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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next The Swordmage [PEACH]



WarrentheHero
2018-05-25, 03:12 PM
The Swordmage is my favoirte class from 4th edition, and I've been trying to figure out how to convert it to 5e for a long time. I think I've finally stumbled upon a collection of numbers and features that captures the essence of the Swordmage as I played and remember it, and want to see what you guys here at the Playground think.

I wrote a lot of this in the wee hours of the morning, so if there are sleep-deprived grammatical or syntax errors, please let me know so I can fix them.

https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-LD3kFEEPSvRg0152Prd GM Binder (uses Markup, so variable success regarding formatting)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oEDIe8s-gx7b2V2IJLs3qUcMCIKpKDnp/view?usp=sharing (PDF on Google Drive)

JNAProductions
2018-05-25, 09:20 PM
I can't read it. Half the pages are cut off.

WarrentheHero
2018-05-25, 11:39 PM
I can't read it. Half the pages are cut off.

Oof. I'll try to make it a PDF and try and again, soon as I'm at my computer. It works for me but Markup seems to have problems in general

JNAProductions
2018-05-26, 07:49 AM
Minor note-include ASI in the ability write-up.

Dimensional Cleave references "Marking"-that's not a mechanic in 5th edition.

Ah, I see-other abilities mark creatures. That's... Dimensional Cleave sucks, then, because you have to use SEVERAL other limited abilities before it becomes worth using.

Improved Swordmagic is very strong-I'd move it to level 11, which is when most classes see a big power bump.

Energy Theft is just plain neat. I like it.

Total Aegis should specify what happens if you're wielding a one-handed weapon.

Mark of Assault is significantly too powerful.

Actually, the entire Assault subclass is too strong.

Flame Cyclone sucks, since you have to target yourself with it. Overall, Ensarement feels a little weak, but much closer to balanced than Assault.

Mark of Shielding doesn't quite work-generally, you mark ENEMIES, not allies. This interacts badly with, say, Dimensional Cleave.

Ward of Brilliance feels a touch too strong.

Overall, I like it... Mostly. It feels a little unfocused and a little too strong in some areas, but with a little workshopping, I think it'll be good.

Amnoriath
2018-05-26, 07:52 AM
1. One of the things that come up to me is there is a lot of potential to stack damage. Just from Improved Swordmage magic alone you are dealing more damage than anyone else at this point and even for a fee more levels.
2. There is a lot of little pools of resources to keep track of and could be difficult. As such finding a more concise mechanic would help everyone looking at this class and playing.
3. So much of the class deals with combat and damage it has no room for utility.

WarrentheHero
2018-05-26, 01:44 PM
Minor note-include ASI in the ability write-up. I usually don't, since everyone pretty much knows what it is, but if you think it makes the class look better I suppose I can.


Dimensional Cleave references "Marking"-that's not a mechanic in 5th edition.

Ah, I see-other abilities mark creatures. That's... Dimensional Cleave sucks, then, because you have to use SEVERAL other limited abilities before it becomes worth using. You make a valid point I hadn't really considered. I could make it more of an AoE instead of working off of Marks. Maybe creatures in some AoE like 10-foot radius make a Con save or take damage, half on success?


Improved Swordmagic is very strong-I'd move it to level 11, which is when most classes see a big power bump. It's modeled loosely after the War Magic of the Eldritch Knight, which gets a bonus action attack after a cantrip at 7th level. I figured it would be roughly the same power level, if not worse, as you're locked into one of four spells and it comes at level 9. Granted, it doesn't consume your bonus action.


Energy Theft is just plain neat. I like it. Thank you; it's one of the few features I didn't really have to think about; it just sort of wrote itself.


Total Aegis should specify what happens if you're wielding a one-handed weapon. The intent is that the benefit of Swordmage Warding increases by 2 across the board. If you're wielding a two-handed weapon, you now get +3 instead of +1. If you're wielding a one-handed weapon, you now get a +5 instead of +3.


Mark of Assault is significantly too powerful.

