A rage-mage that sucks less: Berzerker-Magus

[Judging__Eagle]

Someone on the WoTC boards had the nerve to state that a Barbarian 5/Wizard 5/Rage Mage 1 build was good since it was simple.

I showed him how a Barbarian 1/Wizard 4/Fighter 1/Spell Sword 1/Eldritch Knight 4 was a 'bit' more effective.

He wasn't initially convinced and stated that the above character had.... a ridculous spell failure rate, and worse combat ability since it had better casting.

Of course I had to correct him about the bits of, you know, having better saves, more HP, better BaB, better spell casting and yeah, better everything, heck, it can even have more rages/day if you so wanted.

As well as mentioning that a +1 Twilight Mithral Breastplate and a +1 Light Fortification Mithral Sheild are a better option to get over Bracers of armour or casting Mage Armour and Shield (with a caster lvl 5, he won't be tapping into greater mage armour for a while).

His response was that it was two PrCs.

Which got me thinking and I wrote this up:

the thread: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.p ... rker-Magus[/b]

Wizards who do battle with blade and sheild are rare, those who do so while in the throes of a battle-rage are rarer still. However, among some barbarian tribes those who meld battle-lust with powerful magic are seen as champions among their people as they can cut down enemies with their weapons and cast powerful spells that change the course of a battle.

Pre-requisites:

Proficiencies: Must be not suffer non-proficiency penalties with a weapon that you own a masterwork or better version of.
Must be proficient in any armour.
Spells: Must be able to cast 2nd level spells
Base Attack Bonus: +4
Skills: Knowledge (Arcana) 6 Ranks
Special: Must have killed something without using your magic at all and only using your martial combat ability.
Special: Must be able to Rage, Frenzy or similar ability.

Hit Dice: D10
BaB: (Good, as Fighter)
Saves: Fort (Good), Reflex (Poor), Will (Good)
Skill Points per level: 4 + Int Mod
Skills: The Berzerker-Magus' class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are: Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (All taken individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Survival (Wis) and Swim (Str).

1 Reduce ASF 10%, Blade of the Magus; Continuted Spell Casting Progression
2 Berzerker, Bonus Feat
3
4 Spell-Fueled Rage,
5
6 Induce Rage,
7
8 Clarity of the Berzerker,
9
10 Mass Spell-Fueled Rage +1 Arcane Spellcasting Caster Level

Armour and Weapon Proficencies: The Berzerker-Magus gains no additional armour or weapon profienciencies.
If you are using Race of War: The Berzerker-Magus learns weapons the same as a character with Martial Weapon Proficiency, even if they don't have it; a week of practice and a DC 10 Intelligence check adds any weapon to the character's list of proficient weapons. Note: the Berzerker Magus doesn't gain martial weapon profiency, they simply count as having it with regards to training in a new weapons use.

Reduce Spell Failure(Ex): At 1st level, the Berzerker-Magus reduces their total Arcane Spell Failure by 10% while wearing armour and sheilds that they are proficient with and wielding any weapon that they do not suffer non-profiency penalties with.

Blade of the Magus (ex): At 1st level, the Berzerker-Magus is able to can use hands with weapons in them to perform somatic components. So long as they are wielding any weapon that they do not suffer non-profiency penalties with said weapon, they may make somatic gestures with the wielded weapons instead of with their hands.

Spellcasting: At first level, and every level following, the Berzerker-Magus gains a new level of spellcasting as if they had gone up a level in a previously selected arcane spellcasting class. If the character has more than one spellcasting class, the character must select which arcane spellcasting class will benefit from these increases at first level and once made this selection cannot be changed.

He however gains no other benefit that they would have normally gained, such as turning/rebuking undead, more or new invocations, bonus feats or imporvments to their familiar.

Bonus Feat: At 2nd level the Berzerker-Magus gains a bonus feat. This may be any feat that a Wizard or Fighter gains as a bonus feat as well as any feat that has Rage as a pre-requisite. The Berzerker-Magus must have the pre-requisites to gain this feat however.

