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When I first saw the title I was expecting the 'blue mage' from that 3.5 3PP book 'Nympology: the Guide to Blue Magic' (not the kind of nymphs you're thinking of lol).
Alas I am not that familiar with Final Fantasy, so I have nothing to go off of, but I can say that if he is a 'mage', he should be able to cast spells, no. Forgive me if my utter un-knowledge has caused a grievous faux pas on my part.
Can I just say that Kazarath's response is hilarious.
Gannerthehunter, nice stab at the blue mage, I'll post again with more detailed feedback soon. =)
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In Final Fantasy, blue magic is the magic of masochism. A blue mage has a chance to learn any ability he is hurt by. Many monster abilities are far more impressive in the hands of player characters, so a blue mage that has taken hits from the rarer and deadlier monsters can do some frightening things.
I am corrupted! Corrupted! You hear me?! When I saw the title I thought of Final Fantasy first and only. Blue Magic adult supplement haven't crossed my mind until mentioned by Kazarath.
Disclaimer: I am only familiar with FF6Advance Blue Mage and I must admit that I never bothered with learning Strago all the possible abilities. It was just that there were lots of much more interesting characters.
Now, for some early opinions:
Blue Magic: You are referring to filling in bestiary entry as a condition of retaining the ability permanently. You should expand information about the bestiary (probably in a similar way to description of spellbook for Wizards). Also, I don't see any limit about number of special abilities that can be learned with this ability and clear description how abilities are used. Please, clarify if Blue Energy points are spent while learning a new ability or using ability already learned.
Blue Energy: I always thought about collecting lores from monster as Intelligence-based not Charisma-based.
Azure Knowledge: I'd make it work like Bardic Knowledge limited to monster lore checks, i.e. adds half class level (minimum +1) to Knowledge checks and allows taking 10 on Knowledge checks while identifying monster abilities/weaknesses. BTW: You described Azure Knowledge twice.
Improved Azure Knowledge: Does it allow taking 20 on monster lore checks or grants +20 bonus to monster lore checks?
Bonded weapon: I don't recall Strago having any sabre - I assume that it is based on another part of FF?
I can't speak too much on the blue mage, I only played FF10 and the one character that had this ability I really quit working with. But it seems to me that you may need to change the name. Blue mage, to dnd players says he's a mage in which place he would rely more heavily on his spells than physically attacking. If this is true then he will need some spells to start the game with, if he's more of a fighter that dabbles in magic then he's mostly fine as written. You may want to think about giving him some style of faster recovery after being hit with these monsters special ability. Most special abilities and attacks are meant to do serious harm if hit with the full blast and with this character volunteering to take the hard hits he will be keeping the party healer busy just getting him back into fighting shape. You need a limit on what and how many times you can use these special attacks per day, as written the player could take one serious hit, rely on either running or his party bailing him out and then can spam that one special ability every round for every other fight. Taking things a completely different route, would this class work better as a prestige class? Maybe have a requirement of X ranks in knowledge monster or you have to have the bards lore ability to qualify?
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I can't speak too much on the blue mage, I only played FF10 and the one character that had this ability I really quit working with. But it seems to me that you may need to change the name. Blue mage, to dnd players says he's a mage in which place he would rely more heavily on his spells than physically attacking. If this is true then he will need some spells to start the game with, if he's more of a fighter that dabbles in magic then he's mostly fine as written. You may want to think about giving him some style of faster recovery after being hit with these monsters special ability. Most special abilities and attacks are meant to do serious harm if hit with the full blast and with this character volunteering to take the hard hits he will be keeping the party healer busy just getting him back into fighting shape. You need a limit on what and how many times you can use these special attacks per day, as written the player could take one serious hit, rely on either running or his party bailing him out and then can spam that one special ability every round for every other fight. Taking things a completely different route, would this class work better as a prestige class? Maybe have a requirement of X ranks in knowledge monster or you have to have the bards lore ability to qualify?
I agree with the idea that taking the brunt of the monsters' special abilities will be very painful. I would suggest you think about giving the character the Evasion ability, and then when he makes a save, instead of taking no damage, he can choose to take half damage and learn the ability (with a ton of restrictions on what can be learned). I would also suggest that this would be a great archetype for the Magus class, since he'll need at least some martial ability and hit points when compared to a wizard. You could replace spell combat with blue magic, spellstrike with blue magic defense, and then use the magus' spell slots to prepare his blue mage abilities for the day, recalling spent slots with arcane pool as normal for a Magus.
