Noble Warrior

[Osprey]

OK folks, I couldn't bear to see things go this long and not produce anything solid. So here's my best go to date, my attempt to produce a balanced Noble Warrior core class (appropriate suggestions for alternative names welcome). My thinking is that this could be produced as a second, perhaps variant or optional, core class for the revised BRCS, next to the core Noble class. Here's the Word document.

PS - I confess to being less than well-read on Khinasi matters, so any helpful input as to cultural specifics would be appreciated. See waht you folks think - feedback (for better or for worse) is welcome.

Osprey

[The Jew]

I like it, especially given the current deadlock in the poll. My one critique would be to allow for the benefits to aid an admiral as well as a general. Pretty much add Profession (Sailor) to the skills list, allow Command to give a bonus to Prof (Sailor), allow battle cry and inspire troops to effect ships along with units and add Skill focus (sailor) to the list of bonus feats.

[irdeggman]

While this class sounds good there are several issues I have with it.

What really does it have to do with being a regent styled ruler? I don’t really see any ruler-oriented benefits. The way this class is written it fits in better with what I had originally called it – a prestige class, or it could be an alternate fighter class. It is not as written a ruler-oriented one. It is a troop leader one though, maybe a prestige class along the lines of a great general/admiral would be a better fit. Dropping the born to rule slant.

Command – as described it is supposed to specifically slanted towards a battlefield commander. As written it grants a bonus to skills used in some other ways. If it supposed to be a battlefield commander then these bonuses should be applied only to those circumstances and not to all. Why should be being a good battlefield commander relate to being a good regent?

Why have Weapon Focus as a bonus feat when Regional Arms Focus is a 1st level class ability?

Noble Presence. What is meant by an effective Charisma increase? You need to spell it out here or people will apply benefits not intended. As I see it, what you had intended was that his Charisma is treated as 2 higher (sliding up) for interactions and Leadership score. But I could be wrong. I’m pretty sure you didn’t intend for turning undead, bard/sorcerer spells to be affected, etc.

If you go to the prestige class concept then this great general/admiral could be opened up to just about all races vice only Anuirean and Khinasi.

[Osprey]

First off: Jew, great suggestions for the P/sailor and ship additions - can we say Brecht noble warrior? Not sure if it's appropriate to the class concept, however - just a little afraid of it trying to stretch the class' applications further than they should go. Would great Brecht sea captains really be Noble Warriors, or would Rogues or Swashbucklers (if you use Complete Warrior) be more appropriate?

Irdeggman,
What this class has to do with being a ruler is encased within it in several ways:

1. Class Skills - the class skill set is pretty ideal for most militant regents (landed, law, even temples for a multiclass cleric/nw). Having Administrate as a class skill, and having 4 skill points per level, makes this class quite a bit different from a fighter, ranger, or paladin, and far better suited to represent a militant hereditary noble.

2. In a medieval world, military and rulership abilities are close companions. Why do you think Lead was chosen as the primary skill for Law holdings and Agitate? The military effect of Lead isn't incidental to the skill, it's a primary focus of it. Similarly, a noble warrior focuses on warcraft and leadership, which in turn makes him quite capable (perfect, in fact) as a Law regent, and he may be an excellent administrator and landed regent if he so chooses. The noble warrior is born to rule in a militant world, but may be less comfortable in a high court situation where finesse and subtlety are more important. That's part of the contrast with the core Noble class - the Noble is at an advantage in court, but at a disadvantage on the battlefield. I actually took out Master Administrator as a bonus feat specifically because I didn't want them to be quite so apt as core Nobles at being efficient and industrious regnets.

3. This class is meant to be distinct from the core Noble being proposed. You say the class as written doesn't fit a born ruler, yet in previous class writeups you have complained how the class was too much like the core Noble. Now you say this one is like an alternate fighter.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it seems to me that you are opposed to the basic concept of this class existing as a core class, no matter how it is written up. Working against biased critique is frustrating to say the least.

A prestige class is problematic because it does open up the class to anyone, something that is diamatrically opposed to the core concept I built it on - that a noble warrior is born and raised, that it is NOT an open class to anyone with the right skill ranks, feats, or BAB.

