By My Oath... (Peach)

[Scorpina]

Blood Oath [General]
You have made a blood oath to achieve a specific goal. This involves shedding some of your own blood, typically from a slash with a knife across your plam, and making the oath before witnesses, often gods.
Benefit: Your blood oath hardens your nody and your resolve. You gain a +1 bonus to Will and Fortitude saves. Additionally, you now qualify to take one or more specific oaths.

Defender of the Homeland [General]
Select an area (town, city, forest, nation etc) to be your home. You have sworn to defend it. This is typical done in the presence of a local ruler.
Prerequisites: Blood Oath, Knowledge (Local) 1 rank
Benefit: You gain +2 bonus on Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Spot, and Survival checks when using these skills in your homeland. Additionally, you gain the same bonus on Knowledge (local) checks made in association with your home (this may apply to Knowledge (Nature) or Knowledge [Dungeoneering] if your home is in a natural or underground environment).

Devoted Guardian [General]
Choose a specific, sentient creature. You have sworn to defend this person with your life.
Prerequisite: Blood Oath, BAB +5
Benefit: Once per round, you may absorb damage, which is dealt to the creature you have sworn to defend, if you are adjacent to them when the damage is dealt – effectively taking half of the damage yourself. The protected creature takes the rest of the damage as normal. You can only absorb damage from physical melee attacks and ranged attacks, such as an incoming arrow or a blow from a sword, not from spells and other effects. If the protected dies, or if you ever bring harm to them, the benefits of this feat are lost. It cannot be replaced.

Pledge of Service [General]
Choose a specific, sentient creature. You have sworn to assist this person wherever possible.
Prerequisite: Blood Oath
Benefit: When using successfully Aid Another to assist the person to whom you have pledged your service, you grant a bonus of +4 on skill checks, attack rolls or armour class.
Normal: Without this feat, Aid Another attempts add only a +2 bonus.

Sworn Enemy [General]
Choose a specific, sentient creature. You have sworn to slay or defeat this specific foe.
Prerequisite: Blood Oath, BAB +3
Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus attack rolls on weapon damage rolls against such your sworn enemy. Additionally, you gain a +1 bonus on all saves against effects caused by the specific foe you have chosen. Once the foe is slain, you may declare a new Sworn Enemy, although you incur a cost of 100 XP per character level for doing so.

[MrSeth]

Sworn Enemy seems a tad weak - I would give the option of declaring a new Sworn Enemy one month after the death of the original, assuming the character had good reason for the new declaration.

[Kazuel]

Flavor wise, A+

Useful wise, B-

Overall, A-


I could see using some of these feats for Paladins or Ranger NPCs but I'm not sure that I'd ever use them on a PC.

[Abd al-Azrad]

For one, probably best to describe the conditions necessary to "swear" an oath in the Prerequisites section of the feats. Just for clarification.

Sworn Enemy [General]
Choose a specific, sentient creature. You have sworn to slay or defeat this specific foe.
Prerequisite: Blood Oath, BAB +3
Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus attack rolls on weapon damage rolls against such your sworn enemy. Additionally, you gain a +1 bonus on all saves against effects caused by the specific foe you have chosen. Once the foe is slain, this feat becomes useless, unless they are raised in some way, but cannot be replaced.

So why take this at all? I can devote one seventh of my feats to a particular enemy- not a particular group, like a ranger would, but a particular individual? And I get the benefits of Weapon Specialization, already thought of as a subpar feat? Pass.

[Scorpina]

Would it be reasonable to increase the bonuses granted by Sworn Enemy? +4 to attack and damage and +2 to saves?

[Kazuel]

just change Sworn Enemy to be effectively the Favored Enemy class feature. Nothing says Fighters or Paladins or even rogues and wizards can't hate goblins as much as rangers.

[The Glyphstone]

I'd actually recommend dropping the Will save bonus from Blood Oath to +1 - otherwise, it becomes a more useful version of Iron Will.

Perhaps a +1 to Will and a +1 to Fort? It hardens your body and your resolve?

[Scorpina]

just change Sworn Enemy to be effectively the Favored Enemy class feature. Nothing says Fighters or Paladins or even rogues and wizards can't hate goblins as much as rangers.

Completely changes the feel of it, though.

I'd actually recommend dropping the Will save bonus from Blood Oath to +1 - otherwise, it becomes a more useful version of Iron Will.

Perhaps a +1 to Will and a +1 to Fort? It hardens your body and your resolve?

Good idea. Done.

[endoperez]

Maybe:

Sworn Enemy [General]
You gain the ability to choose one enemy. You gain bonuses against this particular enemy.
Prerequisite: Blood Oath, BAB +3
Benefit:
You can make an oath to slay one spesific, sentient creature.

You gain a +2 bonus attack rolls on weapon damage rolls against your sworn enemy. Additionally, you gain a +1 bonus on all saves against effects caused by the specific foe you have chosen, and additional +2 against all effects that would make you more friendly towards that particular creature. In addition, you gain +1 morale bonus on your attack rolls and Will saves when it is directly helping you to defeat your chosen enemy.

Once the foe is slain, you can make a new oath. You must fast for a full week and use rare incences worth at least 100 gp when renewing your oath.

If you have made a new oath and a previous target of your oath is still alive, you get -1 bonus an all saves, and -1 morale bonus on all actions that don't directly help you in defeating that enemy. You won't benefit from other oath bonuses against that enemy, but you do benefit from them if you pursue your new chosen enemy.

