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Force Mage
"Tell me one more Bigby joke, I dare you."

A master of the inherent nature of magic itself, a Force Mage both shapes raw magic into desired shapes, and twists others magic like taffy.
Alignment: All alignments recognize the power inherent in magic.
Races: Magic is an equal-opportunity employer, but its intellectual nature creates a demographic distribution concentrated in densely populated regions, such as cities. Also, for reasons yet to understood, ghostwise halflings are completely incapable of learning the arts of the Force Mage shy of divine intervention.
Starting Gold: 4d4x20 (200gp)
Starting Age: As Bard
Hit Die: d8
Base Attack Bonus: Bad
Saving Throws: Good Fortitude, Poor Reflex, Good Will
Class Skills: The Force Mage's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Concentration (Con), Disable Device (Int), Escape Artist (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (Arcana, Int), Listen (Wis), Profession (-), Ride (Dex), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis).
Skills/Level: 4+Intelligence bonus
All of the following are Class Features of the Force Mage class.

1 Arcane Sight, Magic Missile, Mage Armor, Unseen Servant
2 Forced Magic, Secret of Magic
3 Pure Force, Shield
4 Negation
5 Combat Servant
6 Immediate Dispel
7 Negation Aura, Arcane Eye
8 Innate Negation
9 Wall of Force
10 Compelling Dispel
11 Persistant Dispel
12 True Negation, Disabling Counterspell

Weapons and Armor Proficiency: Force Mages are proficient in all simple weapons and any weapon with the brilliant energy special quality. Force Mages are not proficient with armor or shields of any kind.
Magic Missile (Sp): As per the spell, except you gain one missile per level, with no cap. The Force Mage's caster level is equal to his class level for this ability.
Mage Armor (Sp): As per the spell, except the armor bonus increases by +1 every third level (+5 at 3rd, +6 at 6th, etc). The Force Mage's caster level is equal to his class level for this ability.
Unseen Servant (Sp): As per the spell, with no limit on the duration, and its speed is equal to the X. Only one such servant may be extant at a time. The Force Mage's caster level is equal to his class level for this ability.
Arcane Sight (Sp): As per the spell, with no duration limit. The Force Mage's caster level is equal to his class level for this ability.
Forced Magic (Ex): A 2nd level Force Mage gains a bonus to caster level checks equal to his Intelligence modifier, such as dispelling or attempting to overcome spell resistance.
Secret of Magic (Ex): A 2nd level Force Mage is considered to have every spell on his spell list for the purpose of activating magic items.
Shield (Sp): Gained at 3rd level, this otherwise functions as the spell with no limit on duration, and the shield bonus increases by +1 every fourth level (+5 at 4th, +6 at 8th, +7 at 12th, etc). The Force Mage's caster level is equal to his class level for this ability.
Pure Force (Su): A 3rd level Force Mage's abilities ignore the presence of force effects, such as mage armor, shield, or even a wall of force. He can still be targetted and affected by force effects, so he cannot walk through a wall of force and is still harmed by magic missile.
Negation (Su): A 4th level Force Mage gains SR equal to 5 + level. At 8th level, it becomes innate and increases to 10 + level. At 12th level, it becomes true and increases to 15 + level.
Combat Servant (Su): A 5th level Force Mage's unseen servant becomes more powerful. It can cast telekinesis* at will, with a range of 5'. It's caster level, base attack bonus, and Intelligence is equal to the Force Mage's. It's considered Large size, and then Huge at level 10, but does not actually get any larger in terms of space or reach.
* The violent thrust option can only be used on one item at a time unless the force mage spends a standard action to direct the servant more precisely
Immediate Dispel (Sp): A 6th level Force Mage can cast the targetted version of greater dispel magic as an immediate action. The Force Mage's caster level is equal to his class level for this ability.
Negation Aura (Su): A 7th level Force Mage grants SR 5+character level to all allies, which expires the moment they lose LoS or go beyond Medium range.
Arcane Eye (Sp): As per the spell, with no duration limit. The Force Mage's caster level is equal to his class level for this ability.
Wall of Force (Sp): Gained at 9th level, as per the spell. The Force Mages caster level is equal to his class level for this ability.
Compelling Dispel (Su): When a 10th level Force Mage successfully dispels a spell, he can choose to switch control of the spell to himself. While this does not alter targetting parameters of an extant spell (no stealing buffs), it does switch command of summons or charmed individuals. All numbers based on level, casting statistics, and the like remain unchanged in the switch-over.
Persistant Force Wall (Sp): As per wall of force, with a duration of Permanent (D). The Force Mage's caster level is equal to his class level for this ability.
Persistant Dispel (Su): When an 11th level Force Mage suppresses a magic item or a spell effect with a dispel effect, it remains suppressed for a full hour.
Disabling Counterspell (Su): When a 12th level Force Mage successfully counterspells a spell or spell-like ability, the caster is unable to cast any spells for 1d4 rounds.

