"Oh, Don't Worry, He's Just a Cler- OH GOD MY FLESH!" (PF PrC, PEACH)

[NeoSeraphi]

Author's Note

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The cleric is actually pretty badly underpowered in Pathfinder. Sure, the cleric still has gamebreaking 9th level spells, but whatever. In Pathfinder, spellcasters are relevant at all levels, not just higher levels. PF casters get cool abilities that they get to choose from. Sorcerers get Bloodlines, Wizards get Arcane Schools, and Oracles get Mysteries and Revelations and Curses. What do clerics get? Domains. Domains are supposed to function similarly to Arcane School...in theory. In practice, a Domain often gives very little reason to stay in the class. It's not that the structure of the cleric is bad, it's the Domains themselves.

Meanwhile, an oracle gets the same spell list as a cleric but also gets his Domain spells as free spells known. So rather than being restricted to casting a spell once per day per spell level, an oracle of Flame can shoot fire all day, and an oracle of Battle can wade into melee whenever he wants. In Pathfinder, 24 hour buffs are effectively gone (As they should be) which means the cleric with his fewer spells per day, limited actions, and medium armor proficiency can't just walk around pretending to be a fighter like he can in 3.5.

You might say that a cleric makes a better healer because of the Channel Positive Energy class feature, which would be true, but an Oracle of Life gets that ability anyway, as well as Charisma-based casting, meaning the Oracle of Life will have many more Channels per day, even with 2 fewer base.

So with that in mind, I present a cleric prestige class meant to make clerics more interesting and active in Pathfinder. Yes, they might still be as powerful as they were in 3.5, but they require much more system mastery to be that way, and that's no fun for a casual player.

The Profanist

The Profanist is a powerful cleric of negative energy who is able to inflict devastating wounds upon his enemies and drown them in their own pain. Most Profanists are sadists, but that is not necessarily true of all of them. Sadistic or not, Profanists must be used to seeing creatures in pain and bleeding, or they won't last very long.


Prerequisites:
Alignment: Any non-good
Feats: Improved Channel, Selective Channel, Extra Channel
Special: Channel Negative Energy 3d6
Spellcasting: Must be able to cast inflict serious wounds as a divine spell


Hit Dice: d8
Class Skills: The Profanist's class skills are Craft, Intimidate, Knowledge (Religion), Profession, and Spellcraft.
Skill Points Per Level: 2+Int mod

{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|Spellcasting

1st|

+0

|

+2

|

+0

|

+2

|Channel Negative Energy +1d6|

2nd|

+1

|

+3

|

+0

|

+3

|Bloody Channel|+1 level divine spellcasting

3rd|

+2

|

+3

|

+1

|

+3

|Channel Negative Energy +2d6|

4th|

+3

|

+4

|

+1

|

+4

|Blinding Channel|+1 level divine spellcasting

5th|

+3

|

+4

|

+1

|

+4

|Channel Negative Energy +3d6|

6th|

+4

|

+5

|

+2

|

+5

|Frightening Channel|+1 level divine spellcasting

7th|

+5

|

+5

|

+2

|

+5

|Channel Negative Energy +4d6|+1 level divine spellcasting

8th|

+6

|

+6

|

+2

|

+6

|Poisoning Channel|+1 level divine spellcasting

9th|

+6

|

+6

|

+3

|

+6

|Channel Negative Energy +5d6|+1 level divine spellcasting

10th|

+7

|

+7

|

+3

|

+7

|Master Channeller|+1 level divine spellcasting
[/table]


Class Features: The following are the class features of the Profanist prestige class.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Profanists gain proficiency with the whip. A Profanist receives a +2 circumstance bonus on all Intimidate checks he makes while wielding a whip.

Channel Negative Energy (Su): At 1st level, the Profanist selects a single class that he is able to channel at least 3d6 dice of Negative Energy from. His Profanist levels stack with that class's levels to determine the DC to resist his Channel Negative Energy feature, and at each odd level, he increases the dice per channel by +1d6.

