Frank and K's work

[Arek]

Since I have nothing better to do right now, I'll put up some samples from Frank and K's work, which the In My Humble Opinion board is home to.

First, an explanation:

Frank and K are able to find a lot of exploits and faults in the rules, and they're good at logically working out how a race's abilities determine what it interacts like: An example is how, logically, Mind Flayers would be good neighbors, because their inability to Plane Shift right into their own living room means they have to hike home, and that gives them a good reason to be civil enough to their immediate neighbors that their neighbors won't attack a solitary Mind Flayer who's trying to get home.

The Tomes also have a definite progression.

The Tome of Necromancy is about the ethics and practices of necromancy. Also, they suggest giving most undead a couple of subtypes (Dark-Minded and Unliving) that provide some adjustments to the effect.

The Tome of Fiends gives a couple of fiendish base classes, outlines the various meanings of Evil in an roleplaying game, and provides some fun stuff about the Lower Planes.

The Dungeonomicon is about civilization and economics of a fantasy world, contains some base classes (And a couple of awesome PrCs) and is actually very, very entertaining.

The Races of war is where they make a radical departure from the standard DnD and suggest things like feats that scale with your BAB or skill ranks, and they also redo some combat classes so they can be in a game with effectively-played casters and still be useful. I'm iffy on a lot of the mechanics they suggest, but they do also contain some nice guidelines for playing unusual races, and they suggest the character background bonuses.

I'd say, whether or not you agree with them, they'll make you think. And playing their stuff can actually be quite fun, because, if anything, they err on the side of increasing the power level.

My introduction aside, I'm going to post some of the more interesting things here.

[Arek]

Tome of Necromancy

Unlike the Revised Necromancer Handbook, which is a compilation of the Necromancy rules as they stand, what you are reading now is the rules for Necromancy as they should be. We feel there is a need for this because despite (or let's not kid ourselves, because of) the considerable amount of space spent given over to Necromancy in officially sanctioned products, the classical Necromancer does not function under the rules as written. Vampires can't run or be staked, there aren't any prestige classes that make you any more of a necromancer than you are with the base classes, and honestly noone even knows how the basic necromancy spells work. Not because they are stupid, but because the rules for such things are contradictory in several key places.

The Morality of Necromancy: Black and Gray

The rules of D&D attempt to be all things to all people, and unfortunately that just isn’t possible if you’re trying to make a system of objective morality. By trying to cater to two very different play styles as regards to the moral quandaries of the use of negative energy, the game ends up catering to neither – and this has been the cause of a great many arguments for which there actually are no possible resolutions. Ultimately therefore, it falls to every DM to determine whether in their game the powers of Necromancy are inherently evil, or merely extremely dangerous. That’s a choice which must be made, and has far reaching implications throughout the game. That’s an awful lot of work, and most DMs honestly just don’t care enough to be bothered with it, and I understand. Fortunately, we have collated those changes for you right here:

Moral Option 1: The Crawling Darkness

Many DMs will choose to have Negative Energy in general, and undead in particular, be inherently Evil. So much so that we can capitalize it: Evil. And say it again for emphasis: Evil. That means that when you cast a negative energy wave you are physically unleashing Evil onto the world. When you animate a corpse, you are creating a being whose singular purpose is to make moral choices which are objectionable on every level.

That’s a big commitment. It means that anyone using Inflict Wounds is an awful person, at least while they are doing it. The Plane of Negative Energy is in this model the source of all Evil, more so than the Abyss or Hell. It’s Evil without an opinion, immorality in its purest most undiluted form.

Moral Option 2: Playing with Fire

Many DMs will choose to have Negative Energy be a base physical property of the magical universe that the D&D characters live in – like extremes of Cold or Fire it is inimical to life, and it is ultimately no more mysterious than that. An animate skeleton is more disgusting and frightening to the average man than is a stone golem, but it’s actually a less despicable act in the grand scheme of things because a golem requires the enslavement of an elemental spirit and a skeleton has no spirit at all.

The Plane of Negative Energy in this model is precisely the same as all the other elemental planes: a dangerous environment that an unprotected human has no business going to.

Implications:

It’s not actually enough to simply make a sweeping generalization about the morality of Negative Energy and leave it at that. Like a butterfly flapping its wings, such changes will eventually cause Godzilla to destroy Tokyo. Or something like that, I stopped math at Calculus.

Creatures

Some monsters have been written up with the (incorrect) assumption that either “The Crawling Darkness” or “Playing With Fire” was the general rule. Others have been written in such a fashion that is actually incompatible with any possible interpretation of morality in D&D.

Revenants: If Negative Energy is inherently Evil, Revenants are Lawful Evil. They are undead who live only to kill and survive on hatred and the desire for vengeance. While they are victims and their actions are understandable, the Justice of their actions makes them Lawful, but they are still Evil and can be treated accordingly.

With the Playing with Fire option, there is no change to the Revenant. All is fair in avenging your own death, and they are the unliving emissaries of the Balance in its pure form.

Skeletons: If Negative Energy is inherently Evil, Skeletons must be as well. That means that they actually do Evil things. An uncontrolled skeleton will find the nearest source of life and start ripping it to pieces. A skeleton does not need to be commanded to attack, but to stop tearing up your vegetable garden (assuming even that it had not already found a more vigorous source of life such as the family dog). A commanded skeleton is a vicious, unthinking killer on a chain – not an inert construct awaiting commands.

If Negative Energy isn’t Evil by itself, neither are skeletons. As described they aren’t moral agents. That means that they don’t have an alignment other than Neutral. Like a viper or a scorpion, though they do things that a paladin wouldn’t necessarily condone (such as use poison for the snake or move around after death for the skeleton), they aren’t gifted with the ability to make moral choices and default to the same Neutrality of the animated cabinet. Ordering a skeleton around could be Good, Evil, or Neutral depending on whether you are telling it to save children from a burning house, throw bloated corpses into the town well, or just carry your swag out of your basement.

Vampires: Vampires are the rockstars of the undead world, but also the most affected by the gulf between Playing With Fire and Crawling Darkness Necromancy. Either vampires are tragically cursed Euro-trash with nice outfits or they are blood hungry princes of death…heck, sometimes they are depicted as both, as in the case of the patron saint of DnD vampires, Strahd Von Zarovich.

Unlike most undead, vampires are morally affected by negative energy in a perversely contrary fashion; Zombies are evil if (and only if) negative energy makes zombies evil, but the opposite is true of the vampire. If Negative energy is a hungry and malevolent force that hungers for the light of the living, the vampire is a tragic figure compelled by dark desires he cannot control. He can even just be Good, but that’s not going to stop him from taking a nip from the farmer’s daughter. If negative energy is an objective force, then being a vampire is actually an evil act since you don’t have to eat babies for eternal life… you’re just a jerk.

Zombies: Like Skeletons, Zombies must hunger for the flesh of the living or have no moral indictments. Either they sit and wait for their chance to devour your liver or they are Neutral. The Monster Manual version cannot stand. A zombie in the fields is either a figure of horror or comedy.

Energons: Eregons are actually made out of energy. So if Positive and Negative Energy have an alignment, so do they. If using the Crawling Darkness option, the Xag-Ya is Neutral Good, and the Xeg-Yi is Neutral Evil. If using the Playing With Fire option, both remain as printed – they are Neutral.

Spells:

Animate Dead: If Negative Energy isn’t Evil, this spell isn’t either. Zombies and Skeletons are the only possible creations of this spell, so the alignment tag is contingent on Negative Energy itself being a moral choice. Interestingly, create undead and create greater undead stay [Evil] even if animate dead doesn’t. Regardless of the moral inclinations of negative energy in general, Ghouls and shadows are just not nice people – they are a disease that exists for no purpose but to consume the living. So those [Evil] tags are on no matter what skeletons do with their free time.

Deathwatch: This spell doesn't even use Negative Energy, it allows you to see positive energy. There's no reason for this spell to be evil no matter what version you use – this is just a typographical error as far as we can tell. Maybe this evil tag was supposed to be on death knell.

Create Undead: While animate dead may or may not be evil depending upon your setup, create undead and create greater undead is an [Evil] spell regardless of the morality version you use. It creates evil creatures that unlive for nothing but to slay innocents, so it gets the Evil tag for the same reason that planar binding gets the [Evil] tag if it is used to call a Demon – it's bringing irredeemable evil into the world – the moral implications of the negative energy used are irrelevant.

[Arek]

New rules:

The interaction of Undead with the rest of the rules is often less than satisfactory. Part of this is that the undead type itself is extremely overzealous in the game effects it provides. The fact that all undead don't need sleep means that vampires don't have to sleep in their coffins. The fact that undead don't have a Constitution score means that Ghouls can run for exactly zero rounds before they have to make a Con check (that they automatically fail) to continue (and also says it can "run on indefinitely", a base contradiction that makes us sad). The fact that undead are immune to critical hits means that a vampire can't be staked through the heart (even if it was sleeping, which it isn't). But even beyond that fundamental error, the multitude of authors that compromise the Dungeons and Dragons design staff never seemed to get on the same page as to exactly what being undead means – so a surprisingly large number of contradictory statements pepper the products.

And I'm not just talking about how they made an entire Deathless Type when there's already Ghosts (Alignment: Any) right in the core rules.

Subtypes
The obvious, and slickest, way to handle the excesses of the Undead type would be to simply rewrite the Undead type with a lot less in it and throw down a number of subtypes (mindless for skeletons, amorphous for shadows, and ponderous for zombies) to put in the abilities that each type of undead is supposed to have. But polls have shown that people aren't willing to play with optional rules that do that – but perversely they are willing to add new subtypes to monsters to remove rules instituted by the base template. I don't know why, but DMs are honestly more likely to use an additional subtype that removes an inappropriate game effect from a monster than they are to use a modified base type that doesn't have the inappropriate effect in the first place. So that's how we're going to do it here.

Dark Minded (subtype)

Undead creatures with an intelligence score have an intelligence that can be influenced, though they are dead and cannot be influenced by appeals to emotion. A dark minded creature has the following traits:
- Not immune to mind affecting affects.
- Immune to morale and fear effects.
- Heals normally
- Any Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate attempts to influence a dark minded creature are made with a -10 penalty.
- A Dark Minded creature continues to advance in age categories, growing older and wiser over time. It does not accrue any penalties to its attributes for advancing in age categories, and a Dark Minded creature has no maximum age.

Unliving (subtype)

An Unliving creature is an undead that mimics many of the capacities of a living creature without truly being alive. An unliving creature has the following game effects:
- Unliving creatures have a metabolism of sorts, and thus have a Constitution score.
- Unliving creatures require food (often blood or flesh) and sleep, and are vulnerable to magical sleep effects even if they are otherwise immune to mind affecting effects.
- Unliving creatures have at least one vital organ, and are subject to critical hits from attackers with at least one rank in Knowledge (Religion).
- Not destroyed upon reaching 0 it points, though its existence still ends if it reaches -10 as normal.
- Subject to subdual damage, but can benefit from the Regeneration ability as normal.

Sample creatures with the [Dark Minded] subtype:
Liches
Nightshades
Vampires

Sample creatures with the [Unliving] subtype:
Ghouls
Necropolitan
Vampires

Undead and Aging
Undead don't age. They don't get any older or more decrepit over time, that's the whole point. A creature with the undead type does not grow older at all, unless further modified by the Dark Minded subtype. This probably should have been in the Monster Manual.

Becoming Undead

The basic rules for transforming into Undead were never intended to be playable by player characters. And thus it is unsurprising that the legions of the damned are not only unsatisfying, but actually unplayable when placed in a game. The following are templates that can be added to a character to make them into an Undead without actually changing their Level Adjustment. If a player wants to explore the legendary powers available to some of these creatures, they are encouraged to take Prestige Classes available to undead or to take one or more [Undead] feats that can grant the character these abilities within the normal level progression context. Each undead creature type has access to a special class that characters may take to advance their special abilities.

Revenants
"Fear me first before all other evils under the heavens. Before even Death, for I am hatred and do not die."

A revenant is the victim of a murder driven to avenge their own death. A game master might allow a character to return from the dead as a revenant if their character died in a particularly unfair fashion or if their character had a lot left to do.

Character Modifications:

Type: The character's type changes to Undead and the character's former type becomes a subtype with the "augmented" modifier. The character also gains the Dark Minded subtype.

Hit Dice: The character's BAB, Saves, and skills are all unaffected. The character must reroll his Hit Points, but every hit die is a d12.

Ability Scores: The character loses his Constitution score.

Alignment: The character's alignment changes to Lawful.

Special Qualities: The character cannot be turned, but may be rebuked. The character heals completely at the setting of the sun, unless he is in a Tomb or hallowed area. This healing can even bring him back from destruction, but if his body is nailed to the ground (or in a Tomb or hallowed area), he can never come back from the dead by any means.

Level Adjustment: +0


Vampires
"An eternity of loneliness and betrayal is, ultimately, an eternity."

A vampire is an unliving mockery of life that lives by cruelly consuming the blood of the innocent. Only characters slain by a vampire's Constitution Drain rise as vampires, and even then only if they have 5 hit dice or more. Characters with less hit dice become monstrous vampire spawn and do not retain their abilities.

Character Modifications:

Type: The character's type changes to Undead and the character's former type becomes a subtype with the "augmented" modifier. The character also gains the Dark Minded and Unliving subtypes.

Hit Dice: The character's Hit Dice, BAB, Saves, and skills are all unaffected.

Ability Scores: The character gains a +2 bonus to his Strength and Charisma.

Alignment: The character's alignment changes to Evil.

Special Attacks: The character can drain blood from a helpless or willing victim, inflicting 2 points of Constitution Drain per round. The character heals 5 points for each point of Constitution drain in this way, and consuming 4 points of Constitution from intelligent creatures is considered enough "food" for one day (and the vampire gains no sustenance from any other food). Humanoids slain by this Constitution Drain may rise as vampires or vampire spawn (though the character has no control over them unless granted by another ability).

Special Qualities: The character gains Turn Resistance +2. The character suffers 2d6 damage and is considered staggered every round he is exposed to direct sunlight. This damage cannot be healed by any means until the character is in a place with no light at all (such as a coffin). A vampire character is vulnerable to Light effects.

Level Adjustment: +0


Vampire Paragon
Hit Die: d6
BAB/Saves: BAB: Poor (as Wizard); Fort: Bad; Reflex: Good; Will: Good
Class Skills: The Vampire Paragon's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Appraise (Int), Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disguise (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Gather Information (Cha), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Speak Language (n/a), Spellcraft (Int), and Swim (Str).
Skills/Level: 4 + Intelligence Bonus

Level, Abilities:
1 Blood Pool, Gaseous Form, Flaw, +1 Spellcaster Level
2 Hypnotic Gaze, +1 Spellcaster Level
3 Command Spawn, Regeneration, Flaw, +1 Spellcaster Level

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: The Vampire Paragon gains no new armor or weapon proficiencies.

Spellcasting: Every level, the Vampire Paragon casts spells (including gaining any new spell slots and spell knowledge) as if she had also gained a level in a spellcasting class she had previous to gaining that level. If the character does not have any levels in any spellcasting classes when she takes her first level of Vampire, this class feature gives her levels in Sorcerer spellcasting.

Blood Pool (Ex): A Vampire Paragon may "store" blood she has drained from intelligent creatures against future need and draw upon this blood to power her body or her magic. If a Vampire Paragon consumes the Constitution of an intelligent creature after she has already fed for the day, excess Constitution drained adds to her Blood Pool. A Vampire Paragon's Blood Pool can never exceed her character level plus her class level of Vampire Paragon. Constitution drained after the Blood Pool is filled is wasted.

A Vampire Paragon may spend a point of her Blood Pool to heal herself of five points of damage. She may spend 4 points of Blood Pool to forgo needing to feed for one day. A spell being cast may be enhanced with any metamagic feat the Vampire Paragon knows by spending a number of points of Blood Pool equal to the number of extra levels the metamagic would add to the spell. Using Blood Pool is a free action, but no more than 4 points may be spent in a single round.

Gaseous Form (Su): A Vampire Paragon can assume gaseous form as the spell at will.

Flaw: Increasing the power of the blood within a Vampire is not without difficulties. As the potency of the Vampire's blood grows, so too does the power of her curse. At 1st and 3rd level of Vampire Paragon, the vampire gains an additional weakness related to her blood. Appropriate vampiric weaknesses are too numerous to be listed here, but could include: Inability to enter consecrated or hallowed ground; helplessness in water; repulsion (as the spell) by garlic; vulnerability to silver; daylight powerlessness (as a specter); dazed by spilled grains (2d4 rounds); nauseated by Holy Water (1d4 rounds); Inability to enter a hearth unless invited.

Hypnotic Gaze (Su): At 2nd level, a Vampire Paragon gains the ability to hypnotize creatures which meet its gaze. The Vampire Paragon may make use its gaze on one creature within short range each round as a Swift action. Creatures are affected as by a hypnotism spell except that there is no hit die cap. The hypnotism effect ends if the Vampire Paragon no longer maintains the gaze (for example, by attempting to hypnotize a new victim). This is a Mind Affecting Enchantment effect, the DC is Charisma based.

Command Spawn: Vampire Spawn created by a Vampire Paragon of 3rd level are under the Vampire Paragon's control.

Regeneration (Ex): At 3rd level a Vampire Paragon regenerates, healing subdual damage every round equal to her character level. Damage from critical hits, fire, positive energy, aligned weapons, or wood inflict lethal damage on a Vampire Paragon.

Ghouls
"The flesh of heroes reeks of their strength in death even as it is embodied in life. The taste is exquisite beyond description. As you quiver there and watch my meal, I want you to know that I allow you to live only in the hope that you can get word to more who think they have the strength to end my reign of terror."

Ghoul Fever is a horrifying illness that incites an almost insatiable craving for the flesh of humanoids. Characters with at least 2 class levels brought to zero Constitution by Ghoul Fever find their constitution restored and begin their unlife as Ghouls. Characters with less than 2 class levels simply die and rot.

Character Modifications:

Type: The character's type changes to Undead and the character's former type becomes a subtype with the "augmented" modifier. The character also gains the Dark Minded and Unliving subtypes.

Hit Dice: The character's Hit Dice, BAB, Saves, and skills are all unaffected.

Ability Scores: The character's Dexterity increases by +2.

Alignment: The character's alignment changes to Evil.

Special Attacks: The character gains a bite attack that inflicts an amount of damage appropriate to her size. She also is a carrier of Ghoul Fever.

Special Qualities: The character gains Turn Resistance of +2. The character cannot eat anything other than raw meat (vegetables or cooked foods are forcefully vomited up, leaving the character sickened for an hour), and her total dietary requirements are not reduced.

Level Adjustment: +0


Ghoul Paragon
Hit Die: d8
BAB/Saves: BAB: Good (as Fighter); Fort: Good; Reflex: Good; Will: Bad
Class Skills: The Ghoul Paragon's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Appraise (Int), Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disable Device (Int), Disguise (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Forgery (Int), Gather Information (Cha), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (local) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Open Lock (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), Use Magic Device (Cha), and Use Rope (Dex).
Skills/Level: 6 + Intelligence Bonus

Level, Abilities:
1 Paralysis
2 Pestilence, +1d6 Sneak Attack
3 Stench, Improved Pestilence

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: The Ghoul Paragon gains no new armor or weapon proficiencies.

Paralysis (Ex): Characters struck by a Ghoul Paragon's unarmed strikes or natural weapons must make a Fortitude save or become paralyzed for 1d4+1 rounds. The Save DC is Charisma based. Elves are immune to this effect.

Pestilence (Ex): A Ghoul Paragon of 2nd level is immune to disease, but spreads it quite easily. Every disease the Ghoul Paragon is ever exposed to is retained within his body (at the very least, this includes ghoul fever), and every time the Ghoul Paragon inflicts lethal damage with an unarmed strike or natural weapon, he also exposes the target to one of those diseases.

Sneak Attack (Ex): At 2nd level, the Ghoul Paragon gains a die of Sneak Attack as a Rogue. Levels of Ghoul Paragon stack with Rogue and similar classes for purposes of overcoming Uncanny Dodge.

Stench (Ex): A Ghoul Paragon of 3rd level stinks so dreadfully that all other creatures within 10 feet must make a Fortitude save or become sickened for 10 minutes. A creature which successfully saves may not be affected by the Ghoul Paragon's stench for 24 hours. This is a Poison effect, the save is Constitution based.

Improved Pestilence (Su): At 3rd level a Ghoul Paragon becomes able to magically speed up the disease process in his victims. The initial incubation period for any disease he passes with the Pestilence power becomes 1 round, and the save DC of any such disease is now Charisma based.

Sword Wraith
"I remain… because I like to kill."

Mercenaries devoted strongly enough to a life of war that they carry on in death their endless campaign of destruction. A character slain in battle may return as a Sword Wraith if his services were hired under false pretenses or if his exploits were particularly impressive before his life finally ended (at the discretion of the DM).
Sword Wraiths appear somewhat insubstantial and have faintly glowing eyes, but they are not truly incorporeal and their eyes do not produce enough light to modify vision penalties.

Character Modifications:

Type: The character's type changes to Undead and the character's former type becomes a subtype with the "augmented" modifier. The character also gains the Dark Minded and Unliving subtypes.

Hit Dice: The character's Hit Dice, BAB, Saves, and skills are all unaffected.

Skills: The character gains a +2 bonus to his Hide and Move Silently checks.

Alignment: The character's alignment is unchanged.

Special Qualities: The character gains Turn Resistance +2.

Level Adjustment: +0


Swordwraith Paragon
Hit Die: d12
BAB/Saves: BAB: Good (as Fighter); Fort: Bad; Reflex: Bad; Will: Good
Class Skills: The Swordwraith Paragon's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Ride (Dex), Spot (Wis), and Swim (Str).
Skills/Level: 2 + Intelligence Bonus

Level, Abilities:
1 Strength Damage, Alertness
2 Damage Reduction 5/Magic, Iron Will
3 Damage Reduction 10/Magic, Stealthy

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: The Swordwraith Paragon gains no new armor or weapon proficiencies.

Strength Damage (Su): Whenever a Swordwraith Paragon strikes an opponent with a melee weapon, he also inflicts 1 point of Strength damage.

Alertness: A Swordwraith Paragon gains Alertness as a bonus feat at 1st level.

Damage Reduction (Su): At 2nd level, a Swordwraith Paragon gains DR of 5/Magic. At 3rd level, this improves to 10/Magic.

Iron Will: A Swordwraith Paragon gains Iron Will as a bonus feat at 2nd level.

Stealthy: A Swordwraith Paragon gains Stealthy as a bonus feat at 3rd level.

Locations of Necromantic Importance:

Rules for locations that have interesting effects upon the dead are scattered throughout various published sourcebooks. Of primary interest is Black Sand (from It's Hot Outside) which heals undead and can be grown by killing creatures on it (no necromancer should be without a portable hole bottomed with this stuff), and Black Water (from It's Wet Outside) that acts as a desecration effect and is available with a Wizard spell (thereby breaking the stranglehold monopoly of Clerics on getting bonus hit points for their skeletons). But none of those locations are necromantically important. They are essentially quasi-mobile magic items that necromancers like to put in their pants. What follows are some locations that Necromancers will care about for more than a single mining session.

Necromantic Intelligence:

Great and terrible crimes are often committed, sometimes causing the dead to rise. When enough dead rise in a single place, or a single act of murder or slaughter is so great as to create dozens of the undead, a Necromantic Intelligence can be born in a location central to the event. In such a place, trees and undergrowth wither and animals die, the sun no longer shines as brightly as mists obscure the sky and evil descends on the land. In such a place, all of those who die become undead and lose their free will. Ghoul or shadow infestations, vampire massacres, sites of great battles or disasters, or even the combined works of cabals of necromancers can create Necromantic Intelligences.

In the area of a Necromantic Intelligence, the land is either shadowy during the day as dark clouds obscure the sky, or misty (treat as an obscuring mist, even though it may be composed of dust, ashes, or some other substance). Any living creature killed in the area becomes an undead creature with a CR equal to its former CR (DM’s choice, unless the Necromantic Intelligence is Aspected) when the sun next sets.
The most terrifying facet of a Necromantic Intelligence is that it has a purpose and a will, and it coordinates the undead that compose it. Assume that it is a creature that can see anything that any of its undead can see. Often it will coordinate fiendishly clever tactics using masses of undead to fulfill its purpose. Like a ghost, if it should ever attain its purpose, it will be destroyed. Knowing this, some clever heroes have helped Necromantic Intelligences in an effort to destroy them. A legend lore or bardic knowledge check is often needed to discover an Intelligence’s purpose.

The Necromantic Intelligence commands the activities of a great number of undead of varying powers. As a rough guide, the Necromantic Intelligence controls undead with CRs equal to the levels of followers attractable by a character with a Leadership score of 35 or more (using the Epic Leadership rules). Challenging the entire Necromantic Intelligence is an EL 11 adventure.

Aspected Necromantic Intelligence: While most Intelligences are random manifestations of negative energy, creating many different kinds of undead, some places are Aspected. These places only create one kind of undead. For example, a Necromantic Intelligence created in a ghoul warren may only create ghouls, while an Intelligence created during a plague may only create plague zombies. Decrease the EL of such an Intelligence by at least 1 as players will prepare tactics suited to that specific kind of undead.

Cleansing the Focus: Every Necromantic Intelligence has a Focus. This is an area that is the symbolic center of the undead infestation. If anyone can perform a hallow spell at the site of the Focus, the Necromantic Intelligence will be destroyed; however, once the ritual is started, the Necromantic Intelligence will be alerted and it will send all available undead to destroy the caster.

Tombs

While most tombs are merely places of rest for remains, some tombs become focal points for Negative Energy as hundred of years pass in the presence of the dead. Also, years of habitation by undead creatures in an enclosed space can also wear at the boundaries of the Negative Energy Plane. Some Necromancy effects can create or exploit this property. The game effect of a Tomb is that all undead inside it gain fast healing 1 and cannot be Turned or Rebuked, and spells with the [Tomb] subtype can be cast within it. Undead cannot be created within the confines of a Tomb, and creatures slain by undead do not become spawn.
Tombs are always enclosed places, and if they should ever be exposed to sunlight (by smashing in the roof, for example), they lose all special properties and no longer confer effects to undead creatures.

Forsaken Graveyards:

The number of deaths is one per person even without the intercession of powerful magic. And once spells like raise dead are taken into account, it is clear that in Dungeons and Dragons there are significantly more deaths than people. So the locations where the most deaths occurred are simply the locations where the most living people live. The sites with the greatest death count are aspected to life and trade, not to death and destruction. But there are places that are inexorably linked with death, where the dead rise to slay the living. Creating a land of horror such as this requires more than killing a bunch of people (although that certainly helps), the deaths themselves must be meaningless and cruel, the ends coming about through betrayal.

A Forsaken Graveyard is a dangerous place, even for a necromancer. Creatures within a Forsaken Graveyard have Turning Resistance of +3. This makes both turning and rebuking more difficult, and throws salt in the game of both the necromancer and the hunter of the dead. Corpses left within a forsaken graveyard have a tendency to rise up and slay the living from time to time. Every sunset, a number of undead creatures are created and go on a rampage. These undead creatures fall back to death when the sun rises. A body left within a Forsaken Graveyard for more than an hour can be turned into an undead creature even if it had previously been an undead creature and been destroyed. Undead creatures created within a Forsaken Graveyard have an extra 2 hit points per hit die.

A Forsaken Graveyard can be cleansed with four castings of consecrate or desecrate (one at each corner of the area), or a single casting of Tasha's tomb tainting (in the middle). Unfortunately, these spells can only affect it during the nighttime (as during the day, there is literally nothing to cleanse). Once cleansed, any undead created by the Forsaken Graveyard lose their bonuses, but are also not recalled at sunrise. Such undead creatures will continue their rampage until slain. Unlike a necromantic intelligence, the Forsaken Graveyard has no ability to direct the undead against specific targets.

Cleansing a Forsaken Graveyard is normally an appropriate adventure for a 6th level party, and the location itself spawns one CR 7 creature, one CR 6 creature, two CR 5 creatures, and six CR 4 creatures every night. These creatures are undirected in their assaults on the living, and travel individually or in groups of two. A Forsaken Graveyard adventure can be scaled up or down for adventurers of differing power by changing the power levels of the creatures within it, or simply changing the parameters of the encounter. If a standard graveyard is itself small enough that every creature is encountered simultaneously, that would be an EL 11 encounter.

Pools of Deep Shadow:

Veteran players of Dungeons and Dragons often ask "Why don't Shadows just take over the whole world?" Certainly, there are very few residents of the worlds of D&D that can fight against a Shadow at all, and their victims rise from the dead as Shadow Spawn, so it doesn't take a lot of imagination to see where this is going. However, there are a few things limiting the growth of Shadow armies that are not mentioned in the core books at all.

The first is that only intelligent creatures slain by Shadows turn into spawn. That's important, as it means that Shadows cannot simply hunt frogs in the swamp until they number in the tens of thousands before they roll over cities and dragon caves like a fog of Death Incarnate.

But perhaps even more importantly is that almost any time you see a Shadow, or for that matter any incorporeal undead creature, you are looking at a summoned creature. When the Shadow's summoning ends, all of its spawn vanish. Most of the time, an incorporeal undead is summoned forth from the Negative Energy Plane by an object that looks much like a puddle of very oily water, called a Pool of Deep Shadow. Whenever light falls directly upon the pool, or the sun rises high enough in the sky that there are no shadows (about half an hour before and after noon), the summoning effect ends and the Shadow vanishes. When the shadows grow long and darkness has fallen upon the pool, a Shadow is again summoned.

This means that an individual Shadow or Wraith has a very difficult time destroying the whole world, as there is no particular way for them to get more than a day's float from their pool. It also means, however, that areas inhabited by Shadows are extremely dangerous – for even if such a creature is destroyed it will return again the following day. And on every day it will return until those charged with exterminating it are caught unlucky or unaware. In order to permanently destroy such a pool, a flask of Holy Water (or Unholy Water) need simply be poured into it, causing the blackness to depart and the water to become quite clear and drinkable.

Finality

Finality is a planar metropolis in the Infernal Battlefield of Acheron. Its harsh laws are kept in rigid and uncompromising order by the will of powerful pit fiends, and the city serves as a marketplace for the lucrative trade in souls. Magic items can be bought or sold here, but the currency is always souls (as a planar metropolis, Finality has a gp limit of 600,000 gp). Souls are valued at their CR squared, multiplied by 100 gp. Many items purchased from this location radiate evil, buyer beware. Lodging may be purchased at flat rate of one soul per day per person. The section of Acheron that Finality rests in has the Timeless trait and is mildly Lawfully aligned. The population of The City is about 100,000 people (with uncounted millions of souls), most of whom are Baatezu.

