While most wizards diversify their study of the many schools of magic, arcane scholars devote more time to the research of other arcane topics, as well as a greater mastery of a single school of magic. While this leaves them lacking the sheer diversity of others, it grants them insight related to their studies that few others can manage.
Focused Arcane School
At first level an arcane scholar must select a school of magic, other than universal, to specialize in. This choice must be made at 1st level, and once made, it cannot be changed.
The arcane scholar treats all other schools, except for universal, as opposition schools. A scholar who prepares spells from their opposition schools must use two spell slots of that level to prepare the spell. In addition, they take a –4 penalty on any skill checks made when crafting a magic item that has a spell from one of their opposition schools as a prerequisite.
Each arcane school gives the scholar a number of school powers, as presented in Arcane Schools.
This ability alters arcane school.
Breadth of Knowledge
An arcane scholar adds half their class level (minimum 1) on all Knowledge skill checks and may make all Knowledge skill checks untrained.
This ability replaces Arcane Bond
Bonus Feat
At 2nd level and every 2 levels thereafter the arcane scholar gains a bonus feat, as per the wizard ability of the same name.
This replaces the wizard's standard bonus feat progression (5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th level)
Meh, screw it, lets go all out and not worry about it being called OP
Focused Arcane School
At first level an arcane scholar must select a school of magic, other than universal, to specialize in. This choice must be made at 1st level, and once made, it cannot be changed.
The arcane scholar treats all other schools, except for universal, as opposition schools. A scholar who prepares spells from their opposition schools must use two spell slots of that level to prepare the spell. In addition, they take a –4 penalty on any skill checks made when crafting a magic item that has a spell from one of their opposition schools as a prerequisite.
Each arcane school gives the scholar a number of school powers, as presented in Arcane Schools.
In addition, when casting spells of their specialized school, the arcane scholar treats their caster level and the DC of saves against those spells as one higher. Once per day they may double this bonus. At 10th and 20th level this bonus increases by 1 to a maximum of a +3 to caster level and save DCs at 20th level.
This ability alters arcane school and replaces arcane bond.
Breadth of Knowledge
An arcane scholar adds half their class level (minimum 1) on all Knowledge skill checks and may make all Knowledge skill checks untrained.
Bonus Feat
At 2nd level and every 2 levels thereafter the arcane scholar gains a bonus feat, as per the wizard ability of the same name.
This replaces the wizard's standard bonus feat progression (5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th level)
Arcane discoveries are nice, as is a bonus to CL and DCs, but definitely not worth 7 opposed schools. Honestly anything worth 7 opposed schools would probably be hilariously OP.
Really? Then I think I need to break this more, as limited spellcasting (mono school) is kind of the goal. But it also needs to be general enough to work no matter which school they select.
How about a build up to a 20th level built in spell perfection for all spells of that school.
Metamagic Mastery (Su)
At 8th level, you can apply any one metamagic feat that you know to a spell of your specialized school you are about to cast. This does not alter the level of the spell or the casting time. You can use this ability once per day at 8th level and one additional time per day for every two arcane scholar levels you possess beyond 8th. Any time you use this ability to apply a metamagic feat that increases the spell level by more than 1, you must use an additional daily usage for each level above 1 that the feat adds to the spell. Even though this ability does not modify the spell's actual level, you cannot use this ability to cast a spell whose modified spell level would be above the level of the highest-level spell that you are capable of casting. This abiloty is replaced by School Mastery at 20th level.
School Mastery
At 20th level the arcane scholar learns to perfect spells of their specialized school. They treat all spells of their specialized school as if they had the spell perfection feat for that spell.
A decent setup, overall, but every School other than your Specialty is Opposition? YIKES! I understand you're trying for balance with all those bonus feats, but that's too much without changes much more radical than to be found in a Class Archetype.
My suggestion is simple: "Invert" the normal Opposition School rules so that the Archetype has its Specialty School, gets to pick 2 other Schools that are not Opposition, and the rest are Opposition. Thus they have a modicum of versatility to fall back on when their favored School has nothing to offer.
Hrm, I like that too. 5 opposition schools for higher DCs and Caster level for one school, as well as the 6 bonus feats. That could definitely work. But now that I've thought out and justified to myself the spell perfection, it's kind of hard to give it up now, it's pretty flavorful for extremely focused study
Actually, I could drop the school powers to bring in the spell perfection
Focused Arcane School
At first level an arcane scholar must select a school of magic, other than universal, to specialize in and 2 other schools to be proficient in. This choice must be made at 1st level, and once made, it cannot be changed.
