Realms of Chaos
2010-04-22, 08:11 AM
The Death Knight
While there are already more homebrewed and third-party "martial necromancers" than you can shake a stick at, I decided to try making one of my own to see how it worked.
I used the basic format for another base class that I saw on these boards awhile ago (Kellus' Corsair) and warped it into the most simplistic base class that I have ever created... ever. :smalleek:
I'm not so sure on the balance of this thing but here we go.
THE DEATH KNIGHT
Hit Dice d12
Alignment: Any nongood
Class Skills: Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Listen (Wis), Ride (Dex), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), Use Magic Device (Cha)
Skill Points at 1st level: (2 + Int modifier) x 4
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier
DEATH KNIGHT
{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th
1st|
+1|
+2|
+0|
+2|Felling Blow (1d6), Necrotic Surge 1/day|-|-|-|-|-
2nd|
+2|
+3|
+0|
+3|Armor of Death I|-|-|-|-|-
3rd|
+3|
+3|
+1|
+3|Felling Blow (2d6), Undead Legion +2|-|-|-|-|-
4th|
+4|
+4|
+1|
+4|Beacon of Death I|1|-|-|-|-
5th|
+5|
+4|
+1|
+4|Felling Blow (3d6), Necrotic Surge 2/day|1|-|-|-|-
6th|
+6/+1|
+5|
+2|
+5|Armor of Death II|2|-|-|-|-
7th|
+7/+2|
+5|
+2|
+5|Felling Blow (4d6), Undead Legion +4|2|1|-|-|-
8th|
+8/+3|
+6|
+2|
+6|Beacon of Death II|2|1|-|-|-
9th|
+9/+4|
+6|
+3|
+6|Felling Blow (5d6), Necrotic Surge 3/day|3|2|-|-|-
10th|
+10/+5|
+7|
+3|
+7|Armor of Death III|3|2|1|-|-
11th|
+11/+6/+1|
+7|
+3|
+7|Felling Blow (6d6), Undead Legion +6|3|2|1|-|-
12th|
+12/+7/+2|
+8|
+4|
+8|Beacon of Death III|4|3|2|-|-
13th|
+13/+8/+3|
+8|
+4|
+8|Felling Blow (7d6), Necrotic Surge 4/day|4|3|2|1|-
14th|
+14/+9/+4|
+9|
+4|
+9|Armor of Death IV|4|3|2|1|-
15th|
+15/+10/+5|
+9|
+5|
+9|Felling Blow (8d6), Undead Legion +8|5|4|3|2|-
16th|
+16/+11/+6/+1|
+10|
+5|
+10|Beacon of Death IV|5|4|3|2|1
17th|
+17/+12/+7/+2|
+10|
+5|
+10|Felling Blow (9d6), Necrotic Surge 5/day|5|4|3|2|1
18th|
+18/+13/+8/+3|
+11|
+6|
+11|Armor of Death V|6|5|4|3|2
19th|
+19/+14/+9/+4|
+11|
+6|
+11|Felling Blow (10d6), Undead Legion +10|6|5|4|3|2
20th|
+20/+15/+10/+5|
+12|
+6|
+12|Beacon of Death V, Endless Legion|6|5|4|3|2 [/table]
CLASS FEATURES
Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: A Death Knight gains proficiency with all simple and martial weapons and with all armor and shields (including tower shields).
Felling Blow (Su): Whenever you make a successful attack roll against a creature, roll the indicated dice. If the target’s current hit points are equal to or less than the result, the target is instantly slain. This ability is a death effect. As a standard action, you can grant this benefit to all allied undead within 30 feet for 1 round.
Fluff and Notes:
Fluff: the dark energies coursing through the death knight's body are anathema to all life. Any blow from a death knight's attack or even from one of their minions can utterly snuff out a creature's life force.
Notes: I thought that the death knight should have some manner of offense other than hordes of undead and full BAB. In the end, this is what I came up with. Also, take note that touch attacks do activate this ability at the moment.
