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rferries
2017-08-25, 05:10 AM
Here's an attempt to subsume evocation into other schools (I like evocation spells butI've always vaguely disliked the school itself). Note that I actually hope to encourage "blaster mages" by converting evocation into a warlock's eldritch blast, but in this case for sorcerers and wizards.

Most evocation spells are now conjuration spells- conjuration of course is already very powerful but it generally fits the flavour best (plus it's so powerful it doesn't really gain anything it didn't already have). Otherwise I tried to make [Light] spells into divination (illumination reveals things), and spells that physically trap/block enemies into abjuration.

Edited Spell Schools
0th-dancing lights and light are now divination, flare is now illusion

1st-burning hands, floating disk, and shocking grasp are now conjuration, magic missile is now universal (divination since it's unerring?)

2nd-continual flame is now divination, darkness is now necromancy, flaming sphere and scorching ray are now conjuration, gust of wind and shatter are now transmutation (or abjuration?)

3rd-daylight is now divination, fireball, lightning bolt, and tiny hut are now conjuration, wind wall is now abjuration

4th-fire shield, resilient sphere, wall of fire, and wall of ice are now abjuration; ice storm is now conjuration, shout is now illusion

5th-cone of cold is now conjuration, sending is now divination, interposing hand and wall of force are now abjuration

6th-chain lightning and freezing sphere are now conjuration; contingency and forceful hand are now abjuration

7th-delayed blast fireball and mage's sword are now conjuration, prismatic spray is now illusion (as colour spray? or abjuration?), forcecage and grasping hand are now abjuration

8th-telekinetic sphere and clenched fist are now abjuration, polar ray is nowconjuration, greater shout is now illusion, sunburst is now divination

9th-crushing hand is now abjuration, meteor swarm is now conjuration


And the new eldritch blast feats:

EDIT: "Caster level" in these prerequisites can be houseruled to refer to sorcerer or wizard caster level, if there is concern that clerics/druids/bards will abuse these feats with their higher BAB.

Arcane Strike
You can imbue your attacks with magical might.

Prerequisites
Caster level 1st

Benefits
Whenever you make an attack or full attack, you may choose to imbue all your attacks that round with arcane energy by making an Arcane Strike. All weapon attacks you make that round (whether melee or ranged) deal an additional 1d4 damage per caster level of your choice of bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing damage. You may choose to deal this damage in addition to your unarmed strike damage, or even as a melee touch attack if you choose not to make a weapon attack.

Whenever you make an Arcane Strike, you must wait 1d4 rounds before making another one.

Special
A wizard may select Arcane Strike whenever she could select a wizard bonus feat.


Arcane Blast
Your Arcane Strikes now reach distant foes.

Prerequisites
Caster level 3rd, Arcane Strike.

Benefits
You may make Arcane Strikes as ranged touch attacks to a range of 60 feet in place of making a weapon attack. Treat these ranged touch attacks as rays.

Whenever you make an Arcane Strike, any attacks you make are treated as magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction and regeneration.

Special
A wizard may select Arcane Blast whenever she could select a wizard bonus feat.


Arcane Bolt
Your Arcane Strikes can now take the forms of bolts.

Prerequisites
Caster level 5th, Arcane Blast, Arcane Strike.

Benefits
As a standard action you may make a single Arcane Strike as a 120 foot line. Any creature in the area is entitled to a Reflex save (DC 10 + one-half your caster level + your relevant spellcasting attribute modifier) for half damage.

Special
A wizard may select Arcane Bolt whenever she could select a wizard bonus feat.

A wizard's relevant spellcasting attribute modifier is Intelligence, a sorcerer or bard uses Charisma, and a cleric, druid, paladin, or ranger uses Wisdom.

Arcane Cone
Your Arcane Strikes can now take the forms of cones.

Prerequisites
Caster level 5th, Arcane Blast, Arcane Strike.

Benefits
As a standard action you may make a single Arcane Strike as a 60 foot cone. Any creature in the cone is entitled to a Reflex save (DC 10 + one-half your caster level + your relevant spellcasting attribute modifier) for half damage.

Special
A wizard may select Arcane Cone whenever she could select a wizard bonus feat.

A wizard's relevant spellcasting attribute modifier is Intelligence, a sorcerer or bard uses Charisma, and a cleric, druid, paladin, or ranger uses Wisdom.

Arcane Nova
Your Arcane Strikes can now take the forms of explosions.

Prerequisites
Caster level 5th, Arcane Blast, Arcane Strike.

Benefits
As a standard action you may make a single Arcane Strike as a 20-foot radius spread, out to a range of 60 feet. Any creature in the spread is entitled to a Reflex save (DC 10 + one-half your caster level + your relevant spellcasting attribute modifier) for half damage.

Special
A wizard may select Arcane Nova whenever she could select a wizard bonus feat.

A wizard's relevant spellcasting attribute modifier is Intelligence, a sorcerer or bard uses Charisma, and a cleric, druid, paladin, or ranger uses Wisdom.

Arcane Elements
Your Arcane Strikes can now deal elemental damage.

Prerequisites
Caster level 5th, Arcane Strike.

Benefits
Whenever you make an Arcane Strike, you may choose an energy type (acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic). The additional damage dealt by the Arcane Strike is of that energy type (rather than bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing). The energy type you choose provides additional effects, as follows:

Acid
An Arcane Strike of this energy type deals +1 point of damage per die, but this additional damage is not dealt until your next turn.

Cold
An Arcane Strike of this energy type deals +1 point of damage per die. The saving throw (if any) to reduce damage from a cold Arcane Strike is a Fortitude save instead of a Reflex save.

Electricity
An Arcane Strike of this energy type provides a +2 bonus to the save DC (if any).

Fire
An Arcane Strike of this energy type deals +1 point of damage per die, and risks igniting flammable objects.

Sonic
An Arcane Strike of this energy type deals -1 point of damage per die and ignores an object’s hardness.

Special
A wizard may select Arcane Elements whenever she could select a wizard bonus feat.

Arcane Energy
Your Arcane Strikes can now deal special energy damage.

Prerequisites
Caster level 9th, Arcane Elements, Arcane Strike.

Benefits
Whenever you make an Arcane Strike, you may choose an energy type (force, negative, or positive). The additional damage dealt by the Arcane Strike is of that energy type (rather than bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing). The energy type you choose provides additional effects, as follows:

Force
An Arcane Strike of this energy type ignores hardness and affects incorporeal creatures (without the usual 50% chance to be unaffected). Furthermore, creatures are not permitted Reflex saves against force Arcane Strikes.

Negative
An Arcane Strike of this energy type deals +1 point of damage per die. The saving throw (if any) to reduce damage from a negative energy Arcane Strike is a Fortitude save instead of a Reflex save, and creatures that fail their saves are shaken from terror and agony for one round per caster level. This effect stacks as normal for fear conditions.

Positive
An Arcane Strike of this energy type deals +50% more damage and all damage it deals is nonlethal damage (though undead creatures still treat this damage as lethal). Additionally, it converts an equal amount of lethal damage a living target has suffered into nonlethal damage (up to the total amount of lethal damage dealt to the creature). The saving throw (if any) to reduce damage from a positive energy Arcane Strike is a Will save instead of a Reflex save, and living creatures that fail their saves fall into a euphoric sleep for one round per caster level.

You may choose to combine the effects of this feat with the effects of the Arcane Elements feat. Whenever you make a combined Arcane Strike, it deals damage of an energy type you select from Arcane Elements but has the added effect of an energy type you select from Arcane Energy.

Special
A wizard may select Arcane Energy whenever she could select a wizard bonus feat.

Improved Arcane Strike
Your Arcane Strikes now deal additional damage.

Prerequisites
Caster level 3rd, Arcane Strike.

Benefits
Increase the damage die for your Arcane Strikes by one step (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsterFeats.htm#improvedNaturalAttack).

Special
A wizard may select Improved Arcane Strike whenever she could select a wizard bonus feat.

A character may gain this feat multiple times. Its effects stack.

Arcane Recovery
Your Arcane Strikes may be used more often.

Prerequisites
Caster level 3rd, Arcane Strike.

Benefits
Reduce the amount of time you must wait to use your Arcane Strikes by 1 round (to a minimum of 0).

Special
A wizard may select Arcane Recovery whenever she could select a wizard bonus feat.

A character may gain this feat multiple times. Its effects stack.

rferries
2017-08-25, 05:13 AM
To do:
-increase ranges (e.g. to truly simulate a Long-range fireball).
-feat for additional conditions (e.g. sonic damage causes deafness)
-feat to channel Arcane Strikes (so spellcasters can have Beam-O-Wars (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BeamOWar), and can slice up pieces of buildings
-coalesce the feats (as it is, chain probably needs too many feats to bother taking)

Jormengand
2017-08-25, 05:48 AM
magic missile is now universal (divination since it's unerring?)
Orb of Force is already conjuration; no reason why Magic Missile shouldn't be.


continual flame is now enchantment
???

Enchantments are abilities which affect people's minds directly. Continual flame just produces light and nothing else; should be a divination. Things which "Enchant" objects in a non-D&D sense are generally transmutations which is another possibility.


darkness is now illusion (or necromancy?)
Necromancy probably works better here. Darkness-type illusion effects tend to be shadows which are complicated and not what you need here. Necromancy already has fear effects which would otherwise be enchantment, so the concession with necromancy is already that it does oddly-specific stuff that would otherwise be in other schools.


shout is now transmutation[...] greater shout is now transmutation
This doesn't seem right to me. Illusion could handle a damaging ability or two, surely?


interposing hand now abjuration[...] forceful hand [is] now conjuration [etc]

I'd pick one for all of the hand spells rather than chopping and choosing.


contingency is now universal(or divination since it requires foresight?)
Abjuration seems relatively trivial here. Contingencies are almost always used to defend yourself.


sunburst is now divination
I get that it's a light effect, but it seems odd. When I think of damaging divinations I think of things like recall agony (or magical recall agony/Rich's damaging divinations like terrible secret if you want to get all pedantic on the "It's not a divination, it's a clairsentience" business), not light spells.


And the new eldritch blast feats:

Arcane Strike
You can imbue your attacks with magical might.

Prerequisites
Caster level 1st

Benefits
Whenever you make an attack or full attack, you may choose to imbue all your attacks that round with arcane energy by making an Arcane Strike. All weapon attacks you make that round (whether melee or ranged) deal an additional 1d6 damage per caster level of your choice of bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing damage. You may choose to deal this damage in addition to your unarmed strike damage, or even as a melee touch attack if you choose not to make a weapon attack.

Whenever you make an Arcane Strike, you must wait 1d4 rounds before making another one.

Special
A wizard may select Arcane Strike whenever she could select a wizard bonus feat.

I think that the rogue just took one look at the duskblade and left. What's that, you have a feat that's far better than my only real class feature? Well that's just grand, isn't it?

Even if you go "Well I only really play with core so I don't care about duskblades," you're still giving a cleric the ability to deal 60d6 damage without any real resource expenditure, before you take into account anything like pesky "Weapon damage" or anything like that.




Arcane Blast
Your Arcane Strikes now reach distant foes.

Prerequisites
Caster level 3rd, Arcane Strike.

Benefits
You may make Arcane Strikes as ranged touch attacks to a range of 60 feet in place of making a weapon attack. Treat these ranged touch attacks as rays.

Whenever you make an Arcane Strike, any attacks you make are treated as magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction and regeneration.

Special
A wizard may select Arcane Blast whenever she could select a wizard bonus feat.

"Remind me why I learned scorching ray again?"



Arcane Bolt
Your Arcane Strikes can now take the forms of bolts.

Prerequisites
Caster level 5th, Arcane Blast, Arcane Strike.

Benefits
As a standard action you may make a single Arcane Strike as a 120 foot line. Any creature in the area is entitled to a Reflex save (DC 10 + one-half your caster level + your relevant spellcasting attribute modifier) for half damage.

Special
A wizard may select Arcane Bolt whenever she could select a wizard bonus feat.

A wizard's relevant spellcasting attribute modifier is Intelligence, a sorcerer or bard uses Charisma, and a cleric, druid, paladin, or ranger uses Wisdom.

"Remind me why I learned lightning bolt again?"


Arcane Cone
Your Arcane Strikes can now take the forms of cones.

Prerequisites
Caster level 5th, Arcane Blast, Arcane Strike.

