Batal

**Parent Class:** Rajah

Some choose to lead by giving their all to others, so that they will have the strength to move forward themselves. Others choose to turn their strength inward, using it to push back the wilderness and darkness that would threaten their people. These few, clad in akasha and steel, are known as the Batal.

### **Skills & Proficiencies**

The batal gains proficiency in medium armor and heavy armor, and proficiency in a single exotic weapon of her choice that does not have any additional requirements to wield or to wield without penalty. The batal also receives two fewer skill points per level.

This alters the rajah’s skills and profiiencies.

### **Batal Crossroads**

At 1st level, the batal chooses one of the following benefits. Once this choice is made, it cannot later be changed.

* *Sword of the Sky Sovereign:* The batal gains the Sunrise, High Noon, or Sunset feat as a bonus feat at 1st level, even if she does not meet the feat requirements. At second level, whenever the batal initiates a boost, she gains one temporary essence, plus an additional essence at 6th level and every 6 levels thereafter for 1 round that she may immediately invest into any of her containers, respecting essence limits. She may invest this essence into the boost she just used, gaining the benefits as if she initiated the boost with that amount of essence invested into it.
* *Sword of the Sun King:* The batal gains a bonus combat or akashic feat at 1st level. At second level, when the batal initiates a strike that includes an attack, she can create a 30-foot line or 15-foot cone of light and fire through the target. Opponents within the affected area must succeed at a Reflex save or take 1d6 points of damage per even-numbered class level. The DC of this save is equal to 10 + 1/2 the batal’s class level + her initiation modifier. This damage comes from an akashic pulse of power, and as such is not reduced by damage reduction, hardness, resistances, or immunities. The target of the initial attack does not take this damage, even if they are within the area.
* *Sword of the Moon Queen:* While wearing medium or heavy armor, the batal does not incur movement speed penalties from her armor. At second level, whenever the batal initiates a counter, she gains a +2 bonus to her armor class and +1 bonus on all of her saves until the start of her next turn. The bonus to her armor class increases by 2 at 6th level and every 6 levels thereafter, and the bonus on her saves increases by 1 at 6th level and every 6 levels thereafter.

Additionally each batal level, the batal gains 2 additional hit points. If she chose batal as her very first character level, she instead gains 4 additional hit points for that level.

This ability alters the crossroads class feature.

### **Maneuvers Readied**

In order for the batal to recover maneuvers, she must tap into her akashic power by using her batal’s mandate class feature. When she does, she recovers a number of expended maneuvers equal to her rajah initiation modifier (minimum 2). Alternately, the rajah may concentrate on the akasha that flows through her and recover a single maneuver as a standard action.

This otherwise functions as the rajah’s Maneuvers readied class feature.

### **Veilweaving**

The batal can shape one fewer veil than normal. When shaping a veil, the batal may choose to remove the title descriptor from that veil, shaping the veil onto themselves as normal.

This ability alters veilweaving.

### **Batal’s Mandate (Su)**

As a full round action, the batal may create a flame of raw akasha to strike her enemies with. Treat this as a close range (25 feet + 5 feet per 2 batal levels) range touch attack that deals 1d6 points of damage for each maneuver you have expended (to a maximum number of dice equal to your batal level), plus your initiation modifier. This damage increases by one die step at 5th level and every 5 levels thereafter. You may use your initiation modifier in place of your dexterity modifier when making this ranged touch attack. This range touch attack does not provoke attacks of opportunity, and its damage comes from an akashic pulse of power, and as such is not reduced by damage reduction, hardness, resistances, or immunities.

When the batal deal damage with this attack, they may grant an ally (to include themselves) within close range temporary hit points equal to the damage dealt. These temporary hit points lasts for 1 minute or until used, and stack with other temporary hit points granted by the batal.

The summoning of this power becomes quicker as you gain momentum from the flow of battle. By default, Batal’s mandate is a full round action, but this time decreases by one step for every two batal maneuvers the batal has initiated since they rolled initiative, or since they last used this ability, whichever was most recent. Steps progress in the following order: full round action, standard action, move action, swift action, and free action. Maneuvers expended for the sake of other abilities (such as the Riven Hourglass Eternity feat) do not count towards reducing the action cost of this class feature.

Finally, when the batal uses this ability, she may reallocate her essence.

This replaces Royal Mandate.

### **Medals of War**

The batal gains a bonus on attack rolls and CMD equal to one-half her veilweaving level (rounding up). If the batal already gains a bonus to attack based off their veilweaver level, or substitutes their veilweaver level for their base attack bonus (such as the *Hand Cannon* or *Loyal Paladin’s Spear of Light* veils*.*), the batal only takes the highest value. In addition, a batal may use her rajah level in place of her base attack bonus for the purposes of meeting requirements and prerequisites.

This ability replaces vassalage.

### **Chakra Binds (Su)**

At 4th level, a batal’s mastery over akasha enables her to bind her veils for greater effects. She may bind veils to the Belt, Body, Chest, Feet, Hands, Head, Headband, Neck, Shoulders, and Wrists slots, but may only bind veils native to her list. She many not bind veils gained through feats, items, other classes or any alternative means with this class feature -- She must find a different way to bind these veils. Similarly to the rajah, she is limited to the number of veils she may bind, as noted by Table 1-1: Rajah.

This ability replaces Empowered Titles.

Every table is different when it comes to rules. Known as ‘House rules’, these changes from the core system range from small (using the maximum hit dice amount when determining hit points) to large (playing two classes at once). This sidebar is for clarification for tables that use more esoteric rules.
When determining the base attack bonus of a Batal, (Such as when determining gestalt) treat it as a full-BaB class, with the exception that the batal only gets a single iterative attack at 12th level. Similarly, when determining the hit dice size of a Batal, treat it as d10 instead of a d6. When modifying the Batal’s hit dice, don’t add in its bonus hit points -- These are supposed to keep the batal near a d10 hit dice, not push it over!