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Krimm_Blackleaf
2007-05-01, 02:42 AM
What can I say? I liked it.
--
Hell-Rider
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y265/Nny2/Ghost_Rider_2_cover.jpg
A diabolical Hell-Rider slays a demon

Some people are tempted into pacts with devils and their ilk, only a few are actually recreuited by any of the lords of the nine. Hell-riders are warriors who have made a pact with the lord of hellfire, Mephistopheles. In his service you become a wicked pon under the archdevil's thumb taking souls and destroying his enemies.
Adaptation: It is possible to make a Lawful good variant of this class in which only Hellbred may take. All the class abilities would be similar, except all instances where he might harm good, he would instead do harm to evil i.e. his Stare of the Pit.

HD: d10

Requirements
Alignment: Any nongood and nonchaotic
BAB: +6
Feats: Devil's Favor, Mounted Combat
Skills: Knowledge (religion) 4 ranks, Ride 8 ranks
Special: Must have made a pact with Mephistopheles to gain the powers of the Hell-Rider.

Class-Skills: Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Ride (Dex) and Swim (Str).
Skill-points per level: 2+Int modifier

{table="head"]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special
1st|+1|+2|+2|+0|Form of the Hellborn 1/day, special mount, detect good and evil
2nd|+2|+3|+3|+0|Hellfire resistance 5
3rd|+3|+3|+3|+1|Stare of the Pit
4th|+4|+4|+4|+1|Hellfire resistance 10
5th|+5|+4|+4|+1|Weapons of Hellfire
6th|+6|+5|+5|+2|Hellfire resistance 15
7th|+7|+5|+5|+2|Form of the Hellborn 2/day
8th|+8|+6|+6|+2|Hellfire Immunity
9th|+9|+6|+6|+3|Tireless Ride
10th|+10|+7|+7|+3|Burst of Doom
[/table]

Weapon and Armor proficiencies: Hell-Riders are proficient with all simple and martial weapons and with all light armors but not shields.

Form of the Hellborn (Su): The instant you sign your name in blood to create a pact with the Lord of Hellfire you are bestowed with infernal power. You can, as a full-round action take the form of a wicked creature, sometimes as a skeleton, sometimes as a vile fiend and sometimes just as a twisted evil representation of your normal form but all forms share one difining feature: a swirling aura of burning hellfire. In this shape you gain several bonuses, firstly you gain a +2 profane bonus to strength and constitution, a deflection bonus to your armor class equal to your charisma modifier (although no greater than your hell-rider level) and a special hellfire aura that deals 1d6 per 2 hell-rider levels (minimum 1d6) worth of hellfire damage to any one attacking with natural weapons or unarmed strikes or anyone grappling the hell-rider. At 5th level the bonus to ability scores increases to +4 and at 9th level it increases to +8. This ability is usable once per day at first level and twice per day at 7th and lasts 1 hour per hell-rider level.

Special Mount (Su): At first level, your pact with Mephistopheles grants you a bond with a particularly wicked mount. This acts like the paladin's special mount, except your mount is a lawfull-evil fiendish heavy warhorse (or appropriate animal, with DM approval) who is wreathed in the same hellfire aura of the Hell-rider, which only gives the damage bonuses.

Detect Good and Evil (Sp): As a standard action, a Hell-rider may use detect good or detect evil as spell-like abilities. These abilities are usable at will, but only while in the Form of the Hellborn.

Hellfire Resistance (Su): At 2nd level your infernal bond with Hell grants you resistance against that wich fuels you. You gain resistance to both fire and hellfire 5. This increases to 10 at 4th level, 15 at 6th level and the Hell-rider gains full immunity to fire and hellfire at 8th level.

Stare of the Pit (Su): At third level you gain the ability to burn souls with your natural hellfire. This counts as a gaze attack with a range of 10. If you catch a hell-rider's gaze you must make a will save with a DC of 10+hell-rider level + cha modifier or take a certain amount of damage. Anyone of chaotic or good alignment takes 1d6 points of damage per hell-rider level, anyone of nuetral alignment takes 1d4 points of damage per hell-rider level and anyone of chaotic good alignment takes 1d10 points of damage per hell-rider level. Lawful evil souls are not safe either; Mephistopheles wants as much divine energy as he can get his hands on, so lawful evil creatures take 1d8 points of damage per hellrider level and if killed by it become a soul in possession of the lord of hellfire. This does not effect those without souls, such as constructs, undead or the like. Lawful evil outsiders are unaffected by this ability as they are either already proporty of Mephistopheles or some other archdevil.