The rules in Finality are uncompromising and bizarre, and the punishments for breaking them are vindictively carried out to the letter by powerful devils. But there is no warfare allowed in the city, and even Celestials and Tanar'ri come to participate in the great mercantile dance of soul collection. Characters must make a Knowledge (Local: Finality) check everyday with a DC of 10 + 2 per day they've been in the city or unknowingly break one of the city's many inscrutable laws (knowingly breaking the law by starting fights or stealing goods is a whole different thing). Punishments range from perplexing to fatal. Characters who stay away from Finality for more than a month are no longer subject to the baroque residency rules and their DCs are returned to 10 the next time they visit.

Necromantic Equipment:

New Materials:

Boneblades: Boneblades are alchemically and necromantically hardened blades made from the bones of intelligent creatures, and the material can only be created by craftsmen with the Boneblade Master feat. For an unknown reason, they only retain their special properties if they are made into light slashing or piercing weapons. Boneblades used in melee combat ignore the damage reduction of any undead creature and can hit incorporeal creatures as if they were magic weapons with the ghost touch property..
Boneblades made from dragon bones can be combined with the Dragoncrafter feat to produce items with both properties.
Cost: 1,000 gp per lb.

Blood steel: Blood steel is steel that has been mixed with the blood of certain powerful creatures, making it redder than normal steel and with unusual properties. Weapons made of blood steel do 2 additional points of damage on a successful hit and any armor made of blood steel has an armor bonus two higher. These effects only manifest if the blood steel is allowed to hungrily latch onto its user's flesh, at which point it reduces the bearer’s Constitution by two points. Treat blood steel as normal steel for creatures with no Constitution or creatures protected from this effect.
Cost: 2,000 gp for a weapon, 1,000 gp for armor or shield.

Black steel: Black steel is steel that has been mixed with necromantically charged obsidian, making it as sharp as adamantine and as dangerous as obsidian. Weapons made of black steel count as adamantine for all effects, but perform as if enhanced with the Ghost Touch and Wounding properties (without additional cost). Characters using items made of Black steel suffer one point of Wisdom drain for every day they are held, worn or carried.
Cost: 15,000 gp for a weapon, 24,000 gp for light armor, 28,000 gp for medium armor, 32,000 gp for heavy armor.

Tainted obsidian: While normal obsidian often has interesting necromantic properties, tainted obsidian is an actual source of necromantic energy. When a magic item has is made of tainted obsidian, it can provide uses or charges of its Necromancy effects in exchange for doing wisdom drain.
Cost: +10,000.

[Arek]

Morality: How Black is the Night?

Those readers who have been following this series will remember the basic moral question regarding Necromancy: namely the fundamental decision for each game as to whether to treat Negative Energy as an objective force or an ultimate moral indictment. The central question surrounding fiends is less obvious, but in no way less important to your game. We know that a Gelugon is Evil, he's got a subtype that denotes him as being specifically Evil, that's not the question. What we don't know is how Evil he is. That's a central question that has to be addressed within the context of each game. Let's face it, a lot of people really aren't comfortable with villainy more pernicious than the antagonists in a Saturday morning cartoon. Other people have a different and equally valid hang-up: they aren't comfortable having their characters stab enemies in the face repeatedly until they bleed to death unless those enemies are extremely bad people. As so frequently happens, the rules for Dungeons and Dragons are written to accommodate both play styles, which in reality ends up including nothing. Perhaps unfortunately, you must come to a table-wide consensus about what your gaming is not doing before you can have your game do anything at all.

Keep in mind that none of these play styles are "worse" or "better".

Moral Option 1: A Worthy Opponent
"Fools! You have interfered with my plans for the last time!"

For many games, the fact that the bad guys are bad is pretty much sufficient. Like the villains in Saturday Morning Cartoons, their villainy requires – and gets – no explanation. Actual villainy is fairly upsetting to contemplate, and a lot of people don't want to do it. I don't blame them, cannibalism, deliberate infliction of pain, and exploitation of the innocent are unpleasant. Talking about secret prisons where torture is conducted night and day without respite or reason is super depressing.

Implications: The biggest implication here is that since Evil and Good are basically just political parties or ethnic hats, it is perfectly OK to have mixed alignment parties or to ban mixed alignment parties. You're never going to have a serious discussion about what it is that Evil people do, so it's actually not important how you handle them. You can even switch how you're handling it in the middle for no reason. One day, the Atomic Skull can just chip in to save the world from Darkseid. Another day you can go kill the Atomic Skull without feeling bad. It's very liberating, because you can tell a lot of stories – so long as none of those stories involve actual evil actions happening on camera.

Pit Falls: While it is certainly a load off the mind to not be constantly reminded of child abuse, torture, and sexual misconduct, bear in mind that this is Dungeons and Dragons – your foes are more than likely going to be killed with extreme stabination. Possibly in the face. Possibly more than once. If the villains aren't doing anything overwhelmingly bad, it's entirely possible that it won't seem like they deserve being killed. If subjected to enough analysis, one might even find that your own "heroes" appear to be the villains in your cooperative storytelling adventure. Certainly, He-Man never took that sword and chopped Skeletor into chunks. Star Wars: Episode One was such an unsatisfying movie in no small part because the villains never did anything bad.

Glossing over the villainous activities of the bad guys should go hand in hand with all of the players acknowledging and understanding what you are doing and why you are doing it. As long as everyone is making the active and informed choice to not deal with the heavy moral questions – it's all good.

Moral Option 2: The Banality of Evil
"It's 9 O'clock, time to get back to some Evil."

Many DMs will want to play their fiends pretty much like Nazis – their agenda is hateful, but in their off time they go hang out at the pub just like everyone else. You could even sit there with them and drink together unless you happen to be a Jew. This is the default assumption of a lot of Planescape literature, for example. An Evil creature is Evil because it ever does Evil things, not because it's necessarily doing any Evil right now. Darkness and light are, in this model, pretty ephemeral concepts – characters who wish to save their own sanity will end up either paying perhaps too much attention or ignoring them completely often as not.

Implications: Since bad guys (and presumably good guys as well) spend most of their time being regular guys and only infrequently perform acts worthy of praise or scorn, it's extremely easy for heroes to fall to Evil and extremely easy for villains to be redeemed for full value. People on both sides of the Good/Evil axis are doing pretty unexceptional stuff most of the time, so the allegiance that even Evil Clerics have to darkness is pretty tenuous.

This way of handling things is so much better at handling mysteries than are other morality systems that it may as well be a requirement if you ever want to play a "who-done-it" adventure. Since the good guys and bad guys spend most of their day being actually indistinguishable one from another, it makes distinguishing them actually difficult – and that has to happen if there is to be any question of who the PCs are supposed to stab.

Pit Falls: Be wary of over-humanizing the villains. In many stories, the bad guys are a lot more interesting than the white hats; and that can seriously derail a campaign if it happens in a role playing scenario. Beware also of the fact that if the Evil Overlord is mostly chillin like a villain with his family and having brews with his bros, it's going to be pretty hard to justify it when you inevitably stab him right in the face. Also remember that while The Banality of Evil is great for mysteries, it's actually so good for mysteries that the game can bog down. Players can get caught up in the minor goings-on of characters you don't even care about. Paranoia can be paralyzing when any scullery maid could really just go Evil at any time and poison your food to try to get your wallet. It can be realistic, but realism takes place in real time. That's not good if you're trying to raise hippogriffs as steeds.

Moral Option 3: The Face of Horror.
"I think I have Evil sand. In my pants."

Many DMs will want to make their Evil as Evil as possible. That can get… pretty Evil. It can actually get so Evil that people who overhear you playing the game will get a very bad impression about your group and the things you talk about. The starker the contrast between Good and Evil, the more righteous the acts of heroism the players commit. Tales of monstrous action are fascinating and the horrid and disgusting can hold people's interest indefinitely. By having the forces of Evil disembowel people in loving detail you can capture the imaginations of your players with actually relatively little creative work on the part of the DM. There have been over 10 Jason movies because those things practically write themselves, and people keep watching them because they genuinely are as intriguing as the are revolting.

Implications: With the forces of Evil running around doing actual stomach churning crime, having Evil and Good "team up" is essentially implausible. In fact, having Good and Evil characters in the same party is pretty much a non-starter. When playing with The Face of Horror the universe is essentially a cosmic battle between Good and Evil, the forces of Law and Chaos have some fights too, but essentially that's just crime compared to the world shaking conflict of darkness and light.

Further, while Good and Evil being as immiscible as Rubidium and Water makes for a well defined party demographic, it also has other far reaching consequences. When you go to the Abyss, the sand itself is Evil. Once you've made the determination that this means more than that Paladins can find every grain – you've bought yourself into the determination that beaches in the Abyss are themselves morally reprobate somehow.

Pit Falls: While The Face of Horror ends up making Good and Evil a much more important distinction than Law vs. Chaos, that's not really a problem. Sure, it's not reciprocal or equivalent and that's a breach of the Great Wheel tirade, but that's not really important to the game. Let's face it, when was the last time you saw a statted up enemy prepared to cast dictum? No, the problem is that if you make Evil as nasty as it can be made, it's really nasty. It makes other people in the game uncomfortable, and it disturbs people who hear portions of your game out of context. People like talking about stabbing their sword into an evil monster, that's all heroic and crap, but actually looking at sword wounds is icky. People don't want to do it.

Evil, if defined as "things we don't like", is pretty much exclusively composed of things we don't like. That means that the more we focus our attention on the details of what's going on, the more we'll want to clean our eyes out with soap. And while skirting that line can make a story grimly compelling, remember always that different people have different tolerances for this sort of thing. Just because something is gross enough to catch your prurient interest without wrecking your lunch doesn't mean that it isn't so nasty as to drive other people away. Tolerance for discussing child murder in the context of a story is not a virtue, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with the people who don't enjoy watching movies in the splatter horror genre.

Moral Option 4: Perfection in Balance
"What use is the light that casts not a shadow?"

In this model, evil is a force that sits diametrically opposed to good. In order for one to exist, the other must exist as well. Evil is what gives good its meaning, and in fact one can simply define one by the other: to be good is not-evil, and to be evil is to be not-good. When playing with this option, evil plays a vital role in society and cannot be eliminated without dire consequences. For example, when the Jedi eliminate the Sith Lords, they set themselves up for an even more powerful Sith Lord to rise and kill them all, ushering in a new order of Evil, which is in turn later demolished by the calling out of a powerful Jedi who can defeat it. Neutrality is the rule of the day in this model, in the sense that evil and good will always be in the midst of trumping each other in an effort to “win”, a goal that is as meaningless as it is impossible.

What does that mean for your game? In this model, evil will always be the fly in your ointment and the piss in your cheerios, and good will always be the silver lining in the stormcloud and the complementary bag of nuts in your red-eye flight. Even the most powerful and good organization of clerics in your world will have a cruel inquisitor, and even the most death-hungry cabal of necromancers will have a guy who is kind to puppies and little children. Organizations and people will be “mostly” one thing or the other, but not all of anything, and people will be OK with that. Kind kings will be mostly good, but will have no problem massacring an entire generation of goblinkind in an effort to keep the roads safe, and liches who eat souls will defend the land from rampaging chimera without reward in an effort to keep the peace.

Implications: In a sense, this is the easiest of moral options, as you won’t need to really keep track of what’s going on with alignments. People will occasionally do things out of character, and that’s fine. Society will be quite tolerant, as they completely think its OK for there to be a Temple Street with a shrine for Orcus worshippers competing for space with a hospital sponsored by the clergy of Pelor. When one organization for good or evil gets stomped down, another one will pop up to replace it in an endless game of cosmic whack-a-mole.

For character with alignment related class features, atonement is a far easier process. Occasional deeds that violate your alignment are tolerated, as long as attempts at acts of atonement are made in a reasonable time frame. The Paladin that kills an innocent to defeat a powerful demon may have to visit the innocent’s family and make restitution after the battle, and the Cleric of Murder who defends the king from an assassin may have to seek out several of the King’s loved one’s in order to rededicate himself to his dark god.

Pit Falls: It can be pretty cool to have a party that has an assassin, a druid, and a champion of light in it – there's a lot of early D&D that has that as virtually the iconic party – but if the great game between Good and Evil is an inherently pointless game, that can make the story of your characters seem pretty banal. It's a line that can be hard to walk. It's just plain difficult to simultaneously have any individual attempt to destroy the world be important while having it be built into the contract that there will be another one tomorrow.

To Triumph Over Evil

Equally important to the place of ultimate Evil in your game is the activities of Good in your game. Like Evil, the designers have tried to run the spectrum of possible interpretations of righteousness… and the results are that the overlap of actions depicted as Good with those described as Evil is almost total. Ultimately, your campaign is going to have to come to a consensus over what you are going to accept as Good. Most importantly, the inverse of Evil is not Good. It really takes a lot less harm to be Evil than it takes aid to be Good. If you fix twenty people's roofs, you're Jimmy the Helpful Thatcher. But if you eat your neighbor's daughter, you're Jimmy the Cannibal – and no additional carpentry assistance will change that. This is why the Book of Exalted Deeds is such an unsatisfying read… you can't just take the material in the Book of Vile Darkness and multiply by negative one to get Good.

The Importance of Consequentialism

Every action has motivations, expectable results, and actual results. In addition, every action can be described with a verb. In the history of moral theory (a history substantively longer than human history) it has at times been contested by otherwise bright individuals that any of those (singly or collectively) could be used as a rubric to determine the rightness of an action. D&D authors agreed. With all of those extremely incompatible ideas. And the result has been an unmitigated catastrophe. Noone knows what makes an action Good in D&D, so your group is ultimately going to have to decide for yourselves. Is your action Good because your intentions are Good? Is your action Good because the most likely result of your action is Good? Is your action Good because the actual end result of that action is Good? Is your action Good because the verb that bests describes your action is in general Good? There are actually some very good arguments for all of these written by people like Jeremy Bentham, Immanuel Kant, and David Wasserman – but there are many other essays that are so astoundingly contradictory and ill-reasoned that they are of less help than reading nothing. Unfortunately for the hobby, some of the essays of the second type were written by Gary Gygax.

This is not an easy question to answer. The rulebooks, for example, are no help at all. D&D at its heart is about breaking into other peoples' homes, stabbing them in the face, and taking all their money. That's very hard to rationalize as a Good thing to do, and the authors of D&D have historically not tried terribly hard.

Godliness isn't Goodliness

Whatever religion you personally have, the religion in D&D revolves around a set of gods both Good and Evil of equal strength and importance. Most modern day religions have however many gods they worship be of sufficient goodness that they are at least worthy of respect – so it can be hard to remember that in D&D the gods as a whole are precisely zero sum on any issue. Being "divine" doesn't make you Good in D&D, it just makes you more. If you're Good it makes you more Good, but if you're Evil it makes you more Evil. Clerics detect strongly of whatever alignment they have, but there's nothing Good about priests as a whole. Turning your back on the gods isn't a bad thing in D&D, it's a perfectly valid and neutral choice. If Ur Priests are to have any alignment restriction at all, it should be the same as Druids – stealing from the gods is a profoundly neutral act, not Good and not Evil.

There is no Salvation or Redemption in D&D

All of the major religions of our world that utilize the concepts of Ultimate Good and Ultimate Evil use the concept of Redemption (that people have a state of innocence that they can lose and perhaps regain through atonement) or Salvation (that people have a state of inherent unworthiness that they can overcome). D&D, despite having a spell called atonement actually has neither of those concepts. The atonement spell actually dedicates (or rededicates) a character to any alignment, Good or Evil, Law or Chaos. Baby kobolds are not born into original sin and baby elves are not born in a state of grace, D&D doesn't even have those concepts. Creatures with an alignment subtype (most Fiends, for example) are born into that alignment and are only going to stray from it if subjected to powerful magic or arguments. Everyone else is born neutral.

In D&D, creatures do not "fall" into Evil. Being Evil is a valid choice that is fully supported by half the gods just as Good is. Those who follow the tenets of Evil throughout their lives are judged by Evil Gods when they die, and can gain rewards at least as enticing as those offered to those who follow the path of Good (who, after all, are judged by Good Gods after they die). So when sahuagin run around on land snatching children to use as slaves or sacrifices to Baatorians, they aren't putting their soul in danger. They are actually keeping their soul safe. Once you step down the path of villainy, you get a better deal in the afterlife by being more evil.

The only people who get screwed in the D&D afterlife are traitors and failures. A traitor gets a bad deal in the afterlife because whichever side of the fence they ended up on is going to remember their deeds on the other side of the fence. A failure gets a bad deal because they end up judged by gods who wanted them to succeed. As such, it is really hard to get people to change alignment in D&D. Unless you can otherwise assure that someone will die as a failure to their alignment, there's absolutely no incentive you could possibly give them that would entice them to betray it.

Code of Conduct: Paladins

Nothing causes more arguments in-game than Paladins. Can Paladins kill baby kobolds? What about baby mind flayers? Honestly, while these questions have generated a lot of ink and a lot of bad feelings, they aren't important. Paladins are Lawful Good, but they aren't "champions of Law and Good" – that's an Archon. A Paladin doesn't get Smite Chaos, they aren't forced to abandon team members who behave in a Chaotic fashion (whatever that means, see below). Paladins are Champions of Good™ and they are required to be Lawful. Whether or not that makes any sense depends on how you're handling Law and Chaos.

Paladins are as Good as any character can be, and they are required to follow a code of conduct. However, following this code is no what makes them Good, we know this because Clerics of Good (who detect as being just as Good as Paladins) don't have to follow that code. The code is completely arbitrary, and has no bearing on the relative Goodness of a character. Paladins also lose their powers if they don't drink for a few days, but that doesn't put Blackguards in danger of losing their alignment when they quaff a glass of water.

The Paladin's code is uncompromising, but it is also exhaustive about what it won't allow:

The Use of Poison: If a park ranger hits a bear with a tranq dart, that's not an Evil act. Poison isn't any more or less Evil than a blade. Paladins can't use poison because they agreed not to – not because there's anything wrong with poison. Maybe Paladins only get to keep their magically enhanced immune system so long as they don't take it for granted by using things that would tax it on purpose. Maybe their concern for public safety is so great that they are only willing to use weapons that look like weapons. Whatever. The point is that Paladins have to be Good and they can't use Poison, and these are separate restrictions.

Lies: A Paladin can't lie. Whether telling a lie is a good or evil act depends on what you're saying and who you are saying it to. But a Paladin won't do it. That means that if the Nazis come to the door and demand to know if the Paladin is hiding any Jews (she is), she can't glibly say "No." That does not mean that she has to say "Yes, they're right under the stairs!" – it means that she has to tell the Nazis point blank "I'm not going to participate in your genocidal campaign, it's wrong." This will start a fight, and may get everyone killed, so the Paladin is well within her code to eliminate the middle man and just stab the Gestapo right there before answering. That's harsh, but the Paladin's code isn't about doing what's easy, or even what's best. It's about doing what you said you were going to.

Cheating: Paladin's don't cheat. They don't have to keep playing if they figure out that someone else is cheating, but they aren't allowed to cheat at dice to rescue slaves or whatever. Again, there's nothing Good about not cheating, it's just something they have to do in addition to being Good all the time.

Association Restrictions: Paladins are not allowed to team up with Evil people. They aren't allowed to offer assistance to Evil people and they aren't allowed to receive assistance from Evil people. Intolerance of this sort isn't Evil, but it isn't Good either. It's just another thing that Paladins have to do.



Law and Chaos: Your Rules or Mine?

Let's get this out in the open: Law and Chaos do not have any meaning under the standard D&D rules.

We are aware that especially if you've been playing this game for a long time, you personally probably have an understanding of what you think Law and Chaos are supposed to mean. You possibly even believe that the rest of your group thinks that Law and Chaos mean the same thing you do. But you're probably wrong. The nature of Law and Chaos is the source of more arguments among D&D players (veteran and novice alike) than any other facet of the game. More than attacks of opportunities, more than weapon sizing, more even than spell effect inheritance. And the reason is because the "definition" of Law and Chaos in the Player's Handbook is written so confusingly that the terms are not even mutually exclusive. Look it up, this is a written document, so it's perfectly acceptable for you to stop reading at this time, flip open the Player's Handbook, and start reading the alignment descriptions. The Tome of Fiends will still be here when you get back.
…
There you go! Now that we're all on the same page (page XX), the reason why you've gotten into so many arguments with people as to whether their character was Lawful or Chaotic is because absolutely every action that any character ever takes could logically be argued to be both. A character who is honorable, adaptable, trustworthy, flexible, reliable, and loves freedom is a basically stand-up fellow, and meets the check marks for being "ultimate Law" and "ultimate Chaos". There aren't any contradictory adjectives there. While Law and Chaos are supposed to be opposed forces, there's nothing antithetical about the descriptions in the book.

Ethics Option 1: A level of Organization.

Optimal span of control is 3 to 5 people. Maybe Chaotic characters demand to personally control more units than that themselves and their lack of delegation ends up with a quagmire of incomprehensible proportions. Maybe Chaotic characters refuse to bow to authority at all and end up in units of one. Whatever the case, some DMs will have Law be well organized and Chaos be poorly organized. In this case, Law is objectively a virtue and Chaos is objectively a flaw.

Being disorganized doesn't mean that you're more creative or interesting, it just means that you accomplish less with the same inputs. In this model pure Chaos is a destructive, but more importantly incompetent force.

Ethics Option 2: A Question of Sanity.

Some DMs will want Law and Chaos to mean essentially "Sane" and "Insane". That's fine, but it doesn't mean that Chaos is funny. In fact, insanity is generally about the least funny thing you could possibly imagine. An insane person reacts inappropriately to their surroundings. That doesn't mean that they perform unexpected actions, that's just surrealist. And Paladins are totally permitted to enjoy non sequitur based humor and art. See, insanity is when you perform the same action over and over again and expect different results.

In this model we get a coherent explanation for why, when all the forces of Evil are composed of a multitude of strange nightmarish creatures, and the forces of Good have everything from a glowing patch of light to a winged snake tailed woman, every single soldier in the army of Chaos is a giant frog. This is because in this model Limbo is a place that is totally insane. It's a place where the answer to every question really is "Giant Frog". Creatures of Chaos then proceed to go to non Chaotically-aligned planes and are disappointed and confused when doors have to be pushed and pulled to open and entrance cannot be achieved by "Giant Frog".

If Chaos is madness, it's not "spontaneous", it's "non-functional". Actual adaptability is sane. Adapting responses to stimuli is what people are supposed to do. For reactions to be sufficiently inappropriate to qualify as insanity, one has to go pretty far into one's own preconceptions. Actual mental illness is very sad and traumatic just to watch as an outside observer. Actually living that way is even worse. It is strongly suggested therefore, that you don't go this route at all. It's not that you can't make D&D work with sanity and insanity as the core difference between Law and Chaos, it's that in doing so you're essentially making the Law vs. Chaos choice into the choice between good and bad. That and there is a certain segment of the roleplaying community that cannot differentiate absurdist humor from insanity and will insist on doing annoying things in the name of humor. And we hate those people.

Ethics Option 3: The Laws of the Land.

Any region that has writing will have an actual code of laws. Even oral traditions will have, well, traditions. In some campaigns, following these laws makes you Lawful, and not following these laws makes you Chaotic. This doesn't mean that Lawful characters necessarily have to follow the laws of Kyuss when you invade his secret Worm Fort, but it does mean that they need to be an "invading force" when they run around in Kyuss' Worm Fort. Honestly, I'm not sure what it even means to have a Chaotic society if Lawful means "following your own rules". This whole schema is workable, but only with extreme effort. It helps if there's some sort of divinely agreed upon laws somewhere that nations and individuals can follow to a greater or lesser degree. But even so, there's a lot of hermits and warfare in the world such that whether people are following actual laws can be just plain hard to evaluate.

I'd like to endorse this more highly, since any time you have characters living up to a specific arbitrary code (or not) it becomes a lot easier to get things evaluated. Unfortunately, it's really hard to even imagine an entire nation fighting for not following their own laws. That's just… really weird. But if you take Law to mean law, then you're going to have to come to terms with that.

Ethics Option 4: My Word is My Bond.

Some DMs are going to want Law to essentially equate to following through on things. A Lawful character will keep their word and do things that they said they were going to. In this model, a Lawful character has an arbitrary code of conduct and a Chaotic character does not. That's pretty easy to adjudicate, you just announce what you're going to do and if you do it, you're Lawful and if you don't you're not.

Here's where it gets weird though: That means that Lawful characters have a harder time working together than do non-lawful characters. Sure, once they agree to work together there's some Trust there that we can capitalize, but it means that there are arbitrary things that Lawful characters won't do. Essentially this means that Chaotic parties order one mini-pizza each while Lawful parties have to get one extra large pizza for the whole group – and we know how difficult that can be to arrange. A good example of this in action is the Paladin's code: they won't work with Evil characters, which restricts the possibilities of other party members.

In the world, this means that if you attack a Chaotic city, various other chaotic characters will trickle in to defend it. But if you attack a Lawful city, chances are that it's going to have to stand on its own.

Adherence to Self: Not a Rubric for Law

Sometimes Lawfulness is defined by people as adhering to one's personal self. That may sound very "Lawful", but there's no way that makes any sense. Whatever impulses you happen to have, those are going to be the ones that you act upon, by definition. If it is in your nature to do random crap that doesn't make any sense to anyone else – then your actions will be contrary and perplexing, but they will still be completely consistent with your nature. Indeed, there is literally nothing you can do that isn't what you would do. It's circular.

Rigidity: Not a Rubric for Law

Sometimes Lawfulness is defined by people as being more "rigid" as opposed to "spontaneous" in your action. That's crap. Time generally only goes in one direction, and it generally carries a one to one correspondence with itself. That means that as a result of a unique set of stimuli, you are only going to do one thing. In D&D, the fact that other people weren't sure what the one thing you were going to do is handled by a Bluff check, not by being Chaotic.

I Fought the Law

Regardless of what your group ends up meaning when they use the word "Law", the fact is that some of your enemies are probably going to end up being Lawful. That doesn't mean that Lawful characters can't stab them in their area, whatever it is that you have alignments mean it's still entirely acceptable for Good characters to stab other Good characters and Lawful characters to stab other Lawful characters (oddly, noone even asks if it's a violation of Chaotic Evil to kill another Chaotic Evil character, but it isn't). There are lots of reasons to kill a man, and alignment disagreements don't occupy that list exclusively.

Code of Conduct: Barbarian

A Barbarian who becomes Lawful cannot Rage. Why not? There's no decent answer for that. Rage doesn't seem to require that you not tell people in advance that you're going to do it, nor does it actually force you to break promises once you're enraged. It doesn't force you to behave in any particular fashion, and noone knows why it is restricted.

Code of Conduct: Bard

If anyone can tell me why a concert pianist can't be Lawful I will personally put one thing of their choice into my mouth. Music is expressionistic, but it is also mathematical. Already there are computers that can write music that is indistinguishable from the boring parts of Mozart in which he's just going up and down scales in order to mark time.

Beating Back Chaos

Long ago "Law" and "Chaos" were used euphemisms by Pohl Anderson for Good and Evil, and that got taken up by other fantasy and science fiction authors and ultimately snow-balled into having a Chaos alignment for D&D. If you go back far enough, "Chaos" actually means "The Villains", and when it comes down to it there's no logical meaning for it to have other than that – so the forces of Chaos really are going to show up at your door to take a number for a whuppin at some point. Depending upon what your group ends up deciding to mean by Chaos, this may seem pretty senselessly cruel. If the forces of Chaos are simply unorganized then you are essentially chasing down hobos and beating down the ones too drunk to get away. If Chaos is insanity than the Chaos Hunters in your game are essentially going door to door to beat up the retarded kids.

The key is essentially to not overthink it. Chaos was originally put into the fantasy genre in order to have bad guys without having to have black hatted madmen trying to destroy the world. So if Team Chaos is coming around your door, just roll with it. The whole point is to have villains that you can stab without feeling guilty while still having villains to whom your characters can lose without necessarily losing the whole campaign world.

Code of Conduct: Knight

Sigh. The Knight' code of conduct doesn't represent Lawful activity no matter what your group means by that term. They can't strike an opponent standing in a grease effect, but they can attack that same person after they fall down in the grease! They also are not allowed to win a duel or stake vampires (assuming, for the moment that you were using some of the house rules presented in The Tome of Necromancy that allow vampires to be staked by anyone). So the Knight's code is not an example of Lawfulness in practice, it's just a double fistful of stupid written by someone who obviously doesn't understand D&D combat mechanics. If you wanted to make a Knight's Code that represented something like "fighting fair", you'd do it like this:


May not accept benefit from Aid Another actions.

May not activate Spell Storing items (unless the Knight cast the spell into the item in the first place).

May not use poison or disease contaminated weapons.


But remember: such a code of fair play is no more Lawful than not having a code of fair play. Formians are the embodiment of Law, and they practically wrote the book on cooperation. So while a Knight considers getting help from others to be "cheating", that's not because he's Lawful. He considers getting such aid to be cheating and he's Lawful. What type of Lawful a Knight represents is determined by your interpretation of Law as a whole. Maybe a Knight has to uphold the law of the land (right or wrong). Maybe a Knight has to keep his own word. Whatever, the important part is that the arbitrary code that the Knight lives under is just that – arbitrary. The actual contents of the code are a separate and irrelevant concern to their alignment restriction.

Code of Conduct? Monk

Again with the sighing. Noone can explain why Monks are required to be Lawful, least of all the Player's Handbook. Ember is Lawful because she "follows her discipline", while Mialee is not Lawful because she is "devoted to her art". FTW?! That's the same thing, given sequentially as an example of being Lawful and not being Lawful. Monk's training requires strict discipline, but that has nothing to do with Lawfulness no matter what setup for Law and Chaos you are using. If Lawfulness is about organization, you are perfectly capable of being a complete maverick who talks to noone and drifts from place to place training constantly like the main character in Kung Fu – total lack of organization, total "Chaotic" – total disciplined Monk. If Law is about Loyalty, you're totally capable of being treacherous spies. In fact, that's even an example in the PHB "Evil monks make ideal spies, infiltrators, and assassins." And well, that sentence pretty much sinks any idea of monks having to follow the law of the land or keeping their own word, doesn't it? The only way monk lawfulness would make any sense is if you were using "adherence to an arbitrary self" as the basis of Law, and we already know that can't hold.

Code of Conduct: Paladin Again

This has to be repeated: Paladins don't get Smite Chaos. They are not champions of Law and Good, they are Champions of Good who are required to be Lawful. If your game is not using Word is Bond Ethics, Paladins have no reason to be Lawful. Paladins are only encouraged to follow the laws of the country they live in if those laws are Good. They are actually forbidden by their code of conduct from following the precepts of Evil nations. The Paladin shtick works equally well as a loner or a leader, and it is by definition distinctly disloyal. A Paladin must abandon compatriots.

[Arek]

Optional Rules

There are a number of places in the rules that governing Fiends that just don't work at all, or don't work in a way that is good. This is an attempt to fix them.

