Swordlord [Fighter Subclass, PEACH]

Ash Mantle · Feb 23, 2019

SWORDLORD

The archetypal Swordlord excels at swordplay. Stemming from the noble tradition of the duel, Swordlords have taken this noble tradition to an obsessive art, becoming singular masters of the slashing blade and masters of the slashing retort.

ARMOR OF BLADES
Swordlords weave a nigh impenetrable net of steel around themselves. While wearing no armor and wielding a slashing weapon in one hand and nothing in the other, your Armor Class equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Strength modifier.

Parry. You are tremendously adept at lessening the effect of strikes directed against you. When a creature damages you with a melee attack, you can roll 1d8 as a reaction to reduce the damage by the number you roll.
You can make this reaction a number of times equal to your Strength modifier (minimum of once) or Dexterity modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a short or a long rest.

Riposte. You are tremendously adept at retorting with staggering force against strikes directed against you. When a creature misses you with a melee attack, you can roll 1d8 as a reaction in addition to making a melee weapon attack against the creature. If you hit, you add the number you roll to the attack's damage roll.
You can make this reaction a number of times equal to your Strength modifier (minimum of once) or Dexterity modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a short or a long rest.

PROJECTION OF BLADES
At 7th level, you learn to slice through the gaps of reality and strike at enemies at distance. You can strike creatures up to 30 feet away as a melee weapon attack.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a short or long rest.

ONE WITH THE BLADE
At 10th level, you make a flourish with your blade and vanish into it to make a slashing attack against creatures at up to a 30 foot range. Make a melee weapon attack against up to five creatures you can see within range. You can end your movement within 5 feet of one of the targets you hit or missed.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a short or long rest.

BLADED MOMENTUM
Starting at 15th level, you have near absolute mastery of the blade. You can give yourself a bonus to your initiative rolls equal to your Strength modifier. At the start of your first turn of each combat, you can recklessly charge into the fray, your walking speed increases by 30 feet, which lasts until the end of that turn. If you take the Attack action on that turn, you can make your Weapon attacks with Advantage.

BLADED FINALITY
Starting at 18th level, you can choose an additional 5 targets for your One with the Blade attack.

****
Please tell me what you all think of the subclass so far?

I feel there can be room in 5e for more specialised and focused subclasses.

bedir than · Feb 23, 2019

The second and third Armor of Blades abilities are not limited by uses per rest, nor by using a dice pool. This is unusual

Ash Mantle · Feb 23, 2019

bedir than said:
The second and third Armor of Blades abilities are not limited by uses per rest, nor by using a dice pool. This is unusual

Good point, bro! The abilities should really be limited by use per modifier and use per rest. Have since edited it in. Thanks heaps.

bedir than · Feb 23, 2019

On Riposte, I'm rolling a d8 rather than a d20 to hit?

Ash Mantle · Feb 23, 2019

bedir than said:
On Riposte, I'm rolling a d8 rather than a d20 to hit?

Good point.
How about changing it to "When a creature misses you with a melee attack, you can roll 1d8 as a reaction in addition to making a melee weapon attack against the creature. If you hit, you add the number you roll to the attack's damage roll. " Have since edited it in. Thanks heaps, bro!

Blue · Feb 23, 2019

Okay, I'm going to be looking at this from three criteria.

1. Balance with other classes.
2. "5e-ness" of the rules.
3. That it handles characters concepts that the system can't do. Just "neat mechanics" that does the same as other classes isn't enough.

Ash Mantle said:
ARMOR OF BLADES
Swordlords weave a nigh impenetrable net of steel around themselves. While wearing no armor and wielding a slashing weapon in one hand and nothing in the other, your Armor Class equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Strength modifier.

With the other classes that get Unarmored Defense it's usually Dex + secondary ability score (Wis or Con), not attack ability score. But this has other limitations like 1H slashing weapon and 1H free, so it's good.

I would call it Unarmored Defense so it plays nicely witht he multiclassing rules.

Ash Mantle said:
Parry. You are tremendously adept at lessening the effect of strikes directed against you. When a creature damages you with a melee attack, you can roll 1d8 as a reaction to reduce the damage by the number you roll.
You can make this reaction a number of times equal to your Strength modifier (minimum of once) or Dexterity modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a short or a long rest.

This doesn't scale well. I'd suggest you mimic the Monk's Deflect Missiles and reduce it by d10+STR+Fighter Level.

Ash Mantle said:
Riposte. You are tremendously adept at retorting with staggering force against strikes directed against you. When a creature misses you with a melee attack, you can roll 1d8 as a reaction in addition to making a melee weapon attack against the creature. If you hit, you add the number you roll to the attack's damage roll.
You can make this reaction a number of times equal to your Strength modifier (minimum of once) or Dexterity modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a short or a long rest.

Sort of like a Battlemaster with only one Manuever, but you get more uses of it.

Ash Mantle said:
PROJECTION OF BLADES
At 7th level, you learn to slice through the gaps of reality and strike at enemies at distance. You can strike creatures up to 30 feet away as a melee weapon attack.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a short or long rest.

