[Tome] Deathknight.

[maddd0g]

Death Knight
"I think I might have died in my sleep…”

Death Knight’s are soldiers of undeath. They embrace the powers of all that is unholy, frigid, and gorey. They carry a magical greatsword covered in badass runes to kick ass, while firing unholy bolts of death to heal themselves and maim enemies. No one can escape their grasp.

Alighment: Non-good, but usually Evil. Very evil. :3

Starting Age: As wizard.

Hit Die: d10
Class Skills: Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (all skills individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), and Use Rope (Dex).
Skills/Level: 4+Int
BAB: Good(1/1), Saves: Fort: Good; Reflex: Bad; Will: Good

Proficiencies: Light, Medium, Heavy Armor, Simple, Martial, Greatsword.

Level, Benefit
1 Runeblade, Death Coil, Undeath
2 Death Grip, Path of Frost
3 Blood Presence
4 Plague Strikes, Command Undead
5 Frost Presence, Dread Steeds
6 Unholy Minion
7 Unholy Presence
8 Bone Sphere
9 Dead Sense
10 Sudden Doom
11 Pestilence
12 Death and Decay.
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20


(The DC for all abilities are 10+ ½ Character Level + your Charisma mod)

Runeblade(Su): The Deathknight has a runed instrument of death. It can be any weapon, as long as it is gruesome and badass. The deathknight must spend a day with the weapon, imbueing it with the powers of death and carving awesome glowing runes into the weapon. This ritual costs 100gp in materials.
This weapon:
-Counts as his "Runeblade" (Or runehammer/axe/chain) for all abilities.
-Has a MINIMUM enchancement bonus to damage and attack rolls equal to 1/3 the deathknight's level.
-Has double HP and Hardness of a normal weapon, and Ghost Touch.
-Grants a shield bonus to AC to deathknight equal to 1/3 his character level.
(Yes, almost an exact copy of the Samurai's ancestral weapon.. sorry Frankie)

Death Coil(Su): Once per round when the deathknight attacks or as a swift action she may fire a bolt of unholy energy. The bolt is a medium ranged touch attack that deals (1d6/classlevel +cha mod) unholy damage, and the deathknight is healed by half of the damage done by this attack. Use your charisma or dex mod for the attack roll, whichever is higher.

(To clarify, even with a standard action attack, the deathknight gets to ALSO fire a death coil. Alternatively he can fire it using his swift action.)

Undeath(Ex): The deathknight does not need to eat. Additionally the deathknight qualifies for necromantic feats using the deathknight’s character level instead of caster level. At 5th level, the deathknight may elect to become a ghoul, vampire, revenant or swordwraith. The deathknight also qualifies for fiendish feats.

Death Grip(Su): No one escapes death. At 2nd level the deathknight can keep any enemy from keeping too much distance. As a swift action, the deathknight may grab any enemy within medium range with unholy energy and teleport them to him unless they succeed on a reflex save.

Path of Frost(Ex): The deathknight is extraordinary cold and frigid. This allows the deathknight to freeze unattended inanimate objects at will just by touching or blowing on them. By spending a minute per inch of thickness: This lowers the break DC of any item with a toughness of less than 10 to 13, and it's hardness to 1. (This time reduced to a round per foot of thickness at level 10) This can also quickly freeze liquids into ice. The deathknight water may freeze under him as he walks, allowing him to walk across water as difficult terrain. At 5th level, this applies to any mount he is riding, and any allies and their mounts within 60 feet. And is also no longer difficult terrain.

Blood Presence(Su): The death knight and those who fight with her within 60’ grow a taste for blood. Any damaging attacks made by the death knight or his allies deal an extra 1d6 per 4 class levels damage(this does not count towards ability damage)(1d6 at 3rd, 2d6 at 7th, etc) Also, once per round when the death knight or an ally lands an attack, they may heal for half the damage they deal with that attack.

Plague Strikes(Sp): Once per round when you hit with your runeblade the target must make a fort save or be afflicted by Ghoul Touch. You and allies are unaffected by the sickened effect of the stench cloud.

Command Undead(Sp): The Deathknight may cast command undead as a spell-like ability at will. Use your character level as caster level.

