[3.5] Base Class: Mystic PEACH

[Madfellow]

Hey, so this is my first time posting a homebrew idea. Basically, I wanted a spellcaster that lower-tier classes would be able to compete with effectively, and that would also be versatile, flavorful, and easy to play. I like the Warlock, but it's not versatile enough. So I present:


The Mystic

Mystics approach their craft from a number of different avenues. Some are arcane scholars, some are preachers of divine teachings, and others are naturally gifted with magical talent. But what they all share in common is their specialized methodology for spellcasting. A Mystic has learned an alternative casting technique for their spells, one that is far quicker and less taxing. A Mystic can cast their spells spontaneously, and can cast them as many times per day as they please without growing tired. However, this technique requires intense study and can only be applied to a handful of spells, so Mystics learn their spells slowly.

Abilities: When you create a mystic, you decide which of the 3 mental ability scores will serve as your casting stat; either intelligence, wisdom, or charisma. Aside from that ability, dexterity and constitution are useful abilities for any character.

Alignment: A mystic can be of any alignment, but they lean more toward law than chaos. Mystical spellcasting requires a disciplined mind.

Hit Die: d6
Starting Age: as cleric
Starting Gold: as cleric

{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special|Spells Known|Max Spell Lvl
1st|+0|+0|+0|+2|Summon Familiar|2|1st
2nd|+1|+0|+0|+3||3|1st
3rd|+1|+1|+1|+3|Spell Secret|3|1st
4th|+2|+1|+1|+4||4|2nd
5th|+2|+1|+1|+4||4|2nd
6th|+3|+2|+2|+5|Spell Secret|5|2nd
7th|+3|+2|+2|+5||5|2nd
8th|+4|+2|+2|+6||6|3rd
9th|+4|+3|+3|+6|Spell Secret|6|3rd
10th|+5|+3|+3|+7||7|3rd
11th|+5|+3|+3|+7||7|3rd
12th|+6/+1|+4|+4|+8|Spell Secret|8|4th
13th|+6/+1|+4|+4|+8||8|4th
14th|+7/+2|+4|+4|+9||9|4th
15th|+7/+2|+5|+5|+9|Spell Secret|9|4th
16th|+8/+3|+5|+5|+10||10|5th
17th|+8/+3|+5|+5|+10||10|5th
18th|+9/+4|+6|+6|+11|Spell Secret|11|5th
19th|+9/+4|+6|+6|+11||11|5th
20th|+10/+5|+6|+6|+12||12|6th
[/table]

Class Skills: Concentration, Craft, Knowledge (Arcana and Religion), Profession, Spellcraft, and Use Magic Device

The Mystic gains additional class skills based on which ability was chosen as the casting stat, as follows:

Int: All Knowledges
Wis: Search, Spot, Listen, Sense Motive, Heal
Cha: Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Speak Language

Skill Points: 2 per level (+Int, x4 at level 1)

Proficiencies: The Mystic is proficient with simple weapons and light armor, and can cast arcane spells in light armor without invoking a spell failure chance.

Spell Secret: The Mystic gains spell secrets as a Wu Jen of the same level. If a Mystic gives up access to a spell that has a spell secret applied to it (in exchange for a spell of higher level), s/he may apply a new spell secret to another spell s/he knows.

Spells: If intelligence or charisma was chosen as the casting stat, the Mystic's spells are considered arcane. If wisdom was chosen, they are divine.

The Mystic draws its list of available spells from the Cleric's domain spells list. It learns one spell at each even-numbered level, plus two additional spells at level 1. It cannot learn a spells of 2nd level or higher unless it already knows another spell of lower level in the same domain. Any time a Mystic learns a spell, it can also choose to give up one spell it already knows for an additional new spell.

It begins the game with access to 0th and 1st-level spells. It gains access to 2nd-level spells at level 4, 3rd-level spells at level 8, 4th-level spells at level 12, 5th-level spells at level 16 and 6th-level spells at level 20. It never gains access to 7th, 8th, or 9th-level spells. The Mystic can cast any spell it knows at will, without requiring preparation or extended rest.


So there you have it. Thanks for taking a look. Please Examine And Critique Honestly. :smallsmile:

[bobthe6th]

Their was a reason warlocks are the way they are. This can be broken three ways to sunday. first, what is the spell list? is there a spell list? wizard/sorc is what I am going to asume...
2 2nd level spells at will first level... summon swarm and web, conjurition. you win until say level 2, but you got acid arrow so you win some more. by four it's a bit weak, but you get fog cloud and you win even more.

