1001 Homebrew Ideas to Flesh Out Sometime

[Garryl]

Breach Wave
Level 5-ish spell
Conjuration (teleportation)
The spell creates an unstable connection to another plane in a cone. This deals damage to creatures and objects in the area initially, then fills the cone's area with the chosen plane's planar traits for 1 round/level, overriding similar planar traits for the local plane. Only limited planar traits are transferred, and often weakened (so no time traits, and magic-modifying traits might have lesser effects or only apply to lower-level spells). The spell's descriptors and damage type change based on the chosen plane.

Plane	Descriptors	Damage Type	Energy and Elemental Traits	Alignment Traits	Magic Traits
Prime Material	None	Untyped	None	Mildly neutral-aligned	Normal magic
Ethereal	None	Untyped	None	Mildly neutral-aligned	Normal magic
Astral	None	Untyped	None	Mildly neutral-aligned	Timeless magic (lower-level spells expire at half their normal rate within the area)
Shadow	Darkness	Untyped	None	Mildly neutral-aligned	Enhanced magic (+10% shadow reality for lower-level spells), impeded magic (lower-level light spells require a Spellcraft check to be cast)
Air	Air	Slashing	Air-dominant	Mildly neutral-aligned	Enhanced magic (lower-level air spells are enlarged), impeded magic (lower-level earth spells require a Spellcraft check to be cast)
Earth	Earth	Bludgeoning	Earth-dominant (area is difficult terrain, rather than being filled with solid earth)	Mildly neutral-aligned	Enhanced magic (lower-level earth spells are extended), impeded magic (lower-level air spells require a Spellcraft check to be cast)
Fire	Fire	Fire	Fire-dominant (area only deals 1d6 fire damage/round, 2d6 to water creatures)	Mildly neutral-aligned	Enhanced magic (lower-level fire spells are enlarged), impeded magic (lower-level water spells require a Spellcraft check to be cast)
Water	Water	Bludgeoning	Water-dominant (attacks and effects into the area are resolved as if underwater, area deals 1d6 damage/round to fire creatures)	Mildly neutral-aligned	Enhanced magic (lower-level water spells are extended), impeded magic (lower-level fire spells require a Spellcraft check to be cast)

TODO: Positive, negative, dream, outer planes.
Note: Despite suppressing magic traits, dead magic traits won't be suppressed because the spell can't affect that part of the plane to begin with.
Magic traits only apply to spells of lower level than this spell. Spells of equal or higher level use the local plane's normal magic traits.

Not sure if the spell should let the caster choose the plane or have it be determined randomly.

Also a higher-level version that deals more damage and allows more powerful traits through.

[Garryl]

Berserker

Barbarian-like rager.
Has more flexible rage benefits, inspired in part by PF's Rage Powers.

Rage Depth: Class feature that increases with level. This controls the magnitude of benefits you gain from raging, but also the penalties. Starts at +1, increases up to +5 or +6 by level 20.

Rage: You can enter a rage, a state of heightened emotion and aggression. There is no limit to the number of times you can enter a rage per day.

Rage Forms: Not all rages are equal. Different rage forms affect how you enter and maintain a rage, as well as what happens when you cease raging. Except where noted, your rage lasts for a number of rounds equal to your rage depth + your Con modifier, you can end a rage prematurely on your turn as a free action, and for 1 minute after the end of the rage, you cannot enter another rage.
- Instant Temper: You fly into a rage as a swift action on your turn. For 1 minute after the end of the rage, you are fatigued. You cannot enter a rage this way while fatigued or exhausted.
- Stoking Fury: You can fly into a rage as a swift action on your turn. During the first round of your rage, your rage depth is 2 less than normal (minimum 0). You can stoke your rage as a free action, increasing your rage depth by 2 for 1 round, but also reducing its remaining duration to 1 round.
- Battle Rush: You can fly into a rage as an immediate action whenever you hit an opponent with an attack or are hit by a damaging attack.
- Survival Instincts: You can fly into a rage as an immediate action as long as your hit points are less than or equal to half your maximum or whenever you receive a critical hit. Treat your rage depth as 2 less than normal for the purpose of rage drawbacks.

Rage Powers: At level 1, you gain 2 rage powers. Each rage power affects the benefits of your rage, granting you bonuses of various sorts.
- Flexible Rage: Costs 2 rage power options, but lets you select a rage option you qualify for each time you enter a rage, rather than only when you gain levels.
- Guarded Fury: You gain a dodge bonus to your Armor Class equal to your rage depth.
- Toughening Rage: While raging, you gain a bonus to your natural armor equal to your rage depth. If you do not already have natural armor, treat your existing natural armor bonus as +0.

- Pain Suppression: You gain a bonus to any damage reduction you may have equal twice to your rage depth. If you don't already have any DR/-, you gain DR 0/-, allowing you to apply this bonus to it.
- Indestructible Thews: Requires Pain Suppression. If you would take any Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution damage while raging, reduce it by your rage depth. If you would suffer any Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution drain, reduce it by half your rage depth. This can't reduce ability damage or drain to less than 0. This ability does not protect against ability damage or drain that you receive willingly or that you inflict upon yourself.

- Single-Minded Fury: Add your rage depth as a bonus on Fortitude and Will saves.
- Unyielding Mind: Requires Single-Minded Fury. If you would take any Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma damage while raging, reduce it by your rage depth. If you would suffer any Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma drain, reduce it by half your rage depth. This can't reduce ability damage or drain to less than 0. This ability does not protect against ability damage or drain that you receive willingly or that you inflict upon yourself.

- Adrenal Force: Add your rage depth as a bonus on melee and thrown weapon attack and damage rolls.
- Frenzied Strikes: Requires Adrenal Force. When you make a full attack, you can accept a -4 penalty on your attack rolls in order to make an additional attack at your full Base Attack Bonus. This penalty is reduced by your rage depth, to a minimum of -0. If your rage depth is 4 or greater, you can increase the penalty to -8 to instead make two extra attacks.
- Unyielding Might: Requires Adrenal Force. Add your rage depth as a bonus on a Strength, Strength-based, Constitution, and Constitution-based checks.

- Beastly Rage: While raging, you gain a pair of claw attacks (1d6). These natural weapons gain an enhancement bonus equal to your rage depth.
- Furious Maw: Requires Beastly Rage. While raging, you gain a bite attack (1d6). This natural weapon gains an enhancement bonus equal to your rage depth.
- Enraged Pounce: Requires Beastly Rage. When you charge while raging, you can make a full attack instead of a single attack. You cannot make more attacks this way than 1 + your rage depth.

- Adrenal Resilience: When you enter a rage, you gain temporary hit points equal to your rager level x your rage depth, which last for as long as the rage does. If your rage depth increases during the rage, you gain commensurately more temporary hit points. If your rage depth decreases during the rage, you lose a commensurate amount of temporary hit points from among those that remain from this ability, and take nonlethal damage equal to the difference if there are not enough temporary hit points to remove.
- Deathless Frenzy: Requires Adrenal Resilience. You gain a bonus on saves against necromancy and death effects equal to twice your rage depth. You gain a bonus equal to your rager level x your rage depth x 2 to your hit points. These hit points are not lost first like temporary hit points, and disappear when the rage ends.

- Arcane Defiance: You gain spell resistance equal to 5 + your rager level + twice your rage depth.
- Arcane Repudiation: Requires Arcane Defiance. Whenever you make a weapon attack while raging, before resolving the attack, you attempt to dispel up to one effect from either the target of your attack or from the space into which you are attacking. This functions like the area dispel mode of dispel magic, except that you use 1/2 your rager level + your rage depth in place of your caster level for the dispel check and that there is no maximum to your effective caster level for the dispel check's modifier.
- Arcane Denial: Requires Arcane Defiance. You are protected from spells with a level equal to or lower than your rage depth as per a globe of invulnerability.


Rage Drawbacks: Each rage has its own drawbacks, which last as long as you are in the rage.
- Impatience: While you are in a rage, your ability to think calmly and clearly is compromised, although not as badly as with a barbarian's rage. You suffer a penalty equal to twice your rage depth on all Charisma-, Dexterity-, and Intelligence-based skills (except for Balance, Escape Artist, Intimidate, and Ride), and on the Concentration skill. You require a successful DC 15 Concentration check to use any abilities that require patience or concentration, to cast spells or activate magic items that require a command word, a spell trigger (such as a wand), or spell completion (such as a scroll), or to use the Combat Expertise feat, item creation feats, and metamagic feats. Make this check only once per round when you first attempt to perform such an activity. If you fail, you must choose to do something else with your action (you don't lose the action or waste the spell or item use, you simply cannot bring yourself to attempt such an action in the first place). Effects and abilities that would allow you to use these skills, abilities, and actions in a rage (which would normally disable them entirely) removes the penalties and need for a Concentration check from a rage.
- Reckless Defense: You suffer a penalty equal to your rage depth to your Armor Class.
- Tunnel Vision: You can make one fewer attack of opportunity per round per point of your rage depth. You suffer a penalty equal to your rage depth to your Armor Class against attacks of opportunity.
- Suggestible: You suffer a penalty on Will saves equal to your rage depth.
- Self-Destructive: You push your body beyond its limits while raging. Each round that you remain in a rage, you take damage equal to your rage depth.

[perovskite]

Two versions of Fharlanghn- focused diving caster prestige classes. The first is Seeker of the Misty Isle with the yuck elf removed, and the other is Horizon Walker with caster progression.

Eternal Wanderer of Fharlanghn

Requirements
Skills- knowledge- geography 4 ranks, survival 8 ranks
Spells- able to cast 2nd level divine spells
Special- must be inducted into the order by another member
Special- must worship Fharlanghn

Chassis- d8 HD, medium BAB, good Fort, good Ref, poor Will;
Skills- as existing SotMI

Class Features
(edit)- Weapon and Armor Proficiencies- Eternal Wanderers of Fharlanghn do not gain proficiency in any weapons or armor. Although they are not prohibited from wearing any particular weapons or armor, traditionally Eternal Wanderers do not wear armor heavier than light armor, and most often carry a quarterstaff as a weapon.
Spellcasting- advancement at all levels except 5 and 10
Extra domain- At 1st and 7th levels, you gain access to a domain of Fharlanghn's of your choice to which you do not already have access. You may instead trade access to this domain for the corresponding domain feat, provided you never exceed three domain feats total.
Fharlanghn's Perception: at 5th level, you gain a +3 racial bonus to diplomacy, listen, sense motive, and spot, or your existing racial bonus increases by 3.


---------------------------------


Horizon Walker of Fharlanghn

Requirements
Skills- knowledge- geography 8 ranks
Feats- endurance
Special- must worship Fharlanghn

Chassis- d8 HP, good BAB, good Fort, poor ref, poor will
Skills- as existing Horizon Walker

Class Features
Levels 1-5- terrain mastery, as normal
Levels 6-10- planar terrain mastery, as normal.
Spellcasting- except for levels 2 and 7, you gain spells known, spells per day, and caster level as if you gained a level in an existing divine spellcasting class. If you have no character class-derived spellcasting ability prior to entering this prestige class, you instead gain spellcasting advancement (but no other features) of a favored soul equal to your Horizon Walker of Fharlanghn spellcasting level. (IE, a non-caster 5/HWoF 10 has caster level and spells per day equal to a favored soul 8). Your spells known list is selected from the spell lists of the following domains: Celerity, Luck, Protection, Travel, Weather. You do not gain the domains themselves, and do not get their granted powers.

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[Draco Dei]

Your spells known list is selected from the spell lists of the following domains: Celerity, Luck, Protection, Travel, Weather. You do not gain the domains themselves, and do not get their granted powers.

--------------------

I am fairly certain one would run out of spells to pick even at 1st level for this... also, domains don't grant cantrips.

I realize this is just a sketch, but something to keep in mind when and if this gets developed.

[perovskite]

Oh yeah, cantrips. Derp. Thanks. I'll probably fix that by adding the clause "...from the base cleric spell list or..."

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Edited 12 April 2024 to include normal hexblade bonus feats.

Here is an epic progression for the hexblade, cause the guy DM'ing us right now asked for a 30th-level character (with up to LA +6 for free), and I happen to be running a hexblade in our hiatus-from-Army-of-Characters-Against-the-Giants campaign. The only things that aren't direct extrapolations of pre-epic progressions are swift cast and the curse penalty. I settled on swift cast gaining a use/day every four levels, and the curse penalty at -2 per six levels, cause I surmise that's what it originally was before WotC got scared of a non-wizard having nice things imposing -6 penalties at 13th level and -8 at 19th level.

Epic Hexblade

21st- hexblade curse 6/day
22nd- swift cast 6/day
23rd- bonus epic feat
24th- aura of unluck 4/day
25th- hexblade curse 7/day; curse penalty to -8, hexblade bonus feat
26th- bonus epic feat, swift cast 7/day
27th
28th- aura of unluck 5/day
29th- hexblade curse 8/day, bonus epic feat
30th- swift cast 8/day, hexblade bonus feat

Notes and Comments
Additional uses of curse every four levels (21st, 25th, 29th, etc)
Additional use of swift cast every four levels (22nd, 26th, 30th, etc)
Epic bonus feats every three levels (23d, 26th, 29th, etc). These can be used to take non-epic feats, as normal.
Additional use of aura of unluck every four levels (24th, 28th, etc)
Curse penalty increases by -2 every six levels (-8 at 25th, -10 at 31st)
Spells known and spells per day don’t increase past 20th. Caster level increases as normal, ie, half hexblade level.
Hexblade bonus feats include the original ones from CW, as well as the hexblade curse feats from Dragon Magazine 339.

