Dark Savant (Derro, Sorcerer Archetype)

Savants are considered the most powerful of derro sorcerers and are often found in the positions of leadership. However, among these can be found truly deviant spellcasters who enter into blood pacts with dark entities to obtain sinister and powerful abilities.


Class Features
The dark savant has the following class features.

Dark Bloodline (Su)

At 1st level, a dark savant forms a dark pact with a powerful entity from another plane. She may choose one evil outsider subtype from among the following: asura, daemon, demon, devil, div, kyton, oni, qlippoth, or rakshasa. This pact corrupts the dark savant’s natural bloodline and creates a powerful resonance between herself and the outsider. As such, the dark savant’s bloodline is magically altered and becomes that of her chosen outsider’s subtype as follows: abyssal (demodand, demon, qlippoth), daemon (daemon), div (div), infernal (asura, devil, kyton), oni (oni), or rakshasha (rakshasa). A dark savant may also select the new Savant derro racial bloodline.

At 1st level, the dark savant gains her bloodline arcana, and gains her bloodline powers as normal. A dark savant does not gain bloodline spells or bloodline feats. Instead she gains the following abilities.

Dark Mark (Ex): At 2nd level, a dark savant bears the sign of her chosen outsider as a tattoo-like brand somewhere on her body. Once per day, a dark savant can call upon the profane power of this mark to power a spell as she casts it. Doing so causes the spell to gain the chaos descriptor (div), chaotic and evil descriptors (demodand, demon, oni, qlippoth), the evil descriptor (daemon, div, oni), or the evil and lawful descriptors (asura, devil, kyton, oni, rakshasa) according to your chosen outsider, and causes the spell not be expended as it is cast, allowing the dark savant to cast the spell again at a later point in the day.

Darkfire Blast (Su): At 5th level, a dark savant can sacrifice an unused spell slot of 1st level or higher and transform it into a ray of searing ebony energy instead, targeting any foe within 30 feet as a ranged touch attack. This attack deals 1d6+1 points of damage for every level of the spell slot she sacrificed. 0-level spells may not be sacrificed in this manner. Against good outsiders, this damage increases to 1d8+1 points of damage for every level of the spell slot she sacrificed. A dark blast ignores the hardness of objects, as it unravels their fundamental reality. Any object destroyed or creature slain by this darkfire blast whose total Hit Dice if 4 or more lower than the dark savant’s level is reduced to ash, as by the disintegrate spell.

Dark Resistance (Su): At 11th level, a dark savant gains resistance 5 to one type of energy of her choice (acid, cold, fire, or electricity), and a +2 bonus on saving throws against curses, death effects, disease, enchantments, paralysis, and poison effects. At 17th level, this resistance increases to 10 and the saving throw bonus increases to +4.

This ability otherwise functions and replaces the sorcerer’s bloodline ability.


Table: Dark Savant

LevelBase
Attack Bonus
Fort SaveRef SaveWill SaveSpecialSpells Per Day
1st2nd3rd4th5th6th7th8th9th
1st+0+0+0+2Bloodline power, cantrips, dark bloodline, eschew materials3
2nd+1+0+0+3Dark mark4
3rd+1+1+1+3Bloodline power5
4th+2+1+1+463
5th+2+1+1+4Darkfire blast64
6th+3+2+2+5653
7th+3+2+2+5
664
8th+4+2+2+66653
9th+4+3+3+6Bloodline power6664
10th+5+3+3+766653
11th+5+3+3+7Dark resistance 566664
12th+6/+1+4+4+8666653
13th+6/+1+4+4+8
666664
14th+7/+2+4+4+96646653
15th+7/+2+5+5+9Bloodline power6666664
16th+8/+3+5+5+1066666653
17th+8/+3+5+5+10Dark resistance 1066666664
18th+9/+4+6+6+11666666653
19th+9/+4+6+6+11666666664
20th+10/+5+6+6+12Bloodline power 666666666