Vow of Peace (Pathfinder Feat)
Vow of Peace [General]
Description
A pacifist must strive to attain peace and may only use violence as a last resort. To fulfill her vow, she may never strike the first blow in combat; if attacked, she must use the fight defensively action or the total defense action (or non-combat actions) for the first 2 rounds. She must always give her opponent the option to surrender, and may never attack an opponent that has surrendered or otherwise stopped fighting. She may never deal health point damage (except nonlethal damage), ability damage, ability drain, negative levels, or death effects, to any living creature (undead may be harmed without penalty). She may not cause any of these things indirectly either, such as by setting up a trap, or using a compulsion effect to make someone else do it. However, she is not obligated to prevent others from causing these things, and may allow them through inaction. (Casting a spell that increases someone else's outgoing damage breaks the vow, but healing someone who then goes on to deal damage does not.)
If she ever breaks her vow, she immediately and irrevocably loses all benefits of this feat, and may not take another feat to replace it. If she ever loses the Lawful alignment or gains the Evil alignment she also immediately loses all benefits of this feat, but they can be regained by becoming Lawful non-Evil again and atoning, so long as she does not break the vow in the meantime. Also, if her vow is broken involuntarily (e.g. due to a compulsion effect), so long as she was sincerely doing her best to resist, she can still regain the benefits by atoning, so long as she does not voluntarily break the vow in the meantime.
So long as she keeps her vow, she gains the following benefits as she levels up (if she takes this feat at higher levels, she gains bonuses from all lower levels as well):
At level one, a pacifist takes no penalty for choosing to deal nonlethal damage with bludgeoning weapons. Nonlethal damage dealt by a pacifist does not become lethal even if it surpasses the target's max hp.
At level three, a pacifist adds half her level to Acrobatics checks to move through a threatened square without provoking an attack of opportunity.
At level five, a pacifist takes no penalty for choosing to deal nonlethal damage with any weapon, and gains a +1 competence bonus on attack and damage rolls when wielding a nonlethal weapon. (A nonlethal weapon is one that does nonlethal damage by default, or that takes no penalty for dealing nonlethal damage before Vow of Peace's ability. This includes unarmed strike, whip, sap, and any weapon enchanted with Merciful, among others.)
At level seven, a pacifist adds half her level to Charisma-based checks to calm or dissuade an enemy from fighting, and may use Diplomacy in combat as a full-round action at a -20 penalty.
At level nine, a pacifist adds her Charisma bonus to any outgoing mind-affecting effects with the intent of making the target nonviolent.
At level eleven, a pacifist gains a +2 dodge bonus to AC.
At level thirteen, a pacifist increases her critical threat range by 1 when wielding a nonlethal weapon. This is applied after any other increases to threat range.
At level fifteen, a pacifist gains DR 2/nonlethal.
At level seventeen, a pacifist's competence bonus when wielding nonlethal weapons is equal to her Charisma bonus.
At level nineteen, a pacifist's dodge bonus increases to +4 and her DR increases to 4/nonlethal.
At level twenty, when a pacifist is struck by a manufactured weapon, the weapon must make a Fortitude save with a DC of 20 plus her Constitution modifier or shatter against her skin.
Back to Main Page → Pathfinder Homebrew → Feats → Feats </nowiki>