The Esper Knight - Essentia meets The Force

[bkdubs123]

The Esper Knight

HD: d10

Saves: Poor Fort, Poor Ref, Good Will

LV  Base Attack Bonus    Class Features                AC Bonus  Essentia
1.   +1                  Soul Conduit, Spirit Blade       +0         1
2.   +2                  AC Bonus, Bonus Feat             +0         1
3.   +3                  Esper Power                      +1         2
4.   +4                  Bonus Feat                       +1         3
5.   +5                  Esper Power                      +1         4
6.   +6/+1               Bonus Feat                       +2         4
7.   +7/+2               Increased Capacity +1            +2         5
8.   +8/+3               Bonus Feat                       +2         6
9.   +9/+4               Esper Power                      +3         7
10.  +10/+5              Bonus Feat                       +3         7
11.  +11/+6/+1           Oversoul 2/day                   +3         8
12.  +12/+7/+2           Bonus Feat                       +4         9
13.  +13/+8/+3           Esper Power                      +4        10
14.  +14/+9/+4           Bonus Feat                       +4        10
15.  +15/+10/5           Increased Capacity +2            +5        11
16.  +16/+11/+6/+1       Bonus Feat                       +5        12
17.  +17/+12/+7/+2       Esper Power                      +5        13
18.  +18/+13/+8/+3       Bonus Feat                       +6        13
19.  +19/+14/+9/+4       Oversoul 4/day                   +6        14
20.  +20/+15/+10/+5      Bonus Feat, Perfect Soul         +6        15

Class Skills (4+Int): Autohypnosis, Balance, Bluff, Climb, Concentration, Craft, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Heal, Jump, Knowledge (History, Planes, Nobility), Listen, Profession, Sense Motive, Spot, Swim, and Tumble.

Proficiencies: All simple weapons, one martial weapon of your choice, light armor and medium armor, no shields.

Essentia: Though Esper Knights do not shape soulmelds they gain a sizeable pool of essentia to allocate between their class features, Esper Powers, and Incarnum Feats.

Soul Conduit (Su): Esper Knights are able to reallocate their essentia into Incarnum Feats more than once each day. However, they do not have the amount of fluidity with their essentia as meldshapers. After reallocating essentia, Esper Knights must wait at least one round before they may reallocate it again. Further, by exploiting their connection with soul energy, Esper Knights are able to sense living creatures within 60ft as the Sense Life spell at will as a free action.

Spirit Blade (Su): Esper Knights are able to channel the spiritual energies at their disposal into their weapons to produce dangerous, but powerful instruments. With their special training they are able to control and wield these weapons without endangering themselves. As long as 1 point of essentia is invested into this ability any weapon wielded by the Esper Knight deals 1d6 extra positive energy damage (full damage to objects, double damage to undead, does not heal living creatures), and ignores 1pt of shield bonus and 1pt of armor bonus per pt of invested essentia, as well as DR and Hardness up to a value equal to twice the invested essentia. However, the Esper Knight takes a -1 penalty to attack rolls with the weapon per pt of invested essentia. If 3 or more pts of essentia are invested the weapons gain the Ghost Touch property. If 5 or more pts of essentia are invested the weapons gain the Vorpal property.

AC Bonus: Esper Knights of 2nd level and higher add their Wisdom bonus as an insight bonus to their AC as long as they wear light or medium armor, and gain an additional Dodge bonus to AC as given in the table above. While flat-footed an Esper Knight retains their Wisdom bonus to AC gained in this way, but loses the Dodge bonus to AC gained this way.

Bonus Feat: Esper Knights are highly trained warriors, and at every even class level gain a bonus feat drawn from the Fighter's list of bonus feats. Alternatively, he may choose any Incarnum feat he qualifies for.

Esper Power (Su): At 3rd, 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th level Esper Knights master supernatural powers that utilize his essentia to gain strength. He might bolster his defenses, fool with his foes' minds, push enemies away with spiritual force, or strike at them with spiritual lightning. He may use his Esper Powers at will. The save DC against any Esper Power is as normal for (Su) abilities +your Wisdom modifier +1/2 invested Essentia. Any time he allocates or reallocates his Essentia he can move points into or out of his Esper Powers.

