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View Full Version : Amechra's Rewrites: The Unrepentant Pact-Bound Hunter [PEACH]



Amechra
2013-11-12, 04:28 PM
This is just a refinement of one of my previous works; I've hit a definite snag lately, where I just haven't been able to produce any new homebrew. So, I thought I'd go back to some of my earlier, less refined works, and fix them up so that they don't make me sad.

Unrepentant Pact-Bound Hunter

I hate you. With every breath I take, I fill my soul with loathing for you. If I could scribe every inch of my flesh with words that explained how much I loathe you, I would come up miles short. May my heart be a blade that pierces your heart; may my hate be your downfall.

I know that there is no saving my soul; but at least you won't be better off.

Everyone hates; its a simple fact of our fallibility as mortals. When someone hates someone for far too long, it is called a grudge; these are facts that we all know by heart, within our hearts. A fact that less people know is that hate carries a power of its own, and for those already without a soul, this draws some attention... after all, the one who owns you could decide that you can't use your power to revel in your foes downfall...

And we can't have that, can we?

BECOMING AN UNREPENTANT PACT-BOUND HUNTER
Training is unnecessary; all that it takes is that you HATE enough. We aren't talking a simple everyday hate; the path that you take will ultimately leave you as completely unforgiving and uncompromising, a blade to strike the hearts of those who have done you wrong, whether they believe they have done so or not.

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
Alignment: Any non-Good
Special: Favored Enemy +2, Eldritch Blast 2d6, must have gone through a lengthy ritual designed to void your pact with dark forces.
BAB: +4
Feats: Track
Skills: Survival 8 ranks, Sense Motive 5 ranks, Spot 8 ranks, Listen 8 ranks

Class Skills
The Unrepentant Pact-Bound Hunter's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Search (Int), Spellcraft (Int) Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str), Use Magic Device (Cha) and Use Rope (Dex).
Skills Points at Each Level: 6 + int

Hit Dice: d6

Unrepentant Pact-Bound Hunter
{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|Spells

1st|
+1|
+0|
+0|
+2|Hateful Heart, A Pact With Oneself, Purity of Hate|+1 level of existing invoking class

2nd|
+2|
+0|
+0|
+3|Burst of Hatred (Bane)|+1 level of existing invoking class

3rd|
+3|
+1|
+1|
+3|Find the Hated Enemy (Feel Their Fear), Heart of Spite 1/encounter|+1 level of existing invoking class

4th|
+4|
+1|
+1|
+4|Those Who Aid My Enemies Are Enemies Themselves|+1 level of existing invoking class

5th|
+5|
+1|
+1|
+4|Burst of Hatred (Heart-Seeking)|+1 level of existing invoking class

6th|
+6|
+2|
+2|
+5|Hate Made Flesh, Heart of Spite 2/encounter|+1 level of existing invoking class

7th|
+7|
+2|
+2|
+5|Find the Hated Enemy (None Can Hide)|+1 level of existing invoking class

8th|
+8|
+2|
+2|
+6|Burst of Hatred (Thinaun)|+1 level of existing invoking class

9th|
+9|
+3|
+3|
+6|Heart of Spite 3/encounter|+1 level of existing invoking class

10th|
+10|
+3|
+3|
+7|Murder Unjustified and Undue|+1 level of existing invoking class [/table]

Weapon Proficiencies: An Unrepentant Pact-Bound Hunter gains no new armor or weapon proficiencies.

Hateful Heart (Ex): An Unrepentant Pact-Bound Hunter has reached beyond the pitiful amount of hate a ranger may muster with their Favored Enemies, truly transforming them into a dagger in the heart of their foe.

Upon gaining this class feature, select one of your Favored Enemies to be your Chosen Enemy.

Double your Favored Enemy bonus against your Chosen Enemy; in addition, any time you would gain a new Favored Enemy, you instead learn a new invocation of any grade you have access to.

Levels in this class stack with levels in other classes that grant the Favored Enemy class feature for the purposes of determining your Favored Enemy bonus.

A Pact with Oneself (Ex): An Unrepentant Pact-Bound Hunter is not content to be a simple tool for another; their brilliant hate manifests itself in a completely different way.

From this point onward, you may select spells from the Ranger spell list as invocations, following the following table; however, these spells retain their original casting time. In addition, you may select spells from the Assassin spell list as if their spell level were one higher. Any spell that designates a weapon instead applies to your Eldritch Blast.

In return, you no longer can learn invocations from the Warlock list, due to the breaking of your pact. One exception to this is if the Warlock has been Baptized (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=173039); they still may take any Invocations that are part of the Baptism, as the process of Baptism fundamentally alters the nature of the Warlock.

{table=head]Level of Spell|Grade of Invocation

1st|Least

2nd|Lesser

3rd|Greater

4th|Dark[/table]

Purity of Hate (Ex and Sp): An Unrepentant Pact-Bound Hunter is not bound to pathetic requirements like they were when they were barely leashed dogs; they may be of any non-Good alignment. In addition, they may make full attacks with their Eldritch Blast.

Burst of Hatred (Sp) An Unrepentant Pact-Bound Hunter has formed a pact with their deep, bottomless hate, and have learned to reform their Eldritch Blast to a more suitable form.

At 2nd level, when you use your Eldritch Blast against a Favored Enemy, you may choose to either deal your normal Eldritch Blast damage or a number of d6s equal to your Favored Enemy bonus.

