Arcane Devotee

Every major faith numbers sorcerers and wizards amoung its fervent followers. While some wizards ally themselves with churches close to their own belief's out of caution and convenience others are devout representatives of their faith and willingly subordinate their own causes to those of their patron deity, becoming arcane devotees.

Arcane devotees compliment the divine magic of a church's clerical leaders and are amoung the most important and respected members of a deity's following. They provide much of the magical firepower of their faith and collaborate with the church's clerics in the creation of magic items requiring moth arcane and divine spells. Arcane devotees provide support for the church's armies in time of war, divine the intentions of the enemies of the faith, and often take the front line to decimate enemy troops or destroy spellcasters of rival faiths.

Naturally, arcane devotees are always arcane spellcasters. Sorcerers and wizards are the most common type, but some music-oriented deities tend to have more bard devotees, and a rare few of the more evil deities have been known to have assassin devotees that focus on cruel and terrible forms of death magic.

Hit Die: d4

Requirements: To qualify to become an arcane devotee of a particular deity, a character must fulfill all the following criteria. Spellcastin: Ability to cast 4th-level spells. Skills: Knowledge/Religion 8 ranks, Spellcraft 8 ranks. Feats: Enlarge Spell Patron: An arcane devotee must have a patron deity, and it must be the deity of which she is a devotee. Class Skills: The arcane devotee's class skills (and key ability for each skill) are Alchemy (Int), Concentration (Con), Craft (int), Knowledge (all skills taken individually) (Int), Profession (Wis), Scry (Int), and Spellcraft (Int). Skill points at Each Level: 2 +Int Modifier

Class Features: All the following are class features of the arcane devotee prestige class. Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Arcane devotees gain no proficiency in any weapon or arm. Spells per Day: An arcane devotee's training focuses on arcane spells. Thus, when a new arcane devotee level is grained, the character gains new spells per day as if he had also gained a level in whatever arcane spellcasting class he belonged to before he added the prestige class. He does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained (bonus metamagic or item creation feats, bard or assassin abilities, and so on). This essentially means that he adds the level of arcane devotee to the level of whatever other arcane spellcasting class the character has, then determines spells per day and caster level accordingly.

If a character had more than one arcane spellcasting class before he became an arcane devotee, he must decide to which class he adds each level of arcane devotee for the purpose of determining spells per day. Enlarge Spell: The arcane devotee may cast a spell as if it were under the effects of the Enlarge Spell feat. He does not need to prepare this spell in advance, and it does not increae the casting time or use a higher spell slot. This ability can be used a number of times per day equal to 1+ the arcane devotee's Charisma bonus (minimum of once per day).

Sacred Defense: Add this value (+1 at 2nd level, +2 at 4th level) to the arcane devotee's saving throws against divine spells, as well as the spell-like and supernatural abilities of outsiders. Alignment Focus: A 2nd-level arcane devotee chooses one component of his deity's alignment. He now casts spells of that alignment at +1 caster level. If his deity is neutral he chooses one component of his alignment for this focus. If the arcane devotee and his deity are neutral, the character chooses chaos, evil, good or law for his focus. Bonus Feat: At 3rd level, an arcane devotee can choose any one item creation feat, or any feat from the following list: Spell Focus, Greater Spell Focus, Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Penetration, Improved Counterspell. Divine Shroud (Su): once per day, a 5th level arcane devotee may surround himself with a shroud of glowing divine power that protects him against enemy spells. The shroud is of a color appropriate to the arcane devotee's patron alignment: constant blue for law, shimmering white for good, wavering black for evil, or flickering yellow for chaos. The shroud grants spell resistance of 12+ the characters caster level as if he were under the effects of a spell resistance spell. This ability can be invoked as a free action and lasts a number of rounds equal to the arcane devotee's Charisma bonus +5.

Lvl    BAB     Fort    Ref     Will    Special         Spells per Day 1st     +0      +0      +0      +2      Enlarge Spell           +1 level existing arcane class 2nd     +1      +0      +0      +3      Sacred Defense+1, Align Focus   +1 level existing arcane class 3rd     +1      +1      +1      +3      Bonus Feat              +1 level of existing arcane class 4th     +2      +1      +1      +4      Sacred defense +2       +1 level existing arcane class 5th     +2      +1      +1      +4      Divine Shroud           +1 level existing arcane class