The Shirtless Warrior - Savage [PEACH]

[Phosphate]

"They say that those who battle monsters are to become monsters themselves. That the power driving us forward is hatred, and our goals are nothing but errant genocide. And I tell you now, before you are to embark on this journey of death and vengeance: they are in no way far from the truth." - Thirius, Dragonslayer

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"Dragonslayers...a mirror into the ferocity of the powerless. The order had not been formed out of spite. It was not a coalition between like-minded individuals, survivors from devastated villages upon which the draconic wrath had befallen, nor could it have been. Indeed, the motives that would drive one to slaughter cannot be others than vengeance and grief, and it should be obvious by now that oftentimes it is not the case for those states of mind to be the reason why people would keep together as a group.

Truly, the first of the dragonslayers were lone venturers; and not noble ones either, indeed succumbing to their primal urge to avenge; nobody would endow them with any form of virtue. Many a peasant would watch their family being slaughtered by a coloured one, vow vengeance, train in the ways of combat and stealthily creep inside the dragons' lairs, slitting the throats of those who may not even be responsible for their loss in blind feats of rage. Alas, it doesn't even come close to the depravity of greedy scavengers that are just after the treasure, and for whom the lives of those majestic beings are nothing.

The draconic retaliation came as a natural reaction to this abuse, and it was then that humanoids united in their petty ways, becoming a real threat to the draconic race as a whole.

And I am to ask you...have you no memory? Is the past but a blank slate for your hardened hearts? How can you take comfort in the slaughter of those who gave us knowledge, magic not subservient to the gods, those who at cornerstones in our history stood up as mighty protectors?"

Mesiriel, Intents

Stats: Dragonslayers are fighters in nature, and as fighters they benefit greatly from high strength and constitution. Additionally, a high Charisma score may serve their more specific, niche abilities.

Background: Today, dragonslayers are as diverse as the races of dragons they are hunting, hailing from both poor villages and royal courts, the frigid north and the driest of deserts, civilized plains and the barrens of tribesmen.

Race: Any race whose members are Large or shorter, and is not draconic or lizard-like.

Alignment: Any, although Neutral Good dragonslayers are virtually impossible to find.

Hit Die: d12
Age: simple
Gold: as fighter
Special: Players who take this class at character creation instantly learn the Draconic language and writing.

{table=head]Level | Base Attack Bonus | Fort Save | Ref Save | Will Save | Special
1st | +1 | +2 | +2 | +2 | Favored Enemy (Dragon), Track, Disregard
2nd | +2 | +3 | +3 | +3 | Goliath's Bane (d4), Evasion
3rd | +3 | +3 | +3 | +3 | All or Nothing
4th | +4 | +4 | +4 | +4 | Hardened, Swift Response
5th | +5 | +4 | +4 | +4 | Goliath's Bane (d6), Cleavestride
6th | +6/+1 | +5 | +5 | +5 | Improved Disregard
7th | +7/+2 | +5 | +5 | +5 | Champion's Rush, Bloodlust
8th | +8/+3 | +6 | +6 | +6 | Improved Evasion, God's Leap
9th | +9/+4 | +6 | +6 | +6 | Goliath's Bane (d8)
10th | +10/+5 | +7 | +7 | +7 | 2nd favored enemy (special), Mettle
11th | +11/+6/+1 | +7 | +7 | +7 | Uncanny Confidence, Strike Behind Scales
12th | +12/+7/+2 | +8 | +8 | +8 | Draconic Detection
13th | +13/+8/+3 | +8 | +8 | +8 | Recounting the Centuries
14th | +14/+9/+4 | +9 | +9 | +9 | Goliath's Bane (d10), Dispersion
15th | +15/+10/+5 | +9 | +9 | +9 | Draconic Rejuvenation
16th | +16/+11/+6/+1 | +10 | +10 | +10 | Oath of Vengeance
17th | +17/+12/+7/+2 | +10 | +10 | +10 | Titanic Leap
18th | +18/+13/+8/+3 | +11 | +11 | +11 | Anatomical Parry
19th | +19/+14/+9/+4 | +11 | +11 | +11 | Decapitation
20th | +20/+15/+10/+5 | +12 | +12 | +12 | Goliath's Bane, Familicide (d12)
[/table]

Hit Dice: d12

Skill Points: 4+int mod (x4 at first level)
Class Skills: Balance, Bluff, Craft, Diplomacy, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge (nature, arcana), Ride, Sense Motive, Survival, Swim, Tumble

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: The Dragonslayer is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, one exotic weapon of his choice, all types of armor and all shields.

Class Features

Favored Enemy (Dragon): As the Ranger ability, except Dragon must be chosen. Bonuses increase from 2 to 4 at level 5, 6 at level 10, and 8 at level 20.

At level 10, the Dragonslayer may choose another favored enemy type/subtype. However, the bonuses only apply to the members of that type who are Large or bigger. Bonuses increase from 2 to 4 at level 15.

Track: You gain Track as a bonus feat.

