General Prestige Class : Sinker
by Christopher Campbell, Dragon #287
Sinkers belong to the Doomguard faction. They believe the multiverse is in a state of decay and that nothing should interfere with this natural process. Speeding it up is another matter. Fighters gravitate toward this philosophy because it justifies violence and rewards their fighting prowess, but clerics of evil gods and wizards that favor destructive spells also claim membership.
Requirements
To qualify to become a Sinker, a character must fulfill all the following criteria:
- Skills: Disable Device 5 ranks, Knowledge (architecture & engineering) 3 ranks
- Feats: Great Fortitude, Power Attack, Improved Sunder,
- Base Attack Bonus: +5.
Class Skills
The sinker's class skills are Bluff, Disable Device, Disguise, Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering), and Sense Motive.
Skill Points at Each Level: 2 + Int modifier.
Class Features
All of the following are class features of the sinker prestige class.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A character who takes a level of sinker becomes proficient with all simple and martial weapons, and all armor and shields.
Entropic Blow: As a vessel of entropy, a sinker can channel destructive energy, causing extra damage with a melee attack. She adds her Charisma bonus to her attack roll and deals 2 points of extra damage per sinker class level. The entropic blow is especially good at unraveling the things that bind non-living matter together. Against objects, constructs, and undead, the extra damage entropic blow causes is doubled (4 points of extra damage per sinker class level). Use of the entropic blow must be declared before the attack is made. If the attack misses, the blow is wasted for that day. This is a supernatural ability.
Sifting: Sinkers of at least 2nd level can sift through the remains of an object or creature and determine what it was and how it was destroyed. The amount of information gained depends on how long the sinker holds and concentrates on some part of the remains.
- 1st Round: Creature type (humanoid, giant, construct, shapechanger, undead, and so on); or what the object was (table, sword, brick, and so on).
- 2nd Round: Gender and age of the creature; or cosmetic details of the object before destruction (paint color, materials used in construction, and so on).
- 3rd Round: The sinker gains a mental vision of the object or creature before its destruction. This vision is brief and somewhat hazy. The sinker can recognize a familiar creature or object, or gain enough of a mental image to describe the features of something, but the sinker could not read a note or distinguish between the features of two twin creatures. The vision reveals the actual form of the creature before destruction. Thus, a creature that was cloaked in an illusion would be shown in its normal form, but a shapechanger would have whatever form it was using just before its death.
- 4th Round: The sinker learns how long the creature or object has been dead or destroyed.
- 5th Round: The sinker learns how the object or creature was destroyed or killed. The sinker gains no information about who caused the destruction, only how it was destroyed. The sinker could therefore learn that a person drowned, but not who held the person under the water.
This supernatural ability can be used at will as a standard action and requires the sinker to touch the object in question (thereby risking any effect that touching the remains might provoke).
Destructive Expertise: As agents of destruction, 3rd-level sinkers learn to promote entropy by the most efficient means. The sinker gains a +10 insight bonus to Disable Device and Knowledge (architecture and engineering) skill checks, when attempting to take apart or disable traps and other objects. In addition, the sinker can always take 10 on such checks, even under circumstances when it would normally not be allowed.
Spells: Beginning at 3rd level, a sinker gains the ability to cast a small number of arcane spells. To cast a spell, the sinker must have a Charisma score of at least 10 + the spell's level, so a sinker with a Charisma of 10 or lower cannot cast these spells. Sinker bonus spells are based on Charisma, and saving throws against these spells have a DC of 10 + spell level + the sinker's Charisma modifier. The sinker's spell list appears below; a sinker has access to any spell on the list and can freely choose which to cast, just like a sorcerer.
When the sinker gets 0 spells of a given level, she gets only bonus spells for that spell slot. A sinker without a bonus spell for that level cannot yet cast spells of that level.
Disintegrate: Once per day, a 10th-level sinker can cast disintegrate as a sorcerer of a level equal to the sinker's character level. Using this spell-like ability is a full-round action.
| Sinker | Hit Die: d10 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CL | BAB | Fort | Ref | Will | Special | Spells per Day | |
| 1st | +0 | +2 | +0 | +0 | Entropic blow (1/day) | - | - |
| 2nd | +1 | +3 | +0 | +0 | Sifting | - | - |
| 3rd | +2 | +3 | +1 | +1 | Destructive expertise, Entropic blow (2/day) | 0 | - |
| 4th | +3 | +4 | +1 | +1 | - | 1 | |
| 5th | +3 | +4 | +1 | +1 | Entropic blow (3/day) | 2 | 1 |
| 6th | +4 | +5 | +2 | +2 | - | 2 | 2 |
| 7th | +5 | +5 | +2 | +2 | Entropic blow (4/day) | 3 | 2 |
| 8th | +6 | +6 | +2 | +2 | - | 3 | 3 |
| 9th | +6 | +6 | +3 | +3 | Entropic blow (5/day) | 4 | 3 |
| 10th | +7 | +7 | +3 | +3 | Disintegrate | 4 | 4 |
Sinker Spell List
- 1st level - chill touch, doom, erase, inflict light wounds, true strike.
- 2nd level - blindness/deafness, death knell, inflict moderate wounds, shatter.
Source: Dragon #287