Necrotic Surge (Su): As a swift action, you may embrace a surge of negative energy, warping your very body. You gain the undead type but don’t recalculate your base attack bonus, saving throws, or skill points. Furthermore, you and all allied undead within 5 feet/level gain turn resistance equal to your Charisma modifier and temporary hit points equal to twice your class level.
As a swift action, you may end a necrotic surge prematurely to reanimate a touched creature slain as long as 1 round/level ago. The creature’s remains must be mostly intact and be applicable with the zombie or skeleton template. The resulting undead may not possess more HD than your class level and you may only control up to 4 HD in undead per class level. You select which template is applied.
A necrotic surge lasts for a number of rounds equal to 5 + your Charisma modifier. You may enter a necrotic surge once per day at 1st level and one additional time per day every 4 levels afterwards (5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th).
Fluff and Notes
Fluff: By embracing the negative energy within you, you become one with undeath, empowering both yourself and undead allies with the sudden burst of negative energy. By passing this energy onto another, you can reanimate the dead as your minion.
Notes: Well, this is what I'm most worried about. Even though I made this ability, I don't know what to make of it. It grants darkvision and some immunities for a short time (situationally useful), gives you some temporary hit points (often useful), and lets you animate the dead (quite useful). This ability is a bunch of stuff generally not gained at level 1 but I still can't quite see it as overpowered.
Armor of Death (Su): Starting at 2nd level, you and all allied undead within 10 feet gain a +1 bonus to your Natural AC and gain Damage Reduction 1/-. Furthermore, once per encounter, you may redirect half of all damage from any one source to an undead that you control within range. Undead ignore nonlethal damage from this source but damage reduction and energy reisstance do not apply to such damage.
At 6th level and every 4 levels afterwards (10th, 14th, and 18th), increase the value of the natural armor and damage reduction by +1. In addition, the range increases by 10 feet and you may redirect damage one additional time per encounter.
Fluff and Notes
Fluff: The power of undeath has strengthened your flesh and your resolve (as well as that of your minions), making you an indomitable opponent. In dire straits, you can even share your injuries with your own minions.
Notes: This ability should be pretty straightforward. It's a nice bonus but it doesn't seem too overpowered. Should I switch the damage-shunting effect to be a daily ability rather than being per encounter?
Undead Legion: Starting at 3rd level, you begin attracting undead as if through the Undead Leadership feat. You do not attract a cohort in this way. You may only attract unintelligent undead as your followers in this way. You gain a +2 bonus to your leadership score and all undead that you control (through this ability or other sources) gain a +2 bonus to their Strength and Dexterity scores. These followers do not stack with any granted by Undead Leadership.
At 7th level and every 4 levels afterwards (11th, 15th, and 19th), you gain a +2 bonus to your leadership score and you grant all undead you control a further +2 bonus to their Strength and Dexterity.
Fluff and Notes
Fluff: Your body has become a genuine beacon of negative energy, drawing undead into your service wherever you go. Through intense conditioning, you manage to keep your minions at peak physical condition.
Notes:Another ability that I don't know about. Having zombie/skeleton minions generally isn't that powerful without hydra madness but you are getting both this and necrotic surge before clerics even get animate dead. In case you can't tell, I created this class to be the master of undeath. As for the stat bonuses, I want to make it clear that you never count as one of your own controlled undead (either due to free will or a command undead spell cast on yourself) but I'm not quite sure how to say this.
Beacon of Death(Su): Starting at 4th level, you become a veritable beacon of negative energy. All other living creatures within 5 feet of you take 1d4 points of damage at the start of each round. All undead and others who are healed by negative energy within 5 feet of you, however, gain fast healing 2. You benefit from this fast healing while in a necrotic surge. The damage is halted by a death ward or similar effect. This ability can be suppressed or restarted as a move action.
At 8th level and every 4 levels afterwards (12th, 16th, and 20th), increase the damage by 1d4 and the fast healing by 2. Furthermore, increase the range of this ability by 5 feet at each such level.
Fluff and Notes
Fluff: Eventually, negative energy starts to leak from your body in waves, corruptng the bodies of the living while restoring that of the undead.
Notes: So you gain another offensive tool (if a minor one) and grant (or even gain) Fast Healing 10 by 20th level. Much like the rest of this class, I don't know about the power level.
