Warmage conversion for Pathfinder


Conversions


3 people marked this as a favorite.

Over in my beguiler conversion thread I had a few requests to tackle the other two variant caster classes (warmage and dread necromancer) using the same framework I came up with for the beguiler. I decided to work on the warmage first and, while I had some updates in the beguiler thread, I figured it deserved its own thread so people didn't miss out on the chance to have their voices heard. Anyhow, I'd love to get peoples' thoughts on the conversion:

Warmage conversion for Pathfinder

(I'll put together another nicely formatted version like the beguiler conversion once I get it a bit more close to a final version).


Circle enrolment is missing from the progression table. Not sure if that was intended...


Great updates.

What would you say is the purpose of the remnants of the Shadowdrake League? Are they fighting for anything or just passing on their special training to anyone that joins? Are they forced to remain secretive to hide from the followers of Nethys? Do the elemental colleges frown upon their unorthodox teachings? Do Shadowdrake Adept still tend to share the alignment of the local government?

And shouldn't the DC for Shadowdrake Legionnaire say Wisdom instead of Intelligence modifier?


Not sure if you are aware of it, but the Rogue Genius games Death mage is very much a pathfinder version of the dread necromancer, except the dread necromancer is more a single option within the death mage class, and there are other paths to take if you want to take the concept of a 'death focused' mage in a different directions. Might be good to at least farm ideas from.


The choice of Knowledge Planes over History or Engineering is strange to me. Those would seem the obvious choices of a student of war.

Also, I feel that unlimited use of Arcane Blast is too good for a class with 9-level casting.


Ciaran Barnes wrote:
Also, I feel that unlimited use of Arcane Blast is too good for a class with 9-level casting.

Just like with your comments in Ertw's beguiler thread you seem to have missed the fact that the strength of 9-level casting depends on the spell list. Unlike the beguiler's spell list, this one is definitely scarier since it's full of damaging spells, but it still lacks the versatility of a wizard or cleric. There's little in the way of key defensive measures like mirror image or blink (the best they get is blur) or mobility and escape spells like fly or dimension door, so they still lag behind a well built wizard even with armor.

As for the strength of the arcane blast, at level 10 it does about 20-30 points of damage (usually on the lower end of that scale) to each enemy it hits per round. If you look around the DPR Olympics threads you'll find plenty of melee builds that are routinely doing 100+ damage per round. That means the warmage would need to hit five people with one blast to equal that kind of damage output (and if they're that clustered he might as well be using his spells since his empowered fireball deals 55+ damage reliably to a similar area).


9th level spells still have 9th level DCs, and the difference between arcane blast and weapons attacks is that weapon attacks require weapons. Can a martial character do an arcane blast amount of damage when he is without his weapon, with a touch attack, an absolutely no investment in resources such as feats?

You're right abou the difference in spell lists though. If the spells are that much weaker though, maybe the warmage should be a 6 level caster.


Ciaran Barnes wrote:
9th level spells still have 9th level DCs

Except that most of the spells that are typically considered top tier spells don't use saves. Wish, timestop, summon monster IX and shapechange are all incredibly powerful (many times more powerful than anything found on this spell list). Spells like meteor swarm and crushing hand are toys compared to these spells.

Ciaran Barnes wrote:
and the difference between arcane blast and weapons attacks is that weapon attacks require weapons. Can a martial character do an arcane blast amount of damage when he is without his weapon, with a touch attack, an absolutely no investment in resources such as feats?

True there's no money or feat investment for arcane blast, but for martial characters like those I linked they have few expenses beyond armor and weapons. They can afford to sink their cash into a really powerful weapon with little else required in the way of wondrous items. A caster like the warmage needs to sink his gold into wands, staves, metamagic rods, potions, etc on top of his armor and weapon. Likewise he needs to invest his feats to enhance him magic (a martial character's feats are always strongly focused on martial combat because that's what he does). Things like spell focus, spell penetration, combat casting, etc and hopefully he has room for a few combat feats to make himself more dangerous in a fight. Yes the martial characters need to invest more to get those kinds of DPRs, but they also have fewer sinks for those kinds of resources.

Ciaran Barnes wrote:
You're right abou the difference in spell lists though. If the spells are that much weaker though, maybe the warmage should be a 6 level caster.

