General Prestige Class : Cold Iron Warrior
By Gwendolyn F. M. Kestrel and Faith M. Price
"Fey are manipulative abominations that deceive and
delude the unwary. It's my job to stop them."
--Pershingly Iron Soul
Humanoid parents sometimes jokingly threaten their children with various fey boogey men. Humanoid children might blame a broken vase or other minor mischief on a pixie, grig, or gremlin. For most people, these creatures are just fanciful tall tales. A few, however, take them seriously -- indeed, with deadly earnestness. The moral ambiguity of fey disturbs, frightens, or threatens their philosophies. To them, fey are not lovely creatures with a somewhat whimsical worldview; instead, the Fair Folk are hideous, aberrant creatures that manipulate minds and hearts. The most fanatical of the fey haters become cold iron warriors.
Individuals from any class can find themselves at odds with individual fey, a fey community, or even one of the courts. Few choose to become cold iron warriors who focus their time and effort on killing fey.
NPC cold iron warriors tend to be fanatics who pursue their quarry with unswerving devotion. They work alone or in small groups with others who share their loathing of fey. On rare occasions, a cold iron warrior will suppress his disgust to work with one fey faction against another, to most effectively kill fey, but these relationships rarely last long and the cold iron warrior often turns on his fey sponsors.
Requirements
To qualify to become a Cold Iron Warrior, a character must fulfill all the following criteria:
- Skills: Knowledge (nature) 4 ranks
- Feats: Iron Will,
- Base Attack Bonus: +5
- Special: Must have fought a fey
Class Skills
The cold iron warrior's class skills are Concentration, Craft (any), Hide, Knowledge (nature), Listen, Move Silently, Profession (any), Spellcraft, and Spot.
Skill Points at Each Level: 4 + Int modifier.
Dark Tales
Stories of fey abound, depicting the creatures as mysterious, mischievous, or malicious, depending on the tale and teller. Cold iron warriors, however, have ears for only the dark legends.
One tale tells of a sad knight waiting by a lake for the beautiful fey woman. The man starves to death straining for a glimpse of the water sprite with whom he fell in love.
In another fable, the Queen of Air and Darkness arrives at a castle during a party. Using magic, she put all of the women to sleep. She then dances with all of the men until they die of exhaustion. The castle's queen awakens to find the corpses of her husband and sons.
Everyone has heard the fairy tale stories of mermaids or nixies rescuing drowning sailors. The tales become more terrifying in cold iron warrior versions where the fey cause the sailors to jump into the water and drown them or keep them on the surface only to let them die slowly of thirst
Class Features
All of the following are class features of the cold iron warrior prestige class.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: The cold iron warrior is proficient with all simple and martial weapons and all armor and shields.
Spells per Day: You have the ability to cast a small number of divine spells. To cast a cold iron warrior spell, you must have a Wisdom score of at least 10 + the spell's level, so if you have a Wisdom of 10 or lower, you cannot cast these spells. Bonus spells are based on Wisdom, and saving throws against these spells have a DC of 10 + spell level + your Wisdom modifier. When you get 0 spells per day of a given level (for instance 1st-level spells for a 1st-level cold iron warrior), you gain only the bonus spells you would be entitled to based on your Wisdom score for that spell level. Your spell list appears below. You have access to any spell on the list and can freely choose which to prepare, just as a cleric. You prepare and casts spells just as a cleric does (though you cannot spontaneously cast cure or inflict spells).
Smite Fey (Su): Once per day, a cold iron warrior can smite a fey with one normal melee attack. He adds his Charisma bonus (if any) to his attack roll and deals 1 extra point of damage per cold iron warrior level). If the cold iron warrior accidentally smites a creature that is not a fey, the smite has no effect, but the ability is still used up for that day.
At 5th level, and at every five levels hereafter, you may smite evil one additional time per day, as indicated on the table above.
Detect Fey (Sp): Beginning at 2nd level, a cold iron warrior can detect the aura that surrounds fey creatures. This functions like the detect undead spell, except it detects fey.
Iron Mind (Ex): A cold iron warrior gains immunity to magic sleep effects and a +2 bonus against enchantment spells or effects. At 8th level, the bonus increases to +4.
Dispel Magic (Sp): Starting at 3rd-level, a cold iron warrior can use dispel magic once per day as the spell. Every third cold iron warrior level, he gains an addition use per day. His caster level is equal to his cold iron warrior level.
Mind over Magic (Su): Starting at 4th level, a cold iron warrior can cause a spell or spell-like ability targeted against him to rebound onto the originator; this does not require an action, but the cold iron warrior must be conscious and must decide whether to use this power before knowing what the incoming spell or spell-like ability's effect is, before rolling any saving throw allowed, and before the attacker rolls to overcome the cold iron warrior's spell resistance (if any). This power is similar to the spell turning spell, except that there is no die roll to determine the number of spell levels affected; one use of the power turns one spell or spell-like ability targeted at the cold iron warrior. Effect and area spells and spell-like abilities are not affected, and this power doesn't work on spells or spell-like effects with a range of touch. A cold iron warrior can use this ability once per day at 4th level and twice per day at 8th level.
Unmaking Magic (Su): Beginning at 5th level, a cold iron warrior gains a bonus equal to his Wisdom modifier to caster level checks when attempting to dispel magic. The spell's maximum caster level bonus (+10) still applies, but character can exceed the bonus when adding the Wisdom modifier. For example, a 10th-level cold iron warrior with a Wisdom score of 18 would have a +13 bonus on a caster level checks for dispel magic.
The bonus applies to dispel magic spells the cold iron warrior casts, to the cold iron warrior's dispel magic spell-like ability, and to other dispel magic abilities the character might have, but not to dispel magic effects from magic items.
Cold Iron Strike (Su): Beginning at 7th level, a cold iron warrior's unarmed strike or any weapon he wields bypasses cold iron damage reduction.
Slippery Mind (Ex): On attaining 10th level, a cold iron warrior can wriggle free from magical effects that would otherwise control or compel him. If a cold iron warrior with slippery mind is affected by an enchantment spell or effect and fails his saving throw, he can attempt it again 1 round later at the same DC. He gets only this one extra chance to succeed on his saving throw.
Cold Iron Warrior Spell List
Cold iron warriors choose their spells from the following list:
1st level -- bless, detect snares and pits, doom, entropic shield, sanctuary, true strike.
2nd level -- bull's strength, cat's grace, darkvision, owl's wisdom, moment of clarity, protection from energy, see invisibility, silence.
3rd level -- dispel magic, helping hand, invisibility purge.
4th level -- break enchantment, spell immunity, true seeing.
| Cold Iron Warrior | Hit Die: d8 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CL | BAB | Fort | Ref | Will | Special | Spells | |||
| 1st | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | Smite fey (1/day) | 0 | --- | --- | --- |
| 2nd | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | Detect fey, iron mind +2 | 1 | --- | --- | --- |
| 3rd | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | Dispel magic (1/day) | 2 | 0 | --- | --- |
| 4th | 4 | 1 | 1 | 4 | Mind over magic | 3 | 1 | --- | --- |
| 5th | 5 | 1 | 1 | 4 | Smite fey (2/day), unmaking magic | 3 | 2 | 0 | --- |
| 6th | 6 | 2 | 2 | 5 | Dispel magic (2/day) | 3 | 3 | 1 | --- |
| 7th | 7 | 2 | 2 | 5 | Cold iron strike | 3 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
| 8th | 8 | 2 | 2 | 6 | Iron mind +4, mind over magic | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| 9th | 9 | 3 | 3 | 6 | Dispel magic (3/day) | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| 10th | 10 | 3 | 3 | 7 | Slippery mind, smite fey (3/day) | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
Source: Web