Where's the arcane 1/2 caster gish class?

[TyGuy]

We have the druid 1/2 caster gish with the ranger.

And the cleric 1/2 caster gish with the paladin.

And that's it for entire classes as 1/2 casters.

Best we get for a wizard/sorcerer 1/2 caster gish is a rogue or fighter with some magic, or a wizard with some melee stuff.

I've considered converting the paladin from a holy warrior base to something resembling more of an arcane warrior, but that was biting off a lot.

Anyone come across or even dabbled in homebrewing a balanced and peer reviewed version of what I'm talking about?

[Constructman]

The latest UA iteration of the Artificer, specifically the Battle Smith subclass.

[Rukelnikov]

The latest UA iteration of the Artificer, specifically the Battle Smith subclass.

This, Battle Smith is an Int based half- gish, not exactly "arcane" though, but close.

[JumboWheat01]

At least the Eldritch Knight and the Arcane Trickster get cantrips, unlike the half-casters. Sure, they don't have a lot of spells, but their selection is generally thematic for what they're intended for.

Also, with the Bard the way it is, a Valor Bard is nearly as much a warrior as it is a full caster, along with being a decent skill monkey, and has the ability to cast and attack in the same turn, much like the Eldritch Knight. And the Hexblade Warlock is a front-line warrior with Warlock's odd AEDU casting and is quite SAD. If you ban the Hexblade from your table, a bog-standard Blade boon Warlock can also succeed, even if it takes a bit more work.

[TyGuy]

The latest UA iteration of the Artificer, specifically the Battle Smith subclass.

Respectfully, not really what I'm looking for. Aside from being unvetted, the theme is arcane inventor not battle-mage. And I'm not a fan of battle pets, as a personal aside.

[Trustypeaches]

Respectfully, not really what I'm looking for. Aside from being unvetted, the theme is arcane inventor not battle-mage. And I'm not a fan of battle pets, as a personal aside.

Frankly, you could cut the battlepet from that subclass entirely and add the “Defensive Pounce” to the Artificer as a reaction and it’d still be nicely up on the power curve.

As far as theming goes, I don’t see a problem. The most “inventor” thing about the Artificer is Infusions, which is basically just Enchantments which totally falls in line with a Battlemage.

[Kane0]

Take a Ranger or Paladin, swap their casting to INT with the appropriate spell list. Same deal with a Hexblade even.

Or the UA Artificer, or any homebrew you come across. Believe me, intgish is a concept well covered.

[TyGuy]

Believe me, intgish is a concept well covered.

Know any gems that are well tested and refined that you could point me towards?

[Arkhios]

Know any gems that are well tested and refined that you could point me towards?

Eldritch Knight A class doesn't have to be ½-caster to deserve being called a gish.

And, to be frank, Rukelnikov is wrong. Artificer is – and always has been – arcane class.
Battle Smith Artificer gets all martial weapon and medium armor proficiency. All artificers get an "Extra Attack" feature when wielding magical weapon, so that fits the bill as well. Artificer has everything it takes to be an arcane ½-caster gish, like it or don't

[Kane0]

Hmm. Maybe start here?

[Chronos]

All you have to change to make the paladin arcane is one word in a setting-specific aside in a sidebar that you probably didn't even read. Arcane vs. divine isn't really a thing any more.

[Arkhios]

All you have to change to make the paladin arcane is one word in a setting-specific aside in a sidebar that you probably didn't even read. Arcane vs. divine isn't really a thing any more.

Technically you'd have to change two three words. Divine and Divinity are two different words, with different contextual meaning, despite the fact that they are related to same thing, in the end. Then there's Sacred, which is also somewhat related to the divine, and should probably be changed as well.

With that said, it's really not that difficult to reflavor a paladin.

[Grod_The_Giant]

There's the Steelsworn in Grod's Guide-- an Int-based half caster focused on championing civilization and enhancing themselves with buff spells.

[HamsterKun]

You could always do Fighter (Eldritch Knight) or Rogue (Arcane Trickster) and then multiclass with Wizard and go roughly even between the two. I fell in love with Fighter/Magic User and Thief/Magic User way back in AD&D, and have always used one of those two classes in my campaigns.

The school you choose for the Wizard part is ultimately up to you, but I recommend Evocation or Abjuration for EK and Enchantment or Illusion for AT.

[Vogie]

You could always do Fighter (Eldritch Knight) or Rogue (Arcane Trickster) and then multiclass with Wizard and go roughly even between the two. I fell in love with Fighter/Magic User and Thief/Magic User way back in AD&D, and have always used one of those two classes in my campaigns.

