As we all know there is no TN (or LN or CN) Champion Cause. Not now, not in the APG... supposedly not until Paizo gets good pitches for the entire Neutral row on the G/E Axis. While LN and CN seem relatively easy I've found myself wondering what a TN Champion Cause would even look like. Well, earlier it struck me, what about PF1e's Vindictive Bastard. Caring less about Good vs Evil, Law vs Chaos, and more about just fighting to protect (and if need be avenge) your companions? Sounds like a good TN to me. So anyways, here's Wonderwall my take at a TN Champion: The Vindicator
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Champion Cause
Rather than be bound by some lofty ideal, you are more driven by the ones who fight beside you. You gain the Vindictive Strike champion's reaction and the Tenacious Ward devotion spell. Your Champion's Code consists of the following tenets:
- - You must never perform acts anathema to your deity.
- - You must never willingly lash out against an ally, either in word or in action.
- - You must not allow an ally to perish, as long as there is anything you can do to prevent it. This tenet does not require you to take action against the possible death of an ally at an indefinite time in the future, or to sacrifice your life to save theirs.
- - In the event an ally does perish despite your best efforts, you must do all in your power to avenge that ally at earliest opportunity. As the previous tenet, this tenant does not require you to sacrifice your life in the name of vengeance.
(Reaction) Vindictive Strike
Trigger: An enemy within reach damages your ally who is within 15 feet of you.
You retaliate against the foe who would harm your ally. Make a Melee Strike against the foe. If your melee strike is successful increase your damage by an amount equal to 2+your level.
If the triggering action would reduce your ally to 0 HP, double this damage bonus.
Tenacious Ward - Focus 1
Uncommon, Champion, Abjuration
Cast: (1 Action) Somatic
Range: Touch; Targets: Yourself or 1 Ally
Your touch enrobes the target in Divine Protection. If cast on an ally that ally gains Resistance 6 against all damage and a +2 Status bonus to AC for 1 round. If cast on yourself you gain Resistance 3 against all damage and a +2 Status Bonus to AC for 1 round.
Heightened (+1): Increase the Resistance granted by 6 when cast on an ally and by 3 when cast on yourself.
Your vindictiveness extends to your allies. If you hit with your Vindictive Strike the target gains a weakness to damage afflicted by you or your allies equal to your Charisma modifier for a number of rounds equal to half your level.
When you use Vindictive Strike, each ally within 15 feet of you with the target in their melee reach can spend a reaction to Strike the target with a -5 penalty. The Weakness from Divine Smite is not applied against these Strikes.
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May add some Cause-specific Class Feats down the line.
I would change the numbers of the focus spell, the way that it works is way too powerful, it basically makes an ally just stop taking damage for a round with the all damage resistance that big and that scaling.
Seems the "better" version of the paladin.
- No linked to any oath ( compared to a paladin, you can do whatever you like ).
It has almost exactly as many tenets to its Code as a Paladin does, the only difference not being a restriction against a particular Alignment of Act. Paladin's only built-in requirements are "Deity's Anathema and no Evil Acts", "Protect the Innocent", "Act Honorably", and "Obey legitimate authority". Vindicator has "Deity's Anathema", "Don't Attack your Allies, literally or with harsh words", "Portect your Allies", and "Avenge an ally that dies". And it's worth noting that "allies" should realistically be far more than just your party members.
- Able to buff his own AC ( tennets of good champion can't gain all the benefits of lay on hands ).
That's a fair point, I completely missed that Lay on Hands doesn't buff your AC on a self-cast. Will be removing that.
- Resistance to all damage is way better than anything else. It has no reason to exist ( a lvl 1 character with that blessing could tank a horde of enemies ).
It provides the same amount of Resistance as Lay on Hands provides Healing. Now granted that means that you're effectively healing the target of every hit they take for 1 round, but that is intentional as it's meant to counterbalance how insanely good Lay on Hands is for out-of-combat healing. LoH is so useful for out of combat that anything that can only be used in combat has to be stronger just to balance it out. That said, I may cut down the numbers slightly, but not dramatically. And definitely not removing it entirely.
- Divine smite is out of control ( as the reaction, which is a rip off of the paladin's one, but with an exaggerated damage )
Yeah, I may limit the bonus damage to just a couple times per round, and probably cut back the duration a fair bit. Scaling durations don't really seem to be as much of a thing in this edition.
As for the reaction, it being similar to Paladin's was an intentional choice. The "exaggerated" damage is exactly equal to the amount of Resistance Retributive Strike grants, designed to be a more offensive version compared to the more defensive Paladin's. There's also the note that it's actually less generally usable than any of the Good-aligned Champion Reactions (at least without spending a feat, I was considering adding a variant of the Ranged Retribution feat, if only to allow ranged Vindicators to exist, but not 100% certain on that) since it requires the target be within your reach.
