[Class] Dragon Touched Warrior

[Yakk]

A Low Magic Sorcerer: Dragon Touched Warrior

Reading all of these low-magic worlds has made me want to create a Sorcerer class for such a world. So my goal is to create a balanced Sorcerer inspired class that does not gain access to higher level spells, and has less magical power at low levels (and hence more mundane power).

The Dragon Touched is to a Sorcerer as a Ranger is to a Druid. A melee class with weak spell casting abilities.

I don't know if this class should be a 3/4 or full BaB bonus class.

The spell progression of this character is slow. It starts out getting spells a bit faster than a Ranger/Paladin (from L 1), and ends up with fewer spells/day.

The most powerful feature of this class is that every spell it casts is a Swift Action, so long as the Dragon Touched has a hand free. This means the class can fight and cast spells at the same time, but cannot use a shield, dual wield or use a two handed weapon.

Dragon Touched:
d8 HD, +1 BaB (maybe +3/4 BaB?)

Skills:
3+int skills/level
Class Skills:
Intimidate, Diplomacy, Jump, Listen, Craft, Concentration, Sense Motive, Swim, Profession

Saves: High Will and Fort saves.

Feats: Simple Weapons, Medium Armor at L 1.
One one-handed Martial Weapon is learned at each level from L 1 to L 4.
Heavy Armor at L 3.
All Martial Weapons at L 5.

Magic:
Spells/day and Spells known of a Bard 1/2 (rounded up) her level.
Constitution is used to determine her bonus spells/day.
Charisma is used to determine her spell save difficulty.
Her caster level for these spells is her full Dragon Touched level.

Sorcerer spell list, but no spells that take longer than 1 round, or require substantial material components (gp cost and/or xp).

All spells are cast as if under the metamagic feat "Quicken Spell" -- ie, are swift actions -- so long as the Dragon Touched has at least one hand free. Dragon Touched spells cannot be cast as non-swift actions, or if the Dragon Touched does not have a hand free (even spells that do not normally require gestures), and other kinds of Metamagic does not work on them.

Dragon Touched spells does not suffer from Arcane Spell Failure from armor.

Elemental Affinity:
At first level, the Dragon Touched picks an elemental damage type to have affinity with. (Fire, Cold, Sonic, Acid or Lightning).
The Dragon Touched has 1 point of Resistance to this elemental damage type at L 1.

Innate spell:
At level 2, the Dragon Touched picks a cantrip from her element that she Knows. The Dragon Touched can now cast that spell 1/day as a swift spell-like ability.

At level 4, 8, 14 and 20 the Dragon touched gains an appropriate element Innate level 1, 2 3 and 4 spell respectively.

At level 6, the Dragon Touched elemental resistance increases to Con Bonus+1.

At level 10, the Dragon Touched skin becomes rough and her eyes seem to shimmer.
She gains DR 1/-, +2 Strength, and a -2 penalty to Disguise checks.

At level 12, the Dragon Touched's elemental resistance increases to Con Bonus+Cha Bonus+1.

At level 16, elemental resistance of Con bonus+Cha bonus+10.

At level 18, the Dragon Touched melee weapons can do Elemental damage instead of Slash/Pierce/Bludgeon damage. The Dragon Touched can choose the type of damage done by each hit.

At level 20, DR 2/-, immune to the element of affinity.


....

What do you think of it? I strongly suspect someone has done this before, possibly even better. :)

[knightsaline]

caster level = full dragon touched warrior level? taking this class to 20th level, you have a 20th caster level monster. if the DTW has the fireball spell and chooses fire as its affinity, they could drop the fireball at their feet at 20th level and nuke everything around them

[icke]

Critics:

1) 3+INT skill points? either 2 or 4, You have to decide(I'd say 2).

2) CON as bonus spell ability? NEVER use a non-mental ability to determine spell effects/number!! Charisma is just fine for both.

3) The energy resistance shouldn't be ability-determined, make it fixed numbers, 1-5 -10-20-immune at level 1-5-10-15-20. Resistances are usually reserved for prestige classes, so this one is very powerfull.

4) No extra ability scores and no automatic elemental weapon damage. If the fighter doesn't gain extra strength for fighting, why should the Dragon Touched Warrior do?

5) All spells quickened without spell level increase? That's definitely overpowered, You give her two damage-dealing actions every turn without ANY limitation. Better give her Sudden Quicken as a bonus feat, usable a number of times per day equal to class level/4. Still powerfull, maybe already too powerfull(The warmage class gains this ability ONCE, and it solely concentrates on combat casting)

Comments:

BAB: 3/4 She's more spell-oriented than both Ranger and Paladin.