Okay. I like this because it has a feel you can't get from other classes. Do you need line of sight on your opponent or can you do this through a wall? Do you need line of effect - can you do it though a clear but unbreakable crystal?

Being able to cut reality is a very defining power, I'll be looking on you to expand on it as I continue the read-thru.

As a side note, at this point of the read-thru, there are a lot of powers that each have their own separate resource count. I'll be watching this because it's not very "5e" like. Most classes have a single resource like Ki or Superiority dice, and if something should be rarer they use more of them.

Ash Mantle said:
ONE WITH THE BLADE
At 10th level, you make a flourish with your blade and vanish into it to make a slashing attack against creatures at up to a 30 foot range. Make a melee weapon attack against up to five creatures you can see within range. You can end your movement within 5 feet of one of the targets you hit or missed.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a short or long rest.

From an action economy, this is really good. Too good for 3-5 times per short rest, even if it's not focus fire.

Ash Mantle said:
BLADED MOMENTUM
Starting at 15th level, you have near absolute mastery of the blade. You can give yourself a bonus to your initiative rolls equal to your Strength modifier. At the start of your first turn of each combat, you can recklessly charge into the fray, your walking speed increases by 30 feet, which lasts until the end of that turn. If you take the Attack action on that turn, you can make your Weapon attacks with Advantage.

Auto advantage one round every combat is pretty strong, especially with three attacks already. The Samurai subclass, whom getting advantage for a turn is their big deal, can't do it nearly as often.

And with Projection of Blades on top of your extra movement, there's almost no case when you won't have an opponent to attack.

That said, I realized there is a limitation missing from almost all of your powers that can help balance - the need for a 1H slashing weapon and the other hand free. That's only for your defensive power, which could be ignored since you do have all armor proficiencies.

I'd suggest giving out an addition ribbon power when you take this subclass about how you can master a 1H slashing weapon, but it takes an hour with any particular weapon to get used to it's unique balance and length. Give some small other bonus, like it's always a free action to draw or sheath the weapon.

Then make the other powers require this. Having advantage one round every combat isn't as overwhelming if you are using a 1H slashing + nothing else - you can't use Great Weapon Mastery (easy to get with the fighter's bonus ASI) -5/+10, you damage die is a bit lower, etc.

Ash Mantle said:
BLADED FINALITY
Starting at 18th level, you can choose an additional 5 targets for your One with the Blade attack.

It's a capstone, sure why not. At 18th level you're either chewing through mooks with it which is sufficiently cinematic, or you're getting lots of attacks at the cost of focus fire.

Conclusion
Okay, now that I finished reading, overall thoughts.

First, from a theme perspective I really liked the dimensional shift from Projection of Blades and One with the Blade. I'd expand out that flavor to the others. Give Bladed Momentum a bonus action Misty Step instead of extra movement. Perhaps reflavor some of the others.

From a resource management perspective, having four different pools, based off important ability scores, refreshing on any rest, means that you will never really run out. It's not very 5e in execution. I'd change it like this:

Parry - use as often as you want, remove usage limits.

For others - you gain a pool of (hmm, what to call it? Shift? Momentum?) equal to Proficiency plus the higher of your STR or DEX modifiers per long or short rest. This is higher then you had - going from ~5 (at 3rd) to 11 (@17th) instead of ~3 to 5. Costs will reflect this.

Riposte costs 2*.
Projection of Blades costs 1 per attack.
One With the Blade costs 4.

* Riposte is like a Battlemaster that just uses a single maneuver, but it's one of the better maneuvers. Having that doable many times per short rest on top everything else would be a huge swing in DPR, more than . So a cost of 2 - still can been done a lot, but not out-doing the battlemaster plus doing lot else. Now it's a real cost if you want to spend.

I do worry about how Blade Momentum and One with the Blade play with each other. Attacking 5 creatures with advantage (10 at 18th) seems really good.

FrogReaver · Feb 23, 2019

Unlike [MENTION=20564]Blue[/MENTION] I'm not at all worried about making 5 attacks when they can't be against the same target.

Ash Mantle · Mar 2, 2019

Blue said:
Okay, I'm going to be looking at this from three criteria.

1. Balance with other classes.
2. "5e-ness" of the rules.
3. That it handles characters concepts that the system can't do. Just "neat mechanics" that does the same as other classes isn't enough.

With the other classes that get Unarmored Defense it's usually Dex + secondary ability score (Wis or Con), not attack ability score. But this has other limitations like 1H slashing weapon and 1H free, so it's good.

I would call it Unarmored Defense so it plays nicely witht he multiclassing rules.

My initial thinking with it also keying off Strength was the Swordlord is extremely adept at fending off strikes directed against them through a combination of agility and brute force. The suggestion of calling it unarmored defense is good though, I'll likely change it to that so it'll integrate better with multiclassing.

Another suggestion was to have the AC equal to 13 + Dex modifier, what do you think of that?

This doesn't scale well. I'd suggest you mimic the Monk's Deflect Missiles and reduce it by d10+STR+Fighter Level.

Sort of like a Battlemaster with only one Manuever, but you get more uses of it.

