I'm working on trying to adapt my favorite prototype Archetype from 3.5, the Mystic Fire Knight paladin, a paladin capable of using a wizard's spellbook to prepare arcane spells. My idea is to thematically change paladin into an arcane caster, the reasoning being they were a paladin order to Aroden before he "died" so they use arcane magic since they've lost access to divine magic.
I want to strip away the divine implications of the core paladin abilities, like Divine Protection, and change them slightly to be more thematically appropriate. Perhaps changing divine protections to only giving you a bonus to saves against spells and spell-like abilities.
I guess what I'm looking for is some advice on how to replace some of the ablities and some balance issues. The original "archetype" offers some good ideas, like trading Channel Energy for more spells per level, but getting Greater Dispel as a spell-like ability at level 6 seems a bit too much.
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I like your idea of it functioning as a paladin of a fallen god that switched to casting arcane spells.
For a start, I think giving him the Medium's spell progression sounds good and have it and something else replace detect evil.
I like your idea of it functioning as a paladin of a fallen god that switched to casting arcane spells.
For a start, I think giving him the Medium's spell progression sounds good and have it and something else replace detect evil.
I was thinking something like giving it the Bard spells per day, but use the Wizard spell list. But Medium would work pretty well, too. I was also thinking of taking away the Detect Evil and Aura abilities, no divine magic means no aura of good, right?
I really need something to replace the various aura abilities with, I can't come up with anything thematically appropriate. I originally thought about the "Defense Against Magic" ability from the Spellbreaker Inquisitor archetype. There's actually some really good ideas to repurpos from that archetype. You can trade Divine Protection for Defense Against Magic that maybe progresses in place of the Aura of Faith, Aura of Justice, etc abilities.
Reflavor the Magus? Make an archetype that works for this purpose?
You can't make the class a 6-level spellcaster unless you reduce it to a 3/4 BAB class. But if you do that, you pretty much have an entirely different class.
Here's what I have come up with so far. The legend is as follows
- means a lost ability
~ means a slightly altered ability
+ means a new ability
Level 1:
- Aura of Good
- Detect Evil
~ Smite Evil slightly changes to causing spellcasters to require a concentration check for 1 round after hit or risk losing cast spells
[edit] I'm thinking about changing Smite Evil to Smite Magic, working the same way against enemies with actual spell casting abilities and half damage against enemies with spell-like abilities.
+ Spellbook: start play with a wizard's spellbook and 4 level-0 wizard spells, can prepare 2 per day plus 1 every 4 levels
Level 2:
- Divine Grace
~ Lay on Hands alters to giving temporary hit points that disappear after 10 minutes
Level 3:
- Aura of Courage
- Divine Health
- Mercy
+ Defense against Magic: choose a school of magic, gain +1 to saves against spells and spell-like abilities from that school.
+ Foil Casting: casting defensively DC in the paladin's threatened area increases by 2, this stacks with the Disruptive feat. Your Paladin levels count as fighter levels for the Disruptive feat, and feats that have Disruptive as a prerequisite.
+ Bonus spells per day: you gain a bonus spell slot of your highest level to prepare each day. any time you would gain a new mercy, you gain a new bonus spell.
Level 4:
- Channel Energy
+ Spell casting: you gain the ability to cast a number of spells per day equal to the Medium spells per day list, but you select spells from the wizard spell list. You record spells in your spell book just as a wizard would, except you do not select a specialized school. your spellcasting is based off of Intelligence, and you gain bonus spells from having high intelligence.
+ Improved Spellcasting: the paladin's caster level is equal to your paladin level.
Level 5:
~ Divine Bond: divine bond changes to Arcane Bond as the wizard ability, but you can only choose a weapon. you can grant your bonded weapon enhancement bonuses as a paladin would a bonded weapon.
continued from here it's kind of self explanatory. every time you get a mercy, you get a new bonus spell slot. the various Aura abilities are replaced with Defense against Magic, you select a new spell school and your previous selected spell schools gain an additional +1. I need some ideas for Holy Warrior. I'm thinking of making it like the Impervious ability from Spellbreaker.
[edit]
I'm considering the idea of giving this Paladin access to Arcanist Exploits or Magus Arcana in place of Mercies. What do people think of this idea?
You can't make the class a 6-level spellcaster unless you reduce it to a 3/4 BAB class. But if you do that, you pretty much have an entirely different class.
looking back, I think using the Medium spells per day list makes much more sense.
Instead of doing that strangeness with 1.5x caster level +2, just switch it to caster level = level. Also, that would be a logical extension of getting cantrips at 1st level.
Instead of Smite Evil, why not "Smite Mage"? Full damage against arcane spellcasters and enemies that cast as arcane spellcasters and 1/2 against enemies with SLAs? Not subject to alignment restrictions.
Perhaps Arcanist exploits or Magus Arcane Pool instead of Lay on Hands and Mercy?
the increased Caster level is a bit weird, I was copying it over from the original 3.5 version. your idea is probably better.
I originally thought about having Smite Evil change to Smite Magic, but I thought it might be too powerful if you let it work on everything with spells or spell like abilities, because that might as well just be everything after a while.
I hadn't considered giving it access to Arcanist Exploits in place of something. Might be an interesting addition in place of something else. Perhaps in place of Mercies?
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You might take a look at the Battle Scion from Kobold Press. It's essentially an 'arcane paladin' type of class—one with full base attack bonus, limited spell access (to arcane spells instead of divine), a spellbook, and a small set of interesting, flavorful special abilities.
It sounds like you might be able to use the class as is and just assign the flavor aspects you want or at least use some of the ideas and class abilities ...
The class is also part of the New Paths Compendium, if you're looking for LOTS of new classes :)
I've always loved the concept of the "arcane paladin". Here's a few of my creations to look at for ideas. The Arcane Champion is a Paladin/Arcanist hybrid, while the Arcane Knight is a new class based on the paladin and wizard.