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Oh yeah, you name it !
So I heard you want a character/villain that seems badass, without actually looking threatening. The kind of guy you wonder what he could be doing, only to believe he is a squishy sorcerer at best.
Words truly are weapons. Even items have a soul. Summon their soul.
Golden Internet Cookie of Awesomeness to the first who finds the original inspiration for the archetype.
Hope you will like it ! (And all comments welcomed, like always.) :)
Glyph Scholar
Glyphs are visual sceals, representative of the magic energy present in every element, creature or object, and which hold the power to unleash the magical energies for anyone skilled enough to use them. Some maguses are trained in the recognition and use of glyphs, writting – or carving – them into their flesh to harness quickly on their power. And while such maguses are called glyph scholars, forgoing any weapon training, it would be a mistake to reduce them as simple bookworms, as they are able to use the power of scriptures as true weapons.
Diminished Spellcasting
Glyph scholars may 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.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency
A glyph scholar is proficient with no weapons, no shields and no armors. He can cast magus spells while wearing light armor without incurring the normal arcane spell failure chance. Like any other arcane spellcaster, a magus wearing medium armor or heavy armor or using a shield incurs a chance of arcane spell failure if the spell in question has a somatic component. A multiclass magus still incurs the normal arcane spell failure chance for arcane spells received from other classes.
The glyph scholar instead gains the Scroll Blade and the Scroll Shield class features, as per the scrollmaster wizard archetype ; but the enhancement bonuses provided by such scrolls depends on the highest spell level on the scroll, and do not rely only on wizard spells only.
A glyph scholar may select another archetype which modifies the normal magus weapon proficiencies by reducing their versatility, but a magus with the glyph scholar archetype is never proficient in any weapons.
This replaces the normal magus weapon and armor proficiency feature.
Glyphs (Su)
At 1st level, a glyph scholar begins the study of glyphs, visual representations of the magic present in all things, similar to what true names are to outsiders. A glyph scholar studies spells like a magus, but uses arcane tattoos or scarifications to shape his flesh into a spellbook. A magus doesn't need to see the glyphs when preparing his spells for the day, as he senses their energetic presence on his body.
As a result of this uncanny knowledge in magical writtings and drawings, a glyph scholar gains the Scribe Scroll feat as a bonus feat at first level.
A glyph scholar is also able to extract the magic essence of a weapon, and to summon it whenever needed. By spending 1 point from his arcane pool as a free action, the glyph scholar may summon during one minute an item whose essence was absorbed and turned into a glyph. A glyph scholar begins play by knowing 1 weapon, shield, or non-magical item at level 1, then 1 more at levels 5, 10, 15 and 20. At the beginning of the day, when preparing his spells, the magus may « prepare » this item by engraving the corresponding glyph onto one of his shoulders ; he may then summon this item in the corresponding hand by spending points from his arcane pool. As this summoned object represents the finest quality ever achievable with such an item, it is treated as having the masterwork quality whenever possible.
As glyphs are intimely tied to his powers and because he understands the soul of each item, a glyph scholar is proficient with any weapon he summons through a glyph. A ranged weapon produces it's own basic projectiles, unless the magus decides to use ammunition of his own.
Finally, a glyph scholar may choose to replace one known glyph by the magic essence of one item (or a stock of 50 projectiles) of his choice, including magic items, but not intelligent ones. Doing so requires a 8 hours ritual, at the end of which the item is destroyed, and it's essence kept in the form of a magical glyph the glyph scholar can learn. A summoned item works as normal ; as such, the glyph of an item with limited uses (like a scroll) disappears once the item (or the stock of projectiles) is fully expanded ; and a broken item would be summoned as such. If a glyph disappears, the magus recovers the glyph he possessed before trading it for such item.
This ability replaces cantrips, fighter training, and modifies the spellbook ability, but the glyph scholar gains the detect magic and read magic cantrips and places them in his spellbook. He can cast either of these as 1st-level spells.
Magic Words
At 3rd level, and later on, a glyph scholar may select one of the following abilities in place of a magus arcana :
- Cunning Glyphs (Su): the glyphs used by the glyph scholar are able to recognize similar auras and summon them whenever needed. Any glyph used by the glyph scholar doesn't disappear if the associated item has been destroyed or expanded, as long as the magus possesses on his person an identical item. For instance, a magus summoning a scroll of Shocking Grasp (caster level 5) and expanding it, could keep on summoning this scroll if he currently transports more scrolls containing the same scroll with the same caster level.
