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Yakk
2007-08-28, 05:57 PM
Not all of the dragon touched become Sorcerers -- others follow a martial path.

Dragon Touched Warrior
{table=head]Level|Base Attack<br>Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|0lvl|1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th

1st|
+1|
+2|
+0|
+0|Elemental Affinity, Energy Resistence 5|1/1|-|-|-|-|-

2nd|
+2|
+3|
+0|
+0|Metamagic Feat|2/1|-|-|-|-|-

3rd|
+3|
+3|
+1|
+1|Weapon Aura +1d6|2/2|0/1|-|-|-|-

4th|
+4|
+4|
+1|
+1|Heavy Armor|3/2|0/1|-|-|-|-

5th|
+5|
+4|
+1|
+1|Elemental Metamagic: 1|3/2|1/1|-|-|-|-

6th|
+6|
+5|
+2|
+2|Energy Resistence 10|3/2|2/1|-|-|-|-

7th|
+7|
+5|
+2|
+2|Metamagic Feat|3/2|2/2|0/1|-|-|-

8th|
+8|
+6|
+2|
+2|Weapon Aura +2d6|3/2|3/2|0/1|-|-|-

9th|
+9|
+6|
+3|
+3|Quick Weapon Aura|3/2|3/2|1/1|-|-|-

10th|
+10|
+7|
+3|
+3|Elemental Metamagic: 2|3/2|3/2|2/1|-|-|-

11th|
+11|
+7|
+3|
+3|Energy Resistence 15|3/2|3/2|2/2|0/1|-|-

12th|
+12|
+8|
+4|
+4|Metamagic Feat|3/2|3/2|3/2|0/1|-|-

13th|
+13|
+8|
+4|
+4|Weapon Aura +3d6|3/2|3/2|3/2|1/1|-|-

14th|
+14|
+9|
+4|
+4|Elemental Transmutation|3/2|3/2|3/2|2/1|-|-

15th|
+15|
+9|
+5|
+5|Elemental Metamagic: 3|3/2|3/2|3/2|2/2|0/1|-

16th|
+16|
+10|
+5|
+5|Energy Resistence 20|3/2|3/2|3/2|3/2|0/1|-

17th|
+17|
+10|
+5|
+5|Metamagic Feat|3/2|3/2|3/2|3/2|1/1|-

18th|
+18|
+11|
+6|
+6|Weapon Aura +4d6|3/2|3/2|3/2|3/2|2/1|-

19th|
+19|
+11|
+6|
+6|Energy Immunity|3/2|3/2|3/2|3/2|2/2|0/1

20th|
+20|
+12|
+6|
+6|Elemental Metamagic: 4|3/2|3/2|3/2|3/2|2/2|1/1[/table]

Hit Die: d8

Skills: 2+int per level
Intimidate, Diplomacy, Jump, Listen, Craft, Concentration, Sense Motive, Swim, Profession

Weapons and Equipment:
The Dragon Touched Warrior is proficient in Light and Medium armor and all simple and martial one-handed melee weapons, and all simple and martial ranged weapons.

At level 4, the Dragon Touched Warrior gains proficiency with Heavy armor.

Elemental Affinity:
At first level, the Dragon Touched Warrior picks an elemental damage type (fire, cold, acid or lightning). This damage type is considered his "element of affinity".

The Dragon Touched warrior has energy resistance 5 to his element of affinity. This increases to 10, 15, 20 and immunity at levels 6, 11, 16 and 19 respectively.

The Dragon Touched Warrior is considered to be 1 level higher for any spell that uses that descriptor for the purpose of spell effects, dispelling, etc.

Starting at level 3, the Dragon Touched Warrior can engulf her weapon in an elemental aura as a standard action up to charisma bonus times per day. The weapon now does +1d6 damage of the elemental type, and lasts a number of rounds equal to her constitution modifier. This effect is very visible, and emits light in a foot radius equal to her class level.

The damage of the weapon aura increases to 2d6 at level 8, 3d6 at level 13 and 4d6 at level 18.

At level 9, activating the weapon aura becomes a Quick action.

At level 5, the Dragon Touched Warrior has 1 level of free metamagic that can be applied to element affinity spells. This increases to 2 at level 10, 3 at level 15 and 4 at level 20.

At level 2, 7, 12, and 17, the Dragon Touched Warrior gains a bonus metamagic feat. This feat may only be used on spells that match her elemental affinity.

At level 14, the Dragon Touched Warrior can transmute the element type of any spell to her element of affinity. This allows the use of affinity-bound free metamagic and metamagic feats.

