Unyielding Defender Buff?

[Voice of Kerensky]

Another underwhelming and underutilized melee class. It has some issues that could use addressing.

Issues I see:

Past 5, it gets nothing of immense note. DR is nice, but 6/- DR is not 5 levels of progression nice.

The class lacks offensive utility. This is fine, it's a defensive class. But because of that, its defensive utility should be quite good, whereas in fact it's quite limited. The main issue I see here  revolves around Defensive Stance:

1) Very limited uses. Given that it's not a particularly strong buff (mostly all subject to caps) AND it locks you in place AND it limits use of other modes, I'm not sure this is a necessity.
2) Being a mode in NWN, and in particular, a mode that locks you into place, it is subject to some wonkiness--and due to the locking in place, and moving cancelling it, it is subject both to sometimes making the defensive character somewhat ironically worse, and also subject to being accidentally wasted frequently.
3) Little in the class beyond level 5 that sufficiently incentivizes further progression.

So first off, I would propose making Defensive Stance an at will toggle/unlimited use. However, given that this makes it a bit more useful/powerful, I wouldn't want to see someone dip it just to pick it up, and would recommend changing its place in progression should that be the case. Given how easily Defensive Stance breaks, and how unpredictable aggro is in NWN, I think making this ability unlimited use is really a necessity to make it worthwhile, more than keeping its place at level 1.

I also like the idea of an "Unyielding Defender" having some sort of fear immunity, and this may make for a nice early ability--good enough to feel rewarding when you get the class early on, but not enough of an ability to dip for.

Finally, some sort of saves progression may add some nice filler progression and a bit more all-around defensive utility to the class. Sacred Defense from COT? It's subject to the buff cap, but I think there's some merit to giving this class some defensive utility even unbuffed. Bonus feats may work as an alternative.  Maybe a bit more DR progression in epic to make it slightly more interesting as well. Some evasion as a level 10 capstone to take advantage of those vs trap bonuses and saves without needing a rogue/whatever dip.

Proposed progression example:

Add to class skills: Tumble

Abilities:

1: Aura of Courage (Fear Immunity)
2: Sacred Defense (+1 to all saves every 2 levels); Defensive Awareness: Retains his DEX bonus to AC, even if caught flat-footed or attacked by a hidden or invisible creature.
3: Defensive Stance: Cannot move. +2 STR, +4 CON, +2 all saves, +4 Dodge AC. (At will)
4: Sacred Defense 2
5: Defensive Awareness 2: Cannot be flanked. Immune to sneak attacks while attacking.
6: Damage Reduction (3/-); Sacred Defense 3
8: Defensive Awareness 3: +1 Reflex saves vs Traps; Sacred Defense 4
9: Damage Reduction (6/-)
10: Evasion; Sacred Defense 5
12: Damage Reduction (9/-); Sacred Defense 6
14: Sacred Defense 7
15: Damage Reduction (12/-)
16: Sacred Defense 8
18: Damage Reduction (15/-); Sacred Defense 9
20: Sacred Defense 10

(Note: Further progression of Sacred Defense past the initial feat isn't actually extra-feat based, this is just to show the progression)

Currently, UD gets a feat every 4 levels in epic. Pretty terrible for a pure melee class, and gaining DR a couple times doesn't make up for that. I'd suggest bumping that progression to every 3 levels (if not already the case).

I would probably look at redoing the buffs Defensive Stance gives as well, if they aren't blackboxed.

I feel there are still some builds that would be able to move on, whether temporarily or permanently, from the class past 5 levels in like this, but there's certainly more incentive to go beyond it like this (especially if you aren't taking an Evasion elsewhere, and/or going for a DR build).

[Edge]

The things that have currently already been planned for UD:

1. Giving Stance more uses, especially early on in the class. Not sure we're going to go as far as "at will" and we definitely don't want to move it to later than 1st level. But giving it more uses is certainly on the list.
2. Changing Stance's bonuses to be flat bonuses and temp HP rather than stat buffs, so they don't have to deal with running against the +12 stat buff limit. Similar to how Barbarian rage was changed.
3. Possibly giving them AC bonuses when in heavy armor, basically the Barbarian AC buff in reverse.

[hjorrprimul]

As someone whose only major character is an UD, I like all of the suggested changes, and also all of the ones mentioned as already being considered.

Narrowing focus onto different parts of the discussion here:

Defensive Stance: Fixing it the same way as Barbarian Rage was is kind of just necessary. I presently keep my UD's STR buffed to only +8 just because a part of my brain doesn't want to miss out on the bonus from her class' keystone ability. I realize it's dumb making her less effective 90% of the time so that she can be a little bit more effective in the remaining 10%, but that isn't a fun trade-off to puzzle around.

Where it comes to uses per day, either substantially increasing uses of Defensive Stance or making it at-will would work well to actually make it more usable. If you want to keep it on for a substantial part of any one major fight, you will generally have to activate and deactivate it multiple times within the scope of that single fight. I do feel that either pushing it a few levels off or spreading the increase in uses over more levels will serve to make it more desirable to take many levels in the class, as opposed to just dipping into it. I do like the idea of making it at-will at high levels. Having 8-ish uses of it or an at-will are functionally the same thing for all the more challenging fights in any one dungeon, the only difference is an attentive player will be able to occasionally use it in the non-major fights, too. And also a reduction in stress for resource hoarders like me.

Defensive Potential: Part of it is likely lack of skills on my part and the fact that my character isn't min-maxed, but characters of other classes seem to out-tank my UD pretty consistently. A part of this is the fact that any UMD build will be able to self-buff, but final defensive stats seem underwhelming even when that isn't a factor. A lot of classes have either straight AC bonuses or stat-to-AC mechanics, and also many classes have substantial immunities or save boni. A class that is built around being the tankiest tank should probably get more of those things.

More broadly, for D&D in general, in order for tankiness to be a significant benefit it tends to have to be scaled somewhat higher than equivalent increases in offense. That's because killing an enemy also serves to mitigate all future damage that enemy would have caused. So a class focused on defense to the detriment of offense (by forgoing movement, for example, or through the opportunity cost of not having taken a dmg-boosting class level instead) should have some really substantial boni.

[Kymus]

May 30, 2019 18:00:27 GMT -5 Edge said:

The things that have currently already been planned for UD:

1. Giving Stance more uses, especially early on in the class. Not sure we're going to go as far as "at will" and we definitely don't want to move it to later than 1st level. But giving it more uses is certainly on the list.
2. Changing Stance's bonuses to be flat bonuses and temp HP rather than stat buffs, so they don't have to deal with running against the +12 stat buff limit. Similar to how Barbarian rage was changed.
3. Possibly giving them AC bonuses when in heavy armor, basically the Barbarian AC buff in reverse.

I like that!