Arkhios
2018-12-11, 10:01 AM
One thought led to another, and I came up with the idea to convert Bloodrager from Pathfinder to 5th edition, but early in the process I was suggested a better name - and a better concept - for the sub-class: Rage Mage (https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/BJO8UYR0X). (the link leads to The Homebrewery at NaturalCrit.com)
Originally(?) a prestige class in 3.5, Rage Mage was a barbarian gish that could cast arcane spells while raging, but did so at a great cost to their defense, both of which are things I wanted to implement at the core of the rage mage sub-class.
I wanted to experiment with the idea I had of "spellcasting fueled by your rage", and initially I planned to make this system split your remaining uses of rage into 10 "Fury Points" per rage use (a rage lasts for 1 minute at a time and 1 minute is 10 rounds, and generally every spellcaster can cast one spell each turn (or round) because most of them take an Action, so the idea evolved from there). You would then use Fury Points to cast your spells, much like you do with Ki Points as a Monk of the Four Elements. The caveat was that you had to be raging in order to split your remain rage uses to cast spells. It was quickly noted that this was actually unnecessarily punitive. Many other sub-classes already give you additional resources (spellcasting, for example, is already an additional resource with the spell slots it gives you).
So, I came up with the idea of taking the spellcasting progression of an Eldritch Knight (1/3 progression), and calculated how many Spell Points (variant rule from DMG) they would have, and gave the Rage Mage an equal amount of Fury Points, which they use in similar manner as Spell Points. However, the point is that it's a separate spellcasting ability, and thus won't stack with Spellcasting, Pact Magic features, or even with Spell Points for that matter. I decided to keep the caveat that you must be raging in order to cast your spells with Fury Points (hence the name).
Because Cantrips don't use Spell Slots, they wouldn't use Spell Points either and thus you couldn't use Fury Points with them, I decided to omit Cantrips from the Rage Mage entirely, but I gave another abilities in return (more of them below).
Having borrowed a part of the idea from sandmote's Primal Path of the Seer, Rage Mage is unable to concentrate on any spells while raging. But eventually they learn a limited ability to concentrate on their own spells while raging, at the cost of losing previous concentration whenever they cast another spell.
As a substitute for losing Cantrips, I added a (hopefully) flavorful option for each Rage Mage to choose when they enter this sub-class: They become masters of one element, and gain abilities based on that element whenever they are raging. I based these abilities upon the Investiture spells, and split their abilities between sub-class levels, so that you would get all of them slowly as you gain more power.
Obviously, not all of these worked well, so I had to scrap most of them and instead make abilities more fitting for each element.
I'll put the key points here in this post later when I'm able.
In the mean time, please take a look at the Homebrewery document (the link above), and tell me what you think of this sub-class idea.
Cheers!
Originally(?) a prestige class in 3.5, Rage Mage was a barbarian gish that could cast arcane spells while raging, but did so at a great cost to their defense, both of which are things I wanted to implement at the core of the rage mage sub-class.
I wanted to experiment with the idea I had of "spellcasting fueled by your rage", and initially I planned to make this system split your remaining uses of rage into 10 "Fury Points" per rage use (a rage lasts for 1 minute at a time and 1 minute is 10 rounds, and generally every spellcaster can cast one spell each turn (or round) because most of them take an Action, so the idea evolved from there). You would then use Fury Points to cast your spells, much like you do with Ki Points as a Monk of the Four Elements. The caveat was that you had to be raging in order to split your remain rage uses to cast spells. It was quickly noted that this was actually unnecessarily punitive. Many other sub-classes already give you additional resources (spellcasting, for example, is already an additional resource with the spell slots it gives you).
So, I came up with the idea of taking the spellcasting progression of an Eldritch Knight (1/3 progression), and calculated how many Spell Points (variant rule from DMG) they would have, and gave the Rage Mage an equal amount of Fury Points, which they use in similar manner as Spell Points. However, the point is that it's a separate spellcasting ability, and thus won't stack with Spellcasting, Pact Magic features, or even with Spell Points for that matter. I decided to keep the caveat that you must be raging in order to cast your spells with Fury Points (hence the name).
Because Cantrips don't use Spell Slots, they wouldn't use Spell Points either and thus you couldn't use Fury Points with them, I decided to omit Cantrips from the Rage Mage entirely, but I gave another abilities in return (more of them below).
Having borrowed a part of the idea from sandmote's Primal Path of the Seer, Rage Mage is unable to concentrate on any spells while raging. But eventually they learn a limited ability to concentrate on their own spells while raging, at the cost of losing previous concentration whenever they cast another spell.
As a substitute for losing Cantrips, I added a (hopefully) flavorful option for each Rage Mage to choose when they enter this sub-class: They become masters of one element, and gain abilities based on that element whenever they are raging. I based these abilities upon the Investiture spells, and split their abilities between sub-class levels, so that you would get all of them slowly as you gain more power.
Obviously, not all of these worked well, so I had to scrap most of them and instead make abilities more fitting for each element.
I'll put the key points here in this post later when I'm able.
In the mean time, please take a look at the Homebrewery document (the link above), and tell me what you think of this sub-class idea.
Cheers!