Protectorate Prestiege Class [PEACH]

[Noctemwolf]

I made up a Prestige class for a DnD world I'm building, so take a look and let me know what you think!

Protectorate
A shield bearing warrior who protects his charge with valorous zeal.

Prerequisites:
BAB: +5
Feats: Combat Reflexes, Combat Expertise, Improved Bull Rush, Power Attack, and Two Weapon Fighting

Proficiency with heavy armour and shields.

{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special

1st|
+1|
+2|
+0|
+0|Improved Shield Bash, Two-Shield Fighting

2nd|
+2|
+3|
+0|
+0|Quick-step, Two Shield Defense, Shield Damage Improve

3rd|
+3|
+3|
+1|
+1|Uncanny Dodge, Persistent Aid, Vigilant Defense

4th|
+4|
+4|
+1|
+1|Deflect Arrows, Stunning Shield, Combat Reflex Intuition

5th|
+5|
+4|
+1|
+1|Stability, Stubborn Defense, Cunning Combat Expertise

6th|
+6/1|
+5|
+2|
+2| Improved Uncanny Dodge

7th|
+7/2|
+5|
+2|
+2|Defensive Smash, Uncanny Strength

8th|
+8/3|
+6|
+2|
+2|Block Damage

9th|
+9/4|
+6|
+3|
+3| Improved Persistent Aid

10th|
+10/5|
+7|
+3|
+3| Assault[/table]

Hit Die: d12

Weapons and armour: A Protectorate Gains no additional weapon or armour proficiencies.
Class skills
Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Listen (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str)
Skill Points at each Level: 3 + Int Modifier

Improved Shield Bash: The Protectorate gains the Improved Shield Bash feat for free at first level.

Two Shield Fighting: A Protectorate is trained in a unique style of combat where his defense is also his offense. This allows you to use both a heavy and a light shield at the same time; Add the defense bonus of both shields together to determine your overall shield bonus. You can choose to cause lethal or Nonlethal damage with your shields with no penalty.

Quick-Step: This ability allows you to step 5 feet in order to block an opponent’s movement. This can be done anytime an opponent attempts to enter a space you threaten. This uses up one of your possible attacks of opportunity. This does not provoke an attack of opportunity. The opponent is not allowed to enter any space you leave after using the Quick-Step ability for the rest of the round.

Two Shield Defense: The Protectorate gains an additional +1 to his shield bonus while wielding his heavy and light shield.

Shield Damage Improve: Your shield's counts as one size larger for the purposes of damage.

Uncanny Dodge: The Protectorate can react to threats before his senses would even know he’s under attack. The Protectorate retains his dexterity bonus to his AC while Flat-Footed or under attack by an invisible attacker.

Persistent Aid: You can use the Aid Another action as a move action.

Vigilant Defense: When an opponent you threaten attacks an ally that is adjacent to you, that opponent provokes an attack of opportunity from you.


Deflect Arrows: The Protectorate gains the benefit of the Deflect Arrows Feat while using both a heavy and light shield in each hand. There is no need to have a free hand to use the feat.

Stunning Shield: You gain Stunning fist as a bonus feat (You do not need to meet the prerequisites) and may use the feat with a shield strike rather than an unarmed attack. However, you only benefit from this while wielding a heavy and light shield.

Combat Reflex Intuition: In addition to your dexterity modifier, you can make an additional number of attacks of opportunity each round equal to your Wisdom bonus.

Stability: You gain a +4 Bonus against an opposing Bull Rush, Overrun, or Trip attempt While standing on the ground.

Stubborn Defense: If an opponent successfully Bull Rushes you, the number of squares you’re pushed back is reduced by 5 feet. This can effectively cause the opponent to fail his bull rush attempt if he pushed you back no further than 5 feet.

Cunning Combat Expertise: When fighting defensively or using Combat Expertise, you suffer only half the attack roll penalty on any attacks of opportunity you make for the round (rounded down).