- Glyph Studies (Su): the glyph scholar may expand 1 point from his arcane pool to cast an arcane spell from a scroll, as if the spell was on his class spell list. He may also spend 2 points from his arcane pool to cast a divine spell from a scroll, as if the spell was on his class spell list.
- Metaglyphs (Su): the glyph scholar may associate the magic energies of two items into a single glyph, and summon/dismiss them as a free action during the minute they are summoned, for example allowing him to alternate attacks with two different weapons.
- Quick Summon (Su): any weapon summoned through the glyphs ability teleports in the magus's hand immediately after the attack is resolved, allowing a magus to throw weapons (or recover them) with an uncanny speed. If the weapon is forcefully removed from the magus's hand, as per the disarm combat maneuver, the magus must spend 1 arcane point to recover his weapon, or 2 points if the weapon is held by someone unwilling to let the weapon loose.
- Scroll Mastery (Ex): whenever the magus uses a scroll, he calculates the DC for any spell it contains using his own appropriate mental stat modifiers, instead of the minimum modifier needed to cast a spell of that level.
- Scroll Wielder (Ex): The magus can activate a scroll in place of casting a spell when using spell combat. Such scroll keeps it's properties until the end of the round, at which point it is consumed.
Magus Arcana: The following magus arcanas complement the glyph scholar archetype: accurate strike, arcane edge, precise prowess, reflection, spell shield, spell blending.
Some quick things I noticed;
Glyph Scholars can cast Arcane Spells in light armor but are not proficient with said armor?
The human body has 80 "pages" of space to store spells, and every spell takes up a single "page" per level. A Glyph Scholar would run out of room before reaching double digit levels.
Hello, Shanoa.
That being said, rather nifty - dotting for further examination later.
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Hello, Shanoa.
That being said, rather nifty - dotting for further examination later.
Golden Internet Cookie awarded ! Shanoa indeed. Sorry Natan Linggod 327, a bit less anime and a bit more Castlevania there. :)
Also, Cunning Glyph doesn't remove the fact that an item is consumed after use, it only allows to bond the glyph to another identical item each time you consume one.
The first item still "disappears" and isn't usable anymore, so no infinite scroll glyphtch. ;)
@Hevyyd: Yep, the armor thing is voluntary. But I might as well give them the proficiency when I think about it... also, where did you find the 80-pages limitation ?
Further rereading prompts further approval, amusement, and the question of whether or not this would be viable, given the way that the system works, as a method of simulating Albus as much as Shanoa. Albus seems more like the bastard offspring of this and the gunmage archetype.
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Further rereading prompts further approval, amusement, and the question of whether or not this would be viable, given the way that the system works, as a method of simulating Albus as much as Shanoa. Albus seems more like the bastard offspring of this and the gunmage archetype.
Albus wouldn't indeed work with this archetype. It would be a gunmage with extra limited spell list, but improved HP/BAB/Damage, which lets me think that my next two archetypes to work on will be a pistol-based one, and a spontaneous caster magus with bloodlines.
SGG did the spontaneous magus pretty well in their magus book. Bard progression, and bloodlines now and then.
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SGG did the spontaneous magus pretty well in their magus book. Bard progression, and bloodlines now and then.
... well, I'm not going to compete with SGG. But I'm really happy to see that once again their minds meet mine, as those two features are part of what I intended for the archetype.
Guess it will be pistol-based magus and assassin class's revision for the next archetypes to come...
@Maxximilius back in Complete Arcane (3.5 splatbook) there was a section on using your own body as a spellbook via tattoo's, if you count up all the room a body has you get 80 pages of "space."
It's not Pathfinder but backwards compatibility is backwards. Even if you didn't count Complete Arcane spells take up a lot of room in their books, I can't imagine being able to store an infinite number of spells on my body. Say the cap is raised to 100, what does the Magus do when they reach that limit? They can't use a spellbook.
Sounds to me like your trying to say the class has Spell Mastery for every spell that they know, and the tat's are just thematic. This is fine, Wizards can do the same thing, but you might as well call the cow for what it is.
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@Maxximilius back in Complete Arcane (3.5 splatbook) there was a section on using your own body as a spellbook via tattoo's, if you count up all the room a body has you get 80 pages of "space."
