Versatile Classes

Ardent

No two places in the multiverse are exactly alike. Creatures teem across a multitude of terrains, forming infinitely diverse ecologies. Despite the amazing variety displayed, however, some elements - or, as some call them, philosophies - persist. These fundamental concepts about the way things function have a basic truth to them that transcends any physical, emotional, or ideological boundary.

Some enlightened individuals have found that by acknowledging these concepts, they can tap a reserve of great power. These ideas, they believe, are the only constants throughout the multiverse; as such, they hold the potential to empower anyone who tries to understand them. Through the strength of their minds, these individuals can master these constants, and the great power they offer. They are known as ardents.

The philosophies ardents pursue include aspects such as life, death, annihilation, and fate, among others. Each ardent chooses a philosophy that seems the most powerful to her, personally, based on her experience and mental and emotional leanings. As a result, an ardent develops a unique understanding of her philosophy and approach to the pursuit of power.

An ardent gravitates towards a set of philosophical concepts suitable to her heritage, upbringing, and life experiences. Many mistake an ardent for a cleric or paladin, because she is often as enthusiastic about her personal philosophies as any divine missionary could be. Unlike a divine spellcaster who gains her power through a deity, an ardent directly taps the concept the deity represents, bypassing any connection to a conscious higher power.

An ardent's pursuit of these cosmic philosophies gives her access to psionic power in a unique way: through psionic mantles. Each mantle is tied to one of the universal true concepts that the ardent so admires, and is represented by a specific list of psionic powers and abilities. An ardent gains access to new mantles as she gains levels, representing her growing awareness of the interconnected nature of core truths and a growing understanding of how the multiverse works.

All ardents focus on two mantles, known as their primary mantles. These concepts are those that an ardent finds most appealing or that possess the most potential power in her eyes. All other mantles are considered secondary mantles - philosophies certainly powerful and worthy of study, but not considered as central to the universe as the character's primary philosophies. Mantles are described more fully on page 66 of Complete Psionic.

Dragon Magic Ardent

Any warrior knows that skill in battle isn't enough; you must also guard against the attacks of your enemies. A well-forged suit of armor can mean the difference between life and death, but a warrior whose very body is his armor has an immediate advantage. Those who have the blood of dragons running in their veins can gain this benefit.
  
Bard

It is said that music has a special magic, and the bard proves that saying true. Wandering across the land, gathering lore, telling stories, working magic with his music, and living on the gratitude of his audience - such is the life of a bard. When chance or opportunity draws them into a conflict, bards serve as diplomats, negotiators, messengers, scouts, and spies.

A bard's magic comes from the heart. If his heart is good, a bard brings hope and courage to the downtrodden and uses his tricks, music, and magic to thwart the schemes of evildoers. If the nobles of the land are corrupt, the good bard is an enemy of the state, cunningly evading capture and raising the spirits of the oppressed. But music can spring from an evil heart as well. Evil bards forego blatant violence in favor of manipulation, holding sway over the hearts and minds of others and taking what enraptured audiences "willingly" give.

Dragon Magic Bard

Though occasionally derided as the "weak cousin" of the sorcerer, a bard can tap into a fragment of the same draconic power that fuels sorcerer magic. A bard who learns this ability no longer inspires courage in his allies, but instead creates fear in those who oppose him.

Player's Handbook II Bard

Wandering bards learn more mundane skills and less esoteric knowledge on their travels. If you select this class feature, you have done a little bit of everything; maybe you spent a few months as a wilderness guide, and you also had a cousin in an ambassador's retinue who regaled you with tales of courtly intrigue.

The bardic knack class feature makes you more capable of accomplishing simple tasks with a wide variety of skills. You don't need to dabble in noncritical skills (unless you want to be considered trained in their use), freeing up your skill points to focus on a small range of crucial skills.

Half-Elf Bard

Blessed with a smooth grace and demeanor that many find appealing, the half-elf bard is a common sight. The half-elf bard gives up some of her performance abilities to become more well versed in social interaction and negotiation.

Gnome Bard

Weavers of illusion and subtle masters of the sentient mind, gnome bards focus their talents towards abilities related to their racial strengths. Their magic includes access to more illusions than other bards can master, and their bardic music is able to inspire or negate fear, as well as bolster allies' minds against outside influence.

