Dread Commando

Skills and Feats: Concentration +8, Heal +12 Knowledge (history) +4, Knowledge (religion) +6, Spellcraft +9, Spot +8; Block Arrow*, Combat Casting, Dodge, Spell Focus (conjuration). * New feat described on page 96.

Defensive Casting (Ex): See prestige class feature description.

Field Healer (Ex): See prestige class feature description.

Healing Kicker (Su): See prestige class feature description.

Cleric Spells Prepared (caster level 7th): 0–create water, detect magic, detect poison, guidance (DC 14), mending (DC 14), resistance (DC 14);1st–bless, comprehend languages, deathwatch, protection from evilD (DC 15), remove fear (DC 15), shield of faith (DC 15); 2nd–aidD , bear’s endurance (DC 16), hold person (DC 16), lesser restoration (DC 17), spiritual weapon; 3rd–dispel magic, magic circle against evilD (DC 17), remove disease (DC 18), searing light (+5 ranged touch); 4th–death ward, holy smiteD, restoration. D: Domain spell. Domains: Good (cast good spells at +1 caster level), Healing (cast healing spells at +1 caster level).

Possessions: +1 breastplate, periapt of Wisdom +2, wand of cure light wounds (42 charges),2potions of cure moderate wounds, heavy wooden shield, masterwork morningstar, healer’s kit.

Ettin Skeletons (4): hp 65 each; see Monster Manual page 227. Detect Evil (Sp): As the spell, at will.

Divine Health (Ex): Immunity to disease.

Evasion (Ex): No damage on successful Reflex save.

Field Healer (Ex): See prestige class feature description.

Healing Kicker (Su): See prestige class feature description.

Spontaneous Heal: See prestige class feature description.

Cleric Spells Prepared (caster level 12th): 0–detect magic, detect poison, mending (DC 16), purify food and drink (DC 16), read magic, resistance (DC 16); 1st–bless, comprehend languages, deathwatch, detect undead, divine favor, magic weaponD (DC 17), remove fear (DC 17), shield of faith (DC 17);2nd–bear’s endurance (DC 18), hold person (DC 18), lesser restoration (DC 18), resist energy (DC 18), sound burst (DC 18), spiritual weaponD, status (DC 18); 3rd–dispel magic, invisibility purge, magic vestmentD(DC 19), prayer, remove curse (DC 19), searing light (+11 ranged touch);4th–death ward (2) (DC 20), divine powerD, neutralize poison (DC 20), restoration (DC 20);5th–break enchantment (DC 21), dispel evil (DC 21, +12 melee touch), disrupting weapon (DC 21), flame strikeD(DC 21), true seeing (DC 21); 6th–find the path (DC 22), healD(DC 22), undeath to death (DC 22), wind walk (DC 22). D: Domain spell. Domains: War (Weapon Focus as a bonus feat), Healing (cast healing spells at +1 caster level).

Possessions: +1 full plate, +1 heavy steel shield, +1 holy longsword, ring of protection +1, belt of giant strength +4, cloak of Charisma +2, gauntlets of Dexterity +2, headband of intellect +2, periapt of Wisdom +4.

EL 15:Welentan is a retired combat medic who served for many years but now looks for a potential protege to pass on his knowledge to. The PCs might seek him out to learn the traditions of the combat medic, or perhaps they need his advice or assistance in defeating a vampire lord or other powerful undead. Though Welentan is more fragile than in the days of his youth, his years have brought him great wisdom, and he is still a formidable foe once he employs his magic.

Hospitaler Welentan: Human cleric of Pelor 7/paladin 3/combat medic 5 (retired); CR 15; Medium humanoid; HD 7d8 plus 3d10 plus 5d6; hp 57; Init +1; Spd 20 ft.; AC 24, touch 12, flat-footed 23; Base Atk +10; Grp +12; Atk +14 melee (1d8+3/19–20, +2d6 to evil creatures, +1 holy longsword); Full Atk +14/+9 melee (1d8+3/19–20, +2d6 to evil creatures, +1 holy longsword); SA smite evil 1/day, spells, turn undead 6/day (+5, 2d6+10, 7th); SQ aura of good, detect evil, defensive casting, divine grace, divine health, evasion, field healer, healing kicker 11/day (sanctuary, Reflex saves, aid), lay on hands 9 points/day, spontaneous heal; AL LG; SV Fort +11, Ref +11, Will +16; Str 14, Dex 13, Con 8, Int 12, Wis 22, Cha 17.

Skills and Feats: Concentration +3, Diplomacy +5, Heal +14, Knowledge (religion) +6, Ride +6, Spellcraft +6, Spot +13; Combat Casting, Dodge, Greater Spell Penetration, MobilityB, Mounted Combat, Ride-By Attack, Spell Penetration, Spirited Charge, Weapon Focus (longsword)B .

Defensive Casting (Ex): See prestige class feature description.

“Get in, do the job, get out. If they’re lucky, they won’t know I’m there. If not, they’ll wish I wasn’t.” —Gregor Antus, of the 1st Scouting Regiment

Dread commandos are the elite scouts and strike force of a well-trained mercenary band. They combine stealth with protection, quickly moving through the battlefield even while heavily armored, and they are deadly when they catch an opponent unawares. Dread commandos are called upon when a mission requires an excursion deep into enemy territory and conflict is inevitable. BECOMING A DREAD COMMANDO

Most dread commandos begin their adventuring careers as rangers or rogues, since those classes have the requisite class skills. Barbarians and fighters make good dread commandos, though they typically multiclass as rangers or rogues to gain the requisite stealth. Monks also function well in this class, so long as they are willing to give up improvement in many of their key class features. The scout and ninja classes (from Complete Adventurer) also find the path of the dread commando to their liking. Dexterity is a key ability score, since the dread commando relies on agility for many of his class skills (as well as his Armor Class). A dread commando who finds himself frequently in melee combat wants high Strength and Constitution scores, while one who prefers skilled and subtle incursion favors a high Intelligence and/or Wisdom score.

Entry Requirements

Base Attack Bonus: +5.

Skills: Hide 6 ranks, Move Silently 6 ranks.

Feats: Dodge, Mobility.

Table 5–3: The Dread Commando Hit Die: d8 Base Attack Fort Ref Will

Level Bonus Save Save Save Special 1st +1 +0 +2 +0 Sudden strike +1d6, team initiative bonus 2nd +2 +0 +3 +0 Armored ease 2 3rd +3 +1 +3 +1 Sudden strike +2d6 4th +4 +1 +4 +1 Armored ease 4, stealthy movement 5th +5 +1 +4 +1 Sudden strike +3d6

Class Skills (6 + Int modifier per level): Climb, Craft,

Disable Device, Disguise, Escape Artist, Hide, Jump,

Knowledge (geography), Listen, Move Silently, Open Lock,

Profession, Search, Spot, Swim, Use Rope. CLASS FEATURES

As he advances in level, a dread commando gains abilities that steadily increase his effectiveness against unsuspecting foes, while at the same time increasing his maneuverability while armored. He becomes an even more capable infiltrator or member of a shock troop as he advances in level.

Sudden Strike (Ex): If you can catch an opponent when she is unable to defend herself effectively from your attack, you can strike a vital spot for extra damage. Whenever your target is denied her Dexterity bonus to AC against your attack (whether the target actually has a Dexterity bonus to Armor Class or not), you deal an extra 1d6 points of damage with your attack. The extra damage increases to 2d6 at 3rd level and to 3d6 at 5th level. Ranged attacks count as sudden strikes only if the target is within 30 feet; you can’t strike with deadly accuracy from beyond this range. You can only use sudden strike against living creatures with discernible anatomies—undead, constructs, oozes, plants, and incorporeal creatures lack vital areas to attack. Any creature that is immune to extra damage from critical hits is not vulnerable to sudden strike damage. You must be able to see the target well enough to pick out a vital spot and must be able to reach such a spot. You cannot make a sudden strike while striking a creature with concealment or striking the limbs of a creature whose vitals are out of reach. You can’t use sudden strike to deliver nonlethal damage. Weapons capable of dealing only nonlethal damage don’t deal extra damage when used as part of a sudden strike. pqs

SUDDEN STRIKE AND SNEAK ATTACK

For the purpose of qualifying for feats, prestige classes, and similar options that require a minimum number of sneak attack damage dice, treat the dread commando’s sudden strike ability as the equivalent of sneak attack. pqs

The extra damage from the sudden strike ability stacks with extra damage from a sneak attack whenever both would apply to the same target.

Team Initiative Bonus (Ex): You are skilled at keeping a team organized and ready for danger. All allies within 30 feet who can see you (including yourself) gain a competence bonus on initiative checks equal to your class level.

Armored Ease (Ex): You learn to adapt your movements to the restrictive nature of armor. Beginning at 2nd level, you reduce the armor check penalty of any armor with which you are proficient by 2 (to a minimum of 0). At 4th level, this reduction increases to 4 points (to a minimum of 0). Stealthy Movement (Ex): You learn to remain quiet and hidden even while mobile. Beginning at 4th level, you take no penalty on Hide or Move Silently checks while moving at up to your normal speed, and you take only a –10 penalty on Hide and Move Silently checks when running or charging (instead of the usual –20). PLAYING A DREAD COMMANDO

Your mission is clear. You have to reach your objective as quickly as possible, perform your task, and get out alive. You take on rescue missions, demolition missions, raids, scouting, or anything else that lets you do your work. Let the rank and file slog it out on the front lines while you scale the castle wall and set fire to the enemy’s artillery. The best missions for you are those that put you behind enemy lines. A few dread commandos work alone, but most operate in teams consisting of other commandos. Away from the hierarchy of an army, a dread commando might journey with a typical adventuring party, since the goals and methods of such groups fit the class’s mindset. Dread commandos are a bit more independent-minded than a typical soldier, but you still report to, and receive your missions from, a ranking officer. Such missions typically have a simple goal, and how you accomplish it is left for you to determine. Combat

You are most effective when you can attack first or from hiding. As soon as you can afford it, invest in magic or masterwork breastplate or scale mail (mithral is best).

You can then use your ranger or rogue abilities (such as combat style and evasion) while enjoying good protection, with your armored ease ability reducing or negating any armor check penalty. You’ll be more heavily armored than a typical ranger or rogue, so you can survive a bit longer when foes rush into melee. If you have both the ranger’s woodland stride ability and the Spring Attack feat, use them together to leap out of undergrowth, attack, and then rush back into concealment without allowing a full round of retaliatory attacks by your opponent. Advancement

When you begin the path of a dread commando, you have already spent time developing your hit-and-run skills. An army’s commander monitors the progress of each of her

scouts and determines which ones would work best as a member of an elite group. Once you are chosen, you are sent on missions that test your skill and ensure you fit the mold. When you’ve taken 1st level in the dread commando class, you should feel ready for anything. Your first missions will be straightforward. Typically, you are ordered to take out a fortification or artillery emplacement while a battle is underway. These missions are especially dangerous because the enemy is alert and on guard, but you can use the battle as a distraction, getting you closer to your goal. As you advance in the dread commando prestige class, your assignments become more covert and require you to utilize the stealth and speed you’ve been developing. You might be assigned to rescue a prisoner, sent to destroy a heavily guarded depot, or tasked with obtaining maps or plans from the enemy’s command tent. You will want high modifiers in Hide and Move Silently to ensure that you remain undetected until battle erupts. Open Lock, Disguise, and Search are valuable if your missions focus on infiltrating enemy encampments. Disable Device not only helps you bypass traps but allows you to sabotage siege engines.

Gloves of Dexterity and items that provide a bonus to Hide or Move Silently, such as boots or a cloak of elvenkind, are ideal for a dread commando. Your constant movement about the battlefield increases the value of weapons that deal extra damage, such as bane weapons and holy weapons, so you can maximize your effectiveness with a single attack when you don’t have time to take a full attack action (Power Attack also helps in this regard). Your familiarity with armors makes mithral armor particularly valuable: a highlevel dread commando with mithral full plate would have no armor check penalty and could use up to a +3 Dexterity bonus to AC.

be provided for scout missions. The very best is expected of you, and so the very best is supplied to you. You might also receive gold or items as a reward for a mission accomplished. In addition, your organization could fund freelance activities, such as adventuring, if they help increase your breadth of experience. DREAD COMMANDOS IN THE WORLD

“Just before dawn that ballista battery went up in a ball of fire. Those explosions removed the danger of artillery fire on the approach to the gatehouse and cleared the way for our troops, giving us our only chance of victory.” —General Haus Ballard, commander of the Army of the Alliance

Strike teams and covert forces are likely places to find dread commandos. PCs working as mercenaries for a military force might be assigned a dread commando to help guide them behind enemy lines or to toughen up their unit for work as a heavy strike force.

Resources

When you are given an assignment, your superiors supply you with as much intelligence as they can regarding your objectives. You can expect to know guard Denkar, a dread commando schedules, typical foes, distances to targets, and so on. When the mission is important enough, your commander will furnish you with gear appropriate to its completion.

For example, when you are sent on a demolition mission, you will typically have blast disks (see page 131) allocated to your team. In the same manner, potions of invisibility might Organization Dread commandos work alongside, but slightly outside of, the standard military structure, reporting to a chief lieutenant of the army’s commander. While they might work with other troops and units of the army, they do not adhere to the typical chain of command. Each group of commandos adopts an evocative name, such as the Rugged Rangers, the Wolfpack, Varduun’s Company, or Grunnag’s Gang. In many cases these outfits are not actually commissioned military units. Instead, they are hired by an army as a mercenary band would be, with the commandos’ leader taking an advisory role to the general or commander of the army. The leader of the commando forces in an army is a soldier who has survived many commando missions, earning the respect of his colleagues and his superiors. He outlines missions for the dread commandos who serve under him and arranges for resources to help in mission completion. He is also responsible for selecting strike teams for each mission, employing mercenaries as appropriate. The Rugged Rangers are a prototypical organization of dread commandos and their compatriots. The Rangers are led by Denkar, the best of the best. Denkar keeps five

