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View Full Version : Pathfinder [Antipaladin/Paladin Archetype] Knight of the Sacred Seal



Xuldarinar
2016-03-12, 06:50 AM
I have nothing at this time, but a broad concept. I want to bring the Knight of the Sacred Seal prestige class from Tome of Magic into pathfinder in the form of a paladin and antipaladin archetype. My only ideas at this point are;

Give them Bind Vestige as a bonus feat at 1st level and bind their SLA and Su class features to having a vestige bound (similar to the insinuator).
Give the Soul Binding at 4th level, replacing casting, though don't scale it the same as the binder class. At least slowing the progression of the number of vestiges that can be bound.


Beyond that, i've nothing, so in that I'd love some suggestions. If anyone thinks it is a good idea anyways.


Knight of the Sacred Seal
Never alone, knights of the sacred seal have formed a true partnership with a single vestige, championing them in the same way a paladin might swear fealty to a god or the very concept of good itself.

-Alignment: Any non-evil, non-chaotic alignment (paladin), or any non-good, non-chaotic alignment (antipaladin).
-Aligned Strike (Ex): At 1st level, a knight of the sacred seal's weapons become attuned to their own alignment. As a swift action, knight of the sacred seal may declare an aligned strike, imbuing their weapons with their own morality and the will of their patron. An aligned strike takes on the alignment of the knight of the sacred seal to as great of a degree as possible. For example, a lawful good knight of the sacred seal may treat their attacks as both lawful and good, where as a neutral good knight of the sacred seal treats theirs simply as good. A knight of the sacred seal who becomes true neutral treats their aligned strike as their prior alignment. If a knight of the sacred seal begins as true neutral, then they must choose one alignment component to apply for the purpose of aligned strike (Chaotic, Evil, Good, or Lawful). If an aligned strike is used on a creature possessing an alignment opposed to the aligned strike, the knight of the sacred seal may apply their Charisma modifier to the attack roll, and their class level to the damage roll. Aligned strikes may be carried out with any weapon, and may be used as part of a full-attack. This ability, once used, requires 5 rounds to recharge. This ability replaces the paladin's Smite Evil.
-Soul Binding (Su): At 1st level, a knight of the sacred seal gains the ability to bind vestiges as a binder. For the purpose of advancing soul binding, a knight of the sacred seal possesses an effective binder level equal to their paladin (or antipaladin) level. At 6th level, and every 6 levels thereafter, a knight of the sacred seal may have bound an additional vestige. This replaces the Paladin's Spellcasting and Divine Bind or Antipaladin's Spellcasting and Fiendish Boon.
-Patron Vestige (Su): A knight of the sacred seal swears an oath of fealty to a single vestige, typically one they are capable of binding at 1st level. The knight of the sacred seal is never at risk of making a poor pact with their chosen vestige. So long as the knight of the sacred seal has their patron vestige bound, they are capable of utilizing the supernatural abilities granted by this archetype, other than soul binding. This replaces the Paladin's and Antipaladin's Code of Conduct.
-Aligned Aura (Ex): The knight of the sacred seal possesses a powerful aligned aura based on the alignment of their aligned strike. The power of the knight of the sacred seal's aura is equal to the antipaladin or paladin level. This replaces the Paladin's Aura of Good, or the Antipaladin's Aura of Evil.
-Pact Augmentation (Su): Beginning at 2nd level, a knight of the sacred seal gains the pact augmentation class feature. At 5th level and every 5 levels thereafter, the knight of the sacred seal may choose an additional pact augmentation. This ability replaces the Paladin's Divine Grace and Lay on Hands, or the Antipaladin's Unholy Resilience and Touch of Corruption.
-Suppress Sign (Ex): Starting at 2nd level, a knight of the sacred seal may choose not to exhibit the physical sign normally accompanied by a pact with a vestige, provided they formed a good pact. The knight of the sacred seal may chose to exhibit the sign associated with their bound vestige or hide the sign at-will as a swift action.
-Soul Guardian (Su): At 3rd level, a knight of the sacred seal gains the soul guardian class feature as the binder class feature of the same name. This replaces the Paladin's Mercies and Aura of Courage, or the Antipaladin's Cruelties and Aura of Cowardice.
-Vestige's Protection (Su): Upon attaining 4th level, the knight of the sacred seal's bond with their patron deepens. As a swift action, the knight of the sacred seal can acquire an insight bonus to their Armor Class and Reflex Saves equal to their Charisma bonus for 1 round. Once used, this ability requires 5 rounds to recharge. This ability replaces the Paladin's Channel Positive Energy, or the Antipaladin's Channel Negative Energy.
-Vestige Protection Aura: Starting at 8th level, whenever a knight of the sacred seal uses their Vestige's Protection, the bonus is applied not only to themselves but to all allies within 10 feet. This ability replaces the Paladin's Aura of Resolve, or the Antipaladin's Aura of Despair.
-Vestige's Power: At 11th level, as a swift action, a knight of the sacred seal decant gain a +2 bonus to Strength and Constitution, a +10-foot bonus to their base land speed, and a +4 bonus on Will saves for 1 round. Once used, this ability requires 5 rounds to recharge. This replaces the Paladin's Aura of Justice, or the Antipaladin's Aura of Vengeance.
-Vestige's Surge: Starting at 14th level, a knight of the sacred seal gains the ability to use an ability that normally requires 5 rounds to recharge while it is charging. This can only be done once per day and does not reset the recharge time on the ability. This replaces the Paladin's Aura of Faith, or the Anitpaladin's Aura of Sin.
-Mind Blank (Su): Starting at 17th level, the knight of the sacred seal becomes under the effects of a semi-permanent mind blank effect. This replaces the Paladin's Aura of Righteousness or the Antipaladin's Aura of Depravity.
-Apotheosis (Su): At 20th level, the knight of the sacred seal becomes a conduit of the power of their patron vestige. They are forever more treated as an outsider rather than humanoid (or whatever their creature type was) for the purpose of spells and magical effects. Additionally, they gain damage reduction 10/magic. This replaces the Paladin's Holy Champion, or the Antipaladin's Unholy Champion.

