My player submitted this class to me

Rechan

Adventurer
One of the players in my class, under my suggestion, picked up the Warmage class. However, after playing several sessions, it didn't satisfy them. The player wants a fighting capable class, but also 'I point at it and do damage to it'.

After reviewing both the Warmage and Duskblade class, the PC finally said "Here, something I jotted down. Does this look too powerful to you?"

I am asking you if this class is too powerful. At first blush, it looks weakish - a light armored cleric with no Fort save and very limited spellcasting. But the fact a PC wrote it to play makes me a little wary.

For a point of reference, the character would be 3rd level. This character is the only Arcane caster in the party. Everyone else is: barbarian, rogue, spirit shaman and an archivist.

[sblock=Battlemage]
Code:
Level   Attack Bonus    Fort    Ref     Will    Special                 Spells per day
1st     +0              +0      +0      +2      Armored Mage (light)    3 1 — — — — — — — —
                                               Elemental Channeling
2nd     +1              +0      +0      +3                              4 2 — — — — — — — —
3rd     +2              +1      +1      +3      Reserve Feat            4 2 1 — — — — — — —
4th     +3              +1      +1      +4                              4 3 2 — — — — — — —
5th     +3              +1      +1      +4      Quick Cast 1/day        4 3 2 1 — — — — — —
6th     +4              +2      +2      +5                              4 3 3 2 — — — — — —
7th     +5              +2      +2      +5      Reserve Feat            4 4 3 2 1 — — — — —
8th     +6/+1           +2      +2      +6                              4 4 3 3 2 — — — — —
9th     +6/+1           +3      +3      +6      Quick Cast 2/day        4 4 4 3 2 1 — — — —
10th    +7/+2           +3      +3      +7                              4 4 4 3 3 2 — — — —
11th    +8/+3           +3      +3      +7      Reserve Feat            4 4 4 4 3 2 1 — — —
12th    +9/+4           +4      +4      +8                              4 4 4 4 3 3 2 — — —
13th    +9/+4           +4      +4      +8      Quick Cast 3/day        4 4 4 4 4 3 2 1 — —
14th    +10/+5          +4      +4      +9                              4 4 4 4 4 3 3 2 — —
15th    +11/+6/+1       +5      +5      +9      Reserve Feat            4 4 4 4 4 4 3 2 1 —
16th    +12/+7/+2       +5      +5      +10                             4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 2 —
17th    +12/+7/+2       +5      +5      +10     Quick Cast 4/day        4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 2 1
18th    +13/+8/+3       +6      +6      +11                             4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 2
19th    +14/+9/+4       +6      +6      +11     Reserve Feat            4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3
20th    +15/+10/+5      +6      +6      +12                             4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4

Hit Dice: d8

Class Skills (2 + Int Modifier per level, x4 at 1st level): Climb, Concentration, Craft, Bluff, Jump, Knowledge (all skills taken individually), Ride, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, Swim.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Battlemages are proficient with all martial and simple weapons, as well as light armor.

Spellcasting: Battlemages must prepare spells each day as a wizard does. The focus of magical energy into patterns inside themselves to be released as cast spells allows them to use those held patterns as conduits for their special abilities. However a battlemage has no spellbook, instead he just memorizes the patterns of a few spells and prepares each day using those remembered patterns. Giving up the wide diversity of a experienced wizard's spell-list in exchange for not having the weakness of a spellbook that can be lost, stolen, or destroyed by the enemy.

Spells Known: Battlemages begin play with 2 0-level spells and 2 1st-level spells, plus one additional 0-level spell for each point of intelligence bonus, chosen from the sorcerer/wizard spell list.

Learning spells: Each time you gain a new battlemage class level, you learn one additional spell of any level you can cast, chosen from the sorcerer/wizard spell list.

