Wizard from a barbarian culture

[weckar]

How would I best build a wizard who comes from a barbarian culture?
For one I'd ideally like to avoid a spellbook.
I'd also like to buff my caster level over my spell levels whenever possible to represent a brute force approach to things.
Is there a way to trade a familiar for an animal companion?
Is there a way to get more 'barbarian' class skills, such as perform, survival or climb?

I don't necessarily need to be a ragebarian (rage mage kind of sucks), but I need to be able to show how a wizard could have organically developed in a less-than-civilized environment..

[Mordaedil]

How would I best build a wizard who comes from a barbarian culture?
You don't, you make a shaman, druid or sorcerer, usually instead.

For one I'd ideally like to avoid a spellbook.
Shaman, druid or sorcerer would do that.

I'd also like to buff my caster level over my spell levels whenever possible to represent a brute force approach to things.
I don't think even regular wizards can do this.

Is there a way to trade a familiar for an animal companion?
I don't think any supplement allows this, you'd have to agree with your DM specifically.

Is there a way to get more 'barbarian' class skills, such as perform, survival or climb?
Yes. House-rules.

[weckar]

I'm sorry to say it, but that feels like a rather useless answer. If house-rules or homebrew were a solution I was after I would not have asked to begin with.

I want arcane casting, not divine casting. So druid and shaman are out. Sorcerer is possible, but not ideal. I'd like to stay prepared.

I thought there was a method with ultimate magus to increase caster levels exponentially at the cost of maximum spell levels?

[A.A.King]

A Sorcerer/Wizard can swap in his Familiar to get an Animal Companion like a Druid of half his level (SRD: Variant Character Classes)

If you want to not have a Spellbook you can take the Eidetic Spellcaster ACF from Dragon Magazine, but that also means losing your Familiar. (If you still want an Animal Companion you can take the Wild Cohort feat)
Alternatively, you can not have a spell book and instead Tattoo the Spells on your arms or inscribe them in Bones, stones or other items. Complete Arcana has rules for Tattooing spells as well as for using tokens rather than books (A Finger Bone for example is a "1 Page Equivalent")

I don't know of any way to "Brute force" spells the way you described, that is more of a Psionic Thing (Overchannel and such), but there is the Wild Mage Prestige Class which adds a touch of barbaric chaos to your casting. You reduce your caster level by 3 and every time you cast you roll a 1d6 and add it to your caster level (resulting in your spell being either weaker for your level or stronger for your level). Technically you can take Practised Spellcaster to offset the penalty from Wild Mage and just have a 1d6 bonus to each spell, but there is a good chance your DM says no to that reading.

[weckar]

Seems Wild Mage has pretty good coupling with the Reserves of Strength feat...
Too bad Wild Magic Mishaps aren't a thing anymore though.

[TheifofZ]

The problem is first that a Wizard is a class that revolves around a patient, intellectual, studious approach to magic.
In a barbarian tribe (assuming you're referring to a classic hunter/gatherer society typical of the idea) there's neither the means, the time, nor the method for someone to learn to become a wizard. The education required isn't available, the materials needed are nigh-impossible to gather, and anyone that is old enough to learn magic is, by default, required to be helping the tribe survive, leaving far too little free time to devote to serious study.
At best, you'd be a barbarian who left his tribe to go learn from a master

First: there's really no way to go without a spellbook as a Wizard. Again, this is because the fundamental nature of the class. The wizard uses complex arcane formula to shape their magic, and they literally cannot remember all their spells. (With the right feats, you can remember some of your spells to prepare them without your book, but not many)

Second: The PrC 'Wild Mage' special ability 'Wild Magic' is fairly good as a brute force caster; you lose 3 caster levels permanently, and any time you cast a spell, you add 1d6 to your caster level. (That is; you can be anywhere from -2 CL to +3 CL for each spell cast). Also the Feat 'Primitive Caster' lets you add a Vocal, Somatic, or Material component to a spell that didn't already have that type of component to add +1 CL to that spell per such component added. (That is, if a spell has V, S components, you can add a Material component to that and get +1, but you can't add more vocal or somatic; they're already there. If a spell has just a vocal component, you could add a Material component or a Somatic component for +1, or both for +2, but since the spell has a vocal, you can't add that)

Third: Animal companions are horrendously strong compared to familiars; the only other thing that lets you modify your familiar to be an animal companion is a PrC that combines an Arcane class with Druid.

Fourth: There's a few ways to add class skills to your class list, but most of them involve being human and dipping non-casting levels or using feats, or both.
Your best bet would be to houserule it, if it -must- be a wizard.


I'd seriously suggest going with Sorcerer instead, though.

[Ashtagon]

Play a psionic class and re-fluff.

or

Play a warmage, beguiler, or one of the other arcane classes that don't use spellbooks

or

Play that genie-focused caster from WotC's not-middle-east campaign setting

or

Play a wizard, and re-fluff the spellbook as something "primitive", such as Inca-style quipu knots, Irish-style ogham-inscribed sticks, or something similar (clay tablets are probably not sufficiently portable, and may feel too much like "writing" in any case).

Also, ,look up WotC's Wild Companion feat from their website.

[Hamste]

Easy bake wizard, the eidetic spell caster from dragon magazine 357 to be exact.

http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=10369.0

Caster level boosts (reserves of strength is pretty good if immune to stun).

You lose your familiar for eidetic spell caster so you can't trade it, though unearthed arcana does have a variant for animal companion instead of familiar.

No clue on the skills beyond prestiege classes. Able learner doesn't remove the half level restriction for cross class skills but it does reduce the cost.

[weckar]

I like the idea of using an 'alternate' spell book, but I can't find such in Complete Arcane.

The half/level Animal Companion variant will work for me.

Primitive Caster seems a pretty good fit for this caster in any way. I wonder if silencing a spell and then using Primitive caster to add a new verbal component would work...

[Nifft]

There's a Filidh alternate Wizard in Dragon #324. You lose your Familiar, but gain a better class skill list (with Intimidate and Survival for example). By the class text, the only thing you lose is your Familiar, so you do get full spellcasting, Scribe Scroll, and a feat every 5 levels, even though those aren't on the table.

Another possible way to go is to use the Savage Bard from UA / the SRD. It's not really a Wizard, but it can fill some of the role of illiterate wise-man.

[zergling.exe]

I like the idea of using an 'alternate' spell book, but I can't find such in Complete Arcane.

The half/level Animal Companion variant will work for me.

Primitive Caster seems a pretty good fit for this caster in any way. I wonder if silencing a spell and then using Primitive caster to add a new verbal component would work...

Alternative Spellbooks section, page 186.

[weckar]

For now I'm leaning towards Wizard 6/Geometer 2/Wild Mage X. Using tattoos as my spellbook combined with the book of geometry ability I should well be able to keep near a hundred spells on my body.

Spellglyph would work really well with Primitive caster if it weren't so costly...

Any other decent ways to boost CL? As far as I know the Master Spellthief route is effectively debunked?

[gkathellar]

In a barbarian tribe (assuming you're referring to a classic hunter/gatherer society typical of the idea) there's neither the means, the time, nor the method for someone to learn to become a wizard. The education required isn't available, the materials needed are nigh-impossible to gather, and anyone that is old enough to learn magic is, by default, required to be helping the tribe survive, leaving far too little free time to devote to serious study.

Hunter-gatherers had and have tons of free time, typically working 3-5 hours a day and spending the rest of their time in leisure. Moreover, these social groups often have specialists who provide useful skills and knowledge to the group - which, in any setting where wizards exist, would definitely include wizardry. Individuals have different talents, and hunter-gatherer social groups are no less capable of utilizing that than agrarian or industrial societies.

