Heartfire Knight ("God of fire! Burning higher!")

[Quartz]

Looks to be very much on the powerful side. Can I suggest toning down the spellcasting to 1/2 levels instead of using a dedicated list? This way characters can enter the class later. Why only half-elves?

Flame Spell: give me an M! +1 caster level is usual. And drop the restrictions on UMD etc.

Flametouched: give me a U! How about simple +1 per level to saving throws for poison effects?

Burning Indignation: give me an N! limit this to +1 per level (q.v. Duellist).

Hmm... a lot of very powerful abilities very early on.

Halt the Burning Horde: give me an C! You should base this off class level, not character level. Cn the 'turn attempts' be used to power Divine Metamagic feats?

Flame Blade: give me an H! it's a bit powerful to grant both abilities. How about reducing it to just turning your weapon into a Fiery Burst weapon for 1 round per level of spell expended?

RP/DS: give me an K! 10d6, up to 5x per day? This is the equivalent of a 19th level rogue's Sneak Attack, and you're gaining it as early as 12th level. Or it's Flame Strike 5x/day. This needs serious toning down.

RHOCK: Not bad, but transformation is usually done at 10th level.

FEOOK: give me an I! Another special ability! Sounds like you're looking for the Paladin's aura of courage. Call it Warmth of the Soul or something.

Indomitable Flame: give me an N! Whoa! Bypass fire resistance?! What about creatures of the Fire subtype? And cold creatures already take double damage.

Fiery Transformation: give me an Exclamation Mark! Essentialy a Get Ot Of Jail Free card. A 9th level spell effect when you're 15th level. You might want to look at the Phoenix Fire spell in the BoED. Why isn't his equipment destroyed? Is it protected while the character is dead?

What do we get? MUNCHKIN!!

You've got far too many far too powerful abilities.

 

[Quartz]

Right. Let's redo the abilities as something more sensible.

Spellcasting: the character advances his previous spellcasting class every even level. (Note that this allows priests of fire deities to take this calls). Spontaneous spellcasters may choose their spells from the HK spell list.

Flame Spell: all spells with the Fire descriptor are cast at +1 caster level.

Control Flame: Starting at 1st level, a Heartfire Knight may, at will, move a small sized or smaller fire ten feet per Heartfire Knight level. Additionally, he may make a fire brighter, doubling its effective illumination radius, duller, effectively halving it, or snuff the fire out completely. With the exception of putting a fire out, this ability does not change the amount of damage a fire does. This ability is a move-equivalent action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity.

Burning Indignation: the character gains 1 point of Dodge bonus to AC per class level to the limit of the character's CHA bonus.

Flametouched: This ability is now gained at 2nd level. The character gains a +1 bonus per 2 class levels to saving throws against poison. The character may spontaneously convert spells with the Fire descriptor to healing spells (q.v. Cleric) which heal himself, other HKs, or other creatures of the Fire subtype 1d6 HP per spell level.

Heated Dash. At 3rd level, the character gains the Run feat.

Halt the Burning Horde: At 4th level, a Heartfire Knight is respected and feared by those who share his element, and he may channel his inner fire in such a display of might as to compel creatures with the [Fire] subtype to join his cause. This ability functions as the cleric's rebuke undead ability, the Knight being treated as a cleric of his class level, with the exception that the Heartfire Knight may only affect [fire] creatures. If the character has the ability to Rebuke from another class ability, the ability is modified to include creatures with the Fire subtype and the levels stack.

Flame Brand: at 5th level, a Heartfire Knight may give his blade the Flame property by sacrificing a spell. The effect lasts for 1 round per spell level sacrificed.

Flare Jump: At 6th level, once per day a Heartfire Knight may travel between two diminutive(torch-sized) or larger sources of fire as per the dimension door spell. The Heartfire Knight may travel up to 10 feet per Heartfire Knight level in this manner. He may move up to ten feet per Heartfire Knight level in this manner. This is a move-equivalent action that may provoke an Attack of Opportunity. At 10th level the character can Flare Jump to a scried fire.

Indomitable Flame: At 8th level, the character gains the Searing Spell feat. If the character already possesses this feat, the character may choose another feat.

