5e knight: Fighter subclass

[Blackflight]

I decided to make a knight subclass for the fighter. The idea was to create a martial class that fills a supportive role to the group, being able to protect and use commands to buff allies.

5e knight: Fighter subclass
Knight`s challenge
At 3rd level, your imposing presence is able to dictate the battlefield. As a bonus action you shout out a taunting challenge at a creature you can see wtihin 30 feet, which can hear you. That creature makes a wisdom save (DC 8 + your proficiency modifier + wisdom modifier). If it fails, it has disadvantage when attacking a creature other than you, and it treats all terrain as difficult whenever it tries to move away from you.

At the end of each of its turns it can make a new wisdom save, ending this effect on a successful save. Only a single creature can be affected by your knight´s challenge at a time and a creature is immune to its effect 1 minute after it ends or if it succeeds on its initial save.

Furthermore, your knight´s challenge effect immediately ends if you are frightened or unconscious.

Commanding pressence:
Also at 3rd level, you can shout out a command to a nearby creature. That creature must be allied to you and able to hear you. You gain the following benefits:

Maneuvering command: As a bonus action you can shout a command to an allied creature within 60 feet. That creature can use its reaction to move up to half its speed without provoking opportunity attacks.

Commanding strike: When an allied creature fails to hit on a melee attack roll against a creature within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to allow that creature to reroll a single dice once.

Iron resolve: When an allied creature within 60 feet fails a wisdom saving throw, you can use your reaction to allow that creature to reroll its saving throw once.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your wisdom modifier (minimum 1). You must then complete a long rest before you can use it again.


Note: Why are these features based on wisdom rather than charisma? Morale checks and animal handling (ride) checks are based on wisdom, and since I wanted the knight to be naturally good at mounted combat and also be braver than the average warrior I thought wisdom was the better choice. Having the knight be reliant on both charisma and wisdom would make the class too MAD in my opinion. Furthermore, I think its justified to consider the knight´s abilities more of a matter of sheer willpower rather than force of personality.


Martial prowess
At 7th level, your martial skill is unmatched, being able to use your shield offensively and your great weapons defensively. You gain the following two benefits.

Shield bash: While wielding a shield, whenever you take the attack action you make a single attack using your shield in addition to your normal attacks. You are proficient with this attack and it deals d4 + your strength modifier as bludgeoning damage.

Parry: While wielding a two-handed melee weapon, whenever you a make melee attack roll against a creature, hit or miss, you gain a +2 AC bonus against melee weapon attacks made from that creature until the start of your next turn.


Dauntless
At 10th level, you gain proficiency in wisdom saving throws and you have advantage on saving throws against being frightened


Battle vigor
At 15th level, while engaged in combat, when you use your Action surge or second wind features, you also regain a use of your Commanding pressence. This cannot exceed your maximum amount of uses per long rest.

Imposing presence
At 18th level, your knight´s challenge is no longer restricted to affect a single creature at a time. Furthermore, whenever you use your knight´s challenge you are able to affect any number of eligable creatures within range.


Any thoughts on this? Is it balanced? Do you think it would be fun to play?

[Zhorn]

Martial prowess
At 7th level, your martial skill is unmatched, being able to use your shield offensively and your great weapons defensively. You gain the following two benefits.

Shield bash: While wielding a shield, whenever you take the attack action you make a single attack using your shield in addition to your normal attacks. You are proficient with this attack and it deals d4 + your strength modifier as bludgeoning damage.

Parry: While wielding a two-handed melee weapon, whenever you a make melee attack roll against a creature, hit or miss, you gain a +2 AC bonus against melee weapon attacks made from that creature until the start of your next turn.


I like the ideas of these, though I'd be inclined to tweak them slightly:

Shield bash: While wielding a shield, whenever you take the attack action you can make a single attack using your shield as a bonus action. You are proficient with this attack and it deals d4 + your strength modifier as bludgeoning damage.
^ line it up with the same form of action economy as TWF or PAM

Parry: While wielding a two-handed melee weapon you gain a +2 AC bonus against melee weapon attacks made by creatures within your reach.
^ less tracking involved.

Now questions about shield bashing:

Would shield bash's to hit and damage rolls be modified by a +1/+2/+3 shield?
Would a modified shield (MM p204: Lizardfolk's spiked shield) override the 1d4 bludgeoning damage?
Does treating a shield as a weapon negate the Dueling fighting style?
Is treating a shield as a weapon compatible with the Dual Wielder feat?

[Blackflight]

I like the ideas of these, though I'd be inclined to tweak them slightly:

Shield bash: While wielding a shield, whenever you take the attack action you can make a single attack using your shield as a bonus action. You are proficient with this attack and it deals d4 + your strength modifier as bludgeoning damage.
^ line it up with the same form of action economy as TWF or PAM

Parry: While wielding a two-handed melee weapon you gain a +2 AC bonus against melee weapon attacks made by creatures within your reach.
^ less tracking involved.

