Making the Universalist Wizard more appealing

[Balsamic Dragon]

I'm posting this for a friend of mine who is putting together a Pathfinder Eberron game. It's set at the university in Sharn and he wants to give some more flavor to the Universalist Wizard. I've seen several posts before on this subject: most of them involve granting more spells known and/or adding enhancements to existing Wizard abilities. But he's looking for something with a little more oomph that will appeal to PCs. Adding flavor to what is, essentially, the most generic type of spellcaster is hard. This is what I have come up with as an option. It replaces the existing Hand of the Apprentice ability. Thoughts?

Hand of the Apprentice (Su): Your mastery of all forms of magic enables you to summon any form of magical energy into your hand and use it as a weapon. This attack is treated as a ranged touch attack, except that you add your Intelligence modifier on the attack roll instead of your Dexterity modifier. Because you use your mind to guide the energy to its target, concealment bonuses due to obstacles between you and the target do not apply. This ability cannot be used to perform a combat maneuver. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Intelligence modifier. Damage is 1d6/2 levels of the caster (max 10d6). Energy forms that can be used include: fire, cold, electricity, acid, sonic, force, positive energy, and negative energy.

 

[Maidhc O Casain]

Looks significantly overpowered to me - compare to the bloodline powers. Not only are you giving away significantly more damage potential than those abilities, you're removing concealment penalties and allowing the Wizard to customize the energy type to play to the bad guys weakness?

 

[TheNovaLord]

overpowered

not what the universalist is about really

 

[Steel_Wind]

Goes too far; however, it might be that you could modify the Hand of the Apprentice so that it wasn't so overpowered, while still giving it more flavor and a real advantage in combat.

Example: At the time the weapon is thrown, the caster may discharge an elemental touch or range touch spell attack into the weapon before it it thrown. Provided the weapon at least touches the intended target, the elemental touch / range touch attack spell is successfully discharged at the intended target through the thrown weapon. The foe takes damage from the elemental spell per normal; however, the failure or success is all resolved on the same roll, using the Intelligence Bonus of the Wizard to resolve the to hit roll. Whether or not the weapon fails to even make contact with the foe permitting the ranged touch attack to succed, the spell is also lost.

In this manner, a Universalist Wizards might throw a dagger using Hand of the Apprentice and cast, say, Shocking Grasp at the target through the dagger, at range. Potentially, the target could be hit by both the physical damage of the thrown weapon as well as the spell damage added to the augmented attack.

The Hand of the Apprentice thereby allows a touch attack to become a range touch attack; and a range touch remains a range touch; in all cases, the spell must be prepared in order for the Wizard to use it and if the prepared spell is not a cantrip, the spell resource is then expended when it is cast in this fashion, per standard.

While Shocking Grasp is a very neat effect, the clear benefit to this allows a caster to use, say, a Ray of Frost or Acid Splash through the Hand of the Apprentice at the same time. Moreover, it allows the Wizard to hit more often to do some damage with the attack (so the target takes spell damage, even if it might not have its armor penetrated by the thrown weapon)

When Hand of the Apprentice is augmented by casting a spell to enhance it in this fashion, I would suggest it take a full round action for the caster to accomplish, increasing the time taken to accomplish the augmented attack from the standard action normally required.

 

[Grymar]

I think you want to do something that feeds into the concept of the Universalist a bit more. What do they do better than anyone? Flexibility. Maybe give them a free feat, like Spell Mastery or Skill Focus (Spellcraft) or even Eschew Materials. Or maybe they get a bonus to their bonded item?

 

[Anguish]

You could do a few interesting things. These are all more powerful than Hand of the Apprentice, but probably not horribly so. The put emphasis on the idea that a universalist has more freedom than a specialist.

School Flexibility (Ex): Once per day a wizard with no school specialization may alter the school associated with any feats he has taken. For instance, a universalist wizard who has taken Spell Focus (conjuration) may alter that feat to be Spell Focus (evocation). School Flexibility may only be used once per 24 hour period but can be used for any qualifying feats. Once changed, feats remain at their new values until altered using this ability once again.

Energy Flexibility (Ex): A wizard with no school specialization can prepare one spell per available spell level with an automatic energy substitution. Thus, a wizard able to cast 3rd level spells could prepare a fireball that deals cold damage, and do similar to a second-level spell and a first-level spell. Substituting sonic damage reduces the damage die or dice by one die size, giving a sonic fireball that deals 1d4 sonic damage per caster level.

Forbidden Dabbling (Ex): A wizard with no school specialization is permitted to scribe one spell into his spellbook which does not appear on his spell list. This spell must be of a level he or she is able to cast. Upon gaining a level, such a wizard may destroy the scribed spell and replace it with another. Said wizard must have access to a scroll containing the scroll they wish to scribe.

 

[dammitbiscuit]

I liked the wizards of the sun and moon a lot, from Unearthed Arcana. Applying it across the board was a little too much work - wizards are already an exercise in bookkeeping. But it was good mechanic that retained the wizard mechanic (must thoughtfully learn and then prepare spells in advance) while giving flexibility.

Maybe something like the following, but better-worded:

Starting at 3rd level, you can prepare Utilispells, Backup Spells, "Spells of the Mystical Duality Arcanery Magikkula", whatever. One of your 1st-level spell slots has two spells prepared in it. Casting either of the spells uses up the spell slot for the day. At 5th level and every time you gain an additional level of spells, you can prepare one utilispell of a higher level. In other words, you end up with one at each level except your highest available spell level.

 

[Balsamic Dragon]

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it! I know that the version I posted is probably too powerful, but I wanted some ammunition, because my friend (for whom I was writing it) said it was underpowered

Some good ideas above, thanks again!

 

[wakedown]

Not having seen it in play, I was fairly "meh" about the Hand of the Apprentice.

I finally had a player go Universalist, and use the ability with an Elven Curve Blade as the weapon - masterwork of course from the bonded item ability. She had an 18 Int, so +5 to hit wasn't too shabby. The player hit almost every time she used it, got some good 1d10 rolls, and had most of the party "ooh"-ing at the ability to strike for 1d10 from range.

In general, I'm happy when the 1st level school/domain abilities give a wizard/cleric the ability to do "something else" in a combat scenario that isn't totally worthless. There's plenty of domain abilities for clerics that are much worse than this (ie. spend a standard action giving someone +1 damage for 1 attack... really? for a god of war, this is what you get? the ability to make someone else better?)

Anyway in the right hands of a demi human with a good weapon, Hand of the Apprentice isn't too bad for 6-7 ranged melee attacks - keeping the wizard out of harms way while he/she strikes. And the 1st level wizard probably only has 6-7 rounds per day they are looking for "something else to do" so it works out fairly well.