Defensive Smash: You can Bull Rush an opponent as an Attack of opportunity. However, you cannot move more than 5 feet (Which means your opponent cannot be pushed back more than 5 feet). This will interrupt the action the opponent was attempting, unless the bull rush fails.

Uncanny Strength: If you succeed at a Bull Rush attempt, you can also cause lethal or nonlethal damage equal to you normal damage with your heavy shield.

Block Damage: Anyone being Aided by you, or 1 ally you choose within 5 feet of you, can have some damage they would take be absorbed by the Protectorate. Half of the damage dealt to the target can instead be taken by the Protectorate.

Improved Uncanny dodge: The Protectorate can no longer be flanked.

Improved Persistent Aid: You always count as Aiding up to two adjacent Allies, and you bonuses given go up to +4.

Assault: With a Mighty Roar, the Protectorate thows his opponents away from him with his might. Once per day as a full round action, the Protectorate can use this ability. He gains +4 to his strength and can Bull Rush a number of opponents within 10 feet equal to his number of attacks and attacks of opportunity. However, The Protectorate does not move during these attacks (In effect, he is hitting his opponents with such force that they are sent flying back by his attack, or jumps out at an opponent within 10 feet to strike them before returning to his square). During the next round, The Protectorate loses his shield bonus to his AC and cannot make any attacks of opportunity. In addition, the number of attacks of opportunity he can make during the rest of this encounter are reduced by one, and he takes a -2 penalty to his strength for the rest of the encounter.

This class is, in shortest terms, a tank. He is meant to keep Melee attackers from closing in on the weaker ranged combatants of his team. In fluff terms, he is the bodyguard of his lord, and keeps those who would do the lord harm away from him.

Let me know what you think!

Edited:
Prerequisite feats
The abilities have been moved around and rewritten.
Assault has been revamped.

Edit again:
Quick-Step was moved to 2nd level
New abilities were added.

[Noctemwolf]

bump, may I?

[Zaydos]

Hey Homebrewers! I'm Noctemwolf, and I recently joined your fourms after lurking around for awhile, and I think this looks like a good place to look for some Critique!
I made up a Prestige class for a DnD world I'm building, so take a look and let me know what you think!

Protectorate
A shield bearing warrior who protects his charge with valorous zeal.

Okay looks good so far. Try adding PEACH (Please Examine And Critique Honestly) to the title that sometimes works in getting more people to comment.


Prerequisites:
BAB: +5
Feats: Combat Reflexes, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Overrun, Two Weapon Fighting, and Stunning Fist
Proficiency with heavy armour, shields (Except tower shields),

A good number of feats and lots of MAD. Two-Weapon Fighting (15+ Dex), Power Attack (13+ Str), Stunning Fist (Wis 13+ and BAB +8). You need a total of 7 feats (a 5th level fighter has 5, 6 if human), although a monk dip can give you 2 of them. The earliest you could get in is as a Lv 5 fighter/Lv 1 monk and because of heavy armor and shields you won't even be using monk abilities just getting 2 feats (although this also gets past the need for Wis 13+).



{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special

1st|
+1|
+2|
+0|
+0|Improved Shield Bash, Two-Shield Fighting, Stunning Shield

2nd|
+2|
+3|
+0|
+0|Two Shield Defense, Shield Damage Improve

3rd|
+3|
+3|
+1|
+1|Persistent Aid

4th|
+4|
+4|
+1|
+1|Uncanny Dodge, Deflect Arrows, Bonus Feat

5th|
+5|
+4|
+1|
+1|Stability, Stubborn Defense

6th|
+6/1|
+5|
+2|
+2|Quick-step

7th|
+7/2|
+5|
+2|
+2|Defensive Smash, Uncanny Strength

8th|
+8/3|
+6|
+2|
+2|Block Damage, Bonus Feat

9th|
+9/4|
+6|
+3|
+3|Improved Uncanny Dodge

10th|
+10/5|
+7|
+3|
+3|Improved Persistent Aid, Assault[/table]

Hit Die: d10

Weapons and armour: A Protectorate is proficient with all types of armour, shields (Including tower shields), and with Simple and Martial Weapons.

