Penitent

The Quintessential Paladin II

Author Gareth Hanrahan

Series Quintessential Series

Publisher Mongoose Publishing

Publish date 2004

For a paladin to fall and become a blackguard is as sorrowful a fate as death itself. For one of the chosen warriors of good to turn away and willingly walk into shadow is almost unthinkable but still, the blackguards ride at the head of the armies of darkness, twisted mockeries of their paladin brethren. Their foulness is as vile as the paladin is holy. They are the terrible inverse, the dark twin, the fallen star… but it is in the nature of good to be forgiving it cannot be otherwise.

The penitent is a blackguard making his way back towards the side of good. His existence will be short, as he may only atone for his terrible crimes through the ultimate sacrifice.

Still, he has some small chance at redemption and grasps at it with all his soul.

Hit Die: d10.

Requirements

To qualify to become a penitent, a character must fulfil all the following criteria:
Skills: Heal 2 ranks, Knowledge (religion) 2 ranks.
Alignment: Lawful Good
Special: The character must be a blackguard or antipaladin.

He must have received an Atonement spell cast by a lawful good cleric. The character must destroy or drive off his fiendish companion, as well as his undead companion from the blackguard class ability.

The Penitent
Class Level	Base Attack	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special	Spellcasting
1st	+1	+2	+0	+0	Aura, conversion	+1 level of blackguard
2nd	+2	+3	+0	+0	Penance	+1 level of blackguard
3rd	+3	+3	+1	+1	Conversion	+1 level of blackguard
4th	+4	+4	+1	+1	Greater penance	+1 level of blackguard
5th	+5	+4	+1	+1	Final Penance, conversion	+1 level of blackguard

Class Skills

The penitent’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Constitution), Craft (Intelligence), Diplomacy (Charisma), Handle Animal (Charisma), Heal (Wisdom), Hide (Dexterity), Intimidate (Charisma), Knowledge (religion) (Intelligence), Profession (Wisdom) and Ride (Dexterity).

Skill Points at Each Level: 2 + Intelligence modifier.

Class Features

Armour and Weapon Proficiency: Penitents gain no additional weapon or armour proficiencies.

Spells per day: The penitent continues to gain spells as if advancing as a blackguard. If he reaches the maximum level of blackguard spellcasting (10th), then he gains no further spellcasting levels from this class. The penitent uses the blackguard spell list.

Aura: As the penitent retains his Aura of Evil ability, he still detects as evil, even though his alignment has changed to good.

Conversion (Su): At 1st, 3rd and 5th level, the penitent can convert some aspect of his character over to the side of good.

He may choose one of the following ability conversions:

• Smite evil becomes smite good.
• command undead becomes turn undead.
• The penitent uses the paladin spell list instead of the blackguard spell list.
• detect good becomes detect evil.
• Aura of evil becomes aura of good.
• Aura of hopelessness becomes aura of courage.

Penance (Su): At 2nd level, the penitent is punished for his crimes. He is wracked with agony and guilt-filled dreams for a month and a day – during this time, he suffers a –2 penalty to all rolls. Should he survive this month, he is given a glimpse of redemption, in the form of a replacement special mount. This special mount is identical to the normal special mount given to a paladin. Add any paladin, blackguard and penitent levels together to determine the character’s paladin level for the purposes of the mount’s abilities.

Greater Penance (Su): At 4th level, the penitent’s suffering is rewarded. The character begins to bleed unceasingly as his life begins to ebb from him. Each day, his maximum hit point total is reduced by one. For example, a penitent with 100 hit points would go down to 99 hit points on the second day, 98 hit points on the third and so on – the character has only a few months left to live. The character can be raised, but this will not affect the ebbing hit point total.

However, the forces of good are not unkind. The character may double the bonus he receives from his dark blessing ability (i.e. he may add twice his Charisma modifier to his saving throws).

Final Penance (Su): On reaching 5th level (or before), the character is given a vision of some great deed or quest. He must complete this quest or die trying. He receives a +2 morale bonus to all rolls. Should the character die after reaching 5th level, he cannot be raised.

If the penitent completes the quest satisfactorily, he is redeemed and may convert his blackguard levels to paladin levels and recover all previously lost hit points. If he fails, the character stops losing hit points from Greater Penance but does not regain those already lost. He also loses all paladin, blackguard and penitent class abilities. The character has rejected both damnation and redemption and will never find peace in any of the planes of existence.