“What stands between you and forever may just be me; yet I will not yield”
Do you burn within with a powerful vision of how the world should be? Is there hope and love in your heart, and a desire to wield it to make life better? Would you stand in the doorway, would you keep out the danger, would you walk the line, would you refuse to die and refuse to yield, for love’s sake?
If so, you may be a Passionguard.
Building A Passionguard
The Passionguard is meant to add a courtly flourish to a character, that sort of ‘knightly’ air to a character whose dedication to love. It lets you create a character with heavy armour, where other class needs may pull you towards them, and lets you channel the character’s emotional needs and values into combat.
Passionguard characters typically want to be melee weapon wielders, and their abilities reward defenders and strikers, but some leaders and controllers can get value from the theme.
Starting Feature
The Passionguard is a character who has an ideology that they seek to make real in life, and that ideology is somehow related to the protection and care of another. With that in mind, any given Passionguard is expressing their ideology by ensuring that someone is safe.
Note that this does not need to be the Passionguard’s romantic paramour, and Passionguards are in no way limited to one or two such. A ward can be meaningful to the Passionguard in a variety of ways. Some examples are a student the Passionguard is teaching, someone politically important the Passionguard wants to see succeed, or even a sibling or family member the Passionguard refuses to let come to harm.
| Ward the Charge | Passionguard Utility Feature |
|---|---|
| Your practice as a passionguard keeps an ally safe, and encourages them to stay by your side. | |
| Encounter | |
| Free action ✦ Close burst 1 | |
| Trigger: You roll initiative | |
| Target: One ally in the burst | |
| Level 21: Up to two allies in the burst | |
| Effect: Until the end of the encounter, the target gets a +1 bonus to all defences as long as they are adjacent to you, or flanking an enemy with you. Until the end of the encounter, the target gets a +2 bonus to speed as long as their movement brings them closer to you. | |
Additional Features
Level 5 Feature
The Passionguard is a character whose ideals and ideology drive them, personally; they are not necessarily surrounded by magical energies protecting them. That means that as this drive pushes them, they learn to protect themselves with some armour training.
Knightly Armour Training: You get a bonus Armour Proficiency feat. You do not have to fulfil the ability score prerequisites of the feat you choose.
Level 10 Feature
The Passionguard is a beacon of hope and safety—even just being able to make eye contact with your chosen Ally can give both of you the strength to overcome obstacles.
Benefit: As long as you and the target(s) of your ward the charge power can see one another, you both get a +2 bonus to saving throws.