The Gaming Den

Learning from Black Mage.

White Mage Alt name: Abjurer, Vitamancer, Cleric

There are those who gave themselves to dark, black beings, of chaos, of evil, of chaotic evil. The White Mage is not one of them.

Playing a White Mage: It is with clear sight, you focus your powers. Let the power of the Wisdom flow through you. Let's not mess around. You do have other useful abilities and you're moderate in a melee, but you're the heal bitch / anti-undead of the party.

Starting Age: As Sorcerer
Starting Equipment: As Monk
Alignment: All Good and Lawful

Hit Die: As Cleric
BAB: Moderate
Will: Moderate
Fort: Good
Reflex: Poor

Skills Points: As Cleric
Class Skills: Concentration (Con), Diplomacy (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (Arcana) (Int), Knowledge (The Planes) (Int), Knowledge (Religion) (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Use Magic Device (Cha)

1: The White Path, Turn Undead
2: Pure, Fear, Ruse
3: Silence, Invisibility, Status
4: -
5: Path Upgrade
6: -
7: Upgrade Other Spells
8: -
9: Upgrade Other Spells
10: Path Upgrade, Spell Swap
11: Upgrade Other Spells
12: -
13: Life, Upgrade Other Spells
14: -
15: Path Upgrade, Spell Swap
16: -
17: Warp
18: -
19: Life2, Spell Swap
20: Holy, Path Upgrade, Upgrade All Spells

Class Features

Proficiency: The White Mage is proficient with all simple weapons, the light hammer and warhammer and all light armor.

The White Path: The White Mage has basic access to the Path of Cure, the Path of Protect and the Path of Dia (described below). At 5th level and every five levels after, she may upgrade her access to one of the paths. She may not upgrade any path to expert level until all others are in advance. To cast a spell, the White Mage must have a Wisdom score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a White Mage’s spell is 10 + the spell level + the White Mage’s Wisdom modifier. You know all the spells of your spell level or less and cast spontaneously. Your spell level progresses at the same rate as the Sorcerer. All spells are considered Abjuration spells unless otherwise noted.

Turn Undead: The White Mage may turn undead as Cleric.

Pure: At 2nd level, the White Mage may add delay poison, remove fear and detect poison to her spells known. Treat it as part of the path in which she has the lowest level access to. At 4th level, add remove paralysis and lesser restoration to her spells known. At 6th level, add remove curse, remove disease and remove blindness/deafness to her spells known. At 8th level, add neutralize poison and restoration to her spells known. At 10th level, add break enchantment to her spells known. At 14th level, add greater restoration to her spells known. At 16th level, add temporal stasis to her spells known.

Fear: At 2nd level, the White Mage may add cause fear to her spells known. Treat it as part of the path in which she has the lowest level access to. At 6th level, add crushing despair to her spells known. At 8th level, add dismissal and repel vermin to her spells known. At 12th level, add antilife shell, banishment and symbol of fear to her spells known. At 14th level, add repulsion to her spells known.

Ruse: At 2nd level, the White Mage may add blur to her spells known. Treat it as part of the path in which she has the lowest level access to. At 4th level, add mirror image, misdirection and obscure object to her spells known. At 6th level, add displacement, nondetection and blink to her spells known. At 8th level, add hallucinatory terrain to her spells known. At 10th level, add detect scrying, false vision, mage's private sanctum and mirage arcana to her spells known. At 12th level, add mislead (Stacks with Invisibility feature) to her spells known. At 14th level, add sequester, project image and simulacrum to her spells known. At 16th level, add mind blank, scintillating pattern and screen to her spells known.

Silence: At 3rd level, the White Mage may add silence to her spells known. Treat it as part of the path in which she has the lowest level access to. At 6th level, add dispel magic to her spells known. At 12th level, add greater dispel magic to her spells known. At 14th level, add spell turning to her spells known. At 16th level, add antimagic field to her spells known. At 18th level, add mage's disjunction to her spells known.

Invisibility: At 3rd level, the White Mage may add invisibility to her spells known. Treat it as part of the path in which she has the lowest level access to. At 6th level, add invisibility sphere to her spells known. At 8th level, add greater invisibility to her spells known. At 10th level, add invisibility purge to her spells known. At 12th level, add mislead to her spells known. At 14th level, add mass invisibility to her spells known.

