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View Full Version : [3.5 Revision] The Warmage (PEACH)



DeAnno
2011-07-19, 03:39 PM
The Warmage has long been a much maligned class, for a number of reasons. Though it gets full spellcasting, its spell list is extremely limited even for players looking to play blaster almost exclusively. The Advanced learning feature does little to help, as the Evocation school is among the most limited in the game and the Warmage list already contains spells which fill many of the niches found there. To add insult to injury, the Warmage suffers from the same delayed spell progression as the Sorcerer, getting his spell levels one level later than a full prepared caster does.

The fluff of the Warmage indicates it's intended to be an effective blaster; less versatile than a Wizard or even a Sorcerer, but better at his niche role of direct magical offense. This currently is clearly not the case, as a Wizard or Sorcerer built for the purposes of direct magical offense has many and sundry means to utterly outclass a Warmage. This revision to the Warmage class intends to put it on at least an even footing with such optimized blasters with a mixture of brute force and base robbery.

I will intersperse additional commentary after the class features, explaining the reasoning behind them. The class as a whole may seem quite powerful, but remember it is rather less versatile than even most Tier 2 classes, and seeks to be able to strongly contribute to every combat situation even if its utility potential is more limited.

The Warmage
{table=head]Level|BAB|Base Fort|Base Ref|Base Will|Class Features|0th|1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th|6th|7th|8th|9th

1st|
+0|
+0|
+2|
+2|Warmage Edge +1, Armored Mage (Light)|5|4|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

2nd|
+1|
+0|
+3|
+3|Advanced Learning, Warmage Eye|6|5|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

3rd|
+2|
+1|
+3|
+3|Bonus Metamagic Feat|6|5|4|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

4th|
+3|
+1|
+4|
+4|Advanced Learning|7|6|5|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

5th|
+3|
+1|
+4|
+4|Rapid Metamagic|7|6|5|4|-|-|-|-|-|-

6th|
+4|
+2|
+5|
+5|Advanced Learning|8|7|6|5|-|-|-|-|-|-

7th|
+5|
+2|
+5|
+5|Warmage Edge +2|8|7|6|5|4|-|-|-|-|-

8th|
+6/+1|
+2|
+6|
+6|Advanced Learning, Armored Mage (Medium)|8|8|7|6|5|-|-|-|-|-

9th|
+6/+1|
+3|
+6|
+6|Bonus Metamagic Feat|8|8|7|6|5|4|-|-|-|-

10th|
+7/+2|
+3|
+7|
+7|Advanced Learning, Warmage Eye|8|8|8|7|6|5|-|-|-|-

11th|
+8/+3|
+3|
+7|
+7|Arcane Fusion|8|8|8|7|6|5|4|-|-|-

12th|
+9/+4|
+4|
+8|
+8|Advanced Learning|8|8|8|8|7|6|5|-|-|-

13th|
+9/+4|
+4|
+8|
+8|Warmage Edge +3|8|8|8|8|7|6|5|4|-|-

14th|
+10/+5|
+4|
+9|
+9|Advanced Learning|8|8|8|8|8|7|6|5|-|-

15th|
+11/+6/+1|
+5|
+9|
+9|Bonus Metamagic Feat|8|8|8|8|8|7|6|5|4|-

16th|
+12/+7/+2|
+5|
+10|
+10|Advanced Learning|8|8|8|8|8|8|7|6|5|-

17th|
+12/+7/+2|
+5|
+10|
+10|Greater Arcane Fusion|8|8|8|8|8|8|7|6|5|4

18th|
+13/+8/+3|
+6|
+11|
+11|Advanced Learning, Warmage Eye|8|8|8|8|8|8|8|7|6|5

19th|
+14/+9/+4|
+6|
+11|
+11|Warmage Edge +4|8|8|8|8|8|8|8|8|8|6

20th|
+15/+10/+5|
+6|
+12|
+12|Advanced Learning, Spellstorm|8|8|8|8|8|8|8|8|8|8[/table]

Warmage Base Spell List: As presented in Complete Arcane, Charisma is still used for Bonus Spells and Save DCs

HD and Skills: As presented in Complete Arcane (d6, 2+Int)

Comments

Here the Warmage gets Medium BAB and a Good Reflex Save in addition to Will. The Warmage is focused on blasting, and has little in the way of resources to buff itself, so it should get at least a Medium BAB. Since even this Warmage will have far less in the way of defensive options than other full casters, an extra good save is some partial compensation.

The Warmage also gets Wizard spell level progression and a whole ton of spell slots. His spells might not have wide breadth, but he can cast them as well or better than anyone else and he gets a whole ton of them to cast.


Warmage Edge (Ex): Whenever a Warmage casts a Warmage spell that deals dice of hit point damage, he deals extra damage per die equal to his intelligence bonus or the value of his Warmage Edge, whichever is less. A Warmage's Warmage Edge starts at +1 at first level and increases by one every six levels thereafter.

Comments

Warmage Edge is pretty much completely revamped here, as the previous version was insignificant to any Blaster worth anything. This strong scaling feature really means Warmage spells have a lot more punch than normal. Standard Xd6 spells will be doing more than double damage at level 20, making blasting as a means of killing monsters much more practical and helping the Warmage keep up with the huge amounts of damage usually output by optimized melee characters.


