Also a good point. There's always the "synonyms for wizard" well. I quite liked the late 3.5 Beguiler and Dread Necromancer concepts, expanding a whole class chassis to cover a specialist wizard with more specific abilities.
Level Up (A5E) Martial Artistry (3pp book in the works) Ideas and Concepts
- Thread starter Steampunkette
- Start date
Corinnguard
Hero
The only problem is that there already is an Arcanist archetype for the Wizard class.
DarkRainbowFiend
Explorer
damn.
DarkRainbowFiend
Explorer
Would spell-soldier do as a name?
At this point I'm more or less settled on Warcaster, but thank you for the try!
Also: Trickshot Chicanery (Combat Tradition) is now complete. Everything from making people dance to shooting buttons off people's clothing, readied quickdraws to fanning the hammer. Very little in the way of defensive options, though. It's an aggressive combat tradition with some utility stuff.
DarkRainbowFiend
Explorer
quess it was fortunate the feat was renamed in A5E as Battle Caster.
Trust me! I looked at -that-, too.
DarkRainbowFiend
Explorer
would be kinda neat, since the class will likely be renamed as warcaster, to incorporate the battle caster into it somehow as a cheeky mythology gag.
Barebones simplified mass combat:
Take a creature from the MM and apply the Mass Combat template.
HP becomes "Morale". Creature loses the ability to roll for damage and always takes the average. Unit gains a "Passive Attack Roll", cannot roll natural 1s on attack and cannot roll lower than the passive attack roll which is 8+Attack mod, unless they have disadvantage. Unit gains a combat role (Artillery, Flanker, Front Line, Support). Unit gets assigned a size.
Small units are 20 medium sized or small creatures or 5 large creatures. Medium units are 50 medium or 10 large, large units are 100 medium or 25 large.
You cannot make units out of creatures bigger than large or smaller than small.
Units take half damage from PCs and NPCs, full damage from Units.
Units deal double damage to PCs and NPCs, normal damage to Units.
When a large unit hits Bloodied it must make a Death Save or become a medium unit.
When a medium unit hits Bloodied it must make a Death Save or become a small unit.
When a small unit's Morale becomes bloodied they must make a Death Save or be Routed/Defeated.
At 0hp a unit is destroyed. There may be a handful of survivors, but they flee the battle or get captured.
A unit cannot be 'healed' into a higher size category. A large unit that fails it's save remains a medium sized unit after the battle.
When a unit increases from small to medium, or medium to large, it gains +50% HP and Damage, and a +2 to Proficiency bonus.
So a small unit of Bandits would have:
AC: 12
Morale: 9
Passive Attack: 11 for melee, 10 for ranged
Damage: 4 for melee and ranged
A medium unit of Bandits would have:
AC: 12
Morale: 13
Passive Attack: 13 for melee, 12 for ranged
Damage: 6 for melee and ranged
A large unit of bandits would have:
AC: 12
Morale: 19
Passive Attack: 15 for melee, 14 for ranged
Damage: 9 for melee and ranged
Bandits are one of the weakest examples, obviously. And you could equip your unit of bandits differently if you had enough gold or leftover equipment to upgrade their gear. Bandits wearing full plate would be hilarious, after all.
Meanwhile a -medium- unit of Ogres would be a nightmare for a lot of people.
AC: 12
Morale: 88
Passive Attack: 16 for melee and ranged
Damage: 19 for melee, 16 for ranged
Even a Large unit of Bandits would be instantly crushed going up against the Ogres which kind of feels fitting, no? 10 ogres, 100 bandits... it'd be a bloodbath.
Probably gonna need a different term for unit size, though...
Take a creature from the MM and apply the Mass Combat template.
HP becomes "Morale". Creature loses the ability to roll for damage and always takes the average. Unit gains a "Passive Attack Roll", cannot roll natural 1s on attack and cannot roll lower than the passive attack roll which is 8+Attack mod, unless they have disadvantage. Unit gains a combat role (Artillery, Flanker, Front Line, Support). Unit gets assigned a size.
Small units are 20 medium sized or small creatures or 5 large creatures. Medium units are 50 medium or 10 large, large units are 100 medium or 25 large.
You cannot make units out of creatures bigger than large or smaller than small.
Units take half damage from PCs and NPCs, full damage from Units.
Units deal double damage to PCs and NPCs, normal damage to Units.
When a large unit hits Bloodied it must make a Death Save or become a medium unit.
When a medium unit hits Bloodied it must make a Death Save or become a small unit.
When a small unit's Morale becomes bloodied they must make a Death Save or be Routed/Defeated.
At 0hp a unit is destroyed. There may be a handful of survivors, but they flee the battle or get captured.
A unit cannot be 'healed' into a higher size category. A large unit that fails it's save remains a medium sized unit after the battle.
When a unit increases from small to medium, or medium to large, it gains +50% HP and Damage, and a +2 to Proficiency bonus.
So a small unit of Bandits would have:
AC: 12
Morale: 9
Passive Attack: 11 for melee, 10 for ranged
Damage: 4 for melee and ranged
A medium unit of Bandits would have:
AC: 12
Morale: 13
Passive Attack: 13 for melee, 12 for ranged
Damage: 6 for melee and ranged
A large unit of bandits would have:
AC: 12
Morale: 19
Passive Attack: 15 for melee, 14 for ranged
Damage: 9 for melee and ranged
Bandits are one of the weakest examples, obviously. And you could equip your unit of bandits differently if you had enough gold or leftover equipment to upgrade their gear. Bandits wearing full plate would be hilarious, after all.
Meanwhile a -medium- unit of Ogres would be a nightmare for a lot of people.
AC: 12
Morale: 88
Passive Attack: 16 for melee and ranged
Damage: 19 for melee, 16 for ranged
Even a Large unit of Bandits would be instantly crushed going up against the Ogres which kind of feels fitting, no? 10 ogres, 100 bandits... it'd be a bloodbath.
Probably gonna need a different term for unit size, though...
DarkRainbowFiend
Explorer
maybe mass for a size alternative?
Last edited:
Similar Threads
Level Up (A5E)
Bladechanter and Booming/Green-Flame Blade Question
