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View Full Version : This Is My Fireball.



Rejakor
2007-08-31, 10:15 AM
"THIS IS MY FIREBALL. THERE ARE MANY LIKE IT, BUT THIS ONE IS MINE. MY FIREBALL IS MY BEST FRIEND. IT IS MY LIFE. I MUST MASTER IT AS I MASTER MY LIFE. MY FIREBALL, WITHOUT ME, IS USELESS. WITHOUT MY FIREBALL, I AM USELESS."

Come on, you all know it. The quintessential spell, the iconic mage with a ball of flame. That has how people have thought of wizards for centuries. And I have a new take on it. People, I want a class. Not just any class, I want a martial themed arcanist, I want a master specialist, trained in a military camp, and taught a simple mantra, 'My Fireball is my Life'.

Flavourwise, this class will be much like the Warmage class from Complete Arcane. A caster class designed to be the 'battlefield artillery' in a military. But while the warmage is designed to support infantry battalions, and be a sort of all around evocator, this class will be even more focused.

Trained purely to be the ultimate military unit, a Marine Firecaster is the master of the fireball. He or she uses it like other people use a sword or a bow. Working in tight groups, these military specialists use tactics and strategy as much as brute magic to defeat their foes, but are never afraid to get right into the thick of it, wielding their trusty flame with consummate skill.

Many a Uru'gar goblin's last sight has been the tiny bead of fire that has erupted into flame, consuming and burning, or a team of firecasters working through their ranks, hands flashing as flame leaps from their fingertips into goblin ranks.

((Okay. Now what i'm looking for isn't some kind of pyromaniac, or robed wizard. I'm looking for a soldier, trained to use every means available to him to disable the enemy, with extreme prejudice.

I'm mainly looking for a base class, but if you feel a prestige class coming on, i'm not stopping you.

Ideas: Take a look at the Warlock's mechanic, as that fits very well with the whole 'my fireball is my weapon' idea of this class.
Failing that, the ability to control a fireball's shape, power, and size would work well with this class. As would some shock-and-awe style class abilities. (check up your conditions, dazzled is a nice one for this kind of thing).
I want to emphasize the 'soldier' thing here, not the 'magic' thing, so any class abilities along the 'being a soldier' line would work well.

Anyway, that's all from me, get to it!))

SilverClawShift
2007-08-31, 12:00 PM
Anyway, that's all from me, get on it!

Sure thing!

*twiddles thumb and waits by the mailbox for the check*

boomwolf
2007-08-31, 12:10 PM
LOL!

i jest made a prestige class that is alot like this...except he uses a lot of fire spells, but many are fireball style. (hellfire missile for example) and wield a melee weapon as well.
add some new feats i made there and you can really make 16 of these guys fight as a battalion...(fireballs! hellfire missiles! charge!)

the firewarrior (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55480)

Jukashi
2007-08-31, 01:38 PM
I would just take a warlock and fire it up, as you suggest. They've got what you need - decent armour, unlimited casting per day - so all you need to do is swap out those spell-like effects for more pyromaniacal things. Instead of starting as a ray, it starts out as a ball, and as you progress, you can apply the blast shape invocations as you like. As for the more spell-like abilities, most of them you just change the flavour on; instead of sprouting huge, demonic wings to fly, they shoot a jet of flame from their feet. Instead of an obscuring mist, they fill the area with choking smoke. And so on.

Iethloc
2007-08-31, 06:55 PM
There just happens to be a Homebrew class here that focuses on that very spell. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2007512#post2007512)

There's also this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53416) martial class that has a lot of fire-based abilities.

Renegade Paladin
2007-08-31, 07:04 PM
You want it? Do it yourself. I seriously doubt anyone's going to design a custom class for you.

Orzel
2007-08-31, 07:06 PM
My Fireballer class is pretty awesome.

Eighth_Seraph
2007-08-31, 11:18 PM
Bam. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53416)

Seriously, just change the pre-reqs and ignore the fluff to make your fire soldier of doom. Though not particularly based on the fireball, I'd say that the Heartfire Knight gets pretty close to your concept.

TheLogman
2007-08-31, 11:38 PM
Not to be rude, but the Homebrew forum isn't really a request kind of thing, its more of a sharing with the community thing, just saying. For instance, when I needed a monster that was Ice-based for my Prestige Class, (Its right down there, someone please click on it) I made it myself. (See the Frozen Terror monster, one of my best works!

As for where you could actually obtain one of these classes, check out the links above, a lot of people have done this before.

boomwolf
2007-09-01, 12:03 AM
did i count 4 different classes taking this idea each to his own direction offered here? never knew this idea is THAT popular.

Rejakor
2007-09-01, 01:59 AM
Not to be rude, but the Homebrew forum isn't really a request kind of thing, its more of a sharing with the community thing, just saying.

Oh, righto. Well, the reason I chucked it out here was because I just had this awesome concept, and didn't want to screw it up because I couldn't figure out how to do the mechanics. Anyway, i'll have a crack at it myself I guess.



As for where you could actually obtain one of these classes, check out the links above, a lot of people have done this before.

The Heartfire Knight, is basically a mage/warrior or powerful mage who forges a connection to an ancient godking and becomes a fire elemental. And also, a lot of the Heartfire Knight's mechanics are based around the 'one man fire doom destruction bwahahhah' path. It's a cool class, but not really the 'fighter with a fireball' I was thinking of.

The Fireballer, while ALSO being a cool class, is more of a "'I don't want to learn how to do that. I just want to burn goblins." Pyromaniac/spell user class. The class i'm thinking of isn't based around fire/being a pyromaniac. THAT'S how it's different to all the other fire-based prestige classes out there.

For comparison - the fireballer, or Elemental Savant, or Fire-Warlock or whatever, is a class obsessed with guns. It has a lot of gun-related abilities. It has pre-requisites like 'must clean at least one gun owned at least once per day or lose these abilities'. This class is a terror on the battlefield, dealing horrific amounts of lead-death.

The class I am thinking of - the firecaster, whatever you want to call it, is a class that is NOT obsessed with guns. It has a lot of gun-related abilities, yes, but it is about what you can do using a gun. It's not just about being awesome at guns. It's about being awesome using a gun. It's not obsessed with it's gun, the gun is just a tool. The most important tool, yes, but still only a tool. A tool to accomplish an objective. And the objective is what the class is obsessed with. The objective of defeating enemies, of staying alive in a warzone.

Well, that's about as clear as I can make it. And yes, in this comparison 'gun' means 'fire'. :elan:

The Firebender is probably the closest class to this at the moment, even though the firebenders are obsessed with fire, it is focused more at what they can do with fire, rather than 'the cool abilities they get from being obsessed with fire'.

Anyway, i'm off. Will do some thinking. Maybe I can figure out how to make this class.

Triaxx
2007-09-01, 06:07 AM
Been watching Full metal jacket eh?

I like the idea behind it. Do you want a flame generated mechanically out of an item, magically out of an item, or as part of the character?

Rejakor
2007-09-01, 07:40 AM
I saw it as magically generated by the character. Could do it with an item, magically bonded to the person, ala the Kensai, but it's cooler if it's just the person doing it.

:smallsmile: