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View Full Version : D&D 3.x Other Expansion to Edge's Penitent Martyr Discipline [3.5, ToB]



Ryuuk
2018-08-18, 05:39 PM
Penitent Martyr (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?197195-Forgiveness-is-key-Penitent-Martyr-Discipline-3-5-ToB) is a martial discipline designed by Edge and meant for characters that have commited great evil and sincerely wish to repent.

The following is unofficial complimentary material for it. It is meant to give it the same treatment that the base disciplines get in Tome of Battle (A discipline feat, tactical feat and weapon of legacy) as well as some [Epic] material in the same vein as what other people have given the base nine (an Epic feat (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?95435-9-Martial-Discipline-Epic-Feats) similar to Krimm Blackleaf's and an Epic Destiny (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?501459) similar to BelGareth's).

That said, I hope someone finds this useful. Any criticism is welcome.


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Feats:

Interposing Strike
You are determined to stand in defense of those that cannot defend themselves
Prerequisite: Int 13, One Penitent Martyr maneuver
Benefit: When you use the attack action or the full attack action in melee, you can take a penalty of as much as -5 on your attack roll and add the same number (+5 or less) as a dodge bonus to the Armor Class of an adjacent ally. This number may not exceed your base attack bonus. The changes to attack rolls and Armor Class last until your next action.
Special: Interposing Strike can be used in place of Combat Expertise to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other special ability. You can take both this feat and Combat Expertise

Peaceful Resolution [Tactical]
Life is precious, you’ve learned that lesson many times over while walking the path of the Penitent Martyr. The Peaceful Resolution tactical feat helps you deescalate encounters before someone commits an act they would later regret.
Prerequisite: Interposing Strike, Base attack bonus +6, Two Penitent Martyr maneuver
Benefit: You may use the following tactical options
Guardian in the melee: To use this option, you must use the Interposing Strike feat to grant an ally threatened by a foe that you threaten a dodge bonus to AC. If this ally is attacked by that foe, it provokes an attack of opportunity from you before their attack is resolved.
The other cheek: To use this maneuver, you must be hit by an opponent in melee and take hit point damage. On your next turn, you may receive a +4 bonus to Disarm, Trip and Sunder attempts. If you receive this bonus, you cannot deal hit point damage to this foe until the end of your turn.
Suppressing assault: To use this maneuver, you can choose to deal melee touch attacks in place of normal melee attacks against an opponent. These touch attacks deal no damage. For each melee touch attack that hits, the opponent suffers a -3 penalty to attack rolls against you and your allies until the end of their next turn. If this opponent is dealt hit point damage by your or your allies, the penalties are ignored against the source of the damage.

Knight-Penitent before the Altar [Epic]
As a master of the Penitent Martyr discipline, you are a stalwart defender, ever aware of the fine line between life and death
Prerequisites: Survival 24 ranks, Str 25, Interposing Strike feat, Peaceful Resolution feat, ability to use the Death Precedes Forgiveness Atemi maneuver and Guilt-As-Armour stance.
Benefit: When in a Penitent Martyr stance, you may add your Armor bonus to your Touch AC and gain an amount of temporary HP equal to your initiator level, which refresh each round. When dealing lethal or nonlethal damage to a foe while using a Penitent Martyr weapon, you may also add 50% of the total damage dealt again as nonlethal damage. Lastly, as an immediate action, you may prevent yourself or a target creature within 60ft from dying due to hit point damage until the end of your next turn. The target can continue to take damage and may lose consciousness, but as long as you continue to use this ability each round, they cannot die. This is a supernatural ability.

Ryuuk
2018-08-18, 05:41 PM
Epic Destines are concepted ported back from 4th Edition to 3.5, described by wizards in this article (http://web.archive.org/web/20090602124646/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20080428&pf=true). In short, if you choose to follow an epic destiny, instead of recieving a feat at 21st, 24th, 27th and 30th level, you get the abilities described at the appropriate level.

Saint once Sinner
The path to redemption is traversed through a long and winding road. Countless seek it and are forever tormented by the fruitless search. Many others find it within, in time. Others still seek it without and may be lucky enough to have it bestowed upon them. The practitioners of the Penitent Martyr discipline bow their heads and seek to be judged by a Celestial Host, striving endlessly for their approval. Amongst these petitioners, who have acted out mortals' vilest sins and suffer the most sincere guilt, a scant few are told to stand tall. The path is almost at an end. Their motives have been judged as true and exemplary, and once their greater actions match them, they may become a Saint once Sinner.

