This class is a twist on the sorcerer that has no familiar - only a talisman it needs in order to cast spells without a penalty to CL and save DCs, and reduced spells per day, and in return has access to cleric spells in addition to sorcerer/wizard spells. It has a constant progression of mediocre class abilities to hopefully end up with a class that is not as weak as the sorcerer but still balanced.
MAGICIAN
A magician is an unusual type of arcanist that relies on a personal talisman to channel his arcane power.
Adventures: Magicians see adventure as a way to test their limits and expand them. They willingly test their mettle against any worthy and willing foe or obstacle.
Characteristics: Magicians cast spells through personal talent rather than purely from training. Their magic is more intuitive than that of a wizard, but they are trained to harness this potential through a talisman, and this training bestows upon them more discipline than sorcerers tend to have.
Alignment: A mix of orderly training and intuitive talent marks the unusual path of a magician. This mix serves to temper a magician toward an ethically neutral alignment, as creativity is bent with discipline and reason is tainted by spontaneity.
Religion: Many magicians revere deities such as Gwyven, a tradition that they pick up from their masters. Many others, however, ignore religion or follow an entirely different path.
Background: Magicians discover their powers much like sorcerers do. However, unlike normal sorcerers, magicians sought out those who understood them and learned discipline and control.
Races: Magicians are distributed much like sorcerers, since they come from sorcerer stock, except that they are rarer in most areas. Dwarven sorcerers, rare as they may be, enjoy the more structured training of the magician over the spontaneity of normal sorcerers, and often take this path.
Other Classes: Magicians often have an affinity for sorcerers, who also frequently train and adventure simply to push their own boundaries. Their high Charismas often make them likeable to other classes.
Role: Magicians can fill a wide variety of roles in an adventuring party, particularly in offensive and restorative magic.
GAME RULE INFORMATION
Abilities: A magician needs a high Charisma above anything else, because Charisma is the source of his power. After Charisma, Constitution is also important, because it boosts the magician’s dismal hit points.
Alignment: Any.
Hit Die: d4.
CLASS SKILLS
The magician’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Profession (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), and Use Magic Device (Cha).
Skill Points at 1st Level: (2 + Int modifier) x 4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier.
CLASS FEATURES
All of the following are class features of the magician.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Magicians are proficient with the club, dagger, heavy crossbow, light crossbow, and quarterstaff. They are not proficient with any type of armor or shield. Armor of any type interferes with a magician’s gestures, which can cause his spells with somatic components to fail.
Spells: A magician casts arcane spells which are drawn from the cleric and sorcerer/wizard spell lists. If a spell exists on both lists, he casts it at the sorcerer/wizard level. If a spell has a divine focus component, a magician of 4th level or lower must use his talisman focus instead, unless an arcane alternative is presented, in which case he must use the arcane alternative. At 4th level and later, he may always use his talisman focus instead, and need not provide the arcane alternative if one is presented. He can cast any spell he knows without preparing it ahead of time, the way a wizard or a cleric must (see below). All magician spells can have a focus component (the magician’s talisman, see below) in addition to whatever components they normally have.
To learn or cast a spell, a magician must have a Charisma score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a magician’s spell is 10 + the spell level + the magician’s Charisma modifier.
Like other spellcasters, a magician can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. His base daily spell allotment is given on Table: The Magician. In addition, he receives bonus spells per day if he has a high Charisma score.
A magician’s selection of spells is extremely limited. A magician begins play knowing four 0-level spells and two 1st-level spells of your choice. At each new magician level, he gains one or more new spells, as indicated on Table: Magician Spells Known. (Unlike spells per day, the number of spells a magician knows is not affected by his Charisma score; the numbers on Table: Magician Spells Known are fixed.) These new spells can be common spells chosen from the cleric or sorcerer/wizard spell lists, or they can be unusual spells that the magician has gained some understanding of by study. The magician can’t use this method of spell acquisition to learn spells at a faster rate, however.
Upon reaching 4th level, and at every even-numbered magician level after that (6th, 8th, and so on), a magician can choose to learn a new spell in place of one he already knows. In effect, the magician “loses” the old spell in exchange for the new one. The new spell’s level must be the same as that of the spell being exchanged, and it must be at least two levels lower than the highest-level magician spell the magician can cast. A magician may swap only a single spell at any given level, and must choose whether or not to swap the spell at the same time that he gains new spells known for the level.
