Author Topic: Twilight Mystic, a stealthy Cleric/Swordsage prestige class  (Read 5189 times)

Offline Garryl

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Twilight Mystic, a stealthy Cleric/Swordsage prestige class
« on: April 26, 2012, 07:00:33 PM »
Twilight Mystic Prestige Class
For sneaky Cleric/Swordsages. Requested by PhaedrusXY.

   Feats: Shadow Trickster
   Skills: Hide 8 ranks, Knowledge (religion) 4 ranks, Move Silently 4 ranks.
   Martial Maneuvers: Must know at least one Shadow Hand maneuver.
   Martial Stances: Must know at least one Shadow Hand stance.
   Spellcasting: Must be able to cast divine spells, including at least two Divination spells and two Illusion spells.
   Special: Must have access to at least one of the following domains: Darkness, Illusion, Knowledge, Oracle, Shadow, or Trickery.


Table: The Twilight Mystic      Hit Die: d8
        Base                                                                  -----Spellcasting-----                     -----Maneuvers-----
        Attack  Fort Ref  Will                                                                                           Maneuvers       Stances
Level   Bonus   Save Save Save    Special                                                                                Known  Readied  Known
1       +0      +0   +2   +2      Shadowed Tutelage                           ---                                        1      0        0
2       +1      +0   +3   +3      Dusk's Embrace Stance                       +1 of existing divine spellcasting class   0      0        0
3       +2      +1   +3   +3      Sneak Attack +1d6                           +1 of existing divine spellcasting class   1      1        0
4       +3      +1   +4   +4      Still Illusion                              +1 of existing divine spellcasting class   0      0        1
5       +3      +1   +4   +4      Hide in Plain Sight                         +1 of existing divine spellcasting class   1      0        0
6       +4      +2   +5   +5      Sneak Attack +2d6                           ---                                        0      1        0
7       +5      +2   +5   +5      Evasion                                     +1 of existing divine spellcasting class   1      0        0
8       +6      +2   +6   +6      Silent Illusion                             +1 of existing divine spellcasting class   0      0        1
9       +6      +3   +6   +6      Sneak Attack +3d6                           +1 of existing divine spellcasting class   1      1        0
10      +7      +3   +7   +7      Dance of the Trickster Stance               +1 of existing divine spellcasting class   0      0        0

Class skills (6 + Int modifier per level): Balance, Bluff, Climb, Concentration, Craft, Disguise, Forgery, Heal, Hide, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge (all skills, taken individually), Listen, Move Silently, Search, Sense Motive, Sleight of Hand, Spellcraft, Spot, Tumble

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: You gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor.

Spellcasting: At each level except 1st level and 6th level, you gain new spells per day and an increase in caster level (and spells known, if applicable) as if you had also gained a level in a divine spellcasting class to which you belonged before adding the prestige class level. You do not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. If you had more than one divine spellcasting class before becoming a Twilight Mystic, you must decide to which class to add each level for the purpose of determining spells per day, caster level, and spells known.

Maneuvers: At every odd-numbered level, you learn a new martial maneuver from the Devoted Spirit, Diamond Mind, Setting Sun, or Shadow Hand disciplines. You must meet a maneuver's prerequisites to select it. You add your full Twilight Mystic level to your initiator level to determine your total initiator level and your highest-level maneuvers known.
   At 3rd level, 6th level, and 9th level, you gain an additional maneuver readied per day.

Stances Known: At 4th level and 8th level, you learn a new martial stance from the Devoted Spirit, Diamond Mind, Setting Sun, or Shadow Hand disciplines. You must meet a stance's prerequisites to select it.

Shadowed Tutelage: A Twilight Mystic understands that reality lies between truth and deception. This understanding extends to the divine power you wield, granting you new insight. You add the following spells at the indicated spell levels to your spell list for each divine spellcasting class you possess.

1st - detect secret doors, silent image
2nd - blur, see invisibility
3rd - arcane sight, invisibility
4th - illusory wall, scrying
5th - seeming, true seeing
6th - analyze dweomer, mislead
7th - greater arcane sight, permanent image
8th - moment of prescience, screen

Dusk's Embrace Stance (Su): Starting at 2nd level, while you are in a Shadow Hand stance, you can forgo its normal benefit as a swift action to gain the benefits of Dusk's Embrace Stance. This ability lasts as long as you would maintain the Shadow Hand stance, or as described below. You can also stop using Dusk's Embrace Stance and resume gaining the normal benefit of the stance as a swift action. You are still considered to be in a Shadow Hand stance.
   While this ability is active, you gain darkvision with a range of 60 feet, or your existing darkvision's range improves by 60 feet (if you already possess it). In addition, if you are within an area of complete darkness, you gain blindsight out to 30 feet, and abilities and senses that would allow a creature to see you normally or pinpoint your location (including, but not limited to, darkvision, tremorsense, blindsight, the touchsight power, and the Mindsight feat) still treat you as though you had concealment. If you are hiding, these senses do not detect you unless their possessor would detect you normally if you only had concealment (such as through a Spot or Listen check that beats the results of your Hide or Move Silently checks).

Sneak Attack (Ex): Starting at 3rd level, you gain the ability to deal additional damage when your enemies are distracted. This ability functions as the Rogue ability of the same name. The extra damage dealt increases by +1d6 at 3rd level and every 3 levels thereafter. If you get a sneak attack bonus from another source the bonuses on damage stack.

Still Illusion (Ex): Starting at 4th level, you no longer need to provide somatic components when casting Illusion spells. You may still choose to provide them if beneficial.

