Mage Talent

At tenth level, and every two levels thereafter, the mage's understanding of the arcane deepens. He may select one of the following talents.

• Channel: You may, as a swift action, sacrifice any number of hit points. You gain temporary mana equal to half the amount of hit points you sacrificed, rounded down. Temporary mana lasts for 1 round per point of Intelligence modifier you have, and can put you over your maximum mana. In addition, you can go into lifeburn.
  • Lifeburn (Sp): You may, as a swift action, go to 0 hit points. If you do, the base mana cost of all your spells becomes 0, and you gain the benefits of the doublecast talent. This effect lasts for 1 round per point of Intelligence modifier, during which you are immune to damage, can only be destroyed by effects that ignore hit points (such as a sphere of annihilation), and you ignore any penalties for being staggered. After the effect ends, you permanently and irrevocably die. You can only use this ability if you are at 1 or more hit points.
• Disciplined Mind: Whenever you would gain a mana die, you may roll twice and take the result of your choice. When you take this talent, you may reroll all the mana dice you have accumulated thus far, and take the total of that reroll or your current total (remember that if mage was your first class, your first level's mana die is maximized).
  • Expansive Mind: Whenever you would gain a mana die, the size of the mana die is increased by one step. If your mana die is d12, your mana die becomes d12+d2 (if you further improve your mana die, the next step is d12+d4, then d12+d6, and so on). You can take this talent multiple times; its effects stack. (Prerequisites: Disciplined Mind)
  • Focused Mind: You gain an additional +1 magic point per caster level. You can take this talent multiple times; its effects stack. (Prerequisites: Disciplined Mind)
• Dilettante: Choose two common paths. You can access spells one grade higher for those paths (so if you could normally access apprentice spells, you can now access journeyman spells), and immediately learn two spells of the new grade from each path. (Special: You cannot take this talent and the generalist or specialist talents)
• Doublecast: You can, as a full-round action, cast two spells simultaneously. The combined mana cost of the two spells can be no greater than double your caster level.
  • Quadramagic: You can, as a full-round action, cast four spells simultaneously. The combined mana cost of the four spells can be no greater than triple your caster level. (Prerequisites: Doublecast)
• Expanded Implements: Choose another magical implement (tome, staff, or orb). You gain affinity for the chosen implement type. You can take this talent up to two times; each time you do, select a new implement.
• Generalist: Your inferior path becomes a common path, and you immediately learn two spells from each grade that you can now access for that path. Your mage level is treated as three levels lower for determining your spell access to your ruling paths. (Special: You cannot take this talent and the dilettante or specialist talents)
• Orb Mastery: While wielding an orb as an implement, your Locus of Concentration ability no longer makes you flat-footed, and you can apply its enhancement bonus as an insight bonus to your Will saves and Concentration checks. (Prerequisites: Orb as a chosen implement)
• Specialist: Treat your mage level as two levels higher for determining your spell access to your ruling paths. In addition, learn two additional spells of each grade for each of your ruling paths, and when you gain access to a new grade of spells in those paths, immediately learn one spell of the new grade. Your mage level is treated as four levels lower for determining your spell access to your inferior path, and as one level lower for determining your spell access to your common paths. (Special: You cannot take this talent and the dilettante or generalist talents)
• Staff Mastery: While wielding a staff as an implement, you can apply its enhancement bonus to the saving throw DCs of spells you cast. (Prerequisites: Staff as a chosen implement)
• Tome Mastery: While wielding a tome as an implement, you can apply its enhancement bonus to caster level checks to overcome Spell Resistance. (Prerequisites: Tome as a chosen implement)
• Wish (Sp): You gain knowledge of the wish spell. (Prerequisites: Caster level 16th+, must be able to access Master spells)
• Feat: The mage may gain a bonus feat in place of a talent.

Spells

The following are mage spells, ordered by path, then by grade.

Artifice Path

Words.

Conjury Path

Words.

Malediction Path

Words.

Sorcery Path

Words.

Thaumaturgy Path

Initiate Thaumaturgy Spells
Spell Name	Effect	Resonance
Arc Lightning	Strike up to two creatures with lightning, dealing potency 2 lightning damage.	Attempt to strike an additional nearby creature.
Cloud of Daggers	You create dozens of tiny daggers made arcane energy which fill a space.	The cloud follows the original target.
Magic Missile	Unerringly strike a creature for potency 2 arcane damage.	---
Ray of Frost	Strike a creature with a burst of cold dealing potency 4 ice damage.	Slow the target.
Scorching Burst	Blast creatures in a 5 ft radius with potency 3 fire damage.	Inflict ongoing fire damage with potency 1.
Storm Pillar	Create a crackling column of lightning that deals potency 2 lightning damage to creatures that near it.	---
Thunderwave	Create a burst in front of you that deals potency 3 sonic damage.	Push the targets away from you.
Unraveling Dart	Shoot forth magical missiles that transform into energy the target is vulnerable to, dealing potency 2 damage of that type.	Temporarily removes barrier or resist damage of a random type.

 

Wizardry Path

Words.

Feats

The following are a selection of feats that are relevant to mages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Design Notes

June 12, 2016: Not a complete redesign, but quite close.

I am mildly unhappy with the paths. In particular, time and space are mighty impinging on the epochent's shtick. I am also uncertain that I am happy with the breakdown. I'd like to return to the nine-school setup of standard magic, reallocating the various spells into the original schools.

In general, the mage will seem significantly less powerful than the wizard. This is most likely due to a removal of a significant number of spells - part of the idea here is to cull magic down into something that isn't "do everything ever," so that there are actual niches among Force-using classes.

The end goal is that the mage will be on-par with other Force-using classes, rather than the wizard being utterly ridiculous in comparison to everyone else.

Aside from the paths, I'm pretty happy with the mage so far. Making them point-based is something I've wanted to do for awhile, since spell slots per RAW are... clunky. Rolling randomly for mana points makes it interesting, and in keeping with the theme of the Reality forces (which all have a random element in their usage). The maths for mana seems to work out such that even getting really screwed on mana rolls won't make you useless, provided you have a reasonably high Int; since SAD is in effect here, that shouldn't be an issue.

15/03/20: We're going to the d20 school setup. I need to write up some spells since one of the main antagonists for the upcoming game is a mage, and we need to know what she is capable of.

Also... these spell tables are madness. Need to tone that shit right the hell down, because that's just crazy. I don't know why I thought that would be a good idea... we'll have a separate section for each path, then divide the spells into grades. Because that's actually sane.