The Black Templar is originally a Pathfinder prestige class published in the Akashic Mysteries supplement. It did some of the things I wanted but in a more clunky, complicated manner than I wanted to have, and some of the other mechanics were just weird.
I didn’t care for much of how it worked mechanically, though the basic ideas and concept design were rather good. I also had an existing Stolen Essence mechanic used by the Chthonic Master and other classes that was almost tailor made for the Black Templar to use in place of the tracking temporary hit points thing. I also worked in some other concepts from the setting, as they just seemed to fit the class rather well while also fitting with the lore of Aldhaven.
Ultimately, the original class is very much focused on offense and short term debuffs, runs on several different resource types, and is just kind of a mess. My biggest goals were to unify the class to run on a single, consistent resource mechanic—namely stolen essence—and to shift the focus to a more utility build with longer term benefits. I wanted it to remain the same type of offensive melee character backed up by temporary undead minions, but I wanted it to be more opportunistic, conniving, and selfish in its play style rather than the direct damage focused brute that runs up and punches enemies every round of the original design.
The Core Mechanic: Stolen Essence
The Black Templar runs on Stolen Essence. Stolen Essence gives a mechanism by which essence can be stolen from other creatures and hoarded over a relatively long period of time, from days to weeks depending on the situation. However, it also has built in limitations with lore-based justifications to prevent abuse of the system. Stolen Essence just happens to work perfectly with the Black Templar’s class features.
The Other Class Features
Drain Essence
The original Pathfinder version of this class worked by dealing damage (scaling with class level) and then gaining temporary hit points, after which the class ran on having temporary hit points in units of 5. I disliked this for a few reasons.
First, tracking temporary hit points in increments of 5 and checking that each turn was annoying, worse, taking a hit meant that you lost out on the power you just gained. Yes, that made it a decent enough balancing factor, but it was supremely frustrating to setup a buff only to have it immediately dispelled by getting hit before you could even make use of it.
Second, it granted a flat number of temporary essence while also dealing essence damage to the target based solely on class level, which is something I want to move away from with this type of essence theft. Stolen essence just functions better and has built in limitations that leave it useful without being too overpowering. Also, the damage dealt to the target is significantly overpowered against most veilweavers. A 5th level pathfinder black templar is probably character level 10, which means two hits against any 10th-level veilweaver is going to completely rob them of all essence, effectively crippling the character for the next few minutes.
Finally, the meager benefits last for a few minutes (5 + Con mod), meaning it’s basically only good through the end of a single encounter while pretending to be a long term buff. The type of character I believe that this class typically appeals to would be more interested in longer term benefits without needing to setup the shtick again at the start of every encounter, which stolen essence allows for.
Revised Drain Essence
The revised version of this ability now deals damage and grants stolen essence. Damage is increased by investing essence into the ability, as if it were a chthonic veil, meaning that the damage now scales with character level rather than class level. It’s now suitably powerful at high levels without completely gimping opponents at the moderate levels.
It also gains additional stolen essence based on the invested essence at a 2:1 ratio. As with other stolen essence mechanics, stolen essence gained from the same ability does not stack with itself; however, it potentially creates a small feedback loop where stealing and investing essence allows for stealing greater amounts of essence.
The downside is that the ability no longer grants temporary hit points to the black templar at all.
The new version now functions just like a veil and runs off of an established mechanic without having to track temporary hit points. The benefits are also more durable over time and aren’t lost by getting hit. Simultaneously, the damaging aspect of the ability is weakened a bit to compensate the increased buffing aspect. The black templar cares as much or more about benefiting himself as he does harming his enemy, and I wanted this ability to express that better.
Black Defilement
This was a simple ability originally: burn temporary hit points (in increments of 5) to create an aura that inflicts minor penalties to enemies for Con mod rounds.
Revised Black Defilement
I modified this ability to be more life draining than simply applying a minor debuff. Also, rather than burning temporary hit points, this ability now runs on sacrificing stolen essence.
Black defilement still inflicts debuffs to all living creatures (including allies, just as the original ability), but these are now a Profane Penalty rather than being untyped.
The real change is that the aura now deals damage equal to the black templar’s class level to all living creatures (except himself) within the aura, granting him temporary hit points in the process. These hit points explicitly stack with themselves to a given maximum. This ability effectively takes the place of Drain Essence insofar as gaining temporary hit points goes.
The duration is now based on class level + amount of stolen essence sacrificed, meaning that you can gain an increased duration by sacrificing more of your resources, trading longer term benefits for immediate usefulness.
This ability gives the class a bit more staying power to offset its very low Hit Die, which is exceptionally useful since it’s required to be in melee to function well.
Create Husk
Originally, the pathfinder version simply allowed you to create basic zombies if you killed a creature specifically by using your Drain Essence ability and required taking 1 point of essence damage during the kill. That zombie lasts for a number of hours equal to class level + Con mod. At 5th level, the Blackened Soul ability would let you use this ability to effectively cast create undead 1/day but makes it permanent (max of 1 undead at a time).
