Min/Max Forum: Storm Shelter

Dak-Tharsh: The primarily-goblinoid nation of Dak-Tharsh has a history of butting heads with its neighbors. The expansionist Dragon Party has been growing in popularity in recent years after the ruling Manticore Party refused to involve Dak-Tharsh in the Second Dawnstar War on Antares. This unstable political climate has made its neighbors uneasy.

This is going to be kind of in the order my brain responds:

The reason I'm a little worried about giving a commoner nothing is that if he dies (easy at 1st level and even more so at 2nd and 3rd), that class feature (i.e. half of the Commander class in many ways) is gone for a minimum of a week. It's very easy for a DM who wants (or even one who doesn't) to clobber the cohort and his max 4 hp (barring racial modifiers). One hit from the aforementioned orc barbarian and he evaporates. On the other hand... I see where you're coming from in as much as a well designed commoner (I'm not going as far as Troll-blooded, even) is a useful party contributor at 1st level. What would you say to the foci being applied at commander level 2 instead of level 1?

For the Presence aura, what about adding a save against fascinate for anyone who views a creature under the effect? It's a fairly minor debuff that doesn't work in combat, but is good in social situations.

For the Senses aura, I don't really want to get into adding things like darkvision and up, so... what about cannot be dazzled, blinded, or deafened?

I don't want to get away from basing the aura on Charisma, because otherwise the commander has precisely nothing valuable that's based off of any ability score, and can instead choose to focus entirely on being whatever he wants to be, knowing the chassis just sort of appears around him as he levels.

I would disagree that the Marshal got it right in terms of major aura scaling for the very reason you mentioned earlier in your post - it's too weak. By later levels of the game, +5 attack to those party members that need it is so easily reproduceable in a decent party that the focus shifts from "can I hit" to "what non-combat defenses do I need to overcome". And when it comes to coping with battlefield control, flying, etherealness, etc., the Marshal's bonuses are too small to make an impact. The game does not scale in a linear fashion, so making abilities that do almost always results in a falling behind the power curve unless there's other class abilities that jump off of it.

There are two ways around that: attempting to scale the bonus manually (Rage is an example, getting both more and bigger bonuses as the game goes on), or letting the player scale the bonus as appropriate for the game that he is in. The easiest way to do the latter is to tie it to an ability score, in this case Charisma. I would not claim it is a perfect solution, but the only one that immediately comes to mind is a kind of "point buy for auras", where every level the commander gets a number of points that he can expend to increase the bonus from one or more auras, but that involves both more bookkeeping and less flexibility for the class.

Based on discussions we've had elsewhere, the Commander starts out at tier 1 at lower levels, but slowly slides down the ranking system to tier 3 as other classes get more of their abilities. So there's too much "pop" at first level, especially, because the Cha bonus does not increase gradually, but rather starts out high for the level and then tails off to where it's quite possibly only one higher four levels later at 5th. The solution proposed, and one I think is quite effective, is to limit the aura bonus to min(class level or charisma modifier). It puts the Commander at a maximum of +2 at 1st level (due to the feat), which is in the right range to give the RNG a bit of a nudge but without overbalancing it. Without the feat, it looks better, so one item that might be necessary is to limit that feat to 3rd or 6th level Commanders, not 1st level ones, since it's such an obvious benefit to take.

Now, as to the equality of bonuses from auras: you are correct that the scaling between different benefits is not accurate. Looking at it again, I'd switch over to this (comments in bold):

(click to show/hide)

• Energy Shield: Any creature striking the commander or his ally with a natural attack or a nonreach melee weapon is dealt 2 points of energy damage for each point of his aura bonus. The energy type is chosen when creating the aura from acid, cold, electricity, or fire. - Debated moving this to 1/per but left alone with the much lower bonus
  
• Power: Bonus on melee damage rolls equal to his aura bonus. - Think this is fine, given D&D seems to value damage at 1/2 of attack
  
• Presence: Bonus on Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate checks equal to his aura bonus. - It's just skills, so this is fine.
  