I'll definitely give a much more detailed critique later today, but one thing you need to detail is how powerful the abilities can be. For example, if he gets hit by a dragon's breath attack, no matter what the age of the dragon he should get a set amount of damage from his newly learned breath attack based on his class level. Something like 1d6 per two caster levels would probably be appropriate, taking up a 1st-level spell slot with a max of 5d6. He could instead prepare it in a 2nd-level spell slot for 1d6 per caster level with a max of 10d6. Etc. ad infinium.
would this class work better as a prestige class? Maybe have a requirement of X ranks in knowledge monster or you have to have the bards lore ability to qualify?
I would definitely suggest a prestige class - this way you don't need to worry about early level usefulness. Your requirements could include anything from bardic knowledge to monster lore to tons of Knowledge skill ranks to Alertness to Magical Aptitude...
I would allow learning even on a successful save, however the use of Knowledge + readying himself to learn should maybe be a full-round action.
Instead of having an energy pool, I would have spell slots, with a progression (which I guess is inline with cartmanbeck's suggestion). You would need to find some way to assign a "spell level" to every active ability stolen, but it would be much easier to balance ability usage in the long run (as using stronger abilities would be more taxing). Ugh the ideas are flowing so rapidly I almost want to take a stab at this myself...
Bonded weapon: I don't recall Strago having any sabre - I assume that it is based on another part of FF?
It's a Final Fantasy Tactics thing, mostly, I think - the blue mage with a saber. But Strago used a rod in FF6 and the FF5 Blue Mage job used knives, swords, and rods. If I were the one putting this Pathfinder blue mage together, I would not personally carry over the saber thing... it seems a bit limiting in terms of character-building.
Can I just say that Kazarath's response is hilarious.
Thank you! I'll be here all week!
Okay, ugh, I just wrote up a PrC version of this with some substantially different mechanics. I've also trawled a little more than half the Bestiary I and written up 100 "blue magic spells." In the interests of not stealing thunder or messing with the OP's ideas/project, I'm going to stop posting here...
Kind of sounds like the 3.5 binder to me. Lots of weird supernatural abilities, a magic-user that isn't a spellcaster. Sounds neat.
The Blue Mage job in FFXI: Online was pretty detailed, and this link might give soem better ideas and background info for those uninitiated:
I don't know anything about Final Fantasy, and have no idea what the class is about. I'm fairly good with class design and rules, though, for what it's worth, and here are some issues that immediately caught my eye:
1. Blue Magic -- not only is this not magic, but it emulates what you can already do at will with a Knowledge check... and yet you're charging "blue points" for using it, making it a per-day mechanic. But that's his main schtick! So why play this class, if overall I'm better off being a bard, taking all those knowledge skills, and doing "blue magic" (aka using Knowledge skills) all day long?
Edit: Or, when you say "learn abilities," do you mean GAIN those abilities, vs. learning what they ARE? In that case, no GM will allow this class because it's totally not worth the headache it gives him -- he can't use hardly any monsters with special abilities, without assuming you will acquire them, and then weigh that against the rest of the campaign (because of your "bestiary" thing).
2. Advance Blue Magic -- I'm not seeing what dice you're talking about. The description for Blue Magic doesn't tell you to roll a d4 anywhere -- it tells you to make a knowledge check. Likewise, I have no idea what you're Maximizing, for Maximize Blue Magic. Etc.
3. Use of the term "evasion" for a class feature that emulates Slippery Mind (et al.), etc. is a no-no, because there is already an Evasion ability in the game (Rogues get it at 2nd level). If you want an ability that emulates that, call it "evason." If you don't want it to do the same thing, don't name it the same thing (even sticking "Blue" in front of it doesn't help). Same advice with everything else. If you call it a "mage," people immediately assume "full caster." That's a bad thing, and calls for a name change. "Bonded weapon" implies a wizard's bonded item, which it isn't.
4. Ability types -- none of your class features have those useful (Ex), (Sp), or (Su) tags, and they desperately need them!.
