Focused Champion (3.5 Base Class)

[gooddragon1]

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[Darth Ultron]

First off, the whole idea of using one skill check for multiple things while ignoring the rules for such actions is just broken. Your getting close to ''this class one has one skill, Greatness, that they use for any and all skill checks and they get tons of skill points for their one skill. The idea that a dedicated trip build character might loose to this class as they, er, concentrated hard is not only silly, but broken.

It's hard to see how a character would ''concentrate'' and do a lot of the things listed. To show how silly it is, just replace concentrate with any other skill. For example the ''focused fisher'' can use the swim skill in place of sense motive to, er, swim around the lies of an opposed bluff check...

The 20% evasion is just a headache waiting to happen. It's way to easy for both the player and DM to forget to roll every single time. And it's worse in a big group combat. And it needs to be rolled for every attack with an attack roll. Negotiation of an attack is a powerful ability, too. This would work much better as an AC bonus, or for the best flavor Damage Reduction. Damage Reduction at least makes sense with ''concentration'', far more then, er, somehow avoiding the attack.

Combat Focus fells more like it should be something like ''+1 insight bonus to attack, damage, AC or combat related roll. I kinda like the ''one point per class level that can be used as the character wishes, chosen when the gain their focus'' but the more standard ''plus every couple of levels works too.


Combat Focus Aptitude has all the broken ''concentration vs everything'' . I'm not a fan of ''here is a massive list of new rules in subgame sets to pick from to disrupt the game and cause problems''.

Focused senses is the one that immediately red flags this class as one made for the type of player that just plays the game for pure combat encounters and makes me never approve this class for my game. And that is on top of the game breaking ''using one skill for everything'' again.

Focused strikes is a bit too complicated with too may rolls, even more so in combat.

Dodge and focused mind are just normal abilities...other then it's odd that you'd ''concentrate'' and dodge.

Focused damage is..er..ok, but it comes a bit late and is not so much.

The allies evasion is just broken. To give a whole group an ability by, um, concentrating, is just odd.

Sudden focus looks out of place...and might make a better feat. There is a barbarian feat like this right?

The class feels a lot more like a fighter fix, just tacked on to a vague ''focus'' wrapping. A ''focus fighter''. It just does not give the class much of an unique feel, as it's just a couple combat abilities and the ''concentration for other rolls'' trick.

And like a lot of classes, even official published ones, the abilities after 10th level just sort of fizzle out.

This class works fine enough in a combat game like a dungeon crawl and might do enough damage to be fun enough next to the spell casters....maybe. But it's still not as ''versatile'' as spellcasting, but at least you'd have some slight combat tweaks and more damage...

[gooddragon1]

First off, the whole idea of using one skill check for multiple things while ignoring the rules for such actions is just broken. Your getting close to ''this class one has one skill, Greatness, that they use for any and all skill checks and they get tons of skill points for their one skill. The idea that a dedicated trip build character might loose to this class as they, er, concentrated hard is not only silly, but broken.

It's hard to see how a character would ''concentrate'' and do a lot of the things listed. To show how silly it is, just replace concentrate with any other skill. For example the ''focused fisher'' can use the swim skill in place of sense motive to, er, swim around the lies of an opposed bluff check...

The 20% evasion is just a headache waiting to happen. It's way to easy for both the player and DM to forget to roll every single time. And it's worse in a big group combat. And it needs to be rolled for every attack with an attack roll. Negotiation of an attack is a powerful ability, too. This would work much better as an AC bonus, or for the best flavor Damage Reduction. Damage Reduction at least makes sense with ''concentration'', far more then, er, somehow avoiding the attack.

Combat Focus fells more like it should be something like ''+1 insight bonus to attack, damage, AC or combat related roll. I kinda like the ''one point per class level that can be used as the character wishes, chosen when the gain their focus'' but the more standard ''plus every couple of levels works too.


Combat Focus Aptitude has all the broken ''concentration vs everything'' . I'm not a fan of ''here is a massive list of new rules in subgame sets to pick from to disrupt the game and cause problems''.

Focused senses is the one that immediately red flags this class as one made for the type of player that just plays the game for pure combat encounters and makes me never approve this class for my game. And that is on top of the game breaking ''using one skill for everything'' again.