• Resistance: Resistance to acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage equal to 5 for every two points of his aura bonus (min 5). - Cut in half, given it could all but eradicate elemental damage.
  
• Senses: Bonus on Listen and Spot checks, as well as on initiative checks, equal to his aura bonus. - Unsure on this one. Listen and Spot aren't the issue, it's whether the init making everyone go first is a huge issue or not.
  
• Toughness: DR 1/magic for each point of his aura bonus. - Fine, partly because it's DR/magic and so craps out against a lot of monsters even as low as Cr3 or so
  
• Vigor: Fast healing 1 for every 2 points of his aura bonus, but only affects characters at or below one-half their full normal hit points. - Classic aura, no issues here
  
• Attack: Bonus on melee attack rolls. - Debated lowering this but left alone with the much lower bonus
  
• Care: Bonus to Armor Class. - Debated lowering this but left alone with the much lower bonus
  
• Urgency: Allies’ base land speed is increased 5' for every two points of his aura bonus (min 5'). - Cut in half, lest everyone become Usain Bolt
  
• Resilient Troops: Bonus on all saves equal to 1 for every two points of his aura bonus (min 1). - Cut in half.
  
• Steady Hand: Bonus on ranged attack rolls. - Debated lowering this but left alone with the much lower bonus
  
• Accuracy: Bonus on ranged damage rolls equal to his aura bonus. - Think this is fine, given D&D seems to value damage at 1/2 of attack
  
• Alliance: If an ally makes an attack of opportunity against an enemy, one other allied creature per two points of aura bonus in melee range of the enemy may make a free attack against that creature with a -4 penalty. The commander chooses which creature. - Made it scale based on aura bonus
  
• Dogpile: If an ally successfully critical hits an enemy, one other allied creature per two points of aura bonus in melee range of the enemy may make a free attack against that creature with a -4 penalty. The commander chooses which creature. - Made it scale based on aura bonus
  
• Transfer of Power: Allied magic users in the aura receive a +1 bonus to caster level (or appropriate) for every 4 points of aura bonus. - Don't think this one is much of a problem
  
• Resist the Inevitable: Allies in the aura gain spell resistance equal to 10 + 2 per point of aura bonus. - Don't think this one is much of a problem
  
• Countering Blows: All allies in the aura are treated as if they had the Combat Reflexes feat, except the number of Attacks of Opportunity is increased by 1 for every 4 points of aura bonus. - Cut the bonus number of AoO by 4
  

The combined changes should beat the Commander back down to a sane level at 1st from the Aura side.

Please note (just for the arcane side) that this class is heavily restricted - he has to buy and utilize a spellbook and spells like a wizard does, which makes that particlar foci even weaker. I might consider switching it to Sorcerer casting in order to stop the fussing in that area.

The issue with the cohort is that there's a floor below which it physically can't go - it has to have at least one hit dice, and all the attendant benefits of being a creature such as actions, regardless of everything else on top of it such as abilities. Those alone carry a fair bit of worth at 1st level, which is a problem I simply can't resolve if I want to have clean scaling of having a cohort.

What I can do is this (Since Combat Foci is the problem child):

• Combat Focus: The chosen cohort gains proficiency with all martial and exotic weapons, increases his maximum hit points by +3 per cohort level, and increases his base attack bonus to that of a fighter. He gains a +2 bonus on Fortitude saves, and chooses one of the following: a +2 bonus on attack rolls, a +2 bonus on weapon damage rolls, or damage reduction 2/-. All of these bonuses (including the damage reduction) improve by +2 every 4 cohort levels (at 4th, 8th, 12th, and 16th). He then chooses one of the following:
  Combatant: At 1st level, he gains a bonus feat, chosen from the list of fighter bonus feats. He must meet the prerequisites for this feat. At 4th, 8th, 12th, and 16th level, he gains an additional bonus feat.
  Initiator: He gains access to a single martial discipline (See Tome of Battle). His initiator level is equal to his cohort level, while his maneuvers known, readied, and the maximum level known are all given on Table 4. He recovers maneuvers as a Warblade does.
  

