Soul-Rage Skald (3.5e Class)

Soul-Rage Skald
High to the north of civilation, were the Tribal traditions are called barbaric by the people of the south, they do not have great Libraries, they often even don't know what a book is. Instead all their history, their traditions and lore are keept by the skald's who pass it on oral. Now from time to time a skald under traning will resive the ancestors blessing or find a wrath withind herself that allow her to call upon the memory of battles fought and maneuvers used by the tribe in ancient wars, These raging skald's are called Soul-Rage skald's by their people and given great respect. A tribe with a Soul-Rage skald's is almost always garenteed to bring more plunder home from raids.

Making a Soul-Rage Skald
Abilities: Charisma and Constitution are vital to this class, Strength and Intelligent can also be vital depending on the build focus.

Races: Races who follow barbaric traditions and treasure martial provness, Humans and Dwarfs are the races most known for Soul-Rage Skalds. But any race can from time to time come up with a person who can call the Soul-Rage

Alignment: Any

Starting Gold: As fighter

Starting Age: As fighter

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the soul-rage skald.



Maneuvers: You begin your career with knowledge of two martial maneuvers. The disciplines available to you are Amaranth Eclipse, Eternal Glacier and White Raven. Once you know a maneuver, you must ready it before you can use it (see Maneuvers Readied, below). A maneuver usable by soul-rage skald's is considered an extraordinary ability unless otherwise noted in its description. Your maneuvers are not affected by spell resistance, and you do not provoke attacks of opportunity when you initiate one. You learn additional maneuvers at higher levels, as shown on Table: The Soul-Rage Skald, above. You must meet a maneuver’s prerequisite to learn it. See Table 3–1, page 39, to determine the highest-level maneuvers you can learn. Upon reaching 5th level, and at every third skjald level after that (8th, 11th, 14th, and so on), you can choose to learn a new maneuver in place of one you already know. In effect, you lose the old maneuver in exchange for the new one. You can choose a new maneuver of any level you like, as long as you observe your restriction on the highest-level maneuvers you know; you need not replace the old maneuver with a maneuver of the same level. For example, upon reaching 11th level, you could trade in a single 1st-, 2nd-, 3rd- 4th- or 5th-level maneuver for a maneuver of 6th level or lower, as long as you meet the prerequisite of the new maneuver. You can swap only a single maneuver at any given level. You add your full soul-rage skald levels to your initiator level to determine your total initiator level and your highest-level maneuvers known.

Maneuvers Readied: You can ready one of the maneuvers you know at 1st level, so you must choose which maneuvers to ready. You ready your maneuvers by exercising for 5 minutes. The maneuvers you choose remain readied until you decide to exercise again and change them. You need not sleep or rest for any long period of time to ready your maneuvers; any time you spend 5 minutes in practice, you can change your readied maneuvers. You begin an encounter with all your readied maneuvers unexpended, regardless of how many times you might have already used them since you chose them. When you initiate a maneuver, you expend it for the current encounter, so each of your readied maneuvers can be used once per encounter (until you recover them, as described below). You recover all expended maneuvers when ever you use a war chant or enters Rage. You cannot initiate a maneuver or change your stance while you are recovering your expended maneuvers, but you can remain in a stance in which you began your turn.

Stances Known: A soul-rage skald begin play with knowledge of one 1st level stance from any discipline open to soul-rage skald's. At 6th, 11th, and 16th level, you can choose additional stances. Unlike maneuvers, stances are not expended, and you do not have to ready them. All the stances you know are available to you at all times, and you can change the stance you are currently using as a swift action. A stance is an extraordinary ability unless otherwise stated in the stance description. Unlike with maneuvers, you cannot learn a new stance at higher levels in place of one you already know.

 (Ex): A soul-rage skald's land speed is faster than the norm for his race by +10 feet. This benefit applies only when he is wearing no armor, light armor, or medium armor and not carrying a heavy load. Apply this bonus before modifying the soul-rage skald’s speed because of any load carried or armor worn.

