Cleanser, Hunter of the night!

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Cleanser

Description
Cleansers are hunters who specialize in the eradication of all undead

Hit Dice—D10/level

Requirements :
--Alignment: Any Non-evil
--Feats: Track
--Skills: Knowledge (undead) +7 ranks
--Other: Base attack +5, Favoured enemy: Undead.

CLASS SKILLS:
--Skill Points per level: 4 (+Intelligence modifier)

--Move Silently, Hide, Spot, Knowledge (Undead), Wilderness lore, Knowledge (Acrana) Track

Base-attack .. Refl/Fort /Will .. Special
1st +1 .... +0/+2/+0 .. Detect undead at will,
2nd +2 .... +0/+3/+0 .. Scorn the Stench of Death
3rd +3 .... +0/+3/+0 .. The Darkness within
4th +4 .... +1/+4/+1 .. Searing Strike
5th +5 .... +1/+4/+1 .. Unwanted victim
6th +6 .... +1/+5/+1 .. Scorn the Thought of Death (mind)
7th +7 .... +2/+5/+2 .. Blessed weapon
8th +8 .... +2/+6/+2 .. Consecrated aura
9th +9 .... +2/+6/+2 .. Curse of the hunt
10th +10.... +3/+7/+3 .. Strike the center, Scorn the Touch of Death(ability)

Special abilities descriptions:

--Detect Undead(Sp): Using the knowledge of undead you can detect all undead at will

--Scorn the Stench of death (Ex): Through training, and fighting with various undead you now gain an immunity to all smell based attacks and paralysis.

--The Darkness within (Ex): Once you begin staring into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you. After devoting your life to hunt of undead you begin to sink to there level, and gain a +2 competence bonus on Bluff, Listen, sense motive, spot, and intimidate. The Cleanser is able to use these abilities against mindless undead even when they do not apply. For example you may cow down a ghast with intimidate, in such cases the undead Cower as per the condition. A bluff may make them think you are a ‘fellow undead’. They also gain a +2 competence on damage and to hit. However you now have a -1 penalty to all social interactions with the living.

--Searing Strike (Su): Whether through hatred or purity you can strike undead with a melee attack, once per day you may do the cleanser level in extra damage, it can even be spread between multiple targets through out the day.

--Deified (Su): Whereas before you hunted the living dead for personal reasons; be they revenge or disgust. You know have the backing of a church or, in some extreme cases a deity. No god that actively supports undead may support you; however some Cleansers turn there back on some of the more ambiguous ideas of your god, for the powers they grant. You gain the ability to turn undead once per day, however once a week you may use an ability similar to the sun domain, and destroy the dead you would have turned. Along with this you may no longer be raised as undead.

--Scorn the Thought of Death (Ex): Your mind is alive with thoughts of vitality, impermeable to the decaying ideas of undead magicks, granting you immunity to mind-affecting powers of undead.

--Blessed weapon (Su): Any weapon the Cleanser HOLDS is considered blessed as though by the spell bless weapon; except that it does not effect evil foes it effects undead foes and the good enchantment can only bypass evil undead’s DR.

--Consecrated aura (Su): At 8th level and above, a cleanser exudes a permanent consecrate effect to a radius of 20 feet. If the Cln is within the area of a desecrate spell, both effects are negated until the knight leaves the area or the desecrate spell expires. If the desecrate spell is enhanced by an altar or other permanent fixture dedicated to an evil deity, the cleanser's consecrate effect negates some of its powers: Turning penalties are reduced to -3 but undead do not gain a bonus.

-- Hunter of the dead (Ex): At this point the Cleanser is dedicated to their work entirely, the bonuses they gained when they attained ‘The Darkness Within’ are now +4, the penalties however are -2. Further thematic changes occur, which are ultimately up to the Player but may include pale skin and dilated pupils.

--Strike the centre (Su): By channelling their inner positive energy through a melee weapon or into ammunition, they can critically damage undead; However to do so the Cleanser must hit what ever part of the undead connects it to the negative plane. This equates to the ability to score critical hits against undead.

--Scorn the Touch of death (Su): You no longer fear the touch of death, as you can no longer be affected by Ability drains or ability damage.

I have no idea on the balance so any comment is good.

