Blessed Paladin
Original Tabletop source: Heroes of Light
Note: The below describes a class not yet fully implemented in Time of Unparalleled Darkness, and thus may change in its final implementation.
Paladins are already paragons of virtue, at least of the strictures and teachings of their god, but the blessed paladin is one even higher - the paladin's paladin. She holds herself to an even higher standard of morality than most heroes - dangerously so. Through her virtuous deeds, she declares herself an agent of a just and good good, even though that deities' influence in the Domains of Dread is significantly suppressed by the omnipresent Dark Powers. Although no commoner would understand the purpose of an esoteric and forgotten god like Heironeous, or even the zeal required of the lawful good sect of Church of Ezra, the blessed paladin righteously struggles to maintain that link with their divine. A blessed order of knighthood is likely to consist of only one or two exemplars, but the blessed paladin nonetheless obeys the lawful strictures of her faith. Most heroes of this sort crusade for many years as a paladin before they strive even further, adopting the most rigourous discipline, and vows, that make up the burning faith of the blessed paladin.
Roleplaying a Blessed Paladin
Backgrounds of a Blessed Paladin
Alignment and Religion
While Paladin alignment restrictions within Time of Unparalleled Darkness are relaxed to "any good", the blessed paladin is a much more narrow path, and they must be lawful in their actions. A blessed paladin takes a vow, before their god or goddess, forsaking all their divinity considers wrongdoing. After she takes this vow, she shines like a beacon to all creatures of evil that try to scry or divine her presence. The vast majority of Ravenloft's creatures are obscured in their motives and morality, but the blessed paladin cannot hide her alliance with the forces of light. Her code of honour regards such subterfuge as dishonourable. She no longer wishes to hide, for she is ready to face the worst horrors the world can hurl at her. Commoners state that the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long - the same principle often applies to blessed paladins. Yet, so adherent to their divine and their ways they are, and devoted to those beliefs, the blessed paladin happily faces this adversity head-on.
The Blessed Paladin as an Adventurer
In an adventuring party, the blessed paladin tends to either get along famously or not at all with paladins, depending on how well the blessed paladin's moral strictures mesh with the other paladins. With other highly-regimented classes like wizards, monks, or warmages, they can form an absolutely devestating fighting unit. The paladin is already a resilient and powerful melee martial class, and the blessed paladin only adds to this, with abilities allowing them to fight on even past when others would be on the floor, bleeding to death.
Of course, the other edge of the two-edged blade is that the blessed paladin's light is one that cries to be extinguished to the legions of evil, and this kind of attention is sometimes not what adventuring parties want. It is as likely the blessed paladin ventures with but a trusted partner, or a small group of regular, equally-trusted companions, as they are to drift among different adventuring groups.
An Important Note on Expectations of Play
Note that Blessed Paladin is essentially the reward for performing a story arc as a paladin player to gain the Blessed ability, and as such, along with the expectations of behaviour of Blessed players to begin with, these players will be held to very high standards in terms of their "goodly" behaviour. If these expectations chafe, you are free to turn down both Blessed Paladin status and the Blessed feat to no ill effects (other than missing the opprotunity to have such things, of course.)
Additionally, the blessed paladin is a radiant force of light in the realm, and while that comes with the awe and admiration of the common-folk more often than not, their actions sign a clarion call to evil, a call that demands response. Expect as a blessed paladin to be constantly challenged. Again, if such bothers you, you are free to turn down blessed paladin without reprecussions to your existing class.
Differences from the Ravenloft tabletop
In general, the class focus is shifted from "I'm going to 1v1 a darklord" which is not sustainable in a persistent world, into a strong and pointed adversary of the Dark Powers and those whom hold them. Players whom gain Dark Powers are a powerful foe indeed, and the blessed paladin represents good's response in kind.
- The blessed paladin's Last Stand ability is changed from tabletop, to make it something generally useful to a persistent world character.
- Own Two Feet is not implemented here, since we do not have paladin mounts to begin with.
- Virtue's Challenge is changed to provide proper, working function of detect evil to the blessed paladin, rather than the ability to detect the Darklord of the domain that they are in, since it is unfeasible in a persistent world to have scrying effects for DM PCs.
- In tabletop, any class who met the requirements could become a blessed paladin. In Time of Unparalleled Darkness, they must have been a paladin or cleric specifically (though they can be a multi-classed character whom possesses said class)
- The class skills list is altered: knowledge is replaced with Occultism and Religion, and the following skills have been added: Balance, Parry, Persuade, Tumble
- The Scry Evil advantage is given now at level 6, to shore up the things lost form the class's translation to a persistent world.
