For any servant of a deity, no joy is greater than at those rare moments when the presence of her patron deity is a real, tangible force, sending shivers of power through her body and sending her soul soaring. For some, the taste of this experience is such a powerful attraction that they begin devoting their lives to cultivating it, hoping to attain greater closeness to their deity through a life of contemplation. Spending hours in prayer and meditation, these devoted followers purify their souls, making them worthy of closer contact with the divine. While some contemplatives withdraw from the world into private retreats, others remain active, even adventuring, finding that true nearness to their deity comes from living out the deity’s will in the world. In return, they find their minds, bodies, and souls purified, perfected, and finally brought close to union with their deity.

Rather than devoting their lives to a deity, some contemplatives strive to conform themselves to some other abstract principle, such as an alignment. Their mission is no less divine than that of contemplatives devoted to a deity, and their methods substantially the same. Many such contemplatives live as itinerant philosophers, teaching their doctrines in schools or in the marketplace as they travel from city to city, hoping to enlighten the masses.

Most contemplatives are clerics, though paladins are also often drawn to the mystic’s journey. Members of other classes rarely have sufficient devotion to a deity or philosophy to choose this course.

A contemplative might be a reclusive hermit, a church leader, or a passionate champion of her deity. Such a character might have something a group of player characters needs—a holy relic, a bit of sacred lore, or simply a higher-level spell than the clerics in town can cast.

Role: Spell Support

Characteristics: Through meditation and divine contact, this class gains aspects of divinity

Source: Complete Divine

Game Rule Information

The Contemplative has the following game statistics.

Abilities: {{{Abilities}}}

Alignment: Any

Hit Die: d6

Starting Gold: N/A

Class Skills

The Contemplative's class skills are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Heal (Wis), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Listen (Wis), Profession (Wis), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), and Spot (Wis).

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 Contemplative.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A Contemplative is proficient with whatever they were already proficient with prior to taking levels in this class.

Spells per Day/Spells Known: A contemplative who was previously a spellcaster continues to gain access to more powerful divine magic while following the contemplative path. Thus, when a new contemplative level is gained, the character gains new spells per day (and spells known, if applicable) as if she had also gained a level in the spellcasting class she belonged to before she added the prestige class. She does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained (improved chance of controlling or rebuking undead, more frequent remove disease, and so on). This essentially means that she adds the level of contemplative to the level of whatever other spellcasting class the character has, then determines spells per day accordingly.

If a character had more than one divine spellcasting class before she became a contemplative, the player must decide which class to assign each level of contemplative for the purpose of determining divine spells per day and spells known. If the contemplative did not previously belong to a divine spellcasting class, she gains the ability to cast divine spells exactly as a cleric of her patron deity. Her spell progression is the same as that of a cleric.

Bonus Domain: Upon adopting the contemplative class, and again at 6th level, a character gains access to a bonus domain of her choice. The character can choose any domain made available by her deity or alignment. The character gains the granted power associated with the domain she chooses and can select the spells in that domain as her daily domain spells.

Divine Health Ex: A contemplative has immunity to all diseases, including magical diseases such as mummy rot and lycanthropy.

Slippery Mind Ex: At 2nd level, a contemplative gains the ability to shrug off magical effects that would otherwise control or compel her. If a contemplative with slippery mind is affected by an enchantment and fails her saving throw, one round later she can attempt her saving throw again. She only gets this one extra chance to succeed on her saving throw.

Divine Wholeness Su: At 3rd level and higher, a contemplative can heal her own wounds, in addition to any other healing ability she may have. She can heal up to four times her contemplative level in hit points each day, and she can spread this healing out among several uses.

Divine Body Su: At 5th level, a contemplative becomes immune to poisons of all kinds.

Divine Soul Su: At 7th level, a contemplative gains spell resistance. Her spell resistance equals her class level + 15. In order to affect the contemplative with a spell, a spellcaster must roll the contemplative's spell resistance or higher on 1d20 + the spellcaster's level.

Eternal Body Ex: After achieving 9th level, a contemplative no longer suffers ability penalties for aging and cannot be magically aged. (Penalties she has already suffered remain in place.) Bonuses still accrue, and the contemplative still dies of old age when her time is up.

Mystic Union Su: At 10th level, a contemplative becomes a magical creature. She is forever more treated as an outsider (native) rather than a humanoid for the purposes of spells and magical effects. Additionally, the contemplative gains damage resistance 10/magic.