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I was looking into doing a magic setting sort of Pathfinder thing, and found that there's not been a lot of progress on this. The biggest hurdle to this seems to be mana. So, partly inspired by Ross Byers' Zlantsky(sp?) alternate casting and a little by spell points, and with some genuine unique ideas of my own, I put together this class.
In addition to the alternate form of casting, the real meat of the class is the Affinity abilities. Basicaly, they give the character a way to customize and stand out while also helping the different colors of magic to play differently. I want to make sure the abilities aren't ridiculous, so I wear wondering if you guys could look at the ones I have for red, and tell me if that's a good direction to go. Also, I was wondering if anyone would be interested in contributing Affinity ability ideas, as there is probably enough ability to vary them as there are magic cards.
So, I'll just post the google doc links to both the chart and the write up, and you tell me what you think.
Go to Chart.
Go to Write-Up.
The first I'm gonna point out, is that you have Plane Shift at level 1, The mana situation is well... situational, and will vary in strength from campaign setting to setting.
I like the idea, and you are definitely on to something. I know my process for homebrew classes is very obscure (I start out with blatantly OP stats, and whittle it down draft by draft, keeping certain flavor elements I like.
I haven't read the whole thing and I'll get on it later, but please, don't give up on this one, it's unique.
This is very interesting.
Yeah, it's scary giving a 5th level spell to a 1st level character, so I tried to weaken it, but really that's what makes a planes walker a planes walker. I suppose it could be an ability emulating plane shift that requires a skill check that is almost impossible at early levels, but that feels like cheating the player.
Blue is definitely the hardest one to choose affinities for. I wanted each color to have one specialty school and one shared school. The idea is I can then make affinity abilities for those unique schools a little cooler since the ones for the other school can be combined. I ran into a problem with arithmetic on that one, but since red is basically all explosions all the time anyway, I went with just giving it the one school.
For Blue, Illusion was a gimme since I only found 3 illusions that weren't blue. And then I considered abjuration, enchantment, they have some necromancy, some transmutation, lots goodies. In the end, I went with enchantment not only because Blue is "Mind Magic" but because it fits blue more than it fits with any other color. And also because that ave White a unique school, and I like that white is the defensive school. It really just means that if you want to dispel or play a classic "Blue" style you can play a White/Blue manacaster.
Healing is available to white, it's conjuration. I was debating whether to make a spell for summoning that can use any color mana, or add an exception for summon spells, but it should use some color for certain things, like devils need red etc, and that's complicated. Any ideas?
I ran the numbers on spells per day, and at first I had it as 1 mana per spell level and at 20th level it comes out to the same amount of spells as a wizard. But that made me feel like it was too easy to pump out ninth level spells, and it made 0 level spells weird. So then I went with level +1. I compared the ability to do only 9th level spells, to that of a Spell Point variant wizard from UA, and they both come out to 18 (more for the wizard if he has a really high INT). So I felt good about that.
As for spells known, I compared it by level to the sorcerer, and it's neck and neck until about 11-12 level when the manacaster takes over and ends up without 10 more spells known by 20th level.
When I started making the class, I had no intention of balancing it. Garruk and jace are probably epic characters, but it slowly started balancing itself, so I'm seeing where we can go.
Any comments on the Affinity abilities?
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You could just re-school all the spells. Don't use the normal spell schools.
Sort the spells into each of the colours. Some spells may be in more than one list.
Reaver makes a good point.
You could just re-school all the spells. Don't use the normal spell schools.
Sort the spells into each of the colours. Some spells may be in more than one list.
That's intense work, and I don't mind working to make the class, but it's a lot of bookkeeping for a class that already falls in the advanced player amount of bookkeeping. It hurts the ability to drop the class into a regular game.
I was thinking about dispelling and blue and I was thinking either a feat or Affinity Ability that says:
You may use Blue mana to cast Abjuration spells
or
You may use Blue mana to cast Abjuration spells of Level X where x is the number of affinity points spent on this ability.
or
You may cast, Dispel Magic, Antimagic Field, Mage's Disjunction, Spell Turning, etc, with Blue mana.
