You Shall Fear the Wrath of God! (3.5 Base Class, PEACH)

[NeoSeraphi]

Author's Note: This class is completely original, both fluff and mechanic-wise. I am not offering any credit, but I am giving options for a different approach: Jiriku has also made an excellent divine striker (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=190289).

The Justicar


"We are the messengers and hammers of God, come to deliver righteous judgment! Let sinners be punished! Let justice be done!"- Tsubaki Yayoi, BlazBlue



A justicar is a weapon of his god or personal beliefs. He goes forth to exact vengeance and punish the heretics. Unlike a paladin, who swears to protect and defend while he punishes his god's enemies, a justicar prioritizes destruction and retribution over salvation and atonement. If the paladin is the shield of his god, the justicar is the sword.

Alignment: A justicar usually serves his god, though he may choose to be a weapon of a cause rather than a deity. A justicar who serves a deity must be of the same alignment as that deity. Justicars who do not serve a deity may be of any alignment, though generally such warriors are neither good nor evil, seeing and revering the balance in the cycle of death.

Hit Dice: d8

Class Skills: A justicar's class skills include Bluff, Climb, Concentration, Craft, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge (Religon), Profession, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, and Swim.

Skill Points: 4+Int per level, x4 at first level

The Justicar
{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th|6th|7th|8th|9th

1st|
+1|
+2|
+0|
+2|Smite 1/encounter, Charnel Touch|1

2nd|
+2|
+3|
+0|
+3|Divine Grace, Empower Spell|2|-

3rd|
+3|
+3|
+1|
+3|Divine Channeling|2|1|-

4th|
+4|
+4|
+1|
+4|Rebuke Undead|3|2|-|-

5th|
+5|
+4|
+1|
+4|Smite 2+Cha/Encounter, Charging Smite|3|2|1|-|-

6th|
+6/+1|
+5|
+2|
+5|Quicken Spell|3|3|2|-|-|-

7th|
+7/+2|
+5|
+2|
+5|Negative Energy Focus|4|3|2|1|-|-|-

8th|
+8/+3|
+6|
+2|
+6|Improved Divine Channeling|4|3|3|2|-|-|-|-|-

9th|
+9/+4|
+6|
+3|
+6|Divine Metamagic (Quicken Spell)|4|4|3|2|1|-|-|-|-

10th|
+10/+5|
+7|
+3|
+7|Smite 3+Cha/encounter|4|4|3|3|2|-|-|-|-

11th|
+11/+6/+1|
+7|
+3|
+7|Imbued Slash|5|4|4|3|2|1|-|-|-

12th|
+12/+7/+2|
+8|
+4|
+8|Exploitative Spell|5|4|4|3|3|2|-|-|-

13th|
+13/+8/+3|
+8|
+4|
+8|Empowered Negative Energy|5|5|4|4|3|2|1|-|-

14th|
+14/+9/+4|
+9|
+4|
+9|Favor of the Death Gods|5|5|4|4|3|3|2|-|-

15th|
+15/+10/+5|
+9|
+5|
+9|Smite 4+Cha/encounter|5|5|5|4|4|3|2|1|-

16th|
+16/+11/+6/+1|
+10|
+5|
+10|Touch of Death|5|5|5|4|4|3|3|2|-

17th|
+17/+12/+7/+2|
+10|
+5|
+10|Greater Negative Energy Focus|5|5|5|5|4|4|3|2|1

18th|
+18/+13/+8/+3|
+11|
+6|
+11|Mass Charnel Touch|5|5|5|5|4|4|3|3|2

19th|
+19/+14/+9/+4|
+11|
+6|
+11|Decaying Touch|5|5|5|5|5|4|4|3|3

20th|
+20/+15/+10/+5|
+12|
+6|
+12|Smite 5+Cha/Encounter, Wrath of God|5|5|5|5|5|4|4|4|4[/table]

Class Features:

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A justicar is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, as well as his deity's favored weapon if it is exotic. He is proficient with light, medium, and heavy armor, as well as bucklers, light and heavy shields.

