Arkhios
2015-12-08, 06:02 AM
TEMPLAR
Level
Proficiency Bonus
Features
Cantrips
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1
+2
Spellcasting, Lorekeeper, Order
2
2
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
2
+2
Templar’s Knack, Order Feature
2
3
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
3
+2
—
2
4
2
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
4
+2
Ability Score Improvement
3
4
3
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
5
+3
—
3
4
3
2
—
—
—
—
—
—
6
+3
Order Feature
3
4
3
3
—
—
—
—
—
-
7
+3
—
3
4
3
3
1
—
—
—
—
—
8
+3
Ability Score Improvement
3
4
3
3
2
—
—
—
—
—
9
+4
—
3
4
3
3
3
1
—
—
—
—
10
+4
Order Feature
4
4
3
3
3
2
—
—
—
—
11
+4
—
4
4
3
3
3
2
1
—
—
—
12
+4
Ability Score Improvement
4
4
3
3
3
2
1
—
—
—
13
+5
—
4
4
3
3
3
2
1
1
—
—
14
+5
Order Feature
4
4
3
3
3
2
1
1
—
—
15
+5
—
4
4
3
3
3
2
1
1
1
—
16
+5
Ability Score Improvement
4
4
3
3
3
2
1
1
1
—
17
+6
—
4
4
3
3
3
2
1
1
1
1
18
+6
Grand Lorekeeper
4
4
3
3
3
3
1
1
1
1
19
+6
Ability Score Improvement
4
4
3
3
3
3
2
1
1
1
20
+6
Order Feature
4
4
3
3
3
3
2
2
1
1
Class Features:
Hit Die: 1d8+Con at 1st level; 1d8 (or 5) + Con each level after first.
Armor and Weapon Proficiencies: You have proficiency with light armor and with all simple weapons. Orders may grant more.
Tools: Select one artisan's tool to be proficient with.
Saving Throws: See individual Orders.
Skills: See individual Orders.
Spellcasting
Spellcasting methods vary between each Order so that they are in practice unique to each order. As such, their spellcasting ability depends from their Order. In general, however, their spellcasting follow same universal rules.
Spell Saving Throw DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Order’s ability modifier.
Spell Attack Bonus = your proficiency bonus + your Order’s ability modifier.
Cantrips: At 1st level, you know two cantrips of your choice from your Order spell list. You learn additional Order cantrips of your choice at higher levels, as shown in the Cantrips Known column of the Templar table.
Spells Known and casting spells: Templars have access to the Abjuration, Illusion, and Necromancy schools, from which they can learn their spells by default. In addition, each Order grants access to another School which is open only for the given Order. You know all spells from your Order’s Secret and Specialized schools as specified under each Order. Over time, you may choose to learn the spells from the two remaining Universal schools, but you must acquire each one individually through research, study, or by learning them from another Templar. In order to cast spells, you must prepare them when you finish a long rest. Each day you can prepare a number of spells equal to your Order’s Ability Modifier + ½ of your Templar level. These spells can be from any spell levels you are able to cast and for which you have spell slots available. You can cast your prepared spells in any combination until you have expended all spell slots.
It's intentional that the Templar can prepare less spells than a full-caster normaly would. This is due to the core assumption of Magic in the Torn Horizon. If you wanted to use Templar elsewhere, your DM might allow Templars to prepare spells equal to their Order's Ability Modifier + your Templar level
Ritual Casting: You can cast a Templar spell as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag and you have the spells prepared.
Wild Magic: For a Templar, the chance when a Wild Magic Surge occurs depends on how familiar he or she is with the specific methods of casting a spell from each school.
Secret School = Advantage on the d20 roll to determine whether a spell causes a Wild Magic Surge.
Universal School = Disadvantage on the d20 roll to determine whether a spell causes a Wild Magic Surge.
Specialized School = No advantage nor disadvantage on the d20 roll to determine whether a spell causes a Wild Magic Surge.
Order: At 1st level, you swear fealty to the Templars and you make a vow you won’t share your Order’s secrets to anyone other than a Templar of your Order. If you do, you and all those with whom you shared them will be executed. If a Templar is executed for this reason, another Templars will refuse any requests of revival, and you must follow the rules for making a new character, as normal.
