Utuk's page

Ability Score Modifiers: Skinwalkers are well attuned to the natural order of things and value passion above reason. They gain +2 Wisdom, –2 Intelligence, and +2 to one physical ability score while shapechanged (1 RP). While in their bestial form, they gain a +2 racial bonus to either Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution (see Change Shape). Skinwalkers of specific heritages (see below) gain different ability score modifiers, as indicated.

Size: Skinwalkers are Medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.

Type: Skinwalkers are humanoids with the skinwalker and shapechanger subtypes.

Base Speed: Skinwalkers have a base speed of 30 feet.

Languages: Skinwalkers speak Common. Skinwalkers with high Intelligence scores can choose any languages they want (except secret languages, such as Druidic).

Animal-Minded (2 RP): Skinwalkers have a +2 racial bonus on Handle Animal and wild empathy checks. Skinwalkers of specific heritages gain a +2 bonus to different checks as indicated.

Change Shape (Su, 5 RP): A skinwalker can change shape to and from a bestial form as a standard action. In bestial form, a skinwalker gains a +2 racial bonus to either Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution. While in this form, a skinwalker also takes on an animalistic feature that provides a special effect. Each time a skinwalker assumes bestial form, she can choose to gain one of the following features:
2 claw attacks that each deal 1d4 points of damage
Darkvision to a range of 60 feet.
+1 racial bonus to natural armor.
These benefits last until the skinwalker returns to her humanoid form as a swift action. A skinwalker must first return to her humanoid form before changing to bestial form again to change benefits. Different skinwalker heritages allow skinwalker characters to select from different sets of bestial features.

Low-Light Vision (Ex): Skinwalkers can see twice as far as humans in conditions of dim light.

Spell-Like Ability: Skinwalkers with a Wisdom score of 11 or higher can use speak with animals once per day as a spell-like ability. The caster level for this ability is equal to the skinwalker’s character level. Skinwalkers of specific heritages gain other spell-like abilities.

Seascarred Alternate Spell-Like Ability: charm animal (aquatic animals only) 3/day

Seascarred Bestial Features:

Amphibious

Bite attack that deals 1d6 points of damage

Ferocity:
A creature with ferocity remains conscious and can continue fighting even if its hit point total is below 0. The creature is still staggered and loses 1 hit point each round. A creature with ferocity still dies when its hit point total reaches a negative amount equal to its Constitution score.

Swim speed of 30 feet

3 points per level: 4 Class, -1 Intelligence Modifier

Acrobatics
Climb
Craft
Fly
+5 Handle Animal (+3 wisdom, +2 racial trait)
Knowledge (nature)
+7 Perception (+1 rank, +3 wisdom, +3 class skill)
Profession
Ride
+6 Stealth (+1 rank, +2 dexterity, +3 class skill)
+7 Survival (+1 rank, +3 wisdom, +3 class skill)
Swim
+1 Wild Empathy (+2 racial trait, -1 Charisma)

Weapon and Armor Proficiency
A shifter is proficient with the following weapons: club, dagger, dart, quarterstaff, scimitar, scythe, sickle, shortspear, sling, and spear. She is also proficient with the natural attacks (claw, bite, and so forth) from the shifter claws class feature and of forms she assumes with wild shape.

Shifters are proficient with light and medium armor but are prohibited from wearing metal armor. A shifter can wear wooden armor that has been altered by the ironwood spell so that it functions as if it were steel. Shifters are proficient with shields (except tower shields) but must use only those crafted from wood.

A shifter who wears prohibited armor or uses a prohibited shield is unable to use her shifter aspect, shifter claws, wild shape, and other shifter supernatural or spell-like abilities while doing so and for 24 hours thereafter.

Reactive Aspect (Su)
An adaptive shifter gains the ability to change parts of her body to avoid harm, gain a physical advantage, or overcome an obstacle. She can do so a number of times per day equal to 3 + her Wisdom modifier + her shifter level. By activating this ability, either as an immediate action or as a swift action, an adaptive shifter gains the benefits of one of her reactive forms until the beginning of her next turn (see below).

An adaptive shifter can assume only one reactive form at a time. Activating a new reactive form (or forms) ends all reactive forms currently manifested.

At 9th level, an adaptive shifter gains the benefits of up to two reactive forms whenever she uses this ability. At 14th level, she can assume up to three forms. At 20th level, she learns all reactive forms and doubles her effective Wisdom modifier for the purpose of calculating her uses of reactive aspect per day.

This replaces shifter aspect, chimeric aspect, greater chimeric aspect, and final aspect.

