Hello!

33 thoughts on “Hello!”

1. I love Swordmages, and this is great!

2. Yoink!

3. Pretty darn cool. 

   Since you asked for feedback:

   – Cast a Spell: I’m really wary of the 7-9 choice to end one of your ongoing effects. You’ve got so many ongoing spells, it seems like that choice would be a no-brainer in most cases.  I could be wrong; it’s something I’d look closely at when playtesting.

   –Swordbond: As written, the only benefit is the ability to call it to your hand. The penalties are pretty stiff for that.  Is the intent that you can only cast “blade” spells on your bonded blade?  (I think that would be cool.) If so, you could drop the repitive wording in the “blade” spells, give them all a “swordbond” tag, and put the one-at-a-time limit in the move (rather than each spell description).

   –Blink Strike: Make the trigger more fictional, like “When you step through time and space to strike a nearby foe, roll +Int.”  Also, the 7-9 results seem too fiddly.  I’d recommend replacing it with a single result, like “You are dazed and confused by the transit; ask the GM what happens next.”

   –“Alignments: I really like what “Good” seems to be about, but the wording bugs me… can’t really say why.  For “Neutral,” maybe just make it acquiring an arcane secret or forgotten piece of knowledge?  (Artifacts can be pretty uncommon in play, depending on the GM and the world.) I really like the “Chaotic” phrasing, but it doesn’t seem all that chaotic to me.  It’s more evil (manipulative).

   –Advanced Moves In general, they’re very mechanical and fiddly without adding much to the fiction. A +1/-1 here or there is fine, as long as it prompts you take specific (thematic) action or add interesting detail. 

   –Elemental Channeling moves:  These are the biggest lost opportunity, I think.  Like, I CAN CHANNEL ELEMENTAL FIRE?!? That is BAD ASS.  And when I do, I… get +1 to H&S?  Meh.  I was thinking it’d let me burn shit, or walk through flames, or glow.  Ooh!  Maybe these could be hold-and-spend moves? Kind of like the druid’s shapeshift. Like…

   “When you infuse your body with elemental fire roll +Con. On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7-9, hold 2. On a 6-, hold 1 in addition to whatever the GM says. While you continue to channel elemental fire, spend your hold 1 for 1 to set something you touch on fire/lob a ball of fire (near, dangerous, thrown)/melt a small amount of metal. While you still have hold, you take half damage from fire and you radiate warmth.”

   “When you infuse your body with elemental water roll +wis. … Spend your hold 1 for 1 to roll with a blow, taking no damage and repositioning yourself/slip free of bonds or restraint/perform a manuever of sublime grace and fluidity. While you still have hold, you can breath water and swim like a fish.”

   “When you infuse your body with elemental air roll +Cha. … Spend your hold 1 for 1 to leap an impossible distance/throw something with perfect accuracy/produce a powerful gust of wind. While you still have hold, you can land safely from any height.”

   “When you infuse your body with elemental earth roll +Str. … Spend your hold 1 for 1 to smash or destroy an object within reach/ignore the effects of a single physical blow.  While you still have hold, you cannot be moved from your position if you do not wish to be.”

4. Looks pretty sweet. A few things:

   The Human’s race move is a bit too numeric, especially compared to the Elf move. 

   Blind Strike seems to be missing its triggering language. Maybe something like “When you clutch your eyes shut, visualize your target’s position and swing your weapon”

   I can picture the effect of Arcane Burst in my mind. That’s a well done move. Powerful, but not overpowered and it would be fun to describe.

   I think the “Elemental Channelling” moves require a little more explanation. How do you trigger a channeling? It seems like there’s a good starting move in there somewhere… Maybe you could pull the “Minor Elemental Magic” spell into the starting moves?

   The “Identify Magical Item” seems a bit weak for a 9th level spell. It could be made more useful if you could use it to sap a magical item’s power and imbue your weapon with it… something like the Fighter’s Blacksmith move.

