The Mystic Blade[Base Class] (Under Construction)

[Valairn]

Removed info.

[Valairn]

The maneuvers for the discipline have been moved off this post and will be posted again later in another post.

[Lord Tataraus]

The Mystic Blade
*snip*

Maneuvers Known: A Mystic Blade may learn maneuvers from the following disciplines: Desert Wind, Shadow Hand, Devoted Spirit, and Diamond Mind.

Hold up! Shadow Hand and Devoted Spirit and Diamond Mind?! These are arguably the most powerful disciplines. I would suggest dropping maneuvers know to Warblade progression, but keep the Crusader recovery mechanic because its cool.

Maneuvers Readied: A Mystic Blade readies maneuvers as a Crusader.

Stances Known: Stances are treated as standard.

Good, good.

Spirit Blade: A mystic blade, can acquire a spirit blade in multiple different ways, but the most common is to bind a physical weapon to their spirit. Any weapon that the Mystic Blade has proficiency in he can bind to his spirit, the weapon itself does not change any of its base attributes. A weapon that is bound to the Mystic's spirit is treated as if the Mystic has weapon focus for that weapon.

Upon attaining 5th level as a Mystic Blade, the Spirit Blade of the mystic becomes a true extension of the Mystic's spirit, the Mystic Blade can dematerialize the blade and re-materialize it as a free action, in addition the Mystic Blade is treated as having the Quick Draw feat. The blade cannot be detected in anyway when it is dematerialized, since it is literally a part of the Mystic Blade.

Upon attaining 9th level as a Mystic Blade, the Spirit Blade is treated as if the Mystic Blade had Greater Weapon focus and Weapon Specialization as long as the Mystic Blade is wielding it.

Upon attaining 13th level as a Mystic Blade, the Spirit Blade deals 1d6 extra damage of an element type chosen by the wielder, this bonus going above and beyond the normal bonuses the item grants. The elemental type may be changed by the wielder if he spends 10 minutes meditating on the blade.

Upon attaining 17th level as a Mystic Blade, the Sprit Blade has become a true representation of its wielder, whenever the Mystic Blade has it wielded he is immune to fear effects.

Interesting, only a nitpick here: The last line should read: "whenever the Mystic Blade has it materialized and drawn he is immune to fear effects." for clarification purposes, "wielded" just sounded too awkward.

AC Bonus: Upon attaining 3rd level the Mystic Blade acquires an AC bonus,as long as they remain unarmored, based on a mental stat of their choice (Int,Wis,Cha), this decision once made is irreversible. This AC bonus does not stack with other similar AC bonus's.

Allowing the option of mental stat is a little too much. I suggest using Cha, for flavor reasons and also since it is different

Enlightened Spell Caster: Upon attaining 4th level the Mystic Blade begins to understand the underlying workings of the world. They are able to study it as a cleric or a wizard would and can scribe spells into a spellbook from the spell lists of a wizard or a cleric. They may learn spells as if they were a wizard up to their highest level known. In order to cast those spells, they must ready them as a maneuver. Metamagic does not work with spells readied as maneuvers, and the spellcasting cannot be used as a class feature to qualify for prestige classes. The spells are still subject to Arcane spell failure. The casting stat for the spells is the same as the stat used for their AC bonus.

Note: Learned spells do not count against Maneuvers Known, they are kept track of seperately, and they must be scribed in a spell book in order to ready them as a maneuver.

Same sort of thing with the AC bonus here, also its a little confusing how many spells you get readied, you should state it more clearly, possibly include another column in the table.

Author's Note:
Optionally the DM may restrict the class to only be able to learn spells that provide a direct bonus to an ability score, or are a melee or ranged touch attack. This is a good change if you feel the ability is overpowered as is, it should be noted that while a character may be able to prepare a spell, it does not guarentee they will be able to cast it when needed, since it must be granted at the time of casting. Also any spells they know cannot count towards qualifying for prestige classes.

I suggest limiting the schools to Abjuration, Divination, and Transmutation.

Sacrifice: At 7th level the Mystic Blade learns the true meaning of sacrifice. He is able to unleash his Spirit Blade in a powerful display. On any successful melee strike the Mystic Blade may choose to sacrifice their spirit blade temporarily. The weapon strike becomes a critical hit and is automatically confirmed. The Mystic Blade loses all bonuses gained from wielding his Spirit Blade for the duration of the encounter, and must make a Will Save (DC 15) or become shaken.

