
Today I have a new class for those campaigns which overflow with demihumans.
Those who think it's overpowered, take it with a grain of salt...and take
some power out of it, if it overpowers your campaign.

The Adept: the multi-class version of a human.
Ability Requirements: Str 13, Int 14, Wis 12
Prime requisite: Intelligence
Races allowed: Human only.

Adepts combine the skills of a fighter, mage, and cleric. They may advance
slowly, but they usually advance faster than a multiclassed demihuman.

Adepts can wear armor, up to chain mail (AC 5), and may not use shields. They
may use any weapon, but may not specialize. They can use almost any magic
item usable by mages and clerics, with a few exceptions.

Abilities: they have the fighter abilities of exceptional strength and the
constituition bonuses of fighters. At 1st level, they may cast spells from
both mage and cleric spell lists, gaining spells for each. Although they can
specialize in a school of magic and a sphere of cleric spells, they can
continue to use spells from opposing schools. However, they gain no Wisdom-
bonus spells. They often combine the two specialties into one broad area of
expertise, such as healing\necromancer or combat\invoker. Priest specialties
are usually not in some limited spheres such as astral or creation, as there
are not very many spells to be specialized in. There are no wild mage or
elementalist adepts.

The main drawback to all this is that they can only cast spells from one
school and sphere each, which are announced at 1st level, and  must be
the adept's specialties. Adepts study for both their mage and cleric spells,
having spellbooks for each. They gain both types by the mage progression
table on p.30 of the PHB. They gain a set of mage spells and a set of cleric
spells (giving a maximum of four spells, two each, to a 1st level adept).

As adepts gain weapon profciencies, as a fighter, they gain new spheres
or schools with them, one for every new weapon prof. gained. In addition, they
may use nonweapon proficiency slots to learn more. Although they cannot
specialize in a weapon, they can fight with two, at the standard penalties.
They cannot turn or command undead, other than what they animate themselves.

Level data follows.

level   hit dice (d8)   xps        proficiencies: initially 2\4
1       1               0           1\1 additional at level 3 multiples
2       2               3000
3       3               6000       alignment: must be NG, N, or NE.
4       4               12,000
5       5               25,000
6       6               50,000
7       7               90,000
8       8               150,000
9       9               250,000
10+     +2 hp\lvl.      +300,000\lvl.

Philosophy

The fact that adepts acquire cleric spells independently of a deity often
disillusions them to religion, and earns the enmity of priests of the faith,
who consider adepts sacrilegious or blasphemous. Since the gods let adepts
live in the world, this prejudice would seem unfounded. How adepts learn
priest spells is unknown, but it is speculated that a god who has no demands
or some other power grants the spells or the power in the written formulae
in adepts' spellbooks.

A selection of priest spells work differently or not at all for adepts. All
of their priest spells lack religious components, such as holy items as
material components. The spells noted as changed thus far are noted:
combine: only works with other adepts, but it extends to mage spells.
imbue w\spell ability: extends to mage spells.
non-functional: augury, divination, atonement, commune, magic font, quest,
forbiddance, exaction, and holy word.

Adepts can research spells for both types of spells. Their priest spells
are written down in a special written language, called Denarian (the source
of the name is reputed to be either a nation's or a man's). All adepts must
take this language (read, write, and speak costs one slot). Its knowledge
is guarded and kept to non-adepts. Mages and priests cannot decipher the
written or spoken form, either with magic or without, and divine intervention
has not helped. Protective magic placed on adepts in training prevents any
attempt to reveal its knowledge. It can only be taught.

Adepts, being shunned when revealed to the religious, pass themselves off as
dual-class fighter mages or half-elves, and may even dress as a priest if
needed. The religion nonweapon proficiency tends to be useful. Other than
religion-oriented items, they can make almost any enchanted item, and can
usually simulate such effects well enough to deceive religious types. They
can use almost anything that doesn't get too picky about who uses it.


Take from this what you will; suggestions by email are welcome, although
flames will be cheerfully ignored if I'm in a good mood.

Martin Schulte