Unlike a wizard or a cleric, a magician need not prepare his spells in advance. He can cast any spell he knows at any time, assuming he has not yet used up his spells per day for that spell level. He does not have to decide ahead of time which spells he’ll cast.
Talisman: Every magician has a talisman. This talisman is unique to each magician. A magician normally uses his talisman focus to cast spells; any spell he casts can effectively include the the talisman as a focus component. Although not necessary for spellcasting, the talisman is required in order to access the magician's other class abilities.
When a magician casts a spell without his talisman as a focus component, he suffers a -3 penalty to the caster level (minimum caster level 0) and save DC of the spell. The magician gains no benefit from an effect that would remove the talisman focus component from his spells unless the effect specifically states that it applies to talisman components.
A talisman has no powers of its own, and does not emanate magic. It may be any contiguous solid object of any size ranging from the magician’s size to four sizes smaller than that. A talisman can be enchanted or altered after it has been created, but can’t be used as a focus component if it ceases to be a contiguous solid object or becomes the wrong size for its creator.
Each magician begins play with a talisman. To create a new talisman requires components costing 100 gp and takes one day to complete. Creating a talisman requires a work area equivalent to an alchemist’s lab, and 8 hours of work in the lab. Creating a new talisman renders any pre-existing talismans worthless and useless.
If a magician gains the use of a talisman from another class, those classes’ abilities may be used with the same talisman, and if they are, those classes’ levels stack for the purpose of determining how much XP a character loses from the destruction of a talisman.
A magician may attempt to use a talisman other than his own to cast a spell with a Spellcraft check as a free action at the end of the spell’s casting time. The DC is equal to 10 + the level of the spell. If the magician fails the Spellcraft check, the spell slot is not used, but the spell is not cast. He may attempt to cast the spell again with no penalty. He gains a +2 circumstance bonus on Spellcraft checks to cast a spell with a borrowed talisman if he has previously cast that spell with that borrowed talisman.
Talisman Priority: Starting at 4th level, a magician can always replace divine focus components in his spells with his talisman focus, even when an arcane alternative is given.
Component Efficiency (Ex): Starting at 5th level, the magician gains some control over the component requirements of his spells. Whenever he casts a spell from a 0-level spell slot, he can choose one of that spell's components to ignore, and need not supply that component (he can't choose his talisman). XP components and costly material components (with a value of 1 gp or more) can't be ignored with this ability.
At 8th level, this ability can be used with 1st-level spell slots. The highest-level spell slots that that this ability can be used with continues to increase by 1 at every third class level thereafter (11th, 14th, 17th, and so on).
Talisman Specialization: At 9th level, the magician may choose a spell descriptor. All spells the magican casts with that spell descriptor have a +1 bonus to caster level if cast with the talisman as a focus component.
Double Component Efficiency (Ex): Starting at 12th level, the magician improves his control over his spell's requirements even more. Once per day, when he affects a spell with his component efficiency ability, he may eliminate two components instead of one. He still can't select his talisman focus, costly material components, or XP components. He may use this ability once more per day at every third level thereafter (15th, 18th, 21st, and so on).
Talisman Enhancement (Su): At 13th level, a magician gains the ability to enchant his talisman focus. By completing a ritual that requires the same time and equipment as constructing the talisman, and costs 1,000 gp, the magician can cause his talisman to orbit him in a manner identical to an ioun stone. The talisman becomes a magic item, having a caster level equal to the class level of the magician and radiating an aura with no school of magic. As long as his talisman orbits in this way, the magician can utilize it to access class abilities (such as spellcasting) as if he held the talisman in his hand.
Improved Component Efficiency (Ex): From 15th level onwards, the magician can eliminate costly material components using his component efficiency ability. However, doing so adds an XP cost of 1 XP per 50 gp of material components ignored, rounded up.
Enhanced Talisman Specialization: At 19th level, the magician can expend a daily use of double component efficiency to increase his bonus to caster level from specialized talisman by an additional +1.
Hide Talisman (Sp): At 20th level, a magician gains the ability to hide his talisman in a nondimensional pocket of his own soul’s energy. If the magician is holding the talisman in his hand, he can use an immediate action to cause the talisman to vanish. The talisman is hidden outside of normal reality, and is irretrievable except by the magician. Bringing the talisman back is a standard action. This effect has a caster level equal to the magician’s class level and has an effective spell level of one-quarter the magician’s class level.
