The Soul Bender(3.5e)

[crazydude369]

This is basically just a Secret College Necromancer variant, with spontaneous casting and some tweaked abilities. My first ever homebrew class so please, be gentle!

The Soul Bender
{table=head]Level|Base Attack<br>Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|0lvl|1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th|6th|7th|8th|9th

1st|

+0

|

+0

|

+0

|

+2

|Summon familiar, Control undead|5|3

2nd|

+1

|

+0

|

+0

|

+3

||6|4

3rd|

+1

|

+1

|

+1

|

+3

||6|5

4th|

+2

|

+1

|

+1

|

+4

|Negative energy ball|6|6|3

5th|

+2

|

+1

|

+1

|

+4

||6|6|4

6th|

+3

|

+2

|

+2

|

+5

||6|6|5|3

7th|

+3

|

+2

|

+2

|

+5

||6|6|6|4

8th|

+4

|

+2

|

+2

|

+6

|Split negative energy ball|6|6|6|5|3

9th|

+4

|

+3

|

+3

|

+6

||6|6|6|6|4

10th|

+5

|

+3

|

+3

|

+7

||6|6|6|6|5|3

11th|

+5

|

+3

|

+3

|

+7

||6|6|6|6|6|4

12th|

+6/+1

|

+4

|

+4

|

+8

|Paralyzing touch|6|6|6|6|6|5|3

13th|

+6/+1

|

+4

|

+4

|

+8

||6|6|6|6|6|6|4

14th|

+7/+2

|

+4

|

+4

|

+9

||6|6|6|6|6|6|5|3

15th|

+7/+2

|

+5

|

+5

|

+9

||6|6|6|6|6|6|6|4

16th|

+8/+3

|

+5

|

+5

|

+10

|Channel paralyzing touch|6|6|6|6|6|6|6|5|3

17th|

+8/+3

|

+5

|

+5

|

+10

||6|6|6|6|6|6|6|6|4

18th|

+9/+4

|

+6

|

+6

|

+11

||6|6|6|6|6|6|6|6|5|3

19th|

+9/+4

|

+6

|

+6

|

+11

||6|6|6|6|6|6|6|6|6|4

20th|

+10/+5

|

+6

|

+6

|

+12

|Necromantic study|6|6|6|6|6|6|6|6|6|6[/table]

Abilities
A soul bender’s spells are wisdom based, including save DC and bonus spells per day. This represents their perception of life and death, and thus their effectiveness at manipulating it. Wisdom also affects how many times per day a soul bender can control the undead. Constitution slightly increases the damage done by a soul bender’s negative energy ball. This is because doing so drains some of the soul bender’s life force. Dexterity may also benefit some ranged spells.

Alignment: Any non-good. (While they may not be actively evil, a truly good person would never willfully desecrate the remains of another.)
Hit Die: d4.

Class Skills
The soul bender’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Heal (Wis), Hide (Dex), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Move Silently (Dex), Spellcraft (Int), and Use Magic Device (Cha) (only necromantic devices).

Skill Points at 1st Level: (2 + Int modifier) X 4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier.

Class Features
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: All simple weapons. No armor or shields, as this causes standard spell failure chances for spells with somatic components.

Undead Familiar: A soul bender may create an undead familiar. This creature follows all the same rules as any other familiar and the rules for undead. This familiar is drawn from the Necromantic Familiars table (Secret College of Necromancy page 9).

Control Undead(Su): This works just like an evil or neutral cleric would rebuke undead, except that a soul bender may attempt to control undead a number of times per day equal to 3 + his/her Wisdom modifier, instead of Charisma.

Spells: A soul bender casts arcane spells, which are drawn from the necromancer spell list. (Secret College of Necromancy page 18). A soul bender may cast any spell he/she knows without preparing it ahead of time, just like a sorcerer. A soul bender’s daily spell allotment is given on the table: The Soul Bender. In addition to this, a soul bender receives bonus spells per day for having a high Wisdom score. A soul bender learns new spells as he/she gains levels, as shown on the following table:

Spells Known
{table=head]Level|0lvl|1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th|6th|7th|8th|9th

1st|4|2

2nd|5|2

3rd|5|3

4th|6|3|1

5th|6|4|2

6th|7|4|2|1

7th|7|5|3|2

8th|8|5|3|2|1

9th|8|6|4|3|2

10th|9|6|4|3|2|1

11th|9|6|5|4|3|2

12th|9|6|5|4|3|2|1

13th|9|6|6|5|4|3|2

14th|9|6|6|5|4|3|2|1

15th|9|6|6|5|5|4|3|2

16th|9|6|6|5|5|4|3|2|1

17th|9|6|6|5|5|5|4|3|2

18th|9|6|6|5|5|5|4|3|2|1

19th|9|6|6|5|5|5|4|4|3|2

20th|9|6|6|5|5|5|4|4|3|3[/table]

Negative Energy Ball (Su): At 4th level, a soul bender gains the ability to project a sphere of negative energy once per day. A successful ranged touch attack is required in order to hit an enemy with this attack. Conversely, this may be used to heal an undead ally, in which case a soul bender may ignore all bonuses to AC. This attack inflicts 1d6 damage per level of soul bender plus the soul bender’s Constitution modifier. Using this ability is a standard action. At 8th level, a soul bender gains the ability to spread out the use of his/her negative energy ball over the course of the day. A soul bender may use their total amount of d6s per day in any groupings. For example, a 10th level soul bender’s full negative energy ball attack damage is 10d6 plus Con. The soul bender may fire one 10d6, two 5d6, a 7d6 and a 3d6, a 1d6, a 3d6, and a 6d6, or any other combination of attacks that will add up to the total 10d6 per day. All individual negative energy balls still receive the soul bender’s full Constitution bonus, regardless of being split or not, as he/she has the extra time needed to concentrate and channel some life force into the attack. However, it will take longer to fire many small negative energy balls as opposed to one larger unified one.

Paralyzing Touch (Su): At 12th level, a soul bender gains the ability to inflict paralysis with a melee touch attack. The target receives a Fortitude save with a DC equal to 15 plus the soul bender’s Wisdom modifier, if any. If failed, the target becomes paralyzed for 3d4 rounds. A soul bender may use this ability three times per day. At 16th level, a soul bender gains the ability to channel their paralyzing touch into a negative energy ball attack. This can be done in either a fully powered negative energy ball or a split one, but the soul bender may still only use this ability three times per day, whether they are melee or ranged.

Necromantic Study: At 20th level, a soul bender may go through the steps necessary to become a lich with automatic success.

So, any thoughts on this one?

[Milskidasith]

So it's a sorcerer with a spell list from a third party splatbook (so I have no clue what it is) with some mildly useful class features in place of versatility? It's rather... meh, if that is the case.

It's also got a horrible capstone; I'm pretty sure the lichification ritual is guaranteed no matter what, so it's essentially not even a feature.

[Temotei]

It's also got a horrible capstone; I'm pretty sure the lichification ritual is guaranteed no matter what, so it's essentially not even a feature.

Plus, you gain +4 LA on top of that. You also pay a bunch of gold and XP for your phylactery...

[DrWeird]

It would be better, if I'm reading the fluff of the class right, to give it some sort of living/unliving template as a capstone, where it can choose whether to qualify as undead or living, given its mastery of the soul.

[Dante & Vergil]

You should put up the spell list, just not the spell descrptions of this class's spell list.
Funny note, the Necromancer class from that 3rd party book gets spells a level sooner than the wizard and had wonky saves and BAB progression. It was made around 3.0's time so you know it's good.