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I am wondering if anyone has used elements of magic with pathfinder. I am looking to run a mages game and am thinking about using this system. If you have used it please answer the following questions:
Did you use the classes in the book or the pathfinder classes with an adjusted magic system?
what adjustments did you make to make it compatible with pathfinder?
did you use regular magic for spell like abilities or did you do a full conversion?
Any recommendations for how to use it?
Of course anyone that hasn't used it is welcome to imput, I am just looking for some guidance.
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Well as no one had any advice I thought I would make a pathfinder wizard. If someone could move this to the homebrew section that would be great.
PATHFINDER ELEMENTS OF MAGIC WIZARD
Alignment: Any
Hit Die: d6
Starting Wealth: 2d6 × 10 gp (average 70 gp.) In addition, each character begins play with an outfit worth 10 gp or less.
Class Skills
The wizard's class skills are Appraise (Int), Craft (Int), Fly (Dex), Knowledge (all) (Int), Linguistics (Int), Profession (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int) Sct and Divination.
Skill Ranks per Level: 2 + Int modifier.
Class Features
The following are the class features of the wizard.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency
Wizards are proficient with the club, dagger, heavy crossbow, light crossbow, and quarterstaff, but not with any type of armor or shield. Armor interferes with a wizard's movements, which can cause his spells with somatic components to fail.
Spells
A Wizard’s spell casting ability is determined by her level and the choices she makes with spell lists. To cast any spells a wizard must have an intelligence equal to the MP of the spell she wishes to cast. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a wizard's spell is 10 +1/2 the spells mp + the wizard's Intelligence modifier.
A wizard known a number of bonus specialized spells equal to half his Wizard level. This is in addition to the base number of specialized spells the wizard can learn based on his caster level.
Bonus Languages
A wizard may substitute Draconic for one of the bonus languages available to the character because of his race.
Arcane Bond (Ex or Sp)
At 1st level, wizards form a powerful bond with an object or a creature. This bond can take one of two forms: a familiar or a bonded object. A familiar is a magical pet that enhances the wizard's skills and senses and can aid him in magic, while a bonded object is an item a wizard can use to cast additional spells or to serve as a magical item. Once a wizard makes this choice, it is permanent and cannot be changed.
Rules for bonded items are given below, while rules for familiars are located here: Familiars.
Wizards who select a bonded object begin play with one at no cost. Objects that are the subject of an arcane bond must fall into one of the following categories: amulet, ring, staff, wand, or weapon. These objects are always masterwork quality. Weapons acquired at 1st level are not made of any special material. If the object is an amulet or ring, it must be worn to have effect, while staves, wands, and weapons must be held in one hand. If a wizard attempts to cast a spell without his bonded object worn or in hand, he must make a concentration check or lose the spell. The DC for this check is equal to 20 + ½ the mp of the spell. If the object is a ring or amulet, it occupies the ring or neck slot accordingly.
A bonded object can be used once per day to cast one specialized spell the wizard knows with spending MP. This spell is treated like any other spell cast by the wizard, including casting time, duration, and other effects. This spell cannot be modified by metamagic feats or other abilities. The bonded object cannot be used to cast spells from the wizard's opposition schools (see arcane school).
A wizard can add additional magic abilities to his bonded object as if he has the required Item Creation Feat as long as he is of at least 4th level. If the bonded object is a wand, it loses its wand abilities when its last charge is consumed, but it is not destroyed and it retains all of its bonded object properties and can be used to craft a new wand. The magic properties of a bonded object, including any magic abilities added to the object, only function for the wizard who owns it. If a bonded object's owner dies, or the item is replaced, the object reverts to being an ordinary masterwork item of the appropriate type.
If a bonded object is damaged, it is restored to full hit points the next time the wizard regains MP. If the object of an arcane bond is lost or destroyed, it can be replaced after 1 week in a special ritual that costs 200 gp per wizard level plus the cost of the masterwork item. This ritual takes 8 hours to complete. Items replaced in this way do not possess any of the additional enchantments of the previous bonded item. A wizard can designate an existing magic item as his bonded item. This functions in the same way as replacing a lost or destroyed item except that the new magic item retains its abilities while gaining the benefits and drawbacks of becoming a bonded item.
Arcane School
A wizard can choose to specialize in one school of magic, gaining additional Spell Lists and powers based on that school. This choice must be made at 1st level, and once made, it cannot be changed. A wizard that does not select a school receives the universalist school instead.
