Blackguard Prestige Class Pathfinder Adaptation

A blackguard embodies the will of a dark fiend (or fiends) that grants him his power. This entity could be a denizen of the lower planes, or a dark fey, or one of the elder gods. Once a character embarks down this path, his patron sponsor grants him stronger powers, at the same time further corrupting the blackguard until he’s a literal mortal fiend, beholden to said patron both body and soul to inflict its will (or merely random chaos or destruction).

Design notes: This revised blackguard was adapted from the open content prestige class of the same name from OGL 3.5. The enhancements were inspired by Legendary Games’ Paraclete from Legendary Paladins.

Skills (2 + Int bonus per level): Bluff, Craft, Heal, Intimidate, Knowledge (planes, religion), Perception, Profession, Ride, and Stealth.

Requirements: To qualify to become a blackguard, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.

• Base Attack Bonus: +6
• Feats: Signature Skill (Bluff or Intimidate), Dazzling Display or Improved Feint.
• Skills: Bluff 5 ranks, Intimidate 5 ranks, Knowledge (planes or religion) 2 ranks.
• Languages: Abyssal, Aklo, Infernal or Sylvan (depending on sponsoring patron).
• Alignment: Any evil within one step of patron alignment.
• Special: An aspiring blackguard must have made peaceful contact with an evil-aligned outsider, whether called, summoned, or present under its own power and must pledge his service (and ultimately, his soul).

Spellcasting: A blackguard gains the ability to cast a small number of divine spells each day, which are drawn from the antipaladin spell list. Like an antipaladin, a blackguard uses his Charisma score to determine what level of spells he can cast, the save DC of spells he can cast, and bonus spells per day of each level.

Unlike a paladin, however, a blackguard does not train in the deeper mysteries of goodly faiths.

They are instead bound by infernal oaths to powers of the lower planes, which grant them a limited number of spells which they can cast spontaneously without preparing them ahead of time, assuming the blackguard has not yet used up his allotment of spells per day for the spell’s level. A blackguard’s selection of spells is extremely limited. A blackguard begins knowing only two 1st-level spells of his choice. At each new blackguard level, he gains one or more new spells as indicated on the Blackguard Spells Known table. Unlike spells per day, the number of spells a blackguard knows is not affected by her Charisma score. Upon reaching 4th level, and every 3 levels thereafter, a blackguard can choose to learn a new spell in place of one he already knows In effect, the blackguard “loses” the old spell in exchange for the new one. The new spell’s level must be the same as that of the spell being exchanged, and it must be at least one level lower than the highest-level spell the blackguard can cast. A blackguard must swap out only a single spell at any given level and must choose whether or not to swap the spell at the same time that he gains new spells known for the level.

Aura of Good (Ex): The power of a blackguard’s aura of evil is equal to a cleric of his character level. A paladin who uses smite good against a blackguard deals 2 points of damage per level on her first successful attack.

Detect Good (Su): At will, a blackguard can use detect good, as the spell. The blackguard can, as a move action, concentrate on a single Item or individual within 60 feet and determine if it is good, learning the strength of its aura as if having studied it for 3 rounds. While focusing on one individual or object, the blackguard does not detect good in any other object or individual within range.

Smite Good (Su): Once per day, the blackguard can call out to the dark powers to crush the forces of good. As a swift action, the blackguard chooses one target within sight to smite. If this target is good, the blackguard adds his Charisma bonus (if any) on his attack rolls and adds his blackguard level on all damage rolls made against the target of his smite. If the target of smite good is an outsider with the good subtype, a good-aligned dragon, or a good creature with levels of cleric or paladin, the bonus to damage on the first successful attack increases to 2 points of damage per level the blackguard possesses. Regardless of the target, smite good attacks automatically bypass any DR the creature might possess.

In addition, while smite good is in effect, the blackguard gains a deflection bonus equal to his Charisma modifier (if any) to his AC against attacks made by the target of the smite. If the antipaladin targets a creature that is not good, the smite is wasted with no effect.