No Wishing for More Wishes!
The 3.5 wish spell is very explicit in what it can do, and extremely vague about what it can't do. It has a big list of things it is capable of, and then tells the DM to ad hoc things if anyone wishes for anything that isn't on that list. Unfortunately, wishing for a Staff of 50 wishes is on the list of things you can wish for. The XP cost is considerable (512,180 XP), but if you get your wishes from a magic item (like a Staff of 50 Wishes) or a spell-like ability (like an Efreet), you don't have to pay that XP cost, so the fact that it is stupidly large doesn't even matter. Needless to say, the game completely breaks down as soon as that happens. So in that spirit, we suggest an alternate list of things wish can do, coupled with some things wish actually can't do:

Free Wishes – the following wishes have no XP cost:
– Wealth: A character can wish for mundane wealth whose total value is 25,000 gp or less.
– Magic Item: A character can wish for a magic item that costs 15,000 gp or less.
– Power: A character can wish to increase an inherent bonus to any attribute by 1 (to a maximum of +5)
– Spell: A character can wish for the effects of any spell that lacks an XP cost that is lower level than the highest level spell in its spell list (a wizard spell of 8th level or less, or a paladin spell of 3rd level or less, for example).
– Transport: A character can wish herself and 1 other willing creature per caster level to any location on any plane.

Wishes that aren't Free – the following wishes cost XP or gp or both:
– Add to the Powers of a Magic Item: A character can increase the powers of a magic item to anything she could enhance it to with her own item creation feats. This requires 1 XP for every 10 gp increase in magic item value.
– Raise the Dead: A character can bring the dead back to "life", even if they were an undead, construct, or other creature that cannot normally be brought back to life. This may even be able to bring back a creature who has been devoured by a Barghest (50% chance of success). This costs 3,000 XP, which can be paid in any combination by the caster or the target. The spent XP for this wish can reduce a character's level, but coming back to life in this manner otherwise won't do so.
– Undo Misfortune: A character can wish back the sands of time in order to force events of the last round to be replayed. Time can be reset to any point back to the character's previous initiative pass. This use costs 1000 XP. While the action spent to cast wish in this case is restored, the character still loses the spell slot and XP used to power it.
– Turn Back Time: A poorly fated adventure can be averted entirely with a wish. The character expends the slot and pays 5,000 xp, and none of it ever happened.

Wishes that are Rituals – some wishes have much greater costs, at the whim of the DM. Here is an example:
– Become a new Creature: A character can wish themselves into being a new creature. This must be done when a character is eligible to gain a new level, and the character makes the wish and takes a level of the new racial class (or racial paragon class) and is now the new race.



Any use of wish causes the wisher to become fatigued (and yes, there are ways to get around that).

Creatures with spell-like abilities that grant wishes may only grant wishes that have no XP cost. So an Efreet can give you as many +2 swords as it wants, but an Efreet can't give in to your request to have a +3 sword. Also, you'll notice that we categorize the inherent bonuses as something that's free and therefore going to be rapidly available to all the player characters somewhere between 11th and 15th levels. That's because we seriously believe that it is more balanced for characters to all gain +5 inherent bonuses than it is for some characters to figure out how to manipulate XP gains and thought bottles to get inherent bonuses while the other players don't. Inherent bonuses need to be available or not available to everyone or they break the game.

Magic items with wish on them can be used to cast wishes with an XP cost of at most 5,000 XP, and are produced as items using spells with a cost of 5,000 XP. As a result, you can't wish for an item that has wish on it.

Damage Reduction and Special Materials:

The 3.5 rules were rather… overzealous with splitting up material DR, and the result has been that high level characters actually just curl up and cry. Here are some guidelines to streamline things a bit:

- Any steel weapon counts as "cold iron" for the purposes of beating DR. Cold Iron being a special kind of iron mined deep underground is, well, insultingly stupid. Cold Iron is an actual word, it’s the first mass-produced type of iron in history, and in song and story is effective against fairies and chaos demons because it symbolizes order and industrialism. Cold iron is cheap, that's the whole point. If it wasn't cheap, it wouldn't be available in industrial quantities, and then it wouldn't have any symbolic effect against savage fey and demons of disorder.

- Alchemical Silver has no damage penalty. The fact that Silver has a damage penalty is sort of justifiable, except that in D&D weapons made out of wood don't have a damage penalty. The game simply doesn't have a fine enough grain to keep track of the ways in which you'd rather have a sword made out of steel than a silver plated one. Also the thing where DR 1/Silver is in fact impossible to beat is incredibly dumb.

- Material DR beats Material DR. Alignment DR beats Alignment DR. Creatures with DR can hurt other creatures with DR as if they had natural weapons made out of whatever punches through their DR. And creatures with alignment subtypes penetrate DR with their manufactured weapons as if they had the alignment of their subtype. So when a Balor punches a Pit Fiend (needs Silver and Good), his fist counts as Good and Iron. When a Balor swings a Silver Sword at the Pit Fiend, his weapon counts as Silver and Evil – he has got all the needed adjectives, he just can't get them all at the same time. And that is really dumb. What should happen is the fact that the Balor needs an aligned weapon made out of a special material to be hurt should be sufficient to hurt the Pit Fiend with his natural weapons.

- There can only be five! An unfortunate and unintended result of the 3.5 DR rules is that as more materials and monsters get written, the chances of you having whatever material your target's DR is penetrated by drops to a number pretty close to zero. In order to keep that from happening, we propose that for the purposes of DR, there are only 5 materials, and absolutely everything counts as one of those five. So if your weapon isn't made out of: Adamantine, Iron, Silver, Stone, or Wood, it counts as being made of one of those materials. Here is a suggested weapon equivalency chart:

Adamantine:
- Alchemical Gold
- Black Steel
- Orichalcum
- N Metal
- Thinaun
- Urdrukar

Iron:
- Blood Steel
- Green Steel
- Morghuth Iron
- Trusteel

Silver:
- Pandemonic Silver
- Astral Driftmetal
- Entropium
- Nerra Mirrorblade
- Ysgardian Heartwire
- Mithril

Stone:
- Tainted Obsidian
- Blended Quartz
- Elukian Clay
- Kaorti Resin

Wood:
- Bronzewood
- Chitin
- Darkwood
- Iron wood
- Boneblade
- Dragon Bone

[Arek]

Prestige Classes

The prestige class system is as old as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and it has never really lived up to peoples' high expectations of it. From the original Bard on, there has always been an expectation that getting into a Prestige Class somehow should be an ordeal where you get less power now and more power later. Others think that you should get more power now and pay for it by getting less power later on. That's crap.

Gaining levels isn't like purchasing a car. You shouldn't be allowed to save up character power in interest drawing accounts. You shouldn't be allowed to borrow power from the future at heinous interest rates. The fact is that every game of D&D is a game. And that doesn't just mean that each campaign is a game, it means that each individual session of D&D is a game. And games that aren't fair aren't very fun. In the greater scheme of things it is theoretically possible to arrange a situation where one session might be unfair to one player and another session is unfair to the same player in the opposite fashion, but the fact is that in practice this is just very mean to all the players all the time. People feel it when they're being screwed far more than when the chips are stacked with them, so this sort of thing is just highly oppressive to everyone involved.

Worse, while you can create some sort of abstract proof about potential long-term balance in either the "buy now, pay later" or "save up for the awesome" models, in actual D&D games this simply does not work. It can't. While D&D is inherently open ended, each actual game has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And while it would be convenient if every game began at 1st level and ended at 20th, we know that isn't what really happens. Campaigns begin at later levels (after the pay-offs have kicked in or setups have become obsolete), and they end before Epic (before pay-offs or interest payments kick in). And this is normal. Any set up in which a character is supposed to have less power at one part of his career and more in another is unenforceable, there's no possible guarantee that both the low power and the high power period will ever actually happen in-game. In fact, in almost all cases it's a pretty good bet that they won't.

A character's level determines what they should be able to do. That's their character level, not their Class level. When a character is 7th level they should go 50/50 with a Medusa, a Hill Giant, a Spectre, and a Succubus. We know this, because that's what being a 7th level character means according to the CR system. If a character lacks the abilities or the numerics to compete evenly against those monsters, then he's underpowered. If a character has the mad skills to consistently crush that kind of opposition, then he's overpowered. And that's where Pestige Classes can come in to patch things up – because PrCs have a tendency to be available at about 7th level. So if the party Fighter isn't doing well against monsters of his level (and unless he's a pretty min/maxed build, he probably won't be), feel free to throw in PrCs for that character that are much more powerful. And if the party Druid is smacking those opponents down like a line of shots in a red light bar – then you should consider cutting him off.

What follows are some examples of prestige classes you can introduce into your game to do what Prestige Classes do well – give characters flavor abilities that they can be proud of and keep underperforming characters on track with the rest of the party.

Defiler of Temples
"That stuff is all sacred to Nerull, so we should desecrate it thoroughly. I'm going to need more beer."

The gods are jealous creatures and demand that their followers forsake the other gods. More over, they ask their most devoted followers to destroy the icons and worshippers of their peers. A Defiler of Temples is one who has taken up that cause and seeks to destroy the gods that oppose his own.

Prerequisites:
Skills: 9 ranks in Knowledge Religion, 4 ranks in Knowledge Dungeoneering
Spellcasting: Must be able to cast Divine Spells.
Special: Must have slain a divine caster following a god other than your own or a cleric dedicated to a philosophy you find abhorrent.

Hit Die: d8
Class Skills: The Defiler of Temples' class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Appraise (Int), Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disable Device (Int), Disguise (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Gather Information (Cha), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Spellcraft (Int), Swim (Str), and Use Magic Device (Cha).
Skills/Level: 4 + Intelligence Bonus
BAB: Medium (3/4), Saves: Fort: Poor; Reflex: Good; Will: Good

Level, Benefit
1 find traps, Avoid Divine Wrath, +1 Spellcasting Level
2 Unreproachable Alignment, Divine Spell Resistance, +1 Spellcasting Level
3 desecrate, +1 Spellcasting Level
4 Stolen Power, +1 Spellcasting Level
5 Mindblank, +1 Spellcasting Level

All of the following are Class Features of the Defiler of Temples class:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A Defiler of Temples gains proficiency with no new weapons or armor.

Spellcasting: Every level, the Defiler of Temples casts spells (including gaining any new spell slots and spell knowledge) as if he had also gained a level in a spellcasting class he had previous to gaining that level.

Find Traps (Sp): A Defiler of Temples can cast find traps as a spell-like ability with a caster level equal to his character level. This ability is usable at will.

Avoid Divine Wrath (Ex): Magical effects created by divine magic are unable to perceive a Defiler of Temples, so a contingent effect such as a glyph of warding will not activate in the Defiler of Temples' presence. A Defiler of Temples can still be affected by a divine spell which targets him or for which he is in the area of effect. Only divine contingent effects are incapable of acting upon him.

Unreproachable Alignment (Ex): All effects that have any effect dependent upon the alignment of a character affect a 2nd level Defiler of Temples as if he had or lacked whatever alignment would cause the least possible effect. So a blasphemy would not affect him as if he was Evil, while an order's wrath would not affect him as a non-Chaotic individual.

Divine Spell Resistance (Ex): The powers of the gods roll off the back of a Defiler of Temples like butter off a warm sofa. At 2nd level a Defiler of Temples gains Spell Resistance of 15 + Character level. This Spell Resistance only applies against Divine spells.

Desecrate (Sp): A Defiler of Temples loves nothing more than to defile the temples of his enemies. It's what he lives for. At 3rd level, he can do it reflexively with whatever he has on hand. A Defiler of Temples is then able to cast desecrate as a spell-like ability with a caster level equal to his character level. This ability is usable at will.

Stolen Power: By 4th level, the Defiler of Temples has captured enough of the divine power from his enemies that he can use it himself. The Defiler of Temples gains one bonus domain that must be one not offered by his deity or consistent with his own philosophy. Spells can be prepared and cast from this extra domain in precisely the same manner as a normal Cleric's Domains.

Mindblank (Su): At 5th level, the Defiler of Temples benefits from the effects of the spell mindblank. Even the gods themselves cannot find him with their magic.

Ninja of Gax
"Of course I'm not a ninja."
[Poster's note: A parody of the abilities Gary Gygax gave ninjas, back in the day. I'm pretty sure it's not meant to be playable.]


In a world of gates, planar travel, and teleportation, cultural cross-pollination is a sure result. One such product is the Ninja Of Gax, a figure of stealth and deception born of an oriental tradition adopted by outsiders in order to gain access to mystical arts of disguise and obfuscation. Unlike common rogues or assassins, these covert operatives are part of an ancient tradition of ninjas passed from wily teacher to ambitious student, steeped in secrets gained from generations of practice and discipline. Unlike the originators of this tradition, these students do not hold allegiance to lords or owe loyalty to family or dynasty, making them among the most dangerous deceivers and spies. Their skills are their own to command, and they are free to pursue adventure or wealth as they see fit, unbound by the ties that enslave common ninja clans.

Prerequisites:
Skills: 9 ranks in Concentration, 4 ranks in Disguise, 4 ranks in Knowledge Dungeoneering
Race: Must have the [Human] subtype.
Feat: Must have proficiency with at least one exotic weapon.
Spellcasting: Must be able to cast Arcane Spells.

Hit Die: d4
Class Skills: The Ninja of Gax's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Disable Device (Int), Disguise (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Spellcraft (Int), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), and Use Magic Device (Cha).
Skills/Level: 4 + Intelligence Bonus
BAB: Poor (1/2), Saves: Fort: Poor; Reflex: Good; Will: Good

Level, Benefit
1 Trapfinding, Good in Black, Cover Identity, +1 Spellcasting Level
2 Ki Breath, +1d6 Sneak Attack, +1 Spellcasting Level
3 Touch of the Ring, Ki Stride, +1 Spellcasting Level
4 +2d6 Sneak Attack, +1 Spellcasting Level
5 Ki Transport, Great in Black, +1 Spellcasting Level

All of the following are Class Features of the Ninja of Gax class:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A Ninja of Gax gains proficiency with the katana, the shuriken, the sai, the long staff, and the nunchaku.

Good in Black: A Ninja looks good in black, and knows it. While he's wearing only black clothing, he gains a +2 circumstance bonus to his Charisma.

Cover Identity: A Ninja of Gax rarely admits that he is a member of an ancient Ninja Tradition. The Ninja of Gax gains a +10 bonus to his disguise checks to convince people that he is not a Ninja and is instead an ordinary arcane Spellcaster.

Spellcasting: Every level, the Ninja of Gax casts spells (including gaining any new spell slots and spell knowledge) as if he had also gained a level in a spellcasting class he had previous to gaining that level.

Ki Breath (Su):
A Ninja of 2nd level gains the ability to hold his breath for an additional minute each day for each level of the Ninja of Gax class.

Sneak Attack (Ex): At 2nd and 4th level, the Ninja of Gax gains a die of Sneak Attack as a Rogue.

Touch of the Ring (Ex): A Ninja of Gax of 3rd level suffers no non-lethal damage from the Ring of Gax.

Ki Stride (Su): At 3rd level, the Ninja of Gax may walk on water for 1 round per class level per day.

Ki Transport (Su): At 5th level, a Ninja of Gax may walk through walls. By spending three rounds concentrating, the Ninja of Gax may transport himself up to 5 feet in any direction, completely bypassing any intervening obstructions. This ability may not be used if the Ninja of Gax has previously used his ability to hold his breath or walk on water that day.

Great in Black: At 5th level, the Ninja of Gax looks great in black and his self confidence is bolstered enormously when he is clothed entirely in that color. His circumstance bonus to his Charisma increases to +4.

Elothar Warrior of Bladereach
"My name is Elothar. Your name is unimportant, for you shall soon be dead."
[Poster's Note: This class is an actual joke. It's meant as commentary on how PrCs should be custom-designed for specific characters in specific campaigns. The sting is made more by it being playable all the way through.]

The city of Bladereach sits at the mouth of the Typhon River that flows from the Bane Mires into Ferrin's Bay. The elves of Celentian's caravan come every year to trade with the largely human inhabitants of Bladereach and sometimes they leave more than the wares of the Black Orchard Hills when they leave. The results of these dalliances find that they never fit in amongst the people of Bladereach, and are taught the hard secrets of battle that the children of Bladereach have to offer. Often, these half-elven warriors turn to adventuring.

Prerequisites:
Skills: 9 ranks in Use Rope
Race: Half-elf.
Region: Must be from Bladereach.
Special: Name must be Elothar.

Hit Die: d8
Class Skills: The Elothar Warrior of Bladereach's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (all skills taken individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Search (Int), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str), and Use Rope (Dex).
Skills/Level: 4 + Intelligence Bonus
BAB: Good (1/1), Saves: Fort: Poor; Reflex: Poor; Will: Good

Level, Benefit
1 Way of Two Swords
2 Tommy, Legacy of the Water Stone
3 Magic Swords, Immunity to Petrification
4 I've got that!
5 Double Riposte, Fistful of Rubies
6 Der'renya the Ruby Sorceress
7 Ways and Paths
8 Name of the First Eagle
9 Blessing of the Gnome King
10 Flying Ship, Your Money is No Good Here
11 Demesne of Tralathon
12 Mark of Ruin
13 Sword of Kas, Dwarf Friend
14 Happily Ever After, Khadrimarh

All of the following are Class Features of the Elothar Warrior of Bladereach class:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: An Elothar Warrior of Bladereach gains proficiency with the Nerra Shard Sword, the Kaorti Ribbon Dagger, and the Shuriken.

Way of Two Swords (Ex): With a single standard action, an Elothar Warrior of Bladreach may attack with a one-handed or light weapon in each hand at no penalties to-hit or damage for the weapon in his primary or off-hand.

Tommy: At 2nd level, an Elothar Warrior of Bladereach is joined in his adventures by Tommy, a 5th level Halfling Rogue from Figmountain. Tommy is a loyal cohort and gains levels when the Elothar Warrior of Bladereach does. Other Halflings will be impressed by Tommy's apparent loyalty and the Elothar Warrior of Bladereach gains a +3 bonus to his Diplomacy checks when dealing with Halflings if Tommy is present.

Legacy of the Water Stone (Sp): An Elothar Warrior of Bladereach of 2nd level has touched the fabled Water Stone, and gleaned a portion of its powers thereby. He may cast create water as a spell-like ability at will. The caster level for this ability is 5.

Magic Swords (Su): Any sword a 3rd level Elothar Warrior of Bladereach holds has an enhancement bonus equal to 1/3 of his character level (round down, no maximum). The enhancement bonus fades one round after the Elothar Warrior of Bladereach stops touching the weapons.

Immunity to Petrification (Ex): At 3rd level, an Elothar Warrior of Bladereach cannot be petrified.

I've Got That! (Sp): At 4th level, an Elothar Warrior of Bladereach can mimic the effects of a drawmij's instant summons at will. The Elothar Warrior of Bladereach does not need an arcane mark on the item, nor does he need a sapphire to call the item in question.

Double Riposte (Ex): If an opponent provokes an attack of opportunity from a 5th level Elothar Warrior of Bladereach, the Elothar Warrior of Bladereach may attack with a weapon in each hand at no penalty. This is considered a single attack of opportunity for purposes of how many attacks of opportunity the Elothar Warrior of Bladereach is allowed in a turn.

Fistful of Rubies: At 5th level, an Elothar Warrior of Bladereach finds 10,000 gp worth of rubies.

Der'renya the Ruby Sorceress: At 6th level, an Elothar Warrior of Bladereach is joined in his travels by Der'renya the Ruby Sorceress, a beautiful Drow magician. She is a Wizard 6/ Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions 4, and gains levels when he does. Other dark elves will be angered by Der'renya's betrayal, and will be if anything even less friendly with the Elothar Warrior of Bladereach if encountered with her.

Ways and Paths (Su): At 7th level, an Elothar Warrior of Bladereach can make his way back to any plane he's ever been to. By wandering around in the wilderness for three days, he can make a Survival check (DC 25) to shift himself and anyone traveling with him to another plane.

Name of the First Eagle (Sp): At 8th level, an Elothar Warrior of Bladereach can speak the name of the first eagle, which summons a powerful giant eagle that has the attributes of a Roc (though it is only large sized). The eagle appears for one hour, and may be summoned once per day.

Blessing of the Gnome King (Su): At 9th level, an Elothar Warrior of Bladereach has pleased the king of the Gnomes so thoroughly that he is granted a portion of the gnomish power. The Elothar Warrior of Bladereach can speak with burrowing animals and sees through illusions as if he had true seeing cast upon him by a 20th level Sorcerer.

Flying Ship: At 10th level, an Elothar Warrior of Bladereach finds a Flying Ship from the Eberron setting. And can pilot it around.

Your Money is no Good Here: An Elothar Warrior of Bladereach of 10th level gets free drinks and food at The Wandering Eye, a tavern in Sigil.

Demesne of Tralathon: At 11th level, an Elothar Warrior of Bladereach gains sole control of Tralathon, a small demiplane that appears to be an abandoned Githyanki outpost. Tralathon has several one-way portals that exit onto places on the Astral Plane, the Prime Material, and Limbo. The Elothar Warrior of Bladereach may planeshift to Tralathon at will as a spell-like ability.

Mark of Ruin (Su): At 12th level, an Elothar Warrior of Bladereach is permanently marked with the Mark of Ruin, which causes all of his melee attacks to ignore hardness and damage reduction.

Sword of Kas: An Elothar Warrior of Bladereach finds the Sword of Kas at level 13.

Dwarf Friend (Ex): The deeds of an Elothar Warrior of Bladereach are well remembered by Dwarves when he reaches level 13. Dwarves he encounters are treated as Friendly.

Happily Ever After: At 14th level, an Elothar Warrior of Bladereach becomes king of Bladereach with Der'renya as his queen. The castle of Halan Shador, that used to belong to the Lichking Hadrach is his to rule from.

Khadrimarh: A 14th level, an Elothar Warrior of Bladereach has a young adult white dragon named Khadrimarh as a pet.

Elothar Warriors of Bladereach in your campaign: You may want to adapt this prestige class to the specifics of your campaign. In other campaign worlds, the race, region, and name requirements of this class may need to be changed to fit with the overall narrative.


Dungeon Veteran
"No. If the floor looks like a chessboard, don't walk on it."

Dungeons are dangerous places, and those who venture into them develop a certain paranoia that is readily identifiable. Who else would take a ten foot pole to the privy to prod the ceiling before entering?

Prerequisites:
Skills: 9 ranks in Climb, 4 ranks in Knowledge Dungeoneering
Feat: Power Attack, Cleave

Hit Die: d8
Class Skills: The Dungeon Veteran's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Disable Device (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (dungeoneering) (Int), Knowledge (geography) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Search (Int), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str), and Use Rope (Dex).
Skills/Level: 4 + Intelligence Bonus
BAB: Good (1/1), Saves: Fort: Poor; Reflex: Good; Will: Good

Level, Benefit
1 Evasion, Dramatic Attack
2 Darkvision, Trap Sense
3 Loyal Steel, Improved Property Damage
4 Looking For Trouble, Exotic Weapon
5 antimagic field, Treasure Sense

All of the following are Class Features of the Dungeon Veteran class:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A Dungeon Veteran gains proficiency with no new weapons or armor.

Evasion (Ex): If a Dungeon Veteran succeeds in a Reflex Save to halve damage, he suffers no damage instead. If he already has the Evasion class feature, he gains Improved Evasion instead.

Dramatic Attack (Ex): Dungeon Veterans fight with flair and gusto and take full advantage of the exotic and dangerous surroundings their battles take place in. When a Dungeon Veteran strikes an opponent with a weapon for 10 or more damage, they may elect to perform a Bullrush against that opponent. This Bullrush maneuver does not provoke an attack of opportunity and is considered to automatically touch the opponent. The Dungeon Veteran does not move with this Bullrush.

Darkvision (Ex): A 2nd level Dungeon Veteran gains Darkvision with a range of 120 feet.

Trap Sense (Ex): At 2nd level, a Dungeon Veteran gains a Dodge bonus to AC and Saves against Traps equal to his Class Level.

Loyal Steel (Ex): Every weapon the Dungeon Veteran throws or fires is treated as having the Returning quality once the Dungeon Veteran achieves 3rd level.

Improved Property Damage (Ex): Sometimes, it's safer just to go through the wall. A 3rd level Dungeon Veteran's attacks ignore the hardness of unattended objects.

Looking for Trouble (Ex): Dungeon Veterans spend their lives in a constant state of readiness and are unphased by attacks from any direction. When a Dungeon Veteran reaches 4th level he adds his class level to his Spot, Listen, Search, and Initiative checks.

Exotic Weapon: At 4th level, a Dungeon Veteran gains Exotic Weapon Proficiency in a weapon of his choice as a bonus feat.

antimagic field (Sp): Once per day, a 5th level Dungeon Veteran can cast antimagic field as a spell-like ability. Caster Level is equal to character level.

Treasure Sense (Su): The greed of those who venture into dungeons is legendary. When a Dungeon Veteran reaches 5th level, he can detect very valuable items. The presence of an item or pile of coins can be felt by the Dungeon Veteran for 5' for every 1,000 gp in value of the item or hoard in question.

Master of Snake Mountain
"Now you muscle-bound boobs, prepare to meet your doom. Hahahahaha!"
(Poster's note: This is Skeletor from the old He-Man cartoons. Yes, it's another joke PrC, but could be very fun to play.)

Dungeons are hot property. They are enormously expensive to build, and are by their nature defended from magical interventions that would otherwise render their occupants extremely vulnerable. Thus, when a dungeon is over run, it is generally not long before it gains a new occupant. The Master of Snake Mountain is in control of a dungeon, but there's no reason to believe he's the first occupant. He might not even be the second.

A Master of Snake Mountain is one who has taken control of a dungeon and used it as a military staging area to launch grand plans. Such men could politely be described as egomaniacs, and rarely have a kind word to say to anyone that isn't spoken in an extremely sarcastic fashion.

Prerequisites:
Skills: 9 ranks in Knowledge Dungeoneering and Perform (oratory)
-or-
9 ranks in Knowledge Architecture and Engineering and Perform (oratory)
Feat: Leadership, Any Item Creation Feat.
Special: Must have control of a dungeon, whether by having it built yourself or by taking it from someone else by force.

Hit Die: d8
Class Skills: The Master of snake Mountain's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Appraise (Int), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disguise (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Gather Information (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Spellcraft (Int), and Swim (Str).
Skills/Level: 4 + Intelligence Bonus
BAB: Medium (3/4), Saves: Fort: Poor; Reflex: Good; Will: Good

Level, Benefit
1 Stable of Henchmen, Bardic Music, Code of Conduct, +1 Spellcasting Level
2 Disposable Monstrous Cohort, Speak with Monsters, +1 Spellcasting Level
3 Belittling Tirade, +1 Spellcasting Level
4 Enhance Minions, +1 Spellcasting Level
5 Eyebeams, Wondrous Architect, +1 Spellcasting Level

All of the following are Class Features of the Master of Snake Mountain class:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A Master of Snake Mountain gains no proficiency with any weapons or armor.

Spellcasting: Every level, the Master of Snake Mountain casts spells (including gaining any new spell slots and spell knowledge) as if he had also gained a level in a spellcasting class he had previous to gaining that level.

Stable of Henchmen: A Master of Snake Mountain is a landlord and his dungeon fills up will all manner of ne'er-do-wells and hooligans. Practically this means that a Master of Snake Mountain can swap out his cohort for another cohort of an appropriate level at the beginning of each adventure. This doesn't mean that the Master of Snake Mountain can simply loot a cohort's worth of equipment every adventure, because while the different available cohorts are interchangeable, they actually don't go anywhere special when they are traded out. A cohort that is traded out is not dismissed, he simply doesn't accompany the Master of Snake Mountain on a particular adventure. Such a cohort continues to be available in later adventures if the Master of Snake Mountain decides to swap back. All available cohorts gain levels when the Master of Snake Mountain does, whether they were accompanying his adventures or not.

Bardic Music (Su): A Master of Snake Mountain can produce Bardic Music effects with his Perform (Oratory) as if he was a Bard with a level equal to his class level. If he actually has Bard levels, the abilities and uses per day stack if he is using Perform (Oratory).

Code of Conduct: A Master of Snake Mountain must conduct his affairs with senseless, yet restrained villainy. He must abide by the following restrictions:
A captured or surrendered foe may not be summarily executed, though they may be left in situations almost certain to kill them.

A Master of Snake Mountain boasts constantly and gives believes himself far more accomplished and powerful than he is. He must explain his big plans to anyone who will listen.

A Master of Snake Mountain must behave in a cowardly and villainous fashion. A Master of Snake Mountain may not accept a challenge he regards as fair or sacrifice himself for the good of others.

A Master of Snake Mountain who fails to abide by these restrictions loses his ability to use his Bardic Music abilities until he atones.

Disposable Monstrous Cohort: At the beginning of every adventure, the Master of Snake Mountain is followed by a monster for no reason once he reaches 2nd level. This monster must be at least 2 CR less than his character level, and will be a Magical Beast, an Aberration, a Plant, a Dragon, or an Ooze. It will follow his orders to the best of its ability, but whether it survives or not it will be replaced just as mysteriously by another monster at the beginning of the next adventure.

Speak with Monsters (Ex): The general gist of whatever a 2nd level Master of Snake Mountain happens to be ranting about gets across to any Magical Beasts, Plants, Aberrations, Dragons, or Oozes that can hear his tirades but do not have a language.

Belittling Tirade (Su): At 3rd level, the Master of Snake Mountain can use his Bardic Orations to make people feel bad about themselves. Such creatures receive a -2 morale penalty to attack rolls and saving throws and a -4 morale penalty to their Level Check to oppose intimidate checks. A Master of Snake Mountain can belittle any number of creatures within medium range as a standard action. The feelings of inadequacy last for 1 hour.

Enhance Minions (Su): At 4th level, the Master of Snake Mountain gains the ability to make grafts. He may supply grafts from any graft list, and may apply grafts from different lists to the same creature (though the maximum of 8 grafts still applies). The costs for applying these grafts are half normal, though he cannot implant grafts into himself.

Eyebeams (Su): A Master of Snake Mountain of 5th level has the ability to fire painful or deadly rays from his eyes. The Eyebeams are a ray effect with short range, and a creature struck with them (a ranged touch attack) is affected as per a symbol of pain. At his option, the Eyebeams may also inflict 4d6 of Force Damage. Once fired, the Eyebeams may not be used again for 1d4+1 rounds.

Wondrous Architect: At 5th level, a Master of Snake Mountain becomes a master of improving his own pad. He may make Wondrous Architecture in half the normal time at half the normal expense.

Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions
"The old ways are the best ways. Magic in the past was capable of things you can't even comprehend."
(Note: This is once again designed mostly as commentary/joke, and a bit of a retro feel.)

Empires have risen and fallen many times in history, and each time new magics are discovered and old magics are lost. The Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions is a user of magic who is convinced that the way magic was used in the past is better in some important fashion. Whether they are correct or not is something that the Mages of the Arcane Order would probably be willing to argue for days or weeks. But it is undeniable that much of the magic used by the Seeker are beyond the comprehension of those who have not taken the time to explore its ancient ways.

Previous generations have largely picked the surface clean of ancient magic power, and now those who wish to find the remnants of the ancient civilizations must journey deeper and deeper beneath the earth to find items that are protected from scrying.

