Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Optimator 06-16-07, 03:07 AM	The Iron Heart Champion http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/tob_gallery/99677.jpg An Iron Heart Champion considers himself to be the truest of students of the martial craft. Focusing almost entirely on the Iron Heart discipline, they pride themselves in having such a "pure" style without any gimmickry. Iron Heart Champions can either be roaming glory-hounds or contemplative weapon-masters. Be it swashbuckler or samurai, the walker of the path to martial perfection can take nearly any form. Almost all Iron Heart Champions are Hobgoblins or Humans. Half-Elves are the third most-likely race to follow the path of the Iron Heart Champion, though not nearly as common as humans or hobgoblins. To qualify to become a Iron Heart Champoin, a character must fulfill all of the following criteria: Race: Any. Skills: Balance 10 ranks. Feats: Spring Attack and one of the following: Iron Heart Aura or Blade Meditation (Iron Heart). Martial Maneuvers: One Iron Heart strike, one Iron Heart counter, and one Iron Heart stance. Weapon and armor proficiency: A Iron Heart Champion gains no additional weapon or armor proficiencies. THE IRON HEART CHAMPION Hit Die: d12 Base Fort Ref Will Special Maneuvers Stances Lvl Atk. save save save Known Readied Known 1. +1 +2 +0 +0 Iron Heart Precision, 0 0 0 School Restriction 2. +2 +3 +0 +0 Bonus Counter, 0 0 1 Bonus Maneuver 3. +3 +3 +1 +1 Great Footwork 1 1 0 4. +4 +4 +1 +1 Bonus Maneuver, 0 0 0 Fast Movement 5. +5 +4 +1 +1 Spring Attack Maneuver 0 0 0 6. +6 +5 +2 +2 Bonus Maneuver, 1 1 0 Perfect Footwork 7. +7 +5 +2 +2 Bonus Counter, 0 0 0 Dueling Supremacy 8. +8 +6 +2 +2 Extra Readied Counter 0 0 1 Bonus Maneuver 9. +9 +6 +3 +3 Greater Iron Heart 1 1 0 Precision 10. +10 +7 +3 +3 Lightning Strikes Twice, 0 0 0 Bonus Maneuver ======================================== ================================ Class skills (2+Int modifier per level): Balance, Climb, Concentration, Craft, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge: (History), Knowledge: (Local), Martial Lore, Swim, Tumble. School Restriction: Once starting the Iron Heart Champion path, the Iron Heart Champion must give up the ability to learn new maneuvers from all schools but Iron Heart and one school of his choice. This school must be a school in which the Iron Heart Champion had access to originally. This school will be hereafter referred to as the "secondary school". Maneuvers: At 3rd level and every three levels thereafter, a Iron Heart Champion gains a new maneuver known from the Iron Heart school or the Iron Heart Champion's choice of secondary school. He must meet the maneuver's prerequisite to learn it. He adds his full Iron Heart Champion level to his initiator level to determine his total initiator level and his highest-level maneuvers known. At 2nd level, and every other level thereafter, the Iron Heart Champion can switch out a maneuver known for another. He must meet all the requirements of the maneuver replacing the original. At 3rd level and every 3 levels thereafter, a Iron Heart Champion can ready an additional maneuver. Stances known: At 2nd and 7th level, a Iron Heart Champion learns a new martial stance. He must meet a stance's prerequisite to learn it. It must come from the Iron Heart School or his secondary school. Iron Heart Precision (Ex): At first level, an The Iron Heart Champion gains a +1 unnamed bonus to attack rolls and save DCs when initiating an Iron Heart Maneuver. This bonus to attack applies to counters that use the initiator's attack roll as well. At 9th level, the bonus increases to +3. Bonus Counter (Ex): At 2nd level, an Iron Heart Champion gains the ability to use a counter from the Iron Heart school without using his immediate action for the round. This effect is similar to the Diamond Mind stance Stance of Alacrity (see ToB pg 65). The counters are expended from the list of readied maneuvers normally. At 7th level, the Iron Heart Champion gains an additional use of a bonus counter per round, for a total of two "free" counters per round. Bonus Maneuver: At 2nd level, 4th level, 6th level, 8th, and 10th level, an Iron Heart Champion gains a bonus maneuver known from the Iron Heart School. He must meet the maneuver's prerequisite to learn it as normal. Great Footwork (Ex): At 3rd level, the Iron Heart Champion gains the ability to take 10 on balance and tumble rolls, even when stress and/or distractions would not normally allow it. The Iron Heart Champion retains his dexterity bonus to AC while balancing as well. Fast Movement (Ex): At 4th level, A Iron Heart Champion's base speed increases by 10 feet. This effect does not function if the Iron Heart Champion is in heavy armor or carrying a heavy load. This ability is identical to the Barbarian's fast movement ability. Spring Attack Maneuver (Ex): At 5th level, an Iron Heart Champion gains the ability to initiate a single standard-action Strike during his attack while using the Spring Attack feat. This strike must be from the Iron Heart school. If the Iron Heart Champion has the Bounding Assault feat or the Rapid Blitz feat, or any other effect that would grant additional attacks during a spring attack, the Iron Heart Champion can still only initiate one Strike during the spring attack--the additional attacks must be normal attack actions. Perfect Footwork (Ex): At 6th level, an Iron Heart Champion can move through difficult terrain (PH 163) at full speed and can even run, charge, and tumble through such terrain as if it were clear terrain. Dueling Supremacy (Ex): At 7th level, an Iron Heart Champion gets a bonus equal to half his class level, rounded down, on disarm checks and trip attempts--whether he is disarming or tripping someone else or being disarmed or tripped himself. The Iron Heart Champion also receives this bonus on opposed sunder checks, but not on his armor class if a carried or worn item is being sundered. Extra Readied Counter: At 8th level, the Iron Heart Champion gains an additional readied maneuver. This slot has to be used for a Iron Heart counter. This maneuver can be a repeat of a counter already readied in the normal fashion. This is an exception to the standard rule about preparing duplicate maneuvers. It is recovered whenever the Iron Heart Champion uses a swift action followed by an attack action or a standard action to do nothing else in a round. It can be recovered at the same time as a Warblade's maneuvers, using the same swift action. Supreme Spring Attack Maneuver (Ex): At 10th level, an Iron Heart Champion can use all his expertise in the Iron Heart Discipline and apply it to other disciplines. Iron Heart Champion can initiate any strike that uses a standard action normally, regardless of school, during a Spring Attack. If the Iron Heart Champion has the Bounding Assault feat or the Rapid Blitz feat, or any other effect that would grant additional attacks during a spring attack, the Iron Heart Champion can still only initiate one Strike during the spring attack--the additional attacks must be normal attack actions. (Soon to be changed for something more fitting) Potentially: Lightning Strikes Twice (Ex): At 10th level, an Iron Heart Champion can initiate a strike that normally uses a standard action as part of a full attack, replacing one of the attack actions. This can be any one of the iterative attacks, at the Iron Heart Champion's choice. Only one maneuver may be expended this way per full-attack action. and this maneuver must be of the Iron Heart school or of the Iron Heart Champion's choice of secondary school. If the Iron Heart Champion has access to the Time Stands Still maneuver, he may initiate a maneuver in the place of an attack, but only once for the duration of the maneuver. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So here is one of my first attempts at a PrC. Please let me know what you think. Much of the formatting has been borrowed from Tempest Stormwind.
