[PoW] Bladecaster is a kind of... well...

[Snowbluff]

So I love this class.

Also, it's awful:

1) The class stance should not be a stance. By making a stance, you are blocking off other, more interesting options of stances. Once you enter the class, it's probably going to either be useless (see below) or the only one your stay in at all times. Additionally, it doesn't provide passive bonuses. That's right, all of the abilities have to be activated, contrary to the design of stances being passive abilities.

2) The damn stance is crummy. Short durations. Lousy bonuses for high cost on everything but damage. It can't even cover it's poor save. Compare to Awakened Blade, which is granted bonuses to pretty much everything for no cost and no limit on duration. I think it might be favoritism for psionics, but I'm willing to give DSP the benefit of the doubt.

3) The action economy is wrong. Battlecaster's Strike competes with stance switching, gambits, and boosts, not to mention swift action and quickened spells. Some classes get the ability to add spells to attacks without eating your swift action. Now, you're saying "That'd be imbalanced. It should have some limitation." Yes, a limitation like the limited uses per day.

4) As above, but for Martial Conterspell. You can't use Battlecaster's Strike after using martial counterspell. Not to mention that it's redundant to use a counter that could counter a spell to counter a spell with an IL check. Even worse, is that this seems to be the reason why you have a USELESS prereq for the class.

5) Improved Counterspell. This feat is crap. It was kind of good in 3.5, where counterspelling had so much good support I couldn't fit all of in one build. Even worse, is that you lose a bunch of CL so dispel magic isn't an option for counterspelling... and you've lost a lot of CL so you've lost spell levels so you can't even use this feat. Not to mention counterspelling sucks.

6) Arcane Recovery. Spells > Maneuvers. Spells are a more limited resource than maneuvers. This is pretty situational. The extra 2 CL is nice, but extra CL would have been nice as part of a stance.

Arcane Ruin is pretty sweet. I like Arcane Assault, but I think it'd be cool if it started off with limited uses, and then graduated to At-Will. I mean, spell slots already limit that ability.

My suggestion? Scorching Ray + extra d6 from the "stance." Use snowball if the dude has SR. Spend time wishing you had extra swift actions. The awakened blade got extra immediate actions. Just sayin'. :smallfrown:

[Jigawatts]

Yup, agreed with everything you said here, Bladecaster needs an errata/redesign and needs to be put on par with the Awakened Blade.

[Taveena]

Admittedly, Clashing Rocks with Arcane Assault is hilarious, and Arcane Steel is actually going to help. Otherwise, though... yeah, you're only gonna take this for the theurging.

[Sayt]

I'll agree that it certainly isn't even close to the level of the Awakened Blade. On the other hand, it's miles and miles ahead of the Eldritch Knight.

[Snowbluff]

Admittedly, Clashing Rocks with Arcane Assault is hilarious, and Arcane Steel is actually going to help. Otherwise, though... yeah, you're only gonna take this for the theurging.
Magic Missile might get multiple uses of the extra damage, too.

I'll agree that it certainly isn't even close to the level of the Awakened Blade. On the other hand, it's miles and miles ahead of the Eldritch Knight.

Truth!

How does this sound?
Martial Counterspell should be a free action 1/round, and should add a bonus to the IL based on the level of the counter.

The CL bonus from Arcane Recovery should have a bonus to CL based on the slot you used.

Arcane Steel should just be active at all times, and should not use your stance.

Battle Caster's Strike should give the spell a free action casting time 1/round after hitting with a strike.

Hopefully the devs will notice us. :smallfrown:

[squiggit]

Stance of Arcane Steel and Arcane Recovery bug me because you're giving up spells (daily resources) for short duration buffs for the former and maneuvers for the latter. The trade just doesn't seem like a great one.

There's some niche uses, but niche situational benefits don't really fly for a stance you need to sit in. I guess you can enter the stance then pop the buff if you really need it since the latter is a free action.

Nine times out of ten I'll probably just be using arcane recovery -before- combat to burn a low level spell slot to get a CL buff to something more important.


Also as a note there is precedent for stances that don't have any passive benefits: Black Seraph's Glare doesn't do anything until you hit someone... the big difference there though is that BSG doesn't require you to give anything up to activate it.

Also, Arcane Assault and Bladecaster's Strike both seem a bit conceptually redundant.

[Snowbluff]

Also as a note there is precedent for stances that don't have any passive benefits: Black Seraph's Glare doesn't do anything until you hit someone... the big difference there though is that BSG doesn't require you to give anything up to activate it.
Does it require an indeprendent action to activate the benefit? :smallconfused:


Also, Arcane Assault and Bladecaster's Strike both seem a bit conceptually redundant.
Nerp. Arcane Assault is the opposite of Battecaster's Strike while also stacking with it. This is why I suggested BCS only works once a round.

[squiggit]

Does it require an indeprendent action to activate the benefit? :smallconfused:
Yeah, free action intimidate against creatures you've damaged that turn. Slightly quirky because the wording means you can just spam intimidate until you succeed, but that's another issue. The big problem for Arcane Steel is that it's niche and eats big resources, which makes it less usable. The former problem effectively means it eats into your action economy since there's no way you're just sitting in it.

One quirk I just noticed is that the body of the text says you can sacrifice spells or spell slots, plural, but the individual benefits only mention effects based on the spell's, singular, level.


Nerp. Arcane Assault is the opposite of Battecaster's Strike while also stacking with it. This is why I suggested BCS only works once a round.

Well, that's why I said conceptually redundant. Hitting someone with a sword while you cast or casting while you hit someone with a sword aren't particularly different from a fluff angle. The abilities work fine, just feels odd.

[Snowbluff]

Yeah, free action intimidate against creatures you've damaged that turn. Slightly quirky because the wording means you can just spam intimidate until you succeed, but that's another issue. The big problem for Arcane Steel is that it's niche and eats big resources, which makes it less usable. The former problem effectively means it eats into your action economy since there's no way you're just sitting in it.

One quirk I just noticed is that the body of the text says you can sacrifice spells or spell slots, plural, but the individual benefits only mention effects based on the spell's, singular, level.
Yeah, the cost is huge. These are untyped bonuses to common stats, but the limitations are too high.

Weird.


Well, that's why I said conceptually redundant. Hitting someone with a sword while you cast or casting while you hit someone with a sword aren't particularly different from a fluff angle. The abilities work fine, just feels odd.
That's not how it works. The capstone lets you use your spell as the sword, as it were. So if I attack with Shocking Grasp, I may add the effect of Silver Strike to make two attack rolls and use the better one.