Thoughts?

This division of bonus categories is an important thing to note, and was one thing that the original marshal did mostly right. There's a huge difference between +4 to all saves and +4 to a few skill checks. Presently, all of the commander's auras are lumped into a single pile. With the exception of a couple that scale at reduced rates (fast healing, caster level) a couple that don't scale at all (alliance, dogpile), and a few that provide bonuses that are inherently on different scales and are adjusted appropriately (reflective damage, SR, resistances, and movement speed), all of the auras give a straight bonus equal to the commander's Charisma modifier. Everything acts on the same scale. This means that +1 damage is valued as highly a +1 on attack rolls, +1 AC, +1 to all saves, +1 to a trio of skills, and +1 max AoO/round. Some of those comparisons are quite reasonable. Others, not so much. There needs to be an adjustment in the scaling between the various auras.

Back to the ability score-based scaling. Remember, these auras are applying party-wide. Taking the +all saves aura means that not only do you get divine grace, but everyone in the party gets it, too. Worse, they get to use your optimized Charisma score, rather than their own. Getting +Cha to all saves is fine. Giving a small to moderate bonus to all saves to the party is fine. Giving a big bonus to the whole party in a limited set of circumstances is fine. Combining the best of all of those is problematic. I'm just using saves as an example because it's easy to understand, easy to break down (all vs. Fort or Reflex or Will), and has a solid comparison point (divine grace @ paladin 2nd), but the same principle holds true to most of the other bonuses that auras can grant.

Now, one last thing about auras before I try to move on to cohorts. Some of the auras just produce way too big numbers at 1st level. This is strongly related to what I just talked about, but there are a few specific nuances to it I need to address. I've already discussed how +Cha can give bonuses across a party that are much larger than they should be, but most of what I've talked about have been about bonuses on a d20 roll. Some types of numbers, especially at the lowest of levels, have a much narrower band of reasonability. In this case, I'll have to dissect the specific auras that relate to this.
- Energy Shield: Reflective damage is cool. A little bit is neat and useful. Unfortunately, at 1st level, hit points are on a much narrower band than a d20s 1-20 range. Typically, hp goes from 6 up to about 15 at 1st level. You get a few outliers at CR 1 like the 29 hp sack of meat that is a 4 HD zombie, but on average you get 12-13 hp for CR 1 enemies (according to Optimization by the Numbers, and level 1 encounters generally deal with larger quantities of weaker, lower CR enemies, too. 18 Charisma deals 8 damage when hit, enough to take down the average CR 1/2 creature (6.6 hp) and takes off half the hp of the strongest one (16 hp). Your typical CR 1 enemy loses after hitting you twice, too. Your typical CR 1 enemy is doing noticeably less damage than that on each of its hits, too. Most enemies will only be averaging 4-7 damage per hit at CR 1. Even the 18 Str elite array orc fighter with a greatsword, sitting at the top of the damage curve, only deals 13 damage per hit, just over 50% more than you do reactively. If he doesn't drop you in that single hit, he's still going down to the second burst of reactive damage, so at best he gets a pyrrhic victory as you both bleed out. One of the deadliest enemies for the level has a non-zero chance of losing if you stand there and do nothing. Most any enemy that needs 2+ hits to drop you loses automatically.
- Toughness: Damage reduction is a difficult thing to evaluate. It comes up so rarely on the players' side, but even then usually in very small quantities. It has a similar issue of quantity as energy shield, being very potent at level 1 but losing that potency as higher level enemies come with higher amounts of damage. Small amounts of DR have very little effect, but the defensive benefits become more and more pronounced the higher DR rises until all or nearly all of the damage is prevented. It's similar to AC in this regard, except that instead of working on a 20-point scale, at 1st level DR typically works on a 4-7-point scale, (although outliers can go as high as the low 10s). Having DR 4 will halve or negate the damage that most CR 1/2 and CR 1 enemies deal. Even our 13 avg. damage orc from before loses significant enough chunk of damage to guarantee that he'll need at least 2 hits to drop your party's barbarian or warblade, and give very good odds for even the squishier commander with only a d8 for hp.

