Author Topic: The Nord's Blade  (Read 15561 times)

Offline phaedrusxy

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The Nord's Blade
« on: April 25, 2012, 04:00:47 PM »
Disclaimer: This class was created by Amechra. I did not contribute at all to this, nor ask permission to copy it here, but I do like it a lot. So I thought I'd copy it over to this board, because I frequently have problems with the one where it was originally posted, and I want to have reliable access to it. I only modified one thing, and that was to make the table match the text, and Amechra had confirmed that it was supposed to work as the text, not the table.


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THE NORD'S BLADE
Select any 10 Discipline skills; they are the Class skills for this class.
Skill Points per Level: 4+Int Modifier
Skill Points at First Level: (4+Int Modifier)*4
HD: d8

LevelBase Attack BonusFort SaveRef SaveWill SaveSpecialFate DiceManeuvers Recognized
1st
+0
+0
+2
+2
Altered Fate, Fate's Swordsman
1
2
2nd
+1
+0
+3
+3
Uncanny Dodge, Replace Fate
2
2
3rd
+2
+1
+3
+3
Right Place at the Right Time
3
3
4th
+3
+1
+4
+4
Fate's Evasion, Fated Strike (1st)
3
3
5th
+3
+1
+4
+4
Alter the Outcome (Damage)
4
4
6th
+4
+2
+5
+5
Mutable Past
5
4
7th
+5
+2
+5
+5
Fated Strike (2nd)
5
4
8th
+6
+2
+6
+6
Improved Uncanny Dodge
6
5
9th
+6
+3
+6
+6
Alter the Outcome (Attack)
7
5
10th
+7
+3
+7
+7
Fated Strike (3rd)
7
6
11th
+8
+3
+7
+7
Improved Fate's Evasion
8
6
12th
+9
+4
+8
+8
Bonus Luck Feat
9
6
13th
+9
+4
+8
+8
Fated Strike (4th)
9
7
14th
+10
+4
+9
+9
Bonus Luck Feat
10
7
15th
+11
+5
+9
+9
Alter the Outcome (Saves)
11
8
16th
+12
+5
+10
+10
Bonus Luck Feat
11
8
17th
+12
+5
+10
+10
Fated Strike (5th)
12
8
18th
+13
+6
+11
+11
Bonus Luck Feat
13
9
19th
+14
+6
+11
+11
Fated Strike (6th)
13
9
20th
+15
+6
+12
+12
Fatima Pluropotentia
14
10
Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: A Nord's Blade is proficient in all simple and martial weapons, along with any associated weapon of any discipline they selected in the morning; they are also proficient in all Light and Medium armors.

Maneuvers Known: A Nord's Blade is a rather different fighter than your average Initiator; in fact, they are almost surreally differently.

Each morning, the Nord's Blade may select a number of Maneuvers Known from any Discipline equal to the Maneuvers Recognized column on the table above.

They have a number of Readied Maneuvers equal to 1plus half the number of Maneuvers Recognized they have; unlike normally, they may ready a single maneuver multiple times. They may recover a single expended use of any maneuver by removing a number of Fate Dice results equal to 1 + one-third the level of that maneuver, rounded up.

Instead of learning a number of stances, the Nord's Blade automatically enters a stance of their choice; they may only enter a stance if they have met all of the prerequisites for that stance.

For the purposes of what maneuvers they have access to, select any three disciplines. For those disciplines alone, the Nord's Blade's IL is equal to their class level plus half their levels in non-initiator classes. Finally, the Nord's Blade uses their Charisma in place of the normal key ability score for those three discipline.

Fate Dice: For those who play with fate on their side, it helps that they are able to "tug" the strings, as it were. At the start of the day, a Nord's Blade rolls the number of six-sided dice indicated above, and records the results. If Fate Dice are removed, they regain a single Fate Die at the beginning of every encounter; you do this by rolling a d6, and recording the new result.

Altered Fate (Ex): A Nord's Blade is a horrible person to fight; after all, they have been changed by the fates to work on a slightly different framework of fate. As such, at level 1, the Nord's Blade is treated as if they were using the Bell Curve Rolls variant from Unearthed Arcana.

Fate's Swordsman (Su): A Nord's Blade is, literally, the Sword of Fate, and, as such, is rather more dangerous than a swordsman should be; they may, by performing a DC 20 Concentration check, replace a "d20" roll (in reality a 3d6 roll) with a roll of 4d6 and remove any one dice result. That result is then added to their Fate Dice pool; as such, it can only be used when the Fate Dice pool isn't full. This ability is a free action that may be used only once per round.

Uncanny Dodge (Ex): As the Barbarian class feature.

