Blackguard too good?

[greycastle]

Looking over the Blackguard, and reading over some of the material in tBoVD....i've recently come to the conclusion that the Blackguard prestige class really seems Very timid...alright, so they learn to poison, and they can now animate undead and such...

But wheres the evil?

This led me to want to create a new Class...the Dread Knight...in a little remeniscence, it seemed like a highly evil name, that could hopefully be made into a prestige class, almost indominatlbly hard to acheive unless your of a predominatly 'religious' background "such as paladin"....

10 levels, BAB fighter, Fort, Will best saves, Ref worst, Recieves Spells per day up to level 4 (doubtfully level 5) receive mount/companion or evil...any other ideas? i'm thinking of abilities where at through the levels they can choose a path towards undeath or demonism/infernalism gaining abilities according to the 'nature' they've stepped into....

Any ideas?

Thanks ahead of time

 

[Shin Okada]

If I dare to make a substitution for Blackguard, I would rather make anti-Paladin core class (yes, not a prestige class) instead. Should be almost identical to Paladin but command undeads, and have appropriate spell-list. That way I can have some evil-fighter type character in lower level campaign.

 

[Sejs]

Just reverse the paladin abilities!

Aura of Fear instead of Aura of Courage

Channel negative energy instead of positive energy with Lay on Hands (uh.. Lay Off Hands?)

Cause Disease instead of Cure Disease

....uh... speciffic lack of immunity to diseased.. wait a minute.

....er... penalty to all saves.. equal to charisma bonus?

Banish Warhorse?


crap, I gotta think about this some more

 

[Tewligan]

If I dare to make a substitution for Blackguard, I would rather make anti-Paladin core class (yes, not a prestige class) instead. Should be almost identical to Paladin but command undeads, and have appropriate spell-list. That way I can have some evil-fighter type character in lower level campaign.

Green Ronin's Secret College of Necromancy has an anti-paladin type of core class in it. It's a very good book if you have any interest in the subject.

 

[Spatzimaus]

IMC we already did that. Basically, there's a core class called "Paladin" that has four subclasses, each with a different alignment: Guardian (LG), Crusader (CG), Blackguard (LE), Shadowknight (CE). Rename as necessary. It's like the six Psion subclasses, except differentiated by alignment instead of stat.

Each has a code of conduct appropriate to the alignment chosen. A 3E Paladin (the Guardian) isn't just LG, he's REALLY Lawful and REALLY Good, to the point of nausea. So, extend that to the other three. For example, the Crusader isn't just chaotic (doesn't like laws), he views any heirarchical society as oppressive and wrong, so he'll spend his time trying to free the proletariat from the yoke of their bourgeois oppressors. He's usually found off tilting at windmills, not in some temple.

Replace the disease abilities with a Domain of your deity (I created a Purification domain that mimics the usual Paladin stuff). We tried to make the Law/Chaos axis as important as the Good/Evil one, so the Smite abilities become Smite Law or Smite Chaos (as appropriate), the Aura of Courage is replaced with Aura of Despair for the chaotic ones, and the spell list includes the evil or chaotic counterparts of the spells already on it. Their are four "Avenger" weapons, two of which can be used for each subclass, so you might find a Chaotic Avenger weapon that opposes law. And so on.

Then, we added "Falling" rules for if you leave your original aligment; basically, it allows you to shift to a different subclass, so the LG Guardian can eventually become a Blackguard and vice versa.

Anyway, this system has worked pretty well. As a DM, it definitely makes it easy to generate Blackguard-style NPCs without messing around with multiple classes.