Spellcasting: At each level except 1st, 3rd, and 5th, the Profanist gains new spells per day, spells known, access to higher level spells, and an increased caster level as if he had gained a level in a divine spellcasting class he had previously belonged to. The Profanist may not increase his spellcasting for a divine class he belongs to that does not have inflict serious wounds on its spell list. If the Profanist belonged to more than one divine spellcasting class, he chooses one to advance at each even level.

Bloody Channel (Su): Starting at 2nd level, whenever the Profanist channels negative energy to harm living creatures, he may choose to decrease the amount of dice he channels by 1d6. If he does so, each creature who fails its saving throw against the negative energy also gains the bleed condition, and bleeds for an additional 1d6 points of damage per round until the bleed condition is removed.

Blinding Channel (Su): Starting at 4th level, whenever the Profanist channels negative energy to harm living creatures, he may choose to decrease the amount of dice he channels by 1d6. If he does so, each creature who fails its saving throw against the negative energy is also blinded for 1 minute.

Frightening Channel (Su): Starting at 6th level, whenever the Profanist channels negative energy to harm living creatures, he may choose to decrease the amount of dice he channels by 1d6. If he does so, each creature who fails its saving throw against the negative energy is also shaken for 1 minute.

Poisoning Channel (Su): Starting at 8th level, whenever the Profanist channels negative energy to harm living creatures, he may choose to decrease the amount of dice he channels by 1d6. If he does so, each creature who fails its saving throw against the negative energy also gains the following poison:

Injury; save Fort DC equal to the DC of the Profanist's Channel Negative Energy; frequency 1/round for 6 rounds; effect 1d4 Str damage; cure 1 save

If the Profanist decreases the amount of dice he channels by 2d6, the poison instead deals 1d4 Con damage and the cure is 2 saves.

Master Channeller (Su): At 10th level, the Profanist is a powerful disperser of negative energy. He gains 3 additional daily uses of his Channel Negative Energy feature. The DC for the save against his Channel Negative Energy feature increases by +2. When he uses the Selective Channeling feat, his Charisma score is treated as if it were 4 higher for the purposes of that feat only. Finally, whenever the Profanist channels negative energy to harm living creatures, he channels an additional dice of negative energy. This dice does not actually deal damage to any creatures, but it may be sacrificed as if it was a dice of damage for the purposes of any of the Profanist's class features.

[Giegue]

This class looks interesting. Quite interesting. The only thing is I don't think that it is powerful enough to justify the massive caster level loss it gives. Losing but one caster level is considered by many to make a character very underpowered, and is often something PrCs that are quite powerful do to offset the power level. However, 5/10 progression is SO debilitating to a caster that the class must have some seriously strong abilities to justify taking it, and while this class dose get a lot I don't think what it gets justifies the 5/10 progression. If you want it to lose a lot of CLs, I'd make it lose no more then 3, and even with the loss of 3 CLs you better be getting something pretty darn powerful to make up for it.

Other then that, this class looks pretty darn awesome, and you have done a good job with it.

[NeoSeraphi]

This class looks interesting. Quite interesting. The only thing is I don't think that it is powerful enough to justify the massive caster level loss it gives. Losing but one caster level is considered by many to make a character very underpowered, and is often something PrCs that are quite powerful do to offset the power level. However, 5/10 progression is SO debilitating to a caster that the class must have some seriously strong abilities to justify taking it, and while this class dose get a lot I don't think what it gets justifies the 5/10 progression. If you want it to lose a lot of CLs, I'd make it lose no more then 3, and even with the loss of 3 CLs you better be getting something pretty darn powerful to make up for it.

Other then that, this class looks pretty darn awesome, and you have done a good job with it.

I don't really consider the cleric spell list to be anything that special on its own to begin with. 5 lost CLs still ends up with you getting 8ths at level 20...I'll wait to hear what everyone else thinks.

Glad you like the class though.

