(Homebrew) Push Warmage in Tier 3?

[etrpgb]

Let's recap...



Tier 3: Good at one thing & useful outside that, or moderately useful at most things.
Tier 4: Good at one thing but useless at everything else, or mediocre at many things.

Why Warmages are in the third tier:
Cons: Damage spells are generally the weakest type of combat spells and that's the majority of the warmage's spell list, a tool box only needs so many different types of hammers. And like fighter, warmages have almost no class abilities that do anything outside of combat. Warmage edge is almost completely useless outside of the first couple of levels.

Pros: Warmages however do have a few save-or-die and battlefield control spells on their spell list like some various cloud spells, sleet storm, Evard's black tentacles, wail of the banshee, and prismatic wall. Warmages can also cast in armor and with light shields, partially making up for their lack of defensive spells. The warmage also have a mechanical advantage of automanically being able to cast any spell on his spell list, useful for things like the Arcane Disciple feat. Warmages do get a few sudden metamagic feats, which is better than nothing I guess.


In the Rebalanced Compendium (https://www.scribd.com/document/100111370/Rebalanced-Compendium) the Warmage Edge is made a bit more powerful so it is useful at every level. But I do not think it's enough to put the Warmage class in Tier 3 as it is still very specialized.

Can you think a way to push the Warmage in Tier 3 without simply giving it access to more spells? Social aspect perhaps? Skill monkey?

Any suggestion is welcome.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I think Warmages get a bad rap. Their spell list is better than you'd think; they have lots of blasty spells, true (including, thankfully, some of the good Conjuration ones like the Orb line), but they have a passable smattering of BFC too. And you can get rid of pretty much all their problems with a quick dip in Sand Shaper. But...

A better skill list alone might do the trick. They have Cha as a main stat and some use for a good Int, meaning they can make a good face if you put the skills on their list and maybe boost the miserable 2+Int skill points to 4+Int. (Which should be the universal minimum, in my opinion).

You could also, and this is riskier... you could also improve their metamagic schtick. Give them bonus metamagic (or item creation, or reserve) feats of their choice in place of the Sudden line they get, and revise Warmage Edge: at 5th level you can apply Metamagic without increasing casting time 3+Int times/day; at 9th you can reduce the level adjustment of any metamagic feat applied to a Warmage (or just Evocation, if you'd prefer) spell by 1, to a minimum of 0, when using the quick-metamagic cast; at maybe 17th upgrade that to a two-level adjustment. Now you're not just a blaster, you're a really good blaster, with the versatility to always have the right boom for the job.

[JoshuaZ]

Since they are already almost but not quite T3, it doesn't really take that much.

I'd suggest giving them proficiency with martial weapons and Climb, Diplomacy, Hide, Jump, Knowledge(Architecture and engineering), Knowledge(Geography), Move Silently, Ride Spot, Survival, Swim as class skills (which also thematically make sense given that they are supposed to be involved in armies and have military training) and give them 4+int skills.

[etrpgb]

I think I'll extend the class skill list as you suggested (maybe the all Knowledges since they are kinda Wizards), give some powers a-la Zhentarim Soldier, Imperious Command as bonus Feat and finally the discount on metamagic.

Sounds about right, a bit more skill monkey and a different kind (non magical) of attack.

[ComaVision]

For my games, I gave them 3/4 BaB and the Summon Monster line of spells.

[Troacctid]

Warmages are underrated. The class is already quite good and doesn't need much of a buff. The only problem is that they could stand to be better at their specialty role so that sorcerers and psions don't outshine them at it.

Maybe go up to 4+Int skills, let them pick from a wider range of bonus feats, key Warmage Edge off of Charisma, oh, and improve their spellcasting progression by +1 level so it's not delayed compared to a wizard. There, that should put you in business.

[Mr Adventurer]

4 skills
Bonus equal to class level on Con and Str based skills and checks as an enhancement bonus
Free Combat Casting and Somatic Weaponry feats
Martial weapon proficiency and heavy armour, no shields
Full BAB
D8 HD
Good Fort save
Warmage Edge based on Con, not Int, and also applies to melee weapon attack and damage rolls as an enhancement bonus
Advanced Learning is any Sor/Wiz spell, not limited by school

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'm sorry, but that's madness. Warmages are not gish, despite their heavy armor; they certainly shouldn't be the strongest, toughest warriors out there, as you're proposing. Your revised Warmage Edge is insanely powerful and dippable, the enhancement to Str and Con checks MIGHT be okay for a noncaster, but even that is borderline. Worse, it's not even appropriate madness; there's no good way for your warmage to mix his magic with his newfound weapon prowess.

