Nocturne Prestige Class

[The Witch-King]

It's my first prestige class--be gentle.

Thanks!

Nocturne (Prestige Class)

The Nocturne is a religious shadow warrior for one of the numerous cults existing across the land. Unlike Paladins, these holy warriors do what they do by night, in the shadows. Evil Nocturnes are religious assassins, removing the adversaries of their faith in the dark. Good Nocturnes are thieves and investigators, who bring hidden deeds to the attention of the authorities and obtain or destroy objects too dangerous to be left in a rival cult’s hands. The Nocturne is an expert at stealth, infiltration, investigation and close quarters combat. Nocturnes are deadly professionals who believe passionately in the cause they fight for and are very rarely ever captured alive.

Hit Die: d8

Requirements:

To qualify to become a Nocturne, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.
Alignment: Nocturnes may be of any alignment.
Skills: Gather Information 2 ranks, Hide 2 ranks, Knowledge (Religion) 2 ranks, Move Silently 2 ranks.

BAB: +4.

Feats: Combat Reflexes.

Class Skills:

The Nocturne's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disable Device (Int), Disguise (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Forgery (Int), Gather Information (Cha), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge: Area (Int), Knowledge: Religion (Int), Knowledge: Streetwise (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Open Lock (Dex), Read Lips (Int), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), Use Magic Device (Cha), and Use Rope (Dex).

Skill Points at Each Level: 4 + Int modifier.

Level: BAB: Fort Save: Ref Save: Will Save:
1 +1 +0 +2 +0
2 +2 +0 +3 +0
3 +3 +1 +3 +1
4 +4 +1 +4 +1
5 +5 +1 +4 +1
6 +6 +2 +5 +2
7 +7 +2 +5 +2
8 +8 +2 +6 +2
9 +9 +3 +6 +3
10 +10 +3 +7 +3
11 +11 +3 +7 +3
12 +12 +4 +8 +4
13 +13 +4 +8 +4
14 +14 +4 +9 +4
15 +15 +5 +9 +5

Specials:

1 Dodge, Mobility, Investigator, Two Weapon Fighting, Combat Casting
2 Blind Fight, Weapon Finesse, Slashing Blades
3 Run, Evasion
4 Silent Spell
5 Divine Blades
6
7
8 Improved Uncanny Dodge
9
10 Spring Attack
11
12 Acrobatic Charge
13
14 Two Weapon Defense
15 Improved Evasion

Class Features:

Slashing Blades [General]
You can wield scimitars with fluid grace.
Prerequisites: Str 13, Dex 13, Weapon Finesse, proficiency with the scimitar.
Benefit: You treat the scimitar as a light weapon for purposes related to two-weapon fighting and the Weapon Finesse feat.
Normal: Scimitars are one-handed weapons.
Special: A fighter may select this feat as one of his bonus feats.

Divine Blades [Style]
The movements of your blades can channel divine power.
Prerequisites: BAB +3, Combat Casting, TWF, Slashing Blades, ability to cast divine spells.
Benefit: While wielding two scimitars, you can cast spells with somatic components without requiring a free hand. You do not provoke attacks of opportunity for casting a spell while wielding two scimitars in this way.

Improved Uncanny Dodge (Ex): At 8th level, a Nocturne can no longer be flanked. This defense denies rogues the ability to use flank attacks to sneak attack the Nocturne. The exception to this defense is that a rogue at least four levels higher than the Nocturne can flank her (and thus sneak attack her).

If a character gains uncanny dodge (see above) from a second class the character automatically gains improved uncanny dodge, and the levels from those classes stack to determine the minimum rogue level required to flank the character.

Acrobatic Charge (Ex): At 12th level, a Nocturne gains the ability to charge in situations where others cannot. She may charge over difficult terrain that normally slows movement. Depending on the circumstance, she may still need to make appropriate checks to successfully move over the terrain.

Improved Evasion (Ex): This ability, gained at 15th level, works like evasion (see above). A Nocturne takes no damage at all on successful saving throws against attacks that allow a Reflex saving throw for half damage. What’s more, she takes only half damage even if she fails her saving throw.

Spells Per Day:

Level:

1
2 +1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
3
4 +1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
5
6 +1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
7
8 +1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
9
10 +1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
11
12 +1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
13
14 +1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
15
16 +1 level of existing divine spellcasting class

A Nocturne can’t cast spells of an alignment opposed to his own or his deity’s. Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated by the chaos, evil, good, and law descriptors in their spell descriptions.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Nocturnes are proficient with the crossbow (hand, light, or heavy), dagger (any type), rapier, scimitar, sap, shortbow (normal and composite), and short sword. Nocturnes are proficient with light armor and medium armor but not with shields.