As to the question of materials: aside from methods mentioned above (tattoos, painted bones), it is entirely possible to use cleaned and treated hides as a substitute for paper. Sheaves of bark are also useable for this purpose, and have been employed by people who lacked facilities for processing paper, vellum, or parchment. Plant-based and mineral-based inks are widely available. All of this assumes your tribe doesn't conduct trade with adjacent agricultural societies, which Yes It Does.

[TIPOT]

There's the Anagakok variant from dragon 344, which is basically what you want.

[weckar]

The Anagakok is interesting... The fortune mechanic seems a little tacked on, but it is worth considering - especially as it has some nice higher level spells normally unavailable. What you give up does hurt a bit though, with no familiar or bonus feats.

[Rebel7284]

Some more options:

Spell to Power variant Erutide is essentially a Psion who can learn arcane spells. No spellbook needed. No familiar either, but you can talk to your DM if Obtain Familiar can be used to then trade your familiar for an animal companion as per Unearthed Arcana. Alternatively, Wild Cohort is very good even if you sometimes need a move action to direct it.

In addition to Primitive Spellcaster and Reserves of Strength there is also Elder Giant Magic (Secrets of Xen'drik, p. 135). Best used on buffs, but sometimes useful in other circumstances too.

Talking about giants, Half-Giant with the Primordial Giant template is a great race for a build like this. +1LA hurts, but massive mental stat boosts are nice and being able to grab a large two handed weapon is pretty awesome as a wizard. :)

[Segev]

In Complete Arcane are rules for "alternate spellbooks." Go for tattoos. The mechanics are nearly identical, but it will let you give a definite "tribal" feel to it.

From the same book is the Starmetal Adept. It actually isn't a very good PrC from a power standpoint, but aside from letting you build some fluff as to what fascinated your barbarian tribesman (not class, just classification) so much that he started studying magic "scientifically" being a discovery of a fallen meteorite and its mystic effects, it fulfills the request you had about pumping caster level over spell level.

Note: this is controversial, because it's likely the result of flawed editing and writing. But as written, EVERY level of the class gives you +1 CL, and every even or odd (can't remember which off the top of my head) level gives you +1 level added to a class of your choice for purposes of spellcasting.

This means that you get a total of +15 caster levels over the 10 levels of the PrC, but you only advance spell levels for 5 of those ten levels. Plus, you become a more and more construct-like entity made of pure starmetal as you go.

Maybe you etch your tattoos with the stuff.

[Extra Anchovies]

How would I best build a wizard who comes from a barbarian culture?
For one I'd ideally like to avoid a spellbook.
I'd also like to buff my caster level over my spell levels whenever possible to represent a brute force approach to things.
Is there a way to trade a familiar for an animal companion?
Is there a way to get more 'barbarian' class skills, such as perform, survival or climb?

I don't necessarily need to be a ragebarian (rage mage kind of sucks), but I need to be able to show how a wizard could have organically developed in a less-than-civilized environment..

The word "barbarian" was invented by classical Greeks to deride civilizations which didn't conform to Greek cultural norms, and many of those civilizations were quite well-developed in their own, non-Greek ways. The idea of the barbarian as a crude savage also came from that Greek-chauvinist perspective. It's akin to "gentile", in that two people who fit either descriptor don't necessarily have anything in common at all.

So when you think "barbarian", what sort of things come to mind? If you want primarily to be a wizard without a spellbook, you'll want to have a look at the alternate spellbooks in Complete Arcane (p. 186). Tattoo spellbooks are costly, have very limited capacity, and are generally passé; everyone and their cousin has a magic tattoo of some sort. Spell tokens, on the other hand, are very cool. Get a staff (the more knobbly the better) and hang a few dozen little stones and talismans from it, and you've got yourself a neat little voodoo staff. Or you can carry them around in a sack, or make necklaces and bracelets by stringing 1-page talismans together, or use various types of dice and invent a pen-and-paper RPG within the game world, or whatever else you want to do with a collection of small objects.