5. Also: yoink +1!

6. Makes me happy to see that you guys seem to like it. ^^

   In response to the feedback by Jeremy:

   Cast a spell: You do have a point, maybe if I add that you also forget the ongoing spell that is ended by the GM? makes it a little riskier.

   Swordbond: Yes, the idea was always that you can only use “blade” spells on a weapon that you’ve swordbonded with. I guess I simply forgot to put that in the wording ^^; I’ll see if I can find a way to fix that smoothly. And yes, the penalties of the swordbond could seem severe at first glance, but consider the fact that most of the time you don’t really change your weapon, and if you were to drop your weapon you could telekinetically grab it instead of having to grab some other temporary weapon. And swords don’t tend to break all that often. 🙂

   Blink strike: You make a good point with the trigger. I’ll definitely change that. Might even steal that phrase since I really liked the wording. ^^ The other stuff I like the way it is, but I like your suggestion as well. Both ways are pretty flexible, but yours is simpler and promotes the GM doing something interesting more than mine. I’ll take it under consideration.

   Alignments: I know what you mean about the “good” wording. I feel the same way. I think it has something to do with either “control” or “spreading”. I’ll see if I can come up with a better wording for it.

   Your suggestion on neutral is something I considered for a while. I’m still not sure about it. But I do agree that simply finding magical artifacts might be a bit… meh.

   The manipulation thing is in my opinion not necessarily evil, because manipulation in itself is not an evil deed. it really depends on what you manipulate someone into doing. But i’ll admit it’s a bit of a borderline evil thing. Could just be a philosophical disagreement… ^^

   Advanced moves: I agree that they’re mechanical and fiddly. And since I like mechanical and fiddly things I kind of like that, but I do agree that they could use some more “flavor”. My main issue with that is the limited space to write that flavor in! I’d probably have to add another page for that. 😛

   And a little background on the elemental channeling thing. When I first thought of them they weresupposed to be stances. like in martial arts. But i figured elemental channeling would be more thematic and fitting for a swordmage. They were meant as more of a way to specialize your character into a certain niche, so to speak. Fire for offensive swordmages. Earth for tanky ones and so on. (and multiple ones if you wanted to be more jack of all trades-y)

   That said however I think your suggestions for channeling are brilliant! Very thematic and I will definitely look that over with those suggestions in mind. 

   I do have a few concerns however.

   For one thing I wouldn’t want to “intrude” on the elemental shapeshifting possibilities of the druid (seeing as they have a move that lets them become the elements, which see,s alot like what you are describing).

   I’m also worried about game balance. That channeling in that way could pretty much make your character extremely powerful. but then again, balance doesn’t seem to be much of an issue in this game and it would require alot of points to be put into having multiple elements…

   There’s also once again the issue of space on the sheet… 😛 No way I could fit that in without adding at least another page for the elemental channeling alone lol.

   Thanks for the feedback, +1’s and comments and all that. Glad that so far you guys seem to like it. 🙂

7. Again, thanks for the feedback. 🙂

   And some responses for Alex:

   Human:

   Agreed, it’s a bit dull. it mostly covers my idea of having swordmages wander the lands in search of knowledge. But it also partially originates in the fact that I think humans are incredibly boring as a fantasy race and that leads to me never being able to think of anything interesting when it comes to them. x)

   Any suggestions to stir the imagination would be great!

   Blink strike: Already covered by my response to jeremy. definitely something i’ll be fixing. 🙂

   Arcane burst: Thanks! I believe it can deal a maximum of 11 damage fully powered (and that would take a little bit of time to do) so yeah, I think that’s definitely balanced thanks to the way spell limits work. 🙂

   Elemental channeling: I agree that it needs a bit more of an explanation on how to activate. it was mostly thought of as simply an “at will” kind of thing, but I was running out of space to describe things and couldn’t really fit that in without adding pages.

   I agree, there might be a nice starting move in there. I’ll think about it a bit.

   Identify magical item: I agree that it’s kind of weak or uninteresting. frankly that’s one of the lamer spells imo. 😛 I just sort of ran out of ideas and most of my good ideas feel like level 1-3 spells, not 7 or 9… But I do like your idea with merging magical items with your bonded sword. Not sure if it should be a spell though… Feels a bit more like a move to me. I’ll put some thought into it. Maybe I can limit it in some interesting way and still have it a spell. Like it can only be done once, or twice before it gets overwritten. Something like that.

8. I agree with David here. Blink strike should just be a blink move and then go from there. 

   If you do decide to keep blink strike, definitely change it from “When you perform this action”. 

9. I’ve got to say. This is pretty impressive.

   I do agree with those who recommend more descriptive abilities. Less “fiddly” more fictionally bad-ass.

   Also I agree with just about everything Jeremy Strandberg shared. Especially about the advanced moves. 

   Trust us when we say that fiction goes a lot further than +1’s. 

   I will definitely be playing this class some time soon.

10. /sub for revisit

11. Jeremy Strandberg the elemental channeling moves you wrote are so good.

12. David Guyll

    The varied perspective you provide is useful, but not necessarily something I agree with, and here’s why.

    There appears to be a fundamental misunderstanding here. It seems you think I based this class on the lore of DnD. I did not. In fact I have no idea how the lore for DnD swordmages reads as I’ve never read it. Nor do I know much of anything from the general DnD lore.

    What I did was simply take inspiration from some of the moves the swordmages have. I liked the whole “teleport around in combat” thing that they do, so I incorporated that and made dimensional stuff a slight theme. (portals, rifts, teleports, blink strike etc) I also very much enjoyed  the idea of a magical shield/ward in one hand, so I incorporated that. and I liked the whole melee-magic thing, so I made my own version of that using mainly enchants and ongoing spells, not straight offensive ones.

    The elf astral projection was simple something that came to mind by combining the fact that elves are generally more attuned to magic with the whole planar-dimensional travel theme I wanted in there.

    The choice of races is simply based on the basic classes. Eladrin or gnomes are not part of that, and i’m not making this for DnD. so the options I had were humans, dwarves, elves and halflings. dwarfs are a big no-no and halflings didn’t seem to fit either. half-elves are only mentioned in the ranger moves so I didn’t want to include those either seeing as they don’t seem to be specified as a race all on their own.

    The elements are there as a general theme in all the spells, and I wanted the channeling moves to keep that theme up. Straight offensive things are fire elemental. Ice and earth are defensive while air is mostly support based or miscellaneous. That is a running theme in the class that I wanted to convey.

    Now, having said all that. I do think you have some good ideas, even though I don’t necessarily agree with them all. I do like the “Magical kata” thing you proposed and while I’m not sure if I want to use it, it is most certainly an option.

    If I were to use it I would make it so that when you learn a spell, you simply memorize it and it is added to your swordbond. and whenever you bond with a sword, runes appear on it to represent each of the spells you know, with the active ones glowing. (Perhaps with a colour corresponding to their element?)

    Preparing spells would of course then be changed to a form of kata, as you proposed as well. Instead of reading from a book. a sort of meditation mixed in with graceful sword moves.

    and the more I write about this idea the more I like it, so that will probably be put in there in some form!

    Now as to blink strike. I’m not at all a fan of the first version you proposed, simply because it makes it too unpredictable and it means you’d have to roll even more dice to do anything after the blink. (less dice is better, I’d say. even though rolling dice is fun.)

    I do however like the second concept, the one with hold based moves, and will take that under consideration. it makes the move more open-ended, less “use this at all times instead of regular hack and slash”.

    It would also open up a fifth level spell slot since teleportation would no longer be necessary. 😛 That way I might be able to think of some other fun spell to add to the mid-range levels.

13. Well then, seeing as I’ve gotten some useful feedback so far (thanks for that everyone. 😀 It’s always great to see a community that embraces constructive feedback.), I will be making a few alterations to the concept. I’ve already begun making some of them.

    But seeing as I’m new to all this google drive/google/google groups  stuff. I have some practical questions.

    1. Is there a way to simply update this post with a new pdf? Maybe by updating the pdf in google drive somehow? Or do I have to make an entirely new post? I always prefer keeping one thread alive longer as opposed to making multiple posts about the same thing.

    2. Can i add two versions of this into one post? One with the original channeling concept and another more experimental one with channeling moves based around Jeremy’s ideas. (some people might prefer the current one, options are good 🙂 )

14. 1. – If you select the document and choose “Manage Revisions” you can upload a new version.

    2. – It’s up to you. I’d say start a new post for the variant, especially if it becomes a big departure from your current swordmage.

15. I’d honestly get rid of the spells, enhance the elemental mastery suite, and up the damage die to a d8. Hitting people with a (albiet, magically infused) sword is what they do, they should be good at it. I’m also not sure I dig the teleportation as a core component.

16. William Nichols

    While I respect your opinion, that is most definitely not the way I see this class working. It’s more than a “hit things with a magical sword”. 😉

    what you propose doesn’t seem fun nor particularly flexible to me.

    it is quite capable of hitting decently hard as it is, if you spec it that way! (through both spells and moves). I did consider the D8 in the beginning though, but seeing as it’s supposed to be a jack of all trades class, going with the middle ground of a D6 seemed more fitting.

17. David Guyll

    Well in regards to the swordmage moves from DnD, they are also both teleportation based and elemental based (fire, lightning, thunder and I believe there’s ice involved as well)

    I agree that the drain spell is a bit odd and not elemental. That one I just liked the concept and flexibility of. (I didn’t want to add a straight up “regen” spell since the game doesn’t actually have “turns” per se.) the detect life spell and identify magic item spells were attempts at making some non-combat related spells for utility. I’ve already reworked the identify magic item spell according to feedback and I don’t really see any harm in having the detect life spell in there, even though it’s not necessarily thematic. I suppose I could reword it to something along the lines of thermal vision based off of the fire element. Do you think that would give it a better “feel”? 🙂

    Not sure how I would change the draining blade one though. Water to absorb vital fluids(as in blood)/electrolytes perhaps? Lightning (air in other words) to absorb electrical impulses? I’m really not sure…

    Still not a fan of adding non-basic races though. If other people chose to do that if they use the class though, more power to them.

    Well I think the dwarf thing is from my own bias on what dwarves are usually like. magically resistant, not magic uses. Use axes and hammers instead of swords.

    But I suppose you do make a good point with it fitting the elemental theme. Perhaps I’ll add them and let them pick either fire or earth channeling as a starting move? (or is that too powerful since they would gain an advanced move for free?)

18. Alright then! I updated the document. Still have some stuff left to do but it’s looking better already. Here’s what’s changed:

    Changed in V1.1

    – Slightly changed wording of the good alignment.

    – Changed the neutral alignment for more flexibility.

    – Altered spell-related starting moves to add more flavor. They still function the same though.

    – Altered the added choice on “cast a spell” 7-9 list so it also makes you forget the ongoing spell that gets disrupted.

    – Added “Are able to imbue your weapon with a single blade spell“ to swordbond moves.

    – Added dwarf as a race choice.

    – Restructured blink strike and related moves according to feedback from David Guyll, which also meant rearranging the move list a little bit. Also removed Thaumaturgical researcher (+1 spout lore for magic knowledge/items) to make room for this change while staying within the 10 moves limit. 

    – rephrased channeling a bit to make it more clear how they are activated.

    – Redesigned identify magic item into integrate magical item. (thanks for that idea Alex Barrett)

    – Added +1 armor to improved arcane shield advanced move and changed its name to arcane bastion.

    – Reworded descriptions of draining blade, arcane recovery, detect heat (formerly detect life) and arcane restoration to better fit the elemental theme.