Changing of Patron
Knights of the sacred seal tend to devote themselves to a single vestige from the time they swore their initial oath to the day they die. That having been said, from time to time an individual may drift from their path towards a different vestige. A knight of the sacred seal is capable of giving up their oath, effectively becoming an ex-knight of the sacred seal (in a similar regard as a paladin might become an ex-paladin). When this happens, the knight of the sacred seal only retains their weapon and armor proficiencies, their attack bonus, skills, saves, and the ability to bind a vestige. A ex-knight of the sacred seal may swear an oath to a new patron, or even restore their oath to their former patron, but this requires a 8-hour long ritual. This ritual functions similar to the act of binding a vestige but takes place over a longer period of time, requires the knight of the sacred seal to make three successful binding checks throughout its process, and 200 gp of materials per class level. If the ex-knight of the sacred seal fails in this ritual, they cannot try again with that vestige for 1 week, but 24 hours later they may attempt to swear an oath to a different vestige.

Aergoth
2016-03-12, 01:11 PM
So looking at the basics of the knight of the sacred seal, I'd ditch the weapon/mount bond of a paladin and the casting. Grant the class the supress sign and augment pact features of the binder and use the soul guardian features to replace/augment/modify the default paladin immunities.

It's possible to mesh aligned strike with smite evil, but that's tricky. You could also spin it out like the monk's ability, and beef it up that way, but I've left it as is.

So what it might wind up looking like is this?

1 Soul Binding, Patron Vestige, Smite Evil, Detect Evil
2 Supress Sign, Divine Grace, Pact Augmentation
3 Soul Guardian (Immune to Fear) Divine Health
4 Vestige's Protection, Smite Evil 2/day
5 Pact Augmentation (2 Abilities)
6 Soul binding (2 Vestiges)
7 Smite evil 3/day
8 Vestige Protection Aura
9 Soul Guardian Slippery Mind
10 Pact Augmentation (3 Abilities), Smile Evil 4/day
11 Vestige's Strength
12 Soul Binding (3 Vestiges)
13 Soul Guardian (Immunity to Energy Drain and Negative Levels) Smile Evil 5/day
14 Vestige's Surge
15 Pact Augmentation (4 Abilities)
16 Aligned Strike, Smile Evil 6/day
17 Mind Blank
18 Soul binding (4 Vestiges)
19 Smite evil 7/day
20 Capstone


Features replaced, all of a paladin's auras (since the binder features I've borrowed replace them well), divine bond, spell casting, lay on hands and as a consequence, channel energy and mercies.

