Introducing the Warden Class! A More Defensive take on the half int Caster!

[nick123qwe]

Any constructive criticism would be nice :)

*Edit* I forgot my link... since i cant post links yet I put a space between the h and the t... h ttp://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/S1J8H4y2b

[JNAProductions]

Any constructive criticism would be nice :)

Critique number #1: There's nothing to critique.

[nick123qwe]

Edited, sorry about that

[Rerem115]

The biggest issue I have with this is that it is functionally identical to the Eldritch Knight. Both are arcane casters in full plate; one just attacks more while the other has more spells. First and foremost, you really need to solidify the archetype you are going for.

My other big gripe(s) is with what is probably your core feature, the Aegis.
1. Free, scaling AC. While this is highly campaign dependant, several DMs I've played with don't use many mobile encounters, so you would have the bonus most of the time.
2. Free healing. Temp hp every round is really good. It's like you have your own personal cleric healing you for 3-20 every round.
3. You get this very powerful feature the same level you get an archetype.

[JNAProductions]

Aegis is strong. Like, really damn strong. Probably too strong.

Reflect Person is also probably too strong. As written, it lets you spend a reaction and a first level slot to negate ANY melee attack. I'd add more restrictions, and make it more like the Monk's Deflect Missiles.

Bind Soul is far too strong to have multiple uses per long rest. It halves your damage taken and massively increases damage taken by your enemy.

And Soul Replenishment is gorram crazy. Pick the meanest target in each fight, Bind Soul, and cakewalk the encounter.

Overall, it feels too powerful, and kinda lacking in things to do.

[nick123qwe]

The biggest issue I have with this is that it is functionally identical to the Eldritch Knight. Both are arcane casters in full plate; one just attacks more while the other has more spells. First and foremost, you really need to solidify the archetype you are going for.

My other big gripe(s) is with what is probably your core feature, the Aegis.
1. Free, scaling AC. While this is highly campaign dependant, several DMs I've played with don't use many mobile encounters, so you would have the bonus most of the time.
2. Free healing. Temp hp every round is really good. It's like you have your own personal cleric healing you for 3-20 every round.
3. You get this very powerful feature the same level you get an archetype.

Thanks for the insight. Anyway on to my reply. Aegis is actually a level 2 ability, it's a typo on my part. I don't not think the scaling AC is too much of an issue because it a core ability and +3 ac shouldn't make much of difference(so this is meant to compete with sneak attack action surge and smite) in the later stages of the game. But it the temp hp does seem like to much I'll probably do half level plus int mod or something like that.

[nick123qwe]

Aegis is strong. Like, really damn strong. Probably too strong.

Reflect Person is also probably too strong. As written, it lets you spend a reaction and a first level slot to negate ANY melee attack. I'd add more restrictions, and make it more like the Monk's Deflect Missiles.

Bind Soul is far too strong to have multiple uses per long rest. It halves your damage taken and massively increases damage taken by your enemy.

And Soul Replenishment is gorram crazy. Pick the meanest target in each fight, Bind Soul, and cakewalk the encounter.

Overall, it feels too powerful, and kinda lacking in things to do.

Thank you for your comments. I'm on my phone so I can't really check the exact wording on my abilities or i accedentally gave an old version but the abilities work a little differently. Aegis may be a bit strong i might nerf it as I've stated on another post.

For reflect person it does not negate the attack it just allows u to essentially copy the enemy's last attack, you still get hit. In my next iteration I'll add a condition that have to get hit by the attack u wanna copy.

Bind soul doesn't have your damage taken, u still that the full amount and also has a save the creature must fail. Although if it's too easy to fail the save I might tone it down by restricting it to once per short rest or something like that

[JNAProductions]

+3 AC takes your AC from 21 (Full Plate, Shield, Defensive) to 24. That means that your average talented warrior went from hitting on a 17+ (+2 Strength, +2 proficiency) to a 20, cutting damage to less than 40% of what it used to be.

Low level enemies are meant to still be a threat at high levels, as part of bounded accuracy. The only way to achieve a permanent 24 AC, sans magic items, is to be a Barbarian who invests heavily in Con and Dex. To the point where, assuming point buy, your highest Strength could be is 18 (before Primal Champion).

