Right, first class I've ever come up with! It's basically the bastard child of the 3.5e Warlock and the new Arcanist, never actually learning spells but gaining a default, powerful blast and a number of special abilities. It is also the living embodiment of the blaster caster.
Link is here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wA-DUO2SRorOb422Tn9Gn0UgC6L-4XEoAGUX1PS -PHY/edit?usp=sharing
Please be gentle, it's my first try at this. Oh, and a list of the arcane skills (WIP) is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15OFJB5z7pRGoV9-XdD49mb5wMMOmyDYF_y1JiNn 0rfs/edit?usp=sharing
I cannot find your stuff. The links dosent link and my Phone is bad for copying links like that.
You have hardly any content here. The only thing I see is the arcane skills that seem way too powerful. You should rename them as "Skills" are already existing game mechanics. Generally, classes shouldn't have powerful at-will blasts for a variety of reasons. Not only is ability economy an issue, but also it overloads the class's power into a single ability. The class becomes a boring one-trick pony.
If this is your first time homebrewing material, I highly recommend you start smaller, an archetype at the very least. Designing classes is very difficult, and your inexperience very clearly shows. I suggest you search for other homebrew warlock concepts as several people have tried converting the warlock to Pathfinder and adding their own spins to it.
Okay, first of all, ow. And also thanks for fixing the links. Second of all, to those people who said it's just a ranged fighter, YES. This is what it's supposed to be, plus a few cool powers...okay, yeah, those arcane skills are rather OP.
The arcane blasts were an intentional thing. Think of it as a fighter's sword, except it only gets better as the arcane font levels, and it can't be buffed except by the font.
The arcane skills, I'll admit I was running out of steam for(I constructed this whole thing in 2 days). I was going to add a few more weak-to-reasonable ones, and then divide the whole thing up; a few base ones, a few you can select at level 7+, a few at 15+, and then the arcane mastery at 20. I was kinda running out of ideas, so anyone who wants to, feel free to sling a couple ideas at me(unless this is literally the first post you've made on the forums, in which case you're just as noobish as me, friend!)
Oh, and yeah, I really dislike the names for the class and the powers. Any suggestions?
I hate to sound harsh, but the class is kind of a mess. That worries me because it currently has only three class features.
1) Making them a ranged fighter with an at-will blast is a heavily flawed idea for many reasons. The class will suffer the same problem as the fighter in having very little usefulness to his party outside of dealing damage in a specific way. Even the warlock suffered from this.
2) The arcane blast is not comparable to a ranged weapon attack in any way. It does not consume ammunition. It does not require a weapon. The class does not need free hands to do it. The damage automatically increases with level. It's a touch attack, which basically guarantees it will hit at higher levels (touch AC doesn't scale with monster difficulty), unlike a normal weapon that targets normal AC. Force damage bypasses all DR and spell resistance and can hit incorporeal.
3) At-will blasts are not really something that Pathfinder has. Every class in the game with a similar feature has a daily limit. The alchemist is a great example of this. In fact, the alchemist makes a great model to follow as it's a class with a blasting ability and a talent pool.
4) Arcane blast deals a die of damage each level and can be increased. This is insanely powerful for a ranged blast. All comparable abilities deal a die of damage each odd level.
5) Your class doesn't really fit any of the established structures in the game. Generally, classes fall into one of the following archetypes. These archetypes are so prevalent that Sean K Reynolds has based his new game's class system on this.
A) Full Martial: This is a class almost fully dedicated to combat. They have great proficiencies and abilities that boost their damage. They typically have a Full BAB/d10 HD, 4+Int skills, and one or two good saves. However, they may have 4-level spellcasting or a talent pool, but never higher than that. Barbarians and rangers are good examples.
B) Gish: This is a class that can cast spells but also can fight well. They typically have 3/4 BAB / d8 HD, one good save, and 6-level arcane spellcasting. In addition, these classes typically have very powerful class features as a trade-off for weaker spellcasting and fighting ability. Bards, magi, and inquisitors are good examples.
C) Full Divine: This class can fight and cast 9th level divine spells. They usually have a 3/4 BAb, d8 HD, 2+Int skills, and two good saves. The reason they have a medium BAB (instead of a slow BAB like a wizard) is because divine spells are typically buffs and out of combat utility. However, because they have 9th level spells, their class features are usually not as strong. Oracles and druids are good examples.
D) Full Arcane: This class primarily contributes to the party by casting powerful arcane spells. However, this comes at the cost of low combat statistics. They typically have a 1/2 BAB, d6 HD, 2+Int skills, and 9-level arcane spells. They usually have only one or two class features as 9-level spellcasting is considered their primary class feature.