Class skills
Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Listen (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str)
Skill Points at each Level: 2 + Int Modifier


Personally I'd prefer to see some more skill points or larger HD but that's just me. As for Weapons and Armor why do they gain proficiency in Simple and Martial weapons if they specialize in using shields for combat?



Improved Shield Bash: The Protectorate gains the Improved Shield Bash feat for free at first level.

Two Shield Fighting: A Protectorate is trained in a unique style of combat where his defense is also his offense. This allows you to use Both a heavy and a light shield at the same time; Add the defense bonus of both shields together to determine your overall shield bonus. You can choose to cause lethal or Nonlethal damage with your shields with no penalty.

The feat is a good thing, especially with all the ones already required. As for two-shield fighting the first thing I can think of is that with a good enough magical shield this is a +6 to AC but that's expensive (~25150 GP) although coupled with a feat from Lords of Madness (Agile Shield Defense?) it also applies to your touch AC which is nice.



Stunning Shield: You can use the Stunning Fist feat with your shield instead of an unarmed attack.

Two Shield Defense: You gain the benefit of the Two-weapon Defense feat while using a heavy and light shield in each hand.

Stunning Shield gives a reason for the prerequisite of Stunning Fist but really I'd just give them Stunning Shield (maybe a few levels later) without bothering to make them have the Stunning Fist feat.

Two-Shield Defense as written doesn't work, you need to note that it stacks with their previous shield bonus or better yet just say "When wielding a heavy shield and a light shield a Protectorate's shield bonus to AC increases by one."



Shield Damage Improve: Your shield's counts as one size larger for the purposes of damage.

Persistent Aid: You can use the Aid Another action as a move action.

Bonus Feat: You gains a bonus feat from the fighter’s list of Bonus feats.

Uncanny Dodge: The Protectorate can react to threats before his senses would even know he’s under attack. The Protectorate retains his dexterity bonus to his AC while Flat-Footed or under attack by an invisible attacker.

Deflect Arrows: The Protectorate gains the benefit of the Deflect Arrows Feat while using both a heavy and light shield in each hand. There is no need to have a free hand to use the feat.

Stability: You gain a +4 Bonus against an opposing Bull Rush, Overrun, or Trip attempt While standing on the ground.


Okay these look pretty standard and nice. Personally I'd move Stunning Shield up to Lv 4, not require them to have the Stunning Fist feat, and just not give them a bonus feat at level 4. I find Persistent Aid buffing allies' skill checks a little humorous as it seems away from their specialty but more fluff would probably explain that (they're trained to work in groups, yada yada).



Stubborn Defense: If an opponent successfully Bull Rushes you, the number of squares you’re pushed back is reduced by 5 feet. This can effectively cause the opponent to fail his bull rush attempt if he pushed you back no further than 5 feet.

Alright kind of neat I guess.



Quick-Step: This ability allows you to step 5 feet in order to block an opponent’s movement. This can be done anytime an opponent attempts to enter a space you threaten. This uses up one of your possible attacks of opportunity. This does not provoke an attack of opportunity. The opponent is not allowed to enter any space you leave after using the Quick-Step ability.


I like this one.



Defensive Smash: You can Bull Rush an opponent as an Attack of opportunity. However, you cannot move more than 5 feet (Which means your opponent cannot be pushed back more than 5 feet). This will interupt the action the Opponent was attempting, unless the bull rush fails.

Uncanny Strength: If you succeed at a bull rush attempt, you can also cause lethal or nonlethal damage equal to you normal damage with your heavy shield.


Okay so these two give you some neat benefits to Bull Rushing which is nice.



