[Base Class] Swordcaster - help wanted

[Arakune]

Some guidelines I already have:

BAB: Medium
Saves: Fort,Will good; Ref bad
Hit dice: d8

Skills: (4+Int)*4 at first level and 4+int every level thereafter.
Skills (and the key ability for for each skill): Intimidate (Cha), Bluff (Cha), Craft: Any (Int), Knowledge: Arcane (Int), Spellcraft (Int), Jump (Str), Climb (Str).

Weapon/Armor/Shield: All simple and martial weapons. Light and Medium armor, no shield.

Spells: Charisma based Arcane spell casting.

Abilities:

Arcane Invocations (Sp): At first level the Swordcaster can use some spell-like abilities by molding raw magical power, receiving each level [Cha bonus] Invocations points (called now Invocation Pool). He may use them to use the Invocations. Each Invocation have a level: by using it you spend Invocation points equal the Invocation level. You can only recharge the Invocation Pool by spending unused spell slots and you need to spend at least a 3th level spell slot or equivalent (one 1st and one 2rd or three 1st, and so on) to recharge one point of Invocation Pool;

Armored Casting (Ex): At first level it will ignore Arcane spell failure by light armor and at 10th level it will ignore by medium armor.

Somatic Weapon Casting (Ex): At first level you can substitute the hand gestures for weapon swings to cast spells with somatic components. You don't need a free hand to cast spells with somatic components providing both your hands are wielding a weapon you are proficient.

Any advices of how to make it balanced?

[TheEscapist]

I seem to remember in 2nd edition, a gish was just a multiclassed fighter/wizard, but back then you could get the benefits of a level in both classes at the same time whenever you gained enough exp. Since you have to alternate classes each level in 3rd and 3.5 (which I like better, incidentally), maybe you could make gish a PrC. I kinda always imagined "gish" as a title a githyanki would have to earn, rather than something a githyanki kid just decides he wants to be when he gets out of high school. I'll try to write my idea up in a more complete form, but the basic idea I'm imagining would have the following prereqs:

Race: Githyanki
Feats: Weapon Focus (greatsword), Weapon Specialization (greatsword)
Spells: Able to cast 1st level arcane spells

Therefore, the earliest a character could take gish levels would be 1st level wizard or sorceror/4th level fighter. The weapon focus/specialization is based on the fact that githyanki silver swords are greatswords.

The class abilities would be almost exclusively BAB/spell progression. I'd have the "spells per day" PrC ability give "+2 levels of existing arcane spellcasting class" at 1st level (to make up for 1 of the 4 levels lost to the fighter class), then back to "+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class" at 2nd-10th. This way, the gish would still be a bit behind a wizard/sorceror's spell progression, but would also miss out on fighter bonus feats.

Actually, now that I look at it, my gish PrC would be a lot like the eldritch knight PrC, except it would be exclusive to githyanki, and it wouldn't suck.

[Arakune]

Well, I'm just trying to make one class that let you stay in the class for all the 20th levels and there are some gishes with BAB 17-18 and CL 15-17 with the right selection of feats and PrC. My goal are to 'compact' all those PrCs to make one base class.

[TheEscapist]

I completely forgot! The sorceror variant from Unearthed Arcana, Battle Sorceror, is exactly what you're looking for!

It has all the same abilities as the sorceror, with the following exceptions:


d8 hit dice
Cleric's BAB progression
Intimidate instead of bluff for class skills
Can choose 1 light or one-handed martial weapon at 1st level.
Is proficient with light armor, but still has normal spell failure chance.
Gains spells per day as sorceror, but has one less spell slot per day of each spell level, and one fewer spell known of each spell level.


Maybe replace the "1 light or one-handed martial weapon proficiency of choice" option with "greatsword proficiency' and replace the ability to get a familiar with Weapon Focus (greatsword) at 3rd level, nad you've got your gish!