- The Sacred Knowledge advantage is given now at level 10, to further reinforce the theme.
- In tabletop, the blessed paladin does not gain +1 paladin caster level at level 10. They do in Time of Unparalleled Darkness.
- To ease both technical implementation and the penalty for clerics taking the class, blessed paladin has its own spell progression and its own spell list. This largely follows paladin advancement, excepting that it starts at the first paladin spell gains, rather than having "dead levels."
- The blessed paladin does not gain a second attack when they gain +6 Base Attack Bonus in tabletop. This is likely a grave oversight, and in Time of Unparalleled Darkness, they do.
- To represent their strength of will, a blessed paladin gains +1 to their normal will save progression across the board.
Prestige Class Requirements
To become a blessed paladin (blp), a character must fulfill the following criteria:
- Class: Paladin or cleric. This is an extension of the paladin class, and as such, they must have already previously been a paladin, or a cleric of an appropriate God/Goddess.
- Alignment: Lawful Good.
- Base Attack Bonus: +4
- Feats: Blessed. The paladin must pass a test of virtue and have gained the Blessed feat as a result.
- Morality: The character must remain Blessed. See also the special restriction Moral Compass listed below.
A blessed paladin that strays from the morality restrictions "falls" and reverts to a normal paladin. They retain blessed paladin levels, and if they manage the arduous task of becoming once-again Blessed, they regain their abilities. Otherwise, the blessed Paladin levels are counted as if they are additional normal Paladin Levels. Ie, a Paladin 6/Blessed Paladin 10, whom loses their Blessed Status, are counted as if they are a level 16 Paladin. They lose all blessed paladin abilities (but do gain the abilities they would have as a paladin of that level).
A paladin must strive to quickly regain their Blessed Paladin levels if they stray, and as such, characters whom are "fallen" blessed paladins will be reverted to normal Paladins entirely if they do not undertake some quest to restore their Blessed status. A paladin whom loses their blessed paladin ranks in this way may not gain them again. At that point they may remain a paladin, if they are scrupulous enough about their vows, but they can never regain that highest virtue they once exemplified.
Class Features
- Hit Die: d10
- Class Skills: Balance (Dex), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Heal (Wis), Occultism (Int), Parry (Dex), Persuade (Cha), Religion (Int), and Tumble (Dex).
- Weapon and Armour Proficiency: Blessed paladins are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, all types of armour, and with shields.
- Spells: The blessed paladin gains spells according to the chart below, and gains spells from the blessed paladin spell list.
Class Progression
| Level | Base
Attack Bonus |
Fort
Save |
Ref
Save |
Will Save | Special |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | +1 | +2 | 0 | +1 | Moral Compass |
| 2 | +2 | +3 | 0 | +1 | Virtue's Challenge |
| 3 | +3 | +3 | +1 | +2 | Aura of Courage, Detect Virtue |
| 4 | +4 | +4 | +1 | +2 | Fervor |
| 5 | +5 | +4 | +1 | +2 | Holy Ground |
| 6 | +6/+1 | +5 | +2 | +3 | Sacred Alliance, Scry Evil |
| 7 | +7/+2 | +5 | +2 | +3 | Improved Aura of Courage |
| 8 | +8/+3 | +6 | +2 | +3 | Hallowed Ground |
| 9 | +9/+4 | +6 | +3 | +4 | Death Ward |
| 10 | +10/+5 | +7 | +3 | +4 | Blessed Circle, Last Stand, Sacred Knowledge |
Class Abilities
Moral Compass
Extraordinary Ability
The blessed paladin is a paragon of virtue, and they gain an ability to sense things that would make them stray from their righteous path. At first level, if a blessed paladin is about to do something which would place their status in jeopardy, the DM will warn them. If the blessed paladin even attempts something that would requires a powers check, they fall (see the above in prestige class requirements with regards to "falling"). The exception to this is if their moral code requires it, in which case the situation of double jeopardy is something that will need to be resolved with the plot and should be considered in light of the blessed paladin's intent and results.
As long as a blessed paladin follows these strictures, they may cast the Light cantrip at will.
Virtue's Challenge
Extraordinary Ability
At 2nd level, the devotion the blessed paladin has to protect the innocent allows them the extraordinary ability to properly detect evil within Ravenloft. While normally this ability is subverted, the blessed paladin's dogged determination to the light allows them to bullishly trample this limitation, and truly know whom is evil and whom is not. This manifests as the blessed paladin being able to detect the Virtue of a player or NPC. This does not reveal those gifted with Dark Powers, or those whom are Innocent or Blessed.