Spellcasting: Starting at 4th level, you gain the ability to cast a small number of divine spells, which are drawn from the death knight spell list. You cast your spells spontaneously and have access to all spells on your spell list.
To cast a spell, you must have a Charisma score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against your spells is 10 + the spell level + your Charisma modifier.
Like other spellcasters, you can only cast a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. Your base allotment is given on the table above. In addition, you receive bonus spells per day if you have a high Charisma score.
Until 4th level, you possess no caster level. Starting at 4th level, your caster level equals your class level-3.
Fluff and Notes
Fluff: Calling upon the souls of those you have slain, you can manifest magical effects in the world around you.
Notes: Just some spontaneous casting. Not that useful but it helps and some of the spells have some degree of tactical application.
Endless Legion (Su): Starting at 20th level, you are no longer limited to 4 HD of controlled undead per class level. You may control any number of unintelligent creatures animated via your necrotic surge class feature.
Fluff and Notes
Fluff: Having achieved the peak of your strength, the size of your undead legion is all but unmatched in the annals of history.
Notes: Well, it seemed like a pretty simple capstone when I was brainstorming ideas and so down it was jotted. No real clue as to its power.
Death Knight Spell List
1st level: Blade of Blood, Chill Touch, Curse Water, Deathwatch, Detect Undead, Hide from Undead, Summon Undead I
2nd level: Command Undead, Desecrate, Disguise Undead, Ghoul Touch, Protection from Positive Energy, Stone Bones, Summon Undead II
3rd level: Animate Dead, Summon Undead III, Undead Lieutenant, Undead Torch, Vampiric Touch
4th level: Bleakness, Enervation, Iron Bones, Life Ward, Summon Undead IV
5th level: Door of Decay, Slay Living, Summon Undead V, Unhallow
Final Notes: I basically wrote this class up in the last two hours, in a very sleep-deprived state (when I do some of my best and some of my worst thinking). I didn't really put much thought into what was written and I only hope that this thing turned out halfway-decent.
As always, thanks for any help that you can render upon me.
While there are already more homebrewed and third-party "martial necromancers" than you can shake a stick at, I decided to try making one of my own to see how it worked.
I used the basic format for another base class that I saw on these boards awhile ago (Kellus' Corsair) and warped it into the most simplistic base class that I have ever created... ever. :smalleek:
I'm not so sure on the balance of this thing but here we go.
THE DEATH KNIGHT
Hit Dice d12
Alignment: Any nongood
Class Skills: Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Listen (Wis), Ride (Dex), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), Use Magic Device (Cha)
Skill Points at 1st level: (2 + Int modifier) x 4
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier
DEATH KNIGHT
{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th
1st|
+1|
+2|
+0|
+2|Felling Blow (1d6), Necrotic Surge 1/day|-|-|-|-|-
2nd|
+2|
+3|
+0|
+3|Armor of Death I|-|-|-|-|-
3rd|
+3|
+3|
+1|
+3|Felling Blow (2d6), Undead Legion +2|-|-|-|-|-
4th|
+4|
+4|
+1|
+4|Beacon of Death I|1|-|-|-|-
5th|
+5|
+4|
+1|
+4|Felling Blow (3d6), Necrotic Surge 2/day|1|-|-|-|-
6th|
+6/+1|
+5|
+2|
+5|Armor of Death II|2|-|-|-|-
7th|
+7/+2|
+5|
+2|
+5|Felling Blow (4d6), Undead Legion +4|2|1|-|-|-
8th|
+8/+3|
+6|
+2|
+6|Beacon of Death II|2|1|-|-|-
9th|
+9/+4|
+6|
+3|
+6|Felling Blow (5d6), Necrotic Surge 3/day|3|2|-|-|-
10th|
+10/+5|
+7|
+3|
+7|Armor of Death III|3|2|1|-|-
11th|
+11/+6/+1|
+7|
+3|
+7|Felling Blow (6d6), Undead Legion +6|3|2|1|-|-
12th|
+12/+7/+2|
+8|
+4|
+8|Beacon of Death III|4|3|2|-|-
13th|
+13/+8/+3|
+8|
+4|
+8|Felling Blow (7d6), Necrotic Surge 4/day|4|3|2|1|-
14th|
+14/+9/+4|
+9|
+4|
+9|Armor of Death IV|4|3|2|1|-
15th|
+15/+10/+5|
+9|
+5|
+9|Felling Blow (8d6), Undead Legion +8|5|4|3|2|-
16th|
+16/+11/+6/+1|
+10|