[Flying Elephant]

Just a couple of suggestions:
1.Wasn't read lips removed for 3.5?
2.Most prestige classes are 5 or 10 levels and can only be entered past level 5.
3.I think that whirling dervish is a two-scimitar prestige class, you may wish to look at that.
4.I would spread out all the free first level feats so that people wouldn't just take a dip at 5th level and then move on to another prestige class.

Otherwise, I like it.

[The Witch-King]

Just a couple of suggestions:
1.Wasn't read lips removed for 3.5?

Honestly, I don't know. It was listed under the skills set for the d20 Anime ninja and I thought it would be cool for the class I was building. Losing it is no big loss.

2.Most prestige classes are 5 or 10 levels and can only be entered past level 5.

There aren't going to be any paladins in my campaign--instead there's going to be these guys. I based the larger structure of levels for the class off of the Prestigious Paladin, which essentially is what this class is replacing.

3.I think that whirling dervish is a two-scimitar prestige class, you may wish to look at that.

I'll look for it. Thanks!

4.I would spread out all the free first level feats so that people wouldn't just take a dip at 5th level and then move on to another prestige class.

Yeah, I really don't know what to do about that. Like I said, this is my first prestige class and those are the sort of defining abilities I wanted them to have. Dodge and Mobility aren't exactly defining abilities but are prerequisites for other abilities I wanted them to get pretty quickly. Do you have any suggestions?

Otherwise, I like it.

Thanks! I appreciate your feedback!

[Proven_Paradox]

You need to spread those abilities out. As written, the most you're going to see players do with this class is a one or two level dip for that massive number of features they get at low level. There are a lot of dead levels after that, and to put it simply, it's not worth taking more levels in this class to get to the cooler stuff. Improved Evasion, while hella cool, is NOT what you want to do for a capstone: so many other base classes get it earlier.

As I see it, you have three obvious options to make this better.

First, you're only five levels away; why not just make this a base class? You've got five more levels to spread features around that way, and you can do something to define this class more, rather than a generic dual scimitar wielder with a little casting.

Another obvious choice is to spread things out so that you see fewer dead levels and fewer low-level abilities. I'd do something like this...

1 - Dodge, Investigator
2 - Mobility, Combat Casting
3 - Two Weapon Fighting, Weapon Finesse
4 - Blind Fight, Run
5 - Slashing Blades
6 -Evasion
7 - Silent Spell
8 - Divine Blades
9 - Improved Uncanny Dodge
10 - Spring Attack
11 - Improved Evasion
12 - Acrobatic Charge
13 - (Something new, dead levels suck)
14 - Two Weapon Defense
15 - (Awesome unique capstone of doom!)

Lastly, you could condense this down to ten levels, and up the prereqs to make it a more standard PrC.

[Matthew]

You might consider looking into the Format Thread, as this is comparatively quite difficult to read. The BAB requirement seems odd to me. What kind of arrangement are you considering for entry? Cleric 1/Fighter 4?

[Kyace]

Read lips is a DC 15 spot check now.

Also, since you have no requirements saying they need to be a divine spellcaster, a pure fighter could qualify (buying cross class skills like crazy). When they get "+1 to level of existing divine spellcasting class" what happens? Do they cast as a level 1 cleric?

[DraPrime]

Looks interesting. You do want to look up the format code for this type of stuff. Reading all this was painful.

[The Witch-King]

First, you're only five levels away; why not just make this a base class? You've got five more levels to spread features around that way, and you can do something to define this class more, rather than a generic dual scimitar wielder with a little casting.

I've decided since I pretty much want them all to have the slashing blades pretty quick that I'm going to do them as a base class that way you can get all the basic features I'm envisioning by level 5 or so.

Thanks for the feedback!

[The Witch-King]

The BAB requirement seems odd to me. What kind of arrangement are you considering for entry? Cleric 1/Fighter 4?

I was thinking of a 6th level character going into this with either: Cleric 3/Fighter 3, Cleric 3/Rogue 3 or Fighter 3/Rogue 3. But I'm thinking now of just making it a base class.

[The Witch-King]

Looks interesting. You do want to look up the format code for this type of stuff. Reading all this was painful.

I will look up the standard formatting; I apologize if reading it was difficult. I'm new here.

Thank you for taking the time to check it out anyway.

[The Witch-King]

Read lips is a DC 15 spot check now.

Also, since you have no requirements saying they need to be a divine spellcaster, a pure fighter could qualify (buying cross class skills like crazy). When they get "+1 to level of existing divine spellcasting class" what happens? Do they cast as a level 1 cleric?

My intention now is to make this a new base class but if I were to stick with the prestige class plan I would change the requirements to insure that qualifying characters had at least the abilities to turn/rebuke undead and to cast at least first level divine spells.