Lenaris Vaerin
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I am playing a wizard/barbarian in one of my games and we're getting to the point where prestige classes would look very nice. I would go arcane archer, but I'm using the spellslinger archetype and guns+arcane archer don't work without some houserules of it's own. Then I remembered the rage mage and decided to bust out my own take on it. This is intended to be a primary barbarian with a secondary in spellcasting, or a high level caster who dipped barbarian and jumped into this prestige class. These two methods of entry result in either a powerful barbarian type with some spells on the side, to a powerful caster type with some rage on the side.
I have looked at various homebrew redesigns and the original class itself, using almost all for inspiration. I do believe this to be in line with other pathfinder prestige classes and very much fits the flavor behind the rage mage, as described above.
Why BAB +6 and 1st level spells instead of BAB +3/4 and 2nd level spells? Firstly, my character was going wizard 1-2 barbarian 5-6 so this is somewhat for my specific homebrew benefit. Additionally, this class redesign fits better with a primary barbarian than a primary caster as far as benefits go. Primary casters will still see plenty of benefit from this prc but will be taking it at a higher level. I think this trade off combined with the specific power scaling is better balanced than the original requirements, and more flexible. You can go 8 caster and 2 barb or you can go 5-6 barb and 1-2 caster to get into this prestige class. As it was you had to go caster 3-4+ and then barb 2-3 to get in otherwise and that's much more restricting to the primary barbarian route.
Hit Die: d10
Requirements
Alignment: Any nonlawful.
Base Attack Bonus: +6
Skills: Spellcraft 4 ranks
Feats?: Combat Casting (I don't really like feat requirements on most prestige classes, but this was in the original so I'm including it anyway. Optional)
Spells: Ability to cast 1st level arcane spells
Special: Rage Class Feature
Class Skills
The Rage Mage’'s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (Arcana) (Int), Spellcraft (Int), Survival (Wis)
Skill Ranks at Each Level: 4 + Int modifier.
BAB: 3/4 progression
Fort/Will Saves: Good progression 1,1,2,2,3,3,4,4,5,5
Ref Save: Bad progression 0,1,1,1,2,2,2,3,3,3
Table: Rage Mage
Level Special
1 Indomitable Caster, Spell Rage
2 Rage Power
3 Spell Fury +1
4 Arcane Armor Training, Shared Rage
5 Rage Power
6 Spell Fury +2
7 Arcane Armor Mastery, Coordinated Fury
8 Rage Power
9 Spell Fury +3
10 Greater Spell Rage
Class Features
The following are class features of the rage mage prestige class.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A rage mage gains no proficiency with any weapon or armor.
Spells per Day
A rage mage gains new spells per day as if he had also gained a level in an arcane spellcasting class he belonged to before adding the prestige class. He does not, however, gain other benefits a character of that class would have gained, except for additional spells per day, spells known (if he is a spontaneous caster), and an increased effective level of spellcasting. If he had more than one arcane spellcasting class before becoming a rage mage, he must decide to which class he adds the new level for the purpose of determining spells per day.
A rage mage gains this caster level increase at 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, and 10th levels
Indomitable Caster (Ex)
At 1st level, a rage mage adds his Constitution bonus (if any) on concentration checks.
Spell Rage
When the rage mage enters a rage they retain their ability cast spells and can make Knowledge (Arcana) and Spellcraft checks as normal. A rage mage can sacrifice a spell slot to gain one additional round of rage per level of spell sacrificed. Otherwise, this functions as the rage class feature.
A rage mage uses the same rage as it did prior to becoming a rage mage. The rage mage’s class level stacks with barbarian levels for determining rage rounds, when taking rage powers, and the effect of rage powers. This does not grant additional abilities.
Rage Power
Starting at 2nd level, and every three levels thereafter, a rage mage learns new ways to harness his rage. This functions as the Rage Power class feature. A rage mage cannot select an individual power more than once.
Spell Fury
Starting at 3rd level the rage mage gains a +1 bonus to caster level and save DCs when casting a spell while rage. These bonus increases by +1 every three rage mage levels thereafter, +2 at 6th and +3 at 9th. The increase to CL granted by the rage mage's spell fury can cause a spell's damage dice to exceed the damage cap of the spell by an amount equal to the bonus CL.
Arcane Armor Training
At 4th level the rage mage gains Arcane Armor Training as a bonus feat, even if he does not meet the requirements for it normally.
