Author Topic: Warden base class (posting for Charlym Zuardan)  (Read 1848 times)

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Prime32

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Warden base class (posting for Charlym Zuardan)
« on: August 20, 2008, 12:12:25 PM »
Another one of Charlym's classes he wanted me to post here (the other is the Shaman).
« Last Edit: August 20, 2008, 12:22:37 PM by Prime32 »
My work
The tier system in a nutshell:
[spoiler]Tier 6: A cartographer.
Tier 5: An expert cartographer or a decent marksman.
Tier 4: An expert marksman.
Tier 3: An expert marksman, cartographer and chef who can tie strong knots and is trained in hostage negotiation or a marksman so good he can shoot down every bullet fired by a minigun while armed with a rusted single-shot pistol that veers to the left.
Tier 2: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything, or the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.
Tier 1: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything and the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.[/spoiler]

Prime32

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Re: Warden base class (posting for Charlym Zuardan)
« Reply #1 on: August 20, 2008, 12:19:58 PM »
Warden



Description:Adventures: Wardens adventure to gain the knowledge and power that experience brings. They are often found helping small towns and villages, working to protect them from raiding monsters or other troubles. They sometimes travel with large armies, acting as combat medics when there is a shortage of true healers around. They are most happy in small towns, villages, and the wilderness, and tend to avoid the unruly streets of larger cities unless there is a need for them.

Characteristics: Wardens cast divine spells which are drawn from nature. Though their spells focus primarily on enhancing their abilities and those of their allies, their origins as a healing class is evident in their magic. Wardens also gain an array of spells and abilities, including new chants, as they advance in level.
   The armor and weapons of a warden are restricted by traditional oaths, and though they can learn to wear heavier armor or use bladed weapons, doing so violates their oath and suppresses their warden abilities.

Alignment: Wardens are wanderers, but they are guided by a moral code and the traditional oaths of their training. They recognize the need for order and abhor chaos and anarchy in any form, and so wardens are always of a lawful alignment. Although most wardens favour good or neutral, evil wardens can and do exist.

Religion: Wardens have a close tie to nature, and put it above their deity. This lets them choose a god based on its alignment rather than its tie to nature. The most popular gods for wardens to follow are Yondalla by Halfling wardens, Moradin by dwarves, St. Cuthbert, Heironeous, and Hextor by most other races.   

Background:Races: Although any race is capable of becoming a warden, the most common ones have close ties to nature, such as elves, half-elves, and amani. Dwarves make excellent wardens due to their tendency towards law and their affinity with the earth. Halflings, Half-Orcs, and Gnomes, while capable, are rarely seen as wardens.

Other Classes: Though wardens get along quite well with druids and rangers because of their shared reverence for nature, a warden views rangers as too free-spirited and unguided, and druids as too preoccupied with pretending to be animals. Paladins are the class that a warden gets along best with, as both understand the need for order and what it is like to follow oaths and traditions.
   A warden is not above working with any class, and knows better than most the value of working as part of a team. A warden thrives with structure and order within a group.

Role: The role of a warden is that of a pure support class. The vast majority of his class abilities focus on buffing himself and his allies. Though he has decent defense from his medium armor and shield, he has very little offensive power and should not enter direct combat if he can help it.
   A warden has limited healing ability with which to back up a primary healer, but should not be the only healing class in a party if possible.



Warden Game Information

Abilities: High wisdom is important for a warden, as it determines the level of spell he can cast and how powerful it is. A high charisma modifier will increase the effects of many of his chants and class abilities. Dexterity helps him avoid attacks and constitution allows him to take more hits.

Alignment: Any Lawful.
Hit Die: d8.

Class Skills
The Wardens class skils (and the key ability for each skill) are Climb (str), Concentration (con), Craft (int), Diplomacy (cha), Handle Animal (cha), Heal (wis), Knowledge (nature) (int), Listen (wis), Perform (chant) (cha), Profession (wis), Ride (dex), Sense Motive (wis), Spellcraft (int), Spot (wis), Survival (wis), Knowledge (anatomy) (int).
Skill Points at 1st Level: (6 + Int modifier) x 4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 6 + Int modifier.

