Final Fantasy Black Mage in 5e; how would you do it?

[QuietBrowser]

Like the title says, I'm curious. I've played several of FF's earlier, more "DND-inspired" titles, and I've long had a soft spot in my heart for the series' resident master of blasting, the Black Mage.

So, in 5e, how would you do a character based on the Black Mage class?

Just take an Evoker and maybe give it some customised fluff and/or new spells?

Or make it a whole new Wizard Tradition?

Alternatively, perhaps a custom Sorcerer "Soul" (whatever their multi-faceted class option is, I don't know) would be best, since FF Black mages have a lot less flexibility in terms of power than D&D Evokers do?

I'm curious, so I thought I'd poke around here and get peoples' opinions.

[Lorathorn]

I would imagine a Warlock to be a better fit.

[TheRavyn]

I made a more Sword & Sorcery - flavored Sorcerer origin called the "Tainted Soul".

http://beyondtheblackgate.blogspot.com/2015/03/new-5e-sorcerous-origin-tain ted-soul.html

I don't know if that's really equivalent to FF's Black Mage though, he always just struck me as the game's equivalent of D&D's Magic User, with the White Mage being the cleric, and the Red Mage being the Fighter/Magic User.

[Ganryu]

Can someone explain what sword & sorcery flavoured means?

[Steve Geddes]

To me it means a genre in which magic is rarer and more dangerous than a typical, high fantasy setting.

More Conan, less Pug.

[houser2112]

I would definitely say the Evoker Wizard is the best, given that my experience playing as a Black Mage is limited to FF1 (NES) and FFTactics (PSX).

As you say, there is a lot more to the Evocation school than the elemental blasty spells that are the hallmark of the BM (Fire/Ice/Bolt 1-4, and Flare), but just about everything the BM does is in Evocation.

As for the rest:

• The Poison spell is best reflected by the Necromancy spell ray of sickness (in that it inflicts the poisoned condition rather than just doing poison damage, like chromatic orb, cloudkill or poison spray).
  
• Toad maps pretty neatly to the Transmutation spell polymorph.
  
• Death is best matched by the Enchantment (curiously, not Necromancy) spell power word kill.

All of these spells are available to both the Sorcerer and Wizard. The Evocation Wizard will be good with all the Evocation spells, but the Sorcerer is pretty much married to a particular element for the same effectiveness (adding ability score to spell damage). In order to use a Sorcerer to do Black Mage stuff equally well across all elements, you'd need to custom design a Sorcerous Origin. That, combined with the fact that the only feature Sorcerers have the Wizards don't is Metamagic, I'd definitely choose Evoker to emulate the Black Mage.