Hexblade Epic Bonus Feat list- armor skin, damage reduction, epic prowess, epic reputation, epic skill focus, epic spell penetration, epic toughness, epic weapon focus, familiar spell, fast healing, improved combat casting, improved spell capacity, penetrate damage reduction, permanent emanation, spell knowledge, spell stowaway, spell casting harrier, spontaneous spell; or new epic hexblade feats

New Epic Hexblade Feats- I'm sure most people will agree that these could easily be non-epic feats, but here they are.

Extra Aura of Unluck
Prereq- Aura of Unluck 3/day, Cha 20.
Benefit. You can use Aura of Unluck a number of additional times per day equal to three plus your Charisma modifier. Thus, a 24th level hexblade with Cha 20 could use Aura of Unluck 9/day.

Improved Aura of Unluck
Prereqs- Hexblade curse 5/day, hexblade dire curse, Aura of Unluck 3/day, Cha 20
Benefit. The miss chance from Aura of Unluck increases to 50%. Additionally, the duration increases to 1 round per hexblade level.

Widen Aura of Unluck. Prereqs- aura of unluck 3/day. Benefit. A number of creatures you select (up to your charisma modifier) gain the benefit of your aura of unluck so long as they are within 20' of you. They lose this protection if they move farther than 20' away, but regain it if they return to within 20' or less of you. Additionally, your familiar is protected by your aura of unluck whenever it is active, no matter how far apart you are. Your familiar does not count against the number of additional creatures protected by your aura.

Widen Hexblade Curse
Prereqs. Hexblade curse 5/day, dire hexblade curse, Cha 20
Benefit. You affect a number of targets with your hexblade curse up to a number equal to your charisma modifier. Each target must be within 60’ of you, and within 30’ of at least one other target. Each target gets its own saving throw.

[perovskite]

Because I have a weakness for hot garbage classes and trying to make them halfway decent, or at least entertaining, there I was, making a sohei 24/contemplative 6, for reasons described in the previous post. As Skyrock points out, sohei is self-contradictory, what with ki frenzy and iaijutsu focus being mutually exclusive, cause you "can't use any class skills" whilst ki frenzy-ing. But! Looking at the barbarian's rage description, there's a handful of skills that are exempted from those the barbarian can't use. And then looking at ki frenzy and iaijutsu focus, the first is "focusing your ki power", and the second is "gathering personal energy (ki)". Fluff-wise I would say the two don't contradict.

So what if we add the phrase "except iaijutsu focus" to the line of ki frenzy that says you can't use any class skills? We'll see how it goes. Maybe. If we ever get around to playing this 30th-level thing the DM wants to do.

[Skyrock]

Fluff-wise Ki-Frenzy and Iaijutsu Focus would not contradict at all - Iaijutsu Focus is all about action without thought. I think this would be one of the very basic must-have fixes if anyone were to rewrite the Sohei class.

[perovskite]

My personal preference for class re-writes is to recycle concepts that already exist (precedence and all that). Here goes; I made this up in an hour so.

Sohei Rebuild
Chassis- d10 hp, good BAB, good fort save, poor ref save, good will save.
Alignment- any lawful
Skills- balance, concentration, craft, diplomacy, heal, iaijutsu focus, jump, knowledge religion, knowledge nobility and royalty; sense motive, ride, swim, tumble; 2 skill points/level
Weapon and armor proficiencies- simple weapons, martial weapons, light armor, medium armor, shields

Class Progression
1st- ki frenzy, weapon focus*
2nd- improved unarmed strike* Bonus feat
3rd- mettle
4th- ki frenzy 2/day; 1st level spells
5th- strength of mind (immune to sleep and stun)
6th- swift cast 1/day
7th- DR 1/-
8th- Ki frenzy 3/day, 2nd level spells
9th- swift cast 2/day, frenzy casting 1/day
10th- DR 2/-
11th- greater frenzy, 3rd level spells
12th- Ki frenzy 4/day, swift cast 3/day
13th- DR 3/-
14th- frenzy casting 2/day
15th- swift cast 4/day
16th- DR 4/-, ki frenzy 5/day
17th- tireless frenzy
18th- swift cast 5/day
19th- DR 5/-, frenzy casting 3/day
20th- whirlwind frenzy, ki frenzy 6/day

Class Features

Ki Frenzy- The sohei deeply understands her own personal energies (her ki), and train to concentrate and clear their minds of all distractions. A sohei can exploit that knowledge to increase her own strength and speed. At 1st level, 1/day, she can enter a ki frenzy. This ki frenzy lasts for 3 rounds plus her constitution modifier, and during the frenzy she temporarily gains +2 bonus to Strength, +2 bonus to Dexterity, +10 bonus to speed, and can make a flurry of blows as a full attack, gaining an additional attack at her highest attack bonus, but suffering a -2 penalty to her attack rolls.

A ki frenzy requires intense focus to the exclusion of everything else; while in a frenzy the sohei is unable to cast spells or use spell trigger (wand), spell completion (scroll), and command word magic items (although see frenzy casting, below) or use skills or abilities that require patience or concentration. She can’t use any Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma-based skill (except iaijutsu focus) for the duration of the frenzy. She can use any feat she has except item creation feats and metamagic feats (again, see frenzy casting, below). The sohei may end her frenzy voluntarily. At the end of frenzy (voluntary or not), the sohei is fatigued (-2 Str and Dex, can’t run or charge) for the duration of the current encounter. Entering a frenzy takes no time, but a sohei can only enter a frenzy during her turn, not in response to someone else’s actions.

Ki frenzy counts as rage for the purposes of qualifying for feats and prestige classes, and can be improved through the use of magic items that improve rage.

The sohei can use ki frenzy one additional time per day at 4th, 8th, 12th levels, etc.

Improved Unarmed Strike Bonus feat- at 2nd level, the sohei gains Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat. Or does he? Maybe he gets Skill Focus: Iaijutsu focus instead.

Mettle- If a sohei of 3rd level or higher makes a successful Fortitude or Will save that would normally reduce an effect, the effect is instead negated. Only those spells with a saving throw entry of “Will partial”, “Fort half” or similar entries can be negated through this ability.

Spells- Beginning at 4th level, the sohei can cast a small number of divine spells from the sohei spell list. Caster level is equal to one half sohei level (but see spell frenzy, below).

Strength of Mind- at 5th level, the sohei becomes immune to sleep and stunning.

Swift Cast- at 6th level, 1/day the sohei can cast one spell as a swift action, provided the original casting time was one round or less. She gains additional uses of this ability at 9th, 12th, 15th, and 18th levels.

Damage Reduction- Gain DR 1/- at 7th, increases by 1 every three levels thereafter.

Frenzy Casting- At 9th level, the sohei gains the ability to cast spells while in a ki frenzy. The sohei uses her character level as her caster level while frenzy casting. The sohei must already be in a frenzy to use this ability (although she can enter a frenzy immediately prior to casting a spell). This ability is not a separate set of frenzies per day. For example, a 20th level sohei can use ki frenzy 6/day and frenzy casting 3/day. Thus, during any three of her six ki frenzies, she can frenzy cast her spells.

The sohei’s restriction against using metamagic feats while in a ki frenzy is lifted. The sohei can employ her swift cast ability while frenzy casting as well. The sohei gains additional uses of this ability at 14th and 19th levels.

11th- Greater Frenzy- The boost from ki frenzy increase to +4 Str, +4 Dex, +20 speed. The attack penalty decreases to -1.

17th- Tireless Frenzy- the sohei is no longer fatigued after a frenzy.

20th- Whirlwind Frenzy- The boosts from ki frenzy increase to +6 Str, +6 Dex, +30 speed, and the attack penalty is eliminated.


Notes
I removed heavy armor cause it doesn’t make sense in the context of boosting dexterity with ki frenzy; there’s no AC benefit…which is another of the contradictory things about the base sohei.

I’ll tinker with the spell list later; it’s my turn to DM this weekend.

[Garryl]

Metamorph base class
Shapeshifting brawler that mixes and matches between various shapeshifting abilities.

Doesn't transform into specific alternate forms. Instead, has a number of metamorphic aspects that can be applied, at first independently and later in combination with each other. Available metamorphic aspects must be prepared at the beginning of the day, but can be freely assumed and dismissed during the day. Metamorphic aspects have multiple types:
- Minor aspects: Cantrip-like metamorphosis. These have small effects, but are easy to use and combine with other aspects.
- Feature aspects: Limited metamorphosis. These are low-level aspects that shift some part of you, but still leave you largely as normal.
- Form aspects: Greater metamorphosis. These are mid-level aspects that change large amounts of your body at once, leaving little if any of your original form remaining.
- Essence aspects: Absolute metamorphosis. These are high-level aspects that transform not just your body but parts your your very being, up to and including your soul.

Each metamorphic aspect has one or more associated enhancements. You can assign focus among the enhancements of aspects that you have assumed to empower them. The higher your level, the more focus you have, and the more you can assign to any given enhancement. Focus can be reassigned as a swift action.

Example aspects:

Minor
- Razor claws: Grow a pair of claws, dealing 1d6 damage (medium). Enhancements: Enhanced attacks, improved grip.
- Loping stride: Gain an enhancement bonus to your movement speed (stacking with the speed boost enhancement). Enhancements: Speed boost, reflexive leap.
- Nocturnal adaptation: Gain low-light vision and need less sleep. Enhancements: Awareness, clear mind.
- Predatory instinct: Gain scent. As a swift action, identify which creature you can smell has the lowest HD, other than yourself and creatures you've been in the presence of for more than 1 hour. Enhancements: Ambush predator, awareness.

Feature
- Threshing maw: Gain a bite attack, dealing 1d8 damage (medium) and leaving a bleeding wound that deals additional damage each round until healed. Enhancements: Enhanced attacks, carnage, bloodthirst.
- Elongated grasp: Your limbs lengthen, increasing your reach. Enhancements: Improved grip, ..., ....
- Alchemical glands: Spit acid as a standard action. Enhancements: Acid resistance, acidic strikes, poison affinity.
- Bristling spines: Grow spines that damage creatures that hit you with unarmed or natural attacks. Also deals damage each round in a grapple. Enhancements: Thorns, enhanced armor, ...

Form
- Bestial mien: You sprout a thick coat of fur over layers of armored muscle, granting you a natural armor bonus to AC and bonuses to Strength and Constitution. Enhancements: Enhanced armor, brawn, ....
- Rising span: Feathers cover your body. Grow a pair of wings, granting you flight. Enhancements: ..., ..., ....
- Carapaced crasher: Grow a thick carapace of chitin. You gain a natural armor bonus to AC and a slam attack, and you can trample enemies. Enhancements: ..., ..., ....
- Eye of the beholder: Your eyes merge together into a single sensory organ, and you grow additional eye stalks. Gain all-around vision. As a standard action, you can attempt to suppress ongoing magic in a cone (like dispel magic, but the spells are only suppressed for a duration instead of being fully dispelled). Enhancements: Awareness, magic consumption, ....

Essence
- Heart of flame: Type changes to elemental. Gain the fire subtype, granting you immunity to fire and vulnerability to cold. Gain the burn ability (like a fire elemental). Enhancements: Fiery strikes, fire resistance, ..., ....
- Clockwork heart: Type changes to construct. Gain the living construct subtype. Gain limited access to Crushing Juggernaut maneuvers. Enhancements: ..., ..., ....
- Void self: Type changes to outsider. Become undetectable by divinations and most information-gathering abilities. Teleport short distances as a move action. Enhancements: ..., ..., ....
- Consuming mass: Type changes to ooze. Absorb creatures you kill as an immediate action to heal and temporarily gain some of their stats/abilities (a subset of what polymorph/shapechange could grant). Enhancements: ..., ..., ....
- Unchanging ideal: Your form cannot be altered except willingly. Immune to ability damage and drain. Enhancements: ..., ..., ....

Enhancements
- Enhanced attacks: Gain an enhancement bonus on natural weapon attacks.
- Speed boost: Gain an enhancement bonus to your movement speed.
- Improved grip: Gain a bonus on Climb and grapple checks.
- Reflexive leap: Gain a bonus on Reflex saves and Jump checks.
- Awareness: Gain a bonus on Spot, Listen, and initiative checks.
- Clear mind: Gain a bonus on Will saves and Sense Motive checks.
- Carnage: Gain a bonus on Intimidate checks. Critical hits and killing blows grant a free demoralize attempt against nearby enemies.
- Bloodthirst: Gain temporary hit points for 1 round based on the damage you deal with natural weapons.
- Thorns: Deal damage to creatures that hit you in melee with non-reach weapons.
- Enhanced armor: Gain an enhancement bonus to your natural armor bonus to AC.

- Ambush predator: Gain a bonus on Hide checks (but not Move Silently). Gain a bonus on damage rolls against creatures that are flanked or denied Dex to AC, with a greater bonus if they are also flat-footed.
- Poison affinity: Gain a bonus on saves against poison. Automatically succeed on saves against poisons' secondary damage if the save DC is low enough.

