Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber
Hello, I'm in the midst of creating a new base class called the templar. This is essentially yet another divine warrior with very little focus on magic while still being different than the paladin. It's 90% complete and am looking for any suggestions or advice for balance and flavor. It uses an expendable pool similar to the magus' arcane pool. I wanted to limit the amount of choices it can make, but also wanted to make the choice of deity really change the class.
Templar
Can you do us a favor and put some of the deity abilities into tables?
Does the Domain thing allow you to cast 9 levels of spells as SLAs? Which domains?
Have you considered looking at deific obedience?
Have you looked at the Ranger Faithful Combat Styles?
As a class, some of the features seem almost too weak. Spending pool points to fly 11 levels after Strix can fly, 7 levels after a druid can fly, 6 levels after air kineticists have permanent flight, two levels after Sylphs can perma-fly, and at the same time Aasimars get flight seems weak for a class with so few other features.
Perhaps each deity functions as a sort of bloodline, kinda like a Bloodrager bloodline.
I noticed you have no hit chance, hit amount, or save boosters. Any plan on including any of those?
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber
Thanks for the input. Here are my responses:
Quote: Can you do us a favor and put some of the deity abilities into tables? I can certainly try.
Quote: Does the Domain thing allow you to cast 9 levels of spells as SLAs? Which domains? Yes, you'd have the 9th level spell at level 18 usable once per day for a little less than half the available pool points. By then, it would be your first and second domain that give you access to their spells.
Quote: Have you considered looking at deific obedience? I tried to use this as a guide for deity boons.
Quote: Have you looked at the Ranger Faithful Combat Styles? I was originally going to base the bonus feats on something like this, but I just haven't taken the time to do it.
Quote: As a class, some of the features seem almost too weak. Spending pool points to fly 11 levels after Strix can fly, 7 levels after a druid can fly, 6 levels after air kineticists have permanent flight, two levels after Sylphs can perma-fly, and at the same time Aasimars get flight seems weak for a class with so few other features. I don't know if it's fair to compare the flight ability to other classes and races in that manner. Racial flight is imbalanced. 7th level seems to be the sweetspot for flying, but is that reasonable for a class like this?
Quote: Perhaps each deity functions as a sort of bloodline, kinda like a Bloodrager bloodline. That's a lot more work than I'm willing to do. I don't want the deity choice define every feature.
Quote: I noticed you have no hit chance, hit amount, or save boosters. Any plan on including any of those? No, I wasn't. One of the abilities increase hit by Cha for a round, just like the magus arcana that uses intelligence. In my opinion, divine grace should be exclusive to paladins. I also figure that the domain powers can easily overshadow numerical bonuses like that.
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber
I've modified this substantially. It may be a bit strong though.
Some Other Guy wrote: I've modified this substantially. It may be a bit strong though. Secrets are cool. However, it would be nice to see them with a consistent duration. So maybe you get all the activatable ones for a single combat, like an Inquisitor's Judgement.
Also, you didn't have to nerf fly costs.
Perhaps you can just get the Celestial/Fiendish or law/chaos aligned templates in pieces over the levels, instead of having to pay to use it in combat? So you get some elemental resistances, SR, and a single smite, spread out across levels.
Any chance you could give a slightly more in-depth explanation of what exactly you want this class to achieve?
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber
Quote: Secrets are cool. However, it would be nice to see them with a consistent duration. So maybe you get all the activatable ones for a single combat, like an Inquisitor's Judgement. I don't like this because it makes them unusable outside of combat. I tried to balance them around what the magus arcana do. Judgment has very limited options while these have a lot.
Quote: Any chance you could give a slightly more in-depth explanation of what exactly you want this class to achieve? Other than divine fighter that's not a paladin, I don't have anything else. I tried to use the templar from Dragon Age as a framework.
Some Other Guy wrote: Quote: Secrets are cool. However, it would be nice to see them with a consistent duration. So maybe you get all the activatable ones for a single combat, like an Inquisitor's Judgement. I don't like this because it makes them unusable outside of combat. I tried to balance them around what the magus arcana do. Judgment has very limited options while these have a lot.
Quote: Any chance you could give a slightly more in-depth explanation of what exactly you want this class to achieve? Other than divine fighter that's not a paladin, I don't have anything else. I tried to use the templar from Dragon Age as a framework. The Judgement comment was pertaining to the in-combat deals. Evasion and the fly class skill and other out-of-combat things should have their own duration. It's a bit of a pain tracking a bunch of separate durations, and the judgement lasting all combat is a nice simplification. Perhaps if you could reduce the number of differing durations to "1 round", "all combat", "10 minutes/level", and "permanent", using the 1 round and all combat things for in combat, and 10 minutes/level for out of combat utility powers.
I wouldn't say that it's 90% done. Closer to 50%.You should actually type out the class features.