Weapons of Hellfire (Su): Starting at 5th level, the hell-rider takes his aura of hellfire and imbues his weapons with it. Any melee weapon a Hell-rider wields deals an additional 1d6 points of hellfire damage to a foe it strikes. This stacks with any other bonuses to damage that may have been applied to a weapon.

Tireless Ride (Ex): At 9th level your mount becomes suffused with some of the powers of the pit. It gains the same immunity to hellfire you have, it's speed increases by 20 feet and may run tirelessly for as long as you are in your Form of the Hellborn. It also no longer needs food or water to live but still requires air.

Burst of Doom (Sp): Once per day, any one person you chose who fails to avoid your Stare of the Pit is assaulted by a blast of ultimately destructive hellfire. This works identically to the Detonate spell (see complete arcane) except instead of fire damage it is hellfire damage, with a caster level of 15th and a saving throw equal to that of the Stare of the Pit.

sigurd
2007-05-01, 05:47 AM
Fun Class, Thanks.

XtheYeti
2007-05-01, 07:26 AM
nice, this is a great take on ghost rider.

Krimm_Blackleaf
2007-05-01, 04:05 PM
Added a flavorful reason why Stare of the Pit affects Lawful Evil creatures and gave it the ability to detect good and evil.

Triaxx
2007-05-01, 06:24 PM
I like it. Very nice. The only real bars are the BAB. This would be very nice to have for a barbarian, or Bard. Even a Sorceror could take a level to gain that deflection bonus.

Tinranor
2007-05-01, 07:08 PM
I'm assuming that all the non-mount powers only function while in the alternate form?


I like it. Very nice. The only real bars are the BAB. This would be very nice to have for a barbarian, or Bard. Even a Sorceror could take a level to gain that deflection bonus.

Mrm, the deflection bonus is limited to both the charisma modifier AND the hellrider level so unless a Sorceror invests a few levels into the PrC, he's not going to get much out of the deflection bonus.

Krimm_Blackleaf
2007-05-01, 07:37 PM
I'm assuming that all the non-mount powers only function while in the alternate form?

Unless it states otherwise, things function outside Form of the Hellborn normally, which by itself gives plenty of bonuses in itself. I wanted a few bonuses outside of the Hellborn form.

ShneekeyTheLost
2007-05-01, 07:47 PM
To be a pedant... Stare at the Pit is called Penitent's Stare. Thus referenced in the movie.

And to be honest, I could do 99% of what the guy in the movie did with Pyrokeneticist. Flame Lash... check. Shooting a bolt of pure fire... check. Weapon/Hands Afire... check. Nimbus... check. Going up walls and leaving a trail of fire behind... check. Staring at something and making them keel over dead... it's called Heat Death for a Pyro and requires a Fort Save, but check.

A slight variant to make them Su rather than Ps abilities, give them detect Evil (don't need Detect Good, an absence of Evil renders a 'not guilty' verdict) and a Mount which shares his abilities, and you're all good.

Krimm_Blackleaf
2007-05-01, 07:58 PM
Honestly, I wasn't looking to make a perfect Ghost rider clone. I just wanted to make a class that could very easily do that, but could also become something completely different with similar powers (and a slightly more evil twist). Personally, my ideal ghostrider is an actually evil black knight wreathed in flame on a diabolical horse and a wicked blade in his hand. Plus I like all the hellfire damage instead of regular fire.

Harkone
2007-05-01, 11:07 PM
I think the PrC is really cool, but I have one concern: the Stare of the Pit seems awfully powerful. I mean, gaze attacks are always functioning, right? So a mid- to high-level Hell Rider is inflicting alot of damage, possibly every round, to a pretty wide variety of foes. Is this concern justified?

Krimm_Blackleaf
2007-05-01, 11:17 PM
I think the PrC is really cool, but I have one concern: the Stare of the Pit seems awfully powerful. I mean, gaze attacks are always functioning, right? So a mid- to high-level Hell Rider is inflicting alot of damage, possibly every round, to a pretty wide variety of foes. Is this concern justified?
I never saw gaze attacks to be as powerful as they seem. First, you get a 50% chance to avoid his gaze altogether, and then a save against the effect, and charisma is not a commonly high ability among classes who may take this class(fighters, barbarians, etc).

