Empath Hybrid Class (PFRPG) PDF

This hybrid class clocks in at 14 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 2 pages of SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 9 pages of content, so let's take a look!

The empath is a hybrid class of cleric and psychic, who receives d6 HD, 4 + Int-mod skills per level, proficiency with simple weapons as well as light and medium armor. At 1st level, they may, as a standard action, cast analyze aura (not properly italicized) at-will to see emotional auras - this is supernatural, which is weird to me, but okay. The empath gains knacks and casts psychic spells of up to 9th level, governed by Wisdom (attribute not properly capitalized -a problem throughout the file) and draws spells from its own custom spell-list. at 2nd level and every even level after that, the class may replace an empath spell known with a cleric or psychic spell.

At 2nd level, the class gets deep bond - as a standard action, the empath may touch a living being to form a bond that lasts one minute. While this is in effect, the target may use the higher of the empath's saves or his own. Slightly rules-wise redundant: "At the start of the empath's turn, as a full-round action, the empath may heal the bonded target 1d6 hit points. This increases by a "d6" (should be +1d6) at 4th level and every even level after that, capping at 18th level. This can be used 3 + Cha-mod times per day and only one bond may be in effect.

Every empath chooses an emotional sensitivity, which nets abilities at 1st, 5th 10th and 15th level and also determines the capstone - basically the discipline analogue. a total of 7 such sensitivities are provided, the first of which would be anger, which yields a short-term buff, an improperly codified, wonky bite attack that instills rage, +2 Str and Con for the bonded target at at-will full-round calm emotions. The capstone is cool: Anyone affected by rage or with a rage power or spell with it in the name can be dominated as a standard action. Makes sense to me! However, it should be noted that the capstone name is different in table and actual abilities - that should have been caught in editing.

Awe has a pretty cool basic ability: Dazzle foes briefly (sucky, I know!), but the enemies lose readied or delayed actions. Interesting! 5th level presents the option to negate a selection of negative conditions suffered by the bonded creature. Gaze-based condition sharing, rerolls for saves of allies and a capstone that may render foes flat-footed collectively make this one really nice. Courage provides a scaling Will-save bonus, AoE, versus fear, reflexive second saves versus fear and at 15th level, 60 ft. perfect flight for allies while charging (only for the charge). This IS pretty cool - but RAW doesn't work. It is activated as a swift action and targets a charging ally - it should be activated as an immediate action. Swift actions can't be used outside of a character's turn. 15th level yields the temporary doubling of morale bonuses, once per deep bond and the capstone provides a series of passive upgrades that conspire for an all-around more potent nexus.

The desire sensitivity has a gaze that penalizes Sense Motive (not properly capitalized) and lacks a durationThe 5th level allows for the expenditure of unused spell slots to buff social skills greatly, but fails to specify the spell slot required - 9th level spell slots are RAW worth as much as 1st level spell slots. 10th level yields at-will suggestion (which, being Su, should note activation action) and 15th level yields a short-term dominate. 20th level allows for the learning of a creature's desires via prolonged concentration. Despair allows for the decreasing of fear-based conditions, 5th level allows per the absorption of morale penalties, and 10th level provides a nice debuff with a hex-anti-abuse-caveat, a means that also balances the slow 15th level ability. The latter lacks an activation action The capstone provides serious benefits when nearby creatures are affected by fear-conditions.

The euphoria sensitivity nets an at-will AoE polypurpose panacea, which is overkill for 1st level; 10th level yields limited daily uses of haste (erroneously capitalized) and 15th level provides a buff that last 1 round as a full-round action - which is comparatively weak at that level. As a capstone, the empath gets euphoria-inducing skin with a no-save daze that kicks in when hit by natural attacks or unarmed strikes and it can also be used as a touch attack. Interesting! Finally, the horror sensitivity provides an Intimidate-enhancer, immunity to fear to the deep bonded target at 5th level,, a 30-ft. fear aura at 10th level that can be projected on allies and, at 20th level, an empath may, as an immediate action, consume a creature's fear, gaining a powerful buff. Okay, what's the range?

