My players are going to be involved with a cult who calls themselves "The Clan of Farnir" soon. This community seeks to revive an extraplanar being which happened to save their village about 250 years ago and they believe they can do so by collecting soul fragments from especially evil ones. After a series of quests my players will be offered entrance to the clan, and the benefits of doing so. I have thought of a scaling feat which those who go through with a ritual will obtain.
(They are also given the drawback Umbral Unmasking.)
When you slay a creature with the evil subtype you harness some of their essence. Each killing blow count towards your progression as a subject of Farnir. (Note: If you didn’t deal the killing blow, but dealt the majority of the damage you can touch the blood of the fallen enemy to absorb their essence. The body cannot have been dead for more than 1 hour.) For every fifth evil creature that you have slain and harnessed, your covenant progresses one step. You can give the collected energy to Farnir’s body and decrease your covenant progress.
For every covenant step you advance, add 2 to your current carried weight, and decrease the Wisdom check DC for Umbral Unmasking by 1.
At Covenant level 6, you gain a penalty of 2 to all checks mentioned in the description of the feat Endurance. This penalty becomes equivalent to the bonus of Endurance at covenant level 10.
You gain one of the following abilities and Umbral Unmasking: Overtake, which is mandatory.
Covenant level
2
Your shadow can now move freely and can be heard whispering things to you late at night. If it chooses to do so, people will only need to succeed a Perception check to notice it. As for how far the shadow can move, this is dependant on the position of the light source, as it is connected to you by your feet. This only affects how far away from you the shadow can move. It can try to stand up, but will most definitely fail.
4
Your shadow can now decide to help or hinder you. The shadow will always coerce you to act in such a way that would result in the most evil foes slayed, regardless of the moral implications. In other words: the shadow could influence you to spread a famine which will wipe out an entire village to reach the few of evil alignment in living in the community. To resist your shadow, you must succeed an opposing Wisdom check (You share your stats with your shadow). If you fail twice in a row, you’ll have to comply to one of your shadow’s demands. Your shadow is granted a bonus to its Wisdom check every time you gain a covenant level from now on.
But, when acting in a way which will benefit your and your shadow’s mutual goal, it might provide aid. You can try to coerce your shadow to help you in the form of bonuses to relevant skills and actions. This could be expressed as an Aid-Another action, or for instance instructing your shadow to stand up and wear your cloak, allowing you to hide nearby and ambush someone following you.
You can only ask your shadow for assistance a number of times per day equal to half your covenant level. If it is not an obvious course of action, you can attempt to persuade your shadow with an opposing Diplomacy check.
Ability 1
Your experiences of slaying the wicked continue to pile up and the energy of the fallen will not leave you. The sensation of facing and killing those who dared cross the line is constant, which helps you predict their movements.
At covenant level 1, you gain Favored Enemy (Alignment; Evil) +1. The specific alignment is decided by which alignment the majority of your kills had.
At covenant level 4, the previous Favored Enemy bonus is lost and a general Favored Enemy (Evil) +1 takes its place.
At covenant level 12, this bonus is increased to +2.
This functions as any other Favored Enemy bonus; as in it does not stack with other Favored enemy bonuses.
Ability 2
Covenant level 1: You can store knowledge in your shadow and gain an additional spell slot per covenant level. The maximum amount of extra spell slots you can amass is unlimited, but you can not use any more spell slots than your spellcasting modifier in that class. These spells can not be modified with metamagics or sacrificed through a class feature. Your shadow also functions as a divine focus.
For instance:
Peter is a lv 7 ranger and lv 1 wizard. His intelligence modifier is +2 and his wisdom modifier is +3. He has a covenant level of 4 and do therefore have four extra spell slots. Since he is able to cast level 2 ranger spells, he wants to prepare level two spells in his extra spell slots. But he is unable to use his four spell slots on these level 2 ranger spells since the maximum amount of spell slots he can use on his ranger spell list is equal to his wisdom modifier, in other words, 3. Peter decides to use the last two spell slot to prepare a level 1 ranger and level 1 wizard spell.
Ability 3
For 10 minutes per day, you can wear your shadow like cloth and gain bonuses from doing so. The time can not be broken up into smaller increments, and you activate this ability with a standard action. (Deactivating this ability is a free action)
Covenant level 1: Wearing your shadow grants you a +2 bonus to stealth in dim light conditions (or worse) and a penalty of 4 in an area of normal light.
Covenant level 2: The bonus and penalty to stealth is doubled. And the penalty will increase by 2 for every covenant step you advance (until the maximum of 12).
Covenant level 4: You have concealment during the first round of combat (or the first round an attack is targeting you) against all enemies who depend on sight to locate their targets. You can now use the 10 minutes in 5-minute increments. The shadow can be equipped during combat.
Covenant level 8: The time you can wear your shadow per day is now 20 minutes.
Ability 4
The layers which divides the Shadow Plane from the Material Plane are especially thin around you.
Benefit: Once per day, you can fall into your shadow as a move action if you are in the Material Plane (or any plane connected to the Shadow Plane). This movement provokes Attacks of Opportunity. While you rest in your own quasi-plane, you become unable to interfer with the Material Plane and can’t cast spells or use any Supernatural or Extraordinary abilities. You can end this ability anytime as a free action, provoking no AoO.
Your shadow can still move while you’re taking refuge in it, and can do so at half your base land speed, regardless of whether it is walking or climbing. Your shadow uses your stealth +5 when moving in this manner. If it is stationary, this bonus increases to +10.
Covenant level 1: You gain this ability and can use it for two rounds per day. The duration is doubled with every covenant progression beyond 1 (Maximum 10 minutes at level 7).
Covenant level 3: If you remain stationary for the whole duration in the shadow, you are healed for an amount equal to your character + covenant level. If you end the ability early, and haven’t moved, you are still healed.
I would like general advice as to why this isn't/is a good idea, if the abilities are equal in power, and if the tradeoff between the disadvantages and advantages leans toward one side or the other. I don't want to force anyone to take it, so the optimal situation is for "The Hunt" to be +/- 0 in power. All feedback is appreciated!
Oh. And I might need help with the names. I feel as if there are way to many Shadows in there.