[Mithril Leaf]

I don't really consider the cleric spell list to be anything that special on its own to begin with. 5 lost CLs still ends up with you getting 8ths at level 20...I'll wait to hear what everyone else thinks.

Glad you like the class though.

I personally wouldn't take this class, too many lost Caster Levels as previously mentioned. I'd personally recommend that you drop the levels lost to only 3, so that you pick up level 9 spells at level 20. That's the generally accepted compromise for awesome class features to lost casting.

[NeoSeraphi]

Okay, there we go. Now the class has 3 lost CL instead of 5.

[Wyntonian]

Much better! I like this, simple, fun, active. All good things. Losing three CL's still gets you 9ths, right?

I like the bit with the whip. Maybe something else, something small, that encourages use of a whip? Channeling negative energy through it or something?

[NeoSeraphi]

Much better! I like this, simple, fun, active. All good things. Losing three CL's still gets you 9ths, right?

I like the bit with the whip. Maybe something else, something small, that encourages use of a whip? Channeling negative energy through it or something?

There's a Feat for That^TM, so I don't think it's "small". Certainly not small enough to grant as part of a proficiency.

Thanks for your support. Losing 3 CLs ends with 17th level casting at 20th level, which is 9ths for a cleric, but not an oracle.

Still, I'm pretty sure the AOE Poison Effect is incredibly strong, something that can't be duplicated by any spell save cloudkill, and even then, cloudkill only works while it's over a creature, it doesn't actually inflict poison that recurs on them like Poisoning Channel does.

[Blisstake]

Honestly, my biggest complaint is the name. It just sound so... blegh.

[Wyntonian]

Honestly, my biggest complaint is the name. It just sound so... blegh.

Eh, agreed. It could be a lot better.

[Veklim]

Maybe call it 'The Sadist' or something instead, it seems to enjoy inflicting pain and suffering on it's targets.

As regards the spell levels, getting all this juicy stuff and still getting 9th is easily acceptable imo, if anything, I'd be tempted to make it every other level for spells to stop progressions at 8th level spells instead. These guys kick some arse, nice.

[Mithril Leaf]

Maybe call it 'The Sadist' or something instead, it seems to enjoy inflicting pain and suffering on it's targets.

As regards the spell levels, getting all this juicy stuff and still getting 9th is easily acceptable imo, if anything, I'd be tempted to make it every other level for spells to stop progressions at 8th level spells instead. These guys kick some arse, nice.

Which makes it good homebrew. The fact that you would take this class, while I wouldn't is what makes it reasonable. Remember that you drop the casting levels early on, so you only get 9th level spells at level 20. You only get 8th at 18.

[Veklim]

I'm well aware of this. I'm not saying it's a problem, I'm just saying that I'd probably still take the class without hesitation, even if it only allowed up to 8th level spells at 20. I think the design is simple, robust and effective.

[NeoSeraphi]

The Sadist isn't a particularly good name because A) It's more Negative Energy based than pain-based and B) As a sadist myself, I've often tossed around an idea for a sadistic class, even written a few things out and then stopped midway. I want to save that name for myself so I can properly use the concept at some point.

Master Harmer isn't exactly the best name, but I don't have any other ideas that would be better.

[Waker]

Well, since you wield the power of Death Itself! (negative energy) and swing around a whip, you could call the class Scourge. Alternatively, Profanist, Debaser, Corrupter are some other random suggestions.

[NeoSeraphi]

Well, since you wield the power of Death Itself! (negative energy) and swing around a whip, you could call the class Scourge. Alternatively, Profanist, Debaser, Corrupter are some other random suggestions.

Profanist sounds good, but the idea of going through the entire class and changing the name over and over doesn't.

[NeoSeraphi]

Okay, thanks to Mithril Leaf's hard work, the class has been renamed. Behold, the Profanist!

[Mithril Leaf]

Okay, thanks to Mithril Leaf's hard work, the class has been renamed. Behold, the Profanist!

It was only 23 instances, not bad at all.