Nice ability, though I would suggest increasing the will save to DC 20 or 25 and requiring a confirm roll, otherwise it is too powerful. I had a capstone ability that did that (plus extra damage, but anyway) and it requires a confirm roll and is not usable at will.

Evasion: At 8th level the Mystic Blade gains Evasion.

Truth: At 11th level the Mystic Blade is treated as the center of a constant Zone of Truth, the Mystic Blade may cancel or start the effect as a free action.

Uncanny Dodge: At 12th level the Mystic Blade gains Uncanny Dodge.

Purity: At 15th level, a Mystic Blade no longer takes ability score penalties for aging and cannot be magically aged. Any penalties she may have already incurred, however, remain in place. Bonuses still accrue, and the Mystic Blade still dies of old age.

Clairvoyance: At 16th level the Mystic Blade is treated as if permanently under the effects of a True Seeing spell. In addition, the Mystic Blade can no longer be flanked.

All very nice abilities, even though at high levels. The Truth and Purity are very flavorful.

Ascendancy: At 20th level the Mystic Blade ascends past the mortal frame. The Mystic Blade's type changes to Outsider, and the Mystic cannot die of old age. The Mystic Blade may still be raised by resurrection spells as normal. The Mystic Blade may sprout translucent and intangible wings at will. The wings have an appearance that the Mystic Blade selects. He gains the ability to fly at his unarmored land speed plus an additional 10 ft with good maneuverability. The Mystic Blade also gains DR 10/silver.

Looks good except you want the type to be Outsider [native], that includes the resurrection clause within the type.

Overall, I think it is a balanced class with the maneuver changes and spell limitations I suggested, good work! And i didn't have too smash it into a thousand pieces!! Hurray!!!

[AstralFire]

Hmm. I'm not a fan of the "hit 20 and become an Outsider" mechanic myself...

My one real comment is that it seems odd for them to be at the center of a 'Zone of Truth' and yet Evil is a potential alignment for them. However, I guess there are a lot of ways to take that, flavor-wise.

I liked how you handled Enlightened Spellcaster, it's one of the more ingenious things I've seen. A bit less clumsy than my solution.

[Valairn]

Hold up! Shadow Hand and Devoted Spirit and Diamond Mind?! These are arguably the most powerful disciplines. I would suggest dropping maneuvers know to Warblade progression, but keep the Crusader recovery mechanic because its cool.

I picked those disciplines because they represented the most supernatural/inwardly focused disciplines, of the 4 diamond mind is probably the most appropriate to drop. While I would drop the maneuvers known to the warblade progression, its literally a one maneuver difference at level 20, it seems fairly inconsequential. Also the lack of control over what's available at a given moment is a rough noose. The reason shadow hand and diamond mind are so strong when used in combination with a swordsage is, that the swordsage can guarantee the availability of a combo. Another thing of note here, is that this class has d6 hit die, its not exactly a tank by any stretch of the imagination. Though talking about this made me notice I didn't include proficiencies..... sigh

Interesting, only a nitpick here: The last line should read: "whenever the Mystic Blade has it materialized and drawn he is immune to fear effects." for clarification purposes, "wielded" just sounded too awkward.

Good catch, wording is difficult sometimes.

Allowing the option of mental stat is a little too much. I suggest using Cha, for flavor reasons and also since it is different

The reason the mental stat is choice based is mainly because of fluff. For instance someone from a clerical background would approach it from intuition. Someone from a scholarly background would approach it intellectually. While someone interested in learning about the divine from people would be charisma based. Its a permanent selection, and it requires taking three levels in the class(including a dead level), which means its a pretty big dip for an ability that can be more easily achieved through other means.

Same sort of thing with the AC bonus here, also its a little confusing how many spells you get readied, you should state it more clearly, possibly include another column in the table.

I admit this section is confusing, and I will clear it up. It was hard to cover all the bases without creating a horrible mash-up of words. I will attempt to correct it.

I suggest limiting the schools to Abjuration, Divination, and Transmutation.

Limiting the schools is a balance option. There are lots of ways to balance the spellcasting, but probably the biggest factor here is that regardless of what spells you know, you can never truly guarantee being able to cast that spell at a given moment. Which means even if you knew every spell there was to know, at 20th level you would be able to have 4 of those available at a given moment, and those 4 would be random, its extremely limiting. The spells available are all 6th or below, so you cannot do time stop and limited wish/wish silliness. While you could wait rounds in order to get a spell available, it still might not be available to you at the moment you want. Its pretty much a complete lock on most spell cheese as it currently stands.