Still debating what to do about summons, but I think a list of summon types would be easier than reschooling, but Im still trying to find something simpler.
Let's have a look at the 'A' spells.
Where a spell is noted with multiple colours delimited by 'or', this means it falls into both lists. Where a spell is noted with multiple colours delimited by 'and', this means it requires both colours to cast.
- Abadar's Truthtelling - White. Spells of law and order tend to be white.
- Ablative Barrier - White. It's outright damage prevention.
- Absorb Toxicity - Black or Green. Toxins and disease fall into both colours, being either a natural process or a necrotic weapon.
- Absorbing Touch - Blue. Making items temporarily disappear into other dimensions or spaces is blue, which may include utility options as well.
- Abstemiousness - Green. It's about nurture and sustenance.
- Abundant Ammunition - Blue. Copying objects is blue.
- Accelerate Poison - Blue or Black. Temporal powers are usually blue and unnecessary suffering is black, and this feels a lot like the blue/black 'proliferate' ability in MtG, that enhanced the use of poison.
- Acid Arrow - Red. It's just damage.
- Acid Fog - Red.
- Acid Pit - Red and White. It deals damage and locks down a combatant.
- Acid Splash - Red.
- Acidic Spray - Red.
- Acute Senses - Blue. Sensing things (viewing opponent's hand, library, etc) is blue.
- Adjuring Step - Blue. Tricksy movement is probably in blue's territory.
- Admonishing Ray - White. While doing direct damage, it's a merciful blow, which red isn't fond of.
- Adoration - Blue. Subtle persuasion is blue's thing.
- Age Resistance - Green. Controlling life force in a beneficial way?
- Agonize - Black. Infliction of pain to penalise enemeies is black.
- Aid - White or Green. Healing and help fall into these colours.
- Air Bubble - Blue. This is a spell for the underwater realm, the domain of blue.
- Air Walk - Blue. Flight is blue.
- Alarm - White. Protective spells are white.
- Alchemical Allocation - Blue or Red. The ability to 'flashback' spells once used is found in blue and red. All colours have flashback spells, but only blue and red can add flashback to spells that don't have it.
- Align Weapon - White or Black. Wars of alignment are in white and black.
- Allegro - Red. Going faster is red.
- Allfood - Green. Nom nom nom nom.
- Alter Self - Blue or Green. Buffs are green and transformation is blue.
- Alter Winds - Green. Weather is part of the natural domain.
- Amplify Elixir - Colourless. Increasing a spell's effect doesn't really fall into any one colour.
- Analyze Dweomer - Blue. Divining complicated magic stuff is blue.
- Ancestral Communion - Blue. Gaining knowledge from the past is blue.
- Ancestral Gift - Blue. Summoning artifacts is blue.
- Ancestral Memory - Blue. More ancient knowledge.
- Animal Aspect - Green. Becoming like animals is green.
- Animal Growth - Green. Making animals huge is green.
- Animal Messenger - Green. Getting help from nature is green.
- Animal Shapes - Green. Turning into animals is green.
- Animal Trance - Blue or Green. Putting things in trances is blue. Dealing with animals is green.
- Animate Dead - Black. Skeletons and zombies are black.
- Animate Objects - Blue. There's even a blue card that does exactly this.
- Animate Plants - Green. Green likes plant creatures.
- Animate Rope - Blue. See animate objects.
- Ant Haul - Green. Carrying huge amounts of stuff seems like a green feat of strength.
- Anthropomorphic Animal - Blue or Green. Blue likes to experiment and transform things. Green likes to empower animals.
- Anticipate Peril - White. Watchfulness and alertness are white.
- Antilife Shell - White, Black or Green. White defends, green manages life, and black repels life.
- Antimagic Field - Green or White. Both green and white like to stop enchantments (ongoing spells in MtG).
