Slayer

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Overview & Creation

‘The day will come when they will perish and I shall go back!’   Perhaps you or your family suffered a terrible loss at another’s hands, and you became a slayer to take your revenge on whoever wronged you. Perhaps a terrible rage burns in your soul, and you just had to leave behind a life that you are not able to enjoy any more. Or perhaps you are the descendant of a warrior people, born to the saddle or the sword.   Perhaps. Maybes. Enough of them. There is certainty in battle, and it is in battle that you find your true home. Slayers are fighters without peer, riders and berserkers with fire in their veins.   Play a Slayer if you wish to…   • Toss wolves and goblins from your path like straw and feathers.   • Take revenge upon the Enemy for all the many injustices inflicted on your people.   • Fight alone, or in the front line of a company of warriors.

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Class Features

Battle-fury

In battle, you fight with white-hot rage or cold, deadly precision. Whatever the character of your anger, on your turn, you can enter a Battle-fury as a bonus action. While in a Fury, you gain the following benefits if you aren’t wearing heavy armour:   • You have advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws.   • When you make a melee weapon attack using Strength, you gain a bonus to the damage roll that increases as you gain levels as a Slayer, as shown in the Fury Damage column of the Slayer table.   • You have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage.   Your Battle-fury lasts for 1 minute. It ends early if you are knocked unconscious or if your turn ends and you haven’t attacked a hostile creature since your last turn or taken damage since then.   You can also end your Battle-fury on your turn as a bonus action. Once you have used this feature the number of times shown for your level in the Furies column of the Slayer table, you must finish a long rest before you can enter a Battle-fury again.  

Unarmored Defense

While you are not wearing any armor, your Armour Class equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Constitution modifier. You can use a shield (but not a great shield) and still gain this benefit.  

Reckless Attack

Starting at 2nd level, you can throw aside all concern for defence to attack with fierce desperation. When you make your first attack on your turn, you can decide to attack recklessly. Doing so gives you advantage on melee weapon attack rolls using Strength during this turn, but attack rolls against you have advantage until your next turn.  

Vigilant Senses

At 2nd level, you begin to sense when danger is near. You have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) ability checks when seeking to detect nearby enemies or ambushes. To gain this benefit, you cannot be blinded, deafened or incapacitated.  

Slayer Path

At 3rd level, you choose a path that shapes the nature of your Battle-fury. Choose the path of the Rider or the path of the Foehammer (both are detailed at the end of the class description).   Your choice grants you features at 3rd level and again at 6th, 10th and 14th levels.  

Character Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1, or you can take a Cultural or Open Virtue. As normal, you cannot increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.  

Extra Attack

Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn. Fast Movement Starting at 5th level, your Speed increases by 10 feet while you aren’t wearing heavy armour.  

Black Mist

By 7th level, your instincts are so honed that you have advantage on initiative rolls. Additionally, if you are surprised at the beginning of combat and aren’t incapacitated, you can act normally on your first turn, but only if you enter your Battle-fury before doing anything else on that turn.  

Mortal Wound

Beginning at 9th level, you can roll one additional weapon damage die when determining the extra damage for a critical hit with a melee attack. This increases to two additional dice at 13th level and three additional dice at 17th level.  

Pierced By Many Arrows

Starting at 11th level, you can keep fighting despite grievous wounds. If you drop to 0 hit points while you are in a Battle-fury (or if you have any uses of Battle-fury left) and don’t die outright, you can make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw.   If you succeed, you drop to 1 hit point instead (and enter Battle-fury if you are not already). Each time you use this feature after the first, the DC increases by 5. When you finish a short or long rest, the DC resets to 10.  

There Many Foes He Fought

Beginning at 15th level, your Battle-fury is so all-consuming that it ends only if you fall unconscious or if you choose to end it.  

Indomitable Might

At 18th level, if your total for a Strength check is less than your Strength score, you can use your Strength score in place of the total.  

Strength Greater Than Any Warrior’s Hand

At 20th level, the wrath you have embraced changes you forever. Your Strength and Constitution scores increase by 4. Your maximum for those scores is now 24.

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Starting Equipment

You start with the following extra equipment, in addition to equipment granted by your Standard of Living.   Frugal: A greataxe and hide armor.   Poor: Any martial weapon and hide armor, a spear, two hand axes.   Martial, Prosperous or Rich: Any martial weapon and a corslet of mail, a spear, two hand axes.

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Subclass Options

Slayer Paths

He stood a moment as a man who is pierced in the midst of a cry by an arrow through the heart; and then his face went deathly white, and a cold fury rose in him, and so that all speech failed him for a while. A fey mood took him.   "Éowyn, Éowyn!" he cried at last. "Éowyn, how come you here? What madness or devilry is this? Death, death, death! Death take us all!"   The Slayer does not consciously choose a path; it is an instinctive decision, or a fate pre-ordained outside the circles of the world.  

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The Rider

While the Rohirrim are the most famous riders among the Free People, they are not the only folk to fight from horseback. The charge of a mounted Slayer is as terrible and glorious as the break of dawn, and the blowing of their horns resounds from the mountains to the Sea.  

Mounted Combat

Beginning at 3rd level, if you are mounted, you deal an extra 1d4 damage when you hit an unmounted Medium or Small foe with a melee attack. If you take the Dash action in combat your extra damage increases to +1d6 for the first attack you make that round.  

Mighty Spear-Throw

At 6th level, when you throw your spear with advantage, you automatically inflict maximum damage instead of rolling the dice. If you are mounted, you do not gain disadvantage when throwing your spear at long range.  

Intimidating Presence

Beginning at 10th level, when mounted, you can use your action to frighten someone with your glowering presence. When you do so, choose one creature within 30 feet that you can see. If the creature can see or hear you, it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw (DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier) or be Frightened of you until the end of your next turn. On subsequent turns, you can use your action to extend the duration of this effect on the Frightened creature until the end of your next turn. The effect ends if the creature ends its turn out of line of sight or more than 60 feet away from you. If the creature succeeds on its saving throw, you can’t use this feature on that creature again until you’ve taken a long rest.   If you Dash into combat, you may use Intimidating Presence as a bonus action.   Note that using Intimidating Presence doesn’t normally count as a Misdeed – although the Loremaster might decide otherwise if the Slayer abuses their menacing influence to bully innocent folk without cause.  

Horns Wildly Blowing

At 14th level, you can inspire your allies. At the start of a combat, you may blow your horn or shout a battle-cry. If you do, a number of allies equal to 1+ your Charisma modifier gain the benefits of your Reckless Attacks feature. If an ally makes a Reckless Attack, they get to add your Fury Damage bonus to their damage rolls.  

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Foe-Hammer

Slayers who walk the path of the Foe-hammer wade into the very thick of battle, heedless of their enemies’ paltry blows. Such Slayers are near unstoppable, their fury enhancing their might to a point where they can slay lesser warriors with nothing more than a blow of their fist.  

Armoured Fury

Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you gain the full benefits of your Battle-fury while wearing heavy armour. In addition, if you do not already have it, you also acquire the heavy armour proficiency.  

Hooped and Hasped

Beginning at the 6th level, your armour no longer impedes you in any way. You add your full Dexterity modifier as a bonus to your Armour Class, regardless of the type of armour you are wearing. You are no longer subject to stealth disadvantage when wearing medium or heavy armour.  

Hammerhand

Beginning at 10th level, your anger courses through your limbs. At all times, your hands now count as martial melee weapons. When you are in a Battle-fury, they do a base 1d4 bludgeoning damage and score a critical hit on a roll of 19-20.   If you are fighting with a melee weapon other than your hands, then you immediately get a bonus unarmed attack if you miss with your regular attack. You may only make one bonus attack per round.  

Splintered Spears & Shattered Shields

Starting at 14th level, you may choose to channel all of your fury into a single, devastating, blow. You can choose one of the following options:   • Automatically score a critical hit in melee combat with any melee weapon other than your fist. After determining damage, your weapon is utterly broken in the attack and cannot be used again. (Some ancient, often magical, arms cannot be broken, but can be damaged enough to require repair after being used in this fashion.) Creatures immune to critical hits still take the full damage from this attack.   • Automatically destroy an opponent’s shield in place of an attack, splitting it asunder, or crumpling it under a heavy blow. Some shields, often wrought by Durin’s folk long ago, cannot be broken this way, in which case the opponent suffers damage as if they had been successfully struck.   Once you have used this ability, you cannot use it again until you have had a long rest.   At 17th level, this ability may be used twice per long rest.

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