[Martimus Prime]

I think the OA Wu Jen might be down your street. It definitely has the flavor of a more shamanistic approach to magic without being a divine caster itself (what with taboos and all). They kind of remind me of Subetai from the Conan the Barbarian series with the right kind of fluff tweaks.

[Eisfalken]

For one I'd ideally like to avoid a spellbook.

Sorcerer or bard. If bard, ask your DM to trade out weapon selections with those appropriate to a barbarian culture (i.e. trade out rapier for hand axe, trade whip for bastard sword, stuff like that). Consider savage bard from UA. If sorcerer, consider stalwart sorcerer from CC, and/or spell shield from Dungeonscape (first gives a martial weapon prof and bonus hit points, second trades familiar so you can burn spells to reduce damage).

Strongly discourage wizard; it doesn't make sense in the context of being from a certain kind of culture/society.


I'd also like to buff my caster level over my spell levels whenever possible to represent a brute force approach to things.

Define "brute force". No, literally, that could mean anything. Do you need to do more damage with spells? Do you need them to be harder to resist? Harder to get rid of with dispel/countermagic?

Spells do a million things. Define specifically what you want to accomplish with magic so we can figure out what you want to take for it.


Is there a way to trade a familiar for an animal companion?

Yes, you can do it with UA pg. 58. But I wouldn't; you only get an animal companion half as powerful as a druid would have.

Why does it matter that you have an animal companion? Because they're "tougher" for combat? Easy to solve: take Improved Familiar feat and check out the options for a combat-oriented familiar in Complete Warrior. Strong recommendations there are, IIRC, hellhound and winter wolf. Or take Planar Familiar from Planar Handbook, get yourself a Small elemental familiar (take air elemental, it's stupid fast flight and it can use wands because it can speak; earth elemental is also pretty good, but avoid fire elemental even if it seems "cool").


Is there a way to get more 'barbarian' class skills, such as perform, survival or climb?

Only one of those skills bard ain't got is Survival, and you can get that one with the Urban Class Features web enhancement. Page 7 has Skilled City-Dweller, lets you swap out Sense Motive for Survival.

But honestly... you don't need any ranks of Survival. You can Take 10 on the skill check (i.e. instead of rolling, you just take the "average" result of 10, can only be done in non-stressful situations such as outside combat and such), and feed yourself while moving at half-speed overland distance. If you have a good Wisdom, every 2 points over 10 you can feed someone else. Survival checks are only really important for tracking (just get a ranger "hunter" instead), and navigating wilderness areas.


I don't necessarily need to be a ragebarian (rage mage kind of sucks), but I need to be able to show how a wizard could have organically developed in a less-than-civilized environment..

Bard is it. Seriously. In fact, Norse skalds are one of the iconic stereotypes of a fantasy bard: they're not quite as great warriors, but they have vast knowledge and lore, and were said to know certain kinds of magic. Don't worry about some froo-froo way of doing music; using great horns, drums, epic stories, and chanting to inspire people around you.

If you just have to have full spellcasting, do a sublime chord build to get 9th-level wizard/sorcerer spells, and even a bardic music that literally is a fireball. But honestly, you can stick straight to regular bard magic and it will still be pretty dang strong for most situations.

Seriously, you can't go wrong with a good bard build on this concept. If you want extra-cheesy goodness, see about dipping warblade from TOB for that juicy Song of the White Raven feat.

[SangoProduction]

-Avoiding using a spell book is a mechanical problem that might require feats/prcs. Not ones that I know of, unfortunately.

Of course, you can always fluff your stuff. You don't need the default Wizard fluff. Last time, I played a Half-Orc Wizard, who just stumbled along a forgotten book, and got exiled after scaring the clan leader. He only ever cast Magic Missile (however Meta-magiced it may have been), even to epic levels, because it was just all too confusing. That DM banned metamagic from that point onward lol.