The school you choose for the Wizard part is ultimately up to you, but I recommend Evocation or Abjuration for EK and Enchantment or Illusion for AT.

Basically this.

Because of the ways the MC Spellcasting works, if you take 3 levels in a 1/3 caster, and then 1 level in a full caster, VOILA - you're a half-caster.

The most obvious are EK/War Wizard, and AT/Bladesinger

[TyGuy]

There's the Steelsworn in Grod's Guide-- an Int-based half caster focused on championing civilization and enhancing themselves with buff spells.

Thanks for the link! How much play testing and reiteration did you go through for the average class/subclass option in your work?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Thanks for the link! How much play testing and reiteration did you go through for the average class/subclass option in your work?

A few rounds for most of it. I got a lot of great feedback from Man_Over_Game, Vogie, theVoidWatches, and a bunch of other folks on the homebrew subforum.

[Man_Over_Game]

Anyone come across or even dabbled in homebrewing a balanced and peer reviewed version of what I'm talking about?

Uh...yeah!

I did exactly that with my Prestige Options homebrew. All it does is add options to replace the primary attribute for many archetypes, then adds some restrictions to prevent abuse of those changes.

One of these options is the change to Oath of Conquest, renamed to Oath of Superiority, which states:

You can take the Paladin, using your Intelligence modifier in place of your Charisma modifier for your Paladin features.
Requirement: The only Paladin subclass available to you is the Oath of Conquest. Additionally, you cannot have more Wizard levels than your Paladin levels.

And each option includes a spoiler with some brief analysis as to why each option is a balanced choice:

Spoiler: Oath of Superiority Analysis

Show

The restriction on Wizards is to make sure that Wizards can't get cheatyface AC from a low level dip, while also limiting the number of spammable slots for Divine Smite. A main-Paladin can dip into Wizard for Shield and Absorb Elements, but this is already doable by default with Sorcerer, and Sorcerer can cheat out Twin Spell Booming Blade, so it's still better than the Paladin/Wizard Hybrid.

Admittedly, the restriction for Conquest is a narrative choice, but no other Paladin Oath really seemed to justify a change to Intelligence. I added this one mostly due to popular request.

The idea is to provide evidence to a DM as to why each of these changes is acceptable. Many DMs might say that Bards using Intelligence might be a problem, and this page is for telling them why they're wrong. It also has some solid rules as to how to implement these changes, how it modifies multiclassing, all while allowing players to change their decision at a later time (so if someone wants more Wizard levels, and are willing to revert back into a Charisma Paladin, they can do so).

During the months I was creating it, I regularly asked people to create game-breaking builds, including on our 5e forum. There were a number of responses, but disappointingly few broken builds.

Spoiler: Info on the one build on Prestige Options that might be OP, unrelated to this thread, mostly info to support PO

Show

The only one that might have issues on the Options page is the Intelligence-based Monk, which I think should be fine as long as WotC doesn't print a method for Intelligence-based attacking (like with the Artificer Battle Smith). I decided to keep it anyway, as the Intelligence Monk is the same as any other Monk, except for easy access to Reaction-based defenses, or having higher AC from Bladesinger. With the fact that Monk's biggest weakness is their AC, and that they're heavily reliant on Reactions, I don't consider it a major problem.

[jaappleton]

Respectfully, not really what I'm looking for. Aside from being unvetted, the theme is arcane inventor not battle-mage. And I'm not a fan of battle pets, as a personal aside.

Then go make one.

[Vogie]

We have the druid 1/2 caster gish with the ranger.

And the cleric 1/2 caster gish with the paladin.

And that's it for entire classes as 1/2 casters.

Best we get for a wizard/sorcerer 1/2 caster gish is a rogue or fighter with some magic, or a wizard with some melee stuff.

I've considered converting the paladin from a holy warrior base to something resembling more of an arcane warrior, but that was biting off a lot.

Anyone come across or even dabbled in homebrewing a balanced and peer reviewed version of what I'm talking about?

What specifically are you looking for that wouldn't be

Alternatively... why not non-hexblade warlock? It's not full spellcasting, and would require a dip to get medium and/or heavy armor proficiency.

If you wanted to use the paladin as a model for substitution, as you mentioned. Let's walk through that.

The Arcanadin would have:

• no cantrips
• no ritual casting
• The Channel Divinity from Arcana Cleric
• The Wizard Spell list, but with
• no damage spells

Basically, you burn spell slots to deal damage via hits (Arcane Smite!), then have the wizard's spellcasting ability, but only for buff/control spells.

