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Realms of Chaos
2010-08-25, 10:50 PM
The Forgotten

"…I met a man who wasn’t there.”

In times ancient, an entire class of untouchables escaped from the prosecution of their “betters”, hiding themselves away from the world. Aided by a couple of magical rituals, these “skulks”, as they’ve been named in recent times have secluded themselves from society altogether, becoming all but undetectable.

A rare few have gone even further. Hiding their essences further and further, these forgotten few become identifiable not by their presence but by their complete and utter absence, a stark nothingness standing where they should rightfully be.

These beings, when referred to at all, are simply called the forgotten.

Entry Requirements:
Race: Skulk
Skills:Hide 7 ranks, Move Silently 7 ranks
Feat: Stealthy, Skill Focus (Hide or Move Silently)

The Forgotten Hit Die: d6
{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special

1st|
+0|
+0|
+2|
+0|Elude, Form Unseen, Void Touch (hide form)

2nd|
+1|
+0|
+3|
+0|Flicker, Steps Unheard, Void Touch (hide voice)

3rd|
+2|
+1|
+3|
+1|Fade, Space Untraversed, Void Touch (hide existence)[/table]
Class Skills (2 + Int modifier per level): Craft, Hide, Move Silently, Survival, Tumble

Class Features:

Void Touch (Su): Starting at 1st level, the very touch or blade of a forgotten tears others apart, sending bits of them into nothingness itself. With a successful melee weapon attack, you deal an extra 1d4 damage/class level. Alternately, with a successful melee touch attack, you instead deal 2d4 damage/class level. In both cases, the damage can be halved with a successful Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 your ECL + Intelligence modifier).
Furthermore, as you grow more powerful, you can replace some of this damage with the ability to drag others into your oblivion, applying one or more of the following abilities. Each such ability must be resisted separately with Will saves (DC 10 + 1/2 your ECL + Intelligence modifier).
Hide Form: By sacrificing 1d4 points of damage, you render the target invisible to all but you for 1d4 rounds. Unlike the invisibility spell, attacks do not render the target visible.
Hide Voice: By sacrificing 2d4 points of damage, you subject the target to a silence effect for 1d4 rounds, except that you can still hear whatever they try to say and that it does not extend beyond their person.
Hide Existence: By sacrificing 3d4 points of damage, you banish the target from existence for 1d4-1 rounds (minimum 1 round). At the end of that time, they appear in the nearest unoccupied square to the one they vanished from.
You may only use this ability once per round and must declare its use before making your attack roll.

Form Unseen (Ex): Starting at 1st level, a forgotten is no longer directly visible to others. However, their absence is so absolute that they leave a visible void in the world, shaped just as themselves. Fortunately, even this void can be hidden. At will as a swift action, a forgotten can turn invisible (as the invisibility spell) or become “visible” once more.

Elude (Ex): A forgotten is the very embodiedment of what a skulk is. The DC of Survival checks made to track you and of Caster level checks made to detect you with divination effects are both increased by half of your ECL.

Steps Unheard (Ex): Starting at 2nd level, a forgotten has hidden themselves so well that their very sounds are hidden from the world, leaving conspicuous silences nearly as noticeable. Whenever you try to “speak”, anyone who you want to hear you within 100 feet (and only them) hears you and, if sentient, automatically understands you. Furthermore, as a swift action, a forgotten one can cloak themselves in silence or resume their audible silences (as the silence spell, except that the effect does not extend beyond your person).

Flicker (Ex): So uncertain is the presence of a Forgotten that some attacks simply do not function. Starting at 2nd level, all targeted effects and instantaneous area effects have a 20% chance of simply not affecting you.

Space Untraversed (Ex): Starting at 3rd level, the world itself has a hard time keeping track of the forgotten. Rather than visibly traveling, they simply appear in their destination, as if they had been there the entire time, simply unnoticed up until that point. You lose the ability to move normally of your own volition but may teleport a distance up to your highest movement speed as a move action (you may still have to swim, fly, or climb to maintain your destination, however). You must possess a line of sight and line of effect with your destination.
Furthermore, you may exert force on objects indirectly, as far as 100 feet away. Only a sudden force can be created in this way so you may push a rock, toss a box into the air, manipulate a lever, or open/close a door. You cannot, however, create maintained force in this way and thus can’t lift/carry a box, tie a knot, or hold a door closed. Furthermore, you must have a line of sight with the object to be manipulated. The force effectively possesses your Size and Strength score. This force may not be exerted on creatures or attended objects. Exerting force in this way takes an action identical to what would be needed to exert the force directly.

Fade (Ex): When in trouble, a forgotten can simply fade away from the world, hiding in absolute obscurity. Starting at 3rd level, as a standard action, you can utterly vanish for 1d4 rounds before reappearing in the nearest unoccupied space.