Requirements: 21st level, Good Alignment, must know at least 6 Penitent Martyr (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?197195-Forgiveness-is-key-Penitent-Martyr-Discipline-3-5-ToB) maneuvers, one of which must be Death Precedes Forgiveness Atemi

Purity of Body (SU): Mortal flesh is the vessel by which the Saint once Sinner besmirched his eternal soul. This flesh, therefore, is sacrificed in the defense of others in order to walk the path of redemption. Despite what grievous injuries they may sustain, a Saint once Sinner wills himself forward and his wounds to close. At 21st level, Purity of Body grants Fast Healing equal to the Saint once Sinner’s HD and immunity to ability damage that is not self-inflicted. In addition, he can impart this gift to others while they are in his presence. A Saint once Sinner may divide his Fast Healing value amongst any number of targets within 60ft as a free action. If the distance between the target and the Saint once Sinner becomes greater than 60ft, the value is returned to the Saint once Sinner.

A level 25 Saint once Sinner, has Fast Healing 25, but may grant an injured ally Fast Healing 20. As long as they remain within 60ft, the ally heals 20 HP per round and the Saint once Sinner 5 HP. If the ally then retreats beyond 60ft, the Saint once Sinner heals his full Fast Healing amount in subsequent rounds.

Sacrificial Offering (SU): The Saint once Sinner is ready to sacrifice his flesh and blood if it means protecting an innocent or preventing a tragedy. His conviction is such that each drop of his blood willingly spilled seems to draw forth unforeseen power. At 24th level, the effects of any Penitent Martyr maneuver that requires the Saint once Sinner to wound himself are maximized. In addition, a creature receiving Fast Healing from Purity of Body is treated as if under a Shield Other (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shieldOther.htm) spell cast by the Saint once Sinner.

Self-Inflicted Martyr-Gift
Studious Messiah Retort
Self-Imposed Messiah-Gift
Martyr’s Stigmatic Assault
Death Precedes Forgiveness Atemi

The Shadow Tamed: A Saint once Sinner is keenly aware of what he was and could have become if he continued on the ill-fated path. So much so, that he can calls upon this shadow self regularly, to confront it in meditation or prayer. However, some who walk the path of redemption have tamed this dark side to serve and fight alongside them, as long as the cause is just. At 27th level, once per encounter while using the Adaptive Style feat, The Shadow Tamed grants the ability to summon a beastly, shadowy double as a swift action. It appears within 60ft and acts on the Saint once Sinner’s initiative. Treat this double as a copy of the Saint once Sinner under the Form of Doom (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/formofDoom.htm) power, carrying nonmagical copies of his equipment that discorporate if dropped. It has the same feats, ability scores and class levels, but cannot cast spells or use spell-like abilities. When choosing new maneuvers readied, the Saint once Sinner splits them between himself and the double. Both can use stances as normal, but must make do with the maneuvers readied they were assigned.

The Shadow Tamed acts out the Saint once Sinner’s will in its own savage manner, but it can only attack a foe that has dealt damage to the Saint once Sinner or an ally under his protection. It carries the [Evil] subtype, and therefore cannot use feats, class feature or abilities that require a Good alignment. If it iwould be killed it instead discorporates, the Saint once Sinner takes HP damage equal to that dealt in the killing blow.

The Shadow Tamed must remain within 60ft of the Saint once Sinner, and discorparates if it moves beyond this distance. It discoporates after being manifest for 3 rounds. The Shadow Tamed can also be dismissed as a free action. Once the Shadow Tamed discorporates, the maneuvers it was assigned return to the Saint once Sinner, but are considered expended.

Sainthood: After an arduous road, the Saint once Sinner has been accepted as an equal by the Celestial Host. He has become a proper Saint, his sins finally forgiven, but not forgotten. His journey from depravity to canonization is recorded in the annals of the upper planes, to bring hope to those that strive to walk this path. At 30th level he gains the Saint template, as described in Book of Exalted Deeds. He need not meet the normal requirements or pay the LA for this template, having reached it through the path of the Saint once Sinner.

Immortality: A Weight Lifted
At some point during their journey, a Saint once Sinner realizes that walking the path is not done purely for redemption, but because their fortitude, honed with each passing step, will be called upon by a higher purpose. Only once this great service is completed are the shackles that bind them to the world of the living removed. At this point, the burdens of past sins once unbearable melt away as well. Free of the ties and the weight, the Saint once Sinner is lifted to the heavens, the skies parting to greet him. Joining the Celestial Host, they may in time ask a petitioner seeking redemption to stand tall, and show him the way.

Ryuuk
2018-08-18, 05:42 PM
Weapons of Legacy are described in the book that follows the same name, and 9 such weapons are included in Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords, one for each discipline. They require the wielder of one to commit certain rituals in order to unlock the weapons full power. Mechanically, these items are often maligned as being inferior to what you can get with normal wealth by level, especially when considering the penalties that they grant the user as payment to unlock their power.
As a concept though, they're kinda neat.