Armored Mage (Ex): As presented in Complete Arcane

Advanced Learning (Ex): At 2nd level and every even level thereafter, a Warmage can add spells on the sorcerer/wizard spell list to his spells known with total spell levels equal to half his Warmage level. For the purposes of this class feature, 0th level spells count as having a spell level of 1/2. These spells are treated as Warmage spells for the purpose of all the Warmage's other class features.

For example, at level 6, a Warmage gets 3 levels of spells to learn. He could learn Fly, a third level spell, or both See Invisibility and Mage Armor, 2nd and 1st level spells respectively.

Comments

This is a much more flexible Advanced learning feature, giving the Warmage one spell of his choice per spell level or equivalent. He will still find himself making very hard choices and with a limited spell list, but with this he can grab some spells to help his blasting, his mobility, his defenses, or his utility.


Warmage Eye (Ex): At 2nd level and every eight levels thereafter, a Warmage gets a +1 bonus to his Warmage spell attack rolls (melee and ranged), his Warmage spell save DCs, or his caster level checks for Warmage Spells. Each time a Warmage gains the Warmage Eye feature, he may choose to increase one of these bonuses by a further +1 or to choose a new bonus.

Comments

This is a relatively minor accuracy feature designed to complement the powerful Warmage Edge damage feature and let the Warmage specialize to a small degree in what types of spells he likes to cast.


Bonus Metamagic Feat: At 3rd level and once every six levels thereafter, a Warmage gains a bonus metamagic feat.

Comments

This is a thematic replacement for the Sudden Metamagic feats the old Warmage got. If he doesn't want to mess around with lots of metamagic he can just take sudden feats, but if he'd rather do a lot of metamagic this will be helpful.


Rapid Metamagic (Su): At 5th level, a Warmage can add metamagic feats he knows to Warmage spells without increasing the casting time. He can do this a number of times per day equal to twice his intelligence bonus.

Comments

This is similar to the Sorcerer ACF, and makes life a little easier for Warmages using metamagic regularly.


Arcane Fusion (Su): At 11th level, a Warmage can cast two Warmage spells with one full-round action. He expends one spell slot of a level equal to the sum of the levels of both spells to cast both spells, and chooses the order in which to resolve them. Neither of the spells cast with Arcane Fusion may have a casting time longer than one full-round action, and metamagic feats may be applied to either individual spell but not the entire Arcane Fusion. He must pay all costs associated with both spells and any components (Verbal, Somatic, Material, or otherwise) required by the spells must be used. He can do this a number of times per day equal to his intelligence bonus.

For example, an 11th level Warmage could spend a 6th level spell slot and a full-round action to Orb of Cold and Enlarged Magic Missile. He can resolve the spells in whatever order he likes, and does not expend a 2nd level or 4th level spell slot to cast the spells.

Greater Arcane Fusion (Su): At 17th level, a Warmage can cast up to three Warmage spells with one full-round action. This works like the Arcane Fusion ability, except that the Warmage may choose up to three spells and cast them by expending a spell slot with level equal to the sum of the three spell levels. He can do this a number of times per day equal to his intelligence bonus.

Comments

The Arcane Fusion features let the Warmage break the action economy, which is something successful blasters should be able to do. The blaster Sorcerer gets a lot of mileage out of the Arcane Fusion spells in Complete Mage, and being a class dedicated to blasting the Warmage gets a more versatile version of the same. Note that a full-round action is required for both of these; this makes them rather at odds with the most popular action economy breaker, Celerity, which only provides a standard action. The Quick Recovery method of getting out of Celerity's daze is also incompatible with this feature, as it requires a move action.

In general, the full-round action isn't intended to be that much of a burden to these powerful features, but does at least force the Warmage to stand in place or figure out some eceletic means of transportation if he wants to use this effect.


Spellstorm (Su): At 20th level, once per day a Warmage can cast a whole lot of spells at once. As a full-round action, he can cast any number of spells with total spell levels up to 10 + his intelligence bonus. For the purposes of this class feature, 0th level spells count as having a spell level of 1/2. He does not need to expend any spell slots to do so, but must pay all costs associated with the spells and any components (Verbal, Somatic, Material, or otherwise) required by the spells must be used.

Comments

The Capstone is capable of outputting unbelievable tons of unbelivableness, but it's 20th level and only once per day.


Comments are welcome, and if people think the features are way too strong I'll tone them down. Remember this is intended to compete with optimized blasting builds from other classes though, and that it takes such significant penalties from PRCing out that it won't pick up a lot of the tricks those builds do. Also remember that this Warmage is suffers from serious MAD: his class features key strongly off Int, his spells key off Cha, if he wants to make Melee/Ranged Touch Attacks he wants Str/Dex, and with his d6 HD he probably wants some Con too if he doesn't want to be extremely frail.

gkathellar
2011-07-19, 05:56 PM
I'd expand the native spell list and maybe limit Advanced Learning a little. As is, it's maybe low Tier 3, high Tier 4 (all good), but I'm sure you can twink Advanced Learning to get at least one game breaker out of the package and step up to Tier 2.