Bringing the warmage down to a 6 level caster defeats the point of the class. In the previous thread the idea of converting the warmage and necromancer came from Dragonamedrake who was looking at possibly decreasing the power level of full casters by breaking their powers up. Ertw came up with the framework that the beguiler was an illusion/enchantment specialist, the warmage was an evocation/abjuration specialist and the dread necro was a necromancy/divination specialist. All three of these classes are still outclassed by pure wizards and sorcerers because those two have the option to pick only the best spells rather than dealing with spell lists that have holes in them. The beguiler is lacking the ability to deal significant damage with his spells and the warmage is lacking utility out of combat (including when he needs to flee from combat). These blindsides makes these classes what they are: full casters that can't do everything out of the box like wizards. That's what these conversions bring to the table.


Oceanshieldwolf wrote:
Circle enrolment is missing from the progression table. Not sure if that was intended...

It was intentional the table lists all of the subsequent powers that fall under the circle enrollment umbrella (circle spells, arcane evolutions and elemental dynamism).

StealthDiabeetis wrote:

Great updates.

What would you say is the purpose of the remnants of the Shadowdrake League? Are they fighting for anything or just passing on their special training to anyone that joins? Are they forced to remain secretive to hide from the followers of Nethys? Do the elemental colleges frown upon their unorthodox teachings? Do Shadowdrake Adept still tend to share the alignment of the local government?

I've left the specific aims of the shadowdrake league open ended so that they can be tuned to whatever a specific setting requires.

StealthDiabeetis wrote:
And shouldn't the DC for Shadowdrake Legionnaire say Wisdom instead of Intelligence modifier?

You're right, that was an oversight when I copied that from earlier in the document.

Kolokotroni wrote:
Not sure if you are aware of it, but the Rogue Genius games Death mage is very much a pathfinder version of the dread necromancer, except the dread necromancer is more a single option within the death mage class, and there are other paths to take if you want to take the concept of a 'death focused' mage in a different directions. Might be good to at least farm ideas from.

Thanks, I'll definitely take a look at that when I get around to working on the dread necromancer.

Ciaran Barnes wrote:
The choice of Knowledge Planes over History or Engineering is strange to me. Those would seem the obvious choices of a student of war.

I chose Knowledge (planes) due to the strong connection the elements (and thus the four elemental planes).

Ciaran Barnes wrote:
Also, I feel that unlimited use of Arcane Blast is too good for a class with 9-level casting.

Do you feel that it would be more reasonable with a lower damage die? Or possibly with a slower progression for the extra damage dice?


I don't know that the damage die is the problem. I object more to the unlimited use. While I don't agree with Penumbral Shadow's reasoning, he did read a great deal more of your class than I did, and the broad view is worth considering. I'm offering my opinion of limiting the uses of arcane blast based on what existing arcane caster classes have access to. There is no rule that you have to do so, but I find it a useful tool.

Oh, and the reason I suggested those other knowledge skills was your mention of "war college" in the class introduction. You've made the curriculum a bit narrow. ;)


I agree with Ciaran that the arcane blast still needs to be dialed back a bit. Dropping the damage die to a d8 would put it a little behind the knife master rogue's sneak attack in terms of DPR (which works well with a flanking partner), but I think this ability might work better: put a cool down on it, make it usable once every 1d4 rounds like a dragon's breath weapon. As a result it gets used probably 2-4 times in a given encounter and its damage won't be overbearing.

Some other thoughts I had: You could use some clarification as to whether or not an evolved arcane blast still requires a touch attack. While ref save spells don't usually need an attack roll, there's nothing to indicate if one is still needed. Warmage's edge could use further clarification, too. How does it interact with crits (that's still an issue with spells that require an attack roll as a 20/x2 crit threat)? Is the damage still applied on a save for half damage spell?


Ciaran Barnes wrote:
Oh, and the reason I suggested those other knowledge skills was your mention of "war college" in the class introduction. You've made the curriculum a bit narrow. ;)

Good thinking, I can add those skills onto the list of class skills.

LT Silverstar wrote:
I agree with Ciaran that the arcane blast still needs to be dialed back a bit. Dropping the damage die to a d8 would put it a little behind the knife master rogue's sneak attack in terms of DPR (which works well with a flanking partner), but I think this ability might work better: put a cool down on it, make it usable once every 1d4 rounds like a dragon's breath weapon. As a result it gets used probably 2-4 times in a given encounter and its damage won't be overbearing.

That definitely seems like a reasonable middle ground to me. I'll add the 1d4 round limit into the description of arcane blast.

LT Silverstar wrote:


Some other thoughts I had: You could use some clarification as to whether or not an evolved arcane blast still requires a touch attack. While ref save spells don't usually need an attack roll, there's nothing to indicate if one is still needed. Warmage's edge could use further clarification, too. How does it interact with crits (that's still an issue with spells that require an attack roll as a 20/x2 crit threat)? Is the damage still applied on a save for half damage spell?

