Unbound

Requirements

Skills: Knowledge (arcana) 4 ranks.

Feats: Great Resistance, Iron Will

Special: The character must have directly participated in the destruction of a powerful magic item and must willingly forswear the use of all magic

Summary

In a fantasy world, it is a given that magic will exist, at least in some form or another. Some few fantasy denizens embrace magic, revel in it and even worship it. Most simply accept it as a natural part of the world, as unstoppable, unchangeable and unavoidable as sunshine and rain. Others, however, openly rail against magic, spit venom in its face and work to destroy it wherever they find it. Some of these folk call themselves the unbound (others call them insane).

To say that an unbound hates magic is to say that red dragons are ‘grumpy’, or the ocean is ‘big’; in other words, it is an understatement of immense proportion. The unbound’s rage sustains him, defines him and shapes the course of his life. An unbound’s hatred is so complete, in fact, that it allows him to transcend the laws of the universe and abjectly refuse to be affected by magic in any way – at least at higher levels of power.

The unbound do not deny the existence of magic; only a fool would do that and for all their, perhaps misguided, hate unbound are not fools. Instead, unbound believe magic to be unwholesome, unnatural and wholly dangerous and corrupting. Unbound despise divine and arcane magic equally, viewing them as simply different sides of the same coin. They also loathe any creature which is innately magical and believe them to be abominations unworthy of life; after all, their reasoning goes, if such creatures were intended to exist, they would not need unwholesome magic to sustain them. Well educated and well spoken unbound, few and far between as they are, are particularly dangerous, as they not only believe wholeheartedly in the rightness of their beliefs but have the capacity to sway others to their views. Fortunately for the magic-wielders of the world, most unbound lack the capacity to articulate their beliefs and are too busy killing and destroying to bother trying.

Unbound almost universally come from the warrior classes, with fighters and especially barbarians making up the greatest percentage of unbound. Rogues also pursue the ways of the unbound, though their stealthy approach to problem solving does not mesh particularly well with the unbound’s more straight-forward smash and gloat diplomacy. Rangers can and occasionally do become unbound, though they lose their supernatural powers and spellcasting abilities instantly upon doing so. For understandable reasons, bards, clerics, druids, sorcerers and wizards never become unbound, as their professions are too intrinsically tied to the flow of eldritch energy.

Role: DPS

Characteristics: Fighters who shun and refuse magic to such an extent that certain schools can't affect them.

Source: Encyclopedia Arcane: Magic Item Creation

Game Rule Information

The Unbound has the following game statistics.

Abilities: Constitution so you can have a large pool of HP since there's limited fast healing per day

Alignment: Any

Hit Die: d12

Starting Gold: N/A

Class Skills

The Unbound's class skills are Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (armoursmith, weaponsmith) (Int), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Listen (Wis) Profession (any) (Int) Ride (Dex), Search (Int), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis), and Swim (Str).

Skill Points at 1st Level: (4 + Int modifier) × 4

Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 4 + Int modifier

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the Unbound.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A Unbound is proficient with all martial weapons and all armor and shields.

Free from the Burden: The unbound will not permit himself to use magic, nor will he allow himself to be limited by that refusal. Beginning at 1st level, the unbound’s hatred of magic super charges his convictions, allowing him to smash through magically enhanced defenses and deny the power of blows from magical weapons. The unbound gains a +1/two unbound class levels bonus to attack and damage rolls. This bonus counts as a magic bonus for the purposes of defeating damage reduction but is not itself magical in nature. The unbound also gains damage reduction equal to his class level against magical weapons of all sorts, meaning that weapons which are not enchanted can cut or break him as normal, but magical weapons are blunted against his shield of absolute, indomitable hate.

Sworn Vow Ex: Upon taking the 1st level of this prestige class, the unbound makes a silent vow to the universe, that he will never again touch a magical item of any sort, nor willingly permit himself to be affected by magic spells or abilities of any sort. This vow echoes unceasingly in every fiber of the unbound’s being and cannot be easily broken. Immediately upon swearing his vow, the newly unbound permanently loses all use of any supernatural or spell-like powers he already possessed and loses all ability to cast spells. He may never again take levels as a bard, wizard, sorcerer, cleric, druid, monk or paladin and if he advances as a ranger, he never gains access to that class’ spells.

If the unbound willingly uses a magic item of any sort, or willingly permits himself to be affected by any form of spell, spell-like ability or supernatural power, then he loses all class abilities until he atones (to himself), by single-handedly destroying a magical item, or a number of items whose total market value is equal to the suggested wealth of a character of his class level. Alternately, he can instead seek out and destroy a magic-wielding or innately magical being of a challenge rating equal to his own; he must do this by himself, with no outside assistance of any kind. Immediately upon successfully completing either task, the unbound’s faith in his hate is restored and so too are his abilities.

