Sorcerous Origin: The Ascetic

[Storm!]

Hey everybody, in Legends & Lore (TSR2108) for 2nd edition, there was a very interesting Ascetic class. They were a kind of "Prestige Class" that anybody could go into, and was included in the section on the indian mythos. They had strict vows of poverty, but in return got to cast wizard spells as if they were priests. I think it was a very interesting character concept, and so, here is my attempt to convert it to 5th edition as a sorcerous origin. This is very much a work in progress, and I would appreciate any suggestions regarding playability, flavor, and balance.

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Ascetic Origin
Archetype Type: Sorcerous Origin​

​

Your innate magic comes from an austere life spent in meditation. Your contemplations and self-sacrifice come with the end goal of achieving unity with the Brahman, a divine essence which suffuses all that exists. As you come closer to escaping the cycle of reincarnation, your growing true knowledge of the cosmos allows you to use that knowledge to cast spells.

Contemplative Caster
At 1^st level, you can cast your sorcerer spells without the need for any material components, except for those components that have a specific cost (as indicated in a spell’s description).
Additionally, your spellcasting ability for your sorcerer spells becomes Wisdom instead of Charisma. Any reference to your Charisma modifier in the sorcerer class description applies to your Wisdom modifier instead.

Ascetic Lifestyle
The Ascetic Lifestyle encourages total personal abstinence, primarily in the forms of wealth and comfort. At 1^st level, while you are wearing no armor and not wielding a shield, your AC equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Wisdom modifier, and you can use a bonus action to concentrate and have advantage on your next Wisdom (Perception) check or Wisdom (Survival) check.
Additionally, when you are exhausted, you are more enlightened. You add extra spells to your list of known sorcerer spells according to your current exhaustion level. These spells do not count against the number of sorcerer spells you know. You can cast each spell on the table you have access to once at its lowest level without consuming a spell slot. You regain each expended spell after completing a long rest.

[TABLE="width: 500"][TR][TD]Ascetic Sorcerer Bonus Spells [/TD][TD]
[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Exhaustion[/TD][TD]
[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Level[/TD][TD]Spells[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]1[/TD][TD]Comprehend languages[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]2[/TD][TD]Augury[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]3[/TD][TD]Clairvoyance[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]4[/TD][TD]Aura of Purity[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]5[/TD][TD]Commune[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]Elemental Endurance
An Ascetic’s deprivations train him to live with nothing in even the harshest conditions. Starting at 6^th level, as a bonus action, you can spend 1 sorcery point to gain resistance to acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage for 1 hour or until you use this feature again.

Ignore Death
At 14^th level, you gain the ability to endure mortal blows and continue standing. When you are reduced to 0 hit points, you remain conscious, even though you must keep making death saving throws. Once you stabilize, you fall unconscious. If an attack would instantly kill you from massive damage, you instead are reduced to 0 hit points and begin making death saving throws. If you are not attuned to any magic items, you also have advantage on your death saving throws.
Additionally, your level of exhaustion can never exceed 5, and you never have disadvantage on saving throws from exhaustion.

Greater Unity
Beginning at 18^th level, your closeness to the Universal Force gives you great flexibility in altering reality around you. You add Wish to your list of known Sorcerer spells. This does not count against the number of sorcerer spells you know. As long as you do not wish for anything selfish, such as wealth or personal power, you never suffer the 33% chance that you will never be able to cast the wish spell again.
Additionally, as an action you may spend 9 sorcery points to cast wish, but only to reproduce the effects of a spell of 8^th level or lower.