Good points. I'll update the shape evolutions and warmage's edge to clarify these points. The shape evolved blasts will use either a Reflex save (cone, line, and area) or touch attack (split). I'll have to rework the rolling thunder's evolutions to work with a removal of the save. As for warmage's edge, I'll make it so that it doesn't multiply on critical hits and isn't applied when the enemy saves.


Another thing I noticed when I was looking through the warmage equipment: the variant thunderstones that apply combat maneuvers to opponents seem a bit wonky. I assume you want these items to be roughly equivalent to the thunderstone, but the DC for that effect is 15 while these stones make attacks with a CMB of 20. The rule of thumb that I use is that a DC is roughly equivalent to a CMB which is two lower (ex. if the DC is 15, the CMB should be 13). Those numbers provide a well suited opponent roughly equal chance to save against the effect or avoid the attack. A CMB of 20 just seems too high, IMHO.


LT Silverstar wrote:
Another thing I noticed when I was looking through the warmage equipment: the variant thunderstones that apply combat maneuvers to opponents seem a bit wonky. I assume you want these items to be roughly equivalent to the thunderstone, but the DC for that effect is 15 while these stones make attacks with a CMB of 20. The rule of thumb that I use is that a DC is roughly equivalent to a CMB which is two lower (ex. if the DC is 15, the CMB should be 13). Those numbers provide a well suited opponent roughly equal chance to save against the effect or avoid the attack. A CMB of 20 just seems too high, IMHO.

An excellent point, I've updated the CMB for those items as well as the changes mentioned above. You can find an updated version of the conversion at the URL in the original post.

Silver Crusade

I'm impressed.

But the Magus is an excellent substitute. Almost. :)


I was looking over this again today and I found a mistake on the dragontooth razor weapon. The craft cost is off, half of the buy cost of 33000 isn't 28500.


Penumbral Shadow wrote:
I was looking over this again today and I found a mistake on the dragontooth razor weapon. The craft cost is off, half of the buy cost of 33000 isn't 28500.

Actually, that's intentional. The difference reflects the cost of the dragon's tooth since it cannot be fabricated.

In other news, I've nearly got the dread necromancer conversion complete. I'll probably post it some time tomorrow afternoon.


Dread necromancer conversion is posted now. You can find it here.


ertw wrote:
Penumbral Shadow wrote:
I was looking over this again today and I found a mistake on the dragontooth razor weapon. The craft cost is off, half of the buy cost of 33000 isn't 28500.

Actually, that's intentional. The difference reflects the cost of the dragon's tooth since it cannot be fabricated.

In other news, I've nearly got the dread necromancer conversion complete. I'll probably post it some time tomorrow afternoon.

I hadn't considered that, very interesting idea.


Interesting. Not the route I would have taken, but interesting all the same.

My own version, Master Arminas' Warmage for Pathfinder focuses more on area-of-effect damage spells with a few pertinent special abilities that make it stand out versus Wizards and Sorcerors (not to mention Magi).

Discussion threads are HERE (The First) and HERE (The Second).

Still, I liked your approach . . . just not what I would have (and did) do.

MA


A few specific points:

1. d8 hit die AND a medium BAB? On a 1st-9th level arcane caster? Isn't that a bit strong?

2. Knowledge (Planes) . . . why? Not really a Warmage type of thing.

3. Int as the spell-casting stat . . . I originally did the same thing with my version, but I was convinced that it really, really needs to be Charisma. He's a spontaneous caster and Int is generally reserved for prepared casters.

4. Arcane blast . . . is he a Warlock or a Warmage? A Warmage deals damage using his spells, not a spell-like ability.

5. Warmage's Edge. See, here is another reason why the casting stat should be Cha and not Int . . . Int powers too many things on this character. Other than that disagreement, WE itself is fine and should remain based on Int (splitting the Warmage's casting stat and damage-adding stats).

6. Energy substitution . . . starting at 2nd level? No daily limits? Not sure about this, it is starting to feel a bit much.

7. Unlimited use of Empower Spell with no increase in casting times at 5th level? Well, unlimited as long as you pay +1 spell level, that is. Definately getting a twig on the power-o-meter here.

8. Evasion? Evasion?? He's a Warmage, not a Rogue or Monk.

9. Enlarge spell . . . see #7 and substitute Enlarge for Empower.

10. Heavy armor. He has a Cleric BAB, a d8 hit die, an unlimited use arcane blast of up to 8d10, 1st-9th level spells, and can now cast in heavy armor without penalty? Too much.

