“Krel?” Tala gasped as the robed figure stepped through the nimbus of holy light and rested a hand on her shoulder.
She felt her wounds closing, dirt and irritants working their way free of her body as the gashes sealed up. “We thought you died holding back the goblins.”
“I did,” the cleric replied as he helped her to her feet, “but I have work to do yet.” More divine light surged from the resurrected cleric’s glowing form, bathing the broken bodies of his friends in healing luminescence. Bones fused together, and bruises faded away instantly. The creatures surrounding the party they had thought defeated took a few nervous steps back from the light. Krel’s smile widened as Elshrin and Mierlek readied their weapons with renewed vigor. It was good to be back.
A New Kind of Class
A substitution class is a class that in some way replaces existing class levels. Presented in this supplement are three such classes, the saint, the lich, and the vampie. The saint is a good aligned character who was brought back to life by a deityafter committing a great deed. They lose all their class levels and gain an equal number of levels of saint. The lich is a powerful spellcaster who was granted perpetual life by a powerful ritual. A lich can take as many levels of the lich substitution class as class levels they sacrifice at the time of the ritual. This gives them more undead powers at the cost of their existing abilities. Vampires sacrifice as many levels as they can (to a maximum of 10) in exchange for an equal number of vampire levels. Regardless of what level a character is when they enter a substitution class, they may continue to gain levels in a substitution class when they level up as normal. For instance, a character who traded 5 levels of cleric for 5 levels of saint could continue to level up as a saint.
This Book Includes:
New "Substitution Class" Rules
The Saint substitution class
The Lich substitution class
The Vampire substitution class
Original Art by Jon Achey
The Breakdown:
Length: 13 pages + OGL
Bookmarked: Yes
Optimized: Yes
Printer Friendly Version: No
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Definitely an interesting take. I'm still unsure as to the balance some of these present, but it is a definite possibility that some of my players will be using these. Very nice to have an option that doesn't involve flailing the party's CR all over the place.
This book is begging for a sequel, as its usefulness is limited to good characters in a typical non-evil game.
The saint has to be good from the start and remains so. It is the default choice for a good character who dies with his mission unfulfilled.
The lich must be evil from the start and thus is an NPC only option in a game where player characters must be non-evil.
The corruption feature of the vampire class also limits it to characters who were good to start with, as a vampire automatically shifts one step towards evil. It is an unlikely choice because entering this class requires the cooperation of a typically chaotic evil monster.
What about adding a revenant or ghost type class that retains its original alignment? The duration of such a character would be campaign dependent, as it exists solely because of "unfinished business" and thus would be laid to rest as soon as the major goal of the campaign is accomplished.
We would LOVE to do a sequel to this book. We've actually got a great response on it so that's defiantly a possibility in the future. We wanted a way for players to play some of the more unique things without having to give them an ECL bump by having them gain abilities over a few levels.
We actually have a werewolf sub class all written up and it wouldn't take much to do a ghost one. (Imagine the prestige class possibilities for a ghost!) Other undead (like a Mummy?) might not be out of the realm of possibility.
However, we do want to keep substitution classes based around life-changing events so there are a lot of ideas that got tossed out. We thought about an incarcerated character substitution classes. With the lethargy of incarceration skills atrophy but other, more devious skills are gained.
Got two big questions regarding what I'm seeing. 1) Why does the Saint gain no BAB? 2) Where's the progression table for the vampire regarding saves and BAB?
1) That is the basis of the class. In exchange for getting no BAB (as they are complete pacifists by requirement) they receive superior healing capacity. We wanted a to create a unique class that could not engage in combat.
2) Somehow, this got cropped. Expect it Tuesday. (Off the top of my head it is 2/3rds BAB with partial spellcasting progression)
1) That is the basis of the class. In exchange for getting no BAB (as they are complete pacifists by requirement) they receive superior healing capacity. We wanted a to create a unique class that could not engage in combat.
2) Somehow, this got cropped. Expect it Tuesday. (Off the top of my head it is 2/3rds BAB with partial spellcasting progression)
New Feat: Split Spirit
Prerequisites: Lich
A lich with this feat may create a second phylactery. Both phylacteries must be destroyed in order for the lich to truly die. This feat only functions if the lich creates a second phylactery, expending the gold and taking the time to perform the ritual again.
New Feat: Split Spirit
Prerequisites: Lich
A lich with this feat may create a second phylactery. Both phylacteries must be destroyed in order for the lich to truly die. This feat only functions if the lich creates a second phylactery, expending the gold and taking the time to perform the ritual again.
Updating the PDF
Thanks for this. This feat is going to be extremely useful in my next campaign.