Berserker

Berserkers are indomitable warriors with boundless reservoirs of endurance and unmatched destructive potential. Practitioners of the Berserker sphere gain the following abilities:

Berserking

As a free action at the start of each turn, you may choose to take a -2 penalty to AC in exchange for 3 temporary hit points. The penalty and the temporary hit points end at the start of your next turn. For every point of base attack bonus you have, the granted temporary hit points increase by 1.

Brutal Strike

As a special attack action, you may make a melee attack against a target. Creatures damaged by a brutal strike gain the battered condition until the end of your next turn. You may expend martial focus to have the attack deal additional damage equal to twice your base attack bonus.

Each brutal strike may be modified by a single (exertion) talent.

Berserker Talents

Advancing Carnage

Whenever you make a melee attack using the attack action, you may choose to take a -2 penalty on all attack rolls made that round. If your attack hits, you may make an additional attack as a free action against a creature that is adjacent to the first and also within your reach. If this additional attack hits, you may make another additional attack against a new target adjacent to the struck target. You may continue attacking targets adjacent to your most recent struck target as long as you still have a valid target for this ability, but you cannot attack the same creature twice. The number of additional attacks made with this ability cannot exceed 1/2 your base attack bonus (minimum 1).

You can take this talent a second time, allowing you to take a single 5-ft. step as a free action after making an attack when using this ability. If doing so places a creature within your threatened area, that creature becomes a legal target for your additional attack(s) as long as it meets all the other prerequisites. Your movement with this talent cannot exceed your move speed. Associated Feats

Cleave, Great Cleave, Cleave Through when taken twice.

Beat Down

When you inflict the battered condition with a brutal strike, the condition lasts for an additional number of rounds equal to your practitioner modifier (minimum 1).

Bloody Counter

As an immediate action, when a creature targets you with a melee attack, before the attack roll is made you may allow the attack to automatically strike you (although the roll is still made to determine if the attack threatens a critical hit). After the damage is determined, you may make a brutal strike targeting that creature as a free action that may be taken even when it isn’t your turn, if it is in range. If the creature attacking you is battered, you may resolve your attack action prior to their attack being resolved.

Deathless

As long as you have martial focus, the number of hit points you can be reduced to below 0 without dying is doubled and you may choose to act as if you were disabled, rather than dying. You must make this decision as soon as you are reduced to negative hit points (even if it isn’t your turn). If you do not choose to act as if you were disabled, you immediately fall unconscious.

When using this talent, you are staggered. You can take a move action without further injuring yourself, but if you perform any standard action (or any other action deemed as strenuous, including some swift actions, such as casting a quickened spell) you take 1 point of damage after completing the act. If your negative hit points are equal to or greater than twice your Constitution score, you immediately die. Associated Feat: Diehard.

Decapitate

You do not provoke attacks of opportunity when delivering a coup de grace. As long as you have martial focus, you may deliver a coup de grace as a standard action.

Extended Exertion

You may increase the time required to use brutal strike to a full-round action to apply two (exertion) talents to it. This attack still counts as an attack action.

Greater Sunder

You gain a +1 competence bonus to your sunder combat maneuver checks, as well as to your CMD vs. that maneuver. For every 4 points of base attack bonus you have, this bonus increases by +1. This bonus does not stack with the bonus to this maneuver provided by the Improved or Greater Sunder feats. Associated Feat: Improved Sunder.

Reaper’s Momentum

As long as you have martial focus, whenever you reduce a creature to 0 hit points or fewer with a melee or thrown weapon attack, you may immediately make a bonus attack against another creature with a melee or thrown weapon. If you are capable of drawing a weapon as a free action, you may draw such a weapon as part of making this attack. You may only make one extra attack per round with this talent, increasing by 1 time per round at 7 base attack bonus and 14 base attack bonus. Associated Feat: Cleaving Finish.