Magic:
The above table is spells per day/known for each level. The number after the slash is know, the number before the slash is per day.

The Dragon Touched Warrior's caster level equals the character's Dragon Touched Warrior level.

The Dragon Touched Warrior uses Charisma for bonus spells per day.

The Dragon Touched Warrior uses Constitution for bonus spells known -- use the same table as bonus spells per day, but it applies to spells known. If her constitution is reduced from her peak value, the bonus spells known are temporally uncastable until she recovers her spells the next day. (This does not let you change which spells you know, it just prevents you from using some of the spells you know)

While the DTW is a spontaneous caster, when using metamagic on elemental affinity spells she does not have to cast as a full-round action.

Armed Magic:
The Dragon Touched Warrior is skilled in fighting and casting spells at the same time. So long as the Dragon Touched Warrior is wielding no more than a single one-handed weapon, and not using a shield, she gains certain casting benefits:

If the Dragon Touched Warrior suffers arcane spell failure from casting a spell, she does not lose the spell slot, and can try casting it again on another round.

If the Dragon Touched Warrior does no other arcane action in a round, she can cast a single spell as a Swift action on her round. Arcane actions include casting other spells, activating a magic item, reading a scroll, or other similar actions. The ban on being able to do other arcane actions continues until her next round. Free elemental metamagic levels may not be used on these fast-cast spells.

Spell list:
0: Resistance, Ray of Frost, Flare, Acid Splash, Daze
1: Shield, Mage Armor, Shocking Grasp, Burning Hands, Chill Touch
2: Resist Energy, Acid Arrow, Scorching Ray, Darkness, Daze Monster, Levitate
3: Protection from Energy, Sleet Storm, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Rage, Flame Arrow, Fly
4: Fire Shield, Ice Storm, Shout, Wall of Fire, Wall of Ice, Confusion, Stoneskin
5: Cone of Cold, Overland Flight, Acid Fog, Chain Lightning

Commentary:

This class was built off an earlier attempt, the Battle Sorcerer variant, and the Bard.

It is intended to be a melee-heavy spellcaster. The spell list is restricted to mostly raw offensive damage spells, with a handful of additional ones.

The spell progression is slower than a Bard, but faster than a Ranger/Paladin.

In the element of affinity, the DTW has access to impressive metamagic, but still not enough for them to rival a pure caster.

The Dragon touched warrior can shoot off a single spell while attacking in melee. This keeps the "spells and swords" thing going.

DTW probably needs some tuning down from her current state.

The spell list needs fleshing out -- it is currently core only. In general, evocation damage rays, melee touch, and range area spells are fair game. Any suggestions?


Changes:
Fixed action descriptions. (Swift and Standard, not Quick and Simple, sigh)
Weapon Aura limited to Cha bonus times/day.
Restricted "fast-cast while fighting" spells further -- they cannot use the free metamagic levels. The DTW is already getting 4 free levels of metamagic on these spells.
Tidied up a few more things.
Removed the Sonic DTW -- as noted, Sonic is too good. Left the Acid DTW in. Maybe a Sonic handicap would work, but seems like too much work.
Removed True Strike from the spell list. As a swift action using a L 1 spell slot, it is too good.

geez3r
2007-08-28, 08:49 PM
This class is good overall but a few things need to be cleaned up; mostly dealing with the magic section.



So long as the Dragon Touched Warrior is using a one-handed weapon and is not using a shield, she can cast spells quite well in armor.

To simplify things first say that the character ignores arcane failure so long as they are not using a sheild and have at least 1 hand free.



If a Dragon Touched Warrior suffers arcane spell failure, the spell is not consumed, and may be cast on another round. The spell still fails this round.

Not really an issue because they rarely have spell failure, but nice to have none the less.



If the Dragon Touched Warrior has not cast a spell, activated a magical item, read a scroll, or other similar arcane action, they can cast a single spell as a Quick action on their turn. This also prevents the Dragon Touched Warrior from casting a spell (or other similar arcane action) until their next round.


Just to clarify, this basically means that they can cast 1 spell a round without using a standard action. Also use the common terminology of "Swift Action" to avoid confusion. A similar problem occurs when you use the term "simple action" and in the weapon aura description and later quick action in the same area.



If the Dragon Touched Warrior is using a shield or more than a single one-handed weapon, the above benefits are ignored.

The Dragon Touched Warrior's caster level equals the character's Dragon Touched Warrior level.

Self explanatory.



The Dragon Touched Warrior uses Charisma for bonus spells per day. The Dragon Touched Warrior uses Constitution for bonus spells known.



