Camelot D20 Knight PRC

[Endur]

I'm thinking about building a Knight Prestige class for a Camelot D20 campaign.

The Cavalier is a little bit too powerful and specialized for what I have in mind.

I was thinking of the following pre-requisites to enter the Knight PRC:

BAB: +4
Alignment: Any Lawful
Skills: At least one rank in each of Diplomacy, Handle Animal, Knowledge Nobility & Royalty, and Ride
Heavy Armor Proficency
Martial Weapon Proficency: Any Sword, Any Lance
Mounted Combat feat
own a set of plate armor (either full plate or half plate)
Special: Must be Knighted

Note: Chr 12+ can substitute for any one pre-req listed above.

I want the Knight PRC to be better than the fighter class, but not tremendously better. And I don't want it to be as powerful as a Cavalier.

I was thinking the Knight PRC would give access to all armors, martial and simple weapons.

Skills would be the fighter list, plus Knowledge Nobility/Royalty + Diplomacy, and remove Climb + Jump.

Hit Dice would be d10.

One possibility would be to give the Knight class bonus feats like the fighter, but a short list. i.e. no missile feat progression, no dodge feat progression, but also including skill focus (for ride or diplomacy). If doing this, I'd probably follow the same exact progression as the fighter, bonus feat at 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, and 10th.

Thoughts/Comments?

Tom

 

[daTim]

Just giving them bonus feats like a fighter seems a little pointless, why not just stay a fighter and get the wider range of bonus feats? Also, limiting the feat selection to make it "weaker" does not do so, because anyone taking this PrC is going to be taking only those within the limited selection anyway. You might want to look at something like the Knight Protector of the Great Kingdom as a good example of a romantic style knight. They have decent command and inspiration ablitites, as well as being martially competant.

 

[Endur]

Well, that's a good point. I could make the campaign revolve so much around tournaments, that every fighter-type ends up getting Knowledge Nobility & Royalty (for Heraldry), Diplomacy (for interaction), Mounted Combat (for the Joust), etc., etc.

So they aren't getting these benefits to join a PRC, they are getting the benefits to just be effective.

The reason why I wanted a generic Knight, instead of a Knight Protector, is because there is such a huge range of Knights.

But I think it probably would be ok to conceive of all Knights as really just being Fighters who picked "Knightly feats".

Tom

Just giving them bonus feats like a fighter seems a little pointless, why not just stay a fighter and get the wider range of bonus feats? Also, limiting the feat selection to make it "weaker" does not do so, because anyone taking this PrC is going to be taking only those within the limited selection anyway. You might want to look at something like the Knight Protector of the Great Kingdom as a good example of a romantic style knight. They have decent command and inspiration ablitites, as well as being martially competant.

 

[daTim]

Well, I think the problem with the Camelot Knights is they were such a romanticized version of knighthood it is quite unrealisitc. They were all upstanding citizens, defending the innocent women and children, with the upmost virtue. In reality Knights were trained killers from their birth, who rode animals trained to kill from birth. The nobility are the only people who had the free time to pursue lives of "virtue" and social lives, and they would never do any fighting.
For a real Camelot style Knight you are best off with some sort of Paladin or Paladin Fighter multiclass. I cant think of any of the knights of the round table who were not LG. Sure they had their faults, but who doesnt.
For a realisitc medieval knight, something like a Fighter/Cavalier, or even Fighter/Rogue would be a good representation, perhaps dabble a little into the nobility with skills, but in reality most knights lived and died as knights. Not nobility, but above peasants.