But you could easily do something like a sack of special knucklebones could be your spell book. Adding spells would just be making more knucklebones with painstaking details as to not offend the gods, or whatever.


-Caster Level over spell levels? I don't understand. If you mean just buffing your caster level, reserved feats do the trick. Spell Thematics also does this, as well as explicitly allowing you to refluff your spells, even if your DM is a bit of a jerk. I'm away from my resources, so I don't know the book names (though on request, I could get them sent to me in two days) but...

There's also a class in some Drow book (no doubt third party) which advanced your spell casting by 2 levels every even class level (and progressed 1 casting level every odd level), not to mention granting the spell-casting equivalent to Overchannel.

In another book there's blood casting...which was pretty much universally acclaimed to be completely broken when I asked about it on this forum...but it allowed you to use HP in place of a spell slot. And the book also had a blood caster prc which improved the efficiency of it with full caster progression if I remember correctly. It would seem to fit a barbaric caster.


-Trading out the familiar for an animal companion...well, I know you can use the Wild Cohort feat to gain an animal companion (of less power than a druid). You can also trade your familiar out for some other features. Otherwise, idk.


-Barbarian skills? Use spells. Want jump? Use the Jump spell. It's like +20 to jump checks.

Want to open doors and don't have access to an axe? Use knock....and fluff it as you hitting it with an axe. You took Spell Thematics, right?
Perform? Cast Charm Person and fluff it as banging drums in a compelling fashion.

Want survival?....for what? Eating? I don't think people can track by default with Survival. Just use magic missile on the thing with green skin, take its gold and buy food. And fluff the magic missiles as you throwing axes.

Climb? Hmm.... Best I can think of is Fly which is better than climb, but that comes online a little late. But, if you really want climb, then a simple feat called Able Learner and Aereni Focus gets it, as does Skill Knowledge. Flexible Mind works, but you must already have ranks in the skill, meaning you do waste at least a skill point. However, it also might not work until at least level 3, depending on the order that you do skills and feats in character creation. Apprentice is arguably much better because it grants 2 class skills, especially if you homebrew mentorships, and doesn't have race restrictions, if I remember it right..

Also, I think Human Paragon gets something like that too.

Also, see this listing here. http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=6832.0

[Eisfalken]

But you could easily do something like a sack of special knucklebones could be your spell book. Adding spells would just be making more knucklebones with painstaking details as to not offend the gods, or whatever.

If this is a Norse-style culture, I have the perfect solution: wooden plaques/staves with rune-words (combinations of individual runes) carved on them. You can base size/weight of wood on how much space each level of spell takes up on it, with higher level spells needed more intricate/complex combinations of runes to write on the surface material. Geometer PrC enhances this by showing the wizard new ways to combine runes so they are more efficient.

[SangoProduction]

If this is a Norse-style culture, I have the perfect solution: wooden plaques/staves with rune-words (combinations of individual runes) carved on them. You can base size/weight of wood on how much space each level of spell takes up on it, with higher level spells needed more intricate/complex combinations of runes to write on the surface material. Geometer PrC enhances this by showing the wizard new ways to combine runes so they are more efficient.

Or, you know, you could just say it's the exact same as a spellbook, and not try to introduce real-world weight maths in to D&D. You'll get funky stuff once you do, at least, if you try and reconcile the differences in weight.

[barakaka]

There's the Aureon's Spellshard from ECS. It's somewhat expensive, but holds 500 pages of spells. It's a dragonshard which is a cool magic lookin' gem.

As mentioned, a half/full giant with Primitive Caster and Elder Giant Magic feats and the Primordial Giant template could be super cool. Reserves of Strength and Lost Tradition (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=10203238&postcount=2). You've got yourself a wizard who casts from strength or constitution. It doesn't need to be like you're some kind of behemoth of a man and that makes you good at spells. Think in terms of "my physical fitness has an effect on the spells I cast". Maybe being weak in the body has an effect on your mind and magic. It really doesn't have to be as far fetched as the Muscle Wizard. Although if you wanna take it in that direction, go for it.