- Acid resistance: Gain resistance to acid damage.
- Cold resistance: Gain resistance to cold damage.
- Electricity resistance: Gain resistance to electricity damage.
- Fire resistance: Gain resistance to fire damage.
- Sonic resistance: Gain resistance to sonic damage.
- Acidic strikes: Deal additional acid damage with each natural attack. Critical hits also leave a layer of acid on the target that deals damage again 1 round later. Multiple critical hits do not stack; use only the highest damage value.
- Chilling strikes: Deal additional cold damage with each natural attack. Critical hits also reduce the target's movement speed for 1 round.
- Fiery strikes: Deal additional fire damage with each natural attack. Critical hits also set the target on fire, causing them to take 1d6 fire damage every round until they put it out. The save DC is based on the focus you have invested in this enhancement.
- Arcing strikes: Deal additional electricity damage with each natural attack. Critical hits arc electricity to one or more secondary targets, dealing a small amount of electricity damage to them.
- Shuddering strikes: Deal additional sonic damage with each natural attack. Critical hits cause the target to become shaken for 1 round if they are not already.
- Brawn: Gain an enhancement bonus to your Strength score.
- Magic consumption: Gain a bonus on dispel checks. Gain temporary HP when you dispel an ongoing spell.

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Mechanics:
- At 1st level, you can have a single minor aspect and a single feature aspect assumed simultaneously. You can also assume a form aspect at 8th level and an essence aspect at 15th level.
- At higher levels, you can assume more minor aspects at once. Feature aspects will also allow up to 2 eventually, as will form aspects, although essence aspects will always be limited to just 1.
- Assuming or dismissing an aspect is a move action. You can dismiss an aspect and assume a new one in its place as a standard action.
- Focus is similar to essentia in incarnum or energy in PoC. It comes in similar quantities and works pretty much the same.

Feats and Abilities:
- Favored Enhancement: Gain access to a chosen enhancement as long as you are assuming at least one aspect, even if none of your aspects grant it. If at least one of them does, the chosen enhancement acts a though you had assigned 1 more focus to it than you actually have, which can exceed your normal focus limit.
- Reformation: Heal hit points whenever you assume an aspect, up to 50% of your max HP.
- Rapid Metamorphosis: Assume and/or dismiss multiple aspects at once as a full-round action.

[perovskite]

Hopefully, this thread is exempt from normal anti-necromancy rules. It should be. (Or maybe I'm thinking of GitP's forum rules.)

I'm using a dungeon from Dragon Magazine issue 81 for Sephira and Co's next task. In one room it lists a "guardian familiar" from the 1e Fiend Folio as the resident monster for the room. I have been unable to find existing stats for a cat-shaped guardian familiar in 3.5e, so here they are:

Scout Guardian-
Tiny construct
HD 2d10 (11 hp)
Initiative- +2
Speed- 30 feet
Armor class- 18 (+2 size, +2 dex, +4 natural), touch 14, ff 12
Base attack/ grapple- +1/-11
Attack- claws +4* melee (d2-4)
Full attack- 2 claws +4 melee (d2-4) and bite -1 melee (d3-4)
Space/reach- 2.5’/0’
Special attacks- none
Special qualities- construct traits, DR 5/-, darkvision 60’, fast healing 1, find master, low light vision
Saves- fort +0, ref +2, will +0
Abilities- Str 3, Dex 15, Con -, Int -; Wis 10, Cha 1
Skills- none
Feats- none
Environment- any
Organization: solitary
Challenge rating: 4
Treasure: none
Alignment- neutral
Advancement- 3-4 HD (tiny); 5-6 HD (small)

Scout familiars are normally employed to conduct reconnaissance or to distract enemy spellcasters. Although from a distance they look like normal cats, up close (within 10’, presuming good lighting conditions), they are clearly constructs. Basic scout guardian familiars are the size of a large house cat and weigh about 12 pounds. As part of their construction they are covered with the hide of a cat, and so in passing may be mistaken for one.

Skills- cat guardian familiars have +4 racial bonuses on climb, hide (+8 in tall grass or heavy undergrowth, move silently; +8 racial bonus on jump checks, and +8 to disguise checks (only against spot checks to determine if the guardian familiar is a normal cat or not). They use their dexterity modifier for jump and climb checks. (yeah normally constructs don't have skill bonuses, got it.)

Combat-

As a familiar, the scout guardian’s BAB is normally that of its master. It uses its dexterity modifier to attack rolls instead of its strength.

Find master- no matter the distance, as long as it is on the same plane, the scout guardian can find its master.

Construct trait- as per the normal immunities and "is not subject to" lines.

[Stratovarius]

We don't have anti necromancy rules here. We're quite fond of the undead, in fact. Wrote a whole book about them.

[Garryl]

Spheromancer base class
"Hi! Lea! Bye!"

Spheromancers harness the inherent power of points, circles, spheres, and higher-dimensional hyper-spheres to defeat their foes. They conjure instant matter, a simple and easily-manipulated magical material, to produce weapons and armor in combat.

The Spheromancer is a Warlock-like class, focused more heavily on combat and less on magical utility.

HD: d8
BAB: Good (+1/level)
Saves: Poor Fort, Good Ref, Good Will
Skills: 4+Int/level

Circuits (Su): Circuits allow you to channel elemental energies to manipulate instant matter in different ways. Initially, you only have access to the neutral circuit. At levels 4, 7, 10, and 13, you can choose another circuit to gain access to. You can only have up to one circuit activate at a time, and you must have a circuit active to use most Spheromancer abilities. You can activate a new circuit (or deactivate your current circuit) as a swift action. Each circuit provides various benefits while active and is associated with a specific form of damage.
- Neutral: A balanced, general purpose circuit that does not excel in any particular field. Useful for dissipating excess circuit load. +2 bonus to maximum load with this circuit, and you dissipate 1 additional load per round from each of your circuits. Whenever you generate neutral circuit load while it is active, you also dissipate an equal amount from all of your other circuits. Damage: Untyped damage from a force effect.
- Cold: A defensive circuit that is effective at disrupting enemy attacks, but struggles to inflict great damage itself. +2 bonus to AC and all saves. Damage: Cold.
- Fire: An aggressive circuit that excels at inflicting injury upon foes, but does so recklessly with lesser regard to personal wellbeing. +2 bonus on attack rolls. Damage: Fire.
- Shock: A studious and contemplative circuit that provides a number of utility effects, but struggles with direct combat. +2 bonus on caster level checks and to save DCs of circuit abilities. Damage: Electricity.
- Wave: A strange and poorly understood circuit that generally just does its own thing (healing and HP manipulation) without any care for what everyone thinks it should do. +2 bonus to HP per Spheromancer level and +1 fast healing per 5 levels that can't bring you above 50% of max HP. Damage: Sonic.

Load: Spheromancer abilities generate load on your active circuit. Load for each circuit is tracked separately. You can safely generate load in a circuit up to your load limit. If your load for any circuit exceeds your load threshold, you enter a state of overload in that circuit. Overload does not clear until the overloaded circuit's load drops back all the way to 0. When you overload a circuit, immediately after resolving the action that caused it to become overloaded, you deactivate it and activate the neutral circuit (or remain with no circuit active, if you overloaded the neutral circuit). You cannot activate an overloaded circuit. Load in inactive circuits dissipates at a rate of 1 load per round. Load in a circuit can never be less than 0.
- Note: You never need to overload. It's just a cost that you can pay if you want to use abilities that would bring you over your load limit.

Instant Matter Armaments (Sp): You can conjure instant matter and shape it into one of the following forms. Conjuring instant matter generates 1 load, although various circuit abilities can modify this. Instant matter weapons deal damage of the type of your active circuit. You are proficient with all instant matter weapons you conjure, and they count as magical weapons for purposes such as bypassing damage reduction and striking incorporeal creatures. This spell-like ability does not provoke attacks of opportunity, has a caster level equal to your Spheromancer level, and an effective spell level equal to its load generation, to a maximum of 9th-level. Except where noted, you can use this ability only once per round and only during your turn.
Instant matter itself is a very weak material, having 1 hp and a hardness of 0. It dissipates into nothingness immediately when destroyed.
- Chakram: You form instant matter into a sharp circle. This functions as a light melee weapon, dealing a base damage of 1d8 for Medium size. You can conjure multiple chakrams during your turn as part of the same use of this ability. Conjured chakrams last for 1 round, allowing you to threaten nearby spaces and perform attacks of opportunity with them outside of your turn. Conjuring chakrams is a free action.
- Ball: You form instant matter into a dense point. This functions as a light thrown weapon with a range increment of 30 feet, dealing a base damage of 1d6 for medium. You can conjure multiple balls during your turn as part of the same use of this ability, allowing you to perform multiple attacks with them. Conjured balls last until the end of your turn. Conjuring balls is a free action.
- Orb: You form instant matter into a large sphere. This functions as a two-handed thrown weapon with a range increment of 100 feet, dealing a base damage of 2d6 for medium. Unlike other instant matter weapons, you can only conjure a single orb with each use of this ability. A conjured orb lasts until the end of your turn. Conjuring an orb is a full-round action, but you can make a single attack with the orb as part of conjuring it.
- Bubble: You form instant matter into a multi-layered hypersphere. This surrounds you in layers of ablative instant matter, providing protection against attacks. You gain the benefits of taking the total defense action, and you gain an energy shield with absorption equal to triple your Spheromancer level and recovery 1 for 1 round. Damage of your active circuit's type only removes HP equal to half the damage absorbed by the energy shield, rounded up (although it can still only block an amount equal to its remaining HP). Track the energy shield's remaining HP and its recovery even while this ability is not active; you passively accumulate instant matter in higher dimensions even when not using this ability, and conjuring it is actually only rotating it into covering your position in three-dimensional space. Conjuring a bubble is a full-round action.

Instant Matter Focus: You gain Weapon Focus with each weapon form of your instant matter armaments.

Instant Matter Enhancement: At 3rd level, your instant matter weapons gain a +1 enhancement bonus, increasing by 1 every 3 levels therefter, to a maximum of +6 at 18th level. Each time, your orb also deals an additional +1d6 damage, and the recovery of your bubble's energy shield increases by 1.

Circuit Abilities: At 1st level, 3rd level, and every 5 levels beyond 1st and 3rd, you learn a new circuit ability for each of your circuits. When you acquire a new circuit, you retroactively learn circuit abilities for that circuit from previous level. Most circuit abilities require you to have their circuit active to use them, and are suppressed otherwise. Some circuit abilities are marked as "free circuit" and can be used with any circuit (although not while you have no circuit active). Initially, you can only learn basic circuit abilities. From 6th-level onwards, you can learn advanced circuit abilities. From 11th-level onwards, you can learn expert circuit abilities. From 16th-level onwards, you can learn master circuit abilities.
- Note: Circuit abilities are sort of like invocations, except that they aren't fully at will. The active ones all generate load. The passive ones instead reduce your load limit with their circuit, or possibly all circuits for free circuit passives. Most of these are blast shape/essence type abilities that modify a usage of one or more of your instant matter armaments, but some are abilities usable on their own, and some are passive effects that are always in effect as long as you have their circuit active.

[Garryl]

Proxy Pact Warlock ACF
The multilevel marketing warlock variant

Lose invocations gained at 2nd, 8th, 13th, and 18th level.

Proxy Pact: At 2nd level, you can make temporary deals with other mortals on behalf of your patron. 1/day, you can perform a ritual taking 10 minutes with a willing participant that is not already a Warlock. For the rest of the day, that creature has a proxy pact. They count as being a Warlock for effects that depend on class, such as magic items that can only be used by members of a specific class. The subject's effective Warlock level is equal to your Warlock level - 1 or their character level, whichever is lower. The subject gains the Warlock's Eldritch Blast ability. Beginning at 8th level, they also gain the ability to use your Warlock Least invocations, lesser invocations at 13th level, and greater invocations at 18th level. The subject can use your Charisma score - 4 if that would be better than their own when determining the save DCs of invocations granted this way.

A creature that dies with an active proxy pact must make a Will save (DC 10 + your Warlock level) or be sent to your patron's afterlife instead of their normal afterlife. The creature can still be resurrected as normal.

Abilities granted by a proxy pact cannot be used to qualify for feats, prestige classes, or other permanent choices.

[Versatility_Nut]

You got the levels off on Invocations being granted, and I feel there needs to be a bit more tweaking to it to justify why you have this option since the class has always held inheritability of the powers. Personally, I'd go with this:

Faustian Warlock
Your power carries with it an especially strong link to Hell, allowing you to extend others a share of your power at the cost of sharing the perils of the bargain it came from.

Alignment: Any Lawful or Evil
Class skills: A faustian warlock adds Diplomacy to his list of class skills.

Extend Pact (Sp): A faustian warlock has the ability to connect others to the source of their magic. Starting at 2nd level, they may perform a ritual taking 10 minutes to establish a bond for one day that grants one willing creature an Eldritch Blast dealing one die less damage than the faustian warlock's own (minimum 1d6). They may have only one such bond active at a time plus one per five class levels beyond 1st, breaking the earliest if they establish one in excess of this.

Should the creature die while this bond is active, they must make a DC 12 Will save or gain the Hellbound special quality, as the Hellbred racial trait (see Fiendish Codex II, page 78). If this happens, the faustian warlock's alignment moves one step towards Evil, or one step towards Lawful if they are already Evil. If the faustian warlock is already Lawful Evil, they must make the same save with a -10 Profane penalty or gain the Hellbound special quality.

This replaces the Invocation learned at 2nd level.