Spellcasting: A justicar is able to cast divine spells, which are selected from the justicar spell list, seen below. A justicar must select and prepare his spells as a cleric does. In order to prepare or cast a spell, a justicar must have a Charisma score of at least 10+spell level.

The DC for saving throws allowed by the justicar's spells is 10+spell level+the justicar's Charisma modifier. The justicar receives bonus spells per day for a high Charisma score. (See the Ability Bonus Spells table in the Player's Handbook)

Justicar Spell List


1st-inflict light wounds

2nd-inflict moderate wounds

3rd-inflict serious wounds

4th-inflict critical wounds

5th-mass inflict light wounds

6th-harm, mass inflict moderate wounds

7th-greater harm (Heroes of Horror), mass inflict serious wounds

8th-mass inflict critical wounds

9th-mass harm (Heroes of Horror)



Smite (Su): A justicar can charge his blade with divine power, bringing wrath upon his enemies. Once per encounter, he can declare he is using a Smite attack. He makes an attack roll and adds his Charisma modifier to it. If he hits, he deals normal damage, plus bonus damage equal to his class level. If the justicar misses, the use is still wasted. A justicar can smite any creature he deems as an opponent, but he cannot deliver a smite with nonlethal damage. (If the justicar is using a weapon that is incapable of dealing lethal damage, he may not smite with that weapon)

At 5th level, a justicar may smite one additional time per encounter, as well as an extra number of times equal to his Charisma bonus (minimum +0). At 10th level, and every 5 levels after that, he gains one additional use of Smite per encounter.

Charnel Touch (Su): A justicar is so infused with negative energy that even a simple touch can erode life away from his enemies. As a standard action, a justicar may make a charnel touch. He makes a touch attack that deals 1d8 points of negative energy damage. This damage increases to 2d8 at 4th level, and continues increasing by 1d8 every 4 class levels, to maximum of 6d8 at 20th level. The justicar may use this ability at will.

The justicar's charnel touch threatens a critical on a natural 20 and deals double damage if it is confirmed.

Though this ability is negative energy damage, it is only meant for destruction. A creature that is normally healed by negative energy damage is instead immune to this effect.

Divine Grace (Su): A justicar is a crusader of divine power. Starting at 2nd level, he adds his Charisma modifier to his saving throws (minimum +0)

Empower Spell (Ex): A 2nd level justicar gains the Empower Spell feat as a bonus feat.

Divine Channeling (Su): As a standard action, a 3rd level justicar may cast a spell with a range of touch and deliver it through his melee weapon (or Charnel Touch). Casting a spell in this way does not provoke an attack of opportunity. A justicar may only perform this ability with spells from the justicar spell list. If the attack hits, it deals normal damage and then the spell's effect resolves.

If the attack misses, the spell is consumed and wasted.

Rebuke Undead (Su): As a standard action, a 4th level justicar may attempt to rebuke undead, as an evil cleric of his justicar level -3.

A justicar may rebuke undead 3+Cha mod times per day (minimum 3)

Charging Smite (Su): A 5th level justicar who delivers a smite attack at the end of a charge deals extra damage equal to three times his class level, rather than just his class level.

Quicken Spell (Ex): A 6th level justicar gains the Quicken Spell feat as a bonus feat. When applying the Quicken Spell feat to spells that deal negative energy damage from the justicar spell list, the justicar only increases the spell level by +2, rather than +4.

Negative Energy Focus (Ex): At 7th level, a justicar receives a +2 sacred (if his deity is good or neutral) or profane (if his deity is evil) bonus to the DC of spells he casts that deal negative energy damage. This bonus stacks with Spell Focus and the like.

Improved Divine Channeling (Su): An 8th level justicar who uses the Divine Channeling class feature applies the touch spell's effect to every attack as part of a full-round attack.

Divine Metamagic (Quicken Spell) (Ex): A 9th level justicar gains the Divine Metamagic (Quicken Spell) feat as a bonus feat. He need not meet the prerequisites. (With the adjustments from the Quicken Spell class feature, the justicar spends a total of 3 turn attempts per use when applying this feat to spells that deal negative energy damage from the justicar spell list)

Imbued Slash (Su): Once per round, as a swift action, a justicar may charge his melee weapon with negative energy. On its next successful attack, the weapon deals extra negative energy damage equal to the justicar's charnel touch damage. (Unlike most extra damage dice, this ability is multiplied on a successful critical hit)

If the justicar misses, the charnel touch is held in the weapon until either he hits with it once or the beginning of his next turn.