ETA: As for the double damage thing, for one it's there to just reinforce the "your allies are the reason you're fighting" thing, second, it hopefully shouldn't come up too often, since it requires positioning be just right and for your ally to be knocked out by the triggering attack, and third, given your Anathema require you prioritize saving your ally there's a chance you may be losing actions anyways if they get dropped.
Tenacious Ward - Focus 1
Uncommon, Champion, Abjuration
Cast: (1 Action) Somatic
Range: Touch; Targets: Yourself or 1 Ally
Your touch enrobes the target in Divine Protection. If cast on an ally that ally gains Resistance 4 against all damage and a +2 Status bonus to AC for 1 round. If cast on yourself you gain Resistance 2 against all damage for 1 round.
Heightened (+1): Increase the Resistance granted by 4 when cast on an ally and by 2 when cast on yourself.
Your vindictiveness extends to your allies. For 4 rounds after you successfully hit with a Vindictive Strike, the first time each round the target takes damage caused by one of your allies increase that damage by an amount equal to your Charisma modifier.
Exalt: Remove the last line, as it is irrelevant now.
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Rejiggered Devotion Spell and Divine Smite. Dropped the Resistance from the Devotion spell by a third and removed the self-cast AC buff. Divine Smite now deals about as much (I've heard 3.5 is the average duration for Persistent Damage) damage as the other Divine Smites do, provided your allies (and changed it to only your allies to further reinforce the team side) do something to harm it. Since it's unaligned damage (because you can't really do Aligned damage as a TN), I feel that putting the burden of making it count on the allies is a reasonable trade-off.
Lay on hand is definitely useful for ooc purposes, but even in combat it can easily turn a crit into a hit, or a hit into a miss.
Yep, Lay on Hands is very good both in and out of combat. Since my version is only actually usable in combat that is literally why I want its in-combat use to be stronger.
You should also check how other focus spells with damage reduction works, then compare those to your "tenacious ward".
Here's the protector sacrifice.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=441
You trade your reaction ( like you do with a champion reaction ) to a slightly better DR and double the range.
On a single attack.
30 foot range (way more than double, more like 6 times, Touch range is generally 5 feet), Reaction so it's usable exactly when needed rather than needing to be pre-applied, and provides 1 point per spell level less than my Touch-range spell Resistance to an ally with the drawback being that you take the damage instead. On a class that already has 10-level casting, including a rather massive number of free, highest-level Heal spells, but does only work for one hit. I see legitimate trade-offs there.
This just to let you better understand that what you are proposing is, how to say this... insane?
Here's protector sphere, which is a lvl 4 focus skill.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=442
3 DR Aoe, with a sustain every turn.
In a game where combats last from 4 to 5 rounds at last.By that level your the paladin would have 8 DR against any attacks for 3 rounds ( 3 focus points ) once per day, and starting from lvl 10 you'd be able to do it 2 rounds every combat ( 50% of the fight ).
And an ally would instead take 16 DR from all attacks.
Sure, 3 DR with a sustain every turn. So you can get up to 10 minutes off a single Focus Point. And it applies to every ally within 15 feet, which in my experience (which admittedly I haven't reached level 7+ in PF2e yet, but I have been playing PF1e for years, and have reached level 5 in PF2e at least so I'm close-ish) a 15-foot radius AoE is a massive chunk of the typical battlefield in Paizo's APs at least. So there's a high chance you're functionally providing DR 3 to every ally as well as yourself. Assuming a typical 4-person party that's functionally granting DR 12 for a full minute. Add another player or an animal companion and you're up to DR 15. Again, for a full minute off a single Focus Point and a third action. It is unfortunate that Cleric is the only caster (currently) that doesn't get access to Effortless Concentration to take away even that one action cost, but that's a completely separate concern.
Here's a Young Copper Dragon sheet
https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=148
Check his damage and compare them with the DR you want to give.
I'll do you one better, I'll reference the Strike Damage table from GMG, and compare it. Since you're so big on level 8, let's use that level for our statistics, and use an ally because that's the better value on the spell.
Low Damage: 2d6+8, Average Damage 15. Is still going to be dealing damage on a slightly above average roll, has a total 27.78% chance of still dealing damage on a normal hit.
Moderate Damage (presumably the most common): 2d8+9, Average Damage 19. On an average roll is still dealing 3 damage. Has a solid 67.19% chance of still dealing damage.
High Damage: 2d10+11, Average Damage 22. On an average roll is still dealing 6 damage. Has a 90% chance of still dealing damage.
Extreme Damage: 2d12+15, Average Damage 28. On an average hit is still dealing 12 damage, just slightly less than an unresisted average hit from a Low-damage enemy. Is guaranteed to deal damage.
So yes, it turns an ally into a decently effective (but still far from invulnerable) tank. For 1 round in all fights but the first, 2 rounds starting at level 10, and that's if you take feats to gain more Focus Points, and if you don't use said Focus Points on other Focus Spells instead. And if you're not directly adjacent to the ally you're applying it to it takes 2 or even 3 Actions to apply it at the ranges of the Cleric's protection spells because it's Touch range.
