Arcane Warrior (Class)

[AlmirEldignor]

Ok, last one, I promise! For Now Not Really


Some of you may have seen my Swordmage class in all its largely overcomplicated glory. You may also have seen my more recent Arcane Archer, with its narrow focus and existence as basically an archetype of another class anyway. It has been suggested to me that the two classes finally stop mooning over each other and get hitched. Well, it's done! This should (hopefully) be the last version of the arcane fighter/archer/swordwizard that I make for a while. Special thanks to Ezel for pointing out this most beautiful union that has been staring me in the face for three months. (Still can't believe I hadn't thought of it /facepalm). All in all, the class should be more versatile, more multi-class friendly, less zealous about what weapons you can use, and a lot easier to understand. The new version is effectively a Paladin, with different subclasses and features, so as to keep it as close to legit formatting as possible. So here it is, the Arcane Warrior! (Now in PDF form, in the downloads section)

The PDF version is done, so I've cleared out this thread for now. All the spells that are homebrew that the AW uses are included in the PDF, to minimize the need to use other resources. The only I didn't add in the PDF was the info for the glyphs (cause I'm a dummy sometimes) so I've left that here.


Arcane Glyphs
An arcane glyph is a special marking designed to channel arcane power. It might be engraved in an amulet or weapon, or tattooed into your flesh. Arcane Warriors, Eldritch Knights, and Wizards can use an arcane glyph as a spellcasting focus for their spells. To do so, it must be held in your hand or otherwise touching your skin (for an amulet or weapon), or be tattooed someplace you can see it (the hand or forearm is a common location).

Arcane Glyph	Gold Cost	Weight
Engraving	5gp (for an amulet) or 2gp (engraved on a weapon)	1lb (Amulet) -- (Adds no weight to a weapon)
Tattoo	50gp	--

 

[Ezel]

Nice! I like it, good execution as well, simple and it has that feel of "EK but more balanced between magic and fighting".
The only thing the class might need at this point is the flavor, which might inspire some more ribbon features (it's a little lacking in that department, every feature is very focused on combat). But even without flavor it's perfectly playable anyway.
Careful though, I don't see any arcane focus, nor access to ways to avoid somatic components (doable with war caster anyway). Without a weapon as arcane focus or similar things you fall in the same trap of the EK: they can't cast anything with material components without a free hand, it's sure that they can't with a shield and it's unclear if they can while wielding a two-handed weapon.
Also I don't see any instruction on spells known, traditionally only divine casters get "all the spells in the list". Wizard-style casters in 5e get 6 spells at first and then two additional spells for each spellcaster level, plus other spells that they can find in books, scrolls and the like. Sorcerer/Bard-style casters get a smaller amount of spell that can't be expanded.

As an advice for the flavor I see these guys not really studying words on books, but studying a fighting style so perfectly refined that they get magic out of it. I see their movement in combat as some sort of arcane and mysterious dance that summons magic forces. If you want to use wizard-style casting they might learn new spells in various ways: an ancient swordfighting manual might have an ancient technique for ritual combat, an old arcane warrior master might teach you one of their secret techniques, etc... If you want to use a simpler bard/sorcerer style of spellcasting then it simply comes with exercise and refinement. Otherwise since they use intelligence to cast, you might as well just give them a book and make them a clear core way to have a fighter-wizard multiclass.

 

[AlmirEldignor]

I'll definitely work on addind some flavour, got a bunch of material for that saved already. The arcane focus thing I hadn't thought of, I'll add it in there. I didn't want to exclude somatic components as a whole, not only to avoid duplicated Warcaster, but also to prevent people from casting somatic spells while restrained or something, but I can see how to make it work once I add in the flavour. As far as spells known thing, I was thinking about that, especially as I compiled the spell list, which is almost as long as the wizard's I think. I'm thinking four spells known at 1st then one additional per level (since he can only prepare more every other level), then allowing them to learn more from scrolls and such.