Nice ability, though I would suggest increasing the will save to DC 20 or 25 and requiring a confirm roll, otherwise it is too powerful. I had a capstone ability that did that (plus extra damage, but anyway) and it requires a confirm roll and is not usable at will.

Consider the will save increased, but I don't think a confirmation is really necessary here. Losing all the abilities of your Spirit Blade, is pretty devastating considering all the different bonuses you get with it over the course of the class. What I may do, is say that you lose the inherent bonuses for the rest of the day, rather than encounter, but that may be too much, I'll look into it.

All very nice abilities, even though at high levels. The Truth and Purity are very flavorful.

Looks good except you want the type to be Outsider [native], that includes the resurrection clause within the type.

Thanks for that, I totally spaced it.

Overall, I think it is a balanced class with the maneuver changes and spell limitations I suggested, good work! And i didn't have too smash it into a thousand pieces!! Hurray!!!

Thank you for your input, I do appreciate it a lot. One of the difficult things to relate with the way the class is constructed, is even though you have a broad base to work with on this class, you have very little control over the abilities you can use at what time. Also spells readied take away the availability of readying a maneuver in that slot, and after that, which ones are currently granted is random. I'll clean this up. And thank you again.

[Lord Tataraus]

Only a few things to say here...

I picked those disciplines because they represented the most supernatural/inwardly focused disciplines, of the 4 diamond mind is probably the most appropriate to drop. While I would drop the maneuvers known to the warblade progression, its literally a one maneuver difference at level 20, it seems fairly inconsequential. Also the lack of control over what's available at a given moment is a rough noose. The reason shadow hand and diamond mind are so strong when used in combination with a swordsage is, that the swordsage can guarantee the availability of a combo. Another thing of note here, is that this class has d6 hit die, its not exactly a tank by any stretch of the imagination. Though talking about this made me notice I didn't include proficiencies..... sigh

True about the swordsage, though I think you misunderstood what I suggested. I didn't mean drop a discipline, but lower the number of maneuver's known, otherwise it gets a little too powerful with so many maneuvers and with no recovery mechanic necessary (the randomness in practice is not much of a drawback).

The reason the mental stat is choice based is mainly because of fluff. For instance someone from a clerical background would approach it from intuition. Someone from a scholarly background would approach it intellectually. While someone interested in learning about the divine from people would be charisma based. Its a permanent selection, and it requires taking three levels in the class(including a dead level), which means its a pretty big dip for an ability that can be more easily achieved through other means.

Fair enough. Its not something I think of as unbalancing, just usually its best to set it in stone, but either way its fine.

[Valairn]

Well after thinking about it, changing the maneuvers known is not really burdensome, consider it done.

[Lord Tataraus]

Good to see the formatting a little easier to read

I notice you have quite a few dead levels. Where you planning on adding any other abilities to fill out the class a bit more?

[Valairn]

The dead levels are partially intentional. The only one that is outside of the pattern I set up is level 19, I originally had it filled with an ability called Authority, but I couldn't figure out what to put in it(If you have ideas, feel free to lay them out). The dead levels at 2/6/10/14/18 are all intentional due to the fact that this class already has a crap ton of versatility and some extremely powerful if limited abilities. I was trying my best to maintain balance. To fill some of the dead levels up I could spread out and add on to the Spirit Blade progression a bit more, which I think is the least developed part of the class.

[Lord Tataraus]

The dead levels are partially intentional. The only one that is outside of the pattern I set up is level 19, I originally had it filled with an ability called Authority, but I couldn't figure out what to put in it(If you have ideas, feel free to lay them out). The dead levels at 2/6/10/14/18 are all intentional due to the fact that this class already has a crap ton of versatility and some extremely powerful if limited abilities. I was trying my best to maintain balance. To fill some of the dead levels up I could spread out and add on to the Spirit Blade progression a bit more, which I think is the least developed part of the class.

Even if it is for power reasons, you should give the player something. If you could, do expand the Spirit Blade to get more minor-ish bonuses. I try to have no more than 1-2 dead levels and only between 13-19 (as you can see from my homebrews).

[Valairn]

That's a good rule of thumb, I'll work on correcting it, I just need to figure out what would work well in there. Also an idea for what Authority should be, would be good, still stuck on that one.

