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The Hateguard is a special individual raised from an early age to serve their lord, or lady depending on the culture. No one is more loyal to their liege than a Hateguard and no one is more wrathful to said liege's enemies than the Hateguard. At times, the Hateguard's loyalty is known to grow far beyond his boundaries, into a strong affection which manifests just as their hatred does.
Only individuals posessing great inner strength are selected to be Hateguard,as only they have the power to manifest their Hatred into reality by their force of personality.
The Hateguard combines elements of the Paladin/Antipaladin and Cavalier in an odd way. It is a very gruesom enemy to face once you've triggered their ire, however they possess rather weak saves against various magical effects. To defeat their enemies, the Hateguard focuses on destroying their morale so utterly, that they find themselves in a helpless situation, where attacking anyone but the Hateguard will bring them great pain, and fighting the Hateguard directly is a losing battle, unless they can end him quickly.
Level Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Ref Save Will Save Special
1st +1 +2 +0 +0 Hatred 1/day, Mount
2nd +2 +3 +0 +0 Bonus Feat
3rd +3 +3 +1 +1 Order Ability, Weapon Expertese
4th +4 +4 +1 +1 Hatestrike
5th +5 +4 +1 +1 Love 1/day
6th +6/+1 +5 +2 +2 Hateshield 1/day
7th +7/+2 +5 +2 +2 Powerful Hatred I
8th +8/+3 +6 +2 +2 Bonus Feat
9th +9/+4 +6 +3 +3 Order Ability
10th +10/+5 +7 +3 +3 Hatred 2/day, Permanent Love
11th +11/+6/+1 +7 +3 +3 Powerful Hatred II
12th +12/+7/+2 +8 +4 +4 Hateshield 2/day
13th +13/+8/+3 +8 +4 +4 Strong Love I
14th +14/+9/+4 +9 +4 +4 Bonus Feat
15th +15/+10/+5 +9 +5 +5 Love 2/day, Powerful Hatred III
16th +16/+11/+6/+1 +10 +5 +5 Order Ability
17th +17/+12/+7/+2 +10 +5 +5 Strong Love II
18th +18/+13/+8/+3 +11 +6 +6 Hateshield 3/day
19th +19/+14/+9/+4 +11 +6 +6 Powerful Hatred IV
20th +20/+15/+10/+5 +12 +6 +6 Hatred 3/day, Great Hatred
D10
2 points + int.
Proficient in all simple and martial weapons. Proficient in the Elven Curved Blade. Proficient with all armor and shields barring heavy armor and tower shields.
Class Skills: Bluff(Cha), Knowledge (History)(Int), Intimidate(Cha), Climb(Str), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), and Swim (Str).
Must be Lawful.
Cavalier Penalty:
The Hateguard learns his Order Abilities 1 level late.
Hatred (Su)
Starting 1st level, the Hateguard can channel his hatred for one particular foe, gaining a bonus to his attack and damage rolls equal to his charisma modifier against his target.
Hating his foe to the extent of triggering a supernatural flow of negative energy to him requires much of the Hateguard’s concentration. The Hateguard takes a -2 penalty to all his saves, however is immune to compulsion effects during the effects of Hatred.
The Hateguard’s hatred remains in effect even after the Hateguard is unconscious, however if he dies the effect will end. The Hateguard may not make another Hatred until his previous target is dead or unconscious.
Every time the target of Hatred attacks someone but the Hateguard, he triggers a free attack of opportunity which can be struck with any weapon at a range of 30 ft as supernatural damage.
Any successful intimidation checks made against the target of his hatred make him Frightened. Any failed checks make him Shaken.
Weapon Expertise (Ex)
At 3rd level, a Hateguard gains an unparalleled expertise with his chosen weapons. At 3rd level, the samurai selects either the glaive, whip, elven curved blade, or falcon. His hateguard levels stack with any fighter levels he possesses for the purposes of meeting the prerequisites for feats that specifically select his chosen weapon, such as Weapon Specialization.
Hatestrike (Su)
At 4th level, whenever the hateguard strikes his hated target, he gains temporary hit points equal to half the damage dealt. These temporary hit points act as healing if the Hateguard has less than his maximum health points.