Command – as described it is supposed to specifically slanted towards a battlefield commander. As written it grants a bonus to skills used in some other ways. If it supposed to be a battlefield commander then these bonuses should be applied only to those circumstances and not to all. Why should be being a good battlefield commander relate to being a good regent?

Why should the Lead skill apply to situations both on and off the battlefield? The answer to this question and your own are the same. According to our current BRCS system, good military leaders DO make good law regents and tend to be quite popular with the masses (Agitate, the other Lead-based domain action). Makes perfect sense to me. Being good at leading and commanding men certainly does translate to being an effective medieval regent - this may be less true in the modern world, yet even now IRL military leaders continue to remain both popular and effective because people trust that they can handle war and crisis effectively. Competence inspires trust.

Why have Weapon Focus as a bonus feat when Regional Arms Focus is a 1st level class ability?

Because a character may want to have Weapon Focus in more than one weapon at the same time, such as an Anuirean knight having weapon focus with both sword and lance, or a Khinasi NW having weapon focus with the composite longbow and scimitar. As you've written up the Regional and Elite Arms focus in the rev. Ch 1, those feats now grant weapon focus with only a single weapon at a time, though the focus may be shifted whent he character levels up.

Noble Presence. What is meant by an effective Charisma increase? You need to spell it out here or people will apply benefits not intended. As I see it, what you had intended was that his Charisma is treated as 2 higher (sliding up) for interactions and Leadership score. But I could be wrong. I’m pretty sure you didn’t intend for turning undead, bard/sorcerer spells to be affected, etc.

No sarcasm intended, right? Yes, it's meant to be the same as the core Noble ability - and you're right, I'll amend the description to note it applies to Charisma-based skills, ability checks, NW class abilities, and the Leadership score.

If you go to the prestige class concept then this great general/admiral could be opened up to just about all races vice only Anuirean and Khinasi.

If Profession(Sailor) is added, along with the abilities affecting naval actions as the Jew suggested, then Brechts may be added to the cultural list. Though I'm still debating how appropriate this is to the core class concept.

[geeman]

That class is very similar to what I was working on but, to be honest, your

version is better. I had a few issues with the development of the class

that are also in this incarnation. A couple of issues/points of discussion:



1. Some grammatical and organization notes:



A. The skill Lead is listed out of alphabetical order in the list of class

skills.



B. I`d eliminate the last sentence of the first paragraph. It`s too

specific (18 years of age) and the class isn`t particularly courtly.



C. The "Preferred Race/Culture" section doesn`t include the non-human

races. Dwarves in particular might have access to the class, and it seems

apt for orogs as well. Less so amongst other races. As The Jew noted, the

Brecht should have some nautical oriented feats and descriptive text.



2. Should the class have d8 or d10 HD? I went with d10 because I think

they should be able to go toe to toe with fighters (fighters will still be

superior overall in a straight fight in that they will have more bonus

feats dedicated to fighting) and because the class should be differentiated

from the more courtly noble. Of course, I don`t like the ranger having d8

HD either....





3. Special abilities. This is the hardest part of a character class, of

course, because it is the definitive part of the class. In this case, the

distribution of special abilities is particularly weird because they range

from personal combat feats to things that effect units at the large scale

combat level. If we are to break those two categories of special abilities

up and look at how they are laid out in the proposed class write up we get:



Personal combat: 1st, 2nd, 5th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th, 20th.



Large scale combat: 3rd, 4th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th, 13th, 15th, 16th, 18th,

19th.



That`s an awful lot of special abilities. By comparison, the fighter gets

eleven bonus feats, and there are eleven large scale combat special

abilities here in addition to eight bonus feats. Granted, some of them are

part of a series (Noble Presence +2, Noble Presence +4) and others have a

relatively limited scope, but on the whole I think these should get toned

down some.



Clearly, the personal combat bonus feats follow a pattern: every three

levels after 2nd level. The bonus Weapon Focus for regional feats as well

as the bonus feats starting at 2nd level parallels that of the fighter

character class. Going 1/3 rather than the fighter`s 1/2 is a good idea,

but perhaps it should be 1/4 rather than 1/3, starting at 2nd level. That

is, a bonus feat at 1st, 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th and 18th. This would still

have a decent pattern and it has a nice ancillary benefit when it comes to

synchronizing the special abilities with the actual functions. To wit: the

Leadership feat is amongst the bonus feats for the class and if that bonus

feat is granted using the 1/4 pattern after 2nd level the class will have

it available at 6th level per that feat`s description.