A wizard that chooses to specialize in one school of magic must select one other schools as his opposition schools, representing knowledge sacrificed in one area of arcane lore to gain mastery in another. A wizard must spend an additional 50% MP for all mp costs of his opposition school. A universalist wizard can prepare spells from any school without restriction.
Each arcane school gives the wizard a number of school powers. A Wizard gains Spell List Familiarity as a bonus feat at level 1 and every 4 levels thereafter. This bonus feat must be spent of a list the wizard is specialized in.
Fantasy D20 School Elements of Magic spell list
Abjuration Abjure
Conjuration Create or Summon
Divination Divination, Scry, or Spellcraft Skill
Enchantment Charm or Compel
Evocation Evoke
Illusion Illusion
Necromancy Heal or Infuse
Transmutation Infuse, Move or Transform
Scribe Scroll
At 1st level, a wizard gains craft charged item as a bonus feat.
Bonus Feats
At 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th level, a wizard gains a bonus feat. At each such opportunity, he can choose a metamagic feat, an item creation, or Tradition Feat. The wizard must still meet all prerequisites for a bonus feat, including caster level minimums. These bonus feats are in addition to the feats that a character of any class gets from advancing levels. The wizard is not limited to the categories of Item Creation Feats, Metamagic Feats, or Tradition when choosing those feats.
A wizard may also choose an Magical Boon that he qualifies for in place of a bonus feat at these levels.
I may put up a sorcerer in the next few days. Advice is welcome.
It might help if you tell people who aren't familiar what "Elements of Magic" is. I've never heard of it.
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It's a variant magic system from EN Publishing. But it was released back in the 3.5 days. Words of Power in Ultimate Magic is a similar, but much more simplistic version of this system. I have run with elements of magic once before and while it seems really cool, it was extremely complicated for me as the DM to run. The player of course loved it, since he had all the time in the world to create each one of his spells.
Words of Power-like system that's point-based? SOLD.
What are the chances of adding the Arcanist to this list?
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Never heard of it till this thread, went and took a look at it after hearing about it. They have a new Revised version that works for Pathfinder. Doesn't seem to complicated compared to some I've seen
It's a Nice middle ground between Green Ronin's True Sorcery and the Words of Power from Ultimate Magic.
Mage learns a Spell List and then he can make up any spell he can think of within that list. More powerful spell costs more Magic Points and you can't spent more Magic Points than your Level.
A sample List would be Evoke Fire - which is the magic of blasting people with Fire. At 0 Magic Points (IE Cantrip) it's a touch spell that does 1d6 fire damage.
From there you tweak it. into say 30' radius Blast that dose 5d6 at a range of 100 feet. 8 Magic Points.
and as you learn more lists you can combine them for more creative spells like a Fireball that does 5d6 in a 30' radius blast and then summons 2 fire Elementals to attack the survivors for a minute
Basically you throw out the Vancian slot system and replace it with a flexible make up your spells as you go system. Then they add in "Signature Spells." Signature Spells are important. They are the Spells your Wizard has made up ahead of time and written down in his spell book
Making a Spell up on the Fly has a Casting Time of 2 Full rounds
Casting a Signature Spell is 1 Standard Action.
So while it is possible to just make stuff up all the time the system encourages players to create a selection of spells ahead of time
Elements of Magic is, I would say, less Powerful than the normal system. (5d6 Fireball is 8 MP thus can't be cast till 8th level. Any more damage and you need to spend even more Magic Points) but a lot more flexible and rewards creative players.
The main book has their own classes and the rest is devoted to the system but they have a book 2 that seems to convert all the Pathfinder Classes to their system
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the system is pathfinder compatible in that Pathfinder is a d20 system. It has no pathfinder adjustments in either books. Thats why I am making these changes. all the classes are 3.5 and so on.
as a note the system is on sale for half price for those interested.
http://www.rpgnow.com/product/2554/Elements-of-Magic-%28Revised%29?term=ele ments+of+&filters=0_0_0_0_45208&it=1
Picked up both book ($5 each is a decent enough price)
Book 2 dose have adjustments for Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin and Ranger and Variant Classes for Sorcerer, Wizard, Bard, Cleric and Druid?(Maybe Ranger..Longwalker seems kind of a mix of the two with a little Barbarian thrown in). The Variant Classes seem designed more to capture the Feel of the original classes but use the new system of magic.
The Arcanist (IE: Wizard) is the book focused spellcaster. He gets the bonus feats for Metamagic and Crafting and a few other things to make Preping Signature Spells or casting directly from Spellbooks easier. Hit Dice are set at d4 instead of d6, so I'm guessing that's a hold over from 3.5 Easy enough to fix.
