Hey all this is the third in a series of blogs as we discuss our Classes and their design intentions. From here with some special exceptions upcoming pace is going to slow to around once a month for these posts. With each blog the Class' updated Playbook is going to be released so the Battle Channeler has received updates!

Battle Channeler

The Battle Channelers are fighters who use ancient techniques to call upon their emotions to aid them in battle. This Class is an evolution of the Barbarian focusing more on the power of emotions, and how focusing on different emotions could lead to different results in a combat. 

Core Aspects: These are nearly identical to the Barbarian bar the fact that they add double their Endurance to their HP gained with each Level.

Unique Aspects: All Classes gain a unique Inspired action and Mark of Fate effect. For the Battle Channeler this allows you to spend a Mark of Fate to extend the effects of the Channel Emotion action and reduces the number of effects that can end it early. While your Inspired action, lets you make a series of attacks with an increased Critical Hit Scope for.

Channel Emotions

So firstly you get to pick one of 10 emotions, five tied to the Dream (Courage, Hope, Joy, Love, Peace) and five tied to the Nightmare (Despair, Envy, Fear, Grief, Rage), each is tied to a Damage Type and one of the 6 Traits. 

The Channel Emotions action acts like the Rage Feature of a Barbarian, granting you advantage on Trait Tests, bar Attack Rolls, made using your Emotion's Associated Trait. When making attacks using Physique or Emotion's Associated Trait you gain an Emotion Bonus to Damage Rolls equal to your Skill Bonus. You gain Resistance to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage, and you cannot Concentrate on spells or powers. This does mean you can play a spellcasting Battle Channeler if you wish, but the flurry of emotions means that you will not be able to use prolonged spells. 

One roleplaying aspect to note is that while under the effects of the action your Character is feeling an unhealthy amount of that emotion and you should roleplay accordingly (within the boundaries agreed with the table), you can quieten the emotion with a Determination Test, but with a failure you become fully subsumed by the Emotion for the Duration of the action.

Specialised Defence

This Feature offers you a choice between two different Features, Unarmoured Defence that works like the Barbarian Class, or Armoured Defence that gives you Training in Heavy Armour and lets you Channel Emotions in Armour though you cannot benefit from Shields while Channelling.

Skilled Wanderer

We are now onto Level 2 with you making another choice based on what kind of Channeler are you. There is Channeler of Spirits, which grants Spiritsight and gives bonuses in communicating with the dead, Channeler of the Order grants you membership with a Channeler Order Organisation and granting some more Skills, Experienced Dungeoneer is like Barbarians Danger Sense, and Experienced Traveller gives you Skill Foci useful for wilderness survival.

Trained for Battle 

This grants you a Fighting Style Feat and Weapon Focus. You pick a Weapon Group when gaining the Feat as Weapons available to use the Weapon Focus effect for. When you complete a Long Rest, you can choose one of the Weapons you know the Weapon Focus for to be your Active Weapon Focus. So for example you could pick the Axe Group with this Feature, then choose the Greataxe as your Active Weapon Focus, attacks made with any Greataxe can use its Weapon Focus which by default is Brutal.
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Brutal. When you roll the maximum value on the Weapon’s damage die, you can roll it again adding both results to the Damage Roll’s total. This additional roll cannot lead to another roll if it rolls the maximum result again.

On a Critical Hit, you can roll the Weapon’s damage die two additional times if the result is the maximum value. These additional rolls can also generate one additional die each if they roll their maximum amount. Though the second set of additional die cannot generate more if they roll their maximum result. The results of all these dice rolls get added to the Damage Roll, though additional dice do not benefit from the normal Critical Hit effect.

This Focus can only be applied to Melee Weapons and Weapons from the Firearms Weapons Group.

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Channeler's Path

This Feature is first gained at level 3 with further unlocks at levels 6, 10, and 14. As covered in the Arcanist Class preview, one difference to note from level 6 onwards is you can choose to either progress through a subclass's 4 tiers or to pick up the first tier of a different subclass. 

Feats

This Feature is first gained at level 4 with further unlocks at levels 8, 12, 16, and 19. Importantly each time you would gain this Feature you can increase one Trait's value by 1 AND gain a Feat. We would advise looking at the Fighting Style Feats such as the Fighting Style: Adaptive Defence or Fighting Style: Emotional Fighter Feats and Weapon Specialisation Feats such as Weapon Specialisation: Axe Fighting or Weapon Specialisation: Sword Fighting Feats.

Adept Channeler

This Feature at level 5 give Channelers a free movement when they take the Channel Emotions action, lets them use their Emotion's Trait for Attack and Damage Rolls, gives them Resistance to their Emotion's Damage Type, and gives them a unique effect for their Emotion.

Multiattack

This Feature works like Extra Attack.

Fortifying Emotion 

From 7th level, this allows the Battle Channeler to have an Evasion like effect but for Trait Tests using Endurance or your Emotion's Trait. It also lets you use Channel Emotion as a reaction to an effect occurring that would trigger this Feature's effect. 

Lightning Reflexes 

This grants a Walking speed and Initiative Bonus to the Battle Channeler.

At Higher Levels

From here on many Features increase your survivability and damage while Channeling Emotions, Edge of Emotion allows you to gain benefits when your score a Critical Hit, while you can summon a shadowy manifestation of your Emotion with the Living Esteem Feature. Wall of Emotion summons a shield around you absorbing damage while providing an additional effect based on your Emotion.

It should be noted Critical Hits on Weapon Attacks and Unarmed Strikes can also be scored by your Attack Roll being 10 above a target's HT making it far less swingy and so we felt comfortable adding Crit based Features for this Class. 

Channeler's Paths

There are a number of Channeler's Paths that they can gain access to.

Path of the Dreamers 

This path is for those who wish to focus on their positive emotions, it allows access to the Realms of Dreams, lets you play a more supportive tanking role.

Path of Duality

This path is for those who wish to focus on their two emotion, if you picked a Dream Emotion you must pick a Nightmare one and visa versa, it details how to shift between focusing on these different aspects and has some fun potential for those who enjoy dual wielding weapons.

Path of the Martyr

This path is about dying a glorious death, it increases your damage against larger and larger foes and focuses on Final Moment mechanics.

Path of Nightmares

This path is for those who wish to focus on their negative emotions, it allows access to the Realms of Dreams, this focuses on damage and destroying your foes.

Path of the Paragons

This path is all about customisation, you channel the lessons of the paragons of the past granting you smaller passive and active buffs to help you deal with the trials that you encounter in your journey.

Path of the Soul

This path is all about spellcasting, you draw upon the power of your soul that has been touched by an entity from another Realm. This is a spellcasting subclass based loosely on the Soulshaped Class and as you go through this path your form will change and gain new powers based on what affected your soul.

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So that is the Battle Channeler I hope people find this Class interesting and feel free to ask questions or give feedback! The draft document has been updated to reflect the above. Hopefully it gives you a sign of where we are taking this game!