[3.5] Arcane Knight [ToB, 14-level PrC]

[ErrantX]

First off, this is a 14 level prestige class because this class is designed to deal with the fact that if you're playing a gish, you have to come up with between 3-5 levels at least for a new prestige class to advance their build. With a 14 level class, it kind of eliminates that. Alright, with that out of the way, PEACH.

-X
---
Arcane Knight

Sir Killian Haldron, Arcane Knight

Arcane Knights come from a rare and uncommon breed of warrior who seeks a way to perfectly meld his arcane arts with his skill at arms. Many find ways to improve both adequately, but few possess the raw talent and knowledge to be able to use their arcane energies to enhance their physical prowess towards superiority in combat, as well as mastery of the arcane arts. Those that do learn this, Arcane Knights, are fearsome warriors and spellcasters that few would dare stand against on the field of battle.

Most arcane knights begin their careers as wizards, and some are martial adepts that develop the power of sorcery after beginning their adventuring career. Few bards make their way into these ranks, and fewer asassins, but some warmages decide to blend steel with their powers. All however, learn to use the Sublime Way.
Hit Die: d8

Requirements:
Skills: Concentration 9 ranks, Knowledge (arcana) 4 ranks, Martial Lore 4 ranks, Spellcraft 6 ranks
Feats: Combat Casting, Power Attack, any metamagic feat
Spells: Must be able to cast 3rd level arcane spells.
Maneuvers: Must be capable of initiating 1st level maneuvers and possess at least once stance.
Special: Must be proficient in a martial weapon and light armor.

Arcane Knight
{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|

Special

|

Spells per Day

1st|

+0

|

+2

|

+0

|

+0

|Bonus Feat, Somatic Prowess

2nd|

+1

|

+3

|

+0

|

+0

|Twilight Warrior Stance|+1 existing arcane spellcasting class

3rd|

+2

|

+3

|

+1

|

+1

||+1 existing arcane spellcasting class

4th|

+3

|

+4

|

+1

|

+1

||+1 existing arcane spellcasting class

5th|

+3

|

+4

|

+1

|

+1

|Arcane Recovery|+1 existing arcane spellcasting class

6th|

+4

|

+5

|

+2

|

+2

||+1 existing arcane spellcasting class

7th|

+5

|

+5

|

+2

|

+2

|Bonus Feat

8th|

+6

|

+6

|

+2

|

+2

||+1 existing arcane spellcasting class

9th|

+6

|

+6

|

+3

|

+3

||+1 existing arcane spellcasting class

10th|

+7

|

+7

|

+3

|

+3

||+1 existing arcane spellcasting class

11th|

+8

|

+7

|

+3

|

+3

|Bonus Feat|+1 existing arcane spellcasting class

12th|

+9

|

+8

|

+4

|

+4

||+1 existing arcane spellcasting class

13th|

+9

|

+8

|

+4

|

+4

||+1 existing arcane spellcasting class

14th|

+10

|

+9

|

+4

|

+4

|Arcane Critical[/table]

Maneuvers
{table=head]Level|Known|Readied|Stances

1st|

0

|

0

|

0

2nd|

1

|

0

|

0

3rd|

0

|

1

|

1

4th|

1

|

0

|

0

5th|

0

|

0

|

0

6th|

1

|

1

|

0

7th|

0

|

0

|

0

8th|

1

|

0

|

1

9th|

0

|

1

|

0

10th|

1

|

0

|

0

11th|

0

|

0

|

0

12th|

1

|

1

|

0

13th|

0

|

0

|

1

14th|

1

|

0

|

0

[/table]

Class Skills: Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (nobility and royalty) (Int), Martial Lore (Int), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int).
Skill Points per Level: 4 + Intelligence modifier

Class Features:

Weapons and Armor Proficiencies: The arcane knight gains proficiency with all simple weapons and two martial weapons of their choice. They are also proficient with all armor and with bucklers.

Maneuvers: At every even level, an arcane knight gains new maneuvers known from the Diamond Mind, Iron Heart, Stone Dragon, and White Raven disciplines. You must meet a maneuver's prerequisite to learn it. You add your full Arcane Knight levels to your initiator level to determine your total initiator level and your highest-level maneuvers known.
At 3rd, 6th and 9th levels, you gain additional maneuvers readied per day.

Stances Known: At 3rd level 8th, and 13th level, you learn a new martial stance from the Diamond Mind, Iron Heart, Stone Dragon, and White Raven disciplines as well as the same discipline chosen at first level for you maneuvers. You must meet the stances prerequisites to learn it.

Spellcasting: At each level except 1st, 7th, and 14th, you gain new spells per day and an increase in caster level (and spells known, if applicable) as if you had also gained a level in an arcane spellcasting class to which you belonged before adding the prestige class level. You do not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. If you had more than one arcane spellcasting class before becoming an arcane knight, you must decide to which class to add each level for the purpose of determining spells per day, caster level, and spells known.

Bonus Feat: At 1st, 7th, and 11th level you may pick either a fighter bonus feat or any metamagic, or item creation for which you meet the prerequisites.

