Min/Max Boards

Death Knight base class
The death knight is an undead or necromantic martial champion.

Abilities: As a frontline combatant, Strength and Constitution are very important to a death knight. As a death knight grows in power, she learns to necromantically channel her forceful Charisma into enhanced fighting prowess.
Alignment: Any non-good
Starting Gold: 6d4x10 (150 gp)
Starting Age: As fighter.

Hit Die: d12

Table: The Death Knight

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special	Maneuvers Known	Maneuvers Readied	Stances Known
1	+1	+0	+0	+2	Dark Fortitude (Fort saves), Deadly Touch	3	3	1
2	+2	+0	+0	+3	Toughened Flesh (+1 natural armor)	4	3	1
3	+3	+1	+1	+3	Dark Reactions (initiative)	5	3	1
4	+4	+1	+1	+4	Toughened Flesh (25% fortification)	5	4	2
5	+5	+1	+1	+4	Death's Steed, Toughened Flesh (+2 natural armor)	6	4	2
6	+6/+1	+2	+2	+5	--	6	4	2
7	+7/+2	+2	+2	+5	Dark Focus (skills)	7	4	2
8	+8/+3	+2	+2	+6	Fear Aura 2/day	7	4	2
9	+9/+4	+3	+3	+6	Toughened Flesh (+3 natural armor)	8	4	2
10	+10/+5	+3	+3	+7	--	8	5	3
11	+11/+6/+1	+3	+3	+7	Toughened Flesh (50% fortification)	9	5	3
12	+12/+7/+2	+4	+4	+8	Fear Aura 3/day, Lethal Touch	9	5	3
13	+13/+8/+3	+4	+4	+8	Dark Might (critical confirmation)	10	5	3
14	+14/+9/+4	+4	+4	+9	Toughened Flesh (+4 natural armor)	10	5	3
15	+15/+10/+5	+5	+5	+9	--	11	6	3
16	+16/+11/+6/+1	+5	+5	+10	Fear Aura 4/day	11	6	4
17	+17/+12/+7/+2	+5	+5	+10	--	12	6	4
18	+18/+13/+8/+3	+6	+6	+11	Toughened Flesh (75% fortification)	12	6	4
19	+19/+14/+9/+4	+6	+6	+11	--	13	6	4
20	+20/+15/+10/+5	+6	+6	+12	Death Knight, Fear Aura 5/day, Toughened Flesh (+5 natural armor), Turn Immunity, Unholy Toughness	13	7	4

Class skills (4 + Int modifier per level): Balance, Bluff, Climb, Concentration, Craft, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge (history), Knowledge (nobility and royalty), Knowledge (religion), Martial Lore, Profession, Ride, Sense Motive, Survival, and Swim.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: As a death knight, you are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, with light, medium, and heavy armor, and with shields (other than tower shields).

Maneuvers: You begin your career with knowledge of three martial maneuvers. The disciplines available to you are Devoted Spirit, Frozen Night, Restless Bones, and Undying Call.

Once you know a maneuver, you must ready it before you can use it (see Maneuvers Readied, below). A maneuver usable by a death knight is considered an extraordinary ability unless otherwise noted in its description. Your maneuvers are not affected by spell resistance, and you do not provoke attacks of opportunity when you initiate one.

You learn additional maneuvers at higher levels, as shown on the table above. You must meet a maneuver's prerequisite to learn it. See Table 3-1 (TOB 39), to determine the highest-level maneuvers you can learn.

Upon reaching 4th level, and at every even-numbered death knight level after that (6th, 8th, 10th, and so on), you can choose to learn a new maneuver in place of one you already know. In effect, you lose the old maneuver in exchange for the new one. You can choose a new maneuver of any level you like, as long as you observe your restriction on the highest-level maneuvers you know; you need not replace the old maneuver with a maneuver of the same level. For example, upon reaching 10th level, you could trade in a single 1st-, 2nd-, 3rd- or 4th-level maneuver for a maneuver of 5th level or lower, as long as you meet the prerequisite of the new maneuver. You can swap only a single maneuver at any given level.

Maneuvers Readied: You can ready all three of the maneuvers you know at 1st level, and as you advance in level and learn more maneuvers, you are able to ready more, but you must choose which maneuvers to ready. You ready your maneuvers by practicing and exercising for 5 minutes. The maneuvers you choose remain readied until you decide to exercise again and change them. You need not sleep or rest for any long period of time to ready your maneuvers; any time you spend 5 minutes in practice, you can change your readied maneuvers.

You begin an encounter with all your readied maneuvers unexpended, regardless of how many times you might have already used them since you chose them. When you initiate a maneuver, you expend it for the current encounter, so each of your readied maneuvers can be used once per encounter (until you recover them, as described below).

You can recover all expended maneuvers with a single swift action, which must be immediately followed in the same round with the use of your Deadly Touch ability without a strike or using a standard action to do nothing else in the round (such as executing a quick, harmless flourish with your weapon). You cannot initiate a maneuver or change your stance while you are recovering your expended maneuvers, but you can remain in a stance in which you began your turn.

