Companion

You've learned to rehearse steps—coordinated dance techniques for fighting with flair. These steps employ your personality and express your emotional moods to produce nigh-superhuman effects, as your outline visibly shimmers with an aura matching your soul.

Your journey begins with three solo steps and one duet step of your choice, and you gain control of new steps at the levels shown in the class table. Whenever you gain a companion level, you can exchange one duet step for another.

Step options can be found on the Optional Features page.

Steps are magic dance techniques, distinct from spellcasting, and they are the result of extensive practice—both by yourself and with partners. Every step is begun as an action.

Solo steps can be performed any number of times without tiring you, while duet steps test the limits of your cooperational spirit. You must expend a tempo point to begin a duet, and there must be a willing humanoid ally within 5 feet of you. No action is required of your partner, but they must dance along. Duets end immediately if your partner is ever no longer within 10 feet of you. You regain all expended tempo points whenever you finish a long rest. Lastly, to target a creature with a step, you must be able to see them.

Some steps require your target to make a saving throw to resist the step's effects. Your step saving throw DC is calculated as follows:

From the thrill of a narrow escape, you feel the rhythm of life. When an attack misses you, you can enchant your aura with cadence as a reaction, allowing you to hear patterns in the flow of a fight. For up to 10 minutes, whenever you are targeted with an attack, you can make a Dexterity saving throw with a DC equal to the attack roll. If you succeed, the attack misses you, as it is diverted by your rhythmic aura. You must concentrate on maintaining this effect as though it were a spell, focusing on the beat, and you can enchant yourself with cadence once per short rest. You lose concentration on this effect if you are deafened, incapacitated, or if your speed becomes 0, as occurs when you are grappled or restrained.

There is always a duet that comes effortlessly, naturally, as though it chose you personally. As of 2nd level, you learn one of the following duets without it counting against your number of duet steps known: Festal Flamenco, Flare Share, Playful Polka, or Seer's Samba. Once per short rest, this duet can be performed without expending a tempo point.

Even in the beginnings of your training, your unpredictably gliding motions are a defensive asset: you mystify by never staying still. At 2nd level, while you are conscious, wearing no armor, not under the effect of cadence, not wielding a shield, and not grappled, paralyzed, or restrained, your AC equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Charisma modifier.

As a companion, your partners, passions, and desires all drive you well enough, but one cannot live indecisively forever.

When you reach 4th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

If your DM allows the use of feats, you may instead take a feat.

By 5th level, you can expertly control unconventional weapons, ensuring that they smoothly accompany your practiced paces. Of the flicker weapons, choose three. You gain proficiency with them. When you use your action to perform a step, or to simply dance, you can use your bonus action to make one attack using a flicker weapon that you're proficient with—a flicker attack.

All flicker weapons have the Finesse property, as you incorporate them into your art. Each weapon description also details the effects of a special Aura property which can only be used if you are proficient with the weapon. When you attach your aura to a weapon as you attack, instead of dealing damage, you use the force of your persona to control the target. Finally, you can choose to gain proficiency in more flicker weapons if you take the Weapon Master feat.

Also at 5th level, you can enchant mementos with protective magic. By spending 30 minutes immersing yourself in the aura of a willing helper, you can create an accessory with the ability to safeguard its wearer from one spell that your helper is able to cast.

When the wearer is affected by that one spell, the accessory absorbs the spell's magic and shatters, rendering the wearer completely unharmed. This curio lasts for one week before withering away, and you can only maintain one such enchantment at once. The curio creation process can be performed and completed during a short rest without being considered strenuous activity.

Upon reaching 6th level, you've become addicted to appreciation. Whenever one of your duets ends, either you or your partner can attempt to convince the other that their performance was a perfect 10. The recipient of praise can add 1d10 to their initiative for the next round.

Moreover at 6th level, perfection comes naturally. Choose one skill you're proficient with. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses the chosen proficiency. Additionally, whenever you roll a 16 or higher on an ability check using this skill, you can treat the roll as a 20.

