On Defense
It’s Abjuration Week here at Necromancers of the Northwest, which means that our focuses have turned to the realms of protection, safety, and, in rare cases, imprisonment. Today’s article is no exception, so get ready for some extraordinary feats relating to defensive ability, even if not quite all of them will necessarily tie in directly to the abjuration school itself.
Abjuration Adept
You are so skilled at working abjuration magic that you gain extra protection from the spells you cast.
Prerequisite: Spell Focus (abjuration)
Benefit: Whenever you cast a spell of the abjuration school, you gain a +1 competence bonus to saving throws. This bonus lasts for a number of rounds equal to the spell’s level.
Focused Spell Resistance
Your spell resistance is stronger against certain schools of magic.
Prerequisite: SR 5
Benefit: Choose a school of magic. Your spell resistance increases by +2 against spells of the chosen school. At 10th level, this bonus increases to +4.
Improved Abjuration Adept
The extra defense you draw from your abjuration spells improves.
Prerequisite: Abjuration Adept, caster level 11th
Benefit: Whenever you cast a spell of the abjuration school, you become resistant to potentially harmful energies. You ignore the first 2 points of acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage that would be dealt to you. This protection does not stack with other forms of energy resistance, and lasts for a number of rounds equal to the spell’s level. Multiple instances of this ability do not stack.
Improved Spell Defense
Choose a school of magic to which you have already applied the Improved Spell Focus and Spell Defense feats. You are even better at resisting spells from this school.
Prerequisite: Improved Spell Focus, Spell Defense
Benefit: Whenever you fail a saving throw to resist a spell of the chosen school, you may immediately make a second saving throw, albeit with a -2 penalty. If this second saving throw succeeds, you resist the spell as though the first saving throw had been a success.
Special: You may take this feat multiple times. Each time you do, select a new school of magic for which you meet the prerequisites.
Light Sleeper
You have trained yourself to sleep lightly, to better defend against nighttime threats.
Benefit: You suffer only a -5 penalty to Perception checks made while you are sleeping. At 10th level, the penalty is reduced still further, to a mere -2.
Normal: Characters who are asleep suffer a -10 penalty to Perception checks.
Partial Defense (Combat)
You are trained to shore up your defenses in battle more quickly.
Benefit: You gain access to the partial defense action. As a move action, you can grant yourself a +2 dodge bonus to your AC for 1 round. Your AC improves at the start of this action. You cannot combine a partial defense action with fighting defensively or with the benefit of the Combat Expertise feat, nor can you combine it with the total defense action. You can’t make attacks of opportunity while using partial defense.
Special: When using the partial defense action, you gain any bonuses from feats, class features, or other sources which normally apply only when using the total defense action.
Reinforced Abjuration
Your abjuration spells are reinforced to give you extra protection.
Prerequisite: Caster level 7th
Benefit: Whenever you cast an abjuration spell that protects the target from a certain amount of damage before the spell is discharged (such as stoneskin and protection from energy), the amount of damage it can protect against before being discharged is increased by 15% (rounded down, minimum 1).
Spell Defense
Choose a school of magic to which you have already applied the Spell Focus feat. Your familiarity with that school makes it easier for you to resist its spells.
Prerequisite: Spell Focus
Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus on all saving throws made to resist spells of a single school of magic. This school is chosen when the feat is selected and cannot later be changed. This bonus applies to such spells even if they are cast from magic items (such as wands or scrolls) or are cast as spell-like abilities.
Special: You may take this feat multiple times. Each time you do, select a new school of magic for which you meet the prerequisites.
Spell Tolerance
You have built up a resistance to a single, specific spell.
Benefit: Choose a single spell. You gain a +6 bonus on any saving throws made to resist that spell, and any damage that would be dealt to you by that spell is halved. This protection applies to the spell’s effect whether it is cast normally, or via a magic item (such as a wand or scroll), or if it is used as a spell-like ability, but does not apply to supernatural or extraordinary abilities that mimic the spell’s effect. The feat protects against only a single spell, even if there are numerous very similar spells (for example, choosing charm person would not protect you from charm monster, and choosing magic circle against evil would not protect you from magic circle against chaos, etc.).
Special: You may take this feat multiple times. Each time you do, select a new spell against which you are protected.
Total Defense Expert (Combat)
You are exceptionally skilled at defending yourself.
Benefit: Whenever you make a total defense action, the dodge bonus you gain to AC is increased to +6.
Normal: The total defense action only grants a +4 dodge bonus to AC.