- Antipathy - White. It keeps things from approaching, a part of white's protectiveness.
- Antiplant Shell - Green or White. Again, green's managing life and white's protection.
- Ape Walk - Green. Another animal aspect type of thing.
- Apparent Master - Blue. Blue takes control of things, especially constructs.
- Aqueous Orb - Blue. Although it's a damage spell, I give this one to blue because it's reminiscent of the old Blue Elemental Blast due to its ability to dispel fire effects.
And there are loads more spells so I'll stop there.
I haven't looked into how even the distribution of spells among school are, but there is obviously a disparity here with colors.
There are only 7 Red spells, 5 of which are because A is the letter of Acid. There are also only 7 Black spells. In contrast, there are 19 green spells, 5 from A being the letter of Animal, and 21 blue spells. I have a feeling that if we try to color code every spell the trend of Blue outpacing the other colors will continue. Blue does have Battle of Wits, so you could say it tends to have more stuff, but that's hardly balanced in Pathfinder. It would be cool to look at your spell list and see mana costs like GW2. I just don't know if it's a wise move to take the classification system already in place and throw it out the window. I was trying to make an alternate casting class, not an alternate magic system like words of power. If we classify it that way, it would either require everyone to use that system, or require at least an explanation for why there are two ways to classify spells. And then when new spells come out, they'd also have to be dual classified.
If we classify this way, using the effects of cards as justification, we get closer to being like MTG, but it goes further away from something that could work in Pathfinder without having to be tied to Magic. Personally, that is the outcome I would prefer.
Also, I would make Air Walk Blue or White, since white has a good chunk of flying (Angels, Gryphons, its fair share of birds, and tons of enchantments the give flying).
You can have 3 land ley lines, but you can have artifact let lines equal to 3 more mana. That gives you enough to cast 3 1st level spells, of which you can know two at 1st level. Maybe I should give them cantrips. They currently do not, and it is worded so that 0 level spells cost 1 mana.
I honestly didn't want a character to choose a color at the beginning to specialize in, like a wizard does or with a sorcerer's bloodline. The way classes lock you in from level 1 is something about Pathfinder I'd like to see eased up on, at least through archetypes, but that's another discussion. Instead of their per day abilities, currently they have 3/4 BAB and the ability to wear armor. Many of the planes walkers we see are capable of fighting, Garruk, Gideon, and so on. I would imagine the manacaster being able to use that increased martial ability to make up for a lack of per day effects. Or there could be affinities that create per day abilities, but that may be too wizardy. Any opinions on that, anyone?
And yes, I was hoping that the search for lands would be a source of adventures for GMs, an dwere this in a book there would be a sidebar telling GMs it's ok to have nonbasic lands that can come with additional abilities or can be used for multiple colors. 1st level can be very rough for a manacaster, due to a lack of access to artifacts, but I would think they could search around for shrines known for healing powers or places that are cursed and that those magic locations would have a caster level of at least 4. So it is a place they can visit relatively safely and use for their initial colorless mana. Or they could have relatives who happen to have a magic item, maybe a family heirloom that they can connect to. When I realized how hard the early levels could be though, I reminded myself of how hard the early levels of wizard and sorcerer can be, and I think the gain in power over levels from manacaster to wizard, is enough to justify the additional sulkiness at extremely low levels (1-3 or so) as it is for wizards to fighters (1-5 or so). I'd be glad to hear opinions on that too.
Talking about fluff here, planeswalkers weren't always planeswalkers, they weren't born that way. Everyone has a spark, but theirs is awakened through some ordeal or challenge, or great power. Maybe you have a tenth level ability "Awakened" or something, where his spark is awoken and then you get to planeshift as an SLA
Talking about fluff here, planeswalkers weren't always planeswalkers, they weren't born that way. Everyone has a spark, but theirs is awakened through some ordeal or challenge, or great power. Maybe you have a tenth level ability "Awakened" or something, where his spark is awoken and then you get to planeshift as an SLA
I like this,1. it keeps plane shift from the hands of a 1st level character. 2. It separates the mana casting ability from being a planes walker somewhat which can be good, but it sort of puts off what makes a planeswalker a planeswalker. I was hoping that a planeswalker may use their ability at low levels to find planes with the lands or artifacts they are looking for and use it as a source of ley line creation.
