This is my homebrew class, the Blade Runner. I've designed him after the countless, frustrating hours I have spent attempting to optimize Monks, Rogues and to a lesser extent Rangers. He's a striker class, designed to stomp out his niche and compete on par with Alchemists, Gunslingers and Fighters.
But, he is also my first attempt at building a 20 level class. I'm figurin' that I'll have screwed up more than a few things, and could seriously use your help balancing my baby.
What suggestions would you make to pimp out my baby? What abilities are just a lil' too gangster, as written? Does he need Uncanny Dodge, Evasion or their improvements?
Blade Runner
Hit Die: d8.
BAB Good
Saves: Poor Fortitude and Will, Good Reflex.
Class Skills
The Blade Runners class skills are Acrobatics (Dex), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Perception (Wis), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), and Swim (Str).
Skill Ranks Per Level: 6 + Int modifier.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Blade Runners are proficient with all simple weapons and melee martial weapons, plus the shuriken. They are proficient with light armor but not with shields.
Adrenaline Strike: Starting at 1st level, a Blade Runner learns to use hidden reserves of energy and strength to push his attacks to new heights. As a standard action, a Blade Runner may choose to perform an Adrenaline Strike, allowing him to deal extra force damage according to Table: Blade Runner. This extra damage is not multiplied on a critical hit. Adrenaline Strike may only be made with a melee or thrown weapon, and may never be applied to ranged, firearm attacks, or splash weapons. A Blade Runner may use Adrenaline Strike a number of times per day equal to his Class level plus his Con modifier.
Adrenaline Strike does 1d6 damage, increasing at every odd level.
Fast Movement(Ex): At 1st level, a Blade Runner gains an enhancement bonus to his land speed, as shown on Table: Blade Runner. This benefit applies only when she is wearing no or light armor, and not carrying a medium or heavy load. This bonus stacks with any other bonuses to the Blade Runner's land speed.
I can't decide on a progression for fast movement
Move Through: Once per round per level, up to a maximum of his Dexterity modifier, a Blade Runner may as a part of his move action choose to Move Through an opponent. By Performing an Acrobatics check against his opponents CMD, a Blade Runner may treat his opponents square as unoccupied difficult terrain. A Blade Runner may never end his movement in an occupied square.
Quick Draw: A Blade Runner gains Quick Draw at 1st level as a Bonus Feat.
Nimble (Ex): Starting at 2nd level, a Blade Runner gains a +1 dodge bonus to AC while wearing light or no armor. Anything that causes the Blade Runner to lose her Dexterity bonus to AC also causes the Blade Runner to lose this dodge bonus. This bonus increases by +1 for every four levels beyond 2nd level (to a maximum of +5 at 20th level).
Bonus Feats: At 4th level, and every four levels thereafter, a Blade Runner gains a bonus feat in addition to those gained by normal advancement. These bonus feats must be chosen from those listed as combat feats.
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I have a feeling that "Adrenaline Strike" is going to break the class when revealed. Hopefully we are looking at, at best, a +1d4 per like 2 or 3 levels, or a simple +1 or +2 damage per strike.
I'd drop the Good Refl, either having all bad Saves or Fort. This class doesn't say "I dodge like I get out" but "I don't even try to dodge, I just take it and keep going".
Obviously drop BaB to moderate with the HP @ d8.
I don't know. Not sure what a Rogue/Monk or a Rogue/Monk/Fighter couldn't just do better. It sort of seems like you wanted to cherry pick abilities you want to be better than they should be but not have to worry about restrictions, like No Armor or pesky alignments. If that's the case, fine, just seems like a lot of work.
I have a feeling that "Adrenaline Strike" is going to break the class when revealed. Hopefully we are looking at, at best, a +1d4 per like 2 or 3 levels, or a simple +1 or +2 damage per strike.
I'd drop the Good Refl, either having all bad Saves or Fort. This class doesn't say "I dodge like I get out" but "I don't even try to dodge, I just take it and keep going".
Obviously drop BaB to moderate with the HP @ d8.
I don't know. Not sure what a Rogue/Monk or a Rogue/Monk/Fighter couldn't just do better. It sort of seems like you wanted to cherry pick abilities you want to be better than they should be but not have to worry about restrictions, like No Armor or pesky alignments. If that's the case, fine, just seems like a lot of work.
Thanks for the critique dude. I totally didn't even realize I forgot to post up the damage progression on Adrenaline Strike (Converted it from a exel table . . . didn't end well. Thus the format above.)
Andrenaline Strike does 1d6 damage at first level, and increases every odd level after that. My reasoning behind Adrenaline Strike is this; The Alchemist has a similar ability. He gets the same uses of Bomb per day as the Runner gets Strikes, only he has a 20 foot range, splash damage, and does it as a touch attack. This is also why the runner has full BAB, to account for NOT touch attacking.