Benefits
As a standard action you may make a single Arcane Strike as a 60 foot cone. Any creature in the cone is entitled to a Reflex save (DC 10 + one-half your caster level + your relevant spellcasting attribute modifier) for half damage.

Special
A wizard may select Arcane Cone whenever she could select a wizard bonus feat.

A wizard's relevant spellcasting attribute modifier is Intelligence, a sorcerer or bard uses Charisma, and a cleric, druid, paladin, or ranger uses Wisdom.

"Remind me why I was planning to learn Cone of Cold in 6 levels' time?"


Arcane Nova
Your Arcane Strikes can now take the forms of explosions.

Prerequisites
Caster level 5th, Arcane Blast, Arcane Strike.

Benefits
As a standard action you may make a single Arcane Strike as a 20-foot radius spread, out to a range of 60 feet. Any creature in the spread is entitled to a Reflex save (DC 10 + one-half your caster level + your relevant spellcasting attribute modifier) for half damage.

Special
A wizard may select Arcane Nova whenever she could select a wizard bonus feat.

A wizard's relevant spellcasting attribute modifier is Intelligence, a sorcerer or bard uses Charisma, and a cleric, druid, paladin, or ranger uses Wisdom.

"Remind me why I learned fireball again?"


Arcane Elements
Your Arcane Strikes can now deal elemental damage.

Prerequisites
Caster level 5th, Arcane Strike.

Benefits
Whenever you make an Arcane Strike, you may choose an energy type (acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic). The additional damage dealt by the Arcane Strike is of that energy type (rather than bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing). The energy type you choose provides additional effects, as follows:

[I]Acid
An Arcane Strike of this energy type deals +1 point of damage per die, but this additional damage is not dealt until your next turn.

Cold
An Arcane Strike of this energy type deals +1 point of damage per die. The saving throw (if any) to reduce damage from a cold Arcane Strike is a Fortitude save instead of a Reflex save.

Electricity
An Arcane Strike of this energy type provides a +2 bonus to the save DC (if any).

Fire
An Arcane Strike of this energy type deals +1 point of damage per die, and risks igniting flammable objects.

Sonic
An Arcane Strike of this energy type deals -1 point of damage per die and ignores an object’s hardness.

Special
A wizard may select Arcane Elements whenever she could select a wizard bonus feat.

Oh, I see, so now you can deal EVEN MORE DAMAGE with them. I see.


Arcane Energy
Your Arcane Strikes can now deal special energy damage.

Prerequisites
Caster level 9th, Arcane Elements, Arcane Strike.

Benefits
Whenever you make an Arcane Strike, you may choose an energy type (force, negative, or positive). The additional damage dealt by the Arcane Strike is of that energy type (rather than bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing). The energy type you choose provides additional effects, as follows:

Force
An Arcane Strike of this energy type ignores hardness and affects incorporeal creatures (without the usual 50% chance to be unaffected). Furthermore, creatures are not permitted Reflex saves against force Arcane Strikes.

Negative
An Arcane Strike of this energy type deals +1 point of damage per die. The saving throw (if any) to reduce damage from a negative energy Arcane Strike is a Fortitude save instead of a Reflex save, and creatures that fail their saves are shaken from terror and agony for one round per caster level. This effect stacks as normal for fear conditions.

Positive
An Arcane Strike of this energy type restores hit points rather than dealing damage. At your option, it may instead deal +50% more damage and all damage it deals is nonlethal damage (though undead creatures still treat this damage as lethal). In either case, the saving throw (if any) to reduce damage from a positive energy Arcane Strike is a Will save instead of a Reflex save, and creatures that fail their saves fall into a euphoric sleep for one round per caster level.

Furthermore, you may choose to combine the effects of this feat with the effects of the Arcane Elements feat. Whenever you make a combined Arcane Strike, it deals damage of an energy type you select from Arcane Elements but has the added effect of an energy type you select from Arcane Energy.

Special
A wizard may select Arcane Energy whenever she could select a wizard bonus feat.

"Remind me why I learned cure assorted wounds again?"


Improved Arcane Strike
Your Arcane Strikes now deal additional damage.

Prerequisites
Caster level 3rd, Arcane Strike.

Benefits
Increase the damage die for your Arcane Strikes by one step (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsterFeats.htm#improvedNaturalAttack).

Special
A wizard may select Improved Arcane Strike whenever she could select a wizard bonus feat.

A character may gain this feat multiple times. Its effects stack.

WHY DEAR GOD WHY?


Arcane Recovery
Your Arcane Strikes may be used more often.

Prerequisites
Caster level 3rd, Arcane Strike.

Benefits
Reduce the amount of time you must wait to use your Arcane Strikes by 1 round (to a minimum of 0).

Special
A wizard may select Arcane Recovery whenever she could select a wizard bonus feat.

A character may gain this feat multiple times. Its effects stack.

...

*Backs away slowly*

But, seriously, I forsee a lot of combats going like this:

*A level 9 party is stalking in the woods...*
DM: You see a group of four vicious orcs! You've heard of this group - they're among some of the most feared adventurers of all time! Truly, only great heroes such as yourselves stand a chance!
Fighter: I won initiative, so I'm going to charge the nearest one for 2d6+26 damage... 34!
DM: Okay, he groans but remains standing. One of the orcs charges towards you and deals 45 damage!
Fighter: Ouch! Okay, I'm pretty badly injured.
DM: Cleric, your turn! What do you do.
Cleric: Well, okay, so I have arcane strike, arcane blast, arcane nova and two lots of improved arcane strike, so I'll blast all the orcs. *Rolls*
DM: Right, they all failed their saves because they have no reflex and you have good wisdom because of course you do.
Cleric: Neat, each orc takes 18d6 damage. That's 67 on the injured one, then 56, 72, and 61.
DM: Okay, well, they're all dead.
Rogue: ...
Rogue: I participated!
Wizard: Cool, I'll use my positive energy ray to heal the fighter because that's how wizards work!
Fighter: ...

rferries
2017-08-25, 06:38 AM
First off,thanks for the feedback!

Re: swapped spell schools - these are all very negotiable, I just picked whatever school first popped into my head.

