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View Full Version : The Vandal [base class, PEACH]



geez3r
2006-12-26, 12:19 PM
This is basically a melee type, whose job is to basically to smash any and all obstacles in the party's path, a job which I think it does pretty well. I think it may be a touch on the over powered side, but that's why I'm posting it here, to get some feed back. Please post any comments and/or questions you have.

The Vandal

"I will break you if it’s the last thing I do!" -Ternok, Human Vandal

Adventures: Most vandals adventure to either fight or to destroy something. This is usually a mean to the end of providing for themselves (and possibly others) however, some just really enjoy it.

Characteristics: The vandal is an excellent warrior. Where a fighter has training and discipline and a barbarian has it’s rage, a vandal has the unrelenting determination to pound something until it breaks or gets out of his way. A vandal has the natural ability to find a weak point in a person’s defense and exploit it, or break down a person’s defense if they are too well guarded. They also apply this ability to inanimate objects as well, smashing them with great ease.

Alignment: Vandals are never lawful. They may be honorable, but at heart they are wild This wildness is their strength, and it could not live in a lawful soul. At best chaotic vandals are free and expressive. At worst, they are thoughtlessly destructive. (This is definately not what it says for another melee class almost word for word :smallwink: )

Religion: A vandal is rarely religious, but if they are they usually tend towards one of the war gods, like Kord, Erythnul or Gruumsh (in the case of orc).

Background: Vandals most often come from an "uncivilized tribe" and were in a group mostly devoted to looting and pillaging either nearby towns or tribes. Most of them began their style of battle out of necessity to survive. Often times a vandal is poor, or came from a poor area, and adopted a "smash and grab" style of winning. They simply couldn’t match the skill of a fighter nor the anger of a barbarian.

Races: Most common to this class are half-orcs or humans. Any place or race that typically associates itself with barbarians has the potential to have a vandal or 2 in their midst.

Other Classes: A vandal is most likely to ally himself barbarians because they have a very similar upbringing and/or style of fighting. A vandal can also associate himself some druids and some clerics that revere either nature or battle, but not those that throw many spells in every which way at every opportunity. A vandal also has a little difficulty seeing eye to eye with monks, because of their well practiced and deliberate combat style, but a vandal usually considers this a chance to match his skills in a sort of friendly rivalry. A paladin can be a little disapproving of a vandal’s methods, but it usually is a very minor issue in most cases. Vandals often disapprove of the use of offensive magic, as they don’t like people who won’t directly face their opponents, but as always exceptions exist. They have no specific feelings toward other classes.

Game Rule Information

Abilities: Strength is very important to vandals because of their role in combat, several of their class skills are based on Strength, and it also helps a vandals’ ability to break anything needing breaking. Dexterity and Constitution are important to increase a vandal’s AC and Hp respectively.

Alignment: Any nonlawful. (possibly any nongood)

Hit Die: d10

Class Skills: Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (str), Survival (Wis), Swim (str)

Skill Points at First level: (2 + Int modifier) x 4

Skill Points Per Level: 2+Int

{table="head"]Level | Base Attack Bonus | Fort | Ref |Will | Special
1 | +1| +2 | +0 |+0 | Thick Skinned, Power Attack
2 | +2| +3 | +0 |+0 |
3 | +3| +3 | +1 |+1 | Improved Sunder
4 | +4| +4 | +1 | +1| Heavy Strike
5 | +5| +4 | +1 |+1 | Thick Skinned
6 | +6/+1| +5 | +2 |+2 | Combat Brute
7 | +7/+2| +5 | +2 |+2 | Move!
8 | +8/+3| +6 | +2 |+2 | No Defense
9 | +9/+4| +6 | +3 |+3 | Improved Heavy Strike
10 | +10/+5| +7 | +3 |+3 | Thick Skinned
11 | +11/+6/+1| +7 | +3 |+3 |
12 | +12/+7/+2| +8 | +4 |+4 | I said move!
13 | +13/+8/+3| +8 | +4 |+4 | Even Less Defense
14 | +14/+9/+4| +9 | +4 |+4 | Greater Heavy Strike
15 | +15/+10/+5| +9 | +5 |+5 | Thick Skinned
16 | +16/+11/+6/+1| +10 | +5 |+5 |
17 | +17/+12/+7/+2| +10 | +5 |+5 |
18 | +18/+13/+8/+3| +11 | +6 |+6 | No Defense At All
19 | +19/+14/+9/+4| +11 | +6 |+6 |
20 | +20/+15/+10/+5| +12 | +6 |+6 | Thick Skinned, Mighty Heavy Strike
[/table]

Class Features:
Armor and Weapon Proficiency: A vandal is proficient with all light armor, no shields, and all simple and martial weapons.

