Swordmage Class

[Rechan]

Until the Psychic Warrior returns in PHB2 or whenever he's supposed to reappear.

Well, Rich said that they wouldn't be putting the Swordmage in the PHB1. So either he's going in the PHB2, or something in between them?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Won't disagree with that. Many more prestige classes were created to fix this role, though.

Interesting on alternate class survivor, I'll have to take a gander at that - I would wager the preferences of a bunch of DMs like ENworld are a little different to if we somehow polled all the players in our campaigns, though.

Completely agree that even more PrCs were made for this, but that's because literally hundreds of PrCs, many of them completely unecessary or serving nigh-exactly the same purpose as others, were created. They were the pointless "filler-crunch" of 3E in 90% of cases (I'd be willing to be that 10% of PrCs represented around 75-80% of all PrC levels taken, even just accounting for official WotC PrCs).

I think that really only strengthens my "multiclassing was completely borked in 3E" point, though.

On-topic, I sincerely hope the Swordmage is quite distinct from a Fighter/Mage, but not just "better", like someone with 15 levels of Duskblade was really honestly, just better than someone with 8 levels of Mage and 7 levels of Fighter, or what have you. Presumably a Fighter/Mage will have more "zap-boom" effects (which actually work, rather than being laughable) and the Swordmage will have have a lot of quick-casting buffs, ports, and so on as it's creator suggests.

Well, Rich said that they wouldn't be putting the Swordmage in the PHB1. So either he's going in the PHB2, or something in between them?

That's not a logical assumption. He could be in PHB3, or PHB4, or never. We've been specifically told Psionics will be back, and it's popularity in 3E (much greater than in 1E or 2E) seems to suggest that will be sooner rather than later (though I doubt PHB2, more likely a Psionics Handbook in the same year as PHB2).

 

[Glyfair]

Interesting on alternate class survivor, I'll have to take a gander at that...

The interesting ones are the Top Ten and the Top Five.

I think that really only strengthens my "multiclassing was completely borked in 3E" point, though.

I'll wholly support that spellcasting and multiclassing in 3E didn't mix. I think there were only very minor kinks outside this.

 

[Rechan]

That's not a logical assumption. He could be in PHB3, or PHB4, or never.

Well, when Rich said "But for various reasons we decided to go with a slightly different mix of character classes, and so the swordmage is [/b]going to wait for a while[/b]" I assumed he didn't mean 2+ years. Because that's a bit beyond what I would consider "a while".

We've been specifically told Psionics will be back, and it's popularity in 3E (much greater than in 1E or 2E) seems to suggest that will be sooner rather than later (though I doubt PHB2, more likely a Psionics Handbook in the same year as PHB2).

I don't see why it shouldn't go in the PHB2. The PHB1 is "Arcane, Divine and Martial power sources", so the PHB2 very well could be "Mental" power source.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I think that really only strengthens my "multiclassing was completely borked in 3E" point, though.

Actually, I disagree. Multiclassing in 3E is head-and-shoulders above previous iterations except when mixing pure spellcasting classes with anything else (including other pure spellcasting classes).

SWSE does this better, with "spell" effects tied to skill rolls; specifially, the Use the Force skill, which improves whether or not you take your next level in Jedi or Bounty Hunter.

Apart from that (and one other issue*), however, it works well.

* - Multiclassing skill points. A Fighter 1 / Rogue 1 has 16 base skill points and 13 base HP. A Rogue 1 / Fighter 1 has 26 base skill points and 11 base HP. However, a move to a more SWSE-like skill system will likely improve this by quite a bit.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I really like the idea for the Swordmage that was given in that blog post. It makes it sound like something different than what a multicalss Fighter/Wizard would be, and I think that is important. Even if you have good multi-classing rules which allow a Fighter/Wizard multiclass character, there is plenty of room for something which takes the concept of an armored arcane weapon-user and does something that can't be replicated with multiclassing.

To use a slightly obsure videogame example...

In Final Fantasy 5, it is possible to have a Traveller (fighter) or Knight (a fighter who protects his allies) who knows magic of some kind. Also, the Red Mage class (which can fight, as well as use both healing and destructive magic) is similar. However, there is also a dedicated Sorcerer (in Japan, called the Sword-magic User) who combines magic and swordplay in ways that a Knight with magic skills cannot, infusing hiw weapon with magic and casting destructive spells with each strike of his sword.

A Fighter/Wizard multiclass is like a Final Fantasy Knight with Black Magic, or a Red Mage. A Swordmage would be the Final Fantasy Sorcerer.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

To use a slightly obsure videogame example...

Uh oh...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Actually, I disagree. Multiclassing in 3E is head-and-shoulders above previous iterations except when mixing pure spellcasting classes with anything else (including other pure spellcasting classes).

SWSE does this better, with "spell" effects tied to skill rolls; specifially, the Use the Force skill, which improves whether or not you take your next level in Jedi or Bounty Hunter.

Apart from that (and one other issue*), however, it works well.

* - Multiclassing skill points. A Fighter 1 / Rogue 1 has 16 base skill points and 13 base HP. A Rogue 1 / Fighter 1 has 26 base skill points and 11 base HP. However, a move to a more SWSE-like skill system will likely improve this by quite a bit.

You know what? You're right. When I think of multiclassing, I just always think of "with a spellcaster", because that's always what players seem to want to do. 3E was fine if you stuck to non-spellcasters, which are probably a minority of classes, but still. I just hope 4E gets spellcasters right too (the simplest way is to provide some limited "spellcasting" improvement even if they don't select their next levels in the class, but it's a bit tricky to balance).

 

[TwinBahamut]

Uh oh...

What can I say? I play a lot of videogames. I don't have many other examples to make use of... Besides, it works.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

You know what? You're right.

Thanks!

It's also an issue that I became intimately familiar with as soon as I started playing 3.0. The first character I tried to convert was an Elven Fighter / Magic-User.

It became rather apparent, after only a couple levels, that it wasn't working all that well.

There've been lots of attempts at patches over the years for that exact concept (Practiced Spellcaster, duskblade, PrCs, etc.), but they've all been patches. I'd like to see it more formally and more effectively brought into the base rules.