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View Full Version : D&D 3.x Class Pact Bound Knight: Initiator/Binding PRC



Silva Stormrage
2019-10-07, 02:35 AM
Pact Bound Knight
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”Don’t expect this fight to be an easy one. Not when you are fighting us.” Miras Telun a Pact Bound Knight who has bound the Vestige "Malphas" among others.

Most binders struggle with suppressing the influences of various Vestiges that they have bound. Letting Vestiges grant them power but clamping down on those very vestige's personalities and desires. Pact Bound Knights give themselves an extra edge in power by giving their bound vestiges more opportunities to interact with the living word that they so crave. Pact Bound Knights let their bound vestiges make subtle changes to their posture and to their attacks letting Pact Bound Knights have a sixth sense in combat guided by their vestiges. Combining the various weapons and attacks that a binder can normally gain from vestiges with the myriad of attacks and strikes gained from initiators they become a fearsome force on the battlefield.

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
Feats: Adaptive Style
Skills: Martial Lore 5 Ranks
Initiator: Able to initiate 2nd level maneuvers
Binding: Able to bind a 3rd level vestige

Class Skills
The Pact Bound Knight’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge(Arcana) (Int), Knowledge (The Planes) (Int), Listen(Wis), Martial Lore (Int), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis) Spellcraft (Int) Swim (Str) and Tumble (Dex).
Skills Points at Each Level: 4 + Int

Hit Dice: d10


Level
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Special
Binding/Initiating


1st
+1
+0
+2
+2
Soul Guided Strike, Influence Pool, Infused Weapons: +1
+1 Soul Binding level/+1 Initiator level


2nd
+2
+0
+3
+3
Vestiges of Weaponry
+1 Soul Binding level/+1 Initiator level


3rd
+3
+1
+3
+3
Martial Lore from the Void
+1 Soul Binding level/+1 Initiator level


4th
+4
+1
+4
+4
Infused Weapons: +2, Improved Soul Guided Strike
+1 Soul Binding level/+1 Initiator level


5th
+5
+1
+4
+4
Martial Soul Binding, Martial Lore from the Void (Stance)
+1 Soul Binding level/+1 Initiator level


6th
+6
+2
+5
+5
Soul Wound
+1 Soul Binding level/+1 Initiator level


7th
+7
+2
+5
+5
Vestiges of Martial Study
+1 Soul Binding level/+1 Initiator level


8th
+8
+2
+6
+6
Infused Weapons: +3, Martial Lore from the Void (Two Manuevers)
+1 Soul Binding level/+1 Initiator level


9th
+9
+3
+6
+6
How to Win Friends and Influence Spirits
+1 Soul Binding level/+1 Initiator level


10th
+10
+3
+7
+7
Martial Apotheosis
+1 Soul Binding level/+1 Initiator level



Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: A Pact Bound Knight gains no additional weapons or armor proficiencies.


Many abilities of the Pact Bound Knight only function while in combat with a worthy foe as the Vestiges relish such an exciting moment. A Pact Bound Knight’s bound vestiges are not impressed if the Pact Bound Knight tries to duel a squirrel to gain influence with them or tries some other trickery such as friendly sparring. Pact Bound Knight class features that only function while in combat do not function in these circumstances.


Maneuvers and Stances:
At every level, the Pact Bound Knight advances his initiating as if that level were a level in an initiator class to which he belonged before adding the prestige class level. He does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. If he had more than one initiator class before becoming a Pact Bound Knight, he must decide to which class to add each level for the purpose of determining maneuvers and stances gained.

He still selects from the same martial schools that his previous initiator class knew but the Pact Bound Knight’s interactions and wrangling with his vestiges allows him to also select maneuvers and stances from the White Raven school.

Soul Binding Bonus: At each Pact Bound Knight level, your soul binding ability improves as if you had also gained a level in the binder class. Your Pact Bound Knight levels and binder levels stack for the purpose of determining your bonus on binding checks, the effectiveness of your vestige-granted abilities, your ability to bind higher-level vestiges, and the number of vestiges you can bind. You do not, however, gain any other benefit a binder would have gained.