The smite good effect remains until the target of the smite is dead or the next time the blackguard rests and regains his uses of this ability. At 4th level, and at every three levels thereafter, the blackguard may smite good one additional time per day, as indicated on Table: The Blackguard, to a maximum of four times per day at 10th level. If the blackguard has his feature from another class, then his uses per day from both classes stack.

Opportune Strike (Ex): At 2nd level, the blackguard begins to excel in striking hard when an opponent is down, or leaves him an opening. He gains Combat Reflexes as a bonus feat. Any successful attack made with an attack of opportunity deals an additional +1d6 damage. This is precision damage, and stacks with other sources of precision damage, such as sneak attack, provided the conditions of dealing such additional precision damage are also met. At 4th level, and every even level thereafter, this damage bonus increases by +1d6, and the number of attacks of opportunity he may make in a round increases further by 1.

Poisoner (Ex): Also at 2nd level, the blackguard can apply poison to a weapon as a move action without drawing an attack of opportunity; further he never risks poisoning himself when applying poison to a blade.

Aura of Cowardice (Su): At 3rd level, a blackguard radiates a palpably daunting aura that causes all enemies within 10 feet to take a –4 penalty on saving throws against fear effects, and the DC for the blackguard to demoralize a creature within 10 feet of him decreases by 4. Creatures that are normally immune to fear lose that immunity while within 10 feet of an antipaladin with this ability. This ability functions only while the blackguard remains conscious, not if he is unconscious or dead.

Dark Blessing (Su): Also beginning at 3rd level, a blackguard gains a +1 profane bonus on all saving throws, and once per day when failing a saving throw to avoid a harmful condition or affliction, he may choose to ignore the effects of this condition as an immediate action until the end of his next turn. For every three levels after 3rd, his saving throw bonus increases by an additional +1 and he gains another daily use of the active ability.

Fiendish Patron (Su): At 5th level, the blackguard gains a boon from the fiendish powers that grant him his blessings. This can take the form of a fiendish spirit he can call upon to enhance his weapon, identical to that of the antipaladin’s fiendish boon.

Alternatively, this can take the form of a fiendish familiar that serves the blackguard faithfully, and imparts to him additional magical secrets. This is same as a witch’s patron familiar, treating the blackguard’s level +3 as his witch level. The patron the blackguard chooses may be one of the following: Death, Decadence, Deception, Entropy, Jynx, Nightmares, Occult, Plague, Revenge, Rot, Shadow, Trickery, or Undeath. The familiar carries with it the patron spells of levels 1st through 4th level, and the blackguard may expend one of his spells per day of the same level in order to cast these patron spells.

Aura of Despair (Su): At 7th level, the blackguard radiates a malign aura that causes enemies within 10 feet of him to take a -2 penalty on all saving throws.

Dark Resilience (Ex): At 8th level, the blackguard gains DR/good equal to half his blackguard level.

Punishing Strike (Ex): At 9th level, once per round if the target of the blackguard’s smite ability makes a successful attack against the blackguard, the blackguard may immediately expend an attack of opportunity to make a retributive attack against the target at his full attack bonus. This attack of opportunity gains all of the benefits of the blackguard’s opportune strike. If the strike is successful, the blackguard make make an immediate attempt to feint (If he has Bluff as his signature skill) or demoralize (if he has Intimidate as his signature skill) against the target. If the blackguard uses the attempt to demoralize in this situation, there is no limit to how many times the target of his smite may be susceptible to this demoralization attempt.

Blackguards and Other Divine Casters

A divine caster who becomes a blackguard can choose to either advance his spellcasting in the two separate classes, with their separate progressions, or he may choose to forego the blackguard spellcasting progression and spell list entirely, and instead progress the spellcasting of his base divine casting class by +1 level at every even blackguard level. Regardless of which choice he makes, his blackguard levels stack with his other divine caster level to determine the strength of his aura of evil.