Illus. by W. Reynolds

strike teams ready for action; each team consists of at least one dread commando along with others appropriate to the mission at hand. Denkar enlists the aid of the scouting corps (itself led by a former Rugged Ranger) for overland missions, but the Rangers have rogues and other specialists available for urban undertakings. At any time, up to three teams might be in the field simultaneously, completing missions both covert and overt. Gregor Antus is a rogue who received training as a dread commando. His specialty is eliminating enemy siege engines. He claims to have pulled the wheels off a siege tower when it was being moved into position, and he enjoys taunting enemy engineers after he has disabled their catapults. Most of the other Rugged Rangers enjoy hearing of his exploits but fear that eventually he’s going to make a mistake that could be costly for the team—and on the battlefield, the currency is blood. In other less reputable organizations, Gregor might eventually be sent on a mission from which he would be unlikely to return, a probability that would be increased if key pieces of information were left out of the mission briefing. He would be sent out with a group of expendable mercenaries and then forgotten. However, Denkar doesn’t run his operation that way. He sees the value in every commando, even those as brash as Gregor. Regardless of experience, most dread commandos within a group see each other as equals, elite brothers and sisters a step above members of more common classes. Separate outfits, however, could see each other as rivals. These groups sometimes try to outdo each other, taking on ever more dangerous missions to show up the other team and in some cases even sabotaging their competitors in various ways. In addition, subcommanders in the larger military force might disprove of the relative independence that dread commandos enjoy and so try to undermine them. Particularly ruthless officers might not be above taking actions likely to lead to the injury or death of commandos when it means fewer losses among their own troops. NPC Reactions

Officers and other soldiers in the military tend to be wary of dread commandos and have a starting attitude of indifferent toward them (particularly distrustful officers should be considered unfriendly). By contrast, locals at the tavern love to hear about the exploits of dread commandos because such tales are filled with harrowing escapes, spectacular battles, and odds-defying victories. The enemies of the dread commandos are those on the other side of the battlefield. Dread commandos form quick and mobile strike teams, and any opponent who learns that these tactics are being implemented will surely organize a shock troop of their own to counter the commandos, who become hunters and hunted all at once.

DREAD COMMANDO LORE

Characters with Knowledge (history) can research the dread commandos to learn more about them. When a character makes a skill check, read or paraphrase the following, including information from lower DCs.

DC 10: “Some armies have commando teams that can cover great distances even when heavily armed and armored.”

DC 15: “I heard a tale of a dread commando that snuck past a picket line, knocked out the guards at the enemy’s command tent, stole the troop movement maps, and fled into the night. While wearing full plate. And when they tried to hit him with catapult shots as he fled, the weapons all misfired.”

DC 20: Characters who get a result this high will learn the names of prominent commando teams and the armies they might work for.

DC 30: A character with this level of success learns the names of the leaders of commando troops who serve in the region. A PC with ties to the military can make use of her contacts within an organization to gain a +5 bonus on

Knowledge checks related to dread commandos. Bards can also uncover the DC 20 and DC 30 information through the use of bardic knowledge. DREAD COMMANDOS IN THE GAME

Dread commandos could be an existing institution in your campaign world, one that the PCs are introduced to when they begin working more closely with a military organization. Alternatively, dread commandos could travel in exclusive troops, such as the Rugged Rangers, who might coincidentally be arriving in the region to ally with local armies. A mentor of the PCs might have once been a dread commando and now shares his secrets in the hopes that a PC carries on the tradition. This prestige class appeals to players who like their characters to sneak around a bit but also like to engage in pitched battles. The DM should allow a dread commando character plenty of opportunities to utilize his stealth abilities prior to the commencement of hostilities. If not all the PCs are good at moving quietly, the party might be able to come up with a plan that allows the sneaky PCs to move around to a rear or flank position while the others draw out the enemy. Adaptation

The dread commando is a heavily armored quick-strike specialist. For characters who are not strong enough to avoid being encumbered by heavy armor, you could replace the class’s armor abilities with a concealment progression, in which dread commandos benefit from a cumulative 5% miss chance per level when in natural terrain. This benefit allows unarmored or lightly armored commandos an opportunity to join a quick-strike team and provides them a defensive benefit to make up for their lack of the heavier armor.

Encounters

A group of PCs could work for an organization like the

Rugged Rangers, or one of the PCs could be an aspiring dread commando looking to sign on with such a team. The