Multiclassing Note: A character who has levels in another class can multiclass into a Templar, if you can find a Templar of an appropriate order willing to Mentor you, but if a Templar ever multiclasses into another class, you may never continue to advance as a Templar, as the organization considers such thing as a violation of your vow. Multiclassed Templars are nevertheless subject to the vow’s punishments, if they ever share their secrets to the uninitiated.
Multiclassing Prerequisite stats are Cha 13 for Order of the Chain, Wis 13 for Order of the Flame, and Int 13 for Order of the Tome
Lorekeeper: Templars are the keepers of ancient lore, safeguarding and researching knowledge that is forgotten and yet to be found. At 1st level, select one skill from your order’s skill list with which you must be proficient with. You add double your proficiency bonus on all checks with this skill.
Templar’s Knack: Templars know the risks of spellcasting and have accepted the possible result as a one more eventuality in life. At 2nd level, when a Wild Magic Surge would occur, before your DM rolls to determine the event, you can choose to have your DM roll twice and you can choose which one will happen. You then make a Sanity saving throw against a DC equal to 10 + the level of spell which caused the Wild Magic Surge. If you fail the saving throw, you gain a short-term madness, which lasts until you finish a long rest.
OPTIONAL: If you use this class in campaign where spellcasting is stable, and doesn’t cause Wild Magic Surges, you instead learn signature spells from your Order’s secret lore. At each spell level from 1st to 9th select one spell. You have these spells prepared at all times and they do not count against your spells prepared each day.
Grand Lorekeeper: Once you reach 18th level, you add half your proficiency bonus to any skill checks that do not already benefit from your proficiency bonus. In addition, when you finish a short or long rest you can choose one skill you’re proficient with. All creatures of your choice within 30 feet of you (including yourself) who can either hear or see you gain advantage on all checks with that skill until you choose another skill.
The following three spoilers are some points of I think are worth mentioning, but which aren't really part of the class features per se:
Torn Horizon is a post-apocalyptic fantasy world, with strong flavors borrowed from Dark Sun, Eberron, the Fallout series, H.P.Lovecraft, and the Shadowrun. A civilization with advanced technologies is now ancient history, and the remains of those people are reduced to near extinction, struggling to survive against ever increasing dangers of the surrounding wilderness and new horrific threats risen during the apocalyptic cataclysm, simply dubbed as the Tearing (thus named Torn Horizon). Remnants of the ancient technology remain as wondrous devices, and some of the old technology have kept their place among the people, such as advanced surgery, along with advanced prosthetics, firearms being a common sight, and the warforged race, to name but a few.
Fear, madness, and sanity walk hand-in-hand. The never-before-seen monstrosities which now roam the wilderness have all the means to frighten the crap out of you, in the most literal way possible. I've taken it as a fairly common occurence, that if a character is at any time frightened by some abominable or supernatural creature or another similar phenomenon, he or she is subject to a possible madness, ranging from short-term to infinite, depending on the CR of the encounter.
Since madness is closely tied to sanity, in respect to Lovecraft, I've taken a seventh ability score from DMG: Sanity. Saves against fear are rolled as usual, but with a failure, there is additional save against madness, which is rolled with the Sanity Score. Obviously this isn't the only possible use for the additional ability score, but it is the most prevalent one.
First off, since I personally dislike a sort-of black & white point of view in things such as alignment, I liked the idea of dropping the concept altogether. However, while there is no real border between good or evil, I do recognize the need to monitor the general morale and motivation of characters - both player and non-player. That's why I've included a factor by which all Orders are judged: Pros & Cons. I've tried to maintain the ideals, that none of the Orders are particularly good or evil, but rather ambiguous instead. Each player can play their character as they feel right, without having to stick with some "code" to remain aligned to one end or another.
Another issue is with the deities. Too many fantasy roleplaying game is filled with dozens of different gods, waging their immortal war against each other, mortals as their pawns on a multi-layered dragonchess-board. For this reason, and partly for an intriguing idea, I decided to leave the setting wanting of deities altogether. This has worked well so far, and the beliefs upon higher (or lower) beings have remained as I see them, personal and abstract concepts for the characters, and not tied to any religious texts or tenets. And might even have some sway on the alignment vs morale view.