    Upcoming in V1.2:

    – Changing the human racial trait. (Imagination shortage at the moment! Silly humans…)

    – Even though the revisions to blink makes it useless, I’m leaving teleportation in the spell list for now because if I don’t it messes up the margins REAL bad. 😛 There will be some other spell in its place later on.

    – Modified versions of elemental channeling according to feedback from Jeremy Strandberg.

    Other Thoughts: 

    I’d like to add one more move to blink strike and blink defense, but at the moment I can’t think of any. Might add that later.

19. Glad everyone likes those elemental channeling moves.  Tim Gannetoft, I wouldn’t worry about them stepping on the druid’s toes; the druid doesn’t get elemental shapeshifting until level 6+ and it’s way more versatile than the stuff I suggested.

    Some more potential ideas (as I procrastinate at work):

    – I think David Guyll has some good thoughts regarding theme; there’s a lot of cool stuff in this class, but it does feel a little disjointed.

    – If you really like the elemental moves and/or want something like them, you could easily make them one of the core moves for the class.  Like, every swordmage gets one element. Advanced moves could get you more.

    – You could make the teleportation  move one of the things the elemental channeling stances grant.  Each element could have a mobility option (air = leap/fly, water = slip/tumble, fire = burst and reform, earth = plow through an obstacle). 

    – If you do go down the road of making the stances more core, I’d strongly consider making “Cast a Spell” and “Spellbook” an advanced move.  That changes the class a lot, and you’d have to rejigger some stuff like the blade spells and the spell shield.  But those could possibly be built into moves instead of spells. 

    Have you seen Sage LaTorra’s battlemind writeup?  It’s a cool take on the “monk” concept that might be relevant if you want push the “stances” thing more than the spells.

    http://www.latorra.org/2012/07/10/the-battlemind/ 

20. Jeremy Strandberg

    Liking those ideas alot, but for the moment I’ll stick to the current ideas. Using the ideas you brought up just now would require a total rework of the entire class. not something i’m up for, at least not at the moment. ^^

    Feel free to procrastinate some more by browsing over the revised V1.1! 😀

21. David Guyll

    Almost sounds like I’ll have to make an entire class focused around blinking with all those ideas. 😀

    I had some of those ideas as well, but since classes only have 20 moves available, I’d have to remove some of the ones in there already to put these in (might consider removing the wizard spell ones for some versions of these though)

22. Alright then! I updated the document. Twice! Still have some stuff left to do but it’s looking better already. Here’s what’s changed:

    Changed in V1.2 (This is the final version of the old elemental channeling type, if anyone prefers it. any updates from now on will only be for V1.3)

    – Added 1 move each to the lists in blink strike and blink defense (thanks for those, David Guyll).

    – Changed the human racial trait. Swapped in what used to be the Thaumaturgical researcher move, seemed more fitting.

    – Replaced the level 5 teleportation spell with Dimensional rift.

    – Added dwarf names list

    Changed in V1.3

    – Changed all the elemental channeling moves (Thanks a lot for this idea Jeremy Strandberg, it’s brilliant!).

    – Added 1 move each to the lists in blink strike and blink defense (thanks for those, David Guyll.)

    – Changed the human racial trait. Swapped in what used to be the Thaumaturgical researcher move, seemed more fitting.

    – Replaced the level 5 teleportation spell with Dimensional rift.

    – Added dwarf names list

    Upcoming in V1.4:

    Not sure. Liking it the way it is for now. Still not sure about the human trait, but I’m pretty stumped on that, feel free to offer thematic suggestions.

    Thoughts: 

    Had to change the font size quite a bit on the moves since they take up so much space now! I hope it’s still legible when printed…

    I hope everyone else can view “old versions” like I can. Let me know! If not I’ll have to upload them separately.