Hide from Undead is kinda weak, and doesn't fit with the flavor of the rest of the class (which is "my very presence hurts you!", not "you can't see me!").

If you're going to give Turn Undead, give it early.

You shouldn't require a Touch attack for a class that's focused on weapons. Allow the extra damage to be via melee strike.

I'd get rid if the non-standard abilities, and instead grant:

- Smite Undead 1/day every odd level (just like a Paladin's Smite Evil, but only works on Undead)
- Turn Undead at 1st level
- 2nd level: Scorn the Stench of Death: immunity to stench and paralysis caused by the undead.
- 4th level: Searing Ray 3/day
- 6th level: Scorn the Sight of Death: immunity to any mind-affecting power of the undead.
- 8th level: Searing Ray 10/day
- 10th level: Scorn the Touch of Death: immunity to ability damage and level drain caused by the undead.

Just suggestions, -- N

All good ideas, some I should have thought of the others I did but wanted to keep some abilities. Changing it after this post.

Hows this Nifft?

Base-attack .. Refl/Fort /Will .. Special
1st +1 .... +0/+2/+0 .. Detect undead at will, Smite Undead 1/day
2nd +2 .... +0/+3/+0 .. Disrupt undead, Scorn the Stench of Death
3rd +3 .... +0/+3/+0 .. Turn undead, Smite Undead 2/day
4th +4 .... +1/+4/+1 .. Searing Strike
5th +5 .... +1/+4/+1 .. Smite Undead 3/day
6th +6 .... +1/+5/+1 .. Scorn the Sight of Death
7th +7 .... +2/+5/+2 .. Blessed weapon, Smite Undead 4/day
8th +8 .... +2/+6/+2 .. Beacon
9th +9 .... +2/+6/+2 .. Curse of unlife, Smite Undead 5/day
10th +10.... +3/+7/+3 .. Strike the center, Scorn the Touch of Death

Ferret said:

--Disrupt undead (Su): Your very presence disrupts undead within 20ft of you, and suffer from 1 point of damage each turn, this damage is not stopped by AC, Resistances or DR.

-- Beacon (Sp): Not only does your presence disrupt undead, but your touch can now destroy them. Any undead creature that touches you must succeed a fort save (DC 10+ Cha mod) or be turned to dust.

-- Curse of Unlife (Sp): Once the Cleanser knows the undead which they face they may now curse them for all they become as per the bestow curse spell, intelligent undead suffer until the effect is dispelled.

--Strike the center: After extensive studies of the changes that undead undergo you know how to hinder them in combat and movement, as they are now susceptible to your critical hits, this is achieve by attacking their Negative Energy center.

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Some of these abilities break very basic d20 rules.

- Disrupt Undead -- so basically, the best strategy is to lock this guy in a cage (so the undead can't get at him) and parrade him around? Or to polymorph him into a tiny animal, or render him Invisible, and have him just hide until they're all dead? This is such a broken power.

- You didn't post what Searing Strike is, so I can't comment.

- Beacon is also totally broken. It might be okay to have some sort of holy fire shield (which acts as a Daylight spell centered on you, protects you from negative energy, and deals 2d6 Holy damage to anyone striking you in melee).

- Undead are usually NPCs, and thus the whole Curse thing isn't that big a deal. How often to you see PCs casting that spell? The whole point of the spell is to annoy PCs even after they kill the bad guys. It just doesn't seem to fit the flavor of the class, either -- "You may live on to haunt the night, but you will have a -4 Charisma until you see a Dark Cleric! Mua-ha-ha-ha!"

- Undead are immune to crits because they don't get bonus HP from Con. That's the game-mechanical balance reason. (The flavor that it's due to a lack of anatomy is NOT the core reason.) Don't break this rule. Instead, just give the guy a +4 bonus to damage against Undead (like Rangers can get).

-- N

--Searing Strike (Su): Whether through hatred or purity you can strike undead with your weapon, you can do 1d8 points of damage per class level (up to 5d8 points), you can only use this once per day but are allowed to spread out the damage between multiple targets.

A lot of the abilities used to just be plain Spell like abilities, but I orignally neglected to say how many per day, so I jazzed most of them up.

How about Having it deal 1d4 damage On concentration, for hours=class level, after wards you get fatigued. I also like idea of holy fire shield.