6) You cannot arbitrarily set the BAB and save progressions to whatever numbers you please. The game establishes three types of BAB progressions and two types of save progressions. Every creature/class has either a fast BAB (like a fighter), a medium BAB (like a bard), or a slow BAB (like a wizard). The Hit Die also correlate with the BAB. A class with a fast BAB has a d10, a medium BAB has a d8, and a slow BAB has a d6. Each class/creature has one or two "good" saves. A fighter has a good Fortitude save, but bad Reflex and Will saves. The barbarian and monk are exceptions to the above guidelines. The barbarian is the only class in the game with a d12 Hit Die. The monk is the only class in the game with three good saves.
7) The class's high concept is really weak. A class needs a distinct identity, both mechanically and flavor-wise. A class needs to be something profession/lifestyle-wise exists in the game world. It must have enough uniqueness to give it identity and set it apart from other classes. At the same time, it must be general enough to serve as a foundation for multiple character concepts. I'm not seeing that here. Even the base arcanist was criticized for not having a distinct enough identity.
8) Finally, the class's mechanics are really ill-inspired. A class needs more than a blast and a talent pool. (Quite honestly, I have a bad habit of having the bulk of my classes be a talent pool. While it gives the player more agency, the class's identity suffers as a result.)
I know I dumped a lot of criticism on you. If you must only take one thing from this post, it's that class design is really hard. I find the best way to start is to brainstorm a solid concept, pick one of the typical archetypes (as described above), and then write an outline of the class's abilities. Once you're confident with the ability mechanics and had them peer reviewed, then start writing out the formal description of them.
Okay, yeah, I didn't really think this through. I fixed the save progression and BAB. Archetype-wise, this is really just a gish; it's like the magus, except that if you want you can go full-on ranged blasting. I've weakened the arcane blast(on the arcane font sheet at least, it'll take me a little while to go back through all the arcane skills and fix them). I put the at-will blasts thing in there on purpose; it came about after I got really tired of running out of Magic Missiles at 1st level and having to work with the terrible Acid Splash. This is the core of the class. I could fix touch AC...would really hurt the class, but I could do it. And it has a talent pool so big you could swim in it, yes. I'm going to try and work in a few out-of-combat use talents...hey, there's an idea! Arcane talents! Much better name than arcane skills.
Anyway, your last concern: Flavor.
*starts smiling*
You want flavor?
*smile turns evil*
I'll show you flavor!
*cackling laugh* *thunder*
I'LL SHOW YOU ALL! BWAHAHAHA!
*cough* Sorry about that. But the flavor's up on the arcane font class sheet now. Take a look!
Oh, and please throw some criticism on the arcane skills list too. These are just as important as the rest!
EDIT: Whoops, just realized I only set it to "View." Fixed that!
edited some more stuff
Okay, I feel like a dork. Gish is the wrong term for this. It's intended to be in the thick of combat, yes, but it's also intended to use arcane blasts of energy. I don't want to duplicate the magus. Hmmm...any suggestions for a nooblet?
Okay, I feel like a dork. Gish is the wrong term for this. It's intended to be in the thick of combat, yes, but it's also intended to use arcane blasts of energy. I don't want to duplicate the magus. Hmmm...any suggestions for a nooblet?
add spells, very thin class right now.
Spells just don't fit this class. If a wizard is a Gatling gun and a sorcerer is a rocket launcher, then this guy is an air strike. Wizards have a hail of deadly bullets, sorcerers have explosive power, but both can lock down one target. This guy has no finesse, no precision, and little control. He basically just points at things and makes them go boom. And spells are channeling arcane energy into certain descriptions. You can Fly(sort of) with Gravitational Negation, Fireball with the fire arcane blast and the Explosive blast mod, and otherwise mimic a whole host of spells-but that takes careful talent ad training. The arcane font shouldn't get spells because he's too full of energy. Maybe you could make a background where a font tried to be a sorcerer and his first magic missile exploded literally everywhere (Shockwave Blast, anyone?) instead of neatly zapping his target, but fonts don't get real spells.
You need a clearly defined high concept. You must define your criteria and concept for this class. Write down what this class will be all about. Once your high concept is clearly defined, you can start making design decisions towards that goal.
When you started this, you wanted to make a blaster caster without any spells. That's not really going to work without it just being a less refined version of the 3.5e warlock, which has already been done several times. It also doesn't make any sense why a class called "arcane font" centered around blasting people with magic cannot cast any spells.
Okay, you are very right. Sorry about that. Hmmm...