This effect targets the magician, causing a magical aura to appear around the magician, like any spell’s aura and is visible with detect magic. The effect can’t be affected by dispel magic, but can be affected by break enchantment. Dispelling or suppressing (as with antimagic field) the effect causes the talisman to reappear in the magician’s space.
Unlike most class abilities, talisman enhancement will not allow a magician to use this ability while the talisman is orbiting him - he must touch the talisman. Obviously, he need not touch the talisman to retrieve it from hiding. While it is hidden this way, it is of no other use to him.
[edit=3-27-08]removed XP loss from destroying a talisman; allowed casting w/o talisman, but at CL and DC penalty; increased final spells per day at levels 6-9 from 4 to 5; slowed component efficiency from 1/2 levels to 1/3 levels; moved component efficiency's start back 1 level and double component efficiency's forward 1 level; added talisman specialization and enhanced talisman specialization[/edit]
MAGICIAN
A magician is an unusual type of arcanist that relies on a personal talisman to channel his arcane power.
Adventures: Magicians see adventure as a way to test their limits and expand them. They willingly test their mettle against any worthy and willing foe or obstacle.
Characteristics: Magicians cast spells through personal talent rather than purely from training. Their magic is more intuitive than that of a wizard, but they are trained to harness this potential through a talisman, and this training bestows upon them more discipline than sorcerers tend to have.
Alignment: A mix of orderly training and intuitive talent marks the unusual path of a magician. This mix serves to temper a magician toward an ethically neutral alignment, as creativity is bent with discipline and reason is tainted by spontaneity.
Religion: Many magicians revere deities such as Gwyven, a tradition that they pick up from their masters. Many others, however, ignore religion or follow an entirely different path.
Background: Magicians discover their powers much like sorcerers do. However, unlike normal sorcerers, magicians sought out those who understood them and learned discipline and control.
Races: Magicians are distributed much like sorcerers, since they come from sorcerer stock, except that they are rarer in most areas. Dwarven sorcerers, rare as they may be, enjoy the more structured training of the magician over the spontaneity of normal sorcerers, and often take this path.
Other Classes: Magicians often have an affinity for sorcerers, who also frequently train and adventure simply to push their own boundaries. Their high Charismas often make them likeable to other classes.
Role: Magicians can fill a wide variety of roles in an adventuring party, particularly in offensive and restorative magic.
GAME RULE INFORMATION
Abilities: A magician needs a high Charisma above anything else, because Charisma is the source of his power. After Charisma, Constitution is also important, because it boosts the magician’s dismal hit points.
Alignment: Any.
Hit Die: d4.
CLASS SKILLS
The magician’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Profession (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), and Use Magic Device (Cha).
Skill Points at 1st Level: (2 + Int modifier) x 4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier.
CLASS FEATURES
All of the following are class features of the magician.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Magicians are proficient with the club, dagger, heavy crossbow, light crossbow, and quarterstaff. They are not proficient with any type of armor or shield. Armor of any type interferes with a magician’s gestures, which can cause his spells with somatic components to fail.
Spells: A magician casts arcane spells which are drawn from the cleric and sorcerer/wizard spell lists. If a spell exists on both lists, he casts it at the sorcerer/wizard level. If a spell has a divine focus component, a magician of 4th level or lower must use his talisman focus instead, unless an arcane alternative is presented, in which case he must use the arcane alternative. At 4th level and later, he may always use his talisman focus instead, and need not provide the arcane alternative if one is presented. He can cast any spell he knows without preparing it ahead of time, the way a wizard or a cleric must (see below). All magician spells can have a focus component (the magician’s talisman, see below) in addition to whatever components they normally have.
To learn or cast a spell, a magician must have a Charisma score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a magician’s spell is 10 + the spell level + the magician’s Charisma modifier.
Like other spellcasters, a magician can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. His base daily spell allotment is given on Table: The Magician. In addition, he receives bonus spells per day if he has a high Charisma score.
A magician’s selection of spells is extremely limited. A magician begins play knowing four 0-level spells and two 1st-level spells of your choice. At each new magician level, he gains one or more new spells, as indicated on Table: Magician Spells Known. (Unlike spells per day, the number of spells a magician knows is not affected by his Charisma score; the numbers on Table: Magician Spells Known are fixed.) These new spells can be common spells chosen from the cleric or sorcerer/wizard spell lists, or they can be unusual spells that the magician has gained some understanding of by study. The magician can’t use this method of spell acquisition to learn spells at a faster rate, however.
