D&D 5E Half Caster Arcane Warrior?

[Zardnaar]

So with 5E winding down we'd didn't get an arcane half caster warrior. Closest is probably steel defender.

Anyway I was thinking of three archetypes.

Dragon disciple
Duskblade
Sword Mage

Two from 3.5 1 from 4E.

All would get weapons as some sort of arcane focus. Dragon disciple gets to funnel spell slots into draconic type stuff, duskblades bit more Fighter/Mage, Sword Mage is both more tanky uses intelligence to hit.

Thoughts?

 

[Tony Vargas]

How is EK not... oh, like an arcane half-caster class... what'd the sub-classes be?

I don't recall much about Duskblade beyond 'yeah, that's a gish' and I don't think Swordmage would translate well. Dragon Disciple I don't remember at all.

 

[aco175]

I was just looking at the Duskblade from 3e. Seems like you just multiclass and could get the same or better. They get martial weapons and armored casting that levels to medium and heavy armor. They get to cast touch spells through a weapon and at some point and it looks like they can quicken a spell. Update to 5e and it could work

 

[cbwjm]

So with 5E winding down we'd didn't get an arcane half caster warrior. Closest is probably steel defender.

Anyway I was thinking of three archetypes.

Dragon disciple
Duskblade
Sword Mage

Two from 3.5 1 from 4E.

All would get weapons as some sort of arcane focus. Dragon disciple gets to funnel spell slots into draconic type stuff, duskblades bit more Fighter/Mage, Sword Mage is both more tanky uses intelligence to hit.

Thoughts?

As a basic outline this seams fine.

I've been playing around ChatGPT to give me ideas for an arcane caster class. So far I have a class that gains runes at level 1, these can grant a permanent bonus for the day or a one off power like making all your attacks deal lightning damage for a round or healing you. It also gains spellcasting, I'm using the wizard list and they get a spellbook. Subclass that the AI came up with are the shadowcaller (stealthy), stormbringer (Thor), and Scholar of Arcana (more magic).

I need to do some play around with the subclass abilities and still need a bunch more class features, but levels 1 to 6 are probably mostly done.

 

[Stormonu]

To me, if the class is supposed to be some fighter/magic-user and isn't a 3/4 caster, it isn't worth playing.

I made a class for my own homebrew, the Battlecaster. It has the subclasses:

• Arcane Archer (Ranged spellcaster)
• Arcane Blade (Melee spellcaster)
• Bladesinger (Light armor spellcaster)
• Chi Warrior (Maneuvers & magic)
• Death Warrior (Deathknight wannabe)
• Duskblade (Stealth, sneak attack + caster)
• Gish (Heavy armor spellcaster)
• Golembound (Companion spellcaster)
• Janissary (melee + elemental magic)
• Mystic Warrior (Jedi)
• Sorcerous blade (weapon + metamagic caster)

 

[doctorbadwolf]

How is EK not... oh, like an arcane half-caster class... what'd the sub-classes be?

I don't recall much about Duskblade beyond 'yeah, that's a gish' and I don't think Swordmage would translate well. Dragon Disciple I don't remember at all.

Swordmage translates very well. There are several DMsGuild products that translate it with varying degrees of caring about repeating what an older edition did.

Monk or Warlock chassis, tight thematic spell list with bigger expanded subclass spell lists than most classes use, core features of mobility, tagging/marking enemies (doesn’t have to be a defender mark), and unique abilities like throwing your weapon 60 feet to make “melee weapon attacks” from range, and a spellbook if I’m building it. It’s a sword mage, after all, not a “Spellblade” or whatever, it’s a warrior and a mage. Spellbook.

Subclasses would be:

a Shadow Hand who animates their own shadow to fight beside them and can animate enemy shadows to debuff enemies, and step into a shadow they’ve animated and out of another.

A lightning themed vanguard type who can do things like turn into a lightning bolt, doing a line of lightning damage, and ending the action at the opposite end of the line from where they started, expanded lightning lure, etc.

A telekenetic warrior that throws their weapon around, explodes it, sends it in wide arcs to attack multiple targets that aren’t close together, etc.

Related to above, a “totally not a Jedi” with invisible mage hand, catapult and other “throw stuff around” spells always prepared, and some limited telepathy.

A Dragoon that has a magical mount and can leap into the air to do big “as an action, blow up that guy in particular” attacks, etc.

Etc

 

[Horwath]

EK and AT should be 1/2 caster subclasses.
There needs to be made room in class resources for that.

1/3rd caster gets spells too little too late.
when 9th level spells hit the market, you are still on 3rd level spells.

Partly off-topic, 1/2 casters should have same spell level progression from class levels(still limited to 5th level at class 9th level), but with fewer slots.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

EK and AT should be 1/2 caster subclasses.
There needs to be made room in class resources for that.

1/3rd caster gets spells too little too late.
when 9th level spells hit the market, you are still on 3rd level spells.

Partly off-topic, 1/2 casters should have same spell level progression from class levels(still limited to 5th level at class 9th level), but with fewer slots.

Giving them features that let them cast spells and make weapon attacks completely nullifies this complaint, IMO. The AT doesn't so much need to, but still could use the ability to cast some sort of things as Bonus Actions eventually. They mostly want to use Shadowblade in combat, and use most of their spells out of combat IME.

EK in the UA can cast leveled spells and attack eventually. They're fine.

In both cases, spellcasting isn't the whole character. If you want it to be there are classes for that. Low level utility and defensive spells mostly stay just as useful as you level, and offense magic is only part of what they do in a fight.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

FWIW, I kluged together an “Arcane Paladin” in late-stage 3.5Ed using the multiclassing rules (Marshal/Duskblade/Battle Sorcerer w/Stalwart Sorcerer ACF) and some unusual Feats and so forth. Because of key Feats & skills, high Int was key.

The campaign didn’t last long enough for me to fully realize the design, but I’d say the end result was pretty fun and playable. Elements of it played very Paladin-y, other parts kind of like a low-level Artificer. The role play side of it felt a bit like the Druids from Shanarra.

(And of course, as a kluge, some compromises had to be made.)

I’d love to see something like that wrapped into a single class in any edition of the game.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I could have sworn we've see about 5000 different Gish attempts here on the boards over the last 10 years by all the folks for whom the Eldritch Knight and Bladesinger didn't work for them. Anyone who really wanted to play a Gish (and a Warlord for that matter) has had innumerable versions made available to purchase or use by 3PPs, and countless threads of folks here working together to try and jerry-rig their own preferred versions.

I certainly hope no one's been sitting on their hands for the past decade just wishing for WotC to produce something that they would want to play, rather than actually finding or making what they wanted and been using it this entire time.