Frost Presence(Su): The deathknight is hardened by ice and is surrounded by chilling winds. The deathknight gains a DR/- equal to half her class level, rounded down. In addition the area in a 10 foot radius around the deathknight is considered difficult terrain for his enemies, and any enemies attacking within the area have a 20% miss chance, as concealment.

Dreadsteeds(Sp): The Deathknight and his allies need badass unholy mounts to travel and be awesome. The deathknight can summon awesome mounts as the spell Phantom Steed once a day using his character level as the caster level, except that he can summon up to his class level in phantom steeds instead of one.

Unholy Minion(Su): The deathknight has an undead cohort. Upon waking the deathknight can spend an hour to call upon the lords of undeath to grant him an undead minion with a CR of 2 less than his character level. The deathknight can only have 1 of these cohorts at any time, and can control them telepathically. This minion qualifies for fiendish and monstrous feats. This minion stays until it dies or is dismissed at which point it returns from whence it came, and can be resummoned the following morning, or another cohort can be called upon in it's place. The intelligence of this creature is always atleast 10. The minion has turn resistance equal to your class level.

Unholy Presence(Su): The Death Knight and his allies within 60’ are always under the effect of Haste. If the Death Knight or his allies would be slowed, they are instead “unhasted” for 1d6 rounds.

Bone Sphere(Sp): The deathknight gains access to the Bone Sphere, this becomes advanced access at level 12.

Deadsense(Ex): The deathknight gains blindsense 30’, darkvision 60’, and lowlight vision.

Sudden Doom(Su): Whenever you threaten/confirm a critical with your runeweapon, you may fire a single Death Coil as a free action. In addition, the crit range on your runeweapon is now increased as Keen weapon.
Targets hit by your death coil take 1d6 negative levels.

Pestilence(Su): Those who fail the fort save on the stench cloud from your Plague Strike are also afflicted by Ghoul Touch and also emit a stench cloud (which can also activate this effect.)

Death and Decay(Su): Enemies within 10' of the deathknight are afflicted as by cloudkill every round.

[maddd0g]

Not quite done.. wanted some feedback on him so far?
Too good? Not good enough?

Obviously based on the WoW Death Knight.

[Maxus]

Don't feed the troll, people.

I think it's a Barrist Trickster experiment, in reverse.

[ubernoob]

Too narrow, too offensively focused. Tweak the offense down (like a lot, look at levels 1, 5, and 10 where the abilities are clearly too potent on offense), and add some defensive abilities.

[koz]

Don't feed the troll, people.

I think it's a Barrist Trickster experiment, in reverse.

Maxus, I think you're being a little unfair. Admittedly, the class isn't perfect, but it's one of the better first-time attempts I've seen on here.

Does Blood Presence apply to attacks which inflict ability damage?

What type are all the abilities? Extraordinary, supernatural, spell-like? It would be good to label them.

What weapons and/or armour is this death knight proficient in?

Also, agreed with ubernoob on the offensive focus.

[Maxus]

Don't feed the troll, people.

I think it's a Barrist Trickster experiment, in reverse.

Maxus, I think you're being a little unfair. Admittedly, the class isn't perfect, but it's one of the better first-time attempts I've seen on here..

I'm sort of alerted by the [Tome of Overpowered].

Likewise, it looks like he put together a bunch of abilities based on the theme and tried to see if we'd just focus on those.

It reminds me of an experiment a couple years back, where someone made a class by tossing together the weaker features of several classes and then went to see if people would just focus on the number of abilities or actually *think* about them.

[Leress]

Yeah, that was me.

[Judging__Eagle]

It's not really a DK. Not a WoW DK at least. You need to have the abilities be co-current, and scale slower in order to have a class with "options".

Making everything chunked out is okay as an idea, but as-is, it makes the class look like it jumps around in terms of it's flavour and mechanics.

Also, Death Knights are not what 'starting' Adventurers can ever be, they're a prestige class, or a template, applied to an already existing character.

[maddd0g]

Lol, guys.. I'm not trolling. (Although I do see where you could get that from, haha.)

How I forgot proficiencies is beyond me..

I threw this together in 30-45 minutes, figured I'd be better off overpowering and then toning it down than underpowering it.

Too offensive.. got it. What kind of utility could I give him?

Could probably change it to a 10 level prestige class..

