The Great Bear King
First Post
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New Ideas for Specialist Wizards
- Thread starter The Great Bear King
- Start date
It seems the way you'd want to do this is to create 8 prestige classes. For each, the prerequisite should be "Ability to cast 9th level spells" of the appropriate school. Then these special abilities would be prestige class abilities gained at certain levels. And, you could create a spell advancement table that detailed at what level a 10th, 11th, and so on spell is gained, and how many spells of each level.
For example:
Epic Evoker
Prerequisite: Ability to cast 9th level evocation spells, Knowledge (arcana) 23 ranks, Spellcraft 23 ranks, an inability to cast spells of two schools.
You don't need a BAB or saves table because of the way epic progression works
...........Max Spell
Level....Level..........Special
1.........10..............Spot and Listen are now class skills
2.........11..............Dazzle (the caster has a dazzling aura)
3.........12..............Aura of Fear
4.........13..............Etc.
5.........14..............Etc.
6.........15..............Etc.
7.........16..............Etc.
8.........17..............Etc.
9.........18..............Etc.
10.......19..............Etc.
Spells: You gain a number of spell levels at each level equal to half your Int modifier times the highest level spell you can cast. So, if you're a 21st level evoker with a 22 Intelligence, you gain 30 (10*3) spell levels. With 30 spell levels you could take six 5th level spells, five 6th level spells, two 9th and three 4th, etc. You could also take three 10th level spells because you can now cast 10th level spells.
Note: Each spell of 10th level and above must be researched by the caster.
You'd have to make up quite a bit of stuff, but once you were done you'd have a nice system available.
Dave
For example:
Epic Evoker
Prerequisite: Ability to cast 9th level evocation spells, Knowledge (arcana) 23 ranks, Spellcraft 23 ranks, an inability to cast spells of two schools.
You don't need a BAB or saves table because of the way epic progression works
...........Max Spell
Level....Level..........Special
1.........10..............Spot and Listen are now class skills
2.........11..............Dazzle (the caster has a dazzling aura)
3.........12..............Aura of Fear
4.........13..............Etc.
5.........14..............Etc.
6.........15..............Etc.
7.........16..............Etc.
8.........17..............Etc.
9.........18..............Etc.
10.......19..............Etc.
Spells: You gain a number of spell levels at each level equal to half your Int modifier times the highest level spell you can cast. So, if you're a 21st level evoker with a 22 Intelligence, you gain 30 (10*3) spell levels. With 30 spell levels you could take six 5th level spells, five 6th level spells, two 9th and three 4th, etc. You could also take three 10th level spells because you can now cast 10th level spells.
Note: Each spell of 10th level and above must be researched by the caster.
You'd have to make up quite a bit of stuff, but once you were done you'd have a nice system available.
Dave
the Jester
Legend
What about nonspecialist wizards?
The Great Bear King
First Post
the Jester said:
I'd hate to say this but if you want spells higher than 9th level you have to specialize. Here's my explanation, other wizards (non-specialists) get eight schools and nine levels (ten levels if you include cantrips) to learn and cast from, while, a specialist wizard loses 10-20 levels WITHOUT proper compensation. That's why I think that specialists should get more and in fact higher level spells in their school or schools and new abilities as well.
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Thanee
First Post
That's nonsense.The Great Bear King said:
That's like those statistics presented in advertising, which only point out the good sides in their product and only the bad sides in the others.
They just lose access to some spells (12.5%/25% of the available spells, altho it's not nearly as bad as the numbers might suggest, since they can choose the prohibited schools and thus always drop schools, which are of very little use to them, anyways), but they have the same overall spell power in terms of levels (actually more, since they get more spells per day (something, that is quite a compensation)). They trade in some of their flexibility to gain more power.
Allowing higher level spells for only specialists would make generalist wizards non-existant.
Bad idea, that.
I'm of the opinion (and AFAIK most people share this), that specialist wizards are already "better" than generalist wizards! Why increase this disparity even further?
Bye
Thanee
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The Great Bear King
First Post
In my calculations I've decided that a typical necromancer would have to spend 15 years, 29 weeks, and 2 days of study to join that class. Also they would have to have a 16 to Intelligence, a 15 to Constitution, a 13 to Wisdom, and a 10 to Dexterity. How many wizards do you think could
qualify for that class?
qualify for that class?
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the Jester
Legend
The Great Bear King said:
How do you figure? Are you making this up or what?I also would never use these rules if they further eviscerate non-specialized wizards. I also strongly advise, if you are gonna use something like this, that you don't 'spring it' on your players- they'll hate and resent you for it when they discover that their 21st level generalist wizard is useless.
The Great Bear King
First Post
First I would tell every player that specialists could learn and cast 10th-18th spells before they even chose a class. They also gain advantaous and disadvantagous mutations, such a necromancer who gains darksight but instead of devolping better vision their nose grows to the size of a golfball and glows in the dark. Next, this this how I came up with my conclusion, in 2ed a mage had to gain 2,500 experience to reach level 2. Well instead of having to 2,500 experience points they must study for 2,500 days to become a wizard. From this and the special abilities of other classes I have decided that a character would take 5,080 days to become a necromancer, or 15 years, 29 months, and 2 days, to become a necromancer, while it would only take 6 years, 44 weeks, 2 days to become a wizard. At last I add 2,000 points to there first experience point goal in addition to other requisites.
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the Jester
Legend
I still don't see why.
In 2e, necromancers are straight mages had the same xp requirements, and any other 'special abilities' you're throwing in there, supposedly to balance specialists with nonspecialist wizards, shouldn't make them better than a nonspecialist; that's throwing them out of balance.
If this is all about campaign flavor, that's cool, but if it's really about balance, I think you have some of it backwards. A specialist gets plenty to balance them against a straight wiz, starting with an extra spell of each level.
In 2e, necromancers are straight mages had the same xp requirements, and any other 'special abilities' you're throwing in there, supposedly to balance specialists with nonspecialist wizards, shouldn't make them better than a nonspecialist; that's throwing them out of balance.
If this is all about campaign flavor, that's cool, but if it's really about balance, I think you have some of it backwards. A specialist gets plenty to balance them against a straight wiz, starting with an extra spell of each level.
TroyXavier
First Post
which is about all they get anymore (well there's what...the +2 spellcraft checks for spells of your school?) You don't get the bonus to save or the increase in DC or any real flavor at all. And schools like Illusion have levels where you are forced to take a crap spell (if you're sticking to core only) because there's nothing else to take.
I wouldn't mind a couple of minor benefits for the trade off.
I wouldn't mind a couple of minor benefits for the trade off.