Prerequisites:
Skills: Spellcraft 9 ranks; Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 9 ranks
Spellcasting: Must be able to prepare arcane spells of at least 2nd level.
Race: Human, Elf, or Gnome
Special: Must not be specialized in a school of magic other than Illusion.

Hit Die: d4
Class Skills: The Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions' class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Profession (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int)).
Skills/Level: 2 + Intelligence Bonus
BAB: Medium (1/2), Saves: Fort: Poor; Reflex: Poor; Will: Good

Level, Benefit
1 Spell Reflection, Scroll Preparation, +1 Spellcasting Level
2 Uncapped Magic, +1 Spellcasting Level
3 Burst Conservancy, +1 Spellcasting Level
4 Harvest Magic, +1 Spellcasting Level
5 Expanse of the Sky, +1 Spellcasting Level
6 Temporary Portal, +1 Spellcasting Level
7 Unbreachable Stone Defense, +1 Spellcasting Level

All of the following are Class Features of the Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions class:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions gains no proficiency with any weapons or armor. However, a Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions is considered proficient with any magic sword he holds.

Spellcasting: Every level, the Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions casts spells (including gaining any new spell slots and spell knowledge) as if he had also gained a level in a spellcasting class he had previous to gaining that level.

Spell Reflection (Su): A Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions may reflect spells with a line area of effect off of walls. The spell may either bounce off at an appropriate angle (angle of incidence equals angle of refraction) or straight back towards the caster at his whim. Creatures whose spaces are entered twice by a bouncing spell effect are affected twice.

Scroll Preparation: A Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions may prepare his daily spells from any magical writing that he has deciphered without harming himself or the magical writing. Many Seekers take magical scrolls and bind them together into book form because magical scrolls take up less room in a book than do normal pages of spell formulae.

Uncapped Magic: At 2nd level, spells cast by a Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions do not have maximum level-dependent effects.

Burst Conservancy (Su): At 3rd level, the spells cast by a Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions attempt to fill all available space. Every square that a spell with a burst area of effect is prevented from occupying because of a wall or similar obstruction is added to the other side of the effect's area. For example, a fireball takes up 44 squares when used without obstructions. When used in a long, 10' wide hallway by a Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions, the fireball would extend to be 110' long.

Harvest Magic (Ex): A 4th level Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions can cut pieces out of recently killed monsters that are useful in item creation. An Aberration, Dragon, Magical Beast, Ooze, or Outsider that has been successfully identified with the appropriate knowledge skill by the Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions and killed within the last hour can have one of its organs harvested by the Seeker in a 10 minute procedure that preserves some of the magical power of the creature. The magical portions of such a creature are worth 50 gp and 2 XP towards item creation per CR of the monster.

Expanse of the Sky (Su): At 5th level, a Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions may double the ranges and areas of his spell effects when he is outdoors. As long as the Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions has an open sky over his head, every 10' cube in a spell description is a 20' cube, every 30' cone is a 60' cone, and so on and so on. Essentially, all of his spells benefit from Widen and Enlarge Spell

Temporary Portal (Su): When a 6th level Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions casts a [Teleportation] spell that would normally change his own location, he can create a portal from the target location to a location adjacent to himself instead of moving himself. This portal can be seen through and line of effect for spells can be drawn through it. The Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions may dismiss the portal at any time as a free action, and it otherwise lasts 1 round per caster level of the Seeker.

Unbreachable Stone Defense (Su): When a 7th level Seeker of the Lost Wizard Traditions benefits from the spell stone skin, his damage reduction is increased to Unlimited/Adamantine. The hit point reserve of the stone skin is still only reduced by a maximum of 10 points per attack.

[Arek]

The Constructanomicon:
"How does that even stay up?"

Perhaps the most important question surrounding Dungeons and Dragons is the question why there are Dungeons and Dragons. When you think about it, that's pretty weird.

Dungeons: By the gods, why?

Alright, we know that you love dungeons. We love them too, despite the fact that we’re pretty sure there is no good reason for the silly things. The average D&D game world is frankly incapable of the technology or manpower needed to build vast underground complexes. I mean, look at our own world history: aside from a single underground city in Turkey and a couple of pyramids and tombs, the ancient world took a pass on underground life. Even the old excuse of “Wizards can magic it up and they do it because its defensible” is a bit lame considering that we are talking about a world with teleport and burrowing and ethereal travel; being underground is actually a liability since its harder to escape and people can drop the roof onto you, not to mention the incredible costs involved in doing it even if magic is available.

So here is what we suggest: dungeons have an actual magical purpose. By putting anything behind at least 40’ of solid, continuous material (like solid walls of dirt, stone, ice, or whatever, but not a forest of trees or rooms of furniture) the area is immune to unlimited-range or “longer than Long Range” spells like Scrying and transportation magic like teleport, greater teleport, the travel version of gate, and other effects. You can use these magics inside a dungeon, but you also stopped by a 40’ solid, continuous material in a Line of Effect; this means you can use these effects inside a dungeon to bypass doors and walls, but entering and leaving the dungeon is a problem, and parts of the dungeon that have more than 30’ of material in the way between your position and the target of your effect will be effectively isolated from your position.

In summary, in a best-case scenario you can transport yourself to a dungeon, then bust in the entrance and enter the dungeon, then transport yourself to the place you want to be inside the dungeon. In a worse-case scenario, the dungeon designer will have built the dungeon in such a way that only someone aware of the layout can take full advantage of unlimited range or transportation spells like teleports and Scry, or even that most or all areas if the dungeon are inaccessible to these effects.

Of course, there are exceptions. The idea of permanent portals, gates, or teleport circles are just too common in DnD and too fun to just abandon. Permanent effects will continue to regardless of materials in the way, and will be the premier way to enter and leave dungeons, as well as the best way to move inside a dungeon.

By incorporating these changes in your DnD world, you are ensuring that players actually explore rooms in your dungeons that you have painstakingly built, you avoid all the problems with Scry-and-Die tactics, and you'll find that players actually care about dungeon geography. It also adds a bit to suspension of disbelief in your setting, which is only good for a cooperative storytelling game.

Dungeons: building dungeons for fun, profit, and defense.
As an old hand at D&D, I’ve seen more dungeons than I can count. Most have followed a “random generator and a new pad of graph paper” philosophy to dungeon construction, and frankly that’s got to go. Here are a few tips to constructing a dungeon that makes real sense:

Chokepoints Are Your Friend:
Most dungeons are built like a modern building: ease of use and easy access are emphasized. Don’t do that. Remember that a dungeon is built with the idea that it will be invaded at some point by a hostile and possibly supernatural attacker. At the very least, this means that rooms will not have doors to every adjacent room, and single hallways to single rooms will also be avoided.

Chokepoints are your single most important consideration. You want to make sure that attackers get bottled up in them and your forces don’t get caught up in them.. That’s trickier than it sounds. Generally, place your chokepoints at the entrances and exits of your dungeon, and possibly at “fall back” positions where troops can make another stand if their position is overrun. Key locations should have their own chokepoints like prisons, treasuries, and quarters for potentially hostile quests. Locations that should not be blocked off by choke points include barracks, armories, and key storage rooms, since you never know when your troops might need some arms or materials to react to a threat.

The Three “M”s: Mobility, Manpower, and Morale
A dungeon is built to house a fighting force, and several considerations come into play in its design. If your dungeon is an abandoned ruin, then the current residents might not exploit these features, but be sure that the original designers had them in mind..

Mobility: Choke points are the first stage in the idea of mobility, as they assume that your enemies will be stuck gathering their forces at once point and behind that chokepoint you are gathering your forces as well; however, that does not need to be true. The designers of a dungeon can easily place one-way secret doors that allow them to get behind an enemy position and outflank an enemy, sending forces from two sides to crush an enemy.

Also, the common feature of long hallways with rooms off to the sides must be avoided. While this is a simple arrangement (and easy to draw on graph paper), it allows attackers to make straight shots toward key areas. It is better to mix-up the layout of non-essential rooms like storerooms so that enemy forces become split as they search rooms and take different routes. A common mistake like a long hallway or a central room with doors allows the enemy to send scouting forces to check rooms, then they can quickly surge forward if one of those forces finds a threat. It is better to split an enemy's forces between several collections of rooms, leaving groups isolated in the event of a counterattack.

Manpower: A well-designed dungeon needs guardians, and there are no solid rules about who you need in your dungeon. Generally, you want troops that are loyal, intelligent, and powerful, but often other considerations come into play. Dumb beasts can be chained at a choke point, and they are perfectly suitable as guardians, and large numbers of weak but smart defenders can set off traps, block passages, or slow the advance of the enemy with caltrops or even their own lifeblood. Depending on the type of guardians the dungeon was intended for, it can have wildly different layouts. For example, a dungeon may have a room that is merely a pit with ladders leading to an entrance and exit, and this room simply houses a dangerous beast like a Dire Bear. Any enemy who wants to take this chokepoint would need to fight the bear. Another example could be a dungeon designed to have kobolds as defenders; this kind of dungeon may have small-sized corridors so that they can move quickly from rooms to room (so that any medium-sized creature must squeeze in) and covered shooting galleries where the kobolds can use crossbows to fire on attackers from relative safety.

Morale: An often overlooked aspect of dungeon construction is morale, which is the simple question of “are my troops happy enough to stay and confident enough to fight.” Kitchens and ample food stores are a good first place to start, as are comforts like good barracks or personal rooms, timely payment of salary, and amusements. While a Half-fiend Chimera can be locked in box without food or air, its loyalty and willingness to fight is definitely in question. Some dungeon creators use mindless beasts or unintelligent monsters like oozes, while other creators use controlled monsters like undead, but these troops are generally less effective than dedicated and intelligent troops.

If the dungeon has luxuries like escape routes, common rooms to socialize in, entertainments like gaming rooms, and places to worship gods, troops will be more willing to fight when attackers threaten. Without these things, troops might surrender or flee from a hostile threat, or even turn on the dungeon creator.

Form Follows Function
Sometimes, dungeons can be designed in a crazy fashion that is fun to play in, but makes no tactical sense. That’s fine, since it can mean that the dungeon was built as part of a magical effect or for some mystical reason. A certain arrangement of rooms may create a dungeon-wide effect that blocks ethereal travel or teleportation, or maybe the fact that the dungeon is arranged like a demon’s face means that the dungeon is a giant mystical trap for a bound demon.

The sky is the limit for this kind of thing, and we encourage you to "go nuts" as it creates flavorful dungeons that you will remember years later. I’m certain people are more likely to remember a dungeon built as a giant hive with hexagonal rooms, honeycombed passages, and undead bees than they are going to remember a standard temple of Orcus.

Castles and Manors: Taking the Dungeon out of the Dungeon

Traps, choke-points, humanoid defenders, and monstrous occupants can all be found guarding treasures and lifestyles above ground as well as below. Unfortunately, a building that extends above the surface is inherently more vulnerable than a true Dungeon to the most feared of D&D tactics: Scry & Die.

Unimportance

While a castle is by definition subject to scry & die tactics, the number of creatures actually capable of pulling that off is fairly limited and if they don't care enough about your buildings, you're pretty safe. A building doesn't have to be bereft of valuable loot and major players in the game of thrones to avoid teleport assaults – it just has to look that way. In many ways a run-down shack is safer than a gleaming adamantine fortress. And that means that illusions like hallucinatory terrain and mirage arcana are very valuable to any fortress whose purpose is to keep its occupants and their treasure safe. If noone cares, your swag and your family are safe.

Magically Foiling Diviners

When you don't have 40' of solid stone between you and the hostile world outside, scry & die is a real problem for you. Especially if you're trying to keep order and rule a region, and therefore hiding your fortress really isn't an option, magically protecting yourself from attack magic is going to look pretty tempting. For those of you who are old school, attention has to be drawn to the fact that nondetection actually doesn't work at all. It costs you money every day, and the would-be teleport assassins have a chance of spell failure every time they attempt to scry on your location. But nothing happens to them if it doesn't work, so at best nondetection makes them try again later. Eventually they're still going to come for you, and you're out a small pile of diamond dust.

The big winners here are mirage arcana and mindblank. Mindblank always wins, even against gods, but it only stops people from pulling a scry & die on you. Your enemies can still teleport ambush your house, or your butler, and just sort of assume that if your servants are preparing your favorite food in your house that you're probably in there somewhere. This means that if you are living a high profile gangster lifestyle, mindblank is of limited utility, but if you are willing to be a shadowy sage who lives on a demiplane somewhere that noone has heard of, it's totally the win. Mirage arcana simply makes a room appear as a different room. This means that when someone attempts a scry & die, they end up shunted to some completely different room that presumably has deadly magical traps all over it. Unfortunately, there are ways for a clever diviner to bypass that sort of thing, and there's not a whole lot you can do about it. Ultimately, only stupid Wizards lose when they pull Scry & Die, so based on the Intelligence requirements of Wizarding… you pretty much know how this is going to go down. Still, a clever Illusion trap can nab an impatient Wizard, and that's often good enough.

A special shout-out needs to go to dimensional lock, because the effects on would-be teleport assassins is hilarious. It doesn't cause the spell to fail, it merely stops dimensional movement into the warded area. So the assassin moves to the Astral Plane, is shifted at high speed over to the segment that corresponds to next to your bed, and then the shift back into the material world fails. This leaves them all buffed up and stranded on the Astral Plane. You can even amuse yourself by putting lethal traps on that portion of the Astral Plane to nail these guys on the way in. The downside of course is that a lock is only 40 feet across, so covering enough of a castle to make teleport ambushes impractical is difficult. Still, if you have enough 8th level spell slots lying around (or less, remember that it's a lower level spell for the Summoner), it provides the basis of some very nice protection. Also good is the fact that since dimensional locks can be tiled, it can also leave spaces that you can use as a means of entrance/egress and which can be potentially defended if they are used as attack points by hostiles.

The anticipate teleport line of spells is a cantrip on the Summoner list for a reason. Those spells don't actually stop a scry & die, and the areas are very small and duration unexceptional. Even if you are a Summoner, defending your house with anticipate teleport is probably implausible. The final consideration is the elephant in the room: Screen. It's an enormously powerful spell where it fools scrying "automatically", but unfortunately it is defined so vaguely as to be essentially unusable without creating an argument. Which is really a shame, because it's otherwise the best hope for defending yourself. Your best bet is to make certain key rooms appear like other rooms so that teleport ambushes end up in the wrong areas – which means that it's basically just mirage arcane that's several levels higher.

The Public Square: When Divination Doesn't Matter

Sometimes your building is Courthouse, or a Market, or a Factory, and the entire point is that the general public goes in and out of the building all the time. In such a circumstance, all the divination magic in the world doesn't mean anything because your enemies can actually just walk into your building to scout the place for a teleport ambush or even buff themselves up on the outside and then run in while 1/round a level spells are counting down their awesome. In these circumstances, you're going to want a fall-back position to be readily available on little or no notice. Contingent magic and magical traps may well want to pull key personnel out rather than send summoned monsters or impediments in. After all, if you put off the final confrontation for 20 minutes, the teleport ambush has essentially failed.

Traps
"How did that boulder not crush those displacer beasts?"

Dungeons are classically filled with monsters and traps. That can be cool, but I'll be the first to admit that it's pretty weird. Traps and monsters are profoundly counter synergistic.

Designing Traps

There are numerous collections of devious traps that can easily kill a single character or an entire party. But let's face it: most of them are dumb. Making a trap that will kill or humiliate characters doesn't make you a genius, making traps that kill player characters is easy. Just have the roof cave in to inflict more damage than the PCs have in hit points, it's not even hard. The difficulty is making traps that make sense, as well as traps that will add to the enjoyment of the game rather than paralyze it with a continuous "I check the banister, Mother May I?" fest.

Placing Traps

For a trap to be effective, it has to have essentially no chance of backfiring against its creators. Remember that the dungeon occupants are going to spend a lot more time in the vicinity of any traps than any invading force is, so there has to be a pretty good reason why the trap wouldn't backfire. Traps can cordon off areas that are too big or too small for the normal residents to set them off (Kobolds might put in a collapsing floor that triggered off a weight of over 100 pounds, and Stone Giants might put nasty traps all over any 5' hallways that ran through a dungeon they occupied), or areas that are for whatever other reason off-limits (Dwarves might trap tapped-out shafts in their mines to nail burrowing monsters trying to sneak in the back way). Some traps sound like they'd be plenty selective enough to put everywhere – like magical symbols that only blast the forces of Good or heretics who don't follow your god. Be careful with those, as just because they won't explode on any of the normal residents doesn't mean that they won't be a liability. After all, what's the point of being a Cleric of Loviatar if you can't have captured Paladins brought to your chambers for interrogation?

Traps can also be left in an "inactive" state much of the time, and then triggered into activity only when the dungeon's occupants believe that they are under attack. A switch that activates traps in many non-essential areas (like the rec room or the loading dock) is a very real possibility. These can also be activated in layers, a prearranged fallback point might have the mechanisms to activate traps in the outer area that has presumably been compromised by intruders.

Remember that a trap, once active, makes an area more difficult to use. Sometimes that's OK, as is the case when the area in question is being invaded by Bugbears or is itself a tomb prison meant to hold a powerful demon god. But sometimes that's really inconvenient. Active traps just don't make any sense in the mess hall or the barracks. Your own soldiers are going to fall into that pit full of spikes about a thousand times more often than invading adventurers are if you put it right next to the beer kegs.

Organizational Traps

The least obvious, but in many ways most useful trap is one which simply allows defenders to respond appropriately to an oncoming attack. An alarm spell is, in the right hands, the most powerful trap in the core rules. You can put it anywhere, and all it does is make a sound when someone enters the area. Like the bell that sounds when you enter a 7-11, the effects of this trap do not meaningfully interfere with the normal operations of the facility they are ensconced in. These traps have as their core utility that they alert the defenders or delay an attacker. Really swank traps will do both.

Obviously, these traps are only worth anything if you have defenders. But remember that a dungeon filled with giant centipedes, or some other mindless monster really isn't going to take full advantage of an alarm system (a ringing bell may wake a sleeping mindless defender up, but it's not going to be able to figure out whether the bell indicates a customer or an invader). Traps designed to misdirect, delay, or otherwise hamper invading forces are only going to appear in unoccupied regions of a dungeon if they are capable of diverting unauthorized entrants into lethal traps. The name for that kind of set-up is a "Rube Goldberg Mechanism" and it generally has no place in D&D. Looney Tunes or Mousetrap perhaps, but generally not Dungeons and Dragons.

Lethal Traps

Lethal traps are in no way less dangerous to their creators than they are to invaders. Remember always that the creatures in a dungeon intend to live there for perhaps years or even centuries, and the statistics on mine fields just aren't good. The residents of a dungeon have to be completely convinced that a potential trap can't cut off their jangly bits when they are making their way to the privy in the middle of their sleep cycle. That doesn't even mean that lethal traps can be in places that unauthorized residents aren't allowed (like the master's bedchamber) – that's going to end up beheading servants and guests.

Lethal traps appear in only a couple of kinds of places:
Battlefields. If an area is contested, right now, having a lethal trap in there is an antisocial but plausible technique.

Deserted Regions. If you leave the dungeon to go on a pilgrimage to a Planar Touchstone that you dig, it's quite thinkable to activate some nasty traps while you're gone.

Inaccessible Areas. If you take over a Brownie hole, there's going to be a lot of crazy hallways that you can't even get into. Filling the mouse holes with mousetraps is fine.

Vaults. If you have something, like a repository of important treasure perhaps, that is really hard to open and is supposed to be used infrequently and possibly only in some sort of crazy "two guys whip out their keys at the same time" scheme – trapping that is totally expected.

Discerning Traps. Some magical traps are able to detect certain kinds of creatures and only detonate on specific ones. Unless you're a crazy loner wizard who has no friends and conducts no commerce, those are pretty much a liability. But hey, if you are a Lich-Master Hermit, then those sorts of traps are fine.


What this means is that if a dungeon isn't on a war footing right now, any lethal traps in it are probably going to be inactive. If the hobgoblins don't believe that they are under attack right now, the pressure plates all over the dungeon are going to be in their locked position and opening doors is not going to cause poison blades to shoot out. Once they fall back and pull the "totally being attacked" lever – then you can go back to worrying if Gygaxian traps lurk behind every door or neck-level tripwires might release torrents of green slime.

Living Traps

Some creatures are essentially traps, distinct only in that they have a Wisdom and Charisma score. The monstrous spider, the dire bear in a pit, and the golem are all classics, but the sky is really the limit here. Creatures can act like guard dogs if they are intelligent or magically controlled enough to tell friend from foe. Or they can act like punji sticks at the bottom of a pit if they are uncontrolled.

To be useful to a dungeon's occupants, a living trap has to be unable to turn on its masters. The occupants live in this place so any "wandering monsters" had best be capable of discerning intruders from VIPs. Any monsters that can't make discernments like that need to be kept in cages or other inaccessible regions of the dungeon until someone specifically unleashes them in the event of a dungeon invasion. What this means for a dungeoneer is that successfully disguising yourself as a Dungeon Resident will keep the trained displacer beasts from attacking you. Furthermore, if you sneak into a dungeon, the untrainable creatures (monstrous vermin, ooze monsters, whatever) are all going to be locked up until an alarm gets sounded. A little discretion can make the dungeon environs a lot safer for the would-be raiders.

Beneficial Traps

Game mechanically, any localized triggered magical event is a "trap". So if you whip out a room that heals everyone in it every round or an immobile pool that you can scry right out of, that's going to be a trap as far as the game is concerned. That means that the residents of a dungeon can shill out surprisingly small amounts of nuyen to get their pads to do all kinds of crazy stuff. Unlimited healing, permanent scrying pools, and more will be a fact of many rooms in virtually any dungeon. Moving these things is impractical, so ownership of a dungeon can be a very lucrative proposition.

[Arek]

Empirinomicon
"What difference does it make? We're just going to kill them anyway…"

The Underdark is filled with empires. It is notable not only that there is civilization down here at all, but that there are actual empires. There's enough space for there to be tribes of creatures that people can unite as part of their nation-building exercises.

But more than that, these disparate tribes are more different than any group of humans have ever been one from another. While there is only one race of humans on Earth, there can be literally dozens of races in a single cavern settlement in a D&D world.

The Myconids: Apathy Writ Large

The Myconids don't need anybody, have no enemies, and don't care what you do. The first appearance of the Myconid empire was in an adventure otherwise filled with hostile evil humanoids, with the concept being that the Myconids were completely indifferent and would actually return aggression with aggression or soft words with a weird hallucinogenic telepathic mind-meld. The theme was that the Myconids were there as some sort of bizarre intelligence test for your players – if the players "figured out" that they could get past the Myconids without resorting to conflict the adventure would be easier and otherwise it would be more difficult.

But the years have passed by, and Myconids are no longer the new kids on the block. Players actually know where they stand with Myconids, and subsequent attempts to write adventures with the same setup have had to make up entirely new Neutral monsters to fill the same role (like the desmodu and their stupid Buck Rogers style fighter planes).

The Myconids have a pretty good world conquest strategy. They don't need anything at all to reproduce themselves and they don't really have to interact with the economies that the other races have bought into. They have an army of the dead and huge piles of crazy potions that they make free of course, but they aren't even interested in fighting the other races. The extent of the Myconid empire and population is limited by the farthest reaches of their mushroom fields, which simply grow a little every year. Eventually the Myconids might push the limits of their fields into areas other races intended to use, and then the Myconids will go ape and start throwing armies of zombies and themselves (every Myconid is completely replaceable) at whatever is in their way – but for now they just hang out and groove on the telepathy spores and share their dreams.

The Aboleth: Inheritance of the Memory Fish

The signature ability of the Aboleth is that they remember everything that was known to any creature they eat. There's no game mechanics for that ability, it just happens. And while Aboleth can create layered full-sensory illusions whenever they want, and dominate enemies, and turn humanoid opponents into lame deep one clones, the memory devouring ability is the really memorable one. It means that Aboleths remember intimate details about ancient events that go back to the very origins of the Aboleth race, and it means that Aboleths have access to all kinds of special magical sites and gadgets that are not available to other races.

The D&D world is filled with weird one-off locations that under certain circumstances do potentially awesome things. Over the course of their adventuring lives, a party of adventurers is liable to encounter several of them; and the Aboleth remembers all of the ones found by any of the adventurers that it or any of its ancestors back to the beginning of time ever ate – which is a tremendously large amount. So any Aboleth plot is going to be facilitated by magical architecture and supernatural convergeances that happen once every hundred years and all kinds of crazy crap. Aboleth periodically plot to take over the world, and otherwise they pretty much sit and fester at the bottom of the nastiest, stinkiest pools in the Underdark.

Keep in mind that even by itself, an Aboleth is badly under CRed. They have actual dominate with a pretty decent DC and they aren't half bad in combat. Also, they have long duration images available as spell-like abilities. So any Aboleth area is going to be covered in layered illusions. If an Aboleth attacks, chances are that it's going to have several turns of doing pretty much anything it wants as the PCs sit shell-shocked on the other side of an illusory wall.

The Illithid: Slaves of the Elder Brain

The illithid have a bad reputation among the other sentient races: the mind flayers see them as food, and most races take offense to that viewpoint. It should be the fuel for a war of extinction on the illithid race, but three things protect the illithid as a race: each is a powerful artillery piece surrounded by hordes of charmed minions; the race is led by powerful elder brains who are each the equal of a powerful sorcerers; and they make good neighbors…. that’s right, they’re good neighbors.

Each mindflayer can potentially control a small army of charmed slaves, can defeat a small army with their powerful stunning blast ability and resistance to magic, and can negotiate any conflict into peace with the ability to telepathically communicate and read minds, but their best ability is the ability to plane shift. As a race that can naturally use this ability, they can hop between planes and be within five miles of any location that they can imagine on their own plane or any other. This key fact means that when they go rampaging for brains and slaves, they not only do it in some place far from their home, but they might do it on some other plane entirely. Due to the fact that few races can mount an extraplanar war, the flayers generally are too far and too difficult to find to ever face retaliation for their acts. Because of the limits of their travel ability, the mind flayers will clear and patrol an area about ten miles from their home, removing any potential threat and keeping dangerous predators away. In this way, they can return to their homes in relative peace, and by scrupulously not preying on their neighbors, they avoid any retaliation on single illithid walking home. Add in their mind-reading and telepathy ability, they are naturally suited to making mutual defense pacts with nearby races so that they can establish a peaceful dominance in their own territory.

The fact that every mind flayer enclave is controlled by a powerful elder brain is another fact that makes their enclaves safe and their culture vital. As a powerful, but generally stationary creature, it has every incentive to make its home as well-defended as possible, drawing on its own powers to equip its home with wondrous architecture and traps befitting a powerful sorcerer (or psionicist). Add in the hordes of slaves and the illithid themselves, this means that even moderately-sized enclaves can bring to bear enough force to make taking the city an extremely unprofitable enterprise.

One final note about the illithid: as planar travelers with an innate ability to travel to any plane, they often gain access to technology and magic from cultures beyond counting. While the mind flayers are geniuses in their own right, they often store knowledge of these devices in the minds of their slaves, a practice that leads them to losing that knowledge when hunger or carelessness takes that slave away. Even so, expect the average illithid to be a font of secrets dredged from dozens of extraplanar cultures, its home filled with odd artifacts and devices culled from those far-off places. If their own powers and hungers weren’t so great, they might even be drawn to the exploitation of this knowledge. Luckily for the races of the worlds, the mind flayer’s total confidence in their own abilities and need expend time feeding on difficult-to-acquire fare makes them ignore all but the most obviously useful things stolen from other cultures.

Bonus Class:

Progenitor of the Gith
"I’ve spent five years as a slave to brain-eating geniuses, fighting every day in the pits for their amusement, killing beings culled from dozens of planes. Do you really think this crap impresses me?"

The Illithid are slavers extraordinaire, masters of the mind control and capable of traveling far in their search for slaves. To escape their clutches, one must become a creature as powerful as them, and some do so by absorbing the ambient psionic radiations of their cities and becoming a more than mortal creature. In this way, the Githzerai and Githyanki earned their freedom, and this route is still open to those willing and capable of surrendering their essence in exchange for communion with the Astral Plane.

Prerequisites:
BAB: +4
Race: Human.
Special: Must have spent at least five years as a slave in an illithid city.

Hit Die: d8
Class Skills: The Progenitor of Gith’s skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), and Swim (Str).

Skills/Level: 4 + Intelligence Bonus
BAB: Good (1/1), Saves: Fort: Good; Reflex: Good; Will: Good

Level, Benefit
1 Thoughtful Warrior, Endurance of the Mind
2 Ideas Made Form
3 Movement of the Mind
4 Astral Strike
5 Native of the Silver Sky

All of the following are Class Features of the Progenitor of Gith class:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Progenitors of Gith gain proficiency in the composite long bow, and gain no armor proficiencies.

Thoughtful Warrior (Sp): At 1st level, a Progenitor gains the ability to cast daze, mage hand, and feather fall at will as a spell-like ability

Endurance of the Mind (Su): A Progenitor has likely been mind blasted and charmed many times in his life. If he is currently the subject of an ongoing effect that allows a Willpower save, he may retest that saving throw every round. Success is treated as if he had passed the initial Willpower save.

Ideas Made Form (Sp): At 2nd level, the Progenitor gains the ability to cast clairaudience/clairvoyance and shatter at will as a spell-like ability

Movement of the Mind (Sp): At 3rd level, the Progenitor gains the ability to cast dimension door at will as a spell-like ability.

Astral Strike (Sp) : At 4th level, a Progenitor can cast Telekinesis at will as a spell-like ability.

Native of the Silver Sky (Ex): At 5th level, the energies of the Astral Plane now bolster the physical form of the Progenitor, and he gains becomes an Outsider native to the Astral Plane and he gains Spell Resistance equal to his character level +5, a +4 armor bonus to AC, and the ability to cast plane shift twice a day as a spell-like ability.
If he breeds with a githzerai or githyanki, any offspring will be of that race.

The Drow: A Higher Technology Setting
Everyone knows that the dark elves are hardcore. Even in the bad old days of DnD’s conception, dark elves were “mirror matches” to the party with class levels of their own, crazy magic items of their own, and good tactics. The real question is: “why are the dark elves so hardcore?” The answer is simple. Dark elves are living at a higher technology level than the rest of the DnD world; their society only exists because, as a society, they cheat. Rather than grow food like surface races, they eat magic mushrooms as the basis of the food chain, they enslave other races for menial positions rather than work, and rather than mine or gather their own resources, they take them from other races. They don’t even have to work that hard on defense as Underdark caverns are naturally easy to defend with small numbers of troops stationed at chokepoints

This means that your average dark elf has free time to spare. While some take that time to indulge in the pleasures of their society, most dark elves are the products of a very odd world view: if only dark elves are your peers and everyone else is a slave, then the only real power worth having is power over other dark elves. That being the case, this means that dark elves have both the free time and the inclination to attempt to enslave each other all the time. This breeds great internal strife with each noble house being an armed camp designed to use stealth, power, and manipulation in order to both resist the efforts of other dark elves and attempt to enslave them.