Fearless Eyes of the Overking: At 9th level the character gains the Paladin's Aura of Courage.

Fiery Transformation: At 10th level, the character becomes an Outsider with the Native and Fire Subtypes (q.v. Monk). Should the character be killed and be of Good Alignment, the character is affected by a Phoenix Fire spell. The level lost cannot be restored by any means.

This still needs a bit of work.

 

[Mattarias]

:\ Uh-hunh.. I think I'll wait for a few more opinions first, if you don't mind.

 

[Meeki]

That is ALOT of special abilities, like ALOT.

For my comments (note I did not read everyone's response sorry for repetition, just read the edited class)

1. First thing that caught my attention was the spell casting progression. This is not done in a traditional style and really seems to make no sense to me. What if someone entering the class doesn't have access to 3rd level spells. Technically a paladin/wiz can enter this class with 1 level of wizard (not sure what fiery burts feat is though). Will this cause an issue? Also what if the character already has level 4 spells or level 5, they just get more? If this is the case just give the class spell casting in its own right, like the assassin, starting at level 1 heartfire knight spells, just to make it simpler.

2. Paladins have access to knowledge nobility/royalty, which, by the way, I'm not sure fits with this class too well. If they are focused around a god or god like creature wouldn't knowledge religion or even knowledge of the planes, since its a fire creature obviously, be more appropriate or at least in the requirements?

3. Why is there a race restriction to high-elf? not that big of a deal and can be removed by other DM's but just curious.

4. Burning Indignation is neat and is very duelist like, unarmored combat. The extra AC is nice but why not make it gain an AC every even level and when he first gets it, like a bonus feat. Serves the same purpose and is easy for book keeping.

5. Flame Touched: ouch that is alot of rules for treating water like fire. Why dont you just say water has the same effect of catching on fire and being immersed in fire. There are rules that cover this already.

6. Cauterization: Neat ability, kind of wondering why its SU and not Sp though since it burns spell slots to reduce the severity of wounds. Also the whole healed through natural fire thing should be broken off into a simpler ability. Look at the fire mephit he has fast healing in fire. Much easier than determining what is a small/med/large fire and how much it does, etc. Too much book keeping. Maybe fast healing 5 in fire for 1 rd/class level/day.

7. Heated Dash: neat but does he really catch 1 object on fire everytime he moves? This is going ot get messy for the DM and you, perhaps say he can catch 1 medium or smaller unattended object on fire when hemoves buy it within 5 ft.

8. Flare Jump: Copy the shadow dancer shadowstep. I believe its worded slightly better but very very similar.

9. Rising Pheonix: Dying Shadows: Nice ability but is it a melee attack? If it is don't have there be some crappy save. That save really makes me think I should just fireball on top of myself instead, or just cast 3 scorching rays for 12 d6 damage with touch attacks. I would take away the save its not game breaking. Also make sure you take out the adjacet target text, unless you really want him to ONLY do it to creatures 5 feet away. If the knight is enlarged and now has 10 ft reach there will be a chance the enemy isn't adjacent to him but 10 ft away.

10. Right hand of the Crimson King: looks good, anyone know if he can rebuke himself Speaking of which steal the text from the fire domain for the turning stuff, it'll be easier. Also dont forget to add he gets 3+cha modifier in turning attempts.

11. Fiery transformation: Transformation looks alright, but, um... free true ress? WHAT!? SOrry but this has to go to make this class balanced at all. That is a 25k gp high level spell that this guy gets at 17th level for free. Also I would just make the ability 1/day for x/rounds per spell slots given up. Really the ability itself is not all that powerul, although I'm not sure what you mean by absorb fire. Also what sort of bonus is the +4 str? If it is untyped say untyped. Death throes is cool but the free true ress is crazy. Maybe give him something else a breath attack and gaze attack, both free actions. Can be fire cone and scorching ray at will while he is in the fire form? Or maybe he doesn't die or become incapacitated when reduced to negatives while in that form but after it ends he does? THe whole pheonix bit is really bland IMO.


Overall the class is pretty strong, I can see some messed up spell casting coming from those extra spells so I would be careful. If you modify the spell list so the class has its own or just adds to existing list, tweaked the class a bit, and got rid of that rediculous true ress I think it would be balanced.