Basically, this class gives you the powers of Beast Shape 1+ through Shapechange, but without changing your form.
You could probably make this balanced by creating a list of monster attacks, or even taking the list of universal monster rules, and divide them into level-appropriate categories. Then the blue mage can learn 1 per level or something like that, selected from the list of the appropriate level.
Also, a tip on class formatting: What I do is list the BAB per level, Good Saves, and Hit Dice at the top of the table. Then you don't have to type them all out over 20 levels, which gets kind of messy on this forum.
For example:
Blue Mage
BAB: +3/4
Good Saves: Reflex and Will
Hit Dice 1d8
Class Skills: Blah blah blah
The Blue Mage is proficient in all simple weapons and the scimitar. The Blue Mage is proficient in light armor, but not shields.
Level Ability
1. blah, blah, blah
2. blah, blah, blah
3. etc. etc. etc.
Ah, yes, I was going to suggest something similar to Dan (hi Dan!), only I would go a step further and restrict the use of monster abilities to a finite list to avoid abuses.
But that's a far cry from the Final Fantasy Blue Mage.
Perhaps allow for some sort of "mimic" ability that can only be activated within a few rounds of an opponent using an ability? Limit it to x uses per day, and only allow the mimicking of creatures that are under a certain CR compared to the blue mage's level.
I guess I wasn't clear (Hi Hodge Podge!), I meant there shuld be a finite list of monster abilities to choose from AND there should be several levels of them so they can be grouped and selected appropriately.
Maybe 5 levels, available at 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th levels. For example, scent at 1st level, pounce at 5th, a breath weapon at 9th, a stunning blast at 13th, and maybe a disintegrating eye ray at 17th.
Maybe have a pool of points, similar to a barbarian's rage (4 + Con modifier, +2 per level after 1st), and 1st level powers cost 1 point, 2nd level powers cost 2 points, 3rd level powers cost 3 points, 4th level powers cost 4 points, 5th level powers cost 5 points.
I started to thinking about making Blue Mage as a sorcerer alternate class (or maybe something with Bard spell progression, medium BAB, d8 HD, all saves favored) that would gain spells known from exposure to spell-like abilities. Supernatural abilities would probably need GM discretion to be converted to most similar spell-like abilities (e.g. successfully resisting petrifying gaze could teach the Blue Mage flesh to stone, save against breath weapon could learn burning hands on lower level, fire breath, dragon breath or cone of cold. And so on and so on. With a few additional abilities spread between levels, such as Evasion, Mettle (or what is it called now in PF - I have seen it somewhere or something very like it), etc.
Maybe make it a monk archetype?
You could learn special abilities by taking appropriate Knowledge ranks (Knowledge arcana to learn a dragon's breath weapon, Knowledge nature to learn a fey's DR/cold iron, Knowledge dungeoneering to learn a choker's quickness ability, Knowledge planes to learn an angel's immunity to petrification, etc.). You can only learn an ability if it's from a creature with a CR that is less than or equal to your number of ranks in the appropriate Knowledge skill.
You would spend ki points to use your special abilities.
Another idea that crossed my mind was to give Blue Mage a pool of evolution points that he would use to buy special abilities when exposed to them - that however would be diverging from standard Blue Mage as it would be working better with constant abilities instead of activated ones.
I think a pool of constant abilities AND a pool of activated abilities would be cool.
Dot for now.
I haven't looked into much of this but I might yet try to develop some of the ideas I offered...
Boiled down isn't a blue mage just a mage that uses monster abilities? Wouldn't it be easier and more defined if he had a pool of points to spend on temporary eidolon evolutions?
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Boiled down isn't a blue mage just a mage that uses monster abilities? Wouldn't it be easier and more defined if he had a pool of points to spend on temporary eidolon evolutions?
The idea of an FF Blue Mage is that they don't change their body for the most part. They can do any of the supernatural things monsters do after they've been hit by or experienced it. They just 'figure it out'. They're not shapeshifters, they're natural magic users who focus on imitating monsters.
