Blue Mage

[Fastmover]

Does anyone know of the Blue Mage and its template? I'm actually not even sure if it exists because I've heard very little about it. But what has peaked my interest is its ability to learn new spells by feeling the effects of a new spell.

Is it out there? Is anyone able to shed some light for me?

[Goatman_Ted]

There's no official 'Blue Mage' D&D class I know of.

There are dozens of homebrew versions all over the internet trying to emulate its abilities.

But are you even playing D&D?
3rd edition is usually my base assumption on this forum, but you might have to be more specific.

In 3.5, the closest things I can think of are the Spellthief (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20050107a), Spelltouched feats (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/spelltouchedFeats.htm) and a refluffed Cleric -- chosing spells to imitate effects you've experienced.

[Yuki Akuma]

Might I suggest the Spellthief, from Complete Adventurer?

Although I agree a real Blue Mage would be pretty fun to play.

[Faulty]

I thought you were talking about the 3rd party product Nymphology for a sec there. >_>

[ocato]

Might I suggest the Spellthief, from Complete Adventurer?

For D&D 3.5 nonhomebrew, this is probably your best bet.

[Fastmover]

Yeah I'm in D&D 3.5

I do know of the Spellthief and his abilities. But its rather difficult to put him in a combo seeing as he learns the spell steal so slowly and his damage output isn't extreamly high. Well that's how I feel anyway.

[mistformsquirrl]

I'd probably homebrew under such circumstances. I can't think of any classes or Prestige Classes off the top of my head that'll do exactly what you want; though perhaps focusing on a shapeshifter class like Wildshaper could work. (In which case you'd be playing up the "I fought creature X; now I can BE creature X" angle)

Possibilities could be:

"Copy Feat" - If an opponent uses a feat against you, and you make a check of some sort, you can then use that feat for a given period. Up to a certain number of feats may be held this way at a time. (Otherwise you might wind up with the entire feat catelogue eventually!)

"Copy Spell" - As above, but regarding spells. This might be able to be a bit more permanent if the class is a caster type. They'd just have to earn no spells from leveling up whatsoever - instead you'd learn them by getting hit with them; and in doing so being able to use them forever more. (Obviously such a class would be tougher than your standard wizard, and probably have a few class features to allow them to fight a bit better than your average mage)

Etc...


*brainstorming*

[Zaq]

The Spellthief isn't a damage dealer. He's a harrier, a debuffer, a disrupter. He doesn't learn spell steal THAT slowly... the spells he can steal are exactly the ones that a sorcerer of his level can cast, if that makes any sense. (He learns to steal spells at the exact same rate that a pure-class sorcerer learns to cast spells.)

Sorry. I'm a big spellthief fan. They're very useful if you treat them with the right attitude.

[Siosilvar]

Someone homebrewed a Blue Mage class. (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=137596)

[Fastmover]

Yeah. I may have to home brew it then. I hope it turns out well. If it does I'll put it on here and you guys can Critique it for me so I can make some changes. Input would be awsome.

[strawberryman]

I've been working on a Blue Mage base class based on the FFXI version for a while now, in where I turned monster special abilities into matching "spells" of a sort. Still have to make some tweaks, though.

[Fastmover]

The Spellthief isn't a damage dealer. He's a harrier, a debuffer, a disrupter. He doesn't learn spell steal THAT slowly... the spells he can steal are exactly the ones that a sorcerer of his level can cast, if that makes any sense. (He learns to steal spells at the exact same rate that a pure-class sorcerer learns to cast spells.)

Sorry. I'm a big spellthief fan. They're very useful if you treat them with the right attitude.

I do know what you mean. I'm a big spelltheif fan as well, at least the idea of him. What it really don't like is that there aren't many PrC or feats that help the class if you are coming in from another class. So if you don't start out with the class its rather hurtful.

But if you can direct me to some books or feats or special classes that could easily compliment it than please do. :) Most of my best friends love spell casting classes and they always get pissed when I bring up any sort of spell stealing ability.


Someone homebrewed a Blue Mage class. (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=137596)

Sweet. I'll have to check that after I leave work. I can't get to the link with my job blocking games :S

[Goatman_Ted]

I suggested this in an edit. Sorry if you already read it:

You could always take a class with a wide spell list (like the Archivist, Cleric or Wizard), use it to build a Fighter/Caster and just choose spells according to what's targeted you.

With the Spell Compendium, you'dbe able to effectively mimic most effects without a problem.

