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DaTedinator
2008-10-10, 08:45 PM
PSALMIST
"Music is the greatest cure."
- Asaph, a psalmist

Music can heal, that much is certain. Most consider it to be mostly restricted to mental healing, or dealing with scars of the soul. Psalmists would argue otherwise. With such skillful command of music, they can play songs so gentle and soothing they can heal flesh as well as souls.
As a psalmist, you know firsthand the healing power of music. You know that in addition to inspiring listeners to greater heights than they could ever achieve alone, it can also help those who have fallen to get back on their feet. Most importantly, at the peak of your art, you can sing songs that can guide souls back to their fleshy homes, bringing the recently dead back to life.

BECOMING A PSALMIST
Bards are the most obvious candidates for psalmists, as the musical requirements practically guarantee that most all psalmists will have Bardic training. A small bit of divine training and most find it easy to qualify.
Clerics are also common candidates, dipping into bard for the musical training. Healers can also do well as psalmists, and, nontraditionally, paladins can also make very nice psalmists.

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
Feats: Hymnist (http://www.realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Hymnist,all) or Devoted Performer (http://www.realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Devoted_Performer,all).
Skills: Heal 4 ranks, Perform (Any) 8 ranks.
Special: Turn Undead or Lay on Hands

TABLE: THE PSALMIST
HIT DIE: d6
{table="head"]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special |0lvl|1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th

1st|+0|+0|+0|+2|Psalms (healing melody), lay on hands|1|1|—|—|—|—

2nd|+1|+0|+0|+3|Selah|2|2|—|—|—|—

3rd|+2|+1|+1|+3|Soothe the soul|3|3|1|—|—|—

4th|+3|+1|+1|+4|Psalms (serenade of soul)|4|4|2|—|—|—

5th|+3|+1|+1|+4||4|4|3|1|—|—

6th|+4|+2|+2|+5|Improved lay on hands|4|4|3|2|—|—

7th|+5|+2|+2|+5|Psalms (aria of light)|4|4|4|3|1|—

8th|+6|+2|+2|+6|Improved soothe the soul|4|4|4|3|2|—

9th|+6|+3|+3|+6||4|4|4|4|3|1

10th|+7|+3|+3|+7|Psalms (hymn of regeneration)|4|4|4|4|3|2

[/table]
Class Skills (4 + Int modifier per level): Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Gather Information (Cha), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Speak Language (None), Spellcraft (Int), Use Magic Device (Cha).

Spells Known
{table]Level|0lvl|1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th

1st|2|1|—|—|—|—

2nd|3|2|—|—|—|—

3rd|3|2|1|—|—|—

4th|4|3|2|—|—|—

5th|5|3|2|1|—|—

6th|5|3|3|2|—|—

7th|5|3|3|2|1|—

8th|5|3|3|3|2|—

9th|5|3|3|3|2|1

10th|5|3|3|3|3|2

[/table]

CLASS FEATURES
As they advance in level, psalmists gain multiple new uses for Bardic Music. They enhance their healing abilities as well as gain new ones.
Spells: You cast divine spells, drawn from the Bard list and the list of any one divine spellcasting class you had before taking your first level of psalmist. If a spell is on both spell lists, you use the lower level of the spell. You may cast any spell you know without preparing it ahead of time, just like a bard. Your caster level is equal to you class level, plus your bard caster level.
To learn or cast a spell, you must have a Charisma score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against one of your spells is 10 + the spell level + your Charisma modifier. Like other spellcasters, you can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. Your base daily spell allotment is given on the TABLE: THE PSALMIST. In addition, you receive bonus spells per day if you has a high Charisma score.
Your selection of spells is extremely limited. You begin play knowing two 0-level spells and one 1st-level spell of your choice. At each new psalmist level, you learn one or more new spells, as indicated on the table labeled "Spells Known."
Psalms: Your psalmist levels stack with your bard levels (if any) for the purpose of determining your uses of bardic music per day and your inspire courage ability. If you don't have any bard levels, you are treated as a bard of your class level for the purposes of determining bardic music uses per day and you gain the inspire courage ability as a bard of your class level.
In addition, at first level and every three levels thereafter, you gain a new use for your bardic music.

Healing Melody (Su): A psalmist with 8 or more ranks in perform can use his music to heal himself and his allies.
Each round of the healing melody, make a perform check. You and any ally who can hear you heals HP damage depending on the result of your perform check, as listed below:

{table]
Check Result:|
Healing:
Less than 10|
1
10-20|
3
21-25|
5
26-30|
7
+5|
+2[/table]
i.e., a result of 32 would heal 9 HP, 38 would heal 11 HP, and so on.

You may keep up a healing melody for 10 rounds.

Serenade of Soul (Su): A psalmist of 4th level or higher with 11 or more ranks in Perform can use his music to protect himself and his allies from magic.
For the duration of the the serenade of soul, you and any willing ally who can hear you gains spell resistance equal to your ranks in perform plus your Charisma modifier. While an ally can choose whether or not to gain the benefit of this spell resistance as a free action, you must use the spell resistance to resist any spell susceptible to it.
You may keep up a serenade of soul for 5 rounds.

