Zika's page

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Skills

9 / Level (4 Base + 2 Int + 1 Favoured +2 Background)

Class Skills: Acrobatics, Appraise, Bluff, Climb, Craft, Diplomacy, Escape Artist, Fly, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Knowledge (All), Linguistics, Perception, Perform (Oratory, Percussion, Sing, String, Wind), Profession, Ride, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, Stealth, Swim, Use Magic Device

Non-Class Skills: Disable Device, Disguise, Heal, Sleight of Hand, Survival

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Traits

Slippery (Combat): You have escaped from so many dangerous situations in your life that you’ve gotten quite good at not getting caught. You gain a +1 trait bonus on Stealth checks and Stealth is a class skill for you.

Darkblight Survivor (Regional): You gain a +2 trait bonus on Fortitude saving throws against diseases and poisons inflicted by fey, plants, and forest-related hazards.

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Feats

Fey Foundling: Whenever you receive magical healing, you heal an additional 2 points per die rolled. You gain a +2 bonus on all saving throws against death effects. Unfortunately, you also suffer +1 point of damage from cold iron weapons, although you can wield cold iron weapons without significant discomfort. (Houserule Bonus Feat)

Precise Shot: You do not take a -4 penalty firing into melee. (Level 1 Feat)

Scribe Scroll: You can create a scroll of any spell that you know. Scribing a scroll takes 2 hours if its base price is 250 gp or less, otherwise scribing a scroll takes 1 day for each 1,000 gp in its base price. To scribe a scroll, you must use up raw materials costing half of this base price. (Skald Bonus Feat)

Note: One you hit BAB +1 you automatically gain Combat Expertise, Power Attack, and Deadly Aim (Elephant in the Room Feat Tax). Also Elephant in the Room removes Point-Blank Shot.

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Special Abilities

Proficiencies: Simple and martial weapons. Light and Medium Armour and Shields except tower shields. You can cast Skald spells in light/medium armour and with a shield without incurring arcane spell failure.

Bardic Knowledge: You add 1/2 your class level (minimum 1) on all Knowledge skill checks, and may make all Knowledge skill checks untrained.

Scribe Scroll: You gain Scribe Scroll as a Bonus Feat.

Melancholic Apparation (6 Rounds / Day): By using Perform (Sing), you can call forth a physical manifestation of the sorrow of your song. This functions as the Spiritualist’s “Phantom” ability with the Despair focus. You can manifest the melancholic apparation as a standard action and dismiss it as a free action.

It appears adjacent to you and can act immediately. If you are killed, paralyzed, knocked unconscious, or otherwise prevented from taking the free action each round to maintain the performance to keep it manifested, it is immediately dismissed. You can manifest your apparition a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier (+2 for each Skald level beyond 1st).

Unlike a spiritualist‘s phantom, a melancholic apparition can’t be harbored in your consciousness. When manifested, the melancholic apparition has the same number of hit points it had when previously manifested that day. It regains all of its hit points when you regain your spells for the day. If the melancholic apparition is slain, you can manifest it again in the same day by spending a number of additional rounds of this ability equal to half your skald level (minimum 1); the melancholic apparition returns with half its normal total of hit points.

The Phantom can be manifested as either ectoplasmic or incorporeal. The phantom has the same alignment as the spiritualist and can speak all the same languages. The ritual to fully manifest the phantom takes 1 minute, and allows the spiritualist to change the phantom between incorporeal and ectoplasmic as a full-round action (that provokes attacks of opportunity). The phantom does not heal naturally, but can be healed with magic or the heal skill as long as it is fully manifested in ectoplasmic form. While fully manifested, the phantom cannot be returned to the Ethereal Plane by dispel magic, but things such as banishment would still work.

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Phantom

Size: Small
Type: Fey
Senses: Perception +4 (Darkvision 60)
Speed: 30
Initiative: +2 Dex

Attributes
STR 12 (+1)
DEX 14 (+2)
CON 13 (+1)
INT 7 (-2)
WIS 10 (+0)
CHA 13 (+1)

BAB +1

Slam (x2)
Attack 1d20+4 (+1 BAB +1 Str +1 Focus +1 Size)
Damage 1d4+1 (1 Str))
Crit 20 x2

HD 9 (1d8 Skald + 1 Con / Level)

AC (Ectoplasmic): 15 (10 Base + 2 Natural + 2 Dex + 1 Size)
AC (Incorporeal): 15 (10 Base + 2 Dodge + 2 Dex + 1 Size)

Saves
Fort +3 (+2 Base +1 Con)
Refl +2 (+0 Base +2 Dex )
Will +2 (+2 Base +0 Wis)

Skills

Feats
Weapon Focus: You have a +1 to your natural attacks (Level 1 Feat)
Power Attack: You can take -1 to your attack to add +2 damage (Feat Tax)

Special Abilities
Link: You can communicate with your phantom telepathically across distances as long as you’re on the same plane. This is a free action that can be performed even when it isn’t your turn, provided you are both conscious. You and the phantom share magic item slots.

Share Spells: The spiritualist can cast a spell with a target of “you” on her phantom (as a spell with a range of touch) instead of on herself. A spiritualist can cast spells from the spiritualist spell list on her phantom even if the spells normally do not affect creatures of the phantom’s type (outsider). This ability does not allow the phantom to share abilities that aren’t spells, even if they function like spells.

Despair: The phantom gains a +2 bonus on attack and damage rolls against creatures that are shaken, frightened, panicked, cowering, or subject to effects such as aura of despair or crushing despair.

Miserable Strike: If the phantom hits a creature with a slam attack, that creature must succeed at a Will Saving Throw (DC = 10 + 1/2 the phantom’s Hit Dice + the phantom’s Charisma modifier) or take a –2 penalty on attack and damage rolls for 1 round. This is a mind-affecting fear and emotion effect. Penalties from multiple hits don’t stack with themselves.

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Spells

Bard spell list, any you know without preparation. All of them have verbal components. The saving throw against your spells is 10 + the spell level + your Charisma modifier.

Racial

0-Level (X/Day)

1-Level (2/Day)

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Equipment

Currency: 140gp (plus some from performing music)
Carrying Capacity (Light): 0 lbs / 32 lbs

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Backstory

Zika's of a Fey race whose forest home has been mostly wiped out by "civilization" and progress (think Native Americans or the exploitation of a natural resource like the Middle East). She "escaped" as a child and came to America, during some kind of massive natural disaster (fire, oil spill, something like that), making her a refugee. Her father perished during the event, but his spirit stayed with her, but it's sort of caught between worlds, so he cannot stay "active" too much (think Force Ghost Obi-Wan).

When she sings, it taps into some old Fey Magic that helps make him corporeal. The Fey as a people feel like their time is coming to an end - they're homeless, scattered, their culture is dwindling. I think even things with like, using a smartphone for magic, she wouldn’t know how to at first, and it’s this sort of “we never did it this way in the old country” kind of thing.

Zika's dynamic with her father will be somewhat tragic (he's dead, their culture is dying, he has high hopes for her saving their people... somehow), somewhat funny (helicopter parenting at the worst possible times, like holding hands with a boy), and hopefully somewhat touching (his refusal to cross into the next life and leave her alone).

Now, Zika's a university student, just studying Liberal Arts or English, not sure what she wants to do or what her place in the world is. She sings in a band, they're not very good. She's sort of a hippie and vegan. Her drive to go adventuring stems from it being something "different", and a small rebellion against her father.