At first I was reluctant to allow magic at all in Torn Horizon campaign, but later on I realized the real issue I had with magic was with spells creating or summoning things out of thin air, not with the manipulating things already there. This led me to exclude two schools of magic completely: conjuration and evocation. However, since spellcasting classes from PHB are no doubt designed with purposes to accommodate even those schools of magic, allowing existing classes from the book might have proved problematic in the long run. So I decided to whip up a new class of my own, from the ground up.
For a while I wrestled with the idea of three distinct sub-classes of one class, all of which had their unique feel and function, but I didn't know how to do it. Then, with suggestion from a friend, I finally got it: 6 remaining schools divided with 3 sub-classes, with classic banned schools of magic for each one. I'd already had an idea of each order having their own spellcasting abilities, which helped me to form the thematic frames for their allowed vs banned schools. Finally I ended up with a concept: each sub-class an Order of the Templars (originally from Dark Sun, but later mixed up with real world templars and the ones from Assassin's Creed) had one school of magic as a secret for their own, and remaining 3 schools given universally to all.
Thematic guidelines for each order were Knowledge for Tome (Divination), Self-perfection and transcendence for Flame (Transmutation), and Social manipulation for Chain (Enchantment)
Because I still wanted to keep up the illusion of dangerous, unpredictable, and thus rare magics, I wanted to present a drawback on spellcasting. Not only were each individual order forbidden access to other orders' "secret" schools of magic, all magic would behave like they were cast by a sorcerer of Wild Magic Origin. However, unlike with the sorcerous origin, the 5% chance (a natural 1 from a d20 roll) would be present at each and every time a spell is cast. Granted, a few results on that table creates an effect that is roughly or precisely equivalent to a spell from either conjuration or evocation school, but since the caster wouldn't have any control over them, it would be alright. And would add up an extra risk; especially if one would trigger a fireball centered on oneself!
With this possibility in mind, I came up with a lenient idea of giving each order a better chance of not triggering a Wild Magic Surge, in the form of giving them advantage on the d20 roll if they were casting a spell from their secret school. Likewise they would have disadvantage on the roll if the spell being cast was from a school they were not particularly familiar with.
Level
Proficiency Bonus
Features
Cantrips
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1
+2
Spellcasting, Lorekeeper, Order
2
2
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
2
+2
Templar’s Knack, Order Feature
2
3
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
3
+2
—
2
4
2
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
4
+2
Ability Score Improvement
3
4
3
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
5
+3
—
3
4
3
2
—
—
—
—
—
—
6
+3
Order Feature
3
4
3
3
—
—
—
—
—
-
7
+3
—
3
4
3
3
1
—
—
—
—
—
8
+3
Ability Score Improvement
3
4
3
3
2
—
—
—
—
—
9
+4
—
3
4
3
3
3
1
—
—
—
—
10
+4
Order Feature
4
4
3
3
3
2
—
—
—
—
11
+4
—
4
4
3
3
3
2
1
—
—
—
12
+4
Ability Score Improvement
4
4
3
3
3
2
1
—
—
—
13
+5
—
4
4
3
3
3
2
1
1
—
—
14
+5
Order Feature
4
4
3
3
3
2
1
1
—
—
15
+5
—
4
4
3
3
3
2
1
1
1
—
16
+5
Ability Score Improvement
4
4
3
3
3
2
1
1
1
—
17
+6
—
4
4
3
3
3
2
1
1
1
1
18
+6
Grand Lorekeeper
4
4
3
3
3
3
1
1
1
1
19
+6
Ability Score Improvement
4
4
3
3
3
3
2
1
1
1
20
+6
Order Feature
4
4
3
3
3
3
2
2
1
1
Class Features:
Hit Die: 1d8+Con at 1st level; 1d8 (or 5) + Con each level after first.
Armor and Weapon Proficiencies: You have proficiency with light armor and with all simple weapons. Orders may grant more.
Tools: Select one artisan's tool to be proficient with.
Saving Throws: See individual Orders.
Skills: See individual Orders.
Spellcasting
Spellcasting methods vary between each Order so that they are in practice unique to each order. As such, their spellcasting ability depends from their Order. In general, however, their spellcasting follow same universal rules.
Spell Saving Throw DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Order’s ability modifier.