EDIT: Your post also gave me the idea of a caster who is literally using the movement to power his/her spells, maybe with STR/DEX as casting ability? DEX might be too much since its so good in other places but maybe STR I dunno.

 

[Ezel]

I would really avoid physical ability spellcasting, it's really not well received within the community and also brings your character to be half spellcaster and avoid MAD without any annoyance. I think Int would explain the memorisation and the fact that it is a refined technique that requires thought and clarity of mind. Also it would characterise your arcane warriors as people with a large pool of knowledge to draw from and good investigation capabilities when they are not fighting. If you make dex the casting ability, then they can even be dumb athletes and will not care about their mental faculties.

For the runeseeker I simply made it so that you can provide somatic components while having weapons in your hand. I would think that if you go the way of a martial art so good that makes magic happen, then that would literally be a central feature. If instead you prefer the guy with a book/rod in a hand and the sword in the other, you can do that as well (but it's easily suboptimal if additional features are not provided to balance that out). The class should work without being forced to use the war caster feat, also, war caster is such a strong feat already that if you can cast with somatic components you are still going to want it for all the rest of the benefits. Casting a spell as an AoO is completely insane.

I would go with 6 spells at level 2, and then one spell every other level, since it has to always be equivalent to a fullcaster of half their level. At level 2 your class should be like a level 1 wizard and a level 1 wizard has 6 spells. At level 4 your class should cast like a level 2 wizard and at level 2 a wizard has 8 spells. And so on. Remember that it's nothing too game breaking since they have to choose their prepared spells from the book everyday.

 

[AlmirEldignor]

I was thinking for a different class other than this for the physical spellcasting, but yeah you raised most of the issues i'd found with it.

As far as the spells known I had forgotten that it didn't start till 2nd level, so if he had 20 INT (somehow, maybe free magic items or something) then he'd be able to prepare 6 spells so 6 would probably be a good starting point. Originally I was calculating for +4 int mod at best at 1st level, so max 4 spells prepared.

 

[AlmirEldignor]

I updated the spellcasting feature with the appropriate information, working on the spellcasting focus now. (Wanted to get the work saved as an edit incase my power goes out again ._.)

EDIT: Added spellcasting focus info. The tattoo version is more expensive and has more restrictions, but you can't lose it like you can with a weapon or amulet. (Well, you can, but at that point you've got bigger things to worry about.)

 

[Ezel]

You didn't specify in the rules that a glyph works as an arcane focus, you just kind of implied it. The idea is really good!

I really like how this turned out, I wouldn't use it personally though, since I already have the Runeseeker to cover that class niche. Now there's just to hope someone is interested in testing it, if you are not able to. Plus you might want to try making a pdf layout for it.

 

[AlmirEldignor]

Working out flavour stuff for it, though I have absolutely no clue as to how to make a PDF, computer skrub as I am.

 

[Ezel]

It's easier than it seems. Put things in microsot word (or similar), use capitalised BertholdBaskerville for titles (with a shade of brown that is red108, green58, blue54), Bookman Hd BT for the rest, put text in two columns. Look at the Player's HandBook for reference to the correct font sizes of titles, for additional optional niceness make the first letter in titles a little bigger. Then save as pdf. Ta-dan!
The things that get a bit more tricky are background image (I have the phb's background if you want), making the footer and page numbers look decent with the background image and organising the class table in a way that sorta looks like the handbook way of doing it. But nothing too bad.
Then there's the highest level of dedication that I still don't have, which requires modifying images on photoshop to make them fit in the file and ripping other usual decorations that the handbook has. Making the titles with the lines better looking with the use of a decently positioned line image instead of a lazy underline would be part of that as well. But ehy, few homebrew pdfs get to that point.

 

[AlmirEldignor]

Been having issues with the PDF buisness, since my free-to-win text processor doesn't have the fonts you suggested, and it doesn't seem capable of having text split into two columns AND having a Table at the top of the page :l

I check out the runeseeker pdf you made, and it looks awesome. I'm not sure how I'd get the backround image to work, but if you could share it ill give it a shot