Templar (3.5e Class)

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"Divine Spellcasting, Spontaneous Spellcasting, Other" is not in the list (Prepared Arcane Spellcasting, Spontaneous Arcane Spellcasting, Prepared Divine Spellcasting, Spontaneous Divine Spellcasting, Arcane Spellcasting, Divine Spellcasting, Prepared Spellcasting, Spontaneous Spellcasting, Alternate Magic, Psionics, ...) of allowed values for the "Class Ability" property.

Templar

The power of my deity flows through me, and I will strike you down with it should you cross me.

Every religion has clerics, those tasked with performing the duties of the religion. Many also have faithful members who leave their homes to travel distant lands, spreading the word of their god or pantheon. Templars are ordained knights tasked with spreading the faith and defending the faithful, while also beating down the foes of a deity.

Templars are the militant arm of their church and/or cause, guarding sacred places or dispatched away from the temples as agents of higher powers. Initially able and zealous warriors combining martial abilities with the power of their deity, they eventually become an active sword or shield for their deity, with high levels of offensive prowess and devastating crowd control. Whether as a bodyguard or a support character, they often find themselves in the ranks of adventuring parties who can make use of the talents.

A templar exemplifies a particular ideology of life, and associated nomenclature may depend on the side with which he aligns himself. A good templar, for instance, can assume the title of paladin, while those who embrace evil are often known as blackguards and those who serve neutrality are called gray wardens. What truly differentiates these characters are the vows that they swear to uphold.

=Making a Templar

Templars are often on the front lines, attempting to spread the word of their deity or knock some sense into the heads of unbelievers and enemies.

Primary Abilities: Templars value Charisma greatly, as it allows them to better convince those they encounter of the importance of their deity and provides force to their spells. They also value Strength as it allows them to beat up those who steadfastly refuse to believe and get in the way of the templar's work.

Secondary Abilities: Constitution is often the third most important ability for a templar, as it allows them to stand longer in the fray.

Races: Any. Every race that has deities has templars to spread their teachings.

Alignment: Any, though a templar may only select a deity who allows worshipers of the templar's alignment. Conversely, a templar of a specific deity is limited to only those alignments which would be allowed by the deity for a follower.

Starting Gold: 3d10×10 gp (165 gp).

Starting Age: Moderate.

Table: The Paladin

Hit Die: d10

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Saving Throws			Special	Spells per Day
		Fort	Ref	Will		0	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th
1st	+1	+2	+0	+2	Earthly Vow, First Aid, Inquisitor	2	—	—	—	—	—	—
2nd	+2	+3	+0	+3	Divine Grace, Knight Errant	3	0	—	—	—	—	—
3rd	+3	+3	+1	+3	Earthly Vow, Smite	3	1	—	—	—	—	—
4th	+4	+4	+1	+4	Divine Health, First Aid (move action)	3	2	0	—	—	—	—
5th	+5	+4	+1	+4	Cavalier, Earthly Vow	3	3	1	—	—	—	—
6th	+6/+1	+5	+2	+5	Cataphract	3	3	2	—	—	—	—
7th	+7/+2	+5	+2	+5	Earthly Vow, First Aid (swift action)	3	3	2	0	—	—	—
8th	+8/+3	+6	+2	+6	Knight Templar	3	3	3	1	—	—	—
9th	+9/+4	+6	+3	+6	Earthly Vow	3	3	3	2	—	—	—
10th	+10/+5	+7	+3	+7	First Aid (immediate action)	3	3	3	2	0	—	—
11th	+11/+6/+6	+7	+3	+7	Bastion of the Five Pillars, Earthly Vow	3	3	3	3	1	—	—
12th	+12/+7/+7	+8	+4	+8	Champion of the Joust	3	3	3	3	2	—	—
13th	+13/+8/+8	+8	+4	+8	Earthly Vow	3	3	3	3	2	0	—
14th	+14/+9/+9	+9	+4	+9	Knight Marshal	4	3	3	3	3	1	—
15th	+15/+10/+10	+9	+5	+9	Earthly Vow	4	4	3	3	3	2	—
16th	+16/+11/+11/+11	+10	+5	+10	Divine Radiance	4	4	4	3	3	2	0
17th	+17/+12/+12/+12	+10	+5	+10	Earthly Vow	4	4	4	4	3	3	1
18th	+18/+13/+13/+13	+11	+6	+11	I Believe in Miracles	4	4	4	4	4	3	2
19th	+19/+14/+14/+14	+11	+6	+11	Earthly Vow	4	4	4	4	4	4	3
20th	+20/+15/+15/+15	+12	+6	+12	Messiah	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
Class Skills (4 + Int modifier per level, ×4 at 1st level) Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Jump (Str), Knowledge (nobility and royalty) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Listen (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Speak Language (n/a), Swim (Str).