Bardic Sage

The bardic sage focuses his efforts on learning, research, and the power of knowledge.

Divine Bard

Not all bards are arcanists; some derive their special powers from a divine tradition. In many primitive cultures, the divine bard takes the place of the adept or the cleric as the guide of the people's religious beliefs.

Savage Bard

The savage bard is a warrior at heart, though his arcane powers strike fear into the enemies of his tribe. Savage bards often multiclass as barbarians to improve their combat prowess.

Unearthed Arcana Bard

A rare bard might display a rare link to nature and the mysterious world of the fey. Such characters tend to be more aloof and less inspiring than standard bards.

Binder

Between mortality and godhood, beyond life and undeath, souls exist in a place both forgotten and inaccessible. Mortals too strong-willed to pass into the afterlife, dead outsiders too powerful to be absorbed into their planes, the dreams of slain deities put to rest eons before the current age - these are the beings called vestiges. A seal forms the door between these beings and reality, and knowledge is the key to opening it.

Only the binder possesses that key, because only he knows the vestiges' special seals and the rituals by which they can be called from the void beyond reality. By drawing their seals and speaking the words of power, he summons these strange entities, bargains with them, and binds them to his service.

Cleric

The handiwork of the gods is everywhere - in places of natural beauty, in mighty crusades, in soaring temples, and in the hearts of worshipers. Like people, gods run the gamut from benevolent to malicious, reserved to intrusive, simple to inscrutable. The gods, however, work mostly through intermediaries - their clerics. Good clerics heal, protect, and avenge. Evil clerics pillage, destroy, and sabotage. A cleric uses the power of his god to make his god's will manifest. And if a cleric uses his god's power to improve his own lot, that's to be expected, too.

Dragon Magic Cleric

Any warrior knows that skill in battle isn't enough; you must also guard against the attacks of your enemies. A well-forged suit of armor can mean the difference between life and death, but a warrior whose very body is his armor has an immediate advantage. Those who have the blood of dragons running in their veins can gain this benefit.

Though the destruction (or control) of undead is common to many divinely oriented characters, the deities also recognize the ancient power of the dragons as a primal force. Some reward their followers with the ability to instill such creatures with awe or command them as minions.

Player's Handbook II Cleric

After a while, clerics can start looking very similar. Even with a variety of domains to choose from, domain spells take up such a small portion of the average cleric's repertoire that they don't have much effect on the average feel of the character. With spontaneous domain casting, though, your domain choice becomes a more important element of your character. You won't be able to provide as much healing to your party as a typical cleric, but the ability to prepare cure or inflict spells in your domain spell slots keeps you from falling too far behind in that area.

Dwarf Cleric

The dwarf cleric dedicates herself to her clan and the forge. She takes an active role in defending her people, often serving to the front lines of a battle. In exchange for greater martial ability and power when casting spells of the earth, the cleric gives up her ability to turn or rebuke undead and some of her spellcasting prowess.

Cloistered Cleric

The cloistered cleric spends more time than other clerics in study and prayer and less in martial training. He gives up some of the cleric's combat prowess in exchange for greater skill access and a wider range of spells devoted to knowledge (and the protection of knowledge).

Most cloistered clerics are nonchaotic, since they believe that a disciplined lifestyle lends itself better to learning.

Unearthed Arcana Cleric

Some clerics prefer to be champions of good (or evil), standing at the forefront of the battle against the enemy.


Divine Mind

A divine mind is a psionic character who channels the power of the divine through psionic talent instead of faith. While a cleric or paladin must make do with whatever powers and abilities a deity decides to provide, a divine mind chooses among the domains of his deity for the ability he most requires to accomplish his goals, whether they are divinely inspired or not. Divine minds can also call upon a list of psionic powers as they grow in faith and mental strength.

One of a divine mind's most noted abilities is his capacity to mentally distill a particular essence of his chosen deity and wear that essence as a mantle (see Complete Psionic page 11). Wearing this divinely fashioned mantle in a framework of mental desire is but one part of the divine mind's strength - he can also direncly channel the beneficence of his deity into a mantle power.

