This week we resume looking at the class exemplars, featuring the fantastic character portraits by Nikki Smith-Cielo. Continuing alphabetically, next up is the Cleric Exemplar. While a full-blooded orc, this exemplar takes advantage of the ancestry rules for adopted characters.
Naalchi Hozho
Orcs have a reputation for brutality, and many frontier settlements live in fear of marauding orc bands from the wilds. Were it not for the hand of The Diplomat, Hozho would have lived the life of a raider, serving an endless cycle of pillaging and murder until he succumbed to it himself. Hozho is thankful every day that such was not to be his fate.
When he was merely a toddler, Hozho was separated from his mother during a raid on a small border town. When the townsfolk found him, he was weak and starving. The other orcs were gone, and the angry townsfolk were eager to extract whatever retribution they could from the child. Before they could, however, a stranger intervened. This stranger was a traveling paladin of The Diplomat. He protected the boy orc and adopted him as his own son, teaching him the ways of peace and diplomacy, and the two traveled together until he passed.
Hozho was grief-stricken when his father passed, but is determined to follow in his footsteps. He wears his father's armor and carries his lance, and has taken to the life of the mediator with aplomb. His life's mission is to foster peace wherever he goes, and his particular passion is to broker relations between frontier towns and the orc bands that would raid them otherwise. It takes a deep well of strength to stand between two such intractable foes but, thanks to his heritage, strength is something Hozho possesses in great supply.
Ancestry
Hozho is an Orc, which provides him with darkvision and 10 bonus Hit Points, but his sensitive eyes are dazzled in areas of bright light. His ancestry also gives him ability boosts to Strength and Endurance, a flaw to Intelligence, and a free boost that he uses to improve his Charisma. During this step he also chooses the following ancestry perks: Ferocity, Tusked, and Adopted twice. Ferocity gives Hozho a defensive reaction that he can use to stay conscious at 1 Hit Point any time he would be reduced to 0 Hit Points from more than 1 Hit Point, which is a very useful ability for any character, but especially for one that has strong options for in-combat healing. Tusked gives him a jaws unarmed attack with a respectable d8 damage die, which can also always be used to Riposte against critically failed attacks even though it does not have the parry trait. Adopted lets Hozho pick non-biological ancestry perks from his adopted ancestry, Humans, and he uses these to add Natural Aptitude for an extra class perk and General Training for an extra general perk.
Background
For his Background, Hozho improves his Wisdom, further improves his Strength and becomes an expert in Religion. He chooses Heirloom for his Backstory Boon, and uses it to gain fine full plate armor in addition to any starting equipment he purchases during the Equipment step. As expensive as full plate is, especially at high quality, this helps him spend his cash on weapons and other important gear.
Class
Hozho is a Cleric. He chooses Wisdom as his Key Ability, which gives that ability another +1 bonus. The class automatically gives him another 10 Hit Points (8 plus his final Endurance modifier of +2), as well as several Initial Proficiencies. He's an expert in Fortitude and Will saves, and one of the two signature skills offered by The Diplomat, his patron deity. The Diplomat offers Knowledge and Society as these options, and Hozho chooses Knowledge. He's also trained in Perception, Reflex Saves, divine spells and all categories of armor and shields. The class also grants him one esoteric boost for weapon groups, which he uses to become trained in spears, the group that contains The Diplomat's signature weapon, the lance. Finally, he chooses 3 more skills in which to be trained (3 plus his final Intelligence modifier of +0), and chooses Athletics, Medicine and Survival.
A cleric's choice of deity serves as a specialization within the class. As a follower of The Diplomat, Hozho can choose one of his patron's deities to be his primary domain. He picks the Truth Domain, which immediately provides him with the word of truth Domain Power, and will eventually automatically provide him with its higher-level powers as soon as he can cast spells of their base levels. The Diplomat also lets its followers choose for themselves whether to channel positive energy or negative energy. Hozho chooses positive energy, which lets him use his Channel Pool to cast heal three times per day (1 plus his final Charisma modifier of +2). This pool functions much like his Spell Point pool, but is kept separate to ensure that he always has a significant pool of healing magic from his patron in addition to any healing spells he might prepare or gain as Domain Powers.