Status: At 3rd level, the White Mage may add status to her spells known. Treat it as part of the path in which she has the lowest level access to. At 6th level, add see invisibility and arcane sight to her spells known. At 8th level, add divination to her spells known. At 10th level, add telepathic bond and scrying to her spells known. At 12th level, add analyze dweomer, true seeing and find the path to her spells known. At 14th level, add greater arcane sight and greater scrying to her spells known. At 16th level, add discern location to her spells known. At 18th level, add foresight to her spells known.

Spell Swap: At 10th level, the White Mage may swap out spells of spell level 2 or lower for spells of spell level 3 or lower. At 15th level, she may swap out spells of spell level 3 and lower for spells of spell level 5 and lower. At 19th level, she may swap out spells of spell level 5 or lower for spells of spell level 7 or lower.

Upgrade Other Spells: At 7th, 9th, 11th and 13th level, the White Mage may choose one of the 2nd or 3rd level features (Pure, Fear, Ruse, Silence, Invisibility and Status) and treat the spells in it as as part of the path in which she has the highest level access to. At 20th levels, all the features are automatically upgraded.

Life: At 13th level, the White Mage may add ressurection to her spells known. Treat it as part of the path in which she has the lowest level access to. At 19th level, add true ressurection to her spells known.

Warp: At 17th level, the White Mage may add teleport, dimension door, plane shift and gate (For travel only) to her spells known. Treat them as part of the path in which she has the lowest level access to.

Holy: You win D&D.

Path of Cure
1: Cure Moderate Wounds
2: Cure Serious Wounds
3: Cure Critical Wounds
4: Mass Cure Light Wounds
5: Raise Dead
6: Heal
7: Regenerate
8: Mass Cure Critical Wounds
9: Mass Heal

Path of Protect
1: Shield
2: Resist Energy
3: Protection from Energy
4: Lesser Globe of Invulnerability
5: Resilient Sphere
6: Globe of Invulnerability
7: Iron Body
8: Prismatic Wall
9: Prismatic Sphere

Path of Dia
1: Shooting Stars (As Magic Missile but a Light spell, deals double damage to undead)
2: Scorching Light (As Scorching Ray but a Light spell, deals double damage to undead)
3: Searing Light
4: Abhorsen's Bells (As Shout but a Light spell, deals double damage to undead)
5: Cone of the Sun (As Cone of Cold but a Light spell, deals double damage to undead)
6: Chain Turning (As Chain Lightning but a Light spell, deals double damage to undead)
7: Sunbeam
8: Sunburst
9: Falling Stars (As Meteor Swarm but a Light spell, deals double damage to undead)

Well, huh. It's kind've a neat idea but...why?

The class has some pretty nifty tricks sometimes, but if you wanted to use said tricks, you would just be a wizard and get more of them all the time. Maybe spell swap and spontaneous casting make up for this - I dunno.

I suppose that my core question is: "Why not just be a wizard with a nifty robe?" Or hell, a cleric if you really wanted the healing and resurrection stuff.

OTOH, I don't really play DnD anymore, so feel free to disregard this.

Unless I'm missing something, the Path of Protect is always the one to upgrade first, because it gives you more spells/day, and with Spell Swap those can be pretty much whatever you want.

Speaking of Spell Swap, it's a bit odd that you get to swap for 3rd level spells at 5th level, but are otherwise using the Sorcerer progression - which doesn't give you 3rd level spells until 6th level. Is it meant to be using the Wizard/Cleric/everything-but-Sorcerer progression?

At 5th level, it appears you'd get this:
4 spells up to 3rd level, usable 3/day each
16 spells up to 3rd level, usable 1/day each

If using a progression that gets you 3rd level spells at 5th level, you also get:
Protection from Energy 3/day, Wind Wall 3/day, Cure Critical Wounds 1/day, Searing Light 1/day

Which is actually pretty impressive. However, to get the benefit from Spell Swap, you end up swapping out most/all of your spells, making the whole Path system and other spell groups (Pure, Fear, etc) more of a footnote - you're basically a Sorcerer with a rigid but very large spells/day. Unless you can only swap for other spells on your paths, which makes you very rigid and you basically end up with a huge amount of the same spell.

Oops. Alright, made Spell Swap start later.

I cut the Path of Protect in half so it doesn't overshadow the other paths.

Also, I now notice how it looks like I ripped Paths off Koumei.