The adept class

[Quasqueton]

Am I the only one "bothered" by the adept NPC class? It has both divine and arcane spells, from multiple class lists. I mean, for a class that supposedly comes from little or no official training (the hedge wizard concept), it has somehow managed to draw magic from several directions. A wizard with all the training in the world can't cast cure light wounds. A temple-trained cleric can't cast lightning bolt. Yet the uneducated po-dunk mystic over there can do both. Even the sorcerer, for whom magic supposedly comes "naturally" can't cast some of the spells that a mud-faced adept can cast.

I've never used an adept in my campaigns.

Quasqueton

 

[Henry]

Am I the only one "bothered" by the adept NPC class?

Yep.

It has both divine and arcane spells, from multiple class lists. I mean, for a class that supposedly comes from little or no official training (the hedge wizard concept), it has somehow managed to draw magic from several directions.

Which I can believe totally. Someone with only haphazard understanding can draw from multiple sources because of the nature of their training. as a more modern example, the home-brew IT manager may know a little networking, a little programming, a little database setup, a bit of Unix, etc. Someone who is a Masterful C++ programmer and has learned all their skills from an academic setting may have had very little or (rarely) no exposure to hardware troubleshooting, and would be hard-pressed to set up a Unix-based system from scratch. (It's easier nowadays than in the 1980's, but I digress.), despite the fact that they could make meaningful edits to a major software package's source code.

A wizard with all the training in the world can't cast cure light wounds. A temple-trained cleric can't cast lightning bolt. Yet the uneducated po-dunk mystic over there can do both. Even the sorcerer, for whom magic supposedly comes "naturally" can't cast some of the spells that a mud-faced adept can cast.

I've never used an adept in my campaigns.

Quasqueton

A wizard CAN learn cure light wounds - if he's taken some clerical training. The adept is a weak amalgam class of the wizard and the cleric, without the DM having to put a lot of effort into multiclassing the NPCs. It's easier for a DM to say "Serena is an Adept 6" in the notes, and have a spellcaster in town that can dispense cures as well as spider climbs, rather than having to work out the implications that Serena is a Cleric 3 / Wizard 3. On top of that, the Adept is a darned weak class, even if it can cast Lighting bolt as well as Cure moderate, and I'd be surprised if a player wanted to take it over a PC class.

RE: the sorcerer: A sorcerer can't cast divine spells, but a favored soul can - he's the "clerical sorcerer" as far as WotC's concerned.

 

[VirgilCaine]

This makes me think adepts could have a pretty nifty flavor if one wanted to work at it--combining disparate elements of magical traditions. I'll have to see about that...

 

[TerraDave]

I agree, it kind of makes sense. Amatuars tend to gravitate to what interest them, formal training tends to be specialised. So the amatuar may have a wider range of knowledge--though the one with formal training may have the overall advantage.

 

[Turanil]

The only problem I have with the Adept is the crappy spell progression. To have an adept useful as a foe, I must make it of a ridiculously high level, and such high level characters are not a common sight of my campaigns. I have created a counterpart of the adept for Castles & Crusades, but it has a near "normal" spell progression.

Amatuars <...> amatuar <...>

What's this?

 

[the Lorax]

Am I the only one "bothered" by the adept NPC class? It has both divine and arcane spells, from multiple class lists.

Quasqueton

Yeah, I'm "bothered" by the Adept, but in a number of completely different ways.

1. They are signifigantly weaker spell casters than any full casters in the game.
2. They loose ground on the other casters as they gain levels.
3. They are given nothing in the way of abilities to support their theme.

That being said, I am "bothered" by all the NPC classes.

Unlike in previous editions, in 3.x, XPs are a spendable resource with a fixed value that could even be translated into a gold piece value. Characters use their XPs to gain levels, and SHOULD expect a similar value for their XP expenditure regardless of the class that they have taken. The basic core classes are not balanced, but they are reasonably close. The NPC classes are not even playing in the same league.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

What's this?

A misspelling. The word is spelled "amateurs."

 

[satori01]

The basic core classes are not balanced, but they are reasonably close. The NPC classes are not even playing in the same league.

Which is why they are NPC classes and count as Class level -1 for CR purposes as opposed to Class Level = +CR or 1/2 Class level = +CR for non associated classes. They are not supposed to be in the same league.

Sometimes in terms of sheer min/max the NPC classes come out ahead as one class level on any npc class essentially means no increace in CR.

If you want a Cadre of Frost Giants to be able to cast lightning bolt, you could always go with 6 levels of Sorcerer for a CR bump of +3

Or you could go with 8 levels of adept for a CR bump of +3, and not have to deal with Arcane spell failure, get more HP and a list of spells that are in someway much more useful for daily life.

 

[Baragos]

How is adding 6 levels of sorcerer or 8 of adept to a frost giant going to increase it's CR by 3?

 

[S'mon]

I think the Adept is a cool class - if they were a bit more powerful they'd make a very good generic spellcaster class, much better than the existing PC classes.