Pious Templar as a Base Class [3.5, PEACH, WIP]

[Rathgar]

While I was thumbing through some of the books in the Complete series a while back, I saw some of the prestige classes in there and thought that they'd probably be better suited as a base class, for various reasons. So tonight I decided to go ahead and try to rectify that with a few of them.

The first one I'll attempt will be a class I love the concept behind, the Pious Templar. I love the idea of a holy warrior who instead of being a champion for good and justice and whatnot like the Paladin, he fights on behalf of a specific church. If you compare the Pious Templar prestige class to a Paladin, it seems to be kind of lacking. Mettle and their small amount of Damage Reduction are nice, but for a prestige class, they are kind of lacking.

My first attempt will go below, as I format it. Note that my initial framework is when Favored Souls, Barbarians, or Paladins gain a similar class feature. I plan to adjust that more later. As far as the tiers go, I'm aiming for tier 3 or 4. I'm currently thinking of a good capstone ability for the class, so don't worry, it'll be there.

Go ahead and add any comments you may have on this, though keep in mind nothing is permanent right now.

Pious Templar

Add detailed flavor description later
Hit Die: d8
Skill Points: 2+Int Modifier (*4 at 1st level)
Class Skills: Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Heal (Wis), Jump (Str), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Profession (Wis), and Swim (Str).
Proficiencies: Proficient with light, medium, and heavy armor, as well as shields. Proficient with all simple and martial weapons. Is proficient with deity's favored weapon, even if it is an Exotic Weapon.
Alignment: Same as for a cleric with the same patron deity.

{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|1st|2nd|3rd|4th

1st|
+1|
+2|
+0|
+2|Smite 1/day|-|-|-|-

2nd|
+2|
+3|
+0|
+3|Mettle|-|-|-|-

3rd|
+3|
+3|
+1|
+3|Sanctum Guard +1|-|-|-|-

4th|
+4|
+4|
+1|
+4|Domain Ability|0|-|-|-

5th|
+5|
+4|
+1|
+4|Smite 2/day|0|-|-|-

6th|
+6/+1|
+5|
+2|
+5|Weapon Focus|1|-|-|-

7th|
+7/+2|
+5|
+2|
+5|Damage Reduction 2/X|1|-|-|-

8th|
+8/+3|
+6|
+2|
+6|Domain Ability|1|0|-|-

9th|
+9/+4|
+6|
+3|
+6|Sanctum Guard +2|1|0|-|-

10th|
+10/+5|
+7|
+3|
+7|Smite 3/day, Damage Reduction 4/X|1|1|-|-

11th|
+11/+6/+1|
+7|
+3|
+7|-|1|1|0|-

12th|
+12/+7/+2|
+8|
+4|
+8|Domain Ability, Weapon Specialization|1|1|1|-

13th|
+13/+8/+3|
+8|
+4|
+8|Damage Reduction 6/X|1|1|1|-

14th|
+14/+9/+4|
+9|
+4|
+9|-|2|1|1|0

15th|
+15/+10/+5|
+9|
+5|
+9|Sanctum Guard +3, Smite 4/day|2|1|1|1

16th|
+16/+11/+6/+1|
+10|
+5|
+10|Domain Ability, Damage Reduction 8/X|2|2|1|1

17th|
+17/+12/+6/+2|
+10|
+5|
+10|-|2|2|2|1

18th|
+18/+13/+8/+3|
+11|
+6|
+11|-|3|2|2|1

19th|
+19/+14/+9/+4|
+11|
+6|
+11|Damage Reduction 10/X|3|3|3|2

20th|
+20/+15/+10/+5|
+12|
+6|
+12|Intruder Bane, Domain Ability, Smite 5/day|3|3|3|2[/table]

[Rathgar]