Or just ask your DM to let you use the Cleric's framework and use it to spontaneously cast spells that have hit you. It wouldn't be much different from a Wizard who learned enemy spells by taking their spellbooks, just a bit more flexible (and without any of the 'Personal' effects). If you aren't an ass about it, balance shouldn't be such a big deal.

[Zaq]

The biggest problem with a Blue Mage class is that it's totally dependent on the GM, even more so than any other class (except maybe the Archivist, but they have their own issues). In a video game, it's one thing, because the monsters and their abilities and their locations are already set, but if your GM is running D&D as rigidly as most video games, that's pretty darn railroady. A GM with a Blue Mage player has the additional responsibility of making sure that the Blue Mage fights enemies that will give him abilities commensurate in power with those of his allies, and if the campaign wouldn't have normally had appropriate monsters, either the Blue Mage gets screwed (and thus the party gets screwed, because they have a gimped member) or the GM has to radically change the flow of the game to accommodate the Blue Mage. Either way, you can't really choose what abilities you get... you get what you fight. If you want telekinesis, you don't get it unless you happen to face someone with telekinesis. This isn't necessarily a bad thing (while optimization certainly has its place, I also don't think that players should always get exactly what they want just because they want it), but it still puts even more work on the GM, who has enough on his (or her) plate already.

What's more, making them above level 1 would be a nightmare, because you have to balance what monsters they've encountered, absorbed, and defeated, all without them actually doing it. You can't have them just cherry-picking the best abilities of all the CR-appropriate monsters in any book, because it's not reasonable to assume that they fought exactly the monsters they wanted to (it's not like an MMO, where you can say "hey guys, let's go farm some imps!"), but trying to balance what they did and didn't fight is, well, difficult.

I say this as a big fan of the concept. If a truly viable Blue Mage were to show up, one that was not only balanced in its abilities but also didn't place all that extra work on the GM, I'd gladly acknowledge it and even try to play one. (Granted, I'd make him a Warforged and play him like Mega Man rather than a Final Fantasy blue mage, but that's just me.)

[Goatman_Ted]

If you want telekinesis, you don't get it unless you happen to face someone with telekinesis.
But since this isn't a video game, the Blue Mage has many many more options.

Like paying a Wizard to cast Telekinesis on him (that's what, 450 gp for a 5th level spell known?)

A lack of power is not going to be an issue with any interpretation of this class. (But I recommend holding a limit on the number of spells known per level. Unearthed Arcana's Generic Spellcaster (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm#spellcaster) is probably a good guideline for this.)

[Fastmover]

(Granted, I'd make him a Warforged and play him like Mega Man rather than a Final Fantasy blue mage, but that's just me.)
Awesome.


I do understand what you are saying. Then how could we fix that then? Make the spells dumbed down to his character level casting level? What would you propose the limits to be?

[Zaq]

But since this isn't a video game, the Blue Mage has many many more options.

Like paying a Wizard to cast Telekinesis on him (that's what, 450 gp for a 5th level spell known?)

A lack of power is not going to be an issue with any interpretation of this class. (But I recommend holding a limit on the number of spells known per level. Unearthed Arcana's Generic Spellcaster (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm#spellcaster) is probably a good guideline for this.)

In that case, what makes the Blue Mage different from a sorcerer with a more roundabout way of acquiring spells known? You basically end up with an arcane Archivist... which is okay, I suppose, but not really that interesting.

Another issue I didn't think to bring up is the concept of what hoops the blue mage has to jump through to learn a spell. Does he have to see it? Does he have to be hit by it and survive? Does he have to be hit by it and successfully save against it? The most reasonable from a D&D standpoint is probably that he has to see it, but even this most permissive of spell acquisition methods limits the way combat has to go if the Blue Mage is going to be happy. Think about playing a Blue Mage in a video game... once you find the monster you want, you basically have to stall until it deigns to cast the proper spell (and sometimes on the proper target), right? In D&D that's not a viable option. You can almost never afford to just toy with your enemy (particularly a spellcasting enemy!) until it does what you want it to do, let alone convince your party to do so. If you blitzkrieg an enemy (ambush, first-turn nova, etc.), you won't get their spells, but that's often the best way of taking care of things. You never want to let the enemy cast his or her big guns if you can help it, but the blue mage needs exactly that.

