Hi all! I've been thinking about trying my hand at some homebrew for Starfinder for a while now, and thought I'd start with this mystic connection that's been floating around my head. The basic idea is that it's an attempt to port some of the wizard flavour to SF with as few new rules elements as possible. It's still in a very rough state, and is probably pretty unbalanced.
Mystic Connection Wizardry
Associated Deities Eloritu, Ibra, Nyarlathotep
Associated Skills Culture, Mysticism
Spells Special (see Arcane School, below)
Arcane School (Ex) - 1st Level
Choose a school of magic (SF Core Rulebook, page 333) to specialize in. Each day when you recover your spell slots, you also choose a spell of each level you can cast from the Mystic or Technomancer spell lists. The chosen spells must all belong to the school of magic that you specialized in. Until the next time you recover your spell slots, you treat these spells as your connection spells. This process of choosing connection spells each day is known as preparation.
Lesser Metamagic (Ex) - 3rd Level
Select one of the Technomancer spell hacks from the following list: Harmful Spells or Selective Targeting. You gain the chosen magic hack and treat your Mystic level as your effective Technomancer level for the purposes of using this hack. If the magic hack allows a saving throw, the DC is equal to 10 + half your mystic level + your Wisdom modifier.
Basic Metamagic (Ex) - 6th Level
Basic Metamagic functions in all ways as Lesser Metamagic, except the list of available Technomancer magic hacks to select from is expanded to include the following: Distant Spell and Extended Spell. You may not select a magic hack that you already have unless specifically allowed by the magic hack in question.
Improved Metamagic (Ex) - 9th Level
Improved Metamagic functions in all ways as Basic Metamagic, except the list of available magic hacks is further expanded to include Widened Spell.
Familiar (Ex) - 12th Level
You gain Squox Companion (Alien Archive 2, page 119) as a bonus feat. You also gain a trained squox companion as a familiar, except that it may take the form of any tiny animal (although the familiar always uses the stats for a trained squox). If your familiar dies, you can replace it for the cost of a trained squox. As long as your familiar is within 30 feet of you, you gain a +1 bonus to the DC of saving throws for spells you cast belonging the school of magic chosen for Arcane School.
Greater Metamagic (Ex) - 15th Level
Greater Metamagic functions in all ways as Improved Metamagic, except the list of available magic hacks is further expanded to include Quickened Spell.
Expanded Preparation (Ex) - 18th Level
You gain an additional spell slot of each spell level you can cast. This slot can only be used to cast spells from the school of magic chosen for Arcane School. Additionally, you may now apply up to two of the magic hacks from your connections to the same spell, provided it belongs to the school of magic chosen for Arcane School.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave feedback.
Your connection is way overpowered.
Arcane School is incredible. Choosing Technomancer's spells is out of line. Especially when you consider you can add Harmful Spells at level 3.
Star Shaman has Magic Missile as first level Connection Spell and it's a very nice feature of the Connection. In your case, you have a lot of damaging Technomancer's spells, and Harmful Spells on top of it.
The familiar adding a +1 to DCs is once again too strong. You gain a bonus feat and a bonus to spell DCs (something that no other Connection gives).
The level 18th power is also out of line.
Remember that the 18th level power of the Akashic line is that:
Glean Spell (Su) 18th Level
Once per day, you can delve into the Akashic Record to cast a spell from either the mystic or technomancer spell list as if it were on your list of spells known. The spell consumes a spell slot 1 level higher than the level of the spell.
All in all, I quite like the concept, but you have to tune it down greatly.
Hey, thanks for the feedback! I've tried to revise it based on your suggestions.
Mystic Connection Wizardry
Associated Deities Eloritu, Ibra, Nyarlathotep
Associated Skills Culture, Mysticism
Spells Special (see Arcane School, below)
Arcane School (Ex) - 1st Level
Choose a school of magic (SF Core Rulebook, page 333) to specialize in. Each day when you recover your spell slots, you also choose a spell of each level you can cast from the Mystic spell list. The chosen spells must all belong to the school of magic that you specialized in. Until the next time you recover your spell slots, you treat these spells as your connection spells. This process of choosing connection spells each day is known as preparation.
Lesser Metamagic (Ex) - 3rd Level
Select one of the Technomancer spell hacks from the following list: Harmful Spells or Selective Targeting. You gain the chosen magic hack and treat your Mystic level as your effective Technomancer level for the purposes of using this hack. If the magic hack allows a saving throw, the DC is equal to 10 + half your mystic level + your Wisdom modifier.
Basic Metamagic (Ex) - 6th Level
Basic Metamagic functions in all ways as Lesser Metamagic, except the list of available Technomancer magic hacks to select from is expanded to include the following: Distant Spell and Extended Spell. You may not select a magic hack that you already have unless specifically allowed by the magic hack in question.
Improved Metamagic (Ex) - 9th Level
Improved Metamagic functions in all ways as Basic Metamagic, except the list of available magic hacks is further expanded to include Widened Spell.
Familiar (Ex) - 12th Level
You gain Squox Companion (Alien Archive 2, page 119) as a bonus feat. You also gain a trained squox companion as a familiar, except that it may take the form of any tiny animal (although the familiar always uses the stats for a trained squox). If your familiar dies, you can replace it for the cost of a trained squox.
Greater Metamagic (Ex) - 15th Level
Greater Metamagic functions in all ways as Improved Metamagic, except the list of available magic hacks is further expanded to include Quickened Spell.
Expanded Preparation (Ex) - 18th Level
Once per day, you can use one of the magic hacks granted by this connection without spending Resolve.
I'm guessing it's still wildly unbalanced, but hopefully this is a step in the right direction.
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I think it's more in line with the other Connections. And I think it adds something different to the Mystic, so, it's good that way :)
Thanks for the kind words, SuperBidi (and the help)! :)
Thanks for the feedback, Metaphysician! That's certainly a fair criticism. In retrospect, maybe it should have been called the Arcana connection or something. My thinking was that the connection would represent mystics who draw their magic from a connection to the arcane metaphysics of the universe, rather than divine or occult sources. I didn't want to imply that other connections couldn't be arcane in nature, though, so I went with Wizardry as a placeholder. That said, my original idea was to create an option to allow people to somewhat emulate an old-fashioned wizard without the technological aspects of the technomancer or doing a full conversion of the pathfinder class. From that angle, I was thinking of the mystic less in terms of deep connections and more as the old-fashioned magic user class. I can see how that could water down the uniqueness of the mystic class (not to mention the blatant theft from the technomancer), so it's certainly a niche option.
Ignoring the key ability score and class mechanics, I feel that the mystic's connections = magic is far closer to a wizard than technology = magic.
Neither are close, but the mystic is closer with studied words = magic.
That said, on the second iteration, While choosing daily is the same flavor as a wizard, I feel like it's lacking. I almost think it should be a choice of spells not on the mystic list at all. (accounting for witchwarper), but they should only be selectable at times where you get new spells of a higher level. I dunno, that one seems hardest to work into the existing rules without being broken.
I'm also not a fan of 'you have to get a familar', I prefer wizards without the random animal hanging about ignored until your GM questions if it survived the fireball.