There is no previous mechanic for gaining additional spells known, so a little clarification is necessary.

Yakk
2007-08-28, 09:22 PM
This class is good overall but a few things need to be cleaned up; mostly dealing with the magic section.


To simplify things first say that the character ignores arcane failure so long as they are not using a sheild and have at least 1 hand free.


Not really an issue because they rarely have spell failure, but nice to have none the less.

No -- their ability to cast spells in armor is limited to the ability to not lose a spell from ASF.

There exist player races with more than 2 hands -- I am restricting the DTW to use only 1 one-handed weapon in order to cast in armor.


Just to clarify, this basically means that they can cast 1 spell a round without using a standard action. Also use the common terminology of "Swift Action" to avoid confusion. A similar problem occurs when you use the term "simple action" and in the weapon aura description and later quick action in the same area.

Yes, I meant Swift action. I got mixed up between Quick/Swift/Immediate. :)

I'm trying to allow them to fight and cast a single spell in the same round. At the same time, I want to prevent them from casting two spells in the same round.


There is no previous mechanic for gaining additional spells known, so a little clarification is necessary.

True. The hard part is dealing with con loss -- what does it do to spells known.

I'll strip it -- the class doesn't need the extra complication.

Things that need to be tweaked:
As it stands, it is too strong.
A BaB drop? I'd rather strip out some more spell casting...
Removal/reduction of the d6 damage? I think it needs to be limited to (cha bonus) times per day (so the DTW cannot say "I activate it every round I'm not in combat" in order to have it loaded at the start of combat).

I did try to deal with that with a highly restricted spell list: only a handful of save or suck spells, and they aren't the best ones. Limited buffs (resists, self-AC, true strike, and rage). Very little utility other than that: just the flight spells.

But I feel a bit leery -- that's a pretty large list of abilities compared to the L 20 fighter. The L 20 fighter gets only +23.5 HP and 11 feats over this class...

Bauglir
2007-08-28, 09:28 PM
Either lose sonic, or introduce some difference between the damage types. Sonic is far better than any other energy type if it does the same damage, just because almost nothing has resistance or immunity. Plus, it does full damage to objects (minus Hardness, of course, since the ability doesn't say anything about ignoring Hardness), so it and Acid are just generally better, though at least a lot of things have Acid resistance.

jjpickar
2007-08-28, 09:34 PM
I like it very much. Very cool and well done. The tying of Con to spells known is a neat touch. It shows the racial memory aspect of the class. Don't worry about stepping on the fighter's toes as he is one of the least powerful classes in the game. Its when you make the druid look weak that you're class is a bit too strong. This class, like the proverbial baby's porridge, is just right.

Krelon
2007-08-29, 05:01 AM
how many times per day can the weapon aura be used? Looks like you have only one use but it is not clear.

how do you handle free levels of metamagic? can you give an gameplay relevant example?

a quickened spell uses a spell slot 4 levels higher than usual! Being able to cast all spells as swift spells effectively gives you those spell levels for free. I'd suggest that there is some drawback for this powerful ability, for example when casting a swift spell your caster level is only half your class level, if spees is not necessary you could always choose to cast the spell as a standard action, though.

Yakk
2007-08-29, 12:26 PM
So I did some changes as suggested by the above posters.

Let's do a L 20 comparison between a DTW and a more standard gish (mage/fighter):

Standard Gish:
Battle Sorc 12
Fighter 1
Eldrich Knight 7

Caster level: 18

Per day:
5/5/5/5/5/5/5/5/5/2
Known:
8/4/4/3/3/3/2/2/2/1

BaB: +17
HP: 84 + 1st level extra + con

Dragon Touched Warrior Gish:
DTW 20
Caster level: 20
Per day:
3/3/3/3/2/1
Known: (Note: bonus from con)
2/2/2/2/2/1
Free metamagic: +4

BaB: +20
HP: 90 + 1st level extra + con

Even if you count the metamagic levels as real spell levels, the standard gish is a better caster. And 9th level spells are better than 5th level spells with 4 points of metamagic applied...

The DTW is slightly better in melee, and has some benefits for casting armed. The DTW also has advantages based on her elemental affinity (immunity, weapon aura, transmutation).

...

I split off the "cast quickly while fighting" and the "free elemental metamagic" abilities -- the DTW can now only do one of the two.

Note that the DTW suffers ASF -- but it just delays casting of spells. Full plate is only a 35% ASF, down to 25% with Mithral. If the DTW takes still spell, she can choose to not quick cast the spell and instead use her free metamagic to get the spell off with zero ASF. In essence, armor hinders the DTW less than other classes.