Talk:Ascendant Knight (3.5e Prestige Class)

Edit for Balance

I need help editing this class for balance. This is the first class I've ever made, so it's probably ridiculously biased in some direction, but I'm note sure... -- For Valor 03:56, 29 June 2009 (MDT)

Rather than gaining +2 to attack, a better idea might be taking -4 to hit allies of the Ascendant Knight while affected by his 1st-level ability, sort of like the Devoted Spirit stance, Iron Guard's Glare. Apart from that ability though (which is an awesome one for the defender type--might wanna allow the expenditure of a move action to retarget someone who succeeded on the save) the class looks a little underpowered. 76.169.236.139 05:51, 29 June 2009 (MDT)

Done! I made the penalty -2 to attack rolls and skill checks not made against an Ascendant Knight while in the aura, and added some more stuff so maybe it's not UP-ed now. Please rate the edited version!--For Valor 23:27, 29 June 2009 (MDT)

Commentastic

Here we go!

• Target of evil's will save is adding HD, which is very unusual. Usually it's 1/2 HD. A Hezrou has intelligence of 14, yet your description implies they are dumb (when it should instead imply that they can climb well).
• Target of Evil is just... bad. Very bad. Consider that when an Ascending Knight walks into town, any evil aligned commoners, including greedy merchants, guys who are just selfish, etc, will immediately run after him and try to kill him. You don't want that. I would consider doing as the above IP suggested, just making it so evil creatures within the aura range take a penalty when not attacking the Ascending Knight, or maybe use a Sanctuary effect on allies, or make it so that enemies who the knight attacks FIRST, or otherwise chooses to effect, have to make a will save or attack him. I get that they're supposed to attack him, but the mechanics just don't work as written.
• Energy Blast is too weak for me to even care. It will never be worth using, as it prevents you from full-attacking, and the damage is incredibly low. The damage needs to be much, much higher, and possibly scale with character level. I'd highly recommend consider making it a standard action, and at least 1d4 per level, reflex for half. At least. It can improve to d8s or higher later and be OK.
• Typo in the battle healing description, the power name is listed twice. Why not just make it Fast Healing? Why "When he believes he is under attack" (and not, say, after so many rounds after being damaged by an evil creature, if you MUST do it that way, but that's also problematic). Why can't it stack with other fast healing?
• Empty levels are bad!

Overall, I'm not really sure where you're going here. Is this supposed to be a tank? It doesn't have enough tanky abilities. Is it supposed to be a blaster? The energy is way, way too weak. It also seems a bit underpowered overall, and could use some more class features to help flesh the idea out. Dragon Child 12:54, 29 June 2009 (MDT)

Thank you so much!!! That was very helpful, and I reworked the class a bunch (something I feel I'll be doing for a lot of my homebrew for a while) so that:

• There are no empty levels. After mixing and matching a bunch of garbage, I decided that spell-like abilities would fit best in the category.
• Battle Healing's typo is fixed and now it's fast healing. You're right, it makes more sense this way.
• Energy Blast does more damage, eventually deals d8 (too much?) and still gives 3 energy types.
• Target of Evil got reworked. I did the penalty for not attacking an Ascendant Knight (you can't cheat and have two on a team for a constant -2 no matter what), and I'm thinking about the aura. Should it start at maybe 30' and improve to 45' at, say 6th level? And I messed up with the full HD progression on the Will save. That was a typo. But the Will save is gone anyway, so it's not important.

Yeah, that's it! Is it overpowered? Does it need less Spell-like abilities? Maybe I could change the saves...--For Valor 23:36, 29 June 2009 (MDT)

Rating

You asked for a rating, so here you go:

Power - 3.5/5 I give this class a 3.5 out of 5 because this class has a mixture of elements, some of which are strong, others of which are weak. Fast Healing, for example, would be considered overpowered by some, unless you are assuming that your party is somewhat optimized and is buying wands of cure light wounds, in which case it is strong, but not really a concern. Target of Evil is very nice. Especially with the nice saves and AC you should hopefully have. Holy Word is nice, although you probably can't pump your cast level much, but on the flip side, sanctuary is next to useless since you're a melee class. The energy blast is weak until it goes to d8, and even then the use restriction is limiting. I would have it scale quicker (maybe start at d6, improve to d8, then d10, and then d12) if you want to keep the use restrictions, or remove the use restrictions and speed up the scaling a little (like start it at d6, or have it improve to d6 sometime between d4 and d8). --Jota 18:40, 11 July 2009 (MDT)

Wording - 3/5 I give this class a 3 out of 5 because there are numerous inconsistencies and small spelling errors. In order:

• don't capitalize aasimar in your quote, or ascendant knight; same with the other quote
• Ascendant Knight shouldn't be capitalized unless it is a heading or the start of a sentence
• Becoming and Ascendant Knight>
• Bad form starting a sentence with however (minor evil)
• existance
• The sentence where you misspell existence is awkward
• Run-on sentence after that one

Abilities

• Target of Evil
  • Should be: 'that encourages evil to attack him'
  • disctracting
  • That first sentence has subject verb disagreement (evil, them)
  • The example is unclear. Re-read and you'll see.
• Energy Blast
  • Don't capitalize the elements
  • Personally, I don't like 3rd and 9th (instead preferring third and ninth), but such is D&D.
• Don't capitalize fast healing
• Don't capitalize the specific names of spell-like abilities
• What is the spellcasting stat?

Back to Fluff Stuff

• spel-casting
• Don't capitalize classes (knight, barbarian). Same goes for fiendish.
• Each sentence in the NPC reactions has minor errors (at least two are agreement errors).
• No apostrophe in PCs
• Don't capitalize alignments

Make those changes, and if I like what I see I'll fix the really minor stuff. --Jota 18:40, 11 July 2009 (MDT)

Formatting - 3/5 I give this class a 3 out of 5 because you followed the preload pretty well. When you tried to link the class abilities to the table, however, you screwed up. Try finding an article with working hot-link thingies for reference. You should link the class skill, too, as well as some of the more relevant features (energy types, fast healing). Also, it seems... short. I'm too lazy to check at the moment; is all the preload here? I'm pretty sure it isn't. The lore table is also a bit different in terms of the numbering (although I'm not necessarily marking you down for that). Just something to consider. --Jota 18:40, 11 July 2009 (MDT)

Flavor - 4/5 I give this class a 4 out of 5 because it has a clear niche and you gave the fluff a good go. Despite that, it's more or less a re-hashed paladin prestige class with some energy abilities. It's nice, but hardly unique or original. --Jota 18:40, 11 July 2009 (MDT)

Also, drop me an MoI when you reform it/respond and I will update my rating (if applicable). -- Jota 18:43, 11 July 2009 (MDT)

With a quick Glimpse

Player wanted to use this, seems ok, but have a question... ...Should the energy blast DC be based of Con, as most weapons are Con based (I think), or in the case of the warlock, I think it is Cha...