[Yakk]

Some concerns.

This is a melee class that, at level 1, has abysmal AC. Not a very viable class at that level.

In addition, the only abilities that they lose from wearing armor are their +AC bonus and their Evasion ability. If you want to make a light, unarmored character... and I guess the spells?

Still, the core of the class works fine in armor.

Can the Spirit Blade change which weapon is bound to themselves? If you want to avoid this, you could allow the Spirit Blade to absorb the magical effects of an existing enchanted weapon, and then apply those effects as a complete set to their Spirit Blade.

Allow a limited set of such "enchantment sets". In effect, this is a fluff way of making the character able to find a new weapon and turn their existing Spirit Blade into the same weapon.

So long as you don't allow mixing and matching of attributes between "weapon sets", this ends up being a slight disadvantage, because you cannot resell the old "weapon set" after you upgrade it (you just have to discard it).


Spirit Blade upgrade ideas (for minor abilities):
1> Weapon becomes unbreakable, or gains 20 hardness.
2> Weapon gains Ghost Touch ability. (it is a spirit blade).
3> Weapon gains a free descriptor (for the purpose of bypassing DR).

...

[Lord Tataraus]

Some concerns.

This is a melee class that, at level 1, has abysmal AC. Not a very viable class at that level.

In addition, the only abilities that they lose from wearing armor are their +AC bonus and their Evasion ability. If you want to make a light, unarmored character... and I guess the spells?

Still, the core of the class works fine in armor.

Good point on the armor. Why not give light armor proficiency and make everything work in light armor? Its not game-breaking in the least.

Can the Spirit Blade change which weapon is bound to themselves? If you want to avoid this, you could allow the Spirit Blade to absorb the magical effects of an existing enchanted weapon, and then apply those effects as a complete set to their Spirit Blade.

Allow a limited set of such "enchantment sets". In effect, this is a fluff way of making the character able to find a new weapon and turn their existing Spirit Blade into the same weapon.

So long as you don't allow mixing and matching of attributes between "weapon sets", this ends up being a slight disadvantage, because you cannot resell the old "weapon set" after you upgrade it (you just have to discard it).


Spirit Blade upgrade ideas (for minor abilities):
1> Weapon becomes unbreakable, or gains 20 hardness.
2> Weapon gains Ghost Touch ability. (it is a spirit blade).
3> Weapon gains a free descriptor (for the purpose of bypassing DR).

...

Good idea with the enhancement thing, why not fill the dead levels with that?

[Valairn]

I actually was working on incorporating the ideas he listed as part of the progression they are pretty excellent ideas. And for the armor, I am still considering my options, adding light armor was one of them.

[Yakk]

There are 3 ways to wield weapons without a shield.

Duelist style (nothing in offhand), dual-wield, and two handed.

Currently, two-handed is a better option than the other two by the default D&D mechanics.

...

If you are aiming at "a single weapon", you could pick the two single-weapon styles and distinguish them.

Two-handed is already decent by default mechanics.

One-handed you could grant a shield bonus to AC from Parries equal to your charisma bonus+class level/4 rounded down. This shield bonus can only exceed your class level by 1 (so at level 1, it can be as high as +2).

Then give the class wisdom-bonus-to-AC at level 2, capped by your class level. (does not stack with monk bonus to AC, and the like).

Then, give the class int-bonus-to-damage at level 3, also capped by your class level. (This would be multiplied by 1.5 if you are using your blade two handed).

All of these abilities cease to work if you are in heavier than light armor and are not wielding your chosen weapon.

It also makes all 3 mental stats useful, provides a nice dash of "multiple attribute disorder" which prevents these abilities from becoming to powerful.

[Valairn]

I didn't put it in there, mainly by oversight, to include the information that the spirit blade takes on the properties of the item you bind to yourself. You can bind a new item, but you sacrifice the old item in order to do so. I should probably allow the binding of two one handed weapons if they are used in tandem. Maybe I could give different progressions, for which type of item you currently have bound. On top of this, should I impose some sort of ritual cost for binding an item? Or is the loss of the previous item enough?

[Lord Tataraus]

The loss of the item is more than enough especially since you lose any masterwork cost or money spent on enhancements.

