Latest Spellsword Change

[Astral]

Between cleric and wizard in their fighting prowess... okay.. but clerics get superior spellcasting to spellsword, being able to cast an additional school, summon things like summon creature 9 and EDK to help them lvl up really fast. So clerics outmatch spellswords in every category atm, not just fighting. And also remember that a cleric doesn't need to neglect their wisdom score too much so their offensive spells actually have higher DCs than the spellsword's.

[Opustus]

Wizards still have a lot more offensive spells they can use that clerics can't use, which is the whole point of my previous message. It's why Wizards are good without being melee-able. Spellswords retain this offensive magic almost entirely: if they were almost as good as clerics in combat, they would also be almost as good as wizards in spellcasting, which might be an overkill. Cleric doesn't outmatch Spellsword in every category, because Cleric doesn't get spells like: Mordekainen's Disjunction, Timestop, Spell mantles, Bigby spells, Horrid wilting, Premonition, Sunburst, Isaac's Missile Storm, Firebrand, Mass haste, Dominate monster...

[Peppermint]

Right. Mages have far better offensive casting capabilities, as Opustus said. Not to mention the breaches, mantles, mestil's, timestop, etc., all of which a cleric would kill for.

Clerics also neglect their wisdom score. This isn't something unique to spellswords. The optimal route is to go for 20 wisdom and then put the rest into strength. This is the exact same thing spellswords do*.

Spellswords don't do this because they have to. They do it because it's optimal. If you want to make a pure INT-based spellsword, you're certainly welcome to. (It'd be bad, though. For the same reason a WIS-based battlecleric would be bad.)

(* Unless they go DEX, of course.)

[Iceborn]

Well, all these restrictions really limit what they can do - right now, if you want to actually use your spellsword abilities, you are limited to one-handed weapons.
Since you don't have 35 APR or a good sneak dice, you'll probably want to pick a finessable weapon that deals good damage in average, which - if you are medium-sized - is the rapier.

Should that be 25 BAB not 35 APR?

Only 1 spellsword ability (AC) is limited to one-handed weapons. Damage is just limited to Melee abilities. The reason for not ranged is sort of in the name, plus Arcane archer is a thing.

Referencing monk APR, and yes. I meant the AC. See the last point beyond the EDIT as to why this is important.
Though I don't see why you can't do spellsword-archer. If anything, these two classes should have a lot of merging potential, and not be restricted and exclude one from the other.

As it was pointed before, dex spellswords get the most out of the class due to the massive investment of dealing with the ASF, and the little gain that they would receive (in fact, they'd lose AC only to gain a marginal amount of damage).

Only 1 feat is needed to deal with ASF. Your spells just go up a level. This isn't something that has to affect buffs either as you can swap into / out of armour. (yes, there are other issues but that's another matter)

I don't really know if you've ever played a caster that had to constantly switch armor back and forth, but I can assure you that it was annoying.

While your generic fighter will not have EMA or a full spellbook, they do have their freedom to choose nearly any weapon, shield or armor - barring bards - and still are effective at what they do, without paying the price that the spellswords do pay.

See, other than a slightly reduced BAB and less possible melee feats I'm not sure why their ability to choose any weapon is limited?

Change 'no offhand' to 'no shield'. - Compare this one to Cleric. The cleric, you can build for [...] and they have the option to do whatever they want with their offhand.

What's stopping you from doing what you want with your off hand? You lose AC only, just as the Cleric loses AC only?

Again, see the last point. No, actually, I'll expand on that at the end of this post.

Use total int, instead of base. Switch condition to 'dominant'.. - This is another odd choice. Why use -base-? Most spellswords will have between 18 to 22 intelligence because they will, naturally, spend most of their abilities in either STR or Dex so they can hit anything without having to true strike every round. Not to mention, Dodge AC is very finicky.

I agree there's little point/need for it being base INT here now.

Again. I love spellswords, and I've been waiting for them to come to Arelith for a long time, in whatever incarnation they would take. While I would love they get the imbue-spell that they get in PnP, I doubt that's feasible to script in Arelith, and I'm content with an interpretation of spell-warriors in a similar but different vein than bards.

Why do you think a one hit discharge of a spell would be good? Or is it the idea of using spells to empower a weapon that you like?

Mostly to give them abilities to actually make them unique. Give them trademark skills that define them as spellswords, and not just some stats tweaked here and there. Not from a balance point of view, that can be reviewed the moment it's a thing, but from a thematic point of view.

The thing is that the only thing that spellswords have over other spellswordy classes, is their healthy AC, which goes away the moment you want to break the mold and actually build something with personality.