Soul Guided Strike (Su): A Pact Bound Knight lets their bound vestiges have subtle influences on their attacks to aid them. The Pact Bound Knight gains an insight bonus on their attack and damage rolls equal to their charisma modifier when making attacks with natural or manufactured weapons granted to them by a vestige or with weapons that vestiges grant either proficiencies or specific bonuses towards such as Paimon with Rapiers and Short Swords.

Influence Pool (Su): A Pact Bound Knight can while in combat accrue favor from his bound vestiges via various means and spend them to get various boons. They can have a maximum number of Influence Points equal to 3 + their charisma modifier, they start with half their charisma modifier in influence points at the start of an encounter and these are reset to 0 at the end of every encounter. They can only gain influence points while in combat with a worthy foe.

He can gain an influence point by any of the following methods.

Using an ability granted by a vestige that takes a standard action or longer.
If there are multiple enemies within melee range you can make a full attack action and allow a bound vestige to select which enemy you attack. Roll randomly to decide which enemy the vestige decides to attack.
The Pact Bound Knight can spend a swift action before using a granted ability which requires an attack roll with a manufactured or natural weapon, focusing on their connection to the vestige as they strike.
If the Pact Bound Knight kills or knocks an enemy unconscious with a natural or manufactured weapon granted to him by a Vestige. He can only gain influence points twice per round in this way.


He can spend such influence points in the following ways. All options cost one influence point unless otherwise noted.

As an immediate action he can reroll any one attack or damage roll he just made after knowing the result. He must take the second roll even if it is worse than the first.
As a free action he can gain +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls for one round.
As a free action he can reduce the number of rounds he has to wait to use one ability granted to him by a vestige by one round. He can spend multiple influence points to reduce the number of rounds further. Each extra 2 points he spends reduces the number of rounds by one. This can only be used once per round.
As a free action he can increase the DC of any maneuver he initiates this round by 2. This option can only be selected once per maneuver.
As an immediate action he can gain an insight bonus to his ac equal to 2+ the number of influence points he spends on this option. This bonus to AC lasts for one round.


Infused Weapons (Su): At 1st level the Pact Bound Knight can improve any natural or manufactured weapon granted to him by a vestige. Any such weapon gains an additional +1 enchantment bonus or becomes a +1 magical weapon if it didn’t have any enhancement bonus normally.

In addition whenever the Pact Bound Knight binds a vestige granting him such a weapon he may select a number of weapon special abilities whose bonus totals up to +1. He may treat any weapon special ability which costs 5000 or less as a +1 weapon special ability for this ability. At 4th level the enhancement bonus and the weapon special ability bonus total increases to +2. At 8th level it increases further to +3.

A Pact Bound Knight can select a weapon special ability whose costs is 10k by treating it as a +2 weapon special ability. A Pact Bound Knight can select a weapon special ability whose costs is 20k by treating it as a +3 weapon special ability. The weapons granted by that vestige gain the selected weapon special abilities. The weapons must still be able to qualify for the weapon special abilities, you can not select ranged weapon special abilities on a melee weapon for example.

Vestiges of Weaponry: At 2nd level the Pact Bound Knight can bind one additional vestige compared to normal. This vestige must be a vestige which grants a natural or manufactured weapon to the Pact Bound Knight. While in combat the Pact Bound Knight always suffers the influence of this vestige regardless of the quality of their pact.

Martial Lore from the Void (Su): At 3rd level the Pact Bound Knight draw upon the experience and knowledge of the vestiges bound to him to learn new maneuvers. These vestiges have experience a multitude of different combat styles from their past lives, their connections with other binders and in particular their connection with other Pact Bound Knights. Now whenever the Pact Bound Knight binds a vestige to himself he can suppress one granted ability which has a five round cooldown granted by the vestige for the duration of the pact. In exchange he can select one maneuver he qualifies for. This does not have to be a discipline he normally has access to but he still must meet all prerequisites of the maneuver . While bound to that vestige he can use that maneuver once every five rounds. It is treated as a supernatural ability regardless if the maneuver was originally one or not. These maneuvers do not allow the Pact Bound Knight to qualify for feats, prestige classes or other things requiring maneuvers known except for qualifying for other maneuvers gained from Martial Lore in the Void.

At 5th level whenever the Pact Bound Knight binds a vestige he may select one stance that he qualifies for. He may now enter that stance as long as he is bound to at least one vestige. He can only have one stance granted by this feature, selecting a different stance when binding another vestige causes the Pact Bound Knight to lose access to the first.