Shared Rage
At 4th level, the rage mage can cast Rage, as per the spell, as a spell-like ability when entering a rage. The duration changes to “While the Rage Mage remains raging”, the area of the ability changes to a 15 foot radius around the rage mage. Allies must end each of their turns in this area to continue to benefit from this ability. If the affected characters already have the rage ability, they can activate their rage as a free action with the rage mage instead. Rage rounds are consumed at twice the normal rate while using this ability. The rage mage must stop raging and start again if he wishes to rage without this ability.
Arcane Armor Mastery
At 7th level the rage mage gains Arcane Armor Mastery as a bonus feat, even if he does not meet the requirements for it normally.
Coordinated Fury
While using the Shared Rage power, the rage mage and all affected characters are treated as if having the Amplified Rage teamwork feat. The rage granted from this spell counts as raging for the purposes of this feat.
Greater Spell Rage
At 10th level the rage mage gains Greater Rage as the barbarian class feature. In addition, once per rage the rage mage can expend 4 rounds of rage to reduce the casting time of a spell of 4th level or lower to a swift action. A spell whose casting time is more than 1 round or 1 full-round action cannot be reduced in this way. This ability can only be used while raging and these rounds count towards rounds spent fatigued after raging.
| Tim4488 |
I'm no expert on prestige class balance, but this looks okay. d10 HD, 3/4 BAB, two good saves is decent. You lose 3 levels of spellcasting, sounds about right. A little odd in PF to disassociate HD and BAB, but I see why you would for this class. If people seriously say you've got balance issues, dropping to a d8 HD or picking just one good save may help address that without losing any features.
The class features all seem to fit thematically, they're pretty straightforward mechanically, and nothing strikes me as insanely overpowered. Rage powers but at a reduced rate is nice. Greater Spell Rage is good, but it's a capstone, it should be, and burning 4 rounds of rage to affect a relatively low-level spell, yeah, that all seems reasonable.
I'd expand the skill list a little. Give them a few more Knowledge skills, Handle Animal maybe, give them Climb and probably Swim. I get this class having a short skill list, but right now it just looks TOO tiny. Though I guess that's less bad for a PrC than for a base class, so, maybe it's okay and doesn't need to change.
I'd probably allow it in my game, at least. Seems solid.
EDIT: Also, this should go in Conversions, I just realized.
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Lenaris Vaerin
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I'm no expert on prestige class balance, but this looks okay. d10 HD, 3/4 BAB, two good saves is decent. You lose 3 levels of spellcasting, sounds about right. A little odd in PF to disassociate HD and BAB, but I see why you would for this class. If people seriously say you've got balance issues, dropping to a d8 HD or picking just one good save may help address that without losing any features.
The class features all seem to fit thematically, they're pretty straightforward mechanically, and nothing strikes me as insanely overpowered. Rage powers but at a reduced rate is nice. Greater Spell Rage is good, but it's a capstone, it should be, and burning 4 rounds of rage to affect a relatively low-level spell, yeah, that all seems reasonable.
I'd expand the skill list a little. Give them a few more Knowledge skills, Handle Animal maybe, give them Climb and probably Swim. I get this class having a short skill list, but right now it just looks TOO tiny. Though I guess that's less bad for a PrC than for a base class, so, maybe it's okay and doesn't need to change.
I'd probably allow it in my game, at least. Seems solid.
EDIT: Also, this should go in Conversions, I just realized.
The disassociation between BAB and HD is due to the Barbarian aspect. There are at least three instances where this is so. Barbarian d12 HD and 1/1 BAB, Dragon Disciple, d12 HD 3/4 BAB (An even larger difference), and Rage Prophet d10 BAB 3/4 BAB. As barbarian and a barbarian oriented prestige class are two of the three that I know of with a disassociated BAB/HD I thought it appropriate.
I didn't expand the skill list because this is a PRC and these are the skills I thought most fit the PRC itself. You need at least 1 level of barbarian prior to becoming this class, which has a fair skill list by itself, and some kind of caster class, also with a decent sized and very different skill list. I can certainly expand it but I feel it would be mostly overlap already so I just stuck with theme.
Climb, Swim, and Handle Animal all fit that bill but all three are already on the barbarian skill list. I suppose I should add handle animal since it can be traded out by urban barbarian and fits the theme.
I tried to make it as pathfinder balanced as possible and I posted this in homebrew because it is a homebrew redesign of the same concept. I would have posted it in conversions but this is involves a lot of new abilities and is extremely different from the original content. Concept wise the same, very different implementation. I deemed this a "suggestion" for a conversation if that makes sense.
Thanks for the feedback! I posted it here for the express purpose of getting more opinions on it as I will be playing this in one of my games in a few levels and I want to make sure it's balanced :)