Esper Powers

Esper Grip - As a standard action, target creature within a 15ft/pt of invested Essentia takes 1d6 force damage/pt of invested Essentia and must make a Fortitude save to avoid additional effects. On a failed save, if 1 or more pts of Essentia are invested into this power the target is Sickened for 1 round. If 3 or more pts of Essentia are invested the target is Sickened and Immobilized for 1 round. If 5 or more pts of Essentia are invested the target is Sickened, Paralyzed, and must hold its breath as if Drowning for 1 round, and as long as you maintain this effect.

Esper Lightning - As a standard action, target creature within 30ft/pt of invested Essentia takes 2d6 electricity damage/pt of invested Essentia (Reflex half). If 3 or more pts pts of Essentia are invested you may instead target any creatures you wish within a 30ft/pt of invested Essentia cone-effect area. If 5 or more pts of Essentia are invested, targets that fail their Reflex saves are Stunned for 1 round.

Esper Flames - As a standard action, target creature within 30ft/pt of invested Essentia takes 2d6 fire damage/pt of invested Essentia (Reflex half). If 3 or more pts of Essentia are invested you may also target any creatures you wish within 5ft/pt of invested Essentia of you and the target at the time. If 5 or more pts of Essentia are invested, Esper Flames ignores Fire Resistance and deals half damage to creatures with Fire Immunity.

Esper Frost - As a standard action, target creature within 30ft/pt of invested Essentia takes 2d6 cold damage/pt of invested Essentia (Reflex half). If 3 or more pts of Essentia are invested you may target all creatures in a 30ft x 5ft/pt of invested Essentia line-effect area, and if you do the area is treated as difficult terrain for 1 round. If 5 or more pts of Essentia are invested, targets that fail their Reflex saves are frozen solid, either covered in 6 inches of ice/pt of invested Essentia, or, if you use the line-effect area option, captured within a Wall of Ice enclosing that area, as the spell.

Esper Push - As a swift action, creatures within 5ft/pt of invested Essentia are pushed away from you in any direction up to 5ft/pt of invested Essentia (Fortitude negates). If 3 or more pts of Essentia are invested, creatures who failed their saves are knocked prone. If 5 or more pts of Essentia are invested, creatures who succeeded on their saves are still pushed half the distance (rounded down to the nearest 5ft).

Esper Slam - As a standard action, target creature within 15ft/pt of invested Essentia takes 1d6 force damage/pt of invested Essentia +1.5 times your Strength modifier and is pushed away from you in any direction up to 10ft/pt of invested Essentia (Fortitude negates). If 3 or more pts of Essentia are invested, creatures you failed their saves are knocked prone and are Staggered for 1 round. If 5 or more pts of Essentia are invested, you add 2x your Strength modifier to the damage and creatures who succeeded on their saves are still pushed up to half the distance (rounded down to the nearest 5ft).

Esper Surge - As a swift action, you gain a +20ft/pt of Essentia invested bonus to your land speed for 1 round. If 3 or more pts of Essentia are invested you add this bonus to all of your speeds and may make an extra attack when making a full attack. If 5 or more pts of Essentia are invested, as a standard action, you may make one attack at your highest attack bonus for every 20ft you moved this turn.

Esper Sacrifice - As a swift action, you lose 1d6hp/pt of invested Essentia but any ally within 15ft/pt of invested Essentia regains 6hp/pt of invested Essentia. If 3 or more pts of Essentia is invested you may remove any of the following conditions from the healed ally: Dazzled, Fatigued, Blinded, Deafened, Shaken, Dazed, Frightened, or Sickened. If 5 or more pts of Essentia is invested you may remove 1 ability damage/pt of invested Essentia and remove any of the following conditions: Dazzled, Fatigued, Blinded, Deafened, Shaken, Dazed, Frightened, Sickened, Poisoned, Confused, Exhausted, Stunned, Nauseated, Panicked, or Paralyzed.

Mind Trick - As a standard action, as long as 1 or more pts of Essentia are invested in this power you may use Command and Detect Thoughts at will, as the spells. If 3 or more pts of Essentia are invested you may use Command, Detect Thoughts, Suggestion, or Modify Memory at will, as the spells. If 5 or more pts of Essentia are invested you use Command, Detect Thoughts, Suggestion, Modify Memory, Feeblemind, or Greater Command at will, as the spells.

