Class Features

Here you find all class features listed in alphabetic order. All Descriptions are written in a way that reflects the use alternative rules. Open Game Content

Animal Companions
You have an animal as companion that helps you in your tasks - that usually means fighting things. An animal companion is different from a normal animal of its kind in several ways. It is superior to a normal animal of its kind and has special powers, as described below. These Bonuses to your Animal Companion are based of your characters Animal Companion Level (ACL).
 * Typical Ability type: Extraordinary (cannot be suppressed)

new one by performing a ceremony requiring 24 uninterrupted hours of prayer. This ceremony can also replace an animal companion that has perished.
 * Releasing an Animal Companion: If a character releases her companion from service, she may gain a

Basics
Use the standard values from MM for your animal and then apply the changes as listed in the table above.
 * ACL: Animal Companion Level.: An Animal Companion gains different advantages based of your ACL. This is often referred to as Druid Level or Effective Druid level. ACL from different classes stack.
 * Bonus HD: Extra eight-sided (d8) Hit Dice, each of which gains a Constitution modifier, as normal. Remember that extra Hit Dice improve the animal companion’s base attack and base save bonuses.
 * An animal companion has a 1/2 its HD +2 as Attack Bonus and a 1/3 HD +3 Bonus to Fortitude and Reflex Safes. Further it gains additional skills and feats for Bonus HD as well as for normal advancing via Creature HD.


 * Natural Armor Adjustment: In addition to a creatures Natural Armor its Armor is increased by the given value.
 * Str/Dex Adjustment: Increase your Animal Companions Str and Dex Scores by the given value.
 * Bonus Tricks: An Animal Companion gains additional free tricks as listed above. Additional tricks must be trained normally.

Special Abilities

 * Link (Ex): You can handle your animal companion as a free action, or push it as a move action, even if you doesn’t have any ranks in the Handle Animal skill. You gain a +4 circumstance bonus on all wild empathy checks and Handle Animal checks made regarding an animal companion.
 * Share Spells (Ex): You may declare a spell that you cast onto yourself to also apply to your animal companion. That way a spell that cannot normally target your animal companion can be applied to your Animal Companion. The Animal Companion must be within 5 feet of her at the time of casting to receive the benefit and it must remain within 5ft to keep the bonuses from a spell that lasts. Should your animal companion leave the area, the spell effects vanish and do not return to your Animal Companion even if it returns to your zone of influence.
 * Evasion (Ex): If an animal companion is subjected to an attack that normally allows a Reflex saving throw for half damage, it takes no damage if it makes a successful saving throw.
 * Devotion (Ex): An animal companion gains a +4 morale bonus on Will saves against enchantment spells and effects.

Animal Companions
Here is the list of available Animal Comanions. Each column lists animal companions of the same power level. Creatures listed under Aquatic Environment can only survive in such an environment.

Adjusted ACL by -6
Flying
 * Badger
 * Eagle
 * Hawk
 * Owl

Flying
 * Dire badger
 * Dire bat

General
 * Camel
 * Dire Rat
 * Dog
 * Horse (light or heavy)
 * Pony
 * Riding Dog
 * Snake (Small or Medium viper)
 * Wolf

General
 * Ape (animal)
 * Bear, black (animal)
 * Bison (animal)
 * Boar (animal)
 * Cheetah (animal)
 * Dire weasel
 * Leopard (animal)
 * Lizard, monitor (animal)
 * Snake, constrictor (animal)
 * Snake, Large viper (animal)
 * Wolverine (animal)

General 
 * Bear, brown (animal)
 * Dire wolverine
 * Crocodile, giant (animal)
 * Deinonychus (dinosaur)
 * Dire ape
 * Dire boar
 * Dire wolf
 * Lion (animal)
 * Rhinoceros (animal)
 * Snake, Huge viper (animal)
 * Tiger (animal)

Aquatic environment
 * Crocodile
 * Porpoise
 * Medium Shark
 * Squid

Aquatic Environment
 * Crocodile (animal)
 * Shark, Large (animal)