The exact effect of a cohort at 1st level is much harder to analyze, as it has numerous factors that must be taken into account. The numbers, too, are less intuitive. At 1st level, the arcane, divine, and psionic foci pretty much amount to 1 spell/power per day. It's not a direct thing, but we do kind of know at this point roughly how effective one casting of a wizard or cleric spell or a psion power is (roughly 50% chance to win one of the 4 encounters in a day is what I typically estimate it as). Not unreasonable for a companion-type class feature if the rest of the class is comparably potent (which it would be once 1st-level auras get addressed). Stealth and wild foci are mostly about skills, and since wild's wild shape doesn't show up at the level range we're evaluating, it can be safely ignored. A commoner 1 with +2 damage or 2/day invisibility is very reasonable as a 1st-level companion, so those actually seem quite fine at first glance.

Combat focus is where the numbers really start to come in. It adds a pile of them. Hit points, attack, damage, DR, a feat, and a maneuver. There's a lot to look at here, and I don't think I can do an effective, accurate analysis for this sort of thing without actually statting some things out. I'm getting a bit tired, and generating those numbers is a lot of work, so I'll come back to this later.

Before I go, though, I don't want to forget about some of the front-loading scaling I mentioned earlier. At higher levels, the cohort keeps to 2 levels behind the commander. That's fine. At 2nd-level, the cohort is 1 level behind the commander... warning signs, but not necessarily wrong. At 1st level, however, the cohort is right at the commander's level. Alert! With combat focus, you've got a 1st-level fighter for a pet at level 1. If the commander stays home and reads a book in bed, he's already contributed his share to the party at level 1, just with the cohort tagging along. It's similar to the druid with its animal companion. The commander has the same class chassis, even, just with auras instead of spells.

I'm not sure what the fix is, especially since a major part of the premise of the commander is having cohorts. My gut ideas are either to remove the cohort at levels 1 and 2, or to remove the focus entirely until level 2 or 3, leaving the cohort just as a CR 1/3 commoner at 1st level. I'm not sure how well those would work, and I suspect I'll know more and/or have other, better ideas once I get the deeper stats analysis done.

Also, the cohort level/effectiveness just scales unevenly at low levels. That's just off-putting. It's 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, .... Those three levels sitting at level 1 just don't work. As a creature unto itself, it's virtually impossible to make it appropriately powered at all three levels (commander levels 1, 2, and 3) despite the cohort staying identical across them.

• Combat Focus: The chosen cohort gains proficiency with all martial and exotic weapons, increases his maximum hit points by +3 per cohort level, and increases his base attack bonus to that of a fighter. He gains a +2 bonus on Fortitude saves, and chooses one of the following: a +2 bonus on attack rolls, a +2 bonus on weapon damage rolls, or damage reduction 2/-. All of these bonuses (including the damage reduction) improve by +2 every 4 cohort levels (at 4th, 8th, 12th, and 16th). He then chooses one of the following:
  Combatant: At 1st level, he gains a bonus feat, chosen from the list of fighter bonus feats. He must meet the prerequisites for this feat. At 4th, 8th, 12th, and 16th level, he gains an additional bonus feat.
  Initiator: He gains access to a single martial discipline (See Tome of Battle). His initiator level is equal to his cohort level, while his maneuvers known, readied, and the maximum level known are all given on Table 4. He recovers maneuvers as a Warblade does.
  
  Thoughts?