I think that 4 skill points is fine. However, I ask you to reconsider including Perception on the list of class skills. The reason I ask this is because at least 80% of the homebrew classes I see include Perception.
One domain, two domains, three domains. I like the idea, sort of, because I tried something similar in one of my homebrews. Casting the same spell for three levels straight is going to get really old, and since no single domain has good spells st every level, you're basically limitiing the number of domains that are chosen to a short list. Having a second choice at 8th level is hardly an improvement. At the very least, let the character choose one spell per spell level each day, and the domain spells are just freebies.
I'd like to see the fully typed out version of Guided Combat, but based on your shorthand I don't like all of it. Uncanny Dodge is great. With a re-flavoring I think its a great fit. But I think that if a character wants extra attacks of opportunity, you can just pick up Combat Reflexes, and if you want more attacks of opportunity and Dexterity based feats, then you should invest ability score points in Dexterity. Martial classes have to invest in multiple ability scores, and I don't see why this class should be different.
Instead of handing of the Deathless feat (which is terrible and encourages people to stay conscious, get attacked, and die the next round), I think you should write something new and unique that thematically accomplishes what you want.
I'd like to chime in to agree with Ciaran Barnes' points.
I otherwise thinks this looks promising and cool. I am digging the domain casting mechanic. One question, though. Why not allow inquisitions and druid domains? This would open up the flavor of the class a bit more without diluting it (in my view), and I hardly think it would be broken. I mean, taking an inquisition would be a serious downgrade in most cases. It just seems pointless to me to ban them is all. Maybe I'm missing something.
Cheers,
- Gears
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber
@Ciaran: I somehow ended up with another working copy that is very modified. I copied it into the link above. Once I have more time, I'll type out the class features.
Perception I'm on the fence about. The paladin/cleric/warpriest/fighter/cavalier don't have perception as a class skill, so I just assumed it was for flavor.
The domain access has gone through multiple renditions and I'm still not set on anything solid yet. I wanted to limit the spellcasting due to the plethora of other options available. Please let me know what you think with how it has changed.
You have a point about guided combat. I removed uncanny dodge a while ago, but I really like the idea of keying some useful features off of charisma and I didn't want to still divine grace or the Oracle's cha to AC revelations. Maybe just adding it to initiative is enough?
@Ethereal: I don't think these are available to clerics by default without GM approval anyway, so I was just making that note.
Looks like you've made some changes to the document. Could you possible increase the font size slightly?
I've taken a closer look and I think you're short changing the class a bit. If spellcasting is primarily restricted to the spells of a single domain, I would suggest you include a way to change domains from one day to the next. That would provide a little bit of variety at least.
I also think you should add a few class skills and increase the skill points to 4. Seeing how thin the class is on capabilities, I now feel that Perception has a place here. Sorry for the retraction!
Finally, if you are going to use the current "spellcasting", I would consifer giving the class a larger point pool. On the other hand, it wouldn't be terrible to give the class 4-level or 6-level spellcasting.
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber
Ciaran Barnes wrote: Looks like you've made some changes to the document. Could you possible increase the font size slightly? Done
Quote: I've taken a closer look and I think you're short changing the class a bit. If spellcasting is primarily restricted to the spells of a single domain, I would suggest you include a way to change domains from one day to the next. That would provide a little bit of variety at least. The level 9 ability lets you change your second domain every day. I feel that it already does significantly more than most fast BAB classes. Once I start playtesting, the balance of the domain spellcasting will come out more.
Quote: I also think you should add a few class skills and increase the skill points to 4. Seeing how thin the class is on capabilities, I now feel that Perception has a place here. Sorry for the retraction! Honestly, I'm just against both of those based entirely on flavor. It's not a skilled class, so 4 base is too many and it has no characteristics of any of classes that get perception.
Quote: Finally, if you are going to use the current "spellcasting", I would consifer giving the class a larger point pool. On the other hand, it wouldn't be terrible to give the class 4-level or 6-level spellcasting. I'll have to playtest to see about this. I went from two pools to one because two pools is confusing and not a standard for design.
Some Other Guy wrote: yet another divine warrior If the description of your class involves the phrase "yet another," it's probably not neccesary. Instead of frankensteining your ideal class, built from your favorite parts of other classes, why not try to make something the game is actually missing?
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber
Headfirst wrote: Some Other Guy wrote: yet another divine warrior If the description of your class involves the phrase "yet another," it's probably not neccesary. Instead of frankensteining your ideal class, built from your favorite parts of other classes, why not try to make something the game is actually missing? That was before it was really fleshed out. When I think of "divine warrior", I picture the paladin. Paladins are very restrictive and I see no reason that non-LG compatible deities can't have similar warriors that are primarily fighters with a mix of offense and defense and very limited spellcasting ability. However, I will admit that the concept is weak and this was designed almost entirely based on mechanics.
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