Love (Su)
Once per day, the Hateguard may select a target for his Love. Whenever the Hateguard gains temporary hit points, his Love target gains half of the amount as well. The hateguard takes half the damage his Love target recieves onto himself. The target of his Love may only be the person he’s pledged his oath to, or members of his family.
This lasts for one day.
Hateshield (Su)
At 6th level, once per day the hateguard may surround himself in a mystical barrier of negative energy as a standard action, his hatred manifest. He gains temporary hit points equal to his level in Hateguard.
At 12th level, he can do it twice per day. 18th, thrice.
Powerful Hatred:
At 7th level, the Hateguard may select an additional target for his Hatred. He applies the hatred effect to both targets simultaneously.
At 11th level and every four levels after, the Hateguard may choose one more target.
Permanent Love:
In addition to his 1/day choices, the Hateguard chooses one targer upon whom the Love effect from him will be permanent.
Strong Love:
At 13th and 17th levels, the amount of targets he can apply Love to increases by 1, to a grand total of 3.
Great Hatred:
The Hateguard’s target of Hatred receives 1 point of Constitution damage per round, at the start of the Hateguard’s turn. This damage bypasses immunity to constitution damage. However, the Hateguard must be within at least 60 ft. of his target for it to work.
I'm always a fan of more archetypes, especially racial ones. And a Drow one at that! I'll read over this later.
@Usagi
Many thanks!
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I noticed a decisive lack of fluff in the class. So here are some additions!
The target(s) of the Hateguard's Love receives a +10 bonus on diplomacy and bluff checks against the Hateguard.
The target of Permanent Love receives a bonus of +20 instead.
Hate shield, instead of granting temporary hit points, now act as a paladin's Divine Grace, however only granting half one's charisma mod rounded down to all saves. In case of having both abilities, they do not stack. The one granting the bigger bonus stays in effect.
Well, I've read over it, and here are my thoughts. Keep in mind, I'm not so good at balance mechanics, so take this with a grain of salt.
Hatred: This seems ok, until I get to the part about attacks of opportunities. Does this grant everyone an AoO against the hated target if they aren't attacking the Hateguard? Or is it just an AoO for the Hateguard, regardless of what weapon he chooses? Because if it is the first, that seems crazy powerful. If it is the second, that's more in line I think.
Weapon Expertise: You misspelled falchion. That is all. For some reason chrome doesn't recognize it as a word.
Over all, I can see this being an excellent character to play. Especially one that is in love with another PC. Yes, quite good indeed. I think I'll probably snag it for my players, as long as no one else sees any major problems with it.
Also. I dislike the skill bonus that you added into Love and Permanent Love. I can see where it makes sense, but not really what I'm looking for.
Changing Hateshield is fine with me though.
Add or take the bonus away if it suits you.
The change in hate shield was mainly to shore up the horrendous saves would get with hatred active.
The hatred effect you preferred is indeed what I had in mind, yes. Just for the Hateguard.
I should mention that there are restrictions to the class. Such as, if you outwardly act against The Lord you've pledged to, you lose all supernatural class features of the Hateguard. (Hatred, Love etc.) The hateguard must literally kill himself, atone for his sins and earn his liege's forgiveness, or suffer 1d4 Con bleed per month he's not atoned. I feel this tidbit if restrictions greatly emphasizes the class' connection to the individual he pledged his loyalty to.
Change it as you see fit when implementing in your campaign, really~.
The original class I designed was bent towards having stupendous defenses against magic, while being rather squishy in close combat. Attacking and hating your opponent granted them increasing debuffs to either their melee or casting stats as the Hateguard saw fit, while granting his love target rather sizeable charisma bonuses. You could only hate 1 with the capstone being hatred to all enemies in your encounter 1/day. Also only love 1.
Changed it up, though. Not sure which is better.
I like this version more than the idea of your original version. There's plenty of ways to bring down magic users. It mostly involves having magic.
Your atonement idea is brutal. It is just.. brutal. Ouch.
Kill himself, atone for his sins OR take the con bleed.
'Twas getting late, made a lot of typos and general grammatical mishaps.
Atone for his sins, obviously means correcting his mistake and earning his liege's approval. If the Hateguard isn't forgiven... Then... Stab-stab.
Ohhh. Yeah, that's better.