PDA

View Full Version : Pathfinder [Archetype] Sin Slayer (Antipaladin)



Xuldarinar
2014-10-06, 09:02 PM
SIN SLAYER (ANTIPALADIN)
-While most antipaladins stand as weapons pointed against the forces of good, tools of the demons and deities of the abyss, there is another breed. Sin slayers are antipaladins who draw upon the qlippoth and exist to purge sin from the world. They force the sins from those they slay, keeping them from becoming demons in the next life, and they murder the innocent so they never have the chance to become damned.

-Detect Sin (Sp): At will, a sin slayer can seek out those stained by a particular sin. This functions as detect evil, except it seeks out those possessing a particular sin rather than those of a particular alignment, chosen each time the sin slayer uses detect sin. This sin typically is one of the seven deadly sins, but it may be any that there exists a specific type of demon that represents it. A sin slayer can, as a move action, concentrate on a single Item or individual within 60 feet and determine if it possesses the sin they are detecting, learning the strength of its aura as if having studied it for 3 rounds. While focusing on one individual or object, the sin slayer does not detect sin in any other object or individual within range. This replaces the detect good class feature.

-Smite the Sinful (Su): Once per day, a sin slayer can call out to the powers of his dark masters to help wipe out those stained by sin. As a swift action, the sin slayer chooses one target within sight to smite and declares which sin they are seeking to smite. If this target possesses said sin, which must be one a type of demon exists that represents it, the sin slayer adds his Cha bonus (if any) to his attack rolls and adds his sin slayer level to all damage rolls made against the target of his smite. If the target of smite the sinful is the demonic embodiment of the sin, the bonus to damage on the first successful attack increases to 2 points of damage per level the sin slayer possesses. Regardless of the target, smite the sinful attacks automatically bypass any DR the creature might possess.

-In addition, while smite the sinful is in effect, the sin slayer gains a deflection bonus equal to his Charisma modifier (if any) to her AC against attacks made by the target of the smite. If the sin slayer targets a creature that lacks the sin the smite is attuned to, the smite is wasted with no effect.

-Any creature slain by the sin slayer while the target of smite the sinful is purged of their sins and their soul is kept from being sent to the abyss. Souls destined for other evil-aligned planes may still wind up there, and even those normally sent to the abyss may not avoid a horrific fate after death. If the creature slain is a demon that represents the specific sin the smite is attuned to, the demon is utterly destroyed.

-The smite the sinful effect remains until the target of the smite is dead or the next time the sin slayer rests and regains his uses of this ability. At 4th level, and at every three levels thereafter, the sin slayer may smite the sinful one additional time per day, to a maximum of seven times per day at 19th level. This replaces the antipaladin's smite good class feature.

-Fiendish Boon (Su): A sin slayer who chooses a fiendish servant for their boon takes on a qlippoth blighted creature as their servant. The creature chosen may be of the highest summon monster list available to be selected from by the antipaladin that the fiendish template could be applied to, or one level lower for any other sort of monster. The sin the qlippoth-blighted creature is attuned to is decided when the creature is selected. In all other respects this class feature functions as normal. This modifies the antipaladin's fiendish boon class feature.

-Aura of Vengeance (Su): This functions as normal except that it applies to smite the sinful instead of smite good. This modifies the antipaladin's aura of vengeance class feature.

-Aura of Demon's Bane (Su): At 14th level, a sin slayer's weapons are treated as good-aligned for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction. Any attack made against an enemy within 10 feet of him is treated as good-aligned for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction. This ability functions only while the sin slayer is conscious, not if he is unconscious or dead. This replaces the antipaladin's aura of sin class feature.

-Aura of Discord (Su): At 17th level, a sin slayer gains DR 5/lawful. Each enemy within 10 feet takes a –4 penalty on saving throws against compulsion effects. This ability functions only while the sin slayer is conscious, not if he is unconscious or dead. This replaces the antipaladin's aura of depravity.