Replace Fate (Su): A Nord's Blade smiles at bad luck, as for them, there is no luck; they are merely saving up success for later. At 2nd level, when they roll a "d20" (really a 3d6), they may replace a single d6 from the result with of one of the dice from their Fate Dice pool. This ability is a free action that may only be used once per round.

Right Place at the Right Time (Ex): A Nord's Blade is well attuned to the ebb and flow of Fate, and, as such, is always at the right place at the right time. At 3rd level, they may add their Charisma modifier to their initiative.

Fate's Evasion (Ex and Su): This ability functions as Evasion, but can be aided by a pull at fate's heartstrings; they may swap any number of d6s rolled for damage for the evaded effect with results from their Fate Dice pool. This swap applies to the damage rolled for everyone affected by the evaded effect. The second part of this ability is Supernatural, and as such does not function when Supernatural abilities can't be used; additionally, the second part of this ability does not affect Maximized effects, as they do not actually roll the dice.

Fated Strike (Su): A Nord's Blade is strengthened by the power of fate, and of course, since fate's strings are so close to their fingers... After all, if that blow was FATED to hit, they obviously don't have to put any effort into it.
A Nord's Blade may, once per encounter per 3 Nord Blade levels, use a single maneuver of up to the listed level without expending it; if they do so, they may add their charisma modifier to either the attack roll or the damage rolls for the maneuver. If the maneuver doesn't deal damage or require an attack roll, they may instead have the duration of any effect it causes repeat next round, without spending an action. After using this ability, remove a number of Fate Dice equal to 1 plus one-third of the maneuver's level, rounded up, from their pool; if the number of Fate Dice removed from the pool is greater than the number of Fate Dice in the pool, the Nord's Blade gains a number of Negative Levels equal to the difference. These Negative Levels never become level loss, and ignore immunity to Negative Levels; Fate can only be pushed so much.

Alter the Outcome (Su): EVERYONE follows fate, its just that some people... like giving fate a push to keep it going the direction they like.
As an immediate action, a Nord's Blade may designate a single creature within 60'; for 1 round, that creature is treated as if they had the Altered Fate ability. In addition, as a free action, once per round, the Nord's Blade may use their Fate's Swordsman or Replace Fate ability on a single roll by the designated creature.
At 5th level, they may only use this ability on skill checks made by the designated creature.
At 9th level, they may also use this ability on attack rolls made by the designated creature.
At 15th level, they may also use this ability on saves made by the designated creature.
This ability may be used on the Nord's Blade themselves; this allows them to use Fate's Swordsman or Replace Fate twice on a single roll of the indicated types, if they so choose.

Mutable Past (Su): Not everyone started off perfect; however, when you can push fate around, you can usually figure out how to deal with vagaries of the past.

While they are selecting their maneuvers known, they may lower the maximum amount of Fate Dice results they may have prepared by 3 for 24 hours to make it so that one ability score is treated as if it was originally an 18 (in other words, before any increases from levels or magical enhancements, their ability score is treated as if it was an 18.) In addition, they may alter their appearance to any their race could possible have, and may alter their name, their accent, their gender, and the appearance of their clothing while they are doing this; however, this cannot be used as a disguise because, as far as the world is concerned, they have always been that way (Wanted posters alter to match a different face, the name on official documents is changed and so on.). The "18" for a given ability score lasts for 24 hours, but the other changes they may elect bring into play are permanent until they change them again through use of this ability.

Improved Uncanny Dodge (Ex): As the Barbarian ability of the same name.

Improved Fate's Evasion (Ex and Su): As the Fate's Evasion ability, but based off of Improved Evasion rather than Evasion.

Bonus Luck Feat (Ex): Luck is just another word for the vagaries of fate; thus, this marks a refinement of the Nord's Blade's talent for fate manipulation. At the listed levels, they gain a bonus luck feat, which they must qualify for.

Fatima Pluripotentia (Su): Fate is now a pushover for the Nord's Blade to push and pull; they may, as a free action once per round, set every result in their Fate Dice pool to either 1 or 6. All Dice in the pool must be set to the same value.

Multiclassing Notes
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Nord's Blades and Luck Feats
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Additional Stuff:
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Notes:
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Changelog
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« Last Edit: May 24, 2013, 11:00:21 PM by phaedrusxy »
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Offline Nanshork

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Re: The Nord's Blade
« Reply #1 on: April 25, 2012, 04:33:55 PM »
That formatting is horrible.   :p

Why not just ask Amechra to port it over?

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: The Nord's Blade
« Reply #2 on: April 25, 2012, 04:36:38 PM »
Yeah yeah... working on repairing the formatting... He hasn't responded to my last couple of messages about it. So I decided to do it myself. I don't think he'll mind...
I don't pee messages into the snow often , but when I do , it's in Cyrillic with Fake Viagra.  Stay frosty my friends.

