Modular Alt Paladin: The Champion

[Quip]

This class is an attmpt to make a more interesting, flexible version of the paladin. It can perfectly mimic the D&D v3.5 Paladin, as well as be a core class version of the blackguard. It can also take a more lawful or chaotic bent, such as the holy liberator. I'm working on some new options for this class, but I'd love it if any of you want to contribute their own ideas.

Tell me what you think of this.


The Champion

Alignment: Any non-neutral

BAB: Best
Fort: Good
Ref: Poor
Will: Poor

Abilites per level

1 Aligned Power, Smite 1/day
2 Divine Grace, Lay on Hands
3 Divine Health, Aura
4 Turn/Rebuke Undead, Special Mount/Companion
5 Special Ability
6 Blessing
7
8
9 Blessing
10 Special Ability
11
12 Blessing
13
14
15 Special Ability, Blessing
16
17
18 Blessing
19
20 Special Ability


Aligned Power: At 1st level the champion chooses one alignment that he has, his power of that alignments aura is equal to his champion level. In addition, he gains the ability to cast the "detect" spell of its opposed alignment as a spell-like ability.


Smite: Once per day, a champion may attempt to smite a target of his opposed alignment with one normal melee attack. He adds his Charisma bonus (if any) to his attack roll and deals 1 extra point of damage per paladin level. If the champion accidentally smites a creature that is not opposed to his aligned power, the smite has no effect, but the ability is still used up for that day.


Divine Grace: The champion recieves a bonus to all saving throws equal to his Cha modifier, if positive.


Lay on Hands: Beginning at 2nd level, a champion gains the ability to heal with touch, by as much as 1 hp per level per Cha modifier. Undead creatures take damage from this ability.


Divine Health: At 3rd level, a champion gains immunity to all diseases, including supernatural and magical diseases


Aura: At 3rd level, a champion gains a special aura, that effects him and those within 10ft. Choose one from among the following:

Aura of Courage: Becomes immune to fear, allies recieve +4 to saves vs fear.
Req: Any Good

Aura of Despair: Becomes immue to fear, enemies recieve -2 to their saving throws.
Req: Any Evil

Aura of Independence: Becomes immune to charm/compulsion effects, allies recieve +4 to saves vs charm/compusion effects.
Req: Any Chaotic

Aura of Truth: Recieves +4 to saves vs illusions, allies recieve +2 to saves vs illusions.
Req: Any Law​

Turn or Rebuke Undead: At 4th level the champion gains the ability to turn or rebuke undead, as per the cleric ability but 3 levels lower.


Special Mount or Companion: At 4th level the champion gains either a special mount or companion. (Still working on the details, but basically choose a celestial/fiendish/etc creature and follow the paladin or blackguard special ability table)


Special Ability: At 5th level, and every 5 levels thereafter, a champion can choose an ability from among the following

Extra Smite: The champion can use his smiting ability one extra time per day.

Extra Aura: The champion can choose an additional aura ability that he qualifies for.

Poison Use: A champion with this ability does not risk poisoning himself while working with poison.
Req: Any Evil

Sneak Attack: As the rogue ability of the same name.
Req: Any Chaotic

Bonus Feat: The champion may choose any Divine feat that he qualifies for.​

Blessing: At 6th level, and every 3 levels thereafter, a champion gains a the use of spell like ability. They are each usable once per week, or as often as the ability is taken. He can choose from among the following:

Contagion
Req: Any Evil

Fear
Req: Any Evil, Aura of Despair

Remove Blindness/Deafness
Req: Any Good

Remove Curse
Req: Any Chaotic

Remove Disease
Req: Any Good

Remove Fear
Req: Any Good, Aura of Courage​

 

[Aaron2]

I'm curious if you saw the Paladin varients in Dragon Mag; they published one paladin class for each alignment. I intent to type it up for my upcoming campaign. If you haven't seen it, I can sent you a copy.