An unbound who is somehow forced by magic to wield a magical item, or who is unwillingly affected by magic need not atone to himself for that transgression. If anything, it reinforces his belief in his views.

Spell Resistance Ex: Unbound are shielded from magic by the strength of their convictions, so much so that most spells simply sluice off them like water off a duck’s back. At 2nd level, the unbound gains spell resistance equal to 2 x his unbound class level + his Constitution modifier (if applicable). In order for a spellcaster to affect an unbound with a spell, he must successfully bypass his spell resistance with a caster check. The unbound’s spell resistance is absolutely involuntarily and cannot be lowered by him or by anyone else to allow a spell to pass through.

Spell Refusal Ex: When an unbound reaches this level of power, he truly becomes a magic wielder’s nightmare, as he is capable of ignoring even the most powerful of enchantments simply by refusing to let them harm him. Beginning at 3rd level, he completely ignore all spells or spell-like effects of a single school. He can choose to ignore the spells of any spell school (abjuration, conjuration, divination, enchantment, evocation, illusion, necromancy, or transmutation) and once he has made that choice he can no longer be targeted or affected by spells of that school, nor by spell-like effects or supernatural abilities which replicate a spell of that school. So, for example, an unbound who chooses to ignore the Evocation spell can no longer be injured by a fireball, nor may he be targeted by magic missiles. Likewise, if the unbound chooses to ignore the Divination school, he can no longer be the subject of any divination spell, nor will he appear in scryings of an area he happens to be in. Spell refusal does not, however, allow the unbound to ignore summoned creatures or pass through a conjured wall of stone; in either case, since the summoned creature or object does not target him in any way, his stubbornness cannot refuse it. At 5th level and again at 8th, the unbound can select additional schools of magic to refuse. Once the choice to refuse a school has been made, it cannot later be altered.

Hate's Vitality Ex: It can be difficult to survive as an adventurer in a fantasy world, at least without access to potent healing magic. Fortunately for him, the unbound abjectly refuses to believe that is true. Beginning at 3rd level, when healing naturally, the unbound heals at a rate of 5 hit points per day for each unbound class level. So, for example, an 8th level fighter / 10th level unbound would heal 58 hit points per day, rather than 18.

Weak Point Ex: Unbound like to destroy magic items. In fact, they love to destroy magic items of all sorts. Big, little, weak, or strong, it matters not; if it is magical, they want to make it kindling or scrap metal. At 4th level, the unbound gains a +2 bonus to damage when attempting to sunder a magical item and a +2 bonus to all attempts to exceed a magical object’s break DC. At 7th level, the bonus increases to +4.

Denial Su: When the unbound decides that he will not be affected by a spell, he really means it. Once an unbound reaches 10th level, there is not a force on the mortal plane, or any other, which can affect him with a spell if he puts his mind to it. Once a day, if a spell, spell-like ability or supernatural ability overcomes the unbound’s formidable anti-magical defenses, he can ignore its effects entirely. As with his spell refusal ability, the unbound cannot ignore a wall conjured in front of him, nor may he ignore a summoned creature which is attacking him. Denial also cannot be used to ignore base damage from magical weapons, though it can be used to refuse to permit a weapon’s special ability to be used, such as a vorpal sword’s ability to remove the unbound’s head from his shoulders.

So Much Kindling Ex: When an unbound strikes to destroy a magical object, his blows land with the force of a thunderbolt and only the hardiest of items can hope to survive them. On a successful strike to sunder a magical object, all damage inflicted above the object’s hardness is doubled. So for example, if an unbound strikes a hardness 10 magical object for 15 points of damage, he inflicts 10 points of damage (15 – 10 harness = 5, 5 x 2 = 10 damage)

Table 1-1: Unbound Progression

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special
1st	+1	+2	+0	+2	Free from burden, sworn vow
2nd	+2	+3	+0	+3	Spell resistance
3rd	+3	+3	+1	+3	Spell refusal, hate's vitality
4th	+4	+4	+1	+4	Weak point +2
5th	+5	+4	+1	+4	Spell refusal
6th	+6	+5	+2	+5	—
7th	+7	+5	+2	+5	Weak point +4
8th	+8	+6	+2	+6	Spell refusal
9th	+9	+6	+3	+6	—
10th	+10	+7	+3	+7	Denial, so much kindling