Dragon Magic Divine Mind

Any warrior knows that skill in battle isn't enough; you must also guard against the attacks of your enemies. A well-forged suit of armor can mean the difference between life and death, but a warrior whose very body is his armor has an immediate advantage. Those who have the blood of dragons running in their veins can gain this benefit.

Dragon Shaman

Empires crumble, eons pass, and even gods wither and die, but dragons remain. Mortal but eternal, the races of true dragons weather the roll of the ages because of their unsurpassed might. Few creatures can match a dragon in its full fury, whether in a combat of arms or battle of wits. Dragon shamans recognize this fact and see true dragons as more than powerful beings. To a dragon shaman, the passing shadow of a dragon flying overhead isn't a sign that invokes fear; it's a blessing that reveals you to be in the presence of greatness.

Dragon shamans respect true dragons as power incarnate. Some worship dragons, but most simply aspire to gain dragons powers for themselves. In assuming the abilities and the likeness of a dragon, a dragon shaman seeks to emulate that might and embody that power within himself.

If you gaze at dragons with awe and aspire to share their power and majesty, then the dragon shaman is the class for you. By choosing a totem dragon, you partake of a true dragon's power and take on aspects of a particular kind of dragon.
 
Druid

The fury of a storm, the gentle strength of the morning sun, the cunning of the fox, the power of the bear - all these and more are at the druid's command. The druid, however, claims no mastery over nature. That claim, she says, is the empty boast of a city dweller. The druid gains her power not by ruling nature but by being at one with it. To trespassers in a druid's sacred grove, and to those who feel her wrath, the distinction is overly fine.

Dragon Magic Druid

A druid who adventures in regions rich with draconic influence can gain an alternative animal companion, a phynxkin (see page 116), that serves him as loyally as any other animal companion would.

Player's Handbook II Druid

By selecting the spontaneous rejuvenation alternative class feature, you can provide the party with plenty of healing without trampling on the cleric's role.

Taking the shapeshift alternative class feature means you can focus on your actions in combat (rather than worrying about your animal companion) while still unleashing nature's fury upon your foes.

Half-Orc Druid

While most orcs revere their primary deity, Gruumsh, others are drawn to the primal brutality of nature. Half-orc druids are noted for their brute strength and force of will, summoning animals that are more powerful than normal and fighting with impressive physical prowess.

Halfling Druid

The halfling druid often follows a more pragmatic approach in exploring his link to the natural world. He gives up some of his innate ability to summon allies, while strengthening his bond with his animal companion (which is commonly used as a mount by the otherwise slow-moving halfling). His expanded skill selection allows him to serve as a capable scout.

Druidic Avenger

The druidic avenger channels her inner fury to wreak vengeance upon those who injure the natural world. This comes at a price, however, since the avenger must give up some of her own sensitivity to nature.

Unearthed Arcana Druid

The druid might choose to give up her wild shape ability in exchange for becoming a swift and deadly hunter.

Elf Paragon

Accomplished with both spell and blade, elves move through the world at a pace removed from that of shorter-lived races. Long-standing champions of good, the elf race is storied beyond telling and peopled by heroes beyond counting. As mighty as the elf race can be, it is not often that elves turn to warfare or combat, preferring instead the paths of poetry, dance, song, and lore. With their long lifespans and many talents, elves excel in numerous areas and classes, but a few exemplify to an even greater degree the complex and powerful nature of their race.

Favored Soul

The favored soul follows the path of the cleric but is able to channel divine power with surprising ease. She is able to perform the same tasks as her fellow divine spellcasters but with virtually no study; to her, it comes naturally. Scholars wonder if favored souls have traces of outsider blood from unions, holy or unholy, centuries ago and generations removed. Others suggest that divine training of the proper kind awakens the ability, or that favored souls are simply imbued with their gifts by their gods when they begin the cleric's path. In any case, favored souls cast their spells naturally, as much through force of personality as through study. Though this gives them extraordinary divine abilities no normal person could ever match, they see their gift as a call to action, and so in some ways may lag behind their more studious colleagues.

Gnome Paragon

Curious, intelligent, and likable, gnomes move easily through the societies and communities of other races. They enjoy a strong sense of loyalty to clan as well as the pull of new experiences offered by adventure. While these sometimes opposing motivations get some adventuring gnomes into trouble with family and clan, gnome paragons successfully blend both aspects of their race's nature. They serve as an example to others of how to promote and protect their community and clan while at the same time constantly searching the world for new and interesting opportunities.

