Lvl 4 Healing
* Heal: +4 (skills) +3 (class skill) +3 (Skill Focus) +4 (Wis) +2 (Healer’s Kit) = +16
“20GP of etherium for a +4 circumstance bonus to a heal check when used with a charge from the kit.”
* DC 20 = Heals 4 HP (lvl) +1 (Int) = 5
* DC 25 = Heals 4 HP (lvl) + 4 (wisdom) +1 (Int) = 9
* DC 30 = Heals 4 HP (lvl) + 4 (wisdom) + 4 (knowledge planes) +1 (Int) = 13
Lvl 5 Healing
* Incredible Healer: Heals for 1d20+18. If result is 30+ then add +5.
* Druid’s Herbalism: Free 4x potions of cure light wounds per day (1d8+3)
Race, Traits, Stats:
Race: Human
* Alchemically Enhanced: Some humans use alchemical or scientific enhancements to push their bodies beyond the limits of nature. However, doing so comes at a significant price. A human with this trait gains a +3 racial bonus to Constitution, Dexterity, or Strength. However, the character’s biology is now more susceptible to chemicals, causing her to take a –2 penalty on Fortitude saving throws against poison. This racial trait replaces the +2 bonus to any one ability score and the bonus feat racial trait.
* Skilled
Traits
* Oddity Artisan: You have made use of odd materials found in the new shards, including etherium. Having fashioned odd tools from raw resources and even bug parts you take no penalty for using improvised tools. You get an additional +1 trait bonus on craft and profession checks. When you make craft checks to create an item you make progress at half again the normal speed. When earning capital by gathering or collecting supplies you add 1 to the capital earned.
* Clockwork Surgeon: You begin play with a special healer’s kit at no cost and can fully restock your kit by expending materials worth 10 gp and spending 8 hours assembling medical devices. When using this healer’s kit to treat deadly wounds, you can either halve the time required to perform the action or add your Intelligence modifier to the number of hit points healed.
* Guilty Fraud: You take a –4 penalty on Bluff checks against creatures with an attitude toward you of indifferent or better.
* Magical Knack: +2 Caster Level Druid
Feats:
EitR: power attack, deadly aim, weapon finesse
Lvl 1: Healer’s Hands Conduit (You can use the Heal skill to treat deadly wounds as a full-round action. You do not take a penalty for not using a healer’s kit when treating deadly wounds this way, and you can do so on a given creature more than once per day. When treating deadly wounds this way, if your result exceeds the DC by 10 or more, add your ranks in Knowledge (planes) to the damage healed. These benefits do not apply to creatures that are not healed by positive energy. You can use this feat’s benefit a number of times per day equal to your ranks in Knowledge (planes).)
Lvl 3: Skill Focus Heal
Lvl 5: Incredible Healer
Lvl 7: Shaping Focus
Lvl 9: Mutated Shape (adds slam)
Lvl 11: Skill Unlock Heal
Lvl 13: Energized Wild Shape (When you assume a wild shape form, choose one of the following energy types: acid, cold, electricity, or fire. You gain resistance 10 to that energy type. Also, one of your natural attacks deals an additional 1d6 points of damage of the chosen energy type. If you choose a wild shape form that already has energy resistance of the same type you choose, it increases by 5 instead. If you choose a wild shape form that deals damage of the same energy type you choose, increase the energy damage you deal by one die size (1d6 becomes 1d8, and so on). Special: You can take this feat more than once. Each time you take this feat, choose a different energy type.) Cold - Claws
Lvl 15: Energize Wildshape Fire - Slam
Lvl 17: Energize Wildshape Acid - Bite
Lvl 19: Dodge
Equipment:
* Masterwork Lamellar Leather
* Masterwork Composite Longbow +4 Strength Modifier w/ 40 arrows
* Dagger
* Vest of Surgery (The wearer is always treated as if using a healer’s kit when making Heal checks. Once per day, the wearer can make a DC 20 Heal check as if attempting to treat deadly wounds. If the check is successful, it cures 1d4 points of ability damage instead of hit point damage.)
* Clockwork Surgeon Kit
* Shifter's Kit (This kit includes a backpack, a blanket, a flint and steel, an iron pot, a mess kit, rope, torches (10), trail rations (5 days), and a waterskin.)
* Holy symbol tattoo (Erastril)
Weretouched Shifter (4):
Lycanthrope Aspect (Su)
* At 1st level, a weretouched gains the shifter aspect ability, except the animal aspect chosen is the only animal aspect the weretouched can gain. This alters her other class features, as detailed in each relevant class feature. Otherwise, this ability functions identically to shifter aspect.
Lycanthropic Empathy (Ex)
* At 1st level, a weretouched gains wild empathy and a +4 bonus on wild empathy checks, but this ability works only on the type of animal she chose for her lycanthrope aspect.
* This alters wild empathy.