The arcane scholar treats all schools other than their specialized school and proficient schools as opposition schools. A scholar who prepares spells from their opposition schools must use two spell slots of that level to prepare the spell. In addition, they take a –4 penalty on any skill checks made when crafting a magic item that has a spell from one of their opposition schools as a prerequisite.
The arcane scholar gains a number of powers from their specialized school as presented in Arcane Schools.
In addition, when casting spells of their specialized school, the arcane scholar treats their caster level and the DC of saves against those spells as one higher. At 12th level this bonus increases to 2.
This ability alters arcane school and replaces arcane bond.
Bonus Feat
At 2nd level and every 2 levels thereafter the arcane scholar gains a bonus feat, as per the wizard ability of the same name.
This replaces the wizard's standard bonus feat progression (5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th level)
Metamagic Mastery
At 8th level, you can apply any one metamagic feat that you know to a spell of your specialized school you are about to cast. This does not alter the level of the spell or the casting time. You can use this ability once per day at 8th level and one additional time per day for every two arcane scholar levels you possess beyond 8th. Any time you use this ability to apply a metamagic feat that increases the spell level by more than 1, you must use an additional daily usage for each level above 1 that the feat adds to the spell. Even though this ability does not modify the spell's actual level, you cannot use this ability to cast a spell whose modified spell level would be above the level of the highest-level spell that you are capable of casting. This abiloty is replaced by School Perfection at 20th level.
School Perfection
At 20th level the arcane scholar learns to perfect spells of their specialized school. They treat all spells of their specialized school as if they had the spell perfection feat for that spell.
A good compromise for a more focused wizard would be to reduce the caster level for all spells that belong to non-specialized schools. That way, the wizard can only cast high-level spells that belong to his school, and any other spells are considerably weaker. That opens up design space without completely taking away versatility.
Why all the bonus feats? Wizards already get plenty of them. It would be more interesting if you expanded the arcane school abilities for each school of magic. Keep in mind that some schools offer much more options than others. A focused transmuter is still very versatile compared to a diviner, for example. I guess a diviner could pick up Arcane Blast at 10th level, but it would still be nice to have an offensive 'brain drain' ability. Or a telepathic buff power to boost your allies.
Bonuses to save DCs and CL are very unbalancing (especially since you can use all those bonus feats to pick up Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus). It is better design to create synergy effects that smart players can use to their advantage (for example, an ability that makes fire spells more effective against a creature that is already on fire).
I like the advice, and love the name, one of my favorite RP spells in the game.
I was looking for a more straightforward approach to how I was building the class, which involved a couple hundred abilities based on what topic they were researching.
The bonus feats are more to give interesting options to an otherwise barren class table. Yeah they get all the spells, but this is more of a major reduction of that. Even adding abilities to the specialist schools, while tempting, is quite a feat. And adding synergy bonuses like that, also is still pretty broad for an archetype.
As for your idea on reduced caster level or DCs for spells not of their specialized school, that's actually pretty tempting as it still allows versatility. I may consider it, but perhaps with more than standard opposition schools (3 perhaps).
Actually the synergy ability would be a little better designed in Discoveries
If you want some more divination spells consider poaching some from the psychic spell list and messing with the flavour/names a bit.
Hrm... I think I'm going to fold back in bardic knowledge, and add more bonus languages as my original design called for, which represents scholastic study above a normal wizard.
I'll drop the DC, Caster Level and metamagic options, have 4 opposition schools (double normal), and one specialized school, with spell theft built into it. Then allow another opposition school to select a descriptor to be treated as part of your specialized school.
Then I'll add in another set of bonuses (2 abilities each) based on if they want to focus on metamagic, class ability theft (revalation/bloodline/domain/etc), a second specialized school, or spell power (DCs and CLs).
No relation? I'd recognize cousin Arky anywhere.
Rules for the design:
Base line:
-Bardic Knowledge
-4 opposition Schools, 1 additional for a Descriptor
- +1 on saves and skill checks related to your specialized school
-Spell Theft for specialized school
Additional Abilities (2-3 for each)
-Metamagic Focus (Bonus metamagic, Metamagic Mastery, School Perfection)
-Domain (domain spells treated as specialized, added to spell list, +1 DC if they already are specialized)
-Bloodline (first, 3rd/9th, 15th allow other powers as a bonus feat use, bloodline spells treated as specialized, as with cleric)
-Revalation/Mystery (as sorcerer/cleric)
-Second Specialized School (Can't be opposition school)
-Spell Power (Bonus on DCs, Caster Level, Recall a cast spell)
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