The Wildred (big-time WIP)

[Zom B]

Inspired by the Favored Soul, except for the Druid instead of the Cleric. This class could maybe use a capstone ability.

The Wildred (a combination of "wild" and "kindred") are those who follow a path that parallels the druid's, but for different reasons. While a druid reveres nature almost - or to - the point of worship, the wildred simply lives nature, bonding to it like a brother. He shuns civilization and its need for laws and regulations, and desires to run free in the wilderness, unfettered by concepts such as etiquette and culture. He emulates the animals, in lifestyle, habit, and/or diet.
The wildred establishes kinships with animals and, eventually, magical beasts that he bonds to via temporary alliances.

Alignment
Any non-lawful. While Druids represent the indifferent power of nature, the Wildred represent the carefree aspect of living by one's own wits and decisions.

Hit Die
d8.

Class Skills
The wildred’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Listen (Wis), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str) and Tumble (Dex).

Skill Points at 1st Level
(4 + Int modifier) ×4.

Skill Points at Each Additional Level
4 + Int modifier.

Table 1-1: The Wildred
{table=head]Level | BAB | Fort | Ref | Will | Class Features | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
1|+0|+0|+2|+2|Animal Ally, Aspect 1/day (1 aspect), Nature Sense, Wild Empathy|5|3|—|—|—|—|—|—|—|—|
2|+1|+0|+3|+3|Iron Fang|6|4|—|—|—|—|—|—|—|—|
3|+2|+1|+3|+3||6|5|—|—|—|—|—|—|—|—|
4|+3|+1|+4|+4|Aspect 2/day|6|6|3|—|—|—|—|—|—|—|
5|+3|+1|+4|+4||6|6|4|—|—|—|—|—|—|—|
6|+4|+2|+5|+5|Iron Claw|6|6|5|3|—|—|—|—|—|—|
7|+5|+2|+5|+5||6|6|6|4|—|—|—|—|—|—|
8|+6|+2|+6|+6|Aspect 3/day (2 aspects)|6|6|6|5|3|—|—|—|—|—|
9|+6|+3|+6|+6||6|6|6|6|4|—|—|—|—|—|
10|+7|+3|+7|+7||6|6|6|6|5|3|—|—|—|—|
11|+8|+3|+7|+7|Bestial Ally|6|6|6|6|6|4|—|—|—|—|
12|+9|+4|+8|+8|Aspect 4/day|6|6|6|6|6|5|3|—|—|—|
13|+9|+4|+8|+8||6|6|6|6|6|6|4|—|—|—|
14|+10|+4|+9|+9||6|6|6|6|6|6|5|3|—|—|
15|+11|+5|+9|+9||6|6|6|6|6|6|6|4|—|—|
16|+12|+5|+10|+10|Aspect 5/day (3 aspects)|6|6|6|6|6|6|6|5|3|—|
17|+12|+5|+10|+10||6|6|6|6|6|6|6|6|4|—|
18|+13|+6|+11|+11||6|6|6|6|6|6|6|6|5|3|
19|+14|+6|+11|+11||6|6|6|6|6|6|6|6|6|4|
20|+15|+6|+12|+12|Aspect 6/day|6|6|6|6|6|6|6|6|6|6|
[/table]

Table 1-2: Wildred Spells Known
{table=head]Level| 0| 1| 2| 3| 4| 5| 6| 7| 8| 9
1st| 4| 3| —| —| —| —| —| —| —| —|
2nd| 5| 3| —| —| —| —| —| —| —| —|
3rd| 5| 4| —| —| —| —| —| —| —| —|
4th| 6| 4| 3| —| —| —| —| —| —| —|
5th| 6| 5| 3| —| —| —| —| —| —| —|
6th| 7| 5| 4| 3| —| —| —| —| —| —|
7th| 7| 6| 4| 3| —| —| —| —| —| —|
8th| 8| 6| 5| 4| 3| —| —| —| —| —|
9th|8 |6| 5| 4| 3| —| —| —| —| —|
10th| 9| 6| 6| 5| 4| 3| —| —| —| —|
11th| 9| 6| 6| 5| 4| 3| —| —| —| —|
12th| 9| 6| 6| 6| 5| 4| 3| —| —| —|
13th| 9| 6| 6| 6| 5| 4| 3| —| —| —|
14th| 9| 6| 6| 6| 6| 5| 4| 3| —| —|
15th| 9| 6| 6| 6| 6| 5| 4| 3| —| —|
16th| 9| 6| 6| 6| 6| 6| 5| 4| 3| —|
17th| 9| 6| 6| 6| 6| 6| 5| 4| 3| —|
18th| 9| 6| 6| 6| 6| 6| 6| 5| 4| 3|
19th| 9| 6| 6| 6| 6| 6| 6| 6| 4| 4|
20th| 9| 6| 6| 6| 6| 6| 6| 6| 5| 4|
[/table]

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the wildred.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency
Wildred are proficient with the following weapons: club, dagger, dart, handaxe, quarterstaff, shortspear, sling, and spear.
Wildred are proficient with light and medium armor. While they may wear heavy or metal armor via feats, they lose their class abilities and feel extremely uncomfortable while doing so. Wildred are proficient with shields (except tower shields). Again, while they may use metal shields, they lose their class abilities while doing so.