* Wild Empathy (Ex) A shifter can improve the attitude of an animal. This ability functions as a Diplomacy check to improve the attitude of a person. The shifter rolls 1d20 and adds her shifter level and Charisma modifier to determine the wild empathy check result. The typical domestic animal has a starting attitude of indifferent, while wild animals are usually unfriendly. To use wild empathy, the shifter and the animal must be within 30 feet of one another and under normal conditions. Generally, influencing an animal in this way takes 1 minute but, as with influencing people, it might take more or less time. The shifter can also use this ability to influence a magical beast with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2, but she takes a –4 penalty on the check.
Lycanthropic Wild Shape (Su)
* At 4th level, when a weretouched uses wild shape, she can assume only the form of an animal of the same type as her lycanthrope aspect. However, instead of assuming a major form, she can assume a hybrid form that mixes the traits of her natural form and the major form of her aspect. While in a hybrid form, she gain a +2 size bonus to her Strength score, a +2 natural armor bonus to her AC, and all of the natural attacks and abilities listed by her major form. A weretouched also counts as being in her natural form for the purpose of determining whether she can extend her shifter claws. A weretouched’s hybrid form is roughly the same size and shape as her natural form, albeit with bestial qualities such as digitigrade legs or shaggy fur, so her equipment does not merge into her new form when she shifts between her natural form and hybrid form. In addition, the size of a weretouched’s hybrid form is the same as the size of her natural form. This otherwise counts as assuming a major form using wild shape.
* This alters wild shape.
* A shifter can use wild shape for a number of hours each day equal to her shifter level + her Wisdom modifier. It need not be consecutive but must be spent in 1 hour increments. For abilities that function based on ‘uses of wild shape,’ each hour of wild shape counts as a use.
* Shifters can take feats and other abilities that require wild shape; for the purpose of qualifying for prerequisites, her effective druid level is equal to her shifter level.
Shifter Claws (Su)
* At will, a shifter in her natural form can extend her claws as a swift action to use as a weapon. This magical transformation is fueled as much by the shifter’s faith in the natural world as it is by inborn talent. The claws on each hand can be used as a primary natural attack, dealing 1d4 points of piercing and slashing damage (1d3 if she is Small). If she uses one of her claw attacks in concert with a weapon held in the other hand, the claw acts as a secondary natural attack instead.
* As the shifter gains levels, the power of her claws increases. At 3rd level, her claws count as magic weapons, ignore DR/cold iron and DR/silver.
Defensive Instinct (Ex)
* At 2nd level, when unarmored, not using a shield, unencumbered, and conscious, the shifter adds her Wisdom bonus (if any) to her AC and CMD. If she is wearing nonmetal armor or using a nonmetal shield, she instead adds half her Wisdom bonus to her AC (minimum 0). In addition, the shifter gains a +1 bonus to her AC and CMD at 4th level. This bonus increases by 1 for every 4 shifter levels thereafter (up to a maximum of +5 at 20th level).
* These bonuses to AC apply even against touch attacks and when the shifter is flat-footed. She loses these bonuses when she is immobilized or helpless. These bonuses do not stack with the monk AC bonus class feature.
Track (Ex)
* At 2nd level, a shifter adds half her level as a bonus on Survival checks to follow tracks.
Woodland Stride (Ex)
* At 3rd level, a shifter can move through any sort of undergrowth (such as briars, natural thorns, overgrown areas, and similar terrain) at her normal speed and without taking damage or suffering any other impairment. Briars, thorns, and overgrown areas that are enchanted or magically manipulated to impede motion still affect the shifter.
Shifter Aspect (Su)
* At 1st level, a shifter gains her first aspect—a category of animal to which her body and soul have become supernaturally attuned. She can shift into her aspect’s minor form (see Aspects) for a number of minutes per day equal to 3 + her shifter level. The duration need not be consecutive but must be spent in 1-minute increments. Shifting into a minor form is a swift action, while ending the effect is a free action that can be taken only on the shifter’s turn.
Minor Form:
* You gain the scent ability with a range of 10 feet, or, if you have the scent ability, the range increases by 10 feet. The range of this scent or the increase to your scent increases to 20 feet at 8th level and 30 feet at 15th level. The range doubles if the opponent is upwind and is halved if the opponent is downwind.
Major Form:
* Your shape changes to that of a dire wolf. While in this form, you gain a base speed of 50 feet, low-light vision, and scent (30 feet), a bite (1d8 damage), and you can make a trip attempt with your bite attack. At 8th level, the range of your scent ability increases to 40 feet and you gain a +4 racial bonus on Survival checks when tracking with scent. At 15th level, you gain Improved Natural Attack (bite).
Build Plan: Nature Fang Druid lvls 5+:
Druidic Herbalism Nature Bond Variant
* Druidic herbalism is a nature bond option that can be taken by any druid at 1st level except those with archetypes or alternate class features that alter or replace nature bond or mandate a specific nature bond choice.
