During the winter solstice, when the forces of light ebb before soundless legions of darkness, a handful of champions maintain a long and lonely vigil Their prayers, fervent denials of the forces of evil, help to sustain the mortal realm through its time of trial. In the morning, when the rooster crows and the dawn begins its inexorable march toward the triumph of midsummer, they sometimes find their faith rewarded in unusual ways.
A paladin who endures one of these vigils gains the option of choosing solstice knight substitution levels. A substitution level is a level of a given class that you take instead of the level described for the standard class. Selecting a substitution level is not the same as multiclassing — you remain with the class for which the substitution level is taken. The class features of the substitution level simply replace those of the standard level.
You can select each substitution level only at a specific class level. When you take a substitution level for your class at a given level, you give up the class features gained at that level for the standard class, and you get the substitution level features instead. You can’t go back and gain the class features for the level you swapped out — when you take your next level in the standard class, you gain the next higher level as if you had gained the previous level normally.
Paladins who spend the winter months in meditation gain access to new abilities.
Class: Paladin.
Hit Die: d10.
To take a solstice knight substitution level, a character must be a paladin about to take her 2nd or 5th level of paladin.
Solstice knight substitution levels grant the same class skills as the standard paladin class.
Skill Points at Each Level: 2 + Int modifier (or four time this number as a beginning character).
| Level | Base Attack Bonus | Fort Save | Ref Save | Will Save | Special | Spellcasting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3rd | +3 | +3 | +1 | +1 | Aura of Courage, Blessed Radiance | — |
| 5th | +5 | +4 | +1 | +1 | Darkvision, Strike of the Faithful, Special Mount | Same as Paladin |
All of the following are features of the solstice knight’s substitution levels.
Blessed Radiance (Sp): Embraced by the risen sun, a 3rd-level solstice knight carries a light deep within her soul, a radiance she pledges to bear into places of darkness and terror. She gains the ability to create a glorious, swirling aura of light, painting the area around her with a magnificent cascade of silver and gold. As a free action, a solstice knight may cast daylight, centred upon herself, a number of times per day equal to her uses of smite evil. (The two effects are not related — they merely have an equal number of uses.) Her caster level equals her paladin level.
Darkvision (Ex): At 5th level the solstice knight also gains darkvision with a range of 30 feet. If she already possesses darkvision she instead increases the range of her darkvision by 30 feet.
Strike of the Faithful (Su): A solstice knight can channel the titanic power of the sun’s righteous light. Whenever the paladin uses his smite evil ability against an evil undead creature, he deals double the smite damage. The paladin loses one daily use of smite evil from her total number of uses when she gains this ability. Thereafter she has one fewer use per day (only two at 10th level, for example).
Source: Dragon Magazine #338 (Page 94)