NWN Custom Classes

Witch Hunter

The Aca­de­my of the Faithful Prac­ti­tio­ners of the Mys­ti­cal Arts trains a spe­cial breed of man. Sworn, and high­ly trai­ned, the­se legen­da­ry figu­res stalk Cata­ra in search of tho­se who would end­an­ger civi­liza­ti­on its­elf with their dan­ge­rous and unsu­per­vi­sed tam­pe­ring in magi­cal forces. This is the Witch Hunter.

His mis­si­on: Seek out any­thing and anyo­ne that uses weird and wild magi­cal force wit­hout trai­ning and per­mis­si­on from the pro­per aut­ho­ri­ties. To bring them back for trai­ning if pos­si­ble, and if not to des­troy them utter­ly: Burn the Witch!

What is this?

The Witch Hun­ter is a Pres­ti­ge Class,(PrC) made com­ple­te­ly from scratch to uni­que­ly fit into the world of Cata­ra. Unli­ke our pre­vious­ly released PrCs (the Pala­dins of Jale­tar and Rilos), which were stron­gly based on an exis­ting class, this is not a pseu­do core class, which you can start leve­ling in from level 2 and up. Whe­re the Pala­dins only requi­red a firm belief, a voca­ti­on, and some basic skill at arms, the trai­ning that an indi­vi­du­al has to go through befo­re mas­te­ring even the most basic of witch hun­ter abili­ties is stre­nuous and dif­fi­cult. Many find them­sel­ves too weak of mind to per­sist and earn their staff.

The requi­re­ments are:

  • Ali­gnment: Any Lawful
  • Wea­pon Focus: Quarterstaff
  • Iron Will
  • Spell­craft: 4 ranks
  • Lore: 8 ranks
  • Can­not be a spell­cas­ter (Bard, Cle­ric, Druid, Psio­ni­cist, Sorce­rer, Wizard)

Level Pro­gres­si­on
The Witch Hunter’s level pro­gres­si­on is not based on any other class direct­ly, but to sim­pli­fy mat­ters, I will refer to other clas­ses as well to illus­tra­te parts of the progression:
Base Attack Pro­gres­si­on: Medi­um (like bard, rogue, druid, cleric)
Save Pro­gres­si­ons: For­ti­tu­de low, Reflex and Will high (like bard)

At level 1 the Witch Hun­ter gains the fol­lo­wing class feats and abilities:

  • Spell Brea­king
  • Detect Witch
  • Ora­to­ry Inspiration
  • Wea­pon Pro­fi­ci­en­cy Simple
  • Armour Pro­fi­ci­en­cy Light

At every fourth level the Witch Hun­ter gains a bonus feat, which can be sel­ec­ted from the fol­lo­wing list:

  • Alert­ness
  • Spell Resis­tance
  • Pro­lon­ged Inspiration
  • Ten­acious Mob
  • Fana­ti­cal Mob
  • Staff Mas­tery 1
  • Staff Mas­tery 2
  • Staff Mas­tery 3

Details of the basic class abilities:

Spellbrea­king
Spellbrea­king is the skill for which witch hun­ters are most famous. This abili­ty works like coun­ter­spel­ling, only the witch hun­ter has no magics of his own. He has only his mind and his staff. 
To acti­va­te this abili­ty, a witch hun­ter will need to do the following: 
1. Approach the ene­my spell­cas­ter to within ran­ge (quite long) 
2. Equip his spe­cial witch hun­ter staff. Each witch hun­ter has one staff, and one only. 
3. Focus — this is expres­sed by kee­ping par­ry mode acti­va­ted. Par­ry will auto­ma­ti­cal­ly deac­ti­va­te when moving about.

If all three steps were per­for­med cor­rect­ly, and the witch’s cas­ter level is not more than five levels abo­ve the witch hun­ter level, the lat­ter will get a chan­ce to break the spell. For this a will save is made. The DC is not the actu­al spell DC, but based on that. 
The DC is curr­ent­ly: 10 + Caster’s Abili­ty Modi­fier + (Spell Level*1,5)
Spell Level * 1,5 is roun­ded down in this calculation.

Upon attemp­ting to break a spell, the par­ry mode will be dis­ab­led and needs to be re-enab­led in order to do fur­ther spell brea­king. If a spell was suc­cessful­ly bro­ken, the witch hunter’s staff will pick up some of the spell’s power in char­ges, which will impro­ve this other­wi­se mun­da­ne wea­pon. A witch hunter’s staff can only hold a maxi­mum num­ber of char­ges, if this safe­ty bar­ri­er is crossed, the staff is pro­ne to mis­haps, dischar­ging its excess load over the witch hun­ter hims­elf, with pos­si­bly dis­as­te­rous con­se­quen­ces. Res­t­ing will remo­ve all char­ges from a staff. The maxi­mum num­ber of char­ges a staff can hold is twice the witch hunter’s level, poten­ti­al­ly increased by the available bonus feats (see below).

Detect Witch
Magic dis­rupts the world around it; it shapes things from not­hing­ness, twists objects into new shapes which they were never meant to have, and even stret­ches and breaks the boun­da­ries of rea­li­ty. The afteref­fects of such feats lin­ger, not as much on the world which is high­ly inert, but more so on the cas­ter. A witch hun­ter deve­lo­ps a high­ly spe­cia­li­sed sixth sen­se for snif­fing out this lin­ge­ring taint of magic on tho­se who used it recently.

This abili­ty is acces­sed from the emo­te menu (form­er­ly the craf­ting emo­te radi­al menu).

Ora­to­ry Inspiration
This abili­ty is gai­ned on level 1, but the witch hun­ter gains one extra use on each level, up to level 20.

Ora­to­ry inspi­ra­ti­on has a dual effect. The first half works exact­ly like the bar­dic song abili­ty, inspi­ring the par­ty of the witch hun­ter to heroic deeds. The levels of bard and witch hun­ter stack for this abili­ty, and also for the bar­dic song abili­ty on Cata­ra. For more details on what the exact bonus­ses are, see the NWN manu­al for bar­dic song.

The second half of this abili­ty allows a witch hun­ter to not only inspi­re tho­se around him to grea­ter deeds, but his rou­sing speech brings in the com­mon folks from all over the area to his aid. The­se peo­p­le will bring their own wea­pons, the tra­di­tio­nal imple­ments of the angry mob: a torch and a pitch­fork (size small NPCs will only bring a pitch­fork). The mob will fol­low the witch hun­ter around, and attempt to assist him in any com­bats, for as long as his speech keeps their blood boi­ling for jus­ti­ce and witch-bur­ning. In game terms this is a num­ber of rounds equal to your per­form check.

Some bonus feats can increase the effec­ti­ve­ness of the ora­to­ry inspiraton.

Bonus Feats Details:

Alert­ness
A trai­ned hun­ter, the witch hun­ter is always on the look out for trouble.

Bene­fit: +2 Spot, +2 Listen 
Pre­re­qui­si­tes: None

Spell Resis­tance
A witch hunter’s mind is a tool for cut­ting spells, like a kni­fe is used for cut­ting bread, and an axe for felling trees. Over time it beco­mes so sui­ted to this pur­po­se, so fine­ly honed, that is hard­ly even needs to have the aid of the witch hun­ter staff. A witch hun­ter gains the abili­ty to resist spells, even when not in spellbrea­king mode, but only tho­se spells that are aimed at himself.

Bene­fit: The witch hun­ter gains Spell Resis­tance 10 + witch hun­ter level. 
Pre­re­qui­si­tes: Lore (16 Ranks), Spell­craft (16 Ranks)

Pro­lon­ged Inspiration
The Ora­to­ry Inspi­ra­ti­on abili­ty is some­thing this witch hun­ter is high­ly adept in. His spee­ches and inspi­ring words stick with his par­ty mem­bers for much longer.

Ora­to­ry Inspi­ra­ti­on effects lasts for 5 extra rounds. 
Pre­re­qui­si­tes: None

Ten­acious Mob
This witch hun­ter has focus­sed on impres­sing the crowds with the urgen­cy of cap­tu­ring the witch that is being hun­ted. The com­mon folks are wil­ling to go to extre­me lengths to help him with this.

Bene­fit: Ora­to­ry Inspi­ra­ti­on Mob sticks around for twice as long. 
Pre­re­qui­si­tes: Per­form (10 Ranks)

Fana­ti­cal Mob
A witch hun­ter so skil­led knows exact­ly which words to say to a crowd to dri­ve them to long for bur­ning jus­ti­ce as much as he does hims­elf, may­be even more. Even the most hum­ble far­mer will shout out for blood and throw hims­elf at the witch with no thoughts for self-pre­ser­va­ti­on after the rou­sing spee­ches of this mas­ter of the crowds.

Bene­fit: Ora­to­ry Inspi­ra­ti­on Mob mem­bers all gain +4 Strength and +4 Con­sti­tu­ti­on for as long as they are in the mob. 
Pre­re­qui­si­tes: Per­form (15 Ranks)

Witch Hun­ter Staff Mastery
The Witch Hunter’s staff is a most important tool, and with a lot of prac­ti­ce some witch hun­ters can push it to even grea­ter limits. A prac­ti­ce from which the­re is much to be gai­ned, but can also bring gre­at risks for tho­se who would push it too far.

The­re are three Witch Hun­ter Mas­tery feats. Their bene­fits and pre­re­qui­si­tes are as follows:

Staff Mas­tery I
Bene­fit: Safe Char­ge Level increase: 25%, Staff gains a +1 enchant­ment bonus when at max char­ges, and a +2 bonus when at dou­ble max charges. 
Pre­re­qui­si­tes: Wis­dom 16, Lore (15 Ranks), Spell­craft (15 Ranks)

Staff Mas­tery II
Bene­fit: Safe Char­ge Level increase: 50%, Staff Enchant­ment bonus +1 at 50% of max char­ges, +2 at 100%, +3 at 150%. 
Pre­re­qui­si­tes: Wis­dom 17, Staff Mas­tery I, Lore (18 Ranks), Spell­craft (18 Ranks)

Staff Mas­tery III
Bene­fit: Safe Char­ge Level Increase: 100%, Staff Enchant­ment bonus +1 at 33%, +2 at 67%, +3 at 100%, +4 at 133% 
Pre­re­qui­si­tes: Wis­dom 18, Staff Mas­tery II, Lore (21 Ranks), Spell­craft (21 Ranks)

The safe char­ge level increa­ses and enchant­ment bonus­ses from the­se feats are not cumulative.

Paladins

Not every god has pala­dins that ser­ve him. Only Jale­tar, Nuagar and Rilos actual­ly grant their divi­ne strength to a sel­ec­ted few. By now, we actual­ly have dis­ab­led the stan­dard D&D Pala­din class as sel­ec­ta­ble class on this server.

Every of the­se four gods requi­re utter devo­ti­on and a strict trai­ning from aspi­rants to ele­va­te them into the sta­tus of a Paladin.

Being a Pala­din inva­ria­bly ties one to one’s cho­sen god’s church. Often young men and women are trai­ned into this from ear­ly age, and have to pass a series of tests; both phy­si­cal and spi­ri­tu­al. At the end of the­se tests, tests that go to the very limits of the young aspi­rant, he or she gets gran­ted the divi­ne bles­sing. It is not rare that the god hims­elf appears during this cerem­o­ny, to wel­co­me a new figh­ter into his church.

A Pala­din is always part of the mar­ti­al order of his church. He or she defends the church, and actively seeks out to des­troy evil whe­re­ver it is found. Every god though has slight­ly dif­fe­rent inter­pre­ta­ti­ons on what exact­ly is view­ed as evil, and how to enga­ge it.

When crea­ting a Pala­din, or mul­tic­las­sing into one you must keep the fol­lo­wing things in mind:

  • You can­not make a Pala­din that isn’t devo­ted to one of the­se four gods!
  • You can­not make a Pala­din that isn’t part of the church of his cho­sen god.
  • The Pala­din class will onyl be available after doing an IC quest.
  • Do not mul­tic­lass into a Pala­din wit­hout having role­play­ed a tie to the cho­sen gods church.

Paladin of Jaletar

The Sun God Jale­tar orda­ins holy war­ri­ors for his cau­se. The­se dedi­ca­ted indi­vi­du­als are the Pala­dins of Jale­tar. They fight evil in all its forms, but their field of spe­cia­li­sa­ti­on is fight­ing fien­ds. Demons and devils bewa­re, Jaletar’s Holy Light is coming for you.

What exact­ly is it that we’­re offering?
A who­le new pres­ti­ge class! The Pala­din of Jale­tar is much like the nor­mal pala­din (see the NWN ori­gi­nal game, or the 3.0 PHB), but there’s some subt­le dif­fe­ren­ces. For star­ters it’s a pres­ti­ge class, ins­tead of a core class. That means you’ll have to have some pri­or trai­ning befo­re you can take levels in this class. The requi­re­ments are:

  • Ali­gnment: must be Lawful Good
  • Hea­vy Armor Proficiency
  • Shield Pro­fi­ci­en­cy
  • Wea­pon Focus: Longsword
  • Base Attack Bonus: +1

As you can see the requi­re­ments are quite light, and can inde­ed be met by a level 1 cha­rac­ter, so you can start taking levels in this class start­ing at level 2. The­re is one other requi­re­ment howe­ver, and that one is script­ed: the class must be unlo­cked. This hap­pens when you’­ve succeful­ly finis­hed your initia­ti­on trai­ning, which is (or rather will be) loca­ted at a very logi­cal place in game. Whe­re exact­ly is for you to figu­re out in game.

What can this class do?
The Pala­din of Jaletar’s pro­gres­si­on is high­ly simi­lar to the regu­lar pala­din class as well. Here’s a list of what to expect:

  1. Divi­ne Grace*, Jaletar’s Gui­ding Light (allows the Pala­din to emit light), Pro­tec­tion from evil (3x/day), Favor­ed ene­my: out­si­ders (like the ran­ger feat), Detect Evil (find it in the emo­te wand con­ver­sa­ti­on, not on the radi­al menu)
  2. Aura of Cou­ra­ge*, Smite Evil*
  3. Turn Undead*, Good Domain Power (abili­ty to turn out­si­ders as well)
  4. Jaletar’s Holy Decree I (1x/day)
  5. -
  6. Jaletar’s Holy Decree I (2x/day)
  7. Jaletar’s Holy Decree II (1x/day)
  8. -
  9. Jaletar’s Holy Decree I (3x/day), Jaletar’s Holy Decree II (2x/day)
  10. Jaletar’s Holy Decree III (1x/day)
  11. -
  12. Jaletar’s Holy Decree II (3x/day), Jaletar’s Holy Decree III (2x/day)
  13. Jaletar’s Holy Decree I (4x/day), Jaletar’s Holy Decree IV (1x/day)
  14. -
  15. Jaletar’s Holy Decree III (3x/day), Jaletar’s Holy Decree IV (2x/day)
  16. Jaletar’s Holy Decree II (4x/day)
  17. -
  18. Jaletar’s Holy Decree I (5x/day), Jaletar’s Holy Decree IV (3x/day)
  19. Jaletar’s Holy Decree III (4x/day)
  20. -
  21. and bey­ond: Epic pro­gres­si­on like the regu­lar paladin.

* = See regu­lar pala­din class for description

Detect Evil

Detect Evil for Pala­dins of Jale­tars (and later as well for other Holy War­ri­ors) reve­als the amount of evil pre­sen­ces near­by. It is not imple­men­ted as a spell. Peo­p­le can not tell when you’­re using it.
Jaletar’s Holy Decrees
As you per­haps know, assig­ning spells to pres­ti­ge clas­ses is not pos­si­ble in the con­ven­tio­nal man­ner. In their stead we have given the Pala­din of Jale­tar some Holy Decrees. The­se will allow the class to mani­fest some of the pala­din spells any­way. Here’s the list of powers you can expect:

Jaletar’s Holy Decree I
— Bless
— Bless Weapon**
— Cure Light Wounds
— Divi­ne Favor
— Endu­re Elements

Jaletar’s Holy Decree II
— Aid
— Aura of Glory
— Bull’s Strength
— Eagle’s Splendor
— Sea­ring Light**

Jaletar’s Holy Decree III
— Banishment**
— Dis­pel Magic
— Grea­ter Magic Weapon
— Magic Cir­cle Against Evil
— Prayer

Jaletar’s Holy Decree IV
— Cure Serious Wounds
— Death Ward
— Free­dom of Movement
— Holy Sword**
— Sunbeam**

** = Spell chan­ged to reflect Jaletar’s back­ground bet­ter. See below for more details.

Spell Chan­ges
The chan­ges to spells are not expan­si­ve. You will still reco­g­ni­se the spell if you knew the ori­gi­nal, yet the­re will be some noti­ca­ble dif­fe­ren­ces. The­se dif­fe­ren­ces stem from the fact that Jaletar’s focus is on fight­ing fien­ds, ins­tead of the more con­ven­tio­nal anti-undead bias found in the regu­lar pala­din spells. Note that the­se chan­ges will also app­ly to cle­rics of Jale­tar, as far as the lis­ted spells appear on the cle­ric spell list. I won’t go into tech­ni­cal details here, but in a nuts­hell here’s what we have changed:

  • Bless Wea­pon: 2d6 dama­ge vs. out­si­ders (ins­tead of vs. undead)
  • Sea­ring Light: Dama­ge vs. Evil Out­si­ders: 1d8/level. Dama­ge vs Undead redu­ced to the regu­lar 1d8/ 2 levels
  • Banish­ment: Banis­hes 3HD/level ins­tead of 2HD/level
  • Holy Sword: Does not give Holy Aven­ger pro­per­ty (hard­coded to work only for regu­lar pala­dins), but ins­tead makes your wea­pon +5 with 2d6 dama­ge vs evil added in. Also grants a cir­cle of pro­tec­tion vs. evil around the cas­ter. Only works for swords.
  • Sun­beam: Base dama­ge increased to 5d6 (nor­mal­ly 3d6). Blind­ness unch­an­ged. Does 1d8/level dama­ge to evil out­si­ders (repla­cing the increased anti-undead damage).

Paladins of Rilos

The good fight, the call of batt­le for righ­teous­ness, the dri­ve to hunt down evil in its every form. This is the song that sounds in the veins of a true Pala­din of Rilos, a cho­sen war­ri­or of the lord of many batt­les. The sacred batt­le ritu­als of Rilos bring the­se holy war­ri­ors into balan­ce with natu­re and their sur­roun­dings as well. To sym­bo­li­se this balan­ce they ritual­ly fight with two wea­pons, one of which is a batt­le­a­xe, the second usual­ly a smal­ler hand­axe or just ano­ther batt­le­a­xe. Their most com­mon ene­my in and near the lands of Cata­ra are the various evil giants.

What exact­ly is it that we’­re offering?
Short­ly after the Pala­din of Jale­tar pres­ti­ge class (alt­hough they were released at the same time) the team of Cata­ra crea­ted ano­ther who­le new pres­ti­ge class. We proud­ly pre­sent: the Pala­din of Rilos. This pres­ti­ge class is also based on the pala­din class (like the pala­din of Jale­tar), but also has some big chunks of ran­ger mixed in (see the NWN ori­gi­nal game, or the 3.0 PHB for descrip­ti­ons of both the­se core clas­ses), As with all pres­ti­ge clas­ses, the­re are some pre­re­qui­si­tes that must be met befo­re one can level up in this class. The requi­re­ments are:

  • Ali­gnment: must be Chao­tic Good
  • Hea­vy Armor Proficiency
  • Wea­pon Focus: Battleaxe
  • Base Attack Bonus: +1

As you can see the requi­re­ments are quite light, and can inde­ed be met by a level 1 cha­rac­ter, so you can start taking levels in this class start­ing at level 2. The­re is one other requi­re­ment howe­ver, and that one is script­ed: the class must be unlo­cked. This hap­pens when you’­ve succeful­ly finis­hed your initia­ti­on trai­ning, which is (or rather will be) loca­ted at a very logi­cal place in game. Whe­re exact­ly is for you to figu­re out in game.

What can this class do?
The Pala­din of Rilos‘ pro­gres­si­on fea­tures ele­ments that you will reco­g­ni­se from both ran­ger and pala­din core clas­ses, howe­ver there’s some new things we’­ve come up with as well. Here’s a list of what to expect:

  1. Ambi­dex­teri­ty*, Two-Wea­pon Fight­ing*, Com­bat trai­ning vs. Giants (+4 AC vs giants, like dwar­ves get)*, Favor­ed Ene­my: Giants*, Detect Evil (find it in the emo­te wand con­ver­sa­ti­on, not on the radi­al menu)
  2. Aura of Courage*
  3. Smite Evil *
  4. Rilos‘ Batt­le Ritu­al I (1x/day)
  5. Favor­ed Ene­my: Animals*
  6. Rilos‘ Batt­le Ritu­al I (2x/day)
  7. Rilos‘ Batt­le Ritu­al II (1x/day)
  8. Favor­ed Ene­my: Beasts*
  9. Rilos‘ Batt­le Ritu­al I (3x/day), Rilos‘ Batt­le Ritu­al II (2x/day)
  10. Rilos‘ Batt­le Ritu­al III (1x/day)
  11. Favor­ed Ene­my: Magi­cal Beasts*
  12. Rilos‘ Batt­le Ritu­al II (3x/day), Rilos‘ Batt­le Ritu­al III (2x/day)
  13. Rilos‘ Batt­le Ritu­al I (4x/day), Rilos‘ Batt­le Ritu­al IV (1x/day)
  14. Favor­ed Ene­my: Mons­trous Humanoids*
  15. Rilos‘ Batt­le Ritu­al III (3x/day), Rilos‘ Batt­le Ritu­al IV (2x/day)
  16. Rilos‘ Batt­le Ritu­al II (4x/day)
  17. Favor­ed Ene­my: Dragons*
  18. Rilos‘ Batt­le Ritu­al I (5x/day), Rilos‘ Batt­le Ritu­al IV (3x/day)
  19. Rilos‘ Batt­le Ritu­al III (4x/day)
  20. Bane of Enemies*
  21. and bey­ond: Epic pro­gres­si­on, no new feats, choices as ranger.

* = See NWN manu­al or 3.0 Player’s Hand­book for description

Detect Evil

Detect Evil for Pala­dins of Jale­tars (and later as well for other Holy War­ri­ors) reve­als the amount of evil pre­sen­ces near­by. It is not imple­men­ted as a spell. Peo­p­le can not tell when you’­re using it.
Rilos‘ Batt­le Rituals
As you per­haps know, assig­ning spells to pres­ti­ge clas­ses is not pos­si­ble in the con­ven­tio­nal man­ner. In their stead we have given the Pala­din of Rilos Batt­le Ritu­als. The­se will allow the class to mani­fest some of the pala­din spells any­way. Here’s the list of powers you can expect:

Rilos‘ Batt­le Ritu­al I
— Bless
— Divi­ne Favor
— Cure Light Wounds
— Magic Weapon
— Pro­tec­tion from Evil

Rilos‘ Batt­le Ritu­al II
— Aid
— Bull’s Strength
— Cat’s Grace
— Pro­tec­tion from Elements
— Clairaudience/Clairvoyance

Rilos‘ Batt­le Ritu­al III
— Bla­de Thirst
— Prayer
— Magic Cir­cle Against Evil
— Cure Mode­ra­te Wounds
— Keen Edge

Rilos‘ Batt­le Ritu­al IV
— Cure Serious Wounds
— Batt­le Tide
— Free­dom of Movement
— War Cry
— Holy Axe**

** = Spell chan­ged to reflect Rilos‘ back­ground bet­ter. See below for more details.

Spell Chan­ges
The chan­ges to spells are not expan­si­ve. You will still reco­g­ni­se the spell if you knew the ori­gi­nal, yet the­re will be some noti­ca­ble dif­fe­ren­ces. At this time, in fact, the­re is only one dif­fe­rent spell for the Pala­din of Rilos, but more chan­ges could hap­pen in the future, in which case they will be added to the fol­lo­wing list:

  • Holy Axe: Does not give Holy Aven­ger pro­per­ty (hard­coded to work only for regu­lar pala­dins), but ins­tead makes your wea­pon +5 with 2d6 dama­ge vs evil added in. Also grants a cir­cle of pro­tec­tion vs. evil around the cas­ter. Only works for axes.