Focused strikes is a bit too complicated with too may rolls, even more so in combat.

Dodge and focused mind are just normal abilities...other then it's odd that you'd ''concentrate'' and dodge.

Focused damage is..er..ok, but it comes a bit late and is not so much.

The allies evasion is just broken. To give a whole group an ability by, um, concentrating, is just odd.

Sudden focus looks out of place...and might make a better feat. There is a barbarian feat like this right?

The class feels a lot more like a fighter fix, just tacked on to a vague ''focus'' wrapping. A ''focus fighter''. It just does not give the class much of an unique feel, as it's just a couple combat abilities and the ''concentration for other rolls'' trick.

And like a lot of classes, even official published ones, the abilities after 10th level just sort of fizzle out.

This class works fine enough in a combat game like a dungeon crawl and might do enough damage to be fun enough next to the spell casters....maybe. But it's still not as ''versatile'' as spellcasting, but at least you'd have some slight combat tweaks and more damage...

Shoot.

What I was aiming for is:


Tier 3: Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with. Can be game breaking only with specific intent to do so. Challenging such a character takes some thought from the DM, but isn't too difficult. Will outshine any Tier 5s in the party much of the time.

Examples: Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Crusader, Bard, Swordsage, Binder (without access to the summon monster vestige), Wildshape Varient Ranger, Duskblade, Factotum, Warblade, Psychic Warrior

From this link: http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293.0

Your feedback leads me to believe I have gone too far with it. I took the idea of concentration doing things from the diamond mind discipline in tome of battle. The evasion 20% is kind of an extrapolation of iron guard's glare stance (stolen from Tome of Battle) that gives bonus to AC, except it gives evasion % which is always useful. I basically pillaged the Tome of Battle for stuff and used the ideas in the brainstorming thread to build off of a base. Stole the counters/boosts from TOB too.

I wasn't sure about the rolls in combat though. Tried to keep it down by making it as few as possible (except the d6's). Not sure how to remedy that. As for damage being too low, I'm not sure how much damage is enough damage. Spells deal 20d6 by 20th generally so I thought that was the high point. Never really had a good handle on it. I'll have to think about the rest of the evaluation more.

Also, do you have any homebrew for 3.5 you want me to look at? Doesn't have to be yours either. Just to say thanks for looking at mine.

EDIT: Part of my thought process for the fluff was the insight bonus doing stuff too. The insight bonuses can apply to many different things and so I thought a state of mind would work through concentration.


Insight Bonus

An insight bonus improves performance of a given activity by granting the character an almost precognitive knowledge of what might occur. Multiple insight bonuses on the same character or object do not stack. Only the highest insight bonus applies.

The almost deal is the uncanny ability that is not magic formally that TOB relies on to not be magic while allowing incredible stuff.

[Nifft]

Yeah agree with the preceding.

My instinct is to simplify the whole thing.

First off, what are Focus Points actually used for? I see that you get them when you start your Focus thing -- unless you roll low and don't get any -- and that you lose all your Focus Points when the Focus thing ends, so I figured they were expended for extra damage or something... but then I see every round you roll for new Damage Pool Dice, which you spend on damage.

Secondly, the whole extra-roll-every-round thing is just YUCK. Give the guy his extra damage dice and let him decide how to spend them.

Thirdly, the thing where damage-bonus gives you an attack-bonus is poor design. It means that the best high-damage move is to always spend all your dice on your first attack, assuming that you are going to attack a credible foe. (If your foe is not credible, then why are you bothering to spend a daily class feature?) There's no interesting tactical decision to make: the winning move is to spend all your dice as soon as possible.

- - -

If I were building this, I'd look around and see what I could hijack from the existing game rules.

One obvious candidate for comparison is the Warblade.

Diamond Mind maneuvers give "Concentration roll for X" for a lot of different values of X. Check.

Iron Heart maneuvers give both toughness and extra damage. Check.

Stone Dragon maneuvers give lots of extra damage. Check.

White Raven buffs nearby allies. Check.

So, my advice would be:
- Start with a Warblade.
- Strip off all the stuff your class doesn't need.
- List out the stuff you removed, and see if it's actually valuable stuff.
- Figure out what you'd need to add to the class to make it fit your vision.
- See if the result is still reasonably balanced.

