Death Knight base class
The death knight is an undead or necromantic martial champion.
Abilities: As a frontline combatant, Strength and Constitution are very important to a death knight. As a death knight grows in power, she learns to necromantically channel her forceful Charisma into enhanced fighting prowess.
Alignment: Any non-good
Starting Gold: 6d4x10 (150 gp)
Starting Age: As fighter.
Hit Die: d12
Table: The Death Knight
Level | Base Attack Bonus | Fort Save | Ref Save | Will Save |
Special | Maneuvers Known | Maneuvers Readied | Stances Known |
1 | +1 | +0 | +0 | +2 | Dark Fortitude (Fort saves), Deadly Touch (Cha mod) | 3 | 3 | 1 |
2 | +2 | +0 | +0 | +3 | Toughened Flesh (+1 natural armor) | 4 | 3 | 1 |
3 | +3 | +1 | +1 | +3 | Dark Reactions (initiative) | 5 | 3 | 1 |
4 | +4 | +1 | +1 | +4 | Toughened Flesh (25% fortification) | 5 | 4 | 2 |
5 | +5 | +1 | +1 | +4 | Death's Steed, Toughened Flesh (+2 natural armor) | 6 | 4 | 2 |
6 | +6/+1 | +2 | +2 | +5 | -- | 6 | 4 | 2 |
7 | +7/+2 | +2 | +2 | +5 | Dark Focus (skills) | 7 | 4 | 2 |
8 | +8/+3 | +2 | +2 | +6 | Fear Aura 2/day | 7 | 4 | 2 |
9 | +9/+4 | +3 | +3 | +6 | Toughened Flesh (+3 natural armor) | 8 | 4 | 2 |
10 | +10/+5 | +3 | +3 | +7 | -- | 8 | 5 | 3 |
11 | +11/+6/+1 | +3 | +3 | +7 | Toughened Flesh (50% fortification) | 9 | 5 | 3 |
12 | +12/+7/+2 | +4 | +4 | +8 | Deadly Touch (1d8+Cha mod, 1 Con damage), Fear Aura 3/day | 9 | 5 | 3 |
13 | +13/+8/+3 | +4 | +4 | +8 | Dark Might (critical confirmation) | 10 | 5 | 3 |
14 | +14/+9/+4 | +4 | +4 | +9 | Toughened Flesh (+4 natural armor) | 10 | 5 | 3 |
15 | +15/+10/+5 | +5 | +5 | +9 | -- | 11 | 6 | 3 |
16 | +16/+11/+6/+1 | +5 | +5 | +10 | Fear Aura 4/day | 11 | 6 | 4 |
17 | +17/+12/+7/+2 | +5 | +5 | +10 | -- | 12 | 6 | 4 |
18 | +18/+13/+8/+3 | +6 | +6 | +11 | Toughened Flesh (75% fortification) | 12 | 6 | 4 |
19 | +19/+14/+9/+4 | +6 | +6 | +11 | -- | 13 | 6 | 4 |
20 | +20/+15/+10/+5 | +6 | +6 | +12 | Death Knight, Fear Aura 5/day, Toughened Flesh (+5 natural armor), Turn Immunity, Unholy Toughness | 13 | 7 | 4 |
Class skills (4 + Int modifier per level): Balance, Bluff, Climb, Concentration, Craft, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge (history), Knowledge (nobility and royalty), Knowledge (religion), Martial Lore, Profession, Ride, Sense Motive, Survival, and Swim.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: As a death knight, you are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, with light, medium, and heavy armor, and with shields (other than tower shields).
Maneuvers: You begin your career with knowledge of three martial maneuvers. The disciplines available to you are Devoted Spirit, Frozen Night, Restless Bones, and Undying Call.
Once you know a maneuver, you must ready it before you can use it (see Maneuvers Readied, below). A maneuver usable by a death knight 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 the table above. You must meet a maneuver's prerequisite to learn it. See Table 3-1 (TOB 39), to determine the highest-level maneuvers you can learn.
Upon reaching 4th level, and at every even-numbered death knight 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 all three of the maneuvers you know at 1st level, and as you advance in level and learn more maneuvers, you are able to ready more, but you must choose which maneuvers to ready. You ready your maneuvers by practicing and 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 can recover all expended maneuvers with a single swift action, which must be immediately followed in the same round with the use of your Deadly Touch ability without a strike or using a standard action to do nothing else in the round (such as executing a quick, harmless flourish with your weapon). 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: You begin play with knowledge of one stance from any discipline open to death knights. At 4th, 10th, 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.