Hide in Plain Sight (Su): Starting at 5th level, you can use the Hide skill even while being observed. As long as you are within 10 feet of some sort of shadow, you can hide yourself from view in the open without having anything to actually hide behind. You cannot, however, hide in your own shadow.

Evasion (Ex): Starting at 7th level, you gain the ability to avoid explosive effects when not overburdened by armor. This ability functions as the Monk ability of the same name.

Silent Illusion (Ex): Starting at 8th level, you no longer need to provide verbal components when casting Illusion spells. You may still choose to provide them if beneficial.

Dance of the Trickster Stance (Su): Starting at 10th level, while you are in a Shadow Hand stance, you can forgo its normal benefit as a swift action to gain the benefits of Dance of the Trickster Stance. This ability lasts as long as you would maintain the Shadow Hand stance, or as described below. You can also stop using Dance of the Trickster Stance and resume gaining the normal benefit of the stance as a swift action. You are still considered to be in a Shadow Hand stance.
   While this ability is active, you can expend a readied maneuver and a spell slot or prepared spell to spontaneously cast a spell from the Shadowed Tutelage spell list. The level of the maneuver and the spell slot or prepared spell must each be at least one level higher than the spell you cast in this way. You need not know the spell you cast this way, as long as it is still on your spell list.


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« Last Edit: September 18, 2013, 04:58:15 PM by Garryl »

Offline Sinfire Titan

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Re: Twilight Mystic, a stealthy Cleric/Swordsage prestige class
« Reply #1 on: April 26, 2012, 07:21:26 PM »
Just a question out of curiosity: Is the RKV not enough? It gives Shadow Hand, after all.
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Offline Ziegander

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Re: Twilight Mystic, a stealthy Cleric/Swordsage prestige class
« Reply #2 on: April 26, 2012, 07:30:59 PM »
Just a question out of curiosity: Is the RKV not enough? It gives Shadow Hand, after all.

I should think that the desire to create this PrC was aiming for much more than "class advances cleric casting and grants Shadow Hand maneuvers."

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: Twilight Mystic, a stealthy Cleric/Swordsage prestige class
« Reply #3 on: August 31, 2013, 03:25:40 PM »
Just a question out of curiosity: Is the RKV not enough? It gives Shadow Hand, after all.
It's also very hard to get into with a Swordsage, as it requires access to Devoted Defender. So you're basically forced to enter as a Crusader, or burn resources (feats, items, etc) on entry.
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Offline Garryl

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Re: Twilight Mystic, a stealthy Cleric/Swordsage prestige class
« Reply #4 on: September 18, 2013, 05:03:25 PM »
I made a couple of changes to the spells granted by Shadowed Tutelage. Scrying and True Seeing were being granted at the exact same levels that Clerics already got them, which meant that they got no benefit from that part of the class feature (at least, not until Dance of the Trickster at level 10 letting them spontaneously cast it from a slot 1 level higher).

Just a question out of curiosity: Is the RKV not enough? It gives Shadow Hand, after all.
It's also very hard to get into with a Swordsage, as it requires access to Devoted Defender. So you're basically forced to enter as a Crusader, or burn resources (feats, items, etc) on entry.

Interestingly enough, I just noticed that Devoted Spirit is one of the disciplines that Twilight Mystic offers access to, so you can actually use it to get into RKV. And RKV offers Shadow Hand, so you can do it the other way around as well. Taking levels in both would involve a lot of lost caster levels, unfortunately.

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: Twilight Mystic, a stealthy Cleric/Swordsage prestige class
« Reply #5 on: September 18, 2013, 09:08:47 PM »
Wow... an Ur-Priest Twilight Mystic/RKV could be interesting... maybe with 3 levels of Shadowcraft Mage thrown in for fun... :D 5th level is the obvious bail point with this class, as you get a bit of sneak attack, the very nice stance at 2nd level, and HiPS. And then you'll want to take RKV to 7th, meaning this isn't all even possible to fit within a 20 level build. :P But hell... even 2 levels of RKV is probably worth it.

I think the easiest way to get access to the requisite domain would be by taking the Planar Touchstone feat for the Catalogs of Enlightenment. Then this class gives you Silent Illusion to fuel your SCM shenanigans.

If we could find a way to make all of our Illusion spells evil, we'd get a tasty +4 to all of the DCs while in a Shadow Hand stance. Finally, multiclassing Swordsage/Crusader might not be a bad way to enter this at all, since you'd be stacking a bunch of martial adept PrCs which would advance both simultaneously. So maybe...

Swordsage 4/Crusader 1/Ur-Priest 2/Twilight Mystic 5/SCM 3/RKV 5 (probably not in that order)
Required feats: SF: Illusion, Shadow Trickster, Planar Touchstone, Iron Will (can buy for 3k), SF: Evil
SS IL 17, Cr IL 15, CL 13 (9th level spells)

Not sure how to get the skill points for Kn: Religion and Spellcraft...
« Last Edit: September 18, 2013, 09:10:45 PM by phaedrusxy »
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Offline Garryl

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Re: Twilight Mystic, a stealthy Cleric/Swordsage prestige class
« Reply #6 on: September 18, 2013, 10:05:56 PM »
If you ever need to get a class skill, PBMC has you covered.

Crusaders already have Know (religion) as a class skill, so that's not a problem.

For Spellcraft, can you spare a feat? If you have Int 13, you can snag Keeper of Forbidden Lore.