Faith Wizard Prestige Class [Long]

[Pinotage]

I've recently created a prestige class tailored to my character concept in our 3e Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil game. The DM and I have had some discussion on the class with regard to balance, and I was hoping to pick up a few comments on the boards.

The basic premise is a Cleric of a God of Magic that acquires such a belief and faith in the power of arcane magic that he/she can use that faith to power arcane magic or enhance it through her access to the Magic Domain. It's essentially a different approach to the Cleric/Wizard multiclass concept.

Faith Wizard

Requirements:

Skills:

Knowledge (Arcana) 6 ranks
Knowledge (Religion) 6 ranks
Spellcraft 6 ranks

Spells: Access to the Magic domain, and ability to cast 3rd level divine spells.

Class Skills:

Concentration, Craft, Diplomacy, Heal, Knowledge (Arcana), Knowledge (Religion), Profession, Scry, Spellcraft, Decipher Script

Skill Point per level: 2 + Intelligence Modifier

Hit Die: d6

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: The Faith Wizard gains no additional weapon or armor proficiencies.

Level BAB Fort Refl Will Special and Spells
1st +0 +2 +0 +2 Celestial Familiar, Extra Domain, Arcane Understanding
2nd +1 +3 +0 +3 Metamagic Faith 1/day, +1 level in existing class
3rd +2 +3 +1 +3 Arcane Faith (Cantrips)
4th +3 +4 +1 +4 Metamagic Faith 2/day, +1 level in existing class
5th +3 +4 +1 +4 Arcane Faith (1st)
6th +4 +5 +2 +5 Arcane Channeling, +1 level in existing class
7th +5 +5 +2 +5 Metamagic Faith 3/day, Arcane Faith (2nd)
8th +6 +6 +2 +6 Read Magic 1/day, +1 level in existing class
9th +6 +6 +3 +6 Arcane Faith (3rd)1
0th +7 +7 +3 +7 Metamagic Faith 4/day, Arcane Faith Mastery, +1 level in existing class

Celestial Familiar: The Faith Wizard gains a Celestial Familiar, similar to a Wizard or Sorceror's familiar.

Metamagic Faith: The Faith Wizard gains the ability to enchance any arcane spell cast from a scroll, wand or staff by a metamagic feat. The Faith Wizard must sacrifice a divine spell slot to enhance the arcane spell, equivalent to the level of a normal spell enhanced by the particular metamagic feat minus one. Enhancing a spell in this manner requires a full-round action.

Arcane Understanding: The Faith Wizard gains a +2 bonus on spellcraft checks of deciphering scrolls, and a +2 bonus to spellcraft checks to identify a spell being cast from a arcane scroll, wand or staff by another spellcaster.

Extra Domain: The Magic domain becomes an inherent part of the Faith Wizard's Faith, thereby allowing the Faith Wizard to choose an extra domain from his deity's domains.

Arcane Faith: The Faith Wizard gains the ability to cast a number of arcane spells by sacrificing divine spell slots. The Faith Wizard only knows a few arcane spells, similar to a sorceror, and gains them as she progresses in levels of Faith Wizard. The Faith Wizard knows a number of spells equivalent to a sorceror two levels lower than the Faith Wizard, with the restriction that certain spell levels are only gained at certain Faith Wizard levels. e.g. a 3rd level Faith Wizard would know spells as a 1st level sorceror, but only four cantrips. A 5th level Faith Wizard would know spells as a 3rd level sorceror, and would know both five cantrips and three 1st level spells.

Arcane Channelling: The Faith Wizard gains the ability to enhance the DCs of arcane spells cast from Wands, Scrolls or Staffs by +1, as well as the ability to penetrate spell resistance by making caster level checks with a +1 bonus.

Read Magic: At 8th level, the Faith Wizard can cast Read Magic as a spell-like ability 1/day.

Arcane Faith Mastery: The Faith Wizard's mastery of the arcane is such that the Faith Wizard can cast, 1/day, a number of spells she knows equivalent to her Wisdom Modifier as a spell-like ability. In addition, the Faith Wizard's faith in magic is such that the Faith Wizard can disbelieve a given spell effect cast from a scroll, wand or staff of up to 4th level, 1/week.

Comments?

 

[Kalanyr]

Arcane Faith Mastery seems to be a tad overboard. Thats a lot of freeby spell-like abilities possibly abuseable by taking a whole bunch of your highest level spells eg taking them all as 3rd level spells.

And Metamagic Faith should probably be specified to have a minium of 0 to avoid Eschewed Material Cantrips at Level -1 for example.

Apart from that I think it looks fairly balanced for a cleric PrC.

Edit- And you should probabably specify the ability score that DC and spell-level access is based on for the arcane spells.

 

[Pinotage]

Thanks for the comments. Apologies for not being specific on a number of things.

