Mage Knight 3.5 /Pathfinder

[Anderlith]

Hi playground, sorry if this is the wrong place. Idc exactly where to put this thread.

For the world I'm making, I wanted to have a faction of magic users, who were knights. They would fill in the role of the medieval knight. (A hard hitting, mobile soldier, who was supposed to be noble & virtuous) The are diplomats, nobility, & warfighter all in one. They don't need to wear armor I guess, I don't know whether they should or not. But they would have a uniform of some kind. They would follow a code of conduct. (Not exactly like the paladin, more like the Knight class) They would not be particularly melee types. Gishes should be an option but most of them would only have training in swords & simple weapons. Their focus on magic would be based on any spell that can blow stuff up, hinder the enemies movement, debuff the enemy, or buff themselves. Anything that seems likely to be something for the battlefield.

I don't know if it is possible to kludge this together from existing classes & feats, or if I should craft a specific Archetype to an existing class, or just homebrew the whole thing, or make a prestige class that does it.

This would be in Pathfinder/ 3.5. Please ask me questions or give advice me & my group would me thankful ;)

[ThiagoMartell]

Sounds like you want the Magus (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus).

[Anderlith]

The magus is great for a gish in a can. But I was hoping for more of a militant wizard than a spellsword. If you've ever seen Full Metal Alchemist, the State Alchemists are more of the vibe I'm going for. Sorry if I don't make any sense

[ThiagoMartell]

The magus is great for a gish in a can. But I was hoping for more of a militant wizard than a spellsword. If you've ever seen Full Metal Alchemist, the State Alchemists are more of the vibe I'm going for. Sorry if I don't make any sense

Magus seems fine for State Alchemists to me, but if you want more wizardry... well, go Wizard. You can get them proficiency with swords through feats/traits/racial features. If you want less combat prowess than a Magus, I think what you want is a wizard proficient in swords.

[Seharvepernfan]

For a campaign I worked on a few years ago, I had plans to design the king's royal guards/knight-errants to be gishes. I was thinking along the lines of eldritch knights (which is probably what you want) - who wore enchanted clothes that were 1/day items of mage armor and shield. I also considered making a new spell that summons an actual suit of armor for a short time (think the mythic dawn from oblivion).
I also intended them to ride flying mounts - I was thinking Pegasi since they were also supposed to be liasons to an adjacent elven realm.

The thing is, there isn't much reason to be skilled in both melee *and* magic, unless you are combining them like a bladesinger or a spellsword (or duskblade). You could use warmage as well. Yeah, they'd probably want a way to keep fighting once they run out of spells, but these guys aren't exactly going to shine in melee without spells, if you aren't going with at least magus.

I think eldritch knight is what you want, just be aware that they aren't stellar in combat without having buffing spells up (spells that aren't going to be used on other things).

[Andreaz]

It really looks like you're just adding up wiz and something else. A gestalt would do the job.

Otherwise you mostly just need to refluff hybrid classes. Runesmiths, abjurant champions, phantom knights.

[Sayt]

Current backup-build I have for campaign is roughly: Fighter 1/Wizard 4/Runesmith 1/Eldritch Knight 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Eldritch Knight 10

A bit clumsy, but 18 spell levels, 17 BAB, which I think should be okay.

[Diarmuid]

What about warmages? They're pretty much "militant wizards", but heavily focused on blasting.

Your other option would be to create your own PrC. If these guys are pretty badarse, you wouldnt want level 1 people in their ranks and with a set of requirements, the builds for actual members could vary enough for some nice range of characters in this group.

[Feralventas]

1) Magic user.
2) Knights (Follow code of conduct, swears alliance to a Feudal Lord of some sort)
3) Armor use prefered, but not demanded.
4) Ability to act in social situations.
5) Ability to damage cast, or buff, or debuff.
6) Focus on simple weapons.


Honestly, you can do all of this with a standard generalist wizard. Sorcerer might make it easier to handle the charisma-skill and then use a celestial bloodline as a reason for their assembly; their heritage calls them all to the order started by one of a few celestial progenitors of their respective families.

However, you can also do this well with a Bard. Dervish Dancer out of Ultimate Combat does this Very well, and with 3.5 abilities like Snowflake War Dance you can easily have a +20 or so to hit before Power Attack at around 8th to 10th level.

The prestige classes Abjurant Champion and Holy Scourge might also fit you; the former is a fighter/mage that uses magic in place of armor or defenses, and can use it's BAB as its caster level after 5 levels. Holy Scourge is designed for Paladin/Casters and focuses on smiting with spells.

[Quellian-dyrae]

How about just Human Sorcerer (Imperious Bloodline) with the Adoptive Parentage (Elf) Alternate Racial Trait. Sorcerer gives you the spells (and Human Favored Class bonus means you get a good number), Imperious Bloodline gives some social skills and nice improvements to buff spells, Adoptive Parentage gets you sword (and bow) proficiency.

Actually, if I'm reading it right, that Heroic Echo ability would be great for a knightly order, since if they receive a multi-target buff, it looks like they can each increase the bonus by one for all affected allies. Drop a Bless spell on a team of them and they can actually hit with their swords.

[Anderlith]

How about just Human Sorcerer (Imperious Bloodline) with the Adoptive Parentage (Elf) Alternate Racial Trait. Sorcerer gives you the spells (and Human Favored Class bonus means you get a good number), Imperious Bloodline gives some social skills and nice improvements to buff spells, Adoptive Parentage gets you sword (and bow) proficiency.

Actually, if I'm reading it right, that Heroic Echo ability would be great for a knightly order, since if they receive a multi-target buff, it looks like they can each increase the bonus by one for all affected allies. Drop a Bless spell on a team of them and they can actually hit with their swords.

Thanks for pointing this out. I think I'll be grafting this onto a wizard though but only because I want prepared casting. Thanks for the help