Code: [Select]
Table: The Warden

Level BAB Fort Ref Will Special
1st +0 +2 +0 +2 Bonus Feat, Nature Sense, Track, Perpetual Stamina (chant), Bladeturn 1/day
2nd +1 +3 +1 +3 Warden’s Haste 1/day
3rd +1 +3 +1 +3 Bladeturn 2/day
4th +2 +4 +1 +4 Natures Reckoning (chant)
5th +2 +4 +1 +4 Bonus Feat
6th +3 +5 +2 +5 Warden’s Haste 2/day
7th +3 +5 +2 +5 Guardian’s Wings (chant)
8th +4 +6 +2 +6 Bladeturn 3/day
9th +4 +6 +3 +6 Defy Storm 1/day, Unyielding Spirit 1/day
10th +5 +7 +3 +7 Bonus Feat, Nature’s Favor (chant)
11th +5 +7 +3 +7 Warden’s Haste 3/day
12th +6/+1 +8 +4 +8 Bladeturn 4/day,
13th +6/+1 +8 +4 +8 Defy Storm 2/day, Unyielding Spirit 2/day
14th +7/+2 +9 +4 +9 Warden’s Haste 4/day
15th +7/+2 +9 +5 +9 Bonus Feat, Heroic Conversion (chant)
16th +8/+3 +10 +5 +10 Bladeturn 5/day
17th +8/+3 +10 +5 +10 Defy Storm 3/day, Unyielding Spirit 3/day
18th +9/+4 +11 +6 +11 Warden’s Haste 5/day
19th +9/+4 +11 +6 +11 Bladeturn 6/day
20th +10/+5 +12 +6 +12 Bonus Feat
Code: [Select]
Table: Warden Spells Per Day

Level 1st 2nd 3rd 4th
1st -
2nd 0 - -
3rd 1 -
4th 2 -
5th 2 0 -
6th 3 1 -
7th 3 2 - -
8th 3 2 0
9th 4 3 1 -
10th 4 3 2 -
11th 4 3 2 0
12th 4 3 3 1
13th 5 4 3 2
14th 5 4 3 2
15th 5 4 3 3
16th 5 4 4 3
17th 5 5 4 3
18th 5 5 4 3
19th 5 5 4 4
20th 5 5 5 4


Class Features

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A warden is proficient with all simple and martial bludgeoning weapons, plus the shortbow, longbow, composite shortbow, and composite longbow. Wardens are proficient with light and medium armor and with shields. A warden can wear heavy armor or use sharp weapons, but doing so leaves him unable to use his warden spells or abilities.

Spells:Chants:Perpetual Stamina (chant): A warden of first level or higher, with 3 or more ranks in Perform(chant) can use this ability to reduce the duration of spells and effects that cause fatigue or exhaustion by half (rounded down, a fatigue effect with a duration of 1 round would be completely negated, and an effect with a duration of 3 rounds would be cut to 1 round). At 4th level, if the warden has 6 ranks in Perform (chants) this ability completely negates spells and effects that would normally cause fatigue or exhaustion. Any character that is fatigued or exhausted when this ability is used is not affected by them for the duration of the chant. When the chant ends, any fatigue or exhaustion effects that would normally still be affecting the character begin taking effect again immediately.

Natures Reckoning (chant):At level 8, with 10 ranks in Perform(chant):  +2 to damage, + cha mod to attack
At level 12, with 14 ranks in Perform(chant): +3 to damage, + cha mod to attack
At level 16, with 18 ranks in Perform(chant): +4 to damage, + cha mod to attack
At level 20, with 22 ranks in Perform(chant): +5 to damage, +cha mod to attack

At level 13, with 15 ranks in Perform(chant):At level 19, with 21 ranks in Perform(chant): On reaching 10th level, a warden with 12 or more ranks in Perform(chant) may use this ability to grant damage reduction of 5/chaos (the first 5 points of damage from any attack is ignored, unless it is chaos damage, which bypasses the damage reduction) to himself and those in his party. As the warden gains levels and ranks in Perform(chant) the amount of damage reduction is increased.
At level 14, with 16 ranks in Perform(chant): Damage reduction of 5/chaos
At level 18, with 20 ranks in Perform(chant): Damage reduction of 10/chaos

Heroic Conversion (chant):Bladeturn:Defy Storm:Unyielding Spirit:Bonus Feats:Warden Spell list
[spoiler]Level 1Level 2Level 3Level 4WARDEN FEATS
[spoiler]

[spoiler]

Prerequisite: -
Benefit: You gain +2 to your Survival, Knowledge (nature), and Handle Animal skills.

Tuned In
Prerequisite:Benefit: You gain a +2 to your Listen, Spot, and Search skills.

