Champion (new Cleric), Let me know what you think

[Engilbrand]

Sun was my first thought for Turning, with Evil being for Rebuking. I do like the idea of giving it an if/then ability. Sun can Turn. Good can Turn. If you have both, though, you're really good at Turning. Unfortunately, there are some Domains in other books that might work better for some of these abilities. For now, I'll just deal with what looks like it could be changed from the PHB.

Different Domain Powers: Each alternate would be with the domain. It's like Psions improving their powers. There are different ways that they can be improved.

Chaos: Once per day, you may improve the die rolled for damage/healing by one step. Alternate: Instead, you may improve a critical multiplier by one step. Second Alternate: For every 2 Faith Points spent beyond the first, improve the die by a step or the critical multiplier. This number can not go beyond d12 or x5 for a critical.
Example: Thrax casts Cure Serious Wounds. He spends a Faith Point to increase the dice from 3d8 to 3d10. He spends another 2 Faith Points to increase it to 3d12.
Second Example: Thrax scores a critical with a Greatsword. He spends a Faith Point to increase the crit multiplier to x3. He spends another 4 Faith Points to make it x5.
This actually adds some random elements to what he can do. Then again, maybe it should just be for spells to show that his spells can be random and chaoitc.

Evil: Rebuke Undead

Healing: All Healing spells are improved by one die step.

Knowledge: Gain all Knowledge skills. Once per day, you may roll 1d6 per Faith Point spent. Add these to your Knowledge rolls.
Example: Thrax rolls a Knowledge check and gets a 15. He then elects to spend 3 Faith Points, rolls 3d6 and has a total of 12. His new Knowledge check result is 27.

Law: Once per day, you can bring order to chaos. Instead of rolling the dice for something, you can elect for it to become average. If it is an attack roll, the d20 result is 10. This can be used even when it is not your turn and can be used on anything within 5xyour Champion level.
Example: The enemy is going to attack an ally. You use this ability. The enemy has a +7 to hit. It automatically gets a 17 on it's To Hit roll.
Second Example: The Sorceror in Thrax's group casts Fireball for 10d6 damage. The Fireball automatically hits for 33 damage.

Trickery: Each Faith Point spent gives a +2 bonus to Bluff, Disguise and Hide for a number of rounds equal to your Champion level.

War: At 1st level, you gain the Proficiency with the deity's favored weapon. You also gain Weapon Focus. Improvements: If you use a Faith Point, you gain the following abilities for a number of rounds equal to your Champion level. At your 6th Champion level, you gain Weapon Specialization. At your 12th Champion level, you gain Greater Weapon Focus. At 16th level, you gain Greater Weapon Specialization.

For the moment, that's all that jumps out at me. If there are other ideas, changes or recommendations, please let me know.

 

[Phlebas]

First comment back from my group

"....remember that the healing role is acknowledged as not being particularly cool or fun, hence the loading on the Cleric to allow them a wide range of options and healing. Being an effective Champion in a party will be hard unless someone else carries the slack for them and fulfils the healing role"

But if you have a druid instead of a cleric you get the same problem so its more a comment than a complaint

 

[Engilbrand]

It can still heal. That's what bonus spells can be for. He can use wands of cure, too, so that's not much of a problem. Plus, if you want a healer, just take the Healing Domain. I'm going to be making a gestalt Champion/Binder. My only problem involves healing. I'm willing to risk it.
One recommendation from my DM was that, instead of spending a Faith Point for the War Domain to get those abilities, they should come automatically. A Faith Point could be spent, though, to increase his BAB for 1 round to equal to his class level. That would give an intersting combat boost.
He also recommend removing the restriction on only using a special power once per encounter.
My Champion/Binder has the Domains of Knowledge, Trickery, Chaos and Summoner. I get 5 skill points per level and have a ridiculous number of skills. That kinda sucks. The summoning will hopefully make it so that there are things that will keep him from getting killed.

 

[Arkhandus]

I would suggest changing the Death domain's granted power to Rebuke/Command Undead, and changing the Sun domain's granted power to Turn/Destroy Undead. I believe it would be the best approach domain-wise for turning/rebuking, and thematically. Otherwise, I think champions would NEED to take both Evil and Death, or Good and Sun, for example, in order to get much use out of the Death or Sun domains (since normally some Death domain spells, and the Sun domain granted power, are kinda dependant on turning or rebuking undead).

Also, you need to mention weapon proficiencies; it seems the class gets none. I don't think you changed the armor/shield proficiencies, yet you listed them, so it's odd that the weapon proficiencies were left out of the class description.

Like others, I would suggest having the class start with only 2 or 3 domains, then gaining another at, for instance, 8th-level, then one more at 16th-level. Of course, some deities only have 3 domains normally, so you may have to add a domain or two for certain deities' domain selection.

