The Spell Warrior [3.5 Vancian PsyWar]

[Ziegander]

The Spell Warrior


Alignment: Any
Hit Die: 1d8

{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special |1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th|6th

1st|+0|+2|+0|+0|Bonus Feat, Warrior's Focus|0|—|—|—|—|—

2nd|+1|+3|+0|+0|Bonus Feat|1|—|—|—|—|—

3rd|+2|+3|+1|+1||2|0|—|—|—|—

4th|+3|+4|+1|+1||3|1|—|—|—|—

5th|+3|+4|+1|+1|Bonus Feat|3|2|—|—|—|—

6th|+4|+5|+2|+2||3|2|0|—|—|—

7th|+5|+5|+2|+2||3|3|1|—|—|—

8th|+6/+1|+6|+2|+2|Bonus Feat|3|3|2|—|—|—

9th|+6/+1|+6|+3|+3||3|3|2|0|—|—

10th|+7/+2|+7|+3|+3||3|3|3|1|—|—

11th|+8/+3|+7|+3|+3|Bonus Feat|3|3|3|2|—|—

12th|+9/+4|+8|+4|+4||3|3|3|2|0|—

13th|+9/+4|+8|+4|+4||3|3|3|3|1|—

14th|+10/+5|+9|+4|+4|Bonus Feat|4|3|3|3|2|—

15th|+11/+6/+1|+9|+5|+5||4|4|3|3|2|0

16th|+12/+7/+2|+10|+5|+5||4|4|4|3|3|1

17th|+12/+7/+2|+10|+5|+5|Bonus Feat|4|4|4|4|3|2

18th|+13/+8/+3|+11|+6|+6||4|4|4|4|4|3

19th|+14/+9/+4|+11|+6|+6||4|4|4|4|4|4

20th|+15/+10/+5|+12|+6|+6|Bonus Feat|4|4|4|4|4|4[/table]

Class Skills (2 + Int): Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (Any) (Int), Profession (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), and Swim (Str).

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies
Spell Warriors are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, with light, medium, and heavy armor, and with shields (except tower shields).

Spellcasting
A spell warrior casts divine spells which are drawn from the spell warrior spell list (given below). He must spend time in prayer or meditation in order to prepare his spells before he may cast them, exactly as a Cleric. He likewise knows all spells on his spell list. His caster level is equal to his class level.

To learn or cast a spell, a spell warrior must have an Intelligence score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a spell warrior’s spell is 10 + 1/2 his character level + his Intelligence modifier.

Like other spellcasters, a spell warrior can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. His base daily spell allotment is given in the table above. In addition, he receives bonus spells per day if he has a high Intelligence score.

Spell Warrior Spell List

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*Spells of the Cure and Inflict line have a range of Medium (100ft +10ft/level) rather than Touch. When either is used to restore hit points the spells use d12s but when used to deal damage they use d8s. The Mass versions have a range of Long (400ft +40ft/level) rather than Short and omit the phrase "no two of which may be more than 30ft apart" from the target entry.

1st - bane, bless, cause fear, command, comprehend languages, cure light wounds, detect chaos/evil/good/law, divine favor, endure elements, enlarge person, entangle, faerie fire, greater magic weapon¹, inflict light wounds, jump, longstrider, magic vestment¹, mount, obscuring mist, produce flame, protection from chaos/evil/good/law, ray of enfeeblement, shield of faith, shocking grasp, sleep, true strike

2nd - aid, align weapon, alter self, barkskin, bear's endurance, bull's strength, consecrate, continual flame, cure moderate wounds, darkness, death knell, delay poison, desecrate, find traps, flame blade, fog cloud, ghoul touch, inflict moderate wounds, invisibility, make whole, mirror image, remove paralysis, resist energy, scare, see invisibility, shatter, shield other, spider climb, spiritual weapon, touch of idiocy, web

3rd - animate dead, bestow curse, contagion, cure serious wounds, daylight, deep slumber, deeper darkness, dispel magic, fireball, flame arrow, haste, heroism, inflict serious wounds, invisibility sphere, lightning bolt, magic circle against chaos/evil/good/law, neutralize poison, phantom steed, protection from energy, remove curse, remove disease, speak with dead, tongues, vampiric touch, wind wall

4th - air walk, confusion, cure critical wounds, death ward, dimensional anchor, dimension door, divine power, enervation, fear, fire shield, freedom of movement, greater invisibility, imbue with spell ability, inflict critical wounds, mass enlarge person, minor creation, poison, polymorph, restoration, rusting grasp, solid fog, spike stones, stoneskin, wall of fire

5th - baleful polymorph, break enchantment, commune, cone of cold, dispel chaos/evil/good/law, fabricate, flame strike, hallow, harm, heal, major creation, mass cure moderate wounds, mass inflict moderate wounds, overland flight, seeming, symbol of sleep, telekinesis, true seeing, unhallow, wall of stone

6th - animate objects, blade barrier, chain lightning, circle of death, disintegrate, forbiddance, greater dispel magic, greater heroism, heroes' feast, mass bear's endurance, mass bull's strength, mass cure critical wounds, mass inflict critical wounds, mislead, shadow walk, wall of iron, wind walk

¹ - "Enhancement bonus of +1 per four caster levels (maximum +5 at 20th level, minimum +1 below 4th level)".

