Guilt Focus
I had the pleasure of contributing to the section on spiritualist archetypes in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Occult Adventures, and so I’m reasonably familiar with the ins and outs of spiritualists. Like cavaliers, sorcerers, and numerous other classes with large modular class features, anyone looking to make a spiritualist archetype will first have to decide whether they want to make a real archetype, or just make a new emotional focus for phantoms. In Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Occult Adventures, new emotional focuses would have been pretty silly to put in the archetypes chapter; after all, since the class was introduced in that book, why wouldn’t all the emotional focuses just be in one place? But now that the book has been out for some time, and we’ve even produced two different spiritualist archetypes here on this site, I think it’s time to start expanding the array of emotions available to spiritualists, and we’ll start that here today with guilt.
New Emotional Focus
Guilt
A phantom with this emotional focus is wracked with guilt over some terrible tragedy that occurred during its lifetime, which it knows that it will never be able to completely undo. It shares this misery with those around it, wallowing in self-pity and regret, and still clinging, deep down, to the idea that somehow, despite all the evidence to the contrary, it may someday be able to make up for what it did and find peace.
Skills: The phantom gains a number of ranks in Diplomacy and Sense Motive equal to its number of Hit Dice. While confined in the spiritualist’s consciousness, the phantom grants the spiritualist Skill Focus in each of these skills.
Good Saves: Fortitude and Will.
Toughness: The phantom gains Toughness as a bonus feat. Additionally, when the phantom is within its master’s consciousness, its master’s current and maximum hit point total is increased by an amount equal to the phantom’s Hit Dice. These bonus hit points disappear when the phantom leaves its master’s consciousness, and are not lost first like temporary hit points.
Retributive Doubts (Su): Those who harm the phantom’s spiritualist master are plagued by self-doubts. Whenever a creature successfully damages the phantom’s master, if that creature is within 30 feet of the phantom, it suffers a –2 penalty on attack and damage rolls for 1 round. This is a mind-affecting emotion effect.
Aura of Regret (Su): When the spiritualist reaches 7th level, as a swift action, the phantom can emit a 20-foot-radius aura of regret. Creatures within the aura are unable to make hostile actions, as though any creature they attempt to attack is affected by a sanctuary spell, unless they succeed on a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 the phantom’s Hit Dice + the phantom’s Charisma modifier). Affected creatures can make a new saving throw for each hostile action they attempt (a full-attack action counts as a single hostile action for this purpose). Once a creature succeeds on its saving throw, it is immune to this effect for 24 hours. This is a mind-affecting emotion effect.
Bond of Sorrow (Su): When the spiritualist reaches 12th level, the phantom can channel powerful surges of regret into those that harm it or its master. Whenever a creature damages the spiritualist or the phantom, as an immediate action, the phantom can cause that creature to suffer the same amount of damage as he inflicted. The phantom must be within 30 feet of the attacker (and the spiritualist, if the triggering damage was dealt to her) to use this ability, and must declare that it is using this ability before any damage rolls are made. The damage inflicted to the attacker is equal to what the spiritualist or phantom suffered after any damage reduction, energy resistance, or other defensive abilities are applied, and the attacker’s own damage reduction, energy resistance, and so on do not apply. The phantom can use this ability three times per day.
Second Chance (Su): When the spiritualist reaches 17th level, once per day as a standard action, the phantom can expend its spectral energy in order to reverse the clock and grant its master a second chance. The phantom is banished back to the Ethereal Plane, and cannot be summoned again until the following day. Other than this, all events that happened within the last minute are undone, and time reverses exactly one minute. The spiritualist remembers everything that occurred during this time, but to all other creatures, it is as though that minute had not yet happened.