Okay, here's the concept. It's a class that's basically a tactical nuke. The flavor is that he is literally a living wellspring of arcane force. Sorcerers have power bubbling up from within them. Arcane fonts, on the other hand, literally are raw arcane power. A sorcerer can cast spells because they have internal energy. An arcane font overloads spells. An arcane font would do just as well casting a traditional spell as a nuclear reactor would do plugging into just a single lightbulb. What they do have are a very particular set of skills, skills they have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make them a nightmare for people like their enemies(thank you, Liam Neeson). One might call them...talents. They have learned to hone their power into specific forms that let them do amazing things, like blast a hole in the fabric of the plane and travel on a wave of arcane power, or channel lightning into their blasts of raw energy, or slip the surly bonds of earth, or wield weapons forged of arcane energy. They're a very versatile class, drawing on their own internal pool of arcane energy. When the Tarrasque comes out, they don't fall back to rain spells, or heal their allies. They charge.
Does this work?
That sounds rather similar to the eldritch font. You need to make it more distinct. Keep iterating on it.
Yeah, that's more or less where I got the inspiration. Here's the key difference: An eldritch font has, with great ingenuity, opened a stopper and gathered the resulting geyser of magical power. An arcane font, on the other hand, was born in the right place to become part of the magical force of the world. Here's a little more fluff (HEADCANON ALERT!):
Magic comes from places where the world is broken. It comes from places where there are 91-degree angles to perfect squares, where you can look up and see the road curving away above you, where parallel lines meet a few feet away. These places are rifts into the impossible nothingness between planes, and the sources of magic. And the arcane font is lucky-or unlucky-enough to have one of those rifts inside of them. A sorcerer's power comes from their blood, suffused with this energy. An arcanist has discovered how to create tiny, temporary rifts to draw power from. The eldritch font archetype represents an arcanist who has discovered an easy way to open a rift. The arcane font, however, is lucky-or unlucky-enough to have a permanent rift. An arcanist can gather energy to themselves and cleverly spin spells from the raw energy. An eldritch font can open a small rift to suffuse a spell with power. But an arcane font eats, drinks, and breathes that power. Their rift never closes. They can't craft spells, because they overload them before the spell's components are complete. The cleverest of fonts, though, learn to use their energy in different ways. They direct it at the fabric of the plane itself, cracking it to travel along a wave of arcane energy. They wield blades of energy, channel power into the weapons of their allies, and-most of all-release it in powerful bursts.
I think you should spaz this up by making it a gish that can do ranged but also maybe some melee touch attacks, some defensive abilities.
give it a few low level abilities that may or may not scale, like bravery, divine grace or Wild Empathy.
Basically, I started thinking it might be cool as a guy who can just touch something and destroy it, maybe on accident. so make him have some ranged ability, namely the blast and keep in short range, and then when they move into melee, apply force blast to center of chest.
the problem: this means you can't get better with items and thus will fall off at later levels or become powerful at your WBL goes to other stuff.
P.S. in pathfinder, magic comes from crazy complicated math, so no impossibilities but extremely accurate possibilities. charisma based casters tend to just do it without thinking though, usually because magic is part of their nature.
Huh. I never knew about the math thing. Where's the source for that? Oh, and they have d8 HP and more skills now, plus a Cleric-style BAB and proficiency in simple weapons and light armor. They also have a number of talents to make things mean in close combat. So you *can* build a melee arcane font, or you could specialize in blasting. Hooray for versatility!
Huh. I never knew about the math thing. Where's the source for that? Oh, and they have d8 HP and more skills now, plus a Cleric-style BAB and proficiency in simple weapons and light armor. They also have a number of talents to make things mean in close combat. So you *can* build a melee arcane font, or you could specialize in blasting. Hooray for versatility!
it's inferred based on wizard spell books being written in mathematical code and stuff like the sacred geometry feat.
Huh. I never thought of it that way. I always thought of wizard spells as using the way certain words and components fold the plane to channel magic along the folds. The whole math thing is just looking at it logically, and calculating exactly how the folds look. Sorcerers create the channels themselves by raw will. An arcane font is less a fold than a tear.
Huh. I never thought of it that way. I always thought of wizard spells as using the way certain words and components fold the plane to channel magic along the folds. The whole math thing is just looking at it logically, and calculating exactly how the folds look. Sorcerers create the channels themselves by raw will. An arcane font is less a fold than a tear.
also, because of things like stilled and quieted spells you don't need to do any movements and casting the spell becomes completely mental. This also means that spells have millions of different interpretations and components and word combinations. There's a spell that gives bonuses to spells if their spoken in draconic for instance. it seems you simply need to understand how magic works to use it.
Yeah, I kinda thought of things like Eschew Materials and Still Spell were replacing the various parts of the spell with your own raw will. Eschew Materials, Still Spell, and Silent Spell all together were the mark of a master wizard who knew how the spell worked perfectly, and-with great concentration-could replace everything with his thoughts and his will.