Need Help with Custom Class

[New(b) to D&D]

So i've been working on a new class that would hopefully become extremely versatile and can do anything from tanking to being an archer or practically being a rogue. Really anything but spellcasting (though maybe more subtle spells at later levels). I haven't made any powers yet, so it's pretty open-Ended for any ideas. So thanks in advance for any advice about the topic.

Rough Draft of the Mercenary
" I'll do anything or kill anyone... For the right price of course!"

Class traits
Role: Striker: Your attacks are very effecient and deadly,meant for doing the job, not for honor.
Power Source: Martial. You have knowledge of the blade and bow that can only be gained from years of experience honing your skills for a greater fate.
Key Abilities: Strength, Charisma, Dexterity, Wisdom


Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, Leather, Hide, Chainmail, Scale
Weapon Proficiencies: Simple Melee, Military Melee, Superior Melee, Simple Ranged, Military Ranged, Superior Ranged
Bonus to Defense: +1 Fortitude, +1 Reflex


Hit Points at 1st Level: 15+ Constitution Score
Hit Points per Level Gained:6
Healing Surges per day: 8 + Constitution Modifier


Trained Skills: From the Class skills list below, choose four trained Skills at 1st Level.
Athletics, Nature, Endurance, Acrobatics, Dungeoneering, Intimidate


Build Options: Mighty Swing Mecenary, Dexterous Blades Mercenary
Class Features: Trained Soul, Vigilance, Combat Prowess, Executor, Mecenary Weapon Talent

Trained Soul: You may add a +2 bonus to one Ability Score to replace one +2 Racial bonus.
Vigilance: When you grant Combat Advantage, your attackers bonus is reduced to +1. In addition, you gain a +2 power bonus to AC and Perception checks.
Combat Prowess: While attacking, you press the advantage, gaining a cumulative +1 attack roll bonus against your target after each successful hit (+2 with a two-handed weapon) the bonus resets to +0 on misses.
Executor: You will not stop until your enemies are dead and gain a +2 to attack roll bonus against bloodied foes.
Mecenary Weapon Talent: In your adventures of conquest, you have learned how to expertly manipulate your blade. You may choose to use any of your key abilities instead of strength when making melée attacks and any key ability instead of dexterity for ranged attacks.

Mighty Swing Mercenary:
Suggested Feats & Powers
Feat: Merciless: When you first drop a Foe to 0 or fewer HP in an encounter, you gain a +3 to your next attackrole


Dexterous Blades Mercenary:
Suggested Feats and Powers
Feat: Ambidexterous: while you hold a small or smaller weapon in your off-hand, you may make a melée or ranged basic attack with that weapon as a minor action.

Side Notes: I was thinking of the Mighty Swing Mecenary being a sword and board type or 2 handed weapon type with abilities based around 2[W] attacks Key ability- Wisdom or Charisma ( for being the tactical type).While a Dexterous Blades Mercenary would have abilities with secondary or more attacks in an ability- key score being Dexterity

 

[Droogie128]

This may be the most unbalanced thing I've ever seen in 4e. I'd start over from scratch You made a superpowered fighter with no real apparent role other than indestructable death machine.

 

[Amaroq]

Agreed - there are a number of cool powers in there, but putting them all together like that you've created an unstoppable killing machine from first level.

For specific critique:

Armor Proficiency: the "base" Strikers only give Hide. You've given not just Chain but Scale, for a +4 AC at first level, which is a huge increase.

Weapon Proficiency: Every other class has to spend a feat to learn one superior weapon; you're giving your class access to all superior weapons for free. Not even the fighter gets "Superior Melee" as a class proficiency.

Hit Points: You've given him Defender hit points, not Striker hit points.

Trained Soul: neat idea; I'd keep this - but you need to think how it works with a Human, who already has the "pick any attribute and +2 it"

Vigilance: +2 power bonus to AC, all the time, would be very overpowered to begin with .. and you're stacking it with the +4 from armor proficiency, resulting in a better AC than a Paladin in plate mail ..

Vigilance: lessened Combat Advantage - with the current monster AC, an enemy's only hope of taking you down is to do it with CA .. so as a designer nerfing that really makes the character much stronger than a single +1 seems to indicate. I'd force some form of parrying item (shield, light blade offhand) as a pre-req for getting this bonus, if you decide to keep it.

Combat Prowess: so, the reason the cumulative-bonus-on-miss weapon works is that, as soon as you hit, the bonus goes away. With this, a lucky couple rolls, and you can reach the point where the only way to miss is to roll a natural 1. The +2 bonus with a two-handed weapon is especiallly egregious due to the extra damage the weapon deals on a hit.

Executor: sounds nice in flavor, but it interplays with Combat Prowess way too well, ensuring that as a battle wears on your character has massive to-hit bonuses against all enemies.

Mercenary Weapon Talent: Other classes spend a feat to get this with basic attacks. This class gets it, for free, with any attack? So, I can make Charisma my key stat for both combat and social scenarios, for example, or Con my key stat for both combat and hit points .. there's a reason different attributes have different roles, and this really violates that precept.

Dextrous Blades Mercenary: The superstar of two-handed fighting, the Ranger, gets this as an Encounter power .. you give it to your class, and it doesn't even require taking an At-Will.

.... When you combine all of those factors, you haven't created a versatile class, you've created
- a better two-weapon fighter than the ranger
- a better archer than the ranger
- a better tank than the fighter
- a better tank than the paladin
- a better two-handed-slayer than the barbarian

So when Droogie says "its the most overpowered thing I've ever seen", that's no exaggeration: you've basically created a class where the question isn't "why would I want to play this?", its "why would anybody choose any other melee class?"

