D&D 5E Swordmage! (+thread)

[doctorbadwolf]

Okay, so why would a swordmage be more skillful than a wizard?

Why wouldn’t they? Why would the wizard even be relevant to the question?

 

[FrogReaver]

Why wouldn’t they? Why would the wizard even be relevant to the question?

How on earth could they not be?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

How on earth could they not be?

We are at an impasse, I guess. I can’t imagine any reason that I’d wprdy

Of the other two half casters, 1 has 3, the other 2.

The monk has 2, and a musical instrument, but honestly feels like it should have a little more.

The full casters all have 2, except Bard, as does the fighter. Obviously the Bard and Rogue aren’t good comparisons.

I’d say the Swordmage will likely end up wanting plenty of skills, like the Ranger.

of all those, the most relevant comparisons are the half casters and monk. I’d say the Swordmage should be closer to the ranger than the monk in terms of skills.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Why wouldn’t you just accept that a premise of this + thread is that the class is a ritual magic user with a spellbook, a warrior-sage, not just a generic magical warrior, though?

Fair enough. I was trying to resolve the 5e use of rituals as a method of casting some utility spells with martial formulae and what I remembered about the 4e Swordmage.
I'm aware that this is just your vision of a Swordmage, for your gaming group, but I wanted to make sure I was aiming for the same goals that you were before making suggestions toward those goals.

As I said, I will see which 5e ritual spells you think are an integral part of the class, to get a better idea of what you're working towards there.

Of note the Swordmage in 4e was actually one of the best "armored" of the defenders, in spite of using light armor.

Good point. Basing its performance off a "tanky" sword-and-board fighter rather than a two-handed damage-oriented one would seem to be a good fit then. Particularly since the swordmage seemed to be a fairly solid defender and had ways to interfere with attacks against other people like some shield users in 5e do.

Being able to spend power to shield an ally from an opponent's attack, or blink over to them and strike them in retribution sounds like the sort of thing that could be options.

Yep. I was gonna curate a spell list rather than giving them access to wizard spells, anyway, but its easier to do if only some of their Techniques or whatever are spells.

Speaking of, I don't like Manuever. Technique is okayish. I want something that sounds like a medieval swordmaster like Thibault or other hermeticism influenced writers of fencing manuals would come up with.

Formulas, ciphers, mysteries, rubrics, forms, techniques?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Fair enough. I was trying to resolve the 5e use of rituals as a method of casting some utility spells with martial formulae and what I remembered about the 4e Swordmage.
I'm aware that this is just your vision of a Swordmage, for your gaming group, but I wanted to make sure I was aiming for the same goals that you were before making suggestions toward those goals.

As I said, I will see which 5e ritual spells you think are an integral part of the class, to get a better idea of what you're working towards there.


Good point. Basing its performance off a "tanky" sword-and-board fighter rather than a two-handed damage-oriented one would seem to be a good fit then. Particularly since the swordmage seemed to be a fairly solid defender and had ways to interfere with attacks against other people like some shield users in 5e do.

Being able to spend power to shield an ally from an opponent's attack, or blink over to them and strike them in retribution sounds like the sort of thing that could be options.

Formulas, ciphers, mysteries, rubrics, forms, techniques?

Mysteries might work, and techniques is a common term actually used in those manuals.

Sorry if I was a bit harsh in reply, I just get frustrated with how hard it is to just post a premise and goal and have a thread that focuses on realizing the goal, and ppl that don’t like the goal just...not bothering me about that fact.

but it seems that you aren’t actually in that category of interaction here.

As for the rituals, yeah my plan is for the class to have some of their utility come from ritual spells, and to describe many of their class features as rituals, and have some of their unique abilities have similar language to ritual spells. I’ll put together a list of the spells I want for the class, and gather feedback on that in terms of balance, impact on the sameness of spellcasters, and promoting the static identity and lore of the class.

 

[DND_Reborn]

@doctorbadwolf :

Since you asked, I wasn't planning to chime in as I don't see the need for such a class and I never played 4E so I have no clue what a Swordmage should or shouldn't do.

However, coming late to the game and judging from your OP, do you envision the Swordmage as the half-caster version for the Wizard, akin to the Paladin-Cleric, Ranger-Druid concept, making it the Swordmage-Wizard to match the others?

Or, should the sowrdmage have spell-like features, but not actual spells?

 

[FrogReaver]

We are at an impasse, I guess. I can’t imagine any reason that I’d wprdy

Of the other two half casters, 1 has 3, the other 2.

The monk has 2, and a musical instrument, but honestly feels like it should have a little more.

The full casters all have 2, except Bard, as does the fighter. Obviously the Bard and Rogue aren’t good comparisons.

I’d say the Swordmage will likely end up wanting plenty of skills, like the Ranger.

of all those, the most relevant comparisons are the half casters and monk. I’d say the Swordmage should be closer to the ranger than the monk in terms of skills.

Of the 12 classes in the game only 3 have more than 2 skills. There is a strong reason for each of those starting with more than the baseline of skills. Bards and Rogues have been skill experts in prior editions. Rangers identity has always been the wilderness guy so it makes sense to give them a little broader skill base in outdoorsmen and nature type skills.

Wizards and your Swordmage carry a common theme, brainy nerdy guy, scholar. Therefore, that the Swordmage is more skilled than the wizard needs a better explanation than just cause. If we are going to keep the 3 skills, lets at least justify it.

 

[Garthanos]

Wizards and your Swordmage carry a common theme, brainy nerdy guy, scholar. Therefore, that the Swordmage is more skilled than the wizard needs a better explanation than just cause. If we are going to keep the 3 skills, lets at least justify it.

Swordmage is Renaissance (almost science) Guy and so some of his skills will and should be physical along side the mental ones is that a rational that works,?

 

[FrogReaver]

Swordmage is Renaissance (almost science) Guy and so some of his skills will and should be physical along side the mental ones is that a rational that works,?

1. Renaissance (almost science) Guy sounds to me like quite a different concept than is being designed by OP. This concept could work but feels a little conceptually weak IMO.
2. Having 2 skills from the class already allows for a mix of physical and mental skills.

 

[TwoSix]

Okay, I wonder about the potential feedback of some key people who haven’t chimed in, if y’all are willing.

@TwoSix @lowkey13 @dnd4vr feel free to pm if you’d rather not engage in a thread that is having some trouble being a + thread, but what I’m wondering is what you’d be worried about for such a class? What would make it feel samey or fresh and different? As a class that last showed up in 4e, would you as a hypothetical DM have a worry about it being too fiddly and grid dependent?

I'd want to see a little more right now. Assuming it's a null-caster, it's got a basic fighter chassis with a scaling armor feature and the tome warlock special invocation. The Aegis and the point based maneuvers are doing a lot of undefined work, so it's difficult to evaluate without a little more flesh there.