Magic Knight base class. First draft

[fanguad]

I'd like to propose another idea for a warrior/magic-user hybrid class. For now, I'm calling it the Magic Knight, and I'd appreciate any suggestions on how to turn this into something balanced and fun to play. My first iteration is for a 20-level base class, but this could also be designed as prestige class. I'm very interested in thoughts on the general viability of the class, as well as the specific abilities that are described below. I'm hoping to end up with something as high quality as tejon's Iron Mage, but we'll see.

Concept: The magic knight is primarily a warrior, augmenting her melee prowess with equipment that she magically summons. The magic knight has less brute-force power than a fighter, but is able to summon equipment that is appropriate for the situation at hand. The magic knight should have some disincentive to dump Int, with Int boosts granting small bonuses to abilities, but still allowing them to focus on physical attributes.

Inspiration: The anime "Fairy Tail" is about a guild of wizards, each of whom has a unique magical talent. One of the main characters is Erza Scarlet, who summons different sets of armor and weapons to engage in combat. Some of the armor sets have special attacks, but most would be fairly easily replicated by various armor and weapon enhancements.

BAB: Full
Fort: Good
Reflex: Poor
Will: Poor
Skills: TDB
Proficiencies: All armor, all shields, all simple and martial weapons.

1: Re-equip, Magic Knight's armor, magical equipment slot
2: bonus combat feat
3:
4: armor
5: fast equip, magical equipment slot
6: bonus combat feat
7: armor
8:
9: magical equipment slot
10: armor, swift equip 1/day
11:
12: bonus combat feat
13: advanced armor, magical equipment slot
14:
15: swift equip 2/day
16: advanced armor
17: magical equipment slot
18: bonus combat feat
19: advanced armor
20: swift equip 3/day, ultimate armor

Re-equip (Sp):

The magic knight stores sets of equipment (weapons, armor and clothing). As a standard action that provokes an attack of opportunity, the magic Knight summons a set of equipment. The magic knight's current equipment is stored in an extra-dimensional space until the magic knight re-equips. If the magic knight has no available equipment slots, they must remove their current equipment before re-equipping. The new set of equipment completely replaces the old set (no mixing and matching), although sets may consist of only weapons or armor, in which case only the new equipment is replaced. Equipment stored in extra-dimensional spaces reappears in the same condition as when it was stored (broken, dirty, etc). The duration of spells placed on equipment (magic weapon, magic armor, etc) continues to expire while they are stored. The extra-dimensional spaces are airless, so fire will be extinguished. Once summoned, equipment (even class-based) is not inherently magical, meaning that is cannot be dispelled (although magical effects of the equipment can be suppressed as normal).

There are three different types of re-equips:
1) Non-magical. The magic knight can store a large number of sets of non-magical equipment in extra-dimensional spaces. These can be sets of non-magical weapons, armor or clothing. Each set of clothing is limited to a number of lbs equal to the character's Intelligence score. A magic knight has a number of non-magical equipment slots equal to her magic knight level + Int modifier. (NOTE: it is purposely difficult to fit a full set of armor/weapons or giant piles of loot in one of these slots - this is intended as a utility ability.)
2) Magical. The magic knight can store a smaller number of sets of magical equipment. The magic knight gains one magical equipment slot per 4 levels (1/5/9/13/17), plus a bonus slots for high Intelligence. There is no weight limit for magical slots, although there is a maximum gp value per slot of half the average wealth by level value (level 1 is treated the same as level 2 for this purpose).
Bonus slots based on high Intelligence scores are based on the highest level of bonus spells gained by spellcasting classes:
At level 3, they gain a slot if their Intelligence is 12 or higher
At level 7, they gain a slot if their Intelligence is 14 or higher
At level 11, they gain a slot if their Intelligence is 16 or higher
At level 15, they gain a slot if their Intelligence is 18 or higher
At level 19, they gain a slot if their Intelligence is 20 or higher
3) Class-based. As the magic knight increases in level, they gain access to weapons and armor of legend. These equipment sets are gained via class abilities (similar to rogue talents). The magic knight is not required to store this armor in any slot. Many class-based slots are limited in duration or uses per day, and all of them increase in potency based on the magic knight's level. If the duration expires before the character re-equips, the armor disappears, leaving the character unarmed and unarmored. If the equipment is voluntarily removed by the magic knight, it disappears (disarmed or involuntarily dropped weapons remain for the duration). If the magic knight re-equips or moves more than 100 feet from the equipment, it disappears. (NOTE: this last bit is to prevent unscrupulous characters from trying to sell their armor, then summon another set.)