Song of the Forest
Prerequisite:Benefit:Song of the Sky
Prerequisite:Benefit:Song of the Mountain
Prerequisite:Benefit: Allows your Perpetual Stamina chant to have the same effect on sickness and nausea as it does on fatigue and exhaustion.

Song of the River
Prerequisite:Benefit: Increases the amount healed each round by your Heroic Conversion chant from 5 to 8

Song of the Deep
Prerequisite:Benefit:Courageous Conversion
Prerequisite:Benefit: When beginning a Heroic Conversion chant you may choose to have it cure poisons and diseases as well as healing HP, however doing so drains you of 15 HP per round instead of the normal 5.[/spoiler]


Specialized Enhancements
Prerequisite: -
Benefit:  Increases the effects of stat enhancing spells cast by you by 1

Unmatched Enhancements
Prerequisite: Specialized Enhancements
Benefit: Increases the effects of stat enhancing spells cast by you by 2 (this effects is in addition to the bonus granted by Specialized Enhancements)

Lasting Enhancements
Prerequisite: Specialized Enhancements
Benefit: Doubles the duration of your stat enhancing spells

Natural Bond
Prerequisite: -
Benefit: Your healing spells heal an additional +2 HP

Confident Healer
Prerequisite: Natural Bond
Benefit: You add your charisma modifier to all heal spells cast by you

Vehement Renewal
Prerequisite: Natural Bond, Confident Healer
Benefit: When you cast a heal spell on a party member, each other member is also healed for 1d4 + your charisma modifier

Combat Medic
Prerequisite: Heal 8 ranks
Benefit: Using your Heal skill no longer provokes attacks of opportunity

Determination
Prerequisite: -
Benefit: Reduces the effect of entanglement, snare, or other movement impairing effects by 50%. This only works on outdoor effects such as vines, roots, webs, etc. and does not affect magical abilities such as paralysis, hold person, etc.[/spoiler]
« Last Edit: August 20, 2008, 08:03:49 PM by Prime32 »
My work
The tier system in a nutshell:
[spoiler]Tier 6: A cartographer.
Tier 5: An expert cartographer or a decent marksman.
Tier 4: An expert marksman.
Tier 3: An expert marksman, cartographer and chef who can tie strong knots and is trained in hostage negotiation or a marksman so good he can shoot down every bullet fired by a minigun while armed with a rusted single-shot pistol that veers to the left.
Tier 2: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything, or the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.
Tier 1: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything and the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.[/spoiler]

Stratovarius

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Re: Warden base class (posting for Charlym Zuardan)
« Reply #2 on: August 20, 2008, 12:47:44 PM »
Nature's Reckoning: By wording, this takes effect after the target has been hit and has no duration. Does the benefit last until the chant ends, the round ends, the enemy dies? Does it effect the next attack?

Nature's Favour: It says 3/chaos, and then 5. Which is it? The chart goes on to list 5/chaos later.

Bladeturn: Duration of the shield if not attacked? Action to cast?

Warden's Haste: Caster level? Is it allowed to affect more targets, and just the first has to be the Warden?

Defy Storm: I get Lightning and Cold being facets of a storm, but where does Acid come into it? Acid rain is a fairly tenuous stretch.

Unyielding Spirit: Don't like the fact that this negates a fairly wide array of force spells, which tend towards lots of small impacts. Also, negative, force, and sonic are such an odd trio that there can be no way to justify the connection. I would drop this in favour of something else.

Spell list: He's not really a healer at all, and there's so little healing on this list that it's not going to matter. If he wants to have any healing flavour in the spell list, this part needs redoing. Otherwise, looks ok.

Feats: Song of the River might end up being too powerful with other stackers, but mostly few complaints.

General Points: Abilities are Su? Sp? Ex? What, exactly, would an evil Warden be?

Finally, what does this class actually do in combat? It's got 1/2 BAB and 4th level buff spells, while the chants are all buffing as well. It appears to be that it hangs around in the back without actually fighting and sings at his buddies. I'm just getting a close to a tier 4/tier 5 class vibe out of it. A Warmage level class.
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Fuzzy_Logic

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Re: Warden base class (posting for Charlym Zuardan)
« Reply #3 on: August 20, 2008, 04:58:03 PM »
Yes, what classes is this meant to be balanced against?  And what is supposed to make it fun to play? 

THe buffs are powerful but not especially interesting, and sitting around singing doesn't sound that interesting.  I tried to write a D&D White Mage a while ago, and the only way I could figure out to mkae it work was to give it powerful active defenses. 