To round it out, I'd give you:

• the Minor Conjuration ability instead of Lay on Hands, and you can use it Proficiency+Int mod times a day
• Divine Health would be replaced by a concentration-boosting ability, a la Bladesinger
• The Aura of Protection would be replaced by the ability to do a bonus action Help action to targets within your aura area after you take an action, to simulate a familiar's assistance.
• Arcane Smite would likely do fire, cold, lightning or thunder damage, as would your Improved Arcane Smite
• Your Cleansing touch allows you to heal yourself or others by spending hit die.

[TyGuy]

A few rounds for most of it. I got a lot of great feedback from Man_Over_Game, Vogie, theVoidWatches, and a bunch of other folks on the homebrew subforum.

Excellent, I'll put it on my list of to-get for when I feel like treating myself to a hobby item!

Uh...yeah!

I did exactly that with my Prestige Options homebrew. All it does is add options to replace the primary attribute for many archetypes, then adds some restrictions to prevent abuse of those changes.

One of these options is the change to Oath of Conquest, renamed to Oath of Superiority, which states:

You can take the Paladin, using your Intelligence modifier in place of your Charisma modifier for your Paladin features.
Requirement: The only Paladin subclass available to you is the Oath of Conquest. Additionally, you cannot have more Wizard levels than your Paladin levels.

Admittedly paladin is my favorite gish chassis for non-MC. One hangup I have though, which is why I considered doing a fuller conversion than swapping Int for Cha, is the baggage the paladin has with the holy warrior slant in things like lay on hands and radiant damage. Totally kills oath breaker for me too. Converting divine smite to necrotic damage is easy enough, but lay on hands as an oathbreaker? I'll pass. (granted I could just selfishly use it all up on myself but then players are mad at me for being the "it's what my character would do" guy)

If you wanted to use the paladin as a model for substitution, as you mentioned. Let's walk through that.

The Arcanadin would have:

• no cantrips
• no ritual casting
• The Channel Divinity from Arcana Cleric
• The Wizard Spell list, but with
• no damage spells

Basically, you burn spell slots to deal damage via hits (Arcane Smite!), then have the wizard's spellcasting ability, but only for buff/control spells.

To round it out, I'd give you:

• the Minor Conjuration ability instead of Lay on Hands, and you can use it Proficiency+Int mod times a day
• Divine Health would be replaced by a concentration-boosting ability, a la Bladesinger
• The Aura of Protection would be replaced by the ability to do a bonus action Help action to targets within your aura area after you take an action, to simulate a familiar's assistance.
• Arcane Smite would likely do fire, cold, lightning or thunder damage, as would your Improved Arcane Smite
• Your Cleansing touch allows you to heal yourself or others by spending hit die.

I started some work on this already and came up with some similar stuff and some completely different takes.

• Divine Sense: I converted to the ability to cast detect magic at will. Playing with the idea of including identify with that, or maybe 1 free per long rest.
• Lay on Hands: Super iconic paladin holy-warrior ability in my eyes. Strong, but must go for a proper conversion. I'm considering changing it to a temp HP/arcane ward feature (magic shield) and giving it a range and potentially multiple targets at once in lieu of being able to cure poison and disease. Simpler still would be to forget all that and give it Arcane Recovery, ripped from the wizard.
• Fighting Style: Keep but add archery and two weapon fighting.
• Spellcasting: Int instead of Cha. Arcane focus instead of Holy symbol. And access to the wizard spell list. Now I was thinking of doing things a little different here. Instead of preparing spells, I was going to change it to learned like the ranger. And to compensate, give ritual caster and some cantrips. I also wasn't going to restrict against wizard spells that deal damage. What's the reason you don't want to allow that?
• Divine Smite: One of the bread-n-butter abilities. I came up with Arcane Smite too, but I converted the damage from radiant to force. Thought about simply dropping the extra oomph against fiend & undead and replacing it with nothing.
• Divine Health: I too thought of help with concentration saves. But I was still playing with ideas because I don't want to step on the toes of racials or feats like resilient con or warcaster. Something else I'm considering is a passive that reduces the duration of negative spell effects on self or even an active ability to drop a negative spell effect x times per y rest.
• Sacred Oath: lots of work here to be done. Though I think a couple oaths would work fine as is, I would make 1-2 designed with the converted paladin in mind. If I am to continue on this work...
• Aura of Protection: Not terribly themed other than the name, could probably just re-fluff it.
• Aura of Courage: Refluffed to Aura of Still Mind, keep it.
• Improved Divine Smite: see divine smite.
• Cleansing Touch: keep, meshes well.
• Aura Improvements: keep.
• Sacred Oath Capstone: In general, balancing new subclass options is a tall order. But balancing the capstones which are amazingly powerful for paladins is something I don't know where to start on. Might just do more conversions on the existing stuff to take out the holy vibe from something like Holy Nimbus.

