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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Luthien Greyspear" data-source="post: 2611180" data-attributes="member: 34334">Thanks for the feedback so far, Nyaricus; I really appreciate it.  Really.  I know I'm arguing hard for my original positions, and you're arguing the argument, but that's what arguments are SUPPOSED to be.  Strongly held intellectual positions that come to some sort of compromise or understanding.  So don't think I don't appreciate your criticism, as it all makes sense from your point of view.  That being said...Light armors, by convention, are best exploited by "smart fighters"; that is to say, those fighters who prefer to out-think rather than out-last their opponents.  The Duelist PrC uses this convention, and it fits here.  Medium and Heavy armors, on the other hand, are used by professional fighters and soldiers.  Again by literary convention, these fighters work a little more on instinct; they tend to feel their way through a fight, not analyzing every fight.  They KNOW how a fight is going, because of their experience.  Since rogues and bards tend to take light armors, and are 'thinking fighters', Int was appropriate (and precedented).  Fighters, rangers, paladins, and clerics are 'intuitive fighters', so Wis is more appropriate.  As for the natural armor bonus at the highest levels, I wanted to make the class become truly prestigious, and since this class is all about AC...Your math is a bit off, I think, as is your sense of 'unbalanced'.  The character mentioned above in the chain shirt does not have a low ASF chance; he has a 60% ASF.  The tower shield has a 50% ASF and the chain shirt has a 20%.  Since he's only got one level in Spellsword, his ASF is only knocked down by 10%.  Yes, he could drop the Tower Shield, but that takes at least a movement action to drop (there are a lot of straps on one of those shields), and at least another movement action to pick it up again, if not a standard action.  That's at least a full-round action AND a movement action to cast one spell with a low ASF.As for the unbalanced bit, how is a 9th-level character with the BAB and hp of a cleric and the spellcasting ability of a 4th-level character that has to worry about ASF, but who has a higher AC than some other characters of the same level unbalanced?  Sounds like a great meat shield, but under-effective in other areas of the game.As mentioned, the spellsword above doesn't get a lot of good stuff in addition to his spellsword stuff.  He gets it instead of his spellsword stuff.  You have to realize that this is a non-spellcasting class.  Arcane spellcasters will be severely weakened by this class, as there is no reduction in ASF (that's what the spellsword is for).  Divine casters will be less weakened, as there is no ASF to worry about, but if they dedicate themselves to this class, I for one would hope that there's another cleric in the group who's dedicated to spellcasting.Consider the difference between a Ftr 1/Clr 6/RAG 8 vs. a Clr 15. The gain of 8 more points of AC (assuming a 20 Wis and 16 Con) for one character is hardly worth the whole party losing access to holy word, resurrection, heal, blade barrier, forbiddance, plane shift, commune, or even divination. The multi-classed character is better at defending himself, and has a higher BAB, but isn't going to make much more of an impact than a dedicated fighter.  The cleric can defend the entire party with his selection of spells, and can continue that usefulness after the fight is over.Okay.  If a character doesn't want to continue on, that's fine.  Five-levels isn't quite what I'd consider a "dip", though, as it takes up a quarter of a non-epic character's potential class choices.  The two-level is a bit of a dip, but considering the characters that focus on light armor, the loss of skill points (or bardic abilities) is more than an adequate payment for the AC bonus.I don't know if I agree that EVERYONE wants to be a tank at some point, at least not with every character.  Sure, every player wants to at some point, and my guess is that they tend to play fighters or paladins then.  But someone playing a wizened old wizard?  I'm thinking probably not. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />As for the bonus types, I definitely want to stick with Dodge bonuses and Natural Armor bonuses.  They are both established bonus types, with specific rules on when they do and don't apply.  That causes the least amount of confusion and the greatest ease in integration to a character's AC.  At the highest level, it also frees up a magic item slot for the dedicated RAG (he won't need an amulet of natural armor), so he can dedicate that to something else (most likely an amulet of health, of course...)I don't want to restrict the character from shifting his character's focus later if he wants; that's one of my biggest problems with paladins.  