Aquatic Environment
 * Elasmosaurus (dinosaur)

Arcane Spell Failure
arcane spellcasters casting spells with somatic components (fine movement) have a chance of loosing their spells. This situation is called Arcane Spell Failure. Wearing Armor or using a Shield forces an arcane spellcaster to roll over the sum of theses chances. So if you wear an armor causing 10% ASF and a shield causing 5% ASF, your roll has to be 16 or higher on a d% or you loose that spell and that spellslot is consumed.
 * Special: Vigorous training (or certain classes) can circumvent or reduce this effect.

Evasion (all variants)
You are very skilled to avoid even magical or unusual attacks with great agility. Therefore whenever you are in the situation to make a Reflex saving throw to half the amount of damage dealt to you and you succeed that roll, you do not suffer damage at all. Evasion can only be applied if you wear at most light armor or light load. Further if you're in a helpless state, you don't get this bonus.

Favored Enemy
This ability allows you to gain several advantages over an Enemy of your choice.

Favored Enemy grants you these bonuses against your favored enemy: Taking Favored Enemy of the same type makes these bonuses stack. If you should choose 2x Favored Enemy(Outsider (good)) then these bonuses become +4 against Outsiders (good). For Humanoids and Outsiders both type and subtype must match.
 * +2 to Skill checks using: Bluff, Perception and Survival
 * +2 to Insight Safingthrows.
 * +2 to per damage roll

Sneak Attack
Under certain conditions (see below) you can deal extra damage to your target. The amount of damage dealt in addition is 1d6 for every time you gain this Class Feature. Therefore Sneak Attack dice from different sources stack, but this additional damage is not multiplied in case of a critical hit. You cannot use Sneak Attack to incapacitate a target if you do not use a blunt weapon (such as unarmed attacks, club or sap).

Conditions for Sneak Attack

 * You must make a melee attack in reach range or a ranged attack within 30ft.
 * You must be able to see your target to detect its vital spots. Hence concealed or invisible targets cannot be affected by Sneak Attack.
 * Your target must not be immune against Sneak Attacks. Certain creature types such as undead, constructs, oozes, plants or incorporeal creatures are immune because they do not have a vital spot to target.
 * Your target must be denied its Dexterity bonus to AC (independent whether it has a Dexterity bonus to AC) or through flanking.

Spellcasting
You are able to cast spells. Most spellcasting classes grant this ability at first class level, but some such as Mere Casters do so at 4th class level. As soon as a class grants you spellcasting, you gain a so called Caster Level that describes the power of some of your spells and your ability to overcome spell resistance. But in order to be able to actually cast a spell, you must meet an ability score requirement with your casting ability score. A Casting Ability Score is always a mental Ability.

Minimum Caster Ability Score to cast a spell of Level X: 10 + X

Spell(casting) Traits
Spells per Day; All Spellcasters of a certain Type (I, II, III or mere) have a table of how many spells of what spell level they can cast per day. In Addition to these numbers a spellcaster with a very high Spellcasting Ability Score (18 or higher) gets bonus spells per day and spell level as described below. You can clearly see that there are two tables for Each type of Spellcaster given a certain campaign style. Numbers are given by combat encounters a day. In most Campaigns an NPC should also use the 1 or 2 combat a day table to simplify things for a GM. Spell Safe DC = 10 + Spell Level + Spellcasting Attribute Modifier (Spellcaster)
 * Caster Level: Your ability to penetrate Spell Penetration and to some extend the power of your spells. For most classes this is your Class Level in your Spellcasting Class, but some types of Casters such as Mere Casters use half their Class Level to determine this amount. Some Special Abilities and Classes can adjust this value for some or all of your spells.
 * Spell Safe Difficulty Class: Many Spells cause your target to make a Safe. The DC of such a roll depends on your Spellcasting Ability Score Modifier and your Spell level.

