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View Full Version : The Corpse Knight, Take 2! [3.5, Base Class, PEACH]



Amechra
2012-12-13, 03:58 PM
I have seen the visions. I have heard the voices. They tell me to do things; I have been told to keep going, to go on, to leave this mortal realm...

But I'm not ready; not yet, anyhow.

The Corpse Knight

There are some warriors who seek to live fast, die young, and to leave an honorable corpse; on the other hand, there are some who would live forever.

So when someone offers them a little extension to their lives, they tend to jump at the offer...

Alignment: Any
Skill points per Level: 4+Int
Skill points at 1st Level: 4*(4+Int)

HD: d12

{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Class Features|Corpsecraft Traits Known|Corpsecraft Traits Embodied
1|+0|+2|+0|+2|Warrior of the Damned I, Summon Allied Knight, Corpse Empathy|-|-
2|+1|+3|+0|+3|Panoply of Bone +1d6, Final Respite|-|-
3|+2|+3|+1|+3|The Heartbeat Ceases, Perpetual Knight, Corpsecraft Growth|3|3
4|+3|+4|+1|+4|Corpsecraft Brilliance, Panoply of Bone +1d6/+1|4|3
5|+3|+4|+1|+4|Warrior of the Damned II, Cursed Knight's Steed|4|3
6|+4|+5|+2|+5|Panoply of Bone +2d6/+1, Stance of the Damned Knight I, Elaborate Panoply|5|4
7|+5|+5|+2|+5|Weeping Knight Pact (Least), Mettle|5|4
8|+6/+1|+6|+2|+6|Panoply of Bone +2d6/+2, Chain of Command|6|4
9|+6/+1|+6|+3|+6|Warrior of the Damned III, Corpsecraft Specialization|6|4
10|+7/+2|+7|+3|+7|Panoply of Bone +3d6/+2, Elaborate Panoply|7|4
11|+8/+3|+7|+3|+7|Stance of the Damned Knight II|7|5
12|+9/+4|+8|+4|+8|Panoply of Bone +3d6/+3, Uncanny Dodge|8|5
13|+9/+4|+8|+4|+8|Warrior of the Damned IV, Weeping Knight Pact (Lesser)|8|5
14|+10/+5|+9|+4|+9|Panoply of Bone +4d6/+3, Elaborate Panoply|9|5
15|+11/+6/+1|+9|+5|+9|Corpsecraft Mastery, Improved Mettle|9|5
16|+12/+7/+2|+10|+5|+10|Panoply of Bone +4d6/+4, Stance of the Damned Knight III|10|6
17|+12/+7/+2|+10|+5|+10|Warrior of the Damned V, Improved Uncanny Dodge|10|6
18|+13/+8/+3|+11|+6|+11|Panoply of Bone +5d6/+4, Elaborate Panoply|11|6
19|+14/+9/+4|+11|+6|+11|Weeping Knight Pact (Greater)|11|6
20|+15/10/+5|+12|+6|+12|Panoply of Bone +5d6/+5, Vizier of Corpses|12|6[/table]

A Corpse Knight's Class Skills are: Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Listen (Wis), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis)

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: A Corpse Knight is proficient in all Simple and Martial weapons, as well as light armor, medium armor, and all shields except for Tower Shields.

In addition, they are automatically proficient in any item they create through their Panoply of Bone class feature.

Warrior of the Damned (Ex): A Corpse Knight is fundamentally damned by their willingness to embrace Undeath for power; this manifests itself strongest through their access to damned forms of power.

A Corpse Knight may spend 5 minutes in solemn meditation upon death and their pact; if they do so, they may select a single maneuver as if through the Martial Study feat. For the purposes of the Void Messiah discipline (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10475949), the Relentless Dusk (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=256466) discipline, and one additional discipline of their choice, chosen when they first gain this ability, treat the Corpse Knight's class level as if it were a Martial Initiator for the purpose of their IL and which Maneuvers may be selected. Each time they meditate, they lose access to the maneuvers they selected, and choose another maneuver of their choice.

At 5th level, and every 4 levels thereafter, the Corpse Knight selects an additional maneuver each time they meditate for 5 minutes.