Spell Attack Bonus = your proficiency bonus + your Order’s ability modifier.
Cantrips: At 1st level, you know two cantrips of your choice from your Order spell list. You learn additional Order cantrips of your choice at higher levels, as shown in the Cantrips Known column of the Templar table.
Spells Known and casting spells: Templars have access to the Abjuration, Illusion, and Necromancy schools, from which they can learn their spells by default. In addition, each Order grants access to another School which is open only for the given Order. You know all spells from your Order’s Secret and Specialized schools as specified under each Order. Over time, you may choose to learn the spells from the two remaining Universal schools, but you must acquire each one individually through research, study, or by learning them from another Templar. In order to cast spells, you must prepare them when you finish a long rest. Each day you can prepare a number of spells equal to your Order’s Ability Modifier + ½ of your Templar level. These spells can be from any spell levels you are able to cast and for which you have spell slots available. You can cast your prepared spells in any combination until you have expended all spell slots.
It's intentional that the Templar can prepare less spells than a full-caster normaly would. This is due to the core assumption of Magic in the Torn Horizon. If you wanted to use Templar elsewhere, your DM might allow Templars to prepare spells equal to their Order's Ability Modifier + your Templar level
Ritual Casting: You can cast a Templar spell as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag and you have the spells prepared.
Wild Magic: For a Templar, the chance when a Wild Magic Surge occurs depends on how familiar he or she is with the specific methods of casting a spell from each school.
Secret School = Advantage on the d20 roll to determine whether a spell causes a Wild Magic Surge.
Universal School = Disadvantage on the d20 roll to determine whether a spell causes a Wild Magic Surge.
Specialized School = No advantage nor disadvantage on the d20 roll to determine whether a spell causes a Wild Magic Surge.
Order: At 1st level, you swear fealty to the Templars and you make a vow you won’t share your Order’s secrets to anyone other than a Templar of your Order. If you do, you and all those with whom you shared them will be executed. If a Templar is executed for this reason, another Templars will refuse any requests of revival, and you must follow the rules for making a new character, as normal.
Multiclassing Note: A character who has levels in another class can multiclass into a Templar, if you can find a Templar of an appropriate order willing to Mentor you, but if a Templar ever multiclasses into another class, you may never continue to advance as a Templar, as the organization considers such thing as a violation of your vow. Multiclassed Templars are nevertheless subject to the vow’s punishments, if they ever share their secrets to the uninitiated.
Multiclassing Prerequisite stats are Cha 13 for Order of the Chain, Wis 13 for Order of the Flame, and Int 13 for Order of the Tome
Lorekeeper: Templars are the keepers of ancient lore, safeguarding and researching knowledge that is forgotten and yet to be found. At 1st level, select one skill from your order’s skill list with which you must be proficient with. You add double your proficiency bonus on all checks with this skill.
Templar’s Knack: Templars know the risks of spellcasting and have accepted the possible result as a one more eventuality in life. At 2nd level, when a Wild Magic Surge would occur, before your DM rolls to determine the event, you can choose to have your DM roll twice and you can choose which one will happen. You then make a Sanity saving throw against a DC equal to 10 + the level of spell which caused the Wild Magic Surge. If you fail the saving throw, you gain a short-term madness, which lasts until you finish a long rest.
OPTIONAL: If you use this class in campaign where spellcasting is stable, and doesn’t cause Wild Magic Surges, you instead learn signature spells from your Order’s secret lore. At each spell level from 1st to 9th select one spell. You have these spells prepared at all times and they do not count against your spells prepared each day.
Grand Lorekeeper: Once you reach 18th level, you add half your proficiency bonus to any skill checks that do not already benefit from your proficiency bonus. In addition, when you finish a short or long rest you can choose one skill you’re proficient with. All creatures of your choice within 30 feet of you (including yourself) who can either hear or see you gain advantage on all checks with that skill until you choose another skill.