Types of Spellcasters
As you can see there are multiple Spellcaster Types.
 * Preparing Casters: A preparing caster usually has access to a large number of different spells and must prepare a selection of them in a daily ritual that usually happens in the morning and takes an hour of time. During that time of the day these Casters infuse themselfs with the magical energy. Therefor they cannot simply swap prepared spells.
 * Spontaneous Casters: A preparing caster usually knows a small number of different spells and therefor they do not need to prepare them. Effectively they can cast any spell of any level as long as they have a daily slot for the spells spell level or a higher level spell slot remaining. Their drawback is however the number of spells they know.
 * Metamagic and Preparing / Spontaneous Casters: The simple advantage of a spontaneous Caster when it comes to Meta Magic is that they do not need to decide in advance what spell needs a boost, but they therefor cast these spells at slower rate. Most spells are normally cast as a standard action. Meta Magic spells of a Spontaneous Caster makes them taking a full round action. So from the other side of the table a preparing Caster does not suffer the casting time Penalty, but might waste a higher level spell slot for a spell (s)he did not even cast that day.
 * Sponaneous Spell Substitution: Some Classes (such as Cleric or Druid) offer you to spontaneously cast a small number of spells in place of other spells. To cast that one of these particular spells in that fashion, you consume one spell of the choosen spells level that you have prepared for your spontaneous effect. It is possible to spend a spell slot of a higher level spell as well just like normal Spontaneous Casters can.
 * Type I Caster: These Classes (such as Cleric, Druid or Wizard) have access to large numbers of spells and
 * Type II Caster: These Classes (such as Sorcerer) are also strong Spellcasters, but they cast their spells spontaneously from a number of spells they simply know.
 * Type III Caster: These Classes will never be true masters of the art, but their spellcasting ability is still significant. Bards fall under this category. Normally this type of caster casts spells spontaneously like a Type II Caster.
 * Mere Caster: Mere Casters have a pretty weak ability to cast spells. Their spells are often narrowly themed like spells of a Ranger or Paladin are. Also Mere Casters have a lower Caster Level then other Casters Types of their class level.

Trap Sense
You gain an intuitive sense that alerts you of danger from traps. This gives you an untyped +1 bonus on Reflex Safes to avoid traps and a +1 dodge bonus to AC against attacks made by traps. This feature can be obtained multiple times and its bonuses stack as all untyped bonuses and all dodge bonuses stack with their kind.

Uncanny Dodge (all variants)
This classfeature can be obtained multiple times. Every time its effectiveness increases.
 * You can react to danger before her senses would normally allow you to do so. Therefor you retain your Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) even if you are caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker, but you still lose it if you are immobilized.
 * You are no longer affected by flanking. This denies rogues flanking you their Sneak Attack bonus against you unless the attacking rogue has more rogue levels then you have levels in all classes granting you uncanny dodge together.

Wild Empathy
You can improve the attitude of an animal. This ability functions just like a Diplomacy check made to improve the attitude of a person. You and the animal must be able to study each other, which means that they must be within 30 feet of one another under normal conditions. Generally, influencing an animal in this way takes 1 minute but, as with influencing people, it might take more or less time. Wild Empathy Check: 1d20 + you CHA-Modifier + Sum of Class Levels in classes with Wild Empathy The typical domestic animal has a starting attitude of indifferent, while wild animals are usually unfriendly. You can influence Magical Beasts with an Intelligence Score of 1 or 2 as well, but you take a -4 penalty to your roll.

Alternative Rules
Wild Empathy is a new use of the Handle Animal Skill just like Tracking is a special use of Survival and works like a Diplomacy Check. It may be applied to an animal in sight and on close range (30ft.) to influence its attitude towards you using a Handle Animal Check. You can also influence Magical Beasts with an Intelligence Score of 1 or 2 at a -4 penalty to your roll. Domestic animals normaly start out usually as indifferent, whilst wild animals usually start out at unfriendly.
 * Note: Some other class abilities grant bonuses to Wild Empathy and Handle Animal skills. These Bonuses don't stack and you take the more appropriate bonus.