Magic Knight's armor: No duration, no per-day limit. The most basic of magic knight equipment, when re-equipped this set contains a longsword, longbow (and quiver w/ 20 arrows), breastplate and small wooden shield. At level 5 and every 5 levels afterwards, the enhancement bonus on the breastplate, longsword and longbow increases by +1, to a maximum of +4 at level 20.

Armor:

At fourth level, and each 3 levels thereafter, the magic knight learns how to summon a particularly powerful set of armor. Choose from the list below
(NOTE: these armors are generally more powerful than the Magic Knight's armor, but either have a limited duration or a large drawback)

Kensei: No duration, 1/day. The magic knight forgoes defense to concentrate solely on offense. The set consists of "armor" of light cloth (no defensive properties, but occupies the "armor" slot), and a bastard sword.
4: +1 keen bastard sword
7: +2 keen bastard sword
10: +2 keen mighty cleaving bastard sword
13: +3 keen mighty cleaving bastard sword
16: +3 keen mighty cleaving bastard sword of speed
19: +4 keen mighty cleaving bastard sword of speed

Bulwark: No duration, 1/day. The magic knight reduces their offensive ability in exchange for a potent defense. The set consists of full plate armor, a tower shield and a long spear.

Winged armor: 1 minute/level, 1/day. This armor has actual wings which give the magic knight a fly speed along with balanced offense and defense.

Angelic armor: 1 minute/level, 1/day. This armor shines brightly and is ideal for fighting denizens of the lower planes.

Demonic armor: No duration, 1/day. Pitch black and vicious looking, the magic knight sacrifices his own health to maintain this powerful armor.

Fire giant's armor: 1 minute/level, 1/day. The magic knight robes himself in flame, gaining fire attacks and defense.

Archer's armor: 1 minute/level, 1/day. This light armor improves the magic knight's senses and skill with the longbow. It comes with a wide variety of magical arrows.

Ranger's Hide: 10 minutes/level, 1/day. This hide armor allows the magic knight to wield two weapons proficiently.

Fast equip: Starting at 5th level, the magic knight can re-equip as a move equivalent action that provokes an attack of opportunity. The magic knight can only re-equip once per turn.

Swift equip: Starting at 10th level, the magic knight can re-equip as an immediate action (that does not provoke an attack of opportunity) once per day. This ability may be used to defend against attacks or make attacks of opportunity with a different set of equipment. The magic knight may not use this ability if they have re-equip since the start of their last turn. The magic knight may not re-equip until after her next turn. At 15th and 20th level, the magic knight gains an additional use of this ability.

Advanced armor:

Starting at 13th level, the magic knight can also select from the list below when gaining the armor ability

Queen's armor/King's armor: 1 round per 4 levels, 1/day. This upgraded version of the Magic Knight's armor allows the magic knight inspires her comrades to feats of valor.

Titan's armor: 1 round per 2 levels, 1/day. This armor is nearly impenetrable, but lacks offensive capabilities. The set consists of large-sized full plate armor and a large-sized tower shield. Because of the immense size of the armor, the character's movement speed is reduced to 0 feet.
13: +3 light fortification full plate, +2 tower shield. DR 10/adamantine, resist energy (all) 10, SR 15
16: +4 moderate fortification full plate, +2 tower shield. DR 20/adamantine, resist energy (all) 20, SR 17
19: +4 heavy fortification full plate, +3 tower shield. DR 30/adamantine, resist energy (all) 30, SR 19

Sorcerer's robes: 1 round per 4 levels, 1/day. These ornate robes grant a variety of spell-like abilities to the magic knight.