Boiled down isn't a blue mage just a mage that uses monster abilities? Wouldn't it be easier and more defined if he had a pool of points to spend on temporary eidolon evolutions?The idea of an FF Blue Mage is that they don't change their body for the most part. They can do any of the supernatural things monsters do after they've been hit by or experienced it. They just 'figure it out'. They're not shapeshifters, they're natural magic users who focus on imitating monsters.
This works with (Su:) and (Sp:) abilities, maybe, but what about abilities that you don't have the anatomy for disregarding that "abilities" isn't a clear cut definition and has varying degrees of power; Big example being something like the Xill having a specific ability to implant eggs in an enemy as a standard action. If a Xill attempts that on you, can you now implant eggs into your enemies? Wouldn't it make sense if he were somewhat of a shapeshifter if it goes that far? Even if he doesn't shapeshift Blue mages still get the weird to have abilities via Animal Man logic.
This works with (Su:) and (Sp:) abilities, maybe, but what about abilities that you don't have the anatomy for disregarding that "abilities" isn't a clear cut definition and has varying degrees of power; Big example being something like the Xill having a specific ability to implant eggs in an enemy as a standard action. If a Xill attempts that on you, can you now implant eggs into your enemies? Wouldn't it make sense if he were somewhat of a shapeshifter if it goes that far? Even if he doesn't shapeshift Blue mages still get the weird to have abilities via Animal Man logic.Boiled down isn't a blue mage just a mage that uses monster abilities? Wouldn't it be easier and more defined if he had a pool of points to spend on temporary eidolon evolutions?The idea of an FF Blue Mage is that they don't change their body for the most part. They can do any of the supernatural things monsters do after they've been hit by or experienced it. They just 'figure it out'. They're not shapeshifters, they're natural magic users who focus on imitating monsters.
Then you make a little flash of blue light and the effect happens. They're magic.
Then you make a little flash of blue light and the effect happens. They're magic.This works with (Su:) and (Sp:) abilities, maybe, but what about abilities that you don't have the anatomy for disregarding that "abilities" isn't a clear cut definition and has varying degrees of power; Big example being something like the Xill having a specific ability to implant eggs in an enemy as a standard action. If a Xill attempts that on you, can you now implant eggs into your enemies? Wouldn't it make sense if he were somewhat of a shapeshifter if it goes that far? Even if he doesn't shapeshift Blue mages still get the weird to have abilities via Animal Man logic.Boiled down isn't a blue mage just a mage that uses monster abilities? Wouldn't it be easier and more defined if he had a pool of points to spend on temporary eidolon evolutions?The idea of an FF Blue Mage is that they don't change their body for the most part. They can do any of the supernatural things monsters do after they've been hit by or experienced it. They just 'figure it out'. They're not shapeshifters, they're natural magic users who focus on imitating monsters.
So they get it via Animal Man logic right? So even then wouldn't evolutions cover most monster abilities and still be predefined in power level and cost? I mean I wouldn't want to see what happens if a blue mage sees a genie grant a wish at level 3.
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So they get it via Animal Man logic right? So even then wouldn't evolutions cover most monster abilities and still be predefined in power level and cost? I mean I wouldn't want to see what happens if a blue mage sees a genie grant a wish at level 3.Then you make a little flash of blue light and the effect happens. They're magic.This works with (Su:) and (Sp:) abilities, maybe, but what about abilities that you don't have the anatomy for disregarding that "abilities" isn't a clear cut definition and has varying degrees of power; Big example being something like the Xill having a specific ability to implant eggs in an enemy as a standard action. If a Xill attempts that on you, can you now implant eggs into your enemies? Wouldn't it make sense if he were somewhat of a shapeshifter if it goes that far? Even if he doesn't shapeshift Blue mages still get the weird to have abilities via Animal Man logic.Boiled down isn't a blue mage just a mage that uses monster abilities? Wouldn't it be easier and more defined if he had a pool of points to spend on temporary eidolon evolutions?The idea of an FF Blue Mage is that they don't change their body for the most part. They can do any of the supernatural things monsters do after they've been hit by or experienced it. They just 'figure it out'. They're not shapeshifters, they're natural magic users who focus on imitating monsters.
Blue Mages don't see it, they get hit by it. They are affected by the monster ability to learn it.
Boiled down isn't a blue mage just a mage that uses monster abilities? Wouldn't it be easier and more defined if he had a pool of points to spend on temporary eidolon evolutions?
