Wilderness Knight (Druid/Paladin)

Cities and palaces have their armored protectors, but one must not think that wild lands and forests have no protectors of their own. For some, trees are natural stone columns, meadows are the tournament fields, and the real nobility resides in the fierce creatures of the natural world. Less known than paladins and cavaliers, there are some free spirits in the woods who’ve sworn to protect good and the peace of man, beast and angel alike. They are the land’s saints, the chosen of agathions and neutral good angels. These are the wilderness knights. Devoted to good beyond the concerns of law and chaos, wilderness knights are neither mighty warriors like paladins, or are they powerful spellcasters like druids. However, they do strive to emulate the virtues of both good outsiders and animals, transforming into strong beasts and celestials, and drawing their power from the animal world to ride and summon celestial animal creatures. Every wilderness knight chooses one animal species as her emblem and model of perfection, and openly promotes that animal through her coat of arms and wild shaping ability. (Original Concept by Bardess)

Primary: Druid.

Secondary: Paladin.

Alignment: Neutral good.

Hit Dice: d8.

Bonus Skills and Ranks: The wilderness knight may select three paladin skills to add to her class skills in addition to the normal druid class skills. The wilderness knight gains a number of ranks at each level equal to 4 + Int modifier.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A wilderness knight is proficient with all simple and martial weapons. She is also proficient with all natural attacks (claw, bite, and so forth) of any form they assume with wild shape (see below). A wilderness knight is proficient with light and medium armor but is prohibited from wearing metal armor; thus, she may wear only padded, leather, or hide armor. A wilderness knight may also wear wooden armor that has been altered by the ironwood spell so that it functions as though it were steel. See the ironwood spell description. A wilderness knight is proficient with shields (except tower shields) but must use only wooden ones.

Spellcasting: A wilderness knight casts divine spells drawn from the wilderness knight spell list. To prepare or cast a spell, the wilderness knight must have a Charisma score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a wilderness knight’s spell is 10 + the spell level + the wilderness knight’s Charisma modifier.

Like other spellcasters, a wilderness knight can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day, as shown on Table: Wilderness Knight. She also receives bonus spells per day if she has a high Charisma score.

A wilderness knight must spend 1 hour each day in a trance-like meditation on the mysteries of nature to regain her daily allotment of spells. A wilderness knight may prepare and cast any spell on her spell list, provided that she can cast spells of that level, but she must choose which spells to prepare during her daily meditation.

Aura of Good (Ex): At 1st level, a wilderness knight gains the paladin’s aura of good ability.