It's not Pathfinder but backwards compatibility is backwards. Even if you didn't count Complete Arcane spells take up a lot of room in their books, I can't imagine being able to store an infinite number of spells on my body. Say the cap is raised to 100, what does the Magus do when they reach that limit? They can't use a spellbook.
Sounds to me like your trying to say the class has Spell Mastery for every spell that they know, and the tat's are just thematic. This is fine, Wizards can do the same thing, but you might as well call the cow for what it is.
If I'm not mentioning anything about the place a spell takes on your body in the archetype, then it is safe to assume that there is effectively no need for it ; I'm not using every supplement ever published in 3.5 when I write an archetype, as I assume people will only use Pathfinder RPG rules from Paizo or from 3PP for Pathfinder like SGG. Glyphs allow you to write spells in any place you can, whatever their power. It may sound awesome, but it means a mid-to-high level magus's body is worth a little fortune, and he'd better be prepared for any people who would want to learn his spells the hard way ; not even counting the reduced spellcasting and the absence of cantrips.
If we were to go into realism, we could argue that an obese magus may be able to store twice the normal amount of spells because of the amount of skin, and I don't want to see it go the silly cheesing way.The magus still needs to refer to his "spellbook" to prepare his spells, so he doesn't have Spell Mastery ; he just doesn't have to SEE the spells on his body, so writting on his back or on his shaved head works.
I present the following;
Magus' body is a spellbook + 'X' number of spells scribed on body - any actual need to LOOK at said markings = Spell Mastery.
Unless your campaign involves a Magus getting his arm chopped off to lose spell access to the spells written on his arm, the class feature remains a purely thematic way for a Magus to circumvent a prepared Arcane Caster's greatest weakness.
Furthermore any Caster is at constant risk of their secrets being stolen, after all what's to stop a thief from stealing the spellbook of an unprepared Wizard, and don't even get me started on psychic evisceration/mind whammy.
Again, I'm not saying the class feature is OP, it's not. Just calling it what it is.
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Now I see your point of view about this ability, it could indeed be read as having the Spell Mastery feat.
I don't see it as such because I'm assuming the DM will say that burns/cuts/other effects will harm your written spells and effectively doesn't make you immune to effects damaging your spellbook content.
I guess I should give them a spellbook, but allow them to write a X amount of spells on their body ; spells which would provide them the effects of the Spell Mastery feat.
Now I see your point of view about this ability, it could indeed be read as having the Spell Mastery feat.
I don't see it as such because I'm assuming the DM will say that burns/cuts/other effects will harm your written spells and effectively doesn't make you immune to effects damaging your spellbook content.I guess I should give them a spellbook, but allow them to write a X amount of spells on their body ; spells which would provide them the effects of the Spell Mastery feat.
That is far more elegant, and appeases my suspension of disbelief.
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Big revision following. Thanks for the input, everyone !
Hope you'll like it better than the first !
Glyph Scholar
Glyphs are visual sceals, representative of the magic energy present in every element, creature or object, and which hold the power to unleash the magical energies for anyone skilled enough to use them. Some maguses are trained in the recognition and use of glyphs, writting – or carving – them into their flesh to harness quickly on their power. And while such maguses are called glyph scholars, forgoing any weapon training, it would be a mistake to reduce them as simple bookworms, as they are able to use the power of scriptures as true weapons.
Diminished Spellcasting
Glyph scholars may 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.
Weapon Proficiency
A glyph scholar is proficient with no weapons.
The glyph scholar instead gains the Scroll Blade and the Scroll Shield class features, as per the scrollmaster wizard archetype ; but the enhancement bonuses provided by such scrolls depends on the highest spell level on the scroll, and do not rely only on wizard spells.
A glyph scholar may select another archetype which modifies the normal magus weapon proficiencies, but a magus with the glyph scholar archetype is never proficient in any weapons. Such magus usually chooses the weapon normally provided by his second archetype as his first level item glyph (see the glyphs class feature).
This replaces the normal magus weapon and armor proficiency feature.
