Joydancer of Lliira Bard Archetype

Both specialty priests and clerics of Llira were called Joybringers until 1365 DR, when the members of the clergy themselves began to be confused by this practice. Now specialty priests of Lliira are known as Joydancers to distinguish their functions from the other clergy of the church. They are the errant priesthood of Lliira’s faith, and many of their number travel as adventurers, rather than being bound to a temple, living as freely and whimsical as the Goddess herself.

The Joydancer is Lliira’s embodiment of peace, joy and happiness upon the prime. She is no battle priest, yet she will defend those in her care to her last breath. She will strive to subdue, distract, or otherwise disarm aggression toward her or her allies, and is barred from ever directly causing pain or lasting physical harm to another living being as the antithesis of the Maiden of Pain, Loviatar. Even moreso than Lliira’s other clergy, the Joydancer is gifted with the magic of the dance, and evokes her very prayers with graceful, harmonic movement.

Joydancers are extremely good at unarmed combat of a free-form nature due to their highly toned physiques and good sense of balance. They specialize in forms of wrestling or “punching” — often inflicted with well-placed kicks rather than with their fists.

Primary Class: Bard.
Secondary Class: Cleric.
Alignment: Chaotic Good or Neutral Good
Special: Must have Lliira has her divine patron.

Class Skills: The Joydancer may select three cleric skills in addition to the normal bard class skills, and she gains a number of ranks at each level equal to 4 + Int modifier. She must be trained in Perform (dance) for a number of ranks at least equal to half her character level. This alters the bard’s class skills.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: The Joydancer is not proficient with any armor or shields except for silken armor. Unlike a normal bard, she cannot ignore arcane spell failure for wearing light armor. She is not proficient in her diety’s chosen weapon, and she he is forbidden by her goddess from using lethal weapons that deal pain to another living being. Therefore she is only proficient in simple bludgeoning weapons, as well as the lasso and the net. She is treated as having the Net Adept feat, and this counts for prerequisites requiring the feat. If the Joydancer uses a weapon — other than net or lasso or her open hands — that deals lethal damage to another living being, she loses her divine abilities listed below. This penalty exists until the joydancer spends a full day engaged in meditation and atonement followed by a big party that lasts all night. This replaces the bard’s proficiencies.

Spellcasting: The Joydancer learns and casts orisons and spells as a bard equal to her Joydancer level. Each time she learns a new spell known, she may choose either from the bard spell list or the cleric spell list, and spells learned from either list are considered divine spells. If the spell appears on both spell lists, she uses the bard spell level. Only cleric spells up to 6th level are considered part of the Joydancer’s spell list.

As she is forbidden from causing physical harm or pain to another living being she does not gain access to the following spells: any inflict wounds spells, Bleed, Harm, Destruction, Slay Living, any that inflict poison or disease, and any spells that cause pain, such as Symbol of Pain.

She still keys her spellcasting off of Charisma as a bard, and unlike other divine casters, because her spellcasting is dependent upon the evocative movements of her dance, all of her spells must have a somatic component — thus she cannot cast her spells with the Still Spell metamagic feat — and she suffers an arcane spell failure chance when wearing any armor or using a shield. This alters the bard’s spellcasting.

Domain: This is exactly like the cleric’s domains ability except that the Joydancer may select only one domain or subdomain. This must be selected from one of those granted by Lliira. She gains her domain spells as additional spells known, and an additional spell slot at each spell level in which to cast these domain spells — and only these domain spells; she need not prepare her domain spells in advance and can expend a domain slot of equal or higher level than the level of the spell. This replaces the bard’s versatile performance.

Unarmed Combatant (Ex): A Joydancer is extremely good at unarmed combat of a free-form nature due to her highly toned physique and sense of balance, and often uses a wrestling or kickboxing technique. She is treated as having the unchained monk’s Unarmed Strike ability, except that she is forbidden from using lethal damage against another living being, and she cannot use this ability to qualify for any feats that treat manufactured weapons as unarmed strikes or monk weapons (such as Ascetic Style). She treats her Joydancer level as her monk level to determine her damage done with each attack. Like a monk she may use any part of her body when delivering these attacks. This replaces Dirge of Doom and Frightening Tune.

Harmonious Grace (Ex): At 1st level, the Joydancer adds her Charisma bonus as a dodge bonus to her armor class. Beginning at 4th level, whenever  is using her bardic performance, she additionally gains another +1 dodge bonus to AC. This bonus increases by +1 at 8th level and every four levels thereafter, to a maximum of +5 at 20th level. If she wears any armor other than silken armor, or carries a shield, or is encumbered, she loses this bonus entirely. This replaces the Joydancer’s armor proficiencies and ability to cast in armor without arcane spell failure.