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the paladin.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A paladin is automatically proficient with simple and martial weapons, all forms of armor, and all shields.

Spells: Like a cleric, a paladin casts divine spells, which are drawn from the paladin spell list (see below). He also gains bonus spells accordingly based on his Charisma score, and prepares his spells in the same manner as a cleric does. A paladin’s spells are more for utility than combat efficacy, either allowing him to better solve problems through non-violent means or enhancing his combat abilities past even their already formidable limits.

0— create water, detect magic, detect poison, guidance, light, purify food and drink, resistance, virtue

1st— bane, bless, command, comprehend languages, deathwatch, divine favor, endure elements, entropic shield, remove fear, rhino’s rush, shield of faith

2nd— aid, align weapon, augury, calm emotions, delay poison, hold person, remove paralysis, resist energy, lesser restoration, shield other, spiritual weapon, status

3rd— continual flame, dispel magic, glyph of warding, heal mount, invisibility purge, magic vestment, prayer, protection from energy, remove blindness/deafness, remove curse, remove disease, speak with dead

4th— death ward, dimensional anchor, discern lies, dismissal, divination, divine power, freedom of movement, holy sword (or unholy sword), neutralize poison, restoration, sending, spell immunity, tongues

5th— atonement, break enchantment, greater command, commune, disrupting weapon, mark of justice, raise dead, righteous might, scrying

6th— banishment, blade barrier, forbiddance, greater glyph of warding, heal, heroes’ feast

Code of Conduct: Like any other character, a paladin does what he must to uphold the duties given to him by an organization of which he is a part, even if that organization is as loose as his alignment group. But let’s face it; sometimes even the good and honorable knight has to lie about his identity or consort with unscrupulous characters in order to root out the evil, demonic cult. A paladin is not specifically prohibited from even acts of questionable morality such as lying, stealing, or use of poison. That said, even paladins of chaotic or evil persuasion are obsessed with battle, honor, and battling with honor. So long as he truly acts towards the fulfillment of his personal code (subject to the discretion of player and DM), he gains immunity to fear effects and cannot be forced by any effect to unwillingly commit a violent act against someone who shares his alignment.

A paladin’s code is subjective to its maker; he takes vows as a representation of his code (see the section on earthly vows below), which grant him extraordinary powers (the nature of which vary based on the vows he takes). At 1st level and every odd-numbered class level thereafter, the paladin may take a new vow or reaffirm a previous vow and gain an additional ability from that vow.

First Aid (Su): A paladin may heal 1d6 points of damage per character level at will with a touch. This does not change based on his alignment; even evil people need healing sometimes. This is not a positive energy effect, but rather a manifestation of the paladin’s raw divine might; it thusly affects undead and the living equally.

At 4th level, the paladin may now use his first aid as a move-equivalent action, allowing him to use it multiple times per turn if he wishes. At 7th level, he can administer first aid as a swift action, and he can use it as an immediate action at 11th level. If he has already used his swift action for the current turn, he may use it as a move action. If a creature is fully healed by this ability, no temporary hit points are gained.

Inquisitor (Ex): A paladin continuously detects the alignments of all creatures that he can see. He does not need to expend any effort to determine any particular creature’s alignment, and instantly gains all information about their alignment as if he had spent three rounds concentrating on them. This ability may even penetrate any protection against divination that has a caster level less than the paladin‘s character level.

In addition, all the paladin’s attacks are automatically considered aligned (good or evil, lawful or chaotic, etc. based on his alignment) for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction.

Divine Grace (Ex): A second level paladin adds his Charisma modifier (if positive) to all saving throws. This bonus does not stack with any other effect that adds his Charisma modifier to saving throws.

Knight Errant (Ex): By 2nd level, the paladin is accustomed to the bulky armor that is so often part of his attire. He no longer suffers penalties to his base speed from wearing medium or heavy armor.

Divine Health (Ex): A 3rd level paladin gains immunity to all poisons and diseases (even those of magical nature).