At 1st level a Battlemage learns the Minor Elemental Channeling feat.
Minor Elemental Channeling (feat)
Prerequisite: Base Attack Bonus +1, Ability to cast 1st-level arcane spells.
Benefit: This feat allows you to use a swift action to expend a single 0-level spell to imbue your weapon with a small amount of elemental energy. The spell expended must be a spell that does damage and has an energy type. The next attack with that weapon does an extra 1d3 damage of the same energy type of the spell expended. It only affects the first person hit with the weapon, and only melee weapons can be imbued with this energy. If the weapon is dropped the energy dissipates harmlessly. If the first attack with the weapon misses, the energy can be held in the weapon for a number of rounds equal to the highest arcane caster level you have. The energy expending itself on the first target the weapon hits successfully.

Armored Mage (light): Normally, armor of any type interferes with an arcane spellcaster's gestures, which can cause spells to fail if those spells have somatic components. A Battlemage's intensely focused training, however, allows him to avoid arcane spell failure so long as you stick to light armor. This training does not extend to medium or heavy armor, or any shields.

At 3rd level, and every four levels after that (7th, 11th, 15th, 19th), the Battlemages picks a reserve feat free.

Quick Cast: Beginning at 5th level, you can use one of your reserve feat abilities as a swift action once a day.
You can use this ability twice a day at 9th level, three times per day at 13th level, and four times per day at 17th level.[/sblock]

Is it too strong or too weak? What do you suggest doing with it?

How should bonus spells be handled, if at all? Per Day or Spells Known?
 

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Wait, wait, wait... wizard spellprogression... and full Sor/Wiz spell list? With 3/4 BAB? And d8 hit dice? I'm reading that right? He is a basically only a Wizard with a bunch of extra feats, upped hit dice and BAB and only loses the ability to add some extra spells?

I'd say this class is pretty powerful. Take that full Sor/Wiz list away, fast!

Cheers, LT.
 

Lord Tirian said:
Wait, wait, wait... wizard spellprogression... and full Sor/Wiz spell list? With 3/4 BAB? And d8 hit dice? I'm reading that right? He is a basically only a Wizard with a bunch of extra feats, upped hit dice and BAB and only loses the ability to add some extra spells?
To me it looks like a hybridization of the Duskblade and warmage. Look:

Duskblade: Fighter BAB, high Fort and Will, d8 HD, Medium armor/Heavy Shields, Quick Cast, slow spell progression
Warmage: Poor BAB, High Will, d6 HD, Medium Armor/light shields, add Int to damage, Sorcerer spell progression.

I'd say this class is pretty powerful. Take that full Sor/Wiz list away, fast!
I guess I don't see the significance of having access to the Sor/Wiz list if they know very few spells - they learn 1 spell per level off the Sor/Wiz list.
 

What's wrong with Duskblade? It seems like the perfect fit -- full BAB with point-and-kill interface.

This class looks like it takes the good parts of the Duskblade, but ignores a lot of the restrictions which make that class balanced.

Swordsage might be a better fit?

Cheers, -- N
 

Rechan said:
I guess I don't see the significance of having access to the Sor/Wiz list if they know very few spells - they learn 1 spell per level off the Sor/Wiz list.
1/ Magic items, like scrolls and the like.

2/ The best parts of a Wizard's spell list aren't the parts on the Duskblade list. They're the spells that avoid combat altogether, or that take out a chunk of foes all at once -- utility spells included. Arguably, the best 1st level spell is color spray, which is "balanced" by the fact that you need to be next to your foes to cast it. Normal Wizards and Beguilers don't like being next to their foes. This guy? Not a problem.

3/ Defensive spells. The classic Gish has mirror image up.

Cheers, -- N
 

Nifft said:
What's wrong with Duskblade? It seems like the perfect fit -- full BAB with point-and-kill interface.

I asked the player this, and the email response is:

"Duskblade is kind of cool, but they have a few problems that really annoy me. Primarily the lack of decent combat touch spells to be used with their arcane channeling ability. I suppose what I kind of want is a nice mage/fighter mix, just with different magical abilities then a duskblade, and without the limited spell list.

