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View Full Version : 4 casters. help please! (3.5)



lunar2
2012-11-19, 03:31 PM
so, i want to split the casters up by spell schools. each casting class would get 2 schools + universal spells + a few thematically appropriate spells of other schools.

beguiler already covers enchantment and illusion. I'd remove the trapfinding and armored mage (rogues are around, and trapfinding is their thing), and replace advanced learning with eclectic learning. the slight loss of class features would be balanced by the much larger spell list, since they are getting all of the enchantments and illusions. note that fear spell will either be moved to enchantment, or become dual school with enchantment, depending on the nature of the individual spell.

the summoner would cover conjuration and divination magic. note that creation is getting moved to evocation, and healing is getting moved to necromancy. i'm thinking the summoner should have the druid ACF elemental companion, the Wu jen's watchful spirit, and the barbarian ACF view the spirit world.

the Varius is necromancy and transmutation. I'm thinking the dread necromancer's charnel touch and scabrous touch abilities, and the warlock ACF venomous blood (references to eldritch blast would instead indicate ray spells).

and finally, the warmage gets abjuration and evocation. change advanced learning to eclectic learning is, i think, all i need for this one.

alright, some general notes. all casting is arcane and charisma based. all casters get detect magic and dispel magic (but not greater dispel magic, break enchantment, etc.). they all have a D4 HD, 1/2 BAB, and good will saves. spells per day as sorcerer

alter self, polymorph, shapechange, etc. are gone. calling spells are heavily restricted. you essentially have to either personally know the creature you are calling, or know their truename. truename, in this case, does not reference tome of magic, but is merely a formula used with the calling spell to correctly identify a creature. attempting to call a creature without its truename works like a teleport spell. you have a chance of success based on how well you know the creature. a mishap indicates you accidentally call another creature of the same kind, that is not bound by the spell, and so can act as it normally would.

so, what does the playground think? they obviously need some work, but are they too strong, or too weak? i'm aiming for T3 here, btw.

bobthe6th
2012-11-19, 03:46 PM
rebalencing the schools will be a pain, just saying. If you want to do it, your a braver man then I Gunngadin.

I do aprove of making all casting charisma based, as that is the most common dump stat. Also the spells you seem to plan on moving seem like good choices.

If you are giving full schools, I would recommend taking all spells in circulation, and parsing them down for each class. Then remove some entirely, and the rest can be targets for eclectic learning.

I would say charnel touch isn't that great... infinite healing out of combat. Unless you make in combat healing effective(a worthy goal) the point of all other healing will be lost. If you want all your players to be at max HP for each encounter without spending resources, perhapce let it deal damage or grant an amount of temp hp dependent on level that evaporate after an amount of time.

One thing I have to recommend is this great conversion of vancian to psionic casting (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=194002). Psionic make more sense, and are more balanced then vanican casting.

ngilop
2012-11-19, 03:54 PM
so, i want to split the casters up by spell schools. each casting class would get 2 schools + universal spells + a few thematically appropriate spells of other schools.

beguiler already covers enchantment and illusion. I'd remove the trapfinding and armored mage (rogues are around, and trapfinding is their thing), and replace advanced learning with eclectic learning. the slight loss of class features would be balanced by the much larger spell list, since they are getting all of the enchantments and illusions. note that fear spell will either be moved to enchantment, or become dual school with enchantment, depending on the nature of the individual spell.

Sounds good, I approve!


the summoner would cover conjuration and divination magic. note that creation is getting moved to evocation, and healing is getting moved to necromancy. i'm thinking the summoner should have the druid ACF elemental companion, the Wu jen's watchful spirit, and the barbarian ACF view the spirit world.

I would Actually give divination to another that iw ill touch on later, as conjuration is just a bit incredibly powerful and in regards with the spell schoosl the only other one that comes close is Transmutation. The barb ACF is an idea that has never occured to me before, that is very interesting.


the Varius is necromancy and transmutation. I'm thinking the dread necromancer's charnel touch and scabrous touch abilities, and the warlock ACF venomous blood (references to eldritch blast would instead indicate ray spells).

