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Gaiden.17
2015-08-27, 08:21 AM
Love the 4E swordmage. Can't stand 4E. So I'm trying to retrofit to 3.X.

IMO, the crux of the class was their aegis power. Thus, the starting point for a true conversion involves working out those mechanics first. I've come up with the following and wanted feedback. If you're interested, I detailed my thoughts on balance afterwards.

Aegis of Assault [RESERVE]

Prereq: Ability to cast any spell of the teleportation subschool, Combat Reflexes
(these prerequisites are waived if you have any levels in the swordmage class)

Benefit: so long as you have a teleportation spell prepared (or for spontaneous casters, known - with an appropriate spell slot available to cast it), you may spend a swift action to target an opponent w/in 10' with an Aegis of Assault. While the Aegis of Assault remains, if its target harms your ally and the target is within 50', you may expend an AoO to teleport to any square adjacent to the target and make one free attack against the target (counts as an attack of opportunity). You may only have one such Aegis in place/target and you may only have a number of Aegis's in place equal to the level of the spell you are holding in reserve. You cast spells from the teleportation subschool at +1 caster level.

Special: only one Aegis (of any type), may be active on any single target at once, no matter the source.


Aegis of Shielding [RESERVE]

Prereq: Ability to cast any spell of the abjuration school, Combat Reflexes
(these prerequisites are waived if you have any levels in the swordmage class)

Benefit: so long as you have am abjuration spell prepared (or for spontaneous casters, known - with an appropriate spell slot available to cast it), you may spend a swift action to target an opponent w/in 10' with an Aegis of Shielding. While the Aegis of shielding remains, if its target harms your ally and the target is within 50', you may expend an AoO and reduce the damage dealt by 5*the level of spell held in reserve (or 1*the level of spell held in reserve for ability damage). You may only have one such Aegis in place at a time. You cast spells from the abjuration school at +1 caster level.

Special: only one Aegis (of any type), may be active on any single target at once, no matter the source.

Balance Discussion:
The 3.X equivalent of non-martial at will powers are reserve powers. Introduced in Complete Mage, they involve 5 components:

1. the feat giving the at-will reserve power (known as reserve feats)
2. the type of spell held in reserve (Exampels include conjuration (teleportation), conjuration (summoning), evocation (fire), illusion (glamor), etc.)
3. the level of the spell held in reserve
4. the ability itself
5. +1 caster level when casting spells of the type from 2.)

Those 5 components come together to give an at-will ability that is not as powerful as the spell held in reserve, but that can be used over and over again. To be clear, these at will powers are different than in 4.0 in that they still scale. However, they don't scale with caster level. Instead they scale with spell level. Thus, while a 10th level caster would deal 10d6 dmg with a fireball, that same caster with the reserve feat power equivalent would only deal 5d6 dmg (if a fifth level fire spell was held in reserve) and in addition to the magnitude of the ability being smaller than a spell, the scope would also be limited (i.e. rather than the fireball's 20' radius AoE, the reserve feat ability might only have a single target). Keep in mind that this example keeps in reserve the one of the character's most powerful spells.

So that's the formula. Among my various house rules are free reserve feats for all casters at various levels (all casters get one such bonus reserve feat at 1st level) to give the equivalent of an at will power. Overall, reserve feats are a bit weaker than average feats: they offer sustainability but at the expense of burst power. Of course, their power is campaign dependent, but the vast majority of published adventures reward PCs for specializing and further investing in what is already powerful. Thus, it is not imbalancing to offer such free feats.

My initial difficulty with retrofitting the swordmage to 3.X was their aegis power. As a quick aside, the rest of the swordmage is incredibly simple. They are merely a gish (fighter/mage). There are any number of ways to build a fighter/mage in 3.X from multiclassing, to PrC's, to peripheral material core classes (e.g. hexblade and duskblade). By way of example, I used the 3.5 Suel Arcanamach prestige class as a basis for my swordmage in War of the Burning Sky.

The aegis of _____________ is not your typical 4.0 at will power: its reactionary - like an AoO. However, they're not just reactionary, but are dependent on the 4.0 marking mechanic (completely foreign to 3.X), and they are ranged abilities involving teleporting! or the equivalent of temp HP/DR. To put that combination into perspective, it takes a 6th level psion power to give the power to teleport as a quick action once per round like Aegis of Assault can get (and that is without a free attack). Moreover, there are two larger issues:

1. marking mechanic: it works in 4.0 because the system uses a d20 modern style of advancement where level is added to everything (instead of level modifying advancement differently dependent on the class (BAB and saves vary depending on the class in 3.5, but this is all standardized in 4.0). A -2 is more uniform when everyone's at the same general statistic as in 4.0. However in 3.0 it becomes less relevant (not irrelevant, just less so) because either there was such a small chance of failure or success to begin with given the disproportionate scales. So even if I just added the ability to 3.X, it would not work the same. As a bigger point, there really isn't a defender role in 3.X as the tanky characters don't have the ability to be sticky like they do in 4E. Thus, they can present themselves as a target that is difficult to harm, but they can't follow it up and impose penalties/restrictions on opponents for targeting others.