+5|
+10|Beacon of Death IV|5|4|3|2|1
17th|
+17/+12/+7/+2|
+10|
+5|
+10|Felling Blow (9d6), Necrotic Surge 5/day|5|4|3|2|1
18th|
+18/+13/+8/+3|
+11|
+6|
+11|Armor of Death V|6|5|4|3|2
19th|
+19/+14/+9/+4|
+11|
+6|
+11|Felling Blow (10d6), Undead Legion +10|6|5|4|3|2
20th|
+20/+15/+10/+5|
+12|
+6|
+12|Beacon of Death V, Endless Legion|6|5|4|3|2 [/table]
CLASS FEATURES
Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: A Death Knight gains proficiency with all simple and martial weapons and with all armor and shields (including tower shields).
Felling Blow (Su): Whenever you make a successful attack roll against a creature, roll the indicated dice. If the target’s current hit points are equal to or less than the result, the target is instantly slain. This ability is a death effect. As a standard action, you can grant this benefit to all allied undead within 30 feet for 1 round.
Fluff and Notes:
Fluff: the dark energies coursing through the death knight's body are anathema to all life. Any blow from a death knight's attack or even from one of their minions can utterly snuff out a creature's life force.
Notes: I thought that the death knight should have some manner of offense other than hordes of undead and full BAB. In the end, this is what I came up with. Also, take note that touch attacks do activate this ability at the moment.
Necrotic Surge (Su): As a swift action, you may embrace a surge of negative energy, warping your very body. You gain the undead type but don’t recalculate your base attack bonus, saving throws, or skill points. Furthermore, you and all allied undead within 5 feet/level gain turn resistance equal to your Charisma modifier and temporary hit points equal to twice your class level.
As a swift action, you may end a necrotic surge prematurely to reanimate a touched creature slain as long as 1 round/level ago. The creature’s remains must be mostly intact and be applicable with the zombie or skeleton template. The resulting undead may not possess more HD than your class level and you may only control up to 4 HD in undead per class level. You select which template is applied.
A necrotic surge lasts for a number of rounds equal to 5 + your Charisma modifier. You may enter a necrotic surge once per day at 1st level and one additional time per day every 4 levels afterwards (5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th).
Fluff and Notes
Fluff: By embracing the negative energy within you, you become one with undeath, empowering both yourself and undead allies with the sudden burst of negative energy. By passing this energy onto another, you can reanimate the dead as your minion.
Notes: Well, this is what I'm most worried about. Even though I made this ability, I don't know what to make of it. It grants darkvision and some immunities for a short time (situationally useful), gives you some temporary hit points (often useful), and lets you animate the dead (quite useful). This ability is a bunch of stuff generally not gained at level 1 but I still can't quite see it as overpowered.
Armor of Death (Su): Starting at 2nd level, you and all allied undead within 10 feet gain a +1 bonus to your Natural AC and gain Damage Reduction 1/-. Furthermore, once per encounter, you may redirect half of all damage from any one source to an undead that you control within range. Undead ignore nonlethal damage from this source but damage reduction and energy reisstance do not apply to such damage.
At 6th level and every 4 levels afterwards (10th, 14th, and 18th), increase the value of the natural armor and damage reduction by +1. In addition, the range increases by 10 feet and you may redirect damage one additional time per encounter.
Fluff and Notes
Fluff: The power of undeath has strengthened your flesh and your resolve (as well as that of your minions), making you an indomitable opponent. In dire straits, you can even share your injuries with your own minions.
Notes: This ability should be pretty straightforward. It's a nice bonus but it doesn't seem too overpowered. Should I switch the damage-shunting effect to be a daily ability rather than being per encounter?
