prismaticsoul |
Hi all. I know the general debate is a specialist is superior to a generalist, especially with the relaxation from BANNED schools to opposed schools. However, I am hoping one day that my playgroup will get around to a campaign where I can do something I've wanted to do for a while: play a wizard of each specialization and one generalist who eventually cooperate and found a wizarding school of their own.
That being said, I have been kicking ideas around for the generalist for a while, and thought a modified, homebrewed variant of the Master Specialist for generalists to address some of the power differences between them and specialists.
Below is my current idea, and I am looking for feedback. I think it's a touch more powerful that most of the Master Specialist designs; however, I am hoping it's enough to make someone WANT to finish the PrC.
Master Generalist
Entry requirements – Know Arcana 5 ranks, Spellcraft 5 ranks, may not possess Spell Focus upon entering PrC, must be able to cast 2nd level arcane spells, must be a generalist/universal wizard (ie not a specialist)
Class features:
Spellcasting – at each level, you gain new spells per day and an increased caster level (and spells known, if applicable) as if you had also gained a level in the wizard class. You do not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would gain.
Skill Focus (Spellcraft) – at 1st level, gain Skill Focus (Spellcraft) as a bonus feat.
Expanded Spellbook – When you reach 2nd level, you may add 1 spell of any school to your spellbook. You may do so again at 5th and 8th level, however, you must choose a different school for each spell. (For example: at 2nd level you take an Illusion spell, at 5th you may choose from any school except Illusion, and so pick Conjuration, and at 8th may do so again, choosing from any school except Illusion or Conjuration.)
Versatile Spell Focus – at 3rd level, when you prepare your spells for the day, select one school of magic. You gain that school's Spell Focus feat as a bonus feat, which lasts until the next time you prepare spells. You may not pick a version of Spell Focus that you already have. For purposes of qualifying for other classes or feats, you may act as though you have 1 Spell Focus in any one school of magic.
Minor School Esoterica – at 4th level, when you prepare your spells for the day, select 1 feat. You gain access to this feat as a bonus feat; however, you must meet any prerequisites for the feat in order to use it. This bonus feat lasts until the next time you prepare spells. You may not use this feat to qualify for other classes or feats, and you may only choose feats that alter your magic in some way (examples include: Spell Focus, Spell Penetration, any metamagic feat, the various feats that alter summoned monsters, etc. Greater versions of such feats may also be chosen, as can epic or mythic feats, although DM's have the final say in what can and cannot be chosen for this ability.)
Greater Versatile Spell Focus – at 6th level, when you choose your Versatile Spell Focus for the day, you gain that choices Greater Spell Focus as a bonus feat; this Greater Spell Focus follows all the rules of Versatile Spell Focus.
Moderate School Esoterica – at 7th level, and each level thereafter, you may attempt to learn a spell from a spellcaster's list that is not also on the Sorcerer/Wizard spell list. You must find a willing teacher and negotiate any terms necessary to make them willing to teach you the requested spell, and must spend a number of days equal to the spell's level in order to successfully create an arcane version of that spell. You must follow any and all restrictions casting such spells may require (such as following a specific deity, being a specific race, having a specific alignment, etc). You may only learn 1 spell of a given school from any such spell list (following the same rules as Expanded Spellbook), and spells learned this way must be 1 level lower than your highest castable spell level (ie at 8th, 9th, and 10th level, the highest level spell you can learn from this ability is 8th). You cannot teach others these spells, nor can you successfully create scrolls or potions of these spells, however, you may use such spells as prerequisites for making any other kind of magic item. You may ignore divine focus requirements for such spells, but must provide any other material components as normal.
Caster Level Increase – at 9th level, all spells you cast add 1 to their effective caster level.
Major School Esoterica – at 10th level, when you prepare your spells for the day, you may gain a number of empty spell slots equal to 9, divided as you choose (ie you can have 1 9th spell slot that is empty, 1 5th & 1 4th spell slot that is empty, etc). You may not prepare spells in these empty slots. Instead, as a full round action, you may cast any spell you have prepared of that slot or lower, and may even cast such spells with metamagic applied (though this must be equal to or less in level than the spell slot used); if you have some way of preparing spells without referring to a spellbook (such as the Eidetic Spellcaster ACF from Dragon #354 or Spell Mastery), you may choose from those spells in addition to ones you have prepared for these slots.
My main goal with this PrC is to reward the natural open-mindedness and flexibility of the generalist to a degree; remember that a generalist who takes all 10 levels of this PrC will lose 4 uses of the Metamagic Mastery ability of his base Wizard class at the least (assuming he goes straight back to Wizard after the PrC), or loses it completely if he doesn't go back to Wizard at all.
prismaticsoul |
Slight alteration to Moderate School Esoterica:
Because there are epic level campaigns, and people may put off using this prestige class until that point in time, the only cap to the level of the spells you can learn with this ability is that each spell learned this way must be 1 level lower than the highest level of spells you can cast.
Items created with spells learned this way CANNOT be charge based items (such as wands or staves), in addition to scrolls or potions. Basically if it isn't used for something like a permanent item, or craft contingency, the spell can't be used as a prerequisite.
Duiker |
Unless I'm missing something here, the problem is that this prestige class is essentially the universalist wizard with extra stuff. Which means that if you are a universalist wizard, there is never any reason that you wouldn't take this prestige class as soon as you gained access to it. The catch is that as you say, the specialist essentially always trumps the generalist in wizardry. So why not instead of aiming at a prestige class, create a base class that gives some extra goodies to the generalist wizard?
prismaticsoul |
Unless I'm missing something here, the problem is that this prestige class is essentially the universalist wizard with extra stuff. Which means that if you are a universalist wizard, there is never any reason that you wouldn't take this prestige class as soon as you gained access to it. The catch is that as you say, the specialist essentially always trumps the generalist in wizardry. So why not instead of aiming at a prestige class, create a base class that gives some extra goodies to the generalist wizard?
Not so I think; remember that in addition to giving up advancing the universalist wizard's "school" abilities, being in this prestige class denies them 2 permanent bonus feats for 7 new spells, 3 floating, flexible feats, and if they get to the capstone, a couple of extra spell slots, and this is assuming such characters stay for the whole PrC. In 3.5, most wizards picking Master Specialist did so just to help soften the prereques for Archmage or other PrCs later down the line.
Please note, this was merely an attempt to make a universalist version of the 3.5 D&D Master Specialist prestige class, and that your same arguement could be made of any of those. The PrC was designed to entice normal specialist wizards to become better than their regular specialist wizard counterparts.
Then again, I tend to feel the whole point of PC'ing is to tack on extra stuff to your baseline class. Reworking the base universalist wizard class might make every wizard want to be universalist, and my goal here was to kind of make being a universalist more appealing than a specialist of any flavor.