At 8th level the Pact Bound Knight can select two maneuvers for every granted ability suppressed that has a cooldown of 5 rounds. In addition, he may suppress up to two other abilities granted by the vestige in which case each grant him a single maneuver as above. However, a Pact Bound Knight can only get a maximum of three maneuvers from a particular vestige no matter how many abilities they suppress.

Improved Soul Guided Strike: (Su): At 4th level the Pact Bound Knight’s bound vestiges further help him in combat. Now whenever he uses a vestige granted ability which requires an attack roll such as Andras’s Smite Good/Evil ability or Paimon’s Whirlwind Attack or Dance of Death the Pact Bound Knight may apply their soul guided strike bonus regardless of what weapon they are using. Finally, when the Pact Bound Knight is wielding a manufacture or natural weapon his martial maneuvers and stances have their DC’s based on the Pact Bound Knight’s charisma modifier or their original ability score, whichever is higher.

Martial Soul Binding: (Su) At 5th level the Pact Bound Knight has managed to merge his own martial techniques with those granted to him via his vestiges. Whenever he uses a granted ability that requires an attack roll with a manufactured or natural weapon he may at the same time expended a readied strike maneuver and apply the strike to the granted ability’s attack. If the granted ability’s attack targets multiple creatures than the strike applies to each creature. This makes the granted ability used count as a strike for feats and class features.

For example if the Pact Bound Knight used Paimon’s Dance of Death ability if they had readied Emerald Razor they could expend it and each attack of Dance of Death would become a touch attack as Emerald Razor. This also allows the Pact Bound Knight to use melee only maneuvers on ranged attacks from vestiges such as Leraje’s Ricochet ability. This ability does not let the Pact Bound Knight use maneuvers which grant full attacks with granted abilities which only allow a single attack. Thus they could not combine the Time Stands Still maneuver with Paimon's Dance of Death granted ability since Paimon's Dance of Death only makes a single attack against each foe. If the strike has an area of effect component or targets multiple creatures in a single attack than a single creature can only be affected by a single instance of the maneuver regardless of how many times they are caught inside the area of effect.

Soul Wound (Su): Now the vestiges bound to the Pact Bound Knight can apply pressure and vulnerabilities to creatures struck by martial strikes. Whenever the Pact Bound Knight hits a creature with a strike maneuver that creature gains a -2 penalty on saving throws against the Pact Bound Knight’s abilities granted to him via vestiges. This penalty lasts until the end of the Pact Bound Knight’s next turn. This penalty only applies if the Pact Bound Knight dealt the attack with a natural or manufactured weapon granted to him by a vestige.

Vestiges of Martial Study (Su): At 7th level the Pact Bound Knight can bind one additional vestige compared to normal. This vestige must be a vestige which grants an ability that requires an attack roll with a melee or ranged manufactured or natural weapon such as Paimon or Leraje. While in combat the Pact Bound Knight always suffers the influence of this vestige regardless of the quality of their pact.

How to Win Friends and Influence Spirits: The Pact Bound Knight improves his ability to wrangle influence out of his bound vestiges. Now whenever he gains an influence point he instead gains 2.

In addition the Pact Bound Knight gains an additional option to spend their Influence Points on. As a swift action they can spend 6 influence points and then activate any granted ability whose activation time is a standard action or less. This causes the granted ability to go on cooldown as normal if it has one.

Martial Apotheosis: Whenever the Pact Bound Knight recovers more than one of his readied maneuvers at once his bound vestiges become so excited at the prospect of combat that any vestiges' granted abilities that are currently on cooldown becomes off cool down and ready to use immediately. The Pact Bound Knight can activate this effect either from his Adaptive Style feat or via his normal recovery method if he is a warblade or crusader.

In addition, the Pact Bound Knight becomes able to interchangeably use his own martial prowess or his vestige’s power to fuel his abilities. He may use his binder level or his initiator level for determining the power of his granted abilities or maneuvers, whichever is higher. This doesn’t influence the maximum number or level of vestiges he can bind or maneuvers he can learn.