Like any heavily-automated wartime culture, the dark elves spend considerable resources on weapons research, espionage, and cultural misinformation. This means that every noble house or other organization is constantly looking for an “edge” in their dealings with other dark elves and other races. This leads them to kidnap experts from other races, engage in spell research, experiment with weird magic or exotic technology, forge partnerships with magically or technologically-advanced races, and otherwise do whatever it takes to grow in power. In any particular drow city you can expect to see dozens of competing forms of magic, odd inventions ranging from mechanical limbs to powered gliders, exotic troops like demon-bred orcs or elite espionage races like skulkers, and constructions with magical architecture or resonances. Since every drow is attempting to master his peers, these magics and technologies are tightly controlled, meaning that when the individual or organization that controls them is killed off, these secrets are often lost, meaning that any particular drow might be using relics from a previous generation (that he may well lack the ability to understand or reproduce).

Other races in the Underdark realize that the dark elves truly only want to control each other, so they allow the occasional resource and slave raids of the dark elves. They know that the dark elves are ill-suited to any form of large-scale conquest due to their particular style of command, so placating the drow is often the best way to conserve the resources of your society. Since the other Underdark races tithe goods to the drow and the drow are smart enough to see the value in trade relationships, Underdark races of note are allowed to use dark elf cities as major trading posts between their own kind and other races. The dark elves see all races as being underneath them, so as long as the other races show deference to them and bring in a profit in trade, they allow this enterprise to continue.

The average drow city is thus a hornet’s nest of power, full of indolent, wildly dangerous, and spoiled aristocrats. Even the lowliest of drow lives in a level of luxury suitable to the most powerful of nobles on the surface, and each one of them has reached adulthood in an atmosphere of distrust and manipulation with the weakest dying early. As individuals this makes them powerful and cruel, but as a race it keeps them inwardly looking and less of a threat than more ambitious warrior races, a fact that actually prevents other races from gathering their forces and destroying the drow outright.

The Eye Tyrants: Lingering Hatred
Beholders are among the most magically capable of races; this is a fact that’s well accepted. So why don’t they own everyone? They can charm people at will, kill people, inspire terror by turning people to stone or just inspire terror with real magical fear. Even the lowliest beholder can attempt to destroy the world one ten foot cube at a time.

The truth? Beholders are paranoid jerks. Beholders recognize that they each have the ability to destroy each other with at least four different effects, and they also have to live with the fact that any beholder can charm his lessers and betters if he happens to get the jump on them. This means that, as a race, the beholders are like gunslingers from the American Old West. They know that to associate with any other beholder is to risk disintegrate or charm rays in the back with the winner taking the loser’s treasure and slaves. Actual beholder meetings involve both parties agreeing to aim their anti-magic rays on each other, and only then can negotiations or exchanges can take place. This means that actual organizations of beholders are practically impossible as life breaks down as soon as you can’t cover all your enemies in your anti-magic eye (with many eyes, they can spot ambushes by thralls pretty easily, so it's only your peers you fear).

That still doesn’t explain why beholders don’t go on bloody rampages on the surface races. The reason is simple: longbows. The average beholder is a tough customer that can expect to wreak a bloody swath of destruction if he chooses, but he’s painfully weak against long-range weapons. Any race with even a passing knowledge of the beholders knows that they charm people, so they also know that killing the beholder frees the slaves. This is why the beholders prefer underground areas. With ranged weapons blocked by the limits of doors, walls and corridors, beholders can reign as kings in underground or indoor environments.

While the Spelljammer universe posits “nations” of beholders held together by racial hatred of other beholders and everyone else, this is really a fallacy. Racial pride or nationalism come to far seconds when you realize that beholder nations are actually held together by single individuals who routinely charm every other beholder on their ship and force them to “play nice” with the other beholders. Any “Hive” metaphor talking about beholders actually talks about the layers of charm effects building a top-down command structure where the Queen controls everyone, then the second-in-commands has control of everyone else in order to serve as secondary leaders but unable to defy the Queen. Like other kinds of dictatorships, killing the leader figure causes the nation to fall apart into bloody factions headed by second-in-commands attempting to assert control of the others, and these power plays work through the bonds of charm effects and personal charisma. Some Hives are actually controlled by a racial variant called a Hive Mother, but these creatures are merely biological extensions of relationships that already exist within beholder society.

[Arek]

Unusual Races

For a long time, there has been a definite pro-prettiness bias in the rules of D&D. That is, elves (who are pretty) get a much better deal as player characters than do hobgoblins (who are ugly). This dates back to when races had mandatory alignments and people wanted to discourage Evil player characters from coming in and ruining games (which let's face it, a lot of evil PCs do). And while this has had the desired effect of keeping the number of orc player characters down and their impact minimal, it hasn't been good for game balance at all. Some people really want to be a gray skinned dude with shark's teeth, and they'll play whatever game mechanics are given to them. These players will be playing at the same level as other characters, and that means that they should be playing at the same power level! Really, all the unusual races are optional, so there's no purpose served in screwing them over. In the past, many races have simply been given insufficient goodies to be worth playing (Half-Orcs), or were given good enough abilities but then over-charged in levels for them so horribly as to make the character unplayable (Hobgoblins). We don't hold with that at all. If you don't want someone to play an ogre or goblin in your game, just don't let them play one. It's seriously not even a deal.

Furthermore, for some reason there has been a massive fear of giving straight statistic enhancements to characters without a level adjustment. I don't even understand that, because Halflings already get all that and more. Really, a character who gets +2 to two attributes and a total of +4 to skills and darkvision isn't even impressive compared to a Deep Halfling, so the ginormous fear that people have of letting Hobgoblins and Aasimar into games is perplexing. That being said, what follows are write-ups for the following races playable as normal starting characters in a 1st level game:

Aasimar
"My ancestors were more beautiful than you can imagine."

Aasimar get a short stick from just about everyone. They get screwed as PCs by the Level Adjustment rules, and they get no respect from players. Frankly, Celestials just don't have a lot of dramatic tension most of the time. Sure you can have the occasional "Legacy" scenario where you couldn't possibly live up to your awesome ancestors, but generally when it's important that someone has powerful family members it's so that you can introduce evil family members, not additional heroes.

So here's the deal: Aasimar are the great grandchildren of beautiful outsiders. They aren't just for being dudes with Devas as ancestors, the same game stats represent characters who come from Erinyes or Marilith stalk.

Medium Size

30' movement.

Outsider Type (Native and Human subtype)

Darkvision

+2 Charisma, +2 Wisdom

Aasimar with a Charisma of at least 10 may cast light as a spell-like ability with a caster level equal to their character level once per day.

+2 bonus to Spot, and Listen checks.

Favored Classes: Paladin and Sorcerer

Automatic Languages: Common

Bonus Languages: Abyssal, Aquan, Auran, Celestial, Formian, Ignan, Slaad, Sylvan, Terran.


Drow
"Time to die for the Spider Queen."

The Drow are perhaps the most overused bunch of villains ever. Their entire ability set is one that is supposed to neutralize the advantages of player characters so that characters can have mirror matches against NPC parties without doubling their treasure. With magic items that turn off once they are brought out of Drow controlled regions, spell-resistance, and spell-like abilities designed to specifically negate common player-character tactical advantages, they can easily compete with Player Characters with massively more permanent magical equipment. And that means that they can be fought and killed several times without supercharging party treasure.

But if you want to play a Drow character, you don't want any of that crap. In fact, if you want a Drow character, probably the maxim you are looking for is "WWDD?" and the answer is probably "Fight with two scimitars." But more than that, there are a number of abilities that Drow characters in stories exhibit that people want. And then there are the game mechanical abilities in the rulebook that the characters in stories obviously don't have (like Touch of Fatigue, what's up with that?) So here it is, the LA +0 Drow that people actually want to play:


Medium Size

30' movement.

Humanoid Type (Elf subtype)

Darkvision 120'

+2 Dexterity, -2 Constitution

Daylight Sensitivity: While in brightly lit surroundings (such as a daylight spell), a Drow suffers a -2 penalty to attack rolls and precision-based skill checks.

Drow with a Charisma of at least 10 may cast deeper darkness (duration 4 hours), and fairie fire as spell-like abilities with a caster level equal to their character level once per day each.

+2 bonus to saving throws against spells and spell-like abilities.

+2 bonus to Spot, and Listen checks.

Drow never sleep and are immune to sleep effects. Drow must still perform their 4 hour daily trance to stay coherent and rested.

Drow live an exceedingly interesting life and every Drow has proficiency with the rapier and an exotic ranged weapon of their choice.

Favored Classes: Cleric and Wizard

Automatic Languages: Elvish

Bonus Languages: Abyssal, Beholder, Common, Draconic, Drow Sign Language, Dwarvish, Gnome, Kuo-Toa, Terran, Undercommon.


Goblin
"You weren't hired to think. You were hired because you have opposable thumbs."

Goblins are the weakest and smallest of the Goblinoid races, and that means that in society in general they get a really crap deal. But that's not really important for a Player Character, because player characters get access to classes like Rogue, Knight, and Wizard for whom being small is not a huge problem. Indeed, Goblins have a number of saving graces that in the wild barely keep them alive that when used by a player character can make them very effective. Naturally adept at stealth, Goblins are virtually made to be a Rogue or Wizard, and indeed most Goblins who have class levels are one or the other.

But the Goblins are also extremely gifted mounted combatants. And why is that? Because they are the smallest and weakest of the Goblinoids, the Worgs long ago enslaved the Goblin people. That's right, the Worgs came in and imposed their dominion upon Goblins, not the other way around. But time does funny things… Worgs are pretty stupid, and they don't have thumbs. So while they are individually powerful, eventually they were forced to have the Goblins do all the important stuff – like keep records and make decisions.

So now, the Worgs have gone many generations doing pretty much whatever it is that their "servants" tell them to do. Which means that really the Goblins are totally in control. And because of this, Goblin children are practically born into the saddle. Those rich enough to afford a wolf to ride (like well, player characters) can be devastatingly effective lancers.


Small Size

30' movement (despite small size).

Humanoid Type (Goblinoid subtype)

Darkvision

+2 Dexterity, -2 Strength, -2 Charisma

+4 bonus to Move Silently and Ride checks.

Bonus Feat: Mounted Combat

Goblins benefit from an ancient pact with the Worgs, and every Goblin receives a +2 bonus to any Bluff, Diplomacy, Handle Animal, Sense Motive, or Survival check made with respect to a Worg.

Favored Classes: Rogue and Wizard

Automatic Languages: Common, Goblin

Bonus Languages: Draconic, Elvish, Dwarvish, Giant, Gnoll, Infernal, Orcish, Undercommon, and Worg.


Hobgoblin
"That's some tough talk from a man who wears a basket on his head."

Hobgoblins are totally awesome at everything they do. They don't have any telling weaknesses, and their strengths are general enough that they excel at everything they put their mind to. And like Humans, this can seem like they are overpowered. But the thing is, each character is made separately. While many of the armies of the world are created of a single race, each player character can be something unique and crazy. So for the Hobgoblin people there is a substantial advantage to being good at any class. But a player character probably never sees that. A Hobgoblin [anything] is a viable character, but if you want your mouth to taste like velveeta you'd make your Rogue a Deep Halfling, you'd make your Wizard a Gray Elf, and you'd make your Fighter a Dwarf.

But there's more to being a Hobgoblin than being able to ably fill any party role without overpowering the world. You get to have orange or gray skin, sharp teeth, and depending upon which version of D&D Hobgoblin you're using – either radically more or radically less body hair than a human. So what does that mean? It means that an influential Hobgoblin character in your campaign is going to be played by Robin Williams. But while that means that Hobgoblins can be portrayed in a humorous light, chances are that the humor is going to be more like that in The Big White or Death to Smoochy. These guys have an incredibly baroque system of laws and an interlocking system of fealties that are actually a parody of Feudal Japan.


Medium Size

30' movement.

Humanoid Type (Goblinoid subtype)

Darkvision

+2 Dexterity, +2 Constitution

+4 bonus to Move Silently checks.

Favored Classes: Fighter and Samurai

Automatic Languages: Common, Goblin

Bonus Languages: Draconic, Elvish, Dwarvish, Giant, Gnoll, Ignan, Infernal, Orcish.


Orc
"Waaarrrggghhhh!"

Orcs get the short end of the stick. They can eat pretty much anything and they have to because their race has lost every major war since… well forever. Orcs are extremely specialized, and rarely see play as anything except a Barbarian. However, some players will want to diversify the concept into say… a Rogue, Assassin, or Fighter build. That works OK, but remember that an Orc always brings "hitting things really hard" to the party. The Orcs other limitations are pretty severe, so taking a class combination that doesn't accentuate the narrow scope of Orc advantages is probably a mistake in the long run.


Medium Size

30' movement.

Humanoid Type (Orc subtype)

Darkvision 60'

+4 Strength, -2 Intelligence, -2 Charisma, -2 Wisdom

Daylight Sensitivity: While in brightly lit surroundings (such as a daylight spell), an Orc suffers the dazzled condition and is thus at a -1 penalty to attack rolls and precision-based skill checks.

+2 bonus to saving throws vs. Poison and Disease.

Immunity to ingested poisons.

+2 to Jump and Survival checks.

Favored Classes: Barbarian and Cleric

Automatic Languages: Orc, Common

Bonus Languages: Dwarvish, Elvish, Giant, Gnoll, Goblin, Sylvan, Undercommon.


Half-Orc
"I don't fit in anywhere, but you may be surprised to know that this dagger fits all kinds of places."

Ah, the Half-Orc. Has any race ever gotten quite as dusty a drumstick as they? The reason that we have half-orcs at all is because they were around in Tolkien. But they didn't really do much in those books, they were just easily deluded villains who were borderline racist stereotypes and made us want to forget them altogether. But time moves on, and where once the Half-Orcs were debased and pathetic pawns of The Dark One, now we have them as a legitimate playable race. And yet, their game mechanics have never really been compatible with that.

Here's what they're supposed to be: Half-Orcs have the smarts of a human and the strength of an Orc. If people didn't hate them so much, they'd rule everything. But people do hate them so much. And here's why: Human women are, compared to Orcs, weak; Orcish women are, compared to Humans, gullible. Making Half-Orcs is easy, and since the modern Orc looks like an Orc from World of Warcraft more than a pig-man, perfectly understandable.

With all the wars that Orcs and Humans have, even periods of relative peace are rarely considered periods of friendship. So any time a Half-Orc happens, both races tend to consider it an abomination. It doesn't matter that a Half-Orc is a better leader than any of the other Orcs. It doesn't matter that the Half-Orc is tougher than any of the other Humans – he's hated for his talents. And that makes him perversely really good at finding out things he wants to know from people. He's dealt with prejudice all his life, and knows pretty much everything you'd want to know about working around it.


Medium Size

30' movement

Humanoid Type (Orc and Human subtype)

Darkvision

+2 Strength

+2 to Intimidate, Gather Information, and Survival checks.

Favored Classes: Assassin and Barbarian

Automatic Languages: Orc, Common

Bonus Languages: Any.


Tiefling
Tieflings are the most popular of the bad touched races, and for good reason. They are awesome. Not mechanically, they're kind of unimpressive. But they have pizzazz as characters. They have fiendish ancestry, and that makes them great villains and great tortured heroes. What it doesn't make them is particularly powerful. Tieflings aren't actually that great. Darkness appears on some class lists as a cantrip, and that's not an accident. Fundamentally, darkness just isn't a good effect.

Tieflings are honestly somewhat less powerful than Aasimar are (having as they do, some reasonably annoying penalties), but they are descended from hideous monsters from all over the planes, and they are generally speaking more fun to play.

Medium Size

30' movement.

Outsider Type (Native and Human subtype)

Darkvision

+2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, -2 Charisma

Tieflings with a Charisma of at least 10 may cast darkness as a spell-like ability with a caster level equal to their character level once per day.

+2 bonus to Bluff, Hide, and Move Silently checks.

Favored Classes: Rogue and True Fiend

Automatic Languages: Common

Bonus Languages: Abyssal, Aquan, Auran, Celestial, Formian, Ignan, Slaad, Sylvan, Terran.

[Arek]

Multiclassing Characters

"What do I do? I stab things in the face. …Fine, I'm a Fighter/Ranger/Barbarian/Master of Black Fire/ Cloud Jumper."

It's time to face the music, Warriors are the only people who multiclass, and thus the proper place to discuss multiclassing characters is right here in the book about War. The reasons for this are extremely simple: the only level appropriate abilities that Warriors get are based on skill ranks and BAB, and those things stack up between classes just fine. A Warrior can take three different classes and still be getting abilities that are as appropriate to his level as if he had taken one all the way through. Spellcasting, on the other hand, grants its primary level appropriate abilities based on the class spell level chart, and that does not stack between classes at all. In fact, if a Spellcaster takes prestige class that simply does not advance spellcasting every level, he has permanently sacrificed he ability to ride the level appropriate ability train forever, and D&D does not have the possibility of a quick fix for this. Maybe 4th edition is going to have a universal ability slots system in which characters have level appropriate daily slots and different classes could allow you to use them for different things (such as casting powerful spells or performing amazing non-magical stunts) – certainly it would if I were writing it. But for now that kind of overhaul is simply outside the scope of this document.

What we can do is eliminate some of the rough edges that occur with multiclassing non-spellcasting classes. That's pretty simple, and most of it is common sense:

XP Penalties

I don't know why these ever seemed like a good idea to anyone, but they weren't. The best spellcasters are single classed and classically warrior builds have rarely taken more than 2 levels of anything. So really multiclass XP penalties only happen to organic and concept characters. And those are the characters we don't want to jack over. So poof! No multiclass XP penalties. That was easy, wasn't it?

Favored Classes

So we're getting rid of Multiclassing XP Penalties because they are dumb… what then is the Favored Class supposed to do? Well, it's supposed to be a minor advantage for races to play those classes (instead of being a complete waste of our time like it is in the base book), so let's make it a real minor advantage. If you are taking your race's favored class, you can take racial substitution levels, if you want. And yes, that means that a Human can take any racial substitution levels that they want – merry christmas.

And while we're on the subject, it has probably come to your attention that when the idea of Favored Classes was first thrown down there were only 11 base classes. Now there are… many classes. That's why all the races listed in this document have two favored classes. We suggest that you do the same for any other races you allow (for example: Gnomes have favored classes of Bard and Wizard).

Saving Throws

As we all know, characters multiclassing get saving throws that are crazy-go-nuts. The simple fact that the good save is restarted every time you start a new class (or prestige class into a variant class) means that the maximum save bonus at 20th level is 40, and the minimum is zero. That means that two characters are different in their base saves by more than two entire random number generators. And while you can come up with fractional schemes to fix this problem, experience has shown that players actually can't keep track of those. What's needed is something simple that works within the existing D&D rules framework. Our suggestion is to throw down the caveat that if you start a progression with a good save and you already have at least one level with a good save in that category that you gain +1 instead of +2. It's simple, easy to understand, and pulls in the crazy just enough that you can overlook the mathematical inadequacies of the system and play the game.

Skill Points

It goes without saying that the entire idea of paying skill points at the cross-class rate breaks D&D. Noone should ever buy things at the cross-class rate. Ever. Cross class skill maximums are fine, but the Cross Class skill rate exists only as a method to perform repeatable actions to permanently increase or reduce your total skill points.

[Arek]

Fighting with Honor
"There is only one ethical system and it is pragmatism. Only goals change."

The concept of honorable combat is pretty fishy when you look at it carefully. Your goal is to painfully kill another sapient being with a deadly weapon, and the other guy is attempting to do the same to you. Why then, would any rational person take time to consider the "honor" of whatever horribly painful and potentially lethal act they were intent upon inflicting on another?

The answer is: The Long Term. The concept of honor in War is incredibly ancient, and the ideas of what is and is not an honorable act have varied unrecognizably over that period. But one thing has remained the same throughout: the idea of what is honorable in warfare has always been inextricably linked to the needs of the powerful. In olden days, the powerful had superior nutrition, superior training, superior equipment and came in really small numbers. So naturally of course, the rule was that you didn't gang up on people or use poison. In modern days, bullets go through pretty much anything, but powerful people have more troops and helicopters, so the rule is that you don't assassinate people in honorable combat. The penalties for being dishonorable have remained pretty static over the generations – you get kicked out of the rosters of the powerful and other power blocs attempt to band together to crush you.

That's all fine and dandy, but what does that mean for characters in the D&D world? The risks of using poison gas in terms of collateral damage really aren't there (cloudkill goes pretty much exactly where you tell it to), and the ranks of the powerful really do include high level Rogues and Assassins. Most of the stuff you think of as being dishonorable in historical chivalric codes are perfectly fine in D&D chivalric codes. Like all chivalric codes, the one found in the D&D universes is there to keep people in their place – in this case powerful adventurers on top, and little people and monsters on the bottom. Here's how it works:

-Getting a lot of help on any project is dishonorable. A 9th level wizard can wave his hands and make a dungeon, and two rogues can stab a frost giant in the back of the head and the face in synchrony. But peasants can't do jack without the help of like 20 guys. Therefore, working in groups larger than about 10 on any single project is dishonorable in the extreme. The end result is that decent goods can really only be produced by the master artisans and the little people are trapped in obscurity.

-Poisoning Food is without honor. Druids can spit poison and Assassins can shoot poison darts, but pretty much anyone can put warfarin into an enchilada. So while injected poisons aren't considered dishonorable, ingested poisons are.

-Being Gargantuan or Larger is dishonorable. It may seem downright bizarre that people in the D&D world endeavor to look down on things which stand tall. But when you think about the locations that the truly tremendous live in, it makes sense. When gargantuan creatures rear themselves, it is expected practice for all groups to drop what they are doing and attack. And that is why Titans and Dragons live on remote mountaintops instead of owning the world. It isn't that taking them down isn't a lot of effort, it's that the small creatures made a gentleman's agreement to actually put that effort in a long time ago.

-Honorable people do not create Spawn.: This is one that bones the monsters and certain kinds of spellcasters like necromancers, and its designed so that people don't take Steve the Crap-Covered Farmer and turn him into a hero-level threat like a vampire spawn. We know how this works for the people that do it: they tip the balance in favor of the monsters and the heroes and society loses. Even if every Shadow only makes one other Shadow each day, in three weeks your kingdom is full of Shadows….people in the DnD universe know how this is going to end and it makes them very unhappy.

-Impersonating specific people with magic is a dishonorable act. Heroes live and die by their reputation, and part and parcel of being a hero is that people know who you are and where to find you so that they can shower you with job offers and money. That actually works for society, because this is a pre-Internet universe and we don't have Craigslist to make sure that people get the right jobs.

-Destroying Magic Items is something no honorable person would do. Magic is in many ways, a finite resource. The people in power, need it to stay in power. Artifacts are essentially irreplaceable, but they are corruptible. Maybe not by you, but by someone. If you destroy a great artifact of Evil, you've actually hurt Good some too. You've reduced the total amount of power available to anyone. And that doesn't fly for people who have all the power.

-Changing Alignment is dishonorable. Every power group wants people to pretty much stay on whatever side they are on, because otherwise how do you know who is on what side? It's very pragmatic, those who switch sides are never afforded the same trust in their new side as they were given from their old side lest they change back. That isn't to say that Good and Evil aren't proselytizing

-Honorable people take credit for their kills. Not only is it just good form to advertise your abilities so that people know who in the kingdom actually can kill an Ettin in single combat, but its actually safer for everyone if society in general know why powerful monsters keep dropping out of the sky. When people find an Old Red Dragon dead in a random field, they are going to want to know what killed it and if it has plans on their favorite tavern. Not claiming your kills means that actual hero-hours are going to be spent finding out the nature of this threat when they could be better spent curbing the excesses of the Wytch King's Empire. That pisses people off, and leads to occasional hero-on-hero violence that only serves Team Monster.



So you want to be honorable, right? Maybe give your coat to handsome members of the opposite sex, keep your word, and make sure your taxes are paid on time? Yeah, that has to do with your alignment probably (depending upon what you think Law, Chaos, Good, and Evil actually represent), not with you overall honor. Honor really is about whether society in general is going to attempt to ostracize you. So you can be Evil and Chaotic and still fit into society, still be considered honorable. In fact, D&D has entire Chaotic Evil societies where that sort of thing is expected.

[Arek]

A World At War
"Our people have fought with their people since the ancient days. It is stupid and wasteful. This cycle must end, which is why I must take up the sword as my ancestors did."

The Stone Ledger: The Dwarves Remember

Deep in the mountains, the Dwarf people have records that go back to when most of the other races were learning about fire. Second only to the Aboleth themselves, the racial memory of the Dwarves extends to days beyond reckoning. At least, beyond reckoning to anyone who isn't a Dwarf. Dwarves keep their records chiseled into stone and preserved for all time with mystical might. While the spellbooks of the Elves eventually crumble into dust, the Ledgers of the Dwarves will stand in mute testament to their triumphs and failures for as long as day follows night and night follows day.

The Ledgers of the Dwarves measure in exact terms the location of all the cool things that the Dwarven people have found, they give tips for dealing with problems that Dwarves have overcome in the past, and they record in excruciating detail every bad thing that anyone has ever done to the Dwarven race. Remember that when you consider the implications of the fact that every group has at one time or another been at war with any other race you care to name. So the fact that sometimes goblins commit atrocities against Dwarf settlements means that each and every Dwarf child grows up reared on vivid and gory stories of generations of conflicts with goblins – and goblins really don't. From the goblin perspective… nothing is happening at all. Goblins don't live nearly as long as Dwarves do, and that means that they don't have a war with Dwarves even every generation.

This discontinuity leads to Dwarves being much better at the eternal war they are fighting with the Orcs, the Giants, and the Goblins than their opponents. That's because noone else really has the perspective to see that it is an ongoing conflict. The other races see it as a series of separate conflicts that are all individually about something, and mostly their poor record keeping techniques leave them often unable to even recollect the previous conflict. So really, the Dwarves keep winning because they are the only ones playing.

You may be tempted to ask "If these wars kill thousands, and the only reason they're being kept alive is because of the Dwarf Ledger, doesn't that make the Dwarves the bad guys?" And honestly, that's a pretty good question. The Dwarves are Lawful Good and are the only race involved that understands the epic scale of the over-conflict. But that doesn't mean that they bear sole responsibility. Indeed, while the average Goblin on the street doesn't even know that there's an ancient rivalry between his people and the Dwarves, the list of usual suspects for evil overlords is a laundry list of people who actually also know the whole deal. Liches, Fiend Lords, and of course Maglubiet and Hruggek all know that Dwarves spend large amounts of time training and preparing for battle with the goblin people, and they don't tell the goblins. The thought is that by not telling the goblins that the Dwarves are totally ready for them and have been for thousands of years, that goblins will fight more bravely – they literally don't know how very unlikely each individual goblin is to make it out alive from any conflict.

So life is pretty weird for a Dwarf. As a Dwarf you know that you are in an eternal struggle with the Goblin people. You also know that several times in your life, goblinoids are going to behave towards the Dwarven people as if nothing was wrong and have flourishing trade relations instead. But you also know that once every couple of goblin generations (which is to say several times in your life if you happen to be a Dwarf) some warlord is going to arise and send hordes of goblins to destroy your family. So if Dwarves come off as being intolerant jerks, that's why.

A special note has to be made about Dwarves and Arcane Magic. They like it. They are really good at it and have tremendous supplies of wizardly goods down in the depths. They can read spellbooks in the dark, and they are encouraged to do so. In some previous editions of D&D the Dwarven people were not allowed to use Arcane Magic because Gimli wasn't a spellcaster (the actual reasoning, I'm not even making that up), thereby ignoring the Dwarven magicians in many source legends (the Ring Saga for one), and even the Dwarven Magic from the Lord of the Rings. Fortunately, the bad old days are behind us, and Dwarves are back where they are supposed to be – slinging spells, scribing runes, and crafting magic items in their mountain halls.

Campaign Seed: Secrets Revealed
Key pieces of the Stone Ledger have been made public. Pamphlets explaining the situation in Goblin have been given mass distribution. The cycle of violence and peace that has dominated Dwarf/Goblin relations for millennia is coming crashing down. Reactions to the news vary of course. Some Goblins want to mount a final campaign to end the Dwarves once and for all, and others want to simply drop the whole thing and have a permanent peace. With a properly placed word or dagger, you could probably ensure that the proper outcome occurs. But what of the other groups thinking the same thing?

Campaign Seed: The Blank Spot
The great map of the Dwarves includes pretty much everything that dwarves have seen and lived to tell about. And yet, there are tunnels in the deep below that lead to… nothing. Despite thousands of years of diligent tunneling and mapping, there are still blank spots on that map. Obviously, foul play is involved, but how could something stay so deadly for so long? On the other hand, what if it's simply that the place is so valuable that noone comes back?

Gnolls: Too Lazy to Win
As a race, individual gnolls are powerhouses, each being worth two or three of the lesser races in combat…so why don’t they rule the world? In short, they are lazy.

Gnolls just don’t do the things that would make them successful. They don’t organize themselves, they don’t amass wealth or build structures, and the reason for this lack of productive behavior is that they are profoundly lazy as race, making them slighty stupid. Being lazy, they know that it takes less work to take such things from weaker races, and so this makes them mean. Gnoll heroes are manic by the standards of their race, since they seek out new experiences rather than stay at home to participate in tribal infighting.

Gnolls take favorable territory, and lesser races have a hard time displacing them, meaning that when someone sufficiently powerful does come along that can challenge the gnolls, it usually kills them outright in order to prevent the need for them to be displaced again. This means that gnolls tend to not have the same kind of shared cultural history as other races. Gnoll clans tend to be undisputed masters of their domain, spawning countless lesser tribes over the years who will attempt to take their own territory until at some point the each of those tribes is destroyed, meaning that each of the tribes has a limited amount of time to exercise its dominion before some greater power strikes them down, but since in that time the tribe spawns smaller tribes, the race as a whole survives.

Being racially lazy, powerful, and prolific means that occasionally one of those greater powers will decide to harness the gnolls, forcing training, discipline and purpose onto them. These Witch Kings or Warlords will then use the gnolls as elite shock troops or peacekeepers that enforce the dominion of their master, but the gnolls obey only as long that they know the hand of their master can reach them. Once the Witch King or Warlord dies, the gnolls revert to form, building tribes and bullying lesser races until they are driven from civilization.

Vistas of the Giants: Big and Important Stuff

Giants are more than just a Jungian representation of the complex feelings and resentments we have for our parents while we're children. Honest. Giants live in a metaphorically separate world from the smaller races, a world where everything is big – except populations. While Giants eat big food, have big castles, and throw big rocks, a major incursion of Giants is seriously like 8 guys. And while that can really put a giant dent in your day – the fact is that there's no way for them to kill your people fast enough for that to matter. Giants are simply not going to have a serious effect on your total population no matter what they do – because there aren't enough of them to ever amount to more than crime.

Giants appear in flavors that correspond to anything you can possibly imagine being much larger and more hardcore than it is. There are giant orcs, there are giant dwarves, there are giant elves, there are giant rogues and there are giant druids. So really any social dynamic you can imagine amongst the small people is replicated in excruciating hugeness among the big people.

