In .. "celebration" of my Character Sheet/Spell Sheet download hitting quad-6 total downloads and in the spirit of the current season, I'm uploading my Grim Templar custom class for AD&D 2E.
Loosely based on Final Fantasy's 'Dark Knight' job with some influence from other sources, the Grim Templar is intended to be a sort of opposite to a Paladin yet still good-aligned. Rather than focusing on defense and usage of divine sources of spells to protect allies and smite evil, they specialize in offense and use arcane magicks - fighting fire with fire, so to speak (and sometimes literally!).
Collateral damage is a common occurrence with their profession - for example: if someone tries to protect an obviously evil being (intentionally or not), then may the gods have mercy on their souls. While some may give the person or group a chance to remove themselves from harms way, others may not be so patient in their quest to quell that which does not belong in the realm or which seeks to do harm to those who are innocent and good. While their actions may seem evil and/or chaotic, they do not tolerate insubordination within their ranks nor do they welcome evil acts that do not work toward the greater good.
They have similar abilities as Paladins, yet they are more-so tuned towards fighting evil-aligned beings by having more offensive abilities and some defensive traits that would benefit them against the more dangerous evil beings that roam the world and beyond. They also have similar, if not harsher, restrictions as Paladins. In exchange for their more potent offensive abilities, they don't have quite as much of accuracy or hit points and require more experience as well. They can use the greatest of armors and weapons and still use spells, but they may only become an expert in a single weapon and may not gain specialization. Due to the special method from which they gain many of their abilities, they have incredible resistance to poisons and diseases - virtually immune to such. In addition to such, at later levels, they may wield cursed equipment as if it had no curse what-so-ever, at least to the Templar.
Update 9/23/16
- Made minor typographical corrections and adjustments