Offline Garryl

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Re: The Nord's Blade
« Reply #3 on: April 25, 2012, 04:48:31 PM »
(click to show/hide)

Here you go. Just change the color for the header line. I can never remember the code for that nice powder blue.

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: The Nord's Blade
« Reply #4 on: April 25, 2012, 04:57:13 PM »
Bah, just when I'd almost worked out how to get a working one... Thanks. :P


Edit: To help with the class skills... so everyone who plays this class doesn't have to wade through pages after pages of homebrew digging for them, like I did... here is a giant list of disciplines, with brief descriptions (and their associated skill). I didn't quite get through the entire list from the Homebrew Compendium, but might go back and finish when I feel motivated...

(click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: April 25, 2012, 11:34:10 PM by phaedrusxy »
I don't pee messages into the snow often , but when I do , it's in Cyrillic with Fake Viagra.  Stay frosty my friends.

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: The Nord's Blade
« Reply #5 on: April 25, 2012, 05:17:16 PM »
Here is my character that I'm going to be playing that uses this class, and a couple of fun things I'm doing with it:

I took the luck feats that let me reroll saving throws and initiative checks by "spending" one of my Luck dice. The really, really nice thing about this is, that by spending a luck die, I then open up a space in my pool so that I can use Fate's Swordsman on the re-roll (roll 4d6, drop lowest, instead of just 3d6). I can also use Replace Fate with this, if I have any fate dice with results better than the dice I get with my reroll. I can do the same thing with attacks, using Fated Strike.

In play, this would look like this:
1) I roll initiative/a saving throw/an attack (using a maneuver).
2) I am not happy with the result.
3) I "spend" a fate die (likely the lowest one in my pool) to reroll.
4) Instead of just rolling 3d6 (what I roll instead of 1d20), I make a DC 20 Concentration check, and roll 4d6. I take the lowest result, and put that die into my Fate Dice pool, and use the other three dice as my result.
5) If I'm still not happy with the result, I can swap out the lowest die that's left in my result with a higher die from my Fate Dice pool (if there is one).

In this way, not only can I re-roll all initiative checks, saving throws, and attack rolls (if I'm using a maneuver), but I can stack the odds even further in my favor on the reroll. :D
« Last Edit: April 25, 2012, 11:39:04 PM by phaedrusxy »
I don't pee messages into the snow often , but when I do , it's in Cyrillic with Fake Viagra.  Stay frosty my friends.

Offline Garryl

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Re: The Nord's Blade
« Reply #6 on: April 25, 2012, 06:38:07 PM »
Don't forget Oslecamo's ToBhou disciplines in your list (they're generally more powerful that normal martial disciplines, though, so be careful). I also have one discipline in my brew (Sublime Tapestry, Martial Lore, but you won't qualify for it without a dip or a Charisma of 38) and a few move action maneuvers that are tacked on to the normal 9 disciplines.

Offline Amechra

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Re: The Nord's Blade
« Reply #7 on: April 25, 2012, 06:42:12 PM »
Thanks for porting this over! You did an excellent job with the port, I do have to say.
"There is happiness for those who accept their fate, there is glory for those that defy it."

"Now that everyone's so happy, this is probably a good time to tell you I ate your parents."

Offline sirpercival

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Re: The Nord's Blade
« Reply #8 on: April 25, 2012, 07:20:30 PM »
I have an unfinished homebrew discipline here which will probably not be useful unless you take Wild Cohort or multiclass into something which grants you an animal companion, familiar, or psicrystal.
I am the assassin of productivity

(member in good standing of the troll-feeders guild)

It's begun — my things have overgrown the previous sig.

Offline Garryl

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Re: The Nord's Blade
« Reply #9 on: November 06, 2012, 11:54:07 AM »
So, I was looking at this class once again, trying to make a multiclass feat for it.

Since Fate's Swordsman requires a Concentration check, should Concentration perhaps maybe be a class skill regardless of the choices you make? Also, since there are so damn many homebrew martial disciplines covering all (well, soon to be all) skills, any thoughts about changing the skill selection to a simpler, Expert-like "pick any 10"?

What happens when multiple characters with Fate's Evasion are hit by the same effect?

Typo in Replace Fate: "they may replace a single d6 with swap the result of one of the dice with a result that is in their Fate Dice."
Should it be this, instead? "they may swap a single d6 with one of the dice that is in their Fate Dice pool."

Would it be neat, or just game-breaking (as in mechanics stop working as intended), if there was a way to set dice in your Fate Dice pool to 0 or 7, instead of just in the range of 1-6?