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 weaponsSOURCE, ignore DR/cold iron and DR/silver. At 7th level, her claw damage increases to 1d6 (1d4 if Small). At 11th level, her claw damage increases to 1d8 (1d6 if Small). At 13th level, her claw damage increases to 1d10 (1d8 if Small). At 17th level, the damage die does not increase, but the critical multiplier becomes ×3. Lastly, at 19th level, the claws ignore DR/adamantine and DR/—.

While a shifter uses wild shape to assume her aspect's major form, her natural attacks gain the same benefits granted by her shifter claws ability. If the form she takes has claw attacks, she can use either the base damage of her shifter claws or the damage of the form’s claws, whichever is greater. If the form does not have claw attacks, she can choose up to two natural attacks that would deal less damage than her shifter claw damage and have those attacks instead deal the same damage as her shifter claws.

Adaptive Claws (Su)
When activating her shifter claws ability in her natural form, an adaptive shifter can instead manifest a single bite attack that deals bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage; a gore attack that deals piercing damage; or a tail slap that deals bludgeoning damage. This natural attack otherwise deals damage as the shifter’s claws.

This alters shifter claws.

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.

Reactive Forms (Su)
n adaptive shifter learns two reactive forms from the list below. At 2nd level and every 2 levels thereafter, an adaptive shifter learns an additional reactive form.

Forms marked with an asterisk (*) are lasting forms. An adaptive shifter can spend two uses of reactive aspect to increase a lasting form’s duration to 1 minute. Forms not marked with an asterisk always last only until the beginning of her next turn.

Restoring Form: The adaptive shifter regains 1d8 hit points. For every 4 levels she has, the number of hit points she regains increases by 1d8. The adaptive shifter can assume this form only as a swift action.

Spiked Form*: The adaptive shifter grows spines over her body. Any foe striking her with an unarmed strike or a melee natural weapon takes an amount of piercing damage equal to the base damage of her shifter claws, which ignores any damage reduction her shifter claws would ignore. She can learn this form a second time, allowing her to fling her spines as thrown natural weapons that deal piercing damage, have a range increment of 30 feet, and allow her to make multiple attacks with her spines as part of a full attack; these otherwise deal damage and overcome damage reduction as her shifter claws.

TURNS INTO GODDAMN ANIMALS WHY WOULD HE NEED SPELLS

Utuk spends most of his time at the beach and goes in and out of the water frequently. He owns shoes for when he's going elsewhere, but most of the time, you won't catch him with more than a pair of shorts, of the fabric best suited to drying quickly and cut with as many pockets as they can practically fit. When not pursuing his livelihood on the beaches and in the sea, Utuk is also an accomplished boxer in the mostly-legitimate local scene (if such a scene exists), though the standard uniform of the sport tends to also be a pair of shorts, and so his bills remain very modest. If it's not waterproof or it looks like it would tempt thieves, Utuk probably doesn't keep it.

Utuk looks pretty normal unless you investigate far too closely to be polite. He has spikey black hair that's fashionable among some of the youth, and only by looking very closely or running your hands through his hair (which he politely but firmly requests that you do not do) would you discover that it's laced through with chitinous spines like that of the sea urchin, and that his eyes are wider and darker than most people living under the sun, more akin to the inky and unshining eyes of sharks scanning for life deep underwater than to a surface mammal's. He doesn't particularly stand out in any crowd, though. If everything goes according to his plan, someday, he will.

Before the world changed, Utuk's life was going to be simple. He'd be a fisherman, like his father, and like his father before him, collecting whale and seal and salmon in the arctic seas and distributing them amongst the equatorial people for advanced crafts and supplies from the warmer realms where they could grow lumber and agriculture. To this end, Utuk, like all his people, used the magic in his blood to form a special relationship with the creatures of the sea and the tundra that he hunted, planning to adapt his body to breathe water like the shark or swim through the air like the kestrel.

This all changed, of course, when the mages melted the ice and drowned most of the dry places of the world. Bereft of the ice floes and frozen wastes of his youth, Utuk did his best to adapt, and learned to hunt the new areas of warm shallow water and vibrant coral reefs where frozen dry land used to be. While the massive prey animals like whales and walruses had fled to the north and south so as not to die of the heat, a host of newer smaller animals had spread out from the equator into the new shallows, and Utuk made a decent go at hunting and trapping eel and abalone and lobster.

While his ancestors had primarily changed their forms to emulate the great white sharks and mighty killer whales of the arctic, Utuk instead learned to emulate the defensive spines of urchins and the spontaneous wound closure of the anemone, and has become such an adept hunter of small reef prey that he no longer even uses a fishing spear, instead able to pin his prey with the urchin spines that he can grow out of his skin. This has also translated into being sufficiently deadly as a hand to hand combatant, and as he continues his journey he hopes to learn to bend like the octopus and shield like the crab.