Undead Legion: Starting at 3rd level, you begin attracting undead as if through the Undead Leadership feat. You do not attract a cohort in this way. You may only attract unintelligent undead as your followers in this way. You gain a +2 bonus to your leadership score and all undead that you control (through this ability or other sources) gain a +2 bonus to their Strength and Dexterity scores. These followers do not stack with any granted by Undead Leadership.
At 7th level and every 4 levels afterwards (11th, 15th, and 19th), you gain a +2 bonus to your leadership score and you grant all undead you control a further +2 bonus to their Strength and Dexterity.
Fluff and Notes
Fluff: Your body has become a genuine beacon of negative energy, drawing undead into your service wherever you go. Through intense conditioning, you manage to keep your minions at peak physical condition.
Notes:Another ability that I don't know about. Having zombie/skeleton minions generally isn't that powerful without hydra madness but you are getting both this and necrotic surge before clerics even get animate dead. In case you can't tell, I created this class to be the master of undeath. As for the stat bonuses, I want to make it clear that you never count as one of your own controlled undead (either due to free will or a command undead spell cast on yourself) but I'm not quite sure how to say this.
Beacon of Death(Su): Starting at 4th level, you become a veritable beacon of negative energy. All other living creatures within 5 feet of you take 1d4 points of damage at the start of each round. All undead and others who are healed by negative energy within 5 feet of you, however, gain fast healing 2. You benefit from this fast healing while in a necrotic surge. The damage is halted by a death ward or similar effect. This ability can be suppressed or restarted as a move action.
At 8th level and every 4 levels afterwards (12th, 16th, and 20th), increase the damage by 1d4 and the fast healing by 2. Furthermore, increase the range of this ability by 5 feet at each such level.
Fluff and Notes
Fluff: Eventually, negative energy starts to leak from your body in waves, corruptng the bodies of the living while restoring that of the undead.
Notes: So you gain another offensive tool (if a minor one) and grant (or even gain) Fast Healing 10 by 20th level. Much like the rest of this class, I don't know about the power level.
Spellcasting: Starting at 4th level, you gain the ability to cast a small number of divine spells, which are drawn from the death knight spell list. You cast your spells spontaneously and have access to all spells on your spell list.
To cast a spell, you must have a Charisma score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against your spells is 10 + the spell level + your Charisma modifier.
Like other spellcasters, you can only cast a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. Your base allotment is given on the table above. In addition, you receive bonus spells per day if you have a high Charisma score.
Until 4th level, you possess no caster level. Starting at 4th level, your caster level equals your class level-3.
Fluff and Notes
Fluff: Calling upon the souls of those you have slain, you can manifest magical effects in the world around you.
Notes: Just some spontaneous casting. Not that useful but it helps and some of the spells have some degree of tactical application.
Endless Legion (Su): Starting at 20th level, you are no longer limited to 4 HD of controlled undead per class level. You may control any number of unintelligent creatures animated via your necrotic surge class feature.
Fluff and Notes
Fluff: Having achieved the peak of your strength, the size of your undead legion is all but unmatched in the annals of history.
Notes: Well, it seemed like a pretty simple capstone when I was brainstorming ideas and so down it was jotted. No real clue as to its power.
Death Knight Spell List
1st level: Blade of Blood, Chill Touch, Curse Water, Deathwatch, Detect Undead, Hide from Undead, Summon Undead I
2nd level: Command Undead, Desecrate, Disguise Undead, Ghoul Touch, Protection from Positive Energy, Stone Bones, Summon Undead II
3rd level: Animate Dead, Summon Undead III, Undead Lieutenant, Undead Torch, Vampiric Touch
4th level: Bleakness, Enervation, Iron Bones, Life Ward, Summon Undead IV
5th level: Door of Decay, Slay Living, Summon Undead V, Unhallow
Final Notes: I basically wrote this class up in the last two hours, in a very sleep-deprived state (when I do some of my best and some of my worst thinking). I didn't really put much thought into what was written and I only hope that this thing turned out halfway-decent.
As always, thanks for any help that you can render upon me.