Communal Possession (3.5e Class)

Communal Possession
"In Soviet Russia, the power has YOU!"

The Communal Possession is a person who is for some reason or another, very attractive and accessible to bored dead people waiting around in their afterlives.

Making a Communal Possession
Communal Possession's party roles depend a great deal upon who is currently possessing them.

Abilities: Communal Possessions prefer to have pretty good Wisdom modifiers, as they are otherwise incapable of getting rid of the spirits possessing them when they really need to. They also benefit from a high Charisma modifier, so they can cajole the spirits into making them do things they want to do. Dumping any stat is probably a bad idea, though, since you never know what class abilities you'll have that need synergizing.

Races: Communal Possessions come from all sorts of races.

Alignment: Any.

Starting Gold: 2d4&times;10 gp (50 gp).

Starting Age: Simple.

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the Communal Possession.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Communal Possessions are proficient with three simple weapons of their choice, and light armor.

 (Su): As a full-round action while the Communal Possession is not currently being possessed, she may give a random spirit control over her body. She gets to choose the magnitude of the Spirit; When she gains the ability to entice Medium Spirits, she can still choose to entice Lesser Spirits, and so on.

If the Communal Possession is unconscious for any reason, there is a 50% chance that a Spirit of the highest power she can entice will possess her when she wakes up.

While possessed, the Communal Possession is not in control of her body, although she still perceives what she normally would, and may communicate with the spirit possessing her. While the Communal Possession may not be in control of her body, the player playing her gets to control the spirit possessing her, and may have all sorts of crazy internal dialogue.

Whenever she becomes possessed, roll on the Primary Features chart and the Secondary Features chart. If she has never been possessed by a Spirit of that power with that combination of features before, also roll for Random Race and Alignment chart. If she has, use the race and alignment of the previous Spirit that possessed her and had that combination of abilities; it is the same Spirit, so it has the same name, backstory, etcetera.

Each primary ability comes with 3+Class level Rank bonuses to some skills (which do stack with normal ranks, up to the normal maximum ranks for class skills of 3+Hit Dice), and a bonus to BAB. Abilities granted are inclusive: thus, a Greater Spirit also provides that spirit type's Lesser and Medium abilities.


 * Lesser: The Communal Possession gets a +4 bonus to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution.
 * Medium: The Communal Possession gains Damage Reduction /- equal to her character level plus her class level. She also cannot be caught flat-footed.
 * Greater: The Communal Possession gains Mettle, and fast healing equal to her class level.
 * Grand: The Communal Possession gains 2 bonus HP per HD, and whenever she makes an attack, she may spend 5 hit points to get +4 Strength for the purposes of resolving that attack.
 * Legendary: The Communal Possession can take a full attack action as a standard action.
 * Legendary: The Communal Possession can take a full attack action as a standard action.


 * Lesser: The Communal Possession gains Evasion.
 * Medium: The Communal Possession gets Sneak Attack +1d6 per two class levels.
 * Greater: The Communal Possession can make hide checks without cover or concealment, and suffers no penalty to Hide or Move Silently for moving at full speed or running.
 * Grand: The Communal Possession is not automatically detected by special senses; creatures with special senses must still roll Listen or Spot to find her if she is within range of a special sense.
 * Legendary: The Communal Possession gains Improved Evasion. Whenever she fails her initial save against an effect with a Will or Fortitude save which has a duration, she may make a new save against that effect once each round.
 * Legendary: The Communal Possession gains Improved Evasion. Whenever she fails her initial save against an effect with a Will or Fortitude save which has a duration, she may make a new save against that effect once each round.


 * Lesser: Whenever the Communal Possession makes a knowledge check, she may roll twice and take the higher result.
 * Medium: The Communal Possession can identify items simply by looking at them.
 * Greater: The Communal Possession can speak any language any intelligent creature can speak, and can effectively converse with unintelligent creatures as well.
 * Grand: The Communal Possession can cast legend lore at will, without the component or focus costs. It still takes that long, though.
 * Legendary: The Communal Possession can cast greater scrying as a spell-like ability twice per day.
 * Legendary: The Communal Possession can cast greater scrying as a spell-like ability twice per day.


 * Lesser: The Communal Possession can Track, and cannot be tracked in wilderness terrains.
 * Medium: The Communal Possession can cast detect thoughts, detect animals or plants, detect poison, know direction, and detect snares and pits at will.
 * Greater: The Communal Possession does not need to eat, drink, or breathe, and does not age. She suffers no penalties for being old. Time spent within 60 feet of the Communal Possession does not count for determining starvation, suffocation, or thirst. She becomes immune to Death effects, poisons, diseases, and energy drain.
 * Grand: The Communal Possession can move at full speed through difficult terrain without penalties, and gains a Perfect fly speed equal to half his base land speed.
 * Legendary: Whenever the Communal Possession dies, she comes back to life at the beginning of her next turn with 1 HP.
 * Legendary: Whenever the Communal Possession dies, she comes back to life at the beginning of her next turn with 1 HP.


