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Legendxp
2013-11-24, 08:27 PM
http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/arcana/1096_dispel.jpg

Iron Soul

Put a quote by or about a member of your class here!

A general description of what your class is!

Making an Iron Soul

Adventures: Why your class might adventure.

Characteristics: What your class is capable of.

Alignment: What alignment or alignments your class may have and why.

Religion: What deities or ideals your class follows, if any, and why.

Background: How you become part of your class and why.

Races: What races most often have members of your class, as well as any races that cannot join, along with why.

Other Classes: How your class relates to other classes, positively or negatively, and why.

Role: What your class does in and for a party.

Abilities: Con, Wis, Str/Dex

Adaptation: How a DM might change your class to fit into their campaign or unique world setting.

Game Information

Iron Souls have the following game statistics.
Alignment: Any Neutral -or- Any Lawful
Hit Die: d12
Starting Age: As barbarian
Starting Gold: As barbarian

Class Skills
The Iron Soul's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are...

Skill Points at First Level: (4 + Int modifier) x 4
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 4 + Int modifier

Table: The Iron Soul

Custom
{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special|Damage Reduction|Fist Damage

1st|+0|+2|+2|+2|Damage Reduction/Magic, Toughness Feat |1|1d8

2nd|+1|+3|+3|+3|Mettle|1|1d8

3rd|+2|+3|+3|+3|Uncanny Dodge, Toughness Feat |2|1d8

4th|+3|+4|+4|+4|Evasion|2|1d8

5th|+3|+4|+4|+4|Improved Uncanny Dodge|3|2d8

6th|+4|+5|+5|+5|Toughness Feat |3|2d8

7th|+5|+5|+5|+5|Damage Reduction/Silver -or- Cold Iron|4|2d8

8th|+6/+1|+6|+6|+6|Improved Evasion|4|2d8

9th|+6/+1|+6|+6|+6|Light Fortification, Toughness Feat|5|3d8

10th|+7/+2|+7|+7|+7|Hardy Resistance +1|5|3d8

11th|+8/+3|+7|+7|+7|Medium Fortification|6|3d8

12th|+9/+4|+8|+8|+8|Hardy Resistance +2, Toughness Feat|6|3d8

13th|+9/+4|+8|+8|+8|Damage Reduction/Adamantine|7|4d8

14th|+10/+5|+9|+9|+9|Hardy Resistance +3|7|4d8

15th|+11/+6/+1|+9|+9|+9|Heavy Fortification, Toughness Feat|8|4d8

16th|+12/+7/+2|+10|+10|+10|Hardy Resistance +4|8|4d8

17th|+12/+7/+2|+10|+10|+10|Perfect Fortification|9|5d8

18th|+13/+8/+3|+11|+11|+11|Hardy Resistance +5, Toughness Feat|9|5d8

19th|+14/+9/+4|+11|+11|+11|Damage Reduction/-|10|5d8

20th|+15/+10/+5|+12|+12|+12|Superior Resilience, Hardy Resistance +6|10|5d8

[/table]

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the iron soul.

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: An iron soul is proficient with light armor, but not shields. An iron soul is not proficient with any weapons except the gauntlet and his unarmed strike.

Melee Strike (Ex): Iron souls are highly trained in fighting unarmed, giving them considerable advantages when doing so. At 1st level, an iron soul gains Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat. An iron soul's attacks may be with either fist interchangeably or even from elbows, knees, and feet. This means that an iron soul may even make unarmed strikes with his hands full. An iron soul may apply his full Strength bonus on damage rolls for all his unarmed strikes. An iron soul's unarmed strike is treated as both a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon for the purpose of spells and effects that enhance or improve either manufactured weapons or natural weapons (such as the magic fang and magic weapon spells). An iron soul also deals more damage with his unarmed strikes than a normal person would, as shown on Table: Iron Soul. This damage applies when wearing gauntlets as well. Many iron souls enchant their gauntlets to deal even more damage.

Toughness: At 1st level an iron soul gains the toughness feat, even if he does not met the prerequisites. He receives another toughness bonus feat at 3rd level and every three levels thereafter.

Damage Reduction (Ex): Starting at 1st level, an iron soul gains the ability to shrug off some amount of injury from each blow or attack. He gains damage reduction 1/magic. At 3rd level, and every other level thereafter (5th, 7th, 9th, etc), all available forms of an iron soul's damage reduction rise by 1 point. At 7th level he gains damage reduction 4/silver or damage reduction 4/cold iron (the player's choice). At 13th level he gains damage reduction 7/adamantine. Finally, at 19th level an iron soul's damage reduction can no longer be bypassed, he gains damage reduction 10/-. Multiple forms of damage reduction do not stack. However, if one form of damage reduction is negated, another now applies (A 13th level iron soul would need to be dealt damage by a magical weapon composed of both silver/cold iron and adamantine to bypass his damage reduction).

