Sapper (Apath)

Unofficial rules compendium

A sapper is not a dextrous sneak, but a solid warrior specializing in destruction - of both fortifications and blindsided opponents.

Class Features

This archetype has all normal class abilities, except as noted.

Class Skills

Add Knowledge (Engineering) (Int) to the sappers' list of class skills.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency

Sappers are proficient with all simple weapons, all firearms (where available), plus the earth breaker, heavy pick, light hammer, light pick, and pickaxe. They are proficient with light armor, medium armor, and with shields (including tower shields).

Sapping

At 2nd level, a sapper can inflict great harm on objects. When striking an unattended object, or when sundering an item of an opponent that is flat-footed or denied the use of their Dexterity bonus to armor class, the sapper can inflict sneak attack damage to that object. The sapper must be in sneak attack range (normally 30 ft. but see the pavise ability below) to use this with a ranged attack.

A sapper can use Knowledge (Engineering) in place of Disable Device and Perception when opening locks or finding and disabling traps or secret doors. Knowledge (Engineering) gains the benefit from Trapfinding and trap-related rogue talents when used like this.

This also increases the digging/tunneling speed of a sapper; each dice of sneak attack the sapper has increases the digging speed of the sapper by 50%. With 1d6 sneak attack, the sapper digs at 150% speed, and 2d6 sneak attack he digs at 200% speed and so on. This bonus also applies to a team the sapper leads. As a rough estimate assume a single man can dig a tunnel 1 ft. wide and one ft. deep per hour of work in soft earth. This is halved in heavy earth/clay/soft stone and reduced to 1/10 in hard stone. Several people can work side by side to dig a wider tunnel.

Sapping replaces evasion. A sapper cannot select improved evasion as an advanced rogue talent unless he first gains evasion from some other source.

Pavise

At 4th level, a standard action, you can position a tower shield. This has the same benefits as using a tower shield to grant cover, but the shield continues to provide cover until you move, and you do not need to use a hand to hold it. You still suffer the attack penalty and armor penalty. Picking up the the tower shield again is a move action. Instead of taking a 5 ft. step in a round, you can hide behind the pavise using Stealth to hide from those it provides cover against.

It might seem far-fetched to hide behind something as obvious as a tower shield, but opponents cannot anticipate the sappers shots when he is firing from his cover. Of course, they can still target the tower shield itself, and moving out of the covered arc of the tower shield negates the cover that allowed hiding in the first place. Also, because of armor check penalties to Stealth, you better be some distance away for this to work.

At the same time, the range of the sappers sneak attack increases to 10 ft per sapper level when firing a firearm or crossbow. When under cover (including when behind a tower shield) this increased sneak attack range is doubled to 20 ft. per level.

This replaces uncanny dodge.

Improved Pavise

From the 8th level, positioning or picking up a pavise is now a swift action. This replaces improved uncanny dodge.

Table: Sapper

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special
1st	+0	+0	+2	+0	Sneak attack +1d6, trapfinding
2nd	+1	+0	+3	+0	Rogue talent, sapping
3rd	+2	+1	+3	+1	Sneak attack +2d6, trap sense +1
4th	+3	+1	+4	+1	Pavise, rogue talent
5th	+3	+1	+4	+1	Sneak attack +3d6
6th	+4	+2	+5	+2	Rogue talent, trap sense +2
7th	+5	+2	+5	+2	Sneak attack +4d6
8th	+6/+1	+2	+6	+2	Improved pavise, rogue talent
9th	+6/+1	+3	+6	+3	Sneak attack +5d6, trap sense +3
10th	+7/+2	+3	+7	+3	Advanced talents, rogue talent
11th	+8/+3	+3	+7	+3	Sneak attack +6d6
12th	+9/+4	+4	+8	+4	Rogue talent, trap sense +4
13th	+9/+4	+4	+8	+4	Sneak attack +7d6
14th	+10/+5	+4	+9	+4	Rogue talent
15th	+11/+6/+1	+5	+9	+5	Sneak attack +8d6, trap sense +5
16th	+12/+7/+2	+5	+10	+5	Rogue talent
17th	+12/+7/+2	+5	+10	+5	Sneak attack +9d6
18th	+13/+8/+3	+6	+11	+6	Rogue talent, trap sense +6
19th	+14/+9/+4	+6	+11	+6	Sneak attack +10d6
20th	+15/+10/+5	+6	+12	+6	Master strike, rogue talent

Summary of Changed Class Abilities

These abilities of the original class are lost or modified in this archetype:

• Class Skills
• Weapon and Armor Proficiency
• Evasion
• Uncanny Dodge
• Improved Uncanny Dodge