Stances Known: You begin play with knowledge of one stance from any discipline open to death knights. At 4th, 10th, and 16th level, you can choose additional stances. Unlike maneuvers, stances are not expended, and you do not have to ready them. All the stances you know are available to you at all times, and you can change the stance you are currently using as a swift action. A stance is an extraordinary ability unless otherwise stated in the stance description.

Unlike with maneuvers, you cannot learn a new stance at higher levels in place of one you already know.

Dark Fortitude (Su): As your power grows and you slowly begin to pass beyond frail flesh and into something more, your dark will fortifies your physical being. You add your Charisma bonus (minimum +0) as an enhancement bonus on all Fortitude saves. This bonus cannot exceed your death knight level.

Deadly Touch (Su): Your mastery over the powers of death and unlife allow you to channel destructive energies into your foes. Once per round as a standard action, you can make a melee touch attack to deal an amount of damage equal to your Charisma bonus, minimum 1. This damage results from negative energy and counts as a Necromancy effect. You can combine this touch attack with martial strikes that allow you to make a single melee attack and have an initiation action of at least 1 standard action, although not with other attack options, such as attacks of opportunity, a full attack, or maneuvers that grant multiple attacks.

Toughened Flesh (Ex): As your dark transformation begins, your flesh begins to harden. Beginning at 2nd level, you gain a +1 natural armor bonus to your Armor Class, or your existing natural armor bonus increases by +1. This improves to +2 at 5th level, +3 at 9th level, +4 at 14th level, and +5 at 20th level.

Additionally, your descent into undeath reduces your reliance on your frail body. Starting at 4th level, you gain a 25% chance to ignore the extra damage of a critical hit or precision damage attack (such as sneak attack). This increases to 50% at 11th level and to 75% at 18th level.

Dark Reactions (Su): Beginning at 3rd level, you add your Charisma bonus (minimum +0) as an enhancement bonus on initiative checks.

Death's Steed (Sp): Upon reaching 5th level, you gain the service of an unusually intelligent, strong, and loyal steed to serve you.

Once per day, as a full-round action, you may magically call your mount from the abyssal or infernal realms in which it resides. This ability is the equivalent of a spell of a level equal to one-third your level. The mount immediately appears adjacent to you and remains for 2 hours per death knight level; it may be dismissed at any time as a free action. The mount is the same creature each time it is called, though you may release a particular mount from service.

Each time the mount is called, it appears in full health, regardless of any damage it may have taken previously. The mount also appears wearing or carrying any gear it had when it was last dismissed. Calling a mount is a conjuration (calling) effect.

Should your mount die or be destroyed, it immediately disappears, leaving behind any equipment it was carrying. You may not summon another mount for one week or until you gain you level, whichever comes first, even if the mount is somehow returned from the dead or restored to undeath.

Dark Focus (Su): Beginning at 7th level, you add your Charisma bonus (minimum +0) as an enhancement bonus on all Constitution checks, Constitution-based skill checks, and on checks with the skills of any discipline from which you know any maneuvers or stances.

Fear Aura (Su): Your power frightens lesser foes. Beginning at 8th level, you can emit an aura of fear once per round as a free action. Creatures within 15 feet with less than 2 HD must make a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 your death knight level + your Charisma modifier) or be panicked for 1 round per level. Twice per day, you can intensify this aura to also cause creatures with any amount of hit dice to be frightened for the same duration on a failed saving throw. For every 4 death knight levels beyond 8th, you can panic creatures with 1 more HD and you can intensify the aura 1 additional time per day. This is a mind-affecting fear effect.

Lethal Touch (Su): Beginning at 12th level, the damage from your deadly touch attack increases to 1d8 + your Charisma bonus (minimum +0), and any living creature struck by it must also make a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 your death knight level + your Charisma modifier) or take 1 point of Constitution damage. Creatures immune to or healed by negative energy are not at risk of this Constitution damage.

Dark Might (Su): Beginning at 13th level, you add your Charisma bonus (minimum +0) as an competence bonus on critical confirmation rolls.

Death Knight: At 20th level, your transformation into undeath is complete. You become a true undead creature. You gain the traits of your new type, but do not recalculate your existing racial hit dice.