Transfer Invocation (Sp): At 6th level, a faustian warlock may choose upon bonding to grant a recipient of their Extend Pact ability uses of their own Invocations. Each Invocation so granted may only be used five times that day, split as the faustian warlock chooses between himself and the recipient. The faustian warlock may provide one Invocation plus one-half the Warlock Invocations the recipient knows, of a caster level and grade available to a warlock of five levels lower than the faustian warlock plus the recipient's warlock caster level, to a maximum of the faustian warlock's. Every two effective spell levels of invocations transferred this way increases the save DC for receiving the Hellbound quality by one.

This replaces the Invocation learned at 6th level.

Insidious Proxy (Sp) At 11th level, a faustian warlock can contact the Devil their powers began with, or the successor to their position in the Infernal Hierarchy, to offer Pacts Insidious (see Fiendish Codex II page 24) with a total reward value up to one-third his class level on that Devil's behalf. The Devil must agree to the terms before the contract is available to be signed, but the faustian warlock offering remote and relatively subtle access can often allow him to argue for one additional point worth of rewards or the use of Obeisance where the devil would prefer Corruption. Each point of Corruption or Obeisance the recipient of Extend Pact has from these pacts increases the save DC for receiving the Hellbound quality by two.

This replaces the Invocation learned at 11th level.

Self-Sponsorship (Su) At 16th level, a faustian warlock can direct his efforts inwards, exerting a measure of ownership over his own soul and thus re-signing the pact with his name as the Devil responsible. Upon reaching this level, he may choose to simply decline any claim on the souls of recipients of Extend Pact, prepare gems as if confining them with Trap the Soul (release sends them to the appropriate afterlife), or allow them to be subject to Hell's practices in his name. In the first case, no Will save is made by himself or the recipient upon their death. In the second case, his Alignment no longer shifts upon death of recipients and the gem allows him to transfer invocations from the soul and drain it of properties for like rewards in Faustian Pacts. In the third case, he immediately becomes Lawful Evil, gains the Law and Evil subtypes, and becomes an Imp with his personality and faustian warlock levels retained upon his death.

This replaces the Invocation learned at 16th level.

---

This actually functions as an MLM in the second Self-Sponsorship case on over-level Invocations and Eldritch Blast damage, as the value is strictly dependent on suckers paying to fund the gems to drain dead suckers to power the Pacts Insidious to lock in the Invocation sharing. If the intake of dying participants and wealth to pay for the gems to house them stops, then the benefits drop off a cliff like a proper MLM scheme.

It could just as well be implemented as Invocations with the Law-for-Hell variation being much more minor to nearly identical effect, mind you. Kinda how costing only Invocations works.

[Garryl]

ToB maneuvers to buff:
- Trying to buff up the maneuvers that are generally considered the weakest of the bunch and either don't have any practical use cases or are just so weak as to be traps to use.
- Not trying to make them as powerful as the strongest maneuvers. Just trying to bring them up to a level where they feel like they should be okay to use.
- Not trying to buff up maneuvers that are great for certain builds but poor for others. We're not trying for mass appeal.
- Not trying to buff up maneuvers that are highly situational, but very good in their situation. Depending on how specific the situation is, I might try to expand the range of situations a maneuver is useful in, but I'll try not to increase its power in situations it's already good in.


Desert Wind
1
- Blistering Flourish: Initiating this maneuver also grants you concealment for 1 round as lingering sparks and embers dance around you. You can't use this concealment to hide.
- Wind Stride: Also removes the -5 penalty on Tumble checks to move at full speed.
2
- Fire Riposte: Base damage reduced to 3d6. Add +1 damage per initiator level.
- Hatchling's Flame: Add +1 damage per initiator level.
3
- Fan the Flames: Base damage reduced to 5d6. Add +1 damage per initiator level. Range increased to 60 ft.
- Holocaust Cloak: Instead deals 3 damage + 1/2 IL to attacker. Also renders you and your equipment immune to damage from being set on fire.
4
- Firesnake: Add +1 damage per initiator level.
- Searing Blade: On crit, set target on fire if they're not already, making them take an extra 1d6 fire damage immediately and again every round until they put themself out.
5
- Dragon's Flame: Add +1 damage per initiator level.
- Lingering Inferno: The lingering flames amplify damage taken from fire. The creature takes +2d6 damage from other sources of fire damage, up to a maximum of 100% of the source's original fire damage.
6
- Ring of Fire: Base damage reduced to 10d6. Add +1 damage per initiator level. Your movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity for leaving threatened spaces. If you don't close the area, project a line with a length up to your movement speed in any direction. If that would close the area, the flames still ignite, albeit with reduced intensity, dealing half damage (Reflex negates).
- Fiery Assault: Add +1/2 damage per initiator level.
7
- Inferno Blade: On crit, set target on fire if they're not already, making them take an extra 1d6 fire damage immediately and again every round until they put themself out. If they're already on fire, fan the flames, dealing an extra 1d6 fire damage immediately, increasing the fire damage they take each round by 1d6, and increasing the Reflex DC to put themself out by 1 (up to a maximum of 17 + Wis modifier + any modifiers to this maneuver's save DC if it had one).
- Salamander Charge: Add +1/2 damage per initiator level to the damage for crossing or starting a turn in the wall of fire.
8
- Wyrm's Flame: Add +1 damage per initiator level.
- Rising Phoenix: Can fly at any altitude without ending the stance. At more than 10 feet above the ground, maneuverability drops to poor and the fire damage doesn't trigger from a full attack.
9
- Inferno Blast: Base damage reduced to 90. Add +1 damage per initiator level. Creatures that fail their Reflex saves must also make a Fortitude save or be knocked prone due to the concussive force of the blast wave. Save DC is 19 + Wis modifier (previously unlisted). The nature of this maneuver is to release a hellish blast of wild, uncontrolled flames, but you can exert some influence on it; if you wish, you may choose a cone in which the burst does not apply.
Rationale
- The community agrees that most Desert Wind maneuvers are subpar. A lot of them are pure blasting with no scaling, which is already a poor strategy. The theme of relying purely on fire damage, the most resisted damage type, makes them inflexible and often weaker than they look. I can't do anything about the fire lock without sweeping changes, but scaling up the damage to match what blasters can pull off when the maneuvers are first accessible and tapering off more slowly should help a bit.
- Blistering Flourish does basically nothing. It's a Bane spell, but with point blank range a worse save type, and no penalty on saves vs. fear. Even if it works, it only has a 1/20 chance of making a given attack miss. It probably still needs a buff, but at least the round of concealment gives a little more viable momentary defense and makes it less bad.
- Wind Stride is at the edge of fine, but poor, depending on who you ask.
- Hatchling's Flame compares poorly to Burning Hands, itself a poor blasting spell. It's behind by 0.5 damage at the level you get it and falls further behind as you go.
- Fan the Flames is actually okay, but it's mostly just outdone by Shadow Garrote in Shadow Hand, which trades 1d6 damage for double range, a minor debuff, and an unresistible damage type.
- Searing Blade and Inferno Blade aren't bad, they just don't add enough over the 1st-level Burning Blade to ever be worth trading up for.
- Lingering Inferno SUCKS. It adds 8d6 damage at best which is barely par for a pure damage 5th-level strike. You have to wait 3 rounds to get that damage, and any amount of fire resistance just neuters it due to being split over 4 instances. Hopefully, making it a debuff that amplifies other fire damage works.
- Dragon's Flame tries to pretend than a CL 6 Fireball's damage is relevant at level 9. At least it's a CL 9's worth of damage at level 9 now.
- Fiery Assault is 1d6 extra damage. Punishing Stance has been doing that since level 1, albeit with a -2 AC penalty, but also in a form that doesn't stack up against an entirely new defense (fire resistance). Burning Blade added 1d6 fire damage since level 1, and also added your IL, all at the cost of being a boost; by level 11 when you can get Fiery Assault, it's adding 1d6+11, more than four times what Fiery Assault gives. With these numbers, it's now a permanent half-strength Searing Blade, which doesn't seem too out of line for a stance.
- Ring of Fire does decent damage, it's just implausible to use. A base 30-foot movement speed covers an area barely larger than a 15-foot diameter, so this is really a single-target attack masquerading as an AoE. It's even smaller if you're moving at a lower speed (hitting a single 5-foot square requires at least 30 feet of movement), or have to take a strange path to move around creatures or obstacles. Also, any creature standing by a wall is basically not a viable target unless you can hit the DC 25 Tumble check reliably (not unreasonable at this level, but still worth mentioning as a further inconvenience). The extra bit of extended path lets you increase the area a bit, and gives you a better failure state if your movement is interrupted or blocked. Avoiding AoEs is vital to not taking more damage yourself than you deal to your enemies, and I don't know how the writers didn't think to put that in originally.
- Salamander Charge: Honestly, this one's pretty okay and I mostly felt the need to add more damage just because I was doing it for everything else. The fire wall has similar limitations to Lingering Inferno's damage, but the damage is in larger chunks and cover an area instead of a single target.
- Wyrm's Flame brings it up to just about the 1d6/level benchmark when you get it. It's still underperforming, but I can't be arsed to tweak the numbers even more.
- Rising Phoenix gives you flight but only where you don't need it. You're at least 15th level. Just take the damn flight!
- Inferno Blast does really good damage. That's all it does. It also has an annoying tendency of friendly fire. It didn't need the damage scaling buff, but everything else got it so why not.

Devoted Spirit
1
2
3
4
5
6
- Aura of Tyranny: You can also deal this damage to unwilling creatures that you dealt damage to with a melee attack within the last round. If you deal damage to at least 2 willing allies, you get a +2 bonus on attack rolls and saving throws for 1 round. If you deal damage to at least 2 unwilling creatures, you get a +2 bonus on weapon damage rolls and to AC for 1 round.
7
- Castigating Strike
8
9
Rationale
- Devoted Spirit is pretty good, overall. Very few maneuvers are off curve.
- Aura of Tyranny just doesn't do much unless you're cheesing a million summons for tons of free healing or something.

Diamond Mind
1
- Stance of Clarity
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Rationale
- Diamond Mind is pretty good, overall.

Iron Heart
1
2
3
4
5
6
- Manticore Parry: You can also choose to deflect the attack harmlessly instead of into another creature.
7
- Scything Blade: Dropped to a level 6 maneuver. Initiate after you hit with a melee attack to make another melee attack at the same attack bonus against a different creature you threaten. (This lets you trigger it off of more than just your first attack in the round, and doesn't force you to commit expending the maneuver preemptively before you even know if the normal attack will hit to trigger the extra one.)
8
- Supreme Blade Parry
9
Rationale
- Iron Heart is pretty good, overall.
- Scything Blade is a strictly worse Dancing Mongoose, but Dancing Mongoose is very good so just closing the gap might be okay.

Setting Sun
1
2
- Clever Positioning: Neither you nor the target provoke attacks of opportunity for this movement.
3
- Giant Killing Style: (Errata) Remove that nonsensical final sentence about it applying to all attacks for the rest of the turn. I think that's an editing fail from it possibly having been a boost instead of a stance in an earlier draft.
4
5
- Stalking Shadow: Dropped to a level 4 maneuver. Initiation action is 1 free action instead of 1 immediate action.
- Shifting Defense: (Errata) As per the table's description and the first non-italicized paragraph's flavor-like text, this only triggers on missed attacks, not all attacks.
6
- Scorpion Parry: You can also choose to deflect the attack harmlessly instead of into another creature.
7
- Hydra Slaying Strike: Add +4d6 damage. Effect changed to match what I think the designers were trying to accomplish, and so that it actually works against its namesake: The creature cannot make more than one attack during its next turn.
8
- Ghostly Defense: Also triggers when you make an attack miss due to a counter.
9
Rationale
- Setting Sun is a little weak and many of its maneuvers really want to be used by a dedicated tripper, but for the most part it's perfectly serviceable. Most of the changes listed here are just adjusting inconsistencies in the text and quirks of operation that feel unintended. Strictly speaking, those should be in a separate document.
- Stalking Shadow is strictly worse than Mirrored Pursuit in the same discipline at the same level. Since it only gives you a 5-foot step, maybe being a free action counter might be alright.
- Hydra Slaying Strike just doesn't do anything against most opponents. It's okay against random beatstick monsters, but even then you're just trading your attacks beyond the first (or other more useful maneuver effects) for their attacks beyond the first. Any spellcaster or martial adept doesn't care at all. White Raven Hammer is only one level higher and offers a stronger no save disable, and has bonus damage to boot.
- Ghostly Defense is just too narrow. The effect is good, but there are a whopping two maneuvers that let you get concealment or otherwise force miss chances on your own, and they're both in Shadow Hand. Child of Shadow would be a third, but it's a stance and so is mutually exclusive with this. Setting Sun, however, is the counter discipline, so why not lean into that?

Shadow Hand
1
2
3
- Shadow Garrote: Base damage reduced to 4d6. Add +1 damage per initiator level.
4
5
- Step of the Dancing Moth
6
- Ghost Blade: In addition to rendering the target flat-footed (as normal), roll two attacks and choose one (as Shadow Blade Technique). Taking the lower roll adds an extra 5d6 cold damage.
- Shadow Noose: Base damage reduced to 6d6. Add +1 damage per initiator level. Does not require target to be flat-footed, but if it isn't, a failed save renders it flat-footed until its next turn (as Shadow Garrote) instead of stunned for 1 round.
7
- Death in the Dark: In addition to functioning against a flat-footed opponent, also functions if the foe is denied Dex to AC and you have concealment from it.
8
9
Rationale
- Shadow Garrote is fine. Just giving it the same scaling I did for Fan the Flames in Desert Wind.
- Shadow Noose should be Shadow Garrote's older brother, but requiring a flat-footed foe makes it far more situational. This change makes it into that better, higher-level Shadow Garrote, since it now does the same thing with +2d6 damage against non-flat-footed creatures.
- Ghost Blade just doesn't do enough. Sapphire Nightmare Blade has been doing the same thing with an extra 1d6 damage since level 1, albeit with less reliability. The fluff describes it similarly to Shadow Blade Technique, so now it's Shadow Blade Technique's older brother.
- Death in the Dark is perfectly fine, just a little too narrow.