Sounds like it could be interesting. Converts your paladin into something between the magus and inquisitor as far as what they can do I think.

You could migrate patron vestige to level 5, but either way I would give the knight the option to break their pact with the patron and replace it as with a familiar/animal companion

Xuldarinar
2016-03-13, 02:58 AM
So looking at the basics of the knight of the sacred seal, I'd ditch the weapon/mount bond of a paladin and the casting. Grant the class the supress sign and augment pact features of the binder and use the soul guardian features to replace/augment/modify the default paladin immunities.

It's possible to mesh aligned strike with smite evil, but that's tricky. You could also spin it out like the monk's ability, and beef it up that way, but I've left it as is.

So what it might wind up looking like is this?

1 Soul Binding, Patron Vestige, Smite Evil, Detect Evil
2 Supress Sign, Divine Grace, Pact Augmentation
3 Soul Guardian (Immune to Fear) Divine Health
4 Vestige's Protection, Smite Evil 2/day
5 Pact Augmentation (2 Abilities)
6 Soul binding (2 Vestiges)
7 Smite evil 3/day
8 Vestige Protection Aura
9 Soul Guardian Slippery Mind
10 Pact Augmentation (3 Abilities), Smile Evil 4/day
11 Vestige's Strength
12 Soul Binding (3 Vestiges)
13 Soul Guardian (Immunity to Energy Drain and Negative Levels) Smile Evil 5/day
14 Vestige's Surge
15 Pact Augmentation (4 Abilities)
16 Aligned Strike, Smile Evil 6/day
17 Mind Blank
18 Soul binding (4 Vestiges)
19 Smite evil 7/day
20 Capstone


Features replaced, all of a paladin's auras (since the binder features I've borrowed replace them well), divine bond, spell casting, lay on hands and as a consequence, channel energy and mercies.

Sounds like it could be interesting. Converts your paladin into something between the magus and inquisitor as far as what they can do I think.

You could migrate patron vestige to level 5, but either way I would give the knight the option to break their pact with the patron and replace it as with a familiar/animal companion

I think what you have here are some wonderful ideas. I'll put it together in the original post (putting the message at the time of this post in a spoiler called "Preface"), and once it is in the Archetype format we'll see what we think. I may make some tweaks in between, but we'll see what ultimately we get.

Aergoth
2016-03-13, 10:27 AM
It looks pretty solid I think. A lot of the binder/sacred seal stuff maps well to existing progressions on the PF paladin so it works out pretty well in the end.
There's a couple brief typos in there. Under supress sign, hid should be hide and there's a short string of superfluous Ds in Vestige Protection Aura.

This has actually inspired my rework of the oracle and shaman classes for my own project to take some inspiration from binders. With any luck I'll have it working soon.

Also glad you found a way to replace the alignment aura. I'd debated including something like that but since Knight of the Sacred Seal doesn't have a strong alignment bias I figured leaving it off made the most sense.
I also debated having them detect as their vestige's alignment but vestiges seem to be beyond ethics like that.

Xuldarinar
2016-03-13, 10:41 AM
It looks pretty solid I think. A lot of the binder/sacred seal stuff maps well to existing progressions on the PF paladin so it works out pretty well in the end.
There's a couple brief typos in there. Under supress sign, hid should be hide and there's a short string of superfluous Ds in Vestige Protection Aura.

This has actually inspired my rework of the oracle and shaman classes for my own project to take some inspiration from binders. With any luck I'll have it working soon.

Also glad you found a way to replace the alignment aura. I'd debated including something like that but since Knight of the Sacred Seal doesn't have a strong alignment bias I figured leaving it off made the most sense.
I also debated having them detect as their vestige's alignment but vestiges seem to be beyond ethics like that.


Thank you for pointing the typos out. The former, must of just missed a key press. The other, the D key has been acting up for a while on this computer. At least I've functionality to it back, as for while it was functionally dead, but sometimes now it is just a tad too sensitive (or maybe it is muscle memory messing with me from having a key not sensitive enough for a while).

Working out alignment auras was an interesting challenge, but this method works. I had divine grace get replaced in one of the features as a throw back to the heresy/heterodoxy optional rules listed in the binder chapter. I considered making a whole class feature, in case someone made a knight of the sacred seal/cleric, but I felt that entirely unnecessary.



As for the inspiration it has given you, I look forward to seeing it.