Disregard: All diplomacy checks attempted by dragons on you fail. Also, you gain a +2 untyped bonus to will saves against all supernatural or spell-like mind-affecting abilities of dragons.

Goliath's Bane (Ex): Specialized training has learned the dragonslayer to do more damage to larger opponents. He gains a bonus to weapon damage rolls equal to d4 times the number of sizes an opponent is above medium (so +d4 for large, +2d4 for huge, +3d4 for gargantuan etc).

The dice used changes to d6 at level 5, d8 at level 9, d10 at level 14 and d12 at level 20.

Those dice can also be applied to nonlethal attacks, but they will still deal lethal damage. Furthermore, these dice do not get multiplied by critical hits.

Evasion (Ex): As the rogue ability.

All or Nothing (Ex): A Dragonslayer of 3rd level learns to strike with force and passion at a specific vital point. Such strikes are disastrous of done right, but ineffectual if done poorly. Before any melee attack, a dragonslayer chooses to execute either a normal or focused strike. When doing a focused strike, the threat range of the weapon increases by 1 step, and if you roll within the threat range the critical is instantly scored, without the need of a reroll. However, if the dice result does not fall within the threat range, the attack deals nonlethal damage.

Hardened (Ex): A Dragonslayer of 4th level gains DR 5/-. Then, at every 4 levels (8th, 12th, 16th, 20th etc), he may either gain 5 resistance to one type of energy or 1 point of DR.

Swift Response (Ex): Dragonslayers are used to danger sprouting from every direction, and retaliate swiftly. They may immediately strike back at an opponent attacking in melee, once per round. This is not treated as an attack of opportunity, and does not consume the AoO for the round.

Cleavestride (Ex): A level 5 Dragonslayer gains the Cleave feat, or if he already has it, the Greater Cleave feat (he need not meet the prerequisites). However, a dragonslayer is allowed to move between attacks. The maximum distance permitted is dex mod squares/2, rounded up.

Improved Disregard: All intimidate checks attempted by dragons on you fail. Additionally, once per minute you can make an opposed charisma check against a dragon within line of sight (d20+cha mod for both you and the dragon). If your result is higher than the dragon's, everyone will ignore his Frightful Presence for 1 minute.

Champion's Rush (Ex):When a dragonslayer is charging, his damage is increased by 1 for every square of movement, and if the attack succeeds, the target is pushed 5 feet back (regardless of the size difference). However, if he misses, he falls into prone.

Improved Evasion (Ex): As the rogue special ability.

Bloodlust (Ex): For every creature that grants experience and is taller than a dragonslayer that he kills, he gains +2 to damage and -2 to AC for 1 hour. A new kill stacks the bonus and resets the duration, up to a maximum number of times equal to the dragonslayer's Cha mod. If a dragonslayer meditates in silence for 10 minutes, he loses all the bloodlust modifiers to damage and AC and no longer gains any for 2 hours.

God's Leap (Ex): A level 8 dragonslayer is treated as having maximum ranks in the Jump skill. Additionally, if he jumps only once during a round, the distance moved by jumping is not counted against the maximum. Also, the DC for high jumps is doubled.

Mettle (Ex): Starting at level 10, a dragonslayer's determination allows him to shrug off magical effects that would otherwise harm him. If hewould make a successfully Will or Fortitude save that would normally reduce the spell’s effect (such as a spell with entry Will partial or Fortitude half) the effect is instead negated.

Uncanny Confidence (Su): Only works for dragonslayers who have a charisma score of 15 or higher. If such a dragonslayer kills a dragon in combat (namely, he is the one giving the final blow), during his next attack he will be affected by True Strike. The dragonslayer can only benefit from this once per encounter.

Strike Behind Scales (Ex): A level 11 dragonslayer ignores all the DR of dragons when striking them in melee, and 5 DR when attacking anything else.

Draconic Counter-Detection (Su): A level 12 dragonslayer pinpoints the location of all dragons within 200 feet of him (including dragons that are hiding, invisible, or ethereal). Additionally, dragons cannot use their Blindsense to detect the dragonslayer.

Recounting the Centuries (Su): Select a dragon within line of sight as a standard action. If his charisma is higher than yours, this ability fails without being expended (you still lose a standard action). If not, he must make both a Fortitude and a Will save against a DC of 10+class level/2+Cha mod. If he fails both, he takes damage equal to his age (5 years=5 damage, 500 years=500 damage). If he fails only the Will save, he does not receive damage, but this ability is not expended. If he fails only the Fortitude save, he receives half damage. If he succeeds both, he takes no damage, and the ability is not expended. This ability can be used once per encounter, and is mind-dependent*.

*Mind-dependent abilities work only on creatures that have a mind, but are not mind-affecting abilities. So Recounting the Centuries can't be used on an undead dragon, but can be used on a dragon immune to mind-affecting effects.

Dispersion: A level 14 shield-wielding dragonslayer is immune to breath weapons, as is anyone one and two squares behind him. If he disperses a breath weapon and is 15 feet or closer to the dragon using it, the dragon is pushed 5 feet back.

