Agent - PEACH

**LairdMaon** · 2024-02-24, 01:20 AM (ISO 8601)

An Agent is a person of action.
Leave the frontline for the Fighters, the Paladins, the Barbarians, and such; the Agent is the one carving their way to the command center.
Or maybe they are the ones scouring the intel on the next stage of the dungeon so they can alter their loadout to prepare .
There's any number of ways to play an Agent.

I designed this class to give a rather different way to play a non-caster. Here, you can use whatever weapon floats your boat at the moment. You have reason to collect the weapons left by the foes you slay, well, beyond selling them...
I've been told this class would allow for a John Wick build, and I'm quite pleased with that. I think it could fit a Jason Bourne or Jackie Chan style character as well. Either way, I hope this entertains.

Agent

HP: d8
Skill points: 6/level
Proficiencies: Simple, Martial Weapons
Light, Medium Armor

Level	BAB	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special	Defense (GP)	Offense (GP)
1st	+ 0	+ 2	+ 2	+ 0	Improved Unarmed Strike Adaptive Defense Adaptive Offense	+1/1,000	+0.5/500
2nd	+ 1	+ 3	+ 3	+ 0	Weapon Aptitude	+1.5/2,250	+1/2,000
3rd	+ 2	+ 3	+ 3	+ 1	Subtle Strike	+2/4,000	+1.5/4,500
4th	+ 3	+ 4	+ 4	+ 1	Improvised Versatility	+2.5/6,250	+2/4,000
5th	+ 3	+ 4	+ 4	+ 1		+3/9,000	+2.5/12,500
6th	+ 4	+ 5	+ 5	+ 2	Receptive Enrichment	+3.5/12,250	+3/18,000
7th	+ 5	+ 5	+ 5	+ 2		+4/16,000	+3.5/24,500
8th	+ 6/1	+ 6	+ 6	+ 2		+4.5/20,250	+4/32,000
9th	+ 6/1	+ 6	+ 6	+ 3		+5/25,000	+4.5/40,500
10th	+ 7/2	+ 7	+ 7	+ 3	Greater Receptive Enrichment Overpower Magic	+5.5/30,250	+5/50,000
11th	+ 8/3	+ 7	+ 7	+ 3		+6/36,000	+5.5/60,500
12th	+ 9/4	+ 8	+ 8	+ 4		+6.5/42,250	+6/72,000
13th	+ 9/4	+ 8	+ 8	+ 4		+7/49,000	+6.5/84,500
14th	+ 10/5	+ 9	+ 9	+ 4		+7.5/56,250	+7/98,000
15th	+ 11/6/1	+ 9	+ 9	+ 5	Lesser Gestalt Magic	+8/64,000	+7.5/112,500
16th	+ 12/7/2	+ 10	+ 10	+ 5		+8.5/72,250	+8/128,000
17th	+ 12/7/2	+ 10	+ 10	+ 5		+9/81,000	+8.5/144,500
18th	+ 13/8/3	+ 11	+ 11	+ 6		+9.5/90,250	+9/162,000
19th	+ 14/9/4	+ 11	+ 11	+ 6		+10/100,000	+9.5/180,500
20th	+ 15/10/5	+ 12	+ 12	+ 6	Gestalt Magic	+10.5/110,250	+10/200,000

Spoiler: Skills

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Balance (Dex)
Climb (Str)
Concentration (Con)
Craft (Int)
Hide (Dex)
Intimidate (Cha)
Jump (Str)
Knowledge(arcana) (Int)
Knowledge(history) (Int)
Knowledge(local) (Int)
Knowledge(nature) (Int)
Knowledge(nobility and royalty) (Int)
Listen (Wis)
Move Silently (Dex)
Profession (Wis)
Ride (Dex)
Sense Motive (Wis)
Spellcraft (Int)
Swim (Str)
Tumble (Dex)

Spoiler: Class Features

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Improved Unarmed Strike (Na)
You are considered to be armed even when unarmed — that is, you do not provoke attacks of opportunity from armed opponents when you attack them while unarmed. However, you still get an attack of opportunity against any opponent who makes an unarmed attack on you. In addition, your unarmed strikes can deal lethal or nonlethal damage, at your option.

Adaptive Defense (Su)
An Agent learns to focus their arcane potential into enhancements for their protective wear. The Agent can grant any armor and/or shield they wear a magical enhancement for as long as they wear it. This effect only applies when the Agent is wearing armor (carrying a shield) and ends as soon as they remove it.
This effect can be applied to Natural Armor.
The magical abilities may be changed after a one hour period of concentration.
If there's already an enhancement (Magical Ability) on the armor the preexisting magic prevents the Agent's magic from being expressed through that armor.