It also fits the fluff because doesn't it say that hoarding enough mana is a way to activate a spark?
If it is put off until tenth level, how many times should it be available? Actual planes walkers could travel "with ease" between planes, but that's crazy. But only once per day at tenth level means you have to wait around on the other plane until it resets.
Does the idea of "Planeswalker" and the concept of "1. level character" fit each other?
Probably just have it use up mana as usual. A planeswalker at full power could do it all day long, but an injured or weak one is going to have some trouble.
Does the idea of "Planeswalker" and the concept of "1. level character" fit each other?
Yes.
What about giving them Plane Shift on their spell list at level one, and it can be cast for three colored mana, with the current restrictions? That way they can use it at first level, but they wouldn't be able to do anything else. It eventually becomes trivial to do and a viable alternative to just casting the regular spell in certain situations.
Atarlost has a decent breakdown of the colours. I think it is far easier to move spells on a case by case basis than to do the entire list at the beginning. This saves time and with players aware of the colours of magic they will be aware that a blue mage won't be flinging around fireballs.
Divination is also black but on a much smaller scale. One of the things that has happened in magic recently is some minor bleed between the colours. Black magic's divinations normally require some kind of sacrifice to use though.
I did half heartedly start making a sorcerer bloodline that dealt with MtG, can't remember what I ended up with but I know it was no where close to finished so I will be interested in seeing where your class ends up.
Finally, if all the players are planeswalkers then having planeshift at level 1 isn't really an issue. I would say that until they reach higher levels that their planeshift ability is plot driven rather than player driven, just my thoughts on it.
I was just thinking that you could use the spell point system (i.e. the psionic system) for working out mana. Then give each planeswalker a maximum amount of mana per colour that they could use.
Their primary colour could use the maximum amount of spell points mana but their secondary colours might only be able to use half the maximum. Sorry if I'm not super clear, I can only half-remember the rules for power points.
It would require only a minimal amount of extra book-keeping since you just need to add a list of the colours and the maximum level you can cast each colours spells at. So a 5th level Blue mage who dabbles in black magic might be listed at Blue:5, Black: 3; strong in blue magic but unable to charge as much mana into black magic.
Actually I guess this works just as well with spell slots...
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I like the idea of paying mana by spell level, as opposed to caster level as seen with Ultimate Psionics and other spell point systems. I really like what you have so far.
Going on earlier posts about dividing the spells into schools of magic, I've already split the wizard spells from the Core, APG, and UM. I divided the spells such that:
white = abjuration, transmutation (weapon enhnaces and such)
blue = enchantment, illusion, conjuration (creation)
black = necromancy
red = evocation
green = trasmutation (polymorph)
universal = the summon spells, teleport school, and the universal school.
Some spells, while in the appropriate school, seemed to represent another color better. Off the top of my head Freedom felt more like a red mana spell than a white spell while Imprisonment certainly felt white to me.
My biggest problem is that the blue school has the most spells (~30% of the spells). While most of them are illusion and enchantment, I'm wondering if blue having more spells is fine in the long run, because the red mana people get the flashy damage dealing spells, green gets the polymorph and shape-changing spells (so enlarge person/animal, etc), white gets the defensive abjuration spells, and black gets necromancy.
Later today I'll post my list of spells on a google doc for everyone to see.
Keep it up Davick - if I get time, I may offer some suggestions for the mana affinities.
I've always imagined a weird idea of a Magic: The Gathering inspired class being played with an actual deck of cards. Each round of combat plays out like a player's turn in Magic: Draw a card, play a land, cast what you can afford, and take a single move action if you want. The cards would have to be converted into Pathfinder-compatible mechanics (IE: A creature card would be a Summon spell appropriate for the creature's type and power level) for the idea to even come close to being workable.
