Psion Prestige Class : Psychic Assassin
By Scott Brocius and Mark A. Jindra
Much like their nonpsionic cousins, the psychic assassin is a master of dealing death. Their skills are much the same but the style in which they practice their art varies based on the individual.
Requirements
To qualify to become a Psychic Assassin, a character must fulfill all the following criteria:
- Alignment: Any evil
- Skills: Disguise 4 ranks, Hide 8 ranks, Move Silently 8 ranks.
- Psionics: Manifester level 5th.
- Special: The character must kill someone for no other reason than to join the assassins.
Class Skills
The psychic assassin's class skills are Balance, Bluff, Climb, Concentration, Craft, Decipher Script, Diplomacy, Disable Device, Disguise, Escape Artist, Forgery, Gather Information, Hide, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge (psionics), Listen, Move Silently, Open Lock, Search, Sense Motive, Sleight of Hand, Spot, Swim, Tumble, Use Psionic Device, and Use Rope.
Skill Points at Each Level: 4 + Int modifier.
Class Features
All the following are class features of the psychic assassin prestige class.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Psychic assassins are proficient with the crossbow (hand, light, or heavy), dagger (any type), dart, rapier, sap, shortbow (normal and composite), and short sword. Psychic assassins are proficient with light armor but not with shields.
Powers Known: At 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 10th levels, a psychic assassin gains additional power points per day and access to new discovered powers as if she had also gained a level in whatever psionic manifesting class she belonged to before she added the prestige class. The psychic assassin does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained (bonus feats, metapsionic or item creation feats, psicrystal special abilities, and so on). This essentially means that she adds the level of psychic assassin to the level of whatever manifesting class the character has, then determines power points per day, powers known, and manifester level accordingly.
If a character had more than one manifesting class before she became a psychic assassin, she must decide to which class she adds the new level of psychic assassin for the purpose of determining power points per day, powers known, and manifester level. The psychic assassin may choose any new powers she discovers from the psychic rogue power list.
Sneak Attack: This is exactly like the psychic rogue ability of the same name. The extra damage dealt increases by +1d6 every other three levels (1st, 4th, 7th, and 10th). If a psychic assassin gets a sneak attack bonus from another source, the bonuses on damage stack.
Death Attack: If a psychic assassin studies her victim for 3 rounds and then makes a sneak attack with a melee weapon that successfully deals damage, the sneak attack has the additional effect of possibly either paralyzing or killing the target (psychic assassin's choice). While studying the victim, the psychic assassin can undertake other actions so long as her attention stays focused on the target and the target does not detect the psychic assassin or recognize the psychic assassin as an enemy. If the victim of such an attack fails a Fortitude save (DC 10 + the psychic assassin's class level + the psychic assassin's Int modifier) against the kill effect, she dies. If the saving throw fails against the paralysis effect, the victim is rendered helpless and unable to act for 1d6 rounds plus 1 round per level of the psychic assassin. If the victim's saving throw succeeds, the attack is just a normal sneak attack. Once the psychic assassin has completed the 3 rounds of study, she must make the death attack within the next 3 rounds.
If a death attack is attempted and fails (the victim makes her save) or if the psychic assassin does not launch the attack within 3 rounds of completing the study, 3 new rounds of study are required before she can attempt another death attack.
Poison Use: Psychic assassins are trained in the use of poison and never risk accidentally poisoning themselves when applying poison to a blade.
Save Bonus against Poison: The psychic assassin gains a natural saving throw bonus to all poisons gained at 2nd level, and it increases by +1 for every two additional levels the psychic assassin gains.
Danger Sense (Su): At 3rd level, a psychic assassin gains the ability to augment her ability to sense danger. When active, this ability grants the psychic rogue the effects of the danger sense power. This ability is active as long as the psychic assassin maintains psionic focus.
The psychic assassin's danger sense ability also gains the effects of a single augmentation and she is granted the effects of the uncanny dodge ability. While her danger sense ability is active, the psychic rogue can react to danger before her senses would normally allow her to do so. She retains his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) even if she is caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. However, she still loses her Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilized. If a psychic assassin already has uncanny dodge from a different class (a psychic assassin with at least two levels of barbarian, for example), she automatically gains improved uncanny dodge (see below) instead.
At 5th level, she gains a second augmentation and is granted the effects of the improved uncanny dodge ability. While her danger sense ability is active, the psychic rogue cannot be flanked; she can react to opponents on opposite sides of her as easily as she can react to a single attacker. This defense denies another rogue the ability to sneak attack the character by flanking her, unless the attacker has at least four more rogue levels than the target does. If a character already has uncanny dodge (see above) from a second class, the character automatically gains improved uncanny dodge instead, and the levels from the classes that grant uncanny dodge stack to determine the minimum rogue level required to flank the character.