The Ballista: No duration, 1/day. When this armor is equipped, the magic knight gains monstrous strength and can throw the half-dozen Huge-sized javelins it comes equipped with without penalty.

Ultimate armor: The magic knight's capstone - I'm definitely taking suggestions for the most awesome armor you can think of. Stuff like wielding Thor's hammer or Excalibur.

ISSUES:
I see a number of possible issues with this class.
The first is the exact values for how many magical slots they can get and how much they can put in them.
Next is a possible problem that they may not need to spend as much money on weapons or armor, which could unbalance the wealth by level curve.
Are they getting too many or too few class-based armor sets?
Is the method for calculating bonus magical armor sets too complex? Are the bonus sets even needed?

TODO:
Flesh out the armor sets, and create more of them. Most armor sets are currently just ideas.
Fill in dead levels with something requiring a choice (bonus combat feats, "talents," etc)
clean up wording to match the PRD's

[Liporteryu]

Lets talk about this concept: as a casual watcher of Anime, I can say it is pretty nifty to have the ability to summon magic items / armor when you need them and only summon those you need. It also is desirable for a low treasure campaign. Having summonable items can break the game, so try to match to other classes which have these abilities which are being emulated by summoning of the item. for example, if an item gives you sneak attack, progression against your class's class skill list should account for this and have the nessesary dedication to that item once every 2 levels (just like SA).

However this gives us the opportunity to talk about a 3.5e book which gives you exactly (or alot of what you were looking for):
In going with your story, I believe it would be a nice segway into introducing Magic of Incarnum to pathfinder.

Take a look at Magic of Incarnum to get ideas on some of the concepts as laid out in there if you want a magic equipment summoning fighter class.

Unfortunatly MoI takes at least 2-5 reads to really get right and straight, and many DMs do not want to introduce this "lifeforce" based concept to thier games (much like psionics).

A brief overview:

Soulmeld - magical item summoned for use by the caster, gives different abilities
essentia - powers those soulmelds, however there is an essentia cap
chakra - bind the soulmeld to chakras for extra power (corresponds to magical item slots)

MoI replaces the need for some skill/combat enhancing magic items, and is very flexible in battle (essentia points are commonly reassigned to power another soulmeld if situations change and are not consumed in the process). Be aware that MoI has very stiff restrictions (essentia capacity of soulmelds, actual narative effect soulmelds have) but if you can live with it, you can base your class around some of the other MoI classes.

I would only suggest converting MoI to PF if you are up to it, a whole book conversion could take a month or more =/

[fanguad]

I've heard of that book, but never looked through it. Thanks for the suggestion!

[JudasKilled]

U can take eldritch knight at 6th now, why not just do that?

[Ardenup]

JudasKilled wrote:

U can take eldritch knight at 6th now, why not just do that?

Since when?

[Ion Raven]

JudasKilled wrote:

U can take eldritch knight at 6th now, why not just do that?

First off, no you can't. It takes at the very least 5 levels of wizard and 1 fighter. So it'd be at level 7.

Anyway, that's not the point of this class, this class isn't about casting spells as much as it is about summoning armor and weapons.

@fanguad: I really like the idea and it looks well thought out and it looks fun. Though, I think that changing the armor should be a separate action from changing the weapon. I'd like to see different types of weapons, not that I have anything against bastard swords but I feel that there should be a little of variety. I'm also a bit iffy on the +4 keen mighty cleaving speed properties on a weapon you get for free.