Class Features

Smite (Su)
Once per day, a Pious Templar my attempt to make a smite attack. The smite attempt must be announced before the attack is made, and if the attack misses, the attempt is wasted. The attack gets a +4 bonus on the attack roll, and a bonus on the damage roll equal to the Pious Templar's class level.
This attack must be made with their deity's favored weapon. If the deity's is a ranged weapon, or a melee weapon that doubles as a thrown weapon, than the Pious Templar may make a ranged smite attempt. If making a ranged smite attack, the target must be within 30 feet, or there is no bonus to the attack or damage rolls.
A Pious Templar's smite attack only works against those who's alignment is opposed to at least one component of the Pious Templar's patron's alignment, but doesn't share the other. For example, the smite attack of a Pious Templar following a Neutral Good deity works on anyone of Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, or Chaotic Evil alignment. However, a Pious Templar that follows a Lawful Evil deity can smite a Neutral good, Chaotic Good, or Chaotic Neutral creature, but not a Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil one, since they share one alignment component.
If a Pious Templar follows a True Neutral diety, she instead gains the ability to smite any creature of Lawful Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Evil, or Chaotic Evil alignment, for they are deemed to be too extreme in their alignment.
At 5th level, and every fifth level after that, a Pious Templar gets an extra daily use of her smite attack.

Mettle (Su)
A Pious Templar’s special blessing allows her to shrug off magical effects that would otherwise harm her. Beginning at 2nd level, if a Pious Templar makes a successful Will or Fortitude saving throw that would normally reduce the spell’s effect, she suffers no effect from the spell at all. Only those spells with a Saving Throw entry of “Will partial,” “Fortitude half,” or similar entries can be negated through this ability.

Sanctum Guard (Ex)
Beginning at 3rd level, when acting as a defender of the faith for her particular deity, a Pious Templar gains an extra fervor that boosts her ability to do so. A Pious Templar gets a +1 bonus on all attack rolls, damage rolls, and saving throws. This bonus goes up by an additional +1 for every 6 additional levels gained. For rolls and throws against those who could be effected by her smite attack, the bonus is doubled.
The Pious Templar only gains this bonus while on the grounds of a temple, shrine, or other similar holy area of the deity for whom the Pious Templar follows. Alternatively, she gains this bonus while guarding a caravan specifically organized and lead by her deity's clergy. She may gain this bonus while she is acting as a bodyguard to a Cleric of her deity, though only while she and said Cleric is within 10 feet (The DM may chose to allow some other Divine caster to be eligible, if she sees it appropriate for the particular deity).

Domain Power
At 4th level, and every fourth level after that, a Pious Templar gains a power based upon one of her deity's domains. If the domain is an alignment domain, the Pious Templar must have that as a component to her alignment. All domain powers are supernatural abilities unless they are a bonus feat or are noted as otherwise. The list of Domains are as follows.
Air: Once per day, gain a fly speed equal to her land speed for one round with good maneuverability.
Animal: Gain the Wild Empathy as a Druid of the same level.
Chaos: Gain a +1 Chaotic bonus to AC against Lawful creatures.
Death: She can perform a Coup de Grace as a Standard action.
Destruction: Gain Extra Smiting as a bonus feat.
Earth: Gain Tremorsense out to 10 feet.
Evil: Gain a +1 Profane bonus to AC against Good creatures.
Fire: Gain Fire Resistance 5.
Good: Gain a +1 Sacred bonus to AC against Evil creatures.
Healing: Gain Lay on Hands like a Paladin, except it only heals 1 HP per level each day.
Knowledge: Gain Lore as a Loremaster of half her level.
Law: Gain a +1 Lawful bonus to AC against Chaotic characters.
Luck: Once per day, she may reroll any one roll, throw, or die.
Magic: Get a +2 bonus on Use Magic Device checks. She may take Use Magic Device checks untrained.
Plant: Gain Woodland Stride as a Druid.
Protection: May make an Aid Another action in combat to boost an ally's AC as a Move action. This does not enable her to make more than one Aid Another action per turn.
Strength: Once per day, may cast Bull's Strength on self as a Spell-Like Ability. This ability works for 1 minute.
Sun: Turn undead as a cleric of her level -3 once/day.
Travel: Gain Endurance as a bonus feat.
Trickery: Gain Improved Feint as a bonus feat.
War: Gain Greater Weapon Focus as a bonus feat.
Water: Gain a swim speed equal to half her land speed, or improve swim speed by +10 feet if she already has one.
More domains to come.