[Valairn]

I was thinking, would it make sense to limit the number of spells you can prep as maneuvers? Something about someone loading up on a whole bunch of blaster spells or save or suck spells and just spamming them and recovering them instantly doesn't seem right at all. Maybe I could link the number of possible spells you can prepare to the class's level?

[Valairn]

Maybe I can link it to the number of granted maneuvers. Say you can only prepare a number of spells equal to your number of initial granted maneuvers?

[elliott20]

wait, so basically you're saying you get learn a spell as a maneuver? is that what's going on? And I might have missed it but where do you pick this spell from exactly?

[Valairn]

You are able to learn spells as a wizard does, scribe them into a spellbook. The available lists of spells is from cleric or wizard spell lists. In order to cast them you must prepare them as a manuever and it must be granted per the crusader granted maneuvers rule.

What I was proposing, was limiting the number of spells you can prepare at a time, to limit certain types of silly cheese.

EDIT: As soon as I have the chance I'm going to add all the extra things we talked about. Also would limiting the highest spell level known to 5th level be another good step towards limiting the class without having to restrict schools? Together it would be a limit on how many spells you could prepare as maneuvers, and you could not have a spell known higher than 5th level.

EDIT2: As a further aside, I think this class could benefit from a martial discipline built around it as well. WHOOOO WEEE, I can't wait till I have some free time to work it all out.

[Lord Tataraus]

I'd stick with limiting to the schools I suggested. Also, though it is a little more book work, how about keeping spells on a different mechanic like x/encounter where x is something like 1/4 your class level. That would limit them a lot and you could add a full-round action recovery that gets them all back. And you can prepare a number equal to your class level, something like that.

[elliott20]

so theoretically, if I want, I can have this character learn divine power, righteous might, heal, and divine favor in place of all of my normal maneuvers?

I personally think that this is a really cool mechanic but I think having to scribe them down as spells kind of... breaks the whole "mystic" flavor a little. That might be just me, but I think something like this would be better if you simply say that it's powered by their Ki or something and say they can recreate an effect similar to the spell. But they have to actually LEARN it like a maneuver.

[Valairn]

Yes you could learn all those spells, but they wouldn't be in place of maneuvers known. More or less you can learn as many spells as you want and it won't affect how many maneuvers you know, but in order to cast them, you have to ready them in place of a maneuver readied. Does that make more sense.

The reason I had them as being needed to scribe into a spellbook, is to create some sort of prohibitive cost to learning a spell. I didn't want to limit the number of spells known by the class, but I did want people to go, maybe i shouldn't scribe every spell known to man.

The main thing here to note is, that this class is a fairly robust gish type of class, but you can acclompish the same or greater power level by engaging in normal gish silliness. A wizard/swordsage/jade phoenix mage, actually is better as far as sheer upfront power is concerned. This class has longer staying power, but its spell availability is partially related to chance, and you have to choose whether you want a spell or a maneuver to fill a readied maneuver slot.

Sigh... I really need to clear up the language in the class, since the mechanic is new, it creates a lot of confusion :-D.

[elliott20]

ahh, I see. that makes more sense.

I think the best way to clear that up would be to just put down an example of this.

[Valairn]

Good idea. Its now on the list of things to do :-D.

[Yakk]

Picking a spell at random out of a huge list is bad. Picking a spell at random out of a list whose size is picked by the player is worse.

Having a huge spell list is bad.

Having unlimited castings of arbitrary spells is bad.

Your spell casting needs work. I would recommend:

The Mystic Blade has a certain number of spells known and a certain number of spells per day.

Spells are readied just like maneuvers, except when you are out of spells/day in a slot it can no longer be readied.

[Valairn]

I thought that Crusaders chose which maneuvers were readied, but not which ones were granted.

EDIT: Upon further review, you solution seems perfect. As an aside, the ability to know spells is not really as big of an issue as many people make it out to be, if you knew every spell in the world, but could only cast 1 per day, I'd hardly call that an issue. So I think limiting the number of spells per day is a good enough solution, maybe something along the lines of 3+half your mystic blade level, probably more than that actually.

[Valairn]

I made some major edits to the class. There are a lot of dead levels now, because I dropped the Spirit Blade class function, since it was drawing attention away from what I envisioned the core of the class to be. I will be filling out the class better, when I have some more time.

EDIT: I also changed the AC bonus and their primary casting stat to wisdom. Giving a choice while an interesting idea, doesn't really add anything to the class.

[Valairn]

Bumping this just once to get some more input.

Sorry about the triple post...