[tejón]

Seconding the recommendation for Magic of Incarnum. It's a great concept, overall. The book could have been laid out better; I had to read through it twice to actually understand the system, but once the pieces fall in place it's actually very straightforward. IMO there's a bit of a flaw in the amount of micromanagement that can arise with essentia, but it's not too bad.

The main problem with that book is that it was generally agreed to be a bit behind the power curve, and we're talking 3.5. I haven't tried incarnum characters in a Pathfinder game yet, but I'd worry about them feeling very weak. But, still fun. :)

[fanguad]

Ion Raven wrote:

@fanguad: I really like the idea and it looks well thought out and it looks fun. Though, I think that changing the armor should be a separate action from changing the weapon. I'd like to see different types of weapons, not that I have anything against bastard swords but I feel that there should be a little of variety. I'm also a bit iffy on the +4 keen mighty cleaving speed properties on a weapon you get for free.

I thought about changing armor and weapons separately, but one of my goals for this class is to allow versatility without being overpowered. By statting out a few particular armor sets I tried to show that this class is about making choices (much like a wizard).

Let's say you're in the fight with the BBEG. Do you charge in with Kensei mode, hoping to take him out before he can exploit your total lack of defense? Do expect he'll blast you with his strongest spell right out of the gate - go with Titan armor. If you're not so sure, pick armor that is more balanced.

The other major ability of the magic knight is to collect their own equipment sets. I know my phrasing was awkward, but for equipment you *didn't* get for free you can swap out just the weapons or just the armor.

So to summarize: you can swap out just weapon/armor for magical equipment sets, but not class-based equipment sets. The reason I set up the restriction on class-based equipment sets was so that a full set is balanced (you can get that awesome +10 sword for free, but you sacrifice all your defense to do so).

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I haven't gotten a chance to read Magic of Incarnum yet, but I'll keep in mind your thoughts about the perceived power level. I think the flavor of the magic knight will be a bit different (changing equipment a whole set at a time vs. one item at a time).

[Liporteryu]

The information you provided was very helpful in determining your needs:

MoI probably wont work for you, as shaping soulmelds only can be done once a day (except in a few situations).

If your intent was just to allow a magic warrior who is ready for any situation, I'd say that uses per day or minutes of use isn’t effective in this.

I kind of compared this ability to another anime: Gundam Seed's Strike Gundam (multi-changing armor / effects). Modules could be easily added or removed based on the needs of the situation, in as little as 1 minute allowing for long range fights, from doing melee combat.

With the above non-sense I just spouted off though, I make a few suggestions:

Change the armor sets to functional types - Less combinations can give the class a solid foundation
1 for Aggressive Melee combat
1 for Defensive Melee combat
1 for Ranged combat
1 for Magical effects combat
1 for Skillful
1 for Capstone (special armor to be combined with any other armor set)
Each armor set should have a base of items given, and effects given.

Then add special effects – augmentation effects of all the armor sets

Winged armor: this augmentation allows the user to fly with a speed of 30 feet at level 1 and then +10 feet for every 4 levels thereafter. Depending on the armor set selected, this augmentation gives additional abilities as follows: aggressive provides the ability to do a fly by attack even if you do not meet the requirements for this feat, defensive gives you the ability to avoid attacks of opportunity when flying including beginning and ending the flight, ranged gives you the ability to fire arrows, bolts, and other ranged ammunition accurately extending the ranged increment by 100%, magical allows you to cast fly on your allies as a spell like ability at will, skillful allow you to use acrobatics with an automatic +5 bonus, capstone allows you to fly perfectly.