[gooddragon1]

Yeah agree with the preceding.

My instinct is to simplify the whole thing.

First off, what are Focus Points actually used for? I see that you get them when you start your Focus thing -- unless you roll low and don't get any -- and that you lose all your Focus Points when the Focus thing ends, so I figured they were expended for extra damage or something... but then I see every round you roll for new Damage Pool Dice, which you spend on damage.

Secondly, the whole extra-roll-every-round thing is just YUCK. Give the guy his extra damage dice and let him decide how to spend them.

Thirdly, the thing where damage-bonus gives you an attack-bonus is poor design. It means that the best high-damage move is to always spend all your dice on your first attack, assuming that you are going to attack a credible foe. (If your foe is not credible, then why are you bothering to spend a daily class feature?) There's no interesting tactical decision to make: the winning move is to spend all your dice as soon as possible.

I already cribbed pretty much everything I wanted from TOB though.

The focus points are spent on combat focus aptitudes (though I'll definitely clarify that in the language of the rules where they're gained). Thing with concentration checks is you're already pretty much set to get the damage up to a point. Past that is the uncertainty and the flavor in the randomness of weak points. Plus, you really only roll one dice each round (for concentration). Then the d6s are just derived from that. I could just make the attack roll bonus derive from it to make it much easier (I'm strongly considering doing this because of your review and because I want to still retain a roll for attacking and a roll for defending).

The attack bonus is if you want to make multiple attacks instead of a single one, but also so that if you pour all your attack into a single one you're very likely to hit. If you are fighting a group of weak enemies (but not completely weak), you can split your damage up among the targets and have a good chance to hit as well.

EDIT: Made the changes to focused strikes and clarified the use of focus points in the focused state wording.

NOTE: Another reason I kept the attack roll bonus dependent on a concentration check is that warblade maneuvers like the one that adds a concentration check to damage show that making one each turn is not prohibitively difficult.

[Nifft]

I already cribbed pretty much everything I wanted from TOB though.

Sure, but they did it very well, so it's worth looking at more than just the end-effects.

Like, look how they handle the tactical feeling of round-to-round combat. Look at how your options change as you expend Maneuvers. Look at the tactical trade-off between refreshing now vs. waiting a turn.

Now look at how few tactical options your class offers. (And remember that allocating all your Bonus damage to one attack is optimal for a non-trivial opponent, so that's not a tactical option.)


NOTE: Another reason I kept the attack roll bonus dependent on a concentration check is that warblade maneuvers like the one that adds a concentration check to damage show that making one each turn is not prohibitively difficult.

Rolling Concentration instead of an attack roll or a saving throw roll is perfectly fine, and not prohibitively annoying. (It's not difficult to roll 3x more each turn, but it's cumbersome and annoying.)

Rolling Concentration in addition to everything else I do in a round is annoying.

[gooddragon1]

Sure, but they did it very well, so it's worth looking at more than just the end-effects.

Like, look how they handle the tactical feeling of round-to-round combat. Look at how your options change as you expend Maneuvers. Look at the tactical trade-off between refreshing now vs. waiting a turn.

Now look at how few tactical options your class offers. (And remember that allocating all your Bonus damage to one attack is optimal for a non-trivial opponent, so that's not a tactical option.)



Rolling Concentration instead of an attack roll or a saving throw roll is perfectly fine, and not prohibitively annoying. (It's not difficult to roll 3x more each turn, but it's cumbersome and annoying.)

Rolling Concentration in addition to everything else I do in a round is annoying.

Wait, that's not how it works though. You only have to roll 1 at the beginning of your turn or when you make your first attack in a turn. That determines your attack pool. Then you split that up. Just 1 concentration roll per round max for this even if you made 9001 attacks.

So for a combat: Roll concentration. Have a little piece of paper with the DCs and bonus attack amounts on it from 1 to 11 (remember your class level limit). Compare the result of the concentration check to the paper and there you go.

As for the other part: It's meant to be simple with the option for complexity. A big reason I'm not just taking maneuvers is because I don't want people to have to get the TOB to use this class.

EDIT: In retrospect, you're right. It's not tactically complex for the most part. But then to be fair, neither is the barbarian: Rage, power attack, swing. The difference is that I'm aiming for tier 3. Capable of a role, but also capable outside of combat. I hope at least that I have met that goal.