Stone Dragon
General
- Maneuvers can be initiated if you were in contact with the ground at any point since the beginning of your last turn. (This allows you to, for example, leap up and bat a flying foe down to the ground.)
- Stances that end when you move more than 5 feet are instead suppressed until your next turn (so you don't need to spend the swift action to reenter it). You can still reinitiate them while they're suppressed this way to get them back immediately.
1
- Charging Minotaur: This damage bypasses damage reduction and other defenses as though it was dealt through your unarmed strike (for example, if you wore an amulet of mighty fists +1, it would bypass DR/magic and would potentially be able to damage incorporeal creatures, if you could somehow bull rush them). Movement with this maneuver does not disable your Stone Dragon stances.
- Stonefoot Stance: Stance is suppressed until your next turn if you move more than 5 feet instead of ending (so you don't need to spend the swift action to reenter it).
2
- Stone Vice: Fort save is tagged object. If you hit a creature not on the ground, it must make the Fort save or be knocked to the ground, falling up to 30 feet (no AoO for this movement). If this causes it to land on the ground, it is affected by the speed reduction effect.
3
- Stone Dragon's Fury: Deals bonus damage to all creatures, not just constructs. If it hits a construct or object, it must make a Fortitude save (object, DC 13 + your Str modifier) or have any damage reduction or hardness reduced to half its normal value (rounded down) for 1 round.
- Roots of the Mountain: Stance is suppressed until your next turn if you move more than 5 feet instead of ending (so you don't need to spend the swift action to reenter it). Also causes non-teleportation forced movement to which you are unwilling to move you half the distance.
4
- Boulder Roll: Is a strike instead of a boost. Effect is instead: You move up to your speed. During this movement, you can make any number of overrun attacks, as a free action, once per target. If a target chooses to avoid you, you still make an opposed Strength check to knock it prone as though it had not, and you can continue your movement even if you fail to knock it prone. If a target blocks you, you gain a +4 bonus on your Strength check made to overrun, and if you fail your check, your target can't knock you prone. You simply stop moving in the last legal space you occupied. You do not provoke attacks of opportunity for the movement or the overrun attempts. Movement with this maneuver does not disable your Stone Dragon stances.
- Overwhelming Mountain Strike: Fort save is tagged object. Effect changed to match what I think the designers were trying to accomplish. On a failed save, the creature's normal allotment of actions during its turn is reduced. Instead of being allowed a standard action and a move action, two move actions, or one full-round action, the creature is allowed only a single standard or move action. The creature can otherwise act normally; this does not impact its swift action or free actions, nor does it affect any extra actions it may gain (such as from the quicksilver motion maneuver).
5
- Mountain Avalanche: Replace text with that of Crushing Advance, except with a base damage of 6d6. Movement with this maneuver does not disable your Stone Dragon stances. (I would've just written up the differences, except that the original version is a mess. It contradicts itself about whether you deal damage to any creature whose space you fully occupy (first paragraph) or if covering only part of its space is good enough (second paragraph). It's also even more vulnerable to AoOs than the basic trample monster ability. Not worth the effort when I already have some perfectly valid text to reference.)
- Giant's Stance: Stance is suppressed until your next turn if you move more than 5 feet instead of ending (so you don't need to spend the swift action to reenter it). Instead of increasing your effective weapon size, adds 1d6 damage and lets you add an additional 1/2 your Str bonus to weapon damage rolls that already add your Str bonus.
6
- Crushing Vice: If you hit a creature not on the ground, it must make a Fort save (object, DC 16 + Str) or be knocked to the ground, falling up to 30 feet (no AoO for this movement). If this causes it to land on the ground, it is affected by the speed reduction effect.
- Iron Bones: Add +4d6 damage.
- Irresistible Mountain Strike: Fort save is tagged object. Effect changed to match what I think the designers were trying to accomplish. On a failed save, the creature's normal allotment of actions during its turn is reduced. Instead of being allowed a standard action and a move action, two move actions, or one full-round action, the creature is allowed only a single move action. The creature can otherwise act normally; this does not impact its swift action or free actions, nor does it affect any extra actions it may gain (such as from the quicksilver motion maneuver).
7
- Colossus Strike: Can also target and affect objects. If an obstacle prevents the completion of the target's move, the obstacle takes 6d6 points of damage.
8
- Adamantine Bones: Add +8d6 damage.
- Earthstrike Quake: Duration 5 rounds. The ground continues to shake and rumble, forcing creatures that attempt to move through it to make a Balance check (DC 20 + your Str modifier). Each of the subsequent rounds after you initiate the maneuver, you can trigger an aftershock around the same point, forcing a Reflex save and Concentration check.
- Strength of Stone: Stance is suppressed until your next turn if you move more than 5 feet instead of ending (so you don't need to spend the swift action to reenter it). Also grants immunity to any effect that allows a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects, or is harmless).
9
Rationale
- Oh boy, Stone Dragon. There's a lot of variance here. The Mountain Hammer maneuvers are ToB staples, but so much else is so flawed.
- Being usable only on the ground is thematic, but overly restrictive at higher levels. At least now you can jump up and swat someone out of the sky to bring them down to the ground where you want to fight them.
- Most of the Stone Dragon Stances end if you move more than 5 feet. I'm not going to try for a sweeping change that just edits that out, but at least this way (suppression for 1 round instead of ending), movement and Stone Dragon stances play better with boosts and counters. That said, most of them are on the weak side even without that limitation, although not horrendously so, so most of them got buffs.
- Charging Minotaur got the ability to bypass DR in a limited way, like I wrote into similar maneuvers for my Crushing Juggernaut homebrew discipline. It's less of an intended buff and more of a basic effect that I feel should be there in some manner, and I'm doing the same thing along the way as part of Mountain Avalanche's changes.
- For Stone Vice and Crushing Vice, these changes go hand in hand with the "jump up and swat someone out of the sky" thing I mentioned above.
- Stone Dragon's Fury is just too narrow, and the effect when it is applicable isn't enough.
- Roots of the Mountain is probably fine, but if it's going to protect you from the more "normal" forced movement, why not the special stuff as well?
- Boulder Roll was poorly written from day one. Even assuming the full-round action initiation for a boost is a typo, it just doesn't do much of anything. Overrun has two purposes for which you're spending your standard action: knock a foe prone, and move past the space the foe is occupying. Without preventing the target from avoiding you, which Improved Overrun does but Boulder Roll doesn't, the opponent chooses which of those two is more important to them and thus how to contest you. I would be hesitant to select that original Boulder Roll as even a 1st- or 2nd-level boost. This is basically a complete rework of the maneuver, which I don't want to do much of if I don't have to, but I feel like this trample-style multiple overrun fits the original theme much better.
- For Overwhelming and Irresistible Mountain Strike, I just made them work the way I think the designers intended (removing some of the target's actions, like the staggered or nauseated conditions). Also tagged them for objects so they can affect constructs and undead.
- Mountain Avalanche is a bad version of the trample monster ability, and its damage does not keep up with what is expected at this level. It was like Firesnake, but weaker, and with making you provoke AoOs, and with movement (which could be good, but could also disable your Stone Dragon stances).
- The Bones line of maneuvers provide a reasonable enough defense with their DR/adamantine to deal with the smaller hitters, although they don't scale up quite well enough to deal with big threats. A little extra damage on the higher-level ones lets you keep up that mix of offense and defense at higher levels.
- Giant's Stance's absolute best-case scenario is a +4 average damage bonus with a medium greataxe (going from 1d12 to 3d6). Punishing Stance has been doing +3.5 since level 1, albeit with a -2 AC penalty. Most of the rationale for the need for a buff is similar to what I wrote for Fiery Assault in Desert Wind. The implementation should wind up comparable, if a bit weaker.
- Colossus Strike is one of those maneuvers that feels like it should be good but doesn't quite stand up. The damage to the impactee is basically copying Setting Sun's Comet Throw and Ballista Throw. Also, now you can hit baseballs (and constructs and undead) with it. Batter up!
- Earthstrike Quake is most comparable to a Grease spell with a larger area and a scaled up save DC, but lots of downsides. It has no duration, hitting only once and not even obstructing the area. It's point-blank, not ranged, although honestly that's par for the course for spell-comparable maneuvers just from the basic paradigm. Hitting through walls is cool. Hitting creatures on the ground only it shares with Grease, but it's a limitation that doesn't hold up as well at 15th level as it did at 1st. It probably still needs a buff beyond this, but that would require a more substantial rework to it.
- Strength of Stone is heavy fortification. It's great against crit fishers and sneak attackers, but most monsters only have a 20/x2 crit, which means in terms of average damage taken, it's less effective than +1 AC against them. One can't knock the benefits of smoothing out damage spikes, but at this level things are throwing out multiple attacks and hp pools are large enough to absorb an extra singular hit now and again, so it's not as important as at lower levels. Plus, anyone can get this for 36000 gp and a -1 attack roll penalty by strapping a +1 Heavy Fortification buckler to your arm if you really want crit protection, which seems a bit cheaper than what I'd hope the equivalent value of an 8th-level stance would be.


Tiger Claw
1
2
- Claw at the Moon: If Jump check succeeds and attack hits, target must make a Will save (DC 12 + Str) or flinch, taking a -2 penalty on attack rolls for 1 round.
3
- Flesh Ripper: Add +2d6 damage. A successful save negates the attack roll penalty, but not the AC penalty.
- Wolverine Stance: You do not suffer the normal -4 penalties on attack rolls and to AC while prone or squeezing. When you hit a creature grappling you with a melee attack, you can make a grapple check as a free action to escape the grapple.
4
- Fountain of Blood: Can use after you reduce a living opponent's hp with a melee attack during your turn, regardless of the creature's hp. If it has more than half its hp, you only deal the extra 1d6 damage. If it has half its hp or less, it still deals the 1d6 damage but only the creature struck makes the Will save to avoid being shaken. If it has -1 or fewer hp, the maneuver functions as originally written.
5
6
7
- Prey on the Weak
8
- Wolf Pack Tactics
9
Rationale
- Claw at the Moon is basically Sapphire Nightmare Blade, but with an extra 1d6 damage and better crit confirmation in exchange for 1 higher level and not making foes flat-footed. Also, the Jump skill is harder to get to comfortable levels for hitting DC 20 or so (what lower-level enemies usually have) reliably compared to Concentration; Strength won't be meaningfully higher than Constitution, Jump is hit by your ACP, and it often eats a massive -6 penalty for having 20 ft. speed.
- Flesh Ripper's AC penalty is matched by Leading the Attack, a 1st-level White Raven maneuver with no save.
- Fountain of Blood is useless against single foes, and doesn't really do enough even against larger groups. By the time you start dropping foes, often it's after the party's spellcasters have already thrown down a bunch of disabling effects, so adding one more weak-ish debuff isn't going to add much.

White Raven
1
2
3
- Lion's Roar: Can use after you reduce an opponent's hp, regardless of the creature's hp. If it has more than half its hp, you only grant a +1 damage bonus. If it has half its hp or less, you only grant a +3 damage bonus. If it has -1 or fewer hp, the maneuver functions as originally written.
4
5
6
7
8
9
Rationale
- Lion's Roar is useless against single foes. Now it at least has a lesser effect.

[Garryl]

Tactician base class

Martial adept with a bit of Marshal in it.

Initial notes. Many ideas have since been changed, including such basics as how the core mechanic, plans, even works.

(click to show/hide)

Has access to White Raven, Diamond Mind, Setting Sun, and probably some homebrew disciplines I haven't looked for yet.

Large number of maneuvers readied, but they're grouped into "plans" of two or three maneuvers apiece. Whenever you initiate one maneuver from a plan, the others become withheld. This allows for a greater tactical flexibility (more maneuvers to choose from at any time), but the longevity would be lesser (fewer total plans than a typical adept has readied maneuvers). Recovery by swift action + standard to aid another or do nothing. Might also be able to set up plans such that when certain conditions occur, the remaining maneuvers in them become granted again.

Has a limited number of minor and major auras. Major auras might be tied to plans (possibly what determines when you get the remaining maneuvers granted without doing a full recovery); initiating a maneuver lets you project the associated major aura as a free action, but you stop projecting it as soon as you recovery your maneuvers.

Disciplines: Setting Sun, Diamond Mind, White Raven, Revealing Light, ...
Recovery: Full-round action to abandon any of your implemented plans and recover all maneuvers not in any of your plans that are still implemented.
Auras: Project tactical auras, which are like major auras that also link in with plans. No minor auras, since you have stances as a martial adept. Aura bonus progression is slow, like the paladin, since you've got full martial adept goodness.
- Dilate Aura, as standard.
- Doesn't need Aura Shift. Gets aura changing through plans changing.

