Partisan (3.5e NPC Class)

Partisan
Abilities: Strength is important to any melee class, followed by Constitution so they don't just die out there. Dexterity is important if they wear lighter armors. Wisdom will short up their poor will save, while Intelligence and Charisma are least important.

Races: Any.

Alignment: Any.

Starting Age: Moderate.

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the Partisan.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Partisans are proficient with all simple and martial weapons and with light and medium armor and shields (except tower shields).

Maneuvers: You begin your career with knowledge of one martial maneuvers. Select one discipline, this is the only discipline available to you.

Once you know a maneuver, you must ready it before you can use it (see Maneuvers Readied, below). A maneuver usable by partisans 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 1-3. 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 2nd level, and at every even-numbered partisan level after that (6th, 8th, 10th, 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 10th level, you could trade in a single 1st-, 2nd-, 3rd- or 4th-level maneuver for a maneuver of 5th 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.

Maneuvers Readied: You can ready the one the maneuver you know at 1st level, but as you advance in level and learn more maneuvers, 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.

Partisans prepare and refresh their maneuvers like SwordsagesToB. 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 (unless you recover them, as described below).

You can recover an expended maneuver by using a full-round action to quickly meditate. Doing this does not provoke attacks of opportunity. If you complete your meditation, you can choose one expended maneuver to refresh. It is now available for use in a subsequent round.

Stances Known: You begin play with knowledge of one 1st-level stance from any discipline open to partisans. At 5th and 10th 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.