Berzerker(Ex): At 2nd level, a Berzerker-Magus taps into the core of his fighting ability, his unsatiable battle-lust. The Berzerker-Magus progresses his Rage or Frenzy or other related ability as if they had taken an other level of their previous class that granted the ability. Thus a level 2 Barbarian/Level 3 Wizard/Level 5 Berzerker-Magus counts as a 7th level barbarian with regards to the effects of his Rage and how many times he can rage per day.

If the ability came from the creature's race (such as an Awakened Wolverine or Badger who took Wizardly training and then took levels in this class), they instead progress as if their racial hit dice and their Berzerker-Magus level are added when determining the effects of their Rage off of the all Barbarian classes Rage progression.

The Berzerker-Magus however gains no other benefits other than increased power in their Rage or Frenzy ability. They do not gain any Fast Healing, New Transformation-forms or other class abilities that are not more powerful Rages or more Rages per day.

Spell-Fueled Rage(Su): At 4th level, the Berzerker-Magus can use consume his own magic in order to improve his fighting ability. As a free action the Berzerker-Magus can take may expend any arcane spell that they have prepared or any spontanteous arcane spell slot that they have in order to empower their battle fury. The Berzerker-Magus gains a bonus to attack and damage rolls equal to the level of the spell expended. Only one spell per round may be expended in this manner.

This bonus lasts until the Rage ends and the bonus cannot exceed the highest level spell that the Berzerker-Magus can cast.
[Note: this keeps people from dumping useless 1st level spells to gain a bonus to hit and damage that's greater than their highest lvl spell, or dumping their highest level spell if they need to put something down fast]

Induce Rage (Su): At 6th level a Berzerker-Magus is able to infect his allies with the destructive tendancies that teem in his mind. As a swift action, the Berzerker-Magus expends a prepared spell or an unused spontantoues arcane spell slot in order to grant a number of allies equal to the level of the spell expended the effects of Rage equivalent to the bonuses that a Berzerker-Magus gains when raging themself. These Rage-granted bonuses stack with any already existing Rage bonuses that an Berzerker-Maguses ally may already have. No character no character may be affected by more than one Induce Rage effect at any time.

Clarity of the Berzerker(Ex): At 8th level the Berzerker-Magus has learned that even in the middle of their rage that they have a heightened sense of awareness that allows them to cast spells as if they were calm and relaxed. The Berzerker-Magus can cast one spell per point of their Spellcasting Stat Modifier while raging for the duration of any rage.

Thus a Wizard/Barbarian/Berzerker-Magus with an intelligence of 20 (+5) may cast up to 5 spells if he is raging, per rage.

During the casting of these spells, the Save DCs change to 10 + 1/2 Hit Dice + Constitutin Modifier or the normal save DC, whichever is greater.

Lead the war party (Su): At 10th level the Berzerker-Magus is able to grant any allies affected by his Induce Rage ability the same bonus that he gains from his Spell-Fueled Rage. In addition, the Berzerker-Magus may choose to affect his allies affected with their Induce Rage ability with any spells that the Berzerker-Magus casts via his Clarity of the Berzerker ability, even if they cannot normally be targeted by those spells.





--------------------------

Now, it's just one class, but it's actually stronger than the build I presented. Whatever, anyone using this class over something else probably needs the power this class presents.

Why? b/c you need at least 5th lvl in a casting build, meaning your combat ability is going to suffer, hard. Plus the high BaB requirement means that you've got at least two to three Full-BaB levels, meaning that you'll always be behind the curve on new spell levels compared to a full caster.

Giving out full BaB (10/10) and nearly full casting (9/10), two good saves and some rage-linked abilities that 1) make your rages still remain potent, 2) allow you to burn magic to make your rage more powerful in combat (albeit, the to-hit bonus is the good thing, but it doesn't grant you new attacks; the bonus damage becomes useless but it's easier to do a 1-for-1 bonus instead of something that scaled, plus your own rage should cover that) 3) The ability to help your other party members rage (but only getting half of what you get, but that's still pretty good imo), 4) The ability to cast some magic while raging, that is a bit more powerful since you're probably suffering from MAD so adding str and int mods to a spell DC will bring the spells you cast to have a DC similar to what a normal wizard would have and finally 5)The ability to buff out your allies with spells that you cast, even Personal or Touch range spells.