Dark Fortitude (Su): As your power grows and you slowly begin to pass beyond frail flesh and into something more, your dark will fortifies your physical being. You add your Charisma bonus (minimum +0) as an enhancement bonus on all Fortitude saves. This bonus cannot exceed your death knight level.
Deadly Touch (Su): Your mastery over the powers of death and unlife allow you to channel destructive energies into your foes. Once per round as a standard action, you can make a melee touch attack to deal an amount of damage equal to your Charisma bonus, minimum 1. This damage results from negative energy and counts as a Necromancy effect. You can combine this touch attack with martial strikes that allow you to make a single melee attack and have an initiation action of at least 1 standard action, although not with other attack options, such as attacks of opportunity, a full attack, or maneuvers that grant multiple attacks.
Beginning at 12th level, your powers improve. The damage from your touch attack increases to 1d8 + your Charisma bonus (minimum +0), and any living creature struck by it must also make a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 your death knight level + your Charisma modifier) or take 1 point of Constitution damage. Creatures immune to or healed by negative energy are not at risk of this Constitution damage.
Toughened Flesh (Ex): As your dark transformation begins, your flesh begins to harden. Beginning at 2nd level, you gain a +1 natural armor bonus to your Armor Class, or your existing natural armor bonus increases by +1. This improves to +2 at 5th level, +3 at 9th level, +4 at 14th level, and +5 at 20th level.
Additionally, your descent into undeath reduces your reliance on your frail body. Starting at 4th level, you gain a 25% chance to ignore the extra damage of a critical hit or precision damage attack (such as Sneak Attack). This increases to 50% at 11th level and to 75% at 18th level.
Dark Reactions (Su): Beginning at 3rd level, you add your Charisma bonus (minimum +0) as an enhancement bonus on initiative checks.
Death's Steed (Sp): Upon reaching 5th level, you gain the service of an unusually intelligent, strong, and loyal steed to serve you.
Once per day, as a full-round action, you may magically call your mount from the abyssal or infernal realms in which it resides. This ability is the equivalent of a spell of a level equal to one-third your level. The mount immediately appears adjacent to you and remains for 2 hours per death knight level; it may be dismissed at any time as a free action. The mount is the same creature each time it is called, though you may release a particular mount from service.
Each time the mount is called, it appears in full health, regardless of any damage it may have taken previously. The mount also appears wearing or carrying any gear it had when it was last dismissed. Calling a mount is a conjuration (calling) effect.
Should your mount die or be destroyed, it immediately disappears, leaving behind any equipment it was carrying. You may not summon another mount for one week or until you gain you level, whichever comes first, even if the mount is somehow returned from the dead or restored to undeath.
Dark Focus (Su): Beginning at 7th level, you add your Charisma bonus (minimum +0) as an enhancement bonus on all Constitution checks, Constitution-based skill checks, and on checks with the skills of any discipline from which you know any maneuvers or stances.
Fear Aura (Su): Your power frightens lesser foes. Beginning at 8th level, you can emit an aura of fear once per round as a free action. Creatures within 15 feet with less than 2 HD must make a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 your death knight level + your Charisma modifier) or be panicked for 1 round per level. Twice per day, you can intensify this aura to also cause creatures with any amount of hit dice to be frightened for the same duration on a failed saving throw. For every 4 death knight levels beyond 8th, you can panic creatures with 1 more HD and you can intensify the aura 1 additional time per day. This is a mind-affecting fear effect.
Dark Might (Su): Beginning at 13th level, you add your Charisma bonus (minimum +0) as an competence bonus on critical confirmation rolls.
Death Knight: At 20th level, your transformation into undeath is complete. You become a true undead creature. You gain the traits of your new type, but do not recalculate your existing racial hit dice.
- Your type changes to undead, and you gain the augmented subtype for your previous type.
- You lose your Constitution score. However, your fortitude in life leads to power in undeath. Calculate your Constitution score, considering only your base score (including increases due to level) and racial modifiers (including those from templates). For every 6 points of your Constitution score, your Strength score increases by +2. For every 6 points of Constitution beyond 2, your Charisma score increases by +2. For every 6 points of Constitution beyond 4, your Wisdom score increases by +2. Treat these increases to your other ability scores the same as increases to an ability score from hit dice or level. For example, if you had a Constitution score of 12 in life before applying the effects of your magical equipment and spells, you would increase your Strength score by +4, and your Wisdom and Charisma scores by +2.