Stance from Beyond
The Pact Bound Knight allows his bound vestiges to guide his movement while in a stance they granted to him.
Prerequisite: Martial Lore from the Void (Stance) Class Feature
Benefit: When you are in a stance granted to you from your Martial Lore from the Void class feature you gain the benefits of the evasion and improved uncanny dodge class feature as well as gaining a +2 bonus to martial lore, spot and listen checks. While in this stance however, you automatically fail any save to resist the influence from a bad pact with a vestige.
Special: A fighter may select this feat as one of their fighter bonus feats.

Assistance from Beyond
The Pact Bound Knight vestige's can offer their aid in times of crisis.
Prerequisite: Stance from Beyond
Benefit: When you are in a stance granted to you from your Martial Lore from the Void class feature your bound vestiges can activate any counter you have readied and unexpended without requiring you to spend an action, the maneuver is still expended. Whenever this ability is activated the Pact Bound Knight must wait 5 rounds before their vestige is able to help them again.
Special: A fighter may select this feat as one of their fighter bonus feats.



Author's Notes: So finally made some changes based on feedback after I submitted this to the Hybrid Power PRC contest. Mostly involving adjusting some of the action economy for influence points (They competed too heavily with boosts and counters which made for some weird gameplay when I tested them) and allowing earlier access to the Infused Weapon ability. Still I am pleased with how this turned out, please let me know your comments!

JMS
2019-10-07, 09:29 AM
For the capstone, probably want to still let swordsage recovery work, even if it’s crap and redundant.

Edit: have a chance to go through. Costs on the influence uses?
Also, the Cha to hit and damage seems strong

Elves
2019-10-07, 11:40 AM
For reference, here was Krimm Blackleaf's take on this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?84798-Occult-Adversary-PrC). Your class is better in general but Krimm's Weapon Binding and Stance of Those Beyond seem cool and worth incorporating.

First thing, give it its own maneuver known/readied/stance columns or else people will advance by 1.5 ILs for each level in the class. (I guess you could instead include a special clarifying clause to prevent this.)

I would change Soul-Guided Strike to only apply when making attacks that are part of maneuvers.

Influence Pool is too complicated. I like this particular condition: "If the Pact Bound Knight kills or knocks an enemy unconscious with a natural or manufactured weapon granted to him by a vestige." Sacrificing maneuvers to a vestige is also potentially cool, though confusing fluffwise -- what's actually happening here? The other two conditions should be deleted.

Vestiges of Weaponry seems inessential.

Martial Lore from the Void is a little generic -- to give it flavor, maybe give every vestige 1 or 2 specific disciplines that they allow access to. To make that more fun, maybe having the vestige bound makes you count as having 1 additional maneuver in that discipline for the purpose of maneuver prerequisites (maybe increasing to 2 additional at a higher level of the class?).

Improved Soul-Guided Strike I would have simply be what you originally had Soul-Guided Strike as, plus perhaps +cha to special vestige granted special attacks.

Soul Wound is synergistic but the penalty is too high. Reduce to -2 or -3.

Silva Stormrage
2019-10-08, 01:16 AM
For the capstone, probably want to still let swordsage recovery work, even if it’s crap and redundant.

Edit: have a chance to go through. Costs on the influence uses?
Also, the Cha to hit and damage seems strong


Adaptive Style is a prerequisite for the class. Swordsages can use that feat to recover their maneuvers. I didn't specify all recovery mechanics because some homebrew martial class recovery mechanics may break it. So any recovery mechanic that recovers 2+ maneuvers at a time triggers the effect. If the initiator can't do so with their regular recovery mechanic they can use their Adaptive Style feat instead.

Influence Uses are one influence point per use unless otherwise noted. I will clarify this.

Cha to Hit and damage may seem strong but its offset mostly by forcing the Pact Bound Knight to 1) Use terrible weapons for the most part. Vestige weapons and natural attacks aren't particularly good. and 2) Balance the fact that the class needs to be fairly MAD. Needing Str/Dex, Con and Cha.


For reference, here was Krimm Blackleaf's take on this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?84798-Occult-Adversary-PrC). Your class is better in general but Krimm's Weapon Binding and Stance of Those Beyond seem cool and worth incorporating.

First thing, give it its own maneuver known/readied/stance columns or else people will advance by 1.5 ILs for each level in the class. (I guess you could instead include a special clarifying clause to prevent this.)

I would change Soul-Guided Strike to only apply when making attacks that are part of maneuvers.