Adaptive Offense (Su)
An Agent learns to focus their arcane potential into enhancements for their weapons. The Agent can grant any weapon(s) they wield a magical enhancements for as long as they wield it. This effect only applies when the Agent is wielding the weapon and ends as soon as they discard it, though it may be applied to unarmed, natural weapons, ray-spells, and weapon-like-spells.
The magical abilities may be changed after a one hour period of concentration.
If there's already an enhancement (Magical Ability) on the weapon the preexisting magic prevents the Agent's magic from being expressed through that weapon.

Weapon Aptitude (Ex)
Your training with a wide range of weaponry and tactics gives you great skill with particular weapons. You qualify for feats that usually require a minimum number of Fighter levels (such as Weapon Specialization) as if you had a Fighter level equal to your Agent level -2. For example, as a 6th-level Agent, you could take Weapon Specialization, since you're treated as being a 4th-level Fighter for this purpose. These effective Fighter levels stack with any actual Fighter levels you have. Thus, a Fighter 2/Agent 4 would also qualify for Weapon Specialization.

You also have the flexibility to adjust your weapon training. Each morning, you can spend 1 hour in weapon practice to change the designated weapon for any feat you have that applies only to a single weapon (such as Weapon Focus). You must have the newly designated weapon available during your practice session to make this change. For example, if you wish to change the designated weapon for your Weapon Focus feat from greatsword to longsword, you must have a longsword available to practice with during your practice session. You can adjust any number of your feats in this way, and you don't have to adjust them all in the same way. However, you can't change the weapon choices in such a way that you no longer meet the prerequisite for some other feat you possess. For instance, if you have both Weapon Focus (longsword) and Weapon Specialization (longsword), you can't change the designated weapon for Weapon Focus unless you also change the weapon for Weapon Specialization in the same way.

Subtle Strike (Ex)
When dealing damage with a Ranged Attack or a Weapon Finesse weapon you deal Dexterity Modifier bonus damage. (This also allows for Str + Dex to damage).

Improvised Versatility (Na)
You do not suffer any penalties for using improvised weapons.

Receptive Enrichment (Na)
Buff spells cast on the Agent last twice their normal duration.

Overpower Magic (Su)
At level 10, the Agent gains the ability to overcome the magical enhancement of weapons and armors they have equipped. They may, at will, use their Adaptive Offense and Adaptive Defense instead of the enhancements offered by the weapon or armor.

Greater Receptive Enrichment (Na)
Buff spells cast on the Agent have their numerical bonuses doubled. This stacks with Receptive Enrichment.

Lesser Gestalt Magic (Su)
The Agent, by now, has gained control enough of their magic to partially combine their own power with that of the magic weapons and armors they might use.
When using the Overpower Magic feature, they may combine the magical abilities from their Adaptive Offense and Adaptive Defense with the magical abilities that their weapons and armor might have.

Gestalt Magic (Su)
At this point, the Agent has gained full control of their own power. They gain full effect of their Adaptive Offense and Adaptive Defense as well as that magical properties of their weapons and armor.

**Maat Mons** · 2024-02-24, 09:07 AM (ISO 8601)

“Enhancement” is a bonus type, “enchantment” is a school of magic. Are some of these class features meant to allow the use of weapon/armor special abilities priced as modifications to effective enhancement bonus? If so, you should say that? Are some of these class features meant to be restricted to adding an enhancement bonus to attack/damage/AC? If so, why do they include language about changing the benefits daily?

You mentioned the character is meant to be encouraged to collect weapons from slain foes. However, past certain levels, all the weapons found in this way will be magical. Most of the class features can’t function with weapons that are already magical. So most found weapons will be useless to a member of this class after a certain point.

You mentioned the character is meant to be encouraged to change their loadout from one fight to the next. However, almost all the class features are set on a daily basis, so those decisions can’t be changed without leaving and coming back tomorrow. The class seems to mostly be designed to facilitate switching between different mundane weapons and armor. But what’s the motivation to do that? The only major reason I can think of to change the mundane aspects of your weaponry is to deal with damage reduction. The old golf club bag of adamantine/cold iron/silver and bludgeoning/piercing/slashing weapons. Why not just give a class feature that makes all weapon attacks ignore all types of DR?

Did you know there’s a magic item called a Dragonshard Pommel Stone (Forge of War, p121) that lets you swap magical characteristics between multiple mundane weapons? Or that a Ring of Adamantine Touch (Magic Item Compendium, p121) or Gauntlets of Weaponry Arcane (Magic Item Compendium, p104) allow some types of DR to be ignored? Food for thought.

Is there any reason someone would want to change between different suits of armor? Generally, if you have high Dex, you want light armor, and if you don’t, you want heavy armor. The character’s Dexterity score won’t be going up or down massively throughout a day, so why would armor choice need to change. There is the issue of wanting to change into light armor for sleep, but there are cheep magical options to be able to sleep in heavy armor.

This class seems to share a lot of conceptual space with Soulknife. Soulknife is much maligned, and it would be advisable to read up on the criticisms, since many of them apply here as well.

**LairdMaon** · 2024-02-24, 04:11 PM (ISO 8601)

First off, thanks for the input! You made some solid points that have me stuff to think about.