This of course is just my opinion, someone else may disagree with me and have a far more solid case as for why.

ShneekeyTheLost
2007-05-02, 02:06 AM
In the movie, Good people didn't take any damage at all (case in point, the kid in the jail cell... 'Not Guilty'). So only Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic Evil alignments should get the burn. It's based on the amount of evil done. About the best way to do this in D&D is to do set damage equal to the HD of the critter you are staring at.

Also, to limit the power, you might want to require a Grapple check first, then the guy gets a save, removing the Gaze Attack from it completely. He never did it at range, he always grappled and stared right into the target's eyes...

Tor the Fallen
2007-05-02, 02:18 AM
Mephistopheles wants as much divine energy as he can get his hands on, so lawful evil creatures take 1d8 points of damage per hellrider level and if killed by it become a soul in possession of the lord of hellfire. This does not effect those without souls, such as constructs, undead or the like.

[Borat voice]Wah wah wee wah![/Borat voice]

That would be an incredibly powerful ability, RP wise. Wading through imps, Mephistopheles would be wracking up the souls. If you judge what a soul costs by the Faustian packs in the Fiendish Codex II, then, sheesh.
Mephistopheles is about to take Hell.

Krimm_Blackleaf
2007-05-02, 02:26 AM
Hmm...maybe I shouldn't let it affect outsiders...

ShneekeyTheLost
2007-05-02, 02:34 AM
Hmm...maybe I shouldn't let it affect outsiders...

In the movie, it doesn't affect outsiders. In fact, you should probably limit this to only things with a 'soul'. This is getting on shaky ground, but I'd have to go with Humanoids and Monsterous Humanoids only. Undead have given up their souls to become undead. That's why channeling Positive Energy can turn or destroy them. Outsiders, as Blackheart said, don't have souls. As for the rest... most of the rest aren't sentient, and probably don't have souls.

Krimm_Blackleaf
2007-05-02, 02:42 AM
Well, there's fey, aberrations, dragons...

Tor the Fallen
2007-05-02, 05:19 AM
In the movie, it doesn't affect outsiders. In fact, you should probably limit this to only things with a 'soul'. This is getting on shaky ground, but I'd have to go with Humanoids and Monsterous Humanoids only. Undead have given up their souls to become undead. That's why channeling Positive Energy can turn or destroy them. Outsiders, as Blackheart said, don't have souls. As for the rest... most of the rest aren't sentient, and probably don't have souls.

Outsiders are souls.
Lawful Evil souls end up in Hell where they become Lemures and slowly work their way up the fiendish heirarchy. It's possible for a former mortal to become one of the Nine, in theory.

EvilElitest
2007-05-02, 12:14 PM
Well, there's fey, aberrations, dragons...

Like the class, but what is this movie everyone is talking about?

Anyways, fey have souls, dragons have souls, aberrations, vary. If you use lords of madness, then yes. If you play ebberon, then no
from,
EE

Krimm_Blackleaf
2007-05-02, 02:51 PM
I don't know if anyone noticed (probably because I didn't mention it) but I made it no longer effect lawful evil outsiders. I was thinking about it not making sense to not effect other outsiders, as they ARE souls (as mentioned previously) but lawful evil souls have no reason to be burned.

EvilElitest
2007-05-02, 07:56 PM
I don't know if anyone noticed (probably because I didn't mention it) but I made it no longer effect lawful evil outsiders. I was thinking about it not making sense to not effect other outsiders, as they ARE souls (as mentioned previously) but lawful evil souls have no reason to be burned.

Here is the deal with outsiders, they are souls, but you can't use them. they are already used souls, given shape. Outsiders are destroyed where mortals just die. They are souls in their true form, and thus no longer posses the abilty to be tempted by good or evil
from,
EE

Krimm_Blackleaf
2007-05-02, 08:03 PM
I know this all too well, but as souls they can still burn, but only LE mortals can be burned and sent to Mephistopheles. All the rest are merely harmed from the inside out but not sent to Hell. As for devils, it would just be pointless and useless because they're already the denizens of Baator and either already the proporty of Mephistopheles or the legal proporty of another Archdevil.