Knights are fighting men who are trained to fight from horseback in heavy armor. This prestige class is for the best-trained and dedicated of such fighting-men who serve in the household or powerful lords or hold small fiefs from them in exchange for such service.

Hit Die: d12

Requirements

To qualify as a knight, a character must fulfill the following criteria:
Alignment: any lawful
Base Attack Bonus: +3

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: character must be proficient in the lance and either longsword or bastard sword, and have heavy armor and shield proficiencies.
Skills: Ride, 5 ranks
Feats: Mounted Combat
Special: the character must be "dubbed a knight" by a titled nobleman of high rank or church leader of high rank. He usually then is either granted a small fief (1-3 square miles with 25-40 peasant families) as a financial support, or is provided shelter and a living by the lord. A household knight is at the lord’s call at all times, a landed knight is bound to 30-60 day’s service per year.

Class Skills
The knight’s class skills are: Climb (Str), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge: local (Int), Knowledge: nobility (Int), Profession: steward (Wis), Profession: huntsman (Wis), Ride (dex).
Skill Points at each level: 2+ Int modifier

Class Features

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: a knight is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, all armors and shields.
Knightly Feats: when a knight gains a "knightly feat" he may choose one from this list: Ride-by-Attack, Spirited Charge, Trample, Weapon Focus; longsword, Weapon Focus: lance, Weapon Focus: Bastard Sword, Martial Weapon Proficiency: Bastard Sword, Iron Will, Power Attack, Cleave, Greater Cleave, Sunder.
Implacable Stubbornness: A knight can keep fighting even if brought to 0 hit points or less. Once he hits 0 hit points, he suffers a -1 on all of his rolls, but continues to fight, even though he is dying (and still loses 1 hp/round as normal). Once he reaches –10 hit points, he is allowed one final shout of defiance and then drops over dead.
Immune to Fear: a knight is immune to any spell, or ordinary, extraordinary, supernatural or spell-like ability that causes fear or panic.
Mighty Blow: a knight may give up all his attacks for a round in exchange for striking a single Mighty Blow. He must be using a melee weapon in two hands, and he provokes an attack of opportunity from any enemy adjacent to him. The mighty blow will automatically do maximum rolled damage (including critical hits), and a cleave or greater cleave following the mighty blow also does maximum rolled damage.
Aura of Courage: the knight radiates confidence, so much so that any ally (including the knight’s horse) within 15 feet of the knight gains a +2 save vs. all Fear effects.
Greater Overrun: a mounted knight can attempt an Overrun on as many enemies in a straight line as he can reach in a round. All the rules for a Standard overrun apply, except that the number of attempts in a round is not limited to 1. So a knight with this ability chancing upon 8 goblins walking single file up a road, could charge through the whole column, if it was in a straight-line charge, making an overrun attempt against each one.

TABLE: THE KNIGHT

Class Level	Base Attack	Fort	Ref	Will	Special
1	+1	+2	+0	+2	Knightly Feat
2	+2	+3	+0	+3	Implacable Stubbornness
3	+3	+3	+1	+3	Knightly Feat
4	+4	+4	+1	+4	Immune to Fear
5	+5	+4	+1	+4	Mighty Blow
6	+6	+5	+2	+5	Knightly Feat
7	+7	+5	+2	+5	Aura of Courage
8	+8	+6	+2	+6	Greater Overrun
9	+9	+6	+3	+6	Knightly Feat
10	+10	+7	+3	+7	Knightly Feat

THE KNIGHTS OF ST HUGO
Paladins, clerics and fighter/clerics in the order of St Hugo who meet the same qualifications as an ordinary knight can elect to take levels in Knight as well. Members of the order of 4th level or above are routinely “dubbed knights” by the order anyway, but only those with the other requirements can take levels in “Knight”. Members of the order get an additional benefit when taking levels as Knights, their Knight levels count in the total for “caster levels” for the purpose of spell effects and turning undead, (but not for number of spells per day). So a 5th level cleric of the order with two levels of Knight, turns undead as a 7th level cleric and his spell ranges and durations count as if he were 7th. He still only gets a number of spells as a 5th level cleric.