What Edition to use 3!

[Aus_Snow]

Why? 'S easy.

But OK, you wanna play D&D? There was a Blue Mage at the old Wizards forums (not sure if it's still there, or in archives / wayback machine / whatever), and I believe it won some fan award thing or something.

Anyway, that was for 3e. Could be there's a 4e version at the very same place (or, uh, the new one) - wouldn't surprise me too much.

Pathfinder, I don't know. Maybe there's one lurking at Paizo.com as well.

You might have considerably worse chances of finding premade stuff of that kind for earlier editions, though I am, as ever, happy to be proved wrong.

Good luck.

 

[Nifft]

Should I follow Nifft's advice?

Yes, always. The world works much better when people do exactly what I say.

Anyway, IMHO the closest fit in the D&D family would be the 3.5e Spellthief class. You'd want to modify it a bit -- it's on the weak side, and it's not easily able to fight on its own, and the spells it steals only work once per -- but the mechanics are mostly there. (At least I think they are: I've never played that video game, so it's quite possible I'm missing something key.)

Cheers, -- N

 

[GnomeWorks]

With the help of numerous others, I wrote the learner PrC for 3.5, which is a blue mage.

And someone else wrote a 4e blue mage.

Honestly, IMO, both are terrible at it.

You can shoehorn it in with 3.5, but it requires a ridiculous amount of game mechanics to make work, and monster abilities aren't exactly written in such a way as to be easily transferred to a spell list; not only that, but most monster abilities are either (1) not terribly useful or (2) basically a spell. The few abilities that don't fit either of those are either really weird and don't fit a PC very well (the barghest's feed ability) or are straight-up broken (the choker's quickness).

In 4e, it would - at first glance - be way easier to do, since the mechanics you're dealing with are a lot cleaner. However, monster abilities are balanced in a completely different way (recharge rolls vs. encounter/daily), so translating that is a bit tricky. There is also the issue with 4e that monster abilities are not differentiated into physical/magical categories, so you'd need to adjudicate whether or not a blue mage could learn a given ability (though you could ignore it, since the blue mage is generally also relatively decent at melee combat, and extend their learning abilities to martial stuff as well).

Trying to make a blue mage in earlier editions is asking for trouble. I don't know how you'd even start to go about it.

Between 3.5 and 4e, I'd have to say that 4e would be the better fit. It would still be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, though.

 

[GnomeWorks]

But FFZ is really what you WANT to use for this.

I would also note, KM, that you chose not to do an FFZ blue mage.

This makes me very sad.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Based on what you said about Blue Mages, I'd use either HERO or M&M...or, more accurately, their FRPG versions, Fantasy HERO and W&W.

 

[Wormwood]

If I understand you correctly (and the good people at Dewar's Distillery may have a thing or two to say about that), you are looking at a character whose powers evolve in direct relation to the powers of those he defeats.

4th comes closest, with the caveat that you would be using the Monster Builder to customize your character---which is completely plausible with some DM control, mind you.

For example, your 7th-level character defeats a Shadar-Kai Witch (Monster Manual), you could then retrain one of your enbcounter powers for Beshadowed Mind. At 8th level, you defeat an Ogre Skirmisher, you could choose to dump Beshadowed Mind in favor of Hurling Charge (and so forth).

Obviously, the baseline needs to be established, but 4e really does provide a fairly simple mechanic for swapping out powers.

 

[FireLance]

I personally would use 4E and I would make it a multiclass option. The initial multiclass feat would grant a variable bonus which the PC can change every time he (or his party) defeats a monster. The specific bonus would depend on the general type of monster defeated: a soldier would provide a bonus to AC, a brute would provide a bonus to melee damage rolls, a skirmisher would provide a bonus to initiative checks or movement, artillery would provide a bonus to ranged damage rolls, a controller would provide a bonus to damage rolls for bursts and blasts, and a lurker would provide a bonus to Stealth checks, or possibly a bonus to damage when attacking with combat advantage. Each time the PC defeats another monster, he can choose to retain his previous bonus or change it to the bonus granted by the newly defeated monster.

The various power swap feats can then be used to gain powers from defeated monsters. The DM should excercise caution and approve each swap (or he may decide in advance which powers are swappable), but as a general rule of thumb, I would say that the monster's at-will and recharge powers should become encounter powers, and the monster's encounter powers should become daily powers, of a level equal to or higher than the level of the monster. If the monster has special movement or utility abilities, they can become encounter or daily utility powers using the same guidelines. Hence, at-will or recharge attack powers from monsters of 4 to 7 level can become 7th-level encounter attack powers, subject to DM approval, of course.

There might need to be some adjustment to ensure that the powers scale with level, or this might be left alone to create an incentive for the blue mage to continually exchange older powers (with lower attack and damage values) for powers from the higher-level monsters that he defeats.

The advantage to this approach is that you get the flavor of the blue mage while keeping it mostly balanced. A blue mage character would have at most one encounter attack power, one daily attack power and one utility power from the monsters he defeats, with the rest of his powers coming from his base class. Even if he gets particularly weak or powerful abilities from the monsters, they are only a fraction of his overall capability.

It would be possible to take this idea further and come up with a paragon path and/or an epic destiny for character who want a higher proportion of their powers to come from the monsters they defeat. However, that would take a lot more work than I intend to put into this post.

 

[Mistwell]

I think it would be easier to do with 4th than 3rd, just because of the monster builder. But, I don't think either system works great for what you plan to do.

And, my memory of basic edition isn't complete enough to comment on whether that system would be better. At least the number of monsters to choose from would be more limited in that system.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Spirit of the Century or M&M. Possibly Dogs in the Vineyard or BESM (I don't know those systems as well but have heard good things about them). Any of the core D&D family would require massive work.