Magic Missile - yep conjuration already has Orb of Force, I picked divination to help spread the love around. True there's no reason Magic Missile shouldn't be conjuration, but then again there's no reason why Orb of Force should be conjuration instead of evocation. :D

Continual Flame - yeah this was a random bit of nostalgia on my part, for when Magic Weapon and Enchant Item were enchantment spells in earlier DnD editions. However you're right, it no longer fits the school at all in 3.5 so divination it is.

Darkness- necromancy it is! Incidentally conjuration (healing) should all be ported back to necromancy to, IMHO.:smallbiggrin:

Shout and Greater Shout - I had a tenuous rationale that transmutation would have Gust of Wind and similar "air effects" because it gets Control Weather. Broke that rule almost immediately with Wind Wall and Ice Storm though; plus as you say illusion makes more sense as a beefed-up Ghost Sound.

Hand spells - yes, tried to determine which hands restrained foes/protected the caster and which were more offensive. However maybe I'll move the bulk of force effects to abjuration (because abjuration is all about protection/durability and force effects are the most durable things out there, I guess?). Conjuration would be the obvious alternative - summoning big hands from nowhere :D

Contingency - abjuration makes perfect sense.

Sunburst - yes, this one was tricky... I ultimately stuck with divination because 1) it blinds enemies (too much divination/too many secrets revealed etc.) and 2) still dispels darkness spells (drives away lies/ignorance etc.). n.b. I've made some harmful divinations (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?531821-Harmful-divination-spells) of my own.

Arcane Strike feats -as you say there's tremendous nova potential, but it does require significant feat investments plus there's the 1d4 round limitation. However the initial damage die could be reduced to prevent Improved Arcane Strike abuse.

Re: "Remind me why I learned ___ again" - because it's the cost of a scroll to inscribe in your spellbook (for a spell with better range even if it's "Close (25 feet + 5ft/2 levels)") vs having to invest your actual feats in it. Please compare psionicist "Energy _" powers and warlock's eldritch strikes + associated shapes/energy types. However, I did want to encourage blaster mages to have a viable build they could invest feats in while saving their spell slots for other uses.
n.b. the positive energy Strike may send your allies to sleep if you use it to heal them in combat.

Re: your scenario - the cleric had to invest 5 feats (his entire build up to that point!) to pump up the power to a 18d6 (I admit I really should reduce the starting damage die; even if only by one step that drops his power to 9d8). But as it stands, the party wizard needs only 1 feat (empower spell) to unleash a 13d6 fireball (almost as good as your cleric, and in fact better if I reduce the damage die by only 1 step).

There's definitely potential for abuse, but I think it can be made workable with some tweaks - it may have to be restricted to arcane casters explicitly, as well. Thanks again for the constructive criticism! :)

Jormengand
2017-08-25, 07:29 AM
My main gripe with arcane strikes is that they're irresistible damage (because they're not weapon attacks, they presumably bypass DR, and nothing has enough DR to stop them anyway and you can choose the type of damage they do anyway so it doesn't matter) with no real daily resource expenditure to use them (empowered fireball is your highest-level slot; the arcane blasts are no resources.) "Every 1d4 rounds" isn't the same kind of limitation as "Twice per day."

Westhart
2017-08-25, 07:55 AM
I honestly have to take Jorm's side with the damage output and resources used on the arcane strike. You compare it to the warlock, but that (and invocations) are some of the major features of the class... where as the spellcaster still has spells...

nonsi
2017-08-25, 09:42 AM
.

I think you're giving arcanists too much power and not enough build versatility.

That said, this post has inspired some creativity in me – I find following feat and derivatives to give a lot of maneuvering room in character build w/o overpowering the classes that are already at the top of the food chain.


Arcane Missile [General]
Requirement: able to cast 1st level arcane spells
Attack: ranged touch. Add your Int-bonus to the attack roll
Range: 120'
Damage: 1d6 / SL damage. You may distribute the damage in d6's among multiple targets. Each target eventually also takes [Int-bonus + 1 / CL] damage (meaning more targets amount to a higher overall damage).
Damage Type: Untyped
Save: no
SR: yes
Special: You may fire minor Arcane Missiles w/o paying for it in spells, but those deal only 1 / CL damage and have a cooldown time of 1d4 rounds. You may invest 0-level spells to fire minor bolts during cooldown time. Once you invest SLs to any amount to fire Arcane Missile, cooldown time is over.
Special: You have not special resistance to your own Arcane Missile
Special: All metamagic feats apply to Arcane Missile

Arcane Missile derivative feats – with requirements in brackets:
- Alternating Energy Missile [Arcane Missile]: Damage type may be any of acid/cold/electricity/fire/sonic. SR: no
- Weaponry Missile [Arcane Missile]: Damage type may be any of bludgeoning/piercing/slashing. SR: no. Special: if you also have Alternating Energy Missile, you may now fire Force missiles, dealing full damage to objects and ignoring the 50% miss chance vs. incorporeal opponents.
- Arcane Bolt [Arcane Missile]: Arcane Missile may be applied as a 60' bolt. Auto-hit; Save allowed (DC according to SL).
- Arcane Cone [Arcane Missile]: Arcane Missile may be applied as a 30' cone. Auto-hit; Save allowed (DC according to SL).
- Arcane Blast [Arcane Missile]: Arcane Missile may be applied as a 20' diameter explosion with a range of 240'. Auto-hit; Save allowed (DC according to SL).
- Arcane Spellfire Serpent [Arcane Missile, Arcane Bolt, Arcane Blast]: Anyone heard of the game "Snake" :smallbiggrin:. Origin Range: 120'. The effect may cover a total of 120' in continuous 5' increments (or less – caster's choice).
- Expanded Arcane Missile [Arcane Missile, Arcane Bolt, Arcane Cone, Arcane Blast]: All Arcane Missile ranges and AoEs are doubled. This feat may be taken multiple times (for triple/quadruple/... range).
- Erupting Blast [Arcane Missile, Arcane Blast]: You may serve as the focal point of an Arcane Blast. You are not harmed in any way by the effect.
- Arcane Immolation [Arcane Missile, Arcane Bolt, Arcane Cone, Arcane Blast]: You may selectively immolate a number of squares equal to your Int-score in a range of 120'.
- Arcane Missile Overload [Arcane Missile, able to cast 3rd level spells]: you may invest more SLs into an Arcane Missile than your highest SL, to a maximum of +1d6 / odd SL above 1st. You take 1d6 untyped damage for each SL you overload. This untyped damage is unaffected by damage resistance or energy resistance of any sort.
- Spellblast [Arcane Missile, Arcane Missile Overload]: You may combine Arcane Missile with actual spell effects. When applicable, metamagic affects both your blast and the spell.
- Improved Arcane Missile [Arcane Missile]: The damage of your Arcane Missile is now measured in d8's. This feat may be taken twice more, improving damage to d10 and then d12.

