[Black Company] Anyone try the BC wizard class alongside Core divine or XPH psionics?

[AdmundfortGeographer]

My title pretty much sums up my question. I'm interested in trying to use the BC spell system for wizards with in a setting with Core divine classes (druid and cleric) or psionics from the XPH? Or possibly Green Ronin's Psychic Handbook?

I'm not worried about how healing magic from divine classes impacts a BC setting game. I'm interested in the ways the different systems interact, where particular problems are to be aware of or fixed, etc.

I'd most like to use psionics from the XPH without adjustment with a "psionics is different" campaign model. Using the BCCS magic makes this quite... different. Obviously. But if using clerics from Core is too difficult, I was considering doing some divine classes that use the BCCS magic system for their divine spells. Tame the cleric magic proficiency a bit so as to not overstep the BCCS wizard's expertise.

Anyone have opinions, experience, advice, warnings?

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I think the BCCS wizard would rapidly become discouraged playing along side, say, clerics or druids or psions. The system is very very different and, while flexible, alot of the wizard from BCCS is tied to that method of magic being the only one available.

At first level cleric will have 2 1st level spells available from a very broad list. A 1st level BCCS wizard will have access to 1-2 spell bases and will memorize his Int bonus in spells. With a 16 Int he'll have 1 more "spell" per day ... but that'll never increase.

Not that BCCS wizards aren't fun, but I'm pretty sure my player would stab me in the face if I told him I'm bringing in XPH classes or abilities.

BCCS wizards also have the unfortunate situation of having few real dump stats. They need good Int for skill points and slots, they need Charisma for Use Magic bonuses, they need Con for spell energy and hit points ... the wizard in my game used Dex and Str as his dump stats.

--fje

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I think the BCCS wizard would rapidly become discouraged playing along side, say, clerics or druids or psions. The system is very very different and, while flexible, alot of the wizard from BCCS is tied to that method of magic being the only one available.

I've noticed that, and that may be what initially appealed to me. I really want system where arcane magic is noticably different from divine. Do you think it is too different from other skills and feats psionic systems?

At first level cleric will have 2 1st level spells available from a very broad list. A 1st level BCCS wizard will have access to 1-2 spell bases and will memorize his Int bonus in spells. With a 16 Int he'll have 1 more "spell" per day ... but that'll never increase.

Good point. But what about coming up with a "divine" class that uses the BCCS system. Magic being magic, so to speak. They'd be on close to the same footing, in the regard you are noting here.

BCCS wizards also have the unfortunate situation of having few real dump stats. They need good Int for skill points and slots, they need Charisma for Use Magic bonuses, they need Con for spell energy and hit points ... the wizard in my game used Dex and Str as his dump stats.

True, I've not thought about that much before. But if something could be done to have divine classes use the same scheme then they would coneivably be in the same boat...

A thought I was having was to have the "divine" classes need to blend their spells with a specific talent that is related to what/who they worship. So, they are devoted to a fire spirit, using the BCCS as the system, they would need to blend with Fire Talent to cast, or not be able to cast at all... that sort of thing.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

See, spell blending is very hard, so if you forced them to blend they wouldn't be able to do more than stir up a sharp belch until level 6 or so. My wizard has recently started trying to blend spells at lvl 6 and isn't finding much of use even with a suped up casting ability.

One method would be to scale it pretty similarly but use, maybe, Wisdom mod for spell storage for a divine caster and do some talent groupings. This is something I've been doing for my home brew game ... certain cultures have a naturally lowered base DC for certain talents. The northern airship traders have Air Talent whose DC is 5 lower than normal (10 vs 15). The mysterious evil wizard folk have Afflict at -5 DC. The aquatic folk have Water Talent at -5 DC.

So you could decide on a few Talents for arcane casters that you like and give them 5 lower DC on a few. Take the Divine and give them a few at 5 lower DC (like healing, light, etc).

I think the Psychic's Handbook would work with BCCS magic pretty well. XPH is way overpowered, I think, for even normal D&D (it's banned in all of my games, for instance) and pretty much any pure XPH character would make BCCS centered casters feel useless (not to mention making the fighter feel useless, the rogue feel useless, etc etc).

But in general I wouldn't mix spellcasting of any sort from the regular D&D stuff in with BCCS stuff. They just have too different of paradigms for that to work. For instance, level-scaling spells like Magic Missile ... it's ALWAYS a 1st level spell for wizards but to scale up damage in any way in BCCS you have to up the DC, and that usually doesn't scale to the character's aptitude.

XPH doesn't scale, you have to spend more points and whatnot, but the accrual methodology for points and the flexibility/interactivity of the powers means you're still getting more bang for your buck. Create Energy (Fire) is a whole feat that lets you make a 1d4 5' burst of fire at 10' for DC 15 ... can't get it until 1st Magnitude (4th level). Energy Ray starts OUT at 1d6 30' Ray at first level and you can dynamically choose what energy type best suits the situation. See what I'm getting at?

--fje

 

[Khorod]

If you want Divine Magic, just flavorise a BCCS wizard as a priest that claims all his power from on high.