Somatic Prowess (Ex): You can cast arcane spells while wearing light armor without incurring the normal arcane spell failure chance. However, like any other arcane spellcaster, you incur a chance of arcane spell failure if you cast a spell with a somatic component while wearing medium or heavy armor, or while using a shield.

Twilight Warrior Stance (Su): At 2nd level, an arcane knight learns how to channel their arcane energies to assist their physical abilities. As a swift action, the arcane knight may forgo the use of any stance he is in to assume the twilight warrior stance. Then, as a free action, the character sacrifices one of his available spells and channels it into fueling the abilities of this stance. Each spell level of the sacrificed spell grants one spell point that may be spent as determined by the table below. Spell points not spent during a round may be held for no longer than five rounds in his spell pool, after which these points are exhausted as if spent. Each spell point can be spent to fuel one of the abilities of the twilight warrior stance. For example, a 6th level arcane knight in the twilight warrior stance could sacrifice a third level spell to gain three spell points, and he could spend all three spell points in that turn or save them for a later round. He could spend one spell point on a bonus to attacks (+2d6), a second spell point on his AC (+2d6 to his AC), and a third spell point to gain one additional attack at his highest attack bonus.

Twilight Warrior Stance
{table=head]

Special Abilities

|

2-5

|

6-9

|

10-13

|

14

Insight bonus added to attacks for one round|

+1d6

|

+2d6

|

+3d6

|

+4d6

Insight bonus added to attack damage for one round*|

+1d6

|

+2d6

|

+3d6

|

+4d6

Insight bonus added to AC for one round|

+1d4

|

+2d4

|

+3d4

|

+4d4

One extra attack at your full base attack bonus**|

1

|

2

|

3

|

4

[/table]
*- If the weapon deals some sort of elemental damage (i.e. fire, cold, electicity, or acid), then the additional damage is of that elemental damage type. If the weapon does not, then the additional damage is simply an enhancement of the weapon’s normal damage ability.
**- Each additional attack requires the expenditure of spell points, and the limit on that is the number of additional attacks listed per level (i.e. a 10th level arcane knight may spend up to three spell points for three additional attacks)

Arcane Recovery (Su): At 5th level, an arcane knight knows how to channel their magic to bolster their martial maneuvers. As a swift action, you may expend a prepared spell or spell slot to regain an expended maneuver of the spells level or lower.

Arcane Critical (Su): When a 14th level arcane knight confirms a critical hit, as a swift action he may cast any spell he currently has prepared or has an available spell slot to cast with as if he applied the Quicken Spell metamagic feat to the spell. Use of this ability does not adjust the spell level of the spell. This ability may not be used if the character has already cast a quickened spell this round.

[Cieyrin]

I guess you've read the Pathfinder Eldritch Knight for some inspiration for this, as per Arcane Critical. Now, I wonder how well this class would work with a Duskblade w/ the Martial Maneuver and Martial Stance feats...

[Baron Corm]

If you're going to make it 14 levels, why not just make it a base class?

[Cieyrin]

For the same reason the True Necromancer is a 14 level PRC: Making combo base classes makes you worse than those specializing in one. You need to earn the right to Theurge it up, hence the requirements to get into a PRC and why you can't get into most of them till after your 5th or 6th level.

[ErrantX]

I guess you've read the Pathfinder Eldritch Knight for some inspiration for this, as per Arcane Critical. Now, I wonder how well this class would work with a Duskblade w/ the Martial Maneuver and Martial Stance feats...

Really? That was actually entirely accidental. Perhaps I should come up with a different capstone then...

As far as duskblade, I imagine it would work alright, but I wouldn't call it optimal. I am, however, personally biased against duskblade so I'm not what one would exactly call a fan of it.

As far as not making it a base class, yeah, Cieyrin is right all counts as to why I made it this way. If I made it a base class, then it'd basically be a martial adept duskblade. While I'm not opposed to it exactly, I wanted to see how my ideas would come out looking in a prestige class format.

Anyhow, thank you!
-X

[The Glyphstone]

One question to ask is, what are you giving up to take this class? For, say, a Wizard 5/Warblade 1/AK14, they only a couple of class features, but still end up with 18th level casting and 17th level maneuvers. the overwhelming thread that connects multicaster classes (and, admittedly, contributes to their reputation for being TRAPS!) is that they force you to surrender total progression in at least one of your progressions - even True Necromancer only gives 12/14 casting overall for both divine and arcane, making it a 15/15 caster at 20th level. If you're looking to break this trend, it's definitely a good idea, but as it stands the only thing the aforementioned WizBlade loses is the various Battle Clarity abilities and some bonus feats.

one other minor point - what's a Spell Enhancement feat? I've never seen that term used before.

[Frog Dragon]

Yeah so you lose one or two caster levels for Medium BaB, d8 hit die, spiffy abilities pretty much full maneuvers...
Make it lose more CL or make it harder to enter. Otherwise we get Warblade 1/Wizard5/Arcane Knight 14 build who swat out ninth level maneuvers and spells without gestalt....

[ErrantX]

Did some tweaking per Glyphstone's comment. Removed two spell levels, added Power Attack as an entry requirement, and reduced the armor proficiency requirement to light. Removed the spell enhancement thing, I don't know what I was thinking.

-X