Brave

Brave

A new base class for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game

The brave is a spiritual warrior whose connection to his family and traditions are as powerful as any weapon. An iconic part of the wild west, these noble warriors live off the land and in harmony with nature. Strongly reminiscent of the Native American warriors, the braves were some of the first adopters of guerrilla warfare tactics. They used relatively simplistic weapons to great effect against a more technologically advanced adversary.

In a traditional fantasy game, the brave can represent a warrior who is in tune with nature. He is akin to the “noble savage” literary stock character or the “man out of time” who uses anachronistic weapons to defeat an enemy with a technological advantage.

Role:

A brave is a guerrilla warrior who is better at striking than being struck. He is an explosive combatant with the capacity to put out a lot of damage, but he will die quickly if his health is not monitored. His medicine man ability can provide some much needed battlefield healing for the brave, but it requires him to be engaged in combat in order to gain the coup points needed to do so.

Ability Scores:

A brave prioritizes physical ability scores over mental ones but he should never have a poor Wisdom score. Wisdom augments many of the class features. In addition, Constitution provides much needed survivability and Strength provides a power base for his devastating attacks. Lastly, Dexterity allows the brave to utilize ranged weapons.

Alignment: Any.

Good and neutrally aligned braves are standard. Evil aligned braves do exist but mostly as those possessed by the spirit of war or lost on the path of violence. Regardless of their alignment, a brave holds his family or clan in high esteem.

Hit Die: d10.

Starting Wealth: 3d6 × 10 gp (average 105 gp). In addition, each character begins play with an outfit worth 10 gp or less.

Skill List:

The brave’s class skills are Acrobatics (Dex), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (geology) (Int), Knowledge (history) (Int), Knowledge (local) (Int), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Linguistics (Int), Perception (Wis), Ride (Dex), Stealth (Dex), Survival (Dex), and Swim (Str)

Skill Points 4 + Int

Class Features:

All of the following are class features of the brave.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency

Braves are proficient with all simple weapons, native weapons (See “brave weapon training”), and with light armor and bucklers.

Counting Coup

The term “counting coup” refers to winning battlefield prestige and honor. The more daring the act, the more prestige he wins. Acts such as touching an opponent without injuring them show that they could have killed an opponent but, instead, chose to do it for the coup.

A brave can earn 1 coup point by doing any of the following things:

Successfully hitting an opponent with a melee attack (1)

Rolling the highest initiative in an encounter (2)

Successfully saving against a fear effect (1)

Disarming an opponent (1)

Mounting an enemy’s mount (3)

Touching an unaware opponent with a coup stick\* (3) or their hand (2) and dealing no damage.

Surviving a fight with no damage on you (5). (Note: The fight must post an adequate challenge. This generally means an encounter with a CR at least equal to the brave’s level)

* A coup stick is a ceremonial stick decorated with tribal symbols and icons. A coup stick is a club with the fragile property that costs 3 gp.

A coup point lasts for 4 rounds since the last coup point was gained and is wasted if not used. Coup points can only be gained during a combat situation. Expending a coup point is a swift action.

Exploits

A brave can expend points he gained by engaging in counting coup. Expending a coup point on a war exploit is a swift action. The following is a list of the exploits a brave can expend points he won counting coup on:

* Gain a +2 sacred bonus\* on attack rolls for rounds equal to his Wisdom modifier (minimum 1). (1)
* Gain a +2 sacred bonus\* on damage rolls for rounds equal to his Wisdom modifier (minimum 1). (1)
* Gain a +4 on critical confirmation rolls for rounds equal to his Wisdom modifier (minimum 1). (1)
* Gain a +4 bonus on a Knowledge check for round equal to his Wisdom modifier (minimum 1). (1)

* If a brave is evil this is instead a profane bonus.

The following exploits can be learned at 4th level or after:

* Gain darkvision (30 ft) for rounds equal to his Wisdom modifier (minimum 1). (2)
* Gain a bonus to Stealth checks equal to his Wisdom modifier for 3 rounds. (2)
* Gain the ability to re-roll one dice within the next 3 rounds. He must keep the new result. (2)

The following exploits can be learned at 10th level or after:

* Gain +20 ft move speed for rounds equal to his Wisdom modifier (minimum 1). (3)
* Gain an additional attack of opportunity per round for rounds equal to his Wisdom modifier (minimum 1). (3)
* Gain a +4 bonus on all saves. (3)

At 1st level a brave may select 3 of these exploits. At 4th level and every three levels thereafter he may select 1 new exploit from this list that he may know.

Medicine Man (Sp)

At 1st level a brave can expend coup points to cast any of the following spells as a spell-like ability using his brave level as his caster level.

