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

[HeapThaumaturgist]

The real limiter in BCCS magic isn't the DC, it's TIME. The DC sort of sets the "top level" spell that you can cast ... you figure out what you're comfortable with (for us, with action points and whatnot, usually "success on a 6 or more" it seems) and you prep a few of those early in the day.

LATER, for effects you can pull off, the only things that get cast are spells which take, oh, about 1 round or less. I've seen our wizard take two full rounds to do a spell once, but it wasn't a horribly threatening encounter so he built up a good "force fart" and whomped a group of baddies ... pretty good, too.

So if you want to make a BCCS caster MORE UTILITARIAN in combat, you increase his aptitude in some way (I recently introduced some aptitude increasing items to my game ... wands and staves, not-D&D style). Pure "Aptitude" increases don't affect the biggest spell the wizard can cast, but affects the type of spells he can more quickly cast.

If you want to give him a few BIGGER SPELLS, you give him increases in Use Magic. I.E. when I gave Smart the ability to use Savant on Use Magic, it meant the caster could whip up bigger spells early in the day (topping out his DCs) but really didn't effect what he could stir up later.

And, finally, if you want to make the caster JUST BETTER, you increase his Magnitude Bonus, which applies both to the Use Magic checks and to Aptitude.

All things considered, if you want a "defiler" style caster allow them to do a sort of "drawing" that blights all of the plantlife around them out to a certain distance. I'd make a few "levels" of drawing and treat it like taking more time ... allow them to double and tripple their Magnitude bonus (making them just plain better, increasing spells and reducing time) but put a penalty of some sort in association. I'd say doubling whomps the plantlife (and makes the caster look very uncool to the farmer whose land he's on) while trippling might slurp HP off of his friends. And I'd find a way to make sure it slurps friends ... make him a very unpopular dude when he does stuff like that. Maybe the Drain he would take (I.E. 1d8 + X) is taken by people in a certain radius as HP damage, as well. Tie the plant damage to that damage as well, maybe. Drain x 5' radius.

--fje

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

This has definitely given me lots of food for thought.

I might even go try to dig up Ken Hood's ol' Skills-n-Feats system for a look for a companion psionic rules to a magic system...

Many thanks for the discussion.

Oh, btw, in your opinion are there any "gaps" in traditional spell abilities (things spells do or accomplish with Core spells) that you think are not covered with the BCCS spells?

 

[Banshee16]

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).
--fje

I was going to make the same suggestion, to use the Psychic's Handbook. I personally like the XPH, but don't think it would be balanced well for BCCS wizards. Clerics would be mega powerful in comparison too.....unless this doesn't really bother the DM. In some settings like Midnight, for example, the clerics are *very* powerful in comparison to the only other spellcasting character class, the Channeler. But those clerics are the legates of the world, and basically are servants of evil. There are no clerics of good.

Maybe have a blend....BCCS magic, Psychic's Handbook, and use clerics, but instead of worshipping Powers, they are worshipping alien or demonic entities....so their power is corrupt, and not of this world, which is why it's so powerful in comparison? Might make for an interesting game.

Banshee