Mettle (Ex): At 2nd level, an iron soul's unique resilience allows him to shrug off effects that would otherwise harm him. If an iron soul makes a successful Will or Fortitude saving throw that would normally reduce the effect, he instead suffers no effect at all. Only effects with a saving throw of “Will partial,” “Fortitude half,” or similar can be negated through this ability.

Uncanny Dodge (Ex): At 3rd level, an iron soul cannot be caught flat-footed and reacts to danger before his senses would normally allow him to do so. He retains his Dexterity bonus to AC even if he is caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. However, he still loses his Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilized. If an iron soul already has uncanny dodge from a different class, she automatically gains improved uncanny dodge instead.

Evasion (Ex): An iron soul of 4th level or higher can avoid even magical and unusual attacks with great agility. If he makes a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save (such as a red dragon’s fiery breath or a fireball), he instead takes no damage. Evasion can be used only if an iron soul is wearing light armor or no armor. A helpless iron soul (such as one who is unconscious or paralyzed) does not gain the benefit of evasion.

Improved Uncanny Dodge (Ex): At 5th level and higher, an iron soul can no longer be flanked; he can react to opponents on opposite sides of him as easily as he can react to a single attacker. This defense denies a rogue the ability to sneak attack the iron soul by flanking him, unless the attacker has at least four more rogue levels than the target has iron soul levels. If a character already has improved uncanny dodge, the character automatically gains a bonus feat instead. Levels from the classes that grant uncanny dodge stack to determine the minimum level a rogue must be to flank the character.

Improved Evasion (Ex): At 8th level, an iron soul's evasion ability improves. He still takes no damage on a successful Reflex saving throw against attacks such as a dragon’s breath weapon or a fireball, but henceforth he takes only half damage on a failed save. A helpless iron soul (such as one who is unconscious or paralyzed) does not gain the benefit of improved evasion.

Fortification: Starting at 9th level, an iron soul's body becomes more compact around vital areas. Whenever he would be dealt a critical hit or damaged by a sneak attack there is a 25% chance that it is negated. This chance increases to 50% at 11th level, 75% at 15th level, and finally 100% at 17th level.

Hardy Resistance (Ex): At 10th level, an iron soul gains a +1 bonus on all saving throws. This bonus increases by one every other level. This bonus can be no higher than an iron soul's constitution modifier.

Superior Resilience: At 20th level, an iron soul is immune to mind affecting abilities, as if under a constant mind blank effect. He is becomes immune to non-lethal damage and gains

Legendxp
2013-11-24, 08:29 PM
Reserved, thank you.

Legendxp
2013-11-24, 08:56 PM
Change Log

11/24/2013 - Posted template, started working on the basics.

References


PH – Player’s Handbook v.3.5
PH2 – Player’s Handbook 2
DMG – Dungeon Master’s Guide v.3.5
DMG2 – Dungeon Master’s Guide 2
MM – Monster Manual v.3.5
MM2 – Monster Manual II
MM3 – Monster Manual III
MM4 – Monster Manual IV
MM5 – Monster Manual V

CWar – Complete Warrior
CDiv – Complete Divine
CArc – Complete Arcane
CAdv – Complete Adventurer
CSco – Complete Scoundrel

RoS – Races of Stone
RoD – Races of Destiny
RotW – Races of the Wild
RoE – Races of Eberron
RotD – Races of the Dragon

Dcn – Draconomicon
LM – Libris Mortis
LoM – Lords of Madness
HotA – Fiendish Codex 1: Hoards of the Abyss
Tot9H – Fiendish Codex 2: Tyrants of the 9 Hells
Drow – Drow of the Underdark
BoED – Book of Exalted Deeds
FF – Fiend Folio
UA – Unearthed Arcana

Frost – Frostburn
Storm – Stormwrack
Sand – Sandstorm

FR – Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
MoF – Magic of Faerûn
LoD – Lords of Darkness
RoF – Races of Faerûn
SM – Silver Marches
Und – Underdark
PGF – Player’s Guide to Faerûn

Eb – Eberron Campaign Setting
PGE – Player’s Guide to Eberron
FoE – Faiths of Eberron
RoE – Races of Eberron
SoX – Secrets of Xen’drik
5Nat – Five Nations

DR### – Dragon Magazine (with issue number)
(e.g., DR343 is Dragon Magazine #343)

DU### – Dungeon Magazine (with issue number)

Designer's Notes

The Good?