Offline Bauglir

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Re: The Nord's Blade
« Reply #10 on: November 08, 2012, 02:00:06 AM »
Random thought: shouldn't the text say that they use the Bell Curve Rolls variant, rather than say that they are treated as if they were using it? Because that would seem to imply that they still roll d20s and then I don't know what.

Offline Garryl

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Re: The Nord's Blade
« Reply #11 on: November 08, 2012, 02:14:30 AM »
You get Fate's Swordsman at level 1, but you can't use it until level 2 since your Fate Dice pool (of 0 dice) is always full.

At level 1 through probably about level 5 or so, you'll commonly need to roll higher than 11 to succeed (ACs at level 1 are commonly 15 or higher, while attack bonuses rarely exceed +4). This actually makes the bell curve variant for you only into a bad thing at very low levels.

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: The Nord's Blade
« Reply #12 on: November 08, 2012, 11:19:50 AM »
You get Fate's Swordsman at level 1, but you can't use it until level 2 since your Fate Dice pool (of 0 dice) is always full.
They can "lose" fate dice when recharging their maneuvers at level 1.
Quote
They may recover a single expended use of any maneuver by removing a number of Fate Dice results equal to 1+1/2 the number of prerequisite maneuvers for that maneuver.

Quote
At level 1 through probably about level 5 or so, you'll commonly need to roll higher than 11 to succeed (ACs at level 1 are commonly 15 or higher, while attack bonuses rarely exceed +4). This actually makes the bell curve variant for you only into a bad thing at very low levels.
It's pretty easy to go above +4 if you're charging and/or flanking.
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Offline Garryl

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Re: The Nord's Blade
« Reply #13 on: November 08, 2012, 12:22:52 PM »
You get Fate's Swordsman at level 1, but you can't use it until level 2 since your Fate Dice pool (of 0 dice) is always full.
They can "lose" fate dice when recharging their maneuvers at level 1.
Quote
They may recover a single expended use of any maneuver by removing a number of Fate Dice results equal to 1+1/2 the number of prerequisite maneuvers for that maneuver.

You can't lose anything at level 1. You have no dice to lose. Your maximum number of dice is 0.


Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: The Nord's Blade
« Reply #14 on: November 08, 2012, 04:01:13 PM »
You can't lose anything at level 1. You have no dice to lose. Your maximum number of dice is 0.
Good point. I'd overlooked that. You'd have to take a Luck feat (or other feats?) that add to your Fate Dice pool.

Fixed the typo in Replace Fate. I'm not too keen on changing anything else, as I didn't write the class. If Amechra wants anything changed, I'll be happy to edit the OP, though.
« Last Edit: November 08, 2012, 04:04:42 PM by phaedrusxy »
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Offline VennDygrem

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Re: The Nord's Blade
« Reply #15 on: November 08, 2012, 05:47:08 PM »
Yeah, I really don't think a character should be forced to take a feat just so they can use a class feature at all. It's quite different from having feats that make class features worthwhile.

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: The Nord's Blade
« Reply #16 on: November 08, 2012, 11:15:34 PM »
Yeah, I really don't think a character should be forced to take a feat just so they can use a class feature at all. It's quite different from having feats that make class features worthwhile.
I know what you're saying but... Luck feats are kick-your-mom-in-the-face good for the Nord's Blade, anyway, and even if they don't take any at 1st, they get luck dice starting at level 2. So they don't technically have to take the feats to use the class feature. They just have to wait a level, which is odd, but not totally craptastic.
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Offline VennDygrem

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Re: The Nord's Blade
« Reply #17 on: November 09, 2012, 12:40:13 AM »
Regardless, it doesn't seem like good design. I'm sure it could be restructured or altered to work more seamlessly. I personally believe a class feature should be self-sufficient and be usable to some degree when you get access to it.
« Last Edit: November 09, 2012, 12:56:35 AM by VennDygrem »

Offline linklord231

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Re: The Nord's Blade
« Reply #18 on: November 09, 2012, 01:11:12 AM »
Just think of it like 2nd level bards, who only get 1st level spells if they have a high enough Cha. 

On a different note, Tome of Battle (especially homebrew disciplines) is generally frowned upon at my table for various reasons.  Do you have any suggestions for a replacement to the maneuvers mechanic?  I was thinking maybe spells from the Ranger or Paladin list. 
I'm not arguing, I'm explaining why I'm right.

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: The Nord's Blade
« Reply #19 on: November 09, 2012, 12:27:55 PM »
Amechra PM'd me and agrees that it should have one more fate die at each level. I'll edit the table later, when I have time.
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