I realize some of the abilities seem like they're pushing it, but I was basing them from spells a wizard could cast that level.. should I delay some of that stuff a few levels?

[PhaedrusXY]

Also, Death Knights are not what 'starting' Adventurers can ever be, they're a prestige class, or a template, applied to an already existing character.

You mean like this?

(Yeah, I know. WoW Death Knight is probably different.)

[Avoraciopoctules]

Also, Death Knights are not what 'starting' Adventurers can ever be, they're a prestige class, or a template, applied to an already existing character.

You mean like this?

(Yeah, I know. WoW Death Knight is probably different.)

Well, given that he's written his own WoW Death Knight PrC, he probably means more like this: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=49246

[Maxus]

Lol, guys.. I'm not trolling. (Although I do see where you could get that from, haha.)

All right.

I'm sorry for misjudging this (and you). I'll find something positive to put in my posts, then.

Offhand, some of the abilities it gets are way too early. My brain's sort of sleep-fried right now, but I think there could be some scaling for that, and scaling the DCs via the Magic Formula of 10 + 1/2 character level + an ability modifier should keep the effect and keep you from bossing around undead who could break you over their knee.

Some the side effects for abilities are good for area debuffs. Making someone radiate a stench cloud like a Troglodyte, right in the middle of their allies? Dang.

[maddd0g]

Moved things around a bit.. they feel a bit more level appropriate now.

I feel as if there needs to a bit more to customize, but I'm not really sure how to pull that off. There's alot of room in the awesome glyphed weapon design space to allow for the deathknight to rune his weapon up with cool effects each morning.

Unfortunately combat is a bit too short and lethal to really recreate the awesome that is DKs.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Runeblade--I'm very much against the idea of players being wedded to one weapon for the rest of their lives, especially with a specific weapon. But mechanically, it doesn't seem very good. It keeps up until around level 9 or so, but that's the point when PCs are ladling up enchantments or so on their weapons and backing that ass up with some Greater Magic Weapon.

Death Coil should NOT be a ranged touch attack. They will almost never get to use it.

Path of Frost isn't a bad idea for an ability, but it seems too specific in that lame-ass 4E way. It should just instantly and selectively freeze inanimate solids and liquids then do all of those things you describe. And of course reduces the break DC of any object with less than 10 hardness by some arbitrary amount and sets the hardness of any object with less than 10 hardness to some arbitrary number.

Overall, the class is quite good for the first six or seven levels; if you made the changes I suggested your class would improve the survivability of your party by a noticeable amount. But it has an incredible drop off in power from beyond that point; at around level 8 the durability of monsters, especially melee ones, goes up dramatically due to the way hit point scaling works. Your Death Knight does not actually have a lot of abilities in the way of offense to begin with so they fall irrevocably behind.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Unholy Minion(Su): The deathknight has an undead cohort. Upon waking the deathknight can spend an hour to call upon the lords of undeath to grant him an undead minion with a CR of 2 less than his character level. This minion qualifies for fiendish and monstrous feats. This minion stays until it dies or is dismissed at which point it simply ceases to exist. The intelligence of this creature is always atleast 10. The minion has turn resistance equal to your class level.

So every day, you get a cohort who can't be rezzed, but stays with you forever. You take a month off and come back with 30 cohorts. This needs to be reworded so that you may only have one cohort at a time. It might also be worth stating how much control the PC has over what kind of cohort is generated.

[Judging__Eagle]

Also, Death Knights are not what 'starting' Adventurers can ever be, they're a prestige class, or a template, applied to an already existing character.

You mean like this?

(Yeah, I know. WoW Death Knight is probably different.)

Well, given that he's written his own WoW Death Knight PrC, he probably means more like this: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=49246

Funny thing is, I'm using the ToN DK in a game that I'm running; mostly b/c I didn't have my DK class printed off when I was helping the player build their character, but I have a copy of the pre-Bard version of The Tomes printed up in a binder, that travels with my other 'useful' gaming books (PHB, DMG, MM, MM2, MM3).

[maddd0g]

Honestly, I'm not familiar with high level play whatsoever.. Every campaign I play in ends around level 8 or 9. (Which seems to be just about where the game starts to get a little retarded.)

I have no idea how to finish off the class in a balanced way..