Personally, I would drop the Noble Presence ability entirely. On the

whole, I prefer for ability score bonuses to be used only in racial level

classes, but even if that were not the case the special ability (as

irdeggman points out) is a bit vague and can be eliminated without too much

trouble. If there is a particular application of the charisma modifier

that can be used (to a few skills or for the purpose of the Leadership

feat, for example) then go with that rather than the general ability score.



The Battle Cry and Inspire Troops special abilities have pretty much the

same general function, and are fairly similar in effect, so I think they

should be combined. The exact write up of that special ability might

combine the skill check rather than mandate 1 company for the "starting

level" of the special ability. Since the character`s Lead score will go up

with level (if the player isn`t an idiot, that is) the scale of the ability

will automatically rise as well. That is, the number of companies

potentially affected with consistently increase. The affect of that

special ability might not rise as high as +4. If the special ability

starts at 5th level and the increase recurs every 5 levels then the ability

can hit +4 at 20th level. (IMO the character class tables should end on a

particular emphasis.)



The distribution of special abilities of the class then would be:



1 Regional Arms Focus

2 Bonus Feat

3

4 Command +1

5 Inspire Troops +1

6 Bonus Feat

7

8 Command +2

9

10 Inspire Troops +2, Bonus Feat

11

12 Command +3

13

14 Bonus Feat

15 Inspire Troops +3

16 Command +4

17

18 Bonus Feat

19

20 Inspire Troops +4



On the whole, these are pretty minor tweaks, but it makes the special

ability progression look a bit more like the distribution of other classes,

particularly the fighter which is probably the most apt comparison to the

class in the core texts.



Gary

[geeman]

At 12:24 PM 10/4/2004 +0200, irdeggman wrote:



>While this class sounds good there are several issues I have with it.What

>really does it have to do with being a regent styled ruler? I don’t

>really see any ruler-oriented benefits. The way this class is written it

>fits in better with what I had originally called it * a prestige class, or

>it could be an alternate fighter class. It is not as written a

>ruler-oriented one. It is a troop leader one though, maybe a prestige

>class along the lines of a great general/admiral would be a better

>fit. Dropping the born to rule slant.



Personally, I find most of the colour text in the character class

descriptions to be more of a distraction than a boon. I`m talking about

the stuff in the core text too, not just the ones being discussed

here. They usually just make for a muddle, or wind up directing how

players and DMs role-play such characters in a way that has little or

nothing to do with what the class stats actually represent. In fact, the

colour text in character classes often limit the actual utility of the

classes more than they give players and DMs methods of playing those

classes. It is, therefore, something that is best read, acknowledged for

what it is and then ignored. In that context, while I generally agree that

the text is better dropped the character class descriptive text is a

convention of all D20 products and--though superfluous and often

misleading--this particular example is no more so than any other. Since it

is such a convention of D20 products, however, there`s really not a way of

excising it if one wants to abide by the "convention" of character class

write-ups. As a necessary evil this particular example isn`t bad.



As for making the "noble warrior" class a prestige class rather than a 20

level class, my viewpoint is that that same argument can be applied to

around half the existing 3e character classes. Paladins are the most

obvious example of a core class that could be reinterpreted as a prestige

class, but rangers, bards and druids could similarly be interpreted as

prestige classes. (In D20 Modern all spellcasting classes are prestige, or

"advanced" classes, for example.) The same standard could, in fact, be

applied to the noble character class as well. Whether a class should be a

prestige class or a "core" character class depends on the nature of the

campaign, and in this case I`d suggest that the same arguments that apply

to making a (courtly) noble a 20 level class also apply here.