Glyphs (Su)
At 1st level, a glyph scholar begins the study of glyphs, visual representations of the magic present in all things, similar to what true names are to outsiders. A glyph scholar studies spells like a magus, but uses arcane tattoos or scarifications to shape his flesh into a spellbook. While a glyph scholar possesses a spellbook on its own, he may write an amount of spell levels equal to his level + his Intelligence modifier onto his body as esoterous glyphs. The magus doesn't need to see the glyphs when preparing his spells for the day, as he senses their energetic presence on his body ; this works as per the Spell Mastery feat. Writting a spell on his body follows the same rules as writting a spell into a spellbook ; and any spells removed from the body are simply erased during the process of writting another spell. Deciphering a specific spell from the glyphs on a glyph scholar's body requires a Spellcraft check with a DC equal to 20 + twice the level of the spell.
As a result of this uncanny knowledge in magical writtings and drawings, a glyph scholar gains the Scribe Scroll feat as a bonus feat at first level.
A glyph scholar is also able to extract the magic essence of a weapon, and to summon it whenever needed. By spending 1 point from his arcane pool as a free action, the glyph scholar may summon during one minute an item whose essence was absorbed and turned into a glyph. A glyph scholar begins play by knowing 1 weapon, shield, or non-magical item at level 1, then 1 more at levels 5, 10, 15 and 20. At the beginning of the day, when preparing his spells, the magus may « prepare » this item by engraving the corresponding glyph onto one of his shoulders ; he may then summon this item in the corresponding hand by spending points from his arcane pool. As this summoned object represents the finest quality ever achievable with such an item, it is treated as having the masterwork quality whenever possible.
As glyphs are intimely tied to his powers and because he understands the soul of each item, a glyph scholar is proficient with any weapon he summons through a glyph. A ranged weapon produces it's own basic projectiles, unless the magus decides to use ammunition of his own.
Finally, a glyph scholar may choose to replace one known glyph by the magic essence of one item (or a stock of 50 projectiles) of his choice, including magic items, but not intelligent ones. Doing so requires a 8 hours ritual, at the end of which the item is destroyed, and it's essence kept in the form of a magical glyph the glyph scholar can learn. A summoned item works as normal ; as such, the glyph of an item with limited uses (like a scroll) disappears once the item (or the stock of projectiles) is fully expanded ; and a broken item would be summoned as such. If a glyph disappears, the magus recovers the glyph he possessed before trading it for such item.
This ability replaces cantrips, fighter training, and modifies the spellbook ability, but the glyph scholar gains the detect magic and read magic cantrips and places them in his spellbook. He can cast either of these as 1st-level spells.
Glyph Scholar Arcanas
At 3rd level, and later on, a glyph scholar may select one of the following abilities in place of a magus arcana :
- Cunning Glyphs (Su): the glyphs used by the glyph scholar are able to recognize similar auras and summon them whenever needed. Any glyph used by the glyph scholar doesn't disappear if the associated item has been destroyed or expanded, as long as the magus possesses on his person an identical item. For instance, a magus summoning a scroll of Shocking Grasp (caster level 5) and expanding it, could keep on summoning any scroll of Shocking Grasp (caster level 5) he currently transports.
- Glyph Studies (Su): the glyph scholar may expand 1 point from his arcane pool to cast an arcane spell from a scroll, as if the spell was on his class spell list. He may also spend 2 points from his arcane pool to cast a divine spell from a scroll, as if the spell was on his class spell list.
- Metaglyphs (Su): the glyph scholar may associate the magic energies of two items into a single glyph, and summon/dismiss them as a free action during the minute they are summoned, for example allowing him to alternate attacks with two different weapons, or attack with a weapon then summon a shield to protect himself at the end of his round.
- Quick Summon (Su): any weapon summoned through the glyphs ability teleports in the magus's hand immediately after the attack is resolved, allowing a magus to throw weapons (or recover them) with an uncanny speed. If the weapon is forcefully removed from the magus's hand, as per the disarm combat maneuver, the magus must spend 1 arcane point to recover his weapon, or 2 points if the weapon is held by someone unwilling to let the weapon loose.
- Scroll Mastery (Ex): whenever the magus uses a scroll, he calculates the DC for any spell it contains using his own appropriate mental stat modifiers, instead of the minimum modifier needed to cast a spell of that level.
- Scroll Wielder (Ex): The magus can activate a scroll in place of casting a spell when using spell combat. Such scroll keeps it's properties until the end of the round, at which point it is consumed.
Magus Arcana: The following magus arcanas complement the glyph scholar archetype, in addition to the magus arcanas accessible to the glyph scholar: accurate strike, arcane edge, precise prowess, reflection, spell shield, spell blending.