Block Damage: Anyone being Aided by you, or 1 ally you choose within 5 feet of you, can have some damage they would take be absorbed by the Protectorate. Half of the damage dealt to the target can instead be taken by the Protectorate upon a successful Reflex Check (DC 15).

Reflex save not check, and I'd just drop the save entirely.



Improved Uncanny dodge: The Protectorate can no longer be Flanked.

Honestly I would put this at an earlier level (even if it meant moving Uncanny Dodge to level 3) just seems appropriate that two shields would make flanking harder.



Improved Persistent Aid: You always count as Aiding up to two nearby Allies, and you bonuses given go up to +4.

Now this is nice if you have a melee party. +4 to 2 allies' attack rolls always, or AC, or skill checks. Also you should define "nearby" in a concrete distance (adjacent? melee reach?). Useful ability and it is a capstone.



Assault: With a Mighty Roar, the Protectorate thows his opponents away from him with his might. Once per day as a full round action, the Protectorate can use this ability. He gains +4 to his strength and can bull rush any nearby opponents a number of times equal to his number of attacks and attacks of opportunity. However, The Protectorate cannot move during these attacks (In effect, he is hitting his opponents with such force that they are sent flying back by his attack). During the next round, The Protectorate loses his shield bonus to his AC and cannot make any attacks of opportunity. In addition, the number of attacks of opportunity he can make during the rest of this encounter are reduced by one, and he takes a -2 penalty to his strength for the rest of the encounter.

Seems weak. Your AC goes down a lot, you lose AoOs and you get -2 Str. Now it might be nice if fighting a swarm of mooks near a big pit but that's not common.



This class is, in shortest terms, a tank. He is meant to keep Melee attackers from closing in on the weaker ranged combatants of his team. In fluff terms, he is the bodyguard of his lord, and keeps those who would do the lord harm away from him.

Let me know what you think!

Makes a decent enough bodyguard class and has some abilities to actually keep enemies off your allies (quick step) and a really high AC, but no reach and a huge number of prerequisite feats. It's only accessible before 9th level if you take a dip in monk for 2 feats which costs you a point of BAB and it needs really good Dex and Str. Still I like it. Though their AC seems to be likely to encourage the DM to use Will save and Ref save based attacks on them.

[Noctemwolf]

Okay looks good so far. Try adding PEACH (Please Examine And Critique Honestly) to the title that sometimes works in getting more people to comment.


Ahhh, okay. I didn't understand what that stood for. Thanks!


A good number of feats and lots of MAD. Two-Weapon Fighting (15+ Dex), Power Attack (13+ Str), Stunning Fist (Wis 13+ and BAB +8). You need a total of 7 feats (a 5th level fighter has 5, 6 if human), although a monk dip can give you 2 of them. The earliest you could get in is as a Lv 5 fighter/Lv 1 monk and because of heavy armor and shields you won't even be using monk abilities just getting 2 feats (although this also gets past the need for Wis 13+).

MAD?
And whoops! I don't think I was paying attention to the prerequisites for some of the feats! thank you for pointing that out. I think I'll drop the stunning fist and throw power attack onto the list. (Changes being made.)


Personally I'd prefer to see some more skill points or larger HD but that's just me. As for Weapons and Armor why do they gain proficiency in Simple and Martial weapons if they specialize in using shields for combat?


Good point on the weapons thing. Removing. As for skill points and HD... I dunno. I made them to be similar to a fighters HD and skill points, though I threw in some extra skills I thought a good bodyguard should have.


The feat is a good thing, especially with all the ones already required. As for two-shield fighting the first thing I can think of is that with a good enough magical shield this is a +6 to AC but that's expensive (~25150 GP) although coupled with a feat from Lords of Madness (Agile Shield Defense?) it also applies to your touch AC which is nice.


Thank you. And that feat does sound nice (Though I didn't know it was there; I really only have acess to the core books).