Influence Pool is too complicated. I like this particular condition: "If the Pact Bound Knight kills or knocks an enemy unconscious with a natural or manufactured weapon granted to him by a vestige." Sacrificing maneuvers to a vestige is also potentially cool, though confusing fluffwise -- what's actually happening here? The other two conditions should be deleted.

Vestiges of Weaponry seems inessential.

Martial Lore from the Void is a little generic -- to give it flavor, maybe give every vestige 1 or 2 specific disciplines that they allow access to. To make that more fun, maybe having the vestige bound makes you count as having 1 additional maneuver in that discipline for the purpose of maneuver prerequisites (maybe increasing to 2 additional at a higher level of the class?).

Improved Soul-Guided Strike I would have simply be what you originally had Soul-Guided Strike as, plus perhaps +cha to special vestige granted special attacks.

Soul Wound is synergistic but the penalty is too high. Reduce to -2 or -3.

Ah darn I didn't know of any other binding/initiating dual PRCs I thought I was being original XD. Still that class is interesting. I do like the stances of the beyond feature. I think this PRC is already too filled with class features though, I think I will make it a feat that grants a similar ability that Pact Bound Knights can take.

I don't think anyone would realistically expect a dual progression PRC to advance their initiator levels 1.5 times. Anyone attempting that should have a DMG book thrown at their head. The class clearly states that they advance as their previous class and ToB states that any class that grants martial maneuvers progress IL by 1, which Pact Bound Knight clearly does.

I really think Soul Guided Strike is fine as is, the character already had to lose some BAB from their binder levels and most of the weapons granted by vestiges are fairly weak. Making it apply to any weapons when you use a maneuver kinda ruins the point of trying to make the pact bound knight use the weapons granted by the vestiges. It would also be a fairly powerful buff.

What aspect of Influence Pool do you think is too complicated? Its a pool of points you add to and then spend? Do you mean it has too many options to both gain points and spend on? I do agree with you on the fluff for sacrificing maneuvers though now that I think on it. It kinda makes sense for SU maneuvers but even then doesn't the vestige want the binder to USE those maneuvers? I will have to think on reworking some of those ways to gain influence points.

Vestiges of Weaponry: I am firmly of the opinion that binders get too few vestiges and since this PRC already delays their second vestige further I am 100% fine with giving them an extra vestige a bit early.

Martial Lore from the Void: I like being able to grant any discipline because of the vast amount of homebrew disciplines available. Often times I see those disciplines be used by one character in a campaign and then never touched on again. In addition I didn't want to prevent homebrew vestiges from being used without having to force the DM/player to assign disciplines to every single new vestige. Perhaps I should adjust the fluff for this ability though and make it clear that the vestiges are drawing on their experiences from their past/connection with other pact bound knights.

Ya Soul Wound worked better at the massive +5 bonus when this class had fewer class features and other bonuses. Reducing that to a -2 penalty makes more sense.

Thanks for the review and feedback!

Elves
2019-10-08, 11:59 AM
The class clearly states that they advance as their previous class and ToB states that any class that grants martial maneuvers progress IL by 1, which Pact Bound Knight clearly does.

In that case it would technically advance your IL by 2. :smallwink:

The key word here is the "also". How about the wording below:

"At every level, the Pact Bound Knight advances his initiating as if that were a level in an initiator class to which he belonged before adding the prestige class level."

Silva Stormrage
2019-10-11, 11:29 AM
In that case it would technically advance your IL by 2. :smallwink:

The key word here is the "also". How about the wording below:

"At every level, the Pact Bound Knight advances his initiating as if that level were a level in an initiator class to which he belonged before adding the prestige class level."

I suppose thats a fairly easy fix just in case someone else has the same idea.

Silva Stormrage
2019-10-26, 07:00 PM
Added the new feat I said I would heavily inspired from the Occult Adversary's Stance from Beyond.

Stance from Beyond
The Pact Bound Knight allows his bound vestiges to guide his movement while in a stance they granted to him.
Prerequisite: Martial Lore from the Void (Stance) Class Feature
Benefit: When you are in a stance granted to you from your Martial Lore from the Void class feature you gain the benefits of the evasion and improved uncanny dodge class feature as well as gaining a +2 bonus to martial lore, spot and listen checks. You however, automatically fail any save to resist the influence from a bad pact with a vestige.