[PrC] Atheist

[asromta]

Atheist

Elad walks on the road, on the way to a lord who requested for a cleric powerfull enough to raise his son. After a some time, while walking in the forest, a man walked to the middle of the road. "Hello Elad" said the man. "Who are you, go out of the way. I need to raise a child." "You will no longer spread the influences of your Pelor." "Go out of the way now, or you will regret it!" Elad shouted. "No." Elad stepped forward and tried to cast a spell, but as he touched the man he noticed that he could not cast his spell. "What?" He said, as a sword was pushed into his stomach.

Atheists are persons, who for some reason want the gods to have no influence on the Material Plane. Through training they notice that they learn how to live as if divine magic does not exist. They train themselves in stealth and try to destroy or atleast hamper worshippers of the gods.
The power to negatate divine magic comes from a overdeity, who long ago argued with the other gods that they should not influence the Material Plane.
Atheists rarely form an organistion, as even one is rare. However divine casters that know about them fear ever having to meet one, as atheists sometimes live just to kill as many divine casters as possible.
Hit Dice: d8

Requirements:

Skills: Knowledge(religion) 8 ranks.

Feats: Iron Will

Special: -Must not worship any deity.
-Must kill at least one cleric whose deity is up to one step away from your alignment.


Class Skills:
Bluff, Craft, Decipher Script, Disguise, Forgery, Heal, Hide, Intimidate, Knowledge(Religion), Move Silently, Profession, Search, Sense Motive, Sleight of Hand, Survival

Skill points each level: 6+int mod

Good Saves: Will

BAB: Medium (as cleric)


Class Features:

Proficiency: An Atheist gains no proficiencies.


Level Special
1.... Reject Divine, Divine Immunity 25%
2.... Divine Illusions
3.... Dispel Divine 1/day
4.... Divine Immunity 50%
5.... Anti Divine Aura 5ft
6.... Dispel Divine 2/day
7.... Divine Immunity 75%
8.... Anti Divine Aura 10ft
9.... Dispel Divine 3/day
10... Divine Immunity 100%

Reject Divine (ex): At 1st level you lose any ability to cast divine spells. You also lose every supernatural and spell-like abilities that you gain from a divine caster class. Futher any Divine Scrolls, Wands or other charged or uses/day Item that you succesfully activate loses any charges/uses it would normally have lost in the activation, but it does not work.

Divine Immunity (su): At 1st level you gain an partial immunity to divine magic. Whenever divine magic affects you there is 25% chance that that spell or effect won't affect you. A particular spell or effect only has to make this check once, untill you Divine Immunity increases.
Every 3 levels after 1st level this immunity increases by 25% up till 100% at 10st level.

Divine Illusions (su): From 2nd level you believe divine spells to be an illusion, whenever you must make a save against a divine spell, you use you Will save instead of Fortitute or Reflex save.

Dispel Divine (sp): From 3rd level once a day you can dispel divine magic. This works like Greater Dispel Magic, exept it only works against divine magic. You caster level for this spell is twice your class level.
At 6th level and every 3 levels thereafter you can use this ability a extra time per day.

Anti Divine Aura (su): From 5th level you emit an aura that prevents the casting of divine magic. Within 5 ft of you, no divine spells can be cast, and no divine magic item can be activated. You can surpress this aura as a swift action and reïnstate this aura as a standard action.
At 8th level and every 3 level thereafter the area this aura affects increases by 5 ft.

[Brickwall]

I see this class is built to progress to Epic.

I like the flavor, but the mechanics are kind of just blurring in my head. Must be the lack of sleep.

[asromta]

I have never done anything with epic, so that is not intentional.

[Brickwall]

8th level and every 3 levels thereafter means the class is intended to go beyond level 10, right?

[asromta]

Yes, I think so.

[Brickwall]

Well, Prestige Classes don't go beyond level 10 without going into Epic.

Q.E.D.

[asromta]

I think I put it that way because I saw it that way in a other PrC.

And what does Q.E.D mean?

[Brickwall]

Quod erat demonstratum, roughly translated, means something like: "I told you so".

Closer to "That has been shown", but I like my phrasology better.

[NullAshton]

So it's a way of rubbing something into someone's face? :P

Sweet. Could this prestige class give the finger to a god and get away with it?

[The Demented One]

Needs more Athar.

[asromta]

Sweet. Could this prestige class give the finger to a god and get away with it?

Yes.

And what is Athar?

[NullAshton]

Yes.

And what is Athar?

Muuwaahaahaa. Atheist characters can go godkilling at level 15! ;D

EDIT: And... it can defeat PUN PUN. :o

[asromta]

Unless the god has a weapon, and a lot more hps. He just can not use his powers against you.

[The Glyphstone]

Depending on the god. It's be proof against any divine spells they cast - but gods also have Salient Divine Abilities like Life and Death, Annihiliating Strike, etc. Even then - a war god can still just turn itself 1000000000000 feet tall and crush the impudent mortal underfoot.

But for the class itself- very neat. I'm going to show it to a fellow PC in one of the games I played (dead game, now), who hated deities.

[The Demented One]

Yes.

And what is Athar?
Planescape faction that basically said all the gods were fakes.

[ghost_warlock]

I created a base class similar to this on the WotC boards a while ago. Here's the link. (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=637694) I got some pretty good comments.

The two classes have some abilities in common and some that would jive really well together. :D Mine is a primary spellcasting class, though, and multiclassing into this would destroy it's spell progression. :( I justified the spellcasting in a similar fashion to the Ur-Priest, figuring who better to take on a CoDzilla than an Anti-CoDzilla who can match them buff-for-buff? ;)

Edit: Oh, here's a link (http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=8258529) to another great anti-divine build on WotC (posted by FriendlyBiscuit).