11. Improved evasion. See #8 above.

12. Champion of the circle . . . a bit too much there. I know, I know. He's 20th freaking level. But an always-in-effect elemental aura? Too much. Never mind the 25% to avoid poison, paralysis, sleep, and stunning, or the native outsider, OR . . . you get the drift.

13. Spell list. Lots of spell there, my friend. I'd cut back a number of them . . . and probably attempt to limit them to mainly Core Rulebook. I mean, look at 3rd level for an example: your Warmage automatically knows and can cast TWENTY 3rd-level spells on reaching 6th level! As a spontaneous caster. Not including spells gained from his Circle. Cut down the list . . . sharply. That is my advice.

14. Circles. Good idea, but is he a Warmage or an Elementalist?

Not meaning to be mean or to make you depressed, but while the class has potential and is interesting it is no longer focused. There is really too much here, my man. Just too much that puts this class over the top when compared to existing Core, Base, and Alternate classes.

In my opinion.

MA


master arminas wrote:

Not meaning to be mean or to make you depressed, but while the class has potential and is interesting it is no longer focused. There is really too much here, my man. Just too much that puts this class over the top when compared to existing Core, Base, and Alternate classes.

In my opinion.

Not a problem at all, I'm posting this to get comments and suggestions, and I value all of them even if they're different from my ideas for the class. I've been a fan of your warlock conversion for a long time (and recommended it to quite a few friends) and used it's eldritch blast as a baseline for the arcane blast.

master arminas wrote:
1. d8 hit die AND a medium BAB? On a 1st-9th level arcane caster? Isn't that a bit strong?

Echoing the point that Penumbral Shadow made above, the 9th level casting for these variant casters is quite a bit different than those for sorcerers and wizards. Without key utility spells like invisibility, mirror image, fly, etc. the warmage quickly becomes a prime target in combat; outside of combat, he doesn't have much he can do unless the solution is to blast it with fire.

I've had a few people playtesting my beguiler the same kind d8, medium BAB and 9th level casting, and they don't seem to be running into much trouble with the power level. Admittedly the beguiler is a bit of a different animal (even though some variations of my beguiler have a more martial focus), but the messages I've gotten from the GM who's running those sessions seems to put the power level significantly below an equal level wizard in the late game, and still lagging a fair bit behind the sorcerer too, mostly due to the focused nature of their spell list.

master arminas wrote:
2. Knowledge (Planes) . . . why? Not really a Warmage type of thing.

That's a bit of a hold over from the original vision I had for the conversion; turning the warmage into an elemental focused damage dealer (like an elementalist wizard, but with added combat features for the cost of breadth of spell list). As the conversion went on I tended away from this pseudo-elemental heritage and built a bit more into the class based around chromatic dragons. I can definitely drop that knowledge skill based on where the class went.

master arminas wrote:
3. Int as the spell-casting stat . . . I originally did the same thing with my version, but I was convinced that it really, really needs to be Charisma. He's a spontaneous caster and Int is generally reserved for prepared casters.

I fought this Int vs. Cha casting battle numerous times with the beguiler conversion, but I've held fast to the idea that the beguiler ought to maintain its heritage of Int based casting from the 3.5 class. I'm definitely more amenable to changing the warmage since it was a Cha based casting class to begin with. Essentially the idea I've built these variant casters around is that Int based casters' magical abilities are derived from rote practice and drilling, Cha based casters' magical abilities are derived from a natural attunement to magical forces, and Wis based casters' magical abilities are derived from rituals and mysteries that have been handed down through the ages. The original stuff from Complete Arcane seemed to me to be more in line with Int based casting, rather than Cha based casting, but I'm definitely not married to the idea for this class. I'll do some thinking on it and read through the comments on your warmage threads and come to a conclusion on that.

master arminas wrote:
4. Arcane blast . . . is he a Warlock or a Warmage? A Warmage deals damage using his spells, not a spell-like ability.

Most of the wizard schools gain offensive spell-like abilities at 1st level, as do a good number of sorcerer bloodlines. Of course these abilities are different from the arcane blast since they have limited uses per day, but the groundwork is there for the arcane blast to develop. You are correct that a warmage ought to use his spells to do damage and if you compare the damage of a fireball spell to the arcane blast, you'll see the average damage done by the spell isn't surpassed by the arcane blast until 17th level (and of course, at that point a delayed blast fireball can stand in to do even more damage). A warmage likely wouldn't use the arcane blast to deal damage unless he was very low level and/or completely out of spells.

