The Radiant Avenger: A Striker Paladin

[FireLance]

In this thread, I will be developing a striker paladin, the Radiant Avenger.

I've got the following design goals for this new paladin type:

• A divine striker, with defender as a secondary role
• A class that works well both in solo campaigns and with a group
• A class that starts fairly simple, but gradually increases in complexity
• A combination of simpler and more complex options so that players have some scope to adjust the level of complexity
• A divine spellcaster that prepares daily spells from a spell list
• A paladin for which holy symbols are useful, but not necessary
• Reduced dependency on specific ability scores, to widen the scope of viable character concepts

Let's see how well I manage to achieve them.

 

[FireLance]

RADIANT AVENGER TRAITS

Hit Points: You start with hit points equal to 15 + your Constitution score. You gain 6 hit points each time you gain a level.
Bonuses to Defenses: +1 to Fortitude, +1 to Reflex, +1 to Will
Healing Surges per Day: 10 + your Constitution modifier
Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, leather, hide, chainmail, scale, plate; light shield, heavy shield
Weapon Proficiencies: Simple melee, military melee; simple ranged, military ranged
Implement Proficiencies: Holy symbol
Class Skills: Athletics (Str), Diplomacy (Cha), Endurance (Con), Heal (Wis), History (Int), Insight (Wis), Intimidate (Cha), Religion (Int)
Trained Skills: Religion, plus three more from the list of class skills​

Yes, it has defender-level hit points, healing surges and armor, but it's a striker. I will just cite the Blackguard Paladin from Heroes of Shadow, the Essentials Slayer Fighter and the Barbarian from PH2 as precedents.

In addition to the above, I should also mention that the PH3 psionic classes and the Heroes of Shadow Executioner Assassin have inspired some of the mechanics used for the Radiant Avenger.

 

[FireLance]

RADIANT VENGEANCE

An enemy who deals damage to you is subject to your radiant vengeance until the end of the encounter. Whenever you hit an enemy that is subject to your radiant vengeance with an attack power that has the divine or weapon keyword, you deal additional radiant damage equal to your Charisma modifier.​

Radiant vengeance is the striker damage mechanic. Its flavor suggests that radiant avengers are meant to unleash divine wrath, but with a certain amount of restraint or discernment, and not indiscriminately. Hence, radiant avengers are usually found serving deities of justice, law, retribution, vengeance, and related concepts.

 

[FireLance]

The following is a bit more flavor explaining how radiant vengeance works:

What happens when a radiant avenger's enemy becomes subject to his radiant vengeance?

The most visible sign is that any weapon wielded by the radiant avenger starts to glow with divine energy. More subtly, a mystical connection is created between the radiant avenger and the enemy that has injured him. It is this mystical connection, normally sealed by the radiant avenger's blood or pain, that makes his divine prayers more effective against that enemy, and allows him to unleash the divine energy channeled through his weapon.

A radiant avenger can maintain this mystical connection as long as he remains in active pursuit of that enemy. It fades once he has stopped to rest.​

 

[FireLance]

A radiant avenger who is adventuring solo should have no shortage of opportunities to be hit by his enemies. However, a radiant avenger in a party of PCs may find that his enemies choose to target his allies rather than himself. The following power enables the radiant avenger to move an ally out of harm's way and take damage on his behalf, triggering his radiant vengeance and fulfilling his secondary defender role at the same time.

Sacrificial Transposition
Paladin Utility
Encounter (Special) * Divine
Immediate Interrupt
Close burst 1
Trigger: An adjacent ally is hit by an attack that does not include you as a target

Effect: You and the ally swap positions, and you are hit by the attack instead. As this effect is triggered after the enemy has made his attack roll, for the purposes of marking and similar abilities, the enemy is still considered to have attacked your ally instead of you.

Special: You regain the use of this power when you have no enemies subject to your radiant vengeance.​

 

[FireLance]

Like the Essentials knight and slayer fighters, a radiant avenger's at-will attacks are weapon basic attacks augmented by stances. However, for flavor reasons, a radiant avenger's "stances" are called battle blessings, even though they have the stance keyword and are treated as stances mechanically.

From an in-game perspective, the radiant avenger asks his deity to bestow a specific benefit on him, which persists as long as he maintains it (by the rules, as long as he does not fall unconscious or die), or until he asks for another one.

At 1st level, a radiant avenger gains 2 battle blessings. He gains a third battle blessing at 7th level, and a fourth at 17th level.

