D&D 3E/3.5 Blade Dancer (proposed 3.5 update)

[Sparta Kerleon]

So I was reading the Lancer thread (haven't we all been?) and looking at OA's Blade Dancer, and thought, "Hmm, I don't think I could talk anyone into letting me use that class as is in 3.5 -- much less psionically."

Which is a shame, because even considered separately from the whole Lance thing, there aren't many classes like it (speed and bounciness bonuses), and it could probably use an updating. And I thought, well, why not? I have some spare time, I can at least do up a first draft...

It ended up not being very Dragoon-like at all, which in retrospect is probably a good thing.

Suggestions, comments, non-Adamsian/Pratchettian/Pythonian flavor text, and general ripping of my logic to shreds is welcome.

--

Blade Dancer

Prerequisites:

• BAB: +7
• Skills: Jump 12, Tumble 12
• Feats: Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack
• Special: Weapon Focus, for some martial melee weapon.
• Spells: Spellcasting ability of any plausible sort (arcane, divine, warlock, shadow, psionic...)

Class Skills: Balance, Climb, Craft(*), Handle Animal, Jump, Profession(*), Ride, Tumble. (2 + Int mod) skill points per level.

Class Features:

• Hit Die: d8.
  
• BAB/Saves: Full BAB (as fighter), good Reflex.
  
• Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Proficient with all simple and martial weapons. All class features except the enchanted blade series become unavailable when carrying a medium or heavy load, or when wearing any armor.
  
• Fast Movement (Su): At first level, a blade dancer receives a +30' bonus to her base speed. At fourth level and every three levels thereafter, this bonus increases by +10'.
  
• Acrobatics (Su): At first level, a blade dancer receives a +4 competence bonus to Balance, Jump, and Tumble checks. This bonus increases by +4 at every odd-numbered level thereafter. Furthermore, a blade dancer may take 10 on these checks even when circumstances would normally prevent her from doing so.
  
• Enchanted Blade I (Su): At 2nd level, a blade dancer can temporarily grant her weapon (a melee weapon she wields and possesses the Weapon Focus feat for) a +1 special weapon ability from any of those listed below on Table X-1a. This may be done for 1 minute per level, once per day.
  • The DM may rule that some weapon abilities are inappropriate, or that additional weapon abilities are appropriate, depending on the source of the character's spellcasting ability and/or what splatbooks are in play. Table X-1b has beem provided as a suggested alternate for blade-dancers who qualify for the class due to power-manifestation rather than classical spellcasting.
• Acrobatic Attack (Ex): (Presently unchanged from the OA text: essentially, +2 to attack and damage rolls after a jump.)
  
• Enchanted Blade II (Su): At 6th level, a blade dancer can temporarily grant her weapon up to +2 worth of weapon abilities (a single +2, or two +1) from those listed on Table X-1a.
  
• Ride the wind (Sp): Air walk 1/day.
  
• Enchanted Blade III (Su): At 10th level, a blade dancer can temporarily grant her weapon up to +3 worth of weapon abilities (a single +3, one +2 and one +1, etc.) from those listed on Table X-1a.

[b]Table X-1a:[/b] [i]Enchanted Blade[/i] Weapon Abilities: Arcane/Divine
 +1:  defending, flaming, frost, shock, thundering, ghost touch
 +2:  bane[1], disruption, flaming burst, icy burst, shocking burst, wounding
 +3:  speed
[1] Bane is ordinarily a +1 ability, but counts as +2 for the
      [i]enchanted blade[/i] class feature.

[b]Table X-1b:[/b] Enchanted Blade Weapon Abilities: Psionic
 +1:  dissipater, lucky, psychokinetic, parrying[1], sundering
 +2:  collision, mindcrusher, psychokinetic burst, suppression
 +3:  soulbreaker
[1] This ability is ordinarily GP-priced, but counts as a +1 ability for the
      [i]enchanted blade[/i] class feature.