[Extra Anchovies]

Half the class features scale with concentration, so this class gets 1+Int skill ranks per level. There's also the issue that skill numbers vary greatly depending on optimization. Just use [class level + stat] instead, and call it a "focus check". Add a +1/2 non-FC-class-levels bonus for multiclassers, if you want.

Combat Focus: this looks like a core class feature. Why is it usable 1/day? You ran out of focus, in the same way that barbarians run out of anger? If other features are going to be dependent on being in focus, entering focus should be 1/encounter, or at least start it at 1+[stat] per day, or something along those lines. Perhaps it could work like Combat Focus (PHB2), which activates after you make your first successful attack in an encounter and lasts between 10 and 15 rounds depending on your number of Combat Form feats.

You should probably say "attacks have a 20% miss chance", because "chance to evade attacks" isn't an existing rules term so you'd need to waste space defining it when an equivalent effect already exists.

Combat Focus Aptitude: you learn a limited number of them, they cost two sorts of character resource (focus points and daily combat focus uses) to use, and they cost actions to use. Why is this feature paid for in three different ways?

Together, Combat Focus and Combat Aptitude feel quite a bit like the Hellreaver (Fiendish Codex II). As a free action at the start of each encounter, they get [cha] holy fury points. They can spend a holy fury point as a swift action to improve an attack (+2/4/6/8 to hit and +2d6/4d6/6d6/8d6 damage at levels 1/4/7/10) or to heal themselves or an ally inside 20 feet (10/20/30 damage at levels 2/5/8). At 3rd level they can spend a point as an immediate action to get +2 to their next save or to AC against the next attack, improving to +4 at 9th level. At 4th they get Mettle (evasion for Fortitude- and Will-partial or -half effects) independent of holy fury. At 5th they can take 2 Constitution damage as a swift action to refill their holy fury supply. At 6th they can spend 3 points as a swift action to apply Dismissal if they hit an evil outsider with their next attack, and at 10th they can spend 4 points as a swift action to force a save-or-die (10d6 damage on a successful save) if they hit an evil outside with their next attack.

It's not perfect, but it works nicely and is fun to play. Here's what it gets, which may be a useful guideline for what this class should get:

A resource pool meant to be depleted from full over the course of an encounter and refills for each new encounter
Numbers-based (and scaling) offensive, defensive, and support uses of the resource
Passive defenses
A means of refilling the resource pool by paying a different, limited character resource
Options-based offensive uses of the resource

It's also probably worth looking at the Combat Form feats I mentioned above. Here's some quick descriptions, leaving out the "combat" in all of their names. They provide passive benefits unless otherwise stated
Focus: requirement for other Form feats; +2 to Will saves; +4 with three or more Form feats
Awareness: requires BAB 12; know HP totals of adjacent opponents and allies; blindsight 5 ft with 3+ Form feats
Defense: requires BAB 6; change target of Dodge as immediate action; Dodge AC bonus increases by +1 with 3+ Form feats
Stability: requires BAB 3; +4 to resist combat maneuvers; +8 with 3+ Form feats
Vigor: requires BAB 9; fast healing 2; fast healing 4 with 3+ Form feats
Strike: requires BAB 15; end combat focus as a swift action to get +[number of Form feats] for the rest of the turn

