Spellsword - is it weak?

[Hardhead]

One of my players is playing a fighter/mage and was interested in what prestige classes were available to him. At first, he was thinking about the Spellsword, but scoffed when he saw it. He feels it's too weak.

Now, I'm not against making modifications to a prestige class if I think it's too powerful or too weak, but I want to be careful about my game balance.

So, basically, I want to know everyone else's opinion. Is the Spellsword weak, and if so what can be done to make it balanced.

In sumary, my player's concerns:

1. Gaining a bonus spellcasting level only every other level will mean he'll quickly drop in in usefulness to the party.

2. With only a Medium BAB, and most of his levels in Wizard, he'll never have a good enough BAB to hit anything very reliably. Essentially, he'll loose spellcasting prowess while still not being even a decent melee combatant.

3. Spell channeling is just useless. No matter how many levels he has, it can only be done once per day, and only with *really* low level spells. It essentially gives you an extra partial action used for spellcasting once per day, but only for 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level spells, depending on the Spellsword's level. I have to agree with him here, especially. Spellchanneling is a very lame and overly-limited ability.

4. The arcane spell failure reduction is good, but he can always just buy some bracers of armor. Besides, he has a 16 dex already. (Note: however, with the max 30% reduction he gets, he can wear a breastplate and use a buckler with no chance of spell failure - with enchantments put on those, the max armor bonus he can get is higher than from bracers, obviously. But still, not enough to justify loosing all those spellcasting levels).

I suppose I could add a few more levels of bonus spellcasting, but how many? I also guess I could increase the BAB progression to good (he'd still be pretty far behind the fighters, and not have the fighting feats). But should I use these solutions? If so, which one? Is there even a problem?

Any thoughts very appreciated.

- Z a c h

 

[Wolfspider]

I think the Spellsword is balanced exactly as it is. I wouldn't tinker around with it too much if at all. The ability to cast spells while in armor is a powerful ability to begin with.

I currently play a Spellsword, a fighter 4/wizard 6/spellsword 10. He's had no problems at all standing up to the challenges that a 20th level character would face.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I think it is balanced perfectly fine. That spell channel ability doesn't suck, think 3 1st level spells, think MM, think getting beat down with a sword and getting nailed with 3 mm in one round, I'd say ouch. Is it the end all and be all of special abilities, no, but it can brutalize one big foe.

The spell progression is pretty good, with a wizard/fighter 1 or 2, and then spellsowrd you could end up with 8th level spells, and that doesn't suck. The +7 to bab can get the fighter/wizard into the above +10 bab so 3 attacks a round, and close to the clerics fighting ability, but with martial weapons. And think how brutal this guy can be after a tensers transformation. (get a metamagic rod of maximize to really make it gross)

The player will not be as good at magic as a fighter 1 or two rest wizard, but he shouldn't be since he actually can fight at even high levels with the spellsword, so spells aren't needed as much.

And casting with armor and a 16 dex, think about mithral, especially mithral full plate. Sure its expensive, but witha fabricate spell you can bust one out with relative ease if you have the craft skill. And it allows a 16 dex, and it lowers the arcane failure % enough to enough for the spellsword to handle it, add in a large shield agai mithral, and this guys AC will be nasty. Add in some good buffing spells and he will be fighting side by side with the fighter and still have some nice offensive and defensive and utility spells to sling around.

 

[MythandLore]

I also think the Spellsword is balanced as is.
And I think the 'Spellsword cache' ability is pretty powerful.
Being able to store up to 10 spells in one sword is pretty good.
Also I didn't see a limit to the number of weapons he can do it to.
So he could hve more then one sword with spells in them.
The Spell channel ability is pretty good too.
It's like dealing extra damage for spending a spell as a free action, that's pretty good.
Not super powered but pretty good.
If you mess with the class you run the risk of making it over powered as always.
But you know that.
Just adding any extra spell casting levels is probably a bad idea unless you start taking powers away.
If he doesn't like the class maybe he should just do a diffrent class.

 

[kreynolds]

The problem with the prestige classes is that most of them require a lot of work from the GM to make them fit in the game. For a party of Tomb Raiders, a swashbuckler or gladiator is pretty worthless. They require you, the GM, to work them into the game and place them in an environment that suits them. Don't get me wrong, though. I still love 'em. However, I like 5 level prestige classes more than 10 level ones. They just seem to be easier to work with, though this doesn't always apply.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

For the genre specific pretige clases like shashbuckers yeah that's true. A swashbucker who can't buckle his swash is just a fighter poking monsters with a sword. But a spellsword is just a fighter/mage that can fit in any style campaign, so can the elementailist fr example for mages. But for mages the arcane order or the alienest and a few others only fit into some campaigns.

 

[kreynolds]

A swashbucker who can't buckle his swash...

What!? LOL That's about the funniest tootin' thing I've read all day. LOL

 

[DMaple]

I'm not sure what real advantage it gives over a fighter/wizard with Still Spell Feat.

Since the Fighter/Wizard will have higher spell level access offset the +1 level for using Still Spell. At high levels bracers and rings of protection can provide as good an armour bonus as physical armour.

Channelling is limited in its uses. With the Spell cache is not much better than a supply of potions, since you both suffer an AoO for using them. The advatage potions have is if you lose one, you only lose one. If your sword gets sundered then you lose all your cached spells and XP for nothing.

The medium BAB doesn't give any advatage over a Fighter/Wizard although the 2 Good saving throws does.

I think it is a little underpowered to be honest.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

What!? LOL That's about the funniest tootin' thing I've read all day. LOL

That's what I'm here for comic relief.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I'm not sure what real advantage it gives over a fighter/wizard with Still Spell Feat.

Since the Fighter/Wizard will have higher spell level access offset the +1 level for using Still Spell. At high levels bracers and rings of protection can provide as good an armour bonus as physical armour.

Channelling is limited in its uses. With the Spell cache is not much better than a supply of potions, since you both suffer an AoO for using them. The advatage potions have is if you lose one, you only lose one. If your sword gets sundered then you lose all your cached spells and XP for nothing.

The medium BAB doesn't give any advatage over a Fighter/Wizard although the 2 Good saving throws does.

I think it is a little underpowered to be honest.

Hmmn I don't have t&b here so I can't recheck it, but it seemed good to me when I looked at it. But I though the spell progression of the spellsword game like 6 or 7 spell levels. So a 5/5/10 fighter/wiz/spellsword would have a caster level of 12 and a bab of 14. A fighter/wiz 10/10 would have a bab of 15 and a caster level of 10. I'd say slight edge to the spellsword. Now a fighter/wizard 2/18 sure is better at spell casting with a bab of 11 and caster level 18. but a fighter/wizard/spellsword 1/9/10 would have a caster level of 16 and a bab of 12, would have a ton more hp, two good saves, be able to cast in armor, spell chache, and spell storing. Dramatically better than a straight f/w no but slightly better I think, which is where prestige classes hould be IMO. I'm for disallowing a ton of prestige classes since I think they get signifigantly better not just slightly better than the core classes.