[Nebo_]

I think he's looking for class features. Battle sorcerer makes for a pretty crappy gish on its own and a lot of people make the mistake of putting it in proper gish builds.

[TheEscapist]

I think he's looking for class features. Battle sorcerer makes for a pretty crappy gish on its own and a lot of people make the mistake of putting it in proper gish builds.

Telling me my idea's crappy but not giving any better suggestions doesn't really help Ryuan.

[Nebo_]

Posting an existing class that is devoid of class features when that's what he asked for doesn't really help much either.

@Ryuan - Write something on those class features you already outlined. Anything, it doesn't matter if it sucks. At least then people will be able to make suggestions on making it better.

[TheEscapist]

Posting an existing class that is devoid of class features when that's what he asked for doesn't really help much either.

Good point. I reread his initial message and it seems I misunderstood the request. I just thought those were the initial idea and we were being asked for other suggestions.


For one, I think limiting the skill points might be a good idea. Normal wizards only get 2+INT for skill points, so I don't think a class that's a hybrid fighter/wizard should have more.
I'm not sure what you mean by "special abilities pool."
Tactical teleport is a really cool idea, but in my opinion a 200 ft range is way too much. I'd say 30 ft would be good, since I'd think it would be designed for use during combat, and crossing an entire battlefield as a swift action seems fairly powerful. Besides, he can always run after teleporting 30 feet. The word "tactical" makes me think of an ability that would be used to get into a flanking position, get away from enemies surrounding you, or aid in your retreat if things are taking a turn for the worse. There would also have to be a limit on the number of times per day it can be used, you could go with once per day, 3 times per day, or have it start at once per day and gain an extra use every x number of levels.
Not having to use somatic components is important (because I still maintain that they should be able to use a greatsword, silver swords have always been a staple of the githyanki race), but it needs to limit something else, like going with the battle sorceror idea and having one less spell per day for each spell level.
Depending on whether you think of the magical part of the gish tradition as something that the githyanki's born into or something that he learns through training, you may want to think of using INT as his spellpower attribute.
Ignoring the spell failure of armor is a very powerful ability, but I agree that it would still be very important to the idea of the gish. You may want to limit it by reducing spell failure by a specific number, either a solid number at 1st level like 15% - a pretty decent amount, but it never increases - or by having them reduce spell failure chance by 5% at 1st level, and have it increase another 5% every x number of levels.

These are just some ideas to start out with, I hope they help.

[Arakune]

Updated with some info from the posts.

I don't like 2+Int skill points, it's just too few for my taste and the class simply can't priorise Int unless you want to go the Combat expertice feat tree.

[TheEscapist]

Updated with some info from the posts.

I don't like 2+Int skill points, it's just too few for my taste and the class simply can't priorise Int unless you want to go the Combat expertice feat tree.

It might be less skill points than you want, but I don't know how you can have a class that is supposed to (more or less) meet halfway between fighter and arcane caster, but have more skill points than both. Heck, you could say a cleric is halfway between a fighter and a wizard (even though cleric spells are less spectacular for the most part), but they only get 2+INT skill points, too. If you add a couple of class abilities on top of all this, I'm not sure there's any way you can balance the class if you want all of these abilities without some significant penalties.

Also, prioritizing INT might get you the combat expertise tree, but prioritizing CHA isn't really going to get you any kind of feat tree that I can think of off hand. Granted, there might be one out there I've either forgotten or never heard of, but it certainly wouldn't fit the flavor of a gish class because githyanki aren't really known as the most charismatic of races. Now you've changed the name of the class, though, so I'm not really sure what you're going for anymore.

Someone who can use all martial weapons and light/medium armor, has a mid-level BAB, (I'm assuming) cleric HP, can cast arcane spells in armor with little/no chance of spell failure, is a smooth-talker with a number of skills close to a bard or a rogue, and has new abilities that none of these other classes have? Unless you're in a very high-powered campaign, I'm not going to be able to come up with any way to make this class fly, but I'd be interested to see how someone else might.