23. Brilliant work old chum. Keep it up!

24. Sweetness!  Some additional comments (mostly of an editing nature):

    – Consider adding a descriptive word to each “hold” move. Like Blink would be “hold 3 warp” and elemental channelling might be “hold 1 fire” (etc.).  Then you spend “1 warp” to teleport and spend “1 fire” to trigger a fire move.  (This is just for clarity’s sake, and to avoid the awful “can I spend my hold from Blink on Elemental Channeling?” conversation.)

    – “Blade-Kata” makes me think of “Gymkata,” a horrible 80s movie that you don’t want associated with this class.  At least, I wouldn’t want it associated with my class.  Maybe drop “Blade” (so it’s just “Kata”) or go for something more poetic like “The Practiced Dance” or something descriptive like “Swordmage Patterns”. 

    – I think you could tighten up the Advanced Elemental Channeling moves by making the “Requires” (instead of “Replaces”) and just describing the additions/changes.  For example: “While you hold fire, you also inflict +1 damage. You can also spend 1 fire to: X, Y, Z.” 

    –Arcane Bastion: the “additional +2 armor against magic” rider reads strangely to me. How about making the move something like this: “You arcane aegis cantrip grants an additional +1 armor. Also, you can end your arcane aegis and forget the spell to ignore a single magical attack or effect that targets you.”

    –Blink Strike: I’m not sure about this one… I think the first two options are things you can already do with Blink! Like, if I teleport to appear behind/beside an opponent and stab him, that should normally just deal damage (rather than require a Hack and Slash). If my enemy has ridiculous reflexes or an transplanar senses, maybe he can react and I roll H&S, but normally?  I’m just gonna hit him.  Maybe use Sneak Attack as your guide here? “When you teleport to an advantageous position and attack your enemy, deal your damage or roll +Int. If you roll +Int, on a 7-9…” and then give options similar to Sneak Attack.

    -Also, I’m not so sure about the spend 2 hold to teleport someone away from you.  It’s cool, but… I dunno, too powerful?  Feels wrong?  Also, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a move that has you “spend 2 hold.”  I think I’d like it better if it were just an advanced move that lets you bring someone you are touching with you when you spend 1 hold (warp?) to teleport.  That’s wicked flexible, but it avoids the “I teleport him over the lava pit” move.

    –Blink Defense: the first option seems like something I ought to be able to do anyhow with Blink.  The second and third options are cool, but… unnecessary?

    Oh!  Ooh!  What if you did this?

    1) Blink: Replace “…but your may only spend 1 hold at a time” with “…but you must wait a few seconds before spending warp again.”

    2) Redo *Blink Strike” as I describe above (like Sneak Attack), dropping the “teleport other” thing.

    3) Drop Blink Defense.

    4) New move:

    Blink Mastery: When you spend 1 warp to teleport, you can bring along someone you are touching. Also, you can spend warp again immediately; you no longer need to wait a few seconds between teleports.

    5) In Swordbond, add an effect that your sword counts as an extension of your reach. You are considered to be touching anythin your sword touches.

    All of these things above would give the player a huge amount of fictional leeway to do awesome stuff without dictating the fiction through mechanics.  Like, with blink mastery and 3 warp, I could teleport to Defend the thief when he’s attacked by the ogre. If I picked “deal 1/2 level damage” from Defend, I could then say I slashed him with my sword and spend 1 more warp to teleport us both 50 feet in the air. Then I could spend my last warp to teleport safely to the ground and let the ogre fall. 

25. One more set of comments: I’m still not feeling Swordbond, at least not the “-2 to attacks using any other weapon.”  I think it needs more fiction, and it should be more integral to the Cast a Spell and Kata moves. 

    How about:

    Swordbond

    When you spend uninterrupted time (an hour or so) binding your soul to a blade, your spell runes appear along its length and it becomes a focus of your power. If you were previously bound to a different blade, that bond ends. While bonded to a blade:

    –You may telekinetically summon it to your hand if it is nearby

    –It counts as an extension of your touch (for purposes of spells, etc.) 

    –You can always sense its distance and position from you.