- You gain darkvision out to 60 feet, if you did not already have it.
- You gain immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).
- You gain immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, and death effects.
- You are not subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability drain, or energy drain.
- You are immune to damage to your physical ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution), as well as to fatigue and exhaustion effects.
- You cannot heal damage on your own if you have no Intelligence score, although you can be healed. Negative energy (such as an inflict spell or your deadly touch ability) can heal you. The fast healing special quality works regardless of your Intelligence score.
- You gain immunity to any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless).
- You use your Charisma modifier for Concentration checks. This stacks with the enhancement bonus from Dark Focus.
- You are not at risk of death from massive damage, but when reduced to 0 hit points or less, you are immediately destroyed.
- You are not affected by raise dead and reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect undead creatures. However, unlike other undead, these spells revive you in your undead state.
- You do not breathe, eat, or sleep.
Additionally, in passing beyond life, you gain DR 15/magic. The dark power that now sustains your essence cannot be disrupted by mere sticks and stones.
Turn Immunity (Ex): Starting at 20th level, you can never be turned or rebuked.
Unholy Toughness (Ex): Beginning at 20th level, you gain extra hit points, as though from a high Constitution score, equal to your Charisma bonus (minimum +0) times your character level.
Ex-Death Knights: If you become good-aligned, you cannot advance further as a death knight and you lose access to your death's steed and fear aura abilities until such time as you become non-good again. Your current special mount from death's steed, if any, abandons you. You can call a new one only after one week or after you gain a level, as though your mount died or was destroyed.
The Death Knight's SteedThe death knight's steed is superior to a normal mount of its kind and has special powers, as described below. The available mounts are described below.
A death knight's steed that is normally an animal changes its type to magical beast. Hit Dice become d10, base attack bonus improves to that of a fighter, and the mount gains darkvision to a range of 60 feet, but saves and skill points are the same for both animals and magical beasts. An animal trained for war retains its armor proficiency. Mounts of other types (that is, those that are not animals) retain their normal type.
Table: The Death Knight's SteedDeath Knight Level | Bonus HD | Natural Armor Adj. | Str Adj. | Int | Special |
Up to 7th | +2 | +2 | +1 | 6 | Empathic Link, Evasion, Mount's Turn Immunity, Share Counters, Share Spells, Share Saving Throws |
8th-10th | +4 | +4 | +2 | 7 | Improved Speed |
11th-13th | +6 | +6 | +3 | 8 | Blood Bond |
14th-16th | +8 | +8 | +4 | 9 | Multiattack |
17th-19th | +10 | +10 | +5 | 10 | Improved Evasion |
20th and above | +12 | +12 | +6 | 11 | Share Stance |
Death Knight's Steed BasicsUse the base statistics for a creature of the mount’s kind, but make changes to take into account the attributes and characteristics summarized on the table and described below.
Bonus HD: Extra Hit Dice, each of which gains a Constitution modifier, as normal. Extra Hit Dice improve the mount’s base attack and base save bonuses. The mount gains all other benefits for bonus HD as normal for advancing a monster’s Hit Dice other than size increases.
Natural Armor Adj.: The number on the table is an improvement to the mount’s existing natural armor bonus.
Str Adj.: Add this figure to the mount’s Strength score.
Int: The mount’s Intelligence score. Use this figure or the mount's normal Intelligence score, whichever is higher. This does not apply to mindless mounts, which remain mindless.
Empathic Link (Su): The death knight has an empathic link with her mount out to a distance of up to 1 mile. The death knight cannot see through the mount’s eyes, but they can communicate empathically.
Note that even intelligent mounts see the world differently from humans, so misunderstandings are always possible.
Because of this empathic link, the death knight has the same connection to an item or place that her mount does, just as with a master and his familiar.
Evasion (Ex): When subjected to an attack that normally allows a Reflex saving throw for half damage, a mount takes no damage if it makes a successful saving throw.
Mount's Turn Immunity (Ex): While the death knight rides it, the mount cannot be turned or rebuked.
Share Counters: At the death knight’s option, she may have any counter she initiates on herself also affect her mount.
The mount must be within 5 feet at the time of initiation to receive the benefit. If the counter has a duration other than instantaneous, it stops affecting the mount if it moves farther than 5 feet away and will not affect the mount again even if it returns to the death knight before the duration expires. Additionally, the death knight may initiate a counter with a target of "You" on her mount (as a touch range maneuver) instead of on herself. A death knight and her mount can share counters even if the counters normally do not affect creatures of the mount’s type.
