Ancient GuardianSource Monster Codex pg. 140
Ancient guardians revere nature and draw power from its divine energies, but also protect the customs, histories, and lore of their tribe and race. They act as ambassadors and protectors of the old ways, nurturing their tribe’s growth and holding back civilization’s corruptive influence.
Ancient Arms: An ancient guardian can’t wield weapons made primarily of metal. She is proficient with only the club, dart, quarterstaff, shortspear, sling, and spear. She is also proficient with all natural attacks (claw, bite, and so forth) of any form she assumes with wild shape. Using a prohibited weapon renders her unable to cast druid spells or use any of her druid supernatural or spell-like class abilities while wielding the weapon and for 24 hours after ceasing to wield it. This alters the druid’s normal weapon proficiencies.
Community Bond (Ex): At 1st level, an ancient guardian must choose the domain nature bond ability and select from the following domains: Community, Healing, Knowledge, Protection, or Repose. This ability alters nature bond.
Patience of Nature (Ex): An ancient guardian does not gain wild empathy at 1st level. Instead, at 2nd level, an ancient guardian adds Diplomacy, Perform (oratory), and Sense Motive to her list of class skills and gains an insight bonus equal to half her druid level on such checks. This ability replaces wild empathy.
Ancient Ways (Ex): At 3rd level, an ancient guardian increases any climb, fly, or swim speeds she has or gains via her wild shape ability by 10 feet. This ability replaces trackless step and woodland stride.
Dispel Hostility (Su): An ancient guardian doesn’t gain spontaneous casting at 1st level. Instead, at 3rd level, she can channel stored spell energy into a spell capable of dispelling hostile thoughts and strong emotions. She can “lose” a prepared spell in order to cast calm emotions. Instead of the normal Will saving throw for that spell, the DC of a calm emotions spell cast with this ability is 10 + 1/2 the ancient guardian’s druid level + her Wisdom modifier. This ability replaces spontaneous casting.
Unimpeachable (Ex): At 4th level, an ancient guardian gains a +4 bonus on saves against enchantments. This ability replaces resist nature’s lure.
Undo Artifice (Sp): At 13th level, an ancient guardian gains the ability to reduce a nonliving item to its component raw materials. This acts as the spell polymorph any object, but works on magical or nonmagical nonliving objects. The duration is always permanent. Unlike polymorph any object, this ability can’t be used to mimic the effects of other spells. Items subject to this effect receive a Fortitude saving throw to negate the effect (DC = 10 + 1/2 the ancient guardian’s druid level + her Wisdom modifier). Magic items receive a circumstance bonus on this save equal to +1 for every 5,000 gp of the item’s value. An ancient guardian can use undo artifice a number of times per day equal to her Wisdom modifier. This ability replaces a thousand faces.
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