Exploitative Spell (Su): Starting at 12th level, the justicar may forgo an attack of opportunity to cast a spell from the justicar spell list against a creature who has provoked an attack of opportunity from him. (This ability consumes one of the justicar's remaining attacks of opportunity for the round)

Empowered Negative Energy (Su): Starting at 13th level, the level cap for all the justicar's spells increases by 5 (so a 13th level justicar who cast inflict light wounds would deal 1d8+10 points of negative energy damage, while a 20th level justicar who cast harm would deal 200 points of negative energy damage). This ability only applies to spells that deal negative energy damage on the justicar spell list.

Favor of the Death Gods (Su): A powerful justicar's connection with negative energy is so great that he actually develops a barrier against it. With the power of negative energy coarsing through his veins, the justicar is all but immune to decay and death. Starting at 14th level, a justicar enjoys the benefits of a continuous death ward spell. If the justicar normally heals from negative energy (such as an undead justicar or a justicar who has the Tomb-Tainted Soul feat), Favor of the Death Gods instead makes him immune to positive energy. The justicar may suppress or resume this effect as a free action.

Touch of Death (Su): A justicar's connection to the plane of Negative Energy lets him drag a creature a step closer to its death with every spell he casts. And if that spell is particularly successful...

Starting at 16th level, whenever a justicar confirms a critical hit with a weaponlike spell that deals negative energy damage, or if he confirms a critical hit with his charnel touch, the creature must make a Fortitude save (DC 10+1/2 character level+Charisma modifier) or die.

Greater Negative Energy Focus (Ex): At 17th level, the justicar's sacred or profane bonus to the save DCs of his negative energy spells increase to +4.

Mass Charnel Touch (Su): At 18th level, the justicar may use his charnel touch as a ranged area-of-effect ability, dealing its listed damage as determined by his level to any number of creatures up to his caster level within 100 feet, no two of which may be more than 30 feet apart.

Decaying Touch (Su): Beginning at 19th level, any creature who takes damage from the justicar's Charnel Touch or Mass Charnel Touch must also make a Will save (DC 10+1/2 class level+Cha mod) or take 1d4 points of ability drain. The justicar chooses which ability score to drain each time he uses his Charnel Touch or Mass Charnel Touch (he may assign different ability drain to different creatures affected by the same Mass Charnel Touch). The justicar gains 5 temporary hit points per point of drain he inflicts with this ability. These temporary hit points never fade unless they are forcibly removed through damage.

Wrath of God (Su): A 20th level justicar is a force of pure, unbridled destruction. He may cast one justicar spell that deals negative energy damage per round as a free action, regardless of its original casting time. (This does not count as his per-round use of the Quicken Spell feat). Additionally, whenever a justicar hits a creature with both his Divine Channeling and his Smite in the same attack, the creature must make a Fortitude save (DC 10+spell level+Cha mod) or be consumed by divine power. The creature is disintegrated, taking an additional 40d6 untyped damage and leaves no remains behind if it dies. On a successful save, the creature instead takes maximum damage from the weapon and spell the justicar hit it with.

[NeoSeraphi]

Penetrating Decay
Prerequisites: Able to cast inflict light wounds
Benefit: You gain a +4 bonus on caster level checks made to overcome spell resistance when you cast spells that deal negative energy damage. This bonus does not stack with the Spell Penetration or Greater Spell Penetration feats.


Greater Penetrating Decay
Prerequisites: Able to cast inflict serious wounds, Penetrating Decay
Benefit: The bonus to caster level checks made to overcome spell resistance that you receive from the Penetrating Decay feat increases to +8.


