The Saint Prestige Class

by Zach Sutherland (aka ZGaidin)

The Saint is a master impersonator and innovator. While not suited for long-term, deep-cover assignments, when you need someone to walk in, do a quick job, and walk out again with no one the wiser, the Saint is your man. He’ll leave scores of witnesses who can clearly describe him, perhaps give a name or ethnicity. These eye witness reports will all disagree, and they will all be wrong.
Abilities: Charisma is of paramount importance to the Saint since it is the key abilities of many of his class skills. Intelligence and Wisdom also help to think quickly on his feet and remain aware of his surroundings.
Vitality: 1d10 plus Constitution bonus per level.

Requirements
To become a Saint, the agent must meet all of the following requirements:
Agent Level: 5+
Disguise: 8+ ranks
Bluff: 8+ ranks
Perform: 4+ ranks
Forgery: 4+ ranks
Feats: Flawless Identity

Class Skills
The Saint’s class skills are Bluff, Computer, Craft, Cultures, Diplomacy, Disguise, Driver, Escape Artist, Forgery, Gather Information, Hobby, Innuendo, Knowledge, Listen, Open Lock, Perform, Profession, Sense Motive, Sleight of Hand, and Spot.

Skill Points at Each Level: 6 + Int modifier.

Class Features
All the following are class features of the Saint.

Class Feats: The Saint gains the following feats at 1st level: Armor Proficiency (Light), Weapon Proficiency (Melee), Weapon Proficiency (Hurled), Weapon Proficiency (Handgun).
Papers: The Saint changes identities like other people change clothes. As such, he may spend and roll an Action Die to produce a cover identity with a power rating equal to the result of the Action Die roll. Due to the immense mental stress from creating and maintaining so many identities, this identity only functions for one scene and this ability may only be used once per class level per serial. This is the Saint’s core ability.
Globe Trotter: The Saint moves through the modern world of check points, customs, security cameras, and government officials like an eel through coral. At 1st level, he gains the Virtual Skill feat Globe Trotter which gives him a +2 bonus to his Disguise, Cultures, and Forgery checks and increases the threat range of these to 19-20. At 3rd level, he gains the Advance Skill Mastery (Globe Trotter). At 5th level, he gains False Start (Globe Trotter). At 7th level, he gains the Grand Skill Mastery (Globe Trotter), and at 9th level he receives Perfect Skill Mastery (Globe Trotter). All pre-requisites for these feats, including minimum agent level, are waived.
Playing the Part: A virtuoso of ad-lib and character work the Saint is a natural at saying and doing what is expected of him. At 2nd level, he adds half of his ranks (rounded up) in Sense Motive as a synergy bonus to his Bluff checks.
First Miracle: At 4th level, the Saint is such a master of infiltration that he gains the Flawless Training feat.
Casting Call: Due to his constant globe-trotting, the Saint begins to accumulate a personal cache of fake ids, bona fides and friends who will verify that he is who he says he is. As such, beginning at 4th level, the Saint and all members of his team may requisition cover identities with mission budget points at only half the listed BP cost.
Second Miracle: At 6th level, the Saints mastery of character is nearing its pinnacle. Once per session, while in disguise, he may concentrate for a full round and then make a Perform check. For the remainder of the scene or combat, he may assume one non-psion skill that he believes his cover identity or the person he is disguised as would have at a total bonus of half the Perform skill check. He may spend Action Dice on the Perform check, but he may not spend Action Dice to increase the skill rolls or activate criticals successes with any subsequent check with the assumed skill. He may use this ability whether or not he can or chooses to use his Flawless Training abilities.
Critic: It takes a keen eye for detail to pull off the disguises that are the trademark of the Saint. So, starting at 7th level the Saint may substitute his own Disguise skill for his Spot skill when attempting to pierce the disguise of another.
Improv Games: The Saint relies on subtle signals to his teammates to keep himself alive. At 8th level, as long as the Saint is present, he and his teammates are assumed to roll at least a 10 on Innuendo checks unless they roll an error. The Saint and his teammates are considered to be trained in Innuendo.
Third Miracle: At 8th level, the Saint has mastered his cover identities. He may select one of his Flawless Identities per point of Intelligence modifier (minimum 1). When assuming these identities, he gains the first level abilities of the NPC class keyed to that identity along with the skill benefits conveyed by Flawless Training. In the event that this ability gives the Saint bonus gear (such as the Urban Biker’s free vehicle) he must retrieve the gear from the organization his cover identity belongs to. In the event that this gives the Saint additional Department training, they do not receive the ability modifiers from that department, and if given an option of a bonus feat, the feat they select becomes constant to that Identity.
Revered: Sainthood has its advantages. At 10th level, when the Saint meets a non-adversary NPC for the first time, he may spend a minute or more conversing with them. After the first minute, the target’s disposition toward the Saint increases by 2. For each additional minute spent conversing, the target’s disposition improves by one more grade. He may use this ability a number of times per session equal to his Charisma modifier (minimum of 1). When using this ability, each minute spent in this fashion counts as one use.

The Saint

Designer’s Trouble-shooting Notes

I enjoyed writing this class and think it has workable and flavorful abilities. However, each GC should read the class thoroughly before allowing it in his or her game. The reason for this is that in the hands of a truly ingenious (and some would say evil) player, this class can be used to produce nasty results. Two examples, politely supplied by Lugh on the AEG Control Forum, follow and the ways I would handle them as GC. These are just two examples, and a devious enough player can find a way to break nearly any ability, also most of the things you can do to “break” the abilities of this class can just as easily be done with enough ranks in Computer and/or Forgery, regardless of class. Good luck.

Devious Example #1

Agent uses Papers to generate a 4+ power rating cover identity, goes to the local DMV and gets a new driver’s license for this identity. This ID, while for a person who doesn’t exist, is totally valid and unforged. He then goes to a bank or credit union with this valid ID and opens a line of credit and takes out a large sum of cash to fuel additional field expenses.

Suggestions: In most places, when you have a new drivers license issued, it is a non-photo temporary paper copy. Most banks and places of business will not accept it because it is not a picture ID, making this plan a bit infeasible. More importantly, this ability is not limited to the Saint. A snoop with high Forgery & Computer checks could pull off much the same effect; it would just take longer. Most importantly, this sort of thing will not go unnoticed. If my players pulled something like this more than once, Control would find out sooner or later and come down on them for drawing undue attention of local authorities to themselves and endangering the Cloak.

Devious Example #2

While on a stakeout with his team, the Saint is listening to the radio, and a name is announced as the winner in a local radio contest for $1,000,000. The Saint blows his AD and produces a cover id as the winner, goes down and claims the prize.

Suggestion: This is a gross violation of the spirit of the ability. The ability assumes you already have the cover ID and paperwork prepared and are just now announcing the specifics of said ID, much like the Fixer’s Wildcard Gadget. There is no way the PC could predict the name of the radio contest winner ahead of time, so I would simply not allow this sort of thing. Even if you do, those rewards are typically never made in a lump sum and a great deal of paperwork goes into getting the reward in installments, including signing paperwork and other such things. Even if the Saint goes through with all of this, he will leave all sorts of evidence behind, finger prints and other such things, and sooner or later the real winner will throw a stink about it (wouldn’t you?). This will bring unnecessary attention to the Saint and his Agency and probably won’t even net him any cash.