-Qlippoth Champion (Su): At 20th level, a sin slayer becomes a conduit for the qlippoth. His DR increases to 10/lawful. Whenever he uses smite the sinful against a demon, the sin slayer's critical threat range is doubled for the purpose of attacks against the demon and automatically confirms all criticals against them. This does stack with other effects that increase threat range. In addition, whenever he channels negative energy or uses touch of corruption to damage a creature, he deals the maximum possible amount. This replaces the antipaladin's unholy champion class feature.


-Code of Conduct: A sin slayer must be of chaotic evil alignment and loses all class features except proficiencies if he willingly and altruistically commits good acts. This does not mean that a sin slayer cannot take actions someone else might qualify as good, only that such actions must ultimately be in service of seeking out and destroying demons and those who may be destined to become one. A sin slayer’s code requires that he place the interests of the qlippoth above all else, as well as take advantage whenever possible, and slay the good and just as to prevent them from ever falling, provided such actions don’t interfere with his goals.

Xuldarinar
2015-11-17, 10:37 PM
Digging this up and giving it a fresh coat of paint in hopes of some feedback.

Ethereal Gears
2015-11-18, 02:51 AM
Ooohhh! I'm very glad you dug this up, Xuldarinar! I've always been a big fan of your ingenious twists on the paladin and antipaladin classes, but this one, I daresay, takes the cake! :)

I love the idea, mechanically, of an antipaladin that focuses on killing other evil creatures, but I've never been able to think up a flavor concept for it myself. I think this one is excellent however. I've never been particularly drawn to the qlippoth conceptually, but this really sparked my interest in the whole demon-qlippoth war thing. Like, I would almost wanna start incorporating it into an upcoming campaign I'm running simply to have a reason to throw a bunch of sin slayer NPCs in there.

I really don't have a lot of quibbles with the mechanics; it all seems pretty straightforward. I think all the abilities seem flavorful and balanced, as far as I am able to parse the rules text. There are a few things that strike me as ambiguous, though, so maybe you could help clarify:

1. Does detect sin essentially function like a sinspawn's sin-scent ability? I don't mean in terms of how it operates (that's clearly based on detect evil) but in terms of how it detects sin? It could possibly be useful to refer the sin-scent ability, just to give GMs something to refer to. I think sin-scent basically just clarifies that it is up to GM discretion which creatures count as viable targets or not. This is of course always the case (GM always has final say) but it might be helpful for such an open-ended ability, and would help clarify who you can use smite the sinful against and not. This might just be me overthinking things, but I just wanted to throw it out there.

2. Fiendish boon is really cool; I wasn't even aware of the qlippoth-blighted template. That's a very neat template. I'm curious though, wouldn't it be kind of neat to add a few CR-appropriate qlippoth to the summon monster lists in order to allow these guys to gain an actual qlippoth as a boon, in addition to qlippoth-blighted critters? Just an idea.

So anyway, this is really awesome. Good work. I love this archetype. In the spirit of seeking feedback for things, I would love to hear your views about my nihilurge base class I posted on this forum a few days back. It's basically an expansion of the world deformer shadewright archetype I created for your cool alloprax race, and also inspired by your Marked project (which I'm still hoping to see updates to, BTW!). Just a small plug at the end here.

Cheers,
- Gears

Xuldarinar
2015-11-18, 03:21 AM
Ooohhh! I'm very glad you dug this up, Xuldarinar! I've always been a big fan of your ingenious twists on the paladin and antipaladin classes, but this one, I daresay, takes the cake! :)

I love the idea, mechanically, of an antipaladin that focuses on killing other evil creatures, but I've never been able to think up a flavor concept for it myself. I think this one is excellent however. I've never been particularly drawn to the qlippoth conceptually, but this really sparked my interest in the whole demon-qlippoth war thing. Like, I would almost wanna start incorporating it into an upcoming campaign I'm running simply to have a reason to throw a bunch of sin slayer NPCs in there.

