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Path of the Death Knight

The Path of the Death Knight is a generic path intended for use by martial classes (Barbarian, Fighter, Ranger) and can be taken as a replacement for any of these classes paths or archetypes.

You died, and were brought back to life by death magic. Now, it is a part of you--the darkness calls to you, and you are drawn to it.

You are not undead specifically, but rather "tainted" by death magic, and able to develop powers based on that magic.

Basic Abilities

When you select this path, you gain the following abilities:

Spellcasting

Starting when you choose this path at 1st level, you gain access to the death knight spell list and vitae casting mechanic as detailed below:

The Death Knight Spell List is a limited version of the Witch.

Contagion

Beginning at 3rd level, the necromantic energy within you metastasizes into a virulent infection. You have resistance to all disease-based effects and poison, however you also gain vulnerability to radiant damage.

You are a carrier of the disease below, to which you are immune. Once per round, as a free action, you may infect a held weapon with any one disease below, replacing any others already on it; the disease automatically infects all targets you strike for damage.

• Blood Boil: subject suffers 1d6 fire damage per round, and when struck for physical damage, causes a burst 1 inflicting 1d6 fire damage to enemies.
• Frost Fever: subject suffers 1d6 cold damage per round, and has a penalty of -1 to movement rate per stack. At 5 stacks, the subject is Restrained.
• Shadow Plague: subject suffers 1d6 necrotic damage per round, and has a penalty of -1 to damage rolls per stack. At 5 stacks, the subject is Weakened (half damage, or lower of 2 results given the penalty to damage rolls).

Runeforge

You may attune a weapon as your athame, despite it being regularly used for bloodshed. This allows you to ignore the somatic requirements of spellcasting, meaning you may use two-handed weapons or dual-wield. It also grants use of the following maneuvers:

• Blood Strike: Melee attack; normal damage, plus you are healed for the half the amount.
• Frost Strike: Melee attack; normal damage, plus target is chilled (50% movement reduction) (Con ends). If target was already chilled, inflict one bonus die of frost damage, and target is rooted (100% movement reduction) (Con ends, replaced with chilled). If target was already rooted, inflict two bonus dice of frost damage.
• Plague Strike: Melee attack; normal damage, plus each disease on subject procs once.

Relentless

Beginning at 6th level, you become as relentless as the very march of death itself. You are immune to fear effects, and any effect relying on emotion to control you. You have resistance to movement-impairing effects, and your movement rate can never be lowered beneath 50%. You may act normally when at 0 hp, albeit with disadvantage to all attacks, checks, and saves, until you die.

And when you die, you may use the following ability (max once/day):

• Revenance: reaction, triggered by your death; you rise as an undead creature, gaining immunity to poison, resistance to critical hits and sneak attacks, and immunity to negative energy effects. Your hp are reset to full. You remain animate for up to 1 rd/level, or until your slayer and any present allies are dead.

Lord of the Dead

Beginning at 10th level,...

Death Knight Spell List

Cantrips

• Blood Tap: Free action; you let your own blood, suffering 1d6 damage, but gaining 1 Vitae. You may suffer extra dice to gain extra Vitae, up to one extra die per rank.
• Death Grip: Bonus action, medium range; target is pulled to nearest unoccupied space relative to you.
• Presence: Free action (max once/rd), emanation 50-ft; you exude a subtle, yet undeniable aura, which can either empower your allies or unsettle your enemies. You may have one of the below presences active at a time.
  • Blood Frenzy: The blood in your allies' veins boils, and they become eager to do battle. You and allies gain +1 per rank to all damage rolls, and when your attacks inflict damage to an enemy, the attacker is healed for 1 per rank.
  • Deathly Chill: A terrible cold settles over your enemies, and they are slow to move and act. Enemies suffer -1 square per rank to movement, and the same penalty to Initiative checks.
  • Unholy Zeal: Your undead allies are empowered by unholy energy. They gain resistance to attempts to turn or control them, and gain +1 per rank to all attack and damage rolls.
• Soul Drain: Bonus action, 30-ft range; target suffers 1 point of ability score penalty per rank to an ability score of your choice (save negates, of the appropriate ability score), and you gain the same amount as a bonus to the same ability score as long as the subject lives and remains within 120 ft.
  • Ability score penalties can stack, until the score in question reaches zero. However, the maximum bonus to you for a given score is only 1 per rank.
  • You may have one such bonus per ability score at any given time. There is no limit to how many scores you can penalize, however.
  • If a soul drained subject dies while within 30 ft, the ability score bonus increases in duration to 1 day.