Thick Skinned (Ex)
A vandal gains a natural armor bonus of +1 (or increases existing natural armor bonus by 1). At 5th level and every 5 levels there after (10th, 15th, and 20th) this bonus increases by 1.

Power Attack
At level 1, a vandal gains the benefit of the Power Attack feat.

Improved Sunder
At level 3, a vandal gains the benefit of the Improved Sunder feat.

Heavy Strike (Ex)
When sundering an object or attacking an inanimate object, a vandal ignores 2 points of hardness, in addition to any hardness his weapon might ignore. Furthermore, a vandal gets a +1 bonus to Strength checks to break on object with sudden force.

Combat Brute (Ex)
At 6th level, a vandal gains the benefits of the Combat Brute feat.

Move! (Ex)
At 7th level, a vandal gains a +2 bonus to all "opposed rolls" used in special attacks. This includes, but is not limited to: sundering, grappling, disarming, and bull rushes.

No Defense (Ex)
At 8th level, when a vandal makes a melee attack with a bludgeoning weapon against a foe that has a shield, and misses, but misses by a narrow enough margin so that if the foe did not have that shield the attack would have hit, the attack is re-rolled as a sunder attempt on the shield. For example, if a foe had an AC of 19 (+7 armor, +2 shield) and a vandal rolled either a 17 or 18 on the attack roll, the attack is re-rolled as a sunder attempt. This is because if the foe did not have a shield their AC would have been 17, and either a 17 or 18 would have hit.

Improved Heavy Strike (Ex)
A vandal now ignores 4 points of hardness (in addition to whatever hardness his weapon ignores, if any) when attacking an object or sundering a weapon/ shield, and gains a +2 bonus to Strength checks to break an object with sudden force. Furthermore, a vandal gains a +2 bonus to damage rolls made with bludgeoning weapons.

I said move! (Ex)
At 12th level, a vandal’s bonus to "opposed rolls" increases to +4.

Even Less Defense (Ex)
At 13th level, a vandal’s melee attack rolls with bludgeoning weapons ignore a foe’s Natural bonus to AC up to: ½ their HD –2. So a 14th level vandal would ignore 5 points of Natural armor against its foes.

Greater Heavy Strike (Ex)
A vandal of 14th level now ignores 6 points of hardness (in addition to whatever hardness his weapon ignores, if any) when attacking an object or sundering a weapon/ shield, and gains a +3 bonus to Strength checks to break an object with sudden force. Furthermore, a vandal gains a +2 bonus to damage rolls made with bludgeoning weapons. Finally, any bludgeoning weapon they use deals damage as if it were 1 size category larger than it actually is.

No Defense At All (Ex)
At 18th level, a vandal ignores any type of damage reduction when using a melee bludgeoning weapon equal to ½ their HD –2. So a 18th level vandal would ignore 7 points of DR.

Mighty Heavy Strike (Ex)
A vandal of 20th level now ignores 8 points of hardness (in addition to whatever hardness his weapon ignores, if any) when attacking an object or sundering a weapon/ shield, and gains a +4 bonus to Strength checks to break an object with sudden force. Furthermore, a vandal gains a +2 bonus to damage rolls made with bludgeoning weapons. In addition, any bludgeoning weapon they use deals damage as if it were 1 size category larger than it actually is. Finally, any bludgeoning weapon they wield deals an extra die of damage of the same size of its base damage.

Duke of URL
2006-12-26, 01:07 PM
I like it. It's a very specifically-focused class (designed specifically to punch through enemy defenses) without making it over-powerful. A minor quibble... I'd change the "Heavy Shot", et. al., ability names to "Heavy Strike", etc. When I see "Shot", it makes me think of archery feats.

ArmorArmadillo
2006-12-26, 02:43 PM
It's interesting, but it seems overly specialized.