[Abd al-Azrad]

Would it be reasonable to increase the bonuses granted by Sworn Enemy? +4 to attack and damage and +2 to saves?

It's not a matter of increasing the power of the feat, but rather broadening its scope. Yes, in a one-shot game hunting a vampire lord, +4 to combat rolls and +2 to saves against Lord Markoloff the Gassy would be wonderful... but when you finally drive your stake through his evil, withered heart, you've just lost yourself a feat. Permanently, irreplacably. Whoopdie-doo!

Sorry, that was a bit sarcastic. The point is, you need to be able to apply the feat again. Even if it costs GP/XP/Time to apply to a new foe, you still have to have that ability, or the feat becomes worthless for a player.

[aoshi961]

Or, what about minor bonuses to minions of your sworn enemy? Little things, maybe +1 to hit and AC, and then more powerful bonuses to your sworn enemy.

[MrSeth]

Or, what about minor bonuses to minions of your sworn enemy? Little things, maybe +1 to hit and AC, and then more powerful bonuses to your sworn enemy.

Nah. That becomes wickedly powerful if they rely on lots of little minions. I concur with the previous sentiment. It has to be reusable, but should cost a decent amount to renew the effect.

[The Glyphstone]

Or, what about minor bonuses to minions of your sworn enemy? Little things, maybe +1 to hit and AC, and then more powerful bonuses to your sworn enemy.

^Agreeing with above, plus that doesn't solve the problem of the feat going worthless after you kill said hated individual.

[Scorpina]

Alright, I've made Sworn Enemy 'reusable'.

[PMDM]

Why does swearing on a new enemy incur a XP penalty?

[The_Snark]

Yeah... I would remove the XP penalty. There might be a material component for renewing the oath, but I think the most important part of it should be roleplay- you should have a reason for swearing an oath.

Swearing the oath shouldn't take more than a full-round action, but it would cause you to take damage. So you could, for example, swear it in combat after an enemy kills one of your comrades (again, flavor.)

[Scorpina]

Why does swearing on a new enemy incur a XP penalty?

To make it impossible to constantly make every opponent you come across a Sworn Enemy.

[The Glyphstone]

To make it impossible to constantly make every opponent you come across a Sworn Enemy.

Be warned....players HATE losing XP most of the time - definitely not worth it for something so minor. ESPECIALLY at that cost...100Xp per character level is incredibly draining.

I'd suggest making it work somewhat like the Bloodhound PrC's Mark ability - don't give an XP cost, but charge some GP expenses, and incur a time penalty required to choose a new sworn enemy. 1 Hour is good....1 day is better. Maybe with the 100GP worth of incense or oils mentioned before. Oh, and require some sort of connection to the Enemy - either a possession, some sort of image/depiction, or having personally encountered them. That means you actually know who it is, and can't say "The BBEG" and automatically get the bonuses when you happen to run into him.

[PMDM]

I think the DMG summed it up nicely when it said: "Players don't really mind losing gold. Players hate losing XP."

[Chaos]

Maybe you should consider something like the Blood Magic in the Earthdawn RPG. There, you basically make a magic effect semi-permanent (duration 1 year) by inflicting damage on yourself that cannot heal until the duration is over.


So, for the Sworn Enemy, you might let the character keep as many sworn enemies as he likes, but each costs him 1 HP per character level or hit die of that enemy - damage that cannot be healed that enemy is dead.
And you can either say such an oath can´t be taken back, or it can only be taken back if the character sacrifices 100 XP per level/hit die of the enemy.
So the Sworn Enemy feat effectively isn´t the oath itself, but the ability to take such oaths.

[Dan_Hemmens]

For the sworn enemy thing:

More useful, although a little less flavourful, and potentially hard to enforce, would be to have it work like a Ranger's Favoured Enemy, but affecting your target and those who work for them, rather than a specific creature type. Of course that has the downside that it might wind up applying to every creature you ever fight.

[Bob_the_Mighty]

What happens if your sworn enemy dies and you don't find out about it?

[Toliudar]

A feat that gives extra XP for defeating a sworn enemy would certainly make it more attractive.

On the same note as what's been said above for Sworn Enemy, there should be some provision for what happens if you accomplish a Blood Oath (IE: to drive every orc from Mt. Sardinia, once the orcs are all gone), or if it becomes impossible (Mt. Sardinia erupts into a fiery volcano, levelling everything for miles above, leaving no mountain at all). Maybe, after a waiting period of a month, you can take a new Blood Oath at no extra cost, and the benefits kick in again.

[Bob_the_Mighty]

I have an idea. You could make sworn enemy kinda like the Oathbow(3.0, not 3.5).

[MrSeth]

A feat that gives extra XP for defeating a sworn enemy would certainly make it more attractive.

Ah, now there's an idea. The player regains the XP spent on the Sworn Enemy feat once his foe is defeated.

That being said, I don't think 100 XP is too much for said feat... but then again, I'm used to XP costs for item crafting. 9_9;

[Bob_the_Mighty]

It's not just 100 XP, its 100 XP per character level. To me thats quite a bit of XP.

[Tokeloshe]

How about this...

Once the enemy is slain, the oath is fulfilled, and you regain the feat, or alternatively, make Oaths non feats. After all, why should you only be able to swear to do something when you level up?