Notes on "rank":

1st-level

Debilitation

• Pestilence: Bonus, short range; up to 5 stacks of any diseases are spread from target to chosen targets within 15 ft of subject.

Healing

• Death Curse: Reaction; if you are reduced to 0 hp or less, you can instantly convert 1 ore more Vitae into an effect causing 1d8 necrotic damage per point to the attacker and healing you for the same amount.
• Death Pact: Reaction, medium range; an undead minion under your control dies, and you are healed for its current HP (not to exceed your own Max HP).

Summoning

• Reanimate: 1 action, 60-ft, V/S, 5 rounds; you animate one or more recently-dead (within the last hour) corpses (of humanoids or animals). The cost is one charge of Vitae per creature animated. You may control a maximum of 1 + 1 per 2 levels as a bonus action (60-ft range, language-dependent); any others act on your last command, or, lacking such command, act as crazed, starved, wild animals might. The traits of the animated dead are:
  • Undead: immune to death effects, energy drain, etc. Cannot be healed as living creatures would. Vulnerable to abilities that affect undead specifically.
  • Clumsy: -2 to Dex and movement speed.
  • Stupid: Int set to 5. They are barely able to understand the simplest of spoken commands, with the aid of gestures and nonverbal communication. They lose any spellcasting abilities, skills, feats, class features, and proficiencies. If wielding martial weapons, they are disadvantaged on attack rolls (but are fine with simple weapons).
  • Doomed: At the end of the duration of the spell, they die once more, and cannot be raised again with Reanimate.

2nd-level

Control

• Dark Command: Bonus action, medium range; subject is filled with rage, directed at you, and is compelled to attack you. All of subject's actions must include an attempt to harm you to the best of their ability. Wisdom ends.

Debilitation

• Outbreak: Melee attack; on strike, normal damage, but adds 5 stacks of Contagion instead of 1.

Defense

• Bone Shield: Free action, no Vitae cost upfront; you gain armor of bone. Each time you suffer damage, you may choose to suffer the damage, or to suffer 10% of your max hp instead, while expending 1 Vitae. Lasts 5 rounds.

Utility

• Path of Frost: Ritual, 1 action; your step chills the earth beneath you, causing frost to form with each footfall. On land, the only effect is that you retain perfect footing on icy surfaces. However, this power also enables you to walk on water, by freezing the water beneath you. If mounted, this ability extends to your mount. If desired, you can confer this benefit upon allies within 15 ft.

3rd-level

Assault

• Corpse Explosion: 1 action, medium range; targeted corpse or undead creature explodes for medium damage in a burst 2. If the explosion strikes other corpses or undead, they explode for the same damage. Secondary explosions do not cause further explosions. Undead creatures are allowed a Con save to negate exploding; friendly undead under your control can be forced to fail this save.

Control

• Ice Grip: Free action, close burst 10; you pull all enemies to closest possible location and root them (Con ends).

Mobility

• Summon Deathcharger: 1 action, ritual; you summon a deathcharger, a deathless horse from beyond the veil. It has the abilities and stats of a heavy warhorse, plus the Relentless ability. If reduced to 0 HP, it does not die, but rather returns to its home plane and cannot be resummoned until a day has passed. You may return your deathcharger at any time as a bonus action.
  • At level 9 and higher, your Deathcharger gains 50% movement speed, and after running for 5 rounds, it and its rider become an incorporeal mass of swirling black shadow. It takes 2 rounds to return to corporeality after slowing from a run. While incorporeal, the horse must maintain contact with the ground, but treats all terrain like solid, dry, flat earth, ignoring terrain penalties.
  • At level 13 and higher, your Deathcharger can enter or exit the Shadow Plane as an action. It is safe there indefinitely, but all living things (including you) are not. After 5 minutes in Shadow, you begin to suffer a temporary penalty of -1 to max HP per minute, stacking until you die, or leave the plane. The penalty fades away at a rate of 1 per round in the material plane, or 10 per round if in sunlight. While in Shadow, your horse's overland speed is increased to 1 mile per minute (or 530 feet per full round of movement).
  • At level 17 and higher, your Deathcharger gains a fly speed equal to its base movement speed.