Furthermore, what if the enemy simply wouldn't use the desired spell in that scenario? Even if a dragon knows the Earthquake spell, if you encounter it in a cave, it's unlikely to use it. (That's perhaps an extreme example, but I think it gets the point across.) If you're trying to accommodate a blue mage, you have to seriously revise the monsters' tactics, either mercilessly using every spell in their arsenal immediately (often tactically unsound, kind of harsh on a lot of parties, but makes the blue mage happy) or shafting the blue mage if they monster dies before the desired spell is cast. Just about the only thing I can think of is pairing up with an enchantment-focused wizard and mind-controlling the monsters into using exactly what you want them to use, but that has its own special problems. Not to mention that if you need to have a specific other role in the party for a class to work, that class is not a very good idea.

I took it for granted that any D&D blue mage would have, like the spellthief, a level-based restriction on the highest level abilities they could learn. That, unfortunately, is the least of the problems.

[Claudius Maximus]

If you intend to get abilities from monsters, keep in mind that some of them would be ridiculous to give to a PC. You'll run into the same problems as with Assume Supernatural Ability and Shapechange, namely that there are monster abilities that were never designed for PCs to use. The GM will have to consider every monster from the perspective of whether its abilities are appropriate for the Blue Mage. If you decide not to allow the assimilation of monster abilities, then it isn't much of a Blue Mage. You'll end up with what amounts to a Spellthief.

It's a cool concept, but it would be a nightmare to balance for D&D, and way too much work for the GM.

[deuxhero]

Isn't there an offical (but completly unrelated) class called "blue mage"? I think it was a dual progression class for something, I recall seeing a handbook on gleemax's optimization board.

[wadledo]

I thought you were talking about the 3rd party product Nymphology for a sec there. >_>

Me too.
Fun book, fuuuuuuuun book.

[Yuki Akuma]

Perhaps the best way to make a Blue Mage class would be to give him a list of "spells" for each level that he learns by having similar abilities used on him.

So if he gets targetted with any sort of fire attack, he learns the Blue Magic spell "Dragon's Breath" or something. If he gets healed, he learns "White Wind", no matter what the healing spell was. And so on.

[Goatman_Ted]

Isn't there an offical (but completly unrelated) class called "blue mage"? I think it was a dual progression class for something, I recall seeing a handbook on gleemax's optimization board.

Maybe Sapphire Hierarch?

The only result I've gotten on a google search of gleemax is the Blue Mage homebrew Siosilvar linked.

[Haven]

If you intend to get abilities from monsters, keep in mind that some of them would be ridiculous to give to a PC. You'll run into the same problems as with Assume Supernatural Ability and Shapechange, namely that there are monster abilities that were never designed for PCs to use. The GM will have to consider every monster from the perspective of whether its abilities are appropriate for the Blue Mage. If you decide not to allow the assimilation of monster abilities, then it isn't much of a Blue Mage. You'll end up with what amounts to a Spellthief.

It's a cool concept, but it would be a nightmare to balance for D&D, and way too much work for the GM.

Well, in the original games, there was a limited list of spells learnable by Blue Mages. So the DM would be within his rights to say "You can't learn this one."

Although I think Blue Mage would work best as a prestige class for balance reasons. In FFV you had other class abilities you could use, in FFVI Strago could still learn magic from magicite, in FFVII it was just another Materia ability, and in other games it's a secondary function of a character's abilities. All these cases ensure that the character can still do something besides blue magic. Which is good design, because blue magic is reliant on chance/fiat otherwise; I think a D&D blue mage should follow through with that idea, and the best way to do it would be to see that they had gotten a few levels beforehand.

[Yuki Akuma]

Alternatively, make him like the wizard - he gains one or two free spells when he levels up, and has to learn the rest.

[monty]

Me too.
Fun book, fuuuuuuuun book.

I've always wanted to play a Mystic Pimp, just so I can walk into the room and announce that I'm going to play a Mystic Pimp. Also, Power Word: Orgasm. Just Power Word: Orgasm.

[Ravens_cry]

I've always wanted to play a Mystic Pimp, just so I can walk into the room and announce that I'm going to play a Mystic Pimp. Also, Power Word: Orgasm. Just Power Word: Orgasm.
Sounds. . .sticky.:smallamused:

[Waspinator]

If 8-Bit Theater has taught me anything, it's that blue magic is not very good.

[monty]

If 8-Bit Theater has taught me anything, it's that blue magic is not very good.

He hit you with a spell that hurts you. So you learned a spell that hurts you. What did you expect?

...or something like that, anyway. I'm working from memory here.

[Waspinator]

Basically, yes:
http://www.nuklearpower.com/2006/04/27/episode-688-an-honest-opinion/
http://www.nuklearpower.com/2006/04/29/episode-689-backfire/
http://www.nuklearpower.com/2006/05/02/episode-690-practical-magic/