PrC Review DC

[Dragor]

Description: The divine champion is the strong right arm of their deity. They serve as a guardian of holy sites, a protector of pilgrims and a leader of crusades. Though paladins fill these roles in many good-aligned churchs, a divine champion can take up the banner of any deity, regardless of alignment or ethos. These holy warriors are loved by their patron's worshipers and hated by the church's enemies in equal measure. Most champions come from a combat or military background. Barbarians, fighters, paladins, and rangers are the most common candidates, though monks, clerics, and the more militant druids frequently pursue this path as well.

FRwiki: Divine champions are powerful individuals in the service of a specific deity. Divine champions come from all sorts of backgrounds and are united solely by their dedication and a loose set of shared skills, though all are are considered holy warriors of their various churches, dedicated to the protection of holy sites, priests, and pilgrims, as well as leaders in any crusades


MY VIEW

It is really easy to fall into the trap of believing that the DC is the same thing as a pali without all the annoying Lawful Good. I picture the DC as more of the soldier of the church who distinguishes himself with his service to his church while displaying true religious conviction.

Religion is just fun for me to RP

Mechanically this class is very disapointing, while it does some nice things, charisma based abilities annoy me. As outside of spellcasting and RP it has no technical value whatsoever, so trying to build a non-caster with high charisma is just gimping your charachter for good looks on the whole.

And this is just because I complained about charisma
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5keYGFH5G4

I'm very interested in reading responses concerning the differences between a DC and a Pali of the same faith if anybody has anything.

[Thief Of Navarre]

I see Divine champions as Templars of a sort. They are more likely to share the alignment of their deity seen as they arnt restricted to lawful good i.e. a champion of ilmater would tend towards neutral good and would be serving the people with their needs irrespective of personal bias or any laws that might need bending.
The class mechanically isnt that bad; You gain savings throws without investing feats OR needing a high charisma score, You get fighter feats at the same intervals as a fighter, divine wrath which gives flat bonuses regardless of charisma and smite which gives a static +10 damage if you take the class to level 10. The only downshot is your have to buff your charisma to get any sort of duration out of wrath.

[Root]

Divine Champion: It's slightly better than Fighter!

Cool enough class, but it's basically a way to be a non-caster, non-paladin religious fighter. And considering how hard it is to find clear religious devotion even in Clerics, I doubt the RP implications of this class will be considered often.

....It has, however, made me consider taking levels in it if I can. Huh.

[blurry89]

I'd like to see the bonus feat list expanded, to possibly include fighter-only feats.

[Cornuto]

Divine Champion: It's slightly better than Fighter

I'd bet money on the fighter if they PvP'ed.

[BedlamX]

Fighter/DC is a very potent combo (for non-casters). And, since you have to have several levels of a base class to qualify for it, a DC could easily be as good if not better than a fighter at the higher levels. And, with a low magic item world, they tend be better at handling casters than a straight fighter (the +5 to saves helps a lot). I have played two on Sundren. Only one that hasn't been deleted is Turin. He's a fighter/pally/DC heavy on the DC and fighter with just enough pally levels to fit the back story I wrote for him. Not too bad for a non-caster.

[Thief Of Navarre]

I'd bet money on the fighter if they PvP'ed.

Yes. well the DC gets save bonuses which dont really apply against martial characters.

[Seheren]

The bonus feats are... Restrictive. Another thing that makes me sad is that their smite does not stack with Smite Good, though it does stack with Smite Evil....

I truly like this class a lot. Almost as much as I like Black Guard. It has endless potential, if one can look past its mechanical shortcomings.