Making a Planeswalker

[doctorbadwolf]

So, this thread has two purposes.

1) to identify what can be added to a new class that isn’t in the game right now, to make a balanced and satisfying Planeswalker, a la Magic The Gathering.

2) To identify what existing options can be used with only minor changes, like adding spells to a class’s list, to make a satisfying and balanced Planeswalker.

Now, an important question here will be; how much teleportation, and moving through planes, can a class be given at what levels?

I imagine is the answer will be more, and lower, if it’s a full class that can have this as a primary class ability.

So, to start, what are the existing Planeswalker spells?

Obviously, the summoning spells, and the teleportation spells. In DnD, plane hopping and teleportation are closely related thematically. Dimension door is a must.

In a new class, spell lists can live more in subclass than core class, and things like Counterspell and Fireball can be unique to the proper subclasses. In a new subclass for wizard, the focus would be adding spells from other classes to shore up summoning and dimension hopping.


For base class abilities and structure I’m thinking:

a Mana system rather than spell slots, or in addition to them. Careful not to run afoul of too much sorcerer overlap. Mana would instead do different things for different types of spells? Conjured creature can be mana boosted to gain extra traits, for instance, and Mana can be used to heal the caster as part of casting?

At level 5, you can hop into a different plane, 1/rest, and come back with some kind of benefit? Maybe 1/day you can spend a HD as part of a ritual to hop to another plane, spending time equal to 1 hour per creature taken with?

The class would have to be able to Planeswalk by level 7, at the latest, to be called a Planeswalker. I’d say by level 3 it needs something dramatic that speaks directly to walking the planes.

So, thoughts? Has anyone built one already?

 

[bedir than]

What's interesting is that the CARDS for Planeswalkers have little in common mechanically.
But, what they do have seems to feel like a Sorcerer subclass that heals/damages self when specific spells are cast.
I might use suggest that when casting Spell A or B you may spend/regain HD. Also, an ability to convert HD to sorcery points

 

[Rossbert]

I'm assuming you mean new era 'dudes that teleport' planeswalker and not the original 'demi-gods who control the land and pull creatures from their homes to make war' plabeswalker.

New style planeswalkers have almost nothing in common, to the point that I heard (I am out of date so no idea how accurate) some are not even particularly. They basically come down to people who have a boon that lets them planeshift on top of whatever they were before (ie Jace goes from mind mage to mind mage that can plane shift, Chandra goes from pyromancer to pyromancer that can planeshift, etc.)

While I am all for making new stuff, think about how it interacts with everything else and what the purpose is. What is the role of 'mana'? How does it differ from spell slots (or spell points if you use that? Is color fundamentally different from a restricted spell list? How does all of this interact with multiclassing, dispel magic and counterspell?

Depending on how you want to address some of these issues it can go many different ways. My gut reaction for an MtG style setting is everyone gets a free Magic Initiate feat (almost everyone does SOME magic) and ask players to restrict spell picks thematically. On top of that give the plane shift boon when you are ready for them to wander.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Yeah, "Planeswalker" shouldn't be a class at all. They are too disparate in terms of actual abilities, and in terms of power level. You can have magic-using Planeswalkers and martial Planeswalkers... Heck, Nicol Bolas, one of the multiverse's strongest dragons, is a Planeswalker.

Frankly, the only real way to do it and retain any similarity to how they're already presented is to layer the Planeswalking ability over other characters--like an old school template, or maybe a feat or boon.

If you want to create a mana-based system of spellcasting, that's a separate project, and shouldn't have any relation to whether a spellcaster is a Planeswalker or not.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm assuming you mean new era 'dudes that teleport' planeswalker and not the original 'demi-gods who control the land and pull creatures from their homes to make war' plabeswalker.

New style planeswalkers have almost nothing in common, to the point that I heard (I am out of date so no idea how accurate) some are not even particularly. They basically come down to people who have a boon that lets them planeshift on top of whatever they were before (ie Jace goes from mind mage to mind mage that can plane shift, Chandra goes from pyromancer to pyromancer that can planeshift, etc.)

