Talk:Sentinel (3.5e Class)

Branching Path concept (a la Ranger)

I'm thinking about making this Class provide a branching path thing similar to the Ranger's TWF or Ranged combat styles. Path A would be what you see mostly described here, a Tank that takes the enemies attacks on the chin. Path B would be an elusive type that has Evasion and other common Dex based defenses. Path A would be the one with the most of the Guard abilities (Steelguard and Element Guard), along with access to Fringeward. Path B would be more of a "Set dodge target, Provoke, dodge and counter attack" kind of path. This makes this class more closely match it's original concept from the first FFXIII, with some characters being heavy tanks, while others were elusive, along with sticking to some of the defensive abilities in LR:FFXIII. The path would start as early as level 1 most likely, with each path granting different bonus feats, and class features. --Fungi FunGuy (talk) 08:01, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

On Balance rating

I'm not really sure where this falls for balance, but I was aiming for High (Rogue level). If this isn't of that balance point I'll happily change it to fit. --Fungi FunGuy (talk) 05:53, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I am going to make to make the case that this is a Moderate level class. Many of the abilities don't really give a great deal in the way of bonus ability options and instead just seem to grant stats to make tanking easier (Mediguard, Steelguard, etc.) The one that does, Provoke, is a mind-affecting compulsion, which kind of inherently limits the number of enemies against which it is useful. Undead and constructs are already immune, as does anyone who possesses some kind of immunity to such things (which is already desirable since it helps you defend against wizards and beguilers and the like in higher level games). And by the time you can bypass said immunity, you are already at quite a high level in the game (I generally think of 14 as "high" level) and your guy will have been suffering through trying to play as a defender and having everyone ignore him for 13 levels of the game.

The way I see it, defenders always suffer from the same critical flaw: If you try to force people to attack, you have to have some chance of failure that will render many of your actions for the turn useless. If you don't force them, however, and just try to occupy space a la the dwarven defender, people just bypass you easily and you may as well not be there. A couple ways to make it more effective at its job may be to allow it reactionary abilities as well, since immediate actions exist essentially for that purpose, and to try to give incentives for other creatures to attack the defender instead. Take the Tome Knight, for example, which gives a HUGE damage bonus against an enemy that doesn't at least try to attack it. That way, even if enemies don't try to attack, you don't use your actions for no tangible end product. While it doesn't need to go quite to the extent that the Knight does, I think you could add some more options to this class and still be comfortably in High balance level. - TG Cid (talk) 15:29, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback, first of all. I'm trying to keep as close to the Sentinel role as possible, without adding too much in the way of extra abilities. What I'm thinking of is changing the progression of Provoke. Provoke will stay the same, but Improved Provoke would allow the ability to use it against creatures normally immune to Mind-Affecting Compulsions. Challenge would instead give them the ability to use it as a free action, and Improved Challenge would possibly allow them to use it as an Immediate action. We could probably mess around with the level progression as well, granting them at earlier levels if needed. Provoke is pretty much going to be the go-to for this class, followed by a Total Defense action to use the Guard abilities. I've also made a feat that augments Provoke, Incite, that allows it to target an additional amount of creatures. Do you think I should just include the Incite feature as part of the class and not worry so much about feats to augment it, or would other feat augmentations be a good choice for this class? --Fungi FunGuy (talk) 16:27, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I think Incite should definitely be included as part of the class rather than a feat, since it probably seems crucial to establishing crowd control and continuing to use Provoke as written. If the aforementioned Provoke/total defense is going to be your primary trick without many other abilities being given (most of the others seem like defensive boosts, as I mentioned before), you run the risk of becoming a one-trick pony. That might be OK, I suppose, but I don't know if it would be very fun to play because it's so vanilla. As far as the increased progression is concerned, I might recommend going to a swift action on Challenge and then an immediate action, since making it a free action comes with the possible interpretation that it could be used multiple (aka, infinite) numbers of times to make a 100% assured provocation. This can also be fixed by hinging a once per round limit as a free action, but making it a swift is essentially the same thing. - TG Cid (talk) 16:10, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I've made the changes to Provoke. Provoke now targets creatures equal to 1/2 Class level (rounded down, minimum 1) + Constitution modifier. I also changed the progression as we mentioned, using swift and immediate actions. I kept them at the same levels, so Swift actions become available at 13th level, and Immediate actions become available at 19th. Another thing about the Sentinel role (the idea this class is based off of), was that it granted every party member a small increase to their defensive stats, although not as large as what the Sentinel themselves received. Granted, this was a RPG, where the levels go up to 100, and people are doing 1k damage around level 5. I've been wondering how, and if, I should implement this passive bonus. Fringeward is just a passive ability of the Sentinels they get later in the game, which is why I already included it. If you think it would help, here, and here, are some details on the Sentinel role. Mostly you'll find everything I've already included as part of the character (class features and their effects as they pertain to that game), but you can also find the "Role Bonus", which is the passive ability I mentioned a moment ago. Thank you for your help, I appreciate it. --Fungi FunGuy (talk) 21:21, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Entrench & Vendetta

My original idea for these abilities was that Entrench would increase to hit and damage rolls by +1 for every round spent in Total Defense, and Vendetta would increase to hit and damage rolls by +1 for every hit received from a single creature while in Total Defense. Entrench was obtained at 9th level, and Vendetta was obtained at 18th level. I figured they were a little bit too powerful with both giving to hit and damage bonuses, so I changed Entrench to only do to hit, while Vendetta gave damage. I also changed their level obtained and gave them scaling bonuses based on level. Not sure if that fixed or caused more problems, but I like the new concepts. --Fungi FunGuy (talk) 08:41, 25 March 2014 (UTC)