Does he plan on being disarmed? If not this should be a 1st level ability.

Quote:

Battle balance: a warcrafter can take 10 on acrobatics checks in battle even when he normally wouldn't be able to do so. Once per day he can take a 20.

Not bad.

Quote:

Name not decided: at ninth level a warcrafter can unleash devistating power from his attacks. Anytime he scores a critical threat a warcrafter can choose to increase the multiier of his weapon by one. If he does so he must roll a d3 and on the roll of a 1 he destroys his weapon. This decision is made before the roll to confirm. Even if the confirm misses the weapon can be destroyed. In the case of natural weapons a warcrafter instead takes a -4 penalty to that natural weapon roll for the remainder of the encounter.

Sorry for the format, I'm posting from my phone so I'm limited on my patience for text formatting.

I don't like the idea of weapons being destroyed, and I would just not use this ability. A crit is not worth the amount of gold the weapon is.

It is definitely not worth it for a nonconfirmed crit.

I think battlemaster would be a better name. Warmaster makes me think of someone who leads troops into battle and/or boost morale.

[Phi'Shaw DM]

Thanks for the response.

Those were skill ranks needed to enter the class, like I said the original work for this was done in 3.5 and I forgot to update those to pathfinder. It would now be Acrobatics 5 ranks, craft(weaponsmithing) 3 ranks.

Will consider the change of reflex and fort saves. Maybe make them both good saves?

I had it at 4+int originally but thought with only 6 class skills it was a bit limited, but then again I guess that's not as big an issue in pathfinder.

Enchanted weapons at this point has no fluff behind it. It's goal is to keep him in line with other characters who focus on using only one weapon, as opposed to using all weapons.

Yeah the mobility thing is probably not very helpful as his acrobatics will be good and he will be able to take 10 on it.

The cleave thing would have to be changed. Again this is a 3.5 legacy as cleave is now totally different. Maybe allow cleave if the targets are within 10' of each other instead of adjacent?

Momentum strike might be changed to: whenever the warcrafter draws a new weapon(including picking one up from the ground) or attacks a new foe he receives a bonus to damage of 1d8....?

Weapon Kip up allows him to use weapons that have been discarded by him or fallen combatants. The flavor behind the class is a fighter that uses which ever weapon is at hand even if it's on the ground. Maybe move this earlier?

On the last ability maybe something like: on a confirmed critical hit the warcrafter can increase the multiplier by 1 but risks breaking the weapon. The weapon must make a fort save(magical weapons receive thier enhncement bonus but not the enhancement bonus granted by enchanted weapons as a bonus to thier save) equal to 3 x the new critical modifier. (9 for 3x, 12 for 4x, 15 for 5x). A failed save means the weapon gains the broken condition.

That would allow a warcrafter to fix his own weapons.

[Phi'Shaw DM]

And as for the name I was never in love with warcrafter, it was just my working name. Maybe Master of Arms?

[wraithstrike]

I would at least make the fort good. Either that or make both of them good.

Most enemies will have worse weapons than the player so picking one up off the ground will hardly ever come into play.

As for the weapon enhancement ability if it does not scale then it won't matter since the players will have a magic weapon by level 5 anyway, unless you were saying they get an addition +1 on top of what the weapon already has. If you should extend this to include a +1 special ability so nobody has a +6(epic) level weapon unless that does not bother you.

I still am not using the crit manuever, even with a caster in the party that can fix it. It is not worth the risk to lose the weapon, even temporarily, when I can just keep the weapon and keep on fighting. You should also remember that once you get to high level weapons it is very hard to fix them.

Example
I have a melee guy, lets say level 15. 26 str, 15 bab, +5 weapon(19-20)/x3)

I was going to do math, but I am lazy so lets say I am doing 36 points of damage per hit. If I use your ability I get to 144 point of damage instead of 108. So for 36 extra points of damage I have a 33% chance to break my weapon. At that level 36 points of damage is not worth the risk. It is better to keep the weapon, and continue to do over 100 points of damage over the course of a full round.

Master of Arms seems to fit better.

[lenankamp]

Phi'Shaw DM wrote:

Momentum strike: At fifth level when attacking with a weapon that he did not attack with on his previous attack or a creature he did not attack with his previous attack a warcrafter gains an additional d8 damage on a succesful attack. He can get this bonus multiple times in one turn as long as he attacks with a different weapon or a different creature. This bonus increases to 2d8 at tenth level.

I'm envisioning the golf bags of vengeance and justice two party members of mine had. We've tried to get away from carrying around 20 different weapons since, I don't think your intention is to be pulling out a new weapon for every hit, not an effective fighting style, but this is a fantasy game. Personally would probably opt for all attacks in a round on a an opponent that has not been attacked before due to unpredictable fighting style.

Another alternative might just be Powerful Cleave + 1d8 damage when performing Cleave Attacks, +2d8 at 10.

Nice class conceptually, looking forward to your work.

[Phi'Shaw DM]

wraithstrike wrote:

Most enemies will have worse weapons than the player so picking one up off the ground will hardly ever come into play.