 (Ex): At 1st level, a soul-rage skald gains the ability to know legends or information regarding various topics, just as a bard can with bardic knowledge. The soul-rage skald adds her level and her Intelligence modifier to the lore check, which functions otherwise exactly like a bardic knowledge check.

Each ability requires both a minimum Skjald level and a minimum number of ranks in the Perform (Oratory or Percussion instruments) skill to qualify; if a skjald does not have the required number of ranks in at least one of the Perform skills, he does not gain the war chant ability until he acquires the needed ranks.

Starting a war chant effect is a standard action. Some war chant abilities require concentration, which means the soul-rage skald must take a swift action each round to maintain the ability. Even while using war chant that doesn’t require concentration, a soul-rage skald cannot cast spells, activate magic items by spell completion (such as scrolls), or activate magic items by magic word (such as wands). Just as for casting a spell with a verbal component, a deaf soul-rage skald has a 20% chance to fail when attempting to use war chant. If he fails, the attempt still counts against his daily limit.

 (Ex): A soul-rage skald with 3 or more ranks in a Perform skill can use her Oratory or drums to inspire bravery in her allies (including herself), bolstering them against fear. To be affected, an ally must be able to hear the soul-rage skald's war chant. The effect lasts for as long as the soul-rage skald maintain concentration, the ally hears the skjals war chant and for 5 rounds thereafter. An affected ally receives a +4 morale bonus on saving throws against fear effects.

 (Ex): A soul-rage skald of 4th level or higher with 7 or more ranks in a Perform skill can use her Oratory or drums to inspire a number of allies equal to half her soul-rage skald level with a martial maneuver she have gained thru Martial Rage, the maneuver is then availably to use for the chosen allies one time each for as long as the soul-rage skald maintain concentration or until the maneuver is expendet what ever comes first.  (Ex): A soul-rage skald of 6th level or higher with 9 or more ranks in a Perform skill can use her Oratory or drums to awaken the inner anger in a number of allies equal to half her skjald level, the targets can then voluntary enter rage in their next round as a free action, if one of the target got rage as a class ability it is instead a Greater Rage for that target.

 (Ex): A soul-rage skald of 9th level or higher with 12 or more ranks in a Perform skill can use her Oratory or drums to inspire a number of allies equal to half her soul-rage skald level to enter a martial stance she have gained thru Martial Rage, for as long as the soul-rage skald maintain concentration.

 (Ex): A soul-rage skald of 11th level or higher with 14 or more ranks in a Perform skill can use her Oratory or drums to inspire bravery in her allies (including herself), bolstering them against fear. To be affected, an ally must be able to hear the soul-rage skald's war chant. The effect lasts for as long as the soul-rage skald maintain concentration, the ally hears the soul-rage skald's war chant and for 5 rounds thereafter. An affected ally gains immunity against fear effects.

 (Ex): A soul-rage skald of 14th level or higher with 17 or more ranks in a Perform skill can use her Oratory or drums to inspire all allies who can hear her with a martial maneuver she have gained thru Martial Rage, the maneuver is then availably to use for the allies one time each for as long as the soul-rage skald maintain concentration or until the maneuver is expendet what ever comes first.  (Ex): A soul-rage skald of 16th level or higher with 19 or more ranks in a Perform skill can use her Oratory or drums to awaken the inner anger in a all allies who can hear her, the targets can then voluntary enter rage in their next round as a free action, if one of the target got rage as a class ability it is instead a Greater Rage for that target.

 (Ex): A skjald of 19th level or higher with 22 or more ranks in a Perform skill can use her Oratory or drums to inspire a all allies who can hear her to enter a martial stance she have gained thru Martial Rage, for as long as the soul-rage skald maintain concentration.