For reference, a brief summary of the original ascetic class:

Ascetic
Uses Priest Advancement, THAC0, and Saving Throw Tables
Can only own clothes and a begging bowl, and must meditate 4 hours a day.
Can cast wizard spells from 2 schools of choice, and does not require material components.
Does not need to keep a spellbook, knows all spells within chosen schools.
Each time the Ascetic levels up, loses 1 point of strength from physical deprivation and gains 1 point (Player's Choice) in either constitution, wisdom, or charisma up to 19 max.
Gains the following extra abilities at the indicated levels:
1st Turn Undead
3rd Endure Heat/Cold
5th Levitate (Self Only)
8th Telekinesis
12th Heal (Self Only)
15th Ignore Death (can act normally For 1d10 rounds after reaching 0/-10 HP)
18th Immune to nonmagical damage
20th Reach unity with Brahman (Character retired from play, new character receives +2 bonus to all saving throws)

 

[Mon]

I was fascinated with this class when I was younger. It was a bit wacky as a kind of priest/wizard thingy, but very interesting and tied well to the mythos presented in L&L. I like your conversion, although I am a bit wary of the exhaustion level being added to spell save DCs/attack modifiers.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=6799479]Storm![/MENTION] Love the source material you're using

Additionally, when you are exhausted, you gain a bonus to Saving Throws, your Spell save DC, and your Spell attack modifier equal to your current level of exhaustion.

I agree with Mon that this is a bit weird mechanically. 5e attempts to do away with most modifiers. Having constantly fluctuating saves, spell save DC, and spell attack would be a headache for most players to track.

As a secondary issue, I'm not sure about the balance of introducing up to a +5 bonus in a bounded accuracy game.

Instead, maybe provide less mechanical bonuses to each exhaustion level? For example, the first time you reach exhaustion level 1 in a day you gain the benefit of a free augury spell as if you'd cast it? Something like that.

An Ascetic’s deprivations train him to live with nothing in even the harshest conditions. Starting at 6th level, you gain resistance to fire and cold damage.

Seems this is more powerful than the equivalent 6th level feature of the dragon sorcerer? Fire and cold being very prominent damage types. It does make sense thematically, my concern is a balance one.

Beginning at 18th level, your closeness to the Universal Force gives you great flexibility in altering reality around you. You add Wish to your list of known Sorcerer spells. This does not count against the number of sorcerer spells you know. As long as you never wish for wealth, you never suffer the 33% chance that you will never be able to cast the wish spell again.

Thematically, I would put more limits on the ascetic's wish, not just wealth. For example, if you use a wish for selfish purposes such as for wealth or power or self-aggrandizement then you suffers the 33# chance that you are never able to cast wish again.

Overall, nice execution!

 

[Storm!]

I agree with Mon that this is a bit weird mechanically. 5e attempts to do away with most modifiers. Having constantly fluctuating saves, spell save DC, and spell attack would be a headache for most players to track.

As a secondary issue, I'm not sure about the balance of introducing up to a +5 bonus in a bounded accuracy game.

Instead, maybe provide less mechanical bonuses to each exhaustion level? For example, the first time you reach exhaustion level 1 in a day you gain the benefit of a free augury spell as if you'd cast it? Something like that.

Haha this is definitely the new mechanic I was worried about. At least the saving throw bonus I wasn't worried about from a balance perspective, being a much more restricted version of the Paladin's Aura of Protection at best. My thought process was that the ascetic trades disadvantage for raw higher numbers, but I should be thinking about alternatives.

Because it is so important to the way my archetype functions, for easy reference:

[table="width: 250"]
[tr]
[td]Level[/td]
[td]Exhaustion[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]1[/td]
[td]Disadvantage on Ability Checks[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2[/td]
[td]Speed Halved[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]3[/td]
[td]Disadvantage on Attack Rolls and Saving Throws[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]4[/td]
[td]Hit Point Maximum Halved[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]5[/td]
[td]Speed Reduced to 0[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]6[/td]
[td]Death[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

I'll work on rejiggering the "Exhaustion Bonuses" mechanic. Basically, it exists at all to replaced the original Ascetic's deprivations reducing his strength, but increasing his CON, WIS, or CHA.