Stunning Shield gives a reason for the prerequisite of Stunning Fist but really I'd just give them Stunning Shield (maybe a few levels later) without bothering to make them have the Stunning Fist feat.

Two-Shield Defense as written doesn't work, you need to note that it stacks with their previous shield bonus or better yet just say "When wielding a heavy shield and a light shield a Protectorate's shield bonus to AC increases by one."

Stunning shield as an ability rather than as a feat... in a way. Perhaps I can say "You gain Stunning fist as a bonus feat (You do not need to meet the prerequisites) and may use the feat with a shield strike rather than an unarmed attack. However, you only benefit from this while wielding a heavy and light shield."

as for two shield defense.... okay. (changes being made).


Okay these look pretty standard and nice. Personally I'd move Stunning Shield up to Lv 4, not require them to have the Stunning Fist feat, and just not give them a bonus feat at level 4. I find Persistent Aid buffing allies' skill checks a little humorous as it seems away from their specialty but more fluff would probably explain that (they're trained to work in groups, yada yada).

The stunning shield bit sounds nice. That will be added to the changes.
Ya, the Persistent Aid thing is somewhat fluff, but I thought it would kind of be along the lines of the bodyguard. :smalltongue:


Alright kind of neat I guess.

Yup =P makes it harder to bull rush them out of the way. ain't gonna move me, sucka!


I like this one.

I was pretty sure this was a good ability to give them =) thank you.


Okay so these two give you some neat benefits to Bull Rushing which is nice.

Yes indeed. I guess I kind of thought of them keeping an opponenet away from their charge by, Quite literally, Pushing them away. This combined with quick-step is supposed to make it extremely difficult to get around the Protectorate.


Reflex save not check, and I'd just drop the save entirely.

thanks for the grammar lesson :smallbiggrin:. Well, I put in the save because I know there was a spell that did something similar... And I guess I wanted to make it a little different. *shrug*


Honestly I would put this at an earlier level (even if it meant moving Uncanny Dodge to level 3) just seems appropriate that two shields would make flanking harder.

Hmm... Interesting Point.


Now this is nice if you have a melee party. +4 to 2 allies' attack rolls always, or AC, or skill checks. Also you should define "nearby" in a concrete distance (adjacent? melee reach?). Useful ability and it is a capstone.

"Nearby" would probably mean adjacent. I'll adust that.


Seems weak. Your AC goes down a lot, you lose AoOs and you get -2 Str. Now it might be nice if fighting a swarm of mooks near a big pit but that's not common.

Hmm... Well, it was sort of the fluff thing in a way. When everyone gets too close, knock them all away. I assumed the Protectorate would probably be a little winded after doing this too, so that's why I put some of the deficit abilities in there.
Any ideas on how to make it a more useful ability?


Makes a decent enough bodyguard class and has some abilities to actually keep enemies off your allies (quick step) and a really high AC, but no reach and a huge number of prerequisite feats. It's only accessible before 9th level if you take a dip in monk for 2 feats which costs you a point of BAB and it needs really good Dex and Str. Still I like it. Though their AC seems to be likely to encourage the DM to use Will save and Ref save based attacks on them.

Well, Without the Stunning Fist Prerequisite, I think It should be doable by a fighter at 5th level. (lets see... 5 feats. Yup!) And could probably be done by another class (Like cleric) by 12th level (9th for a human).

Will saves are still a problem, but hey. Melee classes in general don't have that very high, and this is a melee class. :smallsmile: The good Strength and dex makes sense to me. You need to be a person in top physical condition, right? (Besides that, I always did my ability points with dice rolls. 4d6 with the lowest one rerolled. I always thought heroes should be that... heroes :smallbiggrin:).

Thank you for your insight! You caught things I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise. Though I guess that's the point of having posted it here, eh?
::Fin::

[Zaydos]

As it is I'd probably move the bonus feat to Lv 9 (just because a level where you gain nothing is boring), or else move Assault down to Lv 9. Also you could probably remove the Str and Dex penalty from Assault since it is only 1/day and you can't move during it (so you can only really Bull Rush a single enemy once with it).