At 7th level, you gain a feature from your Companion Style.

When you reach 8th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

If your DM allows the use of feats, you may instead take a feat.

As of 9th level, with every step taken together, a sensation is left in your wake. Imagination meets reality—stories come to life.

When you use your action to dance with a partner, as a bonus action, you can conjure and describe any visual and auditory phenomena you wish to occur within 5 feet of you as per the programmed illusion spell, except the effect lasts until your dance ends. You could use this illusion to create a singing spotlight, a ravishing costume, a bouquet of flowers cheering your names, a band playing your favorite song, or otherwise add unforgettable pizzazz to your act. Any creature who is hindered or threatened by your illusion can easily see through it, making its sensory qualities faint and hollow.

If your dance is a duet step, you can use the illusion to encourage yourself or your partner. The encouraged target gains advantage on their next ability check, attack roll, or saving throw made before the end of the next round.

At 10th level, this feature can enchant you twice per short rest.

When you achieve 10th level, the melodic swirling of your soul is even-keeled and oddly prosodic, as you've mastered the art's hidden habitudes. When you use your action to perform a solo step while you are at an even number of tempo points, you can begin a duet step as a bonus action.

Likewise, when you use your action to begin a duet step while you were at an odd number of tempo points, you can use your bonus action to conjure an encouraging Merry Visionary illusion and then immediately make two flicker attacks.

At 11th level, you gain a feature from your Companion Style.

When you reach 12th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

If your DM allows the use of feats, you may instead take a feat.

Once you reach 13th level, you tend to avoid inactivity. Whenever you are taking a short rest, you can involve any number of willing partners in an upbeat, spry dance.

All who participate for the duration of the rest (without interruption) will lose one level of exhaustion, and at the end of their rest, they can expend their hit dice to instead restore hit points to one dancing creature of their choosing. You regain one tempo point whenever you complete a short rest in this manner.

If you reach 14th level, you'll surely discover that scenery is key for sentiment. You can cast the mirage arcane spell once per long rest.

However, you can only use this spell to create or alter a single structure, such as a theater, an arena, a carnival tent, or a shrine. It can have any artificial exterior appearance, interior layout, backdrop, decor, and ambience you'd like, potentially containing illusory items such as furniture, stairways, wardrobes, dramatic lighting, meals (tasting however you choose), tools, toys, or even textual writings detailing any knowledge you possess. This structure must fit within a 1000-foot cube.

At 15th level, you gain a feature from your Companion Style.

When you reach 16th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

If your DM allows the use of feats, you may instead take a feat.

By 17th level, your mystique is truly distracting: enemies can't take their eyes off you. At the start of combat, when enemies make a Dexterity check to determine their place in the initiative order, they do so at disadvantage if they are within 30 feet of you and can see you.

At 18th level, your love for stirring the flow of battle manifests itself in revelry. You learn the routine of a single group step from the five listed below, and can begin performing it once per long rest as an action or a bonus action. Choose any number of willing allies within 20 feet of you to involve en masse in your choreography. To benefit from this dance, chosen allies must use their reaction to participate, must remain within range, must be able to see you, and must not be grappled, prone, incapacitated, or restrained. If an ally stops benefiting from this dance due to not meeting these requirements, they can use their reaction on their turn to enter the dance once again when the requirements are met.

The dance ends immediately if you are personally afflicted with any of the aforementioned conditions, if you choose to end it (no action required), or if no allies are performing it in tandem with you. Each dance lasts 1 minute, and you can perform steps during them without interrupting the dance.

When you reach 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

If your DM allows the use of feats, you may instead take a feat.

When you manage to reach 20th level, you can fully channel the energy of attention. Once per long rest, when you conjure a heartwarming illusion using Merry Visionary, you can encourage masses of people. Every creature that sees it (other than yourself) can choose to gain advantage on a single d20 roll made within 24 hours. They must choose before their die is cast whether to do so.