d20 Modern Conversion: Magical Advanced Classes 1 (Acolyte and Mage)
This week, the next installment of the d20 Modern conversion introduces the first magical advanced classes: the Acolyte and the Mage.
These advanced classes are for use with my modern base classes.
An exciting addition this week, which opens up some magical options to players.
Before getting down to the class particulars I wanted to draw attention to the fact that these magical advanced classes are half-casters rather than full-casters. As much as I would love to, having a balanced advanced class that incorporates full casting is just not feasible. This is due to the way spellcasters are designed in D&D. In a full-caster, there is always at least a couple of dead levels that don't have any specific features. This is because at those levels you instead gain access to a new spell level, which amounts to everything you need to fill out the level up. If I were to do this with an advanced class, it would a) not line up all that well with the levels that you gain new spell levels and b) result in an advanced class without a strong identity, as it would only have a couple of features aside from spellcasting.
For a little while I did begin designing a "magical hero" base class, as a way to allow for full-casters, but then I realised that the same thing could be done just as well by just letting players use the caster classes already provided in the Player's Handbook if they really want to be a full caster. Any full caster hero class would just be mimicking their functions anyway. While I think this idea for a magical hero base class is a bust, I'm still considering implementing it, but in a slightly different way.
With these advanced classes, I've also included a little ruleset for how to convert the advanced class into what I'm calling a "subclass variant", which uses features from a subclass of the class that the advanced class is mimicking (I used "class" way too many times, didn't I?). Say you're playing a Mage character, but you wanna specialize in the necromantic arts. These rules let you do this by replacing some of the Mage's features with those of the "School of Necromancy" Wizard advanced class. Two examples of this are given, in the Acolyte of Life and the Evoker advanced classes.
These advanced classes are for use with my modern base classes.
An exciting addition this week, which opens up some magical options to players.
Before getting down to the class particulars I wanted to draw attention to the fact that these magical advanced classes are half-casters rather than full-casters. As much as I would love to, having a balanced advanced class that incorporates full casting is just not feasible. This is due to the way spellcasters are designed in D&D. In a full-caster, there is always at least a couple of dead levels that don't have any specific features. This is because at those levels you instead gain access to a new spell level, which amounts to everything you need to fill out the level up. If I were to do this with an advanced class, it would a) not line up all that well with the levels that you gain new spell levels and b) result in an advanced class without a strong identity, as it would only have a couple of features aside from spellcasting.
For a little while I did begin designing a "magical hero" base class, as a way to allow for full-casters, but then I realised that the same thing could be done just as well by just letting players use the caster classes already provided in the Player's Handbook if they really want to be a full caster. Any full caster hero class would just be mimicking their functions anyway. While I think this idea for a magical hero base class is a bust, I'm still considering implementing it, but in a slightly different way.
With these advanced classes, I've also included a little ruleset for how to convert the advanced class into what I'm calling a "subclass variant", which uses features from a subclass of the class that the advanced class is mimicking (I used "class" way too many times, didn't I?). Say you're playing a Mage character, but you wanna specialize in the necromantic arts. These rules let you do this by replacing some of the Mage's features with those of the "School of Necromancy" Wizard advanced class. Two examples of this are given, in the Acolyte of Life and the Evoker advanced classes.
The Acolyte
Your pious follower, the Acolyte is a half-caster advanced class that mimics the functionality of a cleric.
I'm not the biggest fan of the Acolyte implementation in its current form, mostly because it considers each of the "Destroy Undead" improvements to be their own feature, which I disagree with from a both a mechanical standpoint (limited scope and usefulness) and a Player's Handbook standpoint (Destroy Undead improvements are typically given out on levels that otherwise would be dead levels). In the future I'll probably add some extra features into this advanced class and rejig it a little, but I'm confident it's at least usable as is.
The Mage
A researcher of arcane knowledge, the Mage is a half-caster advanced class that mimics the functionality of a wizard.
Honestly I'm pretty happy with how the Mage turned out. I added a couple abilities to the advanced class which hopefully fit with the "purist mage" feel without swaying it towards a particular school. The original d20 Modern Mage had abilities like "inscribe scroll" and "brew potion", so I tried to emulate them by taking a leaf from the unearthed arcana artificer in the form of the "magical infusion" feature. On the other hand, the "overcharged spell" feature attempts to capture the feel of the "maximize spell" feature from the original d20 Modern incarnation. At the end of the class I decided to include the "spell resistance" feature from the School of Abjuration subclass, because it still felt a little bare and I felt that the feature fit quite well thematically.
The document on GM Binder: The Acolyte and The Mage
Well that's that then. Not really sure what I'm gonna put up next week. I've started on some more magical mimics for the Sorcerer and Warlock classes, but the Warlock in particular is proving to be a bit of a headache so who knows. I've made a little leeway into the second draft of the "base" advanced classes, but I don't think it's enough for a whole update by itself yet so let's just see. After reading Middle Finger of Vecna's gunslinger class, I'm also considering some revisions to the equipment, I really like the way they handle some aspects of firearms in D&D.
Well that's that then. Not really sure what I'm gonna put up next week. I've started on some more magical mimics for the Sorcerer and Warlock classes, but the Warlock in particular is proving to be a bit of a headache so who knows. I've made a little leeway into the second draft of the "base" advanced classes, but I don't think it's enough for a whole update by itself yet so let's just see. After reading Middle Finger of Vecna's gunslinger class, I'm also considering some revisions to the equipment, I really like the way they handle some aspects of firearms in D&D.
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