Sanguine Invigoration

As long as you have martial focus, whenever you reduce a creature to 0 hit points or fewer with a melee or thrown weapon attack, you gain temporary hit points equal to your base attack bonus for 1 round. The creature must have a CR of at least half your character level (rounded down, minimum 1/2). These temporary hit points stack with those granted by the base sphere. Whenever this ability would be triggered, you may expend your martial focus as an immediate action to remove the fatigued condition, or lessen the exhausted condition to fatigued.

Savage

Whenever you reduce a creature to 0 hit points or less with a melee or thrown weapon attack, you may spend an immediate action to regain martial focus. The creature must have a CR of at least half your character level (rounded down, minimum 1/2).

Shatter Earth

You may attack the ground around you with a savage blow. You may make a brutal strike against the corner of a square within your reach as a full-round action. You may reduce this to a standard action by expending martial focus. This attack automatically hits and deals damage normally. If you manage to deal more damage than the floor’s hardness, you cause a 5 ft. radius, 10 ft. cone, or 15 ft. line (your choice) to become difficult terrain. Radius’ increase by 5 ft. per 10 base attack bonus, cones by 5 ft. per 5 base attack bonus, and lines by 10 ft. per 5 base attack bonus. A square can be cleared as a standard action (provoking an attack of opportunity) or repaired with a spell or effect such as the mending spell or the repair ability of the Creation sphere to no longer be difficult terrain.

Creatures within the affected area become battered for 1 round. If a creature is already battered, it must make a Reflex save or be knocked prone.

If your attack is enough to destroy the floor, you may activate the Shrapnel talent, if you possess it. If the floor has a set thickness (for example, attacking the floor on a building’s second story), destroying the floor eliminates the targeted area, opening a hole. If attacking a floor with no set thickness (for example, the ground outside), treat the floor as being 1 ft. thick when determining its hp, and if destroyed, the difficult terrain cannot be cleared away unless the ground is repaired. You may choose to leave the floor at 1 hit point instead of destroying it.

Exertion Talents

Bell-Ringer (exertion)

Creature damaged by your brutal strike take a -1 penalty on concentration checks and Will saves for as long as the creature is battered. This penalty increases by -1 at base attack bonus +4 and every 4 points of base attack bonus thereafter. This penalty does not stack with other uses of the same talent.

Bone-Breaker (exertion)

The creature damaged by your brutal strike takes a -1 penalty on all attack and damage rolls for as long as it is battered. This penalty increases by -1 for every 4 points of base attack bonus you possess. Multiple uses of this talent do not stack.

Heavy Swing (exertion)

Creature damaged by your brutal strike must succeed on a Fortitude save or be staggered for 1 round plus 1 round per 4 base attack bonus. If the target is battered, it is instead staggered for 1 round on a successful save, or dazed for 1 round then staggered as normal on a failed save. If the target failed the Fortitude save, for the duration of the staggered condition, it also counts the damage from the attack as ongoing damage for the purpose of concentration checks. Creatures immune to the dazed condition are instead staggered for the round they would have been dazed.

Leg-Smasher (exertion)

Creature damaged by your brutal strike take a -1 penalty on AC and Reflex saves for as long as the creature is battered. This penalty increases by -1 at base attack bonus +4 and every 4 points of base attack bonus thereafter. This penalty does not stack with other uses of the same talent.

Mage Masher (exertion)

Whenever you destroy a magic wand, staff, rod, scroll, or similar magic item held by an enemy with a sunder attempt as part of a brutal strike, if the item is destroyed, any excess damage is applied to the item’s wielder. No damage is transferred if you decide to leave the item with 1 hit point. When targeting a battered creature, you may roll the sunder check twice and take the best result. In addition, you gain a competence bonus equal to 1/2 your base attack bonus on any Reflex saving throws made as a result of the item’s destruction (such as when destroying a staff of power).

Shieldbreaker (exertion)

When you make a sunder attempt against a piece of armor, a shield, or a manufactured weapon with a brutal strike, you may ignore a number of points of the item’s hardness equal to your base attack bonus. If the item is destroyed, any excess damage is applied to the item’s wielder. No damage is transferred if you decide to leave the item with 1 hit point. When targeting a battered creature, you may roll the sunder check twice and take the best result.

Shrapnel (exertion)

When you attack an unattended object with a brutal strike, if you destroy the object, you may send fragments of it flying in a cone dealing damage to any creature in an area based on its size. Small or smaller objects create a 10 ft. cone and the size of the cone increases by 5 ft. for every size category above Small. This shrapnel does 1d6 points of bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage dealt by the same material or materials that the object was primarily composed of. This damage increases by 1d6 at +3 base attack bonus and every 2 points of base attack bonus thereafter. The damage also increases by 1d6 for every 5 points of hardness the object possessed, to a maximum increase of 10d6 additional damage. Creatures that take damage are also battered. A Reflex save halves this damage and prevents the battered condition. A battered creature must roll twice and take the worse result on their Reflex save.

Legendary Talents

Alter Terrain

Prerequisite(s): Berserker sphere, Shatter Terrain, base attack bonus +7.

When using the Shatter Earth talent, if you deal enough damage to reduce the ground to 0 hp, you may create a 5 ft. deep hole in the ground in the affected squares. If you so choose, you may also raise the terrain by 5 ft. in all squares adjacent to the affected squares. Targets standing in spaces that become a 5 ft hole must pass a Reflex save or fall prone.

Rift Strike

Prerequisite(s): Berserker sphere, base attack bonus +11.

You unleash a powerful roar and swing a weapon with such extreme ferocity that you tear the very fabric of space and time, opening up a rift to another location. As a full-round action that provokes attacks of opportunity, you open up a rift to another location which may be as distant as 100 miles per point of base attack bonus you possess. Interplanar travel is not possible. You can bring along objects as long as their weight doesn’t exceed your maximum load. You may also bring one additional willing Medium or smaller creature (carrying gear or objects up to its maximum load) or its equivalent per three points of base attack bonus you possess. A Large creature counts as two Medium creatures, a Huge creature counts as two Large creatures, and so forth. All creatures to be transported must be in contact with one another, and at least one of those creatures must be in contact with you. You must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination; if you have not been to the desired destination before you do not arrive at the exact location, instead creating a rift to a location within 1d20 miles of the desired point.

You are exhausted for 1 hour after using this ability, and are fatigued as normal thereafter. You incur these penalties even if you are immune to the exhausted and fatigued conditions, and the exhausted condition cannot be removed before its duration is up. You may attempt to use this ability while exhausted or fatigued, but doing so incurs a 50% chance that the ability fails to work; regardless of whether you succeed at this attempt, you suffer 1d6 points of Constitution damage and the duration of the exhausted condition caused by using this ability is doubled. This is a supernatural effect.

Ruinous Tread

Prerequisite(s): Berserker sphere, Shatter Earth.

You may choose to break the ground as you move. Whenever you leave a square, you may choose to make that square difficult terrain. Your base attack bonus must be greater than the hardness of the surface to use this ability. This difficult terrain remains until it is cleared as a standard action (clearing 1 square within the creature’s reach, provoking an attack of opportunity) or repaired with a spell or effect such as the mending spell or the repair ability of the Creation sphere.

Spell Sunder (exertion)

Prerequisite(s): Berserker sphere, base attack bonus +6.

You may attempt to sunder an ongoing spell effect by succeeding at a special sunder combat maneuver attempt. For any effect that is not already on a creature, you must make a sunder combat maneuver attempt against a CMD of 15 plus the effect’s caster level. To sunder an effect on a creature, you must succeed at a normal sunder combat maneuver against the creature’s CMD +5, ignoring any miss chance caused by a spell or spell-like ability. If successful, you suppress the effect for 1 round, or 2 rounds if you exceeded the CMD by 5 to 9. If you exceed the CMD by 10 or more, the effect is dispelled.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Spheres of Might, © 2017, Drop Dead Studios LLC; Authors: Adam Meyers, Michael Sayre, Andrew Stoeckle, N. Jolly

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