The following three spoilers are some points of I think are worth mentioning, but which aren't really part of the class features per se:
Torn Horizon is a post-apocalyptic fantasy world, with strong flavors borrowed from Dark Sun, Eberron, the Fallout series, H.P.Lovecraft, and the Shadowrun. A civilization with advanced technologies is now ancient history, and the remains of those people are reduced to near extinction, struggling to survive against ever increasing dangers of the surrounding wilderness and new horrific threats risen during the apocalyptic cataclysm, simply dubbed as the Tearing (thus named Torn Horizon). Remnants of the ancient technology remain as wondrous devices, and some of the old technology have kept their place among the people, such as advanced surgery, along with advanced prosthetics, firearms being a common sight, and the warforged race, to name but a few.
Fear, madness, and sanity walk hand-in-hand. The never-before-seen monstrosities which now roam the wilderness have all the means to frighten the crap out of you, in the most literal way possible. I've taken it as a fairly common occurence, that if a character is at any time frightened by some abominable or supernatural creature or another similar phenomenon, he or she is subject to a possible madness, ranging from short-term to infinite, depending on the CR of the encounter.
Since madness is closely tied to sanity, in respect to Lovecraft, I've taken a seventh ability score from DMG: Sanity. Saves against fear are rolled as usual, but with a failure, there is additional save against madness, which is rolled with the Sanity Score. Obviously this isn't the only possible use for the additional ability score, but it is the most prevalent one.
First off, since I personally dislike a sort-of black & white point of view in things such as alignment, I liked the idea of dropping the concept altogether. However, while there is no real border between good or evil, I do recognize the need to monitor the general morale and motivation of characters - both player and non-player. That's why I've included a factor by which all Orders are judged: Pros & Cons. I've tried to maintain the ideals, that none of the Orders are particularly good or evil, but rather ambiguous instead. Each player can play their character as they feel right, without having to stick with some "code" to remain aligned to one end or another.
Another issue is with the deities. Too many fantasy roleplaying game is filled with dozens of different gods, waging their immortal war against each other, mortals as their pawns on a multi-layered dragonchess-board. For this reason, and partly for an intriguing idea, I decided to leave the setting wanting of deities altogether. This has worked well so far, and the beliefs upon higher (or lower) beings have remained as I see them, personal and abstract concepts for the characters, and not tied to any religious texts or tenets. And might even have some sway on the alignment vs morale view.
At first I was reluctant to allow magic at all in Torn Horizon campaign, but later on I realized the real issue I had with magic was with spells creating or summoning things out of thin air, not with the manipulating things already there. This led me to exclude two schools of magic completely: conjuration and evocation. However, since spellcasting classes from PHB are no doubt designed with purposes to accommodate even those schools of magic, allowing existing classes from the book might have proved problematic in the long run. So I decided to whip up a new class of my own, from the ground up.
For a while I wrestled with the idea of three distinct sub-classes of one class, all of which had their unique feel and function, but I didn't know how to do it. Then, with suggestion from a friend, I finally got it: 6 remaining schools divided with 3 sub-classes, with classic banned schools of magic for each one. I'd already had an idea of each order having their own spellcasting abilities, which helped me to form the thematic frames for their allowed vs banned schools. Finally I ended up with a concept: each sub-class an Order of the Templars (originally from Dark Sun, but later mixed up with real world templars and the ones from Assassin's Creed) had one school of magic as a secret for their own, and remaining 3 schools given universally to all.
Thematic guidelines for each order were Knowledge for Tome (Divination), Self-perfection and transcendence for Flame (Transmutation), and Social manipulation for Chain (Enchantment)
Because I still wanted to keep up the illusion of dangerous, unpredictable, and thus rare magics, I wanted to present a drawback on spellcasting. Not only were each individual order forbidden access to other orders' "secret" schools of magic, all magic would behave like they were cast by a sorcerer of Wild Magic Origin. However, unlike with the sorcerous origin, the 5% chance (a natural 1 from a d20 roll) would be present at each and every time a spell is cast. Granted, a few results on that table creates an effect that is roughly or precisely equivalent to a spell from either conjuration or evocation school, but since the caster wouldn't have any control over them, it would be alright. And would add up an extra risk; especially if one would trigger a fireball centered on oneself!
With this possibility in mind, I came up with a lenient idea of giving each order a better chance of not triggering a Wild Magic Surge, in the form of giving them advantage on the d20 roll if they were casting a spell from their secret school. Likewise they would have disadvantage on the roll if the spell being cast was from a school they were not particularly familiar with.