Since the spell progression is rather slow, 1/2class level as caster level is still fair, full class level will almost never be neccessary to do maximum spell effects.

How about Armor and arcane casting? the Tragon Touched Warrior should be restricted to light armor and medium armor at lvl.1, but should be enabled to ignore spell failure due to light armor at lvl.1 and due to medium armor around lvl.10.

You should have a look at the Warmage class in Complete Arcane, for some ideas to merge combat and spellcasting. It's totally overpowered in my opinion, but it might have some hints for You.

There are many combat/caster combinations(though I cant't find anything right now). Yours is definitely the most powerfull I've ever seen. I can't imagine any reason not to play it. Got the hint?

[Umarth]

Reposted below.

[Yakk]

Hmm. I was aiming for "They can only cast one spell per round." So they could cast a spell and do something normal (like do an attack round).

Quicken Spell was an attempt -- probably a poor one -- to allow the DTW to melee and cast at the same time. Probably just adding that rule (with a free hand, the DTW can cast while attacking).

I'd rather the class started getting spellcasting sooner rather than later.

Note that L 3 and L 4 AOE spells max out at 10 dice of damage, regardless of the caster's level. So the 20 caster level at L 20 really only matters for punching through spell resistance. I'm trying to bias the Dragon Touched towards offensive spells -- so it needs the full caster level check to land spells.

The "no metal" rule is interesting. It does make Dragon Touched warriors look strange at higher levels, and it prevents mithril cheese. The disadvantage is that is means Dragon Touched can't really get "off the shelf" random magic armor, meanwhile purchased magic armor is not really hindered...

1) 3+INT skill points? either 2 or 4, You have to decide(I'd say 2).

Why not 3?

[Gyrfalcon]

Mostly because WoTC has never done that with any class or prestige class that I've seen - they all use 2, 4, 6 or 8 + Int for skillpoints.

You can do it how you like, but you will get constant 'it's normally +2 or +4...' from people reviewing.

[icke]

Mostly because WoTC has never done that with any class or prestige class that I've seen - they all use 2, 4, 6 or 8 + Int for skillpoints.

You can do it how you like, but you will get constant 'it's normally +2 or +4...' from people reviewing.

Exactly what I meant.

[Fredderf]

Hrm... I'd make this a prestige class personally. Way easier to figure out and balance. This way it seems overpowered in my opinion.

[Umarth]

Finally finished it or came close. A couple more Draconic Powers to chose from wouldn't be bad.

So for your comments and review I present: The Dragon-Touched Warrior.
Skills:2+int skills/level
HD: d10
Class Skills:
Intimidate, Diplomacy, Jump, Listen, Craft, Concentration, Sense Motive, Swim, Survival, Profession, Knowladge: Arcana

A Dragon-Touched Warrior is proficient with all simple and martial weapons.

Dragon-Touched Warriors are proficient with light and medium armor but wearing metal armor interfears with their magical ability; thus, they may wear only padded, leather, or hide armor. (A Dragon-Touched Warrior may also wear wooden armor that has been altered by the ironwood spell so that it functions as though it were steel. See the ironwood spell description) Dragon-Touched Warriors are proficient with shields (except tower shields) but must use only wooden ones. A Dragon-Touched Warrior that wears metal armor can not cast spells while wearing the armor.

Spells Known: A Dragon-Touched Warrior knows a number of spells per level equal to the unmodified number of spells he can cast that day +1. Example: An 8th level Dragon-Touched Warrior would know 3 1st level, and 1 second level spell.

Dragon-Touched Warrior
{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|1st|2nd|3rd|4th