Seems this is more powerful than the equivalent 6th level feature of the dragon sorcerer? Fire and cold being very prominent damage types. It does make sense thematically, my concern is a balance one.

Actually yeah, you're totally right. My ability is completely better, and that is pretty careless of me. Instead, I'll expand on the original ascetic a bit and make this a combination of the Dragon Sorcerer's Ability and the Nature Domain Cleric's "Dampen Elements" ability.

Thematically, I would put more limits on the ascetic's wish, not just wealth. For example, if you use a wish for selfish purposes such as for wealth or power or self-aggrandizement then you suffers the 33# chance that you are never able to cast wish again.

That's a good idea!

 

[Redthistle]

Having only read this post after Storm! had already implemented Quickleaf's suggested revisions, I'm impressed with this Sorcerous Origin as it now stands.

Kudos to both of you!

 

[Quickleaf]

I like the change you made granting bonus spells based on exhaustion. That's a vast improvement.

The Ascetic Lifestyle encourages total personal abstinence, primarily in the forms of wealth and comfort. So long as you present yourself humbly, you exude an aura of peace that keeps you safe from harm. At 1st level, while you are wearing no armor and not wielding a shield or weapon, your AC equals 12 + your Dexterity modifier + your Wisdom modifier, and you have a bonus to saving throws equal to your Wisdom modifier (With a minimum bonus of +1). You lose this benefit until you complete a long rest if you make a Melee or Ranged weapon attack​.

Lol But the ascetic, being a sorcerer can launch lightning bolts and fireballs, Twinned even!, up the wazoo without endangering their aura of peace.

Not sure how close to the original you want to get, but for the sake of believability and playability, personally I'd chance this to a flat 10+Dex+Wis AC, like the monk.

If you really want to retain boosted defenses while maintaining pacifism, then maybe AC 12+Dex+Wis so long as the ascetic hasn't taken hostile action that day. This would include any attacks or spells calling for saving throws, i.e. make it a fairly high bar so "hostile action" includes things like charm person. This will encourage a play style where the ascetic PC will often try a non-forceful solution first such as negotiating, solving a mystery, using divinations and abjurations, etc.

 

[Storm!]

Yeah in retrospect it is kind of silly. I gave it some thought, and I looked over the original Ascetic Class, and while the class had many special restrictions, they actually have no restrictions regarding violent actions, and so I'm not going to give my conversion one either. The boosted defense was originally because this was the most restrictive of the "Unarmed, Unarmored" AC boosts, but given that he also gets a saving throw bonus for it, and the 12 instead of a 10 does look weird as you pointed out, I'll just chance it to a 10 + Dex + Wis.

 

[Quartz]

I don't like the Wisdom bonus to saves. A character with Wis 20, +6 proficiency in the other stat, and the other stat at 20 saves at +16. Allowing replacement of all other stats with Wis is also too good. Perhaps allow the ascetic to replace the affected stat with her Wisdom stat for a save once per short rest, with more times at higher levels?

Beyond that, I can't help but feel that this would be better as a variant of Monk rather than Sorcerer.

 

[Storm!]

You've made a good point about the saving throws getting all wonky. Looking at the other sorcerous origins, which give some kind of extra skill bonus, instead I've given the Ascetic advantage on Perception (Wisdom) checks and Survival checks from their awareness and attunement to the world around them. I've just dropped the saving throw bonus thing altogether.

As for making this class an archetype of Monk instead of Sorcerer, flavor-wise it would certainly make sense, but the monk's mechanics would not be able to represent the Ascetic class from Legends and Lore at all. The Ascetic is absolutely not a warrior class, which the monk very much is. In fact, the originally Ascetic at high levels will always eventually have a strength of 3, meaning a -3 to hit, -1 to damage in AD&D. The Ascetic class is a wizard with a smaller selection of spells with no need to memorize them (A really big deal in AD&D) and some other unusual powers that lend themselves towards endurance and survival. I feel that the sorcerer is the best fit for adapting the class.