rferries
2017-08-25, 12:32 PM
My main gripe with arcane strikes is that they're irresistible damage (because they're not weapon attacks, they presumably bypass DR, and nothing has enough DR to stop them anyway and you can choose the type of damage they do anyway so it doesn't matter) with no real daily resource expenditure to use them (empowered fireball is your highest-level slot; the arcane blasts are no resources.) "Every 1d4 rounds" isn't the same kind of limitation as "Twice per day."

These feats work best for campaigns where the DM throws many prolonged encounters at you. In a standard adventure with fewer encounters/day yes you can nova your way through combat with these feats, but then you can already do that as an evocation specialist.

Damage reduction was definitely meant to be effective against them (note they deal bludgeoning etc damage, and don't even count as magic until you take Arcane Blast).

Now that it's been reduced to 1d4 damage per level, every 1d4 rounds, is it still too powerful? I'm happy to reduce the damage die further.

I should have made it clear that the intent was to partially duplicate eldritch blasts, reserve feats, breath weapons, etc - give a blaster mage a spammable ability so they're still useful when their spells have run out.


I honestly have to take Jorm's side with the damage output and resources used on the arcane strike. You compare it to the warlock, but that (and invocations) are some of the major features of the class... where as the spellcaster still has spells...

Ah yes, this would definitely replace the warlock class in a system, not be used in addition to it.


.

I think you're giving arcanists too much power and not enough build versatility.

That said, this post has inspired some creativity in me – I find following feat and derivatives to give a lot of maneuvering room in character build w/o overpowering the classes that are already at the top of the food chain.

Arcane Missile [General]
Requirement: able to cast 1st level arcane spells
Attack: ranged touch. Add your Int-bonus to the attack roll
Range: 120'
Damage: 1d6 / SL damage. You may distribute the damage in d6's among multiple targets. Each target eventually also takes [Int-bonus + 1 / CL] damage (meaning more targets amount to a higher overall damage).
Damage Type: Untyped
Save: no
SR: yes
Special: You may fire minor Arcane Missiles w/o paying for it in spells, but those deal only 1 / CL damage and have a cooldown time of 1d4 rounds. You may invest 0-level spells to fire minor bolts during cooldown time. Once you invest SLs to any amount to fire Arcane Missile, cooldown time is over.
Special: You have not special resistance to your own Arcane Missile
Special: All metamagic feats apply to Arcane Missile

Arcane Missile derivative feats – with requirements in brackets:
- Alternating Energy Missile [Arcane Missile]: Damage type may be any of acid/cold/electricity/fire/sonic. SR: no
- Weaponry Missile [Arcane Missile]: Damage type may be any of bludgeoning/piercing/slashing. SR: no. Special: if you also have Alternating Energy Missile, you may now fire Force missiles, dealing full damage to objects and ignoring the 50% miss chance vs. incorporeal opponents.
- Arcane Bolt [Arcane Missile]: Arcane Missile may be applied as a 60' bolt. Auto-hit; Save allowed (DC according to SL).
- Arcane Cone [Arcane Missile]: Arcane Missile may be applied as a 30' cone. Auto-hit; Save allowed (DC according to SL).
- Arcane Blast [Arcane Missile]: Arcane Missile may be applied as a 20' diameter explosion with a range of 240'. Auto-hit; Save allowed (DC according to SL).
- Arcane Spellfire Serpent [Arcane Missile, Arcane Bolt, Arcane Blast]: Anyone heard of the game "Snake" :smallbiggrin:. Origin Range: 120'. The effect may cover a total of 120' in continuous 5' increments (or less – caster's choice).
- Expanded Arcane Missile [Arcane Missile, Arcane Bolt, Arcane Cone, Arcane Blast]: All Arcane Missile ranges and AoEs are doubled. This feat may be taken multiple times (for triple/quadruple/... range).
- Erupting Blast [Arcane Missile, Arcane Blast]: You may serve as the focal point of an Arcane Blast. You are not harmed in any way by the effect.
- Arcane Immolation [Arcane Missile, Arcane Bolt, Arcane Cone, Arcane Blast]: You may selectively immolate a number of squares equal to your Int-score in a range of 120'.
- Arcane Missile Overload [Arcane Missile, able to cast 3rd level spells]: you may invest more SLs into an Arcane Missile than your highest SL, to a maximum of +1d6 / odd SL above 1st. You take 1d6 untyped damage for each SL you overload. This untyped damage is unaffected by damage resistance or energy resistance of any sort.
- Spellblast [Arcane Missile, Arcane Missile Overload]: You may combine Arcane Missile with actual spell effects. When applicable, metamagic affects both your blast and the spell.
- Improved Arcane Missile [Arcane Missile]: The damage of your Arcane Missile is now measured in d8's. This feat may be taken twice more, improving damage to d10 and then d12.

Wow, impressive! You should copy these to their own post so they can be P.E.A.C.H.E.D. properly :)

Grod_The_Giant
2017-08-25, 02:01 PM
So my first question is, obviously, "what's the point of this change?" It's a somewhat messy thing to do, and I'm not sure exactly what the benefit is supposed to be. Encourage blasting? You probably won't; the issue is more with the strength of d6/level spells than their concentration in one school. Not to mention that your new feats do a better job of it. Get rid of a school you don't like? Well... if you like the spells, what don't you like about the school? If it's the overlap with Conjuration, I suggest narrowing its focus to "energy manipulation," and fiddle with the list from there (maybe move in Protection from Energy and dump Contingency, say)


These feats work best for campaigns where the DM throws many prolonged encounters at you. In a standard adventure with fewer encounters/day yes you can nova your way through combat with these feats, but then you can already do that as an evocation specialist.
The thing is, they're also high damage-- easily twice the base damage of Eldritch Blast, plus iterative attacks. Not to mention that the wording of Arcane Strike/Blast lets you load up on Rapid Shot type "make an extra attack, but all attacks are at a penalty" feats, then turn all that into ranged touch attacks. Or, god forbid, natural weapons.