Encard 06-16-07, 04:27 AM	Nice design. My main thoughts at the moment are that you may want to lower the total number of maneuvers known and restrict discipline access more, however - he ends up having nearly a Swordsage maneuver progression with half of his maneuvers mandated as Iron Heart... given how many good maneuvers Iron Heart has, though, that's really not a hindrance. I'd say maybe give it access to Iron Heart and one other discipline of the player's choice, or something. I also find the capstone ability a bit strange - it seems contrary to the name Iron Heart Champion to have a capstone ability that removes the Iron Heart restriction from another ability. I'm not sure what I'd suggest to replace it - maybe the option of activating a standard-action strike in place of one of the attacks in a full attack, or some sort of temporary boost to maneuver effectiveness (some sort of pseudo-Empower/whatever for Iron Heart maneuvers).
Iarmeister 06-16-07, 04:48 AM	The flavor/concept of this class is at odds with itself for the very simple reason that it has access to too many disciplines. The point is to have an Iron Heart Champion/Specialist, right? Restrict it to only 2 or 3 (at most) disciplines, perhaps Iron Heart (duh!), Diamond Mind, and Tiger Claw.
Optimator 06-16-07, 06:44 PM	Good thinking. I'll update it in a bit.
Optimator 06-16-07, 07:10 PM	Okay, less maneuvers known, and the schools are now more restricted. Also, the reasoning behind the capstone ability is the IHC has mastered the Iron Heart disciline so well he can apply his learnings to other schools' strikes. But I see where you are coming from. I'll brainstom other ideas for a capstooe anyway.. I was thinking some sort of True Strike ability or a way to recover Iron Heart maneuvers even faster or something. Thanks for the feedback.
Optimator 06-29-07, 12:27 AM	:bump: What, is it too boring?:)
PhoenixInferno 08-20-07, 05:23 PM	Cool. Bloodstorm Blade was a bit of a let down, since it doesn't advance maneuvers known, unlike Deepstone Sentinel or Blood Claw Master, the two other school-specialist PrCs.
MagickHobo 08-22-07, 03:51 PM	:bump: What, is it too boring?:) No, it's actually pretty good. I might use it for my next Warblade if my DM lets me! As for the capstone, I second the idea of using an IH strike as one of the attacks in a full attack.
Optimator 08-23-07, 01:09 AM	But what to name such an ability...
bkdubs123 08-23-07, 12:32 PM	Lightning Strikes Twice. :D I like everything about this class (now that its gotten the edit hammer), except for fast movement. I don't know. It just doesn't seem to fit for me. Nothing in the Iron Heart school has anything to do with movement really, and I think you'd be better served with another combat bonus here. Something to consider (as you mentioned a desire to have Iron Heart manuevers recover even faster) you could do something like, "Every 1d4 rounds an Iron Heart Champion's expended Iron Heart manuevers are recovered at the start of his turn as a free action." Anyway, something like that, so that every once in a while the Initiator doesn't have to do a thing, he just gets everything back (might be so powerful as to be a capstone though).
Optimator 08-23-07, 09:06 PM	Well, the movement thing was based on the Absolute Steel stance. I just got the impression that footwork was really important for Iron Heart from various fluff in the maneuvers and how Balance is the discipline's skill. It just seemed fitting. Heheh, "Lightning Strikes Twice". Good stuff.
ff6shadow 12-22-07, 02:48 PM	I like it the way it is currently, capstone and all. I'll probably steal it for my campaign.
LunarWolfPrime 12-24-07, 08:10 AM	I like it the way it is currently, capstone and all. I'll probably steal it for my campaign. thank you for leaving access to one more style if i where playing one i would go with diamond mind
Optimator 03-26-08, 12:05 PM	Well, I updated this today. Changed the capstone ability, but I also left the old one up for viewing. I also added a new ability at level 7.
Optimator 03-31-08, 10:33 AM	Also fixed some typos.
Optimator 04-19-08, 10:46 PM	:bump:
Optimator 05-14-08, 09:30 AM	Time for my monthly bump... I'm quite interested in people's feedback. Don't be a stranger now.