New Hybrid Classes - Anointed Guardian Hybrid Class for Free!!!

[LMPjr007]

So many of you downloaded our Anointed Guardian preview but now Jeff Lee has been nice enough to release the official playtest rules for the Anointed Guardian hybrid class (Paladin / Summoner). So download it FOR FREE, go kick the tires and tell us what we did right, wrong, what we should take out and better yet what should we put it. As always, thanks for your support with this project!

[Here4daFreeSwag]

Good to have some free fully official-like Anointed Guardian playtesting stuff out there. ;)

[Elegant Egotist]

I'm gonna be honest, there's NO reason for this class to exist. This isn't me saying it's because it's a hybrid, or for anything like that, it's because it involves basically no new mechanics. It feels like a straight smashing together of both classes with no finesse, nothing to make it feel unique, nothing that gives any reason to play it. Out of everything here, there might be 3 new mechanics: new spell list, guardian beast eidolon, and the divine eidolon's share mercy.

These three things aren't enough to make this an interesting hybrid, rather than the collection of copy/paste class features that this class possesses. The only real selling point here is the 'any good' which could even be expanded to any good/evil and throw on cruelties as an alternative option, even if that'd just be more copy/paste design.

As far as balance, this is far more powerful than a Paladin due to trading out auras/immunities/bond for an eidolon, which is an absolute combat beast. And presentation wise, the PDF is spartan as all hell, with nothing interesting (not even a cover page), and 90% recycled text from other classes. Even while picking it up, I saw the PDF for the Avowed preview (which was awesome) which looks amazing as far as layout alone in concerned. The only time I've seen playtests this bland were for live playtests, and those were like that for ease of commenting and such.

There's nothing that makes this class unique, nothing that makes it stand out, and balance wise it's suspect, so I guess I'm saying that if you'd like to actually move forward with this, you should consider what actually makes a hybrid unique like with things such as the Kinetic Shinobi, which offered tons of new ways to use kinetic blasts through its shinobi talents or other hybrids which offer a ton of options that their parent classes don't have. As far as this is concerned, this is a turn off for me as a customer and I really hope we get a second preview with more unique mechanics.

[khadgar567]

You know i agree with egoist. This class needs major revamp and please more evolutions

[Volvogg]

I cannot really add any more to the discussion that hasn't already been said. I am in full agreement with Elegant Egotist and khadgar567. I would never purchase a product which is 90% (approximately) copy paste. It needs a defining set of powers which incorporate both classes abilities because as it is currently is simply a mesh of the paladin and summoner. Interesting but mostly boring.

[Air0r]

I have to agree with everyone else here. There just isn't anything really going for this hybrid class. perhaps more unique evolutions (maybe exclusive to this class) would help?

[Air0r]

thoughts:
1) add evil equivalent options, and if you feel really adventurous, lawful and chaotic options. Still can only pick one side. Though maybe have a feat allowing options from another alignment that you belong to (lawful good for example). Still, disallow true neutral.

2) Perhaps have each eidolon type be able to temporarily merge with your weapons or armor and provide passive (or active or limited use, you figure that out) benefits. Each type of eidolon could have stuff typed up for this benefit, and each one should be mostly unique if you can help it.

I may come up with more ideas later.