Another Fighter-Mage

I'm kicking around the idea of another Fighter-Mage hybrid class, call it the Warrior-Arcane.

Good BAB, Good Fort and Will saves,

Pick one school of magic. You have the same facility with arcane magic as a wizard, but only in that one school. Same rules as a wizard for spell aquisition.

You can prepare your class level in spell levels per day. Max spell level prepared same as a wizard. So a 5th level Warrior-Arcane (Abjuration) could prepare Dispell Magic, Shield and Endure Elements.

Some thoughts to round things out:

Rather that some kind of cast in armour mechanic simply grant the Sudden Still spell feat at 2nd level.

d8 or d10 HP?

2 or 4 skill points?

Is class level in spell levels per day adequate or should it be lvl X 2? If so I'd limit your highest level spells to no more then 1/2 of your spell levels. (I.E. a 6th level W-A with 12 spell levels available could memorize only 2 3rd level spells.)

Is that enough of a class or should some bonus feats be offered?

Andor said:

Is that enough of a class or should some bonus feats be offered?

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If you really want it to combine both fighter and wizard roughly evenly, full base attack isn't enough -- it will need feats or it will be a wizard with a bit of fallback combat ability. I'd give it weak abilities elsewhere to make this as good as possible -- d8 with 2 skill points.

CRGreathouse said:

If you really want it to combine both fighter and wizard roughly evenly, full base attack isn't enough -- it will need feats or it will be a wizard with a bit of fallback combat ability. I'd give it weak abilities elsewhere to make this as good as possible -- d8 with 2 skill points.

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Actually I'm thinking of it more as a Fighter with some moderate spell casting ability. Coming at it from that angle I think I'd leave the spell casting as written, go for d10 hp and give him a few bonus feats. Probably starting at 3rd and every 3 levels after, basically using the fighter list, but stripping out the fighter only feats and tossing in a few magic ones.

My advice would be to check out the Duskblade in PHB II.

Or better yet, the Mage Blade from Arcana Unearthed for cool ideas.

Features:
d8 HD, medium BAB, 2 SP/level
Bonded weapon (athame) is +1/5 levels, with other minor flavor effects (e.g. you learn to call it to your hand)
Somatic components can be cast using athame--in other words, you make the gestures with your sword in a combat-ready way rather than with a free hand, thus avoiding AoOs.
Higher level abilities include giving yourself a deflection bonus to AC 1/day, ignoring magical defenses on melee attacks with your athame, and two or three other neat effects that make a lot of sense for a melee mage.

Since you probably want to keep the D&D magic system rather than AUs, it makes sense to
do something different with their spells. However, I wouldn't want this class to be tossing around spells of the same level as the wizard even once per day. Rather than one school with full access, I would put their maximum spell level on average one below the wizard, topping out at 7th level spells (say, you get 2nd level spells at 4th level, 3rd level spells at 7th level, etc.) and give them much more access--say, any three schools, or one school plus one per point of Int bonus.

The number of spell levels equal to level rule is probably a little light too. I would go ahead and give them a spells per day chart of their own just for consistency, and keep in mind that a 20th level wizard gets no more than 36 spells per day--they're just more powerful spells on the average.

Ben

Ben

Andor said:

Actually I'm thinking of it more as a Fighter with some moderate spell casting ability. Coming at it from that angle I think I'd leave the spell casting as written, go for d10 hp and give him a few bonus feats. Probably starting at 3rd and every 3 levels after, basically using the fighter list, but stripping out the fighter only feats and tossing in a few magic ones.

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Moderate in terms of what?

Less spells per day than Wizard?
Lower spell levels?
Less amount of known spells?

To achieve these, consider the spell progression of the Paladin and the Ranger: same amount of spells per day.

Because you probably want spellcasting capabilities since 1st level, add cantrips to that table (for example, you could start with 1 cantrip per day, increase by one up to max 4).

Then you could make it so that the spell list is made by all spells from Wiz/Sor list, of a single school only (actually, I would suggest 2-3 schools because some are still quite small).

Acquisition of spells could be similar to Wizard except at level one, where for example you could say 3+Int cantrips known.

This whole spellcasting ability is worth at least the equivalent of 4-5 feats (according to published Paladin and Ranger spell-less variants), so you could consider giving the Arcane Warrior the same Fighter features but only 6-7 bonus combat feats during 20 levels instead of 11.

However I would also consider the following modifications:

1) the ability to ignore ASF in SOME armors, in exchange for proficiency in all other armors & shield

This brings a difficult point to balance: if you grant this with LIGHT armor only (gives up Medium/Heavy/Shields prof) it might hurt the character concept a bit, since you'll suddenly be a lightly armor warrior... But if you allow this with MEDIUM armors too, then it's quite too good, and IMHO it is NOT balanced by giving up only Heavy & Shield. At least I'd give up 2 more bonus feats.

2) Add Knowledge(Arcana) and Spellcraft to class skills. Leave the others if you wish, but don't increase skill points.

Moderate in terms of spellcasting being a useful feature of the class, but not enough to compete with a dedicated casting class.

I avoided the Ranger/Paladin progression for two reasons. One, it's already been done in the Hexblade. And two, I'd like the spells to be of potential offensive use, not merely relegated to buffs like with most other hybrid approaches.

So I think I'll stick with my current approach for spell casting although sticking in some cantrips is a good idea.

I think that it's worth more my way than the Ranger approach so maybe a bonus feat at 3rd and every 4 levels thereafter is a good idea. That's 5 over 20 levels.

I agree that Spellcraft and Knowlege Arcana, need to go on the skill list. I'd also add proffesion and prob Knowledge the Planes. Since they are int based casters more than 2 points per level would be excessive.

I suspect most players would pick their school carefully and I like that it's sort of 9 differently themed classes with similar abilities. But maybe they should have the ability to aquire another school. Maybe add a couple of feats.

Studious [General]
Prereq: Have prohibited schools.
You learn a spell from a prohibited school and may add it to your spell list. This spell must be of a level you can cast.
Special: This feat may be taken multiple times. Each time you may learn a different spell.


Broad Minded [General]
Prereq: Studious
A school of magic which you have learned a spell in through the Studious feat is no longer a prohibited school.

And stick those on the bonus feat list. That way you can pick up a second school through the use of 2 feats, which feels like a reasonable cost to me, and can continue to cherry pick other schools at great expense.

In that case I think it's probably already powerful enough without bonus feats.