[nick123qwe]

+3 AC takes your AC from 21 (Full Plate, Shield, Defensive) to 24. That means that your average talented warrior went from hitting on a 17+ (+2 Strength, +2 proficiency) to a 20, cutting damage to less than 40% of what it used to be.

Low level enemies are meant to still be a threat at high levels, as part of bounded accuracy. The only way to achieve a permanent 24 AC, sans magic items, is to be a Barbarian who invests heavily in Con and Dex. To the point where, assuming point buy, your highest Strength could be is 18 (before Primal Champion).

To take your barbarian example, not only does he have the ability to hit 24 ac, he also has access to rage and the higher hit die. And higher damage in this regard. Low level enimies, even if they do hit him will do roughly ~5 points of damage (1d8+2) with a long sword or 3 damage on hit with rage active. This is practically nothing while he kills them in one round while the warden has to take time to bring them down. And if they are successful in moving/kiting him he will be in a severe disadvantage. But if it proves way to strong I'll move down the ac bonus to +2 along with the other changes

[Rerem115]

The problem still stands even if Aegis is a level two ability, since you get it the same level you get spellcasting and a fighting style. If it truly is your core you should get it level 1, rather than the rather lackluster "cannot be targeted by detect thoughts" and... Rune Literacy? Are runes something you've homebrewed? the only time I've really seen that phrase in D&D is in conjunction with the word "explosive".

As far as Aegis being balanced as a core ability, it falls into the same conundrum as most AC boosting abilities. Static buffs to AC, while quite powerful, tend to be rather one-dimensional. You're harder to hit, and you heal each round. +3 AC is no joke; that's an artifact level enhancement that stacks with actual artifacts, and gaining up to 20 temp hp for free, and this cannot be stated enough for free is straight bonkers. However, that's all there is to it, and the choice is pretty easy; am I next to an enemy? If yes, I am tanky. If no, I need to get next to an enemy. The examples you listed (Action Surge, Sneak Attack, Divine Smite) require a bit more thought and planning; do I Action Surge to dash close to the boss, to hit him more times, to swing from the chandelier, use something from my pack, or do anything else you can do with an action? How do I set up my sneak attack? Do I use stealth to gain advantage, or do I try to trip them, or do I flank with an ally? When do I smite? Do I wait for a crit? Do I blow everything on the boss, or do I grant myself a certain number of smites per encounter?

Also, note that the core feature of a class, with perhaps the exception of the original ranger (but really, if you're using that as a benchmark....) increases your damage. Rage, Sneak Attack, Action Surge, Ki, Bardic Inspiration, and spellcasting all can help increase the damage a character can do, but Aegis does nothing to your DPS. This will put you at a disadvantage compared to other classes; sure, you'll be super hard to kill, but none of your abilities encourage the enemy to target you, and you don't have the damage output to be enough of a threat to draw aggro. With this class on the table, you force the DM to either unreasonably target you, making encounters trivial, or force the DM to target the rest of the party, making encounters more deadly.

[nick123qwe]

The problem still stands even if Aegis is a level two ability, since you get it the same level you get spellcasting and a fighting style. If it truly is your core you should get it level 1, rather than the rather lackluster "cannot be targeted by detect thoughts" and... Rune Literacy? Are runes something you've homebrewed? the only time I've really seen that phrase in D&D is in conjunction with the word "explosive".

As far as Aegis being balanced as a core ability, it falls into the same conundrum as most AC boosting abilities. Static buffs to AC, while quite powerful, tend to be rather one-dimensional. You're harder to hit, and you heal each round. +3 AC is no joke; that's an artifact level enhancement that stacks with actual artifacts, and gaining up to 20 temp hp for free, and this cannot be stated enough for free is straight bonkers. However, that's all there is to it, and the choice is pretty easy; am I next to an enemy? If yes, I am tanky. If no, I need to get next to an enemy. The examples you listed (Action Surge, Sneak Attack, Divine Smite) require a bit more thought and planning; do I Action Surge to dash close to the boss, to hit him more times, to swing from the chandelier, use something from my pack, or do anything else you can do with an action? How do I set up my sneak attack? Do I use stealth to gain advantage, or do I try to trip them, or do I flank with an ally? When do I smite? Do I wait for a crit? Do I blow everything on the boss, or do I grant myself a certain number of smites per encounter?

