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Anima mages see vestiges as mere tools, no different from spell component pouches or a wand of fireball.

Requirements

Class Features

Soul Binding Bonus: At each anima mage level, your soul binding ability improves as if you had also gained a level in the binder class. Your anima mage levels and binder levels stack for the purpose of determining your bonus on binding checks, the effectiveness of your vestige-granted abilities, your ability to bind higher-level vestiges, and the number of vestiges you can bind. You do not, however, gain any other benefit a binder would have gained.

Spellcasting: At each anima mage level, you gain new spells per day and an increase in caster level (and spells known, if applicable) as if you had also gained a level in an arcane spellcasting class to which you belonged before adding the prestige class level. You do not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. If you had more than one arcane spellcasting class before becoming an anima mage, you must decide to which class to add each level for the purpose of determining spells per day, caster level, and spells known.

Exploit Vestige (Su): At 2nd level, you learn how to use a bound vestige to boost your arcane spellcasting. With this ability, you can choose to forego gaining one of the vestige's granted abilities in order to gain one additional arcane spell slot per day of any level up to the highest you can cast. Thus, if you bind the vestige Dantalion (see page 28), you could give up the read thoughts ability he grants you in exchange for a bonus spell slot that day.

You decide which ability to give up before you make the binding check, and you can forego only one ability per day in this manner, even if you can bind multiple vestiges. Vestiges react poorly to your use of this ability, so you take a —5 penalty on your binding check. If you make a good pact despite this penalty, you gain a bonus spell slot in exchange for the ability you gave up. If you make a poor pact (that is, you fail your binding check), you do not gain the extra spell slot, and you still give up the designated ability for the day.

When you use this ability and make a good pact, you sever a portion of the bound vestige's awareness of the world that it would normally receive through you. Essentially, your binding amounts to a certain amount of trickery. The vestige being bound expects to be able to experience life through its binder, but when you make a good pact, you partially suppresses the benefit the vestige receives, making it uncomfortable and angry.

Vestigial Awareness (Su): Beginning at 3rd level, you can force your bound vestige to focus on alerting you to danger rather than letting it revel in the sensations that it perceives through your pact. Whenever you make a good pact with a vestige, you gain a +2 bonus on initiative checks for the duration of the pact.

Vestige Metamagic (Su): At 4th level, you can use a bound vestige to augment your spells by temporarily giving up access to its powers. Using vestige metamagic is a swift action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Choose one of the vestiges to which you are bound whenever you activate this ability. You can then apply the effects of any metamagic feat that you possess to a spell you cast that round, without increasing its spell level. However, you lose access to all the abilities and powers granted by the chosen vestige upon activation and do not regain them for 5 rounds. You cannot use this ability if you do not have a vestige bound, or if you do not currently have access to its abilities (through the use of this ability, an antimagic field, or some other effect). Vestige metamagic is usable once per day at 5th level, two times per day at 7th level, and three times per day at 9th level.

Vestige Casting (Su): At 10th level, you can use a bound vestige's power to cast a spell outside the normal limits of time and magic. Once per day, you can cast any spell that you currently have prepared (or use an available spell slot if you cast spells spontaneously) as an immediate action. You cast the spell as if it were modified by the Silent Spell and Still Spell metamagic feats, whether or not you have those feats.

Advancement