1st|

+1

|

+2

|

+0

|

+2

|Draconic Heratige, Draconic Power +1|-|-|-|-|

2nd|

+2

|

+3

|

+0

|

+3

|Dragons Touch|-|-|-|-|

3rd|

+3

|

+3

|

+1

|

+3

|-|-|-|-|-|

4th|

+4

|

+4

|

+1

|

+4

|Heritage Ability|0|-|-|-|

5th|

+5

|

+4

|

+1

|

+4

|-|0|-|-|-|

6th|

+6/+1

|

+5

|

+2

|

+5

|Spell Casting, Armored Mage |1|-|-|-|

7th|

+7/+2

|

+5

|

+2

|

+5

|Draconic Power +2|1|-|-|-|

8th|

+8/+3

|

+6

|

+2

|

+6

|-|2|0|-|-|

9th|

+9/+4

|

+6

|

+3

|

+6

|Heritage Ability|2|0|-|-|

10th|

+10/+5

|

+7

|

+3

|

+7

|Might and Magic|2|1|-|-|

11th|

+11/+6/+1

|

+7

|

+3

|

+7

|-|3|2|0|-|

12th|

+12/+7/+2

|

+8

|

+4

|

+8

|-|3|2|1|-|

13th|

+13/+8/+3

|

+8

|

+4

|

+8

|Heritage Ability|3|2|1|-|

14th|

+14/+9/+4

|

+9

|

+4

|

+9

|Draconic Power +3|4|3|2|0|

15th|

+15/+10/+5

|

+9

|

+5

|

+9

|Improved Might and Magic|4|3|2|1|

16th|

+16/+11/+6/+1

|

+10

|

+5

|

+10

|-|4|3|2|1|

17th|

+17/+12/+7/+2

|

+10

|

+5

|

+10

|-|4|3|3|2|

18th|

+18/+13/+8/+3

|

+11

|

+6

|

+11

|Heritage Ability|5|4|3|3|

19th|

+19/+14/+9/+4

|

+11

|

+6

|

+11

|-|5|4|4|4|

20th|

+20/+15/+10/+5

|

+12

|

+6

|

+12

|Draconic Power +4|5|5|5|5|[/table]

Magical Heritage: A Dragon-Touched Warrior must chose one of the following to reflect the heritage that fuels it's casting power.

Heritage
{table=head]Heritage|Magic Schools|Heritage Ability 4th lvl |Heritage Ability 9th lvl|Heritage Ability 13th lvl|Heritage Ability 18th lvl|Affnity

Black Dragon|Evocation, Conjuration, Necromancy|

Darkvision

|

Elemental Resistance

|

Water Breathing, Swim Speed

|Elemental Immunity | Acid

Blue Dragon|Evocation, Illusion, Enchantment|

Darkvision

|

Elemental Resistance

|

Burrowing

|Elemental Immunity | Electricity

Green Dragon|Evocation, Transmutation, Enchantment|

Darkvision

|

Elemental Resistance

|

Climb Speed

|Elemental Immunity| Acid

Red Dragon|Evocation, Divination, Conjuration|

Darkvision

|

Elemental Resistance

|

Luck

|Elemental Immunity| Fire

White Dragon|Evocation, Abjuration, Conjuration|

Darkvision

|

Elemental Resistance

|

Ice Walking

|Elemental Immunity | Cold

Brass Dragon|Evocation, Illusion, Abjuration|

Darkvision

|

Elemental Resistance

|

Burrowing

|Elemental Immunity| Fire

Bronze Dragon|Evocation, Divination, Abjuration|

Darkvision

|

Elemental Resistance

|

Water Breathing, Swim Speed

|Elemental Immunity| Acid

Copper Dragon|Evocation, Necromancy, Enchantment|

Darkvision

|

Elemental Resistance

|

Climb Speed

|Elemental Immunity| Acid

Gold Dragon|Evocation, Abjuration, Conjuration|

Darkvision

|

Elemental Resistance

|

Luck

|Elemental Immunity| Fire

Silver Dragon|Evocation, Illusion, Transmutation|

Darkvision

|

Elemental Resistance

|

Cloud Walking

|Elemental Immunity | Cold

Celestial|Evocation, Abjuration, Divination|

Smite Evil, Alignment Shift

|

Aligned Attack, Spell Descriptor

|

DR 5/Magic

|SR lvl+5 | Cold

Fiendish|Evocation, Necromancy, Enchantment|

Smite Good, Alignment Shift

|

Aligned Attack, Spell Descriptor

|

DR 5/Magic

|SR lvl+5| Fire

Axiomatic|Evocation, Abjuration, Conjuration|

Smite Chaos, Alignment Shift

|

Aligned Attack, Spell Descriptor

|

DR 5/Magic

|SR lvl+5| Electricity

Anarchic|Evocation, Illusion, Transmutation|

Smite Law, Alignment Shift

|

Aligned Attack, Spell Descriptor

|

DR 5/Magic

|SR lvl+5| Acid

Fire|Evocation, Transmutation|

Elemental Admixture

|

Elemental Resistance

|

Elemental Immunity

|Elemental Form | Fire

Water|Evocation, Illusion|

Elemental Admixture

|

Elemental Resistance

|

Elemental Immunity

|Elemental Form| Cold

Earth|Evocation, Conjuration|

Elemental Admixture

|

Elemental Resistance

|

Elemental Immunity

|Elemental Form | Acid

Air|Evocation, Enchantment|

Elemental Admixture

|

Elemental Resistance

|

Elemental Immunity

|Elemental Form | Electricity

Positive|Evocation, Abjuration|

Elemental Admixture

|

Fast Healing

|

Elemental Immunity, Blazing Life Force

|Ward Life | Positive

Negative|Evocation, Necromancy|

Elemental Admixture

|

Negative Energy Smite

|

Elemental Immunity, Dimmed Life

|Envenerating Touch|Negative[/table]