The bestow curse effect could do -6 to any ability handy against a creature with a Cha DC or lots of attack. It can give a -4 penelty to attack, save ability and skill checks. or stop them acting 50% of the time. Not too bad.

I like the idea of criticalable undead, but you right that it isn't right. Although a meager +4 to damge doesn't seem to compensate too well.

Ferret said:

--Searing Strike (Su): Whether through hatred or purity you can strike undead with your weapon, you can do 1d8 points of damage per class level (up to 5d8 points), you can only use this once per day but are allowed to spread out the damage between multiple targets.

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I don't see how this is functionally different from Smite Undead. It's my experience that it's best to modify existing mechanics instead of making up new ones, and that you shouldn't put in two different ways to do the same thing.

(So, I think that this class should have only one "extra damage x/day" ability -- either the Smite Undead power, or the "different smite" Searing Strike power. And, of course, I prefer the better tested Smite Undead mechanic.)

Ferret said:

How about Having it deal 1d4 damage On concentration, for hours=class level, after wards you get fatigued. I also like idea of holy fire shield.

The bestow curse effect could do -6 to any ability handy against a creature with a Cha DC or lots of attack. It can give a -4 penelty to attack, save ability and skill checks. or stop them acting 50% of the time. Not too bad.

Click to expand...

Why not simply give them the ability to cast Consecrate at will, but with a duration of 1 minute/class level?

SRD said:

This spell blesses an area with positive energy. Each Charisma check made to turn undead within this area gains a +3 sacred bonus. Every undead creature entering a consecrated area suffers minor disruption, giving it a -1 penalty on attack rolls, damage rolls, and saves. Undead cannot be created within or summoned into a consecrated area. If the consecrated area contains an altar, shrine, or other permanent fixture dedicated to your deity, pantheon, or aligned higher power, the modifiers given above are doubled (+6 sacred bonus on turning checks, -2 penalties for undead in the area). You cannot consecrate an area with a similar fixture of a deity other than your own patron.

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Curses just don't seem to fit in the "holy warrior" theme, but that's just my opinion. Oppose that with Consecrate, which has the right flavor and gives every undead in the area a -1 to most everything.

-- N

There is a PrC, in some WotC book, which allows a rogue's sneak attack to affect undead so I can easily see an undead slayer being able to crit the suckers although the justification you gave was a bit off for me. I'd say when a critical hit occurs they channel a burst of positive energy into their blow allowing them to strike the undeads negative core or something silly like that ;-) Or you could have any threat for a critical hit against an undead, you roll again, if successful, the undead must make a Will save (DC 10 + prc level/2 + cha) or be destroyed (as per disrupting). That's using existing mechanics in a new way, although so is allowing them to be crit.

He isn't breaking a mechanic allowing them to be crit, just expanding a normal rule under specific circumstances (which come up once in a while but not all the time in a game).

I could also see a cool benefit for these guys sort of like the Ghostwalker PrC, cause they are freakin' creepy to be around cause all they do is hunt undead with a passion, that they have a naturally creepy aura around them (bonus to intimidate or a more specific aura). This would give them a neat flavor benefit.

Also, why hide, move silently as class skills? These guys seem more like the stand up and smite type.

An interesting mechanic would allow them to affect undead with an intimidate check, even mindless ones. It'd be a neat flavor ability.

The entire class sounds kinda iffy to me, but as for the ability to Crit Undead, I see no problem with it. After all, I don't know about you, but I sure as heck wouldn't want to take 10 levels of a Prestige Class for the ability to do a meager +4 damage against undead. Being able to Crit undead after years of training sounds just right to me.

To be honest your presumptions that they are a stand up and fight rather then anything else is wrong, as I designed them to be general undead fighters, sneaking after a vampire one minute smiting zombies the next. I might put a spin on it but I don't know yet.

Thank you for your comments

Oooooh. I saw them more as a specialized Paladin than as a specialized Ranger... hrm.

In that case, I'd grant:
- Immunity to Charms & Compulsions
- Level-based bonuses to Hide, Move Silently, Bluff and Sense Motive when dealing with the undead, AND some kind of scent-masking ability.
- Ranger's Favored Enemy bonuses at 5th & 10th level, +4 to damage at each.

-- N