[Mr Adventurer]

I'm sorry, but that's madness. Warmages are not gish, despite their heavy armor; they certainly shouldn't be the strongest, toughest warriors out there, as you're proposing. Your revised Warmage Edge is insanely powerful and dippable, the enhancement to Str and Con checks MIGHT be okay for a noncaster, but even that is borderline. Worse, it's not even appropriate madness; there's no good way for your warmage to mix his magic with his newfound weapon prowess.

What's your baseline? This looks worse than a Warblade to me.

I didn't put in all details, it's just a short list. Obviously you can finesse the bonuses, cap them by class level probably.

But you're right it needs more integration. Add the following:

Evocation spells of level equal to class level divided by four, or less, are automatically Quickened for free.

[Mr Adventurer]

6 skills
Class level added to Spot checks as enhancement bonus
Good Ref save
Free Improved Counterspell and Combat Casting feats
Continuous Battlemagic Perception spell
Warmage Edge also adds to Initiative and caster level checks
Dispel Magic and Greater Dispel Magic added to spell list
All spells of the (Teleportation) subschool added to spell list
Advanced Learning for any Sor/Wiz spell, regardless of school
Sacrifice spell slots for bonus to Initiative, attack roll, a save, or caster level

[Troacctid]

Okay, that's just silly. Not only are you adding stuff that's way overshooting what the target power level should be, you're also adding stuff that doesn't even make sense with the concept of the warmage. The player who is taking levels in warmage is doing it because she wants to throw big AoE damage spells at her enemies, not faff around with counterspells.

[JoshuaZ]

6 skills
Class level added to Spot checks as enhancement bonus
Good Ref save
Free Improved Counterspell and Combat Casting feats
Continuous Battlemagic Perception spell
Warmage Edge also adds to Initiative and caster level checks
Dispel Magic and Greater Dispel Magic added to spell list
All spells of the (Teleportation) subschool added to spell list
Advanced Learning for any Sor/Wiz spell, regardless of school
Sacrifice spell slots for bonus to Initiative, attack roll, a save, or caster level

Strong agreement with Troacctid that this is way too much. It also goes directly counter to what the OP was asking since they asked for a way to push the Warmage up *without* increasing their spell access, and half of what you have is more spells. For the feats, you haven't specified what levels they get them at, but evaluating the above without the feats, everything else makes them really strong, straight into T2.

Dispel Magic and Greater Dispel Magic are incredibly useful. Warmage's Edge to initiative together with sacrificing spell slots for pretty much anything means they can basically go first in almost every combat. Adding all spells of the Teleportation subschool is a massive jump in spells, even if you just meant Teleportation spells on the Sor/Wiz list from core. This would add Dimension Door, Plane Shift, Teleport, Teleport Object, Greater Teleport, and Teleportation Circle. Access to Plane Shift and Greater Teleport are some of the things that make T1 and T2 specifically in their tiers. Together with the broad Advanced Learning, you've essentially made a T2 sorcerer with slightly more blasting than they will often know what to do with. Heck, in many contexts they'll do better than a sorcerer because of the insane bonuses to initiative and spot.

To see that this is way too much, note that the sacrifice ability to add to caster levels also means that they'll be a better necromancer than many dread necromancers, sorcerers who are necromancy focused, and necromancer specialists, because one can take Animate Dead with Advanced Learning, animate things on off-days where you use the sacrifice ability to boost caster level. And that's essentially a single use of their advanced learning. They don't even need Create Undead or Greater Create Undead, but if they pick one of them up, then this caster sacrifice works even better.

Overall, this won't be as headache inducing as a sorcerer, because the lack of choices for spells will give them fewer ways of completely breaking the game, but the ways that they do will be very effective.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Warmages are tier 4 because they can affect combat decently well, but struggle outside of combat. If you want tier 3 make them better in combat or give them good out of combat options (the second is far preferable as it is easier to balance against and warmages are good enough to combat that improving them could cause issues)). Boosting their skill points to 4+Int and giving them a few fun skills to synergize with cha and int. A few extra knowledges as well as Handle Animal and Diplomacy would help a lot.

Mr Adventurer's proposals are a bit extreme at minimum and would probably be hard to balance against.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Also worth remembering that the tier and in-game balance aren't always simultaneous. A class that grants +1000 to attack and damage is still Tier 4, just a really broken one. It feels like you're kind of just throwing raw power at the class, without really stopping to think about why or how or where the existing weaknesses are. (To say nothing of ignoring the "without increasing spell list" stipulation)



*...maaaaybe. I'm actually curious about how a class whose whole schtick is "being really strong" would shake out; there are enough uses for Str even outside Hulking Hurler type abuse that you could probably get a really fun character out of it... but I digress.

[JoshuaZ]

*...maaaaybe. I'm actually curious about how a class whose whole schtick is "being really strong" would shake out; there are enough uses for Str even outside Hulking Hurler type abuse that you could probably get a really fun character out of it... but I digress.

