Loremaster (Apath)

Unofficial rules compendium

The loremaster is a gatherer and keeper of secrets. He is often obsessed by the written word, with cryptic and arcane lore serving as his devoted mistress. Holding to the adage that knowledge is power, the loremaster often forsakes material wealth and personal glory for rare or unusual information, an endless quest that brings him ever closer to his unattainable goal: perfection through edification. Often rejecting what he views as the pointless affectations and transitory pleasures of his short-sighted neighbors, the loremaster believes that the only worthwhile goal in life is the acquisition of intellectual might. After all, wealth is spent, passions fade, and the power of the body is limited by age, while the mind's capacity to grow greater with time is infinite.

Class Information

This is a merged prestige class.

Prestige Class: loremaster.

Build Classes: wizard

The loremaster is a wizard with a focus on knowledge.

Role: Loremasters' lives are spent in study, research, and fieldwork. While the first two lend themselves to the loremaster's reputation as a bookish recluse, the latter oftentimes forces a loremaster to seek out the aid of adventurers who, through a mutually beneficial arrangement, might provide a degree of protection to the scholar while he seeks whatever knowledge he is after. For his part, the loremaster provides a wealth of information and arcane firepower to a party. Some loremasters actively deride those of their kind who fear to leave the safety of the temple or library, pointing out that only old lore can be discovered in books—new lore must be sought out in the world. These more active loremasters might join up with an adventuring party for the benefit of the journey, content with whatever knowledge might be picked up along the way.

Alignment: Most loremasters cannot be bothered with distracting and pointless philosophies such as ethics, and so tend to be neutral, neutral good, or neutral evil.

Hit Die: d6.

Class Abilities

These are the class abilities of the loremaster.

Class Skills

The loremaster's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Appraise (Int), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Fly (Dex), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (all) (Int), Linguistics (Int), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), and Use Magic Device (Cha).

Skill Ranks at Each Level: 2 + Int modifier.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency

Wizards are proficient with the club, dagger, heavy crossbow, light crossbow, and quarterstaff, but not with any type of armor or shield. Armor interferes with a wizard's movements, which can cause his spells with somatic components to fail.

Spells

A wizard casts arcane spells drawn from the sorcerer/wizard spell list. A wizard must choose and prepare his spells ahead of time.

To learn, prepare, or cast a spell, the wizard must have an Intelligence score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a wizard's spell is 10 + the spell level + the wizard's Intelligence modifier.

A wizard can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. His base daily spell allotment is given on Table: Wizard. In addition, he receives bonus spells per day if he has a high Intelligence score (see Table: Ability Modifiers and Bonus Spells).

A wizard may know any number of spells. He must choose and prepare his spells ahead of time by getting 8 hours of sleep and spending 1 hour studying his spellbook. While studying, the wizard decides which spells to prepare.

Starting Spells (See Spellbooks below): A wizard begins play with a spellbook containing all 0-level wizard spells (except those from his opposed schools, if any; see Arcane Schools) plus three 1st-level spells of his choice. The wizard also selects a number of additional 1st-level spells equal to his Intelligence modifier to add to the spellbook. At any time, a wizard can also add spells found in other wizards' spellbooks to his own (see Magic).

Spells Gained at a New Level: Wizards perform a certain amount of spell research between adventures. Each time a character attains a new wizard level, he gains two spells of his choice to add to his spellbook. The two free spells must be of spell levels he can cast. If he has chosen to specialize in a school of magic, one of the two free spells must be from his specialty school.

Arcane Ties

At 1st level, loremaste3rs develop a bond with magic similar to a wizard's. The loremaster chooses between an arcane bond and an arcane school. Loremasters can only pick the divination school. Whichever option is chosen, it works just like the corresponding wizard class ability, counting loremaster levels as wizard levels.

Bonus Languages

A wizard may substitute Draconic for one of the bonus languages available to the character because of his race.