Spells
A wildred casts divine spells (the same type of spells available to druids), which are drawn from the druid spell list. He can cast any spell he knows without preparing it ahead of time the way a druid must.
To cast a spell, a wildred must have an Intelligence score of 10 + the spell's level (Int 10 for 0-level spells, Int 11 for 1st-level spells, and so forth). The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a wildred's spell level is 10 + the spell's level + the wildred's Wisdom modifier.
Like other spellcasters, a wildred can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. His base daily spell allotment is given on Table 1-1: The Wildred. In addition, he receives bonus spells for a high Intelligence.
Unlike a druid, a wildred's selection of spells is limited. A favored soul begins play knowing four 0-level spells and three 1st-level spells of your choice. At each new wildred level, he gains one or more new spells, as indicated on table 1-2: Wildred Spells Known. Unlike spells per day, his Intelligence score does not affect the number of spells a wildred knows; the numbers on Table 1-2 are fixed.
Upon reaching 4th level, and at every even-numbered wildred level after that (6th, 8th, and so on), a wildred can choose to learn a new spell in place of one he already knows. In effect, the wildred "loses" the old spell in exchange for the new one. The new spell's level must be the same as that of the spell being exchanged, and it must be at least two levels lower than the highest-level wildred spell the wildred can cast. A wildred may swap only a single spell at any given level, and must choose whether or not to swap the spell at the same time that he gains new spells known for the level.
Unlike a druid, a wildred need not prepare his spells in advance. He can cast any spell he knows at any time, assuming he has not yet used up his spells per day for that spell level.

Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells
A wildred can’t cast spells of an alignment opposed to his own or his deity’s (if he has one). Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated by the chaos, evil, good, and law descriptors in their spell descriptions.

Bonus Languages
A wildred’s bonus language options include Sylvan, the language of woodland creatures. This choice is in addition to the bonus languages available to the character because of his race.

Animal Ally (Su)
A wildred has the ability to bond to an animal that it encounters, making it into a temporary ally. If the animal is neutral in attitude or if he can improve its attitude to neutral through use of the Wild Empathy ability, and if the animal's Hit Die is not greater than the wildred's level, he can place an effect on the animal identical to the Charm Animal spell. Its duration is indefinite, but should he attempt to bond another animal ally, he loses his bond with the previous animal.
If he gains a new animal ally or chooses to dismiss his current animal ally, the attitude of the animal remains friendly and a partial bond is formed. If the wildred loses his animal ally by violating the conditions of the Charm Animal spell, such as forcing the animal to attempt an obviously suicidal or harmful action, the animal's attitude becomes unfriendly and no partial bond is formed.
The wildred can sense the direction and distance to an animal with which he has formed a bond or partial bond, and can sense its general state (hurt, panicked, normal, and so on). If the animal dies, he retains abilities related to the bond he once had, but can no longer sense the creature unless it is returned to life.

Aspect (Su)
The wildred can channel aspects of animals with which he is familiar and whose hit die do not exceed his own as a free action, and only during his action. When he activates this ability, he chooses an animal's Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution score, or one Extraordinary ability that the animal possesses, and temporarily changes his own corresponding ability to the chosen ability score or temporarily gains the chosen extraordinary ability. This ability can be used once per day, but at 4th level and every four levels thereafter, the wildred gains an additional use of this ability per day. At 8th level, he gains the ability to select up to two aspects of the chosen animal per use, and at 16th level, he gains the ability to channel a third aspect of the chosen animal per use.
This ability lasts a number of rounds equal to 2 + the character's Charisma modifier. If the animal is one with which he has formed a partial bond in the past, add one round. If the animal is one he currently has as an animal ally, add two rounds instead.

Nature Sense (Ex)
A wildred gains a +2 bonus on Knowledge (nature) and Survival checks.

Wild Empathy (Ex)
A wildred can improve the attitude of an animal. This ability functions just like a Diplomacy check made to improve the attitude of a person. The wildred rolls 1d20 and adds her wildred level and her 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 wildred and the animal must be able to study each other, which means that they must be within 30 feet of one another 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.
A wildred 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.

Iron Fang (Ex)
A wildred can wield two piercing weapons and forego all of their normal weapon attacks in the round in order to make a "bite" attack with them at his full attack bonus, stabbing with the two weapons in a pincer-like maneuver that resembles an animal's fangs. A medium wildred deals 1d6 damage (scaling normally with size), plus 1.5 times (round down) the wildred's strength modifier. For all purposes, such as extraordinary abilities garnered from the Aspect ability, the attack is a bite attack. Feats that affect the weapons (such as Weapon Focus) or a natural weapon (such as Improved Natural Weapon) affect this bite attack. Only the magical enhancements of one weapon can add to the attack. For instance, if the wildred is wielding a +1 dagger in one hand and a +2 dagger in the other hand, they may opt to add a +1 or +2 enhancement to the attack, but not both.

Iron Claw (Ex)
A wildred can attack with two slashing weapons as naturally as an animal attacks with its claws. He can attack with both hands at his full attack bonus, or at a -2 penalty if he made a bite attack in the current round. A medium wildred deals 1d4 damage (scaling normally with size) with the attack, regardless of the wildred's size, plus one-half times (round down) the wildred's strength modifier. For all purposes, such as extraordinary abilities garnered from the Aspect ability, the attack is a claw attack. Feats that affect the weapons (such as Weapon Focus) or a natural weapon (such as Improved Natural Weapon) affect these claw attacks. A weapon's magical enhancements affects only the claw attack with the corresponding weapon.

Bestial Ally (Su)
The wildred's Animal Ally and Aspect ability can now affect magical beasts and emulate their extraordinary abilities, respectively. As well, he no longer suffers a -4 penalty on his Wild Empathy ability when attempting to influence a magical beast.

[Vadin]

A few things-

Are there any limits to Animal Ally? Tyrannosauruses Bears at level 1 would be pretty crazy.
Should aspect duration increase as time goes on, or is it supposed to last for very, very few rounds and be an essentially unreliable ability (unreliable in that it lasts for so short a time and there are so few uses of it that a character can't count on it to help him out of trouble)?
Why does he get full casting? It seems like this might turn out better with the Bard's spell progression and a few more martially oriented abilities.

[Zom B]

A few things-

Are there any limits to Animal Ally? Tyrannosauruses Bears at level 1 would be pretty crazy.

Hmm, probably a good point. I just sort of figured that they would only be Charming animals they come across in their adventures, and thus stuff that was the appropriate CR. Plus, the wildred has to survive long enough to get its attitude to neutral first. A bear would probably be too hard.


Should aspect duration increase as time goes on, or is it supposed to last for very, very few rounds and be an essentially unreliable ability (unreliable in that it lasts for so short a time and there are so few uses of it that a character can't count on it to help him out of trouble)?

It's sort of a cross between the Druid's Wildshape and the Barbarian's Rage. They actually get it at the same frequency as the barbarian gets new uses of rage per day, and at the same duration (well, -1 round by default, but same duration if it is a previously befriended animal and +1 duration if it is the current ally). So, I'm not sure I see the problem there. It's actually quite a bit better than Rage, in that the strength stands to go up by more than +4 and there's no drop in AC. But it's weaker than wild shape because you can't actually become the animal and fly or get large-sized or anything.

The idea is that you could at, say, level 2 pick up the aspect of the Wolf that says you can trip on a successful bite attack. Since your weapons can make a bite attack, that allows you to trip. At level 3 you can go with the Cheetah and either trip on a bite or claw, or sprint once an hour. It's beneficial in many situations, so I don't see it as unreliable.


Why does he get full casting? It seems like this might turn out better with the Bard's spell progression and a few more martially oriented abilities.


Favored soul is to cleric as wildred is to druid. Go check it out, the wildred has the same spell casting as the favored soul.

[Zom B]

Made a few edits to the abilities, mostly some language clarifications on Aspect and Animal Ally. Added allowances for magic weapons and feats on Iron Fang and Iron Claw.

Still, Aspect has some strange effects when you choose extraordinary abilities related to magical beasts. Like emulating a manticore's Spikes ("With a snap of its tail..."). I mean, do I put in language that allows something like this to work, or not allow it if the wildred does not have a tail?

Also, thinking of allowing Aspect to lend movement methods and speeds to the wildred, but not sure what level to add that as an ability. I mean, that gives you access to burrowing, all manner of great fly speeds and maneuverability, etc, so I'd say that should be fairly high.

[The Dark Fiddler]

To cast a spell, a wildred must have an Intelligence score of 10 + the spell's level (Cha 10 for 0-level spells, Cha 11 for 1st-level spells, and so forth). The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a wildred's spell level is 10 + the spell's level + the wildred's Wisdom modifier.

Um... what?

[Zom B]

Um... what?

Oops. Fixed.

[Eldan]

Actually, I'd just make the Animal Ally identical to the Druid's animal companion: there is a defined list, a set of abilities and a plethora of class features, feats and PrCs already referencing it. You solve a lot of issues that way, among them the power question.

[Zom B]

I'd sort of hoped to make it different, in that it encourages multiple allies rather than a companion. But yeah, I guess it would probably be better and/or easier. Going back and reading it, though, I really like how it works. Probably the better answer would be to add a Hit Die restriction to the ally.

[Cute_Riolu]

I'd sort of hoped to make it different, in that it encourages multiple allies rather than a companion. But yeah, I guess it would probably be better and/or easier. Going back and reading it, though, I really like how it works. Probably the better answer would be to add a Hit Die restriction to the ally.

Hit dice don't work as a balancing mark. You can have incredibly powerful low-HD creatures, or pitiful high HD creatures.

[Milskidasith]

Isn't there already a druid sorcerer thing? I could have sworn I saw a class that cast as a druid, but with sorcerer-like spells known.

[Zom B]

Hit dice don't work as a balancing mark. You can have incredibly powerful low-HD creatures, or pitiful high HD creatures.

Challenge Rating? Not a normal mechanic in class abilities but it would work fine here.