You're basically trying to redo Reserve Feats (CMage) here, right? A reliable-but-not-overpowering attack you can fall back on when you don't want to waste spell slots? That's not a bad idea, but you absolutely should not have them be stronger than most standard evocations. 1d4/level is probably alright if you remove the iterative attacks; 1d6/2 levels or 1d6/highest level spell available might be okay with iteratives, but under no circumstances should you allow a blanket "instead of a weapon attack" feature.

Otherwise, I think light and darkness spells probably fit best in illusion-- that school already gets a bunch of shadow magic, especially in later books, and something like silent image is basically just manipulating light already. I'm not a big fan of shoving evocations into Conj, but I suppose there really isn't a great alternative. Abjuration getting BFC stuff also seems kind of odd; I can see personal protection stuff like Fire Shield, but Wall of Fire?


1st-burning hands, floating disk, and shocking grasp are now conjuration, magic missile is now universal (divination since it's unerring?)
Magic Missile should get lumped with the other force spells, methinks: Abjuration if you want that to cover force (which makes sense to me, and seems like a good way to make the school a little broader), or universal if you want "playing with force" to be something any spellcaster can do.


2nd-continual flame is now divination, darkness is now necromancy, flaming sphere and scorching ray are now conjuration, gust of wind and shatter are now transmutation (or abjuration?)
Continual Flame should be Transmutation-- you're transforming a torch, after all.


3rd-daylight is now divination, fireball, lightning bolt, and tiny hut are now conjuration, wind wall is now abjuration
I might put Tiny Hut as Abjuration; it's a defensive-type spell, after all. And I maintain that light spells should be illusion.


4th-fire shield, resilient sphere, wall of fire, and wall of ice are now abjuration; ice storm is now conjuration, shout is now illusion
Not a fan of Wall of Fire or Wall of Ice as Abjuration-- the latter in particular seems like a clear Conjuration, since you're magicking up a bunch of ice.


5th-cone of cold is now conjuration, sending is now divination, interposing hand and wall of force are now abjuration
Sure


6th-chain lightning and freezing sphere are now conjuration; contingency and forceful hand are now abjuration
I'd actually peg Contingency as Divination-- it's a spell about predicting the future and acting on it. What's more divine-y than that?


7th-delayed blast fireball and mage's sword are now conjuration, prismatic spray is now illusion (as colour spray? or abjuration?), forcecage and grasping hand are now abjuration
I like Prismatic Spray as an illusion, yeah.


8th-telekinetic sphere and clenched fist are now abjuration, polar ray is nowconjuration, greater shout is now illusion, sunburst is now divination
Light spells as illusion, etc.


9th-crushing hand is now abjuration, meteor swarm is now conjuration
Sure.

rferries
2017-08-25, 05:00 PM
You make good points about questioning my aims - I really hadn't thought much more beyond "I dislike the evocation school". I suppose part of it is feeling that most evocation effects really are just conjuration by a different name, and also wanting spellcasters to do non-spell energy blasts as they are often depicted in Saturday morning cartoons haha.

Iterative attacks are not really an issue, especially if I explicitly restrict these feats to sorcerer/wizards (I've put in an edit to this effect, see above). Since the damage is based on caster level you can't afford to multiclass into full-BAB classes, but without high BAB you don't get your first iterative until 12th level. Please also note that the cone/line/etc versions require a STANDARD action to use, so you can't do multiple area-attacks in the same turn. Similarly Rapid Shot et al require feat investments that cut into the feats you need to buff the Arcane Strike.

I admit I tend to ignore low-tier classes when designing things, hence these feats basically making warlocks redundant. Would 1d3 (or even 1d2) damage per level be acceptable?

Re: spell schools - many of your suggestions were how I had originally migrated the evocation spells, but I switched them after input from Jormengand. Rather than keep swapping things back and forth I think I'll table the homebrew for now and have a re-think. I would point out that abjuration versions of Wall of Fire and Wall of Cold were in keeping (IMHO) with Prismatic Wall and Prismatic Sphere. Any spell mechanic can be justified in any school, it's just a question of fluff.

Thank you for the very thoughtful critique; I probably should have had a better design goal in mind first!

nonsi
2017-08-25, 06:22 PM
Wow, impressive! You should copy these to their own post so they can be P.E.A.C.H.E.D. properly :)


Thanks. I took your suggestion :smallcool:

yarrowdeathbloo
2017-08-26, 03:52 AM
When I write by book of seasons source book I want to include a class that uses bastardized versions of your feats as its class features (not sure which season to acosiate it with though) that ok with you?

Jormengand
2017-08-26, 08:25 AM
Iterative attacks are not really an issue, especially if I explicitly restrict these feats to sorcerer/wizards (I've put in an edit to this effect, see above). Since the damage is based on caster level you can't afford to multiclass into full-BAB classes, but without high BAB you don't get your first iterative until 12th level.

Battle Sorcerer/Eldritch Knight/Abjurant Champion can get full iteratives and full CL (with practiced spellcaster). In fact, they can get higher than full CL with a few items.

Deepbluediver
2017-08-26, 12:02 PM
I'd like to ask if you could go into more detail about WHY you want to eliminate evocation as a school? I know that optimizers tend not to think highly of it because WotC decided to give blasty-type spells to lots of other schools as well, making it kind of superfluous, but the theme feels really iconic. And, given D&D's focus on combat, it's a good school to recommend for new players to simplify things a bit for a class that has as much potential complexity as the Wizard.

Part of the reason I'm curious is that I wanted to do something similar with my magic fix, but I chose different schools to change, and I'm interested in what your philosophy was. For me, I split off the mind affecting "Illusions" into Enchantment, and combined what was left of Illusion with Divination to form a new school (possibly called Insight, I'm open to suggestions about the name) that deals with information and misinformation. My motivation here was that Divination (prophecy) and Illusion (trickery) both have an excellent history of LITERARY use but, in my experience at least, they tend to be much harder to work impressively into a game.

CasualViking
2017-08-26, 03:29 PM
Most of the spells that go to Conjuration could go to Transmutation instead. Conjuration is already better than any other school and close to being better than every other school.

