Talk:Vanguard (3.5e Class)

Ratings

	Eiji-kun is neutral on this article and rated it 2 of 4.
	Very much a Moderate level class, with some gross dead levels. It's also, well.... dull. Very dull. Close to a Dislike, but it's workable. It's just so... so... dull.

Formatting Botched

I don't know what I screwed up but when I got to edit I can see all the information I put in. Halp please-Eamixx the Immortal

Did a quick fix-up on what I saw was wrong at a glance. Make sure you do some proof-reading on this, because there's still a lot of poor sentences and other weird things wrong in there. Also, you can sign your user name by typing four tildes (~~~~) which generate into a link and a time stamp when you save or preview the page. --Ganteka Future (talk) 00:00, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. Have fun. Eamixx the Immortal (talk) 00:16, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Balance

This does not look like a High balance class. It says it's supposed to be "somewhere between a barbarian a fighter and a ranger", and those are all Moderate balance classes. Were you planning on adding any more substantial class features to boost it up or were you pretty happy with it as is? If there's nothing else coming (and it would have to be pretty big honestly), you should consider lowering the indicated balance. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 00:32, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I strongly agree with the above, and after briefly perusing the contents of this class I would have to question if it even hits the Moderate balance level. Levels 3 and 4 are completely blank, and most of the class features amount to the forced sword-and-board combat style, the only saving grace of which is the 1d4 round stun capability at level 14. That alone may push it to moderate, but what I see as the weakness of this class even compared to the vanilla fighter and barbarian could put it at the bottom end of Moderate (with the ranger) or even at low (with the Monk). - TG Cid (talk) 01:44, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I see what your saying. The idea is something between a barby and a fighter but not classwise, concept wise. Also It says Playtestable at the top and one of my players is currently running it. They just hit 3rd level so I'll be revisiting it after some more playing. I put it at high because of the regen and Dr but maybe thats a mistake. The idea was to make it high balance and any suggestions to achieve that goal are welcome. I have been and will continue to take notes through the progression and make changes after they hit level 20. Thanks for the feedback I'll be making changes after the player finishes the initial run. Eamixx the Immortal (talk) 15:21, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, if you want feedback... you say they're there to soak damage. And they do have decent mechanisms to reduce any damage they happen to suffer, though it will fall behind actual damage dealt very very quickly. And they have no way to reduce energy damage. And their fast healing is per hour, which doesn't do anything in combat (but potentially reduces their dependence on healing wands). But those defensive options are only about reducing hit point damage. Entangle, slow, stun, and other debuffs will basically stop the class cold, and their save progressions mean they're likely to suffer them. They also don't have a very significant mechanism to return damage. Or provide a significant threat to foes at all really. Their focus on sword and board also means that they won't be grabbing two handed weapons (like most ranged or reach), further reducing their damage potential and offensive use against any creature that has substantial reach or that flies. They are basically a rock that is hard to hurt, but can mostly be ignored while higher priority targets are removed. The only reason they're soaking damage in the first place is if they get caught in an AoE where a bigger threat is also taking damage, or because all of the bigger threats have been dealt with and there is no one else to attack.

And having taken a close look at it and the progressions, I find myself agreeing with Cid that this is likely a Low balance class. Now plenty of Low and Moderate classes are in the same boat so there's nothing inherently wrong with that. In a game where everyone is low on the offensive side, a Vanguard as written would be just as much of a threat as anyone else. And you could always shore them up with in game gear so that the player never even noticed the lack of options and offense. But you said you wanted High balance, and so you need to address those concerns in some way.

As for actual suggestions instead of just deconstruction... If you want to stick with the sword and board setup, you can afford to give them a much faster progression with it. As in full progression two-weapon fighting and shield bash from the start. Or just give them a reason to only punch people with shields and drop the sword and board entirely. If you're going to give any other free bonus shield feats, you should probably give them early. Improved overrun, improved bull rush, and power attack are kind of meh on shields, particularly at the levels you pass them out. Feats as class features aren't a great deal though, even when you can select them from a bonus feat list, so I'm hesitant to suggest retaining or expanding them. But it could be done if you had a larger list for them to pick from maybe. Greater shield bash is an actually interesting offensive ability, and if they don't have any other damage or control options it could happen around 5. But it probably needs a DC that doesn't scale with damage (because those can get crazy, maybe 10 + half BAB + Str Mod instead), and maybe a restriction that it only works on those who haven't attacked you in melee with the last round. And then you need a bunch of new other shield tricks, because the class doesn't have anything for the higher levels at all. I don't know if you want Captain America style returning ricochet shield throws or multi-target shield bash + awesome blow or what. I don't know if you want to write up a bunch and let people pick from them or give them out on a schedule, but you do need a lot more here here for it to compete at High.

For comparison purposes, here's a reasonably well regarded High balance defender style character: The Knight. It's a class from a set of works referred to as the Tomes, and is using some rules for feats that you may not want to use, but the class feature density and progression may be instructive. Ghostwheel's Toxinblade might be another example. Both of these use the threat of significant damage to draw attacks, and that certainly works, but I think you could make a threat of status debuffs (like greater bash) work in a similar fashion. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 19:11, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Low Balance 100%. This class is somewhere between being stronger than the Warrior NPC class and weaker than a core-only PHB Fighter. If you were to pit a character using this class against any CR equivalent challenge, it would lose even more often than a Fighter, which loses a lot. ErikOfWiki (Talk) 15 September 2023.