Pactbinder
Some people feel that the universe is a constant struggle. Good against evil, law against chaos, civilization against nature, life against death against undeath. But why fight what you can’t change? You prefer to bargain.
As a pactbinder, you make deals with strange entities, otherworldly beings, and all sorts of multiversal denizens, amiable and unapproachable alike. Over the course of your many negotiations, you’ve learned something important: while such beings always seek a bargain tilted in their own favor, sometimes your definition of value differs enough from theirs that you can still come out ahead. In fact, sometimes, those who don’t understand pacts like you do might mistake the payment for the benefit, or vice versa. Perhaps an ancient being of nightmare demanded to consume something you sought to be rid of, like a painful memory or a negative personality trait, priding itself on how it was taking something personal from you. Little did it know, you let it win on haggling your end of the deal. Of course, this practice isn’t without its own risks, as who knows what you might become without that part of you.
All these things, you can and must consider in every pact. In addition to pacts, you might also pursue magical contracts. While less of a metaphysical commitment than a pact, contracts offer similar benefits you just can’t resist— and you can employ your skill set as a pactbinder to manipulate the precise wording of the bargain.
Pactbinder Dedication Feat 2
Prerequisites trained in Diplomacy as well as either Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion
The first step toward forming a successful pact is an understanding of the magic behind it, along with skill at negotiation. It doesn’t hurt that you also learned how to magically bind yourself to keep your word, enabling you to bargain more easily. You increase your proficiency from trained to expert in Diplomacy and in one of the following: Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion.
Special You can’t select another dedication feat until you’ve gained two other feats from the pactbinder archetype.
Pact of Fey Glamour Feat 4
Prerequisites Pactbinder Dedication
You’ve sworn a pact with fey powers, granting you the otherworldly appearance of your dreams in exchange for oaths of hospitality. As long as you keep your end of the bargain, your base appearance changes indefinitely to any one appearance you wish that’s within the bounds of possibility for your ancestry; this effect can’t be counteracted or removed except by violating the pact. Additionally, you can cast Illusory Disguise as a primal innate spell once per hour, using the higher of your class DC and your spell DC to determine the DC.
In exchange, you promise to accept any fey’s request for hospitality, granting them food, drink, and lodging for up to 3 days and 3 nights. You also promise not to harm any creature to whom you’ve offered hospitality or who has shown hospitality to you, whether or not that creature is fey, unless that creature does harm first. If you refuse hospitality to a fey or violate hospitality, you lose the benefits of this feat until you atone for your transgressions, instantly reverting your appearance to the one you had before the pact.
Sociable Vow Feat 4
Prerequisites Pactbinder Dedication; expert in Diplomacy
You can leverage your vow in more social interactions. The circumstance bonus from your Binding Vow also applies to attempts to Gather Information, Make an Impression, or Demoralize you make directly in service of fulfilling the vow.
Pact of Draconic Fury Feat 6
Prerequisites Pactbinder Dedication
You’ve sworn a pact with a dragon, giving you the ability to tap into the dragon’s immeasurable power in exchange for adding to their hoard. You gain the Dragon Breath activity. In exchange, you promise to search for objects the dragon wants for its hoard upon request. These requests might be extremely specific unique objects, or they might be a broad category of objects. While the dragon agrees to pay you a fair price for the item you retrieve, the pact requires you to give your time and service.
Pact of Infernal Prowess Feat 8
Prerequisites Pactbinder Dedication
You’ve sworn a pact with devils, granting you success in life in exchange for your soul in the afterlife. Once per hour, when you critically fail a check, you can reroll the check as a free action; this is a fortune effect. Additionally, you can choose to automatically succeed at checks to Earn Income for tasks below your level, without rolling. However, when you die, your soul is consigned to Hell. You can’t be returned to life except by powerful magic such as Miracle, and even then, the devils responsible for the contract can track your every move for 1 year. The devils gain the effects of a Pinpoint spell. They can also use 10th-level Scrying on you at will, and you automatically critically fail your saving throw.
Special You can’t retrain out of a Pact of Infernal Prowess without journeying to Hell and destroying the devil’s written contract spelling out the terms of your pact.
Pact of the Final Breath Feat 12
Prerequisites Pactbinder Dedication
You’ve sworn a pact with a powerful psychopomp-typically an olethros advocate or yamaraj judge-granting you a reprieve before your soul will be collected in exchange for respect for the dead and assistance against the undead. As long as you keep your end of the bargain, you live twice as long as you normally would before dying of natural causes. Additionally, the first time each day that you would be reduced to 0 Hit Points and gain the dying condition, you instead regain a number of Hit Points equal to twice your level (starting from 0 HP), remain conscious, and gain fast healing equal to your level for 3 rounds.
In exchange, you swear to treat the dead you come across with respect, performing last rites and final dispositions to ensure their spirits rest in peace and are less likely to rise as undead. Furthermore, you swear to destroy undead you come across, so long as it’s within your power to do so without inordinate risk to yourself. Violating your part of the pact causes its protections to immediately end. If at that point you had already lived beyond your natural lifespan, the psychopomps typically give you a few moments to make any last farewells, and then you simply breathe your final breath and pass on.
Pact of Eldritch Eyes Feat 14
Prerequisites Pactbinder Dedication
You’ve sworn a pact with an entity beyond mortal comprehension, granting you distant visions and insights. You can cast Scouting Eye as an occult innate spell once per hour, using the higher of your class DC and your spell DC to determine the DC.
In exchange, you allow the entity to peer through you at your world. The entity’s touch creates strange dreams, typically nightmares. Every morning, you awaken trained in an unexpected Lore skill determined by the GM, which you retain until the next time you rest for the night. While the entity contacts you most often while you sleep, it occasionally peers at you during the day, leading to disorientation and visions. You can generally determine what’s going on during these visions, so normally this occurrence imparts no mechanical penalty. However, in the unlikely event that an encounter begins while you’re experiencing visions from the entity, you might take a circumstance penalty to your initiative roll.
Special The entity isn’t particularly attached to its pact with you. If you want it gone, you can retrain out of Pact of Eldritch Eyes, after which the entity withdraws its eyes to the void.