(Refined) Focused Toughness: I like it, but it should be a free action as part of entering combat focus.
Focused Mobility: should be a free action as part of entering combat focus. I personally think 1/5/9/13/17 scaling is better than 1/5/10/15/20.
Refined Focused Mobility: an activated 1-round dodge bonus could work, but a flat +2 isn't enough. Maybe +1/2 level instead.
Focused Resilience: resistance bonus, so it's irrelevant - getting a vest of resistance is better. Retype it to insight or leave it untyped (preferable). The "nonaction, but only if you haven't used another nonaction aptitude" is annoying and seems like it'd be easy to forget. Immediate action would be fine if some of the other aptitudes are made free actions, but it should be a solid bonus from the get-go. Maybe a flat +4.
Refined Focused Resilience: going from one save to all saves and stacking with the original is neat, but the bonus is again a bit on the small side. How about +4 untyped?
(Refined) Focused Escape: lots of words, but it's all for naught, because non-grapple Escape Artist is so situational.
Focused Parry: concept is good, but the 1/combat limit and the critical-hit thing both seem unnecessary, and shifting from a skill to [level+stat] (which is overall a good idea) would kinda shaft this one. Not everything needs to be based on focus checks; maybe borrow from parrying abilities (e.g. Wall of Blades) in other sources and have it be an opposed attack roll as an immediate action?
Refined Focused Parry: scaling +1 to +5 is kinda meh. My first thought for an alternative is the ability to make a second parry in a round by spending a second focus point.
(Refined) Focused Discernment: nobody ever uses feints.
(Refined) Focused Stability: getting to use a skill check to oppose an ability check is basically a "no" button, and just vs trip is kinda overly situational. Maybe +4/+8 to a bull rush, disarm, grapple, overrun, or trip attempt?

Focused Senses: Okay, so this class actually gets 4+Int skills, but three of them are chosen for you. Why though?

Focused Strikes: That is a lot of words, a lot of math, and a lot of bookkeeping. I get the basic concept - you have a pile of bennies and divide them up between your attacks - but there's a smoother way to word this for sure. First thought on the mechanics is that the check is barely relevant because it's rather easy to hit the level-based cap, so one of them should go. The attack bonus and damage dice should not increment at different levels, because that's just confusing. I don't see a reason for the half-scaling on ranged attacks or the no-two-handing on melee attacks. Splitting the dice evenly they're getting less bonus damage than a single-classed Scout (let alone a more efficient skirmish build), and piling all the dice on one attack they're matching a single-classed Rogue.

Something based on the focus points (and a corresponding increase in the avialability of focus points) could be better. Maybe spend 2 focus points as a free action to get +[stat] to hit and +[level] to damage on the next attack? Could be broken up into two stages like the aptitudes, with the first stage costing only 1 point and providing half the bonuses.

Uncanny Dodge: functional and fitting.

Focused Mind: moar bookkeeping! Just give them a strong Will save.

Improved Focused Senses: those are useful skills, so this is a pretty solid ability. Some sort of Skill Mastery-type thing (take 10 under any conditions) would fit more with the focus-focus-focus fluff.

Focused Efficiency: see Focused Strikes.

Improved Combat Focus: decent, but the fluff is weird. Maybe instead let them provide the benefits of Focused [Resilience/Parry] on effects directed at allies?

Sudden Focus: Instantaneous Rage, but with focus. Decent, but it should be removed from the class and made a feat to match.

Tireless Focus: meh. Helpful but unimpressive. Combats shouldn't be lasting more than the ten rounds that Focus probably covers by this point in the game.

Greater Focused Senses: not much of a step up from Focused Senses, and could be a step down depending on ability scores and feats.

Improved Uncanny Dodge: why so late in the game? Most classes that provide this do so by 10th level.

Limitless Focus: it's something, I guess. Unimpressive, should be available (at some other cost) earlier than this. Capstone class features are overrated; games rarely go to 20.

Improved Focused Strikes: Amounts to +1d6 damage per round, and +1 to one attack in a round. Not all that great, really.

Allied Parry: see Improved Combat Focus.

I'll probably come up with some more suggestions over the course of the next few days. Overall the mechanical concept is neat (fluff is a bit similar to a Diamond Mind-using Warblade), but it needs work.

[gooddragon1]

So, let's start with some disclosures. The most important point of this class is accessibility. I mean this in a few ways. It requires no material outside of core to play. It is also designed to be scalable for DMs who prefer a lower power level to find it acceptable instead of saying it does too much damage. That's why I included some defensive measures that aren't optimal as combat focus aptitudes. It has a consistent flavor linked throughout it because I have personally encountered a DM who cared as much about something making sense flavorwise as being balanced. It's damage is lower compared to other melee combatants potential damage because it has more durability. It's ranged combat is weaker than it's melee because I felt that something that is good at melee should not be as good at ranged (it's not completely pathetic, but it is weaker). This class was designed to be more complex than my usually very simple classes, but to do that I had to get inspiration from others in the brainstorming thread. The rest I'll break down part by part.