[b]Table X-2:[/b] The Blade Dancer
 Level   BAB   Fort  Refl  Will   Special
  1st    +0     +0    +2    +0    Fast movement (+30'), acrobatics (+4)
  2nd    +1     +0    +3    +0    Enchanted blade I
  3rd    +2     +1    +3    +1    Acrobatics (+8)
  4th    +3     +1    +4    +1    Fast movement (+40')
  5th    +3     +1    +4    +1    Acrobatics (+12), acrobatic attack
  6th    +4     +2    +5    +2    Enchanted blade II
  7th    +5     +2    +5    +2    Fast movement (+50'), acrobatics (+16)
  8th    +6     +2    +6    +2    Ride the wind
  9th    +6     +3    +6    +3    Acrobatics (+20)
 10th    +7     +3    +7    +3    Fast movement (+60'), enchanted blade III

--

About alignment

If anyone has an explanation for why the original class had a 'lawful' restriction, I'd be interested to hear it.

About fast movement

The original Blade Dancer's fast movement was ... somewhat idiosyncratic: Medium races gained the movement progressions shown here, but Small races only gained +20' at first level (scaling up to +40' by 10th), and ratlings (a species with a base speed of 40 ft.) gained +40' at first level, scaling up to +80'.

Taking into account The 3.5 Lesson ("multipliers are bad"), I went ahead and made the bonus to speed flat. Even then, this was a little much -- the speed increase is equivalent to a monk's -- so I scrapped the armor capabilities, too. (Even light armor is just too good for a character with that sort of speed.)

The monk gets only 3/4 BAB, but the blade dancer does not get Flurry of Blows, a Wisdom bonus to AC, good Fort/Will saves, Evasion, or most of the various other random shinies; so this is proooooobably about right. I think.

About acrobatic attack

Although acrobatic attack, as written, requires a Jump check, it is mathematically impossible for a Blade Dancer to ever fail it (barring Dexterity damage and heavy circumstance penalties). This is equally true in both 3.0 and 3.5. Reparative suggestions are more than welcome.

About enchanted blade

The enchanted blade ability is the blade dancer's other shiny. (Without it they're basically just a Gummi Bear.) Continuing the theme of balancing the class against the monk, it's kind of a parallel to the monk's ki strike. One of the original goals was to have the blade-dancer be usable with psionic flavor, and I think the replacement ability list should work fairly well. Anyone with warlock-style, truename, shadow, binding, or other types of magic will hafta work out a table with their own DMs, though.

Bane was left at +2, instead of moving to 3.5's +1, because the blade-dancer can tailor the bane to her targets. In general this makes it much, much more useful than a normal bane-weapon, even if it's only baneful once a day. However, the ki strike ability is always on: should this be (class level / 2) times per day instead?

I'm also leaning toward enchanted blade being (Sp) instead, anyway -- that would allow it to provoke an AoO, which is probably fair.

About ride the wind

If you happen to have the original in front of you to compare it to, you can probably tell from how I've reorganized the class abilities that I'm a member of the 'something shiny at every level' school of thought. And I had a gaping blank spot in 8th level, so in it went, unchanged.

However, this seems particularly out of place for psionic characters, so it should probably be something sui generis, rather than a copy of an existing spell. Perhaps remove the limit of the mount's Jump modifier when making a Ride check to Leap, or allow Spur Mount to increase the mount's speed somehow without damage? I'm not very familiar with the Ride skill, though, so I'm not sure how balanced that sort of thing would be.

 

[Sound of Azure]

Still absorbing, but I do recall that the Alignment restriction was Errata'd to become Any Non-Chaotic. My guess would be that the class is meant to emulate the highest forms of a legendary martial art style, achievable only through dedication, control, and discipline. Much like a Kensai or Monk.

It kinda makes sense.

In terms of the Ride the Air ability, some examination of the Air Walk spell would probably be worthwhile. I believe it's meant to emulate the whole "flying swordsman" thing featured in many Wuxia films, so distilling that into a basic mechanic would be orthwhile, I think.

