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Xuldarinar
2013-09-26, 01:32 AM
FALLING INTO SHADOW: HOLLOWS
Ever since I laid my hands upon a copy of the Tome of Magic, I've had a strong fascination for shadow magic in D&D. Since that time I have made and seen a fair amount of homebrew involving it. To this day, by far my favorite has been Realms of Chaos's Descent of Shadows. As of late I've become fascinated with one of the classes introduced by the project, the Hollow. After looking for a while, I took notice that it seemed, well, a bit empty. Most of the content, understandably, seemed devoted to the Shadowcaster and the Cultist, another class from that same project. Given the urge to make another homebrew project, and my recent interest in the class, I've decided to see about giving them some more content to work with. So, without much further delay, I give you a homebrew for a homebrew.

First off, you'll need access to the Hollow class. Rather than making you search for it, I'll simply put a link to the post right here. ( ) (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4037247&postcount=15)

FROM SHADOW TO SHADOW
While it is a rare occurrence, from time to time shadowcasters themselves become hollows, the plane of shadow beginning to tug back upon it's would be wielder. Such beings find their descent into shadow faster than other hollows as their relationship with shadow shifts.
When a multiclass shadowcaster gains a new hollow level, he can choose to sacrifice a preexisting level of shadowcaster, in exchange for an additional level of hollow. A character can exchange only one such level at a time.
When "swapping" levels, make the following changes:

Add 2 hit points, to represent the average difference between the shadowcaster's d6 Hit Die and the hollow's d10.
When exchanging shadowcaster levels, you must remove a mystery from the shadowcaster's list of mysteries known for each level exchanged.
Should you lose a mystery that, as a shadowcaster, granted you a bonus feat, you lose access to the feat gained with that bonus feat.
You can't lose a feat or class feature that would make you ineligible for any other feat or prestige class you already have, even if this means you can no longer take advantage of From Shadow to Shadow.



VARIANTS AND ALTERNATE CLASS FEATURES


HOLLOW VARIANT: CEREBROPATHIC HOLLOW


Class Features
Plunged into Insanity: In place of using your wisdom modifier for your class features, you use a special modifier based on your sanity score. Consult the table below to determine your insanity modifier:

Sanity Score|Insanity Modifier
99-90|+0
89-80|+1
79-70|+2
69-60|+3
59-50|+4
49-40|+5
39-30|+6
29-20|+7
19-10|+8
9-1|+9
0- (-9)|+10
-10|+11

HOLLOW VARIANT: TAINTED HOLLOW

Note: Given there are two sets of taint rules, that I'm familiar with, this variant will reflect both of them. Entries with (UA) relate to the Unearthed Arcana taint rules. Entries with (HoH) relate to the Heroes of Horror taint rules.

Class Features
Growing Taint:
(UA); At each hollow level gained, your taint score increases by 1 point. Should your taint score be reduced below your hollow level, you gain a number of negative levels equal to your hollow level minus your taint score. These negative levels remain until your taint score is raised again. These negative levels never result in actual level loss. You gain an extra daily use of all apprentice mysteries known. When you acquire moderate taint, you gain an extra daily use of all initiate mysteries known. All fundamentals and mysteries you cast gain the evil descriptor.
(HoH); At each hollow level gained, your corruption and depravity scores increase by 1 point. Should your corruption or depravity score be reduced below your hollow level, you gain a number of negative levels equal to your hollow level minus your corruption or depravity score, which ever is lower. These negative levels remain until your corruption and depravity scores are raised again. These negative levels never result in actual level loss. Furthermore. You gain an extra daily use of all apprentice mysteries known. When you acquire moderate taint, you gain an extra daily use of all initiate mysteries known. All fundamentals and mysteries you cast gain the evil descriptor.

Plunged into Darkness (Ex): This behaves identically to the standard hollow's class feature of the same name except as follows:
(UA); Increase the DC required to take a level in a class other than hollow by your taint score.
(HoH): Increase the DC required to take a level in a class other than hollow by your depravity modifier (1/2 your depravity score).


FEATS


Past Life Feats
While some hollows started their adventuring career as hollows, others started along other paths. Past life feats are essentially theurgic feats for hollows, allowing them to continue on some part of their former paths, regardless of how little they may remember. To take a past life feat, a hollow must have had levels in another class at sometime prior to becoming a hollow.