Aria of Light (Sp): A psalmist of 7th level or higher with 14 or more ranks in Perform can use his music to harm the undead and keep them at bay.
Each round of the aria of light, make a perform check. You emit bright light as bright as sunlight. Creatures that take penalties in bright light also take them while within the radius of this magical light. This song is not the equivalent of actual daylight for the purposes of creatures that are damaged or destroyed by sunlight.
In addition, any undead must make a Will save (DC 10 + your class level + your Charisma modifier) to willingly enter the radius of the sunlight (an undead who enters the light by you approaching them, or who is bull rushed in needs no save). Whether or not they made a save to enter the light, any undead who begins their turn within the light takes damage equal to your class level plus your charisma modifier.
You may keep up an aria of light for 10 rounds.

Hymn of Regeneration: A psalmist of 10th level or higher with 17 or more ranks in Perform can use his music to knit back together torn tissues and muscles, and even return to life the recently dead.
Each round that you perform, you and any ally within 30' heals hit points equal to half your class level (round down). In addition, you and any ally within 30' gains immunity to any bleeding effect (such as that of a Wounding weapon), fatigue or exhaustion, disease, and nonlethal damage (any nonlethal damage already taken remains). Any severed body members, broken bones, or ruined organs grow back, as the Regenerate spell.
You may keep up a hymn of regeneration indefinitely.

Alternatively, you may take a full-round action and spend a use of bardic music to return a dead ally to life. It requires a perform check with a DC of (10*the number of rounds the target has been dead); if successful, the target returns to life with HP equal to half the perform check result (but not exceeding maximum HP).

Lay on Hands (Su): You gain the ability to heal wounds (your own, or those of others) by touch. Each day you have a pool of healing equal to twice your class level × your Charisma bonus. You may choose to divide this healing up among multiple recipients, and you don't have to use it all at once. This healing may not be used to damage undead (see below). Using lay on hands is normally a Standard action; alternatively, if you are able to turn undead, you may spend a use of turn undead to lay on hands as a move action.

If you already had the lay on hands ability from another class, the pools stack, and you may use this pool for anything you could use your other for (i.e., a paladin/psalmist could damage undead, or a dragon shaman/psalmist could possibly heal ability damage).

At 6th level, you may use your lay on hands ability as a move action; if you are able to turn undead, you may spend a use of turn undead to lay on hands as a swift action.

Selah: At 2nd level, you learn how to take a meaningful pause in your music. Once per song, you may pause singing for a single round to either use your Lay on Hands ability or cast a divine spell. The next round, your singing resumes as normal. The paused time does count against duration.

Soothe the Soul (Su): At 3rd level, you are able to heal not only physical maladies, but injuries of the soul as well. By expending a use of bardic music and spending 10 points from your Lay on Hands pool, you may emulate the effects of a Restoration spell after three rounds of singing.
At 8th level your ability to heal the spirit is increased. By expending three uses of bardic music, spending 25 points from you Lay on Hands pool, and taking a -2 penalty to your Charisma score (that cannot be removed by anything short of a Wish or Miracle) for the rest of the day, you may emulate a Greater Restoration after ten minutes of singing.


A NOTE: Despite rampant use of terms such as "singing," a psalmist doesn't actually have to sing. They can play instruments, recite poetry, or even dance, whatever they want. Basically, if there's a perform skill for it, you could have a psalmist who heals people through the wonders of slapstick comedy. 'Sfine.

---


The rest of the stuff ("PLAYING A PSALMIST," "PSALMISTS IN THE WORLD") may or may not be coming, we'll see. For now, doing all this was enough for me.

So yeah. PEACH? Or at least PEAC? :smalltongue:

AstralFire
2008-10-10, 08:47 PM
I am too tired for true criticism, but at a glance, I rather like. I am a sucker for divine flavor and a sucker for bards, though.

Pie Guy
2008-10-10, 09:35 PM
You have the requirement of perform(anything). Shouldn't it be perform(sing) or perform (type of instrament)?

AstralFire
2008-10-10, 09:38 PM
You have the requirement of perform(anything). Shouldn't it be perform(sing) or perform (type of instrament)?

Would you deny someone with Perform (Dance) when it works fine for Bardic Music?

DaTedinator
2008-10-10, 11:17 PM
Oh! Yeah. I actually intended to make a note about that but didn't. Basically, any Perform is fine. Singing, dancing, oratory, weapon drills... I'm not sure how you'd thematically explain all those, but I dislike restricting that sorta thing if it's not for a balance reason. If you can explain how your skill with spinning daggers is so spiffy that people heal faster, then more power to you.

And actually, speaking of Perform (Dance), that makes me think. Should I include a note about all spells having verbal components? I left it out because, yeah, if you're a dancer, why should you all your spells be loud? But just making sure it was the right choice.

Also, AstralFire, thank you! I have always been a sucker for bard-type things as well. It's a shame that something so flavorful was designed to be a third (fifth?) wheel. One of the reasons for this class! This way, a bard can be your walking band-aid!