Talk:Elemental Mage, Variant 2 (5e Class)

I created the elemental mage with a the goal of creating something new while also simplifying spellcasting in 5e. Some design goals:

1. Reduce choice fatigue for spellcasting classes. For casters in 5e, a player not only must choose a class and a subclass, but new spells every few levels, as well as preparing spells every long rest. The Elemental Mage does away with these choices by granting spells at the appropriate character levels based on the chosen element(s) for the character. Once learned, spells are always known and always prepared
2. Remove spell slots. Instead of a player needing to track up to 9 levels of spell slots, I replaced it with a single number: Magic Points. Which has an addition benefit: magic points can also be spent for magic-like abilities granted to the elemental mage
3. Fun at level 1, fun through level 20. I find a lot of casters are less fun at lower levels. Or less fun between level 5 and the level at which spells start getting pretty powerful (around level 11 for me). I designed the Elemental Mage to get at least a small improvement at each level, while hopefully also preserving game balance

Inspirations

I came to D&D from a long history of playing JRPGs, and my understanding of how magic works in a game was informed by JRPGs. For one, I like the idea of the Red Mage from Final Fantasy I. A character that is strong right at the beginning of the game, with healing magic, attack magic, and strong weapon attacks. Since most D&D characters do not make it past level 1, that is the most important level to get right.

King’s Field II and King’s Field III were strong inspirations for the magic system in this class. While you may not recognize King's Field, you probably know the developer From Software and their later games: Dark Souls and Elden Ring. But back in King's Field, the in-game lore describes 4 magical elements being a gift from the good dragon-god, and 1 element a gift from the evil dragon-god. While the story of the games go to eventually out this as a lie, the concept is interesting to me. All the elements are available and can be found in any order. And the elements specialize in one or two things: fire is mostly attack spells, water is mostly healing, etc.

Prestige Elements

I have a few more prestige elements roughly put together, and am hoping to add them to the class eventually. However, since prestige elements are not accessible until level 17, there is a chance that these will never be needed.

Playtesting

My DM has graciously allowed me to test this class in their campaign. However, if you play this class and have any thoughts, ideas, or difficulties, please send me a message. Even if you do not have any complaints, I would love to hear about your character! And if by some miracle I am ever in a position to publish this class, I would love to thank every person who playtested it.

Edits

Please let me know if anything in this class needs to be updated. I am watching the page and am happy to clarify anything that is ambiguous. Of course, I defer to the experts on matters such as layout and formatting for this wiki. Oh and if anyone knows how to hide sections from the Table of Contents, I tried a few suggestions, but could not find the right solution.

Thanks!

--SnyperWolf (talk) 15:20, 25 October 2024 (MDT)