Sha'ir homebrew - help me check it and improve it please!

[Kaleph]

Hallo everyone, I'm recently diggin into the sha'ir class (I also wrote a guide), and I developed some ideas to make its mechanics less convoluted. I created 3 variants here: Sha'ir homebrew (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1aGOwJpgoGEYY1anZEGbIWaW2WS8MVZHY)

The first tries to rely less on the spellcasting and more on negotiations with the genies; the gen familiar also advances in strength and eventually gets combat forms and spell like abilities. The second one is basically an arcane spirit shaman. The last one is mostly a re-skinned wizard.

I wrote them down very quickly; if would be nice if you would try to proof-read it, find out inconsistencies, and also give suggestions to improve the classes.

Thank you!

[Silva Stormrage]

Well the first two are quite a bit weaker than a regular Sha'ir due to being limited to 6th level spells and not having any of the major bard class abilities like Inspire Courage. Still I wouldn't say they are too weak, probably tier 4 low tier 3.

The idea of a combat Gen is an interesting idea, I haven't done the actual stat block to see wether it competes with an animal companion or not but it seems like having half the sha'ir's HP would make them incredibly fragile. Also as a side note Major Creation as an SLA is incredibly broken. SLA's always have a cast time of one standard action unless otherwise noted so you can use major creation to essentially instantly dump gallons of poisons on enemies.


Not a big fan of the second version as it is essentially a regular Sha'ir with their casting mechanic cleaned up and being limited to 6th level spells.

[Kaleph]

Well the first two are quite a bit weaker than a regular Sha'ir due to being limited to 6th level spells and not having any of the major bard class abilities like Inspire Courage. Still I wouldn't say they are too weak, probably tier 4 low tier 3.
So, first of all thank you for your comments; for the first variant, tier 3/4 was my target actually, so it looks we are there.



The idea of a combat Gen is an interesting idea, I haven't done the actual stat block to see wether it competes with an animal companion or not but it seems like having half the sha'ir's HP would make them incredibly fragile. Also as a side note Major Creation as an SLA is incredibly broken. SLA's always have a cast time of one standard action unless otherwise noted so you can use major creation to essentially instantly dump gallons of poisons on enemies.
I checked veeery quickly the stats at the various levels, it looks it's approximately on par with an animal companion, but I'll need to have a second look; it gets HP from the HDs as a normal outsider, there's no relationship to the sha'ir's HP. Regarding the SLA's, I didn't notice that, as written, it becomes a standard action. At my table the gen wouldn't be able to drop poisons on the enemies, since I interpret the spell as requiring the craft check, but still it allows a lot of shaenigans. I'll need to review it (but it's not bad, since I wanted to review all the SLAs in any case).



Not a big fan of the second version as it is essentially a regular Sha'ir with their casting mechanic cleaned up and being limited to 6th level spells.
My mistake, thank you for pointing it out. This version should cast up to 9th level spells, but I copied the wrong table. I corrected it now.

[Silva Stormrage]

So, first of all thank you for your comments; for the first variant, tier 3/4 was my target actually, so it looks we are there.



I checked veeery quickly the stats at the various levels, it looks it's approximately on par with an animal companion, but I'll need to have a second look; it gets HP from the HDs as a normal outsider, there's no relationship to the sha'ir's HP. Regarding the SLA's, I didn't notice that, as written, it becomes a standard action. At my table the gen wouldn't be able to drop poisons on the enemies, since I interpret the spell as requiring the craft check, but still it allows a lot of shaenigans. I'll need to review it (but it's not bad, since I wanted to review all the SLAs in any case).



My mistake, thank you for pointing it out. This version should cast up to 9th level spells, but I copied the wrong table. I corrected it now.

Oh I missed the line about the Gen's HD. "Familiars" normally have half their master's HP and it's not on the table so I just assumed that stayed the same.

Second variant is much better if it is a 9th level spellcaster though.

[Kalkra]

Combat form (su): A 3rd-level sha’ir may expend some of its stored magical power to increase the
combat prowess of his genie and render it more similar to its bigger cousins – genies and elementals.



I'm assuming that's supposed to be "gen".

[Kaleph]

I'm assuming that's supposed to be "gen".

Thank you, good catch. I was meaning "gen", of course.

[redking]

Here are my homebrew suggestions for the Sha'ir.

Instead of having a gen familiar, drop the gen as a familiar altogether. Instead, the gen becomes a spirit similar to a Vestige (like the binders deal with) that exists in the nullity where spells already cast exist. The purpose of the spirit gen is to recreate spent (already cast) spells for the Sha'ir. Instead of a diplomacy check, the Sha'ir makes a spellcraft check to see if the spell can be recreated.

When the Sha'ir levels up, spells known must be selected from the Air, Chaos, Earth, Fire, Knowledge, Law, Luck, Sun, Water and Summoner domain spell lists. Leveling up is the only way to learn domain spells that are not on the sorcerer/wizard list (meaning, the Sha'ir cannot use spellcraft to identify and learn them). If the Sha'ir wants to learn a spell from the wizard/sorcerer list, it must first identify the spell cast first (via a spellcraft check), then must incur expenses like a wizard writing spells into its spellbook (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/arcaneSpells.htm), costing one day and 100gp per spell level in burning expensive incense to the spirit gen, after which the spell becomes a known spell.

Preparing spells is simply a matter of communing with the spirit gen, requires rest and takes as long as it takes a wizard to prepare spells. Spells remain in the mind of the Sha'ir until they are cast.

Domain spells are cast as divine spells, wizard/sorcerer list spells are cast as arcane spells. At first level, the Sha'ir gets Eschew Material Components as a bonus feat.

Drop all the other nonsense in the Sha'ir class because it is junk and we know everyone will prestige class out anyway. Remainder of the class progression is empty, like Sorcerer.

[redking]

I created my own sha'ir wizard variant here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?606716-Sha-ir-3-5-wizard-variant-homebrew).

The goal was to clean up all the clunky mechanics and make the sha'ir actually have a relationship to genies. Have a look and see how I managed it.