The only problem is that a Magic duel is paced a lot differently than a combat encounter in Pathfinder. A wizard of the right level can throw down a Fireball in the first round, but a Magic character would need a couple of rounds to build up the mana to cast a spell of a similar power level.
Your idea sounds better, quite frankly.
I'm not familiar with the MTG material, but based on other people's feedback, it seems like planeswalkers are a pretty powerful thing, eh? A lot of powerful abilities (like plane shift) that you would want to give early on to fit the theme, but feel are a bit too powerful to give so early. So, I want to propose a different approach.
How about instead of making this a player class, you instead make it a Mythic Path? Then you can work within the existing spell system, but drop color themed abilities on top of your spells on the fly by spending Mythic Power.
And this talk about manifesting different colors of mana sounds kind of clunky, tbh. It is going to greatly complicate a player's turn, I think. How about, instead, you draw mana power from the type of land you are currently interacting with? I.E. reach your hand into a nearby bonfire or desert terrain belowfoot to manifest red mana power, water for blue, trees/grass for green, etc? It would add a lot of flavor and fun feel to your class, I think. You'd have the theme of being very in-tune with whatever your environmental plane happens to be.
I'm not familiar with the MTG material, but based on other people's feedback, it seems like planeswalkers are a pretty powerful thing, eh?
Back before the great retcon planeswalkers were at least minor deities. They hoarded mana by the semi load, and it took a Supertanker full just to ascend to that level.
Now planeswalkers can be just an average wizard that through some happenstance had their spark awakened. Sparks didn't even exist before the retcon. I think Nicol Bolas is the only planeswalker that was in power before the retcon, and he is incredibly nerfed now.
The way it is written now there would be no way to make the old style planeswalker, but you've got a good start for the newer ones. They seem to me a bit more martial than you're stating them though. I think I would push their BAB up a step.
I would say that Planeswalker is a creature template (or mythic template), not a class. Some of them are very spellcasty and would never consider using a weapon (Jace) while others are very focused on martial prowess (Gideon).
The planeswalkers themselves are not necessarily the most powerful fighters or wizards or whatever. There are a great many non-planeswalking champions of various forms in all of the worlds and many of them might be vastly more powerful than the plane-hopping characters. They're just stuck in one world, that's all.
I'm actually working on some MTG rules for a home game myself. One reason is actually to be able to use the colors as the alignment system.
As far as planeswalkers go it's a tricky subject:
The Spark: One in a Million
One in a million sentient beings are born with “the spark,” the ineffable essence that makes an individual capable of becoming a Planeswalker. Of those born with “the spark,” even fewer “ignite” their spark, enabling them to realize their potential and travel the planes. Most Planeswalkers have their spark ignited as the result of a great crisis or trauma, but every awakening is different. A near-death experience might ignite a Planeswalker’s spark, but so could a sudden, life-changing epiphany or a meditative trance that enables the mage’s grasp of some transcendent truth. There are as many such stories as there are Planeswalkers.
Note everyone can be a planeswalker, it's SUPER rare, it's like being a sorcerer (but rarer) but having no idea that you might be a sorcerer. (you also can't fall back on the fact that your daddy was a planeswalker)
One of the funny things to me is while reading this it strikes me as very similar to the Mythic Ascension section of Mythic Adventures, and honestly spark ignition should be something in the hands of the DM.
Heck as a DM, if i were to include the concept of Planeswalkers in my campaign, I would probably not even tell my players, making it that much cooler when I get to make the grand reveal that one of them has a spark.
The difficulty of presenting Planeswalkers as special exists in the ability for other casters to just cast plane shift.
Dotting for major interest.
I love the idea of the class, and I admire the conversion attempt. What a beastly undertaking.