Well, if they got the strength in part from direct bonuses to strength and it occurs at early then they might be good for dipping with the proper Illumian sigils so one can get bonus spells. That's obviously not what one is thinking about. Let's make your question a little more concrete: suppose one had a class that was essentially the fighter but it got +1 to strength at each odd level not counting first. Would this be enough to push the fighter to T4? Would this together with getting a bonus fighter feat each level be enough to push it to T3?

[Troacctid]

Well, if they got the strength in part from direct bonuses to strength and it occurs at early then they might be good for dipping with the proper Illumian sigils so one can get bonus spells. That's obviously not what one is thinking about. Let's make your question a little more concrete: suppose one had a class that was essentially the fighter but it got +1 to strength at each odd level not counting first. Would this be enough to push the fighter to T4? Would this together with getting a bonus fighter feat each level be enough to push it to T3?
Well, first off, no to both, although it would help a lot balance-wise.

Second, JaronK's tier system is not very useful for balancing classes. If you think the psion is at the same balance point as the sorcerer, you probably suck at class design.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I think it would be cool to make the big reflex-half AoEs, archetypically fireball, useful to warmages. These spells have a number of problems: friendly fire, weakness to Evasion, typically SR:Yes, and weakness to energy resistance. So, to boost warmages:

Add a class feature that negates Evasion.
Add the marshal's Determined Caster minor aura (+CHA to overcome SR). If necessary, tweak it to work especially well on AoE spells.
Add a class feature that allows you to exempt some targets from each AoE spell you cast. For example, one target exempted per five warmage levels.
Add a class feature that negates energy resistance. For example, reducing the effective ER by the warmage's class level. If necessary, tweak it to work better on AoE spells.

Regarding the boosting of AoE spells, I had this idea: you can penetrate 5 points of resistance/2 points of SR for each side of the target that has an adjacent square affected by the AoE. For example, putting a fireball right on top of a creature would allow you to penetrate 20 fire resistance, and would grant +8 to overcome SR, because squares to all four sides of the creature are affected (unless they're next to a wall). A creature close to the edge of the blast would resist a little better, and a larger creature in a small AoE might even have four open sides. The bigger the AoE, the easier it is to engulf the enemy.


Other than that, skill points are just plain practical, and any class benefits from having 4/level. I'd also be up for giving warmages a few free combat feats, similar to ranger combat styles: one for mounted combat (Zhentarim Skymage!), one for heavy armour use (Heavy Armour Proficiency, Battle Caster), one for light skirmishers (Evasive Reflexes, Fast Movement class feature), and maybe one or two more. Basically, to encourage the use of some otherwise suboptimal feats. Of course, if you have homebrewed your feat taxes away, you may not need to do that.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Well, if they got the strength in part from direct bonuses to strength and it occurs at early then they might be good for dipping with the proper Illumian sigils so one can get bonus spells. That's obviously not what one is thinking about. Let's make your question a little more concrete: suppose one had a class that was essentially the fighter but it got +1 to strength at each odd level not counting first. Would this be enough to push the fighter to T4? Would this together with getting a bonus fighter feat each level be enough to push it to T3?
I think you'd balance raw boosts to Str with less directed boosts to Strength CHECKS and carrying capacity, to keep at least some numbers under control. Ideally you'd do something like +X Str, +Y to Str checks, and another +Z to Str checks made to break, bend, lift, etc things. Maybe also some stuff about grappling bigger creatures, super jumps, hitting dudes with other dudes, and similar "big strong dude" stuff. Could be fun.

[Mr Adventurer]

Yeah, my bad on the extra spells. How about

6 skills
Sacrifice spell slot for equal enhancement bonus to an attack, AC vs an attack, save, skill check, ability check, or caster level check
Exclude targets from your AoE spells = Cha + class level
Damaging spells deal full damage to objects
Damaging spells can apply a range of debuffs and dispels
Warmage Edge based on Con, not Int, and applies to caster level checks and ignores energy resistance

[Cosi]

The Warmage suffers from the same fundamental problems as non-casters do.

1. His primary way of contributing in combat is damage, which he does not do enough of to be a real threat.
2. He lacks any real ability to contribute outside combat.

Buffing his combat shtick is pretty easy. Some free metamagic, maybe some debuff riders. Then give him a secondary combat shtick like buffing or extra BFC. Then give him a non-combat shtick. I suggest "logistics magic", including spells that make food (create food and water, hero's feast), spells that make shelter (tiny hut, magnificent mansion), and spells that transport people (phantom steed, teleport, gate). That's a novel combination of utility spells, but it still has obvious holes (scrying, healing, minions). Maybe give him access to Arcane Channeling in case people want to gish.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The Warmage suffers from the same fundamental problems as non-casters do.

1. His primary way of contributing in combat is damage, which he does not do enough of to be a real threat.
2. He lacks any real ability to contribute outside combat.