Half-Elf Paragon

Although their mixed heritage rarely leaves half-elves embittered, many can find it difficult to call any community home. Humans and elves move through the world at very different paces and have extremely divergent tastes and habits, and neither quite fits a half-elf's innate preferences and attitudes. Half-elf paragons are those half-elves who reconcile these two sides of their nature and create an outlook that is wholly their own.

Halfling Paragon

Clever and capable, halfling paragons love travel, and they embody the curiosity and easygoing ways of the halfling people. Despite their curiosity and good-natured outlook, halfling paragons are the most capable members of their race. They are survivors, cunning and resourceful enough to survive in a world filled with large, dangerous creatures. When halfling paragons travel through communities and countries populated by other races, they are quick to make friends and often end up at the center of traveling or adventuring groups.

Human Paragon

Human inventors, explorers, and others who push the boundaries of knowledge and experience may become human paragons. They turn adversity into opportunity by finding new ways to apply their skills, discovering new techniques to solve problems, and challenging entropy by constantly seeking out ventures they have not yet mastered. Humans, and the paragons who rise from among them, balance strength with agility and temper knowledge with intuition.

Lurk

A lurk is a psionic character who has honed her mental talents to a deadly focus. With her extraordinary ability to perceive an enemy's weaknesses, a lurk can take advantage of the slightest distraction to make vicious attacks with her chosen weapon.

A lurk's ability to lie in wait until just the right moment, as well as her talent for avoiding detection and lethal attacks, makes her a changeable hunter of those whose time is past. It is her profession to bring those unfortunate individuals to their awaited end without remorse and as efficiently as possible.

Because a lurk has access to a variety of psionic feats and powers, she is more effective than a simple killer or assassin. She also holds to a purer morality - a lurk doesn't kill indiscriminately, only bringing death to those who have outlived their time. In her mind, those who meet their end at the end of her blade truly deserved to die.

Marshal

Sometimes it is not enough to be a conquering warrior, a champion of all that's right, an experienced sellsword, or an elite foot soldier. Sometimes the circumstances require a solid commander of soldiers and situations. Sometimes the circumstances demand a marshal.

Marshals inspire trust in those they lead. They earn that trust by slogging through harsh landscapes, dangerous battlefields, and haunted catacombs along with those under their command. With a look, they can see where to best deploy their resources or come up with a sneaky ruse to fool their enemies. A marshal has a tactician's mind, a cartographer's overview of the disputed landscape (or dungeon warren), and a way with words that can inspire battle-hardened fighters to give it their all when melee breaks out.

Dragon Magic Marshal

Any warrior knows that skill in battle isn't enough; you must also guard against the attacks of your enemies. A well-forged suit of armor can mean the difference between life and death, but a warrior whose very body is his armor has an immediate advantage. Those who have the blood of dragons running in their veins can gain this benefit.


Monk

Dotted across the landscape are monasteries - small, walled cloisters inhabited by monks who pursue personal perfection through action as well as contemplation. They train themselves to be versatile warriors skilled at fighting without weapons or armor. The inhabitants of monasteries headed by good masters serve as protectors of the people. Ready for battle even when barefoot and dressed in peasant clothes, monks can travel unnoticed among the populace, catching bandits, warlords, and corrupt nobles unawares. In contrast, the residents of monasteries headed by evil masters rule the surrounding lands by fear, as an evil warlord and his entourage might. Evil monks make ideal spies, infiltrators, and assassins.

An individual monk is unlikely to care passionately about championing commoners or amassing wealth. She cares primarily for the perfection of her art and, thereby, her personal perfection. Her goal is to achieve a state that is beyond the mortal realm.

Dragon Magic Monk

Monks who follow the way of the Draconic Fist seek to harness their inner ki just as dragons harness their innate magical ability. While you give up versatility in combat, the ability to add energy to your unarmed strikes makes them more potent against a wide range of foes.