Notes:As they say, it’s what you don’t know and don’t see that is capable of creating horror. I’ve heard of several horror encounters based on concepts like these and I decided to turn them into a class, using the unappreciated skulk race as the base because… hey, it makes sense in my head. :smalltongue:
I’m not sure about the power level here but it probably isn’t that overwhelmingly good in the long run as you are still left with that painful level adjustment from your race. I did indeed make this a class accessible by ECL 5 so that a fully powered one is only ECL 7. Also, broke a normal design rule and used ECL to calculate a few things in there because it seemed right to me.
Feel free to tell me what you think, as always.

Temotei
2010-08-25, 11:31 PM
There's an extraneous "Spells" column in your table, it seems.

Realms of Chaos
2010-08-26, 12:00 AM
Gone now. Oddly, it appears in the default 3-level PrC template that Fax created awhile back. Nobody's perfect, I suppose (though I should've checked it myself).

zenanarchist
2010-08-26, 09:17 AM
As I was going up the stairs,
I met a man who wasn't there,
He wasn't there again today...
I wish...I wish he'd go away.

You've seen Identity to it seems? :smallbiggrin:

DracoDei
2010-08-26, 02:22 PM
Needs more skills... I suggest Craft (being self-sufficient lets you interact with people less, thus reducing your "visibility"), and Survival (Ditto, but more-so). Maybe even profession on the same grounds, but maybe not (most professions actually INCREASE interaction with others). Skills that should definitely NOT be on the list would be anything Charisma based (except maybe UMD and/or UPD) and Ride.

Does Hide Voice prevent spellcasting/truespeaking? I would think not, but you need to specify explicitly.

I might add on a 4th level with the ability to cast Modify Memory 1/minute as an SLA, but only to remove memories of you and your actions. Would add a certain literalness to the class's title.

Thinker
2010-08-26, 02:54 PM
Gone now. Oddly, it appears in the default 3-level PrC template that Fax created awhile back. Nobody's perfect, I suppose (though I should've checked it myself).

I recommend SweetRein's class generator: http://pifro.com/dnd/NEW/

It makes all of that stuff easy.

Realms of Chaos
2010-08-26, 11:11 PM
Zenanarchist: ...maybe :smalltongue:

Dracodei: I kept it to only those two skills to keep it in line with the Skulk racial class, which had identical skills and skill points per level.
As for the silence, I italicized the word silence to suggest that it functioned at the spell (which does indeed stop those things).
As for the fourth level, maybe...

DracoDei
2010-08-27, 09:27 AM
Dracodei: I kept it to only those two skills to keep it in line with the Skulk racial class, which had identical skills and skill points per level.

WotC makes mistakes. This smells like one of them, and if so, it is no excuse for repeating it.

Djinn_in_Tonic
2010-08-27, 10:53 AM
I can't help but feel this is extremely strong at ECL 7. The final Void Touch ability is insanely powerful (time to heal, buff, etc. whenever it's needed), and invisibility at will and the ability to survive any encounter (I'm gone for 1d4 hours) are also quite potent. The teleportation is also quite good, and I'd definitely specify line of sight...or even line of effect as part of that clause.

Honestly, if Void Touch were once per round (so only one ability per round), and some of the abilities allowed a save (I'm thinking of the "remove from the universe" ability in particular), this would be good. I'd also recommend doing something about the first Void Touch ability...in 9/10 cases where you'll want to damage something, making it invisible to your party members is a bad plan.

Temotei
2010-08-27, 01:29 PM
I'd also recommend doing something about the first Void Touch ability...in 9/10 cases where you'll want to damage something, making it invisible to your party members is a bad plan.

I'd use it with an unarmed strike on an ally. Very little nonlethal damage for invisibility is a fair trade until it's really easy to get such an effect at no penalty. Plus, attacking doesn't get rid of the invisibility.

Realms of Chaos
2010-08-27, 03:14 PM
Okay, the prereqs have been risen so it is completed by 8th level, only one void touch can be made per round, a couple more skills have been added, and teleportation requires line of effect/sight.

Also, I think that the invisibility attack is pretty good as is. I do acknowledge that having your team-mates unable to see their foe is weird but nobody is forcing you to use that ability when it is disadvantageous to do so (it's an optional add-on and you're already gaining free invisibility at that level anyways so a flavor ability should be okay).
Also, as Temotei pointed out, you can always turn your party members invisible, though you are likely to harm them a bit in the process. Due to the random durations, however, it's unlikely that you could keep more than one other person consistently invisible.

As for the banishing touch, keep in mind that you have to make an attack roll and that the target has to fail a save and that it's only really effective against singular foes.

Any other problems?

Edit: the self-vanishing ability only lasts rounds, now.

DracoDei
2010-08-27, 03:42 PM
Actually the last void touch ability is also good for breaking up pairs of creatures so you can take them on one at a time... BTW is that minimum 0 (IE 25% chance of no effect) or minimum 1 (50% 1 round, 25% each for 2 and 3 rounds)?