I saw an archetype version of the Spellslinger yesterday. I thought it would work better as a full class. I took all of the level 1 abilities from the spellslinger wizard archetype to hand to this class at level 1. I think they are working well enough.
Past that, I am wondering what opinion people have regarding the Spell Round escapade. I think things with it are balanced well enough since it adds an attack roll to a spell that otherwise would not require one, but I am still interested in other opinions.
I know some people don't like Arcanist spellcasting, but I am not going to take that out. I sort of consider "Clear Head" to be a signature class feature and that really doesn't make much sense otherwise.
You can prepare more spells than they have slots for per day. I understand you want the Clear Head class feature to be useful, but this doesn't make sense.
Wish for 500 GP or 1 single point of strength damage is absolutely too much, even with the restrictions. It should not even be remotely possible for a 6 level caster to access Wish except through specific items. With Wish, you can
Duplicate Wizard/Sorcerer spells of 8th level and lower.
Duplicate any non-Wizard/Sorcerer spells of 7th level and lower.
Resurrect a dead party member. Or use True Resurrection on them with a second Wish (1000 gold total).
Undo misfortune.
Cure any ailment.
Wish has no place in a caster like this. It doesn't matter if it's level 20 and a capstone. A 9th level spell this powerful has a specific price of 25000 gold for a reason. Plus a 9 level caster still doesn't get to cheat the system this bad, why should a 6 level caster do it? (Yeah yeah, Summoner.)
It's not a bad idea. I've wanted an expanded Spellslinger myself, but this is just too over the top.
P.S. I like some of your Deeds. Others could use a rewrite.
You can prepare more spells than they have slots for per day. I understand you want the Clear Head class feature to be useful, but this doesn't make sense.
Wish for 500 GP or 1 single point of strength damage is absolutely too much, even with the restrictions. It should not even be remotely possible for a 6 level caster to access Wish except through specific items. With Wish, you can
Duplicate Wizard/Sorcerer spells of 8th level and lower.
Duplicate any non-Wizard/Sorcerer spells of 7th level and lower.
Resurrect a dead party member. Or use True Resurrection on them with a second Wish (1000 gold total).
Undo misfortune.
Cure any ailment.Wish has no place in a caster like this. It doesn't matter if it's level 20 and a capstone. A 9th level spell this powerful has a specific price of 25000 gold for a reason. Plus a 9 level caster still doesn't get to cheat the system this bad, why should a 6 level caster do it? (Yeah yeah, Summoner.)
It's not a bad idea. I've wanted an expanded Spellslinger myself, but this is just too over the top.
P.S. I like some of your Deeds. Others could use a rewrite.
Well, I really don't give a crap about capstone abilities if I am going to be perfectly honest. I think they are kind of a joke as you spend only a very brief bit of your career at that level and your cash and caster friends have given you all the powers of a god by that level. I am also not sure that I agree it is really overly powerful compared to a lot of existing mechanics in the game. Still, I will probably replace it if there is an idea that I like more.
Edit: I have actually already decided to change it to replicating spells and asking for special favors. In a post-spell kenning world, I am really not too worried about giving this to the Spellslinger at level 20. I also adjusted the cost mitigation to make blood money a little less exploitable when used in conjunction with the wish.
What needs rewrites? That seems somewhat more immediately interesting to me.
Fastest Spellgun comes too late, should be split in two: Initiative bonus, and the Haste effect. Covering Spellfire does not specify a duration, unless you intend it to mean they can never take an AoO so long as you have one point. Spell Round is okay, but you're giving a very nearly free bypass to SR by doing this.
Fastest Spellgun comes too late, should be split in two: Initiative bonus, and the Haste effect. Covering Spellfire does not specify a duration, unless you intend it to mean they can never take an AoO so long as you have one point. Spell Round is okay, but you're giving a very nearly free bypass to SR by doing this.
Maybe I should add the initiative bonus as a non-escapade class feature and then I can edit fastest spellgun to work slightly differently. Probably gonna change that now.
Interesting. I wonder how resource management works with this class, since you can convert spells into cleverness points.
A few observations:
Arcane gun, last sentence: should say spell cast (instead of sacrificed).
Cleverness: Should mention that it is considered grit for the purpose of feats/items
Improvisational Spell Components: Odd wording with the hand. Maybe the gun could work as arcane bond?
Improvisational Energy Ray: should be (sp). Do spell-like abilities benefit from arcane gun?
Interesting. I wonder how resource management works with this class, since you can convert spells into cleverness points.
A few observations:
Arcane gun, last sentence: should say spell cast (instead of sacrificed).
Cleverness: Should mention that it is considered grit for the purpose of feats/items
Improvisational Spell Components: Odd wording with the hand. Maybe the gun could work as arcane bond?
Improvisational Energy Ray: should be (sp). Do spell-like abilities benefit from arcane gun?
Altered arcane gun (that wording was left over from the archetype wording).
I added that bit to cleverness.
I want that Improvisational Spell Components to be a little more versatile than that bit of an arcane bond (but I will work on rewording it).