The pdf also sports archetypes: The central mind replaces emotional sensitivity and emotive master with a kind of mental communication, which, at 10th level, may transfer touch spells...okay, does the character still have to hit with touch attacks? Instead of deep bond, they may place nodes as a full-round action of a creature. Creatures with nodes can't be surprised unless all creatures with nodes are surprised. Hit points may be transferred via such nodes by the character as a standard action. The character can place nodes equal to 1 + Wisdom modifier for every two levels - which allows for ridiculously huge networks that are basically undefeatable. Not a fan, as this basically demands being cheesed.

Instead of emotional sensitivity, the instinctual driver can treat creatures as humanoid for the purpose of spells and effects, with higher levels yielding charms versus such creatures at decreasing actions required. Spells are not italicized here and the 15th level ability refers to dominate and charm interchangeably, which THEY ARE NOT. This one's a mess.

The sensorial replaces deep bond may enhance senses of creatures, increasing the potency of the granted abilities at 5th level and every 5 levels thereafter. Pretty interesting, though one of the sub-abilities lacks the italicization of its sub-ability header. The final archetype would be the sycophant of pain - these guys can grant temporary hit points to allies, but nauseate them. This generates pain points, of which a maximum of class level + Cha mod may be held. These may be expended to deal no-save damage to nearby enemies - the damage is untyped and imho shouldn't be. The affected number of allies and temporary hit points scale, obviously. Weird: This replaces the capstone without giving anything back. Instead of deep bonds, these fellows gain the wounding well ability, a debuff bond that imposes massive penalties...but the creature affected may end this effect by taking damage. Interesting alternative to deep bond.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting, the latter in particular, are the bane of this pdf. There are a ton of formatting glitches. The rules-language is better than usual for these hybrid classes, but still could have seriously used a rules-dev - there are quite a bunch of finer points in the rules-language not working properly and missing activation actions and a couple (but not many) balance-concerns here and there. The layout adheres to a nice two-column full-color standard and the pdf has nice full-color artworks. The lack of bookmarks is annoying; just as annoying would be the fact that the book has copying and highlighting of text disabled, which is supremely asinine when trying to e.g. copy abilities to a char-sheet.

Jarrett Sigler's Empath ranks as one of my favorite Wayward Rogues Publishing classes so far: While it has issues in editing and formatting, the issues are significantly less pronounced than with other classes. Unfortunately, the rules-hiccups that should have been caught in editing extend to components that affect functionality. At the same time, the class does feature actually unique options and has some really nice ideas. If you're willing to work a bit with this, then it can be considered a worthwhile offering. If this gets fixed, it certainly has the potential for 4 or even 5 stars...but with the accumulated flaws and comfort-detriments, I can't rate this higher than 3 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.

Wayward Rogues Publishing
Shattered Skies
Campaign Setting
The Empath Hybrid Class
By Jarrett Siglar

Reviewed by Scott Holmes

14 pages with 9 pages of crunch

Layout
The layout for this PDF is among the better third party products. I have noticed no obvious errors. The overall design is pleasing to the eye.
Art
The cover and interior art is very well done a works well with the product.
Playability
The Empath has access to 9th level spells and it’s spell lists makes it a good support caster, with Fortitude and Willpower as good saves and access to Light and medium armor make it survivable given it’s D6 hit die.
The selection of class skills make sense for someone that can alter and sense emotions, and the 4+Intelligence Modifier skill points again allow the character to easily fill a face position in a group.

Emotional Sensitivity is a great class skill for the Empath and I have not found a single emotion in the list I would not use the ability seems balanced and well thought out.

I love the Deep Bond ability, allowing a fighter or other low Will character to use the Empath’s Willpower Save and having the Empath able to heal him makes him a great support caster.

The four archetypes (The Central Mind, Instinctual Driver, Sensorial, and the Sycophant of Pain) are well done and give a lot of flavor to the Empath with out over shadowing it.

Final Thoughts
I love the look and feel of this class, as a GM not only would I allow my players to play one I definitely would build NPC Empaths and use them. If you don’t have this, pick it up,the Empath will not disappoint.
This was my first look at a Wayward Rogues Publishing product and I already want to pick up the Pulverizer and Vivisectionist classes.

5 out of 5 stars
You peaked my interest and left me wanting more. Good job!!

Scott Holmes.

When one starts down the path of the Empath, they select an emotion to specialize in. The chosen emotion grants a variety of thematic abilities thoughtout the class level. In terms of class balance, I chose to compare this to a sorcerer bloodline.

