Archetypes of Faith
Hello everyone, and welcome to another exciting edition of Best in Class, where we aim to offer you new class options and new archetypes for use in your game. This week I’ve been giving a lot of thought to divine characters and have decided to create some new archetypes for them.
New Cleric Archetype
The Missionary
While many clerics choose to take up the adventurer’s call and serve their god’s interest in the real world, missionaries take that process a step further, spreading faith in their deity while meting out his or her will. Missionaries use many tools to accomplish their aims; chiefly they rely on speech and debate, but many also focus on redemption and on curing the sick, feeding the hungry, and generally seeing to the needs of a populace.
Human Faith: Because missionaries focus more on how their faith relates to mortalkind and on spreading the word of their gods and goddesses, they receive no domains, and, as such, they do not gain a gain any bonus spells as a result of their domain.
Voice of Faith (Ex): A missionary devotes his life to spreading his faith and may make a special Knowledge (religion) check whenever he makes a Diplomacy check to influence the attitude of the target. The DC of this check depends on the target’s familiarity with the missionary’s deity, as defined on Table: Deity Familiarity, below. If the missionary succeeds, he gains a bonus on the Diplomacy check equal to 2 plus the number by which he exceeded the DC of the Knowledge (religion) check. Additionally, when a missionary succeeds on this check, he improves the target’s familiarity with his deity by one step, as he teaches them facts about how his deity can improve their life.
Missionary Healing (Ex): A missionary often has to see to the medical needs of a community. While this sometimes means using his magic to cure grievous injuries and dire afflictions, it often means simply providing a higher standard of care than anyone else in the community. Because a missionary is trained in this kind of long-term care, he adds half his class level to any Heal checks he makes.
Miraculous Treatment (Su): Beginning at 3rd level, the missionary can channel the power of his god in order to cure certain afflictions. By expending a single use of his channel energy ability, the missionary can cure fatigue and end any fear effect the target might be suffering from with a mere touch. At 5th level, the missionary can also cure the target of blindness and deafness. At 7th level, the missionary can also cure the target of sleep or paralysis effects. At 9th level, the missionary can also cure the target of petrification. At 11th level, the missionary can also end the harmful effects of any poisons and diseases the target might be suffering from. At 13th level, the missionary can end the harmful effects of any curses that the target is suffering from. At 15th level, the missionary can cure all ability damage or ability drain the target has suffered. Finally, at 17th level the missionary can restore a dead target to life, provided the target has not been dead for more than 1 minute.
New Druid Archetype
Nature Priest
While many druids are content to strive to be at one with nature, a few elevate their faith, practicing a codified dogma and actively providing druidism with a center of faith. Because these druids focus more on the traditions of druidism, they must give up some of their personal enlightenment.
Enhanced Spontaneous Casting: A nature priest focuses on a wide variety of natural magics, rather than focusing on a single bond with nature. As a result, a nature priest can spontaneously channel stored spell energy into a number of other spells which he does not prepare ahead of time. This gives him the ability to sacrifice a prepared spell in order to cast the domain spell of the same level from any of the following domains: Air, Animal, Earth, Fire, Plant, Water, or Weather. The nature priest may use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + his Wisdom modifier. This ability replaces nature's bond.
Animal Companion: At 4th level, the nature priest gains an animal companion exactly as if he had chosen the animal companion ability of the nature’s bond class feature, except that he treats his druid level as though it were 3 levels lower than it actually is for determining the benefits of his animal companion. This ability replaces the resist nature’s lure class feature.
Many Lives (Su): Starting at 9th level, the nature priest gains knowledge of his past and future reincarnations, giving him an unnatural resiliency to the process of returning to life from death. As a result, the nature priest does not suffer any negative levels or other adverse effects when he is restored to life by means of the raise dead spell or similar abilities. This ability replaces venom immunity.