An important thing to remember about Giants, however, is that very few of them are as tall as a tree – let alone a mountain. The vast majority of Giants are Large, not Gargantuan or even Huge. They are Giants like "Andre the Giant". They're big, but Fire Giants aren't impossibly big. If you saw them walking around on Earth you'd go "Man, that guy is big." but that's about as far as it would go. Still, for all the fact that Giants are rather disappointingly within scale of normal humans (seriously, the picture of the Giant Slayer in the DMG2 with the chopped off head the size of himself – that's much larger than even a Titan head), they are amazingly hardcore when it comes to combat. That same Fire Giant can easily wade through a group of 20 orcish warriors, that's not even a major problem for him.

Campaign Seed: The Land Above

Those Cloud Castles can't just be built anywhere, they require relatively stabile cloud formation to be built upon. And I know what you're saying "Relatively what in the what now!?" Right. The D&D world has cloud formations that are persistent, structurally sound, and capable of supporting several thousand tonnes of weight without buckling. Sure, those sky continents move around much faster than the tectonic plates do, but the surfaces are solid enough to keep a castle afloat for a thousand years.

What's even better of course, is that these Cloud Islands are more than 40' thick. You can't scry on them or teleport to them. It's like having a dungeon that you can still grow beans in. The castles you build here are safe from prying eyes on the ground. And that means exactly what adventurers hope it means: undespoiled ruins. If you have a means to the over world, you have access to new vistas of adventuring populated by empires and monsters that the underworld has never heard of.

Campaign Seed: Vacillating Terrors
The Giants are huge. Well, a lot of them are merely Large, but their impact on the field of battle is huge. And there's only a couple of them. That means that with a good assassination, a well placed word, a hefty bribe, or some basic seduction, the giants on one side or another of a conflict can be made to drop out or even switch sides. The impact on the battlefield from these relatively minor acts can be huge, and are totally worth it for both sides.

Giants understand this, and can get pretty greedy. Nevertheless, intelligent kingdoms will often assign adventurers to pampering the whims of these Giants to make sure they stay on the correct side in important confrontations.

The Goblin Empire: Silent Loyalty, Silent Dissent

There are at least three kinds of Goblin. That's important, not only because it means that any group of Goblins has access to a great many opinions and skill sets, but also because it means that the Goblinoid physiology is extremely morphic. And because of this, and because noone really cares if goblins disappear, when a wizard or demon decides to make a new form of super soldier – chances are good that they use Goblins as a base. Heck, you don't see any halflings with rhino horns on their face, and you don't see any dwarves transformed into undead monstrosities with bone-sucking tentacles popping out of their nipples. That's all the dubious pleasure of the Goblin people.

Goblinoids are, as a people, much quieter and more precise about their movements than other races. And this allows them to live in much higher population densities than other races without going mad. And well, they totally do that. Goblinoid settlements are, by the standards of other races, amazingly claustrophobic. Bugbear settlements traditionally make walls out of paper and place living quarters right next to one another to conserve heat. Those not blessed with the bugbear's natural silence find their every action heard many apartments away. Goblins usually dispense with the paper altogether and simply sleep ten to a room. Fortunately for them, goblins do not snore.

While goblinoid societies are classically short on free space, they are also not generally well organized. Goblins live together not because they like sharing, but because they steal from each other so constantly that it's just a waste of time to put walls between sleeping areas. If a goblin needs something, he'll take it and use it. Goblins aren't socialist utopians or anything, they simply don't respect property rights of others. Oddly enough, the end result is pretty similar to Goblins being really cooperative. Hobgoblin society takes it one step further and even has elaborate rules about who has to submit to who and when people have to take their shoes off and how people have to behave in public and everything. They actually are well organized, and their intricate webs of subjugation allow them to maintain high population densities without eating each other.

Goblinoids go to war for really one reason only: they want your stuff. Hobgoblins need constant influxes of new Slaves to keep everything rolling (even Slaves gain in seniority and prestige in time within Hobgoblin social structures so the bottom rungs of society can really only be replenished from captured enemies). Goblins want your shinies and aren't afraid to torch your village to get them. And finally, the Hruggek demands that the Bugbears slaughter your people from the shadows on a fairly regular basis. That's like wanting your stuff, only in this case what they are taking from your lands is the satisfaction of having seen your last breath from the back.

Elves: Servants of the High Wizards

The individual elf is a fine adventurer, blessed with many attributes that make them well suited to a life of killing monsters for their hard-earned possessions. They are extremely long-lived, quick of eye and reflexes, and blessed with the kind of training that comes from a childhood that spans decades. With all of these benefits, one wonders why they don’t rule the world.

The answer is simple: they have a secret. That secret is that elves, as a race, are the pawns of powerful wizards. Just as powerful wizards have taken the heads of giant owls and put them on the bodies of bears, some wizards in the far past decided “hey, lets make a race that’s hot, skinny, and long-lived enough to learn to really please me.” The end result is a race whose favored class is Wizard, a class requiring study and materials. As engineered servants of powerful wizards, they mystically have the ability to learn their master’s arts. The influence of the overlord wizards is the explanation for the variation in the subraces of elves: height, skin coloration, racial abilities, and physical and mental attributes are shaped by the overlords to suit their favored environment and tastes in beauty. Wild elves are physically powerful but dim, while snow elves are hardy but racially arrogant and haughty, and this all stems from the tastes of their wizard overlords in the past. Art and music is encouraged among the young because it makes them more attractive to their overlords.

This doesn’t mean that your average elf is directly under the thumb of anyone; elves, like any race, have the ability to grow in power by testing themselves against dangers that can kill them. This means that the wizard overlords of the elven race are in fact elves now; like the githyanki, they threw off the shackles of their overlords eons ago…only to wear shackles designed by members of their own race. This is why in places like Faerun, any individual elf can’t even go to the elven homeland without doing something drastic (like promise to never leave). Powerful magic protects these places because the elven high wizards that rule the race live in these locations, and they receive only benefit from letting individual members wander the world collecting new experiences and magic to hopefully bring back to them.

As a race, elves of all professions tend to think like long-lived wizards. They know that they can potentially live hundreds of years, so they tend to be very risk adverse. In a word, like any wizard who survives very long in the DnD universe, they are cowards. They don’t allow ideas like “permanent homes” or “pride” to get in the way of survival. Your average elf lives in the woods because the woods have a lot of hiding places and a native of any particular woods can outrun any non-native trying to catch them, and if your home in a tree burns down you can easily build another home in another tree. Archery is encouraged among elves because it keeps your enemies at a distance, and it grants elves the ability to attack from hiding. Stealth and a distributed cell structure to their society keep them alive long enough for their wizards to prepare a strategy to beat their enemies. They harass and use hit and run tactics to wear down enemies to buy time for their wizards to draw upon their hundreds of years of experience in order to deal with the enemy.

Warrens of the Gnomes: Guerilla Illusionists
Gnomes are one of the few innately magical races. Every gnome starts his day able to speak to burrowing animals, and every gnome of normal intelligence can cast a few simple illusions. Normally, this is not a recipe for a master race. And in truth, gnomes conquer nothing. Their great strength is that they don’t fight fair.

Gnomes fight with a siege mentality, but with an extremely creative bent. They build their homes in hills to conceal them, then they cover these up with illusions. They use illusions of sound and light to misdirect enemies, and they use a network of trained burrowing animals to spy on the locations of their enemies. As small creatures, they excel at hiding and as a race they all have the ability to perform minor magical tricks that a creative person can use to any number of effects. They are hardy warriors with a flair for alchemy, so enemies of the gnomes can expect tough and brutal battles in conditions of smoke and flame with troops hindered by caltrops and tanglefoot bags, their horses driven out of control by thunderstones.

Gnomish heroes are well known for fighting giants, but in combat this edge tends to be minimal, as is their knowledge of fighting techniques against goblinoids; in truth, gnomes attack giants at range and from covered and inaccessible positions to avoid being hit with boulders or forced in melee and have learned to strike well at other goblin races to end combats where these races might overrun the gnomish positions. The real enemy of the gnome is the kobold, as these two races tend to cancel out each other’s strengths: kobolds use traps that care nothing for illusions, and they hide as well as gnomes but have an enhanced ability to search an area and so find hiding foes and traps, and each race is equally at home in the other’s Small-sized tunnels. Kobolds are also better ranged attackers and are naturally armored, making them slightly better combatants. Kobold/gnome wars are masterpieces of misdirection and stealth as each race sets traps and ambushes with gnomes leveraging their innate talent with illusions and kobolds using traps, ranged attacks and melee ambushes, and their own sorcerous talents.

Orcs: The Endless War
Orcs are the product of a generations-long war against the other races. Unfortunately, they haven’t realized that they’ve lost this war. Why the war starts is simple: orcs are, as a race, stupid, ugly, and weak willed, but very strong. Being stupid, ugly and weak willed means that other races tend to always get the upper hand on them and tend to always get the better end of any deal, and other races also tend to not want Orcs around. Orc goods are always a little worse than goods produced by other races, and orcs are generally a little rowdier and less pleasant to be around.

At some point the orcs realize that they are much better in battle than other races, and they decide to fight for a little respect and fair treatment. Then the war is on. The only problem is that orcs win battles, but lose wars. Other races have natural advantages or just greater intelligence, so any war tends to go badly for the orcs in the long run. Powerful melee combat ability doesn’t mean much when elves attack from the bushes with longbows and then run way and all the races have superior battle plans and ability to lead their troops.

Once the war has been decisively won, the orcs are driven out of their lands and pushed into some badland, hinterland, or some other undesirable terrain far away from trade routes and civilization and usually full of monsters. The other races then go back to their lives, but here’s the trick: the orcs don’t. As far as the orcs are concerned, the war is still on because the orcs are still stuck in the worst land in their area, scraping by in the wilderness with minimal natural resources and almost no access to the products of civilization like arable farmlands, centuries-old cities, and trade goods like the products of skilled craftsmen from other lands (which can include magic items).

All of orc culture comes back to this issue. Orcs are constantly warring on other races not out of innate need for violence or evil inclinations, but because they are fighting for their survival as a race in lands considered undesirable by every other major race. Orc raids are not only for food and booty, but for all the things that orc culture cannot produce like tools and weapons. Without these things they cannot survive in the wilderness, and they cannot produce them in the wilderness living as nomads who hunt and gather for survival.

Orc hordes are not an indication of warlike racial tendencies, but of population issues. Once the orcish population in the badlands grows too large to be supportable, they must conquer new lands or else face death by famine and disease. Hordes are formed of “excess” young males that are sent off to carve out new lands or die trying…. both results ease the burden on the few resources in the badlands.

The fact that orcs are constantly in a war footing means that they easily offend other races with their tactics. Rather than fight elven guerilla fighters who sap their resources and manpower, they’ll burn the forest down, and rather than fight dwarves in their millennia-old and heavily entrenched deepnesses filled with traps, the orcs will collapse the tunnels and dig the booty out of the rubble. The fact that most races fight defensively means that orcs only gain tactical advantage by being extremely offensively-minded. The fact that orcs do not have supplies coming from the badlands means that while they have no supply trains to cut, they must conduct blitzkrieg-style war or face starvation, and they cannot afford to hold troops in reserve. They often just don’t have the resources needed to conduct honorable or civilized war, and their attacks seldom have finesse or timing on their side, meaning that they only win battles through overwhelming force. Night raids are their specialty, as they have darkvision and are sensitive to light.

Borderlands of the Sahuagin: Sore Winners

The first thing to understand about the Sahuagin is that they have already won. Completely. The surface of the world is about ¾ ocean and they own almost all of it. From the standpoint of the Sahuagin, the only places on the planet that have non-Sahuagin races in them are the stale crusts that they already had the presence of mind to cut off their sandwich. All of the non-Sahuagin races are all ghettoized. Even the other aquatic races have been marginalized to the point where they only get the brackish water (Locathah), the rocky shallows (merfolk), the underground darks (Kuo-Toans), or the muddy salt marshes (Lizardfolk). The real real estate – the ocean and coastline – are pretty much the private playground of the Sahuagin.

Individually, Sahuagin will kick your ass, and collectively they will kick the ass of any nation you happen to support. The combined populations of all other sapient races on any planet are less than the population of Sahuagin on that planet. The Sahuagin are also much smarter and better organized than you are so their cities are actually more productive than yours per person in addition to the fact that they have more cities than all the other races and their cities are more populous.

The Sahuagin mutate constantly, but are not inclined to Chaos. They just all have different appearances and capabilities. But every one of them is gifted with super intelligence and thick natural armor. The Sahuagin deep seers are some of the most gifted wizards on the planet and honestly have nothing better to do than just scry on crap and tell the armies where there's some cool stuff to go loot. From time to time the Sahuagin will come onto land to beat the living crap out of people and take control of important or valuable items. Then they take the spoils of war and drag it back under water, laughing the whole time.

Against this backdrop of crushing inferiority, how do the other races maintain? Most of them are fighting for stakes so small that they haven't even noticed that the vast majority of the planet is owned and operated by brutally efficient fish men. But one race that certainly has noticed the power discrepancy is the race of elves most likely to be forgotten: the Sea Elves. They actually live in many of the same areas and have a war going with them.

Life is hard for a Sea Elf, because every one of them is born into a post-apocalyptic world where mutants run amok and hunt them for sport. But it's actually even worse than that because in addition to simply being physically and intellectually inferior to the Sahuagin like everyone else is – they are actually stupid and useless even contrasted with the surface races. An average Sea Elf is as much the intellectual inferior to a Sahuagin as a Griffin is to a normal human. The Sahuagin consider the Sea Elves to be little more than animals, and they aren't wrong.

The Sea Elves keep surviving at all because they see farther than Sahuagin in low-light conditions (and are thus often able to swim away from potential encounters with Sahuagin during the morning and twilight hours that Sea Elves leave their hidden nests), and also because every so often a Sahuagin gets born who looks exactly like a Sea Elf. These Sahuagin mutants, called Malenti, are a little bit worse than a normal Sahuagin in that they lack the rending claws. But they're still stronger and smarter than any Sea Elf that ever swam the 7 seas. So when these Malenti realize that they get a crap deal from Sahuagin society, they often as not run off to join the Sea Elves, where they almost immediately rise to positions of leadership. They also gain crap loads of experience very quickly because the odds are so stacked against them. In short, the reason that the Sea Elves still exist is that they actually are a splinter faction of Sahuagin that uses real sea elves as beasts of burden instead of simply hunting them like the more normal Sahuagin groups do.

And yet, despite the fact that the Sahuagin have won at everything, they still continue to fight the other races and take their children and stuff. Partly this is to feed the insatiable demands of their Baatezu masters, and partly this is because on some deep level the Sahuagin are convinced that it actually couldn't possibly be that easy. In addition to looking for bling and candy to take from the weaker races, the Deep Seers are also combing the world for the one thing that the Great Mothers are pretty sure exists somewhere: the hidden army that the other races are putting together to take the world back from the clutches of the Sahuagin Empire. As far as anyone knows, it doesn't exist, but for some reason the Great Mothers keep insisting that the searching continue. Maybe they know something we don't?

Campaign Seed: Free Your World
The Sahuagin have pushed things too far. After the leveling of the city of Kelport, the remaining peoples of the land have at last come to realize the danger that the Sahuagins' unchecked strength poses. The natural alliance of pretty much everyone against the Sahuagin has formed. But how far can you trust your allies? Will the goblins really show up when they said they would? And does everyone together have the strength to topple the coral spires of the Deep Seers?

Campaign Seed: The Price of Hubris
In ages past, the Sahuagin conquered the seas of the Kuo-Toa. They crushed their temples, and slaughtered their children. And noone liked the Kuo-Toa because of all the sacrificing people to the Great Evils they used to do, so noone did anything about it at the time. As massively successful empires are wont to do, the Sahuagin have allowed themselves to become decadent and haven't been crossing their Ts particularly, and now the Great Evils are straining to enter the world. That's… unfortunate… because these ancient and malevolent forces have the power and inclination to destroy everyone on the planet. And to make things worse, while some of the Sahuagin are aware of the problem and contracted our heroes to help solve it, lot's of other Sahuagin refuse to acknowledge that any problem could possibly warrant getting help from outsiders and will work against you at every turn.

After the War
"Everything ends, and everything dies."

Every war has a beginning, middle, and an end. And from a dramatic storytelling point of view, the periods before the war and after the war can honestly be just as awesome as the war itself. Periods before war are, frankly, just like periods of peace and don't warrant being included in this text at all. Periods after wars can be quite compelling as well.

It is a common myth that all wars have winners and losers. The truth is that there are many wars that don't have any winners. Nevertheless we will classify the afterwar campaigns by the signature winner or loser of the last conflict. Often a war will have many winners and losers, so really this can be thought of us a jumping off point for the people the story is most interested in.

Triumph of the Halflings: Reconstructing the Shire

How many of you actually read the Lord of the Rings rather than simply watching the movies? Perhaps the biggest and most awesome part of Halfling lore is the part where they have to pick up the pieces after their shire has been razed. So here you have a situation where the halflings have won, they have conquered and they can invoke their rights as conquerors to impose their culture on the defeated.

But that's a problem. Halfling culture is all about not doing that, it's a very nice society that produces a lot of grain and leads by example. Halfling society has Mayors who rule because they are well liked and have good ideas – not necessarily the strongest adventurers. The entire point of the "Outrider" culture is in fact to get powerful Halflings into a prestigious position where they don't control the day-to-day workings of society.

When the Halflings become conquerors, their whole way of life is disrupted. Suddenly the Outriders do run the show – or at least those parts of it as are on Goblin land. Remember, absolute power corrupts and all that. Halfling society has never really had to contend with a leader who wasn't easily replaceable. With the masters of war in control, how can the shire ever be rebuilt the way the people want it to be? And when it comes down to it, should the Shire be rebuilt the old way? The last time around, The War happened, and that wasn't good for anyone. Maybe a new direction is the best thing.

Defeat of the Halflings: They Came and Took Our Land

Halflings are, as a people, fairly non-confrontational. So it is perhaps unsurprising that Halflings who had been on the losing side of The War would want to leave. Really, most halflings aren't going to disperse into the wilds to conduct a guerilla war against their oppressors and stage a partisan movement to attempt to make the holding of Halfling territory implausibly expensive… they're just going to pack up and go. And a perfectly reasonable opening curtain for a D&D campaign is right there – in the trains of refugees flooding out of former Halfling territories.

Where will they go? How will other races, even other Halflings, respond to the promised influx of new mouths to feed? It's a nasty proposition, and it really tugs at the heart strings because Halflings look kind of like children anyway, and watching them fleeing with all their worldly possessions into an uncaring world while genocidal enemies pursue them is emotionally effective.

Triumph of the Dwarves: Breaking the Cycles

The Dwarves don't consider themselves to have "won" just because the goblin invasion has been broken or the last orc warrior has passed out from lack of supplies. No, they understand that the goblins will be back and the orcs remain in the Savage Lands. Team Monster will return, probably within the lifetimes of the Dwarves fighting the last battle, so they've bought themselves a respite, not a victory. But imagine for the moment that the Dwarves actually have won. Maglubiet himself has agreed to order the goblins to leave the Dwarves alone. What now?

The Dwarves have no answer for that question! Their entire way of life depends upon readying themselves for the next battle in an endless struggle. With the actual end of the struggle, their society collapses. Sons do not listen to fathers, and Dwarves of all ages take up beatnik poetry. Cats and dogs live together and currency and hard work lose their value. What would the Dwarven elders do to put things back on track? What new ways could the Dwarves embrace that would allow them to move forward?

Defeat of the Dwarves: The Tunnels Forgotten

It takes a lot for Dwarves to actually lose, just as it takes a lot for them to win. The preponderance of Dwarves really will fight to the death and they are quite good at doing that. But they do have a contingency. They have a backup plan that involves taking a bunch of women and a few men and spiriting them away to various parts of the underdark to rebuild the race in secret. Did you know that sometimes they get excited and activate this plan without actually having lost yet. Then they send a colony pod off into the underdark and are stuck in a position where they can't easily recall them. That's where the weird Dwarf colonies come from. Sometimes it works out, and eventually contact is restored with the "Deep Dwarves". Sometimes it really doesn't work out well for anyone and you get Duergar.

Triumph of the Goblins: What's Yours is Mine

Getting conquered by the Goblins really has very different effects depending upon which Goblins are in charge when they overrun your defenses. The Hobgoblins have the most intrusive plan – where your people are enslaved and forced to work for and even join the Hobgoblin clans. The Bugbears have perhaps the least disruptive plan, where they simply run into your village and kill and eat anyone they can catch and then go back to their own lands with everything they can carry. The regular old Goblins, on the other hand, mostly want to fill santa sacks with your stuff, and then come back tomorrow and do it again. It's like taxation, only it's set to "whatever they can carry" and you have to pay it "whenever they show up".

Living under the yoke of the Goblins can be anything from an excuse for lots of dangerous random encounters (Bugbears have overrun your nation), to a semi-comic game of fighting semi-organized crime (Goblins), to a role-play heavy pseudo-Japanese setting where the PCs are all ronin or ashigaru or something (Hobgoblins). It can even be more than one of those, in the not-unlikely case that more than one group of Goblinoids is involved. In this case, you're normally going to be forced into a society where Hobgoblins are Samurai, Bugbears are Ninja, Goblins are Yakuza, and you're a serf. This is your chance to do a Kurosawa film from the perspective of those guys in the background harvesting rice with a knife under the disinterested glare of a distrustful Samurai.

Defeat of the Goblins: A Land of Banditry

Again, since the Goblins are really three very different groups, them losing The War represents here extremely different results. The Hobgoblins will probably simply install their conquerors in the highest positions of their Empire and then enthusiastically change their methodology as little as possible. It's like being MacArthur after the handover of Nippon. The Goblins will likewise attempt to ignore their new masters as much as possible, though they differ from the Hobgoblins in that they will place themselves into the command structure of their new conquerors – to the extent that they happen to be in the presence of said conquerors. The Bugbears, however, are too proud to bother to pay lip service to any so-called conquerors. Mostly, the defeated Bugbears will vanish into the wilderness and proceed to live like werewolves. In that respect, beating the Bugbears is a lot like being beaten by the Bugbears, except that there are less remaining Bugbears.

Regardless, conquered lands of the goblinoid peoples are filled with what the new conquerors could graciously refer to as crime. Pockets of resistance, or just plan stubborn refusal to change to the new program – goblins are generally quite happy with the new regime but only because they pay it as little heed as possible. And for a goblin, that's a very small amount.

Triumph of the Necromancers: Endless Night

Life sucks when the ravening horde of Wights and Shadows overruns your kingdom. In fact, life probably doesn't even exist. Those that survive will normally have done so by taking shelter in small hallowed areas that the undead will not enter. But here's the exciting part: once all life is gone in the region, the Wights can't replace themselves. Sure, if you start with one Wight and then every day every Wight makes another Wight you'll have an army one million strong in 3 weeks – but that's already happened. They won, and now the Undead are on the down slop of the Spawn cycle. It's really ugly, but you can retake the world. In fact, you're probably going to. Necropoly isn't really a government that lasts all that long in most D&D settings.

So here's how it works: you spend your time in the hallowed grounds biding your time. Then, you come out and kill a couple of undead beasties. Then, the various Necromantic Intelligences that have sprung up will direct undead soldiers to go get you, so you'll retreat back to the protected zone. Then you rinse and repeat. It's like a high fantasy post-apocalypse world. As long as you remember that you're small and furry and have to stay out of the way of the dinosaur zombies, you're capable of chipping away at the onyx gauntlet that grips your kingdom.

Defeat of the Necromancers: Resource Rush!

OK, what does a necromantic army do to the land it passes through? Well, for staters it kills everything. Everything. That means that it leaves only the inanimate stuff behind. The soil, the houses, the gold, that sort of thing. In short, if you come in there with some seeds and some dreams after the necromantic army has been destroyed (and remember, many necromantic armies fight to the last), there is a bunch of livable land with no occupants and no monsters.

That is comedy gold right there, and every group of humanoids in the area is going to send all their second sons off to go try to colonize. That means that you have extremely mixed race settlements in the newly opened region. Gnolls live right next to Gnomes for reasons other than alphabetical assignment. But other than getting to live in the newly opened Oklahoma Territory with a bunch of radically different sapient species who don't speak the same language or get along, remember that the monsters are coming back as well. This is empty land, so the monsters going in are doing so at a rate literally infinitely faster than the rate of monsters going out. Sure, it may be a trickle, but it's completely asymmetric. When a displacer beast comes in to the region, it won't have any of its normal food sources or enemies available – so it's just going to go straight for the villages.

So while the monster presence in the area is almost insanely low by D&D standards, all of the monsters are going to immediately attack humanoid settlements as soon as they show up. That really makes it easy to DM, let me tell you.

[Arek]

The Economicon: Making Sense of the Gold Standard:
"100 pounds of gold for a house? How does anyone make rent without a wheelbarrow?"

Since time immemorial, D&D has used the "gold piece" as its primary currency. It is apparently a chunk of reasonably pure gold of vaguely standardized weight that people use fairly interchangeably in different cities populated by different species. In the bad old days, each gold coin was a tenth of a pound, which was hilarious and inane. In the current edition, each gold piece is a fiftieth of a pound. That's 3.43 gp to the Troy Ounce, which means that in the modern economy, each gp is about $171 worth of gold. Obviously, gold is significantly more common in D&D than it is on Earth, gold is also undervalued because its status as a currency standard drives it out of industrial uses and causes inflation. Further, populations in D&D are orders of magnitude smaller than they are in the real world, so the gold per person is higher even with the same amount of gold. So the gold piece is massively less valuable in D&D economies than it would be in Earth's economies.

Nonetheless, things are really expensive in D&D, and the high price in gold means that there's a distinct limitation of how much wealth can be transported by any means available. The economies of currency transaction are actually so unfavorable that currency as we understand the term does not exist. Things don't have prices or costs – all transactions are conducted in barter and a common medium of exchange is heavy lumps of precious metal.

Wish and the Economy

An Efreet can provide a wish for any magical item of 15,000 gp or less. A Balor can greater teleport at will, but can only carry 30 pounds of currency while doing so. Even in platinum pieces, that's 15,000 gp worth of metal. The long and the short of it is – at the upper end of the economy currency has no particular purchasing power and magic items of 15,000 gp value or less are viewed as wooden nickels at best. You can spend 15,000 gp and get magic items, but people in the know won't sell you a magic item worth 15,001 gp for money. That kind of item can only be bought for love. Or human souls. Or some other planar currency that is not replicable by chain binding a room full of Efreet to make in bulk.

Powerful characters actually can have bat caves that have sword racks literally covered in 15,000 gp magic items. It's not even a deal because they could just go home and slap some Efreet around and get some more. But even a single major magic item – that's heavy stuff that such characters will notice. Those things don't come free with hope alone, and every archmage knows that.

Wartime Economies Make for Shortages:

Many people wonder why a masterwork dagger goes for more than its weight in gold. That's a pretty valid question to ask; certainly I'm not going to attempt to justify the 600 gp price tag on a masterwork walking stick – that's just an example of simplistic game mechanics run amok. But to an extent the crazy prices can be justified by the fact that every settlement in every D&D world is on a war footing all the time. The idea that Peace is somehow a natural state is a fairly recent one, and based on the frequency of wars all over the world – it's obviously just wishful thinking anyway. War is the default position of every major economy in the world, and that means that weapons have an immediate, and desperate, clientele. Iron is still relatively cheap, because you can't kill people with it right now, but actual weapons and armor are crazy expensive.

That doesn't explain the fact that the PHB charges you over a quarter Oz. of gold just to get a backpack, and it doesn't explain the fact that the markup on masterworking a buckler is the same as the markup on masterworking a breastplate – that's just a game simplification that makes no real-world sense. But it's a start.

Coins are Big and Heavy
"How many boards could the Mongols hoard if the Mongol hordes got bored?"

From the standpoint of the adventurer, the primary difficulty of the D&D currency system is that the lack of a coherent banking and paper currency system means that there are profound limits to what you could possibly purchase even with platinum. But the currency system hurts on the other end as well. Untrained labor gets a silverpiece a week. That's 500 copper coins a year, which means that no matter how cheap things are they can only make one purchase a day most of the time. That's pretty stifling to the economy, in that however much gets produced, noone can buy it. Demand, from the economics standpoint, is strangled to the point where large production outputs don't even matter (remember that in economics Demand doesn't mean "what people want", it means "what people are willing and able to pay for", so if the average person only has 500 discreet pieces of currency per year, that puts an absolute cap on economic demand, even though the people are of course both needy and greedy enough to want anything you happen to produce).

What's worse, those coins are heavy. For our next demonstration, reach into your change drawer and fish out nine pennies. That's a decent lump in your pocket, neh? That's about one copper piece. Gold pieces are smaller (less than half the size, actually), but weigh the same. D&D currency, therefore, is more like a Monopoly playing piece than it is like a modern or ancient coin. There's no reason to even believe these things are round, people are seriously marching around gold hats and silver dogs as the basic medium of exchange.

Now, you may ask yourself why these coins are so titanic compared to real coins. The answer is because having piles of coins is awesome. Dragons are supposed to sleep on that stuff, and that requires big piles of coins. Consider my own mattress, which is a "twin-size" (pretty reasonable for a single medium-size creature) and nearly .2 cubic meters. If it was made out of gold, it would be about 3.9 tonnes. That's about eighty-six hundred pounds, and even with the ginormous coins in D&D, that's four hundred and thirty thousand gold pieces. In previous editions, that sort of thing was simply accepted and very powerful dragons really did have the millions of gold pieces – which was actually fine. Since third edition, they've been trying to make gold actually equal character power, and the result has been that dragon hoards are… really small. None of this "We need to get a wagon team to haul it all away", no. In 3rd edition, hoard sizes have become manageable, even ridiculously tiny. When a 6th level party defeats a powerful and wealthy monster, they can expect to find… nearly a liter of gold. That is, the treasure "hoard" of that evil dragon you defeated will actually fit into an Evian bottle.

There are two ways to handle this:
Live with the fact that treasures are small and unexciting in modern D&D.

Live with the fact that characters who grab a realistic dragon's hoard become filthy stinking rich and this fundamentally changes the way they interact with society.


But once you accept that the realities of the wish based economy, you actually don't have to live with characters unbalancing the game once they find a real mattress filled with gold. That's not even a problem once characters are no longer excited by a +2 Enhancement bonus to a stat or a +3 enhancement bonus to Armor. Which means somewhere between 9th and 13th level it's perfectly fine for players to find actual money without unbalancing the game. Really, you can stop worrying about it.

Bad Money Drives Out Good: The Penalties of Paper:

People from the modern world are generally pretty perplexed by this idea of handing back and forth actual metal as a medium of exchange. It is an undeniable truth in our lives that the idea of currency is just that: an idea. As long as whatever I'm trading for goods and services can be traded for goods and services, it doesn't actually matter if the exchange commodity has any ascribed intrinsic worth. Paper descriptions of value or even ephemeral electronic representations are not only adequate, they're convenient. But more than that, using valuable commodities as a medium of exchange inhibits the growth of the economy. As long as a certain portion of the wealth is locked up in currency, the economy is strangled coming and going: not only is there a completely arbitrary limit on how many goods and services can be exchanged (the gold supply), but there is also a limit on the kinds of industry and artistic expression that can occur (in that if you use gold for anything but currency you're actually shrinking the money supply and producing negative GDP).