Utility

• Animate Dead: Create skeletons or zombies.
• Necrosis: Single action, medium range; part of subject's body dies, then grows into a new limb, head, or whatever is needed, which wields the subject's own strength against it and its allies. Each round, for 3 rounds, you may choose one of the subject's own maneuvers or spells and execute it, with the subject's own damage statistics.

4th-level

Assault

• Heart Strike: 1 action, melee attack, subject must be bloodied (at 50% hp or less); your strike, if it lands, kills the subject (Con save negates, but normal damage applies). If you successfully kill the subject, you drain 4 Vitae from them, negating the cost of the spell.
• Howling Blast: 1 action, 3x3 square in front of you; you conjure a blast of deathly cold winds, inflicting 5d8 frost damage plus double chilled (Con ends).

Debilitation

• Asphyxiate: Bonus, short range; you wrap telekinetic force around subject's neck, lifting them off the ground and asphyxiating them. Subject is unable to move, speak, or cast spells with verbal components for the duration. You can move the subject up to 6 squares per round as a free action. You may, as a single action, push the target 10 squares, causing 5d6 damage if they impact a hard surface, ending the spell. Otherwise, Con ends.

Defense

• Anti-Magic Shell: Bonus; you are surrounded by a field of anti-magic, nullifying all magic in the space you occupy. You are unable to use magic while in the field, and are immune to any magic effects, including those already active at the time of casting (at least for the duration). Lasts 1 round.

5th-level

Assault

• Obliterate: 1 action, melee attack; you let loose a mighty blow against a target who is chilled, rooted, or frozen. On a successful Con save, subject merely takes 150% normal damage; otherwise, he suffers 300%, and if this reduces him to 0 hit points, he is shattered into pieces.
• Harvest Soul: 1 action, medium range, 5 rounds; you extract subject's soul, trapping it within your runeblade. Subject's body collapses helplessly. Elites and villains are immune to the latter effect; they instead gain a debuff (-50% effectiveness, subject to elite/boss resistance) for the duration, and you still gain the normal benefits below.
  • While subject's soul is trapped, you may draw upon 1d3 points of Vitae from subject as a free action, max once/rd.
  • In addition, once/rd, as a free action, you may use any of the trapped subject's abilities as if they were your own.
  • At the end of the duration, the subject's soul returns to its body, having suffered 1 point ability damage to each score per point of Vitae you drew from the soul.

Summoning

• Army of the Dead: You conjure 6 ghouls to random locations within short range. Each ghoul has 100% of your max hp, with the same movement rate as you. The ghouls last up to 5 rounds, or until destroyed. Abilities are:
  • Claw: at-will, std, melee attack; medium physical damage (AP) plus one disease of your choice.
  • Leap: recharge 33%, std, short range; jump to attack range, then Claw.
  • Taunt: recharge 33%, swift, melee range; subject is compelled to focus hostilities on ghoul (Will ends). No effect vs. elite or boss.
  • Explode: encounter, swift, close burst 3, must be below 50% hp; ghoul explodes, inflicting heavy physical damage (AP) to enemies. Other ghouls below 50% hp struck by this damage also explode.
• Remorseless Winter: Each round, for 5 rounds, you inflict medium frost damage on subjects within 20-ft, and a chill effect, which causes chilled for 1 rd, or rooted if already chilled, or frozen if already rooted.

System Designer's Notes

"Chill" should be a special mechanic, wherein any effect that causes "chill" follows these rules:

• Chilled = 50% movement reduction, vulnerable to frost damage, Con ends
• If you hit a chilled target with an attack that causes chill, they are instead freezing
• Freezing = 100% movement reduction, vulnerable to frost damage, all frost-damaging attacks are critical hits, Con ends and replaces with chilled
• If you hit a freezing target with an attack that causes chill, they are instead frozen
• Frozen = cannot move or take physical actions, vulnerable to frost damage, all incoming attacks are critical hits, Con end and replaces with frozen

Chill effects would include:

• Frost Strike (which also causes frost damage for extra fun)
• Howling Blast
• Frost Fever (chilled at 1, freezing at 2, etc? or maybe chill at 2, freezing at 4...)
• Relentless Winter

Deathly Chill might disadvantage enemies' saves against chill