Really, though, someone with 5 wizard levels and 2 levels of Barbarian and a level of fighter needs all of the boosts that they can get to make sure that they're on par with something like... the level 8 rogue or ranger.
[/quote]

Ecsef for helping me loosen the armour restrictions; restrict the Clarity of the Berzerker ability; but I ignored his advice to drop the hit dice to D8's or lower the 3rd spell level requirement.
Carthaz Godfoot for helping me tighten up the wording of Blade of the Magus and Endovior for giving me some better wording.

[Catharz]

Why do you give % ASF reduction and then go and let them ignore all ASF at 1st level?

This got me thinking that it would be fun to have an "Angry Wizard" PrC for enchanter/transmuters and bards, focusing on improving the use of the rage spell.

They start out focusing on Raging in melee combat like a stereotypical barbarian, but branch out to making their enemies mad (combat taunting), making their allies mad (as your PrC does) summoning already-angry creatures, and eventually being able to make creatures fly into Mindless rages (being able to affect creatures immune to mind-affecting effects, but only to make them angy, and being able to give creatures for which they have induced rage [Mindless]).

I guess I just really like the idea of a very pissed-off enchanter.

[Digestor]

^ I think he meant the Blade of the Magus to affect only weapons (and maybe shields?) and not armor induced ASF...

But I agree, it is poorly worded.

[Judging__Eagle]

Wait....

In allowing no somatic components, I eliminated ASF, right?

Aw snap. I just got served.

Re-wording.

[Endovior]

You probably meant "can use hands with weapons in them to perform somatic components" not "ignores somatic components", right?

[Judging__Eagle]

Exactly, and I snagged those exact words.

Actually, I also left the option for jester-berzerker magi, but what the hey. No one noticed.

[Brobdingnagian]

Is it just me, or does he only get one ASF% reduction?

I mean, I know, and I'm pretty sure everyone else on this board does, that the whole Twilight Mithral I-cast-spells-like-they're-stilled crap makes 10% plenty enough, but not everyone does.

Maybe a scaling thing? 5% per two levels, starting at first, ending up with 25% at 9th?

[Judging__Eagle]

Shh, shh.

Now I'll have to change it.

[Iaimeki]

My Overview: This class is better than the rage mage published in CW. Unfortunately, that's pretty much like saying the core fighter is better than a commoner: true, but not very interesting. For most of your career, you can choose to be a bad barbarian, or a bad wizard. You get the ability to use your two primary abilities, spellcasting and rage, at the same time, at level 16 or 17. For all the levels that matter, a well-played rogue, not to mention a primary caster, will beat you hands-down. I just don't see how this class is playable compared to the alternatives.

Introduction to Hybrid Theory: You're tackling one of the harder problem in D&D. It's very difficult to make hybrid caster/noncaster PrCs because it's hard to make sure they can do level-appropriate things. If a caster has lost two spell levels, they're casting spells like another character's cohort. If they lose any more than that, their casting is probably so weak they can't use it offensively at all. Even buffs and utility spells have a strong level-dependence, in some cases: fly is powerful at 5th-level because a huge swath of CR 5 monsters have no ranged attacks to speak of, teleportation effects are the only way to escape a lot of 4th-level and higher trap spells, and so forth. If a hybrid can't compete on casting (they rarely can), their other class features have to pick up the slack: however, they've invested some number of levels on featureless caster levels with poor BAB and skills. Aside from this, hybrids almost always have worse MAD than either the noncaster or the caster, so even given level-appropriate class features, they'll still be weaker unless they're given a slight power boost to compensate, or a way to reduce MAD.

A further problem is that many hybrid PrCs force characters trying to get into them to spend some number of levels as an ineffective gimp. If the PrC is no stronger than an ordinary PrC, they've just sucked for levels with no benefit. If it gives them more power, it just creates balance problems once they get into the PrC. Hybrid PrC requirements should be designed to allow playable, organic builds to meet their requirements.

With these key issues in mind, let's look at this PrC.