Draconic Rejuvenation: By drinking a gallon of fresh dragon blood (by fresh, we mean that the dragon must have died in the past 24 hours, and it must be a True Dragon), a dragonslayer recovers 4d8 hit points and the fatigued and exhausted effects end on him. All Draconic Rejuvenation uses except for the first one in a day heal 0 hit points.

Oath of Vengeance: If a dragon kills one of the dragonslayer's allies, the dragonslayer will permanently deal 50% more damage to that dragon. Doesn't stack.

Titanic Leap (Su): A level 17 dragonslayer can make a jump as a full round action. If he chooses to do so, he may reach any point up to 150 feet away from him in any direction, including upwards. Titanic Leap as a cooldown of 2 rounds, that is, it cannot be utilized for 2 rounds after its use.

Anatomical Parry (Ex): Whenever a dragonslayer is attacked by a dragon with one of its natural weapons (tail, claws, bite, wings), he may make an attack roll instead of using his AC for defense. If the roll is higher than the dragon's attack roll, the attack is blocked, and the dragon receives damage from Goliath's Bane (only). If the roll is lower, the attack succeeds.

Decapitation (Ex): A level 19 dragonslayer's weapons are treated as vorpal when dealing critical strikes to True Dragons.

Familicide (Su): A level 20 dragonslayer is a finely tuned slaughter machine. Whenever he kills a dragon with a non-supernatural ability, he may, once per round as a free action, select another dragon within line of sight. The selected dragon must be of the same race as the killed one (red, green, black, brass, copper etc.), be at least 1 age category younger than the killed one and have less charisma than the dragonslayer. If all these conditions are met, he dies (no save).

[Yitzi]

Looks like it'll be quite impressive when used as part of an armorless build. His high hit die and Healthy Body mean that he actually doesn't need all that much CON; he'd probably be better served by DEX and whatever other abilities fuel his unarmored AC (INT if he takes some duelist, WIS if he gets a monk's belt, etc.)

Oh, and what's his caster level for Arcane Body? And what does "instantly" mean (presumably not "free action with unlimited uses/round")?

[Phosphate]

Instant as in not prepared (yea I know it should be spontaneous, will change). The spellcaster level is class level/3 rounded down, forgot to mention.

Anyway, what Tier do you think it belongs to?

[Cipher Stars]

The Savage Way: A Savage refuses to hide himself behind clothing

I think I'm going to like this class. Of course, I only play female.

A lot of stuff seems exaggerated, fluff wise at least. But its fine I suppose.

[Phosphate]

I think I'm going to like this class. Of course, I only play female.

A lot of stuff seems exaggerated, fluff wise at least. But its fine I suppose.

Exagerrated? Please, this is D&D. You can walk on air if your Balance is high enough.

[Qwertystop]

Exagerrated? Please, this is D&D. You can walk on air if your Balance is high enough.

No, you can walk on clouds. There's a difference.

Might this end up being a non-Sublime T3 mainly-Martial class? It has fairly good Skill Points (equal to a Bard), has mundane crafting, can technically do Craft (Alchemy) and some low-level magic items once it hits level 11, and can also Handle Animal. Both Craft and Handle Animal are pretty good skills. Shouldn't it have Profession? I think every single class has profession (not that it matters much).

Due to all that, it could do fairly well as a cross-class skillmonkey or as a craftmonkey in addition to its INCREDIBLE skill at tanking.

[Phosphate]

There is a difference between sporadic feats of great skill (craft) and constant, sustained effort (profession). Guess which is more likely for a dude that hits stuff with a sword.

[Qwertystop]

There is a difference between sporadic feats of great skill (craft) and constant, sustained effort (profession). Guess which is more likely for a dude that hits stuff with a sword.

My only reason was that I had thought that everyone (including Fighter and Barbarian) had Profession. It turns out I am wrong, so there is no reason to have it. However, I can think of no particular reason that a skilled swordfighter would be particularly capable of being able to carve gemstones or something, so your point doesn't really stand. Craft checks take place over weeks, so it's not really "sporadic feats of sustained effort". It can even be used for the exact same thing as Profession, as an over-time, sustained-effort money-maker (which is why Profession is generally pointless for anything other than NPCs).

[Realms of Chaos]

Age: none (no, not simple, NONE)

Beware of Kontar, 3-year-old conqueror of the Western nations.

Seriously, though, many of these ideas are seriously inspired. Would you mind if I borrow some for a revamp of my old survivalist base class?

[Phosphate]

@master: Then I will just brush off craft.

@Realms: No problem, take what you want. I want this seen and (probably) playtested anyway.

[Dust]

I'd change the name of 'Battle Excited,' for aesthetic reasons.

[Phosphate]

I'd change the name of 'Battle Excited,' for aesthetic reasons.

I don't really like substantive+adjective like names. So anyway, I think I should make a PrC for this. Or not...