Vile Initiate

Many names have come to the vile initiate.  Bastard Paladins, dark champions, soulless fiends.  It would indeed seem that the vile initiate is a man happy to barter away his soul and condemn himself to the damnations of Hell.  But in doing so, he earns the favor of his dark lord and is rewarded for his abhorrent acts with the burning powers of Hell's fire.

A vile initiate is sponsored by a particular fiendish patron, much the way a knight is sponsored by his baron or noble patron.  His duty is to further the cause of his patron, even at the expense of conflicting with other vile initiates and their patron lords.  After all, there are no friends in Hell and its lords are prone to scheme against one another.  The vile initiate is rewarded for his service with a small taste of Hell's might - power he often uses to subjugate his mortal foes, to scour the land of those he hates, or simply to rain destruction and suffering down on all things.

An NPC vile initiate is often a powerful warlord or general of an evil army.  But many are also traveling "knights" who seek to curry favor with their lord by blazing a path of terror and ruin through the realms of men.

Hit Die: d10

REQUIREMENTS
Race: Any non-outsider; this exclusion includes those with the (Native) subtype.
Alignment: Any evil.
Skills: Knowledge  (Nobility) 5 ranks, Knowledge (Planes) 5 ranks, Knowledge (Planes) 5 ranks.
Special: The character must have made peaceful contact with an evil outsider.  This outsider must be in a position of authority within Hell (or its equivelant for your campaign setting), such as a balor lord or the Lords of Hell.

CLASS SKILLS
The vile initiate's class skills, and the key ability for each skill, are: Bluff (Cha), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Knowledge (Planes, Religion) (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), and Stealth (Dex).
Skill Points per Level: 6 + Intelligence modifier

CLASS FEATURES
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A vile initiate is proficient with all simple and martial weapons.  He is proficient with all armor and shields (excluding the tower shield).

Base Attack Bonus: A vile initiate uses the average base attack bonus progression.

Base Saving Throws: The vile initiate uses the good prestige progression for Fortitude saves, and the poor progression for Reflex and Will.

Fiendish Protection (Ex): Several physical changes occur that mark the vile initiate for what he is.  These include small horns, the stench of brimstone upon his breath, and eyes that glow a hateful crimson.  At first level, the character grows a coat of tough yet flexible scales that provide a natural armor bonus of +1 (or increase his already existing natural armor bonus by +1).  The vile initiate also gains DR 5/Magic, which becomes DR 10/Magic when he achieves 4th level.

Spell-Like Abilities: At second level, a vile initiate with an Intelligence or Wisdom score of at least 8 gains access to spell-like abilities as a half-fiend.  Treat the vile initiate's class level as his HD for the purposes of determining which spell-like abilities he has access to, and his caster level.

Ability Boosts (Ex): At each class level divisible by three, the vile initiate increases his ability scores.  He increases one ability score by four points, and another by two.  The character cannot increase the same ability score more than once int his manner.

Smite Good (Su): At fourth level, the vile initiate is granted the ability channel the fury of Hell.  He gains a smite attack, usable once per day, which functions like the paladin's smite evil ability - but it affects good targets instead of evil ones.  His class level is equal to his effective paladin level to determine the strength of his smite.

Flight (Ex): At fifth level, the character grows a pair of black-feathered or scaled, bat-like wings from his back.  If he does not already have a fly speed, the vile initiate gains a fly speed equal to his speed with average maneuverability.  If he already possesses a fly speed, these wings increase his maneuverability by one step - but not past an average rating.  If his maneuverability cannot be increased by his wings, he instead gains a +10 enhancement bonus to his fly speed.

Poison Immunity (Ex): At seventh level, the vile initiate gains immunity to all poisons.  This includes supernatural poisons.

Energy Resistance (Su): At eighth level, a vile initiate gains energy resistance 10 versus acid, cold, electricity, and fire.

Fiendish Apotheosis (Ex): At tenth level, the vile initiate becomes a knight champion of his fiendish patron.  He replaces his type with Outsider, and loses all subtypes that indicate his kind or race.  This provides him with darkvision out to 60 feet, and does not need to eat or sleep.  He gains subtypes that correspond to his alignment (chaos, evil, law).  Do not recalculate the character's hit dice, base attack bonus, base saving throws.  Like any other outside, his soul and body fuse to form a single unit - when slain, he cannot be resurrected by magic that returns a soul to its body.

EX-VILE INITIATES
A vile initiate who betrays the goals of his patron lord, or who becomes good in alignment, immediately loses all effects of this class.  Furthermore, he can no longer advance in level as a vile initiate.  Since the lords of Hell do not take fondly to treachery, there is little hope of the character returning to his former master's good graces should he so desire.  In fact, it is more likely that his fiendish patron will orchestrate his assassination.