Prerequisites: The earliest base-class entrance to this PrC is 9th level, as wizard 6/barb 2. If you want to spend less time sucking, you go in as wizard 8/barb 1. Even by chaining noncore PrCs, I don't think you can do any better. All possible builds that lead to this PrC have severe problems. Since you can't wear armor until you're in the PrC because of ASF, for the most part you have d4 HD, and your BAB is as bad as a rogue's or worse, you're probably too fragile to spend much time in melee. Meanwhile, your casting is either a level behind, or two levels behind, in which case you cast like someone's cohort. If you start out as a wizard and multiclass into barb, you've plowed through all the most painful levels for a wizard, missed out on the advantages of taking barb at first level (skills and hp), and have just gotten to point where you get to ride the train into crazytown, and then you have to decide to spend a level or two on a class that doesn't advance any of your abilities, to get into a PrC which is going to hurt your casting more. If you start out as a barb, you spend most of your career as a wizard behind a level of spells.

Meanwhile, PrCs with late entrance requirements have the problem that since the game tends to end sometime between 12th and 17th levels (in my experience; Frank and K claim the lower end of the range, and given the craziness inherent in even 7th-level spells, I'm not going to dispute it too much), players don't see most of them and so they're not very interesting.

I really think there are only two ways of tackling the problems inherent in this situation. One is to design the PrC so that it's a PrC which gives a single-classed character the other set of abilities: a quick-advance casting PrC for a barbarian, or a barbarian-like PrC for a wizard. The other is to allow entrance really early, so that players can ride the fact that wielding a martial weapon and wearing heavy armor is perfectly plausible thing to do for the first three levels or so.

I think that spell levels should be used as prerequisites only for PrCs designed to prevent sorcerers from entering them. This class strikes me as a more of a spontaneous-caster PrC, for flavor reasons; why shaft sorcerers?

I'll conclude with minor issues. This list seems rather longer than it needs to be. Do the Knowledge (arcana) or proficiency prerequisites serve any purpose? Is the first special requirement necessary?

Skills: I don't see the flavor reason for having Decipher Script. (Runes?) Even wizard/berzerker magi seem like they shouldn't spend much time with dusty old books. I'd probably expand the skill list ala the RoW barbarian: they ought to get access to Balance (maybe), Climb (definitely), Hide (maybe), Intimidate (definitely), Move Silently (maybe), and Spot (definitely). I'm not sure they should have Handle Animal or Ride, either, but that's more debatable.

Proficiencies: The RoW barbarian doesn't get the fighter's ability, why should this character be different?

Reduce Spell Failure: Honestly, as far as I can tell, there's no substantive balance reason that wizards can't wear armor. Clerics and druids do it, and while they're known for not being balanced, wearing armor is only a peripheral reason. Armor's also most important early on in the game, which PrCs by definition do not include. Thus, as a PrC ability, the ability to wear armor isn't that big.

There are two plausible ways to handle ASF: just allow people to wear certain levels of armor without ASF, or ASF reduction. I don't think there's any strong argument for one over the other, though I tend to prefer the first since I feel it's a bit simpler.

Is 10% ASF enough to wear any meaningful amount of armor? An animated mithral heavy shield is 5% ASF, a mithral chain shirt is 10% ASF, a mithral breastplate is 15% ASF, and celestial armor is also 15% ASF. There are ways to further reduce ASF, like twilight and treating celestial as a mod you can apply to other armors, but honestly with those you can get any armor to 0% ASF, so they render ASF reduction irrelevant. (Celestial twilight mithral full plate has 0% ASF and counts as light armor.) So, I think that 10% ASF isn't enough to be significant: either the character can make appropriate armor anyways, or it won't reduce their ASF enough to let them wear any armor they'd care about.

Berzerker: If I'm interpreting the first paragraph right, it doesn't seem like this ability does much of anything, in most cases: getting an extra level of core barb, for instance, does nothing for rage, no more uses/day and no improvement in the rage itself. Do you mean that levels of berzerker-magus and the character's other raging class stack? Or do you mean that the rage ability advances to its "next level," whatever that is?

I don't understand what the second paragraph is supposed to do.

It's not clear to me what a "more powerful" rage is. Does the core barb's indomitable will ability count as more powerful rage? What about battle hardened or rage dice, from the RoW barb?