Aaron

 

[Spatzimaus]

I've done something similar IMC, except I restricted it to the four extreme alignments (LG, LE, CG, CE). That made it easier to balance the codes of conduct; otherwise, the NG one would be less restrictive than the LG. The term "Paladin" refers to all four subclasses; they're Guardian, Blackguard, Crusader, and Shadow Knight respectively.

The main difference in our system is that the Paladin subclass exemplifies BOTH alignments, not just one. For example, the Law/Chaos axis determines which Aura and which Smite he gets (so yes, it's Smite Law or Smite Chaos now), while the Good/Evil axis determines the way Lay on Hands, Detect, and turning work.
The anti-disease abilities are removed entirely; each Paladin picks one Domain of their god, gains the granted power for that domain, and can swap their spells for the ones from that domain (but don't get any extra spell slots). To help with conversions we added two new domains, Purification and Infection. Purification has the old Paladin ability as the granted power and has spells like Remove Disease; Infection has Poison Use as its granted power.

Their mounts/companions progress a bit differently, too:
http://enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=48419

Finally, all Paladins and Monks are allowed to multiclass to/from their race's Favored Class without penalty, as long as Paladin/Monk remains their highest non-PrC level.

Anyway, I like some of the flexibility you've added for things like the Auras. I'd definitely remove "Bonus Feat" from the Blessing list, or at least restrict it to Paladin-specific Feats like the Divine series or turning-related stuff.

 

[Quip]

I've heard about the dragon magazine classes, but haven't had the chance to see them. You can send the file along if you like, but bear in mind that my email is web based and can't hold too much.

I'm mostly interested in any other auras, special attacks or spell like abilities they have that might be adptable to my champion class.

I've done something similar IMC, except I restricted it to the four extreme alignments (LG, LE, CG, CE).

Actually mines the same, "any non-neutral" exludes NG/NE/etc as well.

The main difference in our system is that the Paladin subclass exemplifies BOTH alignments, not just one. For example, the Law/Chaos axis determines which Aura and which Smite he gets (so yes, it's Smite Law or Smite Chaos now), while the Good/Evil axis determines the way Lay on Hands, Detect, and turning work.

Thats a good way to do it. I would kinda miss the smite evil and smite good though.

I'd definitely remove "Bonus Feat" from the Blessing list, or at least restrict it to Paladin-specific Feats like the Divine series or turning-related stuff.

It is restricted to divine feats. And its on the special ability list (where extra smites were), not the blessing. It does look a bit confusing, I better clean it up.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Actually mines the same, "any non-neutral" exludes NG/NE/etc as well.

Ah. I was reading it as an "all but TN" sort of thing.

Thats a good way to do it. I would kinda miss the smite evil and smite good though.

I know, but Smite Evil works on the vast majority of opponents the party faces. I've had Paladin players complain when I throw a non-Evil opponent at them, because they accidentally waste a Smite. In their eyes, "Smite Evil" had become "Smite Enemy". Sure, they can Detect Evil to verify, but that's too many steps for some people.

Realigning Smite with the Law/Chaos axis makes it a bit less useful, since they don't have Detect Law or Detect Chaos to make sure. One thing we've been considering is adding an inversion effect, like how Lay on Hands works for undead: when used Smite Chaos on someone with a Lawful alignment, it has an entirely different effect. But, this slight decrease in power was countered by an effective increase in power in other areas (the spell swapping and new mount rules).

On the other hand, Smite Good works on the majority of the party. Switching it to Law/Chaos makes life a little easier for the good guys.

Anyway, one side effect of the increased Law/Chaos split is that it leads to four different Avenger weapons (a Chaotic Avenger sword has some seriously fun aspects), with two subclasses able to use each one, and the mounts of a LG Guardian and a CG Crusader will now have more differences. It also leads to a better spell list.

 

[Jin]

I did something similar as well, but I went more along the lines of the holy warrior from Book of the Righteous & incorporated the Dragon Magazine variant paladin articles.

The powers a holy warrior can select from aren’t limit to just alignment powers, but they can fulfill the ideals from any of their deity’s domains. This in turn creates unique warriors (unique in that way that clerics can be unique from one another) for their faiths & is much more fun IMO.

I can post it again if anyone cares to see it.