• Your type changes to undead, and you gain the augmented subtype for your previous type.
• You lose your Constitution score. However, your fortitude in life leads to power in undeath. Calculate your Constitution score, considering only your base score (including increases due to level) and racial modifiers (including those from templates). For every 6 points of your Constitution score, your Strength score increases by +2. For every 6 points of Constitution beyond 2, your Charisma score increases by +2. For every 6 points of Constitution beyond 4, your Wisdom score increases by +2. Treat these increases to your other ability scores the same as increases to an ability score from hit dice or level. For example, if you had a Constitution score of 12 in life before applying the effects of your magical equipment and spells, you would increase your Strength score by +4, and your Wisdom and Charisma scores by +2.
• You gain darkvision out to 60 feet, if you did not already have it.
• You gain immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).
• You gain immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, and death effects.
• You are not subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability drain, or energy drain.
• You are immune to damage to your physical ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution), as well as to fatigue and exhaustion effects.
• You cannot heal damage on your own if you have no Intelligence score, although you can be healed. Negative energy (such as an inflict spell or your deadly touch ability) can heal you. The fast healing special quality works regardless of your Intelligence score.
  
• You gain immunity to any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless).
• You use your Charisma modifier for Concentration checks. This stacks with the enhancement bonus from Dark Focus.
• You are not at risk of death from massive damage, but when reduced to 0 hit points or less, you are immediately destroyed.
• You are not affected by raise dead and reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect undead creatures. However, unlike other undead, these spells revive you in your undead state.
  
• You do not breathe, eat, or sleep.

Additionally, in passing beyond life, you gain DR 15/magic. The dark power that now sustains your essence cannot be disrupted by mere sticks and stones.

Turn Immunity (Ex): Starting at 20th level, you can never be turned or rebuked.

Unholy Toughness (Ex): Beginning at 20th level, you gain extra hit points, as though from a high Constitution score, equal to your Charisma bonus (minimum +0) times your character level.

Ex-Death Knights: If you become good-aligned, you cannot advance further as a death knight and you lose access to your death's steed and fear aura abilities until such time as you become non-good again. Your current special mount from death's steed, if any, abandons you. You can call a new one only after one week or after you gain a level, as though your mount died or was destroyed.

The Death Knight's Steed

Alternative Special Mounts

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Change Log

Infernal Spirit alternative class feature

Level: Death Knight 5
Replaces: You do not gain the death's steed ability at 5th level.
Benefit: You gain the infernal spirit ability at 5th level.

Infernal Spirit (Su): Upon reaching 5th level, you can call upon your dark patrons for aid in the form of an infernal spirit. Using this ability is a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity. See below for detailed spirit descriptions and rules.

Your death knight level determines which kinds of infernal spirits answer your summons. You can summon the spirit available at your current level as well as any that became available at lower levels.

Table: Infernal Spirit

Death Knight Level	Spirit Summoned
5th	Spirit of injury
11th	Spirit of fury
16th	Spirit of power
20th	Spirit of death

The following entries describe how each of the different spirits function. Unless otherwise specified, all spirits share some characteristics, as set out below.

• A spirit occupies a 5-foot square on the battle map.
• When summoned, a spirit appears on the battlefield within 30 feet of you. You can use a free action to have it move once per round. The spirit has a land speed of 30 feet.
• All spirits are insubstantial and transparent. Any creature can move through them normally, and they do not block line of sight or line of effect.
• A spirit cannot attack or be attacked. It is not undead and cannot be turned. It is subject to dispel magic, dismissal, or banishment as if it were a summoned creature, using your death knight level as the caster level.
  
• If you lose line of sight to a spirit, it disappears immediately.
• Each spirit available to you can be summoned once per day.
• A spirit remains for a number of rounds equal to your death knight level, until it is dismissed, or until special conditions in the spirit's description are met.

Spirit of Injury: This spirit increases your ability to harm your enemies. When summoned, it can deal an amount of damage equal to 2 x your death knight level x your Charisma bonus (minimum +1).

To use its harming ability, an enemy must take damage while in the same square as the spirit. The spirit enhances the injury, increasing the amount of damage taken after applying resistances, damage reduction, and the like by +50%, although not by more than the amount of damage it has left to deal. Once the spirit has used all its harming ability, it dissipates.

Spirit of Fury: This spirit enhances combat ability. Whenever an ally (including yourself) is adjacent to the spirit of fury or occupying its space, that character gains unholy fervor. Unholy fervor grants a +1 profane bonus on attacks and damage rolls for every four death knight levels you possess (up to a maximum of +5 at 20th level). In addition, affected characters' weapons are treated as evil-aligned for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Spirit of Power: This spirit automatically occupies your space and does not leave until dismissed or dispelled, or the duration of the summoning ends. You gain DR 5/-. In addition, you can use your deadly touch ability as a free action once per round instead of as a standard action.

Spirit of Death: While any of your opponents are adjacent to this spirit or occupy its space, any fast healing or regeneration those characters may have is reduced by 10 (minimum 0), and any healing it receives from other sources is reduced by 10 hit points (minimum 0). Treat this as a profane penalty. If an affected character's regeneration is reduced to 0 in this way, it does not convert damage to nonlethal damage. If an affected character's hit points drop to less than half of its maximum hit points while occupying the spirit's space, the spirit attempts to snuff its life out. The character must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 your death knight level + your Charisma modifier) or die. This is a Necromancy death effect. The spirit can use its death ability once per round.

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Change Log