So… you're going to solve that by instituting a paper-based exchange system where initially the paper is exchangeable for gold and that eventually gets phased out when the Plebes realize that handing actual gold back and forth is inconvenient and dumb, right? Wrong. Remember that this is the Iron Age, and people haven't invented Nationalism yet. The cornerstone of the Greenback currency is a belief in the nation that prints it – and nations simply don't exist. You've got empires, and you've got kingdoms, and you've got tribes, and you've got unincorporated villages… and that's it as far as civilization goes. When you look at a map in D&D and a colored region has a name on it, that's the name of the region. Possibly it's even the name of some guy in the region. The point is, that it's not a country in the modern sense of the word, so if some new guy walks in who's bad enough the next cartographer will put his name on the region instead.

And that means that "The Full Faith and Credit of the Kingdom of Daxall" is worth precisely nothing. And while King Daxall can, through force of arms, take all the gold away from all the peasants and get them to trade pieces of paper for goods and services in its place – noone will actually believe that the paper is currency. They're literally trading promises by King Daxall that he'll let them have their money back if they leave town. And since the serfs can't even leave town, even that promise is meaningless to them. A serf accepts paper for goods and services only because he'll be beheaded if he doesn't. The black market value of these pieces of paper is pretty close to zero. Worse, nearby governments will see this as a blatant attempt to sequester all the gold in King Daxall's pants and will probably declare war (in addition to the fact that noone outside the reach of King Daxall's pikemen will accept Daxall Dollars).

Powerful Creatures Have a Powerful Economy:

The amount of gold it takes to get anywhere as a land lord is very large. The question that arises then, is why awesome architecture exists at all. It's a valid question, the listed costs to put things like pit traps and thrones made of bone into your dungeon are stupendously large and actual magical swag can be made available for much less than that. The answer is that:
People don't actually pay all that gold to have their homes remodeled (see the peonomicon below).

Powerful artificers and adventurers don't even want your gold. If something has a value of 100,000 gold pieces, it can't be purchased with gold pieces at all – because that's an actual ton of gold that you'd have to plop over the counter and the merchant you're dealing with won't take your money even if you have it.


Here we're going to be focusing in on

Gems

Souls

Concentration

Hope

Raw Chaos

Gems: Truth or Dare:

Gems are, to the vast majority of participants in the economy, pretty much worthless. A 500 gp diamond is pretty much the same as a gold piece to someone who intends to purchase things with a value of 1 gp or less. And of course, there are a lot more individuals out there who will stab a peasant in the face for a diamond than a gold piece. So why does anyone care?

Well, two reasons: the first is the obvious one that gold is extremely limited in what it can possibly purchase. A +2 sword is worth your weight in gold. Not its weight in gold, your weight in gold. It seriously costs over 166 pounds of gold, and that's just not reasonable for most people to put into their pockets. So people interacting with even the shallow end of the magic trade need there to be some crazily expensive items that have no purpose save to look pretty and be exchangeable for other stuff. But unlike our world gems actually have real value as well: as the fuel for powerful magics.

On Earth, the only reason that a diamond is expensive is because there's an international organization called DeBeers that seriously has actual assassins that will shoot you in the face if you try to sell diamonds for less than the price they've determined that they're supposed to be sold for. D&D doesn't have that kind of armed monopoly to maintain gem prices, but it does have the fact that people continuously use up gems for spells like raise dead and item creation and the like. So the fact that you can use ruby dust to make continual flames that you can turn around and sell as Everburning Torches means that ruby dust will continue to have value as long as people value light.

The D&D rules actually only go into the spell component uses of a handful of gems, but rest assured that all the rest are similarly useful when we get into the ephemerals of item creation. A lot of those "components" that cost piles of thousands of gold pieces are actually just piles of gems. Onyx keeps its value based on the needs of necromancers, but amethyst is just as needed to bind illusion magic into a cloak. The exchange rate between gems and magic items is in no danger of going anywhere. Minor magic items and gems are traded avidly by shopkeepers, adventurers, and even powerful outsiders and wizards.

But even so, gems can be simply acquired by the very powerful. The realities of the wish based economy ensure that gems can simply be obtained in large numbers by anyone who really cares enough to dedicate a conjured earth elemental to collecting them. Magical items that cannot be created with the application of spells (that is, magic items valued at more than 15,000 gp) cannot be purchased on the open market with mundane currency, not even gems. That isn't to say that you can't cheat a goblin out of a staff of power with some shiny rocks, you totally can (heck, you could also stab the goblin in the face and take that staff of power), but doing so is not considered a "fair trade" and requires a bluff check on your part.

In addition, many D&D worlds posit the existence of magic gems, which can be used to make magic items, increase personal power, make a snazzy grill with the bottom row made of gold, and all kinds of stuff. In addition to getting hot women to ask you to smile, these magical gems are magical and are actually considered fair exchange in the near-epic economy. You can't wish for Eberron Dragonshards or Planescape Planar Pearls, so those things have real value to Efreet and other creatures participating in the Big Pond. Rules for using magic gems appear in the Tome of Tiamat.

Magical Currency

Souls: The souls of powerful creatures are trapped in gems and the trade in them is brisk on the outer planes, especially in the planar metropolis of Finality on Acheron. Once a soul is in a gem, the gem itself is of little or no value, but the soul goes for 100 gp times the square of the CR of the creature whose soul is trapped (see Tome of Fiends for more information on the use of souls).

Concentration: Ideas take form on the outer planes, and really pernicious or stellar ideas can be so powerful that they take a while to form. In the before-time, they can be found as an amber-like substance that is extremely valued on Mechanus, and by extension every single other outer plane as well. Concentration is actually made out of ideas, and while it looks like a solid object it is actually a liquid that flows so slowly that you could watch it for a year and only a Modron could tell you have far the flow had taken it. A pound of concentration goes for 50,000 gp to an interested party, and can be used in magical crafting by those with the patience to learn its secrets (see Book of Gears for more information on the use of Concentration).

Hope: Hope is funny stuff, it has lots of inertia, but those who carry it are not weighed down in the least. It has mass, but not weight. Even the smallest piece of Hope sheds light like a daylight spell (the effective spell level for this effect is 7, and Hope can overcome almost any darkness). Hope is measured in kilograms rather than pounds, and a kilo of Hope goes for 100,000 gp to those who want it, and it can be used in magical crafting (see Tome of Virtue for more information on the use of Hope).

Raw Chaos: The plane of Limbo is filled with possibility and change. Usually this manifests as a continuous creation and destruction that is awe inspiring and terrifying at the same time. Sometimes, for whatever reason this possibility doesn't become anything, and just stays as Raw Chaos. Raw Chaos can have any dimensions and any amount of mass, but from a practical standpoint you either have it or you don't. If you have Raw Chaos and someone else doesn't you can give it to them, and it is generally considered good form for them to give you magical items or planar currency worth 200,000 gp in exchange. Raw Chaos can be transformed into magical items by those with the correct skills (See Tome of Tiamat for more information on the use of Raw Chaos).

[Arek]

Charactonomicon
"Honestly, I sort of expected my character to be more awesome than this."

Many character archetypes don't fit neatly into the pseudo-European-battlefield that D&D is often concepted as, but do fit squarely into the genre that Dungeons and Dragons has become. Most notably, the unarmored warriors, swashbucklers, and talkative heroes that are perpetuated in fantasy literature. They do have a place in the D&D setting, but they really haven't been done well in the D&D rules. This makes us very sad. What follows is a re-imagining of several classes that have been with us for over 30 years, but which don't have functional game mechanics in the modern era. Some of them (like the Jester) have never had functional game mechanics, while others (like the Monk) have been playable characters at various times but aren't now.

Our goal here is to make these archetypes playable in low-level environments and high level environments without the implementation of Easter Egg class features like DM pity. A monk is an integral portion of D&D, and there should be a way to participate in combats against monsters of your level other than the current standard:
Massively underperform against enemies of your level.

Wait for the DM to recognize this as a systemic problem and throw in campaign specific treasure that will make your character awesome.

Use that awesome equipment to pull your weight with the other party members.


Why no Open Lock skills? Open Lock is a legacy skill that makes no sense. In previous editions of D&D, a Thief had an "Open Locks" skill and a "Find/Remove Traps" skill. In 3rd edition. Find/Remove Traps got split into Search and Disable Device. Disable Device is actually capable of bypassing any device or spell-based impediment, not just Traps these days. Heck, it even has bypassing a Lock as an example task! There's a reason that other D20 games have dropped Open Locks altogether, and we strongly support that decision. In that spirit, we've dropped the Open Lock skill from all classes in the Dungeonomicon, and suggest that you allow players to use their Dexterity Modifier in place of their Intelligence Modifier for Disable Device if they want to.

Base Classes

Monk
"I am a Grand Master of Flowers. You are not."

Fantasy literature's view of the "martial artist" has about as much to do with a real martial artist as its view of salamanders has to do with real salamanders. But let's face the facts: Monks are totally sweet. They flip out and kill people with their hands. A Monk does not practice any "real" martial art, we call those people "Fighters" – a Monk practices an entirely magical martial art that only works in areas where badgers can talk and winged horses can fly.

Every Monk follows a different martial path that involves jumping super high and having glowing things coming off of their hands when they perform their super moves. Some monks use weapons, but most just use their hands and feet to devastating effect. Some Monks shout the names of their techniques in battle to demoralize their opponents, others stay aloof and silent during even the toughest of challenges.

Alignment: Monks may be of any alignment. Really. If a bar brawl breaks out, some Monks will try to break it up, other Monks will join in. Whatever.

Races: Because the martial paths of a Monk embrace all manners of comportment, from Stoic Lawfulness to Boisterous Chaos, almost every sapient race has those who take up the monk's path. With its lack of emphasis on ranged weaponry, few of the slower races turn towards these magical combat styles, and halflings and dwarves rarely become monks. The discipline emphasizes physical strength as much as it emphasizes perceptiveness and inner strength, so orcs are as likely to become monks as Kuo-Toa are.

Starting Gold: 2d4x10 gp (50 gold)

Starting Age: As Monk.

Hit Die: d8
Class Skills: The Monk's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (all skills individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), and Tumble (Dex).
Skills/Level: 4 + Intelligence Bonus
BAB: Good (1/1), Saves: Fort: Good; Reflex: Good; Will: Good

Level, Benefit
1 Armored in Life, Fatal Strike, Willow Step, Fighting Style
2 Rain of Flowers, Abundant Leap
3 Fighting Style
4 Diamond Soul
5 Fighting Style
6 Walk of a Thousand Steps
7 Fighting Style
8 Immaculate Diamond Soul
9 Master Fighting Style
10 Leap of the Clouds
11 Master Fighting Style
12 Master of the Four Winds
13 Master Fighting Style
14 Master of the Four Seasons
15 Grand Master Fighting Style
16 Master of Diamond Soul
17 Grand Master Fighting Style
18 Perfect Mastery
19 Grand Master Fighting Style
20 Grand Master of Flowers

All of the following are Class Features of the Monk class:

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Monks are proficient with all simple weapons, as well any weapon defined as a special monk weapon, such as the sai, the nunchuka, the kama, the shuriken, and the triple staff. Monks are not proficient with any armor or shields of any kind.

Armored in Life (Su): A Monk has a special Armor bonus whenever they are not using armor or shields that he is not proficient in. This Armor Bonus applies against Touch Attacks and Incorporeal Touch Attacks, and has a value of +4. Every even numbered class level, the Armored in Life bonus increases by 1. If the Monk wears armor which he is proficient in (for example: normal clothing) that has an enhancement bonus, that enhancement bonus applies to his Armored in Life Armor Bonus.

Willow Step (Su): A true monk does not seek to outrun the fist, but to anticipate it. If a Monk would be allowed to add his Dexterity modifier to a Reflex Save or Armor Class, he may add his Wisdom bonus (if positive) instead.

Fatal Strike (Su): A Monk has a natural weapon Slam in addition to whatever else he is capable of doing. As a natural slam attack, if he uses no other natural or manufactured weapons he adds his Strength and a half to damage and may make iterative attacks if he has sufficient BAB. If the slam is used with other weaponry, it becomes a secondary natural attack, suffers a -5 penalty to-hit, and adds only half his Strength modifier to damage. A monk's slam attack does a base of 1d8 damage for a medium sized monk and does more or less damage as appropriate if the Monk is larger or smaller than medium size.

Fighting Style (Su): At levels 1, 3, 5, and 7, the Monk learns a Fighting Style. Each Fighting style requires a Swift Action to activate, lasts one round, and is usable at will. Each Fighting Style must have a name (see Naming Your Fighting Style below), and provides two bonuses from the Fighting Style Abilities:


Fighting Style Abilities

-While Active, your Fighting Style provides a +4 Dodge Bonus to AC.

-While Active, your Fighting Style provides a +4 Dodge Bonus to Saving Throws.

-While Active, your Fighting Style forces any opponent struck by your slam attack to make a Fortitude Save (DC 10 + ½ your character level + your Wisdom Modifier) or become stunned for one round.

-While Active, your Fighting Style allows you to make an attack of opportunity against any opponent who attacks you. This attack of opportunity must be a trip or disarm attempt.

-While Active, your Fighting Style provides you with concealment.

-While Active, your Fighting Style provides a +30' Insight Bonus to your movement rate.

-While Active, your Fighting Style allows your slam attacks to ignore hardness and DR.

-While Active, your Fighting Style provides any bonuses it gives to your slam attack to any attack you make with any weapon.

-While Active, your Fighting Style causes your slam attack to inflict piercing damage and to inflict 2 points of Constitution damage.

-While Active, your Fighting Style causes your slam attack to inflict slashing damage and to reduce your opponent's movement rate by 10' every time they suffer damage from it. This movement rate reduction can be healed like ability damage (treating 5' of movement as 1 point of ability damage).

-While Active, your Fighting Style allows you to move through occupied spaces as if they were unoccupied and you provoke no attacks of opportunity for your movement.



Rain of Flowers (Su): Any time a 2nd level Monk inflicts lethal damage, he may elect to inflict non-lethal damage instead. Any time a Monk inflicts non-lethal damage, he may elect to inflict lethal damage instead.

Abundant Leap (Su): At 2nd level, a Monk's ability to jump is unbounded by his height. In addition, the DC for any jump check is divided by two.

Diamond Soul (Su): At 4th level, the Monk gains Spell Resistance equal to 5 + his character level. At 8th level, his soul becomes immaculate and his Spell Resistance improves to 10 + character level, and at 16th level he masters his diamond soul and his spell resistance improves to 15 + character level.

Walk of a Thousand Steps: Once per day, a Monk of sixth level or higher may activate a Fighting Style and extend its duration to 1 round/level rather than 1 round. Activating this Fighting Style is still a Swift Action. Other Fighting Styles may be activated during this period, though their duration is normally going to be only 1 round.

Master Fighting Style (Su): At levels 9, 11, and 13, the Monk learns a Master Fighting Style. Each Master Fighting style requires a Swift Action to activate, lasts one round, and is usable at will. Each Master Fighting Style must have a name (see Naming Your Fighting Style below), and provides two bonuses from the Master Fighting Style Abilities. When a Monk gains a new Master Fighting Style, he may replace one of his Fighting Styles with a different Fighting Style.
Master Fighting Style Abilities:

-While Active, your Master Fighting Style allows you to teleport yourself and everything you are physically carrying 60 feet in any direction as a free action usable once per round.

-While Active, your Master Fighting Style provides total concealment.

-While Active, your Master Fighting Style transforms your slam attacks into Force effects that inflict Force damage.

-While Active, your Master Fighting Style affects any creature struck with your slam attack with a banishment effect that transports it back to its home plane unless it succeeds at a Will save (DC 10 + ½ character level + Wisdom Modifier). Outsiders suffer a -4 penalty to their saving throw. A creature so banished, may not return to the plane it was banished from for a year.

-While Active, your Master Fighting Style forces any creature struck by your slam attack to make a Reflex Save (DC 10 + ½ character level + Wisdom Modifier) or be helpless for one round.

-While Active, your Master Fighting Style provides you the effect of an air walk spell, and gives you a +20' Competence bonus to your speed.

-While Active, your Master Fighting Style affects any opponent you successfully trip or bulrush with the violent thrust version of telekinesis, with a caster level equal to your character level. There is no saving throw against this effect.

-While Active, your Master Fighting Style allows you to shoot fire out of your hands or mouth as a standard action. The fire can be shot out to medium range, requires a ranged touch attack, and inflicts 1d6 of fire damage per character level if it hits.

-While Active, your Master Fighting Style causes your slam attack to inflict vile damage.

-While Active, your Master Fighting Style forces every creature within 10 feet of you to make a Will save (DC 10 + ½ character level + Wisdom Modifier) or become panicked for one minute.

-While Active, your Master Fighting Style affects any target you strike with your slam attack with a targeted version greater dispelling with a caster level equal to your character level.

-While Active, your Master Fighting Style causes 5d6 of Sonic damage to everything within 30 feet of you when you inflict damage with your slam attack against any target. You are immune to Sonic damage while your Master Fighting Style is active.

-Instead of gaining a Master Fighting Style Ability, you may choose two regular Fighting Style Abilties.


Leap of the Clouds (Su): At 10th level, the DC for any jump check is divided by 5.

Master of the Four Winds (Su): The Monk's breath of life is carried on the winds of fate. At 12th level, if the monk is restored to life, he doesn't lose a level for doing so.

Master of the Four Seasons: Time passes relentlessly in the world, but for a monk of 14th level, the change of seasons is as no change at all. He no longer appears to age, never accumulates any additional penalties for growing older and will never die of old age.

Grand Master Fighting Style (Su): At levels 15, 17, and 19, the Monk learns a Grand Master Fighting Style. Each Grand Master Fighting style requires a Swift Action to activate, lasts one round, and is usable at will. Each Grand Master Fighting Style must have a name (see Naming Your Fighting Style below), and provides two bonuses from the Grand Master Fighting Style Abilities. When a Monk gains a new Grand Master Fighting Style, he may replace one of his Fighting Styles or Master Fighting Style with a different Style of the same type.

Grand Master Fighting Style Abilities:

-While Active, your Grand Master Fighting Style makes you and everything you are carrying incorporeal, your slam attacks are incorporeal touch attacks.

-While Active, your Grand Master Fighting Style slows down time to the point where you can act twice each round, you do not gain an extra Swift Action during your extra actions.

-While Active, your Grand Master Fighting Style allows you to punch a hole through space and time, allowing you to open a travel version of gate with a slam attack.

-While Active, your Grand Master Fighting Style prevents all [Teleport] effects from entering or exiting within 1 mile of your location.

-While Active, your Grand Master Fighting Style causes your slam attacks to reduce the spell resistance of enemies by an equal amount to the damage the slam attack inflicts.

-While Active, your Grand Master Fighting Style forces every creature struck with your slam attack to make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + ½ character level + Wisdom Modifier) or die.

-While Active, your Grand Master Fighting Style affects any target you strike with your slam attack with a disintegrate effect, with a caster level equal to your character level (DC 10 + ½ character level + Wisdom Modifier).

-While Active, your Grand Master Fighting Style causes you to regenerate. You recover a number of points of nonlethal damage each round equal to your character level. Unarmed or Slam attacks inflict regular damage.

-While Active, your Grand Master Fighting Style forces any opponent you strike with your slam attack to make a Willpower save (DC 10 + ½ character level + Wisdom Modifier) or become feeble minded.

-While Active, your Grand Master Fighting Style affects every target you strike with a slam attack with the violent thrust version of telekinesis, with a caster level equal to your character level. There is no saving throw against this effect.

-Instead of gaining a Grand Master Fighting Style Ability, you may choose two Master Fighting Style Abilties.


Perfect Mastery: Once per day, a Monk of 18th level or higher may activate a Fighting Style, Master Fighting Style, or Grand Master Fighting Style and extend its duration to 1 round/level rather than 1 round. Activating this style is still a Swift Action. Other styles may be activated during this period, though their duration is normally going to be only 1 round

Grand Master of Flowers: At 20th level, the Monk becomes an Outsider, and immortal of legend. He gains the augmented subtype of his previous type, and has Damage Reduction of 20/Epic.

Naming your Fighting Style: Roll a d10, or choose an adjective, an animal, and a noun:

Adjective Chart:

Running

Hungry

Angry

Naked

Drunken

Fortunate

Lazy

Swift

Powerful

Enlightened

Animal Chart:

Ox

Tiger

Dragon

Crane

Monkey

Turtle

Manticore

Serpent

Hummingbird

Demon

Noun Chart:

Fist

Stance

Spinning Kick

Attack

Technique

Style

Dance

Movement

Touch

Fu

Note from the authors: Feel free to add any adjectives, animals, or nouns that you want. There's no reason that your character's fighting style has to be called "Naked Tiger Stance" rather than "Astonished Centaur Defense".


Jester
"Well no, but if I was doing it to anyone else, you'd think it was funny."

To be a Jester is to see the joke in every tragedy. For them, life’s a party, and most poor bastards are not invited. They live hard, play hard, and laugh hard knowing that at any moment their life might be cut short by an uncaring world. Jesters may play at being buffoons, but each is a student of life and of people, and they understand not only what makes people laugh, but what makes them cry. As adventurers, they often appreciate baubles and magical trinkets as much as anyone else, but their main goal is to have fun. When fighting enemies, their sense of humor takes a macabre and dark turn, becoming cruel and vicious to better demoralize their foe. As followers of the Laughing God Who Has No Temples, they are generally disrespectful atheists who wander the world looking for excitement and amusement, righting wrongs or committing crimes as the mood takes them. .

Alignment: A Jester may be of any non-Lawful alignment.

Races: Jesters appear in all cultures and all races have need of buffoons.

Starting Gold: 6d4x10 gp (150 gold)

Starting Age: As Rogue.

Hit Die: d6
Class Skills: The Jester’s skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disable Device (Int), Disguise (Cha), Gather Information (Cha), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), and Use Magic Device (Cha).
Skills/Level: 6 + Intelligence Bonus
BAB: Medium (3/4), Saves: Fort: Poor; Reflex: Good; Will: Poor

Level, Benefit
1 Harlequin’s Mask, Ignore Components, Poison Use, Spellcasting
2 Laugh It Off
3 +1d6 Sneak Attack, Power Slide
4 Jester’s Fient
5 Cruel Comment
6 +2d6 sneak Attack
7 Sight Gag
8 Low Comedy, Slapstick
9 +3d6 sneak Attack
10 Jack-in-the-Box King
11 +4d6 sneak Attack
12 Killer Clown
13 +5d6 sneak Attack
14 Annoy the Gods
15 +6d6 sneak Attack
16 Prat Fall
17 +7d6 sneak Attack
18 Last Trick
19 +8d6 sneak Attack
20 Eternal Trickster

All of the following are Class Features of the Jester class:

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Jesters are proficient with light armor but not with shields of any kind. A Jester is proficient with no weapons, but suffers no attack penalty for using a weapon with which they are not proficient or which is made for a character of a different size than themselves. Even, perhaps especially, improvised weapons may be used without the usual -4 penalty.

Spellcasting: The Jester is an Arcane Spellcaster with the same spells per day progression as a Bard. A Jester casts spells from the Jester Spell List (below). A Jester automatically knows every spell on his spell list. He can cast any spell he knows without preparing them ahead of time, provided that spell slots of an appropriate level are still available.
To cast a Jester spell, he must have a Charisma at least equal to 10 + the Spell level. The DC of the Jester's spells is Charisma based and the bonus spells are Charisma based.

Poison Use (Ex): A Jester may prepare, apply, and use poison without any chance of poisoning himself.

Ignore Components: A Jester may cast spells from the Jester list without using material components, regardless of whether they are costly or not. This has no effect on any spells that a Jester casts from any other spell-list.

Harlequin’s Mask (Ex): As long as a Jester’s face is painted, masked, or adorned in the manner of a harlequin or other comedic figure, he is immune to compulsion effects.

Laugh It Off (Ex): Fate protects fools and little children, and Jesters certainly adopt the role of fools. At 2nd level, a Jester may add his Charisma modifier as a morale bonus to his saves.

Power Slide (Ex): If a 3rd level Jester takes damage from an attack, he may allow herself to be flung backwards , thereby lessening the impact. He may make a Balance check with a DC equal to the damage inflicted and if she succeeds, he suffers only half damage. This is a skill check, not a Saving Throw, so abilities such as Evasion do not apply. He is moved away from the source of damage by 5' for every 5 points of damage (or part there of) negated in this way. If there is not enough space for him to move, he suffers a d6 of damage for each square not moved. If he passes through an occupied square, the Jester would have to make a tumble check to avoid attacks of opportunity.

If this ability is gained from another class, then the Jester may choose to increase or decrease the total distance moved by 50% (so a Power Slide that negated 12 points of damage can cause him to move 5’, 10’, or 15’ at her choice).

Sneak Attack (Ex): At 3rd level, a Jester gains the ability to make sneak attacks as a rogue would. At 3rd level, his sneak attacks inflict 1 extra d6 of damage, and this increases by 1d6 at levels 6, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, and 19.

Jester’s Feint (Ex): At 4th level, a Jester learns to shock and unnerve his enemies by throwing unexpected objects at them. At a swift action, he may toss a brightly colored object in the square of an enemy with a Sleight of Hand Check opposed by the enemy’s Spot check. If it succeeds, the enemy is denied his Dex bonus for the Jester’s next attack.

Some Jesters use objects with magical or alchemic effects that act in an enemy’s square to use with this ability, while others use colored balls, fruit, pieces of cloth or scarves, or other cast-off materials that fit the requirement of being brightly colored. Wealthy, desperate, or foolish Jesters sometime used coins or gems.

Cruel Comment (Ex) At 5th level, the Jester has learned to say extremely funny but hurtful things about others. As a swift action, the Jester can make a Bluff check opposed by the target’s level plus Charisma check. If the target fails this check, he suffers a -4 to attack rolls, saves, and all other checks. This effect lasts 3 rounds. This is a language-dependant ability.

Sight Gag: At 7th level, the Jester may apply the Silent Spell and Still Spell metamagics spontaneously to his spells, but only if he casts them as full-round actions. This ability only works with spells on the Jester list, and it does not increase the spell’s level or slot used.

Low Comedy (Ex): By using this ability, a Jester of 8th level or higher can double the armor check penalty of an opponent within 50 feet that he hits with a ranged touch attack. Using this ability is an attack action and counts as a thrown weapon. The penalty can be restored to its normal value with 10 minutes and a bar of soap.

Slapstick (Ex): At 8th level, any successful sneak attack also inflict a -2 Dex penalty to an enemy for one round.

Jack-in-the-Box King (Sp): Twice per day, a 10th level Jester may use fabricate or major creation as a spell-like ability, but only if he is constructing weapons or traps.

Killer Clown (Ex): At 12th level, so long as he meets the requirements of his Harlequin’s face ability, the Jester can make a special Intimidate check as a move action. If successful, this check causes the enemy to suffer the panicked condition for a round per Jester level. This is a mind-effecting fear effect.

Annoy the Gods (Su): As world-class pranksters, Jesters must learn to avoid the curses and transformations of enemies with a sense of humor. Any time a 14th level Jester has spent at least one round as the victim of an effect that could be removed by a break enchantment effect, the effect is removed.

Prat Fall (Ex): At 16th level, any time a Jester strikes an enemy with a sneak attack, the Jester can make a free Trip attack that does not provoke an Attack of Opportunity. This ability cannot be used on any one enemy more than once a round. The Jester may not be tripped if this fails, and it may be used with ranged sneak attacks. The Jester may substitute his Dexterity modifier for his Strength modifier for the opposed test to trip his foe.

Last Trick (Su): At 18th level, the Jester can turn even his death into a joke. Any time the Jester is killed or knocked unconscious, one of his spells known is cast as if it were spell in a contingency effect.

Eternal Trickster (Ex) At 20th level, the Jester can become a personification of the Laughing God Who has No Temples. While meeting the requirements of his Harlequin’s Mask ability, he does not age and is under the effects of a mind blank effect.

Jester Spells:
0th Level: Alarm, Detect Magic, Detect Poison, Grease, Unseen Servant, Ventriloquism.
1stLevel: Fire Trap, Glitterdust, Magic Mouth, Misdirection, Pyrotechnics, Reduce Person, Sleet Storm, Tasha's Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter, Teleport Trap, Touch of Idiocy.
2nd Level: Baleful Transposition, Explosive Runes, Glyph of Warding, Rage, Rope Trick, Secret Page, sepia snake sigil, Unluck.
3rd Level: Feeblemind, Minor Globe of Invulnerability, Modify Memory, Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound, Nightmare, Servant Horde, Shrink Item.
4th Level: Globe of Invulnerability, Greater Glyph of Warding, Insect Plague, Persistent Image, Sword of Deception, Symbol of Weakness, Tree Shape, Wood Rot.
5th Level: Bigby's Interposing Hand, Energy Immunity, Eyebite, Repulsion, Screen, Symbol of Insanity, Telekinesis.
6th Level: Creeping Doom, Insanity, Refuge, Symbol of Sleep, Symbol of Stunning, Temporal Stasis.


Assassin
"I kill people. Individually, you are a person. Collectively, I think you count as people."

An assassin is a master of the art of killing, a vicious weapon honed by experience and inclination to learn the myriad ways to end a life. Unlike common warriors or rogues, an Assassin does not study various fighting arts or muddle his training with martial dirty tricks, he instead studies the anatomy of the various creatures of wildly different anatomies and forms of existence, and he uses this knowledge to place his blows in areas vital for biological or mystical reasons. Stealth and sudden violence are his hallmarks, and various exotic tools and killing methods become his tools.

While most societies consider assassination to be a vile art, or at best a dishonorable or unvalorous one, the reasons that drive these killers vary. Cold-hearted mercenaries share a skill set with dedicated demon-hunters, differing only in the application of their skills. Only the most naïve student of ethics believes that all killing is evil, or that nobility cannot be found in a mercifully quick death.

Alignment: An Assassin may be of any alignment.

Races: any

Starting Gold: 6d4x10 gp (150 gold)

Starting Age: As Rogue.