*Anger* - overall okay... capstone is amazing against barbarians & anyone that manages to fall prey to the 5th lv ability. At a glance, the capstone seems really strong but balances itself out perfectly by requiring the use of a standard action to activate.

*Awe* - I'm not sure how the capstone works. I think it's until the start of the user's next turn or maybe it's the target's turn, which isn't bad. If someone's perpetually flat-footed, it would be really good. It seems decent enough but I would definitely like some clarification so I could be sure.

*Courage* - starts a bit weak but gradually builds up in potency, ultimately becoming a solid option. It begins with a very low bonus to saves vs fear but caps off with rendering fear not an issue. It would be better if the level 1 bonus to saves vs fear were just 1 higher to make it more competetive with other level 1 abilities.

*Desire* - seems decent enough. It begins with a buff to social interraction skills & caps off with the ability to read the desires(though not the motvies) of a target. Overall seems like the most interesting of the emotions.

*Despair* - starts decently and gets pretty good at the end.

*Euphoria* - starts good, then becomes a bit too good, causing the daze condition through a variety options, all involving being touched(which can come up quite often), without offering some kind of save. . Since daze makes a target unable to act, this is an extremely powerful ability even by capstone ability standards. Even a higher than normal save DC(such as 15 + 1/2 lv + key ability) would help.

*Horror* - starts decent and grows into something amazing. The capstone is a bit strong but not game-breaking.

The emotions are the bread & butter of the class flavor & overall seem good, though balance can use a little work here & there.

**Deep Bond** is an ability that lets you heal 1 individual, similar to channel energy, and possibly grant that individual special benefits, depending on your emotion specialization. It works a few times per day, but can allow for a lot of healing potential outside of combat. Overall, it's very strong in certain situations, but doesn't seem to unreasonable.

**Spellcasting** is where the bulk of the class power comes from. As expected, the selection is a mix of buff & debuff spells, as well as healing & enchantment spells. It's a dedicated caster so it won't have quite so many issues with save DCs like a mid caster, such as bard would have. It's a spontaneous caster, which lends itself well specializing around a certain theme & sticking to it.

Overall, it seems to be a decent class but could use just a little work here & there.

However, the product is more than just the class. Some products give feats but those don't really seem necessary or fitting for this class. As such, it also includes archetypes to mix things for added options.

**Central Mind** - this is a telepathy themed archetype that replaces all of the class features. It has a telepathic link ability that seems overall solid. I'm not entirely sure how many you can link in that I have doubts about what it means to say vs what is said. Either way, the amount of participants for the link is reasonable enough.

**Instinctual Driver** - this specializes on dealing with things normally immune to most low-end enchantment spells. It does the job well. I like it.

**Sensoral** - It grants special abilities based off enhancing a particular sense. Not too unreasonable concept. I think they meant to say "blindsense" instead of "lifesense" for the hearing option. There's some serious imbalance with this one and the execution is a bit lackluster. So, I'm not really a fan of this one.

**Sycophant of Pain** - The opening ability is thematically interesting, mechanically weak, and definitely not something a player character could use in the average party. It somewhat makes up for it with its potent debuff or get hurt ability but the daily use limit makes it very limited. Overall, in a party, the class would be stuck relying on one ability and not really being able to use the other, severely weaking it. Where it shines is as an NPC, where the lack of clear limits on how many points of damage the ability can accumulate in general for use combined with minions could wreck a party. The limit to only being able to collect damage the level plus stat overall, the core ability is lackluster at best, rising just above those borderline useless 1d4 + 1/2 abilities many casters get & relegating it to a backup option for when you've burned through everything else.
With a little work, it could be a solid villain archetype, but as is, it is lacking.

Overall, about half the archetypes are worthwhile.

Sidenotes, there is a little bit of artwork, but not much. The art is decent. The layout is overall decent, focusing on class features then shoving the spell stuff at the end of the class because that's less interesting. There are some minor formatting hiccups here & there but I generally don't care much about those.

In conclusion, the product's pretty decent for the price. Half the archetypes are solid & the other half are meh. The class is playable & interesting. It does suffer from needing cleanup/clarification on the wording with some abilities.

Ultimately, I can only recommend most of this product. There's enough solid stuff in there to make the class playable but it does fall short of its potential. If those issues are worked out, it would be a solid & fun class.