Smite (Su): By the time he reaches 3rd level, the paladin gains the ability to channel his holy power through his weapon, adding his Charisma modifier to all attack and damage rolls if he wishes to do so. A number of times per day equal to 2 + one half his class level, the paladin may also declare an attack that he just hit with to be a smite attack as a free action, causing it to additional damage based on his class level: 2d6 at 3rd level, 3d6 at 4th level, 4d6 at 6th level, 5d6 at 7th level, 7d6 at 8th level, 9d6 at 9th level, 11d6 at 10th level, 14d6 at 11th level, 16d6 at 12th level, 20d6 at 13th level, 100 points at 14th level, 110 points at 15th level, 125 points at 16th level, 150 points at 17th level, 175 points at 18th level, 200 points at 19th level, and 250 points of damage at 20th level. The paladin cannot declare a smite attack on an attack of opportunity, and this damage is not multiplied on a critical hit. This damage is considered divine damage, and is not subject to either damage reduction or energy resistance.

Cavalier (Ex): Starting at 5th level, the paladin gains a mount that is treated as a cohort that cannot gain XP and always has a maximum Challenge Rating of his character level minus two. This mount cannot have an alignment more than two steps away from the paladin’s. The mount can be any creature, except the paladin must be able to ride it into battle normally.

A paladin and his mount share an empathic link out to 1 mile; depending on the mount's background, the paladin shares any empathic link to a particular item or place just as the mount does. If he wishes, the paladin may also have any spell that he casts on himself to also affect his mount so long as the mount is within 5 feet. In addition, he may cast any spell with a target of "You" on his mount. Spell-like abilities and spells not cast by the paladin cannot affect the mount in this fashion.

Should the paladin ever lose his mount through death or dismissal, he must rest for 8 hours before a new mount of his choice comes to his side.

Cataphract (Ex): When a 6th level paladin charges, he gains a +4 bonus to his attack roll instead of the normal +2, and can make a full attack on a charge. He also now may charge up to three times his normal base speed when he makes a charge as a full-round action and twice his base speed even if he can only charge as a standard action. [Note: These and all future charging bonuses acquired from paladin class features apply whether or not the paladin is mounted.]

Knight Templar (Ex): The charge of a 8th level paladin is now capable of piercing even the most powerful of magical defenses. Any active magical effect standing alone (such as a wall of force) or a defensive effect on the person of an attacked opponent must now make a caster level check against the paladin‘s attack roll. If the paladin wins against an area effect, the nearest he dispels an area of the effect equal to the size of a creature one size larger than himself. If used to attack an opponent, this occurs after the attack roll is determined to be successful or not but before damage is resolved.

Bastion of the Five Pillars (Ex): At 11th level, the paladin has learned that it always helps to be the one who strikes first. He gains 5 feet of extra reach.

Champion of the Joust (Ex): A 12th level paladin responds quickly to the threat of a charge. If a charge attack is ever declared against him, he may also declare a charge against that opponent who targeted him as an immediate action. The two meet at the midpoint of their charges regardless of their respective speeds.

Knight Marshal (Ex): A 14th level paladin now tramples over those who fall before his charge, continuing to seek more blood. If he destroys an effect or slays an opponent with a charge attack, his charge continues in the same path (following all normal restrictions as they apply), allowing him to continue charging and attacking each target in the same manner.

Divine Radiance (Ex): At 17th level, the paladin may now use his smite ability on attacks of opportunity.

I Believe in Miracles (Sp): Once per day, a paladin of 18th level can use miracle as a spell-like ability that never requires any XP cost. This ability otherwise follows all normal limits of the spell.

Messiah (Ex): Everyone around a 20th level paladin will literally throw their lives away for his sake. When they first see the paladin, any NPC around him with a normal attitude of anything better than “Hostile” must succeed on a Will save (DC 10 + ½ his paladin level + his Charisma modifier) or automatically gain an NPC attitude of "Fanatic". Anyone with an NPC attitude of “Friendly” or better do not receive a saving throw. This is a mind-affecting compulsion effect.

Ex-Paladins

A paladin whose alignment changes on the axis of good to evil forsakes his current set of vows, although he may freely renew any vows for which he is still an allowed alignment (unaligned vows can always be taken). He may also take new vows in accordance with his new alignment, so long as he only takes up to the maximum number of vows allowed by his class level. He does not lose any other class features when changing alignments.