[PF] New Base Class: The Medium

[Mauril Everleaf]

One of the things that I have noticed missing from most of the material I could legally peruse for Pathfinder and 3.5 is that there aren't any wisdom based arcane casters. I intend to remedy that with this attempt. It needs much refining, but I offer it up.

The Medium

As mentioned, it is still in a relatively rough form which I know is more powerful than it should be. I would like to ultimately have it balanced with the Pathfinder sorcerer. Please offer suggestions and critiques on the class features and spell list.

[Fortuna]

Bordering on a Small?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Seems like a solid spellcaster with an interesting system on top of it. I'd likely never play one, but it seems well-executed.

[Ashtagon]

Looking briefly over the class, it seems balanced with other full casters (that is to say, not very balanced, which is standard for full casters).

What you have is a class that has:

* spontaneous casting
* Wisdom determines spell save DC and bonus spells per day.
* Suffers spell failure from armour as an arcane caster.

And instead of wizardly bonus feats, gets planar affinities.

Warning: rant ahead.

Spoiler

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I sincerely don't understand the need or desire to have ability score X based fluff function Y classes, as if there is some grid that must be filled. The 4e idea of having four roles that should be filled in a party, with each class able to perform one of them well, works. There is a functional gap in a party that can't fill each role with a character (even if it means someone covering two of those functions). But there's no functional gap missing if there isn't, say, a Dex-based divine caster, or a Cha-based ranged martial guy.

[Mauril Everleaf]

Well, there is something of a functional gap by not having a wisdom based class who isn't innately religious. Wisdom should not be inextricably tied to the divine, in my opinion. In the same way that intelligence should not be the casting stat reserved for the arcane.

I wanted a class that did not outthink the universe and force it by sheer logic to do his bidding nor did I want a class to merely have the fortune of having magic blood and the charm or force of personality to make that blood do tricks. I wanted an intuitive student of magic.

Also, I tried to fill a different niche. The medium is intended to be an alternate way for a party to have an arcane caster that offers unique abilities not present in the sorcerer, bard or wizard. In a campaign or setting heavily focused on planar travel or elementals, the medium is going to be much more useful than a regular sorcerer or wizard. In a normal campaign, he should be differently useful than the sorcerer.

A medium who takes the air or water affinities works relatively well as a control caster. One who takes the positive affinity can work as a backup healer. Also, taking all seven affinity levels in a single element allows for the supreme elementalist archetype to actually work. As it stands, the classic fire mage is rather useless after several levels because everything is immune to fire and the Ice Queen has no ability to actually do anything to the residents of her wintry world since most of them have some sort of cold resistance.

Wisdom-based arcane casting was my launching point, but that was not my sole purpose. I wanted to build a class wherein classic archetypes could exist as well as differently filling typical party roles.

[katarl]

So if you took this class as a halfling, you'd be a small sized medium?

[Gandariel]

so at level 20 i should be able to cast 7 Maximized Enpowered Meteor Swarms...

and another thing...
Second affinity: Upon selecting fire affinity a second time, a medium may increase the damage dice of any [fire] spell by a single step.
this means that the d6 of the Meteor swarms become d8?

soo much overpowered...

[Ashtagon]

Well, there is something of a functional gap by not having a wisdom based class who isn't innately religious...

There is? What game mechanic function is tied to "being religious" in 3e rules?

[Milskidasith]

so at level 20 i should be able to cast 7 Maximized Enpowered Meteor Swarms...

and another thing...
Second affinity: Upon selecting fire affinity a second time, a medium may increase the damage dice of any [fire] spell by a single step.
this means that the d6 of the Meteor swarms become d8?

soo much overpowered...

Blasting sucks. Even maximized, empowered, damage die increasing, immunity bypassing, huge AoE blasting sucks, though slightly less than normal.

The real broken thing is that water gets autoparalyze for 1d4x2 rounds, slow for two rounds, and double damage.

Or the autostun in an AoE on all air powers, with swift action casting...

And all the other affinities suck. Fire is OK for blasting, earth sucks horribly, and all the other ones have no useful powers, except prime, which, if your capstone sucks, you can take to make all spells force spells.

[Mauril Everleaf]

Thanks for the wonderful, constructive criticism. Your ideas will definitely help me improve this class and does not at all make me resent turning to this forum for help in one of my first endeavors into building a class from the ground up.

[Mongoose87]

Have you considered that maybe it's BaB should be... Medium?

[Milskidasith]

Thanks for the wonderful, constructive criticism. Your ideas will definitely help me improve this class and does not at all make me resent turning to this forum for help in one of my first endeavors into building a class from the ground up.

I'm sorry I don't do the whole "this class is so awesome, except X seems a little overpowered" thing. If things are broken, they are broken. If things are very weak, they are very weak. I point this out as directly as possible. I admit I could offer suggestions more often, but I am not a fan of designing PrCs, and I am much better at judging them, especially considering my suggestions are likely to be different than what you want for the class.

All of the benefits of the non primary affinities do practically nothing relative to the other ones. You get maximized empowered blasting that cuts through immunity, autoparalyze (yay CDG) for 1d4*2 rounds, some minor status effects, or AoE autostun, or you can use an ability that is normally only used on elemental outsiders on alignment based outsiders instead. Of course the latter is horribly weak compared to the previous ones, and of course the previous ones are overpowered, save earth, because at least that gets a save.