New Class Abilities!

[Stalker0]

I thought it would be fun to spice up the class packages a little more, so here are some ideas for new class abilities you could add to the classes.

Cleric: Vessel of the Divine (encounter). When you are about to use a power, as a free action you can become an ally for purposes of that power.

Fighter: Reliable Strike (encounter) When using an encounter power, you can give that power the reliable keyword.

Paladin: Divine Sacrifice (encounter) As a free action when you are about to use a power, use can sacrifice 1 healing surge (with no healing) to gain an extra die roll (or W die) to the damage if the power hits.

Ranger: Already has twin strike as a class ability, don't know what else they would need

Rogue: Assasin's Strike (encounter). As a minor action, the crit range of your attacks increase by 1 until the end of your next turn.

Warlord: Veteran of Battle (encounter): When you are about to use a power, as a free action you can become an ally for purposes of that power.

Warlock: One with the Shadows (encounter): When using shadow walk, as a free action you gain total concealment.

Wizard: Instant Recall (daily). As a free action, you instantly swap one of your daily or utility powers with another one of the same level in your spell book. If the power of that level has already been used, you do not gain a new use of it.

 

[Wannamingo]

Nice ideas overall, I'll comment specifically:

Cleric: Nice.
Fighter: I'd make that a daily power.
Paladin: Paladin striker? Hehe, though nice.
Ranger: Maybe a daily power that grands bonus in combat (or combat advantage) over a certain creature type for an encounter, like his old Favored Enemy. Maybe something like that was suggested already, I don't know. =p
Rogue: Cool. How about 'Cold Blood' or 'Premeditation' as that power's name?
Warlord: Nice, again.
Warlock: Nice and useful (maybe a bit too much).
Wizard: Cool.

 

[BarkingDeathSquirrel]

The Cleric/Warlord one is pretty neat, I might just have to add them to my house rules

The Paladin's ability is probably too good. They get something similar already too, Martyr’s Retribution...

Warlock was easy for me, give 'em Ritual Casting feat (and forced Training in Arcana) for free. I also gave them the following ability (in place of Prime Shot, which I think doesn't fit the Warlock's flavor):

Pact Augmentation - Once per encounter, you may, as a free action, spend a healing surge, regaining no hit points. Instead you may recharge one of your expended Warlock encounter powers associated with your pact. (ie: can only recharge an Infernal power if you have an Infernal pact...)

Instant Recall is neat, but I feel it would be better served as a Paragon Tier feat or even an utility power. I gave the Wizard the ability to retrain one of their power at each Extended Rest, although the power must be in their spellbook. Spells stay in the spell book, even when the Wizard must retrain his lower level powers (though they still lose the ability to use them, unless they retrain), and the Wizard can copy spells from captured spellbooks, retraining his powers for them if there is ever a use for them.

I also gave Wizards a Daily usuage of "Metamagic" powers, kinda like a Daily version of Channel Divinity. They start out knowing one, and can learn others via feats. Empower Spell lets you reroll the damage of a power, taking the higher of the two results, those kinda things.

As for the Fighter, I would rather expand the benefits of each Fighter Weapon Talent choice (the non-MP ones, at least). Something like... maybe, giving the Great Weapon Talent a +1 damage bonus with melee/close attacks (+2 if wearing Chainmail) and the One-Handed Weapon (aka "I use a shield" talent) the Shield Defense feat for free.

The Rogue I gave them two class features that try to make Intelligence a useful attribute to the Rogue, as well as expand on his "skill monkey" heritage:
Clever Opportunist - You may add your Intelligence modifier as a damage bonus to all Opportunity attacks.
Skill Expertise - You may use your Intelligence modifier in place of any other ability modifier when making a Skill Check with a Rogue class skill.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Stalker0:

First, a comment on the Rogue ability: Isn't it going to be useless 95% of the time? "Gee! I hope this is the one round in the encounter I roll within 1 of my crit range!"

Compared to your Fighter's Reliable Strike ability, which will be useful around 50% of the time, and retain that 50% usefulness for each subsequent miss with that power.

How about making Assassin's Strike an encounter that lets you add [W] to any crit as an immediate reaction (Trigger: I rolled a crit!) Or maybe change it to a Daily that increases the threat range until the end of the encounter ("I'm in the zone.")

Otherwise, I like the other abilities, especially the Cleric and Warlord's, even though they're basically the same.

But for someone that doesn't want to amp up the existing classes by adding these abilities, might they work better as feats, so you have to pay a little something to get them?

 

[jbear]

Cool, like it. Whatever makes a game more fun for the players is cool with me.

I do think the Ranger needs a power. My wife (ranger) would hang my up by my...ehem...toes if I were to introduce a new power for everyone except her.

I think the idea of the rogue having an 'In the zone' daily with crits on 19/20 during that encounter (until you roll a 1 or a 2?) would be fun (not for the monsters) and add some usefulness to those 'only works on a crit feat'.

As a striker a ranger could benefit from a similar feat (maybe restricted only to his 'prey'). The ranger has several of those, only works on a crit feat as well.

Now that the question has arisen about adding more powers for classes, would it be out of line if PC's had 3 at-wills (humans having 4 ofc)?