Jormengand
2017-08-26, 04:28 PM
Most of the spells that go to Conjuration could go to Transmutation instead. Conjuration is already better than any other school and close to being better than every other school.

If I have to pick conjuration or transmutation as the only school I'm allowed to cast from, or if I have to ban one of those two and keep the other seven schools, conjuration's going in the fire every time. Passing up alter self/polymorph/PAO/shapechange ain't happening.



Another thought: putting the damaging spells in necromancy might make sense - after all, killing stuff is like half of necromancy's job anyway.

rferries
2017-08-26, 09:00 PM
When I write by book of seasons source book I want to include a class that uses bastardized versions of your feats as its class features (not sure which season to acosiate it with though) that ok with you?

Certainly, be my guest! I actually agree with what others have said about these feats being too powerful though, so caveat emptor! :)


Battle Sorcerer/Eldritch Knight/Abjurant Champion can get full iteratives and full CL (with practiced spellcaster). In fact, they can get higher than full CL with a few items.

Ah yes. However I tend to balance my stuff around the SRD, so I hadn't anticipated Abjurant Champion. And if a PC is willing to pay the price of playing Battle Sorcerer or Eldritch Knight, more power to them!


I'd like to ask if you could go into more detail about WHY you want to eliminate evocation as a school? I know that optimizers tend not to think highly of it because WotC decided to give blasty-type spells to lots of other schools as well, making it kind of superfluous, but the theme feels really iconic. And, given D&D's focus on combat, it's a good school to recommend for new players to simplify things a bit for a class that has as much potential complexity as the Wizard.

Part of the reason I'm curious is that I wanted to do something similar with my magic fix, but I chose different schools to change, and I'm interested in what your philosophy was. For me, I split off the mind affecting "Illusions" into Enchantment, and combined what was left of Illusion with Divination to form a new school (possibly called Insight, I'm open to suggestions about the name) that deals with information and misinformation. My motivation here was that Divination (prophecy) and Illusion (trickery) both have an excellent history of LITERARY use but, in my experience at least, they tend to be much harder to work impressively into a game.

I'm afraid I didn't really put a lot of thought into it! It didn't go beyond a slight irritation I've had with the class since AD&D - I never understood how Evoking a fireball was meant to be different (in practice) from Conjuring one from the Elemental Plane of Fire. Plus I like the mechanic of the eldritch blast/reserve feats, which as I've said reflected the power of most spellcasters in fiction (can blast all day even if they aren't casting proper spells).

Your rearrangement sounds intriguing too! If I were to go further though I'd restore spells with multiple schools, make most spells with durations greater than instant into Enchantments (as in Magic: The Gathering), switch Conjuration (healing) back to Necromancy, and a whole whack of other random changes haha.


Most of the spells that go to Conjuration could go to Transmutation instead. Conjuration is already better than any other school and close to being better than every other school.


If I have to pick conjuration or transmutation as the only school I'm allowed to cast from, or if I have to ban one of those two and keep the other seven schools, conjuration's going in the fire every time. Passing up alter self/polymorph/PAO/shapechange ain't happening.



Another thought: putting the damaging spells in necromancy might make sense - after all, killing stuff is like half of necromancy's job anyway.

As I've said, Conjuration can already do almost anything Evocation can do so it wouldn't make it that much more powerful if it were to absorb Evocation.

Necromancy is a cool idea, but to totally go for broke Necromancy could be absorbed into Conjuration too (since it's all about conjurings souls and Negative/Positive Energy) :D

Deepbluediver
2017-08-27, 01:52 AM
I'm afraid I didn't really put a lot of thought into it! It didn't go beyond a slight irritation I've had with the class since AD&D - I never understood how Evoking a fireball was meant to be different (in practice) from Conjuring one from the Elemental Plane of Fire.
I'll agree with you there- something else I wanted to do was move pretty much ALL the blasty-type elemental damage spells into Evocation, and make conjuration specifically about summoning objects and creatures (and teleportation).

One thing I've discussed before with people is that magic in D&D can sort-of be grouped into as few as three major categories: (1) summoning, of objects, creatures, and energy, (2) "mind stuff", that's enchantment, illusion, and divination, and (3) changing stuff, which is transmutation and abjuration (dispels, etc). There's a few odd spells out, like creating undead, but which category that fits best in depends largely on how you fluff it.

For a game, I'm not personally a fan of that, but it's a style of design to consider.


Plus I like the mechanic of the eldritch blast/reserve feats, which as I've said reflected the power of most spellcasters in fiction (can blast all day even if they aren't casting proper spells).
That depends on what fiction you're looking at, but from a games-perspective, I like the idea that there's some sort of limit or failure-chance or what have you. Have you ever wrestled? Or just wailed on a punching bag for a few minutes? Fighting is EXHAUSTING, and while D&D doesn't really have rules for getting tired from to many attacks, it sort of makes sense to me that calling upon eldritch powers drains you in some way. That's my 2 cp on it.


Your rearrangement sounds intriguing too! If I were to go further though I'd restore spells with multiple schools, make most spells with durations greater than instant into Enchantments (as in Magic: The Gathering), switch Conjuration (healing) back to Necromancy, and a whole whack of other random changes haha.
Yeah, I've had this discussion about how the schools were defined before- http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?264327-I-was-asleep-in-class-on-the-day-they-explained-Spell-subschools


Not to get too off track, but for the sake of completeness this is way I split it all:
Evocation- all the "elemental energy" effects, aka blasty spells with the fire/cold/electric/acid descriptors, including things like the Orb line of spells
Conjuration- summoning creatures and objects, plus teleportation; I refluffed the Summon Monster spells a bit to being summoning etheric constructs rather than living, breathing creatures
Necromancy- negative AND positive energy; everything necromancy already has, plus healing
Enchantment- anything and everything that effects how a creature behaves, including "illusion" spells with the mind-affecting tag and stuff like Fear (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fear.htm) (necromancy) and Command Plants (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/commandPlants.htm) (transmutation)
Insight- all about information and misinformation, so the renmants of illusion, plus divination; to give it some "easier to use" spells I also moved most things with the [sonic] and [light] tags here, too
Transmutation- probably the least changed school, since it's mainly just losing a few things
Abjuration- the school of magic that mostly affects other magic, so stuff like disenchants; also gets all the [force] effects like Mage Armor and Magic Missile under the fluff-explantion that [force] energy is the "purest" magic energy

rferries
2017-08-27, 11:53 AM
That depends on what fiction you're looking at, but from a games-perspective, I like the idea that there's some sort of limit or failure-chance or what have you. Have you ever wrestled? Or just wailed on a punching bag for a few minutes? Fighting is EXHAUSTING, and while D&D doesn't really have rules for getting tired from to many attacks, it sort of makes sense to me that calling upon eldritch powers drains you in some way. That's my 2 cp on it.