If you want to build a well-balanced "versatile" class, it needs to fit somewhere in power between the striker and the defender .. it should be something which doesn't tank as well as a fighter, doesn't strike as well as a striker .. but can do both with some success. You might balance it around the leader classes, actually, for damage, bonuses, armor, etc; the challenge would be figuring out the appropriate power-level replacement for the leader-class healing-surge powers.

On a flavor side:

I envision a Mercenary as being fairly Streetwise, not so much Acrobatic.

 

[Droogie128]

Agreed - there are a number of cool powers in there, but putting them all together like that you've created an unstoppable killing machine from first level.

For specific critique:

Armor Proficiency: the "base" Strikers only give Hide. You've given not just Chain but Scale, for a +4 AC at first level, which is a huge increase.

Weapon Proficiency: Every other class has to spend a feat to learn one superior weapon; you're giving your class access to all superior weapons for free. Not even the fighter gets "Superior Melee" as a class proficiency.

Hit Points: You've given him Defender hit points, not Striker hit points.

Trained Soul: neat idea; I'd keep this - but you need to think how it works with a Human, who already has the "pick any attribute and +2 it"

Vigilance: +2 power bonus to AC, all the time, would be very overpowered to begin with .. and you're stacking it with the +4 from armor proficiency, resulting in a better AC than a Paladin in plate mail ..

Vigilance: lessened Combat Advantage - with the current monster AC, an enemy's only hope of taking you down is to do it with CA .. so as a designer nerfing that really makes the character much stronger than a single +1 seems to indicate. I'd force some form of parrying item (shield, light blade offhand) as a pre-req for getting this bonus, if you decide to keep it.

Combat Prowess: so, the reason the cumulative-bonus-on-miss weapon works is that, as soon as you hit, the bonus goes away. With this, a lucky couple rolls, and you can reach the point where the only way to miss is to roll a natural 1. The +2 bonus with a two-handed weapon is especiallly egregious due to the extra damage the weapon deals on a hit.

Executor: sounds nice in flavor, but it interplays with Combat Prowess way too well, ensuring that as a battle wears on your character has massive to-hit bonuses against all enemies.

Mercenary Weapon Talent: Other classes spend a feat to get this with basic attacks. This class gets it, for free, with any attack? So, I can make Charisma my key stat for both combat and social scenarios, for example, or Con my key stat for both combat and hit points .. there's a reason different attributes have different roles, and this really violates that precept.

Dextrous Blades Mercenary: The superstar of two-handed fighting, the Ranger, gets this as an Encounter power .. you give it to your class, and it doesn't even require taking an At-Will.

.... When you combine all of those factors, you haven't created a versatile class, you've created
- a better two-weapon fighter than the ranger
- a better archer than the ranger
- a better tank than the fighter
- a better tank than the paladin
- a better two-handed-slayer than the barbarian

So when Droogie says "its the most overpowered thing I've ever seen", that's no exaggeration: you've basically created a class where the question isn't "why would I want to play this?", its "why would anybody choose any other melee class?"

If you want to build a well-balanced "versatile" class, it needs to fit somewhere in power between the striker and the defender .. it should be something which doesn't tank as well as a fighter, doesn't strike as well as a striker .. but can do both with some success. You might balance it around the leader classes, actually, for damage, bonuses, armor, etc; the challenge would be figuring out the appropriate power-level replacement for the leader-class healing-surge powers.

On a flavor side:

I envision a Mercenary as being fairly Streetwise, not so much Acrobatic.

Thanks Amarog. I was going to try to spell out why I thought that way, but my head was starting to bleed from various places while reading it.

 

[DMINGW00TISAWSOME]

Vigilance: lessened Combat Advantage - with the current monster AC, an enemy's only hope of taking you down is to do it with CA .. so as a designer nerfing that really makes the character much stronger than a single +1 seems to indicate. I'd force some form of parrying item (shield, light blade offhand) as a pre-req for getting this bonus, if you decide to keep it.

I'd suggest weapons that have the "defensive" property, introduced in AV. The only reason I forgive this instead of destroying you entirely is because I'm choosing to trust your name.

I am now explaining that I mean no offense.

 

[Rachel]

Hello New(b)!

First, it is pretty obvious that this class is a model of imbalance as you presented it. It's um, pretty bad. But! Having posted a couple homebrew classes on these forums, I want to say firstly, I applaud your effort to make a new classes (or classes, if you have more); in 4ed, making classes is a major challenge! Some people I suspect will never even try, just b/c of the head-spinning involved with even beginning to try to make them work. Getting a new class balanced is a monumental task with a zillion considerations. So kudos for trying!

Also, you will get some really great feedback on these forums. In fact, sometimes people will get downright critical. At times I have felt like there is a lack of positive support for new ideas, and some snarkiness here and there, but still some really D&D intelligent people on these forums that can help *alot*. Try to just take what you like/agree with from others and blend it with your own thoughts. Remember, this is your creation, and ultimately it will be what you want it to be (not what others think it should).

Amaroq has given you some *fabulous* ways to get your Mercenary headed down the right path. Start there, and definately remember that balance is paramount.

As for my own little 2 cents regarding the class, I will keep it simple: ditch the name. Try to find something that can't be appiled to just about every other class in existence (as anyone can have money as a motivation and thus be called a "mercenary").

Good luck!

 

[Flipguarder]

Yeah, this class would make everyone else obsolete. It would no longer be "what class are you. it would be "what mc do you have with Mercenary."


I'd also like to point out that there are currently no classes based on motivation. They are all based on HOW they do things, rather then why.

The ONLY thing I would consider kinda-sorta balanced is Trained soul. And even that is iffy. Every other thing in here is WAY too powerful to be a class feature.

Seriously? a minor action attack EVERY round?