A lot of it is that I really liked the idea behind the reserve feats. The idea of having innate abilities that you could use at will based on spells you have prepared seems really neat to me. So I was aiming for a magic-user class that had a decent spell-level progression, but only had a handful of spells to power the reserve feats. The idea behind the elemental channeling ability is that I was looking for some way to actually make the 0-level spells kind of useful.

I suppose the actual physical combat ability isn't really that important to me. I mean I like the concept behind the warmage and it doesn't have very good combat skills. Guess I just would like different abilities and spell progression is all."
 
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One thing also to keep in mind is that the PC is looking at Warmage/Duskblade/et al because they can cast in armor. Said PC is a Warforged, which has an innate 5% Arcane spell failure.

The character is just a soldier and combat tactician from the Last War, and the player wants to have a class that falls in line with that.
 

As far as bonus spells go, they should be handled normally. Int-based like a wizard. Bonus slots per day, not known. I don't know if there are any classes that do bonus spells for high ability scores any differently than that.

The class is definitely too strong. It's an arcane version of the cleric, with more class features. Wizard spells instead of cleric spells, which means it's better at offense and trickery. All it gives up is good Fortitude and Turn/Rebuke Undead, in exchange for a handful of other class features. The martial proficiency and wizard spells pretty much make up for the lack of significant armor/shield proficiencies.

At least get rid of all the bonus feats and the Quick Cast ability. Then it might at least be on-par with the cleric, which is arguably the most powerful Core class in 3rd Edition (though Druid is arguably superior, aka broken, in 3.5).

Otherwise, I'd suggest changing the spell progression signficantly, like so:

Code:
Battlemage Spells:
Class		Spells Per Day By Spell Level
Level	0	1	2	3	4	5	6
1	4	1	-	-	-	-	-
2	5	2	-	-	-	-	-
3	6	3	-	-	-	-	-
4	7	4	1	-	-	-	-
5	7	5	2	-	-	-	-
6	7	5	3	-	-	-	-
7	7	5	4	1	-	-	-
8	7	5	5	2	-	-	-
9	7	5	5	3	-	-	-
10	7	5	5	4	1	-	-
11	7	5	5	4	2	-	-
12	7	5	5	4	3	-	-
13	7	5	5	4	3	1	-
14	7	5	5	4	4	1	-
15	7	5	5	4	4	2	-
16	7	5	5	4	4	2	1
17	7	5	5	4	4	3	1
18	7	5	5	4	4	3	2
19	7	5	5	4	4	4	2
20	7	5	5	4	4	4	3

Maybe a little better than that, but they should not have full wizardly spellcasting along with equal-or-better-than-cleric combat prowess and multiple-bonus-feat-bonanza. That's just ridiculous.
 

Arkhandus said:
At least get rid of all the bonus feats and the Quick Cast ability. Then it might at least be on-par with the cleric, which is arguably the most powerful Core class in 3rd Edition (though Druid is arguably superior, aka broken, in 3.5).
As I said earlier as to the player's comment, the point of the class was designed around the use of Reserve Feats.

The class only learns 1 spell per level. Not from scrolls, enemy books, etc etc. So the class would get higher level spells sooner, but would get not nearly enough.
 

Rechan said:
I asked the player this, and the email response is
Can your player just come here and post? It'll be easier than making you the middle man.

Rechan's Player said:
Duskblade is kind of cool, but they have a few problems that really annoy me. Primarily the lack of decent combat touch spells to be used with their arcane channeling ability. I suppose what I kind of want is a nice mage/fighter mix, just with different magical abilities then a duskblade, and without the limited spell list.
That limited spell list is part of why the Duskblade is balanced.

Also: Duskblade's lack of touch spells?! What spells are missing?

Rechan's Player said:
A lot of it is that I really liked the idea behind the reserve feats. The idea of having innate abilities that you could use at will based on spells you have prepared seems really neat to me.
Reserve feats are cool. They go great with a Sorcerer. :)

Cheers, -- N
 

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