This comes at a cost: evil can just as clearly discern the blessed paladin is an agent of good, and evil creatures will be more aggressive and more overtly hostile towards them.
At 3rd level, this ability gains the Detect Virtue advantage: At 3rd level, the blessed paladin can now reveal those gifted with Dark Powers (though not the level of the Dark Powers or their exact nature of the powers), and those whom are Innocent or Blessed.
At 6th level, this ability gains the Scry Evil advantage: At 6th level, the blessed paladin can now discern the level of Dark Powers (though not the exact nature of the "gifts" the Dark Powers have bestowed upon them). They also gain the ability to detect those undergoing the process of Transposition, and the nature of the demon trying to possess the person, though not whether they are yet successful or what level the transposition takes.
At 10th level, this ability gains the Sacred Knowledge advantage: At 10th level, so great is the blessed paladin's virtue that they can discern the special abilities granted to the lieutenants of evil. Their Virtue's Challenge ability now tells them the bonuses and maluses given to a holder of Dark Powers, in addition with the knowledge granted by previous levels.
Aura of Courage
Supernatural Ability
At 3rd level, the blessed paladin gains the Aura of Courage ability, identical to the paladin ability of the same name, if they do not have it. This grants allies within 10ft a +4 morale bonus on saving throws against Fear and Horror checks once per rest. (This functions to not disadvantage clerics whom take blessed paladin from the advantage.)
At 7th level, this ability gains the Improved Aura of Courage advantage, allowing them to do this ability 5 times per rest.
Fervor
Extraordinary Ability
At 4th level, such is the zeal of the blessed paladin that they can continue fighting even when they would otherwise normally be rendered unconscious. Rather than falling unconscious at 0 hit points or below, they remain conscious and can continue fighting. They continue to bleed periodically, and will still die if they reach -10 hit points.
At 10th level, this ability gains the Last Stand advantage: a blessed paladin whom reaches 0 hit points no longer bleeds (but can still take damage normally). Their holy devotion even in the face of death gains +5 deflection AC, +5 to their saving throws, and 10/- damage reduction. The bonuses last for 5 turns or until they reach -10 hit points and die, whichever comes first, and remain if they are healed above 0 hit points. The warding effect can only happen once per rest, but they if they are injured below 0 again, they still do not bleed or fall unconcsious.
Holy Ground
Spell-Like Ability
At 5th level, a blessed paladin can cast holy ground once per rest as a spell-like ability. Holy ground has the same effect as consecrate but grants an additional effect: if it is cast in a sinkhole of evil (certain dungeons and other areas), the effects of the sinkhole in the immediate area are reduced by one level, until the area respawns or the blessed paladin rests, whichever comes first.
At 10th level, this gains the Blessed Circle advantage: At 10th level, the holy ground spell becomes blessed circle instead. Blessed circle has the same effect as consecrate but grants three additional effects:
- If it is cast in a sinkhole of evil (certain dungeons and other areas), the effects of the sinkhole in the immediate area are reduced by one level, until the area respawns or the blessed paladin rests, whichever comes first.
- Any being with Dark Powers who enters the area of effect loses one "rank" of their powers. So for example, a player with Dark Powers level 3, gains the advantages they gained at Dark Power level 3. Maluses gained remain.
- Any being undergoing transposition loses all advantages the demonic form would confer unto them, regardless of the level of their transposition.
Sacred Alliance
Supernatural Ability
At 6th level, the blessed paladin can activate this ability as a free action five times per rest. Anyone standing within 5 feet of the blessed paladin at the time of the casting, receives the benefits of bless and greater magic weapon as if cast by a 12th level cleric, as well as the blessed paladin themselves.
At 10th level, this ability gains the Improved Sacred Alliance advantage: changing the radius to 10th feet, and the effective caster level of the spell to 20th.
Hallowed Ground
Spell-Like Ability
At 8th level, the blessed paladin can cast hallowed ground once per rest. This is as the hallow spell, but with the same advantage as holy ground above: if it is cast in a sinkhole of evil (certain dungeons and other areas), the effects of the sinkhole in the immediate area are reduced by one level, until the area respawns or the blessed paladin rests, whichever comes first.
This does not stack with holy ground.
Death Ward
Spell-Like Ability
At 9th level, the blessed paladin can cast Death Ward 3 times per rest. Casting it does not risk Dark Powers interest or checks as it normally would.
