Card Master

[SnowleopardVK]

A player of mine has been inspired by Gambit of the X-men and has asked about creating a card master type of character. We're both pretty sure no such thing exists as we want it though, so we've been looking into creating a class for it. Card Master, Gambler, High Roller... Something like that. The name isn't set yet. The point is we'd like some help at class homebrewing, we haven't done it before.

What we were thinking of was an primarily support-oriented arcane spellcaster who wielded playing cards, using them as shuriken (but probably with slightly more power than shuriken since it'd be the "specialty" weapon of the class.

Light Armour, Simple Weapon Proficiency, Arcane spells that have to be prepared ahead of time, BAB 0 at 1st level, Good reflex and will saves...

This is gonna be interesting.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Have you considered using a reflavored alchemist instead? Or as the baseline for the new class, at least?

 

[Thanael]

Check out the Harrower prestige class esp. the Spirit Deck ability. It's not exactly Gambit, but interesting in it's own way and all about a deck of cards.

Also the feats Throw Anything, Catch Off-Guard and Improvised Weapon Mastery, and of course the Harrowed feat.

There's also a Harrowing spell (bard 3, sorcerer/wizard 3, witch 3).

Here's a handy Harrow Deck Quick Reference and you can of course buy a Harrow Deck at paizo.


Playing cards is covered by the Profession (gambler) skill.

Also check out the Hero Points rules from APG and the accompanying Luck feats.

 

[Thanael]

Or you could model this with the soulknife class from Psionics Unleashed. Check out the Throw Mindblade, Bladestorm and Bladewind abilities. Perhaps combined with a weapon adept (and possibly maneuver master monk for flurry of energy-shuriken and or quarterstaff combat ?

Prestige classes: Pyrokineticist (reskinned?), Psychic Fist(to combine monk and soulknife skills).

Feats: Psionic Weapon, Greater Psionic Weapon, Psionic Shot, Greater Psionic Shot.

 

[1Mac]

Rite Publishing has a Luckbringer base class. I haven't checked it out yet, but it might be good to mine for gambler-flavored support powers.

For class building in Pathfinder, I've found the 3.5 Class Construction System (download link) to be very useful. If you go with around 250 character points, instead of the default 215, it balances pretty well with Pathfinder classes. It's not perfect, and will require some interpretation and knowing when to break the rules, but it can provide a pretty good framework for what a Pathfinder class should look like.

 

[paradox42]

What we were thinking of was an primarily support-oriented arcane spellcaster who wielded playing cards, using them as shuriken (but probably with slightly more power than shuriken since it'd be the "specialty" weapon of the class.

Light Armour, Simple Weapon Proficiency, Arcane spells that have to be prepared ahead of time, BAB 0 at 1st level, Good reflex and will saves...

Sounds like a reflavored Magus (Ultimate Magic) to me. Arcane caster, check. Prepared spells, check. Weapon user, check. Light Armor proficiency, with ability to cast in armor, check. BAB 0 at 1st level, check (Magus has Medium BAB).

Seriously, all you appear to need different from the Magus is switching the Fortitude and Reflex (Magus has good Fort & Will), and perhaps a different spell list since Magus is mostly offensive stuff like Acid Arrow, Scorching Ray, and Lightning Bolt. You could almost do it with an Archetype, rather than a totally new class.

 

[SnowleopardVK]

Sounds like a reflavored Magus (Ultimate Magic) to me. Arcane caster, check. Prepared spells, check. Weapon user, check. Light Armor proficiency, with ability to cast in armor, check. BAB 0 at 1st level, check (Magus has Medium BAB).

Seriously, all you appear to need different from the Magus is switching the Fortitude and Reflex (Magus has good Fort & Will), and perhaps a different spell list since Magus is mostly offensive stuff like Acid Arrow, Scorching Ray, and Lightning Bolt. You could almost do it with an Archetype, rather than a totally new class.

That's actually a pretty good point. Might look into that.

Have you considered using a reflavored alchemist instead? Or as the baseline for the new class, at least?

So... Bombs reskinned as magical exploding cards? I like it. If you didn't have XP disabled I'd give you a point. As it is though, +1.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Having xp disabled doesn't prevent me from getting it. It just prevents people from knowing how much I have. Just FYI.

 

[childofcrimson]

Warlock from complete arcane. That's how I did it. Two weapon fighting with a staff and fluff the card charge for eldritch blast. Even gets more powerful as u level to make his big booms

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[childofcrimson]

Oh and studded leather armor. (Leather Trench coat was revealed to be kevlar lined iirc at some point.)

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