http://www.vinodrams.com/force.html

"Wall of Force (Sp): Gained at 9th level, as per the spell. "
"Persistant Force Wall (Sp):As per wall of force, with a duration of Permanent (D). "

Those abilities are at will, or is there a daily limit?

Also: it seems that Force Magic has no conventional spellcasting at all? No caster level, no nothing?

Aye, those are at will.

As for conventional spellcasting, no. This is intended to be a caster that fits a theme and is simple to plug-n-play.

Does the "counterspell" in "disabling counterspell" really mean 'SR isn't beaten'?

I'll clarify the text on effective caster level for the spell-like abilities. And to limit confusion, I'm going to change the names of the SR powers, because those aren't intended to be counterspells for purposes of Disabling Counterspell's effect.

This is not something I would want to take into combat.

It lacks enough power to seriously fuck somebody up. Magic Missiles and Unseen Servant at will are nice, until about level five.

Aktariel wrote:This is not something I would want to take into combat.

It lacks enough power to seriously fuck somebody up. Magic Missiles and Unseen Servant at will are nice, until about level five.

I think you miss the point. THe damage isn't done through magic missile.

Like all the other "energy" mages, the force mage has particular shtick to follow.

The Fire mage well is FIRE.
The electric mage is the puppeteer and controls the strings of life.
The Force mage sees the strings of magic and finely manipulate those.

Having magic missile do more damage would probably do one of two things or probably both.

1.) Mess with the above described archetype
2.) Step on the toes of the Fire Mage.

Of course, I could be talking out of my ass and I will let virgleso speak for his own creation.

That's true for the most part, but notice 5th level is when the servant becomes a roaming telekinesis effect? I don't know about you, but I can make a death machine with that. Now follow it up with UMD+ and the fact you're going to pwnzor anything that uses spells, including stealing their summons.

virgileso wrote:That's true for the most part, but notice 5th level is when the servant becomes a roaming telekinesis effect? I don't know about you, but I can make a death machine with that.

I can't; show me how you would.

The cheapest method is to obtain a few quivers of crossbow bolts designed for a Colossal creature, so each does 3d6 damage and only weights 1.6 pounds apiece (Large is x2, Colossal armor is x12, I assumed x16 with four doublings). Once you obtain ready access to greater magic weapon and have a pile of varying materials, you should be good to go with regards to DR.

The TK effect also has a reasonable grapple modifier that can be taken advantage of.

Pure death doesn't occur until you get ready access to shrink item & fabricate, where you make Colossal acid flasks and shrink them down for death-dealing amounts of touch-attack energy damage. I myself killed Demogorgon in a single round using such as the core of my tactic, at level 18. Granted, you require a good amount of downtime & preparation, as well as contingency plans in the event the vials get destroyed. A good dispel, antimagic, or even strategically placed attacks can do this; but my DM was crap, so those concerns never came up.