2. teleporting - even short range teleporting is far more relevant in 3.X than it was in 4E. Teleporting was not quite ubiquitous in 4E, but it was certainly common and powers were balanced against this. However, to introduce a movement mode that can escape an entangle spell, a web spell, a grapple, or an ogre's reach, for example, is more powerful in 3.X. Part of this has to do with the significance of AoO's. In 4.0 AoO's were basic attacks. In 3.X a basic attack attack is equivalent to the 4.0 martial at will or even encounter powers. To allow a PC access to simply ignore all of that without a heavy expenditure of feats (dodge, mobility, spring attack for example) is powerful; perhaps not a deal-breaker, but powerful.

My initial approach to retrofit the aegis powers was to look for spell equivalents of the powers and then look at when different classes/PrC's got access to those spells (and what it would take to quicken them (if not already a swift action to cast)). This retrofit model was untenable, however, as the 3.X version was too powerful in comparison to the original 4E aegis and it was difficult to model the reactive nature of the aegis powers.

This is where the reserve feats come in. Using a reserve feat offers an effective at-will power (biggest problem fixed). The reserve feat requires holding an appropriate spell in reserve (this is both balancing, and also gets at the flavor of having a particular type of aegis). In addition, while it is difficult to pair spells themselves with AoO's (too many risks for rules loopholes), the reserve power is not actually a spell. Finally, it gets at the flavor (which to me was the most important aspect to preserve).

The balance of the above feats (or lack thereof) is worth discussion. You will first notice that the spell level dependent aspects of each Aegis are different. In the case of the Aegis of Assault, the variable applies to the number of Aegis's that can be active at once. In the case of the Aegis of Shielding, the variable is instead related to the magnitude of the damage reduction. This was purposeful. In the case of Aegis of Assault, to really maximize the power, the swordmage will want combat reflexes and feats to increase the accuracy/damage/condition associated with such attacks. In the case of Aegis of Shielding, allowing the ability to affect multiple targets would be overpowering if maintaining the variable DR and underpowered if the DR was left static given the great scaling of damage in 3.X relative to 4E.

Second, there are multiple areas of each feat that could have variables introduced: the range associated with initially placing the Aegis, the duration the Aegises remain (didn't describe above), the range of the subsequent reaction, etc. Its not necessarily obvious to me that the above are the best choices for where I applied variables (and there is nothing restricting or guiding how limited or expansive the variables are to apply to reserve feats).

Finally, these powers are significantly better than the ones in 4E. This is purposeful as 3.X is more of a scaling system than 4E and thus, not scaling them would make them lack utility at higher levels.

The other thing that warrants discussion is flavor. These abilities are certainly similar enough to the 4E equivalent, that I think I've kept the spirit of the Aegis's (but am open to alternate opinions). IMO, these abilities would completely shape the way the character is built. And that's as it should be as the aegis powers were at the core of what the swordmage was as a class.

Appreciate any and all feedback.

Cheers

Nifft
2015-08-27, 08:47 AM
5e uses 4e-compatible bonus scaling, so you could probably port a lot of the 4e tactical mechanics (e.g. Marking) to 5e and get a super-fun game which is not 4e, but which works in mathematically compatible ways.

5e also has at-will Cantrips, so that's another mechanical similarity.

Gaiden.17
2015-08-28, 01:03 PM
I'm looking to retrofit to 3.X (Pathfinder specifically), rather than 5E.

Nifft
2015-08-28, 02:00 PM
I'm looking to retrofit to 3.X (Pathfinder specifically), rather than 5E.

You only said "3.x" in the topic, in the post body, and in the thread icon... oops. :redface:


For Aegis of Assault, I'd suggest the wording:
"If the target makes an attack or casts a damaging spell that doesn't include you as a target (...)."

... rather than "harms your ally", because it's pretty easy to get some kind of Shield Other shenanigans which makes damage go in places other than where the victim intended.

Also, suggest you only allow ONE of each type of Aegis, and scale the penalty with the spell level for Assault -- maybe something like, if the victim makes an attack that doesn't include you, you teleport in and smack it with +X on your attack roll and it suffers -X on its attack rolls, where X is the level of your Reserve spell. And if it's casting a spell that doesn't include you as a target, then your attack forces a concentration check, with a -X penalty.

Mando Knight
2015-08-29, 10:45 AM
For Pathfinder specifically, I think the easiest path would be to make the Swordmage Aegis and other features Magus Arcana, and use that class.

For 3.5, I'd personally rather brew up some kind of Arcane Swordsage-style mixed caster/martial adept, possibly with a "White Lotus Style" that's more explicitly arcane than Desert Wind.

Xaotiq1
2015-08-30, 03:31 PM
This may interest you: http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=4635