[Madfellow]

I thought warlocks were (relatively) underpowered. I didn't have any specific spell list in mind. Just any spell that fits the selected school is available. Now when you say "win," do you mean overpowered or just competitive?

[bobthe6th]

warlocks are underpowered in that they lack versatility, not really that they are weak. they can do 1-2 things really well, the rest of the time they are mediocre. they are a walking definition for T4.

now this takes that a step further. you are god at 1-2 things within your specialization, but anything even slightly off build is non existent.

there are ways to do what you want, you just aren't doing them. you could give the warlock more invocations, write more invocations, make a new magic system like invocations that does what you want... ect...

[Madfellow]

Well invocations are basically spells with a different name.

[bobthe6th]

...and modifications to work as at will abilaties. Really summon swarm and the dead walk are the only straight spells that I can think of.

Other ideas to get what you want(I.e. versatilaty).
*mess with the fluff. Just change it to any archetype you want.
*give afcs to spice up the class
*give them a pool of points to apply meta magic feats to their invocations

[Madfellow]

afcs? What's that?

[bobthe6th]

oop, ACFs... I always type them as AFCs though, for no good reason.

an Alternative Class Feature replaces some of a classes abilities with different abilaties. so a wizard ACF might replace the scribe scroll feat at first level with augemnt summoning for a conjoror, or the familiar with a skeliton for a necromancer. a fighter ACF might replace bonus feats with a sneak attack progression, or with weaker psiwar casting.

[Madfellow]

Ah. Thanks.

Hmm... How about this: Whenever the Mystic gains access to a new level of spells, it also gains access to a new school?

[bobthe6th]

how about domains like a ardent(ComPsi, near the front)?
make up lists of 7-8 spells, the mystic grabs spells of lists he can access getting more as he levels.

[Madfellow]

I suppose something like that could work. I do like the Ardent.

[Madfellow]

And just to point out something that you may have missed, it doesn't start with 2 spells known, just one. It learns 12 spells total.

[bobthe6th]

...that would be so boring for a while. really, give them options. making them one trick ponies is just cruel.

[PersonMan]

My boy, this thread is what all true non-table-makers strive for. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=205677)

Your class, now in a format that will attract more readers:


{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special|Maximum Spell Level | Spells Known

1st|+0|+0|+0|+2| |2|1|

2nd|+1|+0|+0|+3||2|2|

3rd|+1|+1|+1|+3| |2|2|

4th|+2|+1|+1|+4|New School |3|3|

5th|+2|+1|+1|+4| |3|3|

6th|+3|+2|+2|+5||3|4|

7th|+3|+2|+2|+5| |3|4|

8th|+4|+2|+2|+6|New School |4|5|

9th|+4|+3|+3|+6| |4|5|

10th|+5|+3|+3|+7||4|6|

11th|+5|+3|+3|+7||4|7|

12th|+6/+1|+4|+4|+8|New School |5|8|

13th|+6/+1|+4|+4|+8| |5|8|

14th|+7/+2|+4|+4|+9| |5|9|

15th|+7/+2|+5|+5|+9| |5|9|

16th|+8/+3|+5|+5|+10|New School |6|10|

17th|+8/+3|+5|+5|+10| |6|10|

18th|+9/+4|+6|+6|+11| |6|11|

19th|+9/+4|+6|+6|+11| |6|11|

20th|+10/+5|+6|+6|+12| |6|12|
[/table]

As for the actual class, it seems...well, it can be broken boths ways depending on your spells. It's sort of like a sorcerer turned up to 11: spell selection is incredibly important, because if you choose badly you can get screwed over for life. It also has the problem of having no class features, so Mystics will probably PrC out as soon as possible.

I think doing an Ardent-like thing would be a good idea.

[Madfellow]

Hey, thanks a lot. I'll do a little work and post something later.

[Noctis Vigil]

Hmm. Looks crunchy. Still pretty weak, though. I'd boost the spells known, simply because he only gets up to 6th level, and you have to learn the spells from each domain in order, meaning you have to specialize heavily over a lot of levels currently to be good at something. Not that this is bad per se, but you get at most one 6th level spell right now. Now feel free to ignore me, but I made some edits to your base here, and put some comments to ask some basic questions that absolutely need answering.