Possible abilities:
- All According to Keikaku* (Keikaku Means Plan): Gain bonuses when you have initiated two or more maneuvers from the same plan without abandoning it. Maybe increase the aura bonus of the plan's tactical auras by 1?
- Secondary Objectives: Implement two plans at once and project a tactical aura from each of them. Possibly require expending a maneuver from each of them when you implement the second plan?
- Backup Plan: Prepare a smaller plan (fewer maneuvers, only one tactical aura). You can abandon a plan to implement the backup plan as an immediate action at any time.
- Thanatos Gambit: When you die, continue to project your tactical auras for a few rounds. Possibly based on the number of unexpended maneuvers in your implemented plan(s)? Alternatively, maybe one of your allies affected by the tactical aura can use your remaining maneuvers from its plan.


Tactician base class

Hit Die: d10

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special	Maneuvers Known	Maneuvers Readied	Stances Known	Auras Known
									Tactical
1	+0	+2	+0	+2		6	6 (2)	1	--
2	+1	+3	+0	+3		7	6 (2)	2	--
3	+2	+3	+1	+3		8	7 (2)	2	2
4	+3	+4	+1	+4		8	7 (2)	2	2
5	+3	+4	+1	+4		9	7 (2)	2	3
6	+4	+5	+2	+5		9	8 (2)	2	3
7	+5	+5	+2	+5	Dilate Aura (90 feet)	10	8 (3)	2	3
8	+6/+1	+6	+2	+6		10	8 (3)	3	3
9	+6/+1	+6	+3	+6		11	9 (3)	3	3
10	+7/+2	+7	+3	+7		11	9 (3)	3	4
11	+8/+3	+7	+3	+7		12	9 (3)	3	4
12	+9/+4	+8	+4	+8	Dilate Aura (120 feet), Side Objectives	12	10 (3)	3	4
13	+9/+4	+8	+4	+8		13	10 (3)	3	4
14	+10/+5	+9	+4	+9		13	10 (3)	4	4
15	+11/+6/+1	+9	+5	+9		14	11 (3)	4	5
16	+12/+7/+2	+10	+5	+10		14	11 (3)	4	5
17	+12/+7/+2	+10	+5	+10	Dilate Aura (150 feet)	15	11 (3)	4	5
18	+13/+8/+3	+11	+6	+11		15	12 (4)	4	5
19	+14/+9/+4	+11	+6	+11		16	12 (4)	4	5
20	+15/+10/+5	+12	+6	+12		16	12 (4)	4	6

Class skills (4 + Int modifier per level): ..., and ....

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: As a tactician, you are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, with light and medium armor, and with shields (except tower shields).

Maneuvers: You begin your career with knowledge of six martial maneuvers. The disciplines available to you are ..., and ....

Once you know a maneuver, you must ready it before you can use it (see Maneuvers Readied, below). A maneuver usable by a tactician 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: Highest-Level Maneuvers Known (TOB 39), to determine the highest-level maneuvers you can learn.

Upon reaching 4th level, and at every even-numbered tactician 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 six 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 for 5 minutes, going through the motions of the maneuvers over and over in order. 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).

Tacticians are unique among martial adepts, relying on prepared plans to inform their next actions what maneuvers are best to be used in any given situation. When you ready your tactician maneuvers, you must assign them to plans. Each readied maneuver must be assigned to a single plan. Those plans remain fixed until you once again ready your maneuvers. You can prepare any number of plans at once, as long as each plan has at least one maneuver assigned to it, but each plan can have a maximum of two assigned maneuvers assigned.

Maneuvers assigned to unimplemented plans are withheld and inaccessible. When you implement a plan, the maneuvers assigned to that plan are granted to you, but the maneuvers assigned to your other plans remain withheld. Thus, you can only initiate the maneuvers assigned to your current implemented plan. Once implemented, a plan remains implemented until you abandon it, you recovery all of your maneuvers, or you ready your maneuvers and prepare new plans. You can implement a plan as a free action during your turn as long as you have fewer implemented plans than your maximum (typically one).

As a tactician, you can spend a full-round action to reevaluate your tactical situation. When you do, you can abandon any of your implemented plans, rendering the maneuvers assigned to them withheld again. Then, you recover all of your maneuvers not assigned to any still-implemented plans.

When preparing plans, you can assign an additional maneuver to each of them at 7th level (bringing your total to three), and again at 18th level (bringing your total to four).

Stances Known: You begin play with knowledge of one stance from any discipline open to tacticians. At *th, *th, and *th 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.



Auras (Ex): As a tactician, your presence and leadership exerts an effect on creatures in your vicinity. You can learn to produce different effects, or auras, over the course of your career. You may project one minor aura and one major aura at a time. If you possess the ability to project auras from multiple sources, the number of auras of any given type that you can project at once does not stack.

Activating an aura is a swift action. The aura remains in effect until you use a free action to dismiss it or you activate another aura of the same kind (major or minor). You can have an aura active continually; thus, an aura can be in effect at the start of a combat encounter even before you take your first turn.

As a tactician, activating an aura is a purely mental action. Unless otherwise noted, your auras affect all creatures within 60 feet (including yourself) that you can communicate with, even if you don't share a language. A creature must have an Intelligence score to be subjected to an aura (mindless creatures cannot be directly affected by your auras). Your aura is dismissed and you cannot project an aura while you are dazed, unconscious, stunned, paralyzed, or otherwise unable to communicate.

Some auras affect your enemies instead of, or in addition to, your allies. Unless otherwise stated, the save DC of your aura is equal to 10 + 1/2 your class level + your Charisma modifier.

Except where otherwise noted, all modifiers granted by your auras are morale bonuses (or penalties) with a magnitude equal to your aura bonus (bonuses add your aura bonus, penalties subtract it). These morale bonuses and penalties still affect targets immune to mind-affecting effects that are otherwise subject to your aura.

Tactical Aura: Beginning at 3rd level, you can project a tactical aura. A tactical aura grants allies bonuses or harms enemies. The magnitude of the bonus granted by your tactical auras is initially +1, and it improves by 1 at 8th level and every 5 levels thereafter. You learn two tactical auras of your choice at 3rd level. As your tactician level increases, you gain access to new auras, as indicated on the table above.

Unlike other auras, you cannot project tactical auras freely. When you prepare a plan, you can assign up to two of your tactical auras to it, although some abilities allow you to assign more auras at a time to the same plan. Unlike maneuvers, you can assign a given tactical aura to any number of plans at once. When you activate a plan, you can begin projecting any of its tactical auras as a free action. You can only project a tactical aura while a plan it is assigned to is active. Each tactical aura can only be assigned to a single plan at a time.

In addition to its standard effect for projecting it, each tactical aura lists a tactical condition. If a tactical aura is assigned to a plan and you witness the listed condition as it occurs, you can abandon one of your current plans as an immediate action to implement the associated plan. When a tactical condition refers to "a nearby ally", it means you or an ally that would be within the are of the aura if you were projecting it. Similarly, when a tactical condition refers to "a nearby opponent", it means an opponent that would be within the are of the aura if you were projecting it.

Some tactical auras also list one or more plan requirements. A plan must meet those criteria in order to have the aura assigned to it.

(click to show/hide)

• Constant Vigilance: Allies within the aura gain blindsense out to 5 feet per point of aura bonus and can see through nonmagical darkness within the aura. Allies gain a bonus equal to twice your aura bonus on initiative checks and on Listen and Spot checks.
  Tactical condition: A nearby ally is attacked or damaged while flanked, flat-footed, or denied Dex to AC or by an attacker that has total concealment.
  Plan requirements: Two or more maneuvers that are boosts or are Diamond Mind, ..., or Revealing Light maneuvers.
  
  
• Elemental Endurance: Allies gain resistance to acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic damage equal to five times your aura bonus.
  Tactical condition: A nearby ally takes acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic damage that reduces it to half its maximum hit points or less.
  Plan requirements: Two or more counters.
  
  
• Elusive Technique: Attacks against allies suffer a 10% miss chance, plus 5% per point of aura bonus (maximum 50%).
  Tactical condition: A nearby ally is hit a second or subsequent attack in a single round.
  Plan requirements: Two or more maneuvers that are counters or are Setting Sun, Shadow Hand, or Phantom Battlefield maneuvers.
  
  
• Defensive Formation: Allies gain a bonus equal to twice your aura bonus to any damage reduction they may have. Allies that do not already have it are treated as having DR 0/- before applying this aura's bonus.
  Tactical condition: A nearby enemy deals damage with a melee or ranged attack that reduces a nearby ally to half its maximum hit points or less.
  Plan requirements: Two or more maneuvers that are counters or are Iron Heart, Stone Dragon, or Crushing Juggernaut maneuvers.
  
  
• Deflect and Counter: Allies gain a bonus on weapon damage rolls while attacking an opponent that attacked that or another ally subject to this aura in the past 1 round. Allies gain a bonus to Armor Class against the attacks of opponents that they another ally subject to this aura attacked in the past 1 round.
  Tactical condition: A nearby ally hits a nearby enemy that hit another ally in the past 1 round.
  Plan requirements: Strikes and counters only.
  
  
• Flexible Doctrine: Each ally gains an insight bonus on a single attack roll, saving throw, or check of their choice each round. The ally must choose to apply this bonus before making the roll.
  Tactical condition: A nearby ally rolls a natural 1 on an attack roll or saving throw.
  Plan requirements: No more than one maneuver of each type (boost, counter, rush, or strike).
  
  
• Hold Fast: Allies gain a bonus equal to twice your aura bonus on Balance checks and on checks, rolls, and saves made to resist being bull rushed, tripped, or forcibly moved. Allies also have a 15% chance to negate the extra damage from critical hits and precision damage per point of your aura bonus.
  Tactical condition: A nearby ally is forcibly moved, knocked prone, or receives a critical hit.
  Plan requirements: Two or more maneuvers that are counters or are Devoted Spirit, Stone Dragon, or Crushing Juggernaut maneuvers.
  
  
• Mindful Assault: Allies gain a bonus on attack rolls.
  Tactical condition: A nearby enemy is missed by a second or subsequent attacks from nearby allies in a single round.
  Plan requirements: Two or more strikes.
  
  
• Resilient Technique: Allies gain a bonus on all saves.
  Tactical condition: A nearby ally fails a saving throw.
  Plan requirements: Two or more counters.
  
  
• Shield Wall: Allies gain a bonus to Armor Class.
  Tactical condition: A nearby ally is hit a second or subsequent attack in a single round.
  Plan requirements: No boosts.
  
  
• Stand Until The End: Allies gain fast healing equal to your twice aura bonus. This fast healing cannot heal any creature above half its maximum hit points.
  Tactical condition: A nearby ally takes damage from a melee or ranged attack that reduces it to half its maximum hit points or less.
  Plan requirements: Two or more maneuvers that are boosts or are Devoted Spirit, Mechanus Hand, or Undying Call maneuvers.
  
  
• Unflinching Aggression: Allies gain a bonus on weapon damage rolls equal to 1d4 per point of aura bonus.
  Tactical condition: A nearby ally deals damage with a melee or ranged attack that reduces the target to half its maximum hit points or less.
  Plan requirements: No counters.
  
  
• Utmost Haste: Allies gain a 5-foot bonus to all movement speeds, plus an additional 5 feet per point of aura bonus. Allies gain a bonus equal to twice your aura bonus on Balance, Climb, Survival, and Swim checks. If your aura bonus is at least +3, allies can move 10 feet as a swift action, using any movement mode they possess, as long as they perform no other movement during the round (as with a 5-foot step). If your aura bonus is at least +4, this movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity.
  Tactical condition: A nearby ally performs a double move, run, or withdraw action.
  Plan requirements: All maneuvers are rushes or are Setting Sun, Tiger Claw, or Shifting Steel maneuvers.
  

TODO: More auras.
TODO: Probably will want to tone down the plan requirements, if not remove them entirely. I'm mostly just playing around with the idea now while it's in such a vague state.

Dilate Aura (Ex): Starting at 7th level, the range of your auras increases by 30 feet (to a total of 90 feet). Their range increases by 30 feet again at each of 12th and 17th level.

Secondary Objectives (Ex): Beginning at 12th level, you can have an additional plan implemented at once. Additionally, you gain Extra Aura (tactical aura) as a bonus feat, allowing you to project one more tactical aura at once than normal (for a total of 2 tactical auras). You must activate or dismiss your auras separately. You need not meet the prerequisites of this feat.

Backup Plan (Ex): Beginning at xth level, when you prepare your plans, you can designate one of them as a backup plan. You can assign one fewer maneuver and tactical aura than normal to this plan. You can abandon a plan to implement the backup plan as though it was assigned an aura with a tactical condition of "any time".

[Garryl]

Adapting an idea from Shadowrun Returns for a way to provide limited at-will healing. This would be an alternative mechanism for limiting free healing separate from the commonly used limit of up to half max hp used by things like the Dragon Shaman's Vigor aura and the Iron Heart Endurance maneuver.


Recent Wounds: When a creature loses hit points from taking damage, it is considered recently wounded. A recent wound lasts only until it is healed. If a creature loses hit points form damage while still recently wounded, its recent wound is the largest of the two. Essentially, a recent wound records the largest amount of unhealed damage taken damage sources the creature received. Some effects heal only part of a recent wound. When a creature receives healing from any source, the damage amount of its recent wound is reduced by the number of hp regained by the healing.