The Anima (Sorcerer Variant) still fits the "I was born with innate magic" idea but is very different from the Pathfinder Sorcerer. If anything I would say it is closer to the old 3.5 Incarnum stuff.
The Anima (Sorcerer Variant) still fits the "I was born with innate magic" idea but is very different from the Pathfinder Sorcerer. If anything I would say it is closer to the old 3.5 Incarnum stuff.
SOLD AGAIN!
I'll have to pick this up when I get home tonight.
The Anima (Sorcerer Variant) still fits the "I was born with innate magic" idea but is very different from the Pathfinder Sorcerer. If anything I would say it is closer to the old 3.5 Incarnum stuff.SOLD AGAIN!
I'll have to pick this up when I get home tonight.
That's just my initial impression on a quick read through, only bought the thing 5 minutes ago. The Class has an Anima Pool (kind of like Magic Points) that it create effects similar to magic items from. Each effect seems to be on or off sort of deal. Doesn't seem to create actual items more like Glowy Awesomeness.
Really like the sample character they made for the class; Zidi Wheatling, the Halfling Titan.Thanks to the OP for pointing these books out to me, I`m always looking for new Magic systems and this seems like a good one.
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Not a problem, I am always looking too. I stumbled on this while looking for a point based words of power system. it is awesome.
There are a bunch of changes that need to be made to use the system with pathfinder classes, but the classes in the system can easily be adapted. I am going to make a file for my players and I will put that up here in the next week or two as well.
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Ok, so I had a play test on Friday using a group of five players using this system at level 4. I had:
A Elven Necromancer (Arcanist)
A Dwarven Summoner (Arcanist)
A Half-Orc Fire Elementalist (Mage)
A Halfing Enchanter (Exulted)
A Human Supporter (Task Mage)
I ran them through the pathfinder scenario Citadel of Flame. Here are the notes that I have on the system for any one looking to use it.
1. The Summoning Specialist feat is over powered. It makes the summoner far to strong. Without it the summoner needs to negotiate or spend more power to call weaker creatures. With it, and some basic good building, he can call creatures with a CR equal to his level to help him.
2. An important note with the summoner is that no creature ever goes beyond helpful by default. And properly using the diplomacy rules help to balance the power of the school.
3. The Evoke death school is a very strong school. It was the primary power the necromancer used after he determined that his summoned undead were to weak (we did not have time to create custom undead so defaults were used). It is not over powered but it is strong.
4. The combination of buffs that can be applied are exceptionally higher than pathfinder. The party used a variety of powers to turn the fire mage into a melee warrior. He used his falshon and started with a 12 ac, +4 to hit and 29 HP and ended up with 23 ac, +9 to hit and 44 hp for the boss fight.
5. Cantrips are much more powerful than in pathfinder. The compel cantrip is roughly the same as the command spell. the summon cantrip can summon a bloody skeleton, the infuse force cantrip is magic weapon, etc. This is balanced by the limit of uses. Do not remove this limit.
6. The amount of spells a character can cast in this system is roughly equaly to the pathfinder system. the power of the spells varies from a good bit weaker to a good bit stronger, depending on what you are trying to do (straight damage is weaker, summoning and buffing is stronger, ect.).
7. Pathfinder magic vs EOM magic leaves the EOM players upset. The pathfinder characters can cast more spells as a standard action and the players found themselves unable to participate if they had to create a spell for the situation. One helpful solution we found was to have the 2 round castings take 2 standard and 2 move actions. So if started in round one it could be cast at the end of two and not at the beginning of the 3rd.
8. There was a general consensus by the players that evoke was underpowered for pathfinder where there are more hit points and such. This meant that many felt they could not directly engage in combat except to debuff. One possible solution to this is to increase the damage by adding +1 damage per dice rolled. The Fire elementalist disagreed. He had a 3d6+ blind light spell that he used effectively.
9. 2 players commented that abjur should have the amount of energy resistance increased to a minimum of 5 instead of 1 when used with pathfinder. Though we did not test this at all.
Overall I thought it was a very good play test. We did not get to use transform at all though. Almost every other school was played with and generally well received. We did not use traditions or tradition feats either. I hope this is helpful to all of you and provides useful information. feed back and questions are welcome. I will be running another play test with some changes and at level 10 in a month or so and will post the information on that as well. In the mean time I will answer any questions brought up.
I'm the writer of the 3.5 version of Elements of Magic.
Wow, I know this thread is years old, but it's making me want to retool EOM for PF2 when it comes out.