Summon Allied Knight (Su): In combat, it is sometimes better to be able to call for help than it is to fight alone; for this alone, a Corpse Knight is granted the ability to call a potent ally.

A Corpse Knight may, as a Standard action that provokes an Attack of Opportunity, expend a maneuver they selected through the Warrior of the Damned class feature to duplicate the effects of a Summon Undead spell of equivalent strength (so Summon Undead I at 1st level, Summon Undead II when they get access to Warrior of the Damned II, and so on and so forth.) Treat their caster level for this ability as if it were either equal to their class level or the minimum caster level required to cast that given spell, whichever is higher.

Corpse Empathy (Ex): Undead recognize the Corpse Knight as one of their own; it is no wonder, since they are damned to become one anyway.

The Corpse Knight gains the Lichloved feat(BoVD) as a bonus feat at 1st level. In addition, they may train mindless Undead as if they were Animals with an Intelligence of 1 if they have less than 10 HD, or as if they had an Intelligence of 2 if they have at least 10 HD. The Corpse Knight receives a bonus to Handle Animal checks for this purpose only equal to their class level, and the DCs of any Handle Animal checks they make are increased by the Turn Resistance of the target creature.

Once a Corpse Knight begins to learn Corpsecrafting Traits, they may teach one to a Undead they are training. If they do so, this is treated as if they were training the Undead for a special purpose, and thus takes up 3 Tricks for a Basic Trait and 6 Tricks for a Specialist Trait (which includes the Basic version of that Trait as well). If you have Mastered a Basic Trait, however, all the Undead you train receive it for free.

A Corpse Knight may, over the course of an hour, erase all the tricks they taught to a given Undead.

Panoply of Bone (Ex): It would not be fitting for a knight of Undeath to wield a prosaic weapon, or to wear armor designed for the living! Instead, they craft their macabre gear from a more fitting substance.

At 2nd level, a Corpse Knight gains the ability to craft items from a corpse; this takes the normal amount of time, but reduces the material cost by the Corpse Knight's class level in GP (minimum 0 GP). They may create alchemical items through this class feature, even though they are not spellcasters.

Once they are done, the corpse has been mangled beyond belief; as such, only one item may be crafted from a corpse of a size equal to that of the Corpse Knight. A corpse one size larger counts as two corpses of their size, one 2 sizes larger counts as 4, and so on and so forth. In addition, the creature may not be resurrected by any form of magic that does not either completely regenerate the entire body or create a new body from scratch

In addition, if a Corpse Knight wields (or uses, in the case of splash, thrown, or ranged weapons) any weapon created through this class feature, their attacks ignores the damage reduction of Undead, can hit Incorporeal creatures as if they were magical, and deals an additional +1d6 Negative Energy damage to any living creatures that they hit. At 6th level, and every 4 levels thereafter, the amount of damage dealt increases by +1d6.

Finally, if a Corpse Knight wears any armor or shields created by this class feature, they apply their armor or shield bonuses to their touch armor class against undead creatures. In addition, at 4th level, and every 4 levels thereafter, the Armor and Shield bonuses of armor they create through this class feature increase by 1.

Final Respite (Su): Sometimes, it is required that a creature stays dead; after all, even Undeath does not want certain villains to enter their ranks, and sometimes, an Undead simply requires a path to their final rest.

At 2nd level, a Corpse Knight gains the ability to use Painless Death(Ghostwalk) as a spell-like ability at-will.

The Heartbeat Ceases (Ex): Their devotion has paid off! Corpse Knights revel in this diseased gift, for it is true power!

At 3rd level, a Corpse Knight type changes to Undead; however, they still heal naturally over time, though the rate of this healing cannot be increased by the heal skill.

Perpetual Knight (Ex): Undeath defends it's champion like few others do; it would pointless to exalt a champion if they are unable to stand a single holy item or a few whispered words, wouldn't it?

At 3rd level, a Corpse Knight adds their Base Will Save modifier to their Turn Resistance, and adds half their Turn Resistance to any save they make against a Command Undead spell or equivalent effect.

Corpsecraft Growth (Su): A Corpse Knight has access to the little tweaks that necromancers use to toughen up their creations; of course, they use them a bit differently, but that comparison will do for now.

A Corpse Knight of at least 3rd level knows a number of Corpsecrafter Traits (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59582) as shown on the table above; however, they do not gain the benefits of all these traits at once.

Instead, each time they spend 5 minutes to change their maneuvers, they may select a number of Traits as shown on the table above, and gain their benefits until the next time they change their maneuvers.

A Corpse Knight only may learn Basic Traits at this point in time; at 5th level, and every 2 levels thereafter, they may forget a single trait, and replace it with any other that they could possibly learn.

If a Corpse Knight has any traits that supply an ability that can be used a limited number of times per day, they may only use that ability that many times a day, regardless of how many times they replace that trait; their number of uses reset whenever they spend at least 8 hours without using any of the maneuvers granted by Warrior of the Damned.

As a special case, a Corpse Knight does not use the normal Specialized versions of the Regenerative or Skilled traits; instead, the Specialized Skill trait gives Skill Mastery with whatever skill that the Basic version gives a bonus to.

The Specialized version of Regenerative grants the Necrotic Reserve feat as a bonus feat, with readying Regenerative granting the Necrotic Reserve.

With each of the traits that grants access to a spell, power, mystery, or vestige, the Corpse Knight treats readying the trait as if they were "creating" themselves. They may not ready any of those traits more times per day than they have Corpsecraft Traits Embodied on the table above; however, each time they are readied, they do not share a pool of uses with other instances of that trait.

Corpsecraft Brilliance (Su): It really is amazing how the flow of undeath through one's body is enough to cause others to rise up too.

At 4th level, a Corpse Knight gains the Animator (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=194514) feat as a bonus feat. In addition, the restriction on the HD of the creature you are animating only applies to Undead created through this feat.

Cursed Knight's Steed (Su): What is a knight without a steed?

At 5th level, as a ritual that takes 1 minute and requires the Corpse Knight to be standing on unworked earth, they may call forth an Undead horse to serve them. Their steed has all the statistics of a Heavy Warhorse with the The Heartbeat Ceases class feature.

For every 3 class levels after 5th that the Corpse Knight has, their steed receives 2 additional hit dice, and gains a +2 bonus to their natural armor.

In addition, as long as the Corpse Knight is mounted on their steed, their steed gains the benefits of their Perpetual Knight and any Corpsecraft traits the Corpse Knight is benefiting from due to their Corpsecraft Growth class feature.

Finally, the steed always applies its Natural Armor class bonus to their Touch Armor class against undead creatures, and treats its natural attacks as if they were magical for the purpose of hitting incorporeal creatures.

A Corpse Knight may dismiss their steed as a Full-Round action, and do not have to call forth the same steed each time. However, if they do not dismiss their steed, their steed lasts until it would be destroyed.

Stance of the Damned Knight (Ex): A knight must always stand with the proper bearing, lest their enemies thing them weak.

A Corpse Knight of at least 6th level may learn Stances from the three disciplines that they have a full IL for due to Warrior of the Damned; any stance of lower than 5th level is treated as a basic Corpsecraft Trait, with any other Stances being considered Specialized traits that require any one Basic trait that duplicates a stance from the same discipline to be applied at the same time.

A given creature can only have, at most, a single Basic "stance" trait and a single Specialized "stance" trait applied to it at any one time.

The Corpse Knight must be of a high enough initiator level to select these stances anyway, but ignores any requirement of knowing a number of maneuvers from a given discipline that a stance might have.

Elaborate Panoply (Ex): A warrior cannot rely on the strength of their arms for all of eternity; sometimes, they need to draw upon a little bit of power that seems quite alien to their own traits...

At 6th level, a Corpse Knight gains the ability to destroy an unattended item, adding it to their panoply; if they do so, they may, at any point, recreate that exact item with their Panoply of Bone class feature, crafting it as if it were a mundane instance of that object; a magical blade could be recreated as though it were a simple sword, and so on and so forth. If any instance of an object is further enchanted through any means, all subsequent instances of that object receive the same enchantments.