I'm tempted to agree with Reaver, though, that a template or even a PrC might be a better option. A PrC accessible to many different classes that allows the character to continue advancing with some of the important bits of their old class while representing what a Planeswalker could do with the new PrC features coming online as they advance as well would be a very interesting concept that I would play til the end of days.
Thinking on it more, I would probably have it be an acquired template that advanced with HD. Still very much in the hands of the DM.
Unfortunetly I haven't read many of the MTG books, it there any precedent set for PWs dragging normal folk along as they sojourn?
According to current lore, planeswalking takes a trip through the Blind Eternities to reach other planes.
The Blind Eternities is comparable to Golarion's Dark Tapestry. Imagine if every plane-shift spell you cast took a shortcut through Yog Sothoth to get there instead of taking you directly.
I was just thinking it would be nice if an MTG campaign didn't suffer from the starwars RPG everybody or nobody jedi issue with Planeswalkers
I guess to me the big draw for MTG isn't it's Planeswalkers. I REALLY like the philosophical basis of the color pie, and they really do have some excellent settings (heck zendikar is said to be the best D&D setting wizards never made) I'm already considering adding elements of Tarkir into my next game.
That's the nice thing about planeswalkers though, they aren't by default head and shoulders about everyone else. Literally one thing separates a planeswalker from normal folk: planeswalking. If they are able to drag others along in their bubble, I would have no problem with having a single PW in the group, they would just take other class levels like everyone else (I still think this would work really well as a universal mythic ability (or series of abilities (improved, greater, ect...))) Yes I would want to toss the other players some sort of bone of their own.
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The neowalkers don't seem to be able to bring anyone with them.
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There are artifacts that allow planeswalking in the setting. Off the top of my head is the "Skyship Weatherlight."
Also, how would specialty lands like Kher Keep or Ebon Stronghold be dealt with?
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The biggest hurdle to this seems to be mana
@Davick: First off, I think you are onto a cool class idea.
I tried your mana system using a 10th level oracle in a Rise of the Runelords game. I think I had way too much mana (with 65 mana, I could, and did, cast 21 cure critical wounds spells). The problem I see is not that I can cast only the most powerful spells I have more often than I normally could, the issue is...
1. Until 8th level your system gives the caster more mana than a sorcerer would have (i.e. a 10th level sorcerer with 6/6/6/5/3 spells per day has 6*(1+2+3)+5*(4)+3*5 = 71 mana per day)
2. A caster who can cast more high level spells per day than the sorcerer is more powerful than the sorcerer.
Going off of that and ideas that the planeswalker can be of any class, I've adapted parts of your idea into a "raw" archetype that could be applied to any class. Anyone can read it here. It is still largely untested and I plan on testing it out in a Rise of the Runelords game I am running.
*Note: it mentions that applying the archetype to a non-spellcasting class requires the replacement of 8 points worth of class abilities. If each base class in the core rulebook has about 50 points worth of abilities, then...
spellcasting = 30 points (sorcerer, wizard, cleric), 14 points (bard), and 8 points (paladin, ranger)
bonus feats = 1 point per feat
sneak attack = 1.5 points per time
weapon/armor training = 2 points per time
evasion/uncanny dodge (and improvements) = 3 or 2 points per time
These numbers are just to figure out the replacement of suitable abilities for gaining the archetype. For instance a fighter who gives up all instances of armor training should "approximately" equate to the spellcasting granted by the archetype.
I tried to adapt some of the affinity abilities into something universal, rather than rewrite each individual ability. I like the idea though!
I noticed your version of the manacaster does not account for high ability scores for more spells per day. Since the 1/2 level * ability modifier in bonus mana (in net colored and uncolored) gives too many bonus "spells per day" than it should, I provided a chart that mimics the bonus spells per day gained by casters for having a high ability score.
As for my limits on colored and colorless mana, I am of the mind that colored mana should be used to limit the number of spells a caster can use in a day and colorless mana as the extra expenditure that is needed to power those spells.