Now questions about shield bashing:

Would shield bash's to hit and damage rolls be modified by a +1/+2/+3 shield?
Would a modified shield (MM p204: Lizardfolk's spiked shield) override the 1d4 bludgeoning damage?
Does treating a shield as a weapon negate the Dueling fighting style?
Is treating a shield as a weapon compatible with the Dual Wielder feat?


I like these suggestions. I initially had shield bash as a bonus action but thought it would ruin the action economy of knight´s challenge and the Maneuvering command, but on second thought, having it as a straight up extra attack is perhaps a bit overpowered.
And about your four questions, I´d have to think more on these. I don´t want to cripple the duelist choice but then again, it is effectively a weapon with this feature. Maybe it should be optional to use it as a weapon or not.

I agree that there is too much tracking involved in the way I wrote parry. But if it applies to all melee attacks would it be better to have parry as a reaction to also tax its action economy or is it fine as is?

And speaking of tracking, do you think its too much work to keep track on what creatures are immune to knights challenge (for being previously challenged)? I could make it so that you can use it multiple times at the same creature but with a limited use per day (similar to Commanding presence) -> A variant would be to have knight´s challenge take up a use of your commanding presence and instead make commanding presence recharge on each short rest.

[Zhorn]

I don´t want to cripple the duelist choice but then again, it is effectively a weapon with this feature. Maybe it should be optional to use it as a weapon or not.
I've seen the shield bash topic come up a few times in the past, each with its own ruling depending on who was asked at the time.
Outside of custom classes and subclasses, a shield would generally be seen as a non-light, non-finesse, improvised weapon. And since it is wielded alongside one handed weapon in the main hand, shield bashing would be a form of two weapon fighting.
These factors help explain the 1d4 damage and the bonus action attack, but then the waters start to get muddied as the nuance of how RAW and RAI align with using a shield as a weapon.

If the shield is non-light (6 lb.), would that make the Dual Wielder feat mandatory for it to be used as a weapon?
If Dual Wielder is mandatory, is it fair to turn shields into +3 AC when the feat was intended to give +1 AC for wielding two weapons?
If a class is proficient in using shields, does that allow them to add their proficiency to attack rolls, or must they also be proficient in improvised weapons?
If a shield does count as a weapon, can an Eldritch Knight Weapon Bond to a shield?

These questions just keep piling up.
By going down your route of making the shield bash a subclass feature, a fair lot of these are avoided. Not answered, just not relevant to your initial situation.
Perhaps as a way of locking down some of the other questions, have the new abilities tied into the existing fighting styles? examples:
Improved Fighting Style
At 7th level, your martial skill is unmatched, being able to utilize your chosen fighting style to greater effect. You gain the following benefits based on your chosen fighting style.

Return Fire (Archery). You react at lighting speed when attacked at range. When a creature makes a ranged attack at you, you can use your reaction to make a single ranged attack towards them at the same time, ignoring any benefits of cover they may have. Both you and the creature resolve the damage rolls of your respective attacks at the same time. [note: just an example, didn't spend too much thought on it. Just took small bits from the mage slayer and sharpshooter feats to make something akin to a sniper duel. Enemy pops around from cover and you treat that as an opening]
? (Defense). ?
? (Dueling). ?
Parry (Great Weapon Fighting). (insert your parry ruling here)
Shield Bash (Protection). While wielding a shield, whenever you take the attack action you can make a single attack using your shield as a bonus action. You are proficient with this attack and it deals 1d4 + your strength modifier as bludgeoning damage for common shields. If a shield has relevant alterations or magical enhancements, shield bash can benefit from those effects. [note: by tying into the fighting style, the initial dueling question is dodged. Unless a character multiclasses into paladin or ranger for 2 levels, but then the power trade off is losing out on the ability score improvement at 19, Extra Attack (3) at 20, and the potential delay in level progression]
? (Two-Weapon Fighting). When a creature provokes an attack of opportunity from you, you may attack once with each weapon you currently wield [wording is a bit loose, but the idea being you wield a weapon in each hand, and each one is used to make an attack roll in that single opportunity attack].

Would also make the subclass more versatile than just two-handed weapons or sword and board.


I agree that there is too much tracking involved in the way I wrote parry. But if it applies to all melee attacks would it be better to have parry as a reaction to also tax its action economy or is it fine as is?
I agree that an activator should be used, just the concern about tracking AC on different targets could become messy, where as the melee vs range is more straight forward. The battle master Parry is a reaction, but is a damage reduction instead of an AC boost, where I envision (and I could be wrong) that the extra AC from your version is the weapon swings are wide and make reaching the PC more difficult. Maybe the AC bonus is activated from an attack action and only lasts until your next turn OR until you move more than your weapon's reach?