    You can only cast “blade” spells on your bonded blade, and you can maintain only one such spell on your blade at a time.  If your bonded blade is broken, you suffer a debility of the GM’s choice.

    Then, in Blade-Kata (or whatever you call it), rephrase it to require that you must be practicing with your bonded sword.  And make it clear that you must wield your bonded blade to Cast a Spell.  That strikes me as a lot more thematic and potentially painful than “-2 to attacks using any other weapon.” (You could even take it a step further and say that you can only maintain spells while you wield your bonded blade.)

    Regarding Strengthened Swordbond and Supreme Swordbond, these can probably be “Requires” moves instead of “Replaces.” You don’t really need the additional penalties to attack with other weapons or the additional debilities.  These are advanced moves; they should just make you better.

    Also, I bet you could come up with more flavorful things than just “+1 damage” and “+1 to Hack and Slash.”  Some ideas off the top of my head:

    -While you hold warp, you can teleport to blade without spending warp.

    -Spend 1 warp to ignore armor on an attack

    -While you hold warp, your bonded sword gains +2 piercing

    -You can maintain up to two “blade” spells on your bonded sword at once

    – When you deal damage with your bonded blade, you can spend 1 warp to disrupt your victim’s magical abilities

    – When you roll 13+ to hack and slash with your bonded blade, pick one of the following:

        –Suppress one of its supernatual defenses or abilities

        –Banish it to its home dimension

        –Fill it with supernatural fear or dread

    I’m not sure I actually like any of those in particular, but I bet you could come up with something fictionally awesome instead of just a +1 here or there.

26. Tony Ferron 

    Thanks!

    Jeremy Strandberg

    Good input as usual. ^^

    Never seen that movie but after looking it up on imdb it sure does seem horrible. x) I was never too fond of the name blade-kata to begin with (seems too crude). I’ll reword that to something else.

    Nice way of compressing the advanced channeling moves. I didn’t think of that. I’ll do that right away! As well as adding hold warp, hold fire etc. Being extra clear never hurts. 

    Arcane bastion: while I agree that the armor vs magic is slightly unclear, I don’t think forgetting the spell would be a good thing. too big of an inconvenience for such an integral part of the class. Ending the aegis to cancel the spell is probably enough.

    swordbond:

    Lots of useful input to make it more thematic, though i’m not sure which ones i’ll end up using. I actually did add the debilities and penalties to make it more thematic (you lose a bigger part of yourself if the sword breaks, it feels like a betrayal if you use any other weapon. that kind of thing) But I suppose it might not be necessary.

    I do like the whole “need a bonded sword to cast spells at all” and “while you hold warp do X” kind of stuff. might add something like that. definitely won’t do the 2 blade spells thing however. thought of that myself and it just makes very little sense thematically. (A blade with both fire and water properties? Meh! :P)

    All the blink stuff: While you do make fair points in regards to blink strike. it really depends on the GM. I personally would require someone to blink and then roll hack and slash if they didn’t use blink strike, though I might give them a +1 for the surprise. 

    I do however like the whole sneak attack idea (as it would up the damage potential a bit more, I feel that the class right now is a bit lacking in that regard if you don’t use the “blasty” spells too much, which should not be a requirement imo.)

    I’ll have to think about this a bit and see what I come up with. I mean it works the way it is, really. But some other way might be even better.

27. And another update

    Here’s what’s changed:

    Changed in V1.4 

    – Reworded various things in regards to casting and learning spells.

    – Compressed the advanced elemental channeling moves.

    – Added distinctions to hold moves (hold fire, hold warp etc)

    – Reworked arcane bastion magic blocking component.

    – Reworked blink strike and blink defense (now blink mastery) to make them more flexible. 

    – Reworked supreme swordbond and turned it into the bond of life.

    – Reworked strengthened swordbond.

    Upcoming in V1.5:

    Depends on feedback!

