New class. Please help evaluate and balance it.

[Nifft]

1 Detect Evil, AC Bonus, Flurry of Blows, Unarmed Strike d6 damage, Aura of Good, Smite Evil 1/day, spells
2 Evasion, Speed Bonus +10
3 Aura of Courage, Still Mind
4 Turn Undead

Both Paladins and Monks are front-loaded, and you're taking some of the best features of both. Since this class gets spellcasting boosts at 2nd and 4th level, she doesn't need as many goodies at those levels.

In general, look at the Bard and when he gets his song features. They pretty much match when the spellcasting doesn't progress.

Flurry of Blows (Ex): As per the monk ability except that the only weapons that may be used are the bastard sword or quarterstaff

The Monk's Flurry of Blows isn't balanced by the fact that it's restricted to a small list of weapons. It's balanced by the fact that all of those weapons suck. Bastard Swords do not suck. This feature is not balanced.

Detect Evil: At first level, the Priestess of Shitarra gains the ability to detect evil per the Paladin ability

Why? Spellcasting starts at level 1, so she could just get detect evil as an orison.

Priestess of Shitarra Spell List
0 Cure Minor Wounds, Resistance, Virtue

No light or detect evil or detect chaos?

1 Bane, Bless, Bless Weapon, Cure Light Wounds, Divine Favor, Protection from Evil, Remove Fear, Shield of Faith
2 Aid, Augury, Cure Moderate Wounds, Enthrall
3 Bestow Curse, Cure Serious Wounds, Cloak of Bravery, Heroism, Prayer, Remove Curse
4 Good Hope, Divination, Heroism, Lesser Planar Ally, Imbue w/spell ability, Magic Weapon Greater
5 Atonement, Break Enchantment, Commune, Dispel Evil, Holy Sword, Mark of Justice, Greater Command, Planar Ally, Valiant Fury
6 Contact Other Plane, Geas/Quest, Greater Heroism, Greater Planar Ally

Contact other plane is kinda Wizardly. This effect is better covered by divination and commune.

You're giving away a big chunk of the best Bard spells, but that seems okay, since she's missing a bunch of typical spells too.

2nd level looks kinda bare.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Greg K]

Nifft,
Thanks for the reply

Both Paladins and Monks are front-loaded, and you're taking some of the best features of both. Since this class gets spellcasting boosts at 2nd and 4th level, she doesn't need as many goodies at those levels.

In general, look at the Bard and when he gets his song features. They pretty much match when the spellcasting doesn't progress.

The Monk's Flurry of Blows isn't balanced by the fact that it's restricted to a small list of weapons. It's balanced by the fact that all of those weapons suck. Bastard Swords do not suck. This feature is not balanced.

True, it is not balanced by restricted list. By allowing it to work with the bastard sword, I was trying to find some way to simuate that they can make an extra unarmed attack while wielding the bastard sword. I'll try to rework it.

Why? Spellcasting starts at level 1, so she could just get detect evil as an orison.

Actually, they should have detect evil as an orison and not as a first level ability or at least I intended to so as I did this with my rewrite of the paladin spell list when I gave them the bard's spell progression. Looking over the list, I also left off a couple of other spells at higher level.

No light or detect evil or detect chaos?

Yeah, I should add light. As for lack of detect chaos, chaos and law do not play the role they do in 3.x so all spells detecting, targeting, or protecting from law or chaos have been removed.

Contact other plane is kinda Wizardly. This effect is better covered by divination and commune.

Contact other plane is removed. Rereading the spell, I don't know what I was thinking by adding it.

2nd level looks kinda bare.

Yeah, I need to find some more spells to add.

 

[Greg K]

re: sexism

To Khuxan and Xulin,

The sexism was a concious and deliberate choice. For another campaign, I would use the class as a Divine Monk and make it open to anyone. However, in the setting, the training is limited to females, because the people in charge have made an arbitrary decision based on the gender of the deity as to how individuals are trained.

