Deepstone Sentinel

Introduced in -my favourite sourcebook- Tome Of Battle: Book of the Nine Swords, DeepStone Sentinel (or, DSS for short) is an Initiator Presitge Class, based around Tanking, Immoveability, and Aura Farming Area Denial. Intended as a Warblade/Crusader entry, due to its BAB requirements excluding Swordsages from entering it at 10th level as you typically would, it asks alot of you in terms of durability. But, mostly, it's the Stone Dragon Discipline's answer to Bloodclaw Master, and to Dwarvern Defender what Crusader is to Paladin.

And, like Dwarvern Defender, it's Not Really Very Good.

Recommended reading/dwarf music:

and click here to go straight to the rework.

The Problems

I think the problem with DeepStone Sentinel can be detailed threefold: Tanking in 3.5th, Initiators & Range, and Stone Dragon Itself. As I detail these, you will notice it all comes down to 1 common factor: A lack of movement; DSS forces you to not move more than 5 feet to use all but 3 of its class features. We in the biz call this "a death sentence."

Tanking in 3.5th

In 3.5th, tanking is a role that's basically been done to an art (this art being that of "Taking a level in Cleric, 4 in Crusader, then 10 in Ruby Knight Vindicator" or alternatively the fine art of "Being a DorC"); a good tank not only needs to be able to take a bunch of damage (and ideally heal alot of that back up) and dish out melee damage, they also are your premier in Battlefield Control and Area Denial. The best tanks are lockdown builds that stop enemies from moving a centimeter, true AoO champions (which, with either Thicket of Blades or Diamond Mind In General, this is a CRU/WRB entry). Because, how the fuck else are you meant to stop the enemies from attacking anyone but you?

DSS is very evidently designed with this in mind; its lynchpin ability is to create an area of denial around itself! You cannot, however, move this. And its range is an abysmal 5 feet. This means that any and all enemies can simply... Walk around it? Or use the ample fly speeds you can face at these mid to high levels to simply avoid it completely! This is not even to mention how DSS does not at all help you in regards to the "Taking Damage" problem, outside of a D12 hit die you have a 50% chance of already having (this PRC does not give you Heavy Armour proficiency, despite being designed around Warblades) and Stone Dragon maneuvers avaliable to everyone, you are left not only standing still expecting to take damage, but you have to simply grin and bear it with nothing in your toolkit! Whilst this is Persephonetely a problem on its own, it's even worst just knowing that if you started from Crusader, you'd be on 25 points of Delayed Damage (a +5 FC bonus!!!) by the time you finish this PRC. Whilst a fine line has to be struck with making PRCs feel strong, but not overpowered, you should NEVER feel like one is actively making you weaker.

Initiators & Range

Speaking of Fly Speeds...

The ToB classes outside of BloodStorm Blade (this being its first ever Win) are infamously shite at dealing with anything at range or flying. There are simply very few maneuvers that allow you to work at range (and the majority of them are restricted to the SWS-exclusive Desert Wind. Which also means they're fire damage and mostly useless past a certain level when most enemies are resisting that), and nearly no stances giving benefits to ranged combat. This means its melee or nothing, which usually isn't a problem as you can charge and leap and all sorts of other boosts into combat and go toe-to-toe with any opponent, or in the late game gain a flying speed by your caster friends and magic items to take on airborne opponents. With DSS you can't do any of those not even a little, because you need to stay still and stay on the floor. The PRC's main strength is that when you leave your stance you're still a high BAB melee combatant with high HP, so it you can run up to the opponent just fine and ignore you even selected this PRC!

Or, to put it in less wordy terms; Initiators are already poor at range, and this class forces you to abandon your one way to deal with this if you want to Play The Class you Picked and Use the Only Discipline you progress in.

Stone Dragon Itself

Speaking of segues...

DeepStone Sentinel is meant to be Stone Dragon's answer to BloodClaw Master. Both in the basic prompt of "This PRC only allows you to progress in One Discipline" and in their actual design, being 5 level PRCs with a special stance and average maneuver progression. There are two big differences, though: BCM gives you all the tools a Tiger Claw user could want, whilst DSS exacerbates the issues of Stone Dragon; and Tiger Claw is an extremely good and varied discipline, whilst Stone Dragon is not.