Yeah, I've had this discussion about how the schools were defined before- http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?264327-I-was-asleep-in-class-on-the-day-they-explained-Spell-subschools

Not to get too off track, but for the sake of completeness this is way I split it all:
Evocation- all the "elemental energy" effects, aka blasty spells with the fire/cold/electric/acid descriptors, including things like the Orb line of spells
Conjuration- summoning creatures and objects, plus teleportation; I refluffed the Summon Monster spells a bit to being summoning etheric constructs rather than living, breathing creatures
Necromancy- negative AND positive energy; everything necromancy already has, plus healing
Enchantment- anything and everything that effects how a creature behaves, including "illusion" spells with the mind-affecting tag and stuff like Fear (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fear.htm) (necromancy) and Command Plants (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/commandPlants.htm) (transmutation)
Insight- all about information and misinformation, so the renmants of illusion, plus divination; to give it some "easier to use" spells I also moved most things with the [sonic] and [light] tags here, too
Transmutation- probably the least changed school, since it's mainly just losing a few things
Abjuration- the school of magic that mostly affects other magic, so stuff like disenchants; also gets all the [force] effects like Mage Armor and Magic Missile under the fluff-explantion that [force] energy is the "purest" magic energy

I'm fine with magic having limitations per day (though I prefer spell points to Vancian magic), but I also like the idea of Gandalf/Skeletor/whomever also having a telekinetic/energy blast attack they can rely on when they've run out of proper spells.

Your spell schools all make perfect sense to me (though I'd keep the "Divination" name for flavour). Abjuration makes particular sense - mage armour has always been a weaselly way of having a protection spell in Conjuration.

Deepbluediver
2017-08-27, 07:56 PM
I'm fine with magic having limitations per day (though I prefer spell points to Vancian magic)
I'm a pretty big fan of the idea that there's a dozen different ways to deal fire damage to someone* in D&D, so if someone prefers a points system to spell-slots, my first instinct is to just tell them to roll up a psion. But spell-point systems can work just fine, too.

*Vancian spells: I cast Fireball
Psionics: I excite the molecules at a given location to deal heat damage via enhanced molecular energy
Binder: Through my pact with a demonlord of the pit, I curse you with eldritch fire!
Dragonfire Adept: through my veneration of dragons I have gained a measure of their power
ToB: I punch you and my fist bursts into fire through SHEER AWESOMENESS!
Incarnum: I shape the essence of a dragon and gain it's flame-breath attack.
Truenamer: I speak a word and your own armor cooks you alive
Mundane: my sword is enchanted! activate fire damage!
etc etc etc

My preferred explanation of why the vancian casting system works the way it does is that spells are actually really REALLY complicated, and it would normally take several minutes to cast anything. What you're really doing when you prepare spells is cast 95% of a spell and save the final 5% for triggering as needed. Obviously this raises some quests about the "per day" limit and spontaneous casting, but nothing that you can't work around or at worst isn't any more gamebreaking than magic already is.

If this sounds odd to you, I'd recommend reading the Young Wizards series (it's YA fantasy) by Diane Duane which does the worldbuilding and explanation really well. The way magic works in that multiverse is that wizards know the language with which the gods designed creation, and because you are speaking the universal truth, describing things causes them to happen. Of course, the description of a magical laser is more like an electromagnetically contained plasma bottle, and of course all the math and science for that is WAY to complicated to put together in the middle of a battle, so you need to prep it ahead of time. The setting also has "spell burn-in", which basically means that if you try to hold a spell for to long or use it to much in a short period of time, it starts to become less effective and less efficient, so wizards are encouraged to have a variety of solutions prepped. (AFAIK, there's no reason given WHY, it just says that it does)

All of which sounds so much like a Truenamer that I'm kind of suspicious about where WotC was getting their inspiration.


but I also like the idea of Gandalf/Skeletor/whomever also having a telekinetic/energy blast attack they can rely on when they've run out of proper spells.
That's what wands are for. Also, I'm not really a fan of wands or staves that run out of charges permenantly. The way I do these items is that they have a much smaller number of charges (for wands, 5) but the charges replenish automatically (1 every 4 hours). That way you basically have 5 uses per day and don't have to worry about tracking anything else.
Give your Wizard a wand with a level 1 Evocation spell on it and it's basically the equivalent of a magical crossbow.


Your spell schools all make perfect sense to me (though I'd keep the "Divination" name for flavour). Abjuration makes particular sense - mage armour has always been a weaselly way of having a protection spell in Conjuration.
Yeah, when I was new to D&D I actually had an argument with someone about Mage Armor and when they pointed it out to me in the book that it's NOT abjuration, I think that was my first ever moment when I thought "huh, this setting has some odd/nonsensical stuff to it".

Anyway, I'm not sold on the "Insight" name, I just haven't come up with anything better. I was thinking I might keep "divination" and possibly "illusion" as subschool titles.

Finally, I think having multiple effects or themes or tools or whatever in a single school is a valid possibility for system-design, even if any overlap does kind of weaken the concept of a "school". It's just that in 3.5 this standard was applied (IMO) so inconsistently. Nearly every school has some sort of "direct damage" spell, making Evocation kind of superfluous. And some spells do a single VERY SPECIFIC thing (burning hands vs cone of cold), while other spells (especially in Conjuration and Transmutation) are actually many spells in one- Summon Monster IX, for example, lets you conjure up a selection of literally dozens of different creatures, often with spell-like abilities of their own. Who thought this was balanced?

rferries
2017-08-28, 12:17 AM
Yes, flavour can be a tricky thing and obviously it has different appeal to different characters. +1 for Diane Duane and the Young Wizards, too! :)