I was worried about thisd untill i saw that you removed most offending trans spells late ron in your post.


and finally, the warmage gets abjuration and evocation. change advanced learning to eclectic learning is, i think, all i need for this one.

THis is where I would put Divination as you are bascialyl asking a higher power for an answet o X question adn that is invocation ( remember it used to be invocation/evocation) ALSO, I would give them bonus damage per die for every X level attained ( like starting every 6th level get +1 damage per die) I only say this becuase blasting is so weak, due to the chnaged form 2nd to 3rd in regards to hp and damage. to be short damage has been the same for spells fireball is still 10d6 damage. while Hit points have increased exponentially a 20th level fighter has 115 HP on average, back in 2nd ed days that was fregging awesome amount of HP
and a way to pierce spell resistance is good. take a look at my Battle Mage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13419097) and glean some abilities if you want.


alright, some general notes. all casting is arcane and charisma based. all casters get detect magic and dispel magic (but not greater dispel magic, break enchantment, etc.). they all have a D4 HD, 1/2 BAB, and good will saves. spells per day as sorcerer

alter self, polymorph, shapechange, etc. are gone. calling spells are heavily restricted. you essentially have to either personally know the creature you are calling, or know their truename. truename, in this case, does not reference tome of magic, but is merely a formula used with the calling spell to correctly identify a creature. attempting to call a creature without its truename works like a teleport spell. you have a chance of success based on how well you know the creature. a mishap indicates you accidentally call another creature of the same kind, that is not bound by the spell, and so can act as it normally would.

so, what does the playground think? they obviously need some work, but are they too strong, or too weak? i'm aiming for T3 here, btw.

I think I love you, this is great! Keep up the good work.

lunar2
2012-11-19, 05:08 PM
rebalencing the schools will be a pain, just saying. If you want to do it, your a braver man then I Gunngadin.

I do aprove of making all casting charisma based, as that is the most common dump stat. Also the spells you seem to plan on moving seem like good choices.

I would say charnel touch isn't that great... infinite healing out of combat. Unless you make in combat healing effective(a worthy goal) the point of all other healing will be lost. If you want all your players to be at max HP for each encounter without spending resources, perhapce let it deal damage or grant an amount of temp hp dependent on level that evaporate after an amount of time.


charnel touch is essentially inflict minor wounds as an (Su) ability. it only heals undead. if i was going to allow it to heal, as well, then i'd make it class level/day, instead of at will like it is now.



Sounds good, I approve!



I would Actually give divination to another that iw ill touch on later, as conjuration is just a bit incredibly powerful and in regards with the spell schoosl the only other one that comes close is Transmutation. The barb ACF is an idea that has never occured to me before, that is very interesting.



I was worried about thisd untill i saw that you removed most offending trans spells late ron in your post.



THis is where I would put Divination as you are bascialyl asking a higher power for an answet o X question adn that is invocation ( remember it used to be invocation/evocation) ALSO, I would give them bonus damage per die for every X level attained ( like starting every 6th level get +1 damage per die) I only say this becuase blasting is so weak, due to the chnaged form 2nd to 3rd in regards to hp and damage. to be short damage has been the same for spells fireball is still 10d6 damage. while Hit points have increased exponentially a 20th level fighter has 115 HP on average, back in 2nd ed days that was fregging awesome amount of HP
and a way to pierce spell resistance is good. take a look at my Battle Mage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13419097) and glean some abilities if you want.