The Bad?


Designer's Notes

Pesimismrocks
2013-11-26, 04:26 PM
I haven't have a proper look through but spell resistance one is entirely useless. It should be spell resistance 11 at first level.

Legendxp
2013-11-26, 10:41 PM
Well, its not entirely useless. It makes 5% of all spells fail. After all, there is a 1/20 chance someone will critically fail their spell roll, though I see your point. I'm just going to take it and some other features out and put in shield other as a spell-like ability instead.

Amnoriath
2013-11-26, 11:27 PM
Sorry, really just an iron block with a decent wallop. DR only applies to weapons and many spells can still affect you all the same. This doesn't have any way to deny person a strategy, increase actions, or ignore mundane obstacles/restrictions. The best spells will still render you useless while the guard captain kills you. This also doesn't even have many immunities at all, honestly the Binder or Incarnate could take hits better than this.
You also don't have any unique mechanics or applied favor going on. The name Iron Soul could entail a lot more than big health, save bonuses, and DR. It could almost take the idea of a Soulknife except apply it to armor, but is better at stat-buffing and immunity shifting..etc.

periscope69
2013-11-27, 02:53 AM
While I do admit I like the name and the concept, I do agree with the other guys. I'm not going to say theirs anything really bad about the set up other than the lack of any unique abilities.

When I heard Iron Soul a few things came to mind:

1) Tough as nails. Now this I would say you've done a good job on. D12 hit dice, all good saves, and decent DR do make this guy hard to hurt in a conventional sense. However it can still be improved upon.

2) Wrecking Ball. Again I will say that you've done a decent job on this part. However there are a few ways to improve upon this.

Now ways to improve this are simple.

First I would actually reduce the unarmed damage down a little bit, make it comparable to a large sized monk (assuming it starts out as a medium sized being) to make it comparable to something already available but still distance it from it a little bit (give it more of a heavy hitter feel without being OP).

Take the toughness feats out and give it Improved Toughness feat (PH2) at either first and third level (depending on which feels better to your) and make the rest bonus feats. Check out the fighter and the monks bonus feat lists for things that would be compatible with your vision of this class. I could see Improved Sunder and Improved Bullrush on that list.

Give it more weapon proficiencies (even the wizard knows more about weaponry than you do at this point), and maybe just remove armor proficiency altogether.

Maybe give it something like a natural armor bonus equal to their Wisdom mod (making their body "a thing unto iron"). What's scary is that there's something like that in real life. If you do this I really suggest putting in a clause that states that it doesn't stack with conventional armor, but is otherwise counted as a natural armor bonus (not an enhancement).

If you want to give it more of a supernatural feel check out The Man With The Iron Fists and take a look at Brass Body, but that might be kind of out there :smallbiggrin:.

I would actually give them spell resistance (maybe equal to their level+Wis mod) at some point to help make them viable against spellcasters later on.

Maybe give them an ability that allows them to ignore some amount of DR and Hardness (their DR allows them to bypass DR that is the same as theirs but does not give them any of the other benefits of the material), or possibly a bonus on Str checks to smash or break things.

When I think of this guy, I don't think someone really fast so much as I think someone who won't be stopped and can just smash their way through whatever's in their way like a wrecking ball (think Juggernaught here). Maybe an ability that let's them make a strength check to break or smash something as part of a charge?

If you see this as a frontline soldier, you might want to boost him up to a Full BAB (never saw why the monk didn't get that).

Some immunities would fit. Immunity to poison, disease, starvation, environmental heat and cold, energy drain, fire, cold, etc.

Maybe something like the Awesome blow feat from the MM.

Kerim
2013-11-27, 04:01 AM
I like their capstone ability. Give him Regeneration (Troll-blooded, or something), and he becomes basically immune to damage in general.

Although that may mean it's broken :P

karkus
2013-11-27, 04:15 PM
No offense to periscope69, but if anything, I would like to see more armor proficiencies. Gives the class a more "tank" feeling, but I would be afraid of being overpowered. Would heavy armor make it too strong?

Legendxp
2013-11-27, 11:50 PM
The main reason I didn't have armor proficiencies is because that would prevent things like evasion from working properly. I might work on this class at a later date, but at the time I created it, it was mainly just an experiment.