Half the class features scale with concentration, so this class gets 1+Int skill ranks per level. There's also the issue that skill numbers vary greatly depending on optimization. Just use [class level + stat] instead, and call it a "focus check". Add a +1/2 non-FC-class-levels bonus for multiclassers, if you want.

The numbers do scale by optimization, but much of that is controllable by the DM. That was one of the design considerations of this class (Allowing the DM to dictate it's power level easily).


Combat Focus: this looks like a core class feature. Why is it usable 1/day? You ran out of focus, in the same way that barbarians run out of anger? If other features are going to be dependent on being in focus, entering focus should be 1/encounter, or at least start it at 1+[stat] per day, or something along those lines. Perhaps it could work like Combat Focus (PHB2), which activates after you make your first successful attack in an encounter and lasts between 10 and 15 rounds depending on your number of Combat Form feats.

I'm going with something familiar to not make the class totally alien. It's not that you ran out of focus, but your ability to use it continuously in that manner is strenuous as compared to the less continuous bits of focus used offensively. Crunchwise, a design goal I set for myself was to have attack and defense be two different entities for this class. Attack is straightforward. Defense is in 3 tiers (focus point bursts of defense, combat long focus state, and passive wad of HP from having a very good Con score).


You should probably say "attacks have a 20% miss chance", because "chance to evade attacks" isn't an existing rules term so you'd need to waste space defining it when an equivalent effect already exists.

It was a fluff consideration, but you're right. I'll restate it and then explain how it works by fluff afterwards.


Combat Focus Aptitude: you learn a limited number of them, they cost two sorts of character resource (focus points and daily combat focus uses) to use, and they cost actions to use. Why is this feature paid for in three different ways?

The three tiered approach caused it to work out like that.


Together, Combat Focus and Combat Aptitude feel quite a bit like the Hellreaver (Fiendish Codex II). As a free action at the start of each encounter, they get [cha] holy fury points. They can spend a holy fury point as a swift action to improve an attack (+2/4/6/8 to hit and +2d6/4d6/6d6/8d6 damage at levels 1/4/7/10) or to heal themselves or an ally inside 20 feet (10/20/30 damage at levels 2/5/8). At 3rd level they can spend a point as an immediate action to get +2 to their next save or to AC against the next attack, improving to +4 at 9th level. At 4th they get Mettle (evasion for Fortitude- and Will-partial or -half effects) independent of holy fury. At 5th they can take 2 Constitution damage as a swift action to refill their holy fury supply. At 6th they can spend 3 points as a swift action to apply Dismissal if they hit an evil outsider with their next attack, and at 10th they can spend 4 points as a swift action to force a save-or-die (10d6 damage on a successful save) if they hit an evil outside with their next attack.

It's not perfect, but it works nicely and is fun to play. Here's what it gets, which may be a useful guideline for what this class should get:

A resource pool meant to be depleted from full over the course of an encounter and refills for each new encounter
Numbers-based (and scaling) offensive, defensive, and support uses of the resource
Passive defenses
A means of refilling the resource pool by paying a different, limited character resource
Options-based offensive uses of the resource

Part of allowing homebrew is reviewing it. This class was made simpler for DMs to be able to review it as well as for players who enjoy simplicity with a small amount more complexity than just being a barbarian who rages and power attacks.


It's also probably worth looking at the Combat Form feats I mentioned above. Here's some quick descriptions, leaving out the "combat" in all of their names. They provide passive benefits unless otherwise stated
Focus: requirement for other Form feats; +2 to Will saves; +4 with three or more Form feats
Awareness: requires BAB 12; know HP totals of adjacent opponents and allies; blindsight 5 ft with 3+ Form feats
Defense: requires BAB 6; change target of Dodge as immediate action; Dodge AC bonus increases by +1 with 3+ Form feats
Stability: requires BAB 3; +4 to resist combat maneuvers; +8 with 3+ Form feats
Vigor: requires BAB 9; fast healing 2; fast healing 4 with 3+ Form feats
Strike: requires BAB 15; end combat focus as a swift action to get +[number of Form feats] for the rest of the turn

As mentioned above, the focused state is purely defensive. It also wasn't designed to be extensively used every round of combat. These are a few bursts to be used as needed.


