PDA

View Full Version : [PrC] Wandmage



GymGeekAus
2007-04-21, 09:57 PM
Okay, this is my first post in this forum. I'm conflicted on this prestige class I wrote up, and I wanna get some opinions--what better place than here?!? So here goes.

Wandmage

Wandmages are spellcasters who specialize in making and using wands. A rare path to arcane power, those few who become acquainted with a wandmage find them to be exceptional generalists, prepared for a wide variety of circumstances and with a versatility lacking in most other arcane casters. They are typically less interested in arcane lore than arcane treasure, prizing spellbooks and wands above all else.

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
Feats: Magical Aptitude, Craft Wand, Wandstrike.
Skills: Knowledge (arcana) 8, Spellcraft 8, Use Magic Device 4.
Spells: Able to cast 3rd-level spells.
Special: Must be able to use wands with spell trigger activation as a wizard or other arcane spellcaster of 4th level or higher. Must have crafted at least two wands, including one of a 3rd-level spell.

CLASS FEATURES
Hit Die: d4
Class Skills: Concentration, Craft, Knowledge (any), Profession, Spellcraft, Use Magic Device.
Skill Points at Each Level: 2+ Int modifier.

BAB/Saves: Wandmages have poor attack bonus progressions and good Will saves.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Wandmages gain no proficiency in weapons or armor.
Spells per Day/Spells Known: At each wandmage level, the character gains new spells per day (and spells known, if applicable) as if she had also gained a level in a spellcasting class to which she belonged before adding the prestige class level. She does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. If she had more than one spellcasting class before becoming a wandmage, she must decide to which class to add each level for the purpose of determining spells per day and spells known.
Wand Artisan: A wandmage is especially proficient at creating wands. Whenever a wandmage makes a wand, he pays only 75% of the normal cost to create the wand (this affects the base price, and therefore applies to gp, XP, and craft point costs). In addition, a wandmage crafts wands quicker than normal. Normal creation times for wands are halved (one day for each 2,000 gp in the wand’s base price).
Wandcast (Ex): A wandmage of 2nd level or higher can cast a spell with somatic and material components even when holding a wand in their spellcasting hand. Casting a spell in this way still provokes attacks of opportunity normally, (remember, wands use spell trigger activation and therefore do not provoke attacks of opportunity). Wandmages often use this ability to carry a dagger in one hand and a wand in the other without any interference in their spellcasting ability.
Craft Wand (5th): At 3rd level, a wandmage learns how to create wands of 5th-level spells. A wandmage must have crafted at least one wand of a 4th-level spell to use this class feature.
Improved Wandstrike: At 4th level, a wandmage learns how to deliver wandstrike attacks more effectively. The wandmage gains a bonus on her touch attack roll equal to half the spell level stored in the wand she is using to deliver a wandstrike attack (rounded down).
In addition, she can choose to forego activating the wand in order to do additional damage with her wandstrike attack. Her wandstrikes do 1d6 points of damage x the level of the spell contained in the wand if she does not activate the wand as part of the attack.
Craft Wand (6th): At 6th level, a wandmage learns how to create wands of 6th-level spells. A wandmage must have crafted at least one wand of a 5th-level spell to use this class feature.
In addition, she is treated as having the Craft Rod feat for the purposes of creating a rod of many wands. You cannot use a rod of many wands to deliver a wandstrike attack.
Cannibalize Wand: At 7th level, a wandmage may unmake a wand, rendering it down for material components that she can then use in making other wands. You recover raw materials equal to half the base price of the wand, and gain experience points equal to 1/25th the base price, both of which can only be used to craft wands (thus the components have no gold point value except when used in crafting a wand, and the experience points only count to make wands). If using the craft point system, you also gain craft points equal to one tenth of the base price of the cannibalized wand.
Cannibalizing a wand takes 1 hour for each 1000 gp in its (current) base price. The process does not have to be completed in one sitting, but once you start to cannibalize a wand it no longer functions as a spell activation device. Care should be taken to record the actual base price of wands the wandmage makes and then cannibalizes.
Craft Wand (7th): At 9th level, a wandmage learns how to create wands of 7th-level spells. A wandmage must have crafted at least one wand of a 6th-level spell to use this class feature.
Metamagic Wand: At 10th level, a wandmage gains the ability to apply a metamagic feat she possesses to the effect of a wand. Using metamagic wand expends a number of additional charges from the wand equal to the number of effective spell levels the metamagic feat would add to the spell. The Still Spell feat confers no benefit when applied to a wand. The wandmage must still be capable of casting spells of the wand spell’s level with the metamagic feat.

Wandmage
{table=head]Level|Base Attack<br>Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|Spells

1st|+0|+0|+0|+2|Wand Artisan|+1 level of existing spellcasting class
2nd|+1|+0|+0|+3|Wandcast|+1 level of existing spellcasting class
3rd|+1|+1|+1|+3|Craft Wand (5th)|+1 level of existing spellcasting class
4th|+2|+1|+1|+4|Improved Wandstrike|+1 level of existing spellcasting class
5th|+2|+1|+1|+4|-|+1 level of existing spellcasting class
6th|+3|+2|+2|+5|Craft Wand (6th)|+1 level of existing spellcasting class
7th|+3|+2|+2|+5|Cannibalize Wand|+1 level of existing spellcasting class
8th|+4|+2|+2|+6|-|+1 level of existing spellcasting class
9th|+4|+3|+3|+6|Craft Wand (7th)|+1 level of existing spellcasting class
10th|+5|+3|+3|+7|Metamagic Wand|+1 level of existing spellcasting class [/table]

Gralamin
2007-04-21, 10:01 PM
Ignoring that table for now, give me a second
edit: The table is fixed.