On a more personal note, I must confess that even though it more or less works out to the same thing in practice, I find the idea of invoking battle blessings to be more satisfying than the normal 4E approach of attacking with at-will prayers. Perhaps this is because the latter feels to me more like the paladin attacking directly with divine magic, while the former is closer to the traditional approach of a paladin using divine magic to enhance his weapon skills.

 

[FireLance]

Radiant avengers use this power to disengage from a fight, maneuver around lesser opponents to reach a more dangerous foe, or pursue a fleeing enemy.

Blessing of Alacrity
Paladin Utility
At-Will * Divine, Stance
Minor Action
Personal

Effect: You invoke the blessing of alacrity. Until it ends, you gain a +1 power bonus to your speed and you may shift 1 square as a minor action.​

 

[FireLance]

This power enables a radiant avenger to channel the frustration he feels when he fails to strike his enemies into additional physical power.

Blessing of Building Wrath
Paladin Utility
At-Will * Divine, Stance
Minor Action
Personal

Effect: You invoke the blessing of building wrath. Until it ends, you gain a +1 power bonus to the damage rolls of weapon basic attacks. Each time you use an attack power and miss every target, your bonus to damage rolls increases by 1 until the end of the encounter.
Level 11: You gain a +2 power bonus to the damage rolls of weapon basic attacks, and your bonus to damage rolls increases by 1 each time you use an attack power and miss every target.
Level 21: You gain a +2 power bonus to the damage rolls of weapon basic attacks, and your bonus to damage rolls increases by 2 each time you use an attack power and miss every target.​

Tracking Tip: The player could keep track of the damage bonus he gains from this power by using a spare die and changing the number displayed on the die to be the same as the damage bonus.

Simplify! At the DM's option, this power can be used as the blessing of wrath. The user gains a +2 power bonus to damage rolls with weapon basic attacks, increasing to +3 at 11th level and +4 at 21st level. This bonus to damage rolls does not increase.

 

[FireLance]

This is another power that enables the radiant avenger to fulfill his secondary defender role. Radiant avengers adventuring solo would thus find it less useful than those who belong to a party of PCs.

The most controversial aspect (IMO) about this power is that it enables the radiant avenger to function as a ranged defender, marking the enemy from a distance, making it difficult for a mostly-melee enemy to attack him, and thus forcing it to either trigger the mark punishment or attack nothing.

On the whole, I think the lower damage for the ranged mark helps to balance the power because:

(a) Many monsters have either a ranged attack or enough mobility that they would still be able to attack the radiant avenger, even at range.

(b) If the radiant avenger does not take damage from his target, the hit plus the effects of ignoring the mark effectively work out to the radiant avenger's baseline damage plus a -2 penalty to attack rolls for the enemy.

I think the main discomfort may be psychological. DMs who are used to not triggering mark powers may feel that the radiant avenger is "getting away" with something when the monsters keep getting "forced" to be affected by it. Such DMs may wish to adjust the power so that the enemy is only marked if the radiant avenger hits it with a melee basic attack.

Blessing of Challenge
Paladin Utility
At-Will * Divine, Stance
Minor Action
Personal

Effect: You invoke the blessing of challenge. Until it ends, when you hit an enemy with a weapon basic attack, you mark the enemy until the end of your next turn.
If that enemy makes an attack that does not include you as a target while it is marked by this power, as an opportunity action, you may deal radiant damage equal to your Charisma modifier to it if you hit it with a ranged basic attack, or radiant damage equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier if you hit it with a melee basic attack.
Level 11: If the enemy makes an attack that does not include you as a target after you hit it with a melee basic attack, you deal radiant damage equal to 6 + your Charisma modifier.
Level 21: If the enemy makes an attack that does not include you as a target after you hit it with a melee basic attack, you deal radiant damage equal to 9 + your Charisma modifier.​

 

[FireLance]

The following is one of the simpler at-will powers. It adds a small bonus to the radiant avenger's attack rolls with weapon basic attacks, with the option to trade damage for further accuracy if he attacks an enemy subject to his radiant vengeance.

Blessing of Guidance
Paladin Utility
At-Will * Divine, Stance
Minor Action
Personal

Effect: You invoke the blessing of guidance. Until it ends, you gain a +1 power bonus to the attack rolls of weapon basic attacks.
When you attack an enemy subject to your radiant vengeance with a weapon basic attack, you may choose to gain a further +2 bonus to your attack roll, but if you do so, you do not deal the additional damage from your radiant vengeance if you hit.​