Upon reaching 4th level, and at every even-numbered magician level after that (6th, 8th, and so on), a magician can choose to learn a new spell in place of one he already knows. In effect, the magician “loses” the old spell in exchange for the new one. The new spell’s level must be the same as that of the spell being exchanged, and it must be at least two levels lower than the highest-level magician spell the magician can cast. A magician may swap only a single spell at any given level, and must choose whether or not to swap the spell at the same time that he gains new spells known for the level.
Unlike a wizard or a cleric, a magician need not prepare his spells in advance. He can cast any spell he knows at any time, assuming he has not yet used up his spells per day for that spell level. He does not have to decide ahead of time which spells he’ll cast.
Talisman: Every magician has a talisman. This talisman is unique to each magician. A magician normally uses his talisman focus to cast spells; any spell he casts can effectively include the the talisman as a focus component. Although not necessary for spellcasting, the talisman is required in order to access the magician's other class abilities.
When a magician casts a spell without his talisman as a focus component, he suffers a -3 penalty to the caster level (minimum caster level 0) and save DC of the spell. The magician gains no benefit from an effect that would remove the talisman focus component from his spells unless the effect specifically states that it applies to talisman components.
A talisman has no powers of its own, and does not emanate magic. It may be any contiguous solid object of any size ranging from the magician’s size to four sizes smaller than that. A talisman can be enchanted or altered after it has been created, but can’t be used as a focus component if it ceases to be a contiguous solid object or becomes the wrong size for its creator.
Each magician begins play with a talisman. To create a new talisman requires components costing 100 gp and takes one day to complete. Creating a talisman requires a work area equivalent to an alchemist’s lab, and 8 hours of work in the lab. Creating a new talisman renders any pre-existing talismans worthless and useless.
If a magician gains the use of a talisman from another class, those classes’ abilities may be used with the same talisman, and if they are, those classes’ levels stack for the purpose of determining how much XP a character loses from the destruction of a talisman.
A magician may attempt to use a talisman other than his own to cast a spell with a Spellcraft check as a free action at the end of the spell’s casting time. The DC is equal to 10 + the level of the spell. If the magician fails the Spellcraft check, the spell slot is not used, but the spell is not cast. He may attempt to cast the spell again with no penalty. He gains a +2 circumstance bonus on Spellcraft checks to cast a spell with a borrowed talisman if he has previously cast that spell with that borrowed talisman.
Talisman Priority: Starting at 4th level, a magician can always replace divine focus components in his spells with his talisman focus, even when an arcane alternative is given.
Component Efficiency (Ex): Starting at 5th level, the magician gains some control over the component requirements of his spells. Whenever he casts a spell from a 0-level spell slot, he can choose one of that spell's components to ignore, and need not supply that component (he can't choose his talisman). XP components and costly material components (with a value of 1 gp or more) can't be ignored with this ability.
At 8th level, this ability can be used with 1st-level spell slots. The highest-level spell slots that that this ability can be used with continues to increase by 1 at every third class level thereafter (11th, 14th, 17th, and so on).
Talisman Specialization: At 9th level, the magician may choose a spell descriptor. All spells the magican casts with that spell descriptor have a +1 bonus to caster level if cast with the talisman as a focus component.
Double Component Efficiency (Ex): Starting at 12th level, the magician improves his control over his spell's requirements even more. Once per day, when he affects a spell with his component efficiency ability, he may eliminate two components instead of one. He still can't select his talisman focus, costly material components, or XP components. He may use this ability once more per day at every third level thereafter (15th, 18th, 21st, and so on).
Talisman Enhancement (Su): At 13th level, a magician gains the ability to enchant his talisman focus. By completing a ritual that requires the same time and equipment as constructing the talisman, and costs 1,000 gp, the magician can cause his talisman to orbit him in a manner identical to an ioun stone. The talisman becomes a magic item, having a caster level equal to the class level of the magician and radiating an aura with no school of magic. As long as his talisman orbits in this way, the magician can utilize it to access class abilities (such as spellcasting) as if he held the talisman in his hand.
Improved Component Efficiency (Ex): From 15th level onwards, the magician can eliminate costly material components using his component efficiency ability. However, doing so adds an XP cost of 1 XP per 50 gp of material components ignored, rounded up.
Enhanced Talisman Specialization: At 19th level, the magician can expend a daily use of double component efficiency to increase his bonus to caster level from specialized talisman by an additional +1.