The Corpse Knight may only have a single instance of any object that they destroy through this class feature in existence at any time; a Corpse Knight may, at the time of destroying the object, add a light or one-handed weapon to their Panoply twice; if they do so, any instance of either one that becomes further enchanted affects all future instances of both.

Any magical item with a limited number of uses added to a Panoply shares uses over every instance of itself; for example, if a wand of Inflict Light Wounds is added to the Panoply with 12 charges, and it is later recreated and used twice, any subsequent instance of that wand would have only 10 charges. Potions and other single-use magical items cannot be added to the panoply.

A Corpse Knight of 6th level can only have 3 objects in their Panoply; however, at 10th level and every 4 levels thereafter, the Corpse Knight may have 2 additional objects inside their panoply.

Regardless of what material the original object was made of, the new instance is made out of pieces of a corpse; metal is replaced by bone, parchment by skin, ink by blood and bile, rope by knotted hair... this does not change the hardness or the number of hit-points a given object has, but does render it immune to effects that would destroy or repel metal.

Finally, any object created through Panoply of Bone is automatically masterwork, without any increase in the cost.

Weeping Knight Pact (Ex) Once you sold your life to Undeath, it sometimes leaks energy back from... other pacts.

At 7th level, a Corpse Knight may learn Least Warlock Invocations as Corpsecraft Traits; their caster level is equal to their class level, and they may apply Eldritch Essences to any attacks they make with a weapon created through Panoply of Bone, treating the extra damage as if it were Eldritch Blast damage for this purpose. They cannot learn Blast Shapes.

At 13th level, they may learn Lesser Invocations as Traits. At 19th level, they may learn Greater Invocations as Traits. Even though Invocations learned through this ability as Corpsecraft Traits, they still count as if they were Invocations for the purpose of prerequisites.

Invocations learned through this ability are treated as if they were Basic traits for all purposes.

Mettle (Ex): A knight should be durable, able to withstand any force that wishes to strike them down!

At 7th level, any time a knight succeeds on a Fortitude or Will save that has a partial effect on a successful save, they treat that ability as if it were instead Fort/Will Negates.

Chain of Command (Ex): No matter who they are, Undead must bow before your might!

At 8th level, a Corpse Knight treats any Undead that they encounter as if they were Mindless for the purpose of their Corpse Empathy ability as long as that creature has less HD than 1/2 the Corpse Knight's class level plus their Turn Resistance. An intelligent undead adds their Intelligence modifier +5 to the DCs of any Handle Animal checks used to force them to perform a trick.

Corpsecraft Specialization (Ex): Anyone who wields power eventually learns to apply it with finesse.

At 9th level, a Corpse Knight gains the ability to learn the Specialist versions of any Traits they know the Basic version of; however, if they do so, they cannot choose to replace the Basic version of that Trait, and they must prepare both the Basic and Specialist versions of a Trait to gain their benefits (or teach both of them, in the case of Corpse Empathy.)

Uncanny Dodge (Ex): The dead are ever staring, ever watchful. As you are a corpse, this is extremely helpful.

At 12th level, a Corpse Knight retains their Dexterity Bonus to armor class even when they are Flat-Footed or attacked by an invisible creature.

Corpsecraft Mastery (Ex): Sometimes, you come across a breakthrough, and gain powers you never dreamed of.

At 15th level, a Corpse Knight may select a single Basic Trait that they know; when they do so, they permanently gain the benefit of that Trait. In addition, they no longer need to prepare it to use the related Specialist Trait, and they may apply the related Specialist Trait to any Undead that they train through Corpse Empathy as if it were a Basic Trait.

Improved Mettle (Ex): Death is undefeatable, eternal; and so shall you be.

At 15th level, whenever a Corpse Knight fails a Fortitude or Will save for partial effect, they take the partial affect as if they had succeeded on their save.

Improved Uncanny Dodge (Ex): Death cannot be caught,and neither can you.

At 17th level, a Corpse Knight cannot be flanked unless they are being flanked by a Rogue whose class level is at least 4 higher than their own.

Vizier of Corpses (Su): You have an unimpeachable mastery over death; you have become Undeath, Ruler of Empty Worlds.

At 20th level, a Corpse Knight gains the [Void] subtype.