True Master of Day and Night
Prerequisites: Mastery of Day and Night, Maximize Spell, Quicken Spell, Caster Level 9th
Benefit: You may spontaneously apply the Quicken Spell feat to any cure or inflict spell you cast without increasing the spell's level or the casting time of the spell. You may use this feat up to 3 times per day.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Hmm... my first two impressions are that the spell list is REALLY limited (intentionally, of course), and that the class looks pretty strong. I may be wrong about the latter part, but... you're going to be throwing around a LOT of negative energy damage. Like, silly amounts, especially at higher levels, when you can drop quickened Harms left and right.

Have you considered dropping the spellcasting to, say, a bard progression (up to level 6), and adding a few more spells to the list? In addition to lowering the power, adding some variety might make the class a bit more fun to play. I'm thinking more 'classic' offensive cleric spells (Searing Light, Flame Strike, etc), and some movement buffs (Fly especially).

Also, and on an unrelated note, a nifty high-level feature might be the ability to convert negative energy spells to positive energy for the purposes of harming undead.

[NeoSeraphi]

Hmm... my first two impressions are that the spell list is REALLY limited (intentionally, of course), and that the class looks pretty strong. I may be wrong about the latter part, but... you're going to be throwing around a LOT of negative energy damage. Like, silly amounts, especially at higher levels, when you can drop quickened Harms left and right.


Thank you. I was actually inspired by the Make a Tier 6 thread to make a very negative-energy focused caster.

Edit: Also, in case you're not an OotS fan, this entire class was inspired specifically by this post (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0811.html).



Have you considered dropping the spellcasting to, say, a bard progression (up to level 6), and adding a few more spells to the list? In addition to lowering the power, adding some variety might make the class a bit more fun to play. I'm thinking more 'classic' offensive cleric spells (Searing Light, Flame Strike, etc), and some movement buffs (Fly especially).


Originally, I was going to give him 9th level spell slots, but only up to 6th level spells. The reason for this was to allow for metamagic abuse without relying on Divine Metamagic: Quicken Spell. I decided to give him a few spells at higher levels to allow him to take on multiple creatures.

Fly isn't a cleric spell, it's a spell offered by the Travel Domain. It's also not a druid spell, so clearly only certain deities can grant it to their casters, and that would get into domains, which I don't want to do. But I'll look at the cleric list and see if I can't find some non-negative spells to fluff up the spell list a bit.

Edit: My research has reminded me of 2 things:
A) Clerics really really rely on their domains for damaging spells. Other than what I have here, they get sound burst, flame strike, searing light and fire storm for pure damage from just their spell lists.

B) Clerics get energy drain but not enervation, for some strange, ridiculous, on-par-with-making-orb-spells-conjuration WotC nonsense.

That said, those four spells do not offer enough versatility that I would consider adding them, as that would be completely killing the awesome "Death-focused" theme I had going, and giving me so little in return.



Also, and on an unrelated note, a nifty high-level feature might be the ability to convert negative energy spells to positive energy for the purposes of harming undead.

Er, that seems a bit overpowered to me, I mean, an undead would be the DM counter to this class, and removing it might just be pushing it you know?

[Ziegander]

On the whole it's very much like a Duskblade in the end except that it exchanges a limited amount of versatility for better defenses and MOAR damage. Shrug. It works out I suppose.

[NeoSeraphi]

On the whole it's very much like a Duskblade in the end except that it exchanges a limited amount of versatility for better defenses and MOAR damage. Shrug. It works out I suppose.

Thank you.

[Ziegander]

Exploitative Spell is one of the coolest abilities I've seen in a while.

[NeoSeraphi]

Exploitative Spell is one of the coolest abilities I've seen in a while.

Oh, thank you very much! I was thinking about making an improved version as a 18th-19th level ability, but I wasn't sure how to improve it. Do you have a suggestion?

[dspeyer]

Probably too powerful.

Remember that adding spells to a class list isn't all that hard. Picture a contemplative dip for the time domain and then spamming quickened true strike every round (plus haste, freedom of movement and eventually time stop).

Or picture all that negative energy in the hands of a necromancer (or just a tomb-tainted party).

[NeoSeraphi]

Probably too powerful.

Remember that adding spells to a class list isn't all that hard. Picture a contemplative dip for the time domain and then spamming quickened true strike every round (plus haste, freedom of movement and eventually time stop).