Table 1-1: Feats
General Feats|Prerequisites|Benefits
Consuming Arcana|Hollow 6th|You may treat your mysteries as arcane spells for the purposes of meeting prerequisites.
Darkened Blow|Extrude Darkness|Shroud weapon in darkness to deal extra damage
Lethal Darkness|Extrude Darkness|Take lethal damage to deal lethal damage
Walker of Many Paths|Ability to cast mysteries from multiple classes|Levels in all mystery-using classes stack for the purpose of determining caster level.
Past Life Feats|Prerequisites|Benefits
Ascetic Hollow|Plunge into Darkness, Monk|Hollow and monk levels stack for unarmed strike damage and extrude darkness
Bound Hollow|Plunge into Darkness, Binder|Hollow and binder levels stack for pact augmentationand extrude darkness
Daring Hollow|Plunge into Darkness, Swashbuckler|Hollow and swashbuckler levels stack for grace, dodge bonus and extrude darkness
Deathly Hollow|Plunge into Darkness, Dread Necromancer|Hollow and dread necromancer levels stack towards becoming a lich and extrude darkness
Emptiness Incarnate|Plunge into darkness, Incarnate|Hollow and incarnate levels stack for incarnum radiance and extrude darkness
Empty Berserker|Plunge into Darkness, Barbarian|Hollow and barbarian levels stack for rage and extrude darkness
Empty Blade|Plunge into Darkness, Hexblade|Hollow and hexblade levels stack for hexblade's curse
Empty Elementalist|Plunge into Darkness, Shugenja|Hollow and shugenja levels stack for sense elements and extrude darkness
Empty Dancer|Plunge into Darkness, Battle Dancer|Hollow and battle dancer levels stack for unarmed strike damage and extrude darkness
Empty Deceiver|Plunge into Darkness, Mountebank|Hollow and mountebank levels stack for deceptive attack and extrude darkness
Empty Dragon|Plunge into Darkness, Dragonfire adept|Hollow and dragonfire adept levels stack for scales and extrude darkness
Empty Druid|Plunge into Darkness, Druid|Hollow and druid levels stack for wild shape and extrude darkness
Empty Hunter|Plunge into Darkness, Ranger|Hollow and ranger levels stack for favored enemy and extrude darkness
Empty Knight|Plunge into Darkness, Paladin|Hollow and paladin levels stack for smite evil damage and extrude darkness
Empty Master|Plunge into Darkness, Death Master|Hollow and Death master levels stack for undead minion and extrude darkness
Empty Outlaw|Plunge into Darkness, Rogue|Hollow and rogue levels stack for sneak attack damage and extrude darkness
Empty Pact|Plunge into Darkness, Warlock|Hollow and warlock levels stack for damage reduction and energy resistance
Empty Performer|Plunge into Darkness, Bard|Hollow and bard levels stack for bardic music and extrude darkness
Empty Prayers|Plunge into Darkness, Cleric|Hollow and cleric levels stack for turning/rebuking and extrude darkness
Empty Researcher|Plunge into Darkness, Archivist|Hollow and archivist levels stack for dark knowledge and extrude darkness
Empty Savant|Plunge into Darkness, Savant|Hollow and savant levels stack for savant class features and extrude darkness
Empty Soul|Plunge into Darkness, Soulborn|Hollow and soulborn levels stack for smite opposition damage and extrude darkness
Empty Spellthief|Plunge into Darkness, Spellthief|Hollow and spellthief levels stack for steal spell and extrude darkness.
Empty Stalker|Plunge into Darkness, Ninja|Hollow and ninja levels stack for ki pool and extrude darkness
Empty Warrior|Plunge into Darkness, Fighter|Hollow and fighter levels stack for feats and extrude darkness
Hollowed Jester|Plunge into Darkness, Jester|Hollow and jester levels stack for jester' performance and extrude darkness
Hollowed Knife|Plunge into Darkness, Soulknife|Hollow and soulknife levels stack for psychic strike and extrude darkness
Swift Hollow|Plunge into Darkness, Scout|Hollow and scout levels stack for skirmish bonuses and extrude darkness
War Hollow|Plunge into Darkness, Warmage|Hollow and warmage levels stack for armored mage.

ASCETIC HOLLOW [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, monk
Benefits Your hollow and monk levels stack for the purpose of determining your unarmed strike damage.
Furthermore your hollow and monk levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

BOUND HOLLOW [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Binder
Benefits Your hollow and binder levels stack for the purpose of determining effective binder level towards DCs and Pact Augmentation.
Furthermore your hollow and binder levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

CONSUMING ARCANA
Prerequisites: Hollow 6th
Benefits: You may treat the mysteries you possess by virtue of the Hollow class as either mysteries or arcane spells (even if they are cast as spell-like abilities or supernatural abilities) for the purposes of meeting the prerequisites of prestige classes or feats, as well as for the purpose of caster levels granted by prestige classes.

DARING HOLLOW [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Swashbuckler
Benefits Your hollow and swashbuckler levels stack for the purpose of determining your competence bonus on Reflex saves from the grace class feature and the swashbuckler's dodge bonus to AC.
Furthermore your hollow and swashbuckler levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

DARKENED BLOW
Prerequisites: Extrude Darkness
Benefits Prior to making an attack, you may choose take nonlethal damage equal to your character level to shroud your weapon in darkness for 1 round. For the duration of this ability, your attacks with your weapon also deal additional non-lethal damage equal to your hollow level.
Special: If you are immune to non-lethal damage, the damage you receive by using this ability is lethal instead.