I feel like a better option would be to shift these abilities into feats, and allow "Vandal" as a fighter build rather than a class. Furthermore, it would allow the PC to customize it if he doesn't want every ability the class offers.

The only other issue is that sundering as a main feature can bed somewhat limiting, as it becomes useless against a large number of enemies (Aberration, Magical Beasts, Most Undead, Dragons, Animals, anything that isn't armed/armored) and furthermore, many players may be unwilling to sunder that +3 Keen Vorpal Longsword that BBEG is using, considering that the PCs will want to loot it rather than destroy it.

geez3r
2006-12-26, 10:40 PM
Well, I was originally going to make a fighter with just the feats, but it seemed too underpowered so I made this.

While sundering is indeed a prime function of this class, it's not the only. "Move!" and "I said move!" give bonus to other special attacks, which I use often. I also made the class be able to bypass natural armor and DR to combat critters that don't have armor. For an added bonus, I also stepped up the amount of damage they could dish out, because bludgeoning weapons traditionally have a smaller threat range.

But, I think I'll add a part where one could take a different feat (assuming they met the requirements for that feat) instead of the ones listed, or maybe give a choice between a few feats like the monk class does?

What are your thoughts?

sigurd
2006-12-26, 10:53 PM
I like the class.

Be careful with feat choices. I think some of the power of the class is a trade off for having less choice than the fighter. If the feat choices allow you to become a more powerful fighter than the fighter you sacrifice balance.

The fighter gets 11 feats and choice. This char gets between 13 and 17 feats (Depending how you count Thick Skinned). More feat goodness but you cant pick 'em - seems fair. Its not like a char can't switch class or prc if they want change.

As it is, I'd like to play the class to see what the balance issues are.


S

Duke of URL
2006-12-27, 09:24 AM
But, I think I'll add a part where one could take a different feat (assuming they met the requirements for that feat) instead of the ones listed

I'd say no, given that the extra "power" in this class comes from the "drawback" of being highly specialized. The better option would be to make some of the class features selectable feats for fighters (or anyone else), if they only wanted to be a pseudo-vandal. :smallsmile:

Giving a couple of different options, ala Monk or Ranger, is okay, as long as each option track is still highly specialized.

Closet_Skeleton
2006-12-27, 12:41 PM
The major problem is that it's a base class focused on a specific thing which is really Prc or feat territory. It also suffers from nifty in the brain but too complicated to work out on paper mechanics syndrome.

It might work if you kept the brute idea and turned the sundering into one of multiple options. There is however many a brute style base class so I don't see my point in this one since it doesn't pull the idea off any better.

sigurd
2006-12-27, 01:22 PM
The major problem is that it's a base class focused on a specific thing which is really Prc or feat territory.That is really only convention.

I can imagine a school for vandals to train specialists for an army. They want recruits big, strong, and unspoiled by other fighting styles.

S

CabbageTheif
2006-12-27, 02:49 PM
i dunno. it just seems to me like a rage-less barbarian with a few fancy moves. i like the concept, but i could see it as a better PrC.

the name, however, tickles my history-major bone. why did you pick the name 'vandal'? did you know that the Vandals were a real barbarian tribe? it is from their name that we have our terms 'vandals' or 'vandalization' or 'mr. mcvandalson'. they harassed rome and became bigger after the fall of the roman empire. when charlegmeign came to power he led an expedition against the vandals and wiped them out.

i have more to say, but i am slowly containing the history-beast. run before it excapes again!

geez3r
2006-12-27, 03:12 PM
Well, I can definately see why people would want this in PrC form, because it is specialized. However I just wanted a base class for what I wanted, because I really hate trying to cram all the classes I have on that line in the character sheet. That, and if it was a base class I could put more stuff into it to round out some weaknesses.

But seeing as how a few people have suggested the idea of a PrC, or suggested not having this as a base class, I'll see if I can make a PrC version and then compare the 2. I'll have within a day or so; I have horrible work ethic.

Oh and CabbageTheif, I did know that "vandals" were indeed a real barbarian tribe. That's why I gave them the survival class skill and in their background said that many came from an "uncivilizied tribe" instead of being a specialized military unit. You can thank my 10th grade history teacher for that odd bit of knowledge.