Bone Knight

Requirements

Base Attack Bonus: +4 Skills: Craft (armorsmithing) 6 ranks, Knowledge(religion) 4 ranks Special: Ability to turn or rebuke undead. Ability to cast 1st-level divine spells. A powerful divine martial who can cast spells and craft a powerful suit of bone armor.

Role: Martial / Support Caster

Characteristics: Divine Knight who uses Undead to enhance himself

Source: Homebrew

Game Rule Information

The Bone Knight has the following game statistics.

Abilities: Constitution and Strength

Alignment: Any, but usually evil

Hit Die: d10

Starting Gold: N/A

Class Skills

The Bone Knight's class skills are Craft, Intimidate, Ride

Skill Points at 1st Level: (2 + Int modifier) × 4

Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the Bone Knight.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A Bone Knight is proficient with all simple and martiial weapons and with all armor and shields (including tower shields)

Cthonic Wards Su: At 1st level, the bone knight can bind to a suit of any armor. This is done by performing an 8-hour long ritual, and if interrupted must be started over. During this experience, the Bone Knight binds the armor to their soul and cannot be wearing the armor. It will begin to take on the visual traits of either bone or flesh, depending on the source of the Bone Knight's divine powers.

Additionally, once bound in this manner, it can be donned and doffed as though it were one category lighter and the wearer can sleep in the armor without gaining exhaustion. If the bound armor is Light Armor, it can be donned and doffed as a move action. Additionally, the armor provides the Bone Knight a profane bonus to AC equal to their class level divided by 2 (rounded up), applying whenever a deflection bonus would apply. For the purposes of sunders and spell effects, non-magical armor is treated as having an enhancement bonus equal to it's profane bonus.

The Profane Bonus stacks with the enhancement bonus of bound Magical Armor as well as any other enchantments applied to said armor.

Improved Cthonic Wards Su: At 4th, 6th, 8th, and 10th level, a Bone Knight becomes more attuned to their armor.

Level 4 - When conducting the ceremony to bind armor, the profane bonus can be reduced to apply additional enchantments not previously on the piece of armor, treating total profane bonus as the enhancement bonus for such effects. All reagents and ingredients for the enchantment must be present and used as if the enchantment were actually being crafted onto the item, but no XP will be consumed. The enchantments on a set of Cthonic Armor that result from this class feature are lost when the Cthonic Wards ritual is repeated, and the reagents used are not refunded.

Non-magical armor must have at minimum a +1 profane bonus after enchantments have been applied, but magical armor can have all profane bonuses replaced with enchantments. Any enchantments chosen must be appropriate for the armor bonded. By spending the same amount of time as you do for an initial binding, you can reallocate your profane bonus, but while doing so you lose all benefits of your Chthonic Wards.

Level 6 - The tethers to the soul grow strong, and resist being broken. The Bone Knight's armor cannot be removed against the wearers will. Additionally, from now on the Bone Knight suffers a charisma penalty equal to half their level if they do not wear their bound armor, even if their bound armor is destroyed or re-bound as part of a Cthonic Wards ritual. While wearing bonded armor, the Bone Knight is treated as having the Die Hard feat.

Level 8 - While wearing bonded armor, it is treated as a lich's phylactery for the wearer. So long as at least 50% of the armor remains, and the Bone Knight's soul is not directly destroyed or their body removed from the armor before death, both the armor and the Bone Knight regenerate at a rate identical to a lich. If the Bone Knight begins a ritual to either modify their armor or replace it with a new set, the link is broken and they cannot treat the armor as their phylactery until they have worn it for 24 consecutive hours after completing the ritual.

Level 10 - Any bonded armor now fully has an appearance of being made from either bone or flesh. Additionally, while wearing their bonded armor, the Bone Knight gains all traits of the Undead Type. This is not maintained if the Chthonic ritual is being performed.

Rattling Thrall Sp: At 1st level, gain 1/day cast control undead as a Spell-Like Ability. If the target is under the control of another willing caster, the undead gets no save. Once controlled, the undead get no future saves while under the Bone Knight's control, and the duration is permanent until the Bone Knight successfully gains control of another undead through the use of this ability. The Bone Knight uses their associated divine caster level as the caster level for this ability.

If the Bone Knight has the ability to Turn, Rebuke or Command undead from one of their base classes, this class feature allows that ability to be used one additional time per day and increases their effective level by 2 + their Bone Knight level for that ability.

Cthonic Instruments Su: At 5th level, a Bone Knight learns to pull more from their soul to bind to weapons as they do armor. When conducting a Chthonic Wards ritual, a Bone Knight may additionally bind to a single ranged or melee weapon. If the weapon is a unique magical weapon that comes in a pair, the Bone Knight may opt to bind to that weapon as well, but the effects of this class feature will only apply when they wield both at once. Weapons and Armor cannot be bound in separate rituals - all equipped Cthonic Wards and Instruments must be bound as part of the same ritual.

The bound weapon gains a profane bonus equal to your Bone Knight level divided by 3. This bonus can be used to add enchantments to your weapon in a manner similar to Chthonic Wards.

Cthonic Sigils Su: At 3rd level, a Bone Knight gains the ability to incorporate additional bones of other living creatures it has personally slain or assisted in slaying. They need not make the killing blow to be able to use a creature's bones in this manner.

When performing a Cthonic Wards ritual, the Bone Knight may elect to add two hours to a Cthonic ritual in order to incorporate a single creature's bones into their armor. This process involves engraving the bones with a complex set of sigils, which makes each enhancement completely unique. The ability or enhancement gained from incorporating these bones depends on the power and type of creature the bones came from, as detailed in the table below. Your Dungeon Master may elect to change or add to the table at their discretion.

Unlike enchantments created by sacrificing the armor's profane bonus, abilities and enhancements gained through Cthonic Sigils are not lost upon performing a Cthonic ritual and may be recovered and/or re-incorporated during this ritual. If the Bone Knight removes a Cthonic Sigil as part of a ritual and chooses to not re-incorporate it into their Armor or Weapon, they may keep the engraved bones to use in a later ritual. Even though the bones are already engraved, the time they would add to the ritual remains the same.

At 5th, 7th, and 9th levels the Bone Knight gains additional Cthonic Sigil slots as described in the Advancement Table below. Each additional slot filled adds two hours to the Cthonic ritual.

Level	BAB	Fort	Ref	Will	Special	Total Sigil Slots	Spellcasting
1st	+0	+2	+0	+0	Cthonic Wards, Rattling Thrall		—
2nd	+1	+3	+0	+0			+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
3rd	+2	+3	+1	+1	Cthonic Sigils	1	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
4th	+3	+4	+1	+1	Improved Cthonic Wards I	1	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
5th	+3	+4	+1	+1	Cthonic Instruments	2	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
6th	+4	+5	+2	+2	Improved Cthonic Wards II	2	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
7th	+5	+5	+2	+2		4	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
8th	+6	+6	+2	+2	Improved Cthonic Wards III	4	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
9th	+6	+6	+3	+3		6	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class
10th	+7	+7	+3	+3	Improved Cthonic Wards IV	8	+1 level of existing divine spellcasting class