Good catch on spell ray. I don't think spell-like abilities should work with the arcane gun for the most part. I have changed that to be a little more obvious in the arcane gun description. I feel like it is already clear enough for the purposes of spell round.
I'm not that big of a fan of it. At the very least, the class needs another draft.
1) I'm not really a big fan of the pseudo-grit mechanic, especially when most of the abilities don't really capture my attention. The ones that do need some refinement. In particular, spell rounds should be its own class feature rather than take up multiple deed slots. Cleverness is an awkward name -- something like "cunning" flows better.
2) I really like the concept of Calculated Trajectory. I've never seen a "studied combat" mechanic used for surveying an area. It's a shame all it does is grant an Intelligence bonus on an attack roll. It could have been fleshed out into an impressive class feature with the class revolving around it.
3) The spell and cleverness economy is a mess. You got two abilities that modify the maximum cleverness. You can "forget" spells and yet cast spells already cast. I already don't like the arcanist's spellcasting because it has too much book keeping for my tastes. This class greatly amplifies it.
4) Clear Headed doesn't appear very thought out. The main benefit of clear headed is increasing the number of spell rounds you can have. But think about that for a moment. You're losing spell slots so you can spend more spell slots. That's an antipattern, is especially bad when you're adamant about making this a major class feature.
5) Why mage bullets? That ability is horrible. It's almost never good to lose a spell just to give your weapon a minor boost for one combat. Most GMs I talked to let wizard spellslingers give up that ability in exchange for keeping cantrips because it's so awful. I always firmly believed the original spellslinger's mage bullets should have been an arcane pool. This class already has a resource pool so it begs the question why make you have to give up spells.
6) There's no such thing as "thunder damage."
7) I really feel like this should have been a magus archetype. Replace spell combat with arcane gun, which would be amazing when paired with arcane pool. Let spellstrike work with firearms. Convert the escapades you like into magus arcana that cost arcane pool points instead of cleverness.
I'm not that big of a fan of it. At the very least, the class needs another draft.
1) I'm not really a big fan of the pseudo-grit mechanic, especially when most of the abilities don't really capture my attention. The ones that do need some refinement. In particular, spell rounds should be its own class feature rather than take up multiple deed slots. Cleverness is an awkward name -- something like "cunning" flows better.
2) I really like the concept of Calculated Trajectory. I've never seen a "studied combat" mechanic used for surveying an area. It's a shame all it does is grant an Intelligence bonus on an attack roll. It could have been fleshed out into an impressive class feature with the class revolving around it.
3) The spell and cleverness economy is a mess. You got two abilities that modify the maximum cleverness. You can "forget" spells and yet cast spells already cast. I already don't like the arcanist's spellcasting because it has too much book keeping for my tastes. This class greatly amplifies it.
4) Clear Headed doesn't appear very thought out. The main benefit of clear headed is increasing the number of spell rounds you can have. But think about that for a moment. You're losing spell slots so you can spend more spell slots. That's an antipattern, is especially bad when you're adamant about making this a major class feature.
5) Why mage bullets? That ability is horrible. It's almost never good to lose a spell just to give your weapon a minor boost for one combat. Most GMs I talked to let wizard spellslingers give up that ability in exchange for keeping cantrips because it's so awful. I always firmly believed the original spellslinger's mage bullets should have been an arcane pool. This class already has a resource pool so it begs the question why make you have to give up spells.
6) There's no such thing as "thunder damage."
7) I really feel like this should have been a magus archetype. Replace spell combat with arcane gun, which would be amazing when paired with arcane...
1) *shrugs* I like pseudo grit. It is a conditional refilling pool and I like the flavor of that.
2) Well, I am pretty sure that the investigator class pretty much is what you are talking about, already. I love the investigator, though. It is maybe my favorite class, official or otherwise.
3) I would say this class has less book keeping than the readied 3/4 casters (the magus, alchemist, investigator, and war priest). I think it is generally easier to have a spell list that you choose in the morning rather than choosing portfolios of 1 use spells, especially once you start to consider that more bonus spells means you have more specific spells to choose each morning. The spell economy is unique but that is what I am going for.
4) You are not losing spell slots. You are losing readied spells. You exchange your versatility for immediate effectiveness. In a lot of ways, the class is designed to actually get simpler as the day progresses. I also like the built-in strategy of readying some spell bullets of something you really like and then burning that spell from your memory.
5) Well for most of your career, you are dropping spells to improve the save DCs and accuracy of the spells that you use afterwards (which I think is generally pretty worthwhile). I am not saying the ability is super great, but this class can do other great stuff.
6) Ha. Sonic damage then. I am thinking of other systems. (This was easily fixed)
7) I strongly disagree. The magus would need to be jury rigged pretty significantly to accommodate ranged combat (as people discussed in the magus archetype version of the spellslinger that was posted just yesterday). I also like the grit mechanics (especially in regards to spell round which I thinks worked well tied to the max of a small resource pool) as well as my saves, and skill list. I also like arcanist style casting and the clear head class ability of course.
I have redone the capstone and reworked some of the limitations on Clear Head. I began to think that Clear Head made cleverness too abundant when the spellslinger is running out of spells. I was/am not too too worried about it since most of the best escapades require spells.