Heya! So yeah, my buddy and I were pretty disappointed with the "Siege Mage" Archetype after we read it, so we made new ones! They are still a work in progress (mostly just finding the best wording to avoid abuse/to get out intent across to the reader as best we can).
If you really want to know more and be able to under stand what these do I suggest you read up on how siege engines work in pathfinder check out the Siege Engines page on the SRD! There's a buch of stuff from ultimate combat lower down on the page.
So here they are!
Diminished spell casting: Siege Magus’ cast one fewer spell of each level than normal. If this reduces the number to 0, he may cast spells of that level only if his Intelligence allows bonus spells of that level.
Conjured Crew (Su): As a swift action the siege Magus can spend points from his arcane pool to count as having 1 additional crew members per point spent for the purpose of reloading, aiming, and firing a siege engine. These extra crew members last for one minute and count as medium creatures that assist the Wizard in loading, aiming and firing the siege weapon. Each extra crew member has an effective strength score of 10 + ½ your caster level.
This ability replaces Medium Armor Training, and Heavy Armor Training.
Bonus Feat: At 3rd level the siege magus gains the Siege Engineer feat at first level as a bonus feat.
This replaces the Magus arcana gained at 3rd level.
Siege Spellstrike (Su): At 4th level, a siege magus can use spellstrike to cast a single-target touch attack ranged spell and deliver it through a direct fire siege weapon attack. Even if the spell can normally affect multiple targets, only a single missile, ray, or effect accompanies the attack. At 11th level the siege magus can also use spellstrike to cast any spell with a duration of instantaneous and deliver it through an indirect fire siege weapon attack. The spell is considered to originate from the point of impact of the attack. The siege magus must be touching the siege engine to deliver the spell.
This ability replaces spell recall and improved spell recall.
Calculating Tactician (Ex): At 5th level when the Siege Magus mans a siege engine using his conjured crew ability he can make attacks rolls with direct fire siege weapons using his Intelligence modifier instead of his Dexterity modifier. Also, he gets a +1 bonus on checks made to fire indirect siege weapons and +1 more for every 3 levels past 5 (+6 at lvl 20).
This replaces the Magus bonus feat gained at 5th level.
- Our main goals were to make it so the siege magus can effectively use siege weapons by himself in a useful manner, and have fun doing it. Conjured crew was to help him use siege alone, Calculating tactician was supposed to make him useful, and Spellstrikeing with Indirect and Direct siege attacks was to make him useful and fun.
- Conjured Crew: So the extra crew members are meant to only help the magus by bing able to perform the actions it takes to load & aim the siege weapon, nothing else. If the siege magus has the “Master Siege Engineer” these extra “crew members” benefit from the feat like a normal crew would. They cannot be attacked or attack because they aren’t actually creatures. The ability can be flavored as “Arcane forces aim the bombard at the magus’ foes..” or “Ghostly copies of the magus pull back the catapult’s lever..”, you get the idea.
-Siege Spellstrike So this is suposed to work just like the spellstrike and ranged spellstrike that the magus already has, just with siege weapons. So, after all the loading and aiming actions are taken care of, the magus attacks with the siege weapon as part of casting the spell, to deliver the spell and such. So you could have a catapult lobbing rocks that explode a la' fireball when they land. Or you could have a balista bolt that inflicts disintegrate on hit. That kind of thing.
- Calculating Tactician: This ability only affects the attack roll. Any damage bonus to the attack from strength or another primary stat is still based off of that stat. (in the case of Rams & such) The intent of this ability is to allow the magus to make attacks with direct fire siege weapons using his intelligence when only him and his conjured crew are handling the siege weapon. I'm still not sure about how to word this ability, I just want it to be when he attacks with siege that's manned by only him and his crew he uses his Int to hit instead of dex for direct fire stuff like cannons and balistas.
Studied Engineer: At first level the siege wizard gains the Siege Engineer feat.
This replaces scribe scroll.
Siege School: A siege wizard replaces their arcane school with the Siege School. In addition when they pick their forbidden schools they may not pick transmutation.