Player's Handbook II Monk

Flurry of blows can be exciting to use - just look at all the attack rolls you can make - but in practice it can lead to a flurry of misses. The decisive strike alternative class feature turns your typical combat maneuver from a whirl of action into a methodical and devastating attack.

Halfling Monk

Monk seems a counterintuitive selection for the halfling at first glance, since the halfling incurs significant penalties to her ability to deal damage in melee because of her Small size. A halfling monk, however, can learn to focus on mobility and eventually even neutralize some of the larger creatures' advantages over her.

Cobra Strike

Monks of the Cobra Strike School specialize in agility and defense. By making herself hard to pin down, the Cobra Strike monk forces the enemy to fight on her terms.

Denying Stance

The Denying Stance monk seeks to neutralize the opponent's maneuvers, thwarting him at every turn until he becomes so frustrated that he makes a crucial error.

Hand and Foot

Students of the Hand and Foot style learn to use their appendages for both offense and defense.

Invisible Eye

Monks of the Invisible Eye rely on their senses, particularly hearing, to aid them in combat.

Overwhelming Attack

A monk trained in the overwhelming attack style always presses the advantage, preferring a showy display of all-out offense to defense.

Passive Way

The Passive Way focuses on making your opponent overreach himself or underestimate your skill.

Sleeping Tiger

The Sleeping Tiger style mixes smooth motions with powerful strikes. It favors a quick, first-strike approach, preferably from a position of ambush.

Undying Way

Monks of the Undying Way believe in patience above all else. They work to outlast their opponents by means of superior endurance.

Ninja

Ninjas move through the shadows, striking down the unwary and vanishing again with ease. Ninjas walk where others cannot. They blend their training in stealth and assassination with a focused mind. Their rigorous preparation sharpens their minds and bodies, giving them supernatural abilities of stealth and making them phantoms in the eyes of many. Although ninjas in battle lack the staying power of martial characters such as fighters or barbarians, they excel at making combat occur on their terms - appearing and disappearing seemingly at a whim.

Historically, ninjas came from clans of assassins and guerrilla warriors in feudal Japan. In a fantasy setting, they blend a gift for stealth and infiltration with devastating surprise attacks and supernatural means of avoiding blows. Although the specific abilities of the class differ from those attributed to the historical ninja, they mirror the ninja's fearsome reputation as a spy, assassin, and martial artist.

Psychic Warrior

One who turns the mind's potential to the warrior's art is known as a psychic warrior. Where psions devote themselves wholly to the development of mind-engendered abilities, psychic warriors give emphasis to the development of the body. With mental and physical energy working in union, the psychic warrior strives towards martial perfection.

The sword, axe, and bow are physical tools that psychic warriors embrace along with their psionic abilities. Well trained in both physical and psionic matters, the psychic warrior is a formidable adversary.

Dragon Magic Psychic Warrior

Any warrior knows that skill in battle isn't enough; you must also guard against the attacks of your enemies. A well-forged suit of armor can mean the difference between life and death, but a warrior whose very body is his armor has an immediate advantage. Those who have the blood of dragons running in their veins can gain this benefit.

Rogue

Rogues have little in common with one another. Some are stealthy thieves. Others are silver-tongued tricksters. Still others are scouts, infiltrators, spies, diplomats, or thugs. What they do share is versatility, adaptability, and resourcefulness. In general, rogues are skilled at getting what others don't want them to get: entrance into a locked treasure vault, safe passage past a deadly trap, secret battle plans, a guard's trust, or some random person's pocket money.

Halfling Rogue

A halfling takes to life as a rogue as if born to it - a claim with which many other races would readily agree. A halfling rogue gives up some of her prowess in melee combat in exchange for increased talent with thrown weapons and an extra touch of halfling luck.

Wilderness Rogue

The wilderness rogue prefers to put her skills to use in the great outdoors, rather than in cramped alleys and dungeon corridors. In many ways, she is similar to the traditional ranger, though with less combat savvy and with none of the ranger's divine link to the natural world.

Unearthed Arcana Rogue

The rogue who favors martial training over stealth and cunning can profit if she chooses her fights carefully.

Scout

Any force on the move, whether it's an army or an adventuring group, needs information about what's ahead and what's behind and, more important, time to prepare for battle. A scout can navigate difficult terrain at good speed, and she specializes in seeing her foe before the opponent ever detects her presence. In a dungeon or in the wild, a scout is seen only when she wants to be.

Soulknife

A soulknife recognizes his own mind as the most beautiful - and the most deadly - thing in all creation. With this understanding and through extended practice, a soulknife learns to forge his mental strength into a shimmering blade of semisolid psychic energy.

Each soulknife's personal blade, referred to as a mind blade, differs in color and shape according to his personality, mental strength, and even mood. Although no two mind blades look alike, all share the same lethal qualities. Because soulknives turn the power of their minds to such weaponry, they are notorious for their violence.

Spellthief

Spellthieves use skill and arcane magic to drain the abilities of their opponents and turn their foes' own powers against them. Spellthieves love the challenges that adventure brings, and they rellish finding unique and inventive ways to use their abilities. Because they have such a wide variety of abilities, spellthieves can adapt themselves to overcome nearly any challenge, but they have neither the overpowering arcane might of wizards nor the brute force of fighters. Spellthieves never cast two spells when one will do, and they excel at using misdirection and deception to overcome seemingly stronger opponents.

Good spellthieves use their skills and magic to entertain themselves, protect those less gifted than themselves, and occasionally serve a cause or nation as a spy. Evil spellthieves use their versatile skills to trick and deceive, or plague large cities as daring cat burglars.

Spirit Shaman

Master of the spirit world, the spirit shaman follows a different divine tradition than the cleric or the druid. Her world is filled with powerful, living spirits, some helpful and some malign. By bargaining with these spirits, the spirit shaman gains power over the natural world and mighty divine magic with which to aid her comrades or smite her enemies.

Swordsage

A master of martial maneuvers, the swordsage is a physical adept - a blade wizard whose knowledge of the Sublime Way lets him unlock potent abilities, many of which are overtly supernatural or magical in nature. Depending on which disciplines he chooses to study, a swordsage might be capable of walking through walls, leaping dozens of feet into the air, shattering boulders with a single touch, or even mastering the elements of fire or shadow. Whatever his specific training, a swordsage blurs the line between martial prowess and magical skill.

Totemist

A mask representing a basilisk, a mantle of the displacer beast, boots of the landshark - these are the hallmarks of the totemist. You channel the soul energy of magical beasts to make your soulmelds and claim them as your totems to acquire a share in their power.

Halfling Totemist

A halfling totemist is a bit of an outsider, even among her own people. She tends to avoid social interaction with other people, preferring instead the quiet solitude of her spiritual link with the souls of the beast world. When she or her people are threatened, however, she becomes a fierce defender. Though not as physically tough as a typical totemist, the halfling is more athletic and agile than others of her class.

Truenamer

Truenamers study the words that comprise the fabric of existence. They seek to unravel and comprehend the mysteries of the multiverse by learning the truenames of as many of its components as possible. A truenamer learns new truenames as he progresses in level, which he can use as utterances to manipulate the world around him. All truenamers know the basic words of Truespeak that allow them to describe creatures that they encounter, so the new words they learn enable them to alter those creatures in very specific ways. As they continue to advance, they also learn to describe - and thus affect - inanimate objects and even places, which are more difficult to describe using truenames.

If you want to understand the secret language of the universe, the truenamer class is for you. By delving into the truenames of everything that surrounds you, you can reshape reality itself. You will speak words of power so potent that the cosmos will rearrange itself to match their meaning.

Warlock

Born of a supernatural bloodline, a warlock seeks to master the perilous magic that suffuses his soul. Unlike sorcerers or wizards, who approach arcane magic through the medium of spells, a warlock invokes powerful magic through nothing more than an effort of will. By harnessing his innate magical skill through fearsome determination and force of will, a warlock can perform feats of supernatural stealth, beguile the weak-minded, or scour his foes with blasts of eldritch power.

Wilder

The psion draws his psionic ability from strict mental discipline and intellectual development. Not so the wilder - for her, raw emotion is the source of psionic power.

Emotion-triggered psionic ability is not a science, but a passion. The zeal with which the wilder pursues her psionic ability is so extreme that she can occasionally trigger a surge of power far beyond her normal capabilities. But with this ability comes a price: by exceeding her limits, the wilder may injure herself with psychic feedback.