Hozho also chooses two class perks, one automatically and a second thanks to his adopted heritage. He uses both to choose the Expanded Domain perk twice, each time choosing one of his deity's other domains. The Freedom Domain gives him the unimpeded stride power, and the Knowledge Domain gives him the lorekeeper's fortune power. Each time he takes the perk, it also increases the size of his Spell Point pool by one more. This gives him a total of 6 Spell Points (1 plus his final Wisdom modifier of +3, plus two extra from his perks) that he can use to cast his powers. Between his Domain Powers and Channel Pool, he has 9 extra spells per day he can cast besides those he chooses to prepare in his spell slots.
As a cleric, Hozho can prepare divine spells each day. He can prepare four Cantrips and two first-level spells. He draws these spells from a spell list which includes all common divine spells and cantrips as well as the signature spells offered by The Diplomat, whether those spells are common or uncommon, and even if they normally do not even belong to the divine tradition. Neither of The Diplomat's signature spells for cantrips or first-level spells are normally on the divine list, so Hozho's deity choice has given him a few extra tricks he can use when preparing spells if he wants.
Details
During this step, Hozho gets to choose his final round of ability boosts. He takes advantage of the option to take a -1 penalty to one ability (Agility) in order to get a boost to all five others. This sets his final ability modifier array at Str: +3, Agi: -1, End: +2, Int: +0, Wis: +3, Cha: +2. He chooses Sudden Charge and Unusual Technique for his general perks, one gained automatically and the other thanks to his adopted heritage. Sudden Charge is an action-economy enhancer which lets him Stride up to twice and then Strike. He can do this with any weapon for two actions, but if the weapon would have the charge trait (as does The Diplomat's favored weapon, the lance), it only costs one action instead. This helps Hozho maneuver quickly and effectively around the battlefield while still retaining plenty of actions for casting spells! Unusual Technique lets him permanently add the disarm and trip traits to all lances when he wields them, which means he can use a lance to perform these maneuvers, and take advantage of its naturally extended reach to do so from a safe distance. For his skill boost, Hozho chooses the Religion skill perk Cult of Personality, which lets him substitute his Religion skill for any Deception, Diplomacy or Society check, as long as it is made to or against a creature. With only so many trained skills, this lets him make use of one of his best skills to cover for other areas where he simply doesn't have the breadth to invest.
Equipment
Like all characters in Realm of Runes, Hozho has 150 silver pieces to spend on starting equipment, in addition to the free fine full plate he gained from his Backstory boon. He chooses a lance to be his primary weapon, a standard adventuring kit (backpack, bedroll, belt pouch, blanket, 10 candles, 3 changes of clothes, crowbar, flint & steel, wood mug, 6 rations, 20m silk rope, 5 sacks, a pup tent, 5 torches, 2 water skins and a writing set), an alchemical starter pack (2 elixirs of life, 1 alchemist's fire, 1 acid flask, 1 antidote, 1 antibiotics and a bandolier to hold them all), an iron symbol of The Diplomat and healer's tools to make the best use of the Medicine skill. He also keeps 17 silver pieces left over as spending money to use during adventures.
Final Touches
With all choices made, Hozho can fill out his important statistics. He has 20 Hit Points between ancestry and class. With fine full plate, his armor class is 16 (+1 from proficiency, +6 from fine full plate, but -1 from his Agility), but the bulky armor keeps him impeded 2. This reduces his speed to just 3 hexes per movement, but thanks to his Sudden Charge perk and the reach of his lance, he's able to stay mobile on the battlefield and keep foes from getting comfortable. His spell roll for divine spells, domain powers and channeled spells is +4 (+1 from proficiency, +3 from Wisdom), and the DC of these spells is 14. He also fills out his spell slots with prepared spells from his spell list. He chooses forbidding ward, private message (The Diplomat's signature cantrip), shield and stabilize as his prepared Cantrips, and bane and magic weapon for his first-level spells. The rest of his abilities are filled out similarly, depending on his proficiencies and ability modifiers as appropriate.
Next week we'll alternate back to a closer look at another topic that underwent significant improvements during the playtest process: spell empowerment.
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