* Instead of granting access to a domain or an animal companion, a druid’s bond with nature can take a third form: access to druidic herbalism.
* A druid who chooses to learn druidic herbalism can use combinations of nuts, berries, dried herbs, and other natural ingredients along with appropriate containers to create herbal concoctions or magic consumables that function like potions. This acts like the Brew Potion feat, but only for spells on the druid spell list. Herbal concoctions are typically thick and sludgy, and their creation time, caster level, spell duplication capabilities, and all other variables and properties are identical to those of potions created using Brew Potion. Herbal concoctions created with herbs that cause special effects when ingested retain those effects as well as the appropriate spell effect.
* A druid can create a number of free herbal concoctions per day equal to her Wisdom modifier. Additional concoctions cost the same as creating an equivalent potion using Brew Potion. Druids can sell their herbal concoctions just as if they were potions (though NPCs unfamiliar with druidic herbalism may need some convincing before purchasing these wares).
* At 4th level, a druid’s increasing skill with herbalism means that she can disguise the effects of her herbal concoctions. When a creature attempts a Perception or Spellcraft check to identify one of the druid’s concoctions, the concoction appears to be a different herbal concoction of the druid’s choice unless the creature exceeds the identification DC by 5 or more. The druid must designate this false result when creating the concoction. If a creature exceeds the identification DC by 5 or more, it correctly identifies the concoction, though not that the druid tried to fool it.
* Additionally, at 4th level, when the druid creates additional concoctions, she need pay only half the normal cost to create them. It takes her only half the normal time to create her concoctions, and she can create concoctions of spells from any spell list, as long as she can cast the spell.
* At 7th level, when the druid creates concoctions with potential false identification results, a creature attempting to identify the concoction must exceed the identification DC by 10 or more to determine the concoction’s true identity.
* Additionally, at 7th level, a druid can create any herbal concoction in 1 minute. She can also create a special concoction of any spell higher than 3rd level that she can cast, but to do so, she must expend a spell slot of the same level. These special concoctions do not cost her anything to create and function like extracts created by an alchemist with the infusion discovery.
Studied Target
* A slayer can study an opponent he can see as a move action. The slayer then gains a +1 bonus on Bluff, Knowledge, Perception, Sense Motive, and Survival checks attempted against that opponent, and a +1 bonus on weapon attack and damage rolls against it. The DCs of slayer class abilities against that opponent increase by 1. A slayer can only maintain these bonuses against one opponent at a time; these bonuses remain in effect until either the opponent is dead or the slayer studies a new target.
* If a slayer deals sneak attack damage to a target, he can study that target as an immediate action, allowing him to apply his studied target bonuses against that target (including to the normal weapon damage roll).
* At 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th levels, the bonuses on weapon attack rolls, damage rolls, and skill checks and to slayer DCs against a studied target increase by 1. In addition, at each such interval, the slayer is able to maintain these bonuses against an additional studied target at the same time. The slayer may discard this connection to a studied target as a free action, allowing him to study another target in its place.
* At 9th level, a slayer can study an opponent as a move or swift action.
* At 1st level, a nature fang gains the slayer’s studied target class feature. At 5th level and every 5 levels thereafter, the nature fang’s bonus against her studied target increases by 1. Unlike a slayer, a nature fang does not gain the ability to maintain more than one studied target at the same time.
* This ability replaces nature sense, wild empathy, and woodland stride.
Slayer Talent
* At 4th level and every 2 levels thereafter, a nature fang selects a slayer talent. Starting at 12th level, she can select an advanced slayer talent in place of a slayer talent. She uses her druid level as her slayer level to determine what talents she can select.
* This ability replaces wild shape.
Lvl 4: Ranger Combat Style - Intimidating Prowess (Intimidate adds strength modifier)
Lvl 6: Ranger Combat Style - Martial Dominance (You can use your base attack bonus in place of your ranks in Intimidate to determine your Intimidate skill bonus. When you confirm a critical hit against a creature, you can attempt an Intimidate check to demoralize that creature as an immediate action.)
Lvl 10: Ranger Combat Style - Shatter Defenses
Lvl 12: Jaguar’s Grace: You do not take the normal –4 penalty when dealing nonlethal damage using a weapon that normally deals lethal damage. Attacks made this way can apply nonlethal sneak attack damage.
Lvl 14: Jaguar’s Pounce: When you deal sneak attack damage, you can attempt a disarm or trip combat maneuver as an immediate action as if the target were flat-footed (losing its Dexterity bonus to CMD). This combat maneuver does not provoke attacks of opportunity.
Lvl 16: Jaguar’s Protection
Sneak Attack (Ex)
* At 4th level, a nature fang gains sneak attack +1d6. This functions as the rogue sneak attack ability. If the nature fang gets a sneak attack bonus from another source, the bonuses on damage stack.
* This ability replaces resist nature’s lure.
Swift Studied Target
* At 9th level, a nature fang can study an opponent as a move or swift action.
* This ability replaces venom immunity.
Build Thoughts:
BaB Lags behind. Studied target offsets this. For example…lvl 16 (when many campaigns end). BaB 4 (shifter 4) + 9 (Druid 12) = 13. However, +3 studied target makes that +16 to hit. Evens out (single target only). As a note, loss of iterative doesn’t matter as this is a natural attack build.
Damage: Studied target makes up for lost power attack, and sneak attack adds damage from there. At lvl 16 would have 4d6 sneak attack. Just behind a slayer (5d6). However, energize Wildshape adds 1d6 elemental damage, bridging the gap.
Defense: “Only” Dex16 in light armor. But having +2 natural armor 1/2 Wisdom and another +1 on top helps out. Overall build plan is for him hitting tank benchmarks but no higher.
Casting: Loses on 4 spellcasting levels, but has +2 CL. About on par with an inquisitor at lvl16. Better if the campaign goes to 20.
The goal was to be useful in combat as a martial, while also being effective out of combat as a healer and support caster.
Background:
Lars Ulcaster was born in Garm, a quiet farming village west of Claes in Andoran. Life in Garm was simple, if harsh. Long days spent as an apprentice herbalist, hunting for basic sustenance, close ties between neighbors, and little reason to expect more than the steady turn of the seasons. That ended the night Lars was bitten. He had ventured too far into the woods, looking for the right ingredients for his father’s poultices. Nearly devoured by what he thought was a wolf, he managed to stagger back into the village before collapsing. The irony was that the trade of his parents both lead to his predicament and saved him from it. However, the curse of lycanthropy sank its teeth into him, and though he struggled at first to conceal it, the truth slowly reshaped his life.
Lars turned inward, hoping that by training himself to heal others, he might one day cure his own condition. At first, he sought the traditional paths: prayer, poultices, herbal wards, but nothing could quiet the beast clawing at the edges of his soul. His skill as a healer grew, and with it the applause of neighbors who praised him as a saint. The guilt of knowing that he was a monster, who used their afflictions as practice for treating his own, gnawed away at him. In desperation, he turned to silver, the bane of his kind. Grinding it into alchemical solutions meant to burn out the curse, he reasoned that one way or another he would be free. To his surprise, it worked. In a fashion. By the careful, and painful, application of alchemy he learned to control his affliction, but a cure remained ever elusive. In this, he found that the instances of losing control gave way, as did his vulnerability to silver. But with the loss in mindless ferocity so too did he lose some of his lycanthropic defenses. Replaced instead with a constitution all together less robust against poisons, given how his attempts at a cure had ravaged him.
When the world shattered and shards of land began colliding and merging, Garm survived by chance. At first the shard seemed blessed, merging only with uninhabited wildlands. But months ago a shard merged that was far from empty. Giant ants spilled into the hills, swarming the farms and killing those who tried to resist. The village’s small defenses were no match.
Lars fought alongside his people, casting aside any pretense of hiding his curse. With tooth and claw he struck at the ants, fighting as a beast. Then, as a man, dragging the wounded to safety and patching them back together with desperate hands. When the ants fell, he stripped their bodies for chitin and fashioned armor to keep the survivors alive. Still, no matter how he fought or healed or crafted, he could not stop the slow toll. Friends, family, neighbors, all slipped away, one by one.
Now, as yet another shard merges with Garm, Lars faces the same gnawing fear: that nothing will ever be enough. Yet he refuses to abandon what remains. Whether as healer or beast, Lars will stand as long as he must. For if the village falls, then everything he has endured will have been for nothing.
Appearance:
Lars is a broad-shouldered, powerfully built man, with the look of someone shaped by hard labor and harder choices. His skin is weathered, a dull pallor betraying too many nights under open skies or nursing wounds by firelight. His age is hard to determine, as worry and tribulation seem to have prematurely aged him.
Deep-set eyes, storm-gray and brooding, sit beneath a heavy brow, their intensity rarely softened by expression. His dark hair is thick and wild, pulled back in a utilitarian fashion when not matted with sweat or rain. A jagged scar runs from his temple to just above his cheekbone: a gift from the night his life was nearly stolen by tooth and claw.
His face is perpetually grim, locked in a scowl, and with eyes that never seem to be truly at ease. Lars bears the faint, feral features of his curse even in human form: slightly elongated canines, nails that seem a touch too long, and a presence that those not attuned with nature might describe as being unsettling. He wears scavenged armor pieced together from chitin and leather, marked with the scars of survival more than any heraldry. Around his neck is a tattoo of Erastril’s holy symbol, partially obscured by furs and bone charms.