Angelic armor: this augmentation gives the user the detect evil ability. Depending on the armor set selected, this augmentation gives additional abilities as follows: aggressive gives all melee weapons the good and lawful alignment type to all wielded weapons, defensive grants the protection from evil spell constantly, ranged gives ranged weapons the good and lawful alignment type, magical gives the ability to use daylight at level 5 at will as a Sp, skillful allows for a +5 bonus on all charisma based abilities, capstone grants a continual status effect for all evil creatures in detect evil range

Demonic armor: detect good. Aggressive +2d6 damage for all melee attacks, but take 1d6 damage per hit, defensive sacrifice up to CL in HP at beginning of turn as a swift action to gain DR good and lawful equal to the HP sacrificed for one full round, ranged sacrifice 1d6 HP to do an additional 1d8 damage and grant the same amount of sacrificed HP to attack roll, magic use darkness at level 5 as will as a SP, skillful grants +5 bonus to all intelligence based skill checks, capstone grants a continual status effect for all good creatures in detect good range.

Elemental armor: you get the idea.

You should limit the number of augmentations per armor, however make this consistent across the board.

Lastly, make the armor last as long as the magic knight wills it: a 1 minute time span to change armor instead of round based actions (to limit abuse of situational bonuses), also ability to change augmentations when changing armor as well. You might want to scale the armor sets themselves with the level.

[fanguad]

You have some interesting points, especially regarding a fewer number of base armor sets that can be augmented.

Cast time/Duration: I think there's something to be said for both ways of doing this (Short cast, short duration/long cast, long duration). I chose to go with the former in the initial draft based on a couple of factors.
1) Short casts are more cinematic, IMO. The swift equip ability in particular could be used to recreate the "hero gets hit by explosion, and when the smoke clears he's unharmed and wearing a brand new set of armor" scene.
2) Tactics: Short casts allow a user to switch things up in the middle of a battle, changing their tactics. OTOH, long casts would encourage the user to plan out their tactics in advance. Either could be fun to play, I think, although I'd worry about a player who made a bad decision and is restricted from participating in a battle.
3) Fun: Related to the two points above, I think it would be more fun to play a magic knight with short casts. I'm trying to make this class for more than just myself though, so please tell me what you think after considering my reasoning.
4) Character wealth: One thing the class absolutely cannot do is give the character too much free stuff. The first level "Magic Knight Armor" gives free stuff (since it's always available), but it's stuff that is less powerful than what a character of that level would normally have (I think). The class-based equipment sets would have a duration based on how powerful the armor is overall. For example, demon armor is moderately powerful, so it could have a medium duration. Titan armor is very powerful, so it has a short duration. I gave kensei an unlimited duration because of its potentially crippling defensive weakness - that might not be a best idea, but it's only a first draft.
The point of all this is to encourage the character to collect regular armor instead of relying on the class-based equipment sets. I would be concerned about giving the character enough "free" armor/weapons that they never needed to purchase regular gear.

One point in favor of long casts that I would agree with is more flexibility in armor selection. If the class uses shorter casts, it should have a small set of armor with fixed bonuses to pick from. This makes the decision which armor sets to pick when leveling up and buying gear more important, and would prevent fights from getting bogged down by giving the player dozens of options on their turn. If, however, the only time you can switch your armor is between fights, giving lots of options should be okay.

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Most of the discussion so far has been about the class-based equipment sets. They will probably use up the most space in the class write-up, and are certainly the flashiest aspect of the class, but I'd also like to hear what you think about the other types of equipment slots - non-magical and magical.

My mental concept for the class has them running around in their normal, purchased gear most of the time (or maybe the Magic Knight armor), with maybe a backup set or two that they can access depending on the circumstances. They mostly save their class-based equipment sets for hard fights or other interesting situations.

[Ion Raven]

Something you could possibly do is have them obtain their own armor and weapons and then let the player "bond" with it so that it takes a slot, once it's bonded they can apply magical properties. If it gets destroyed they have to pay to bond with a new set of armor or weapon (I'm thinking something along the way the wizard's arcane bond with an item).

[Liporteryu]

Ion Raven has a good idea - this "bonding" is actually done in the Kensai PRC in complete warrior (of course we will ignore the fact that the Kensai class is broken and will never be allowed to play in PF without major rebalancing).

OK, lets change wording to "equipment summoning" since this PrC should be able to summon much more than armor and weapons.