    Thoughts: 

    I would have liked to make blink strike something like:

    10+: choose two, 7-9 choose one. With 4 options. But I couldn’t really think of any other choices that made sense…

    Making the sword alive opens up SO many fun possibilities. You’ll seem insane as you converse with your sword but no one else hears it. Maybe it has knowledge of things you do not.

    Maybe it has no knowledge at all (it was just born after all) and is incredibly naïve.

    Maybe it has a personality that is very abrasive and conflicts with your own and the sword doesn’t want to agree on your actions! (Hijinks’ ensue)

    Good GM’s will link the additional effect to the swords personality. Maybe your sword hates halflings or undead and you deal increased damage to them (and your sword screams curses at them in your head while you fight them!) 

    Maybe it is affected by what elements you are capable of channeling and enhances them, adding more elemental moves.

    Maybe it gives you bonuses to spellcasting (a wise but arrogant wizard personality perhaps?).

    Maybe the sword was actually possessed by a demon of some sort during the ritual that is now just manipulating you without your knowledge.

    Maybe it has the soul of a paladin and deals reduced damage to creatures weaker then you.

    SO. MANY. OPTIONS.

28. Small update

    Here’s what’s changed:

    Changed in V1.5 

    – Added an option to disarm on blink strike.

    – Added the spell “elemental cataclysm” to ninth level spells.

    – Renamed the spell “displaced blade” into “Mistral blade” and added a reach effect to it, to add a bit of flavor.

    – added the messy and dangerous tags to burning blade for flavor!

    Thoughts: 

    Considering only being able to cast cataclysm with 3 hold and/or with advanced elemental channeling move. But considering the character only has partial control, this spell could potentially harm the entire party if used without caution. Might be enough of a deterrent against abusing it.

29. Sneak edit: Fiddled a bit with the formatting on the spell list so it doesn’t look like crap anymore!

    Hoping people get a chance to try the class out anytime soon and tell me if they liked playing it. 🙂

    Probably won’t be able to try it out myself for a couple of months or so.

30. Bit of an update to damage after some closer consideration of other classes damage dealing capabilities.

    Changed in V1.6 

    – fixed some minor errors in text, formatting etc.

    – Upped the damage die to a D8. Previous maximum damage (with 1D6) was 9, might be a bit low (1D6 base, +1 from fire channel, +1 from sword +1 from burning blade.) Looking over at the other classes very few (if any) deal that low damage as a maximum, and the swordmage needs a lot of things to pull off that damage. The “low” damage is a consequence from altering other skills since the original. Since the class is now more offensive than before, a D8 seems more fitting for that reason as well.

    – Increased burning blade spells damage bonus to +1D4 (from +1. Offsets the dangerous tag and helps a bit with the issue mentioned above. Upping the damage cap to a total of 14, putting the class more on the levels of other classes, without being near the top ones)

    – Increased ethereal blade bonus to +2 piercing and added the effect of striking through objects, as the flavor text might have been unclear on the ability to do that. (making it useful in relation to the new burning blade spell)

31. Minor tweaks to balance things out as usual. Fixed a few missed things from previous changes. Also swapped most of the WIS traits for INT to make the class a bit more focused on certain traits (like other classes), also makes water channeling a bit more viable of an option.

    Changed in V1.7 

    chilling blade -2 instead of -1.

    Changed gale slice to 1D8 instead of 1D6.

    Removed damage component from blinding flash.

    Exchanged WIS for INT on water channeling and trace magic (too many stats to focus on!)

    2 questions for 10+ for trace magic

    Removed the grimoire from starting gear since it is no longer a part of the swordmage.

32. Have to say I love this and the alterations that have been made… Do you have an up-to-date version of the pdf?

33. Anton Dominic

    Thanks. 🙂

    The version you get when you click the image should be the most recent one. (The link gets auto updated whenever I revise it)

    Just now I uploaded a new one with some minor grammatical fixes. It is currently V 1.7.

    If that is not the version you get when you click the image, send me a message and I’m sure we can figure it out.

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