Heritage Abilities:

• Special Attacks Your natural and melee attacks are considered good (evil, lawful, or chaotic) aligned to when considering damage resistance.
• Spell Descriptor Your spells gain the good (evil, lawful, or chaotic) spell descriptors.
• Elemental Immunity You become immune to the element you have an affinity for. You may not chose to lower this Immunity.
• Fast Healing: You gain fast healing equal to your charimsa modifer per round.
• Negative Energy Smite As a free action you may sacrifice 1 hit point per hit die you have to deal that much negative energy damage to a creature you just hit.
• Dimmed Life-Force Your connection with the negative energy inside you is so strong that you now have the following traits: Detect as undead, Turned or Rebuked as undead, healing spells only heal 3/4 normal ammount.
• Blazing Life-Force Your life force is so strong that you gain 2hps level and any undead you touch or strike with a melee weapon take 1d6 points of positive energy damage.
• Ward Life A number of times per day equal to your charisma modifer you can ward a creatures life. While under this effect a creature can not be killed by hit point loss though the creature falls unconsious at 0 hps (or -9 if it would normally stay consious until death). This affect lasts 1 minute per Dragon-Touched Warriror Level.
• Envenerating Touch Once per round on a succesfull melee attack you may drain a one level from a creature. Each level drained this way grants you 5 temporary hit points that fade after one hour.
• Elemental Form For a number of minutes equal to your Dragon-Touched Warrior level times your charisma modifer you may turn into a small, medium, or large elemental of your Heritage.
• Luck: As Clerical Domain Ability
• Swim Speed: You gain a swim speed equal to your base movement speed.
• Climb Speed: You gain a climb speed equal to 1/2 your base movement speed.
• Burrowing: You gain a burrow speed equal to 1/3 your base movement speed.

Draconic Power: A Dragon-Touched Warrior may chose one of the following Draconic Powers at levels 1, 7, 14, and 20. The bonus granted is +1 at level 1, +2 at level 7, +3 at level 14, +4 at level 20.

A Draconic Power with a heritage listed after the name can only be taken by Dragon-Touched Warriors of that heritage.

• Fast Movement: A Dragon-Touched Warrior gains a speed increase of 5 x her Draconic Power level. Example: A 10 level Dragon-Touched Warrior would gain a speed increase of 10 feet per round (5x2).
• Sudden Quicken: A Dragon-Touched Warrior may quicken a number of Spells per day equal to her Draconic Power level. Using this ability reduces the level of her Draconic Power for all Draconic Power abilities by 1 for 24 hours. Example: If our 10th level Dragon-Touched Warrior cast a sudden quickend spell the speed increase would drop from 10 feet per round to 5 feet per round.
• Sudden Maximize: This work like sudden Quicken but allows a spell to be maximized.
• Smite: A Dragon-Touched Warrior may smite another creature a number of times per day per level of Draconic Power. She adds her Charisma bonus (if any) to her attack roll and deals 1 extra point of damage per Dragon-Touched Warrior level.
• Draconic Flight: (Any Dragon, Celestial, Fendish, or Air) A Dragon-Touched Warrior can fly for 3 round per day for each point of her Draconic Power. This is a free action to activate or deactivate and does not have to be used all at once. The Dragon-Touched Warrior is considered to have a flight speed equal to her normal movement speed and perfect manuverability.
• Energy Admixture: Once per day per point of Draconic Power a Dragon Touched Warrior may replace the normal damage delt by a spell with her chosen element.

Dragons Touch (Su)
Beginning at 2nd level, a Dragon-Touched Warrior with a Charisma score of 12 or higher can injur others by touch. Each day she can deal a total number of hit points of damage equal to her Dragon-Touched Warrior level × her Charisma bonus. This damage is considered to be what ever element she chose as her Draconic Heritage. A Dragon-Touched Warrior may choose to divide her damage among multiple recipients, and she doesn’t have to use it all at once. Using Dragons Touch is an considered a standard action.

Spell Casting: At 6th level the Dragon-Touched Warrior gains the ability to know and cast a certain number of arcane spells.

Armored Mage: At 6th level the Dragon-Touched Warrior gains the ability to cast any spell granted by the Dragon-Touched Warrior class with no chance of spell failure while wearing light or medium armor.