And speaking of tracking, do you think its too much work to keep track on what creatures are immune to knights challenge (for being previously challenged)? I could make it so that you can use it multiple times at the same creature but with a limited use per day (similar to Commanding presence) -> A variant would be to have knight´s challenge take up a use of your commanding presence and instead make commanding presence recharge on each short rest.
Being that the Knight's Challenge is functionally akin to the paladin's Compelled Duel, I'd stick with that as the benchmark. Functions mostly the same, limited to Wisdom modifier uses per day instead of spell slots, doesn't require concentration. I imaging the immunity is a lift from frightful presence? I'd say have the use per day limit instead of the immunity.

[Blackflight]

Thanks for your feedback! It´s very helpful to get a 2nd opinion on the features!



Perhaps as a way of locking down some of the other questions, have the new abilities tied into the existing fighting styles? examples:
Improved Fighting Style
At 7th level, your martial skill is unmatched, being able to utilize your chosen fighting style to greater effect. You gain the following benefits based on your chosen fighting style.

Return Fire (Archery). You react at lighting speed when attacked at range. When a creature makes a ranged attack at you, you can use your reaction to make a single ranged attack towards them at the same time, ignoring any benefits of cover they may have. Both you and the creature resolve the damage rolls of your respective attacks at the same time. [note: just an example, didn't spend too much thought on it. Just took small bits from the mage slayer and sharpshooter feats to make something akin to a sniper duel. Enemy pops around from cover and you treat that as an opening]
? (Defense). ?
? (Dueling). ?
Parry (Great Weapon Fighting). (insert your parry ruling here)
Shield Bash (Protection). While wielding a shield, whenever you take the attack action you can make a single attack using your shield as a bonus action. You are proficient with this attack and it deals 1d4 + your strength modifier as bludgeoning damage for common shields. If a shield has relevant alterations or magical enhancements, shield bash can benefit from those effects. [note: by tying into the fighting style, the initial dueling question is dodged. Unless a character multiclasses into paladin or ranger for 2 levels, but then the power trade off is losing out on the ability score improvement at 19, Extra Attack (3) at 20, and the potential delay in level progression]
? (Two-Weapon Fighting). When a creature provokes an attack of opportunity from you, you may attack once with each weapon you currently wield [wording is a bit loose, but the idea being you wield a weapon in each hand, and each one is used to make an attack roll in that single opportunity attack].

Would also make the subclass more versatile than just two-handed weapons or sword and board.



Improved fighting style would for sure be cool. My initial thinking was that a knight is thematically (at least usually) seen with either sword and board or with a two-handed weapon. Wielding a bow is not very chivalric (no honor in killing enemies from afar) and two-weapon fighting is perhaps a bit too savage or barbaric. But then again I am very much in favor of letting the player decide rather than railroading them in certain direction. I´d have to think more on this.

[sandmote]

I really like the feel of this. At the very least you have options you're using that don't depend on a weapon, which the battle master really doesn't get in combat.


Commanding pressence:
Also at 3rd level, you can shout out a command to a nearby creature. That creature must be allied to you and able to hear you. You gain the following benefits:

Maneuvering command: As a bonus action you can shout a command to an allied creature within 60 feet. That creature can use its reaction to move up to half its speed without provoking opportunity attacks.

Commanding strike: When an allied creature fails to hit on a melee attack roll against a creature within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to allow that creature to reroll a single dice once.

Iron resolve: When an allied creature within 60 feet fails a wisdom saving throw, you can use your reaction to allow that creature to reroll its saving throw once.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your wisdom modifier (minimum 1). You must then complete a long rest before you can use it again.
I'd rewrite this to clarify whether Maneuvering command, Commanding strike, and Iron resolve have a shared pool or each have their own pool.

I'm assuming they have a shared pool. If that is the case, I'm suggesting replacing "You gain the following benefits:" with "You can channel a command into one of the following options:"


Battle vigor
At 15th level, while engaged in combat, when you use your Action surge or second wind features, you also regain a use of your Commanding pressence. This cannot exceed your maximum amount of uses per long rest.
I would simply let Commanding Presence refresh on a short rest. Yeah, this still works when you've only got one combat encounter a day, but refreshing on a short rest is going to be easier to track.

[Zhorn]

I would simply let Commanding Presence refresh on a short rest. Yeah, this still works when you've only got one combat encounter a day, but refreshing on a short rest is going to be easier to track.

Plus that would also align with the Fighter's general shtick of being a short-rest class.