Back in the day (literally years ago in the days of AD&D1) when most NPCs were considered to be 0th level characters and everyone else had some sort of character level - there was one, very special, NPC class … The Sage.
The description of the sage the (AD&D1) DMG is great - it gives all sorts of cool information for (what appears to be) a L8 NPC character. There are rules for concerning what the sage knows, what their subject area is, hit points, stats all sorts of things. From those it can be inferred that a fully developed sage is a L8 character.
This made me start thinking about how sages got to be wise old men and what sort of things they did in their youth – So I wrote it up as a fully developmental NPC class. Then used a sage character as the Party NPC for an online game I was running. And it worked really well.
Then the character moved on to an online AD&D (Skills & Powers) game, we rewrote him with those rules, and I played him as a Player Character. Mega underpowered, but with enough skills / brains to keep himself out of trouble – just.
Now I want to bring him back as an NPC in a PF game that I am running. It seems a shame to waste all that marvellous background and characterisation that went into his development. :}
I intend to re-imagine him using the Expert NPC class (It really is most appropriate in many way) however, I have a minor problem.
One paragraph from the original text describes the sage’s spell ability.
SPECIAL SKILLS: All sages will have some abilities with respect to spells, for their studies will have empowered them thus. … <snip>… find the maximum level of the spells known to the sage by rolling a d4 +2 to find a level between 3 and 6 … <snip> … Each sage will possess 1-4 spells of each level, but at any given time he or she will hove no more than 1 of each level available for actual use, the rest being contained in various source books. … <snip>
So a very limited ability - but the potential to have up to sixth level spells. I can see ways of doing this by house-ruling an Archetype, or even using feats and traits. But my question is …
In you experience of the PF rules – has anyone come across anything that grants really limited spell casting ability to a character?
If there is something there already, that suits, there is no point re-inventing the wheel :] However, even if it doesn’t work exactly for what I want, it might give me a comparison that I can use to help balance the new powers.
If anyone is interested in some very old build rules – you can find my version of the Fist Ed Sage here.
Sounds like a bard to me. Maybe a homebrewed archetype that removes performances and replaces them with something else.
It is very similar to a bard - but (in my head) it is the NPC equivalent of a knowledge based Bard - in the same way as a Warrior is an NPC version of a Fighter and an Adept is an NPC version of a Cleric.
I think I have worked out a mechanism for very low spell abilities, that fit the modern rules but still carry the flavour of (what seems to me) the original concept of really minor casting as a by-product of the research they do.
I have decided to give the Sage Cantrips, and then add a fairly standard spell progression. However, the class will only ever get 0 spells in a level - which will restrict the character to the Bonus spells that come from his intelligence. :)
Not enough to make him an effective caster - just enough to give him an edge ...