They lose the equivalent of a shields worth of AC to gain something like additional damage or APR? which is the same for any other class that does that.
Spellswords also get a bonus to damage that other spellswordy classes don't. Take 4 fighter levels and have potentially +13 damage from spellsword and +6 from epic weapon spec and STR bonus (say +13). That's 32 static damage on any melee weapon...

The thing is that clerics and other casters -do- get their own abilities that increase their damage. After all, clerics have the possibility to take Divine Might/Shield feats - and while the builds usually have them stretching stats in every direction, it is an option. And even if that's not an option, Divine Favor is - capped at 5 AB/5 Damage, it does as your generic spellsword will do because it's not worth the investment to raise the intelligence above that, now that the AC is capped.
And yes, wizards do have an impressive array of spells, but so does the cleric. Not to mention, you are free to choose your domains to expand your selection of spells to your liking, and even then, clerics get their own Arelith-specific abilities, like -pray, AND on top of being able to do all that, they still have access to all reworked summons, which is a -huge- part of the magic of Arelith.

NOW, when I say that you have to choose between your abilities or any other weapon, I mean it for many reasons:
Yes, all you lose is your Dodge AC, but that is a class feature, and a class feature that is sorely needed because you have a crappy hit dice and you will get hit, and while you can increase your survival with some spells that clerics may not get by default (like premonition, which they can still buy scrolls of and UMD freely when it is truly required), so does everybody else in the setting.
Every other fighter can dual-wield or two-hand, and yes, they won't have a shield and they will drop on +6 potential AC, as I said before, every other fighter is not the staple fighter which only ability consists on left-clicking enemies. Every other fighter will have their own assortment of skills and their kits that they will use to prevent a horrible death at the hand of a swarm of level 2 kobolds.

Maybe I'm nitpicking the AC bonus, but when you get a feature to the class, you'd naturally want to use it, and that is pretty hard when you are cornered into a pretty limited selection of weapons.

Goodness, that was a mess of quotes.

[Peppermint]

Spellswords will be sitting at ~55 AC pre-expertise (assuming a STR tank build). Throw in a mage's host of spells: Improved Invisibility, Premonition, etc., and they'll become mighty tough nuts to crack. Pale Master tough? Certainly not. But far sturdier than most melees.

At any rate, I don't see why you'd choose to switch armor on and off to cast. Still Spell is a very good option for you. You're not going for DCs or epic spells, which frees up a ton of slots for Auto Still. Once you've taken Auto Still I, you can already wear greensteel.

Yes, the early levels may seem rough here, but there's nothing preventing you from casting stilled spells in plate early on. The early levels on Arelith tend to be a breeze, after all. Moreover, your AB doesn't 'fall off' as much until you near epic levels.

[Opustus]

Kirito-kama and other senpais, can the Kama be flurry of blows'ed with Monkypoo as Spellsword?

[Kirito]

Kirito-kama and other senpais, can the Kama be flurry of blows'ed with Monkypoo as Spellsword?

Flurry of blows should work as normal, do kama use monk APR? If so that probably isn't working right yet.

I am working on a fix for that though, which ties in with correcting tensers/divine power. It just doesn't quite work right yet!

[Opustus]

http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/UBAB
Yus, Unarmed and Kama work with it. Quarterstaff UBAB compatibility is an Arelith thingmy, you've removed that too?

[Lorkas]

Also shurikens.

[Astral]

*cough* Dire mace too *cough*

[Kirito]

quarterstaff will be back in, i'll make sure kama's and shurikens are too...

Bad Astral I know that one isn't!

[Griefmaker]

I think it would be cool if spellswords used their full int modifier for "other" (not dodge) AC like monks do with wisdom, with the same conditions that they are not wearing armor or a shield. Maybe have it add like the spellsword damage does, so every two levels of spellsword. Or even every three levels, if every two seems too powerful.

Again with the caveat that the character does not have a shield or armor.

Why? It would open up another possible path for spellswords to go down other than feeling shoehorned into being strength based and having to wear armor to get decent AC. It may not be "ideal" or as powerful, but focusing only only playing ideal characters is stupid anyway. Options, fun, potential, etc. is more important!

[Kirito]

I think it would be cool if spellswords used their full int modifier for "other" (not dodge) AC like monks do with wisdom, with the same conditions that they are not wearing armor or a shield. Maybe have it add like the spellsword damage does, so every two levels of spellsword. Or even every three levels, if every two seems too powerful.

Again with the caveat that the character does not have a shield or armor.

Why? It would open up another possible path for spellswords to go down other than feeling shoehorned into being strength based and having to wear armor to get decent AC. It may not be "ideal" or as powerful, but focusing only only playing ideal characters is stupid anyway. Options, fun, potential, etc. is more important!

