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The Revenant Scourge

December 2nd, 2013

Alex Riggs

Best in Class Archive

           As you’re no doubt already aware, due to the numerous installments in our ongoing series of articles providing cruomancy-themed archetypes for all of Paizo’s classes, we recently released a completely remastered edition of Liber Vampyr, our very first book, which is available for free on this very website. Among other things, Liber Vampyr includes three different base classes that utilize the numerous vampire feats and blood point rules that make up the bulk of the book, and are designed to allow players to make the most of what the book has to offer. These classes are loosely based on fighters, rogues, and sorcerers. Today, I’m going to show you an alternate base class for revenants that is based somewhat more loosely on the witch class.

 

New Base Class
The Revenant Scourge

 

            The deeper that a revenant scourge delves into his vampiric power, the more darkness and evil he finds within himself. These hateful creatures revile the world around them, and turn their own self-loathing at the monsters that they have become outward to the world around them, using it to power devastating offensive magic and to sow destruction and discord everywhere that they go.

Starting Gold: 2d6x10.
            Hit Die: d6.

 

Class Skills

            The revenant scourge’s class skills are Appraise (Int), Bluff (Cha), Craft (Int), Fly (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Profession (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), and Use Magic Device (Cha).

            Skill Ranks per Level: 2 + Intelligence modifier.

 

The Revenant Scourge

 

Class Features

            The following are class features of the revenant scourge.

            Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Revenant scourges are proficient with all simple weapons. They are not proficient with any type of armor or shield. Armor interferes with a revenant scourge’s arcane gestures, which can cause his spells with somatic components to fail (See Arcane Spells and Armor in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook for more information about arcane spell failure).

            Revenant: At 1st level, a revenant scourge gains the revenant template. If the revenant scourge was already a revenant, this has no effect. Characters that cannot gain the revenant template cannot take levels in revenant scourge.

            Cruomancy: For each level of revenant scourge that a character gains, his cruomancer level increases by 1. Additionally, as he gains additional levels of revenant scourge, the maximum number of blood points that he can have in his blood point pool increases, as indicated on Table: The Revenant Scourge.

            Spells: A revenant scourge casts arcane spells drawn from the witch spell list presented in the Advanced Player’s Guide. A revenant scourge must choose and prepare his spells ahead of time.

            To learn or cast a spell, a revenant scourge must have an Intelligence score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a revenant scourge’s spell is 10 + the spell level + the revenant scourge’s Intelligence modifier.

            A revenant scourge can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. His base daily spell allotment is given on Table: The Revenant Scourge. In addition, he receives bonus spells per day if he has a high Intelligence score (see the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook for more information on bonus spells).

            A revenant scourge may know any number of spells. He must choose and prepare his spells ahead of time by getting 8 hours of sleep and spending 1 hour communing with his familiar. While communing, the revenant scourge decides which spells to prepare.

            Bonus Feats: At 1st level, a revenant scourge gains any one vampire feat of his choice for which he qualifies. Additionally, at 3rd level and every three levels thereafter, he gains an additional vampire feat of his choice for which he qualifies. Any time that he would gain a bonus feat in this way, he may instead choose to gain a witch hex. He treats his revenant scourge level as his witch level for the purposes of meeting the prerequisites of hexes, but he does not gain the ability to learn major hexes or grand hexes as a result of this ability. He must meet all prerequisites of a hex in order to learn it.

            Cantrips: Revenant scourges can prepare a number of cantrips, or 0-level spells, each day, as noted on Table: The Revenant Scourge under “Spells per Day.” These spells are cast like any other spell, but they are not expended when cast and may be used again. Cantrips prepared using other spell slots, due to metamagic feats for example, are expended normally.

            Familiar (Ex): At 1st level, a revenant scourge forms a close bond with a familiar, a creature that teaches him magic and helps to guide him along his path. This familiar functions in all ways as a witch’s familiar, except that it gains the undead type and risen subtype. For more information on the undead type and risen subtype, see Liber Vampyr.

            Sanguine Boost (Su): Beginning at 2nd level, whenever a revenant scourge consumes enough blood to gain one or more blood points, he enters a state of euphoric transcendence. For the next minute, he treats his caster level as being 2 higher than it actually is for the purpose of any level-dependent effects of spells that he casts (potentially including range, duration, number of targets, damage dice and/or other effects).

            Channel Resistance (Su): Beginning at 4th level, a revenant scourge gains an amount of channel resistance equal to 1/2 his class level. As an immediate action, he can spend a single blood point to increase this channel resistance to be equal to his class level for a number of rounds equal to his Intelligence modifier.

            Lose Weakness: At 8th level, and again at 16th level, a revenant scourge may choose a single lesser weakness that he gained as a result of gaining the revenant template, and lose it, forever freeing herself of that particular weakness. The revenant scourge may not choose to lose his blood dependency or sunlight vulnerability weaknesses in this way, nor can he lose any greater weaknesses as a result of this ability.

            Blood Bond (Su): Beginning at 10th level, a revenant scourge is able to draw upon the power of consumed blood to forge a link between herself and his victim, and exploit that link for magical purposes. Whenever he casts a spell that allows a saving throw not denoted as harmless, any creature that attempts such a saving throw suffers a -2 penalty on that saving throw if the revenant scourge consumed any amount of that creature’s blood in the last 3 days.

            Dark Resurrection (Su): Beginning at 14th level, whenever a revenant scourge gains a number of negative hit points in excess of his Constitution score, instead of being permanently destroyed, his body turns to dust and ash. 24 hours later, his body reforms in the same spot, and he is restored to life with 1 hit point and a number of negative levels equal to 1/5 his class level (rounded down). These negative levels cannot be removed by any means, but last for only one week, after which they go away on their own. While the revenant scourge is suffering from these negative levels, he can be destroyed normally, and cannot benefit from this ability.

            A wish or miracle spell cast between the time at which the revenant scourge’s body is destroyed and the time when his body reforms can prevent him from reforming. Similarly, a special ritual requiring 1 hour to perform and a successful DC 30 Knowledge (religion) check performed over the revenant scourge’s ashes during this time can also prevent him from reforming.

            A revenant scourge who is reduced to 0 or fewer hit points but does not gain a number of negative hit points in excess of his Constitution score can choose to activate this ability as a full-round action, even though he is not normally able to act while in this state, effectively destroying herself in order to make use of this ability. He still cannot activate this ability while suffering from negative levels gained as a result of using this ability.

            Dread Resurrection (Su): Beginning at 20th level, whenever the revenant scourge uses his dark resurrection class feature, he only suffers 2 negative levels, instead of the normal amount, and he can use that ability even while he is suffering from negative levels gained as a result of using that ability.