Reflection
Nonlegacy game statistics: +1 Longsword
Omen: If it's legacy is lost, Reflection appears to be a weapon that has been ignored for decades, tarnished and in disrepair no matter how much care it is given. When a fitting wielder begins to unlock its legacy, it becomes pristine, with a polished edge that could be mistaken for a mirror. The wielder's reflection seems to judge the owner when he looks upon it, the image sometimes moving differently to the wielder.

History
Little is known of the mortal masters of the Penitent Martyr discipline outside of the most sacred annals of the upper planes. However, there is one whose story is told through lines of somber prose, even if his name is lost to history. The Poet in Grey’s work could be considered simple fiction, if not for the existence of Reflection, the blade he left behind. (DC20)

The poet, when a man of youth, wealth and taste, had it forged by the finest smiths he could find. ‘Exquisite in form and function’, he wrote, for nothing else could be worthy of his hand. The world’s hedonistic pleasures at his reach, he gorged himself, his vice and hunger growing with each passing day, pushed forward by his nature. This continued until a night of debauchery from which he woke in a stupor. The blade, which had been hanging as a polished ornament for years, greeted him with his reflection. It presented him as he truly was and that picture shook him to his very core. ‘The steel showed the image I’d thought long lost, how it could I did not know, but I saw my past, present and future all at once.’ (DC25, Faced by Truth)

The poet’s habits and writings change considerably here. They no longer focus on the grandness his person or mortal pleasures, but become darker and ruminating. Once a nightcrawler and socialite, he became reclusive, at least to former friends. He was occasionally seen under heavy robes visiting broken homes in the slums and offering wealth and aid in whatever way he could. He stopped eating, and grew gaunt, but he seemed to ignore these consequences. For 20 years he lived with philanthropy as his only apparent goal, his estate going from from opulent and grand to a home for the sickly and unfortunate. ‘To think my acts had rippled so far and wide. I must confess, I must come clean.’ (DC 30, To make Amends)

That was the last sentence he wrote and published. That night he remained in the central courtyard, as if waiting, Reflection at his side. At midnight, black shadows flew down from the sky and surrounded him. His old friends, the wealthiest people of the area. The poet could not be allowed to reveal himself, they would not permit it. It is said that the poet simple drew Reflection, and answered in prose. The exact words were lost to time, except for his closing.

‘For the feast has ended and dawn has brought forth a new day’, he said, as he drove Reflection through his chest. In an instant, midnight became day, and the radiant sun brought forth screams from all gathered. All turned to dust, but the poet did so with a smile. Investigators would later find the poet's personal writing, and within the size of the cadre of vampires that he had been a part of and that was ended with a single stroke. (DC 35, Death Precedes Redemption)

Legacy Rituals
Faced by Truth: Reflection offers a path to redemption, and those who cannot, need not, unlock its legacy are in truth the fortunate ones. A fitting wielder must spend multiple hours in meditation before the blade, ruminating on since past. On its completion, they must attempt to clean the blade, wiping away years of disrepair and finding a clean start.
To make Amends: You must actively work towards your redemption and try to make amends with those you have harmed. In doing this, you must seek out those you have harmed and attempt to right the wrongs you have done against them.
Death Precedes Redemption: You must know and successfully perform the Death Precedes Forgiveness Atemi maneuver, defeating at least 6 beings of an evil alignment who do not believe in their redemption (clerics of evil deities, undead, evil outsiders).

Epic History
After the death of the Poet in Grey, Reflection has finds its way into the hands of those that need it. Alesso Erene, once an executioner for the Cult of Erythnul, was able to find atonement due to the blade’s influence. As it left its mark on the penitent, so to did Alesso on the blade, furthering the Legacy.

Epic Legacy Rituals
Not one drop unless my own: In the thick of a planar battlefield between the higher and lower planes, you must protect a helpless ally for at least 5 consecutive rounds against overwhelming forces.
Salvation for the lost: You must enter the domain of a powerful being of the lower planes and free a soul that had been wrongfully imprisoned there (a mortal devoured by powerful demons, or sacrificed to a dark god, for example)
Break the cycle: When confronted by overwhelming forces where a battle would mean the loss of countless lives, you must reach a peaceful resolution without dealing hit point damage or having either side incur casualties.
Anointed by the host: Your deeds and accomplishments must be acknowledged by the celestial host that taught you the Penitent Martyr discipline, in doing so they, they accept you as one of their own.