At 5th level, you may choose to make your Eldritch Blast as a Full Round Action; if you choose to do so, you can treat any Chosen Enemies you can sense (able to see, Blindsense, Tremorsense, or the like) as if you have both Line of Sight and Line of Effect to them.

At 8th level, any Chosen Enemy you kill or destroy with your Eldritch Blast has their soul removed from their body, and stored within yours. As a result, they cannot be resurrected by any means, including Wish, Miracle, or True Resurrection, without your being adjacent to the body and being willing to allow the spell to affect the creature. You may have a number of stored souls equal to your Charisma modifier.

Find the Hated Enemy (Su): An Unrepentant Pact-Bound Hunter has abilities beyond that of any natural hunter while stalking those that they hate.

At 3rd level, you automatically succeed on any Survival checks made to track a Chosen Enemy; if they cannot be tracked, you instead gain the ability to track them normally.

At 7th level, you gain Blindsight out to 10ft per point of your Charisma modifier, which can only sense your Chosen Enemies.

Heart of Spite (Su): Nothing brings an Unrepentant Pact-Bound Hunter more joy than to spite his enemies.

At 3rd level, you may cause any Favored Enemy struck by your Eldritch Blast to make a Will save against a DC of (10 + your Class Level + your Charisma modifier) or be subject to the effects of a Bestow Curse spell.

You may use this class feature once per encounter; at 6th level, and every 3 levels thereafter, you gain another use of this ability per encounter.

Those Who Aid My Enemies Are Enemies Themselves (Ex): You hate, but your hate is rather discriminate; you hate one type of creature above all else. But what of their allies? They are just as worthy of Hatred.

At 4th level, you may treat any creature a Chosen Enemy considers an ally as if they were a Favored Enemy; your bonus against them is equal to half your Chosen Enemy bonus.

Hate Made Flesh (Ex): The grudges and hates that sustain and power an Unrepentant Pact-Bound Hunter have reached unimaginably high heights; some might even say epic.

At 6th level, add your Chosen Enemy bonus to the number of negative hit points you need to be at before dying. In addition, you gain Fast Healing 2 for 5 rounds whenever you kill or destroy a Favored Enemy; if you are already under the effects of Fast Healing from this class feature, instead increase your Fast Healing by 2 and reset the duration.

Murder Unjustified and Undue (Su): Unrepentant Pact-Bound Hunter's care nothing for justice and restraint; those pitiful concepts have long been subsumed by their sheer hate.

At 10th level, you gain Immunity to Magic as if you were a Golem, except that it only applies to spells and supernatural abilities used by your Favored Enemies.

In addition, when you use Heart of Spite on a Chosen Enemy, it duplicates the effects of Bestow Greater Curse rather than Bestow Curse.

Finally, your attitude towards your Favored Enemies is permanently changed to Hostile, and cannot be altered by any means; if you would be Charmed by one of your Favored Enemies, the effect automatically ends as if you had been attacked.

PLAYING AN UNREPENTANT PACT-BOUND HUNTER
Quite basically, you focus on your Favored Enemies, which means that you are primarily a damage dealer; however, you can use a couple spells drawn from a nice list to bolster your usefulness in other ways.
Combat: Damage dealing is pretty much your forte, with Invocations like Hunter's Eye increasing damage potential, along with pretty strong debuffs, such as Heart of Spite or Murder Unjustified and Undue.
Advancement: After this point, most Unrepentant Pact-Bound Hunters follow a path that allows them to hurt their Chosen Enemies even more, which is to say, practically any path, though a path such as stealing hellfire to make your foes pay seems to be popular.
Resources: Hatred leaves nearly no room for cooperation, and the isolated nature of your powers leave most Unrepentant Pact-Bound Hunters with only their own resources to draw on.

UNREPENTANT PACT-BOUND HUNTERS IN THE WORLD
I'm only glad he doesn't hate me...

Thankfully, your kind are rare. You tend to be rather... destructive of the areas you pass through if you happen to encounter a Chosen Enemy.
Daily Life: Wake up. Locate some Chosen Enemies. Kill them. Laugh. Eat Breakfast. Do whatever the hell you want.
Notables: She Who Hates (NE Lesser Tiefling Warlock 3/Ranger 2/Unrepentant Pact-Bound Hunter 10) was supposedly the first humanoid to ever walk this path; her hate for humans nearly ended in the slaughter of every inhabitant of a large kingdom.
Organizations: There are no known organizations that focus on Hunters, though evil armies do tend to love to get their hands on them.

NPC Reaction
Unrepentant Pact-Bound Hunters live in veil of hate, loathing, hate, sadistic glee at the pain of their enemies, and did I mention hate? Their exploits are legends in their own times, told to children to get them to behave. They are seen as monsters of the worst sort... among the race they have as a Chosen Enemy.

UNREPENTANT PACT-BOUND HUNTERS IN THE GAME
Against Chosen Enemies, this class will end combats quickly, through shear damage dealing potential; against others, this class just brings to bear unlimited Ranger and Assassin spells, which is nice, but not too overly powerful.
Adaptation: They could be staunch defenders of nature, by simply replacing the names of abilities, and replacing the Hateful Blast (Thinaun) with something more appropriate.
Encounters: Players who aren't Chosen Enemies should be ignored or even be mostly safe from the Hunter; if they are Chosen Enemies (and why wouldn't they be?), they should get ready to fight someone who focuses specifically on killing their kind, who has some very nasty tricks. And if they are friends with a Chosen Enemy? Their lives are forfeit.