Spell-Fueled Rage: I'd type this bonus to help prevent crazy stacking. I'd ditch the move action ability, since the only time anyone would ever use it is when prebuffing, which is pretty silly for rage. I think the wording can use some simplification, too, something like:

"Once per turn, as a free action they can take only on their own turn, a berzerker-magus can expend a prepared arcane spell or arcane spell slot to gain a morale bonus equal to the spell's or spell slot's level on their attack and damage rolls. These bonuses stack with each other, but can never exceed the level of the highest-level arcane spell they can cast, and last until their rage or frenzy ends."

Induce Rage: Again, I'd simplify the wording. Do bonuses like indomitable will and great life apply here?

Clarity of the Berzerker: Is that one spell/day/casting ability? One spell/rage/casting ability?

[Judging__Eagle]

Thanks, for the breakdown Iaimeki.

On Entry:

I think that entry can happen as low as Wiz 5, barb 2; or level 8 entry.

I think I see what you mean though.


On the other requirements: I sort of took them as a pastiche from other PrCs.

The class is really an existing build made up from spell sword and eldritch knight; with those classes pre-requisites.

I should probably open up entry to level 2 spells, since the class forces itself to pick up appropriate casting on time.

The 'make a kill without magic' is from spell sword; I added a second special, but I can kill one of those two special ones easily.

Making the way Berzerker adds to your previous barbarian levels does need to be cleared up.

I'm not sure if just granting the either stat/save boosts that a core barb would get or the damage/to-hit/rage dice and combat movement that a RoW barb would is enough or too much.

The idea is that the Berzerker ability grants the Berzerker-Magus rages that are as potent as a barbarian who was a few levels behind an other barbarian (and losing all the other barbarian abilities, trades them in for a better will save and almost full progression on casting).

So, the lvl 2 Barbarian, 3 wizard, 10 Berz-Mag rages like a 12th lvl barb, with respect to rage dice, to-hit/damage and combat movement

On Spell Fueled Rage:

I'd word it as something different than a morale bonus, since you'd bone the RoW Barbarian.

Let's call it an Archanic bonus? We have Sacred and Profane bonuses, so Arachnic and Axiomatic bonuses could also exist.

I gave this power out to keep to-hit and base damage close to what a straight barb would have (but having less attacks).

On Induce Rage:

Well, I need to reword it so that you only get either 1) stat boosts (core barb) or 2) movement, damage, to hit (RoW barb).

I'm not sure if giving people Great Life and the two features that allow you to use your fort for ref and will saves. Fast healing is also lost in these characters, but it's not that big of a deal. They have wizard levels.

On Clarity of the Bererker: Sorry for the poor wording it's:

Per Rage you can cast 1/Casting modifier spells.

So, core barbs get a nice bone, even their really low level spells have level appropriate effects (since their DCs jump to be 10 + 1/2 HD + casting mod). RoW barbs can now cast somehting like Daze, a 0 lvl spell and it will actually matter.


So, I'm gonna:

Reduce the BaB needed to +3, I forget why I had it at +5 before.
Lower the spell levels to 2nd lvl spells;

So entry starts around lvl
Dump that bonus feat, insitute full casting in the class.

I'm gonna change the weapon/armour pre-reqs to be...
"Must be able to use any non-simple weapon with no penalties from non-proficiency and able to wear any armour with no penalties from non-profiency"

The ASF reduction is instead: "You can now cast spells in light armour that you do not take non-proficiency penalties with as if you had no ASF penalty from that armour. [I want Dungeonomicon Jester-Barians to be viable with this class >_>]

If you are already able to cast spells in light (or heavier) armour with no ASF because of an other class or ability, you may cast spells from that class in one armour type heavier than you were previously able to (so, Bard-Barians can use medium armour and cast fine as can War Mage-Barians)"


On the topic of MAD reduction: what if Berzerker Magi can swap out their 'normal' casting stat for their Con, or Str? That's a 1st level ability.

I also have to change around the skills, I didn't base the existing list on the RoW barb, but the eldritch knight. /sweatdrop

[Judging__Eagle]

bump, I did a bit of reworking on this, tell me what you think?

[CalibronXXX]

1174093880[/unixtime]]
Let's call it an Archanic bonus? We have Sacred and Profane bonuses, so Arachnic and Axiomatic bonuses could also exist.

You mean Anarchic? Those other two words aren't words.

[Brobdingnagian]

Don't Drow get Arachnic bonuses?