Prime32

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Re: Warden base class (posting for Charlym Zuardan)
« Reply #4 on: August 20, 2008, 07:58:15 PM »
Some responses:

Quote from: Charlym Zuardan
for the shaman i dont really have much to say... i \havnt put in nearly the amount of time or effort into that class for it to really stand up to peoples arguments.

for the warden though, it seems that the majority of complaints so far were just in the lack of details on his abilities. so i can clear that up pretty easily...

Quote
Nature's Favour: It says 3/chaos, and then 5. Which is it? The chart goes on to list 5/chaos later.

5, the 3 is a typo


Quote
Bladeturn: Duration of the shield if not attacked? Action to cast?

swift action to cast, lasts 1 hour or until hit. party members must remain within 100' of the warden to be affected.


Quote
Warden's Haste: Caster level? Is it allowed to affect more targets, and just the first has to be the Warden?

caster level = wardens level.
the description should read:
Quote
Defy Storm: I get Lightning and Cold being facets of a storm, but where does Acid come into it? Acid rain is a fairly tenuous stretch.

i tend to agree with this but i wanted a set of 3 resists and couldnt really think of one that would fit better into this category. maybe fire?


Quote
Unyielding Spirit: Don't like the fact that this negates a fairly wide array of force spells, which tend towards lots of small impacts. Also, negative, force, and sonic are such an odd trio that there can be no way to justify the connection. I would drop this in favour of something else.

well the spell is unyielding spirit, and i've always thought of negative energy as attacking your spirit or your life force or whatever... sonic and force where along the same lines, damage types that you resist more through force of will or spirit than any kind of physical toughness.  its different yes... but that was my line of thinking.

Quote
Spell list: He's not really a healer at all, and there's so little healing on this list that it's not going to matter. If he wants to have any healing flavour in the spell list, this part needs redoing. Otherwise, looks ok.

i'm not sure where anyone would get the idea that this guy is supposed to be primarily a healer. everything in the description talks about them having only the basic healing abilities and how they are sometimes used as combat medics when there is a shortage of true healers, since he has heal as a class skill and enough skill points to keep that maxed out.
this guy is all about helping his party through chants, bladeturn, haste, and buff spells, with the odd small healing spell thrown in when needed.
although i have been considering lowering the heroic conversion chant to a lower level to give him a bit of healing earlier on.. just not sure yet how i would shuffle that around.


Quote
General Points: Abilities are Su? Sp? Ex? What, exactly, would an evil Warden be?

god its been too long since i've had a chance to sit and dig into this stuff... whats the difference between these again? i dont know which would be more appropriate but i'm open to suggestion.

an evil warden would be.... a warden... who's evil?  i guess one that had turned from the path of good but still retained the knowledge of listening to the songs of nature.. only he would use it for evil purposes. nature tends to be pretty neutral and not care what its being used for as long as there is balance right?


Quote
Finally, what does this class actually do in combat? It's got 1/2 BAB and 4th level buff spells, while the chants are all buffing as well. It appears to be that it hangs around in the back without actually fighting and sings at his buddies. I'm just getting a close to a tier 4/tier 5 class vibe out of it. A Warmage level class.

beleive it or not when i first posted this on the wizards forums many many months ago he had 3/4 BAB and the general consensus of the feedback was that that would be too powerful with all his buffs.

personally im of the opinion that 3/4 would be just right and make him kind of like nature's bard, so that is definitely open to change.

as far as what he does, this is a pure support class, he buffs. he stands in the back and inspires his allies to fight harder, stronger and longer with his war chants.

his high charisma and wisdom make him a natural leader and diplomat, and other skills like spot, listen, survival, and sense motive can help the party in other indirect ways.

This kind of supportive role is definitely not for everyone, but there are those that like it (myself included) and he is targetted at that type of player.

 but.. if i were to change his BAB to 3/4 would he be a bit more interesting in a fight?
My work
The tier system in a nutshell:
[spoiler]Tier 6: A cartographer.
Tier 5: An expert cartographer or a decent marksman.
Tier 4: An expert marksman.
Tier 3: An expert marksman, cartographer and chef who can tie strong knots and is trained in hostage negotiation or a marksman so good he can shoot down every bullet fired by a minigun while armed with a rusted single-shot pistol that veers to the left.
Tier 2: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything, or the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.
Tier 1: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything and the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.[/spoiler]