I also gave him poor fort, because Adrenaline Strike promises blade runners with high constitution. I'd originaly written it up as good Fort an Ref . . . then felt a lil bit evil.
Move Through: Once per round per level, up to a maximum of his Dexterity modifier, a Blade Runner may as a part of his move action choose to Move Through an opponent. By Performing an Acrobatics check against his opponents CMD, a Blade Runner may treat his opponents square as unoccupied difficult terrain. A Blade Runner may never end his movement in an occupied square.
Acrobatics can already do this. Maybe you should update the ability to say that you get a +5 bonus on Acrobatics checks to do this a number of times equal to his level (up to Dex mod). Which is basically what the ability does.
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But adding Force Damage (does this convert the strike to a Force Effect, or just the extra damage?) is a pretty big jump. The other thing is, (and I'm not trying to be harsh), I'm not certain how restrictive the limit on Adren Strike will be. Level + Con, may occasionally be a hinderence at 1st and 2nd level, but it seems to vanish fast, and that is in games that have a lot of combats. May be better to just drop that and either make it just like Sneak Attack or maybe something like the Psionic Focus.
I'm not getting a good idea for this classes role though. It seems to be a weak striker type, but the issue is, I don't think it will survive being in the middle of combat. When I say weak, I mean that even with the basically manditory high Con, (keep in mind you will also need high Dex and Str too) your still a little too squishy. Between low AC, low to mod HP, low to mod Fort, and low Will, I see this class promising being a strong hitter, but turning into a party hinderence as they rarely live past the first strike.
The other thing is, this class doesn't have anything that really bumps their chances to hit anything. No Favored Enemy, no Smite Evil, no Bane, etc. . . All in all, (what I was saying earlier), this class must have all good physical stats just to possibly work, which doesn't leave a lot of room for anything else outside of combat.
Acrobatics can already do this. Maybe you should update the ability to say that you get a +5 bonus on Acrobatics checks to do this a number of times equal to his level (up to Dex mod). Which is basically what the ability does.
The thing about Move Through, is you burn two squares of movement per opponent, whereas the unaltered Acrobatics forces you to move at half speed. Does even that leave it too weak? I figure that with Arobatics as a class skill and Dex as a primary ability, he should run right by most anybody.
Lord Soth
But adding Force Damage (does this convert the strike to a Force Effect, or just the extra damage?) is a pretty big jump. The other thing is, (and I'm not trying to be harsh), I'm not certain how restrictive the limit on Adren Strike will be. Level + Con, may occasionally be a hinderence at 1st and 2nd level, but it seems to vanish fast, and that is in games that have a lot of combats. May be better to just drop that and either make it just like Sneak Attack or maybe something like the Psionic Focus.
I'm not getting a good idea for this classes role though. It seems to be a weak striker type, but the issue is, I don't think it will survive being in the middle of combat. When I say weak, I mean that even with the basically manditory high Con, (keep in mind you will also need high Dex and Str too) your still a little too squishy. Between low AC, low to mod HP, low to mod Fort, and low Will, I see this class promising being a strong hitter, but turning into a party hinderence as they rarely live past the first strike.
The other thing is, this class doesn't have anything that really bumps their chances to hit anything. No Favored Enemy, no Smite Evil, no Bane, etc. . . All in all, (what I was saying earlier), this class must have all good physical stats just to possibly work, which doesn't leave a lot of room for anything else outside of combat.
Originally, it added extra force damage to the attack, while not adjusting weapon damage type. But I've realized that Bombs only do Bomb damage, meaning that Adren Strike is much more powerful.
From your critique, the Runner is balanced too far toward killing and not enough toward not dieing. Which would make him quite a large target in combat.
1st Level Human Blade Runner 20 point buy
10 Str, 20 Dex (+2 Human), 16 Con, 10 Wis 10 Int 13 Cha 10
AC 20 (+4 Chain Shirt, +5 Dex, +1 Dodge)
HP 11 (d8+3 con)
Attack; Rapier +5 1d6 (+1 BAB, +4 Dex.)
Feats: Weapon Finesse, Dodge.
6th level Human Blade Runner 20 point buy
10 Str, 23 Dex (+2 Human, +1 level, +2 Item), 16 Con, 10 Wis 10 Int 13 Cha 10
AC 25 (Mithral Breatplate +7, Nimble+ 2, Dex +6)
HP 72 (6d8 +3con)
Attack: Flaming Rapier +13 (+6 BAB, +6 Dex, +1 enchant.) 1d6 +1d6 Fire damage.
Adren Strike +3d6 damage.
Gear: Belt of Incredible Dexterity +2
Errant, the name and concept remind me of charter from the anime Air Gear. His name was Agito, and he was fast and capable of dealing massive injuries to his opponents.
Anyway, perhaps if you gave them Weapon Training like the fighter, but only certain weapons, they could be more capable of hitting? Then you could lower Adrenaline Surge a bit without any big loss.