As for not making it a PrC, I hate PrCs in most instances. I don't mind PrCs as an alternative path or to reflect elite organizations requiring the demonstration of competency only available to characters of say fifth level or higher characters. However for concepts that represent the unified training of a first level character, I dislike multiclassing. I dislike the baggage including abiitlities to be ignored (e.g., armor and training in a variety of weapons), skills that reflect the character's early training not being class skills at every level, and skills that were never part of the character's initial training being class skills at all.

 

[Greg K]

Re: sexism, check the OP. . .

So, they exist, they're just different.

Yes, just different based on the decision of those in charge at the time the decision was made and passed down as tradition.

Anyway, the class doesn't quite 'feel' right, FWIW. Something about the mixture of other classes' abilities, perhaps, when put alongside the fluff. :\ Dunno what it is exactly. Personally, I would ditch the Evasion (and IE of course) in favour of something else, maybe Mettle. Not sure.

Thanks, I'll take a look at the fluff and abilities. I added Evasion and Improved Evasion, because I originally used Rolemaster for my campaign and the Priestesses were Channeling Monks and made use of Adrenal Defense.

 

[Greg K]

Aus,
No problem. My players and I are fans of some campaign flavored restrictions tied to cultures or organizations. Our response to someone unhappy with such restrictions would be along the same lines as yours.

My response, were I DM, would be along the lines of 'too bad', however diplomatically that might be put.

A sense of player entitlement is fine, a natural thing even, within limits. We all have different limits, is all.

Besides, we're talking about a deity here. They are notoriously biased and just plain bizarre, no matter which pantheon or religion you're looking at. Though I'll add a hasty 'in RPGs' just in case.

But there's probably no point to me arguing for or against all that on these forums anyway, particularly in someone else's HR thread. Sorry, Greg K.

 

[Claudius Gaius]

It seems reasonably well balanced at mid levels, weak at high levels (if only due to the very limited spell selection), and over-powered at low levels. I'd spread out the abilities over the earlier levels more - especially that first level package - and add a few more high-level ones.

Otherwise I could easily see the temple training programs - or whatever mechanism passes down the class traditions and training schemes - drifting towards a "multiclass or prc by default" style, like the ten-level base classes in d20 modern. After all, as far as the setting goes, training programs will tend to drift towards "whatever gives the best results", at least in terms of which groups tend to survive and come back to teach students.

 

[Arkhandus]

It doesn't seem underpowered to me, except maybe at the upper levels. It starts out as a monk with a feat and maybe one other thing swapped out, and the addition of divine but bard-like spellcasting. Then it gets a lot of abilities over the first several levels, in addition to continuing spellcaster advancement. Then it eventually slows down to advancing like a bard in equivalence.

First of all, a note --- you list the Heroism spell as both a 3rd-level spell and a 4th-level spell for them.

Secondly, move up some of the lower-level abilities. It's more front-loaded than a paladin or monk! This is how I'd shift the abilities around a bit and add just a few minor things at upper levels (taking into account the levels at which their BAB doesn't improve, and the levels at which they get access to new spell levels):
1 AC Bonus, Flurry of Blows, Unarmed Strike d6 damage, Aura of Good, Smite Evil 1/day, spells
2 Speed Bonus +10
3 Evasion
4 Turn Undead
5 Smite Evil 2/day, Ki Strike (magic)
6 d8 unarmed damage
7 Aura of Courage
8 Divine Health
9 Uncanny Dodge
10 Smite Evil 3/day
11 d10 unarmed damage
12 Still Mind, Ki Strike (lawful)
13 Improved Uncanny Dodge
14 Diamond Body
15 Smite Evil 4/day
16 d12 unarmed damage
17 Improved Evasion, Ki Strike (adamantine)
18 Timeless Body
19 Wholeness of Body
20 Quivering Palm, Smite Evil 5/day

But I dunno, I may be being a little over-critical or under-critical. I don't feel like looking into it right now, though. I forget what level Greater Planar Ally normally is, but I get the feeling that making it a 6th-level spell is too much (as in, overpowered, but I dunno).

 

[Claudius Gaius]

It's normally eighth - but it also requires 500 XP, paying the creature summoned for its services in advance, and the creature summoned is up to the GM. Not a spell that usually sees a lot of use in most settings.