 

[Sparta Kerleon]

Still absorbing, but I do recall that the Alignment restriction was Errata'd to become Any Non-Chaotic. My guess would be that the class is meant to emulate the highest forms of a legendary martial art style, achievable only through dedication, control, and discipline. Much like a Kensai or Monk.

It kinda makes sense.

I s'pose. Law/chaos alignment restrictions always leave me vaguely dissatisfied, but I think it probably is better with the "any non-chaotic" restriction. (Although see below.)

In terms of the Ride the Air ability, some examination of the Air Walk spell would probably be worthwhile. I believe it's meant to emulate the whole "flying swordsman" thing featured in many Wuxia films, so distilling that into a basic mechanic would be orthwhile, I think.

That makes more sense, I think. At first I thought that Jump was enough for wu-xia, so I was focusing more on the 'train a mount to air walk' capability of the spell; but Jump won't let you full-attack in midair and so forth. How about:

• Ride the wind (Su): Three times per day, as a swift action, you may treat thin air as a firm surface, firmly balanced wherever you happen to be. This effect lasts until either you move from your insubstantial perch, or you are distracted (make a Concentration check; quadruple the DC for strong winds).

This does make it a little more monk-like: one can imagine ochre-robed acolytes perfecting their balance by practicing sword-kata all day on a succession of tall poles of decreasing width in order to learn how to fight while standing on nothing at all. (The image of which is interesting enough that I'm beginning to strongly favor the 'lawful alignment' restriction.) It even suggests lesser versions to start with: requiring a concentration check to initiate, or not being able to perform a full attack...

On the other hand, this is so reminiscent of epic Balance checks that I wonder if it's not just effectively equivalent to a +(ridiculous) bonus to Balance. :\

 

[jasin]

With no armour and no other source of AC (like the monk's Wis bonus), these people are going to get beat up bad.

And even with light armour like in 3.0 or a monk-like bonus, it seems kind of weak. Blame it on years of power creep or on years of practice, but even though I initially fell in love with OA in good part because of the blade dancer, today I wouldn't play it except if it's the kind of game where I'm not worrying too much the crunchy goodness of the character I'm playing.

I think the blade dancer would be better reworked from the ground up, keeping the concept of the flying wuxia swordsman and trying to translate it into D&D, rather than just updating the abilities from 3.0 to 3.5.


The problems I see with the class as it is now (or if it's just updated to 3.5): why are the requirements so difficult? Spellcasting, tumble and BAB, which means you cannot possibly qualify without multiclassing, in many cases needing three classes. Another 3.5 lesson was that multiclassing, especially for spellcasters, without a very good reason isn't a smart move. And I'm not sure the blade dancer specials are good enough a reason.

The other thing is that one of the signature abilities (jumping and air walking) gets lost in the noise of the high-level magic extravaganza. The blade dancer, as a wuxia swordsman, can air walk 1/day. Anyone who shells out 54,000 gp can fly at will.


A couple of things I'd look towards for a reimagined blade dancer, but which you could find useful even if you're just updating it 3.0 to 3.5: the ability to make effectively running jumps without a running start, like the ninja ability or the PHB2 feat Leap of the Heavens. It should be available either as a very early special or as a requirement (if you're working under the assumption that PHB2 is available).

Some of the swift spells from Complete Adventurer: swift expeditious retreat lets you do "burst of inhuman speed" without changing your, swift fly is the perfect "wuxia leap" ability.

The improved Spring Attack feats in PHB2, which let you make two or three attacks on a Spring Attack: IMO, this is something of a quintessential wuxia ability, since it breaks the good offence (full attack) vs. bounciness (standard attack + move) trade off and lets you have both.

Combat bonuses when you move, to encourage bounciness, like the scout. Would work especially well combined with the feats above.


Finally, here is a partially written up wuxia warrior class I made. It's pretty different in concept than the blade dancer, but I hope you might find something useful in it anyway.

 

[Machiavelli]

This is a one-level dipping class for a monk, definitely. A +30' speed bonus with grand bonuses to Balance, Jump, and Tumble? Wow. I can definitely see a Monk 19/ Blade Dancer 1 as being ideal.