Yeah, I'll go back to look up those classes and have a look at how their mechanics work and scale, for inspiration on better scaling.

Okay. I like this because it has a feel you can't get from other classes. Do you need line of sight on your opponent or can you do this through a wall? Do you need line of effect - can you do it though a clear but unbreakable crystal?

Those are good questions, line of sight would probably definitely effect the use of the ability but cutting into enemies through a wall is a fantastic image. What do you think of having the Swordlord needing line of sight to cut enemies at distance initially, but then progressing to cutting enemies through walls as they increase in level?

Being able to cut reality is a very defining power, I'll be looking on you to expand on it as I continue the read-thru.

I'll definitely need to write more fluff so that the Swordlord's mechanics are better reflected in their fluff and their fluff is better reflected in their mechanics.

As a side note, at this point of the read-thru, there are a lot of powers that each have their own separate resource count. I'll be watching this because it's not very "5e" like. Most classes have a single resource like Ki or Superiority dice, and if something should be rarer they use more of them.

Yeah, that's a good point, I'll try to have it so that only resource pool is used.

From an action economy, this is really good. Too good for 3-5 times per short rest, even if it's not focus fire.

Hmm, good point, I'll likely have it so you can just use it twice per short rest instead.

Auto advantage one round every combat is pretty strong, especially with three attacks already. The Samurai subclass, whom getting advantage for a turn is their big deal, can't do it nearly as often.

And with Projection of Blades on top of your extra movement, there's almost no case when you won't have an opponent to attack.

That said, I realized there is a limitation missing from almost all of your powers that can help balance - the need for a 1H slashing weapon and the other hand free. That's only for your defensive power, which could be ignored since you do have all armor proficiencies.

I'd suggest giving out an addition ribbon power when you take this subclass about how you can master a 1H slashing weapon, but it takes an hour with any particular weapon to get used to it's unique balance and length. Give some small other bonus, like it's always a free action to draw or sheath the weapon.

Then make the other powers require this. Having advantage one round every combat isn't as overwhelming if you are using a 1H slashing + nothing else - you can't use Great Weapon Mastery (easy to get with the fighter's bonus ASI) -5/+10, you damage die is a bit lower, etc.

The idea to have it internally balance with the one-handed slashing weapon and nothing else in the other hand is a fantastic one, and I'll definitely integrate that in. That way, the Swordlord's class features are hopefully more balanced and just need slight modifying (and in cases more rewriting) to make them more playable and more holistically coherent.

Yeah, giving them a ribbon for free action draws is also a good one. Was thinking of another ribbon where, like the battlemaster, they get something like Know Your Enemy, which'll also tie in to their fluff of being dueling experts.
For a bonus proficiency ribbon, was thinking of giving them proficiency with paint brushes or calligraphy tools as that emulates the gracefulness of the swordblade.

It's a capstone, sure why not. At 18th level you're either chewing through mooks with it which is sufficiently cinematic, or you're getting lots of attacks at the cost of focus fire.

With another capstone idea, I had an idea where the Swordlord was capable of launching slashing weapons through portals like the Gates of Babylon ability lol.

Conclusion
Okay, now that I finished reading, overall thoughts.

First, from a theme perspective I really liked the dimensional shift from Projection of Blades and One with the Blade. I'd expand out that flavor to the others. Give Bladed Momentum a bonus action Misty Step instead of extra movement. Perhaps reflavor some of the others.

From a resource management perspective, having four different pools, based off important ability scores, refreshing on any rest, means that you will never really run out. It's not very 5e in execution. I'd change it like this:

Parry - use as often as you want, remove usage limits.

For others - you gain a pool of (hmm, what to call it? Shift? Momentum?) equal to Proficiency plus the higher of your STR or DEX modifiers per long or short rest. This is higher then you had - going from ~5 (at 3rd) to 11 (@17th) instead of ~3 to 5. Costs will reflect this.

Riposte costs 2*.
Projection of Blades costs 1 per attack.
One With the Blade costs 4.

* Riposte is like a Battlemaster that just uses a single maneuver, but it's one of the better maneuvers. Having that doable many times per short rest on top everything else would be a huge swing in DPR, more than . So a cost of 2 - still can been done a lot, but not out-doing the battlemaster plus doing lot else. Now it's a real cost if you want to spend.

Thank you very much, [MENTION=20564]Blue[/MENTION], for your amazing critique and analysis! It's really much appreciated and has really been very helpful to me, especially to my first instance of creating a 5e class!

Yeah, good point on extending out the flavor, I'll need to write more fluff and have it integrate more into the theme of the Swordlord and what their training regime and always constant need to duel have effectively produced.

The misty step bonus action is also a good one, another idea was to also be able to extend the reach of the weapon within those class features, though that may also be too strong. What do you think?

Yeah, I'll need to think of a more consolidation of resource pools so that they don't key off too many disparate aspects. Your idea of a shift or momentum pool to use their abilities from is a good one.

I was actually thinking of having their bonus Strength modifier to Initiative to effectively come into play at 3rd level instead, being more in line with other classes and subclasses that get a similar class feature.