* 1st Level: Cure light wounds (2), purify food and drink (2), calm animals (2), charm animal (2), diagnose disease (2), goodberry (2), speak with animals (2)
* 3rd Level: Restoration lesser (3)
* 5th Level: Cure moderate wounds (4), communal delay poison (5), dominate animal (4)
* 7th Level: Absorb toxicity (5), cure serious wounds (5)
* 9th Level: Atonement (7), cure critical wounds (6), death ward (6)
* 11th Level: Mass cure light wounds (8)
* 13th Level: Heal (9)
* 15th Level: Mass cure serious wounds (10)
* 17th Level: Mass cure critical wounds (12), regenerate (15)

In addition, a brave gains a number of bonus coup points he can expend to cast these spells per day. The number is equal to 1/2 brave level (min 1) + Wis mod. These spells can only be used to cast spells with the medicine man class feature.

Fearless (Su):

As long as the brave has 1 coup point, he may roll a Will save against fear twice and take the better result.

Track

At 2nd level, a brave gains the track class feature as described in the class entry of the ranger.

Uncanny Dodge (Ex)

At 2nd level, a brave gains the uncanny dodge as described in the class entry of the barbarian.

Trackless Step (Ex)

At 3rd level, a brave gains the trackless step as described in the class entry of the druid.

Shock & Awe (Ex)

The first time a brave of at least 4th level attacks an opponent in a combat, he may make an Intimidate check to demoralize the target as part of the attack action. If the brave successfully demoralizes an enemy, then he may add the total ranks (not bonus) he has in Intimidate to damage on that attack. Also, if the attack results in a critical hit it gets a +4 bonus on all confirmation rolls. A creature who is subject to a successful Intimidate check via the shock & awe class feature cannot be targeted with it by the same brave a second time until 24 hours have past.

Brave Weapon Training (Ex)

Starting at 5th level, a brave gains a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls with the following weapon group:

Native Weapons: knife, gunstock club, long bow, long spear, riding club, sap, short bow, short spear, tomahawk

Every four levels thereafter (9th, 13th, and 17th) he gains a further +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls when using a weapon from this group.

In addition, at 5th level he may use any of these weapons while mounted at a reduced penalty. The penalty when he is mounted is reduced by 2 and by 2 more every four levels thereafter  (9th, 13th, and 17th) .

Improved Uncanny Dodge (Ex)

At 6th level, a brave gains the improved uncanny dodge as described in the class entry of the barbarian.

Wisdom of the Tribe (Ex)

At 7th level, a brave may use his Wisdom modifier in place of his Intelligence modifier for the purpose of determining his bonus on Knowledge checks.

Wild Empathy (Ex):

At 8th level, a brave gains the wild empathy class feature as described in the class entry of the druid.

Raider (Ex):

A brave of 10th level or higher can use the Stealth skill even while being observed as long as he has at least 1 coup point. He may only do this a number of times per day equal to twice his Wisdom modifier.

Stalking Hunter (Ex):

Rather than taking a –20 penalty on Stealth checks to maintain being obscured while sniping, a brave of 11th level takes a -10 penalty to Stealth if the attack is made with a weapon on the brave weapon’s training list (native weapons). At 17th level, instead, the brave takes no penalty.

Live off the Land (Ex):

At 12th level, a brave can take 10 on any Survival check even in situations that would not allow him to do so. The brave always counts as if he is traveling via roads for the purposes of overland travel when traveling in the wilderness.

At 16th level, a brave can automatically take 20 on a Survival check once per day. Meanwhile, at 18th, he can take 20 twice per day.

Improved Raider (Ex):

At 14th level, a the brave does not need a coup point to use the raider class feature.

War Chief (Su):

At 20th level a brave becomes a war chief. He automatically gains 1 coup point at the start of each of his turns.

## Section 15 OGL Copyright Declaration:

• Open Game License v 1.0a Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

• System Reference Document. Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors

Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, based on material by E. Gary Gygax and

Dave Arneson.

• Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. Copyright 2009, Paizo Inc.; Author: Jason Bulmahn,

based on material by Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, and Skip Williams.

• The Book of Experimental Might. Copyright 2008, Monte J. Cook. All rights reserved.

• Tome of Horrors. Copyright 2002, Necromancer Games, Inc.; Authors: Scott Greene,

with Clark Peterson, Erica Balsley, Kevin Baase, Casey Christofferson, Lance Hawvermale,

Travis Hawvermale, Patrick Lawinger, and Bill Webb; Based on original content

from TSR.

• Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Advanced Player’s Guide. © 2010, Paizo Publishing, LLC;

Author: Jason Bulmahn

• Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Ultimate Combat. © 2011, Paizo Publishing, LLC;

Authors: Dennis Baker, Jesse Benner, Benjamin Bruck, Jason Bulmahn, Brian J. Cortijo,

Jim Groves, Tim Hitchcock, Richard A. Hunt, Colin McComb, Jason Nelson, Tom Phillips,

Patrick Renie, Sean K Reynolds, and Russ Taylor.

• Tome of Leaf and Thorn. © 2013, Little red Goblin Games 2013, Authors: Scott Gladstein,

Jeremiah Zerby, Caleb Aylsworth, Deanna Roberds

• Heroes of the West, Copyright 2014, Little Red Goblin Games LLC, Authors: Scott

Gladstein, Dayton Johnson, and Jeremiah Zerby