Hope that helps!

[digiman619]

Honestly? I'd suggest a re-fluff of a Wilder. It gets you the no spellbook, Barbarian-like skills (4+ Int, has all the Barbarian's class skills other than Handle Animal, Ride, or Survival), and most importantly, the Wild Surge lets you "brute force" your spells/powers by risking Psychic Enervation. As a bonus, it gets 3/4th BAB and light armor, so he's more rough-and tumble than a regular wizard. The only thing this doesn't give you is a familiar that you can trade off for a animal companion.

[SangoProduction]

Honestly? I'd suggest a re-fluff of a Wilder. It gets you the no spellbook, Barbarian-like skills (4+ Int, has all the Barbarian's class skills other than Handle Animal, Ride, or Survival), and most importantly, the Wild Surge lets you "brute force" your spells/powers by risking Psychic Enervation. As a bonus, it gets 3/4th BAB and light armor, so he's more rough-and tumble than a regular wizard. The only thing this doesn't give you is a familiar that you can trade off for a animal companion.

Yeah. That's probably the best option, all things considered.

[Rebel7284]

There's the Aureon's Spellshard from ECS. It's somewhat expensive, but holds 500 pages of spells. It's a dragonshard which is a cool magic lookin' gem.

As mentioned, a half/full giant with Primitive Caster and Elder Giant Magic feats and the Primordial Giant template could be super cool. Reserves of Strength and Lost Tradition (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=10203238&postcount=2). You've got yourself a wizard who casts from strength or constitution. It doesn't need to be like you're some kind of behemoth of a man and that makes you good at spells. Think in terms of "my physical fitness has an effect on the spells I cast". Maybe being weak in the body has an effect on your mind and magic. It really doesn't have to be as far fetched as the Muscle Wizard. Although if you wanna take it in that direction, go for it.

Hope that helps!

Half Giant has +2 Strength, +2 Constitution, -2 Dexterity.

Primordial Giant gives -4 Strength, -2 Constitution, +4 Intelligence, +4 Charisma

With total stats of -2 Strength, -2 Dexterity, +4 Intelligence, +4 Charisma, I think changing the casting stat to Strength doesn't make much sense for that build in particular, not to mention it's unlicensed third party...

Of course if you want to go something like Illumian Half-Minotaur or something like that, you can totally be a muscle wizard while staying in actual 3.5 =)

[DarkOne-Rob]

Check out the Pathfinder witch (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advancedPlayersGuide/baseClasses/witch.html) class. I think it adequately covers what you want while introducing hexes (which could be removed for 3.5) by having the familiar act as spellbook. Their relationship is interesting and mechanically covers your needs. The Patrons can be used in place of spell schools (and fit the less scholarly class).

[flappeercraft]

How would I best build a wizard who comes from a barbarian culture?
For one I'd ideally like to avoid a spellbook.
I'd also like to buff my caster level over my spell levels whenever possible to represent a brute force approach to things.
Is there a way to trade a familiar for an animal companion?
Is there a way to get more 'barbarian' class skills, such as perform, survival or climb?

I don't necessarily need to be a ragebarian (rage mage kind of sucks), but I need to be able to show how a wizard could have organically developed in a less-than-civilized environment..

Maybe the wild mage PrC

[ekarney]

I'm going to plug my all time favorite class here; the Wu Jen. Arcane caster, basically a Wizard, has a few unique spells on their list.

They also come from a "foreign land", which helps relate to the whole barbarian + civilization thing assuming you're not playing Oriental Adventures. They also take a more aggressive approach to learning spells. Where your traditional Wizard locks himself in a tower with a metric butt-load of book, a Wu Jen is more likely to cast fire wings and run screaming into a cave to find a spell. Their spell list is also more blaster/gish focused than the Wizards, or the very least heavily points to Wu Jens being kinda gishy.