Aktariel wrote:

virgileso wrote:That's true for the most part, but notice 5th level is when the servant becomes a roaming telekinesis effect? I don't know about you, but I can make a death machine with that.

I can't; show me how you would.

~~

You use the violent thrust option of telekinesis.
~
Either use environmental objects that are around you. Or just have the unseen servant drag along prepared weapons.

As I don't know if the size increase of the unseen servant at level 5 and 10 also facilitates a strength increase from the norm of 2 that the srd's US gives it. We'll stick with the standard. So he can drag behind him 100 lbs.

We'll take a wooden weapon because it's easier to carry. You can make it mithril when you have the jink later on. Hell you can get darkwood at 5th. So that's halfweight. The greatclub is fine. So make 4 gargantuan darkwood greatclubs. So what is that. 1d10 taken up 3 size categories.
So you now have four 4d8 darkwood greatclubs with each weighing in at 24 lbs and you are cresting in at 96 lbs and you still have some space left over some minor shiite like alchemist flasks and such for minor contingencies. So each round, the US attacks at a hit of +8 or 11 if GMW is applied on the clubs before hand. So 4 attacks of 4d8 bludgeoning is decent at level 5, methinks.
~~

you can minmax this in greater ways if you really want to. But this was one way I've seen done by virgileso as a wizard. I don't think he used greatclubs but it is a parallel.

The size increase of the unseen servant is for its personal carrying capacity, and the fact that size bonuses remain in effect when casting telekinesis.

I used darkwood greatclubs initially with the wizard to not completely overshadow the party (and still kept them in reserve for emergencies), which ended up working entirely too well because A_Cynic was playing a bard that maximized Inspire, so each club had a +8 or +10 attack/damage bonus.

Yeah, I was about to say you need to fix telekinesis and/or related rules to sanity before using this class. Because, well, that's the class' main (offensive) trick, so a player would be compelled to delve into it - granted, said player might be the kind of retard who "delves" into wild shape and doesn't become better than a fighter, but I figure you wouldn't want to play with those anyway.

Bigode wrote:Yeah, I was about to say you need to fix telekinesis and/or related rules to sanity before using this class. Because, well, that's the class' main (offensive) trick, so a player would be compelled to delve into it - granted, said player might be the kind of retard who "delves" into wild shape and doesn't become better than a fighter, but I figure you wouldn't want to play with those anyway.

I don't see a reason to fix TK as wizards do it anyway and they have an asston of other tricks as well to play. The force mage isn't a one trick pony with TK. It might be so at lv 5 which is a little sad but he soon comes into his archetype in his later levels.

I think what actually needs to probably be fixed is to balance the class in such a way that we don't have players just spamming the TK button for a few levels and actually having the force mage doing something a little versatile.

A_Cynic wrote:I don't see a reason to fix TK as wizards do it anyway and they have an asston of other tricks as well to play. The force mage isn't a one trick pony with TK. It might be so at lv 5 which is a little sad but he soon comes into his archetype in his later levels.

I think what actually needs to probably be fixed is to balance the class in such a way that we don't have players just spamming the TK button for a few levels and actually having the force mage doing something a little versatile.

Wizard: so many tricks that statistically the majority probably doesn't even know TK; no problems with it surface (they probably don't even surface with most wizards that do know it, because they spend time on lots of other stuff, and knowing how wizardly spells in general work takes time from delving into TK-related rules). Force mage: all of them know TK past a certain level, and even by your admission there's a point where they're extremely dependant on it; so, all of them use TK, and the shortness of the class eases knowing TK perfectly. Result: yeah, the wizard's better, but the force mage opens a ginormous can of worms much faster and more reliably. That probably will happen even if it gains new abilities, basically because TK comes automatically; and, to be honest, in a standard-wealth game, I'm not even sure it does lack versatility.

P.S.: by RAW, I suppose it needs trapfinding.