Also, note that the core feature of a class, with perhaps the exception of the original ranger (but really, if you're using that as a benchmark....) increases your damage. Rage, Sneak Attack, Action Surge, Ki, Bardic Inspiration, and spellcasting all can help increase the damage a character can do, but Aegis does nothing to your DPS. This will put you at a disadvantage compared to other classes; sure, you'll be super hard to kill, but none of your abilities encourage the enemy to target you, and you don't have the damage output to be enough of a threat to draw aggro. With this class on the table, you force the DM to either unreasonably target you, making encounters trivial, or force the DM to target the rest of the party, making encounters more deadly.

You are talking about 20th level mainly in your post. At this point the Barbarian can reach similar AC with unarmored defense and primal champion on top being resistant to everything(bear totem) and constantly raning. The bladesinger also gets much higher AC with mage armor and free shield. And if they multiclass, oh boy that AC can get astronomical. The game breaks down a little at the top levels, primarily over level 17 so im not too hesistant on the +3 AC. 20hp per turn on paper does sound ridiculous at first but its at 20th level, things should be hitting way harder than that i hope, but i have already conceeded the point that it might 2 strong at that level. Although you bring up a good point with it may be promoting binary gameplay. Maybe ill adjust it a bit to maybe on a resource system and maybe some offensive capability.

[JNAProductions]

You are talking about 20th level mainly in your post. At this point the Barbarian can reach similar AC with unarmored defense and primal champion on top being resistant to everything(bear totem) and constantly raning. The bladesinger also gets much higher AC with mage armor and free shield. And if they multiclass, oh boy that AC can get astronomical. The game breaks down a little at the top levels, primarily over level 17 so im not too hesistant on the +3 AC. 20hp per turn on paper does sound ridiculous at first but its at 20th level, things should be hitting way harder than that i hope, but i have already conceeded the point that it might 2 strong at that level. Although you bring up a good point with it may be promoting binary gameplay. Maybe ill adjust it a bit to maybe on a resource system and maybe some offensive capability.

That's a good idea-and again, I'd like to point out that the Barbarian with 24 AC has, at best, an 18 Strength before his capstone. And that's with 8s in all mental stats, making them crippling vulnerable to mental magic, something rage does nothing to solve.

The Bladesinger gets worse AC (up to 23 with 20 Dex, 20 Int, and Mage Armor) but pops it higher with Shield, consuming their reaction, making them completely non-sticky (no AoOs) and is using a limited resource (Bladesong).

The Warden just gets it, with no real stat investment. He could literally have 1s across the board and still achieve 24 AC.

[demonslayerelf]

(First post but contributing to conversation, yay!)

A Warden's AC can actually be upto 36, or just 30 without magical items, on a turn-to-turn basis. Plate Armor+Shield, then Shield of Faith(Magic Initiate, but worth the investment), Shield Spell, Aegis +3.

A barbarian can't get close to that, even with Dex and Con as high as possible. With them, no spellcasting, so their highest(With a +3 shield, even) is only 27. 24, without magical items.

Bladesingers can be pretty nasty, though their lack of good armor is limiting. Let's say +3 studded leather, for fairness, max dexterity, max intelligence. That's a 32, at their absolute best, or 30 without magical items. 15/13(+3 Studded/Mage Armor)+5(Dex)+5(Int)+5(Shield)+2(Haste.) And remember, this one can last only 2 minutes, and has the health of a wizard.

So, that's the best possible AC, and additional health, without having to finagle with ANYTHING beyond taking a feat, and otherwise not being an idiot.
And what's the rest of the class like? Resistance for being moved, people can't read your mind... Is that really it? Ignoring the subclassing, because regardless of subclass, a broken class is a broken class.