Psychic Robot wrote:1. Well, the holy knight is crap. I was thinking of the mage.
Mages.
Mage
The Mage is an optional advanced class from the optional FX rules appendix.
Getting into Mage requires Craft(Chemical) which enables you to build bombs (or is supposed to) and therefore makes you wonder why you need magic to explode things, it also requires Knowledge(Arcana) which is so very useful in the modern world, Research or “find the clue you knew was there” skill, and Decypher Script also known as “crap on a stick”.
It is hard to achieve ALL those skills with default occupations, but in May 2003 it was determined that Fast Hero's needed to be better in even more respects so Urban Arcana was published with an Occupation that just did that.
The Mage offers one better than good save, but its on will so it's like having all bad saves. It offers half BAB, worst hit die, good defense progression and strong reputation. You get extra skill ranks, but a crappy skill list. You gain access to the “unique” skills of concentration and spellcraft. Which do exactly what they always did and we don't care, especially since spell identification is probably going to be less of a daily occurrence.
Class Abilities
You get a VERY short list of bonus feats. One is a weapon proficiency and another is a combat feat tree entry point, and yes that's level 6, 9, 12 again... The rest are nothing special.
You get familiar (at least its fun, not great but whatever)
Scribe scroll, which now requires Craft(Writing) just to piss you off. And is way too expensive and less useful because there is no one else to give it to.
Brew Potion which has a base wealth DC BEFORE level of the potion that is way way too expensive. It uses your Craft(Chemical) that you got landed with.
Scribe Tatoo which is literally just the scribe scroll ability again, only with the Craft(Visual Arts) skill just to fuck with your head.
You get spell mastery, which just reminds you that until then you rely entirely on a spell book, in a world where presumably filling in the blank pages is harder, while the Alcolyte just gets the entire divine spell list.
Your 7th level ability is, get this, Combat casting!
Your capstone ability is Maximize spell. With a +3 spell level cost. In a world where the highest spell level you get is 5th. You see where I'm going here?
Anyway the big deal is arcane spell casting. But the best spell you ever get will be 5th level. Your best caster level will be 10th (maybe 15th with arch mage) And you are at least 3 levels behind on both spell progression and caster level and therefore on DCs, spells per day and caster level scaling effects. Your fireball will NEVER be as good as a rocket launcher since that has extra bonuses, but it won't even match on damage dice until level 13.
And the spells are not any better than standard d20. There is almost nothing new and what is is useless (someone was talking up a summon a car spell, holy crap, I got a screwdriver and a hammer, wait five minutes while I go “cast” summon car) In fact they are a somewhat shortened list all in all.
What it is supposed to do to save d20 modern
It is supposed to literally give it the magic it is missing. What it does is give it HALF the magic it is missing, about 3 or more levels too late. They just pulled the wizard class magic system out, cut it in half, chose a bunch of gimped item creation feats and a meta magic feat for you then gave it back to you 3 levels too late in your career in a world that doesn't properly support your ability to write scrolls and your desire to acquire additional spells.
And they thought it would work. And oddly enough it doesn't.
Also it does little to save the d20 modern system when it comes to functioning as you know, a system for modern games, because its a fucking wizard.
Doing it Fast
You can get into it as your 4th level by taking the Hedge Wizard occupation and the Arcane Skills feat. But like it matters. As it really doesn't matter what class you are before you waste your life being a wizard you may as well have a bigger starting defense and the other junk. With evasion one day in the distant future you might fireball your own ass, but by then you won't have a passable Ref save to support it...
Techno Mage
Techno Mage appears in the Urban Arcana splat book. So again its in the optional expansion book of the optional expansion setting and is itself an optional expansion advanced class.
Getting into it is challenging. You need ranks in computer use (a skill that does many non functional things in non functional ways that aren't even clearly described, but there are tables), knowledge (arcane lore) in a modern world, Craft (electronics) so you can make ham radio sets (inefficiently), and Repair the skill almost as good as just buying a new one.