Hit Die: d6
Class Skills: The Assassin’s skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disable Device (Int), Disguise (Cha), Gather Information (Cha), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (all) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), and Use Magic Device (Cha).
Skills/Level: 6 + Intelligence Bonus
BAB: Medium (3/4), Saves: Fort: Good; Reflex: Good; Will: Poor

Level, Benefit
1 Poison Use, Death Attack +3d6, Personal Immunity, Spellcasting
2 Uncanny Dodge, Death Attack +4d6
3 Hide in Plain Sight, Death Attack +5d6
4 Cloak of Discretion, Death Attack +6d6
5 Traps, Trapmaking, Death Attack +7d6
6 Palm Weapon, Death Attack +8d6
7 Full Death Attack, Death Attack +9d6
8 Nerve of the Assassin, Death Attack +10d6
9 Improved Uncanny Dodge, Death Attack +11d6
10 Skill Mastery, Death Attack +12d6
11 Poisonmaster, Death Attack +13d6
12 Personal Immunity, Death Attack +14d6
13 Exotic Method, Death Attack +15d6
14 Personal Immunity, Death Attack +16d6
15 Killer’s Proof, Death Attack +17d6
16 Exotic Method, Death Attack +18d6
17 Death by a Thousand Cuts, Death Attack +19d6
18 Mind Blank, Death Attack +20d6
19 Exotic Method, Death Attack +21d6
20 Killing Strike, Death Attack +22d6

All of the following are Class Features of the Assassin class:

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Assassins are proficient with all Light Weapons, as well as simple weapons, repeating crossbows, and hand crossbows. At first level, an Assassin gains proficiency with one Exotic Weapon of her choice. Assassins are proficient with Light Armor but not with shields.

Spellcasting: The Assassin is an Arcane Spellcaster with the same spells per day and spells known progression as a Bard, except that he gains no more than three spell slots per level. An Assassin’s spells known may be chosen from the Sorcerer/Wizard list, and must be from the schools of Divination, Illusion, or Necromancy.

To cast an Assassin spell, she must have an Intelligence at least equal to 10 + the Spell level. The DC of the Assassin's spells is Intelligence based and the bonus spells are Intelligence based.

Poison Use (Ex): An Assassin may prepare, apply, and use poison without any chance of poisoning herself.

Death Attack (Ex): An Assassin may spend a full-round action to study an opponent who would be denied their Dexterity bonus if she instead attacked that target. If she does so, her next attack is a Death Attack if she makes it within 1 round. A Death Attack inflicts a number of extra dice of damage equal to her Assassin level plus two dice, but only if the target is denied its Dexterity Bonus to AC against that attack. Special attacks such as a coup de grace may be a Death Attack. Assassins are well trained in eliminating magical or distant opponents, and do not have to meet the stringent requirements of a sneak attack, though if a character has both sneak attack and death attack, they stack if the character meets the requirements of both. As long as the victim is denied their dexterity against attacks from the assassin during the study action and the attack itself, it counts as a death attack. An Assassin may load a crossbow simultaneously with his action to study his target if he has a Base Attack Bonus of +1 or more.

Personal Immunity (Ex): Choose four poisons, an Assassin is immune to all four of those poisons, even if they are made available in a stronger strength. At levels 5, 7, and 12 the Assassin may choose one more type of poison to become immune to. At level 14, an Assassin becomes immune to all poisons.

Uncanny Dodge (Ex): Starting at 2nd level, an Assassin can react to danger before his senses would normally allow him to do so. He retains her Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) even if she is caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. However, he still loses her Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilized.
If an Assassin already has uncanny dodge from a different class he automatically gains improved uncanny dodge (see below) instead.

Hide in Plain Sight (Ex): A 3rd level Assassin can hide in unusual locations, and may hide in areas without cover or concealment without penalty. An Assassin may even hide while being observed. This ability does not remove the -10 penalty for moving at full speed, or the -20 penalty for running or fighting.

Cloak of Discretion (Su): At 4th level, an Assassin is protected by a constant Nondetection effect, with a caster level equal to his character level.

Trapfinding: At 5th level, Assassins can use the Search skill to locate traps when the task has a Difficulty Class higher than 20.

Finding a nonmagical trap has a DC of at least 20, or higher if it is well hidden. Finding a magic trap has a DC of 25 + the level of the spell used to create it.

Assasins can use the Disable Device skill to disarm magic traps. A magic trap generally has a DC of 25 + the level of the spell used to create it.
An Assassin who beats a trap’s DC by 10 or more with a Disable Device check can study a trap, figure out how it works, and bypass it (with her party) without disarming it.

Trapmaking: At 5th level, the Assassin learns to build simple mechanical traps in out of common materials. As long as has access to ropes, flexible material like green wood, and weapon-grade materials like sharpened wooden sticks or steel weapons, he can build an improvised trap in 10 minutes. He can build any non-magical trap on the “CR 1” trap list that doesn’t involve a pit. These traps have a Search DC equal to 20 + the Assassin’s level, have a BAB equal to his own, and are always single-use traps. He may add poison to these traps, if he has access to it, but it will dry out in an hour.

Full Death Attack: At 7th level, if the Assassin studies an opponent to perform a Death Attack, she can make a full attack during the next round where every attack inflicts Death Attack damage as long as the target was denied their Dexterity bonus to AC against the first attack in the full attack action.

Skill Mastery (Ex): At 10th level, an Assassin becomes so certain in the use of certain skills that she can use them reliably even under adverse conditions. When making a skill check with Climb, Disable Device, Hide, Move Silently, Search, Spellcraft, Use Magic Device, Use Rope, or Swim, she may take 10 even if stress and distractions would normally prevent her from doing so.

Palm Weapon (Su) At 6th level, the Assassin learns to conceal weapons with supernatural skill. Any weapon successfully concealed with Sleight of Hand cannot be found with divination magic.

Nerve of the Killer: At 8th level, an Assassin gains a limited immunity to compulsion and charm effects. While studying a target for a Death Attack, and for one round afterward, he counts as if he were within a protection from evil effect. This does not confer a deflection bonus to AC.

Improved Uncanny Dodge (Ex): An Assassin of 9th level or higher can no longer be flanked. This defense denies another character the ability to sneak attack the character by flanking him, unless the attacker has at least four more levels in a class that provides sneak attack than the target. If a character already has uncanny dodge (see above) from a second class, the character automatically gains improved uncanny dodge instead, and the levels from the classes that grant uncanny dodge stack to determine the minimum level required to flank the character.

Poisonmaster: At 11th level, the Assassin learns alchemic secrets for creating short-term poisons. By expending an entire healer’s kit worth of materials and an hour of time, he can synthesize one dose of any poison in the DMG. This poison degrades to uselessness in one week.

Exotic Method At 13th, 16th, and 19th level the Assassin learns an exotic form of killing from the list below. Once chosen, this ability does not change:


Carrier: Three times per day, the Assassin can cast contagion as a swift action spell-like ability.

Poison of the Cockatrice: Twice per day, the Assassin can cast flesh to stone as a swift action spell-like ability.

Killer Faerie Arts: Twice per day, the Assassin can cast polymorph other as a swift action spell-like ability.

Proxy Assassin: Twice per day, the Assassin can cast summon monster VII as a spell-like ability. This effect lasts 10 minutes.

Death By Plane Once per day, the Assassin can cast plane shift as a spell-like ability.

Dimesional Rip: Once per day, the Assassin can cast implosion as a spell-like ability. The duration of this effect is three rounds.

New School: The Assassin may now choose spells known from a new school.


Killer’s Proof (Su): At 15th level, the Assassin learns to steal the souls of those he kills. If he is holding an onyx worth at least 100 GP when he kills an enemy, he may place their soul within the gem as if he has cast soul bind on them at the moment of their death.

Death by a Thousand Cuts: At 17th level, the assassin has learned to kill even the hardiest of foes by reducing their physical form to shambles. Every successful Death attack inflicts a cumulative -2 Dexterity penalty to the Assassin’s victim. These penalties last one day.

Mind Blank (Su): At 18th level, the Assassin is protected by a constant mind blank effect.

Killing Strike (Su): At 20th level, the Assassin’s Death Attacks bypass his victim’s DR and hardness.

Thief Acrobat
"They put their safe on the ceiling, it's like they wanted me to take these scrolls."

While the common rogue is a thief, con-man, and scout extraordinaire, the thief acrobat is a highly trained specialist in the art of housebreaking and feats of dexterity and acrobatics. As an adventurer, they are masters of negotiating difficult terrain and situations with flair and panache. Masters of athletics and gymnastics, they hone their art to a level that seems to be magical to the initiated. Most use these skills to gain the easy score or poorly defended hoard, but some take up the life of an adventurer as a chance to test their purely mortals skills against the world full of magic and supernatural creatures.

Alignment: Any.

Races: Any

Starting Gold: 4d4x10 gp (100 gold)

Starting Age: As Rogue

Hit Die: d6
Class Skills: The Thief Acrobat's skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Appraise (Int), Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disable Device (Int), Escape Artist (Dex), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), Use Magic Device (Cha), and Use Rope (Dex).

Skills/Level: 6 + Intelligence Bonus
BAB: Medium (3/4), Saves: Fort: Poor; Reflex: Good; Will: Poor

Level, Benefit
1 Acrobatic Flair, Trapfinding, Pole Jump
2 +1d6 Sneak Attack, Evasion
3 Sure Climb, Kip Up
4 detect magic, Grapple Line
5 +2d6 Sneak Attack, Rapid Stealth
6 Mercurial Charge
7 +3d6 Sneak Attack, Unsettling Choreography
8 Improved Evasion
9 +4d6 Sneak Attack, Athletic Cascade
10 Skill Mastery
11 +5d6 Sneak Attack, Aggressive Stealth
12 Dedicated Evasion
13 +6d6 Sneak Attack, Power Slide
14 Shadow Tumble
15 +7d6 Sneak Attack
16 Death From Above
17 +8d6 Sneak Attack
18 Supreme Skill Mastery
19 +9d6 Sneak Attack
20 Supreme Evasion

All of the following are Class Features of the Thief Acrobat class:

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Thief Acrobats are proficient with all simple weapons, as well as the sap, the shortsword, the whip, the bolas, the long staff, and the shuriken. Thief Acrobats are proficient with light armor but not with shields of any kind.

Trapfinding: At 1st level, Thief Acrobats can use the Search skill to locate traps when the task has a Difficulty Class higher than 20.
Finding a nonmagical trap has a DC of at least 20, or higher if it is well hidden. Finding a magic trap has a DC of 25 + the level of the spell used to create it.
Thief Acrobats can use the Disable Device skill to disarm magic traps. A magic trap generally has a DC of 25 + the level of the spell used to create it.
An Thief Acrobat who beats a trap’s DC by 10 or more with a Disable Device check can study a trap, figure out how it works, and bypass it (with her party) without disarming it.

Acrobatic Flair (Ex): A Thief Acrobat may move her full movement while using the Tumble or Balance skill without suffering a penalty or increasing the DC of her check.

Pole Jump (Ex): If holding a pole, spear, staff, long staff, or other pole-like object in both hands, a Thief Acrobat can add twice her reach to her final distance moved during a Jump check, and in this instance her jump distances are not limited by her height..

Sneak Attack (Ex): At 2nd level, a Thief Acrobat gains the sneak attack ability as a Rogue. Her sneak attacks inflict an extra d6 of damage at 2nd level. This damage increases by 1d6 at levels 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, and 19.

Evasion (Ex): If a 2nd level Thief Acrobat succeeds in a Reflex Save to halve damage, she suffers no damage instead.

Sure Climb (Ex): At 3rd level, a Thief Acrobat gains a climb speed equal to half her land speed.

Kip Up (Ex): At 3rd level, a Thief Acrobat may stand up from prone as a free action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity.

Detect Magic (Sp): At 4th level, a Thief Acrobat may use detect magic at-will as a spell-like ability. A Thief Acrobat may use her Appraise Skill in place of her Spellcraft in order to glean additional information from her detect magic.

Grapple Line: At 4th level, a Thief Acrobat becomes a master of using grapples and grappling lines. By firing a missile weapon designed as a grappling weapon at an unoccupied square and doing at least 1 point of damage to an object filling that square (wall, ceiling, statue, etc) or a securely affixed object (ceiling post, small statue affixed to floor, etc), a Thief Acrobat can run a rope from his current potion to that location as a full round action. He may then use this rope to make Balance or Climb checks as normal.

Weapons designed as grappling weapons have a simple pulley and loop attached at the end and are balanced for this modification, and have at least a 50’ length of strong thread running through it and connected to a rope so that it can be pulled through swiftly. They cost an additional +1 GP each (ammunition costs as much as normal weapons), and suffer a 5 ft reduction in range increment. Many grappling weapons are made out of adamantite in order to better penetrate hard materials like stone.

Athletic Cascade (Ex): At 9th level, if a Thief Acrobat moves before making an attack, for the purposes of flanking she may count any square she has moved through as threatening an opponent, in addition to the space she is actually attacking from. In this manner, she may even flank with herself

Rapid Stealth (Ex): At level 5, the Thief Acrobat does not suffer the -10 penalty to Move Silently or Hide for moving at her full normal speed. She still suffers the normal -20 penalties to hide and move silently for running or fighting if she performs those actions.

Mercurial Charge (Ex): At level 6, a Thief Acrobat need not move in a straight line to charge, nor must she charge the closest available space. She still may not move back on herself during a charge, and her charge move still ends as soon as she threatens her target.

Unsettling Choreography (Ex): A Thief Acrobat of 7th level is adept at making other creatures fall down, and may use her Dexterity Modifier in place of her Strength modifier when making a trip or bullrush attempt.

Improved Evasion (Ex): When a Thief Acrobat of 8th level fails a Reflex Save to halve damage, she takes half damage anyway.

Skill Mastery (Ex): At 10th level, a Thief Acrobat is able to take 10 on any Appraise, Balance, Disable Device, Jump, Hide, Move Silently, and Tumble checks even in stressful or dangerous situations.

Aggressive Stealth (Ex): A Thief Acrobat of 11th level does not suffer the -20 penalty to Hide or Move Silently checks for running or fighting.

Dedicated Evasion (Ex): At 12th level, a Thief Acrobat gains the ability to evade with almost supernatural skill. As a standard action, she can add her Thief Acrobat level as a Dodge bonus to her Reflex Saves and AC for one round.

Power Slide (Ex): If a 13th level Thief Acrobat takes damage from an attack, she may allow herself to be flung backwards , thereby lessening the impact. She may make a Balance check with a DC equal to the damage inflicted and if she succeeds, she suffers only half damage. This is a skill check, not a Saving Throw, so abilities such as Evasion do not apply. She is moved away from the source of damage by 5' for every 5 points of damage (or part there of) negated in this way. If there is not enough space for her to move, she suffers a d6 of damage for each square not moved. If she passes through an occupied square, the Thief Acrobat would have to make a tumble check to avoid attacks of opportunity.

Shadow Tumble (Su): At 14th level, a Thief Acrobat has learned to tumble through the Plane of Shadow. She may make a tumble check with a DC equal to 10 plus five for every square she wishes to pass through another plane of existence. Intervening terrain, even walls of force have no effect on movement through the plane of shadow. The Thief Acrobat's total distance moved does not increase, no matter how much of it may be taken through the plane of shadow.

Death From Above (Ex): At 16th level, the Thief Acrobat has learned to used the energy of a fall to devastating effect. If the Thief Acrobat can fall at least 30’ (by falling from a height or by using a Jump check) and end in her enemy's square, any attacks made at the end of that fall do triple damage. Sneak Attack is not multiplied in this way.

Supreme Skill Mastery At 19th level, a Thief Acrobat is able to take 20 on any Appraise, Balance, Disable Device, Jump, Hide, Move Silently, and Tumble checks even in stressful or dangerous situations, and does not take twenty times as long as usual for taking 20.

Supreme Evasion (Ex): At 20th level, a Thief acrobat takes no damage from any effect requiring a Reflex save.

[Arek]

[Poster's note: These are from the Tome of Fiends, and therefore have a definite planar flavor. Still, they're interesting.]



Hellwalker
"What terrors do you think I have not already seen?"

Life in the Lower Planes is generally nasty, brutish, and short, and it is only the strongest survive long enough to learn the mysteries and unique properties of these locales. The Hellwalker is one such individual. Trained in the Lower Planes and weaned on the taint of evil, these solitary hunters roam the Lower Planes, traveling along planar byways and through networks of portals too dangerous or erratic for regular use.

Hit Die: d8.
Requirements
To qualify to become a Hellwalker, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.
Skills: Knowledge (Planes) 4 ranks, Survival 8 ranks.
Feats: Track
Special: Must have visited every Lower Plane, and lived at least one year in the Lower Planes.

Class Skills
The Hellwalker’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Hide (Dex), Knowledge (geography) (Int), Knowledge (planes) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Speak Language, Spellcraft(Int), Spot (Wis), and Survival (Wis).
Skill Points at Each Level: 4 + Int modifier.
BAB: Medium(Rogue, Cleric) Saves: Fort: Good, Will: Good, Ref: Bad
Class Features

Special:
Level, Benefits
1 Members Only +1 spellcaster level
2 Craft of the Lower Planes
3 Free Traveller’s Checks +1 spellcaster level
4 Craft of the Lower Planes
5 Membership has Privileges, Skill of War +1 spellcaster level

All of the following are Class Features of the Hellwaker prestige class:

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Hellwalkers gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor.

Spellcasting: At levels 1, 3, and 5, the Hellwalker casts spells (including gaining any new spell slots and spell knowledge) as if he had also gained a level in a spellcasting class he had previous to gaining that level. If the character does not have any levels in any spellcasting classes when he takes his first level of Hellwalker, this class feature gives him levels in Sorcerer spellcasting.

Members Only(Ex): At 1st level, a Hellwalker attunes himself to energies of the Lower Planes. While on the Lower Planes, he counts as if under the effect of a Attune Form spell. If not currently on a Lower Plane, he may cast plane shift at will, with his target destination being a location on a Lower Plane.

Craft of the Lower Planes: At 2nd and 4th level, the Hellwalker learns the martial or mystical arts of the Lower Planes. He can choose to gain a +1 to spellcasting level, or a +1d6 to sneak attack dice(but only if he has sneak attack dice from another class), or a fighter bonus feat(which is must meet the prerequisites). Once chosen, this ability cannot be changed.

Free Traveller’s Checks(Sp): At 3rd level, the Hellwalker has so attuned himself to the energies of the Lower Planes that he can call this energy to himself, ferrying himself with it when the energy is strong and drawing it to him when it does not exist. While on a Lower Plane, the Hellwalker can cast teleport without error at will as a spell-like ability, with a limit of 50 pounds over his own weight. While not on a Lower Plane, a Hellwalker can cast planar bubble on himself, at will, and he can choose to be a native of any one Lower Plane(chosen each time this effect is used) for the purposes of this spell.

Membership has Privileges(Sp): A Hellwalker of 5th level has tapped into a rarely used and poorly maintained network of portals dotting the Lower Planes, and he can manipulate those portals for his own purposes. The Hellwalker may cast gate (travel version only) as a spell-like ability once per day. Unlike a normal gate, only living creatures and attended objects may pass through this gate. This ability can only be used if at least one side of the gate is on a Lower Plane.

Skill of War: At 5th level, the Hellwalker's Base Attack Bonus increases by 1 permanently.

Seer of the Tempest
"Aaaah! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAH!"

The Windswept Depths of Pandemonium breed a special kind of magician. Driven half-mad by the eternal darkness and thunderous din of the eternal windstorm, they walk the battlefields of the multiverse bringing the terrors they know to those who do not.

Most characters who become Seers of the Tempest are War Mages, though sometimes this path appeals to Wizards of a particularly martial bent.

Hit Die: d4.
Requirements
To qualify to become a Seer of the Tempest, a character must fulfill all the following criteria:
Skills: Intimidate 9 ranks.
Alignment: Non-Lawful
Spells: Must be able to cast 3rd level Arcane spells, and must be able to cast Evocations of every level she can cast.
Class Skills: The Seer of the Tempest's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (all skills taken individually) (Int), Profession (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int).
Skills/Level: 2 + Intelligence Bonus
BAB: Medium (3/4), Saves: Fort: Poor; Reflex: Poor; Will: Good

Level, Benefit
1 Increased Edge, Sonic Spells, Suffer the Firmament, +1 Spellcaster Level
2 Scary Noises, +1 Spellcaster Level
3 Winds, +1 Spellcaster Level
4 Attune Domain: Storm, +1 Spellcaster Level
5 Swift Winds, +1 Spellcaster Level
6 Uproar, +1 Spellcaster Level
7 Sense the Winds, +1 Spellcaster Level
8 Attune Domain: Darkness, +1 Spellcaster Level

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: The Seer of the Tempest gains no proficiency with armor or weapons.

Spellcasting: Every level, the Seer of the Tempest casts spells (including gaining any new spell slots and spell knowledge) as if she had also gained a level in a spellcasting class she had previous to gaining that level.

Increased Edge: If the Seer of the Tempest has the Edge class feature, she may add her class level to the Edge bonus. This has no effect if she does not have

Sonic Spells: Every spell that the Seer of the Tempest casts that inflicts any damage may inflict Sonic damage instead at her option when the spell is cast. No other effects of the spell are changed, nor is the casting time of the spell. Spells that are made to inflict Sonic damage in this way gain the [Sonic] descriptor.

Suffer the Firmament (Ex): A Seer of the Tempest is at home in a tornado as a calm day. She is unaffected by winds of any strength, and suffers no penalties to her listen checks in even the stiffest gail.

Scary Noises (Su): At 2nd level, the booming destruction of the Seer's magical attacks channels the haunting terrors of Pandemonium. Any creature damaged by a [Sonic] spell cast by the Seer must make a Willpower Save or become shaken. If a creature becomes shaken twice, she becomes frightened. The Save DC is Charisma based, and this is considered a [Fear] effect.

Winds (Sp): A Seer of the Tempest who has reached 3rd level may use gust of wind as a spell-like ability at will. At 5th level, using this ability becomes an Immediate action.

Attune Domain: At 4th level, the Seer of the Tempest gains Attune Domain (Storm Domain) as a bonus feat. At 8th level she gains Attune Domain (Darkness Domain) as a bonus feat.

Uproar (Su): As a free action, a Seer of the Tempest of 6th level can attempt to Intimidate all creatures she can target within line of effect that are within an area afflicted by Severe (or worse) winds.

Sense the Winds (Su): At 7th level, a Seer of the Tempest can feel the disturbances caused by creatures and objects within the wind. She can perceive and target any creature or object within 120 feet of herself so long as there is at least a Light Breeze.

Celestial Beacon
[Poster's Note: As near as I can tell, this is designed to be a class for Paladins to make them actually do the function they're supposed to do: Effectively resist and overcome evil. I'd be allright with it if it had Martial Weapon Proficiency as a requirement, to close it off to clerics.]

The Lower Planes are realms of evil of such magnitude that the good are oppressed in such a place. Those whose goodness is so strong that it radiates from them are beacons to the denizens of these realms, and some have learned to harness this light to burn away the unclean presence of the fiends.

Hit Die: d8.
Requirements
To qualify to become a Celestial Beacon, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.
Skills: Knowledge (Planes) 4 ranks, Knowledge(Religion) 9 ranks.
BAB: +5
Special: Must radiate moderate good.
Special: Must be proficient in heavy armor.

Skills/Level: 2 + Intelligence Bonus
BAB:Good (1/1), Saves: Fort: Good; Reflex: Poor; Will: Good

Class Skills: The Celestial Beacon class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Intimidate(Cha), Heal(Wis), Knowledge (Religion) (Int), Profession (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int).

Level, Benefits
1 Aura of Good, Smite Evil, +1 spellcaster level
2 Halo of the Righteous, +1 spellcaster level
3 Arms of the Holy, +1 spellcaster level
4 Armament of the Holy, +1 spellcaster level
5 Death Ward, +1 spellcaster level
6 Flare of Goodness, +1 spellcaster level
7 Light of Peace, +1 spellcaster level
8 Holyfire Shield, +1 spellcaster level
9 Celestial Aspect, +1 spellcaster level
10 Ward Against Evil Magic, +1 spellcaster level

All of the following are Class Features of the Celestial Beacon prestige class.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Celestial Beacons gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor, but do gain proficiency in the Tower Shield.

Aura of Good (ex): The power of a Celestial Beacon’s aura of good (see the detect good spell) is equal to her Clestial Beacon level. This stacks with any other Aura of Good Ability gained from other sources.

Smite Evil (Su): As a free action, a Celestial Beacon may attempt to smite evil with one normal melee attack. She adds her Charisma bonus (if any) to her attack roll and deals 1 extra point of damage per Celestial Beacon level. If the Celestial Beacon accidentally smites a creature that is not evil, the smite has no effect, but a use of the ability is expended for that day. The Celestial Beacon may use this ability once for every level of Celestial Beacon, and uses per day and bonuses of this effect stacks with any Smite Evil gained from other classes.

Halo of the Righteous(Su): At 2nd level, the Celestial Beacon emanates a Magic Circle Against Evil effect, as the spell.

Arms of the Holy: At 3rd level, any melee attack performed by a celestial beacon counts as good-aligned for the purposes by bypassing damage reduction.

Armament of the Holy (Su): At 4th level, any armor worn by the Celestial Beacon takes on a silvery of golden shine, and it is one category lighter than normal for purposes of movement and other limitations. Heavy armors are treated as medium, and medium armors are treated as light, but light armors are still treated as light. Spell failure chances for armors and shields worn by a Celestial Beacon are decreased by 10%, maximum Dexterity bonus is increased by 2, and armor check penalties are lessened by 3 (to a minimum of 0).
The Celestial Beacon gains DR 5/evil

Death Ward(Su): At 5th level, the Celestial Beacon is continuously under the effects of a death ward, as the spell. The irises of his eyes become gold or silver.

Flare of Goodness (Su): At 6th level, the Celestial Beacon may perform a Flare of Goodness as an immediate action. This has the effects of a Sunburst spell, and any evil magic in the radius is automatically dispelled. After using this ability, all class features gained from Celestial Beacon levels cease functioning for 1d4+1 rounds.

Light of Peace: Upon reaching 7th level, the Celestial Beacon is continuously under the effects of a sanctuary spell. If the Celestial Beacon attacks during a round, this effect ends for 1d4 rounds, then renews itself.
The Celestial Beacons also gains the ability to shine as brightly as a torch. He may suppress or renew this ability as a swift action.

Holyfire Shield (Sp) As a swift action, an 8th level Celestial Beacon can cast use a spell-like ability called Holyfire Shield at will. This effect is like a golden-colored fire shield, but the damage it inflicts is holy damage and it grants immunity to unholy damage.

Celestial Aspect : At 9th level, the Celestial Beacon becomes an Outsider, and gains a +2 to Str, +2 to Wis, and +2 to Cha. He may be restored to life according to his previous type.

Ward Against Evil Magic: At 10th level, the Celestial Beacon gains SR of 15 + character level, but only against [evil] spells and sell-like abilities and the spells and spell-like abilities cast by evil-aligned creatures.

Boatman of Styx
The River Styx is a planar path winding its way along the Lower Planes servicing the myriad planes of evil, and its waters rob mortals and immortals of their memories. Ferrymen ply these waters, offering safe passage and travel between the planes, but most are con-men looking to make a quick silver, predators in disguise, or well-meaning fools. Few beings know the truly safe routes along the River Styx, thus earning the tile of boatmen, and even fewer have accepted its nature into their very body.

Hit Die: d8.
Requirements:
To qualify to become a Boatman of Styx, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.
Skills: Knowledge (Planes) 8 ranks, Survival 4 ranks, Profession (boatman) 4 ranks.
Feats: Quickdraw
Special: Must have visited every Lower Plane via the River Styx, and lived at least one year on a boat on the River Styx.
Special +2d6 sneak attack, skirmish, or sudden strike

Class Skills
The assassin’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disable Device (Int), Disguise (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Forgery (Int), Gather Information (Cha), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (planes) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Open Lock (Dex), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), Use Magic Device (Cha), and Use Rope (Dex).
Skill Points at Each Level: 6 + Int modifier.
BAB: As Rogue(3/4) Saves Fort: Good; Reflex: Good; Will: Bad

Level, Benefits
1 Safe Passage, Stygian Blood
2 River-born, +1d6 sneak attack dice
3 Stygian Tears
4 River-marked, +2d6 sneak attack dice
5 Kiss of Lethe
6 Eternal Boatman, +3d6 sneak attack dice
7 Bonus Feat
8 Knowledgeable, +4d6 sneak attack dice
9 Stygian Tributary
10 Xirfilstyx Dance, +5d6 sneak attack dice

Class Features
All of the following are Class Features of the Boatman of Styx prestige class.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A Boatman of Styx gains proficiency in the Long Staff, but does not gain any other weapon or armor proficiency.

Safe Passage (Su): At 1st level, the Boatman of Styx learns to navigate the River Styx. When leading a boat or ship, the Boatman can lead a craft to any other planar location that contains some portion of the River Styx. This journey takes 1d6 hours, and is uneventful.

Stygian Blood(Ex): At 1st level, the Boatman of Styx has absorbed small amounts of the River Styx into his blood, and from this point forward he is immune to mind-affecting effects and the effects of the River Styx.

River-born: At 2nd level, the Boatman of Styx gains a swim speed of 60’, and he may take 10 on any Swim check. He also does not need to breathe while submersed in water.

Sneak Attack: A Boatman of Styx gains an additional die of Sneak Attack at every even numbered level.

Stygian Tears: At 3rd level, the Boatman of Styx’s tears gain the effects of the River Styx. He may collect up to one vial of tears per day. Being struck by a vial of these tears has the same effects as an exposure to the waters of the River Styx (DM’s option). If kept stoppered, these vials of tears last indefinitely.

River-marked: At 4th level, the Boatman of Styx’s continues exposure to the River Styx grants a +8 to Swim checks, a +6 to Disguise checks, and a +4 to Bluff checks.

Kiss of Lethe(Su): At 5th level, the Boatman of Styx may kiss an enemy on an opposed Grapple check. This kiss has the same effects as an exposure to the River Styx (DMs option).

Eternal Boatman(Sp): At 6th level, the Boatman of Styx may summon a normal wooden boat once per day. This boat is large enough to carry the Boatman and up to eight Medium sized passengers. This boat lasts 24 hours, then falls apart into pieces of rotted wood.

Bonus Feat: At 7th level, the Boatman of Styx gains a bonus feat. He must meet any prerequisites of this feat to choose it.

Knowledgeable: At 8th level, the Boatman of Styx’s has absorbed a critical mass of memories from swimming in the River Styx. He always has at least 10 ranks in all Knowledges, and may expend skill points to raise these Knowledges as if they were class skills.
The Boatman also gains the ability to speak, read, and write any language.

Stygian Tributary(Sp): At 9th level, the Boatman of Styx learns a secret about the River Styx: it sometimes touches rivers on planes other than the Lower Planes. Once per day, a Boatman of Styx may cast a gate (travel version only) as a spell-like ability, but only while standing on a boat in a river. This portal leads to any other river on any plane.

Xirfilstyx Dance(Su): At 10th level, the Boatman of Styx has studied these fiends of the River Styx and learned a secret fighting art. Any creature struck a Boatman of Styx’s sneak attack must make a Will save or be dazed for 1d4 rounds. Any affected creature does not remember any events while dazed.

[Arek]

I am in awe.

Some research dug up another bit of Frank and K work--The Revised Necromancer Handbook, which is pretty much a pros vs. cons combined with "How-to" for necromancers.

As per usual with Frank and K, it's got a certain style.

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.ph ... ge=1&pp=30

If I get some free time, I'll put up some samples from that.