Arcane Siege (Su): Beginning at 1st level, the siege wizard gets a bonus on damage when operating siege weapons equal to 1/2 their wizard level (min 1).
Measured Assault (Ex): For one round the a siege wizard can may use their Intelligence modifier instead of their Dexterity modifier when making an attack roll with a Direct fire siege weapon. Also, she gets a +1 bonus on checks made to fire indirect siege weapons and +1 more for every 3 levels past 1st (+7 at level 19). Activating this ability is a free action and it can be used 3 + int mod times per day.
Arcane Assistance (Su): At 8th level when acting as the crew leader for a siege weapon the siege wizard counts as having 2 additional crew members for the purpose of reloading aiming and firing a siege engine faster. These extra crew members count as medium creatures that assist the Wizard in loading, aiming and firing the siege weapon. Each extra crew member has an effective strength score of 10 + ½ your caster level.
Animate Siege Weapon (Su): At 10th level, as a standard action, a siege wizard can animate a single ranged siege weapon within 60ft, causing it to aim, load, and attack on it's own for a number of rounds equal to half her wizard class level. The Siege weapon makes one attack per round and is magically loaded and aimed before each attack. Direct fire siege weapons use the Wizards BaB + her intelligence modifier when attacking. Indirect fire siege weapons make the targeting check to attack using the Wizards BaB + her intelligence modifier, or her BaB + Knowledge: (engineering) skill modifier if she is trained in Knowledge: (engineering). It must remain within 60 feet of her. She can direct it to attack a foe as a free action when she first uses this ability to animate the weapon, but on subsequent rounds, she must use a move action to set it against a new foe. If its current foe is defeated, the siege weapon automatically aims to attack the closest enemy. The siege weapon will move if instructed and able, but cannot attack on a turn it moved. It does not gain attacks of opportunity, nor does it provoke them. A wizard can use this ability once per day at level 10, and an addition time per day every other wizard level past 10 (twice per day at level 12, three times at level 14, four times at level 18, and 5 times at level 20). You can expend multiple uses to extend the duration of the effect on a siege engine.
At 20th level a Siege wizard can animate and fire any siege weapon within 100ft of her simultaneously while using Animate Siege Weapon. Each seige weapon controlled in this manner uses up one round of the ability every round. This ability requires intense concentration and requires the Siege Mage to use a full round action to concentrate and maintain the link to multiple siege weapons. The DC of this concentration check is 15+2 for each siege engine under the wizards control. If the wizard’s concentration is broken the siege engines cease to animate.
This ability replaces the bonus feats at 5th level and 15th level.
Yeah, so I like this one a lot, especially the whole animating a ranged siege weapon @_@ so cool... Anyway, our goals for this were similar, It needed to be fun, not too restricting, but still made the wizard feel awesome about using siege weapons. Studied engineer, arcane siege and measured assault were intended to reward the wizard for using siege, while Arcane assistance was aimed at making it easier to use siege. And the Animate siege was supposed to open up what the wizard could do in combat, allowing him to attack once with a siege weapon as well as cast a spell. I feel like taking the wizards arcane school, scribe scroll as well as two of the wizard's bonus feats reduces the wizard's strength and versatility enough to balance out the bonus he gets with siege weapons. Mind you it's a bit more than what you give up, but it's insanely specific. you cant bring a trebuchet into a small tomb that's hiding the Litch, but unlike the paizo Siege Mage, this character can actually be useful and fun in other areas where he cant bring siege weapons.
So the capstone was initially spellstrike with any spell, and that was kinda too strong and also was treading on the Siege Magus' turf. So I changed the lvl 10 ability to what it is now and made the capstone a mass animate siege thing. Not the final iteration of it, but yeah
- the bonus crew that the Siege wizard gets is also affected by the master siege engineer and pretty much the exact same as what the magus gets.
- We came up with the Wizard Archetype first, then halfway through we thought of some abilities that just fit the magus more, so we made both. The Wizard can do it at range, more consistently and doesn't
So there you have it! Was it easy enough to understand? Was there any wording you thought was sub-par or didn't explain our intention well?
Anything you'd like to point out balance wise? I'm all ears!
Thanks for reading this far.
-Habar414