Wielder Requirements
Base attack bonus +5
Must have had en Evil alignment, but now seek redemption
Knowledge: Religion 4 ranks



Wielder Level
Attack Penalty
Save Penalty
Hit Point Loss
Legacy Ability


5th
-
-
-
Not One Drop


6th
-
-
4



7th
-
-
-
+1 Merciful Longsword


8th
-
-1
-
Blessing of Fortitude +2


9th
-1
-
2



10th
-
-
-
+2 Merciful Longsword


11th
-
-
-



12th
-
-
2
Blessing of Fortitude +4


13th
-2
-
-
+3 Merciful Longsword


14th
-
-
-
Vampiric Touch 3/day


15th
-
-
2



16th
-
-2
-
+4 Merciful Longsword


17th
-
-
-
Blessing of Fortitude +6


18th
-3
-
-



19th
-
-
2
+4 Merciful Bloodstone Longsword


20th
-
-
2
Miracle


21st
-
-
-
Willing Shield


22nd
-
-
3



23nd
-
-
3



24rd
-
-
-
Unbinding 3/day


25th
-
-
3



26th
-
-
3



27th
-
-
-
Epic Resistance +6


28th
-
-
3



29th
-
-
3



30th
-
-
-
+6 Merciful Bloodstone Longsword



Not One Drop (Ex): When you first unlock the legacy abilities of Reflection at 5th level, you can use the Not One Drop maneuver five times per day, as if you knew it. If you already know Not One Drop, you may move the ally you are protecting with this maneuver 10ft instead of into an unoccupied adjacent square. This movement of your ally does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Blessing of Fortitude (Su): Your affiliation with the legacy of Reflection makes you hardier. At 8th level, you gain a +2 enhancement bonus to your Constitution score. This bonus is increased to +4 at 12th and +6 at 17th.

Vampiric Touch (Sp): At 14th level, you may use Vampiric Touch as the spell 3 times per day, at caster level 10. When used in conjunction with Reflection’s Bloodstone property, its caster level is equal to your character level.

Miracle (Sp): On reaching 20th level, you may leave yourself completely vulnerable in an act that could change the tide of battle. Once per day, you may perform a ritual with Reflection in which you draw and offer your own blood as a sacrifice. You deal hit point damage to yourself equal to half you max hit points to begin the ritual, which takes two full round actions during which you are considered flatfooted and provoke attacks of opportunity. In exchange, upon its completion you brings forth a Miracle as the spell, at caster level 20. If the effect of the miracle would normally cost experience if it where from a spell, you must pay it.

Willing Shield (Ex): As long as you wield Reflection, you may choose to prevent an area of effect generated by a perceived foe from spreading beyond your space. Draw a line between you and the point of origin of the effect, as well as a plane perpendicular to this line, centered on you. By taking a -5 penalty to AC and Saves until your next turn, you may prevent this effect from continuing through this perpendicular plane.

You must be in the area of the effect to halt its advance, and each effect blocked beyond the first in a round worsens the penalties by 5 (-5, -10, -15, etc)

Unbinding (Sp): Beginning at 24th level, three times per day you can offer a prayer and swing downward with Reflection as if cutting something asunder to create an Unbinding (Spell Compendium) effect as the spell. Caster level 25th.

Epic Resistance (Su): Beginning at 27th level, Reflection grants you a +6 Resistance bonus to saving throws as long as it is on your person.

Just to Browse
2018-08-19, 08:21 PM
I love the discipline, and I love your expansion on it. It's great to see someone build on a piece of homebrew that they love!

For the Interposing Strike feat, I think you can safely give the AC bonus to an ally in melee range of you. That way it dovetails more nicely with tank playstyles like enlarged characters and halberd-wielders.

I'm not a huge fan of Peaceful Resolution's Suppressing Assault for a few reasons:
Maneuvers like rehearsed ravaging atemi lose their attribute Damage (which is a notable part of the discipline's effectiveness & identity), and even other maneuvers like good men do something kata auto-fail because they required that "your attack hits and deals damage".
On a different note, the stacking -3 penalty can get weird because you can smack a boss around and turn all their attacks off without any save.
The non-damage clause encourages your allies not to attack mid-combat, as opposed to an effect like innocence maintaining posture, where the power is mostly concentrated on buffing your first round of combat.
There is already 2 effects like this: good men do something kata and evil men falter kata. Having another effect like those is totally fine, but you should try to make the rules similar, so players have to memorize less stuff.

To use this option, you must designate an attack roll that you make as suppressing before you roll. Make this attack roll as a touch attack. If this attack succeeds, you do not deal any damage with your weapon, attribute modifiers, or the Power Attack feat if you have it. However, your target suffers a -3 penalty to either attack rolls or the save DCs of their special attacks until the end of their turn. You choose whether the target takes the attack penalty or the DC penalty.