And you seem to think this is not working as intended, but the entire point is to protect your ally. It's strong, yes, but so is Lay on Hands.
Check also how stuff like shieldblock a toughness work ( the former requires a raise shield action, rely on shield hardness and also requires you to use a reaction, the second gives you the same HP of a shieldblock of your level, allowing you to benefit from an hypothetical shieldblock per fight even not using a shield ).
Sure, let's look at Shields. Sturdy Shields are generally considered the only Shields worth Blocking with past the lowest levels.
At level 8 you'd probably have a Lesser Sturdy Shield. Hardness 10, HP 80, BT 40, so it can take effectively 40 damage per combat. Against a Low Damage enemy on average it can be used every round for 8 rounds, Moderate Damage enemy it lasts 5 rounds, High Damage 4 rounds, and Extreme Damage 3 rounds. So by your own statement that a fight usually lasts 4 or 5 rounds, it is also blocking a good chunk (5/8ths of the value of my "once per fight for a long time" spell) of an enemy's damage, and it can do it the entire fight.
as for the extra damage, remember that by lvl 14 you will have 2 reactions.
Yeah, 2 reactions. In the event that you've taken that exact feat, and an enemy right next to you (or 10 feet away if you're wielding a Reach Weapon) hits an ally within 15 feet, takes the hit, and decides to attack that an ally again, you can hit them again. At which point the enemy has figured out that hey, you can do that multiple times a turn, maybe we should either target them or stay out of their reach when we attack their ally". So against an intelligent enemy, that's probably going off once per fight. In contrast, any of the Good Champions who just sticks close to their ally can make use of that feat every round to give their ally Resistance twice, and in the case of the Redeemer may even straight up cost the enemy 2 actions per round.
Lay on Hands stuff
I've been in a party so far of Fighter MC Alchemist, Paladin, Giant Totem Barbarian that was later replaced by Fighter MC Sorcerer, and Cleric. Thus far the Paladin's Lay on Hands has been one of the most powerful abilities any of us have used, definitely in the top 3 (the only things that might rate higher are the Cleric's Healing Font and, admittedly, Continual Recovery. Mostly because of its out of combat utility, since it heals a sizable chunk (6 per spell level, so at the same level one can become Expert that's 12 HP to Medicine's 10, at level 7 when Master turns on that's 24 to Medicine's 30, and at level 15 it's 48 to Medicine's 50, 96 to Medicine's 50 if you can start using it twice. Though it is a fair point about Ward Medic, I did legitimately forget that feat existed. Of course, then it scales up to 54, 108 if you can use it twice, at level 19) all without the scaling check that Medicine requires.
It lasts 1 minute at maximum duration ( don't know where did you read 10 minutes )
That was actually a typo ^.^; I had meant to say 10 rounds, dunno why it came out 10 minutes.
And probably your party will spread because AOE.
It is better that an aoe hits 2 out of 4 targets than everybody but with 4 DR. So you won't go by "I will stop you with my 3/4 DR".
Maybe it's luck, maybe it's intentional design, but in all the years I've been playing Pathfinder, first and now second edition, I haven't actually seen a whole lot of AoE effects. And there's also the thing I mentioned of how Paizo's dungeons tend to be rather cramped. Granted not everyone plays APs, but that's my experience so that's what I have to base my thoughts around.
Level 9 Rogue vs Level 11 Dragon stuff
So by using what is probably the entirety of the Champion's Focus points for the fight, the Rogue managed to survive 2 rounds against a boss, while still losing 70.5% (55) of his HP. And if he takes one more hit he's down anyways, but congrats Champion, you successfully defended your ally. Which is what the thing is intended to do, keep your ally alive.
Also, since the reaction it's a paladin reaction rip off, I assume you'd considered giving the ranged reprisal feat too.
So you cover 15 out of 15 reach.
Well I did consider a ranged reprisal-esque feat but the more I thought about it the less I thought it appropriate since the reach restriction was one of the balancing factors.
Also, I just want to say that calling it a "rip off" of the Paladin Reaction seems overly harsh. They're two subtypes of the same class, why not take inspiration from an existing version of the feature that also happens to perform a very similar goal to the purpose of the subclass?
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All of that said... I am going to be revisiting this stuff. I still think some things are overblown (the damage bonus, I'll admit that maybe it's just too many years of PF1e and Starfinder but Damage always seemed like the cheapest bonus you could give to me) and other things are underestimated (the effectiveness of Lay on Hands) but I'll admit my views are most likely a bit biased.
So if you have any suggestions for alternatives (that are balanced against the existing options, including such things as Lay on Hands being useful both in and out of combat. My biases may or may not be seeing it as bigger than it is, but that is still something to be considered) that can keep in the general theme, rather than merely being here to tear my versions down, I'd be glad to hear them.
I'll state right now that barring something truly blowing me away with a "why didn't I think of that" moment I may modify stuff with my own spin, but I'll try to stay reasonable, and rein myself in a few notches from my design process on this run.