Painwheel (3.5e Prestige Class)

Painwheel

“	Once I was exploring an dungeon. I could hear the screams of the ones captured there, crying for mercy and asking for death over that suffering. It was like music to my ears...	”
—Maruyo, Human Painwheel

Compassion is imprinted into every human, elf, dwarf... As sharing the continuous suffering of life and the looming threat of death, the natural instinct is to help each other, to collaborate, and support in order to phase through the painful truth. Even sadism has a limit, a friend, a lover, family... Hurt all, but them. However, the mortal mind is something fragile, even the smartest mages can be victims of their own brilliance, leading themselves to madness. When the compassion that every mortal shares is missing, completely inexistent on one's discernment, they see no moral barriers to hurt others. Yet, this is not as dangerous as it can possibly be: could they not only hurt without problem, they feel pleased and accomplished by doing so. The satisfaction acquired from someone else's torment, that is what defines a Painwheel.

The Painwheel is a specific path of scourge, that does not look for termination of others, but rather their misery. They use wicked methods provided from their medical knowledge, to guarantee longenvity to an enemy, because in their logic: the longer it lives, the longer it suffers. When a Painwheel intends to kill someone, it'll be a slow death, however, the enemy will be too debilitated to retaliate.

Becoming a Painwheel

Pursuing this path is a tough choice, it is a dead end for your empathy, so people who usually have little seek to be a Painwheel. Rogues and Ninjas can easily be capable to adhere in; Some Evil-Deity Clerics and Warlocks also go to the sadism path. Other classes lack the motive to become a Painwheel, but they existing is not impossible.

Entry Requirements

Alignment:	Any non-good.
Base Attack Bonus:	+3
Skills:	Bluff 4 Ranks, Heal 8 Ranks, Intimidade 3 Ranks
Feats:	Weapon Focus(Any Flail, Spiked Gauntlet, Spiked Chain or Whip Dagger)
Special:	Must have already tortured someone with no motive other than becoming a Painwheel.

Table: The Painwheel

Hit Die: d6

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Saving Throws			Special
		Fort	Ref	Will
1st	+0	+0	+0	+2	Poison Use, Sneak Attack +1d6, Torment, Bleeding Strike, Puncture
2nd	+1	+0	+0	+3
3rd	+1	+1	+1	+3	Sneak Attack +2d6
4th	+3	+1	+1	+4
5th	+3	+1	+1	+4	Sneak Attack +3d6
6th	+4	+2	+2	+5
7th	+5	+2	+2	+5	Sneak Attack +4d6
8th	+6	+2	+2	+6
9th	+6	+3	+3	+6	Sneak Attack +5d6
10th	+7	+3	+3	+7
Class Skills (6 + Int modifier per level) Bluff, Craft(Alchemy), Escape Artist, Gather Information, Sleight of Hand.

Table: The Epic

Level	Special
11th
12th
13th
14th
15th
16th
17th
18th
19th
20th

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the Painwheel.

Poison Use: Painwheels are trained in the use of poison and never risk accidentally poisoning themselves when applying poison to a blade.

Sneak Attack: The Painwheel excels at weak points in their victims. This is exactly like the Rogue ability of the same name. The extra damage dealt increases by +1d6 every other level (1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th). If a Painwheel gets a sneak attack bonus from another source the bonuses on damage stack.

Torment: All the expertise and grasp on making their enemies suffer cojoins in their Torment abilities. The Torment abilities can be used a limited times per day equal to the Painwheel's Charisma Modifier + 1/2 of their class levels. They must be wielding a Flail, Spiked Gauntlet, Spiked Chain or Whip Dagger and have Weapon Focus with it. Targets that cannot be affected by Sneak Attacks are also immune to Torment abilities.

Bleeding Strike(Ex): Whenever a target is hit twice by a Painwheel, they start bleeding and loose 1 HP per round. Being struck four times increase the loss to 2 HP per round, six times to 3 HP loss, and it goes on. The bleed loss cannot be increased more than 1 in a single round. This does not require a Torment daily use. Out of an encounter, the victim of bleeding will bleed 1 less HP per minute. Healing spells remove 1 point of bleeding equal to its level multiplied by 3.

Puncture(Ex): By using one Torment daily use, as a standart action the Painwheel deals a single attack to a bleeding target. If it hits, it increases the bleeding of the target by 5. If it the attack misses, the daily use is wasted.

Withering Strike(Ex): Starting at level 4, by using one or more Torment daily uses, as a standart action the Painwheel deals a single Sneak Attack. Additional to the Sneak Attack damage, the target loses 1 point of Constituition per Torment daily use spent. At level 8, this ability becomes +50% more effective, multiply the Constitution damage by 1.5 (rounded down).

Bonus Feats: .

The epic gains a bonus feat (selected from the list of epic feats) every levels after .

Epic Bonus Feat List:

Ex-Painwheels

If a Painwheel becomes Good-Aligned or shows mercy against a victim they were already torturing, they lose their class abilities, except for Sneak Attack.

Playing a Painwheel

Combat: The Painwheel is quite the melee punisher, but it lacks the endurance to maintain itself in close-range. It is advisible that they fight like rogues, adopting hit-and-run strategies, flanking the opponent or taking them by surprise.

Advancement:

Resources:

Painwheels in the World

“

”

NPC Reactions:

Painwheel Lore

Characters with ranks in can research to learn more about them. When a character makes a skill check, read or paraphrase the following, including information from lower DCs.

DC	Result
11	.
16	.
21	.
26	.

Painwheels in the Game

Adaptation:

Sample Encounter:

EL whatever:

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