I really don't have a lot of quibbles with the mechanics; it all seems pretty straightforward. I think all the abilities seem flavorful and balanced, as far as I am able to parse the rules text. There are a few things that strike me as ambiguous, though, so maybe you could help clarify:

1. Does detect sin essentially function like a sinspawn's sin-scent ability? I don't mean in terms of how it operates (that's clearly based on detect evil) but in terms of how it detects sin? It could possibly be useful to refer the sin-scent ability, just to give GMs something to refer to. I think sin-scent basically just clarifies that it is up to GM discretion which creatures count as viable targets or not. This is of course always the case (GM always has final say) but it might be helpful for such an open-ended ability, and would help clarify who you can use smite the sinful against and not. This might just be me overthinking things, but I just wanted to throw it out there.

2. Fiendish boon is really cool; I wasn't even aware of the qlippoth-blighted template. That's a very neat template. I'm curious though, wouldn't it be kind of neat to add a few CR-appropriate qlippoth to the summon monster lists in order to allow these guys to gain an actual qlippoth as a boon, in addition to qlippoth-blighted critters? Just an idea.

So anyway, this is really awesome. Good work. I love this archetype. In the spirit of seeking feedback for things, I would love to hear your views about my nihilurge base class I posted on this forum a few days back. It's basically an expansion of the world deformer shadewright archetype I created for your cool alloprax race, and also inspired by your Marked project (which I'm still hoping to see updates to, BTW!). Just a small plug at the end here.

Cheers,
- Gears

Your praise is always a welcome sight. I rather enjoy the concept of evil against evil, but somehow there is little mechanically to support such conflict. Sure, you have things that can smite chaos, and maybe some things that can combat law, but never something to fight its own alignment. Initially I had this simply as antipaladins who smite evil, but having since taken a serious look at Qlippoth-blighted creatures, I had to bring this back and give it that much needed twist in its abilities. This takes a differing approach, but ultimately has a similar result. You are going to find far more sinful evil creatures than good after all. Now to address the questions.

1. I should have made reference to an ability. Ultimately, when it comes to sin, I refer to this as described on the bottom of the PFSRD page on the Qlippoth-Blighted creature template;

Sin can be a difficult concept for a GM to deal with. In many ways, sin is more nebulous than alignment since even good creatures have sin on their souls, and evil ones have aspects of virtue on theirs. For some creatures, such as demons, which sin they represent is easy to determine, as it is usually specified in its description. However, for player characters this can be more difficult. Most mortals' souls, even the most penitent paladin, are tainted by more than one sin. If you are going to use the qlippoth-blighted in your game, you need to determine which sins a PC possesses based on their past actions. For example, a PC who consistently seeks to kill sentient creatures, even if they do not threaten him, would be guilty of the sin of murder and potentially wrath. However, a single incident of killing someone intentionally would not necessarily taint their soul with sin (but it still might affect their alignment). Generally speaking, a PC's sins should reflect their overall character, not any one particular incident.


2. Thats not a bad idea. I'll look over CRs and see where I could plug different qlippoth in. It should be fairly common sense.




Oh, and something fun of note for Sin Slayers; If you ever have NPCs using the archetype, or want to mess up a party with an antipaladin of any kind, strongly consider the damnation feats (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/damnation-feats). Especially for what is contributed by Mask of Virtue (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/damnation-feats/mask-of-virtue-damnation).

Ethereal Gears
2015-11-18, 08:59 AM
Oh, I'm quite aware of damnation feats. They're pretty awesome. I agree that Mask of Virtue would be perfect for a Sin Slayer. It does almost make me tempted to play one in Rappan Athuk if (or more likely when) my current character gets killed by some APL + 7 encounter wandering around a corner. It would be pretty badass to play a qlippoth-sworn antipaladin out to kill the hell outta Orcus!

Anyway, I'm definitely going to include this archetype in an upcoming campaign I'm GMing. The story features this slowly brewing all-out war between a host of Outer Plane factions that are all getting drawn to the Material Planes for mysterious reasons. There'll be some weird things like azatas and demons teaming up to fight against archons that have allied themselves with inevitables on the side of Law, but more traditional and canonical conflicts like demons vs. devils and, of course, qlippoth wanting to rout the usurpers of their native plane, will also feature heavily. So these guys are perfect for that campaign! :)

Cheers,
- Gears