This actually fits perfectly with the way blue mages work in Final Fantasy 11. Hmm... I'm thinking maybe a magus archetype(because blue magus is probably the next best thing to just being named blue mage), that swaps out spells for eidolon evolutions and can temporary gain an evolution when a enemy uses an ability similar to one on the list(just uses, not has to be hit by it and purposely fail a save.... work for FF 11), or gain temporary extra uses per day if the ability is already on him. He'd probably have a specific list of evolutions to pull from focusing on special attacks or something... probably need to make up some new ones though.
This would kind of take it away from its roots, but honestly the way blue mage works in FF games just does not fit into the way D&D works, unless you want fire breath to be the only ability you have for most of your career.
The idea of an FF Blue Mage is that they don't change their body for the most part. They can do any of the supernatural things monsters do after they've been hit by or experienced it. They just 'figure it out'. They're not shapeshifters, they're natural magic users who focus on imitating monsters.
Actually this fits with the Blue Mage from FF11 as well. A big part of the Blue Mage's storyline is that you kind of take a piece of the monster into yourself and if you are not strong enough, you risk turning into a monster(A mindflayer if I recall...). It also had blue magic work a bit differently, learning it was a little tougher(you had to have your blue magic skill leveled up and even then odds of learning a spell were somewhat random), but once you did, you'd have to choose which spells you wanted to have activate at a time, with limits based on a pool of points(evolution points basically) and a number of slots(so say at level 10 you could have 4 spells costing a total of 6 points or something like that) and when you equipped specific sets of spell, you would gain passive buffs(usually from other jobs in the game). The system could actually work fairly well with PF(other then the learning part IMO, and maybe the spell set buffs) and the whole trying not to turn into a monster thing could give it some interesting flavor...
Blue Mages don't see it, they get hit by it. They are affected by the monster ability to learn it.So they get it via Animal Man logic right? So even then wouldn't evolutions cover most monster abilities and still be predefined in power level and cost? I mean I wouldn't want to see what happens if a blue mage sees a genie grant a wish at level 3.Then you make a little flash of blue light and the effect happens. They're magic.This works with (Su:) and (Sp:) abilities, maybe, but what about abilities that you don't have the anatomy for disregarding that "abilities" isn't a clear cut definition and has varying degrees of power; Big example being something like the Xill having a specific ability to implant eggs in an enemy as a standard action. If a Xill attempts that on you, can you now implant eggs into your enemies? Wouldn't it make sense if he were somewhat of a shapeshifter if it goes that far? Even if he doesn't shapeshift Blue mages still get the weird to have abilities via Animal Man logic.Boiled down isn't a blue mage just a mage that uses monster abilities? Wouldn't it be easier and more defined if he had a pool of points to spend on temporary eidolon evolutions?The idea of an FF Blue Mage is that they don't change their body for the most part. They can do any of the supernatural things monsters do after they've been hit by or experienced it. They just 'figure it out'. They're not shapeshifters, they're natural magic users who focus on imitating monsters.
That still includes spell-like abilities like Wish, he's just have to be targeted with it.
Then why can't they 'magically' grow gills?
Does this include implanting eggs into their enemies?
So many threads getting necro'd these days
Boiled down isn't a blue mage just a mage that uses monster abilities? Wouldn't it be easier and more defined if he had a pool of points to spend on temporary eidolon evolutions?This actually fits perfectly with the way blue mages work in Final Fantasy 11. Hmm... I'm thinking maybe a magus archetype(because blue magus is probably the next best thing to just being named blue mage), that swaps out spells for eidolon evolutions and can temporary gain an evolution when a enemy uses an ability similar to one on the list(just uses, not has to be hit by it and purposely fail a save.... work for FF 11), or gain temporary extra uses per day if the ability is already on him. He'd probably have a specific list of evolutions to pull from focusing on special attacks or something... probably need to make up some new ones though.
This would kind of take it away from its roots, but honestly the way blue mage works in FF games just does not fit into the way D&D works, unless you want fire breath to be the only ability you have for most of your career.