Notes:
- Since the recent wound only tracks unhealed damage, there is never any need to track it for any character at full hp.
- Healing is limited to the size of the largest singular hit received. Any time multiple hits come in before healing can be applied, they still apply damage that can't be freely healed.
- Current wording/implementation detracts all healing from the recent wounds, which encourages players to use as much free healing as possible before applying any resource-based healing in order to maximize the total healing, since any resource-based healing still reduces the recent wound size and thus the amount of free healing available. This should probably be changed so you can apply them in any order without losing out on the total free healing you can provide (aside from doing so much resource-based healing that the subject is healed up to full already). Would probably need to change it so that the wound size decreases only when the healing is tied to the recent wound, but also that as hp changes separately from that, the wound size gets decreased if it's ever larger than the character's missing hp at any given time.
- How would this work with delayed damage pools? Probably want to count the damage only when it gets taken from the pool to apply hp loss. Delayed damage pools would be weird, then, as they could group up multiple small hits into a single, larger recent wound, but they might also split a single large attack into two, resulting in smaller recent wounds. Hmm... maybe do it the other way, then, where the recent wound is created when the hit occurs even if it is partially or fully absorbed into the delayed damage pool. In that case, the size limit on the recent wound would be missing hp + total damage in delayed damage pools.
- Might want to have natural healing still reduce the size of recent wounds.


Heal skill: You can treat a recent wound as a full-round action. This use of the skill requires a healer's kit. A DC 20 Heal check heals the target for 1d6 hit points, +1 for every 2 points by which your Heal check exceeds the DC. The healing provided cannot exceed the damage value of the target's recent wounds.


Vital Surge martial discipline
Manipulates bodily energy flows to heal and empower allies or disorient and disable enemies. Might have a minor subtheme of channeling vital energy, sacrificing hp to deal electricity damage.
Has a variety of healing maneuvers. Some in-combat hybrid attack/healing maneuvers like Devoted Spirit. Some maneuvers that directly provide strong healing (in or out of combat) based on recent wounds.

(click to show/hide)

1
Bioelectric Blade: Boost - Adds 1d8 + IL electricity damage to melee attacks until end of turn, but each hit also deals 1 damage to you. If you already have a recent wound, this self-damage adds to it.
...: Strike - Attack deals normal damage and causes sickened for 1 round on failed Fort save.
2
3
Vital Alignment: Standard action. Heals touched creature's recent wound.
Arcing Vigor: Strike - Ranged touch attack deals 6d8 electricity damage, but also deals 6 damage to you. If you already have a recent wound, this self-damage adds to it.
4
...: Strike - Attack deals normal damage and causes sickened and nauseated for 1 round on failed Fort save.
5
6
Deny Injury: Boost - Heal your recent wound.
7
Vital Thrust: Strike - Attack also transfers your recent wound to the target, healing you for 10d6 + IL up to your recent wound and adding that much damage to the attack.
8
9

[Garryl]

Solid State [General]
Prerequisite: Con 15, one Stone Dragon stance.
Benefit: You can initiate Stone Dragon stances even if you aren't in contact with the ground. While you are in a Stone Dragon stance, you gain a +1 dodge bonus to your Armor Class and you can initiate Stone Dragon maneuvers even if you aren't in contact with the ground. If you move at least 10 feet from your original position, you lose the benefit of this feat until the start of your next turn.
Normal: Stone Dragon maneuvers can only be initiated if you are in contact with the ground.
Special: You can use Solid State and your Constitution score - 2 in place of Dodge and your Dexterity score to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other special ability.

[Garryl]

Daunting Will [General]
Prerequisite: Intimidate 4 ranks or Concentration 4 ranks and Unnerving Calm.
Benefit: If you instigate a duel of wills and drop the target of it during the same encounter, you can instigate a new duel of wills with another creature as a free action at the beginning of your next turn. There is no limit to the number of times you can instigate new duels of wills this way in an encounter.


Steely-Eyed Stare [General]
Prerequisite: Intimidate 4 ranks or Concentration 4 ranks and Unnerving Calm.
Benefit: If you instigate a duel of wills, you can choose to force the target of the duel to participate. If you win the duel, you also gain a +2 morale bonus on Will saves against effects the target produces for the duration of the encounter.
Normal: The target of a duel of wills can choose to submit, ignore the challenge, or participate.


Piercing Stare [General]
Prerequisite: Intimidate 4 ranks or Concentration 4 ranks and Unnerving Calm.
Benefit: If you instigate a duel of wills, you can choose to force the target of the duel to participate. If you win the duel, your morale bonus on attack rolls and weapon damage rolls against the target is increased to +2 (instead of the normal +1) and the target takes a -2 penalty on its initiative check.
Normal: The target of a duel of wills can choose to submit, ignore the challenge, or participate.


Threatening Stare [General]
Prerequisite: Intimidate 4 ranks or Concentration 4 ranks and Unnerving Calm.
Benefit: If you instigate a duel of wills, you can choose to force the target of the duel to participate. If you win the duel, for 1 round the target also takes a -4 morale penalty on attack rolls against creatures other than yourself and cannot cast defensively.
Normal: The target of a duel of wills can choose to submit, ignore the challenge, or participate.


Terrifying Stare [General]
Prerequisite: Intimidate 4 ranks or Concentration 4 ranks and Unnerving Calm.
Benefit: If you instigate a duel of wills, you can choose to force the target of the duel to participate. If you win the duel, the target is also shaken for 1 round, plus 1 round for every 5 points by which you won the opposed check.
Normal: The target of a duel of wills can choose to submit, ignore the challenge, or participate.


Pinning Stare [General]
Prerequisite: Intimidate 4 ranks or Concentration 4 ranks and Unnerving Calm.
Benefit: If you instigate a duel of wills, you can choose to force the target of the duel to participate. If you win the duel, the target's movement speed is halved for 1 round.
Normal: The target of a duel of wills can choose to submit, ignore the challenge, or participate.


If Looks Could Kill [General]
Prerequisite: Intimidate 8 ranks or Concentration 8 ranks and Unnerving Calm.
Benefit: If you instigate a duel of wills, you can choose to force the target of the duel to participate. If you win the duel, the target also takes an amount of nonlethal damage equal to your ranks in Intimidate (or Concentration, if you have the Unnerving Calm feat).
Normal: The target of a duel of wills can choose to submit, ignore the challenge, or participate.

[Garryl]

Soulborn as ToB/Incarnum hybrid class

HD: d10
Skills: 4 + Int
Skills: Bluff, Climb, Concentration, Craft, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Handle Animal, Heal, Hide, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (the planes), Martial Lore, Profession, Ride, Spellcraft, Swim.
Alignment: Any non-neutral (LG, CG, LE, or CE)

Level   Maneuvera   Meldshaping   Class
      Kn   Rdy   Stn   Shp   Ess   Bnd   Features
1      3   2   1   0   0   0   Aura, Smite Opposition 1/day
2      3   2   1   0   1   0   Incarnum Defense, Soul of the Blade
3      4   2   1   0   1   0
4      4   3   1   1   2   0
5      5   3   1   1   2   0   Smite Opposition 2/day, Soul of the Blade (initiation investment)
6      5   3   2   1   3   0
7      6   3   2   1   4   0
8      6   3   2   2   5   1   Chakra binds (crown, feet, hands)
9      7   3   2   2   6   1   Share Incarnum Defense 1/day
10      7   3   2   2   7   1   Smite Opposition 3/day, Stance Bind
11      8   4   2   2   8   1
12      8   4   2   3   9   1
13      9   4   3   3   10   2   Share Incarnum Defense 2/day
14      9   4   3   3   11   2   Chakra binds (arms, brow, shoulders)
15      10   4   3   3   12   2   Smite Opposition 4/day
16      10   4   3   4   13   2
17      11   5   3   4   14   3   Share Incarnum Defense 3/day
18      11   5   3   4   16   3   Chakra binds (throat, waist)
19      12   5   3   4   18   3   Timeless Body
20      12   5   4   5   20   3   Share Incarnum Stance, Smite Opposition 5/day




Aura: Unchanged.
Smite Opposition: Unchanged.
Incanrum Defense: Similar, but different immunities (2nd level, immunity based on alignment. LG: Fear; CG: Stun and paralysis. LE: Fatigue and exhaustion. CE: Sickened and nauseated.)
Bonus Feats: Probably removed.
Share Incarnum Defense: Unchanged.
Timeless Body: Unchanged.

Meldshaping: As original, but with much faster essentia progression, starting from level 1 or 2.

Maneuvers: Learn maneuvers at Warblade progression, although slower readied and stances progression. As a full-round action, recover all expended maneuvers and divest any invested essentia from expended maneuvers recovered this way, returning it to your essentia pool. Has access to Devoted Spirit and Soul's Edge (new) and to a third discipline based on your alignment (LG: White Raven, CG: Diamond Mind, LE: Shadow Hand, CE: Tiger Claw).

Martial Meldshaping: When you gain a level in a PrC that can progress your Soulborn meldshaping, that level also counts full for Soulborn IL (even at levels where it doesn't progress meldshaping). Any martial adept PrC that counts full (instead of 1/2) towards your Soulborn IL also progresses your Soulborn meldshaper level (but not other meldshaping-related statistics, such as essentia and soulmelds) at each level, if it doesn't already.

Aura (Ex): (As normal.)

Smite Opposition (Su): (As normal.)

Incarnum Defense (Su): (As normal, except different immunities.)

Soul of the Blade: Starting at 2nd level, all of your known martial stances and readied martial maneuvers are essentia receptacles. This allows you to invest essentia in them like you would a soulmeld. You gain the listed benefit, based on the type of maneuver, while you have any essentia invested in it. Some martial maneuvers provide additional benefits with invested essentia.

• Boost: After you initiate the boost, you can gain a +1 insight bonus per point of essentia invested in the boost on any one attack roll you make before the end of your turn.
  
• Counter: You gain a +1 insight bonus per point of essentia invested in the counter to your Armor Class and/or on your saving throw against whatever triggering attack or effect you initiated the counter against. If the counter involves making a check or roll to protect yourself from the triggering attack or effect, the bonus applies to that, too.
  
• Rush: You gain a +5-foot insight bonus per point of essentia invested in the rush to your movement speed for movement made as part of the rush.
  
• Stance: While you are in a stance into which you have invested essentia, you gain a +2 insight bonus per point of essentia invested in the stance on all skill checks with the key skill of the martial discipline from which the stance belongs.
  
• Strike: You gain a +2 insight bonus per point of essentia invested in the strike on damage rolls made as part of initiating it. This includes both weapon damage rolls and damage from non-weapon components (such as the Hatchling's Flame maneuver). The bonus damage does not apply beyond the initiation if the strike continues to deal damage after being initiated.
  
• Other: You do not gain any additional benefit for investing essentia in maneuvers that do not have a listed type.
  

You can invest essentia in or remove essentia from your readied, unexpended martial maneuvers and known martial stances at any time, just like investing essentia in a soulmeld you have shaped. However, once you have expended a maneuver, the essentia remains locked in that maneuver until you recover it; you cannot invest essentia in or remove essentia from an expended maneuver, similar to an Incarnum feat.

Beginning at 5th level, as part of the action to initiate a maneuver or enter a martial stance, you can invest essentia into it. This essentia can come directly from your essentia pool or from other essentia receptacles whose investments you can freely modify, such as soulmelds and other unexpended maneuvers and stances. This functions like reallocating your essentia normally, except that you can only move essentia into the maneuver or stance you are initiating, not into other essentia receptacles or back into your essentia pool.

Share Incarnum Defense (Su): (As normal.)

Stance Bind: Beginning at 10th level, you gain a special way of binding soulmelds to chakras. Rather than binding a soulmeld directly to the chakra it occupies, you can bind it to one of the stances that you know. A soulmeld bound to a martial stance grants the benefits of its chakra bind, as though it was bound to the chakra it occupies, only while you are in that stance and only if you would otherwise be able to bind it to that chakra; you must have an available chakra bind within your limit, you must be able to bind soulmelds to that chakra, and you may not be under any effects that otherwise prevent you from binding a soulmeld to that chakra. In exchange, it does not interfere with your ability to use magic items in that chakra's associated body slot, and only counts towards your limit of bound soulmelds while you are in the stance to which it is bound.

Each of the stances you know can have only a single soulmeld bound to it this way, although each soulmeld can be bound to any number of stances at a time.

Timeless Body (Ex): (As normal.)

Share Incarnum Stance (Su): Once you reach 20th level, your ability to share your Incarnum Defense improves further. The beneficiary of your Share Incarnum Defense also enters the martial stance that you are in, using your initiator level. If they are already in a martial stance, this applies in addition to the stance or stances that they have adopted. The stance your ally gains counts as an essentia receptacle with essentia capacity and invested essentia matching your own stance's and it grants the same additional benefits for having essentia invested that your Soul of the Blade ability would grant you. Your ally does not have access to the stance as an essentia receptacle, however, and thus cannot invest or remove essentia to or from it.

When you change your martial stance, the stance granted to the subject of your Share Incarnum Defense ability changes to match your new stance. When the amount of essentia invested in your stance changes, the amount of essentia invested in the subject's stance likewise changes.

If you have the ability to maintain more than one martial stance, you must choose only a single stance to share when you activate Share Incarnum Defense or you change your stances.