Essentially it was designed to emulate a less powerful eldritch blast (even if we ignore the cooldown, the arcane blast starts doing less damage than the eldritch blast around level 6) with significantly fewer variations (invocations). As for an in game reasoning for this ability, essentially warmages drill not only their spells, but also ways to focus their natural arcane energy into a blast if they are somehow prevented the use of their spells. If you feel the ability is too powerful, I'd definitely consider dropping the damage die to a d8. I'm also considering pushing the save for this blast a secondary casting stat (ie. Cha based save if I keep Int based casting, or Int based save if I change to Cha based casting) like the warmage's edge (see below).

master arminas wrote:
5. Warmage's Edge. See, here is another reason why the casting stat should be Cha and not Int . . . Int powers too many things on this character. Other than that disagreement, WE itself is fine and should remain based on Int (splitting the Warmage's casting stat and damage-adding stats).

That's a fair point, I'll definitely switch the warmage's edge over to a secondary casting stat regardless of my choice for his spells.

master arminas wrote:
6. Energy substitution . . . starting at 2nd level? No daily limits? Not sure about this, it is starting to feel a bit much.

Energy substitution is, however, limited by circle choice. At 2nd level, a warmage is only able to alter one type of energy (as set by the circle's attuned energy) to his favoured type. It's not until 18th level that he is able to change energy types at will, making the ability of energy substitution to bypass energy resistances fairly situation until this point. I might depower this a little by making energy substitution increase the casting time as if it were done by metamagic.

master arminas wrote:
7. Unlimited use of Empower Spell with no increase in casting times at 5th level? Well, unlimited as long as you pay +1 spell level, that is. Definately getting a twig on the power-o-meter here.

As you said, the spell level cost is still applied (for empower that's +2, so at level 5 that'd only apply to cantrips); that actually makes me think I ought to switch empower and enlarge. With feats like spontaneous metafocus available, the loss of increased casting time doesn't seem like a particularly overpowering aspect. Honestly allowing maximized or quickened casting without a spell level increase like the original class (even if it's just twice per day) seems a lot more overpowered since it allows a warmage to apply them to spells that weren't meant to be cast with those feats.

master arminas wrote:

8. Evasion? Evasion?? He's a Warmage, not a Rogue or Monk.

10. Heavy armor. He has a Cleric BAB, a d8 hit die, an unlimited use arcane blast of up to 8d10, 1st-9th level spells, and can now cast in heavy armor without penalty? Too much.

I had meant these two abilities to act as opposing sides to the warmage coin; each a defensive measure, but neither compatible with one another. Two avenues for extra protection (as befits a combat oriented class like the warmage), one agile and able to step out of the way of damage the other clad in armour to deflect the blows of battle. I can definitely reduce the protection offered by these abilities: I can cut evasion for medium armour clad warmages and give heavy armour a -20% to arcane failure (rather than blanket removal of failure), but I don't think these features are inappropriate to a warmage.

master arminas wrote:
12. Champion of the circle . . . a bit too much there. I know, I know. He's 20th freaking level. But an always-in-effect elemental aura? Too much. Never mind the 25% to avoid poison, paralysis, sleep, and stunning, or the native outsider, OR . . . you get the drift.

I can definitely tone down champion of the circle. The type change, and 25% chance can be dropped as they're remnants from the elemental heritage I mentioned above. I'd prefer to keep the elemental aura but I can drop the save to 15+Cha (or Int if I change the casting stat); the power is strongly mitigated since a successful save negates the damage as well as the secondary effects.

master arminas wrote:
13. Spell list. Lots of spell there, my friend. I'd cut back a number of them . . . and probably attempt to limit them to mainly Core Rulebook. I mean, look at 3rd level for an example: your Warmage automatically knows and can cast TWENTY 3rd-level spells on reaching 6th level! As a spontaneous caster. Not including spells gained from his Circle. Cut down the list . . . sharply. That is my advice.

Yeah, the spell list has been a problem. I'll take another look at it.

master arminas wrote:
14. Circles. Good idea, but is he a Warmage or an Elementalist?

The vast majority of damage dealing evocations fall into these four energy categories, it's a fairly natural way to provide a number of interesting avenues to develop a warmage character. Yes it's similar the elementalist, but in exchange for the elementalist wizard's breadth of magical options (since they can still grab those great utility spells as well as many of the most powerful wizard spells) without penalty the warmage gains combat strengths and abilities.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Conversions / Warmage conversion for Pathfinder All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.