[="Kgauck"]Kgauck[/] » [="Kgauck/Class"]Kgauck/Class[/] » [="KGauck/Artist"]KGauck/Artist[/]
The Artist class below is based on the Artist class in the Medieval Player's Manual. The Medieval Player's Manual is a guide to medieval magic, divine power, and other medieval period information useful to make a more authentic medieval setting, or to add a more medieval feeling to a fantasy setting.
The Artist class is declared Open Content by Green Ronin Publishing. The modifications I have made to this class do not alter its status as open game content. Therefore, the text below can be reproduced in its entirety. So long as the line in item 15 in the Medieval Player's Manual OGL is included.
The Artist can be a stand-alone core class, or a bard multi-class. The artist is a disciplined craftsman, producing work as their patrons or their muse directs, and occasionally rising above the banal to produce something great. Bards come with no ability to create lasting, great art. Their abilities are focused on immediate beneficial effects produced by performance. The artist can produce lasting effects that impact an audience again and again, long after the artist has gone to another commission or even long after the artist is dead.

[top]Game Rule Information

Artists have the following game statistics.

Abilities: Intelligence is by far the most important ability for artists, as Craft checks are based on it. Wisdom and Charisma are also useful, but the physical abilities can be neglected.

Alignment: Any.

Hit Die: d4

The artist?s class skills (and key ability for each skill) are Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), and Speak Language (Int).

Skill Points at 1st Level: (8 + Int modifier) x 4.

Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 8 + Int modifier.

[top]Class Features Table


Table: the artist
Base Fort Ref Will
Level Attack Bonus Save Save Save Special
1 st+0+0+0+2Artistic Inspiration
2nd+1+0+0+3Improved Inspiration
3rd+1+1+1+3Skill Focus (Craft)
4th+2+1+1+4Inspire Majesty
5th+2+1+1+4Moving Art
6th+3+2+2+5Skill Focus (Craft)
7th+3+2+2+5Truthful Expression
8th+4+2+2+6Materials
9th+4+3+3+6Skill Focus (Craft)
10th+5+3+3+7Moving Art
11th+5+3+3+7Enlightening Art
12th+6/+1+4+4+8Master Hand
13th+6/+1+4+4+8Inspire Glorious Majesty
14th+7/+2+4+4+9Moving Art
15th+7/+2+5+5+9Master Hand
16th+8/+3+5+5+10Exemplary Art (People)
17th+8/+3+5+5+10Exemplary Art (World)
18th+9/+4+6+6+11Master Hand
19th+9/+4+6+6+11Moving Art
20th+10/+5+6+6+12Real Art

Artistic Inspiration:

An artist is capable of creating lasting works of art, as opposed to performances or crafts. The artists starts by cultivating their muse and struggling to achieve inspiration.

Improved Inspiration:

An artist makes inspiration checks a number of times equal to half his class level, rounded down, each day.

Skill Focus (Craft):

At third, sixth, and ninth level the artist gains a free Skill Focus feat which must be taken in a Craft skill. Skill Focus does not stack.

Inspire Majesty:

An artist of 4th level or higher with 7 or more ranks in a Craft (or Perform) skill can create a work of art that enhances the reputation of an ally or patron. Each creature to be inspired must be within 30 feet of the work of art, able to see to work of art (or in the case of a performance based on work of art, such as a song, hear the bard) and be able to pay attention to the work of art. Any distraction that prevents a viewer from contemplating the work of art prevents this ability from working. Such works are art are common before one enters a throne room or other hall before meeting a great personage. The effect of the art is to give the ally or patron a +4 bonus to diplomacy, intimidation, or bluff once per day for visitors viewing the art before meeting the person. A wise ruler has several such pieces of art about so that they can meet several times in several places using different works of art to inspire majesty before every audience.

Moving Art:

From fifth level the artist can create art which inspires a particular emotion or attitude in those who see, read, or here it. At fifth level the artist chooses a single emotion, such as ambition, piety, loyalty, or lust, and can create artworks that inspire that emotion. Anyone experiencing the art must make a Will save against a DC of 5 + artist?s class level + artist?s Cha modifier or be overwhelmed by the corresponding emotion. The result of the Inspiration check for the artwork must at least equal the save DC. If it does not, the save DC is reduced to the result of the Inspiration check. Even those who make the save feel the emotion, but they can easily control it should they wish to do so. The artist has no control over what people do in response to these emotions.

Truthful Expression:

An artist who attempts to depict a real event or describe a historical person can detect inconsistencies in other depictions and descriptions which can lead the artist, by trial and error to find the authentic truth of the matter by producing a depiction or description which is entirely consistent. This allows an artist to depict or describe persons and events as they really were.

Materials:

Fine materials impress many viewers of art. From eighth level, the artist can substitute cheap materials for expensive ones without reducing the quality of the final artwork. He knows how to burnish and treat copper so that it looks like gold, use pebbles or glass in place of gems, and use local products to make copies of expensive foreign dyes. The cheap materials do not become expensive, and an appropriate DC 10 skill check reveals the imposture. However, the substitution does not affect the artistic quality. From eighth level on, the artist no longer needs to rely on gold and gems to awe the viewer. Common materials will prove to inspire the viewer just as much.

Enlightening Art:

At eleventh level the artist gains the extraordinary ability to create works of art that make some theory, historical situation, or theological fact clear. The artist himself must understand the matter in question, which means that artworks explaining the divine mysteries cannot be created, and must specifically search for inspiration to make that thing clear. Once the artwork has been successfully created, anyone experiencing it fully understands what is going on. Thus, a poem about the Anuirean Empire could, while entertaining, convey a perfect understanding of the political tensions and personal rivalries behind the Empire, the various factors influencing the battles, and so on.
It is up to the GM to decide what the artist understands, but as a rule of thumb he should understand anything he has personally experienced and other situations if he has 10 or more ranks in the appropriate Knowledge. Particularly complex events or theories may require a higher skill rank, and no human being can understand theological mysteries in this life. This ability can be used with completely abstract theories; De rerum natura, by the Roman poet Lucretius, is an example of a poem that explains an abstract theory in natural philosophy.

Master Hand:

At twelfth, fifteenth, and eighteenth level the artist gains the master hand ability with one Craft skill, a different skill at each level. This must be a Craft skill for which the artist already has the Skill Focus feat. The master ability grants a +6 bonus to the skill, which overlaps (does not stack) with the bonus from Skill Focus.

Inspire Glorious Majesty:

At 13th level, an artist with 16 ranks in Craft may create a work of art that inspires majesty in an ally or patron, granting that person a +4 bonus to diplomacy, intimidation, or bluff for as many rounds as the artist?s skill ranks in the Craft from which the art is produced. You cannot use the Perform skill alone, though you can perform a poem, song, or tale that was created using the Craft skill, as all poetics are crafted.

Exemplary Art:

At sixteenth level the artist can create works of art that people, want to imitate, and at seventeenth level he can also create works that the world tries to make real. This supernatural ability works in two ways, affecting people in a different way from the world.
A work of exemplary art that is aimed at people must either praise or condemn some condition or behavior. This can be anything that people could do, so the art could condemn kings, or a bridge over a river, or wearing red clothes, and similarly could praise the same sorts of things. Anyone who experiences the art must make a Will save against a DC of artist?s character level + artist?s Cha modifier, or fall into enthusiastic agreement with the attitude expressed in the artwork. Characters under the influence of the artwork may make another Will save every day that they are away from the art, with a cumulative +1 bonus for every day on which they fail. People who escape the artwork?s influence realize the source of the influence, but do not necessarily realize that it was supernatural.
A work of exemplary art aimed at the world simply depicts the world in a state that is within its normal range. This might be an exceptionally fertile harvest, or a very cold winter, or a flood, or packs of wolves attacking villages. Circumstances then conspire to make this vision come about. Only the province depicted in the art is affected, so it must be recognizable, and cannot be too large, or the depiction ceases to be specific. This is a realm action, and requires the spending of Regency Points as well as GB to bring about this effect. There is no saving throw, but other magic can interfere and stop the art exerting its influence for a time. A work of art causing cold winters continues to do so every year until it is destroyed or the province is effected by a dispel realm magic with the express purpose of dispelling this effect, and similarly for other goals. A scene of rain would not make it rain constantly, as that is clearly unnatural, but would make it rain far more often than in nearby regions.
Real Art:

This supernatural ability, gained at twentieth level, makes the artworks that the artist crafts real, in that the things that they represent really exist. This only works for genuinely inspired art and the extent of the reality depends on the quality of the inspiration and execution. For interesting but minor works, the things depicted have more reality than the medium would normally allow, but close inspection ?reveals? that they are nothing more than the picture or words that they appear to be. Thus, a statue of a person appears to breathe, and he has a scent and makes small sounds as he appears to shift in place, but close inspection of the statue shows that it is stone. Similarly, a character reading a description of a battle can hear the shouts of the combatants and the clash of arms, smell the blood, and feel the weather, although looking up from his reading shows that he is still where he was, and that there is no battle around him.
An important work has more life, and close inspection reveals that there is more than just a painting present. The statue could speak and move, although it could not get down from its place, and the characters in a story might respond directly to the reader?s thoughts, changing the words written on the page. These artworks only live for one person at a time, and if another person looks, or if the first person goes away and returns, they return to their original state. The characters in an artwork do not normally have any knowledge that goes beyond the content of the artwork and the knowledge of the observer, however. The main exception is that God and his saints sometimes choose to speak through religious artwork.
A major work is a gateway to a small world, where the events depicted can be experienced. An observer can choose to enter the artwork, in which case a depiction of the observer appears in the artwork, and remains there until he leaves. Within the artwork, everything it depicts is entirely real, but the world does not go beyond the story. There is nothing behind the background of a painting, and the world of a single statue is populated solely by the statue. A visitor can leave simply by willing to do so, which makes these artworks a good place to hide, but the inhabitants cannot learn; they are bound by their role in the story or picture. Again, Divine powers sometimes choose to speak through such works, in which case their advice and miracles are entirely real. A breathtaking work creates an entire world, of which the artwork only shows a small part. People may enter these artworks, and live their entire lives in the worlds so created. This may lead to them appearing in the story, and even to a story changing. Visual arts are less prone to this, as the image tends to show the point at which the observer enters the world, and thus while he will appear in the image, that will be the only change. Leaving these worlds is more difficult, as the intruder must find a way to return to his point of entry. This is always possible, generally by doing so in a symbolic fashion, as long as the original artwork still exists. If it does not, the only way to leave the small world is to die and pass on to Judgment.

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