(Refined) Focused Toughness: I like it, but it should be a free action as part of entering combat focus.

It is a burst option, not a given as mentioned above.


Focused Mobility: should be a free action as part of entering combat focus. I personally think 1/5/9/13/17 scaling is better than 1/5/10/15/20.

See focused toughness response. The scaling I could do though.


Refined Focused Mobility: an activated 1-round dodge bonus could work, but a flat +2 isn't enough. Maybe +1/2 level instead.

The scaling occurred in the non-refined version. Keeping AC on this from scaling was to make it balanced for lower power DMs.


Focused Resilience: resistance bonus, so it's irrelevant - getting a vest of resistance is better. Retype it to insight or leave it untyped (preferable). The "nonaction, but only if you haven't used another nonaction aptitude" is annoying and seems like it'd be easy to forget. Immediate action would be fine if some of the other aptitudes are made free actions, but it should be a solid bonus from the get-go. Maybe a flat +4.
Refined Focused Resilience: going from one save to all saves and stacking with the original is neat, but the bonus is again a bit on the small side. How about +4 untyped?

These are not to be spammed. Lower power accessibility. Games are not always so generous in giving out magic items. Making it flavorful and less powerful, but optional so that if you are in a higher power game you just don't pick this one.


(Refined) Focused Escape: lots of words, but it's all for naught, because non-grapple Escape Artist is so situational.

Situational, but it can depend on the DM.


Focused Parry: concept is good, but the 1/combat limit and the critical-hit thing both seem unnecessary, and shifting from a skill to [level+stat] (which is overall a good idea) would kinda shaft this one. Not everything needs to be based on focus checks; maybe borrow from parrying abilities (e.g. Wall of Blades) in other sources and have it be an opposed attack roll as an immediate action?
Refined Focused Parry: scaling +1 to +5 is kinda meh. My first thought for an alternative is the ability to make a second parry in a round by spending a second focus point.

It's once per combat because of it's unique ability to be used after seeing the result of a roll. It is a burst of even more burstiness than the others. Refined focused parry grants a second (more expensive use), the benefit is minor because the ability is already strong imo.


(Refined) Focused Discernment: nobody ever uses feints.

Flavor for the flavorful DMs and I have seen it used by a rogue NPC who was helping us.


(Refined) Focused Stability: getting to use a skill check to oppose an ability check is basically a "no" button, and just vs trip is kinda overly situational. Maybe +4/+8 to a bull rush, disarm, grapple, overrun, or trip attempt?

That's reasonable, however I think I'll probably just do the scaling increase there as a bonus rather than a skill check.


Focused Senses: Okay, so this class actually gets 4+Int skills, but three of them are chosen for you. Why though?

Because you get to use your best attribute on them and you're getting a discount for buying in bulk. Also, it gives you some use out of combat as a sentry.


Focused Strikes: That is a lot of words, a lot of math, and a lot of bookkeeping. I get the basic concept - you have a pile of bennies and divide them up between your attacks - but there's a smoother way to word this for sure. First thought on the mechanics is that the check is barely relevant because it's rather easy to hit the level-based cap, so one of them should go. The attack bonus and damage dice should not increment at different levels, because that's just confusing. I don't see a reason for the half-scaling on ranged attacks or the no-two-handing on melee attacks. Splitting the dice evenly they're getting less bonus damage than a single-classed Scout (let alone a more efficient skirmish build), and piling all the dice on one attack they're matching a single-classed Rogue.

Something based on the focus points (and a corresponding increase in the avialability of focus points) could be better. Maybe spend 2 focus points as a free action to get +[stat] to hit and +[level] to damage on the next attack? Could be broken up into two stages like the aptitudes, with the first stage costing only 1 point and providing half the bonuses.

You roll a concentration check. Look at a flashcard to see how much attack bonus you get. Then you make an attack and choose how much attack bonus and damage dice to put on (if you have efficiency you just multiply that number by the dice you used). That's not a lot of math imo, but if it is there's always other classes :/. A warlock rolls a bunch of d6s too so it's not out of the question. Vs scout, the scout has less hp and defenses than this does. Vs rogue, the rogue can make more than 1 attack with that many dice. You have to split these ones up if you want to use them on multiple attacks. The reason for the ranged nerf was stated above. The reason for the strength not two-handed is to keep damage in check, flavor, and to have a reason to use a shield that worked as a balance factor rather than a straight nerf.