Cantrips

Wizards can prepare a number of cantrips, or 0-level spells, each day, as noted on Table: Wizard under “Spells per Day.” These spells are cast like any other spell, but they are not expended when cast and may be used again. A wizard can prepare a cantrip from an opposition school, but it uses up two of his available slots (see below).

Knowledge Focus

At first level, the loremaster gains Skill Focus as a bonus feat and must apply it to a Knowledge skill, such as Knowledge (Arcana).

Lore

At 2nd level, a loremaster adds half his level to all Knowledge skill checks and may make such checks untrained. The bonuses gained from this ability stack with those gained from Bardic Knowledge and similar abilities.

Secret

At 4th level and every four levels (8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th), the loremaster chooses one secret from Table: Loremaster Secrets. Half his is level plus Intelligence modifier determines which secrets he can choose. He can't choose the same secret twice.

Table: Loremaster Secrets

Level + Int Modifier	Secret	Effect
1	Instant mastery	4 ranks of a skill in which the character has no ranks
2	Secret health	Toughness bonus feat
3	Secrets of inner strength	+2 bonus on Will saves
4	The lore of true stamina	+2 bonus on Fortitude saves
5	Secret knowledge of avoidance	+2 bonus on Reflex saves
6	Weapon trick	+1 bonus on attack rolls
7	Dodge trick	+1 dodge bonus to AC
8	Applicable knowledge	Any one feat
9	Newfound arcana	1 bonus 1st-level spell per day<ref name="Ability"> As if gained through having a high ability score.</ref>
10	More newfound arcana	1 bonus 2nd-level spell per day<ref name="Ability"/>

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Extra Languages

A loremaster can learn any new language at 6th and 10th level.

Greater Lore (Ex)

At 14th level, a loremaster gains the ability to understand magic items. Whenever a loremaster examines a magic item to determine its properties, he gains a +10 circumstance bonus on his Spellcraft skill check.

True Lore (Ex)

At 18th level, a loremaster's knowledge becomes vast indeed. Once per day a loremaster can use his knowledge to gain the effect of a legend lore spell or an analyze dweomer spell. If used to create a legend lore effect, this ability has a casting time of 1 minute, regardless of how much information is already known about the subject in question.

Table: Loremaster

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special
1st	+0	+2	+0	+2	Cantrips, claws, dragon arcana, Eschew materials
2nd	+1	+3	+0	+3	Bite
3rd	+2	+3	+1	+3	Natural armor (+1), resistance (5)
4th	+3	+4	+1	+4	Breath (1/day)
5th	+3	+4	+1	+4	Ability boost (Str +2), bonus feat, claws (magic)
6th	+4	+5	+2	+5	Natural armor (+2), spellbite
7th	+5	+5	+2	+5	Breath (2/day), claws (1d6)
8th	+6/+1	+6	+2	+6	Ability boost (Con +2)
9th	+6/+1	+6	+3	+6	Natural armor (+3), resistance (10)
10th	+7/+2	+7	+3	+7	Blindsense 30 ft., breath (3/day)
11th	+8/+3	+7	+3	+7	Ability boost (Str +2), bonus feat, bite (energy damage)
12th	+9/+4	+8	+4	+8	Natural armor (+4)
13th	+9/+4	+8	+4	+8	Breath (4/day), dragon form (1/day)
14th	+10/+5	+9	+4	+9	Ability boost (Int +2), claws (energy damage)
15th	+11/+6/+1	+9	+5	+9	Natural armor (+5), resistance (15), wings (60 ft.)
16th	+12/+7/+2	+10	+5	+10	Breath (5/day), dragon form (2/day)
17th	+12/+7/+2	+10	+5	+10	Ability boost (Str +2), blindsense (60 ft.), bonus feat
18th	+13/+8/+3	+11	+6	+11	Natural armor (+6)
19th	+14/+9/+4	+11	+6	+11	Breath (6/day), dragon form (3/day)
20th	+15/+10/+5	+12	+6	+12	Ability boost (Cha +2), power of wyrms, wings (90 ft.)