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The Sanctified Soldier

December 8th, 2014

Joshua Zaback

Best in Class Archive

                With the completion of today’s Best in Class, we’ll have created a new archetype for each of the new classes featured in Advanced Class Guide. That means, of course, that today we’ll be talking about the warpriest. The warpriest is the fighter-cleric hybrid, and it’s not as much like a paladin as you might expect. Today’s new archetype is called the sanctified soldier, who forgoes his deity’s blessings in order to be a more effective sword of god, serving his patron’s interests on the fields of war.

 

New Warpriest Archetype
Sanctified Soldier

                Sanctified soldiers are religious warriors belonging to a militant arm of their deity’s church. While traditional warpriests have strong combat abilities augmented by their deity’s unique divine powers, sanctified soldiers instead channel their deity’s divine grace for more directly lethal combat abilities. Most sanctified soldiers can be found on crusade, or else embroiled in other long religious conflicts where the teachings of one’s church are less important than a willingness to fight for one’s god.

                Soldier’s Blessing (Su): All sanctified soldiers are blessed by their gods to be superior combatants. As a standard action, a sanctified soldier can call upon this blessing in order to make a single attack, which, if successful, deals an additional amount of damage equal to his class level. This damage is multiplied in the case of a critical hit. Alternatively, by expending 2 uses of this ability, he can activate it as part of making an attack. The sanctified soldier can use this ability a number of times per day equal to his Wisdom modifier.

                This ability replaces the minor blessing ability.

                Sacred Weapon (Su): At 1st level, the sanctified soldier gains the sacred weapon ability as normal, except that instead of the sacred weapon dealing damage as listed on the warpriest table, it deals damage as normal for a weapon of its type plus 1 additional point of damage. This additional damage is not subject to any form of damage reduction or resistance. At 5th level, and every 5 levels thereafter, this bonus sacred damage increases by +1.

                This ability modifies the sacred weapon ability.

                Sanctified Strike (Su): A sanctified soldier learns to make a powerful blow in the name of his god in order to punish his foes. Beginning at 2nd level, as a free action made as part of making an attack, a sanctified solider can call upon his deity to empower his attack. If he does, all damage dealt by the attack automatically overcomes all forms of damage reduction, and is treated as though it were the sanctified soldier’s alignment for the purposes of stopping regeneration. Additionally, if the target’s alignment is opposed to the sanctified soldier’s alignment on one or more axes (chaos opposes law, evil opposes good), the attack deals double damage, and the sanctified soldier can attempt to dispel the highest-level spell currently affecting the target. The sanctified soldier makes a dispel check (1d20 + his caster level) with a DC of 11 + the caster level of the spell to be dispelled. He may use this ability once each day, plus an additional time each day at 5th level and every 3 levels thereafter, to a maximum of 7 times a day at 20th level.

                This ability replaces the fervor and channel energy class features.

                Sanctified Defense (Su): A sanctified soldier can harness the power of his deity in order to defend himself against attacks. Beginning at 7th level, as a swift action which does not provoke attacks of opportunity, a sanctified soldier can add his Wisdom bonus to AC for 1 round. He can use this ability a number of rounds each day equal to his sanctified soldier level.

                This ability replaces sanctified armor.

                Champion’s Blessing (Su): A sanctified soldier has the ability to call upon his god for additional attacks. At 10th level, as a swift action, a sanctified solder can make an additional attack at his highest base attack bonus as a part of a full-attack action. The sanctified soldier can use this ability a number of times each day equal to 1/2 his sanctified soldier level.

                This ability replaces the major blessing ability.