There are any number of ways to get three of the four skills but the trick is getting electronics AND arcana in the same package. It's like they don't actually want you to be a fast hero or something. Even like they WANT you to be smart (which is what they tell you to be) fortunately both Dedicated and Charismatic have Knowledge(Arcana) and are better than smart, so, up yours smart!
Anyway. Then its worst BAB, worst hit die, good defense, poor reputation (oddly a sign the class might do something), one “good” save on Ref, more than average skill ranks, and a slightly more interesting skill list than mage (but still ultimately not great).
Class Abilities
The bonus feat list though short is still more useful than the wizard one because it has spell penetration and spell focus on it, not that that helps the whole behind on caster levels thing, but still. Also it has light armor proficiency. Which is odd, because you have arcane spell failure. Once again they feel generous enough to give you the option of taking personal fire arms proficiency at character levels 6, 9 or 12.
Your level one class ability is arcane skills. You know, like the ones you invested in to get into the dumb class, only now they are spellcraft and concentrate and make you burn even more ranks you don't want to waste if you decide to use your level 1 “ability”.
At level 2 you get Machine Empathy, which won't make the computer in Alpha Complex kill you because its just a small techy skill bonus.
At level 3 you can booby trap peoples IPods with spells. Of course the best stuff you have is Web and Glitterdust at 3 levels behind the curve, but hey. Oh, and it costs action points, because fuck, if you could do the equivalent of putting a stink bomb in their tv remote for free you'd rule the universe.
At level 4 if the wealth system is broken enough by that you can afford to shell out the significant dough you get a homunculus. Which is basically a familiar only ugly, different and expensive. If the wealth system is REALLY screwed by then you can add any amount of Hit Die onto the critter that you feel like. That is not a good thing.
At level five you get to be a sorcerer with int bonus pre selected spells. And no one even notices.
At level 7 they preselect an extra bonus feat for you. It is spell focus. The nerfed 3.5 version. They want you to be grateful, bitch.
At level 8 (character level 11) you finally get the classes defining super trait. The ability to cast spells via telepresence. Mind you it pretty much requires full telepresence and doesn't actually give you a means of telepresence and Computer use is all kinds of fucked up for that stuff. Also all targets get +4 to saves, in case your weak DCs were able to come close to effecting them at that level.
The cap stone ability at tenth level is get this, Quicken spell with a +4 to the spell level cost. And again, you get 5th level spells max. Enjoy your quickened 0 and 1st level spells, bitch.
Of course the MAIN class feature is arcane spells. Which, you guessed it, are in all ways identical to that of a regular mage. And suck for the same reasons.
What it is supposed to do to save d20 modern
The same thing the regular Mage is supposed to, it fails for the same reason.
In addition this one is rather clearly designed so you aren't allowed to be a physical class before you enter, which is odd in the same book that introduced the stuff you need to circumvent that exact same limitation for the nearly identical mage class. But it still lets you be Dedicated or Charismatic so it's still not helping with its claimed goal of being a Smart specific advanced class. Smart brings NOTHING to this class. The others don't bring anything either but are at least better in their own right and give slightly better saves/defence/hit points etc...
This class was also supposed to be the net wizard, who explicitly massively sucks at casting spells over the net so go figure?
Doing it Fast
Abuse your GM until he lets you swap the ability to craft explosives out from the Arcane Skills feat in return for the ability to actually know stuff about arcane things. It's clearly an uphill battle because OBVIOUSLY knowledge of arcane stuff is less of an arcane skill than making dynamite, but that's the only way you are getting in as a pure fast hero. (and did you know, fast heroes get Craft (mechanical) and Knowledge (pop culture) just to make you feel sad about the whole lack of a specific craft and knowledge skill thing).
The three levels of not being Fast alone make me wonder if this class is worth taking. I mean you can be almost identical to this class by being a Mage, your familiar is cheaper, your capstone metamagic is cheaper, and you don't have a failed telepresence ability taunting you for eternity AND you get to start with 3 levels of fast. Still both are so sucky I find it hard to be sure either would be the worse choice, they certainly both fail to achieve their system goals.