In addition, they may now use their Corpse Empathy on any Undead, regardless of their HD, and all Undead are treated as if they had an Intelligence of 2 for the purpose of how many tricks they can learn.

Finally, a Corpse Knight emanates a permanent Unhallow and Desecrate effect out to a range of 100'; a Corpse Knight may attach any Trait that they know to the Unhallow effect, granting its benefits to all Undead within the radius, and may change which Trait is attached whenever they change their readied Traits. They may only attach a Basic Trait or the Specialist Trait whose equivalent Basic Trait was chosen through Corpsecraft Mastery.

Amechra
2012-12-13, 04:24 PM
Feats
Stealth-Born Panoply
Your time spent skulking in shadow allows you great benefits when wielding a weapon you crafted.
Prerequisites: Sneak Attack 2d6, Panoply of Bone +1d6
Benefits: Your sneak attack dice and your bonus dice from Panoply of Bone stack for the purpose of qualifying for Ambush feats and you may sacrifice Panoply of Bone dice to use Ambush feats in place of sneak attack dice.

In addition, as long as you are wielding a weapon created through your Panoply of Bone class feature, you may perform sneak attacks on Undead creatures.

Gravewyrm Servant [Metabreath]
You have patterned your apotheosis around the might of the Gravewyrm, whose callous consumption of zombies brings them delight.
Prerequisites: A breath weapon that deals some form of energy damage, Panoply of Bone +1d6
Benefits: As long as you are wearing armor made through your Panoply of Bone class feature, your breath weapon benefits from your Panoply of Bone class feature as if it were a weapon you crafted.

In addition, once you gain the Weeping Knight Pact class feature, you may choose to gain Invocations from the Dragonfire Adept list as well as the Warlock list.

Prestige Classes
Links will go here!

Amechra
2012-12-13, 04:30 PM
Draconi Redfir, I personally don't see it as much of an issue.

Dipping this class grants you the amazing ability to, as a standard action, summon a minion that lasts 1 round.

Doing this means that you don't have Warrior of the Damned to use for this battle. Which is removes most of the benefits of the first level.

What's a bit more dangerous is the ability to train undead as if they were animals, since that let's you build up "control" over quite a large number of Undead without, you know, having to worry about a control pool.

And by the way, give me a moment; I forgot to address concerns about Warrior of the Damned adding variable maneuvers to a Martial Initiator. I'm taking suggestions on how to fix that.

Amechra
2012-12-13, 04:31 PM
Alright, you can post stuff!

Draconi Redfir, can you post your comment again? As it is, it looks like I'm responding to a voice in my head; I'm not that crazy, dangnabbit!

Morph Bark
2012-12-13, 06:10 PM
Had I Tiered this yet? I think I had. Or otherwise it was on the wait list I had made for myself.

Either way: corpsecrafting! Awww yeeeaaaahhhh.

Amechra
2012-12-13, 06:13 PM
I don't think you have; if you could, that would be lovely.

(Also, please leave a PEACH?)

Draconi Redfir
2012-12-13, 07:54 PM
gah, sorry. deleted my comment when i saw your were still making the thread.

Anyways i was suggesting that you move the allied knight ability down a few levels so that people can't just take a one level dip for the sake of summoning a skeleton to fight for them.

must have skipped over the bit where it only lasts for one round, so sorry about that.

Amechra
2012-12-13, 09:17 PM
Well, it copies a summon spell, so at 2nd level, it'll last 2, and so on and so forth.

Of course, if you're just dipping, you are only getting a 1 HD Skeleton/2 HD Zombie, so...

In any case, the summons stay quite weak throughout your career; they can be a useful distraction, I guess, but you aren't summoning anything stronger than maybe a Shadow with it, and that's nearing 17th level.

I also noticed that I typed Corpselord's Calling rather than Corpsecraft Brilliance; I'll go fix that now...

Amechra
2012-12-13, 09:35 PM
I just fixed up that little problem, and have added some clarification/nerfing to some of the Corpsecraft Traits (as written, Specialized Regenerative would have rendered you immune to damage, and Specialized Skilled would have let you grab a ton of class features from other classes)