Arachnomancer (4e Class)

Arachnomancer
"Dont be afraid of my little friends. They're not all that poisonous, really!"

Arachnomancers are the masters of spiderkind. Blessed by the spider queen, arachnomancers have power over the spiderkind, and exert their influence over them to call hordes of swarming spiders and to intoxicate their foes. The spider queen has blessed you and claimed you for her own, and now you seek to destroy her foes and claim greater mastery over spiderkind. You could be a powerful priestess of Lolth, punishing those too weak to be worthy followers, or a spider-lord of arachne, seeking to bring death to the false spider queen. Surrounded by swarms of your arachnid allies, arachane lore grants you power your foes never dreamed of. Caught up in a war over the mastery of spiderkind, which spider queen will you follow?

{| class="messagebox protected" align=center border=0 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=4 style="border:1px solid #000000; padding:0px; text-align: center; width: 100%;"
 * class="left" |
 * class="left" |

ARACHNOMANCER OVERVIEW
Characteristics: You specialize in swarming your foes in deadly spiders, entangling them in webbing and destroying them with the eye rays of a retriever. Your powers affect multiple foes at once, and often cause lasting effects and conditions.

Religion: Aracnomancers worship either Lolth or Arachne. Arachnomancers, like the vast majority of the followers of the spider queens, are caught up in a huge war over the mastery of spiderkind.

Races: Drow|Drow]] are commonly arachnomancers, possessing both the bond with spiderkind and the devotion to the spider queen required to become an arachnomancer. Driders are almost always arachnomancers. Other spydric races are often arachnomancers (though not as often as driders and drow), but arachnomancers among other races are rare.
 * }
 * }

Creating an Arachnomancer
The Swarmlord and the Deathlord are the two arachnomancer builds. Every arachnomancer relies on Ability Scores|Charisma]] for attack powers, and secondarily on Ability Scores|Dexterity]] and Ability Scores|Wisdom]].

Swarmlord
You specialize in abetting your foes with mass swarms of deadly spiders and the like. Ability Scores|Charisma]] is needed for your attack powers, so make it your best score. Ability Scores|Wisdom]] will maximise the effectiveness of your swarms if you choose the Poison Mastery class feature, while Ability Scores|Dexterity]] will increase your accuracy if you chose the Precision class feature. Select powers that have area effects such as swarm powers.


 * Suggested Feat|Feat]]: Toxic Death (Human feat: Human Perseverance|Human Perseverance]])
 * Suggested Skill checks|Skills]]: Arachania, Diplomacy skill|Diplomacy]], Insight skill|Insight]], Nature skill|Nature]].
 * Suggested at-will powers|At-Will Powers]]: Lesser Swarm, Spydric Tide
 * Suggested encounter powers|Encounter Power]]: Web
 * Suggested daily powers|Daily Power]]: Swarming Death

Deathlord
You specialize in the art of inflicting pain- to several foes at once! Bolts of arachane power from a rertriever's eye and summoned spiders- what's not to love? Ability Scores|Charisma]] is your most important ability score. Ability Scores|Dexterity]] can aid your accuracy if you choose the Precision class feature, while Ability Scores|Wisdom]] will increase your damage output if you choose the Poison Mastery class feature. Select powers that deal as much damage as possible.


 * Suggested Feat|Feat]]: Toxic Death (Human feat: Action Surge|Action Surge]])
 * Suggested Skill checks|Skills]]: Arachania, Diplomacy skill|Diplomacy]], Nature skill|Nature]], Religion skill|Religion]].
 * Suggested at-will powers|At-Will Powers]]: Retriever's Eye, Spydric Tide
 * Suggested encounter powers|Encounter Power]]: Horde of Spiders
 * Suggested daily powers|Daily Power]]: Spydric Infestation

Implements
Arachnomancers make use of Orb|Orbs]], Rod|Rods]], Staff|Staffs]], Wand|Wands]] and Holy Symbol|Holy Symbols]] (although they can only use holy symbols of Lolth or Arachne). Without implements, arachnomancers can still use their powers.

Arachnomancer Class Features
All arachnomancers share these class features.

Arachnomancer Tactics
Arachnomancers specialize in a wide variety of tactics drawn from spiderkind. Choose one of the following options. Poison Mastery: Your attacks have the venom of the most poisonous spiders. Twice per encounter, as a free action, when you use an arachnomancer atack power or an attack power from your paragon path, you can deal extra damage against a single target equal to your Ability scores|Intelligence]] modifier. The extra damage is poison damage, regardless of the damage type of the attack. Precision: You attack with the precision of a spider. Once per encounter you gain a bonus equal to your Ability scores|Dexterity]] modifier to a single attack roll.

Ritual Casting
You gain the Ritual Caster|Ritual Caster]] feat as a bonus feat (you treat your arachania skill training as skill training in the Arcana skill|arcana skill]] for the purposes prerequisites for this feat), allowing you to use ritual|rituals]] (although the power for these rituals come from the arachania rather than magic). You possesss a ritual books and scrolls|ritual book]] containing two 1st-level rituals of your choice that you have mastered. At 5th level, and again at 11th, 15th 21st and 25th level, you master two more rituals of your choice and add them to your ritual book. Any ritual you add must be of your level or lower.

Lesser Weaves
You can use the Cloud of Darkness and Unseen powers as encounter power|encounter powers]], and the Light, Telekinesis and Charm powers as at-will power|at-will powers]].

Spider Empathy
You can speak the spydric language|language]] and can pinpoint the location of any spiderkind creature within 6 squares. Spiderkind creatures can understand anything spoken to them in spydric (regardless of Ability score|Intelligence]] score) and can speak spydric themselves.

Arachnomancer Powers
Arachnomancer powers are called weaves. Your power comes from the arachania&mdash; the web of power from which all spiderkind are spawned.