Also, a question: do the Faith Points have to be used for the elemental domains' turning/rebuking ability, or are they separate due to their own wording, of each having 3 + Cha mod uses per day, rather than being only useable 1/day?

 

[Vrecknidj]

I like the overall idea. I'd fear that this class could be min/maxed even more than the cleric though.

Still, it's certainly worthy of consideration.

Dave

 

[Engilbrand]

Added simple weapon proficiencies. Sorry for forgetting them.
Faith Points: These are used to improve Domain powers. They can also be used to use "Once per day" powers more often. If you have the Earth Domain, then they can be used to Turn Air creatures. If you have the Strength Domain, they can be used to use the Domain ability multiple times per day.
I know that the class could easily be broken. If you throw PrCs into it, all Hell can break lose. I basically made it for general consideration and the game that I'm going to be playing in.

 

[Phlebas]

One recommendation from my DM was that, instead of spending a Faith Point for the War Domain to get those abilities, they should come automatically. A Faith Point could be spent, though, to increase his BAB for 1 round to equal to his class level. That would give an intersting combat boost.

Hmm, thats an interesting call - if you assume all domains are balanced (though i have my doubts...) then having some Domain abilities straight changed to faith points, and then some other Domains that give bonuses, AND then some additional abilities seems to be illogical, and runs the risk of being unbalanced. Not that i don't like the idea, just think you need some limits on it...

My pref would be - Each domain ability is turned to a once per day equiv - (means you lose skill bonuses as well)
Each Domain has an advanced ability (or several - eg weapon spec and enhanced spec, or a continuous ability (eg +1 caster level) - to access these advanced abilities you need to use one of your extra domain slots and so lose the gaining of extra spells. You gain extra domain slots 1/4 levels

there are some ways that you could prevent abuse
1. Levels in champion don't stack with cleric for PrC's
2. Domain abilities from cleric levels don't stack - in fact you HAVE to take the same domains and once per day powers are either just that (or +1 faith point if you're generous)
3. Feats that gain extra domains don't work!

Looking at it, i think the major area of abuse is if you multi-class - a raging barbarian with strength and smites and maybe some magic protection !

When are you going to start playing the character?

 

[Engilbrand]

Like I said before, this class can easily break if PrCs and multiclassing are involved. I'm just not going to do that when I play. There are a lot of things that could reasonably balance it, I just didn't want to take a long time and start typing out every contingency.
I'll start playing him next Sunday. It's going to be first level Gestalt with me by myself. While I know that it's probably not the best judge of things, it will still give me an idea for how it plays.
Like I said before, I have different ideas of balance. I operate on the idea that most things are balanced and some things will be chosen for flavor, not power reasons. Any reasonable DM can keep things from getting ridiculous. My DM looked at what I had typed up for the new abilities for Domains and didn't see a problem with them. I didn't even take the War Domain, and that's probably one of the most powerful ones. My only thing is that I might switch out Trickery on my character.

 

[Engilbrand]

"A Champion is called early in life. Once called, he may never stray from his path. A character must choose to be a Champion at level 1. He may never leave this class."
It seems a tad harsh, but it would remove those problems that people are having. I look at the class as someone who is so focused on what his deity represents- the Domains- that he doesn't even have time to think about anything else. The only one that I could see working would be allowing a Champion to freely multiclass with a Paladin, but that would be the only way. Once something else is thrown in, he has stopped paying attention to his deity or beliefs and can't go back. Maybe, and this is a nutty idea, a "fallen Champion" immediately loses all Champion class levels and has to replace them with Cleric or Favored Soul levels. Favored Soul would probably work best. He might choose a lot of the same spells, or maybe he HAS to choose the same spells, but the Domains would be lost to him.

 

[erf_beto]

"A Champion is called early in life. Once called, he may never stray from his path. A character must choose to be a Champion at level 1. He may never leave this class."

I'm not sure its that harsh... if you see him as the champion of a deity, the miracle child, groomed from birth by priests in monasteries, praticaly an evidence of the divine on earth - who said the path of the virtuous was easy? Maybe there are really few Champions alive, and maybe they have to pass a test at somepoint in their lives, and failure means giving up on the class (becoming a favored soul instead. "there are other ways to serve" ).

If the path is not easy, the rewards are great, that´s for sure. Too great at 1st lvl, IMO. I would tone down the number of domains at the start and increase them over levels (I'm not too keen on dead levels )
I like the domains 'growing' in power, but I'd rather not rewrite the SRD (even though some domains NEED to be changed)... it get's preety hard to keep track of all changes and it's harder to judge...