My motivation behind the Arcane Faith Mastery was as follows: Since all spells know by arcane faith still require divine spell slots to burn to use them, arcane faith is essentially an extension of the clerical spell list with a few handfuls of arcane spells. Arcane Faith Mastery is a simple way of giving the character a handful of additional spell slots beyond the divine spell slots of her cleric level, with the restriction that these spell slots can only be used for specific spells. Since the Faith Wizard can cast those spells in any case by burning a divine spell slot, it seems fair.

If you compare a Cleric 5/Faith Wizard 10 to a Cleric 10/Sorceror 5, the spell casting ability is Cleric 10/Sorceror 8 vs Cleric 10/Sorceror 5. Although the Faith Wizard knows more spells, he/she doesn't actually have any spell slots to cast them in other than the normal cleric divine spells slots. I'd further say that although the spells are defined as spell-like abilities, they still require normal clerical preparation procedures to be able to use them on any given day. That way they're not 'true' spell-like abilities. Sound better?

DC's for arcane faith spells will be based on Wisdom, and I'll amend with regard to Metamagic Faith. I should add that metamagic faith allows the Faith Wizard to use _any_ metamagic feat the DM allows, and not only those he/she has feats in. Still, it's only usable a number of times per day, and only of spell completion and spell trigger items, which the DM fortunately has control over.

 

[Kalanyr]

So essentially Arcane Faith Mastery grants you bonus spellslots of the level of the highest arcane faith spell the caster can cast at an amount equal to his wisdom mod ? But the spells get Still/Silence/Eschew for free ? Meh not a big deal to me and that does seem fairly balanced. Aren't exactly major metamagic feats IME hmm, could be abusive to get around the component cost of high cost Arcane Spells though eg the 100 GP pearl requirement of Identify. Also are the spell-like abilities chosen once whenever the character reaches 10th level or do they expand when his wisdom modifier increases or are they prayed for/prepare each day?

Hmm, the any metamagic feat should probably be limited to feats she would otherwise have access to, using Intensify Spell Metamagic (or otherwise Epic Metamagic feats) at non-epic levels doesn't sit right to me (then again there's always the abomination that is the Incantrix to shoot me down on this).

 

[Pinotage]

Yes, with Arcane Faith Mastery you gain extra spell slots of up to the highest level of arcane spell you can cast (<= 3rd), but these can obviously only be used for the arcane spells you select and won't be subject to metamagic faith, as that's limited to spells completion and spell trigger _items_, or divine spell slot burning. Like Spell Mastery, you get a number of spells based on the Wisdom modifier at the time of selection (i.e. 10th level Faith Wizard with 20 Wisdom will get 5 spells). Considering the 5 spell levels you lose against a straight cleric, having a few arcane spells to cast without gp cost, e.g. identify, is not such a high price to pay.

Metamagic faith is open to any non-epic metamagic feat, e.g maximise, still, empower, reach, persistant ect. But, there are limitations. One, you burn divine spell slots to cast them like this, two, they can only be applied to arcane magic on spell completion and spell trigger _items_, three, it can only be used a given number of times per day. So, for example, you could maximise a fireball scroll at the DC and level of the scroll by burning a 5th level divine spell slot (note that by the quickest route you need to be a Cleric 9/Faith Wizard 2 to do this so you have access to those 5th level spell slots.)

Sure, you'd get still, silent etc. for free, but only a limited number of times per day. So take a Cleric 5/Faith Wizard 2 (the quickest to get metamagic faith). You've only got 3rd level divine spell slots, so once per day you can maximise a 1st level spell, or still a 3rd level spell, or heighten a spell from a wand, staff, or scroll. Not overly powerful since you're giving up a level of clerical spell casting and your 4th level clerical spells to do this.

 

[Argent Silvermage]

This is an Interesting idea. I'm running a war/magic cleric of Corellon in the Temple right now and this would fit him perfectly.
Mind if Snatch this concept for my Character?

 

[Pinotage]

No, absolutely not. Snatch ahead. Glad you liked the idea! Though it's not as powerful as a straight cleric, it's a step up from a cleric/wizard or cleric/sorceror and it has good amounts of versatility which I happen to like. Hope your DM approves!

 

[Kalanyr]

As long as its limited to non-epic Metagmagic it all seems good to me really its probably weaker than the Mystic Theurge though it doesn't suffer the Multiple Ability Dependency of the Theurge.

 

[Pinotage]

Comparing this to the Mystic Theurge is a bad thing, right? Right?

*shudder* Not that I want to open a can of worms, but I'd hope this is not another' Mystic Theurge'!

 

[Kalanyr]

Heh I've played a Mystic Theurge and I can assure you its not half as bad as people make out balance wise if nothing else there's the following argument at level 20 you cast as 15th level cleric 15th level wizard, an encounter with a 15th level cleric and a 15th level wizard is EL 17. And it requires a single feat to be a 20th level wizard with a 15th level cohort so I have to say, Mystic Theurge still bites.