I think I love you, this is great! Keep up the good work.

evocation gets a big boost with the creations spells added in. most of the good battlefield control spells are creation, for example. with the nerf in calling, evocation and transmutation may be the most powerful schools, now, because conjuration lost a big chunk of its power.

i also grouped the spells by theme.

conjuration is now solely about moving creatures and objects. divination is about finding information, therefore "moving" the knowledge to you, with a side of communication, or "moving" the information where you want it to go. so in that sense, the 2 schools fit thematically.

evocation is about creating energy and objects. abjuration is about creating shields and barriers. both schools create something.

necromancy manipulates the forces of life and death, transmutation manipulates the physical properties of matter. both schools change things.

enchantment manipulates peoples' minds, illusion manipulates peoples' senses. both are used to control people.

see, the schools match up thematically, even if some of them have to stretch a little to do it.

bobthe6th
2012-11-19, 05:30 PM
charnel touch is essentially inflict minor wounds as an (Su) ability. it only heals undead. if i was going to allow it to heal, as well, then i'd make it class level/day, instead of at will like it is now.


tomb tainted soul (http://dndtools.eu/feats/libris-mortis-the-book-of-the-dead--71/tomb-tainted-soul--2930/), necropolitan (http://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/necropolitan.shtml)... and those are just the cheap methods. Free healing will always be worth it, a feat or a level are so worth it.

lunar2
2012-11-19, 05:48 PM
well, dread necromancer already has it, and i've never heard anyone call them OP for it. spending a feat and a class level for at will healing isn't exactly cheap, you know.

ngilop
2012-11-19, 05:50 PM
the point is what I was trying to get across is that your Evoker/abjuerer mix is going to not be anywhere as close as powerfula s the other specific mages, mostly on the fact that blasting spells are terrible on theri own, unless you make the dmg worhtless while and give them an edge (liek i said about extra dmg per die and bonuses to spell penetration) what you are looking at is the Warmage and that already exists.. and is well known to be tier 4

You need a blaster that can actually blast, the spell selcetion is good enough to allow him to be decent in other fields.. but he is terribel at what is supposed to be his own speciality.. dealing straight up in your face HP damage. untill that is rectified. your evoker/abjurer hybrid is going to be tier 4.

lunar2
2012-11-19, 06:00 PM
it doesn't have to be any better at blasting than it already is. barbarians and fighters already have HP damage covered. giving warmage access to BFC spells is far more important from a power and versatility standpoint. it doesn't matter what damage fireball does if your target is caught in a forcecage. you can blast at him all day, he's not going anywhere.

bobthe6th
2012-11-19, 06:28 PM
well, dread necromancer already has it, and i've never heard anyone call them OP for it. spending a feat and a class level for at will healing isn't exactly cheap, you know.

yes and no. The DN is diferent from your curent sugested class, as it is not normaly a heal bot. The necro/trans mage? yeah, he is a healer. You just have to be aware most parties will take advantage of this cheap healing method. If you are ok with this fine, otherwise I suggest a change.

lunar2
2012-11-19, 06:50 PM
ok, so make charnel touch class level/day, and go ahead and make it cure or inflict. then i guess make scabrous touch remove disease as well as contagion.

Darth Stabber
2012-11-21, 02:53 PM
I actually had a similar idea a while back. With beguiler covering enchantment and illusion, dread necromancer covering necromancy, and warmage covering evocation, I worked out that a class for transmutatiom, one for conjuration, and one that covers abjuration and divination. Never did get anything serious accomplished on the conjuror, but I did get the div/abj class (courtmage) and transmutation class (mutationist) to the point where I was more or less happy with them. They're in my sig if your interested. Use them whole, in parts, or ignore them that's fine, just have fun doing it.

lunar2
2012-11-21, 03:04 PM
so, i figured the summoner and varius should have eclectic learning, as well. it's no good for just 2 of the classes to get it.

@darth thanks, but i think i've got this just about figured out. it was actually a lot easier than i thought it would be, since i'm really just copy/pasting class features and ACFs from existing classes for the summoner and varius, and tweaking the existing beguiler and warmage a bit.

i really just need a critique on how balanced they are. i'm not really worried if they're all perfectly the same level, as long as they're all T3. for example, i'm a bit worried about the varius crossing into T2 territory, since transmutation is still so powerful, even without the core polymorph spells. and without creation and healing, does the summoner drop to T4, since calling has been nerfed?