Hah! Contemplative requires at least 13 ranks in Knowledge (Religion) and for you to have direct contact with your deity or another high planar being. That's the definition of hard to me.

Plus, you still only get to choose domains offered by your deity. As I recall, the Time Domain is not offered by any deity. Clerics can pick it up no problem, but not through the Contemplative class.


Or picture all that negative energy in the hands of a necromancer (or just a tomb-tainted party).

I doubt a tomb-tainted party would use this class. They'd probably use a dread necromancer instead, as he actually does get infinite healing for negative energy, rather than just powerful spells (I actually had to weaken the Charnel Touch ability I lifted from him to prevent the infinite healing that a dread necro gets)

[Noctis Vigil]

*is mesmerized by class* Preeettyyyyy... :smallwink:

Looks like a pretty good class, Seraphi. I must admit, I'm saddened that you didn't add a single way to induce negative levels. That's the only change I'd make, really. Although I do agree that it needs more spells; perhaps instead of taking spells off only the Cleric list, take them off any list? I'd limit it strictly to negative energy, though. For RP reasons, he gets special powers of destruction not usually entrusted to normal Clerics or something.

PS: you need to post the opposite of this as a new Paladin. It would be amazing.

[NeoSeraphi]

*is mesmerized by class* Preeettyyyyy... :smallwink:

Looks like a pretty good class, Seraphi. I must admit, I'm saddened that you didn't add a single way to induce negative levels. That's the only change I'd make, really. Although I do agree that it needs more spells; perhaps instead of taking spells off only the Cleric list, take them off any list? I'd limit it strictly to negative energy, though. For RP reasons, he gets special powers of destruction not usually entrusted to normal Clerics or something.

PS: you need to post the opposite of this as a new Paladin. It would be amazing.

Interesting. Hmm...I don't really know too many other negative energy spells though. Enervation and energy drain, and that's it. What other spells use negative energy?

[Amechra]

The advanced version of Exploitative Spell would be Opportunistic spell: X times per encounter, whenever someone they threaten would be able to take an AoO, you get to use Exploitative Spell on whoever they would target with their AoO.

[NeoSeraphi]

Removed the ability to turn undead from the class (Changed it to rebuke only) I don't know what I was thinking letting this class channel positive energy :smallamused:

[NeoSeraphi]

Updated Quicken Spell, DMM (Quicken Spell), and Wrath of God to only affect spells the justicar casts that do negative energy damage, so even if he adds new spells to his spell list, he doesn't get reduced Quicken for them.

Added Negative Energy Focus, Greater Negative Energy Focus, and Mass Charnel's Touch to flesh out the dead levels.

And I think I'm done! What does everyone think of the finished justicar?

[Noctis Vigil]

The only thing I dislike is that he can't be LG, but that's a minor quibble. Very nice work here. I really like the idea of a negative energy specialist who can be Good; it's an idea I've toyed with more than once. It pleases me immensely to see a class based on the concept.

All in all, a wonderful job, as expected of NeoSeraphi. :smallwink:

[NeoSeraphi]

About to playtest this in a low-level game, hopefully, so I'm asking for any PEACH I can get to fix it as much as possible before I start.

[NeoSeraphi]

What's this? An update? Filled in the last two dead levels, with the Favor of the Death Gods and Decaying Touch class features. So now, my justicar is finally complete.

[Yitzi]

So there can't be a Lawful Good justicar?

[NeoSeraphi]

So there can't be a Lawful Good justicar?

Yeah. That was an old fluff choice, but looking back, I think I disagree with it now. I'll remove it.

Edit: I updated the feats post too by adding a few nice feat options for the justicar.

[Knight13]

What if you're a Justicar of Pelor and want to kill a lot of undead? All that negative energy isn't going to be very useful. Is that just unlikely to happen fluff-wise?

[NeoSeraphi]

What if you're a Justicar of Pelor and want to kill a lot of undead? All that negative energy isn't going to be very useful. Is that just unlikely to happen fluff-wise?

Yeah. If you're a warrior of Pelor who wants to kill undead, you'd likely have to receive a lot of priest training, not negative energy training.