Special Conversion Thread: The Ghazneths

[freyar]

That definitely helps a bit. I think the earthquake is still potentially too powerful, at least for only one magic level. Maybe we can combine this with his sorcerous spell casting, so it takes 8 levels?

 

[Shade]

Excellent suggestion!

Updated.

 

[freyar]

So now we mostly have to deal with spell casting. Wizard or sorcerer, what do you think?

 

[Shade]

Here's a stab at the power:

Spells: Luthax may expend stored magic levels to cast his known spells. Luthax casts spells as a sorcere in all respects, except instead of using spell slots he must expend a number of stored magic levels equal to the level of the spell. For example, Luthax may expend three stored spell levels to cast haste.

Sorcerer Spells Known: 0th--light; 1st--magic missile, sleep; 2nd--blindness/deafness, invisibility, knock, locate object; 3rd--blink, deeper darkness, haste, hold person, invisibility sphere, wind wall; 4th--charm monster, confusion, dimension door, solid fog, stone shape; 5th--passwall, telekinesis, teleport, transmute rock to mud; 6th--control water; 7th--mass invisibility, phase door; 8th--binding; 9th--time stop. Caster level xth. The save DCs are Charisma-based.

Note that some of his spells did not convert: vacancy, enchant an item, transmute water to dust, vanish, sink

 

[freyar]

Hmmm, we could replace earthquake with this and just add it to the spells known. But I'm still worried about this. What's to stop him from whipping out time stop every round and just opening up a major can of whoop-a$$ on a group of unsuspecting players?

 

[Shade]

Hmmm, we could replace earthquake with this and just add it to the spells known. But I'm still worried about this. What's to stop him from whipping out time stop every round and just opening up a major can of whoop-a$$ on a group of unsuspecting players?

Good point. What if we stick with standard sorcerer spells per day limitations, with the added cost of eating up the equivalent spell levels?

 

[freyar]

Sounds reasonable. Or we could even go back to wizard with the cost per spell -- fewer spells per day, though maybe harder to DM in terms of choosing to prepare different spells. Sorcerer flavor probably makes more sense, though. Question: what CL for him?

 

[Shade]

Originally his was CL 19. In order to cast his 9th-level spell as a sorcerer, he at least needs to be 18th.

 

[freyar]

Well, 18th is it, then, but 3 time stops? Wow. I'm still not sure how to balance this guy with the others. Is there a less nasty 9th level spell we could substitute for time stop? Or should we give him a unique spells/day progression?

 

[Shade]

We could go with a unique progression. He originally had 5/5/5/5/5/3/3/2/1, which I think would work. That's only 1 time stop per day, and only 2 8th-level spells.

Attempted revision

Spells: Luthax may expend stored magic levels to cast his known spells. Luthax casts spells as a sorcerer in most respects, except in addition to using spell slots, he must expend a number of stored magic levels equal to the level of the spell. For example, Luthax must expend three stored spell levels (in addition to the normal 3rd-level spell slot) to cast haste. As a side effect of his transformation into a ghazneth, Luthax has a unique number of spells per day, and does not gain bonus spells based on his Charisma modifier.

Sorcerer Spells Known (5/5/5/5/5/3/3/2/1): 0th--light; 1st--magic missile, sleep; 2nd--blindness/deafness, invisibility, knock, locate object; 3rd--blink, deeper darkness, haste, hold person, invisibility sphere, wind wall; 4th--charm monster, confusion, dimension door, solid fog, stone shape; 5th--passwall, telekinesis, teleport, transmute rock to mud; 6th--control water; 7th--mass invisibility, phase door; 8th--binding; 9th--time stop. Caster level xth. The save DCs are Charisma-based.