Also I suggested the HP buff because they are bodyguards and expected to take lots of hits (although I really think Fighter might could use d12 too), and the skill point increase is something often suggested for Fighters.

[Noctemwolf]

Makes sense.... Also, I think I should rewrite The Assault ability. I reread and realized it barely makes any sense. :smalleek:

Edit: Redone.

[Zaydos]

Oh yes one question about the Assault ability. Normally you have to move with an enemy when you bull rush it to push it more than 1 square, does the same hold true here?

[Noctemwolf]

Maybe I should rewrite it some more, but no, the same does not hold here =). if your strength check is strong enough to push them back, say, 10 feet, they will go that far without you having to move.

[Zaydos]

That's what I'd thought when reviewing it, but figured I should double check. Seems neat enough. I almost want to see how many PrCs dual-wield shields now (I had a player who had found one online, it was more about Power Attack, though; then again with Shock Trooper and adamantine shield spikes he was able to borrow 5-ft through solid stone every 2 rounds). Actually have to say I like this one better in several ways.

[Noctemwolf]

(...Prc's? 0-0**)

What is this Shock trooper you speak of? Sounds interesting =P

[Zaydos]

Shock Trooper is a tactical feat from Complete Warrior which lets you subtract from AC instead of Attack with Power Attack on a charge. The PrC was on D&Dwikia somewhere, I forget the name. I'm almost tempted to stat out Sighelm (Okay I know it's not shield but I don't know old norse or the proto-germanic word for shield) Shieldlord Supreme Dwarven Shield Master.

Here's a link to the D&D wiki PrC, not sure about the balance (the adventure the character using it was made for never got ran, it was going to be high-powered gestalt Wizard//whatever): http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Shieldmaster_%283.5e_Prestige_Class%29

[Noctemwolf]

Ahhh.... Thanks for the link!

[Noctemwolf]

I Feel I should move quick-step up to 2nd level... It one of the classes only abilities that can actually keep opponents away, So its a tad important. Sound like a decent plan?

I have two other abilties I would like to put in, but I can't figure where to put them. (Kudos to Andion Isurand for the ideas)!

Vigilant Defense: When an enemy attacks an ally adjacent to you, he provokes an attack of opportunity from you.

Improved AoO (Better name, I wish): The number of attacks of opportunity you have is equal to 1 and 1/2 times your dexterity modifier, rounded down.

any suggestions/thoughts?

[Andion Isurand]

well, let me help smooth things

Vigilant Defense: When an opponent you threaten attacks an ally that is adjacent to you, that opponent provokes an attack of opportunity from you.

Combat Reflex Intuition: You can make an additional number of attacks of opportunity each round equal to your Wisdom bonus (in addition to your dexterity modifier).

Cunning Combat Expertise: When fighting defensively or using Combat Expertise, you suffer only half the attack roll penalty on any attacks of opportunity you make for the round (rounded down).

[Noctemwolf]

I reworked it a bit now, though now I feel the class has quite a few special abilities now. and gains a bunch early and very little later. Anyone have any ideas on what I could do to fix that?


I moved Quick-step up because I feel its a very important ability for the class.

Thanks Andion!

[Noctemwolf]

I've realized that a person witha good tumble score could get by this guy without provoking an attack of opportunity... which means no quick step or bull rush. Yikes! Is that a bad weakness? After all, a bodyguard who can't guard can be kind of useless....

[Andion Isurand]

Well, you could borrow some of the knight class features like Bulwark of Defense and Vigiliant Defender.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060501a&page=2

In which case you may want to change the name of your existing Vigilant Defense to something like...

Vengeful Defender: When an opponent you threaten attacks an ally that is adjacent to you, that opponent provokes an attack of opportunity from you.