Knight Commander

The Quintessential Paladin II
Author Gareth Hanrahan
Series Quintessential Series
Publisher Mongoose Publishing
Publish date 2004

There are orders of paladins and knights dedicated to noble and true aims. Crusaders in far-off lands, guardians of mystic treasures, servants of the church, vigilant keepers of the peace; it is the nature of the paladin to bring law and justice to the land. These orders need the leadership and guidance of the knight commander. He is a wise and inspiring leader; stern in judgement and discipline, but fair and kind-hearted. He is the sort of general that a soldier would follow into the maw of The Abyss, or willingly die for in battle.

The knight commander almost invariably rises through the ranks of the order he is to lead although, in rare cases, a commander can be appointed from outside by a king or religious leader (and when paladins are involved, prophecies and divine revelations tend to crop up on a regular basis, too). He must know and understand the warriors he leads better than they know themselves. If he is the head of the order, then they are his body. He feels their deaths as he would his own wounds.

Hit Die: d8.

Requirements

To qualify to become a knight commander, a character must fulfil all the following criteria:
Skills: Diplomacy 5 ranks, Intimidate 5 ranks, Knowledge (Geography) 5 ranks, Knowledge (Knowledge History) 5 ranks, Knowledge (nobility & royalty) 5 ranks, Ride (Dexterity)5 ranks, Sense Motive 7 ranks.
Feats: Leadership, Mounted Combat.
Special: To become a knight commander, the character must be appointed the leader of an order of knights, paladins or other special servants of the church, crown or other authority.

Knight Commander
Class Level	Base Attack	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special
1st	+1	+0	+0	+2	Aura of courage, true order, glorious leadership I
2nd	+2	+0	+0	+3	Glorious leadership II
3rd	+3	+1	+1	+3	True order, glorious leadership III
4th	+4	+1	+1	+4	Glorious leadership IV
5th	+5	+1	+1	+4	Magnified aura of courage, glorious leadership V
6th	+6	+2	+2	+5	True order, glorious leadership VI
7th	+7	+2	+2	+5	Glorious leadership VII
8th	+8	+2	+2	+6	Glorious leadership VIII
9th	+9	+3	+3	+6	True order, glorious leadership IX
10th	+10	+3	+3	+7	Knighthood, glorious leadership X

Class Skills

The knight commander’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Bluff (Charisma), Concentration (Constitution), Diplomacy (Charisma), Knowledge (any) (Intelligence), Listen (Wisdom), Ride (Dexterity), Spellcraft (Intelligence), Sense Motive (Wisdom) and Spot (Wisdom).

Skill Points at Each Level: 6 + Intelligence modifier.

Class Features

Armour and Weapon Proficiency: Knight commanders gain Martial Weapon Proficiency, the next highest armour proficiency (none to light, light to medium, medium to heavy) and proficiency with shields (including tower shields).

Glorious Leadership: At each level, the knight commander gains a glorious Leadership bonus. He may choose to assign this bonus to any of the following:

• He may increase his Leadership score by +2.
• He may gain a +2 insight bonus to Sense Motive checks against members of his order.
• He may gain a +1 insight bonus to Diplomacy when speaking for his order.
• He may increase his True Order (see below) bonus by +1.

Aura of Courage (Su): The character gains an aura of courage, identical to the ability of a paladin. If the character already has this ability, he gains a bonus fighter feat instead.

True Order (Ex): The commands of the knight commander drive others to achieve great deeds. Once per day, the knight commander may give an order to another character under his command. That character gets a morale bonus to any attack rolls, saving throws or skill checks made in the direct course of carrying out the order. The morale bonus is equal to the knight commander’s Charisma bonus. The order must be one with a definite duration; ‘take down the walls of that castle or bring me back his head’ would be acceptable, as long as it is fairly certain that the walls could be breached or the target slain within a few days, but ‘defend the kingdom’ or ‘find the magic sword’ would not be acceptable.

The knight commander may not give another True Order until the currently active one is completed or he knows that the character he gave the order to is dead.

The knight commander gains another True Order at 3rd, 6th and 9th levels.

Magnified Aura of Courage (Su): At 5th level, the knight commander’s aura of courage increases to 50 feet.

Masterful General (Ex): At 7th level, the knight commander gains a +4 insight bonus to any ability or skill checks related to commanding armies in battle.

Knighthood (Su): At 10th level, the knight commander is permitted to induct characters into certain ancient mystical ranks within the order. This can only be done as a reward for completing a True Order. Inducting another character takes ten minutes; the inductee may convert up to three levels of an existing class into paladin levels. Alternatively, the character may benefit from three temporary levels of paladin that last for one month and one day. A character may only benefit from the knighthood ability once.

Epic Knight Commander

Hit Die: d8.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 6 + Intelligence modifier.
Bonus Feats: The epic knight commander gains a bonus feat every four levels higher than 20th.
True Orders: The epic knight commander gains an extra use of the True Order ability at 12th level and every three levels thereafter.