Sea Hawk Prestige Class

For a sea hawk, the sea and ocean is the ultimate adventure. Across the sea lies strange countries and unimaginable riches. The sea is free of borders and restrictions, a place to escape the rigors of civilized life. But it is also a dangerous place of monsters, sudden storms and hidden reefs. It is not everyone who dares to challenge the sea for it's riches.
A master of the open sea, the sea hawk dares go where no one has sailed before. Piracy. pirate hunting and long range trade is the bread and butter of the sea hawk. Naval exploration is his second nature, and almost impossible without a sea hawk as a leader.

This class represents the sailors from a rather advanced maritime culture. Sea hawks are not mere fishers and mariners (though most started out as such), but sturdy adventurers accustomed to a life of danger and suspense, on the vastness of the high seas. Landbound cultures do not produce sea hawks; primitive maritime cultures might impose a limitation on how high you can progress in the class.

Skill points at each level: 6 + Int modifier.

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the sea hawk prestige class.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Sea hawks are proficient with all simple weapons as well as with the axe (hand), longspear, rapier, sap, scimitar, sword (short) and trident. They are also proficient with light armor but not with shields.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Sea hawks are proficient with all simple weapons as well as with the axe (hand), longspear, rapier, sap, scimitar, sword (short) and trident. They are also proficient with light armor but not with shields.

Sea Legs (ex): Early on, sea hawks learn to compensate for the rocking motion of ships. In any fight on a rocking surface, such as aboard a ship at sea, the sea hawk gets a +4 bonus on initiative. If the rocking motion is enough to cause a penalty, the sea hawk can either ignore the penalty (if it is -2 or less) or halve it (if it is -3 or greater).

Navigation (ex): A sea hawk get a +1 bonus per level to intuit direction, knowledge (geography), knowledge (nature) and profession (sailor) rolls pertaining to the sea. In addition, each level they learn one new route to go from one point to another (usually ports) with automatic success, safe from navigational errors such as running into shoals or becoming lost.

Patois (ex): A sea hawk has visited a hundred ports at least during his career. He may not speak many languages, but he can make himself understood almost anywhere. This lets the sea hawk communicate basic things and to barter for supplies, even if he has no language in common with those he is speaking to. Of course, the people he speaks to must have a language that the sea hawk could potentially learn. You may use no more than two words in a sentence and one syllable in each word when role-playing this ability.

Sea Perceptions (ex): By observing subtle changes in the climate, sea, etc, he sea hawk can predict dangers at sea. This includes sudden weather changes, encounters with ships and monsters, reefs, maelstroms and similar things. Use Profession (sailor) for this. On a result of 20, the sea hawk gets a 'bad feeling' about the situation, and is ready and alert when it happens, but does not know what it is in advance. On a result of 25, he gets a last minute warning and has just enough time to avoid the danger is he does the right thing. On a result of 30, he predicts the danger in advance and can avoid it easily.

Celestial Navigation (ex): When the sea hawk can see the clear sky, at night or day, he is always reasonably sure of his directions; he will not misjudge the direction of true north on an intuit direction roll of 1.

Spin Yarn (ex): Any sea hawk worth his salt has more stories to tell than a bard. As long as the drinks are coming, he can keep telling them. Most sailors only tell tall tales, but experienced sea hawks know which stories contain a kernel of truth. This works like and stacks with the bard's Bardic Knowledge ability, but only applies to the sea. The sea hawk can also entertain with his stories, using his bluff skill as if it was the perform skill when storytelling.

Dead Reckoning (ex): Determining how far a ship has sailed without landmarks is very difficult with primitive navigational tools, but a sea hawk gets an instinctive feel for distance as he gains in experience. Use intuit direction for this, the difficulty is 30. Navigation bonuses apply (q.v.). On a failed roll, the sea hawk misjudges the distance traveled by 5% per point of failure.

Explorer (ex): On naval charts there are large areas of reefs, shallows, archipelagos, whirlpools, treacherous currents or monster infestation that are not charted in detail. These are simply marked as “unsafe waters” and most captains would never think of going there. Any sea area for which you lack a chart is also unsafe. A veteran sea hawk can sail in such waters, but will do so cautiously (at half speed). You can expect the DM to throw encounters and other problems at you when you try this, especially the first time you sail a particular waterway. An ordinary sea captain can sail such waters, but it never becomes routine; it is a stressful experience each time and speed is one-fifth normal, at best.

Down With The Ship (su): Traditionally, the captain should be the last man to leave a sinking ship. When his ship is sinking, a sea hawk who is the acting captain can insure the safety of his passengers and crew by staying aboard as the ship goes down. As long as he sacrifices himself in this way, all passengers and crew are insured of a safe evacuation into the lifeboats. Their further adventures are still in the hands of fate. The sea hawk need not die, he might be saved by some sea creature or swept to some unknown coast, but he must abandon all means of saving himself and put his fate in the hands of the sea itself.

Sea-Track (ex): Sea hawks can track ships, and even aquatic creatures (such as whales and sea monsters) on the sea. They can do it from a long habit of observing sea currents, prevalent winds, and other common nautical conditions, which eventually turns into instinct. This ability works as follows:

To track a ship or creature at sea, the sea hawk must succeed a profession (sailor) roll against a DC variable according to situations: