Thursday, June 25, 2015

Prestige Class: Daughter of Baba Yaga

There is an ancient tradition among witches to seek out the Great Crone Baba Yaga to learn arcane secrets known to no one else.  The vast majority of witches never find her mysterious hut. Those that do are often killed and eaten for their impropriety and presumption.  But a few, a very few, find the ancient hag and she sees something of worth or value in the witch.  These witches go on become quite powerful in their own right.  They are known as the Daughters of Baba Yaga.

Section 15: Daughter of Baba Yaga, Copyright 2015, Timothy. S. Brannan.
OGC Declaration: The following content is considered Open Content for term of the OGL.

Daughter of Baba Yaga

The Daughters of Baba Yaga (DoBY) are a varied lot but all share a desire to learn more arcane secrets and in particular secrets of witchcraft.  Witches are the most common of her daughters, but sometimes an occasional wizard or sorcerer will also seek her out.

Hit Dice: d4

Requirements 
 To qualify as a Daughter of Baba Yaga, a character must fulfill all of the following criteria.

Knowledge (History): 9 Ranks
Knowledge (Arcana): 7 Ranks
Feats: Iron Will
Spell casting: Ability to cast arcane spells
Special:  Female only; Oath of Fosterage*

The Oath of Fosterage must be taken when Baba Yaga first considers to take on the potential daughter.  Baba Yaga will often demand some sort task or quest from the witch.  The task will be one that is difficult and require cleverness to complete.  For example asking her to fetch water from a well but only give her a sieve to collect the water.
Once the Oath is made the Daughter cannot attack or harm in any way any other Daughter or Baba Yaga despite their alignment.  All Daughters, despite when they were fostered will know each other on sight.

Alignment: Any (usually any non-evil)

Class Skills
(2 + Int modifier per level): Bluff, Climb, Concentration, Craft (any), Knowledge (arcana),  Knowledge (history), Knowledge (nature), Profession (any), Spellcraft, Survival, and Swim.

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the Daughter of Baba Yaga prestige class.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: The Daughter of Baba Yaga gains no additional weapon or armor proficiencies

Spells per Day: The character’s caster level increases when a Daughter of Baba Yaga level is gained if she had also gained a level in a previous class that allows them to qualify for this class.

This affects her spells per day and spells known, as if they had gained a level, but she does not gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. If a character had more than one qualifying class before becoming a Daughter of Baba Yaga, she must decide to which class she adds the new level for purposes of determining spells per day and caster level.

Daughters continue to use whatever Arcane spell lists they used before becoming a Daughter of Baba Yaga.  Daughters also continue to use what ever spell casting ability she had been using before becoming a Daughter.

Poison Resistance (Su): Daughters are exposed to a number of noxious potions, poultices and herbals and even poisons.  This exposure builds up over time till the witch gains a +5 to any posin based saving throws.

Arcane Diversity (Sp): Starting at 2nd level, the Daughter of Baba Yaga can learn any 1st level Arcane spell that is not on her typical list.  So if she begins as a witch she can choose a 1st level spell from the Wizard/Sorcerer, Bard or Magus lists. At 4th level she can choose a 2nd level spell and so on.  The spell will use same spell casting ability she uses for all her spells.

Hex (Sp): The Daughter may choose a Hex from the Witches list of hexes.  If she previously met the requirements for higher level hexes she may choose from those lists as well.

Kitchen Witchery (Sp): The Daughter may substitute any spell of 1st to 3rd level with an Alchemical Extract of the same level.  The Daughter may replace 1 spell of every level, 1st to 3rd, in this manner.  The Daughter though is not an alchemist by training so once a spell is replaced in this way the choice is permanent.
At 9th level the Daughter can choose Alchemical Extracts of 4th to 6th level. She may replace one spell each of levels 4th to 6th.

Table Daughter of Baba Yaga Progression

Class Level Attack Bonus Fort Save Ref Save Will Save Special Spells per Day
1st +1 +2 +2 +0 Oath, Poison Resistance +1 level of existing class
2nd +1 +3 +3 +1 Arcane Diversity, 1st level +1 level of existing class
3rd +2 +3 +3 +1 Hex +1 level of existing class
4th +2 +4 +4 +2 Arcane Diversity, 2nd level +1 level of existing class
5th +3 +4 +4 +2 Kitchen Witchery, 1 +1 level of existing class
6th +3 +5 +5 +3 Arcane Diversity, 3rd level +1 level of existing class
7th +4 +5 +5 +3 Hex +1 level of existing class
8th +4 +6 +6 +3 Arcane Diversity, 4th level +1 level of existing class
9th +5 +6 +6 +4 Kitchen Witchery, 2 +1 level of existing class
10th +5 +7 +7 +4 Arcane Diversity, 5th level +1 level of existing class



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks good. I am all for highly thematic Prestige Classes.

Unknown said...

Wow. Yes thematic.

Even cooler? The idea that Baba Yaga knows secrets others don't. Arcane diversity gets that idea across brilliantly.

The part about Baba Yaga and the sieve, is that from an actual story involving her, or was that just a handy example of "seems impossible" task?

Timothy S. Brannan said...

Yeah, I really like thematic Prestige Classes too. They should be something special with lots of role-playing potential.

The sieve is from one of her stories, used in a couple of different variations.