Share Spells: At the death knight’s option, she may have any spell (but not any spell-like ability) she casts on herself also affect her mount.
The mount must be within 5 feet at the time of casting to receive the benefit. If the spell or effect has a duration other than instantaneous, it stops affecting the mount if it moves farther than 5 feet away and will not affect the mount again even if it returns to the death knight before the duration expires. Additionally, the death knight may cast a spell with a target of "You" on her mount (as a touch range spell) instead of on herself. A death knight and her mount can share spells even if the spells normally do not affect creatures of the mount’s type.
Share Saving Throws: For each of its saving throws, the mount uses its own base save bonus or the death knight’s, whichever is higher. The mount applies its own ability modifiers to saves, and it doesn’t share any other bonuses on saves that the master might have.
Improved Speed (Ex): The mount’s speed increases by 10 feet once the death knight reaches 8th level.
Blood Bond (Ex): The mount of an 11th-level death knight gains a +2 bonus on all attack rolls, checks, and saves if it witnesses its master being threatened or harmed. This bonus lasts as long as the threat is immediate and apparent.
Multiattack (Ex): The mount of a 14th-level death knight gains a second attack with its primary natural weapon, albeit as a secondary natural weapon. It also gains Multiattack as a bonus feat (even if it does not qualify for it). If the mount has the single actions only special quality (such as a zombie mount), it can make two attacks with its primary natural weapon, once as a primary natural weapon and once as a secondary natural weapon, as a standard action.
Improved Evasion (Ex): When subjected to an attack that normally allows a Reflex saving throw for half damage, the mount of a 17th-level death knight takes no damage if it makes a successful saving throw and half damage if the saving throw fails.
Share Stance: Once the death knight reaches 20th level, at her option she may have any stance she enters also affect her mount.
The mount must be within 5 feet to receive the benefit. The stance stops affecting the mount if it moves farther than 5 feet away, although it will affect the mount again if it returns to the death knight while she is still in the stance. A death knight and her mount can share stances even if the stances normally do not affect creatures of the mount’s type. While sharing a stance, any effects that would cause the stance to end for the mount also causes it to end for the death knight, and vice-versa.
Alternative Special MountsA death knight of sufficiently high level can select her special mount from one of the following lists, applying the indicated adjustment to the death knight's level (in parentheses) for purposes of determining the mount's characteristics and special abilities.
5th Level or Higher (Normal Level)- Skeleton heavy warhorse
- Skeleton large shark1
- Skeleton riding dog
- Skeleton warpony
8th Level or Higher (Level -3)- Hell hound2
- Skeleton dire wolf
- Skeleton large monstrous spider
- Zombie dire bat
- Zombie giant eagle
- Zombie giant owl
- Zombie sea cat1
11th Level or Higher (Level -6)- Dark unicorn3
- Hellcat (Bezekira)2
- Nightmare (cannot use astral projection or etherealness)
- Skeleton dire lion
- Skeleton rhinoceros
- Yeth hound (you are unaffected by your mount's bay ability)
- Zombie griffon
- Zombie wyvern
14th Level or Higher (Level -9)- Nessian warhound2 (+2 chain shirt barding not included)
- Skeleton advanced megaraptor (12 HD)
17th Level or Higher (Level -12)- Skeleton young adult red dragon
20th Level or Higher (Level -15)1 Available only in an aquatic environment.
2 Available to non-chaotic death knights only.
3 Available to non-lawful death knights only.
Change Log
26/6/2017: Adjusted formatting of class and ability name capitalization.
21/6/2017: Reposted to Min Max Forum.
26/6/2016: Removed the fiendish unicorn from the 8th-level mount list. Added the dark unicorn to the 11th-level mount list.
14/5/2016: Added starting gold and age.
28/2/2016: Changed dark blessing (hit points) to unholy toughness (same effect except Ex instead of Su) to match the similar ability used in MM3 by many undead creatures and to avoid using the same name as the blackguard ability with a completely different effect.
24/2/2016: Adjusted fear aura and revised the wording. Added a section on ex-death knights. Mount cannot be turned/rebuked while ridden. Mount's multiattack lets zombies attack twice. Adjusted the alternative mount list (yeth hound 8th -> 11th; nightmare w/o SLAs @ 11th; zombie griffon 14th -> 11th, zombie wyvern 14th -> 11th; skeleton young adult red dragon @ 17th; nightmare, cauchemar @ 20th).
27/7/2014: First posted.