Buffing his combat shtick is pretty easy. Some free metamagic, maybe some debuff riders. Then give him a secondary combat shtick like buffing or extra BFC. Then give him a non-combat shtick. I suggest "logistics magic", including spells that make food (create food and water, hero's feast), spells that make shelter (tiny hut, magnificent mansion), and spells that transport people (phantom steed, teleport, gate). That's a novel combination of utility spells, but it still has obvious holes (scrying, healing, minions). Maybe give him access to Arcane Channeling in case people want to gish.
Smiting Spell + metamagic reduction should solve the gish question nicely. I really like your suggestion for bonus spells; that's a really neat niche.

[Troacctid]

1. His primary way of contributing in combat is damage, which he does not do enough of to be a real threat.
Gotta disagree there. None of the warmages I've DM'd for ever had trouble doing enough damage to be a threat. They hit the level-appropriate damage benchmarks easily. They (obviously) excel against multiple targets, and while their single-target damage is not as impressive, it comes with save-or-suck riders tacked on, so it's still quite good.

[JoshuaZ]

Gotta disagree there. None of the warmages I've DM'd for ever had trouble doing enough damage to be a threat. They hit the level-appropriate damage benchmarks easily. They (obviously) excel against multiple targets, and while their single-target damage is not as impressive, it comes with save-or-suck riders tacked on, so it's still quite good.

Agreed. In terms of raw damage output the warmage is fine. Directly increasing damage level is just going to make balance issues without really altering the tier in a useful way.

[Fizban]

Here's my Warmage changes, make of them what you will:
Warmage
Advanced Learning is gained at 5th and every odd level afterwards.
The original progression of Sudden metamagic feats is removed, instead:
Gain a bonus feat at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th, which can be any Sudden metamagic feat, Tactical feat that affects spellcasting, Reserve feat, or [Warmage] feat.
Armored Mage (Medium) is moved to 6th level.
Warmage spell list is expanded to fill out the existing themes at each level:

+Spell Compendium (+PHB)
1: +Corrosive grasp, Ice Dagger, Wall of Smoke, Scatterspray, Blades of Fire (SpC version)
2: +Scorch, Snowball Swarm, Snake's Swiftness, (+Flame Blade)
3: +Acid Breath, Icelance, Chain Missile, Rust Ray
4: +(Dispel Magic), Defenestrating Sphere (+Divine Power)
5: +(Waves of Fatigue), Vitriolic Sphere, Earth Reaver
6: +(Greater Dispel magic), +Acid Storm
7: +Radiant assault
8: +Bombardment, Avasculate (and -Incendiary Cloud and Polar Ray because they suck and I hate them)
9: +Black Blade of Disaster

Warmage Feats

Adept of Fortifications [Warmage]
Prerequisites: Warmage 1st.
Benefit: Add the following spells to your Warmage spell list; Alarm, Greater Alarm, Nature's Rampart (SpC), Secure Shelter (SpC), and Move Earth.

Master of Fortifications [Warmage]
Prequisites: Warmage 1st, Adept of Fortifications.
Benefit: Add the following spells to your Warmage spell list; Mage's Magnificent Mansion, Energy Transformation Field (SpC, 8th level), and Undermaster.

Adept of Communications [Warmage]
Prerequisites: Warmage 1st.
Benefit: Benefit: Add the following spells to your Warmage spell list: Animal Messenger, Whispering Wind, Whispering Sand (Sandstorm), Sending (4th level), and Telepathic Bond.

Adept of Area Defense [Warmage]
Prerequisites: Warmage 1st.
Benefit: Add the following spells to your Warmage spell list; Create Trap (Races of the Dragon), Icicle Trap (Frostburn), Spike Growth, Spike Stones, Mage's Faithful Hound, Guards and Wards.

Adept of Conjuring [Warmage]
Prerequisites: Warmage 1st.
Benefit: Add the following spells to your Warmage spell list; Mount, Unseen Servant, Regal Procession (SpC), Servant Horde (SpC), Phantom Stag (SpC).


Emergency Defenses [Warmage]
Prerequisites: Warmage 1st.
Benefit: Add the following spells to your Warmage spell list; Feather Fall, Deep Breath (SpC), Stand (PHB2), Energy Aegis (PHB2), and Mystic Aegis (PHB2).
Most relevant for those desiring utility, I made a few feats that add themed groups of utility spells that still fall under idea of "war" mage. I've never really agreed with the idea that just slapping more skill points on something gives it out of combat utility (you need useful class skills for that to matter, and what non-combat "utility" do they even provide when stealth/detection/negotiation/intel tie directly into combat?) or the idea that everything must have out of combat utility in the first place.

If what you mean by "out of combat" is "social," well any character that doesn't tank their charisma can throw aid-another to support every social check and I've never had a problem with doing that myself.