You'll need to explain the need for trapfinding. Except for the intricate ropes-and-pulleys technique I mentioned, just using the crossbow bolts isn't all that spectacular since they're making normal attacks and are without feats and such. I'll need to do the math for regular damage output using colossal crossbow bolts, as the attack bonus will influence things, to say the least.

virgileso wrote:You'll need to explain the need for trapfinding. Except for the intricate ropes-and-pulleys technique I mentioned, just using the crossbow bolts isn't all that spectacular since they're making normal attacks and are without feats and such. I'll need to do the math for regular damage output using colossal crossbow bolts, as the attack bonus will influence things, to say the least.

Trapfinding: you gave it Search and Disable Device - what for, other than ... finding and disabling traps? As for the TK technique, it's true that normal use might not be that great, but RC actually has a point in that you only need to find an imbalancing exploit once - once you do it, it's not even challenging or original again. And the fact that colossal bolts/chemicals are so wonderful at killing stuff actually disencourages doing interesting stuff (in combat, of course, but I supposed that's quite important), from an effectiveness/survival standpoint.

Where does it say that TK is an imbalanced exploit? Bolts keep it viable in damage dealing, and the high magic usage for acid flask death has its tactical flaws. I intended the Force Mage to be tactically viable as the Fire Mage, which is pretty much just shooting fire bolts when combat starts. If you disagree with that comparison, please tell me.

Remember, the Unseen Servant is the one that's using the spell under the Force Mage's direction, which means he retains his actions.

The retaining of actions, for all I can tell, is an advantage, not some kind of balance check. But my argument wasn't quite with that: it's more that (potentially) 16d8 (plus possible damage bonus x4) at level 5, even with the bad BAB, is already very good, maybe even pushing it, and it'll get ridiculous IIRC (and without a tactical flaw I can remember right now*) once wands of creation enter stage.

*: to be fair, creatures with a lot of energy resistances damp it sensibly (and they aren't particularly rare past 10th, of course), but you can still revert to GMW'd stuff most of the time.

Considering how the Fire Mage is dealing about half the damage, but gets to ignore DR and armor/natural armor, it's close to a toss-up. I will admit that the damage output needs to be compared a bit better, as I'm working off the balancing assumption that TK is using a poor BaB and has no ability modifier to damage. I'll look into altering the violent thrust option into something singular in nature.

virgileso wrote:Considering how the Fire Mage is dealing about half the damage, but gets to ignore DR and armor/natural armor, it's close to a toss-up.

Even at mid-late game? Of course, by that point the fire mage technically has an absurdly higher maximum DPR, but it being only when distributed among lots of weak foes makes it matter a lot less.

EDIT: oops, you edited it. In response: yeah, I figure making it singular, if possible, would fix the problem ideally. OTOH, it could run into "ah, it's not really different from XdY/level", but I figure that even if it happens, TK can do so much beyond damage that it wouldn't be a problem.

I was only speaking in regards to single-target DPR through his fire bolt ability, which goes up in leaps (every iterative and once haste is available), as opposed to the Force Mage's steady climb.

At level 12, for instance, the Fire Mage has a single target DPR of ~48d6 due to Rapid Shot and haste. An equal level Force Mage has a single target DPR of ~50d6 if shrunken, colossal acid flasks are utilized (and the magic missile is cast at the darkness). The Fire Mage does great against hordes, the Force Mage does great against casters.

Mostly fair, but I think the fire mage was not intended to be used with Rapid Shot.

That would surprise me greatly, to see Frank actually not take into account the existance of a feat that's in the PHB.

EDIT: In retrospect, the use of Rapid Shot might not be allowed...

Rapid Shot wrote:You can get one extra attack per round with a ranged weapon.

The weapon part throws a kink the works, as that would lower the damage down to ~36d6 per round at a single target. In which case, I'll need to compare the attack bonuses in order to make an argument for comparable single-target DPR.