I'm starting to see I haven't made the purpose of this class clear, he uses mundane weapons for the whole of his carrier, so even if he picks up a mundane longsword it works just as well for him as any weapon he carries.

wraithstrike wrote:

As for the weapon enhancement ability if it does not scale then it won't matter since the players will have a magic weapon by level 5 anyway, unless you were saying they get an addition +1 on top of what the weapon already has. If you should extend this to include a +1 special ability so nobody has a +6(epic) level weapon unless that does not bother you.

The warcrafter, as we will continue to call it for now, won't have a magical weapon, his fighting style would require him to have 14 magical weapons, something he could never afford and why he gets this ability so he can have 14 mundane weapons that are all act as +1 weapons at 1st, and +5 at 9th.

wraithstrike wrote:

I still am not using the crit manuever, even with a caster in the party that can fix it. It is not worth the risk to lose the weapon, even temporarily, when I can just keep the weapon and keep on fighting. You should also remember that once you get to high level weapons it is very hard to fix them.

Example
I have a melee guy, lets say level 15. 26 str, 15 bab, +5 weapon(19-20)/x3)

Okay here we go, I think this is the crux of the matter. The warcrafter is *supposed* to use a wide arrange of weapons, ie. the right weapon for the job. He's supposed to have an assortment of thrown weapons, a reach weapon, slashing weapons, piercing weapons, bludgeoning weapons, tripping weapons, and disarming weapons. He's supposed carry all these and be equally effective with all of them. He can't have all these weapons and afford them all to be magical, so they are just mundane. The class then rewards this aspect by allowing him extra damage to destroy them in a spectacular fashion so using your example he does an extra 36 damager or over the coarse of the average of three criticals, 108 damage before his mundane axe breaks. Then it costs him 2 gp and a craft dc 20 check to fix. 2gp for 108 damage at 14th level seems okay.

I agree using this on a +5 holy avenger is ridiculous. The class is supposed to shore up his defenses with the money he's not using on weapons and use mundane weapons that are +5 when he uses them.

That being said I do think there is room for improvement with this ability.

Finishing Blow: When a Warcrafter scores a critical hit with any weapon he must choose whether or not activate this ability before damage is rolled. This ability increases the damage multiplier on a weapon by 1, ie a x2 becomes x3, x3 becomes x4, etc. The weapon must make a save equal to 10+ the new critical multiplier with a bonus equal to the warcrafter's enhanced weapons ability. Nothing happens on a successful save. On a failed save the critical multiplier increases one more(original x2 becomes x4) but the weapon gains the broken condition.

wraithstrike wrote:

Master of Arms seems to fit better.

when I repost this with changes I will make that change.

I appreciate your comments it certainly has helped with this design.

[Phi'Shaw DM]

lenankamp wrote:

I'm envisioning the golf bags of vengeance and justice two party members of mine had. We've tried to get away from carrying around 20 different weapons since, I don't think your intention is to be pulling out a new weapon for every hit, not an effective fighting style, but this is a fantasy game. Personally would probably opt for all attacks in a round on a an opponent that has not been attacked before due to unpredictable fighting style.

Actually the golf bag of vengeance is exactly what I'm going for... I realize in real life this would never work, but in RP land I think it's a very cinematic combat style. I want to encourage the use of different weapons too though, especially since spreading damage is generally a bad tactic in this game.

lenankamp wrote:

Another alternative might just be Powerful Cleave + 1d8 damage when performing Cleave Attacks, +2d8 at 10.

Maybe use this instead of the opponents within 10' thing...

lenankamp wrote:

Nice class conceptually, looking forward to your work.

Thank you, I played this character concept in the very early days of 3.0, (as in before the DMG was even released) and had a blast, always wanted them to make a prestige class like it.

[wraithstrike]

Phi'Shaw DM wrote:

I'm starting to see I haven't made the purpose of this class clear, he uses mundane weapons for the whole of his carrier, so even if he picks up a mundane longsword it works just as well for him as any weapon he carries.

So if I have a +5 dagger, and I pick up a +5 longsword the longsword is treated as a +5 weapon even if it is a mundane one?

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As for the weapon enhancement ability if it does not scale then it won't matter since the players will have a magic weapon by level 5 anyway, unless you were saying they get an addition +1 on top of what the weapon already has. If you should extend this to include a +1 special ability so nobody has a +6(epic) level weapon unless that does not bother you.

The warcrafter, as we will continue to call it for now, won't have a magical weapon, his fighting style would require him to have 14 magical weapons, something he could never afford and why he gets this ability so he can have 14 mundane weapons that are all act as +1 weapons at 1st, and +5 at 9th.

OK. I think I am starting to get it now.

As far as the ability with the breaking weapon you are saying it won't matter because the warmaster will just be able to pull out another weapon. Is that correct?

[Phi'Shaw DM]

That is correct. Unlike most martial characters he doesn't invest large sums of money into a single, or even two signature weapons, but rather sees weapons as an expendable tool to get the job done.

The enchanted weapons ability gained at first gives him the ability to keep up with a fighter who can invest in one really good weapon.