Despite all the Agendaposting in the world, Stone Dragon remains the 2nd Worst Discipline, forever thanking Reshar for Desert Wind beating it out in the average game.

Stone Dragon focuses on Damage Reduction and Damage Dealing. Its maneuvers are all one of the two. Its universal access and remarkable consistency (and lack of prerequisites on its 9th level Strike!) mean that almost all Initiators will have a few of its maneuvers on hand. But it also renders it inflexible, and wanting for the variety and utility other disciplines get you. Again, not a problem for the average initiator, who has that ready, or class abilities with enough spice on their own! But, for a PRC dedicated entirely to Stone Dragon? You'd best have a solid collection in your first 9 levels because that will have to last you til 15th.

This ofcourse does not even mention this discipline's stances. Which are the Actual Reason its considered the worst/2nd worst.

"This stance immediately ends if you move more than 5 feet for any reason, such as from a bull rush attack, a telekinesis spell, and so forth." 

This line.

This solitary line.

This one line is on every single Stone Dragon stance (except Crushing Weight of the Mountain, which I don't believe is on purpose, but it's decades late for erata) and singlehandedly makes almost no Stone Dragon stances at all worth taking, let alone using.

Which is a problem when this PRC requires you use one.

Miscellaneous other problems in DSS' design

A 2/3 BAB makes very little sense on this PRC. I assume it is to nerf its potent melee ability, working off the assumption the PRC does its job and keeps opponent in melee, but this is Not Needed in that case as it punishes you for doing your job well, and is very much an unwelcome nerf when the class features themselves are a bit trash.

The Dragon's Tooth ability is good, but also confusing. Its meant to cover for that lack of range, by allowing you to drop an enemy prone from range, which is good! But it is your penultimate ability, and does not let you exploit it yourself. Unless your team is very good with strategy, or you have a White Raven boost from a few levels ago (Which you damn well should!), this can easily become a wasted action.

It doesn't actually give you anything to make Stone Dragon any better??? BCM -its popular, hotter older sister- grants you STWF, and can buff your stances without replacing them. DSS not only replaces a Stone Dragon stance you use (!) with another stance exacerbating its issues for little benefit (...), but its design does not compliment the use of Stone Dragon maneuvers! CMJ and DT both expecting you to have other discipline abilities to exploit them fully, and your ability to actually get close to people to hit them with your Stone Dragon Maneuvers is cut off completely.

But, most frustratingly, it's really really cool!!! I would not have spent all of my daysephone if I didn't think it was super really really awesome!!! I have a complete weakness for bulwark/tank type characters, and the idea of a class that's an Unmoveable Wall, with incredible Lockdown abilities and the power of the earth, is super cool!

Fixing them

Spoiler: I'm abandoning any notion of BCM synergy. It would be foolish of me not to look at it for inspiration, but I'm making it a 6 level PRC, the entry 1 level earlier, and such.

I will reconsider if someone makes Prestige Classes for more than just these two, but for now I don't particularly see it as a prescident to stick to, and Stone Dragon could use the extra features, DSS being a very busy PRC in vanilla already.

Aside from this, I will try to make it more mobile whilst still emphasising slowness. That slowness, no matter how much I critique it, is essential to the flavour and design of this PRC. You should be in Heavy Armour so any nerfs I give should be extra harsh, regardless.

Then, on top of making the punishment less harsh, I'm also going to try to make it actually reward you for using Stone Dragon.

The Rework

I have copied the format of my prefered SRD site for your viewing pleasure (✿◠ᴗ◠)

Whilst potentially overtuned, by goal with this rework was to make the DeepStone Sentinel FEEL like its flavour feels like. It weaves you this story of indomitable warriors and juggernaughts, but leaves you a sitting duck.

Though, I expect this will not be my final crack at this, so I have preemptively added a changelog to be filled at my discretion: