The pundit is a class based on skill usage.

Alignment: Any

Hit Die: d8

Class Skills

Appraise (Int), Craft (Int), Knowledge (all) (Int), Linguistics (Int), Profession (Wis), Spellcraft (Int ), Use Magic Device (Cha)

Skill Ranks Per Level: 6 + Int modifier.

Level	Base Attack	Fort	Ref	Will	Special Abilities
1st	+0	+0	+0	+2	Skill Diversity, Bonus Feat, Pundit's Familiar
2nd	+1	+0	+0	+3	Weapon Training
3rd	+2	+1	+1	+3	Bonus Feat, Pundit Knowledge (2)
4th	+3	+1	+1	+4	Divine Knowledge
5th	+3	+1	+1	+4	1st Favored Terrain
6th	+4	+2	+2	+5	Bonus Feat, Knowledgeable Warrior
7th	+5	+2	+2	+5	Pundit Knowledge (3)
8th	+6/+1	+2	+2	+6	Fast Skillmaster
9th	+6/+1	+3	+3	+6	Bonus Feat
10th	+7/+2	+3	+3	+7	2nd Favored Terrain, Probable Path
11th	+8/+3	+3	+3	+7	Pundit Knowledge (4)
12th	+9/+4	+4	+4	+8	Bonus Feat
13th	+9/+4	+4	+4	+8
14th	+10/+5	+4	+4	+9	Unbeatable Skills
15th	+11/+6/+1	+5	+5	+9	Pundit Knowledge (5), Bonus Feat, 3rd Favored Terrain
16th	+12/+7/+2	+5	+5	+10	Violent Studying
17th	+12/+7/+2	+5	+5	+10
18th	+13/+8/+3	+6	+6	+11	Bonus Feat
19th	+14/+9/+4	+6	+6	+11	Pundit Knowledge (6)
20th	+15/+10/+5	+6	+6	+12	4th Favored Terrain, Master of Intellect

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the pundit

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A pundit is proficient in all simple weapons and light armor.

Skill Diversity (Ex): A pundit may choose additional skills to add to his class skill list equal to 3+ his Intelligence modifier (minimum 3).

Bonus Feat: At 1st level, third level and every three levels thereafter, a pundit gains a bonus feat in addition to those gained from normal advancement. You meet the prerequisite for any feats as normal. These bonus feats must be selected from the following list:

Acrobatic, Alertness, Animal Affinity, Athletic, Cosmopolitan, Deceitful, Deft Hands, Dilettante, Eagle Eyes, Endurance, Master Craftsman, Master Alchemist, Persuasive, Prodigy, Run, Scholar, Self-Sufficient, Skill Focus, Stealthy, Uncanny Alertness.

Pundit’s Familiar (Ex): At 1st level, a pundit forms a mutual bond with a familiar, an animal chosen by the pundit to aid him in his study of the world. It retains the appearance, Hit Dice, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, skills, and feats of the normal animal it once was, but is now a magical beast for the purpose of effects that depend on its type. Only a normal, unmodified animal may become a familiar. An animal companion cannot also function as a familiar.

This uses the same rules as the wizard’s arcane bond class feature, except as noted below. A pundit uses his level as his effective wizard level when determining the abilities of his familiar.

Share Skills (Ex): Starting at 1st level, a pundit's familiar counts all of the pundit's class skills as its own class skills. Furthermore, the familiar benefits from all feat-based bonuses to skills that the pundit benefits from. This replaces the share spells ability of the wizard's familiar.

Ability Bonuses: At 4th level and every four levels thereafter, a pundit may give his familiar a +1 to an ability of his choice. This ability replaces the ability to scry on familiar.

Weapon Training (Ex): At 2nd level a pundit selects a number of weapons equal to his intelligence modifier (minimum 1) and adds these to the list of weapons he is familiar with.

Pundit Knowledge (Ex): At 3rd level, a pundit selects two intelligence-,charisma-,or wisdom-based skills and adds half his class level (minimum 1) to them and may make those checks untrained. Every four levels thereafter (7th, 11th and so on), he may select another such skill.

Divine Knowledge (Ex): Starting at 4th level, a pundit gets the powers granted by the cleric's Knowledge (or either of the subdomains). This does not grant the pundit any spells, only the activated powers. A pundit uses his intelligence instead of his wisdom in determining saves and uses of these powers and uses his pundit level as his effective cleric level.

Favored Terrain (Ex): Through extensive studying, a pundit learns about a specific kind of geographical location. At 5th level, a pundit gains a favored terrain as the ranger ability. This ability works the same as the rangers, but functions with his pundit levels -2 as his effective ranger levels.

Knowledgeable Warrior (Ex): Starting at 6th level, a pundit who has identified a creature with a Knowledge check appropriate to its type gains a +2 bonus on Bluff, Knowledge, Perception and Sense Motive checks against that creature.

Starting 8th level, the pundit may also add a +1 on all saving throws made against attack and abilities of that creature. This bonus increases to +2 at 14th and +3 at 20th.

At 10th level, the pundit may choose to ignore up to half of his pundit levels of damage resistance that the creature has when he attacks it.

At 12th level, the target is affected as if by Status, using the pundit's levels as the effective caster level. The creature gets a Will save against this effect (Dc 10+ ½ the pundit's class level+ the pundit's intelligence). The pundit may dismiss this effect as a free action.

At 14th level, the pundit may add half of his intelligence modifier to all damage rolls against that creature for the next 2d4 minutes. At 18th level, the pundit instead adds his full intelligence modifier to all rolls.

Fast Skillmaster (Ex): Starting at 8th level, a pundit can move at his normal speed while using Survival to follow tracks without taking the normal –5 penalty, and can move in Stealth at his normal speed without penalty. He can also take 10 on any skill check, even if it is not normally allowed.

At 12th level, a pundit can use the Disable Device skill to attempt to open a lock as a standard action instead of a full-round action.

Probable Path (Ex): This ability functions as the archivist bard ability of the same name:

At 10th level, a pundit can calculate the action likely to bring success with the least risk. Once per day, he can take 10 on any d20 roll. He may use this ability one additional time per day for every three levels after 10th.

Unbeatable Skills (Ex): At 14th level, a pundit may chose to gain a +3 bonus to two skills or a +1 bonus to all skills. The pundit may choose, for a minutes per pundit level, to give the bonus to all allies within (intelligence modifier x 5) feet. The pundit loses his bonus during this time and does not benefit from the bonus in the area. These minutes do not need to be consecutive, but they must be spent in 1-minute increments. The pundit may also use skills untrained, even he normally would not be able to.

Violent Studying (Ex): Starting at 16th level, any time a pundit deals damage to a creature, he may make a knowledge of the appropriate type against it as a free action with a +2 morale bonus (DC equal to 15+ the monster's HD). If he succeeds in making this check, for the next 2d4 rounds he gets a +4 bonus on all attack rolls against it. If they beat this DC by at least 5, they also increase their critical hit chance against them by one (a 19-20 weapon becomes 18-20 etc). This effect is calculated after other critical effects (such as the keen weapon property).

Master of Intellect (Ex): At 20th level, a pundit becomes a true master of intelligence. Through studying combat, the pundit has become capable of guessing his opponents moves, and adds his intelligence bonus to his AC on top of his dexterity, though it is also restricted by dexterity limits on armor. In addition, the pundit can now see through lies. He becomes immune to illusion spells and is treated as if under the effect of Discern Lies constantly.

Author's Note: I have yet to see a player selece the Acrobatic, Persusasive, or Stealthy feats. These represent a large amount of feats that are handy, but are too weak compared to the strong ones. I thought this was an interesting way to make use of some of these feats.

Additional Ratings
Balance:	1 2 3 4 5 ( 7 Votes )
Utility:	1 2 3 4 5 ( 6 Votes )
Clarity:	1 2 3 4 5 ( 6 Votes )