While I am all for making new stuff, think about how it interacts with everything else and what the purpose is. What is the role of 'mana'? How does it differ from spell slots (or spell points if you use that? Is color fundamentally different from a restricted spell list? How does all of this interact with multiclassing, dispel magic and counterspell?

Depending on how you want to address some of these issues it can go many different ways. My gut reaction for an MtG style setting is everyone gets a free Magic Initiate feat (almost everyone does SOME magic) and ask players to restrict spell picks thematically. On top of that give the plane shift boon when you are ready for them to wander.

If going with a subclass or reflzvoring and adding a feat and a few spells, that last paragraph is perfect.

If I decide to make it a class I don’t care too much about whether canon PWs have abilities in common on their cards.
DnD is different, and I’m not the sort that cares if Harry Potter has the correct color of eyes in an adaptation.
That said, the color magic would come in more when building subclasses, maybe called Mana Source. Ie, a Red Mana subclass would have fire spells, haste, and some new summoning spells with specific creatures, while a Blue Mana subclass would have Counterspell, a feature that gives them proficiency in Counterspell ability checks, and Green would be the heaviest summoner, and potential mixed mana subclasses would have stuff inspired from mixed decks, like Blue Green summon spells that pop out a critter and also force an enemy to make a concentration save as if they took damage equal to your level+casting stat. Or a feature that summons a low-hp low damage creature when you cast Counterspell, etc.

 

[Rossbert]

So basically you want to make a primary spellcaster planeswalker? (Jeska jumps to mind as a barbarian planeswalker)

One way to do colors is to do it somewhat like Red Mages. Sort all the spells into colors and if you pick one you get up to level nine, if you pick 2 you only go to 5, or just function as a half-caster, 3 you max at 3 or get the progression of a third caster. You will run into problems at high level because of how few spells there are all colors will not feel equally represented (I ran into this problem with a sorcerer rewrite)

You may want to do Warlock with "color" as patron since invocations work well for a way to grab abilities off a menu.

You can treat crucial abilities as either invocations, class abilities or feats.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So basically you want to make a primary spellcaster planeswalker? (Jeska jumps to mind as a barbarian planeswalker)

One way to do colors is to do it somewhat like Red Mages. Sort all the spells into colors and if you pick one you get up to level nine, if you pick 2 you only go to 5, or just function as a half-caster, 3 you max at 3 or get the progression of a third caster. You will run into problems at high level because of how few spells there are all colors will not feel equally represented (I ran into this problem with a sorcerer rewrite)

You may want to do Warlock with "color" as patron since invocations work well for a way to grab abilities off a menu.

You can treat crucial abilities as either invocations, class abilities or feats.

Warlock might indeed be a good basis. The class would definitely have to be a level 1 subclass chassis.

The thing is, I think spellcasting planeswalkers are the only archetype that benefits from a class, whereas others are better off with subclasses spread around the various classes. A Barbarian Planeswalker subclass would be like Totem Barbs, but instead of spirits you pick a color or color combo.

I think this sort of design is the best way to build a set of options where it feels like you are using MtG style magic in a DnD framework. Whether that means it maps to literal Planeswalker cards or not...eh? We can call it soemhing else if we need to.

 

[Bupp]

It's not perfect, but the best Magic style spellcaster I've seen I reviewed here:
https://jonbupp.wordpress.com/2018/11/25/plane-shifted-the-channeler-class-review/

As for planeswalking, I see it as an Epic Boon type ability, like in the 5e MM style write ups for some Planeswalkers.
https://imgur.com/gallery/w9y2u9i

Planeswalker: You are able to travel through the Blind Eternities to other planes. You can take objects you are wearing or carrying, but not other people. Doing so takes 1d4 actions and requires concentration. You must complete a long or short rest before being able to planeswalk again.