[asromta]

I thought about giving this class a smiting ability, but did not because I already think it is powerfull.

And not only the spellcasting would be destroyed, but also all the (su) and (sp) abilities of your class, because of 'Reject Divine'

And the second link is currently not working.

[ghost_warlock]

I thought about giving this class a smiting ability, but did not because I already think it is powerfull.

And not only the spellcasting would be destroyed, but also all the (su) and (sp) abilities of your class, because of 'Reject Divine'
Mine is basically just a cleric-type class that dumps domains for the smite and some higher-level abilities. Yeah, Reject Divine would destroy the spellcasting and other powers... :(


And the second link is currently not working.
Yeah, WotC is doing maintenance on their forum so neither of the links work right now. Should work as soon as they're done, though! :)

[asromta]

I would allow keeping the abilities of your class, if I was the DM and someone asked about it.

[martyboy74]

Planescape faction that basically said all the gods were fakes.
It's also a PrC in the Planar Handbook, IIRC.

[NullAshton]

Well, since divine abilities are magical(I think) they wouldn't work anyway. I don't think that they could even sense him.

[asromta]

Gods still have eyes, don't they? And are still far superior in melee combat.

[Winged One]

A feat I invented recently (http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=homebrew;action=display;num=11555148 78). It doesn't actually require that you hate deities, but anybody who feels the need to burn a feat on it must have something against them. Check out it's prerequisites, too.

[asromta]

I think your feat doesn't stack well with this PrC, as at level 10 the spell is never stopped by SR anyway. But the flaw seems a good choice, as you get immune to cure spells anyway.

[Closet_Skeleton]

A lot of gods have arcane magic as well. An Overdiety probably wouldn't care either.

Atheist: I don't believe in you so you can't hurt me.
God of Earth: Looks like what you're standing on doesn't agree.
Atheist: Ahhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chasm swallows atheist.

There are too many ways to hurt people indirectly when you can alter reality.

[Jack_Simth]

Quod erat demonstratum, roughly translated, means something like: "I told you so".

Closer to "That has been shown", but I like my phrasology better.
"Which was to have been proven" as I understand it.

Slight problem... 3.5, there is no separation on arcane/divine wands, staves, wondrous items, et cetera - the distinction is only present in scrolls.

[Goumindong]

Quod erat demonstratum, roughly translated, means something like: "I told you so".

Closer to "That has been shown", but I like my phrasology better.


Quod (and so)

Erat (it has)

Demonstratum (been demonstrated)



"Which was to have been proven" as I understand it.

More rightly, "That[quod] which[Also quod{kinda}] was to have been proven[Demonstratum] has been[erat]"

[CockroachTeaParty]

I actually like this PrC very much... it's kinda creepy too. I could see a TN one killing evil and good clerics in equal measure.

(Townsfolk): Thank you, stranger, for slaying that evil cleric of Nerull! How could we ever repay you?
(Athiest): Could you bring me to your local priest of Pelor?
(Townsfolk): Sure! He'll gladly heal you for free, for such bravery!
*Schlorkt! Snicker-snack!*
(Townsflok): eh... what the hell?
(Athiest): Body massage.

GI JOE!!!

[Mike_Lemmer]

Some suggestions:

-Change the check if a divine spell affects the atheist from a percentage check to a Spell Resistance check. That gives casters some options for getting past it.

-The anti-divine casting aura might need some clarification. If a cleric just outside the aura casts a Cure spell on someone just inside the aura, does the spell work or not?

-The prerequisites seem pretty light. A character could easily become an Atheist by 5th level and, technically, still be part of a church! I'd suggest upping the Knowledge (religion) to 10 ranks and adding the following prerequisites:
*Must not worship any deity.
*Must kill at least one cleric whose deity is up to one step away from your alignment. (Basically, the character must've killed at least one cleric he normally could get along with.)

[Dancing_Zephyr]

;D

[asromta]

Slight problem... 3.5, there is no separation on arcane/divine wands, staves, wondrous items, et cetera - the distinction is only present in scrolls.

I already saw that problem too, but didn't really know what do do with it. Do you know any solutions?


-Change the check if a divine spell affects the atheist from a percentage check to a Spell Resistance check. That gives casters some options for getting past it.

No, otherwise you could lower it, or otherwise gain asistance from Cure spells or other Divine magic. And he would also be hit by SR passing spells.


-The anti-divine casting aura might need some clarification. If a cleric just outside the aura casts a Cure spell on someone just inside the aura, does the spell work or not?

The spell would work, otherwise the atheist would become immune to Divine Magic at level 5th.


-The prerequisites seem pretty light. A character could easily become an Atheist by 5th level and, technically, still be part of a church! I'd suggest upping the Knowledge (religion) to 10 ranks and adding the following prerequisites:
*Must not worship any deity.
*Must kill at least one cleric whose deity is up to one step away from your alignment. (Basically, the character must've killed at least one cleric he normally could get along with.)

Why is it bad that you can gain your first level in a PrC at level 6?
And I will put in the other two. They seem good.

[amanodel]

For being so hard on anti-divine, I'd punish them with the rule that they can't just switch off the anti-divine aura around them. That's sweet when you're attacked by ability draining undeads. Or something that deals damage. In a hard dungeon, guess who's going to die first? :)

Or, as it was suggested, give him a SR versus divine spells.

About wands and magic items: make a 50% chance with every item he comes across to find out if it was made by a cleric or a wizard. Not a really good solution, but it can work. Like gambling.

[asromta]

Divine Immunity already stops beneficial spells, if you mean that. Even True Resurrection won't work though that.

And that 50% seems alright. I see no better solution.