I see two problems:
1. Full casting. This means a wizard loses two bonus feats to take this class.
2. Craft Wand (level greater then 4) Should Require an additional cost (maybe be unaffected by wand artisan?)

either then that, good job.

GymGeekAus
2007-04-21, 10:12 PM
Oh, I just realized people might not be aware of wandstrikes. So here's what that feat does.

Wandstrike [General]

You can channel the magical energy of a wand through melee attacks.
Prerequisite: Use Magic Device 4 ranks.
Benefit: As a standard action, you can make a melee touch attack with a wand, expending one charge to deal 1d6 points of damage to the creature struck. You apply no extra damage to this attack regardless of its source (including sneak attack, favored enemy, and smite bonuses), but you can activate the wand as part of the attack.
If the spell cast from the wand is a ray or targeted spell, the creature struck is the spell’s target (with ray spells hitting automatically). If the spell affects an area or creates a spread, you can designate the spell’s point of origin at any grid intersection point of the creature’s space (but doing so might put you in the affected area). Spells with an effect that does not cover an area cannot be used with a wandstrike attack.


Gralamin: Yeah, I know it's a full casting prestige class. I guess I hoped the Magical Aptitude feat and the innate limitations of wands (caster level set at time of creation being the biggie) would alleviate that concern. Plus, there are additional experience point costs associated with item creation.

A wand already costs caster level x spell level x 750, so higher-level wands are already more costly. But I openly admit I didn't compare the costs versus staffs or such.

Catch
2007-04-21, 10:23 PM
I don't see anything wrong with this having full casting progression. The master potion brewer or whatever has similar features and has full casting as I recall.

GymGeekAus
2007-04-21, 10:59 PM
I don't see anything wrong with this having full casting progression. The master potion brewer or whatever has similar features and has full casting as I recall. The Master Alchemist from Magic of Faerun, yeah. In addition, they get to brew potions of up to 9th level spells, although they have tougher entry requirements (4th level spells, 10 skill ranks in a couple of skills).

There are actually two aspects of the prestige class that I'm most worried about. I keep waffling on whether or not they're actually a big deal.

The first one is the improved wandstrike class feature. One of my buddies warned me that increasing the damage of a touch attack (not necessarily giving it a better chance to hit) might unbalance that ability. I'm undecided mainly because I don't see melee being a wise choice for the prestige class.

There is the clerical advancement possibility--by taking the Magic domain, you can qualify without worrying about armor restrictions. Then again, a cleric already has a wide assortment of touch attacks available to them via the inflict spells, and they could have put them in wands too. So I guess I might be worrying needlessly on that one. An interesting sidenote--by taking the magic and spell domains, you can create a very wide assortment of usable wands!

The other thing that worries me is the cannibalize wand class feature. The math works out so that it's an even swap--one wand for another of the same caster level/spell level. This was intentional, because I didn't want to deplete character XP too dramatically after a good duration in the class. But you can buy wands, cannibalize them, rebuild them at reduced cost, and then have a pool of wand-creation materials left over. I'm kinda conflicted here because I see the potential for abuse, but at the same time I see that the player will likely be expending a lot of charges on wands, and will probably still end up spending more XP than they gather. And in the end, it's all controllable by the DM's treasure placement.

But if you have two wand-crafters in your party (one in this class, the other not), then abuse becomes much more rampant!

Fredderf
2007-04-24, 02:34 PM
Ohhh goodness, wands with spells higher than level 3= bad idea.

I love the idea, but maybe you should focus on maximizing wand use, rather than wand creation.

Telonius
2007-04-24, 03:20 PM
I would make it explicit that the Wand Artisan bonus doesn't stack with Extraordinary Artisan, Exceptional Artisan, or Legendary Artisan. Otherwise a 1-level dip of this could make a standard Artificer even more ridiculous.

GymGeekAus
2007-04-24, 04:58 PM
Ohhh goodness, wands with spells higher than level 3= bad idea.

I love the idea, but maybe you should focus on maximizing wand use, rather than wand creation. Wands can be crafted containing spells up to 4th level already with the Craft Wand feat.

I don't really see the danger here. After all, staffs already exceed that spell level cap. Sure, a wand of disintegrate in the hand of a first-level sorcerer is unbalanced. So is a wand of fireball. Or a staff of power. And it looks like the costs of staffs versus wands work off the same base formula (750 x spell level x caster level), although wands are arguably more efficient--at least in the hands of lower-level casters.

Then again, I didn't spend much time looking at the spell list to see if any individual spells break higher spell-level wands. I'll do some more study on that.

In my full write-up, I did mention that higher-level wands shouldn't be found randomly, and I commented upon the rarity of these devices.

In terms of maximizing wand use, I suppose there are some other paths to take. Making it so a wandmage could use wands like staffs, for example. There are some other ideas I could put in instead of the increased spell level, such as improved hardness/hp of wands or letting wandmages use wands differently (maybe to get a small shield bonus, or to cast prepared spells without using the slot by burning charges like a rod of absorption). There are other feats out there too, like double-wand wielder and reckless wand wielder, but I really wanted to leave those out of the class as other options for individuals to pursue.

GymGeekAus
2007-04-24, 05:00 PM
I would make it explicit that the Wand Artisan bonus doesn't stack with Extraordinary Artisan, Exceptional Artisan, or Legendary Artisan. Otherwise a 1-level dip of this could make a standard Artificer even more ridiculous. Yeah, that's a solid point. I'll definitely put something like that in that class feature description.