{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Spells Known|Maximum Spell Level
1st|+0|+0|+0|+2|3|1
2nd|+1|+0|+0|+3|4|1
3rd|+1|+1|+1|+3|4|1
4th|+2|+1|+1|+4|5|2
5th|+2|+1|+1|+4|6|2
6th|+3|+2|+2|+5|6|2
7th|+3|+2|+2|+5|7|2
8th|+4|+2|+2|+6|8|3
9th|+4|+3|+3|+6|8|3
10th|+5|+3|+3|+7|9|3
11th|+5|+3|+3|+7|10|3
12th|+6/+1|+4|+4|+8|10|4
13th|+6/+1|+4|+4|+8|11|4
14th|+7/+2|+4|+4|+9|12|4
15th|+7/+2|+5|+5|+9|12|4
16th|+8/+3|+5|+5|+10|13|5
17th|+8/+3|+5|+5|+10|14|5
18th|+9/+4|+6|+6|+11|14|5
19th|+9/+4|+6|+6|+11|15|5
20th|+10/+5|+6|+6|+12|16|6[/table]

OK, table got edited to give him a few more spells per day; frankly, since he mostly has spells of 5th level and below, I'd raise this more, and possibly work out a less...unorthodox scaling mechanism. Now we hit some of your other stuff...


Class Skills: The Mystic's class skills are dependent on which ability score was chosen as the casting stat. If intelligence was chosen, all abilities that rely on intelligence are considered class skills. The same applies to wisdom and charisma.
Skill Points: 2 per level (+Int, x4 at level 1)

This. This needs to be redone. You're only giving him skills based off what stat he chooses? That's like 5 skills for Wis or Cha, or 3-14 for Int depending on how you count individual Knowledge checks. He needs a fully fledged skill list to be playable. I'd suggest a flat list of things he has as skills (Concentration, Craft, a couple of Knowledges, Profession, Spellcraft, possibly Use Magic Device), and then a list of maybe 3-5 skills for each cater stat choice. Some suggestions:

Int: All Knowledges and Gather Information
Wis: Search, Spot, Listen, Sense Motive, Heal
Cha: Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Speak Language


Proficiencies: The Mystic is proficient with simple weapons and light armor, and can cast arcane spells in light armor without invoking a spell failure chance.

You should note that spell failure chance only occurs at all if they chose Int or Cha based casting; Wis based will not, because divine magic has no spell failure chance.


Spells: If intelligence or charisma was chosen as the casting stat, the Mystic's spells are considered arcane. If wisdom was chosen, they are divine.

The Mystic draws its list of available spells from the Cleric's domain spells list. It learns one spell at each even-numbered level, plus two additional spells at level 1. It cannot learn a spells of 2nd level or higher unless it already knows another spell of lower level in the same domain. Any time a Mystic learns a spell, it can also choose to give up a spell it already knows for an additional new spell.

It begins the game with access to 0th and 1st-level spells. It gains access to 2nd-level spells at level 4, 3rd-level spells at level 8, 4th-level spells at level 12, 5th-level spells at level 16 and 6th-level spells at level 20. It never gains access to 7th, 8th, or 9th-level spells. The Mystic can cast any spell it knows at will, without requiring preparation or extended rest.

You need to start by stating some basic things, such as caster level and save DCs. You also need to specify whether it can change old spells out for new spells of higher level or not; as written, it could drop three level one spells when it levels up and get a three level three spells instead. Also, it doesn't know any 0 level spells, because it can only access domains, and domains have no level 0 spells. Finally, you need to state whether it casts spells at full normal casting time and cost (I'd assume it does, but it never hurts to say it).

The last thing this bad boy needs is fluff and class abilities! Seriously, even if all you do is give him access to the domain granted powers, he needs something more. As he is now, I'd say he's not as good as the Warlock, simply because the Warlock is so much more flavorful and has a bunch of cool abilities on top of his invocations (eldritch blast, fast healing, craft anything at level 14, damage reduction, detect magic at will). Give this guy some utility. Spells are all fine and dandy, but with only a fistful of them (even at will), he's going to basically be a one-trick pony, even worse than the Warlock.

Hope this helps, and I look forward to your further edits! :smallsmile:

[Madfellow]

Alright, made a couple edits.