College of the Jester

Role: Jesters are often hired by noblemen for entertainment. They dance, prance, and jump about while the more civilized look on and laugh at the fools. More often than not, these noblemen are paying the price for their entertainment, as the Jester is liable to make off with a piece of gold for every laugh he hears. Other Jesters serve as clowns in traveling carnivals or circuses. And of course ever community has its local fool. Jesters rarely take up the adventuring life. (PC Jesters are the obvious exceptions.) Their motivations for doing so will have to be care fully constructed to maintain realism. A Jester may be sentenced to escort a group of heroes on a dangerous quest as punishment for a joke about the king’s nose (throwing him in jail would hardly be appropriate). A Jester might be assigned to accompany a band on a grim and deadly adventure, to combat the gloom and dread that will be encountered. Whatever the reason, having a Jester in the party will certainly result in more than one good laugh.

Fool's Luck

Jesters receive a +1 bonus (+5% on per- centile rolls) to most die rolls. This includes saving throws, initiative, surprise, proficien- cy checks, thief skill checks, ability checks, and ability sub-checks (e.g., bend bars/lift gates, resurrection survival, and so on). The fool's luck also adds a +1 bonus to the Jester’s Armor Class.
About the only die rolls that the fool's luck ability doesn’t affect are attack rolls, damage rolls, initial character generation rolls, and Hit Die rolls.

Jesting

Jesting may be done to taunt or tease. Such jesting affects only those who are within 30 feet of the Jester and who are able to fully view him. This form of jesting causes those being jested at to roll a saving throw. Those who fail must immediately try to physically strike the Jester for as long as the jesting continues. The effect ends when the jesting ends. Combat strategy is ignored by those who are affected. They recklessly pass by more dangerous targets in an attempt to attack the Jester. Jesting is thus a wonderful way to break the ranks of enemy forces.  

A Jester's Mind

Jesters are immune to at- tacks that cause insanity. Jesters also gain a saving throw bonus equal to their level vs. wizard spells of the enchantment/charm school and priest spells of the charm sphere. (A saving throw of 1 always fails, however.)  Furthermore, any attempt to read a Jester’s mind has a percentage chance equal to5 times the Jester’s level of causing confusion in the mind reader (treat as if under the effect of a confusion spell).

Bonus Proficiencies

When you join the College of the Jester you learn to dance, juggle, tumble and sell it all with a smile. 

Joking

Jokes are told in an attempt to alter encounter reactions. For any form of joke to function, the Jester must speak a language known by the recipient of the joke. Furthermore, the Jester must be within easy verbal range of the recipient.  Such jokes require 1 action to tell, after which the audience must roll a saving throw. Those who fail have their reactions adjusted one level in the direction desired by the Jester giving them advantage on all charisma based rolls against them. However, those who succeed take the joke the wrong way and have their reactions adjusted one level in the opposite direction causing disadvantage for all charisma based rolls. In addition if the joke succeeds all the target gets disadvantage on saving throws vs any charm effect  Finally, a joke told at just the right moment can dispel the effects of fear. Such a joke requires a reaction to tell and enables all those affected by fear (normal or magical) to roll with advantage to avoid the fear (note that those affected by the fear do not immediately run away, but remain until the joke is told). If no first saving throw was allowed, then the saving throw is rolled vs. spell.