Charming Demeanor (Ex): The Joydancer adds half of her Joydancer level (minimum 1) to the following skills: Bluff, Diplomacy, Knowledge (history), Knowledge (local), Knowledge (nobility), Knowledge (religion), and Sense Motive. At 5th level, she can choose to take 10 on any of these skills that he has ranks in or can choose to roll normally. In addition, once per day, she can take 20 on one of these checks as a full-round action; she can take 20 one additional time per day for every six levels beyond 5th, to a maximum of three times per day at 17th level. This replaces Bardic Knowledge and Lore Master.

Flurry of Blows (Ex): At 2nd level, the Joydancer may make an additional attack at her highest base attack bonus, as per the unchained monk’s Flurry of Blows ability, except that she may only use this ability with her unarmed strikes, and not a combination of strikes and monk weapons. At 11th level, ahe can make an additional attack at her highest base attack bonus whenever she makes a flurry of blows. This replaces Well Versed and Jack of All Trades.

Bardic Performance: This functions exactly as the normal bard’s bardic performance, except that she is restricted to Perform (act), Perform (dance), Perform (sing), and Perform (percussion) to create magical effects. Some performances vary from the normal bard’s, and are noted below how they alter and/or replace standard performances.

Calming Voice (Su): This functions like the bard’s Countersong, except that it works against any baneful spell or effect with the emotion subdescriptor, regardless of whether or not the effect has audible or language-dependent components. This performance uses the Joydancer’s Perform (act) or Perform (sing) skill as she chooses. The targets of this benefit must however still be able to hear and understand the Joydancer. This replaces Countersong and Distraction.

Fascinate (Su): Functions the same as the 1st level bard.

Inspire Courage (Su): Same as that of the 1st level bard.

Suggestion (Sp): Same as that of the 6th level bard.

Deadly Dance (Su): A Joydancer of 9th level may use her Perform (dance) to inspire the movements of any ally (including herself) who can see and hear the Joydancer to move with supernatural grace. They find that remaining still takes a conscious effort; their bodies want to move. For the duration of the deadly dance, the affected creature is granted a sacred bonus of +2 to Dexterity, and can use the Joydancer’s Perform (dance) score in place of any Acrobatics roll. The recipient can leap about and land with pinpoint precision gaining the effect of a Jump spell of a caster level equal to the Joydancer’s level, and they gain the benefits of Evasion (if the affected creature already has Evasion, they gain the benefits of Improved Evasion instead). At 12th level, and every 3 levels thereafter, the Joydancer can target one additional ally while using this performance (up to a maximum of four at 18th level). This performance replaces Inspire Competence.

Soothing Performance (Su): Same as that of a 12th level bard.

Canticle of Calm (Su): At 15th level the Joydancer can use her Perform (act) or Perform (sing) skill to calm hostilities of enemies around her with an Intelligence score of 4 or greater who can see and understand her. She cannot be holding a weapon or other threatening implement, or poised in an agressive stance. After a continuous round of performance, each hostile enemy within sight and audibility of her must make a Will save against her perform check for the performance skill used. Any who fail this save will cease to make any attacks against an ally or attempt to cast a hostile spell unless they are attacked. Each round the performance continues, those who are not yet affected must make another Will save to avoid ceasing hostility. Enemies affected by this performance can act defensively against any continued aggression toward their allies, and each round that one of their allies is under attack grants them an additional save against the effect. If anyone in your group instead plans to use the instigation of peace to gain a combat advantage, the opponents can attempt a Sense Motive check to get a hunch against each such member of your group, with a DC equal to either 20 or the result of that character’s Bluff check, whichever is higher. Sensing duplicity on your allies’ part, or being attacked by yourself or an ally immediately breaks the effect of the song, and that target is immune to this effect for 4 hours. This is a mind-affecting effect that requires visual and audible components. This performance replaces Inspire Heroics.

Mass Suggestion (Sp): Same as that of an 18th level bard.

Contagious Dance (Su): A Joydancer of 20th level can affect enemies within 30 feet who can see and hear her performance with the effects of Irresistible Dance for the duration of this performance. Each enemy within range receives a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 the bard’s level + the bard’s Cha modifier) to negate the effect at the beginning of each round. Any target who succeeds his save is dazed for the following round after making the save, but is otherwise immune to further effects of the song for 24 hours. This is a mind-affecting effect that requires visual and audible components. This performance replaces Deadly Performance.