If there is more specific stuff in Divine Magic or Psionics, I suggest you either create new talents, or a new class with a number of spell-like abilities.

Black Company is not about exploring magic. Its engine is not designed for tampering, and certainly not designed to be alongside other magic systems.

If you are using the book for rules and theme rather than setting, I would suggest gutting the existing magic, and bringing in other stuff similar in power.

 

[Tharen the Damned]

I like to add on what HeapThaumaturgist wrote and give two suggestions

1) Use the Base Wizard Class and call it Cleric, change Talent groupings. Instead of Props the Cleric uses his holy symbol, prayers and holy gestures.

2) You can power-up the BCCS Wizard class by changing the Magic Use DCs (divide by 2 or even more). You can change casting times (divide by 2 or even more). This means: more powerfull spell effects and faster casting times.
This will need some mathematics and playtesting, but you should be able to power up the BCCS Wizard to the PHB Cleric.

I don´t have the XPH but I have the Psychic Handbook and mixing it with BCCS should work fine.

I would rather use 1) and Psychic Handbook instead of 2) and/or XPH.

But thats only me

 

[Henry]

It might work if you used the 3.0 Psionics rules - they are noticeably weaker than the 3.5 Psionics. Even then, it's a toss-up - the ability to use power points on the fly with spells that are guaranteed to work is still a big advantage. The Black Company Wizards are powerful, but only in the area of a lot of small effects, and one or two big effects. 3.5 standard casters are more powerful with a dozen big effects, and then they're spent.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

See, spell blending is very hard, so if you forced them to blend they wouldn't be able to do more than stir up a sharp belch until level 6 or so. My wizard has recently started trying to blend spells at lvl 6 and isn't finding much of use even with a suped up casting ability.

I was noticing the difficulty, yeah. Not having had a chance to playtest much, I thought that giving the divine caster a significant boost to Magic Use checks for being forced to blend. *shrug*

One method would be to scale it pretty similarly but use, maybe, Wisdom mod for spell storage for a divine caster and do some talent groupings.

Exactly what I was generally contemplating.

This is something I've been doing for my home brew game ... certain cultures have a naturally lowered base DC for certain talents. The northern airship traders have Air Talent whose DC is 5 lower than normal (10 vs 15). The mysterious evil wizard folk have Afflict at -5 DC. The aquatic folk have Water Talent at -5 DC.

So you could decide on a few Talents for arcane casters that you like and give them 5 lower DC on a few. Take the Divine and give them a few at 5 lower DC (like healing, light, etc).

I remember reading your changes and I thought it was an awesome idea. I was going to borrow just some of those ideas. Say, have you produced any alternate talent groupings or new talents? I'm going to go have to dig around those threads on the Green Ronin forums and see what other fans created to borrow. . .

XPH doesn't scale, you have to spend more points and whatnot, but the accrual methodology for points and the flexibility/interactivity of the powers means you're still getting more bang for your buck. Create Energy (Fire) is a whole feat that lets you make a 1d4 5' burst of fire at 10' for DC 15 ... can't get it until 1st Magnitude (4th level). Energy Ray starts OUT at 1d6 30' Ray at first level and you can dynamically choose what energy type best suits the situation. See what I'm getting at?

I sure do. But I wonder how much "suping-up" would have to be done to BCCS magic to make it not lag behind... In any case, I think I'm losing interest in trying to use the XPH...

Something of a flavor aspect than anything, I wanted to add some way for arcane BCCS casters to do something equivalent to what defilers could do in Dark Sun. That is, be able to choose to leach the surrounding vegetation and soil to ash to fuel their magic. In this game terms, this is almost a free bonus, although everyone witnessing it would be horrified and probably respond appropriately. Something mostly NPCs casters would do, but make them remarkably challenging.

 

[JoeGKushner]

When I was running the BC, the wizard, even at 7th level, perefered to useh is crossbow when in melee, rarely using his force hammer. Outside of that, he helped people heal up a lot.

 

[Henry]

When I was running the BC, the wizard, even at 7th level, perefered to useh is crossbow when in melee, rarely using his force hammer. Outside of that, he helped people heal up a lot.

Interesting anecdote: I pre-genned a Wizard for a one-shot Black Company that I ran for my gaming group. One player volunteered to be the wizard. At first, being unfamiliar with the Magic rules, he used his crossbow a lot. When he started getting plunked and losing spells prepped, he dropped the crossbow and flung his first acid blast. He liked the result so much, he started playing with other spells.

In the end, he was solely using his magic, walking around, force hammering, blinding, and frying the skin from whole squads of enemies, and really warming to the system.

The trick to using a BC Wizard is CON, and Spell Energy. Load up on those as much as possible, because it's what gives your wizard the chance to be effective. The Wizard 6 he played had 7 Spell Energy, and a 16 CON. Without it, he would not have had as fun a time, because he would have cast 2 or 3 spells and that was it. However, with 7 Energy and 1d8+4 drain on average, he was holding his own pretty well, as the fighters backed him up and kept him from being in harm's way.

If all goes well, we are playing a second one-shot Sunday to introduce more players to it. If they like it, I may make an on & off regular game out of it.