Hi. I was wondering about a good source (perhaps by a 3rd-party publisher) for an alternate magic-type class, that meets certain criteria.
First of all, I want it to be easy for a player to learn, and easy to figure out how to use it effectively. I don't want to have to juggle dozens of combinations of options to figure out an effective one. Back in 2009, I looked through the Advanced Player's Guide playtest, and found it to be too... well, advanced.
My second criterion might not seem to make much sense, because it will sound like I'm asking for an alternate RACE, rather than class.
You see, back in the days of D&D 3.X, I was excited by the idea of Level Adjustment. For the price of four class levels, for instance, you could play a pixie, able to fly, and stay invisible while attacking. The "Savage Species" book really excited me, as I imagined slowly gaining the powers of, say, an astral deva, a hound archon, or a djinni.
I've recently come to accept that trading hit dice for powers is a thing of the past, and I feel that the extra powers I would want from Savage Species are too powerful, and therefore unbalancing, with the hit dice. Going back to the pixie example, maybe greater invisibility - usable for an indefinite number of times per day and an indefinite period - is too powerful to make a balanced PC, and the same goes for the indefinite number of times a pixie can use the Special Arrows ability. (Sorry, zerzix. I don't mean any offense. I know you worked very hard on that conversion. But those conversions do look rather overpowered, now that we don't give up hit dice for those powers. And even WITH giving up hit dice, if the professionals at Paizo feel that such creatures are too powerful, who am I to argue?)
But it also seems to me that getting nifty, potent powers is too much for just the "race" element to handle. The alternate race books I've seen don't seem like fun. I'll admit to one huge exception: the Aellar and Kestrels from "Races of Wind and Wing" seem quite exciting. (The Advanced Race Guide is on my wishlist, by the way, but its high price makes other items rise above it on that list.) But it seems to me that most of a PC's great powers come not from RACE, but from CLASS as they level up. Therefore, if, mechanically, a class could give powers that, in the game world, actually stem from race, that would be neat.
In a way, I'm describing the Sorcerer class, as different bloodlines can give you extraordinary, spell-like, and supernatural powers as you level up. But what if a class could take that idea even further? After all, most of a sorcerer's useful powers come from his spells. What if a class got rid of spells altogether, and gave you ONLY powers? Then you could use lots of very powerful powers without having to cast any spells.
So, for instance, instead of learning the Sleep spell and the Greater Invisibility spell, you gained those as supernatural powers at certain levels because you're some fey creature. Instead of praying to a deity for the power of Holy Smite and the Cure Light Wounds spell, you get them as spell-like abilities because you're some kind of celestial being. (A "fallen angel", perhaps, who slowly regains his powers on the path to redemption?) Instead of casting the Gaseous Form spell, you get it as an ability, and at some level, you'll get, say, the Whirlwind power, because you're some form of Genie. If the Bestiary monsters are too difficult to balance as PCs, then maybe some variation of those monsters, with somewhat different powers, could be designed (for instance, by limiting the number of times per day those powers may be used, or by limiting those powers in other ways). I'm not saying that I want those particular powers, by the way. I'm just using them as examples.
If my second criterion is too outrageous, then maybe I'll settle for something else. Back when I was first getting into 3.0, I was really excited to see a 3.0 conversion of Al-Qadim, particularly the Sha'ir and Hakima classes. I'm not sure why those classes impressed me so much when so many other alternative spellcasters didn't. Maybe it's because I was familiar with the work of fiction on which they were based. (Maybe Archetypes will suffice, once I figure out what the heck archetypes are.) Or maybe those two classes impressed me because they did away with old restrictions by replacing them with new ones. (For instance, a Sha'ir can cast an indefinite number of spells per day, but the catch is that it takes a long time for a Sha'ir's gen familiar to retrieve a spell, which it must do before the Sha'ir can cast it.)
I see lots of alternative magic-using classes for Pathfinder RPG (particularly by Super Genius Games). Would any of those fit the bill? Does my question even make any sense?
It seems like Racial Paragon classes are what you're going for?
Rite also had the wyrd race that has the racial paragon class. They are half elf half Oni.
Thanks for the replies!
I've considered "Pact Magic Unbound" and "The Genius Guide to the Godling" in the past. Now, I guess I'll consider them more seriously.
"In the Company of Gargoyles" sounds like the sort of thing I'm seeking. "In the Company of Giants" could be problematic, though. How are the larger giants going to fit into dungeons with 5' wide corridors and 8' high ceilings? Even the racial paragon in "In the Company of Minotaurs" grows to Large, which is pushing it. The Ironborn aren't exactly what I was looking for, but they do look interesting! (The Warforged were what first made Eberron grab my attention, years ago.) I'm not so sure I could develop a taste for those Asian monsters, though. If I'm not interested in Oni, could I still use "Wyrd of Questhaven"?
I see that all those books I mentioned in the previous paragraph are compiled in "In the Company of Monsters" by Cubicle 7 Entertainment. I had considered that book in the past. I guess that buying "In the Company of Gargoyles" would be a cheap way to get a taste of that book.
I just took another look at some racial archetypes in the PRD. These may give a few extra race-appropriate abilities - one at level 1, a second such ability many levels later, etc. - but to me, it seems like this is watering down those race-related abilities with lots of the usual class abilities. The Fiendish Vessel archetype looks kind of interesting, but that seems more conducive to evil characters. A Strix / Airborne Ambusher might be interesting, but "Races of Wind and Wing" pretty well cover winged characters, in my view. Maybe if I study that stuff a lot longer, I might find something else to interest me.
(Vanaras look like they might be good replacements for Tasloi, but those only interest me in their capacity as GM-controlled monsters, not PC races, so I'm getting a bit off-topic.)