Or maybe you mean you have to be Drow to get into the class? Interesting idea, but I don't think it'll fly.

[Judging__Eagle]

1178041570[/unixtime]]

1174093880[/unixtime]]
Let's call it an Archanic bonus? We have Sacred and Profane bonuses, so Arachnic and Axiomatic bonuses could also exist.

You mean Anarchic? Those other two words aren't words.

Whoops.

You know what I meant though.

Any comments on the class after be worked over again?

and, should I put in stuff to fill in the 'dead' levels?

Like bonus damage dice that are based on you having a spell of a specific elemental damage type prepared (but not cast).

[JonSetanta]

I'd personally prefer a few feats, like 3-4, in a feat tree that enhances the abilities of casting while raging. IMHO it really doesn't warrant a whole PrC, since advancing the Barbarian seems much more worthwhile (unless you add all or most of mid-to-high level Barb abilities to your PrC along with nice CL progression!).

[Judging__Eagle]

Lost my post due to mozilla hicoughing on me.

In any case

RoW Barb: hit shit hard (really hard), be pretty safe due to fast healing + DR + Spell caster fvcking abilities

PHB Wizard: win fights, do cool shit via spells

B-M: combination of the above, hit hard, do cool shit via spells.

Giving the BM the ability to poach in Barb territory is a bad idea, especially if it's anything other than 'hit hard'.

You're a wizard, if you can't figure out how to win with that, then there's no point talking about how the BM needs more 'cool things', really.

Giving them built-in access to Divine spells (druid, adept; not cleric... no, wait, cleric too, there are ravager clerics of Erythnul and Malar after all) could work.

Giving them leadership could also work.

As could giving them an ability that lets them deal bonus damage of an energy type on all melee attacks (damage = level of spell in d6's + 1 per character level of the spell's element in damage).

The idea would be that the above is 'practical' applications of a spell for melee use. If I gave it out at lvl 3, that's 6 levels of no barbarian abilites and 3 of no rage dice.

Spending 1/4 of your character to get an acid dripping blade that deals an extra 1d3 + 8 acid damage at lvl 8 isn't too bad, since you could seriously TWF with that sort of a weapon and it would work neatly with Blitz.


In any case, any ability that a character gets should be equal to what an other character gets.

The fact that this PrC presents you with serious choices as to "what is more powerful" (Berzerker-Magus or Straight Barb or Straight Wiz) means that you've got balanced material.

It also means that the spell-casting barb isn't shafted too much if people have to make a debate over what to get or not get.


Actually, that's something that I've been noticing a lot with Frank and K's stuff; I have to make really hard decisions about what I want a character to do, b/c so many classes and feats are so good, that you have to think of a concept first, then the right class, gear and feats seem obvious.

If not, the prevalence of choice makes it hard to decide what's best to pick next level.

[JonSetanta]

BM could do something no other class can do by RAW: cast Evocations that don't suck at higher levels, at least a few times a day, or every spell cast during "rage mode".

Like double, triple, quadruple damage... bonus dice... mix elements at will... massive areas of effect.

[Judging__Eagle]

Yeah, but that's plot device.

Also, BM has nothg actually useful with regards to spells.

Like... Fly, or Greater Invis or Mirror Image.

[JonSetanta]

Plot device?

[Judging__Eagle]

Black Mages spells only do as much damage as plot needs.

Meaning it's a bad mechanic to use in anything that isn't a story told by one person.

The flavour is cool, but it's not anything that anyone would hand out to a player. Ever.

[malak]

Black Mages spells only do as much damage as plot needs.

Meaning it's a bad mechanic to use in anything that isn't a story told by one person.

The flavour is cool, but it's not anything that anyone would hand out to a player. Ever.

Maybe this might be more interesting similar to a duskblade:

- Use your HD to determine your BAB (according to Fighter progression)
- You can use your weapons to deliver touch spells, but must hit the full AC, not only touch AC. Casting the spell and making a single attack against the target takes a full-round action.
- You can cast other spells while raging, but only spells that target yourself (buffs and heals, no area spells and such).
- You can spend spellslots or prepared spells to get a bonus to attack and damage (details as in the post above). MAYBE: this bonus ends when you cast a spell with a target other than yourself.
- Drop all the party buff stuff