The questions to ask are there enough emphasis in the campaign setting for

the class to exist as a 20 level class in the setting, and is it something

that the campaign themes intimate should be available to starting (1st

level) characters? In this case, I`d suggest that it is more than

appropriate for BR because the setting is meant to be used to portray

characters in rulership positions from the get go. The domain structure in

particular features large scale combat, holdings and structures that

emphasize the militaristic, feudal warrior-king dynamic, etc. Plus, the

campaign itself is often described as a "low-level" campaign, meaning that

the ability to rule is available even to 1st level characters. On the

whole that makes for a "core" class to reflect rulership/leadership dynamics.



>Command * as described it is supposed to specifically slanted towards a

>battlefield commander. As written it grants a bonus to skills used in

>some other ways. If it supposed to be a battlefield commander then these

>bonuses should be applied only to those circumstances and not to all. Why

>should be being a good battlefield commander relate to being a good regent?



There are a lot of parallels between the two activities, but that aside I

think this addresses your first objection a bit: what does it have to do

with being a regent styled ruler. That is, the class has some depth in its

use. This particular special ability is more apt towards use on the

battlefield, but could be used in non-combat situations.



>Why have Weapon Focus as a bonus feat when Regional Arms Focus is a 1st

>level class ability?



Quite right. That should be taken out of the list. A player who wants his

character to take levels in this class AND focus on other weapons should

spend one of his feats available every 3rd level to do so.



>Noble Presence. What is meant by an effective Charisma increase? You

>need to spell it out here or people will apply benefits not intended. As

>I see it, what you had intended was that his Charisma is treated as 2

>higher (sliding up) for interactions and Leadership score. But I could be

>wrong. I’m pretty sure you didn’t intend for turning undead,

>bard/sorcerer spells to be affected, etc.If you go to the prestige class

>concept then this great general/admiral could be opened up to just about

>all races vice only Anuirean and Khinasi.



A little clarification there would be helpful, but in general (as I noted

in the previous post) I think this special ability should be dropped or it

should have a particular focus described. It should affect the character`s

leadership score, or other charisma-based stat.



Gary

[The Jew]

You are right Osprey, the swashbuckler should be a rogue. The Admirals who command Avanils, Mudens or a Khinasi Realm fleet should be a warrior noble though. If you look at European history, that was pretty standard. The English and french gentry both made up the commanders of their navy's. That was one reason the french sucked so much on the sea during the napoleonic wars, because all the noble sea commanders fled during the revolution.

[The Jew]

I like Geemans redo, though I would throw in the more specific noble presence in at 9h and 17th levels.

[RaspK_FOG]

Originally posted by Osprey@Oct 4 2004, 07:18 PM
A prestige class is problematic because it does open up the class to anyone, something that is diamatrically opposed to the core concept I built it on - that a noble warrior is born and raised, that it is NOT an open class to anyone with the right skill ranks, feats, or BAB.

That's where I will have to disagree with you: core classes are made in such a manner that most characters can gain at least a couple of levels in them, no sweat, without meaning this would be the best of choices; just that they can actually do it.

On the other hand, if you REALLY want to hold a class concept onto something, the best way to do it is by making good use of prestige classes: a core paladin can be taken by nearly any LG character with the proper attitude, but only a few fighters will get the paladin prestige class from Unearthed Arcana.

[The Jew]

Originally posted by RaspK_FOG+Oct 4 2004, 04:09 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (RaspK_FOG @ Oct 4 2004, 04:09 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Osprey@Oct 4 2004, 07:18 PM
A prestige class is problematic because it does open up the class to anyone, something that is diamatrically opposed to the core concept I built it on - that a noble warrior is born and raised, that it is NOT an open class to anyone with the right skill ranks, feats, or BAB.

That&#39;s where I will have to disagree with you: core classes are made in such a manner that most characters can gain at least a couple of levels in them, no sweat, without meaning this would be the best of choices; just that they can actually do it.

On the other hand, if you REALLY want to hold a class concept onto something, the best way to do it is by making good use of prestige classes: a core paladin can be taken by nearly any LG character with the proper attitude, but only a few fighters will get the paladin prestige class from Unearthed Arcana. [/b][/quote]
Not the Noble Warrior though. You have to take it at first level, it is a class which you can only be born into. That is the point which Osprey was making. A prestige class would mean that it is something that anyone can get, as long as they have the right placement of skills, feats and BAB. This is meant to be a class which you have to start as, you do not become a noble, you are born one.