The idea of an FF Blue Mage is that they don't change their body for the most part. They can do any of the supernatural things monsters do after they've been hit by or experienced it. They just 'figure it out'. They're not shapeshifters, they're natural magic users who focus on imitating monsters.Actually this fits with the Blue Mage from FF11 as well. A big part of the Blue Mage's storyline is that you kind of take a piece of the monster into yourself and if you are not strong enough, you risk turning into a monster(A mindflayer if I recall...). It also had blue magic work a bit differently, learning it was a little tougher(you had to have your blue magic skill leveled up and even then odds of learning a spell were somewhat random), but once you did, you'd have to choose which spells you wanted to have activate at a time, with limits based on a pool of points(evolution points basically) and a number of slots(so say at level 10...
Well my main argument is that having it work exactly like the games, specifically the earlier you go, it doesn't make sense in Pathfinder logic until you translate it. If he gains spell like abilities of monsters and adds them to his spells known list and has a spells per day list then it's a different story (although his power fluctuates between really shitty to too good based on the campaign and how many spell like abilities are actually around. Another obstacle is that "monster" and "ability" don't have an exact meaning in the game on their own. The best way I can see this done is the Taskshaper from Rite Publishing that can switch spontaneously retrain feats for feats that he's seen and can limitedly polymorph based on creatures he knows.
When I say "Animal Man logic" I'm referring to the DC comics hero Animal Man who can gain flight like an eagle but doesn't grow wings to do it, he simply flies. In game terms you need to either define what he can get and how much it costs based on power level or use a metric that already exists.
This is especially true for the blue mage in Final Fantasy games because he only gained a specific list of abilities not just any ability he experiences. If he does the latter in Pathfinder crazy things like Wish comes into play and then all of a sudden this guy is spending one point to become god and thats only the first spell that came to mind, there's no telling how many problematic things this opens up.
There's also the basic logic of how a blue mage works. If it's spell like abilities its easy, they just cast arcane spells that they're hit with by figuring out. Supernatural abilities can sometimes require anatomy to work, this can be solved by animal man logic i guess but it's fuzzy. but you still need to grow a magic limb or something to do things like Grab and define what you're actually doing. Are you a mutant that reacts to stuff like the Marvel Comics Darwin? do you have access to 'the Red' like Animal Man? (and if its something like that wouldn't you be limited to magical beasts and animals not abberrations elementals and undead?
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Well, the primary problem was that Blue Mage was invented as cRPG class in a world with a specific list of monster abilities that could be copied, and which - from a game engine point of view - were all technically spells.
Adapting it to Pathfinder is much more demanding and requires lots of work, mostly caused by the multitude of differently working monster abilities, lots of which area really unsuitable for PCs.
Hence why I think Eidolon Evolutions, which is pre-defined and have a scale, would be more suitable for monster abilities when translating a blue mage to Pathfinder logic.
The way I generally go about the Blue Mage concept in my games is to give a choice of three third party products. Taskshaper from Rite Publishing which can change out feats, skills and shapeshift. The Shapeshifter Spell-less Ranger from Kobold press which is basically a wildshaper without spells. Or the Host from LJP Games which gains eidolon Evolutions as mutations from their symbiote and that player can reflavor it as magic instead of mutations.
Dot
Would it be too overpowered to do both the spell-like abilities and the evolution part for the supernatural abilities? In other words, if someone were to go about making an archetype for the magus and call it the Blue Magus could it use the arcane pool to learn spell-like abilities as spells and supernatural abilities as evolutions? Perhaps at the cost of having a spell-list of their own. What do you guys think?
Dot. At the moment the best way I've found of making a PF/D&D Blue Mage is the Taskshaper class from Rite Publishing. If nothing else you might be able to crib some ideas from there. (It's up on PFSRD as well, if you don't have the book and want to get a look.)
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There was an old thread I saw necro'd earlier this year with a write-up of the blue mage. It used mutations instead of spells, which I thought was a pretty good fit for a Pathfinder version. I will see if I can dredge it up. *goes on a search*
Ah, here we go. It was a Prestige Class. It might be easy enough to spread things into a 20 level base class. Azure Ravager, a PrC Inspired by Final Fantasy XI's Blue Mage
First posted in April 2012, not long after this thread was first posted, and necro'd back in May 2014.