Ex-Soulborns: If you change alignment, you lose most of your class abilities unless your new alignment is compatible with the soulborn class. If it is not, you lose your aura, smite opposition, incarnum defense, and meldshaping abilities. You may not progress any further in levels as a soulborn. You regain all your abilities and advancement potential if you return to your previous alignment and receive an atonement spell. If your alignment shift still qualifies you for the class - a change from lawful evil to lawful good, for example - you retain your soulborn levels and your class features change to match your new alignment. You retain knowledge of any maneuvers and stances from the martial discipline granted as a soulborn of your former alignment, but you learn maneuvers and stances from the new one instead at subsequent soulborn levels.


----------------------------------------

Stance Bind seems like a great idea, but I'm not sure there are enough soulmelds available to bind for it. To maximize its utility, you would need soulmelds equal to or greater than stances + binds - 1. That occurs at levels 8-12 and again at 16 only.
- Part of the issue with the current version is that since each soulmeld can only bind to a single stance, if you have more stances than you need for soulmelds, any extra stances don't have a soulmeld bound to them and thus lose out on a chakra bind when using them.
- If the soulmeld progression increases to (lvl-1)/3, it caps out 6 at 19th, so only one more in total. This also results in having at least as many soulmelds as (stances + binds - 1) at all levels where you have binds available.
- Probably a better solution would be to drop the 1:1 association. Associate each soulmeld with any number of stances, but still only one soulmeld per stance, similar to how I planned to have tactical auras associated with plans for the tactician class. That way, regardless of your soulmeld and stance count, you always get that one bind reserved for Stance Bind in every stance.


Possible other abilities?

Double Stance Bind: Once you reach 20th level, your ability to bind soulmelds to your stances improves. You can bind each of your soulmelds to up to two of your stances, and each of your stances can have up to two soulmelds bound to it at a time.



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Soul's Edge Martial Discipline
Key skill: Spellcraft
Discipline weapons: ...

Essentia: Soul's Edge maneuvers you have readied and stances you know are essentia receptacles. You can invest essentia in any such maneuver or stance at any time, just like investing essentia in a soulmeld you have shaped. However, once you have expended a maneuver, the essentia remains locked in that maneuver until you recover it; you cannot invest essentia in or remove essentia from an expended maneuver, similar to an Incarnum feat.

Many Soul's Edge maneuvers have improved effects or grant additional bonuses for having essentia invested in them. Some provide benefits only during the initiation of the maneuver, but others provide bonuses simply for having essentia invested in them while they are readied.

1
Aligned Strike - Strike: Attack deals +1d4 damage and is aligned with all non-neutral components of your alignment. If opponent has any alignment component opposed to at least one non-neutral component of your own alignment, bonus damage is +1d6 and you get a +2 bonus on your attack roll. If both are opposed, instead bonus damage is +1d8 and you get a +4 bonus on your attack roll. While unexpended, gain an insight bonus on Sense Motive checks equal to invested essentia.
Burst of Purelight - Boost: Burst of light illuminates a 40-foot radius (shadowy 80-ft. radius) for 1 round and dispels up to 1st-level darkness spells. Invisible, hidden, and concealed creatures in the area are revealed. Enemies are dazzled while within 10 feet and they can see the light. Essentia increases the duration and maximum level of darkness spells dispelled. While unexpended, gain an insight bonus on Spot checks equal to invested essentia.
Incarnum Focus - Stance: Gain +2 insight on saves vs. spells and spell-like effects. If essentia is invested, also affects allies within 10 ft./essentia.
Soulspark Distraction - Boost: Summon a Least Soulspark to flank with you until end of turn. While unexpended, gain an insight bonus on Bluff checks equal to invested essentia.

2
Bluesteel Defense - Counter: When attacked, make an opposed initiative check against your attacker. If you win, the attack misses. Gain +2/essentia invested on the initiative check (doesn't stack with Soul of the Blade's insight bonus for essentia investment on counters). If you win the check, your initiative count moves up by 2/essentia in the following round (see Moment of Alacrity for wording). While unexpended, gain an insight bonus on attack rolls made to resist disarm and sunder attempts equal to invested essentia.
Incarnum Surge - Boost: As part of this maneuver, you can reallocate your essentia investments. Until the end of your turn, you have +1 essentia capacity and you gain 1 temporary point of essentia. For every point of essentia invested in this maneuver, you gain an additional 2 temporary points of essentia for the turn. While unexpended, gain an insight bonus on Spellcraft checks equal to invested essentia.
Thunderstep Charge - Strike: Make a charge. No AoOs for movement. Deal +2d4 sonic damage. Creature struck must Fort save or be deafened for 1 minute. While unexpended, gain an insight bonus on Balance checks equal to invested essentia.

3
Bluesteel Strike - Strike: Attack deals +3d6 damage. If target was flat-footed, deals +7d6 damage instead. While unexpended, gain an insight bonus on Bluff checks equal to invested essentia.
Forge of Souls - Stance: Any weapon you wield and any armor or shield you wear gains a +1 enhancement bonus. This enhancement bonus increases by the amount of essentia invested in this stance.
Impulse Surge - Rush: Move up to your speed. Can move through occupied spaces. Gain a dodge bonus to AC equal to invested essentia for 1 round. While unexpended, gain an insight bonus on Tumble checks equal to invested essentia. This bonus also applies during the movement from initiating this maneuver.
Seeking Blade - Boost: Attacks ignore miss chances and automatically confirm critical hits until end of turn. If you attempt to attack a target whose presence you are aware of but you are unable to locate (including such things as targeting an empty space when attacking an invisible foe, targeting an illusion such as a mirror image, and targeting the wrong creature when facing a shapeshifter mimicking another creature's form), if you actually threaten the creature you are trying to attack, you will automatically select the correct target. While unexpended, gain an insight bonus on Spot checks based on essentia invested.
Soul of the Hunt - Stance: Gain low-light vision, scent, and the Track feat. Gain scent, darkvision, blindsense, and blindsight based on essentia invested.

4
Chakra Lock - Strike: Choose a chakra. Attack deals +3d6 damage and causes a special effect based on the chakra chosen. Creature struck must Fort save or lose access to soulmelds shaped to that chakra and magic items worn on the chakra's associated body slot for 1 minute. While unexpended, gain an insight bonus on saves against effects produced by soulmelds equal to invested essentia.
Crystalized Will: Iron Heart Surge-type effect. Get a deflection bonus to AC and an insight bonus to saves vs. mind-affecting for 1 round equal to invested essentia. While unexpended, gain an insight bonus on saves vs. mind-affecting equal to invested essentia.
Enigmatic Moment - Boost: Become invisible and become undetectable by special senses and Divination effects for 1 round. While any essentia is invested in this maneuver and it is unexpended, gain a Nondetection-type effect (DC 5 + IL + essentia invested).

5
+1 maneuver
Bladed Gale Flurry - Strike: Full attack with -2 on attack rolls. Make one extra attack. Reach is doubled. Wind swirls through the area you threatened with these attacks for 1 round, the strength of which depends on the essentia invested. You are not affected by it. While unexpended, gain an insight bonus on saves against wind and gases.

6
+1 maneuver
Friend of the Dice - Stance: 1/round, when making a d20 roll, roll it twice and take the better result. Must choose whether or not to do so before you roll. Gain an insight bonus on the roll equal to the essentia invested.
Warded Heart - Counter: Counterspell a spell being cast targeting you or with you in its area of effect, like with Dispel Magic, but using an initiator level check on your part (no maximum, still opposed by caster level check). If you succeed, gain 2 temp hp/level of spell for 1 minute. While any essentia is invested in this maneuver and it is unexpended, gain SR (equal to IL + 2 + essentia invested). This SR also applies against the spell if you fail to counter it.

7
Cerulean Step - Boost: Move up to half your speed as a swift action. No AoOs for movement. Can move across any surface. While unexpended, gain an insight bonus to AC vs. AoOs equal to invested essentia.
Thunderstep Crash - Strike: As Thunderstep Charge, but +10d4 sonic damage, and if the attack hits, deals 10d4 sonic damage to all other enemies within 30 ft. of target, who are also at risk of deafening. Fort save by secondary creatures halves the sonic damage, in addition to negating the deafness. While unexpended, gain an insight bonus on saves against sonic or language-dependent effects equal to invested essentia and gain sonic resistance equal to twice the invested essentia.

8
+1 maneuver
+1 maneuver
Soulspark Twin - Stance: Summon an incarnum duplicate of yourself.

9
Incarnate Strike - Strike: Attack deals +50 damage and is aligned with all non-neutral components of your alignment. If you have any essentia invested, this has additional effects based on your non-neutral alignment components, which last for 1 round per point of essentia invested. Good: You gain a +5 sacred bonus to your Armor Class and on all saving throws. Evil: You gain temporary hit points equal to the damage dealt. Lawful: Creature struck must Will save or be dazed. Chaotic: Creature struck must Will save or act as though confused (not mind-affecting). While unexpended, gain an insight bonus on saves against alignment-dependent effects and to your effective HD/level against effects that depend on your level equal to invested essentia.

Names/ideas:
Soulwell Presence - Stance: ...
Bluesteel Riposte - Counter: Opposed attack roll to negate attack. If attack against you misses, attacker provokes an AoO. While unexpended, gain an insight bonus on weapon damage rolls with AoOs equal to invested essentia. This bonus also applies on the AoO provoked by this maneuver's successful usage.
Open Soul Assault - Strike: Attack deals +4d6 damage. If it hits, the creature also takes penalty equal to the amount of invested essentia to AC and saves against soulmeld-produced effects for 1 round. While unexpended, gain an insight bonus on saves vs. death effects, positive energy, and negative energy equal to invested essentia.
Mauling Surge - Strike: Charging bull rush also knocks target prone at end of movement. Bonus on crit confirm rolls per essentia while unexpended.
Strongheart Recovery - Heals ability damage, ability drain, and negative levels, and heals some HP is below half. Bonus on saves vs. death effects and Necromancy per essentia while unexpended.
Dismantled Therapy - Strike: Melee attack deals up to 25 extra damage and heals you for that amount. The extra damage can't exceed the amount of hit points the target gained from healing in the last round. While unexpended, any effect that heals a creature you threaten also heals you for the amount of essentia invested, up to half that amount of hit points restored. This healing to you applies only if the healing effect is of a form that can heal you; this does not allow you to be healed by negative energy if you are a living creature, for example. An effect that heals multiple creatures you threaten at once only heals you once this way, based on the largest amount of healing provided to any of the creature you threaten. An effect that heals both you and a creature you threaten does not heal you a second time, but the amount of hit points you recover are the greater of the amount the effect would normally heal you for and the amount that this essentia investment effect would cause it to heal you for.
Mauling Crash - Strike: Charge. If attack hits, also knock target prone. While unexpended, ....
Mauling Leap - Strike: Melee attack with +xd6 damage. Make a Jump check with DC equal to target's AC. If successful, .... While unexpended, gain an insight bonus on Jump checks based on essentia invested.
Mauling Flurry - Strike: Full attack against a single target with a -2 penalty on the attack roll. If you hit with at least 2 attacks, make one extra attack at the end (at full BAB, but still with the -2 penalty) that deals +2d6 damage per attack that hit from the full attack (max +16d6). While unexpended, gain an insight bonus on critical confirmation rolls based on essentia invested.
Purelight Surge - Strike: Melee attack deals +8d6 damage, or +8d8 against undead and creatures that are particularly vulnerable to light. The creature is also blinded for 1 round on a failed Fort save. If the attack hits, a burst of searing light fills the area, dispelling lower-level darkness effects, dealing 8d6 or 8d8 damage to creatures in the area other than yourself, and also blinding them for 1 round on a failed save. While unexpended, gain a 2% insight bonus on percentile miss chance rolls per point of essentia invested as long as you can see the space you are attacking.
Soulspeaker's Insight - Boost: Choose a creature and understand all of its minor tells, vulnerabilities, and intentions for 1 round. You gain a +2 insight bonus on attacks rolls, saving throws, and to your Armor Class against the subject and effects it produces. You can't be caught flat-footed or denied Dex to AC against that creature. While unexpended, gain an insight bonus on Sense Motive checks.

----------------------------------------

Maneuvers by soulmeld that inspired them:
Arcane Focus - Incarnum Focus
Armguards of Disruption - ...
Bluesteel Bracers - Bluesteel Defense, Bluesteel Strike
Cerulean Sandals - Cerulean Step
Crystal Helm - Crystalized Will
Diadem of Purelight - Burst of Purelight
Enigma Helm - Enigmatic Moment
Fearsome Mask - ...
Flame Cincture - ...
Gloves of the Poisoned Soul - ...
Hunter's Circlet - Soul of the Hunt
Illusion Veil - ...
Impulse Boots - Impulse Surge
Lucky Dice - Friend of the Dice
Mauling Gauntlets - ...
Necrocarnum Circlet - ...
Necrocarnum Mantle - ...
Necrocarnum Shroud - ...
Necrocarnum Touch - ...
Necrocarnum Vestments - ...
Necrocarnum Weapon - ...
Pauldrons of Health - ...
Riding Bracers - ...
Sailor's Bracers - ...
Sighting Gloves - ...
Silvertongue Mask - ...
Soulspark Familiar - Soulspark Distraction, Soulspark Twin
Soulspeaker's Circlet - ...
Spellward Shirt - Warded Heart
Strongheart Vest - ...
Therapeutic Mantle - ...
Thunderstep Boots - Thunderstep Charge, Thunderstep Crash
Truthseeker Goggles - Seeking Blade
Wind Cloak - Bladed Gale Flurry