Spells added from Complete Arcane

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1st - fist of stone

2nd - blades of fire, earthen grasp, fireburst, phantasmal assailants, wall of gloom, whirling blade

3rd - bands of steel, enhance familiar, mass resist energy, ring of blades, stony grasp, unluck

4th - anticipate teleportation, blistering radiance, fortify familiar, orb of acid, orb of cold, orb of electricity, orb of fire, orb of force, orb of sound

5th - duel ward, energy immunity, freezing fog, greater fireburst, mass fire shield, prismatic ray, refusal, spiritwall, sword of deception

6th - ghostform, sword of darkness, withering palm

Spells added from Complete Warrior

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1st - augment familiar, phantom threat

4th - cursed blade

5th - valiant fury

6th - lion's roar

Spells added from Player's Handbook II

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1st - blade of blood, share talents

2nd - black karma curse, blade brothers, dimension hop, dispelling touch, electric vengeance, insight of good fortune, mass longstrider, master's touch, mystic aegis, ray of the python

3rd - dimension step, divine retaliation, healing spirit, inevitable defeat, legion of sentinels, meteoric strike, prismatic mist, regroup, sonic shield

4th - bleakness, blessing of the righteous, condemnation, greater electric vengeance, magic convalescense, phantom battle, slashing dispel, thunder field

5th - chasing perfection, dance of blades, pulse of hate

6th - bones of the earth, wrack earth

Bonus Feats
At 1st level, 2nd level, and every three levels thereafter a spell warrior gains a bonus feat which may be any Fighter Bonus Feat or any feat from the following list. Other than arcane caster level requirements, for which the spell warrior must have the equivalent divine caster level, the spell warrior must meet all prerequisites of feats taken this way.

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Combat Casting, Improved Counterspell, Improved Familiar, Spell Focus, Greater Spell Focus, Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Penetration, Arcane Defense^CA, Arcane Mastery^CA, Mage Slayer^CA, Obtain Familiar^CA, Pierce Magical Concealment^CA, Pierce Magical Protection^CA, Practiced Spellcaster^CA, Ranged Spell Specialization^CA, Touch Spell Specialization^CA, Arcane Strike^CW, Bonded Familiar^PHB2, Arcane Consumption^PHB2, Arcane Toughness^PHB2, Combat Familiar^PHB2, Dampen Spell^PHB2, Elven Spell Lore^PHB2, Lurking Familiar^PHB2, and Vatic Gaze^PHB2, Augment Healing^CD, Augment Wounding*, Spontaneous Healer^CD, Spontaneous Wounder^CD.

*Augment Wounding
Prerequisites: Heal 4 ranks
Benefit: Add +2 points per spell level to the amount of damage dealt by any spell that you cast that deals negative energy damage.

Warrior's Focus (Ex): A spell warrior treats any weapon he wields as the divine focus component of spells he casts and ignores the somatic component of his spells as long as he wields a weapon in one of his hands.

[Pyromancer999]

So, this is a less powerful Duskblade with a slightly larger spell list?

[Ziegander]

So, this is a less powerful Duskblade with a slightly larger spell list?

I suppose if you glance at the table and forget to read any of the class' mechanics that's what this might be.

It's more like a PC version of the Adept, or more accurately, it's the magic version of this. As such, given the way it casts spells, the nature of the spell list, and the handful of bonus feats it gets, I'd consider the Spell Warrior to be noticeably more powerful than the Duskblade.

[Pyromancer999]

I suppose if you glance at the table and forget to read any of the class' mechanics that's what this might be.

It's more like a PC version of the Adept, or more accurately, it's the magic version of this. As such, given the way it casts spells, the nature of the spell list, and the handful of bonus feats it gets, I'd consider the Spell Warrior to be noticeably more powerful than the Duskblade.

True, it does have some advantages on the Duskblade. Still, the point I was trying to make is 1) Doesn't have as much power to cast spells with(spell slots), and 2) It's like the Duskblade in that it gives the class a Warrior's saves and BAB, a class feature or two to make it seem warrior-like....then focuses on the magery part of it. Just saying it could use a bit more emphasis on the warrior aspect, and maybe meld the warrior and mage bits together using more than Warrior's Focus and feats that seem more aimed at the spellcasting part of the class, although it is a pretty nice class feature in itself.

[Ziegander]

Just saying it could use a bit more emphasis on the warrior aspect, and maybe meld the warrior and mage bits together using more than Warrior's Focus and feats that seem more aimed at the spellcasting part of the class, although it is a pretty nice class feature in itself.

Well, as the point was to create a spellcasting version of the Psychic Warrior, I'm not adding any extra class features. Warrior's Focus was a necessary feature for emulating the PsyWar since psionics doesn't have any components to worry about.

As far as focusing more on the warrior aspect goes, I deliberately chose spells which were either powerful buffs, mediocre blasting, or synergized well with melee combat. The few spells per day actually reinforce the warrior aspect by encouraging long duration self-buffs rather than burning spell slots for battlefield control or utility. A couple buffs and fighter feats can carry the Spell Warrior a very long way.

[nonsi]

If you're not going to add any other class features, at least consider adding some/most/all of the Duskblade's swift spells, because with them plus quick cast class feature, an equal levelled duskblade would always have the upper hand in a 1-on-1 confrontation (greater spell capacity, more spell usage options, wider on-the-fly selection, more intense effects, better BAB and better saves), startign at 6th level.

(and if you add Quick Cast at levele 6, 12 & 18, it would probably level them out).

[DaTedinator]

I think, if you really want him to be the vancian equivalent to the psychic warrior, he needs metamagics. Maybe sudden metamagics, like the warmage? Remember that a lot of the psychic warrior's more useful powers can be augmented to reduce the manifesting time or extend the duration, and that even at 20th level, he's still going to be using a lot of his 1st level powers. This guy has very little reason to touch his early spells other than as a last resort.

Remember that one of the things that makes psionics so cool is how *different* it is from spells; a simple 1-to-1 translation really loses a whole lot. For instance, this guy has no access to psionic feats, which are a big part of what makes the psychic warrior useful.

Also, while I think I understand why you made him divine, and it's reasonable, I think it would probably fit better, thematically, as an arcane caster. Not definitely. But probably.