Special Abilities: At 5th and 9th levels the psychic assassin gains a special ability of her choice from the psychic rogue special ability list, seen below.
Blind Spot (Ps): The psychic assassin can use this ability once per day. While in effect, the psychic assassin can attempt to make herself completely undetectable to any single creature as if manifesting the cloud mind power with a manifester level equal to her psychic assassin level. If the target creature fails its save, the psychic assassin can remain hidden as long as she maintains concentration on this ability.
Decoy (Ps): Once a day, the psychic assassin can create an illusionary duplicate of herself. The illusion functions as a project image spell with a caster level equal to her psychic assassin level, except that it lasts as long as he maintains concentration, to a maximum of 1 round per caster level.
Enhanced Sneak Attack (Su): When the psychic assassin has psionic focus, she adds psionic damage to her sneak attacks. This ability increases her sneak attack damage by +1d6. (For example, an 11th-level psychic assassin would deal +5d6 damage with a sneak attack instead of +4d6). This ability may be selected up to three times.
Improved Evasion (Ex): This ability works like evasion, except that while the psychic assassin still takes no damage on a successful Reflex saving throw against attacks, she henceforth takes only half damage on a failed save. A helpless psychic assassin does not gain the benefit of improved evasion.
Mind Cripple (Su): A psychic assassin with this ability has learned to focus psychic energy into her sneak attacks, which disrupts the mental capability of her foe. An opponent damaged by one of her sneak attacks also takes 2 points of Intelligence damage. Ability points lost to damage return on their own at the rate of 1 point per day for each damaged ability.
Shadow Jump (Ps): The psychic assassin gains the ability to travel between shadows. This ability works like the psionic dimension door power with a manifester level equal to her psychic assassin level, except as follows: The transport must begin and end in an area with at least some shadow. A psychic assassin can jump up to a total of 60 feet each day in this way; this can be a single jump of 60 feet or she can split the total distance she can jump each day among many jumps, but each one, no matter how small, counts as a 10-foot jump.
The psychic assassin can select this ability up to three times and she adds 60 feet to the daily total each time she selects it.
The psychic assassin can expend her psionic focus to use this ability as a move action.
Skill Mastery: The psychic assassin becomes so certain in the use of specific skills that she can use them reliably even under adverse conditions. Upon gaining this ability, she selects a number of skills equal to 3 + her Intelligence modifier. When making a skill check with one of these skills, she may take 10 even if stress and distractions would normally prevent her from doing so. A psychic assassin may gain this special ability multiple times, selecting additional skills for it to apply to each time.
Slippery Mind (Ex): This ability represents the psychic assassin's ability to wriggle free from magical or psionic effects that would otherwise control or compel him. If a psychic assassin with slippery mind is affected by an enchantment spell or effect and fails her saving throw, she can attempt it again 1 round later at the same Difficulty Class. She gets only this one extra chance to succeed on her saving throw.
Feat: A psychic assassin can gain a bonus feat in place of a special ability.
Hide in Plain Sight (Su): At 8th level, a psychic assassin can use the Hide skill even while being observed. As long as she is within 10 feet of some sort of shadow, a psychic assassin can hide herself from view in the open without having anything to actually hide behind. She cannot, however, hide in her own shadow.
| Psychic Assassin | Hit Die: d6 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CL | BAB | Fort | Ref | Will | Special | Powers Discovered |
| 1st | +0 | +0 | +2 | +0 | Sneak attack +1d6, death attack, poison use | -- |
| 2nd | +1 | +0 | +3 | +0 | +1 save against poison | +1 level existing manifesting class |
| 3rd | +2 | +1 | +3 | +1 | Danger sense (uncanny dodge) | -- |
| 4th | +3 | +1 | +4 | +1 | Sneak attack +2d6, +2 save against poison | +1 level existing manifesting class |
| 5th | +3 | +1 | +4 | +1 | Danger sense (improved uncanny dodge), special ability | -- |
| 6th | +4 | +2 | +5 | +2 | +3 save against poison | +1 level existing manifesting class |
| 7th | +5 | +2 | +5 | +2 | Sneak attack +3d6 | -- |
| 8th | +6 | +2 | +6 | +2 | +4 save against poison, hide in plain sight | +1 level existing manifesting class |
| 9th | +6 | +3 | +6 | +3 | Special ability | -- |
| 10th | +7 | +3 | +7 | +3 | +5 save against poison, sneak attack +4d6 | +1 level existing manifesting class |
- Psychic Rogue (based on the core rogue v.3.5)
Source: Web