 *  The Communal Possession gains two additional Secondary Features, rolling 1d4+4 instead of 1d8.
 * Lesser: The Communal Possession can cast detect magic and read magic at will.


 * Lesser: The Communal Possession receives only half the normal penalty for Spot and Listen checks due to distance, and range increment penalties are halved as well.
 * Medium: The first attack the Communal Possession makes in a round deals 1d6 extra points of damage per two class levels.
 * Greater: The Communal Possession's Spot and Listen checks have no penalties for distance. She may ignore range increment penalties.
 * Grand: The Communal Possession only suffers a -10 penalty to Hide and Move Silently for attacking.
 * Legendary: The ranges of all ranged attacks and abilities the Communal Possession uses are tripled.
 * Legendary: The ranges of all ranged attacks and abilities the Communal Possession uses are tripled.


 * Lesser: The Communal Possession may initiate Ad Hominem and Appeal to Ridicule each once per minute.
 * Medium: The Communal Possession may initiate Appeal to Belief and Sarcasm Attack each once per minute.
 * Greater: The Communal Possession may initiate Appeal to Spite and Slippery Slope each once per minute.
 * Grand: The Communal Possession may initiate Appeal to Coincidence and Causal Reductionism each once per minute.
 * Legendary: The Communal Possession may initiate Straw Man and Hypothesis Contrary to Fact each once per minute.
 * Legendary: The Communal Possession may initiate Straw Man and Hypothesis Contrary to Fact each once per minute.


 * Lesser: The Communal Possession gets a +4 Luck bonus to Armor Class against any creature that has not seen her take overtly aggressive actions (such as attacking or casting a harmful spell).
 * Medium: The Communal Possession can cast disguise self at will, but only to make herself look poorer or weaker than she really is.
 * Greater: The Communal Possession gains the effects of the Ad Misericordiam stance.
 * Grand: The Communal Possession can choose to take 15 instead of rolling on any skill check.
 * Legendary: The Communal Possession can make a one-week Craft check once per round as a free action.
 * Legendary: The Communal Possession can make a one-week Craft check once per round as a free action.




 * : The Communal Possession becomes proficient with all shields and armor, and martial weapons. She is not slowed by Medium or Heavy armor, does not suffer from Arcane Spell Failure, and her armor check penalties are halved.


 * : The Communal Possession gets a +6 Armor bonus, which increases by 1 every three character levels. She also becomes proficient with unarmed strikes, gains the Improved Unarmed Strike feat, and her unarmed strikes deal an extra 1 point of damage per two class levels.


 * : The Communal Possession gets a bonus to saving throws equal to her Wisdom or Charisma modifier, whichever is higher. She also gains the ability to cast detect evil/chaos/law/good at will for every alignment her Spirit is the opposite of.


 * : Any speed the Communal Possession has which is 20' or greater gets a +5' bonus per class level.


 * : The Communal Possession can shoot a line of lightning from her finger as a standard action. The line is 15' long per class level, and deals 1d8 points of electricity damage per character level, with a Reflex save (DC 10 +character level) for half damage.


 * : The Communal Possession gains animate dead as a spell-like ability at will, but no individual undead creature may have more than 1/2 HD if this Spirit is not at least Medium. When the spirit stops possessing her, all undead become uncontrolled.


 * : The Communal Possession can shoot a cone of fire from her hands as a standard action. The cone is 5' long per class level, and deals 1d8 points of fire damage per character level, with a Reflex save (DC 10 +character level) for half damage.


 * : The Communal Possession can cast dimension door once per minute, but it has a range of 10' per class level.

Also, roll on one of the two Random Race charts. Once you have that, quickly come up with some sort of life story and personality for this Spirit; It doesn't need to be very complicated until a situation arises when it matters.

 (Ex): As a free action that may only be done on her turn, the Communal Possession may attempt to free herself from the possession of a Spirit. Doing so requires a Will save with a DC dependent on the power of the Spirit (15 if Lesser, 20 if Medium, 25 if Greater, 30 if Grand, 35 if Legendary). If this attempt fails, the Communal Possession cannot try to free herself from that Spirit for 1d4 hours.

If the Communal Possession is knocked unconscious for any reason, there is a 50% chance that the Spirit that's currently possessing her will leave.

 (Ex): At level 2, animals that have nothing better to do will run away from the Communal Possession if she comes closer than within 30' of them.