I didn't want to divide damage between innate and active because that's copying the barbarian too much and because I wanted attack and defense to be separate in mechanics. It was a design goal I set for myself. Also, focus points are only infrequent bursts, not something to be used round after round.


Uncanny Dodge: functional and fitting.

Thanks. It actually serves a purpose in the flavor of how the focused strikes work at ranged by the "uncanny" abilities that are incredible but not magical.


Focused Mind: moar bookkeeping! Just give them a strong Will save.

This actually ties into the defense being an active deal though where attack is passive. Plus, the barbarian does something like this with rage.


Improved Focused Senses: those are useful skills, so this is a pretty solid ability. Some sort of Skill Mastery-type thing (take 10 under any conditions) would fit more with the focus-focus-focus fluff.

This is a good idea, but I feel that people like rolling dice more than just saying: I got this result. Maybe not everyone, it's just that's how I feel about it.


Focused Efficiency: see Focused Strikes.

Attack is passive. This makes an easy to calculate bonus to damage rather than just giving them more dice. People like rolling dice, but they don't want to roll a bucket of dice (though some do).


Improved Combat Focus: decent, but the fluff is weird. Maybe instead let them provide the benefits of Focused [Resilience/Parry] on effects directed at allies?

This is iron guard's glare stance on steroids. Which makes sense because you've invested levels in a class to get it. Giving allies a dodge chance is very useful very often. It's tied to focused state because something this strong shouldn't be available all the time. I know there's magic items and spells, but this gives it to multiple allies potentially and isn't magical.


Sudden Focus: Instantaneous Rage, but with focus. Decent, but it should be removed from the class and made a feat to match.

To explain this choice I direct you to this video: http://www.infinitelooper.com/?v=ajz5Poh_giI&p=n#/22;53 (47 seconds to 52 second specifically). I know shield counter and whatever, but here's what could happen: A vorpal sword is about to decapitate your ally in the surprise round and you narrowly managed to block it with a parry from out of the blue. It can also be used to ward off a mind affecting effect (with both the focused mind part and a focus point usage if necessary). Rage doesn't have the special defenses that the focused state can provide. This is like a mid level capstone.


Tireless Focus: meh. Helpful but unimpressive. Combats shouldn't be lasting more than the ten rounds that Focus probably covers by this point in the game.

Barbarians get something like this. Wanted the levels to fill out. Adds familiarity.


Greater Focused Senses: not much of a step up from Focused Senses, and could be a step down depending on ability scores and feats.

You can still actually use either if you really wanted to, and by this point it isn't too likely to be detrimental.


Improved Uncanny Dodge: why so late in the game? Most classes that provide this do so by 10th level.

♪Cuz this is filler! Filler night...♪


Limitless Focus: it's something, I guess. Unimpressive, should be available (at some other cost) earlier than this. Capstone class features are overrated; games rarely go to 20.

"A capstone should offer an interesting bonus, but it shouldn't fundamentally change how the class is played."


Improved Focused Strikes: Amounts to +1d6 damage per round, and +1 to one attack in a round. Not all that great, really.

Allows the DM to scale your power level up if they need to.


Allied Parry: see Improved Combat Focus.

The ability to block an attack for an ally mentioned in the sudden focus response derives from this. It could save their life. This and improved combat focus make you actually capable of being a tank by diverting attacks away from your allies by being near them.


I'll probably come up with some more suggestions over the course of the next few days. Overall the mechanical concept is neat (fluff is a bit similar to a Diamond Mind-using Warblade), but it needs work.

Thank you for your time in reviewing the class, I'll look into making the changes I said I would above, but there's not a whole lot in line with the design goals I'm going for. You guys have given me good and informative reviews so far.

Always did have a soft spot for the diamond mind maneuvers. Strike of perfect clarity to put your pinky finger through a wooden table for fun.

I admit, the class may not look like much, but I think it has enough capabilities and defenses that it can function at tier 3 with reasonable wealth by level gear and the feats mentioned above. If tier 3 is too much it can be lowered down by less gear and even the potential simple power reductions I listed below the class entry if needed.

Changes made.