Hide Talisman (Sp): At 20th level, a magician gains the ability to hide his talisman in a nondimensional pocket of his own soul’s energy. If the magician is holding the talisman in his hand, he can use an immediate action to cause the talisman to vanish. The talisman is hidden outside of normal reality, and is irretrievable except by the magician. Bringing the talisman back is a standard action. This effect has a caster level equal to the magician’s class level and has an effective spell level of one-quarter the magician’s class level.
This effect targets the magician, causing a magical aura to appear around the magician, like any spell’s aura and is visible with detect magic. The effect can’t be affected by dispel magic, but can be affected by break enchantment. Dispelling or suppressing (as with antimagic field) the effect causes the talisman to reappear in the magician’s space.
Unlike most class abilities, talisman enhancement will not allow a magician to use this ability while the talisman is orbiting him - he must touch the talisman. Obviously, he need not touch the talisman to retrieve it from hiding. While it is hidden this way, it is of no other use to him.
Code:
The Magician
Base Attack Fort Ref Will
Level Bonus Save Save Save Special
1st +0 +0 +0 +2 Talisman
2nd +1 +0 +0 +3
3rd +1 +1 +1 +3
4th +2 +1 +1 +4 Talisman priority
5th +2 +1 +1 +4 Component effiency (0-level)
6th +3 +2 +2 +5
7th +3 +2 +2 +5
8th +4 +2 +2 +6 Component effiency (1st)
9th +4 +3 +3 +6 Talisman specialization
10th +5 +3 +3 +7
11th +5 +3 +3 +7 Component effiency (2nd)
12th +6/+1 +4 +4 +8 Double component efficiency 1/day
13th +6/+1 +4 +4 +8 Talisman enhancement
14th +7/+2 +4 +4 +9 Component effiency (3rd)
15th +7/+2 +5 +5 +9 Double component efficiency 2/day
16th +8/+3 +5 +5 +10 Improved component efficiency
17th +8/+3 +5 +5 +10 Component effiency (4th)
18th +9/+4 +6 +6 +11 Double component efficiency 3/day
19th +9/+4 +6 +6 +11 Enhanced talisman specialization
20th +10/+5 +6 +6 +12 Component effiency (5th), hide talisman
Spells Per Day
Level 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1st 4 2 — — — — — — — —
2nd 5 3 — — — — — — — —
3rd 5 4 — — — — — — — —
4th 5 5 2 — — — — — — —
5th 5 5 3 — — — — — — —
6th 5 5 4 2 — — — — — —
7th 5 5 5 3 — — — — — —
8th 5 5 5 4 2 — — — — —
9th 5 5 5 5 3 — — — — —
10th 5 5 5 5 4 2 — — — —
11th 5 5 5 5 5 3 — — — —
12th 5 5 5 5 5 4 2 — — —
13th 5 5 5 5 5 5 3 — — —
14th 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 2 — —
15th 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 3 — —
16th 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 2 —
17th 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 3 —
18th 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 2
19th 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 3
20th 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
Spells Known
Level 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1st 4 2 — — — — — — — —
2nd 5 2 — — — — — — — —
3rd 5 3 — — — — — — — —
4th 6 3 1 — — — — — — —
5th 6 4 2 — — — — — — —
6th 7 4 2 1 — — — — — —
7th 7 5 3 2 — — — — — —
8th 8 5 3 2 1 — — — — —
9th 8 5 4 3 2 — — — — —
10th 9 5 4 3 2 1 — — — —
11th 9 5 5 4 3 2 — — — —
12th 9 5 5 4 3 2 1 — — —
13th 9 5 5 4 4 3 2 — — —
14th 9 5 5 4 4 3 2 1 — —
15th 9 5 5 4 4 4 3 2 — —
16th 9 5 5 4 4 4 3 2 1 —
17th 9 5 5 4 4 4 3 3 2 —
18th 9 5 5 4 4 4 3 3 2 1
19th 9 5 5 4 4 4 3 3 3 2
20th 9 5 5 4 4 4 3 3 3 3[edit=3-27-08]removed XP loss from destroying a talisman; allowed casting w/o talisman, but at CL and DC penalty; increased final spells per day at levels 6-9 from 4 to 5; slowed component efficiency from 1/2 levels to 1/3 levels; moved component efficiency's start back 1 level and double component efficiency's forward 1 level; added talisman specialization and enhanced talisman specialization[/edit]
Last edited:
