Battlemage, with a warlocky twist
I’m still pretty new to Dungeon World, but I really enjoyed making the Tax Collector. Matt Smith asked if anyone had made a battlemage, and one of my players mentioned a similar style of class, so I thought I’d take a crack at it. I’m going to add a few more moves, I think.
Feedback is most certainly welcome!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tmGCA3xz6Y6aAC1E07Ue_y697SD8UOThLtY1xK0H6eg/edit?usp=sharing
Some thoughts:
ELDRITCH BLOOD
1) when you say you risk backfire on a 7-9, do you mean you can still avoid it?
2) maybe +1d4 ongoing, and as backfire, you take 1 HP for every H&S? Too much?
3)How does SPELL REND work against NPCs?
ADVANCED MOVES
4) you could add a semi-multiclass move, such as take a move from another playbook; treat your level as 1 less unless the move protects you from magic.
5)the feedback around your foe in ELDRITCH GRASP is a GOOD concept
6) EMPOWERED BLOOD: does it mean you add CON modifier?
7)ALL LIFE IS ENERGY lets you slay a couple of ignorant bandits and gain power from 6th level onwards. Meh… Not “overpowered”, but it robs “magick” from the class concept.
8) you could make a DWARF Battlemage (D&D4), with Eldritch Armor as a racial move. It lets you subtract CON from one attack, or give +1 armor during a fight, or something.
9) a move that lets you “get in touch” with magic objects related to battle. Can’t be helpful, here, but the day is still long.
Hope it helps!
1) It’s at the GM’s option. If it wouldn’t fit the fiction, it doesn’t happen.
2) Ongoing might be too much, but maybe I can change it so that you can keep that “switched on” and spend 1 Power for each H&S to keep 1d4 ongoing. That might kill the Power pool too quickly, though. I’ll have to playtest that part, but I think you’re right that that part of Eldritch Blood is a little underwhelming right now.
3) This is probably going to need to be rebuilt again… I forgot DW NPCs don’t work the same way as the PCs when it comes to spells and moves. Might establish a list of spells that they can use with “stolen spells” instead, so when you steal spells from an enemy it just replenishes your Power pool. It’s easy to say “the enemy is a magic user,” but more difficult to say “the enemy has all these specific spells.”
4) That’s a good point!
5) Thanks! I was worried it might be too irritating to the player.
6) Yes, in DW the convention I’ve seen is that whenever an abbreviation is used, it means to use the modifier. If the name of the attribute is fully spelled out, it’s the entire attribute. For instance, HP+Constitution for max HP, versus Load+STR for max load.
7) The situation I was trying to avoid with this was that if the party doesn’t encounter a magic user, this character can gain no resources. I was taking some inspiration from the Necromancer, which has a similar resource system, but they can gather resources from any dead body. Still, I’ll think of some other options. You’re right about it taking away from the theme, I think.
8) I like that, consider the idea stolen!
9) Not sure I understand what you mean. Like, a way to detect them? Or a way to get your hands on them? If the latter, that reminds me that I’ve mentioned absorbing energy from items in the doc but haven’t explicitly described it anywhere…
Thank you so much for reading through it and sharing your thoughts. I really appreciate it.
I was thinking (point 9) something like: when you obtain a magic battle item (armor, weapon, etc) that you call “yours”, add +1 piercing/+1 armor to it. At the start of a combat, roll [xxx] once.
On a 10+, when you gain charge, gain +1 charge.
On a 7-9, take +1 ongoing to use the magic power of the object.
Power ends whrn fight ends.
At lvl 2-5, one object. At 6-10, two.
What I want here is the power to use a battle object at 110%
Thanks for clarifying. I took your suggestion, with a slight rework to your idea for using magic items at 110%. I put a playbook together so I can get this thing on a table, sharing it here in case anyone else wants to give it a go.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4J4lMoc2heLVVBUVzBUYnRIeHc/edit?usp=sharing
where can I find this tax collector sheet. My friend wanted to play the capitalist as a class and I thought this would fit
Here… it may need some tweaking, I haven’t had a chance to playtest it yet, it’s a little overpowered because lawl. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4J4lMoc2heLaU5yeUk3X3JTbG8/edit?usp=sharing
yeah, i found it shortly after posting it. Now I just need a good campaign that goes through how to run the game at the same time.
Well the way I started was by picking an environment to put the party into, picking a group of enemies to throw them against, and then just improv’d from there… have you read the DW Guide? it has a lot of really good advice on getting started.