 

[cbwjm]

Something to be aware of if you are trying to translate the abilities of the cards into planeswalker abilities is that they aren't actually healing or harming themselves when you use their planeswalker abilities. Even though they look like hit points, the numbers represent loyalty. Do things they like and they'll stick around for longer (they gain loyalty), do things that take a substantial amount of power and you might see them leaving if their loyalty drops to 0. Same with when they get attacked, their loyalty goes down because the area is too damn dangerous so they end up planeswalking away.

For a full on planeswalker campaign, I can started on creating a half caster (for warrior/rogue style planeswalkers) and full caster version of the planeswalker and then creating subclasses that fit the theme. The black half-caster had a death-knight, the green full caster had a druid. White had paladins and clerics, red had class based on fire, earth, etc. I never did complete it. Perhaps I'll go back and have another look.

Another idea I had was to add a template/boon which grants a planeswalker additional spell slots able to be used to cast spells based on which type of mana they are attuned to. Maybe this could be innate spellcasting instead so that you gain a few spells you can cast 3/day and a couple of others that can be cast 1/day (kind of like gaining magic initiate with some higher level feat chains to add additional higher level spells). By using this template I think that you could emulate the current planeswalkers better than with a subclass for each class.

On a side note, I actually think Pathfinder 2 (judging from the first release, I haven't kept up with updates) could work this quite well with their multiclassing feats since any class could pick up some multiclass feats to gain some spellcasting ability. You probably wouldn't even need to create a specific planeswalker style set of multiclass feats if you didn't want to, although an archetype might work really well for a planeswalker.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It's not perfect, but the best Magic style spellcaster I've seen I reviewed here:
https://jonbupp.wordpress.com/2018/11/25/plane-shifted-the-channeler-class-review/

As for planeswalking, I see it as an Epic Boon type ability, like in the 5e MM style write ups for some Planeswalkers.
https://imgur.com/gallery/w9y2u9i

Planeswalker: You are able to travel through the Blind Eternities to other planes. You can take objects you are wearing or carrying, but not other people. Doing so takes 1d4 actions and requires concentration. You must complete a long or short rest before being able to planeswalk again.

Thanks! I’ll check it out! If I did go with boons, I’d not make them wait till epic play for them, for sure. IMO, no one wants to play a full dnd campaign and then a planeswalkint campaign, and for many people, only the first 2/3 of the game are really any fun.

Something to be aware of if you are trying to translate the abilities of the cards into planeswalker abilities is that they aren't actually healing or harming themselves when you use their planeswalker abilities. Even though they look like hit points, the numbers represent loyalty. Do things they like and they'll stick around for longer (they gain loyalty), do things that take a substantial amount of power and you might see them leaving if their loyalty drops to 0. Same with when they get attacked, their loyalty goes down because the area is too damn dangerous so they end up planeswalking away.

I’d probably junk the idea of calling the class a Planeswalker before I’d try to emulate specific card abilities with any devotion. I want the feel of an MtG style of magic and fighting, above and before any other goal.

For a full on planeswalker campaign, I can started on creating a half caster (for warrior/rogue style planeswalkers) and full caster version of the planeswalker and then creating subclasses that fit the theme. The black half-caster had a death-knight, the green full caster had a druid. White had paladins and clerics, red had class based on fire, earth, etc. I never did complete it. Perhaps I'll go back and have another look.

Another idea I had was to add a template/boon which grants a planeswalker additional spell slots able to be used to cast spells based on which type of mana they are attuned to. Maybe this could be innate spellcasting instead so that you gain a few spells you can cast 3/day and a couple of others that can be cast 1/day (kind of like gaining magic initiate with some higher level feat chains to add additional higher level spells). By using this template I think that you could emulate the current planeswalkers better than with a subclass for each class.

On a side note, I actually think Pathfinder 2 (judging from the first release, I haven't kept up with updates) could work this quite well with their multiclassing feats since any class could pick up some multiclass feats to gain some spellcasting ability. You probably wouldn't even need to create a specific planeswalker style set of multiclass feats if you didn't want to, although an archetype might work really well for a planeswalker.

Those are all solid starts, thanks! I’d love to see some of what you started working on, btw. It sounds like fun!