 (Ex): A soul-rage skald can fly into a rage a certain number of times per day. In a rage, a soul-rage skald temporarily gains a +4 bonus to Strength, a +4 bonus to Constitution, and a +2 morale bonus on Will saves, but he takes a –2 penalty to Armor Class. The increase in Constitution increases the soul-rage skald’s hit points by 2 points per level, but these hit points go away at the end of the rage when his Constitution score drops back to normal. (These extra hit points are not lost first the way temporary hit points are.) While raging, a soul-rage skald cannot use any Charisma-, Dexterity-, or Intelligence-based skills (except for Balance, Escape Artist, Intimidate, and Ride), the Concentration skill, or any abilities that require patience or concentration, nor can he cast spells or activate magic items that require a command word, a spell trigger (such as a wand), or spell completion (such as a scroll) to function. She can use any feat he has except Combat Expertise, item creation feats, and metamagic feats. A fit of rage lasts for a number of rounds equal to 3 + the character’s (newly improved) Constitution modifier. A soul-rage skald may prematurely end hier rage. At the end of the rage, the soul-rage skald loses the rage modifiers and restrictions and becomes fatigued (–2 penalty to Strength, –2 penalty to Dexterity, can’t charge or run) for the duration of the current encounter).

A soul-rage skald can fly into a rage only once per encounter. At 2nd level she can use his rage ability once per day. At 7th level and every six levels thereafter, she can use it one additional time per day (to a maximum of four times per day at 17th level). Entering a rage takes no time itself, but a soul-rage skald can do it only during her action, not in response to someone else’s action.

 (Ex): at 3rd level, a soul-rage skald gains the ability to call upon the spirits memory of battles fought, this gives the soul-rage skald access to more maneuvers and stances when she rage, These are learned identically to normal maneuvers but can only be used under Rage, The disciplines available to you are Amaranth Eclipse and Eternal Glacier, the numbers in parentheses on Table: The Soul-Rage Skald shows your rage maneuver progression.

Rage Maneuvers Known: You gain one rage maneuver at 3rd level and each third level there after (6th, 9th, 12th and so on)

Rage Stances Known: You gain one rage stance at 4th level and each fift level there after (9th, 14th and 19th)

 (Ex): at 5th level, a soul-rage skald have learned to adjust her training to the tradtions of other regions, this allow her to use her class and/or class ability's as prequists for feats and PRC's for other classes, as stated below:

Skjald: Level in soul-rage skald can be used instead of levels of Bard

Lore: The class ability Lore can be used instead of Bardic Knowledge

War Chant: The class ability War Chant can be used instead of Bardic Music

 (Ex): At 8th level, a soul-rage skald gain the ability to use her War Chant while she is in rage.

 (Ex): At 10th level, a soul-rage skald gain resistance to cold 20.

 (Ex): At 13th level, a soul-rage skald’s bonuses to Strength and Constitution during his rage each increase to +6, and his morale bonus on Will saves increases to +3. The penalty to AC remains at –2.

 (Su): At 15th level, a soul-rage skald can call upon the spirits of her tribe and be heard even in magical silence or great storms, by expending a rage the soul-rage skald can be heard loud and clear by every creature withind 1 mile for a number of rounds equal to her soul-rage skald level.

 (Ex): At 18th level and higher, a soul-rage skald no longer becomes fatigued at the end of her rage.

 (Su): At 20th level, a soul-rage skald can when raging enter into the Heart of a soul-rage and call upon all the wrath of her ancestors, beside the normal effects from a rage the soul-rage skal also for the duration ot the rage, gains
 * Immunity to all Mind-Affecting Effect
 * Spell Resistance equal to twice her HD
 * The ability to ignore any type of damage reduction
 * The knowledge of all martial maneuvers and stances from Amaranth Eclipse, Eternal Glacier and the Army of One disciplines
 * All Known martial maneuvers readied
 * Damage reduction 10/-
 * And Fast Healing 10

Dwarf Soul-Rage Skald Starting Package
Weapons: <-Weapon selection for starting at 1st level with this class.->.

Skill Selection: Pick a number of skills equal to 4 + Int modifier.

Feat: Improved Initiative.

Gear: Scale mail, Heavy wooden Shield, Battleaxe and 3x Throwing Axe

Gold: 119

Soul-Rage Skald Lore
Characters with ranks in Knowledge (History) can research Soul-Rage Skald's to learn more about them. When a character makes a skill check, read or paraphrase the following, including information from lower DCs.