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Prestige Class: Anatomist

Physician-in-Ordinary: Anatomist Prestige Class

Anatomists devote their careers to the scientific study of the body, often using magical means to aid or inform their research. These arcanists are profoundly fascinated by the seemingly infinite mysteries of the human form. Anatomists gain their knowledge after years of extensive research, typically performed on cadavers. Their exhaustive experience makes them vastly superior doctors when compared with the typical village healers who rely chiefly on herbal medicines to cure the sick. It also makes them superb investigators into matters of death.

The Imperial City of Perelinn is home to a guild of Imperial physicians: Physicians-in-Extraordinary and Physicians-in-Ordinary. From this latter group, by Imperial decree, an investigative unit called the Anatomists has been formed to assist the City’s exemplary Wharf Yard inquisitors. The Anatomists serve to apply their knowledge of anatomy and medicine to the process of solving murders and other bodily crimes. Sometimes seen as ghouls, these men and women often as not mean the difference in solving a murder or not.

Requirements

• Concentration: 4 ranks.
• Heal: 4 ranks.
• Feats: Skill Focus (heal) or Spell Focus (necromancy).
• Special: The anatomist must regularly practice his skills or loose his unique class features (namely Improved Healing, Autopsy, and Anatomical Attack). At the very least, he must perform one dissection on a human subject per month in order to prevent these specialized skills from atrophying. If the anatomist lapses in the dissection schedule for more than a month, he can no longer use the above mentioned class features. They may be easily regained, however, simply by performing twice the minimum number of dissections that were missed. Each formal study requires one complete day that cannot be spent in other pursuits.
  
  
  An anatomist must also petition for service in the Physician-in-Ordinary division, which includes many tests, questionings, and a benefactor within the Imperial Physicians Guild. It has become common for anatomists to be dispatched to cities throughout the Empire, so permanent residence in Perelinn is not necessary (in fact a candidate willing to travel to smaller cities is more apt to receive a commission).

Class skills

Skill Points at Each Level: 4 + Int modifier.

Class features

Hit Die: d4.

Improved Healing: Anatomists make excellent doctors, gaining a +2 competency bonus to their Heal skill checks. Patients resting under his care recover hit points or ability score points at an accelerated rate: 3 hit points per level per day of light activity, 4 hit points per level per day of complete rest, and 3 ability points per day. A single anatomist can care for up to 12 people in this fashion.

Autopsy: Anatomists have the ability to divine the cause and time of death by thoroughly examining a corpse. This involves a careful dissection taking about 30 minutes. The anatomist makes an Intelligence check, adding his level, against the autopsy's DC of 15 + 1/day since the corpse's death. The accuracy of the estimated moment of death decreases with elapsed time since the actual event. For instance, if the subject died an hour before the autopsy, the time of death can be fixed to within 1d4 rounds (after one day, the estimate is only accurate to within 1d4 hours, and so on).

Spells: An anatomist continues training in magic, though now in a much more specialized field. Thus, when a new anatomist level is gained, the character gains new spells per day as if he had also gained a level in a spellcasting class he belonged to before he added the prestige class. He does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. For example, if Delfburn, a 10th level wizard, gains a level in anatomist, he gains new spells as if he had risen to 11th level in wizard. If, by chance, the character had no spellcasting abilities before taking this prestige class, they gain the same number of spells per day as a Paladin of equal level. Lastly, due to their extreme devotion to their field of research, anatomists can only gain certain spells as they advance (see the Anatomist Spell List below).

Weapon Finesse: At 3rd level, the anatomist has begun to master the intricacies of small edged or cutting weapons, and gains the Weapon Finesse feat with the dagger for free.

Anatomical Attack: Starting at 4th level, an anatomist's extraordinary knowledge of the body allows them to inflict extra damage whenever they attack humans and zombies or skeletons animated from human corpses. He deals +1d6 points of damage in addition to his regular strike, and this increases by +1d6 points every three levels (+2d6 at 7th, +3d6 at 10th, and so on). If the anatomist is of another race, or has specifically chosen another race as their main field of study, then his anatomical attack affects that race rather than humans.

Weapon Focus: At 6th level, the anatomist’s studies and continual use of small bladed weapons provide him with the Weapon Focus feat with the dagger.

Weapon Specialization: At 9th level, the anatomist is truly a master of small bladed weapons, and gains the special feat of Weapon Specialization with the dagger.

Anatomist Spell List