Spellcasting
Beginning at 4th level, a Pious Templar can prepare divine spells. The exact nature of her spell list will be something I work on later, will use Paladin & Blackguard lists in the mean time.
To cast a spell, the Pious Templar must have a Wisdom score of at least 10 + the spell's level, so a Pious Templar with a Wisdom score of 10 or lower cannot cast these spells. Pious Templar bonus spells are based on Wisdom, and saving throws against these spells have a DC of 10 + spell level + the Pious Templar's Wisdom modifier. When the Pious Templar gets 0 spells of a given level, such as 0 1st level spells at 4th level, she gets only bonus spells. (A Pious Templar without a bonus spell for that level cannot yet cast a spell of that level.) A Pious Templar has access to any spell on the list and can freely choose which to prepare, just like a Cleric. A Pious Templar prepares and casts spells just as a Cleric does (although the Pious Templar cannot spontaneously cast Cure or Inflict spells). If the Pious Templar's patron deity has a set time for her Clerics to prepare spells, the Pious Templar also has to prepare spells at this time.

Weapon Focus
At 6th level, a Pious Templar gains Weapon Focus for her deity's favored weapon.

Damage Reduction (Su)
Starting at 7th level, Pious Templars gain a damage reduction ability appropriate to their deity's alignment. Chose for the damage reduction to be overcome by Chaotic, Evil, Good, or Lawful sources. This choice must match both an aspect of the Pious Templar's alignment and the alignment of her deity. If her deity is True Neutral, she instead chooses for it to be overcome by either Cold Iron or Magic.

Intruder Bane (Su)
At 20th level, any time that a Pious Templar makes an attack in which she gets to use her Sanctum Guard ability, she also gets the Bane ability against anyone who wishes harm on what she has been assigned to guard.

Code of Conduct
A Pious Templar is assigned by her church something to guard. This guard duty usually applies to a temple or holy site, though sometimes she is assigned escort or bodyguard duty. She may spend as much as 10 hours away from her assigned post per day so that she may rest and gain supplies, but she may never leave her post unattended.
The only exception to this is if someone attacks or damages the post in any way, she may pursue the offender. As long as she pursues the offender, she does not count as abandoning her post unless she receives orders or has standing orders from her church to not pursue.
If she abandons her assigned post, she loses all her Supernatural abilities, plus any abilities or feats granted via domain powers. In addition, if she does anything that would cause a Cleric of her deity to fall, she also loses her powers as if she'd abandoned her post. These powers cannot be regained except by having a Cleric of her deity cast Atonement on her.

[Rathgar]

Reserved for Class Spell List
Will use Paladin and Blackguard spell lists to start off with, I will flesh this out later.

[ngilop]

There is not enough difference between this and a paladin if all you do is drag the PrC out to 20 levels. After all the prestige class is just paladin lite for mundane martial characters.

Give it some site based powers, and give it a different spell list that seperates it from the paladin.

to better differnetiate this from just somebody going martial mundane+PrC make it a spontaneous caster.

again try to include site based powers im not sure how one would go with that exactly but the Pious Templar is all about guarding and protecting a site after all.

[Rathgar]

There is not enough difference between this and a paladin if all you do is drag the PrC out to 20 levels. After all the prestige class is just paladin lite for mundane martial characters.

Give it some site based powers, and give it a different spell list that seperates it from the paladin.

to better differnetiate this from just somebody going martial mundane+PrC make it a spontaneous caster.

again try to include site based powers im not sure how one would go with that exactly but the Pious Templar is all about guarding and protecting a site after all.

Yes, I agree with you about there not being enough differences from a Paladin right now. I just started out using the Paladin as a framework, then went to bed so I could sleep on it. I then had a busy day today, and am only just now able to get back on here.

As for your idea about site based powers is a very good one. I'll have to keep that in mind while I flesh out both their class features and their magic, though honestly that might be one of the later things I work on. I'm at somebody else's house this weekend, and thus away from a lot of my source books. If you have any specific suggestions, especially from these forums, let me know.

[Rathgar]

O.K., I've gotten more work done on this class, I'm curious as to what people think of it now, and if you have any more suggestions for this class.