Since my D&D campaign has been on hiatus for the last 5+ weeks, I've been getting my fix with tinkering with other stuff. Therefore, for your consideration, here is an adaption of the prestige class Abolisher, from Lords of Madness, designed to fight giants instead of aberrations. It doesn't have quite as much style or any strange abilities like the original abolisher, as giants are not as strange as aberrations. It's more about brute force.
Abolisher of Giants, aka the Giant Killer
Prerequisites
Type- Cannot be a giant
Alignment- Any, but normally non-evil
Skills- Knowledge- Nature 9 ranks, Survival 4 ranks
Feats- Track
Class Features- Wild Empathy
HD- d8
BAB- medium**
Saves- fort- poor***; reflex poor; will good
Class Skills- lose Knowledge: the planes; gain Knowledge: religion
1st- Favored Enemy Giant +2; wild shape +1/day; animal companion; spellcasting
2nd- +4 dodge bonus vs giants
3rd- Giant-Fighting Skill +1
4th- Favored Enemy- Giant +4; Wild shape +2/day
5th- Damage Reduction 2/-
6th- Giant-Fighting Skill +2
7th- DR 4/-
8th- Favored Enemy- Giant +6; Wild shape +3/day
9th- Giant-Fighting Skill +3; DR 6/-^
10th- Giant-Bane^^; DR 10/-
Spellcasting: As per the existing Abolisher class description.
Favored Enemy (Ex): At 1st level, you gain Giants as a favored enemy, as per the ranger class ability. Your bonus vs giants increases to +4 at 4th level and +6 at 8th level. These bonuses stack with Favored Enemy bonuses granted from other classes.
Wild Shape (Su): As per the existing Abolisher class description.
Animal Companion: As per the existing Abolisher class description.
Giant-Fighting Skill (Ex): At 3rd level, the giant-killer gains a +1 bonus to all attack rolls and all opposed rolls against giants. This bonus increases to +2 at 6th level and +3 at 9th level.
Damage Reduction (Ex): At 5th level, the Giant-Killer gains Damage Reduction 2/-. This DR increases to DR 4/- at 7th level, DR 6/- at 9th level, and DR 10/- at 10th level. This DR stacks with DR granted by other classes and feats.
Giant-Bane (Ex)- At 10th level, all weapons you wield (ranged or melee; manufactured or natural; magical, masterwork, or mundane) gain the giant bane property, just as if the weapon was enchanted with that property, while you wield that weapon. The weapon’s enhancement bonus increases by +2 and the weapon does an additional 2d6 damage vs giants, for a total of +2 attack, +2d6+2 damage vs giants. This ability stacks with that of weapons already possessing the giant-bane enchantment. For example, a +1 giant-bane great sword wielded by a ranger 6/abolisher 10 would, when used against a giant, become a +5 double giant bane greatsword, and inflict 2d6+5+4d6 damage vs giants (plus bonuses derived from other class features). This is a continuous effect and does not require activation.
*- Yeah, I know there’s a class with an identical name in Silver Marches. It’s 3.0 Forgotten Realms, I play in a 3.5 home-brew setting, and that class is pretty underwhelming. (Dodge, mobility AND toughness as prerquisites? Ha.)
**- This is mostly because I would feel the need to cut spell casting progression to 5/10 if this class was full BAB.
***- The only reason I can think of to include good fort progression would be because of death from massive damage, which is a possibility once you get to a level where the giants are power attacking you. However, the intended entry for this class remains ranger 6, druid 6, or something similar.
****- should this be competence, or untyped? You tell me.
^ - The DR is designed to replace the defensive part of the Fires of Nature’s Rage ability, but I figured the DR should be scaled in, rather than go from nothing to DR 10/- at 10th level, which was my original idea.
^^ - Should this stack with an enchanted weapons existing giant-bane property? I mean, it really wouldn’t be that big a deal vs the kind of stuff wizards and clerics will be doing at 16th level. Second, should this ability have a duration, like 3/day for 5 rounds, or 3/day for 5 rounds plus Wis modifier? This honestly strikes me as too weak an ability if it is limited to 3/day for a few rounds. Are there any obvious abuses to this I'm not seeing?