[Darc_Vader]

[*]Lay on Hands: Super iconic paladin holy-warrior ability in my eyes. Strong, but must go for a proper conversion. I'm considering changing it to a temp HP/arcane ward feature (magic shield) and giving it a range and potentially multiple targets at once in lieu of being able to cure poison and disease. Simpler still would be to forget all that and give it Arcane Recovery, ripped from the wizard.

I like the idea of giving them a variant of the Abjurer’s Arcane Ward that has Lay on Hands progression (5hp/Paladin level) instead of what Abjurers get (2hp/Wizard level + Int). Maybe allow them to project it to others, but only within their Aura to help differentiate it from the existing version.

[EdenIndustries]

Then go make one.

Not to be a jerk here, but jaapleton you posted this in the Artificer thread:

Can everyone here do me one small favor?

Please, shout any and all Artificer build ideas at me.

I'm trying to think of a few and my brain is just fried from work. So... If you could help a guy out, I'd appreciate it.

Why is it ok for you to ask a favour of others helping you come up with builds, but your response to TyGuy asking people to help him find an arcane gish is for him to go make one? Seems inconsistent, no?

[djreynolds]

You could just go battlemaster/wizard.... its essentially now a half caster

[jaappleton]

Not to be a jerk here, but jaapleton you posted this in the Artificer thread:



Why is it ok for you to ask a favour of others helping you come up with builds, but your response to TyGuy asking people to help him find an arcane gish is for him to go make one? Seems inconsistent, no?

Its somewhat inconsistent. But WOTC is literally creating the arcane half caster.

But its not in the style he wants. Soooo... What's he want?

I'll acknowledge I was slightly dinkish in my response earlier. I won't delete it, I'd rather own it.

[Zhorn]

You could just go battlemaster/wizard.... its essentially now a half caster

Half caster; yes. But is does lack the mechanical melding between martial and magical that makes a gish an actual gish.

Examples:
Paladin divine smites and Warlock edritch smites feed into that martial ability bolstered by magic theme.
Eldritch Knight's warmagic and eldritch strike synergize the use of spells in combination with martial attacks.

Without a way of combining the two classes' abilities, it's just sacrificing the specialized potential for turn-by-turn versatility (not always a bad thing).

[Arkhios]

You could just go battlemaster/wizard.... its essentially now a half caster

Half caster; yes. But is does lack the mechanical melding between martial and magical that makes a gish an actual gish.

Examples:
Paladin divine smites and Warlock edritch smites feed into that martial ability bolstered by magic theme.
Eldritch Knight's warmagic and eldritch strike synergize the use of spells in combination with martial attacks.

Without a way of combining the two classes' abilities, it's just sacrificing the specialized potential for turn-by-turn versatility (not always a bad thing).

Eldritch Knight 15/War Wizard 5 would work decently as a half-caster. Only downside would be that it wouldn't get access to 4th and 5th level spells known; only the spell slots.

But at least it would be mechanically solid for melding martial with magic.

[Zhorn]

Eldritch Knight 15/War Wizard 5 would work decently as a half-caster. Only downside would be that it wouldn't get access to 4th and 5th level spells known; only the spell slots.

But at least it would be mechanically solid for melding martial with magic.

With the SCAG cantrips scaling with level and supplying a decent damage alternative to the 3-attack-routine past level 11 (unless you go for a GWM build), it might even be worth cutting off fighter at 10, and have those last 10 in wizard for those 5th level spell slots and an Arcane Tradition feature. Empowered Evocation to add some more INT damage onto your evocations spells isn't something to sneeze at, especially if BB or GFB are your goto attacks.
You may miss out on arcane charge, but you still get eldritch strike to mess with your enemy's saves.

[Zhorn]

You may miss out on arcane charge, but you still get eldritch strike to mess with your enemy's saves.

And with more spell slots and spells known from those wizard levels (ignoring spell book and just talking about spells learned at level up), just invest in Misty Step and/or Thunder Step.

[OgataiKhan]

Hmm. Maybe start here?

Kane0, if you don't mind, what is the name of your Order of the Stick avatar? I couldn't find it in the settings.