Guildmaster

Guildmaster
Requirements | Statistics | Description

Base Attack Bonus:

+3

Skills:

Gather Information: 10 ranks
Diplomacy: 8 ranks
Intimidate: 5 ranks
Disguise: 4 ranks
Bluff: 5 ranks

Feats:

Leadership, Skill Focus (Intimidate)

Alignment:

Any non-good, but usually lawful evil or neutral evil.

Special:

Sneak attack

Hit Die:

1d6. (Reroll 1,2)

Class Skills

The guildmaster class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are:

Str: Swim
Dex: Escape Artist, Hide, Move Silently, Open Lock, Pick Pocket, Use Rope
Int: Appraise, Craft, Disable Device, Forgery, Knowledge (home city, other guilds, local powerbases, etc.*), Read Lips, Search,
Wis: Innuendo, Intuit Direction, Listen, Profession, Sense Motive, Spot, Urban Lore
Cha: Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Gather Information, Intimidate, Perform

* The guildmaster may choose any two such appropriate knowledge skills as class skills.

Skill Points at Each Level: 8 + Int modifier

Guildmaster
Level	Base Attack	Def Bonus	Saves			Special
Level	Base Attack	Def Bonus	Fort	Ref	Will	Special
1	+0	+0	+0	+0	+2	Guild hall, favor
2	+1	+0	+0	+0	+3	+1 reputation
3	+2	+1	+1	+1	+3	Respectable citizen
4	+3	+1	+1	+1	+4	+2 reputation, sneak attack +1d6
5	+3	+1	+1	+1	+4	Just the man for the job, favor
6	+4	+2	+2	+2	+5	+3 reputation
7	+5	+2	+2	+2	+5
8	+6	+2	+2	+2	+6	+4 reputation, sneak attack +2d6
9	+6	+3	+3	+3	+6
10	+7	+3	+3	+3	+7	+5 reputation, favor

Class Features

Weapon and Armor Proficiency:

Guildmasters are proficient with crossbow (hand and light), dagger, dart, light mace, sap, and short sword. Medium-size guildmasters are also proficient with club, heavy mace, morningstar, quarter-staff, and rapier. They are proficient with light armor, but not with shields.

Guild Hall:

The guildmaster has ownership and or control over a building or other location that serves as his headquarters. This may be an abandoned warehouse, a suite of rooms over a pawn shop, or the basement or backroom of an inn, a shop with shoddy goods and high prices (which, thus, has no customers, but which seems to never go out of business). The acquisition of the Guild Hall and its location and nature should be established as part of the process of gaining the first guildmaster level.

Favor:

Someone owes the character something “big time.” The exact details must be worked out with the DM. Each Favor can be used precisely once, but they do accumulate. Thus, a 10th-level guildmaster who has not used any of his favors can “call in” three of them. The DM and the player should establish the circumstances of the favor and who owes it. Regardless of the number of Favors owed, no more than one per week can be used.

Charmtouch:

This ability grants the extraordinary ability to charm someone by touch alone. This ability may be used a number of times per day equal to the companion’s Charisma bonus. It takes 10 minutes of reasonably close physical contact, usually accompanied by enthralling conversation. The DC to resist the charm is 10 + the companion’s Charisma bonus.

Reputation:

This bonus is added to the character’s Leadership score when he uses the Leadership feat.

Respectable Citizen:

This allows the guildmaster to establish a cover identity, allowing him to move freely among different elements of society. It allows him to make two Gather Information checks per day, one as “himself,” and one as his “cover,” with appropriately different modifiers based on his perceived status.

Just the Man for the Job:

A guildmaster sits in the center of a massive web of contacts, spies, rumormongers, and other henchmen and associates. As a consequence, he can sometimes find people to meet almost any description. Once per month, the guildmaster can recruit a specific hireling for a single task (at normal rates of compensation). The guildmaster can specify any ability or possession other than class, level, hit points, or base attack bonus. For example, he can say, “I need someone who can cast a maximized fireball,” not “I need a 10th-level wizard.” The DM may rule out any request he considers impossible (e.g., if the world has no elves, asking for “an elvish wizard” won’t make one appear), but he should be lenient as regards odd, but still possible characters (e.g., “I need a half-orc spellcaster”). The maximum character level possible is the highest-level cohort the guildmaster could recruit using Leadership.

Note that this is not a summoning spell: The desired person does not magically appear in front of the guildmaster. Rather, the guildmaster’s web of contacts and agents allows him to locate, and get a message to, a person meeting the desired criteria. This person generally cannot be a PC or specific NPC, it cannot be used to find a known individual, or to lure such a person into a trap. Nor does this ability compel obedience, though the found individual will be considered to be amenable to the offered job.

Sneak Attack:

The guildmaster is much less active than he once was, but he does keep his hand in on occasion. To reflect this, the specified bonus is added to any sneak attack bonus damage from rogue character levels.

Special Restriction:

The guildmaster must have a guild! If, at any time, he has fewer than five living followers (not counting any fellow PCs), he becomes an ex-guildmaster (see below) until he has reestablished his guild.

The guildmaster is somewhat more settled than he used to be, he has to keep tabs on things, organize, oversee, work his networks, and so on. As a result, he must spend at least two full days a week doing administrative tasks, and, as a consequence, cannot be off adventuring. For each week he misses such work, he loses access to his class abilities for two weeks; if this happens more than six times in a single year, or if the guildmaster is “out of town” for more than four weeks, he has let his affairs degenerate to such a point that his guild will be taken over by someone a bit more responsible, and he will be considered an ex-guildmaster. To regain any use of class skills, he must reestablish himself in a new city.

Ex-Guildmasters:

A guildmaster without a guild is a boss without employees, a leader without followers. He cannot use any of his class abilities, or gain any levels as a guildmaster. Furthermore, each such failure to keep his guild together results in a permanent -l to reputation, even if he reestablishes himself later.

Example: Jenna Redknife ran the Pinions gang in Verellia until she found herself on the losing end of a turf war. She was a 5th-level guildmaster at the time. She later reestablished herself in Delorais. She has a +1 reputation bonus: +2 for being a 5th-level guildmaster, -1 for losing one guild. If her Delorais guild also goes belly-up, she’ll be at a -2 penalty (net reputation bonus of 0) if she manages to put together a third gang somewhere else.

Class Description

There’s an old saying: There are no old thieves. As with much folk wisdom, it is based at least partially on truth. Climbing walls, delving into lost tombs, and running from the law is definitely a young person’s game. But, even so, there are a few individuals who survive the hazards of the occupation long enough to see a gray hair or two, but who don’t wish to resign just yet. Just as warriors aspire to lead a mercenary band, just as wizards dream of someday running an academy of magic, just as clerics yearn to found their own church, so, too, do some rogues envision themselves as masters of their own guild.

Not all guildmasters are old, and some are not even primarily rogues, though all must have spent some time in the shadows. Overall, though, it’s a logical “next step” for rogues with a few levels under their belt, though not many have spent time laying the necessary groundwork to take on the position.

Guildmaster can be a PC class, with the DM’s permission, but this will often mean that the campaign becomes centered around the guild itself. Such a campaign can certainly be rewarding, but the DM must insure that it is well suited for his players and their characters.

Since Guildmasters rarely get to bash kobolds or slay dragons, DMs with guildmaster PCs should make sure to use story awards or provide ample non-combat challenges with level-appropriate Challenge Ratings.

Guildmaster