It's currently every 6 levels (plus 1). It started off at 1/3 levels and that was a bit too high at level 30.

You can get just as good AC using dex as you can full plate

[Lorkas]

In order to be balanced the DEX user should have higher AC than the full plate user though, IMO, since the STR user has much higher damage and carrying capacity (not important in combat, but OMG is it so good).

[Kirito]

Adamantium Fullplate is AC 8+3 = 11 AC.

Dex Character is typcially 34-38 dex = 12-14 AC?

[Lorkas]

Adamantine full plate is 11, adamantine tower shield is another 6 (a bit more than a typical spellsword build is gonna get, though not more than is possible).

Most builds I've seen proposed would get 5 from INT. You could build for more, of course, but it still isn't going to make up for the huge amount of extra damage. The extra AC needs to be enough to make up for the extra attacks you're taking from taking longer to kill enemies with your lower damage (around 25% lower damage makes for about 33% more attacks taken, so just to break even defensively* a DEX build has to be 33% less likely to get hit in any given round than a STR user is).

They need to more-than-break-even in order to make it actually worth the offensive tradeoff.

*i.e. to take the same amount of damage on average in a given fight

[Kirito]

I failed slightly in the above. I should have only compared dex to plate, not Adamantiun plate.

So it's dex 13 AC vs plate 8AC.

Adamantium isnt relevant due to epic mage armour.

The spellsword AC is akin to a shield so we can effectively discount both there. For a spellsword, the dex build will have about 5 more AC. Putting them around 60 AC vs 55 for a plate.

That 10% difference matters more at higher levels due to lower AB (50ish for WM?)

So really you are looking at 5AC vs 10AC against D20 roll

[Kirito]

It's more that either both classes are in trouble, or a fundamental problem of strength vs dex not spellsword specific.

[Nitro]

Alright, so new spellsword update, new questions!

A spellsword can cast a defensive spell on his armour, eg stoneskin. This will be activated by the next hit that the spellsword recieves

What purpose does this serve? Why not just cast the stoneskin on self instead?

A spellsword can imbue his weapon with power from the weave. Casting a spell on the weapon gives a bonus to damage and an onhit property.
The bonus damage is determined by the spell level and the damage type by the type of the spell, eg Melf's Acid Arrow will apply 1D4 Acid Damage.

How long does the imbue weapon/armour last?

Imbue Acid causes an additional 5hp/round damage to the target for 3 rounds - save vs Fort to avoid
Imbue Cold causes -1 APR to target for 3 rounds - save vs Fort to avoid
Imbue Electric causes nearby targets to be hit by 5 electric damage - save vs Reflex to avoid
Imbue Fire causes target to lose 3 armour AC for 3 rounds - save vs Fort to avoid
Imbue Magic gives a 10% chance to dispel target
Imbue Negative causes a 15hp vampiric regeneration - save vs Fort to avoid
Imbue Sonic silences the target for 1 round - save vs Fort to avoid

What determines the save DC? And do they scale up at all? 15 Acid damage over 3 rounds at level 30 is laughable, while losing 1 APR is actually decent for example. Some of these are laughably weak lategame, and some are pretty strong early. (1 round silence is kinda weak though, considering you could just cast silence on yourself to silence anyone you melee with).

[Lorkas]

The imbue armor is basically a contingency spell. It could be super useful for example to have acid sheath imbued into your armor if you think you might be attacked by another PC. My main question is: does it persist after a rest?

For Imbue Magic's dispel: does it work by having a 10% chance rolled against every buff, every time the target is hit? Or is it a 10% chance to activate a dispel magic roll? If it's the latter, what is the CL on the dispel?

[Nitro]

Bonus round, do spells cast from scrolls/wands work to imbue weapon/armour?

[flower]

Lets hope CL for dispel is low same as DC for imbue properties. Cause you are going to trigger that save by every single succesfull attack.

[Abyssal Wrath]

Doesn't acid sheath autotarget yourself though? Not sure how you can cast it on the armor beforehand.

Except you chain spells, then it sometimes allows you to target spells which are normally selftarget only, and targetting other people with it doesn't work anyway.

[gilescorey]

Doesn't acid sheath autotarget yourself though? Not sure how you can cast it on the armor beforehand.

The same way you make acid sheath scrolls.

[Lorkas]

Doesn't acid sheath autotarget yourself though? Not sure how you can cast it on the armor beforehand.

Except you chain spells, then it sometimes allows you to target spells which are normally selftarget only, and targetting other people with it doesn't work anyway.

You can either right click your armor within your inventory and navigate the radial menu to cast acid sheath, or you can just click a quickslotted Acid Sheath while your inventory is open and then select your armor.