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I sort of see blue mage as being a sorcerer archetype. If I was going to run it I would probably do something like this:
BLUE MAGE (SORCERER ARCHETYPE)
The art of blue magic requires dedication and sacrifice few arcanists can fathom. While a blue mage's list of spells is more flexible than most spontaneous casters, the intimacy by which they understand and embrace these spells is unmatched in the magical world. Many an arcane caster has fallen victim to the power of the blue mage, a monstrous eater of magic and absorber of power.
Spells Known
You begin play knowing two 1st-level spells of your choice, but these spells must be harmful arcane spells that affects one or more targets. You do not gain any 0 level spells known as a blue mage. In addition, whenever you gain a new level of blue mage, you do not automatically add new spells to your list of spells known. However, your level determines the maximum number of spells known you can have for each spell level. The only way for you to learn new spells is by using blue magic (see below).
This modifies spells known.
Blue Magic (Su)
At 1st level, you can absorb the magical energies of a harmful arcane spell or spell-like ability targeting you. You must declare that you are using this ability before you save against the effect (thus, a failed check ruins the attempt). You must make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spell level). A failed check means you automatically fail your saving throw against the effect and the effect is maximized. If you succeed on your check, you harmlessly absorb the arcane energies of the effect. If the spell or spell-like ability is of a level you can cast, you may choose to add the spell to your list of spells known, replacing one of your existing spells known if you are at your limit of spells known for a particular spell level. If the spell is not of a level you can cast or you do not wish to replace a known spell, the arcane energy lingers for 1 round per blue mage level. During this period of time, you treat the spell as if it were on your list of spells known for the purpose of casting spells and using abilities that affect you based on your list of spells known. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier.
At 3rd level, you gain energy resistance 10 against spells on your list of spells known. At 9th level, this resistance increases to 20. At 20th level, you gain immunity to energy damage from spells on your list of spells known.
At 9th level, you may automatically counter a spell targeting you or an ally within 30 feet of you as an immediate action so long as the spell appears on your list of spells known. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to your Charisma bonus (minimum 1).
At 15th level, you can absorb the magical energy of magic items. Once per day, you may spend 8 hours studying the magical energies of a magic item. At the end of this period of study, you must make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + caster level of the item). A successful check means you add one or more of the arcane spells used in the construction of the item to your list of spells known, replacing one or more of your existing spells known if you are at your limit of spells known for a particular spell level. Regardless of the success or failure of the check, the magic item is destroyed in the process.
At 20th level, you gain the ability to take 20 on all Spellcraft checks. Your understanding of the fundamentals of magic has also become so advanced that once per day, you can cast wish. This ability does not require a material component, but the wish can only be used to duplicate any arcane spell of 8th level or lower or any non-arcane spell of 6th level or lower. This ability cannot duplicate a spell with a material component that costs more than 10,000 gp.
This ability replaces the bloodline magic class feature and bloodline powers.
Blue Basics (Sp)
At 1st level, you can use arcane mark, detect magic, prestidigitation, and read magic at will as spell-like abilities. In addition, you automatically succeed on Spellcraft checks made to identify a spell being cast or a magical effect so long as the spell appears on your list of spells known.
This ability replaces cantrips.
Sapphire Shield (Su)
At 3rd level, you gain a +2 bonus to saving throws against spells on your list of spells known. At 5th level and every 2 levels thereafter, the bonus to saving throws increase by an additional +1 (to a maximum of +10 at 19th level).
This ability replaces bloodline spells.
Mettle (Ex)
At 7th level, you are able to resist effects with great willpower or fortitude. If you succeed on a Fortitude or Will save against an effect with a partial effect on a successful save, you instead suffer no effects from the attack.
This ability replaces the 7th level bloodline feat.
Improved Mettle (Ex)
At 13th level, you are incredibly resistant to effects that assault the body or mind. If you succeed on a Fortitude or Will save against an effect with a partial effect on a successful save, you instead suffer no effects from the attack. If you fail the save, you instead suffer the partial effect.
This ability replaces the 13th level bloodline feat.
Blue Fortune (Ex)
At 19th level, once per day you may treat a single Spellcraft check or saving throw as if you had rolled a natural 20. You may choose to use this ability even after you roll your check or save but before the result is determined.
This ability replaces the 19th level bloodline feat.