Revised Create Husk
The revised version now lets you create a Chthonic Zombie anytime you kill any creature within your active black defilement zone, regardless of how you kill that creature. It’s also now a swift action rather than a free action made as part of an attack. The chthonic zombie lasts 1 hour per class level, without counting Con mod, which is a shorter duration but with a stronger template applied to the creature.
Additionally, if you have the right chthonic veil woven, then you can tie the new chthonic zombie to your veil, making it permanent until it is destroyed or the veil is unraveled.
Poison Essence
As originally written, this ability was very clunky. You had to completely drain a target of essence and then immediately give it some of your essence, which debuffed it for a number of rounds but gave its essence back, effectively undoing your work of draining it. You could then, theoretically, cycle this ability on the creature by stealing the last of its essence and then returning it again and again until it died.
The downside is that it can only be used on a target that you have fully drained of essence, which heavily cripples a veilweaver. The target is effectively out of the fight at that point, making them a nonthreatening enemy. You then give them back some of their essence to harm them further, making them more of a threat, rather than just finishing them off or moving on to an actual threat. This seems… counterintuitive.
While this admittedly worked, it was rather clunky. Whereas black defilement ran on the temporary hit points granted by drain essence, this ability ran on the drained essence itself. This just complicated the class a bit more, requiring different class features to run on different resource pools granted by the dame ability, leading to messy bookkeeping.
Revised Poison Essence
I revised this to be less clunky, though it is still clunky a bit. Now, you can sacrifice stolen essence to just outright grant temporary essence to any target you choose, regardless of the size of their current essence pool. Use it on an enemy or use it on a friend, your choice. Instead of a bonus effect on Drain Essentia, this is now a standard action touch attack of its own, meaning it’s less directly useful in combat, but it also has the potential to be a buff effect (with some significant drawbacks) on a veilweaver ally.
This ability now grants temporary essence equal to the amount of stolen essence you sacrifice. The temporary essence granted is “poisoned,” which means that it also inflicts a penalty to AC and Strength as well as dealing damage at the start of each turn for 5 rounds. After those 5 rounds, the temporary essence is lost at a rate of 1 point per round (similar to the way stolen essence is lost at a rate of 1 point per day, just faster).
I also added a Will save to resist gaining the temporary essence and associated penalties.
Finally, you can grant temporary essence to an undead creature (such as one of your chthonic zombies, hint hint) without that undead creature suffering from any of the drawbacks of this ability.
Basically, the ability now runs on a unified system with the rest of the class, is useful in a wider range of situations both offensively and as a buff to allies or minions. This wider utility and focus on drains and gains rather than only drains is something I really wanted to implement with this class.
Blackened Soul
The capstone of the class originally enhanced the Create Husk ability as described above. This was rather underwhelming. Sure, the ability was decent and gave you a permanent minion, but it was still pretty meh.
Revised Blackened Soul
With create husk now having a built in option to have a more permanent minion and it creating inherently more powerful zombies, Blackened Soul now has the chance to be something entirely new. Just looking at the name, you would think that this class feature did something directly to the black templar’s soul. So, I went with that idea.
The new ability now gives the black templar many of the benefits of being undead without actually becoming undead. This means you effectively get the benefits without the drawbacks. Sure, you don’t get all the benefits of being undead, but I still think it’s worth it.
It also grants damage reduction which you can improve by investing essence as if it were a chthonic veil.
Comparing the Original to the Revision
The original version of the Black Templar runs entirely on the Drain Essence ability but does so oddly. Its primary combat focus is to run up and punch enemies in the face. It punches to gain temporary hit points. It punches to gain temporary essence. It punches to create zombies. It punches to create stronger undead. It punches to poison an enemy. Every round is just punching. Endlessly.
The only thing it doesn’t punch to do is black defilement, but that’s a swift action that it usually triggers immediately after making the first successful punch and then just leaves running so it can focus on the punching.
Yes, it’s neat that it gets cool stuff that triggers from punching things, but it’s also tactically pretty boring, at least I think so. You’re required to successfully punch each round to even have the option of making decisions, but those decisions are also not really yours to make, since they only happen in very specific situations where it’s almost nonsensical to choose not to activate them, giving more the illusion of choice rather than an actual choice.
The revised Black Templar is more nuanced. It still primarily fights by punching with its Drain Essentia ability, but it has more actual options. Black defilement is still most likely triggered immediately after the first successful punch, but the other class features have been opened up a bit.
Creating undead now works with any attack (once black defilement is activated) rather than only with a punch, meaning you have other options to fight, such as your other veils, spells, weapons, or anything really. Once your aura is up and running, you’re free to use whatever you want and can still create new undead on a successful kill.
Poisoning an enemy (or buffing an ally/minion) is now a separate action, which is a bit more limiting in its activation but with wider, more useful application. It also has some fun “subterfuge” options, such as offering someone you dislike an essence buff and then laughing when you actually deliver on your promise, which is great for an evil NPC.
The revised class still can be played as a front line face puncher, but it no longer has to be played that way to make use of most of its abilities.