Say the character goes dragon-hunting when he hits a nice high level.  He's got lots of AC, and decides he can do without a shield so that he can use a nice big dragonbane greataxe that he got in a treasure trove.  He shouldn't have to lose his class abilities because of a smart tactical decision.Oh, and samurai traditionally ONLY used the katana in combat.  They used it as a two-handed weapon that was well-balanced enough to use with one hand, which is why it's classified as a 'bastard sword' in 3E.  The wakizashi was a matching blade that signified the owner's status as a samurai.  Only the samurai were allowed to even HAVE wakizashi/katana sets; anyone else could only have the katana.  Usually, the wakizashi wasn't even drawn unless the samurai had to commit seppuku.Nope, you forgot the 8 ranks in Craft (armorer).  That requires a 5th-level character.Good point. I'll edit again.Um, I'm not following this logic.  How does an unnamed bonus serve any class better or worse than a Dodge bonus or a Natural Armor bonus?  If you mean that there should just be a scaling AC bonus like the monk, I get it.  I don't think I want to use it, but I get it.  I still think that the character's preferred armor should reflect his natural tendencies (Int or Wis, with Con for the real meat-shields).  Monks ALL learn combat evasion techniques as a science, so they all get the AC bonus.  The RAG is more...organic in his approach.True, the Samurai armor in OA is not exotic, but perhaps it should be for characters from other cultures.  If you've seen The Last Samurai (or the Shogun mini-series), you know that the armor has specific rituals for putting it on.  Everything is symbolic in armors that ornate, and the character has to know how to put it on.  Think of...the water-retaining suits in Dune.  Paul Atreides knew instinctively how to put in on like one of the Bremen.  That's what the class ability gives the RAG: the ability to look at a suit of armor, no matter how complex, and put it on the way it was intended to be put on without outside instruction.  In a ritually complex society (like samurai-era Japan), this could be very important.Maybe the party needs to infiltrate a drow city, and the fighting instructors or weapon masters of this city have adopted a unique armor style that has very specific ritualistic bindings that denote rank or household or the like.  Everyone recognizes the armor, and they fear it.  An RAG wearing this armor could possibly cow the slaves or citizenry and could bluff their way past low-ranking guards.Yeah, that last level is bothering me.  I thought of enhancing the character's ability to resist Sunder attempts, perhaps allowing him to shatter weapons on his armor with a held action.  Sort of like a counterspell attempt.  Hmm...held action, weapons that attempt to sunder the character's equipment take equal damage when the sunder attempt is made.  As the RAG has a bonus to his equipment's hardness, and the attacker probably doesn't, that would usually end in the RAG's favor.  Axe handles would shatter, blades would snap, and enemies would be rapidly less effective.  Sound good?I still don't see the real problem with dipping 2 or 3 levels.  There are a number of classes that are great for dipping, but not necessarily great for their whole progression.  Just out of the DMG, we've got:Arcane Archer (2 levels lets you add any area spell to your arrows)Archmage (1 level lets you cast ANY elemental spell with whatever energy you like)Dwarven Defender (1 level gives you 5-9 rounds of +4 AC, +4 Con (and the resulting hp), +2 Str, and +2 on all saves, once per day)Heirophant (1 level gives you ranged ability with all of your healing spells, or their reverses)Horizon Walker (depending on the campaign, 1-2 levels might give you an advantage with all of the enemies the characters might face)Shadowdancer (1 level lets you potentially do a LOT of sneak attacks with hide in plain sight)I would consider all of these classes 'dippable for their low-level abilities.  Are they broken? No.  Are players who only dip missing out on the higher level abilities? Yes.  That's the beauty of the game: you can pick and choose to your heart's content and to the needs of the campaign you're in.I take no offense whatsover.  As I said before, you have very solid reasons from your end, and I have them from my end.  You're right that I should probably add a little more flavor to the class, so that people understand it a little better.  A name would help, too.  (In my mind, I keep coming back to Colossus, because of the armor as a second skin angle.  That name conjures up something more...offensive rather than defensive.  Also really big.)</blockquote>

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