DEATHLY HOLLOW [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Dread necromancer
Benefits Your hollow and dread necromancer levels stack for the purpose of advancement towards becoming a lich (Lich body, Touches, Fortification, and Lich transformation)
Furthermore your hollow and dread necromancer levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

EMPTINESS INCARNATE [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Incarnate
Benefits Your hollow and incarnate levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective incarnate level for Incarnum radiance. This feat, however, does not grant additional uses of incarnum radiance.
Furthermore your hollow and incarnate levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

EMPTY BERSERKER [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Barbarian
Benefits Your hollow and barbarian levels stack for the purpose of determining the advancement of rage.
Furthermore your hollow and barbarian levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

EMPTY BLADE [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Hexblade
Benefits Your hollow and hexblade levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hexblade level for your hexblade's curse.
Furthermore your hollow and hexblade levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

EMPTY DANCER[PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, battle dancer
Benefits Your hollow and battle dancer levels stack for the purpose of determining your unarmed strike damage.
Furthermore your hollow and battle dancer levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

EMPTY DECEIVER[PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, mountebank
Benefits Your hollow and mountebank levels stack for the purpose of determining your deceptive attack damage and the DC of your Beguiling Stare.
Furthermore your hollow and mountebank levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

EMPTY DRAGON [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Dragonfire adept
Benefits Your hollow and dragonfire adept levels stack for the purpose of determining the natural armor bonus provided by scales.
Furthermore your hollow and dragonfire adept levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

EMPTY DRUID [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Druid
Benefits Your hollow and druid levels stack strictly for the purpose of determining effective druid level for your wild shape. While your hollow levels will not grant you additional forms, any creature you assume the form of with wild shape gains the dark template.
Furthermore your hollow and druid levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.
Special: You may take this feat to stack urban druid levels instead of druid levels with your hollow levels. In this case, simply replace all mentions of wild shape with urban shape.

EMPTY ELEMENTALIST [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Shugenja
Benefits Your hollow and shugenja levels stack for the purpose of determining the maximum radius and number of uses per day of your sense elements ability.
Furthermore your hollow and shugenja levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

EMPTY HUNTER [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Ranger
Benefits Your hollow and ranger levels stack for the purpose of determining the bonuses gained from favored enemy. Your hollow levels, however, cannot grant you additional favored enemies.
Furthermore your hollow and ranger levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

EMPTY KNIGHT [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Paladin
Benefits Your hollow and paladin levels stack for the purpose of determining the extra damage dealt by your smite evil ability.
Furthermore your hollow and paladin levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

EMPTY MASTER[PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Paladin
Benefits Your hollow and death master levels stack for the purpose of advancing your undead minion.
Furthermore your hollow and death master levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

EMPTY OUTLAW [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Rogue
Benefits Your hollow and rogue levels stack for the purpose of determining your sneak attack bonus damage.
Furthermore your hollow and rogue levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

EMPTY PACT [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Warlock
Benefits Your hollow and warlock levels stack for the purpose of advancing your damage reduction to cold iron as well as your energy resistance.
Furthermore your hollow and warlock levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

EMPTY PERFORMER [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Bard
Benefits Your bard and hollow levels stack for the purpose of determining the number of times per day you can use your bardic music (although this does not affect which bardic music abilities you can use).
Furthermore your hollow and bard levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

EMPTY PRAYERS [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Cleric
Benefits Your hollow and cleric levels stack for the purpose of determining effective cleric level for your turning/rebuking.
Furthermore your hollow and cleric levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

EMPTY RESEARCHER [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Archivist
Benefits Your hollow and archivist levels stack for the purpose of advancing dark knowledge.
Furthermore your hollow and archivist levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

EMPTY SAVANT [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Savant
Benefits Your hollow and savant levels stack for the purpose of determining the advancement of all savant class features you currently possess, adding half of your hollow level to your savant level for this purpose.
Furthermore your hollow and savant levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

EMPTY SOUL [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Soulborn
Benefits Your hollow and soulborn levels stack for the purpose of determining the extra damage dealt by your smite opposition ability.
Furthermore your hollow and soulborn levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

EMPTY SPELLTHIEF [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Spellthief
Benefits Your hollow and spellthief levels stack for the purpose of determining the highest level spell you are capable of stealing.
Furthermore your hollow and spellthief levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

EMPTY STALKER [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Ninja
Benefits Your hollow and ninja levels stack for the purpose of determining the size of your ki pool.
Furthermore your hollow and ninja levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