I am in favor with your reasoning, the "equipment summoning" should be short cast, however I believe the abilities should be "long term". Many people would be against it, however it doesn’t make this class ability broken at all...

Right now, two concurrent abilities deal with "equipment summoning":
Summoning the equipment itself, and augmenting the equipment to let you do something special.

I would advocate that the summoning of the equipment occur once per day, and take about the time it normally takes to prepare spells. I would say you would be able to switch augmentation pretty much as swift actions, or even immediate (for the flashy appeal, since there is not that much difference between the two) and can be done any number of times you want and lasts as long as you will it. As the magic knight gains in levels, the number and types of augmentations the magic knight can use at the same time goes up (start out with 1 augmentation to use at a time, then work up to something like 3).

We will have to build the equipment sets, an ongoing task. Note that since this class is so dependant on the equipment sets as it's class abilities it doesn’t really make this class broken. One thing to note that MoI deals with very elegantly, magically created and equipped items versus worn items, they do not stack. I’d envision this class not spending a lot of money because the class wouldn’t need the money, thus, money would not allow the class to over buff on one magic item since all the body slots should be filled with summoned equipment. The problem occurs when a party absorbs the share of the gold, this is not an issue in a 5-7 man team, but more of an issue for a 3-4 man team, granting others an approximate wealth gain of 33-50% greater than the Magic Knight. I would say that the Magic Knight absorbs the appropriate portion of wealth when treasure is rewarded as a condition to “power” his/her equipment.

[Parka]

fanguad wrote:

Cast time/Duration: I think there's something to be said for both ways of doing this (Short cast, short duration/long cast, long duration). I chose to go with the former in the initial draft based on a couple of factors.

1) Short casts are more cinematic, IMO. The swift equip ability in particular could be used to recreate the "hero gets hit by explosion, and when the smoke clears he's unharmed and wearing a brand new set of armor" scene.
2) Tactics: Short casts allow a user to switch things up in the middle of a battle, changing their tactics. OTOH, long casts would encourage the user to plan out their tactics in advance. Either could be fun to play, I think, although I'd worry about a player who made a bad decision and is restricted from participating in a battle.
3) Fun: Related to the two points above, I think it would be more fun to play a magic knight with short casts. I'm trying to make this class for more than just myself though, so please tell me what you think after considering my reasoning.
4) Character wealth: One thing the class absolutely cannot do is give the character too much free stuff. The first level "Magic Knight Armor" gives free stuff (since it's always available), but it's stuff that is less powerful than what a character of that level would normally have (I think). The class-based equipment sets would have a duration based on how powerful the armor is overall. For example, demon armor is moderately powerful, so it could have a medium duration. Titan armor is very powerful, so it has a short duration. I gave kensei an unlimited duration because of its potentially crippling defensive weakness - that might not be a best idea, but it's only a first draft.
The point of all this is to encourage the character to collect regular armor instead of relying on the class-based equipment sets. I would be concerned about giving the character enough "free" armor/weapons that...

With these thoughts in mind, it might be better to adopt a hybrid approach. Let them Quick Change a certain number of times a day, but if they take time to prepare for a battle (like a five-minute ritual or so) then the number of changes is unlimited. They might even be able to enhance their equipment using the lengthy ritual, as an incentive to use it. An additional feat can go with the class would give them more Quick Changes per day or something.

Another potential option (I don't know if this would fit into the flavor of what you're trying to do) is to have the "equipment" they summon be magically constructed (a la mage armor) and have low bonuses to begin with, but if mundane or magical equipment is found and specially prepared, it can take the place of the magical construct in the set, replacing the low bonuses with the properties of the equipment. This could lead to a lot of overhead work for the player, but a class that's all about equipment will likely have this anyway.
Another reason I would like this approach is that it would allow unconventional builds such as glaive-users or exotic weapon masters to make use of it, rather than using pre-generated equipment.