Might and Magic: As a standard action you may make an attack and cast a spell at the same time. Your spell affects the target of your melee attack. If the spell requires an attack roll use the same roll for both your melee attack and the spell. If the melee attack misses the spell misses. If it is an area affect spell it is considered to be centered on your target.

Improved Might and Magic: You may cast one spell while making a full round of attacks. This ability in all other ways functions as described in the Might and Magic ability.

[Draz74]

I agree with the guy that said that Medium BAB would be more appropriate.

[icke]

You didn't change the basic problem: Your spellcasting can still be done while fighting, giving Your class two actions for the price of one without any limitations on the numer of times per day.

[Umarth]

I agree with the guy that said that Medium BAB would be more appropriate.

Paladin and Ranger both get full BAB. What is so much stronger in this build that it should get knocked down to med BAB?

You didn't change the basic problem: Your spellcasting can still be done while fighting, giving Your class two actions for the price of one without any limitations on the numer of times per day.

It does give you the ability at 15th level to once per round cast an offensive spell up to 4th level at the same time you attack at the target you attack. Is that really an over powered ability at 15th level?

[Tormsskull]

In my core-only mindset, this class looks overly complicated and overpowered to be a base class. I second the recomendation that this should be a prestige class, and even then, should probably be toned down.

[Yakk]

You didn't change the basic problem: Your spellcasting can still be done while fighting, giving Your class two actions for the price of one without any limitations on the numer of times per day.

The limitation is that at L 1, you are casting cantrips. The spell progression continues to be weak.

I'm tempted to restrict the class to nearly entirely damage based spells, with a handful of buffs. I am concerned about a dragon-touched warrior being able to dimension door and attack at the same time.

3/4 BaB is interesting. It would allow for a direct comparision of the Dragon Touched Warrior 20 with the Fighter 10/Sorc 10 -- same BaB.

A DBW, using 1/2 bard progression, can cast spells up to L 4 (0/day). They have 84 + Con*20 HP and 15 or 20 BaB.
A Fighter 10/Sorc 10 can cast spells up to L 5 (3/day). They have 74 + Con*20 HP and 15 BaB.

A Fighter 10/Sorc 10 is considered to be a gimp multiclassing. As it stands, the DBW looks weaker, without the other special abilities.

...

I think I'm going to keep it simple.

1> DTW can cast spells while attacking, but needs a hand free to do this. (this reduces the DTW's melee abilities significantly -- no sheilds, no dual wielding, no two handed weapons).

2> I'm going to use a modified 1/2 bard progression.

3> I'm going to tweak their spell selection.

...

Is using Con for bonus spells/day really that evil? By splitting their casting between two stats I figured I weakened them. They need will Charisma for their spells to land (and nearly all of their spells will be offensive and need to be saved against), and Con to get more spells. Worse MAD is weaker than less MAD?

Is it simply that buffs to physical stats are balanced differently?

...

Probably I will want the Dragon Touched element to be visible to people around her. I'm thinking a growing amount of strangeness in appearance (more elemental than dragon-like) as they gain levels.

The plot-basis for this class follows:
At the dawn of magic, before the mortal races understood arcane magic, a Dragon had a child with a Human.

The mother died in childbirth, and the baby was raised by her sister.

His dragon blood gave him long life, strength, and the ability to bend arcane magics to his will.

The half-dragon barbarian was the first mortal wielder of arcane magics. He grew to adulthood, gained in power, then slew the wyrm that impregnated his mother.

Over centuries, he grew his empire. Each generation of his children had less of the dragon blood within them. A nobility was built up based off the amount of dragon blood you carried.

Dragon Blooded Warriors is a class that represents a human (or part-human) with a touch of the dragon's blood.

[icke]

The limitation is that at L 1, you are casting cantrips. The spell progression continues to be weak.

The limitation should be in a way that the DTW can only do his Double-Action-In-One-Action a number of times per day.

I'm tempted to restrict the class to nearly entirely damage based spells, with a handful of buffs. I am concerned about a dragon-touched warrior being able to dimension door and attack at the same time.

Incidently, Dimension Door can't do that, if one follows the rules correctly. Anyway, here I'm with You, damage and buffs are fine to supplement the warrior part.

Is using Con for bonus spells/day really that evil? By splitting their casting between two stats I figured I weakened them. They need will Charisma for their spells to land (and nearly all of their spells will be offensive and need to be saved against), and Con to get more spells.

The problem is that Con will also be needed to determine hit points, so Con will be at a maximum for the DTW. It also doesn't make sense, magic in D&D is an inherently mental task, you're not better at it if you can endure a marathon.

I also once built a fighter/mage variant that relied on Con for spellcasting, and it became a monster...