EMPTY WARRIOR [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Fighter
Benefits Your hollow and fighter levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective fighter level for the purposes of meeting feat and prestige class prerequisites. For this purpose, treat every hollow level as effectively 1/2 levels of fighter.
Furthermore your hollow and fighter levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

HOLLOWED JESTER [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Jester
Benefits Your hollow and jester levels stack for the purpose of determining the number of times per day you can use your jester's performance (although this does not affect which jester's performance abilities you can use).
Furthermore your hollow and jester levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

HOLLOWED KNIFE [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Soulknife
Benefits Your hollow and soulknife levels stack for the purpose of advancing your psychic strike damage.
Furthermore your hollow and soulknife levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

LETHAL DARKNESS
Prerequisites: Extrude Darkness
Benefits Whenever you use your extrude darkness class feature, you may choose to take lethal damage instead of nonlethal damage. Damage you deal using extrude darkness is dealt as lethal damage instead.
Special: Creatures immune to nonlethal damage who take this feat, instead take damage equal to twice their character level in order to convert damage dealt to lethal.

SWIFT HOLLOW [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Scout
Benefits Your hollow and scout levels stack for the purpose of determining the extra damage and bonus to Armor Class granted when skirmishing.
Furthermore your hollow and scout levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.

WALKER OF MANY PATHS
Prerequisites: Levels in more than one mystery-using class
Benefits All levels in each of your classes that grant the ability to cast mysteries stack with each other to determine their caster levels, to a maximum of your Hit Die.

WAR HOLLOW [PAST LIFE]
Prerequisites: Plunge into darkness, Warmage
Benefits Your hollow and warmage levels stack for the purpose of advancing armored mage. You may apply your armored mage and warmage edge class features to your hollow mysteries.
Furthermore your hollow and warmage levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective hollow level for the purpose of using extrude darkness.


EPIC HOLLOW

Hit Die: d10
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier
Mysteries: The hollow's caster level is equal to his class level minus 4. When a new hollow level is gained, a hollow learns a new mystery, gaining the usual number of daily uses. The hollow must still pick mysteries using the same restrictions
Shadowstriding: The epic hollow's shadowstriding continues to advance past 20th, increasing by 10 feet every 3 levels past 20th.
Bonus Feats: The epic hollow gains a bonus feat (selected from the list of epic hollow feats) every three levels after 20th.
Epic Hollow Feats: (Yet to be determined)

Table 2-1: The Epic Hollow
Level|Special|Shadowstriding
21st|-|+50 feet
22nd|-|+50 feet
23rd|Bonus Feat|+60 feet
24th|-|+60 feet
25th|-|+60 feet
26th|Bonus Feat|+70 feet
27th|-|+70 feet
28th|-|+70 feet
29th|Bonus Feat|+80 feet
30th|-|+80 feet

Table 2-2: Epic Feats
Epic Feats|Prerequisites|Benefits
-|-|-

The Mentalist
2013-09-26, 07:00 PM
I think that in particular Empty Warrior is a problem as Fighter 1/Hollow X is strictly better than taking more levels in fighter.

At a glance the other ones don't seem problematic, though I would worry a little about Wildshape being a reasonably powerful ability but it's not going to be game-breaking to give that out.

Xuldarinar
2013-09-26, 07:23 PM
I think that in particular Empty Warrior is a problem as Fighter 1/Hollow X is strictly better than taking more levels in fighter.

At a glance the other ones don't seem problematic, though I would worry a little about Wildshape being a reasonably powerful ability but it's not going to be game-breaking to give that out.

Well, where the primary ability is that much, perhaps i should reduce the contribution. For instance. Each hollow level could count for 1/2 or 1/3 effective fighter levels. I will note that Fighter 1/Hollow X will only give you the 1st bonus feat, though will give you access later on to weapon specialization.. What do you think?

With Wildshape. I could do something similar, though I simply have it count for the power of the shape, not uses (which I'm not explicit on admittedly), nor form (which i am explicit on). The dark template simply fits in the context. I can adjust any of these as needed.

Xuldarinar
2013-09-27, 11:59 PM
In addition to more feats, I've altered Empty Warrior so that only half of a character's hollow class levels count towards fighter levels.

I've added, since my last post, two (or three pending on your point of view) class variants. One based on taint rules, with descriptions for two different versions of it, and one that is based on sanity rules. I considered adding a prestige class section, but there are a few problems with that. I have none to add currently, and the class's design discourages multi-classing. Thats not to say I won't attempt it later, just not now.

I'll continue adding content as I think of things. If anyone else wants to say, contribute or suggest anything, they are certainly more than welcome to do so.

Xuldarinar
2013-12-01, 12:10 PM
Update: I've added several additional feats, all but one being past life feats.