More to come...

Move Object - telekinesis
Negate Energy - potentially disrupt incoming energy attack
Shatter Objects - shatter
Domination - charms or even dominates creatures
Ensouled Object - animates objects
Warp Space - allows teleportation and extradimensional travel
Bolster - increases your physical resilience

Increased Capacity (Ex): At 7th level and again at 15th level, the essentia capacity of your Incarnum feats, Spirit Blade class feature, and Esper Powers increases by 1.

Oversoul (Su): Starting at 11th level, twice each day as a swift action, you can temporarily maximize the invested essentia of all of your Incarnum feats, Esper Powers, or Esper Knight class features that allow essentia investment for 1 round. At 19th level you may use this ability four times each day. After using this ability you are fatigued for 1 minute, during which time you cannot reallocate your essentia.

Perfect Soul (Su): At 20th level, you may still walk the mortal world in a mortal body, but you are immune to death by aging, and age only when you want to. Your type changes to Outsider, and you gain the native subtype. You are also immune to Death effects as well as any effects that would destroy, trap, or otherwise tamper with your soul, and gain Damage Reduction 15/good or evil or law or chaos. After death, your spirit remains intact and may drift here and there as if by using Plane Shift at will, though your spirit is incapable of interacting with the living world, except 1/day for one hour. You may cross back and forth through death's door as you wish, and ignore any penalties from being resurrected.

[Risada]

Nice..... and your Spirit Blade adding the Ghost Touch ability made me wonder if I shouldn't do the same with my Incandescent Champion fix /joke

[AfterCrescent]

I look forward to seeing the Esper Powers in details.

I'm not liking Perfect Soul as much. It just reads awkwardly. Not sure how you want it to work.

[bkdubs123]

Not sure why I'm back to this class, but I am. Wrote up mechanics for 9 of the Esper Powers, and there's seven more to go. Critiques and suggestions are welcome!

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Honestly, this class seems to be a little too much of a 1-level dip.  At least move spirit blade (or the AC bonus) back a level or two.

[bkdubs123]

Hrm... fair assessment... but which do I want to move back... I guess I'll move the AC Bonus down to level 2. It also needs clarified a bit more, so thanks for drawing my attention to it.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Spirit blade might need better scaling as well - sure, you take a -3 to attacks, but you gain d6 damage and ignore armor/shield bonuses, which'll outweigh it in most cases. 

A little unsure about the action costs - are soul conduit and spirit blade standard actions to use, as is the default for (su)s?

[bkdubs123]

Spirit blade might need better scaling as well - sure, you take a -3 to attacks, but you gain d6 damage and ignore armor/shield bonuses, which'll outweigh it in most cases.

This is true. Do you have any suggestions?

A little unsure about the action costs - are soul conduit and spirit blade standard actions to use, as is the default for (su)s?

They are constant effects and don't require any action to use at all, just like a Monk's Ki Strike or Diamond Body.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

So can you turn spirit blade on/off?

I suppose you could say you take a -3 penalty on your to-hit, do the d6 energy damage, and ignore up to 1 point of shield bonus and 1 point of armor bonus per class level.  That gives a decent bonus fighting armored guys at first level, but doesn't give carte blanch dipping.  Add on ghost touch at, say, fifth level.

[bkdubs123]

So can you turn spirit blade on/off?

By investing or not investing essentia into it, yes.

I suppose you could say you take a -3 penalty on your to-hit, do the d6 energy damage, and ignore up to 1 point of shield bonus and 1 point of armor bonus per class level.  That gives a decent bonus fighting armored guys at first level, but doesn't give carte blanch dipping.  Add on ghost touch at, say, fifth level.

So, what if you take a -1 penalty to attack rolls per pt of essentia invested, deal 1d6 extra damage per pt of essentia invested, ignore up 1pt of shield bonus and 1pt of armor bonus per pt of essentia invested, and ignore DR and Hardness of twice the pts of essentia invested? If you have 3 or more essentia invested it gains Ghost Touch. If you have 5 or more essentia invested it gains... Vorpal (that's pretty lightsabery)?