Actually, the entire Assault subclass is too strong.
Aegis of Assault was my favorite of the Aegis choices in 4e, so I may have been more forgiving with regards to balance and tuning. I could turn the free attack from Mark of Assault into disadvantage, but I imagine that a creature Marked by the Swordmage would trigger it maybe once near the start of combat, and then have a Swordmage on them after that, so the attack itself I don't imagine will go off very often.

Not sure about the rest of the class, besides bringing Dual Lightning Strike into once/day. In my eyes DLS is like a Fighter's 11th-level Extra Attack, but limited in the number of times per day, and that you can't hit one target three times; DLS must be used against a second creature, and must consume a Swordmage Step. So I figured it was maybe weaker than the 3rd Extra Attack, and that with the name lent itself to a bit of extra lightning damage.

Dragon's Teeth isn't supposed to be used for damage; it's a deterrent. It forces enemies to choose between focusing other targets and suffering, or engaging you. I can roll back the damage, but I like the idea that the aggressive subclass has a built-in "FIGHT ME!" mechanic.

Hellspike Assault is definitely a strong one, but I love the idea of just becoming this teleporting monster slicing up your enemy. It does end if you miss, of course. I could reduce the maximum number of attacks to 3, maybe? Or keep it as-is but turn it into an Action to prevent comboing it with Extra Attack/Imp. Swordmagic. Maybe specify that you can't use Flourishes with it, but that was part of the cinematic badassery I envisioned it with.


Flame Cyclone sucks, since you have to target yourself with it. Overall, Ensarement feels a little weak, but much closer to balanced than Assault. Similar to Dragon's Teeth from Assault, Flame Cyclone is meant to be a deterrent. It's not meant to deal damage, but the damage has to be there as a threat. The idea is that you have battlefield control as an Ensnarement Swordmage, and what keeps your enemies from moving better than a whirling wall of death around them? Extra Mark at that same level is also supposed to shore up any perceived weaknesses.


Mark of Shielding doesn't quite work-generally, you mark ENEMIES, not allies. This interacts badly with, say, Dimensional Cleave.
Yeah, it's an outlier alright. It's part of the reason that Dimensional Cleave is the only base class feature that directly interacts with Marks, other than applying them. The other idea was to apply a Mark to an enemy and that enemy has disad on all attacks against creatures other than you, but there wasn't a good way to work the Teleport into that, which is a key element of the class and specifically the Mark features. It also makes Falcon's Mark and Sword of Sigils poor choices for Shielding Swordmages. I like it in its current ideation, but if you have any suggestions to make it better, I'm absolutely all ears.


Ward of Brilliance feels a touch too strong.
True. I think I might reduce the ability to use it on yourself; make it purely a "defend others" move. That will reduce a significant chunk of its power without really changing its thematics at all. I could reduce the damage, but at 17th level 3d6 isn't much at all. Then again, if it's every round...


Overall, I like it... Mostly. It feels a little unfocused and a little too strong in some areas, but with a little workshopping, I think it'll be good.
Thanks for all of the critiques; workshopping is why it's here on the board :D I knew going in that it was going to be over-tuned. The class in 4e was pretty much all combat all the time with no real utility, and it can be hard to make a class in 5e that does that, since all combat abilities usually means more damage for the class.

One thought that I had is to convert some of the subclass abilities into Flourishes. It might be weird to grant Flourishes at 6th level when the base class gets them at 7, but there's a precedence with that for College of Lore Bard, which gets "Additional" Magical Secrets at level 6 and the base class gets them at 10. It might make Ensnarement better by increasing the number of times it can use its abilites, and weaken Assault by reducing the number of times it can use Dragon's Teeth and Dual Lightning Strike.




1. One of the things that come up to me is there is a lot of potential to stack damage. Just from Improved Swordmage magic alone you are dealing more damage than anyone else at this point and even for a fee more levels.
I mentioned this earlier, but Improved Swordmagic is pretty much the same as War Magic, at a later level with more restrictions, though it doesn't lose a bonus action. I think I can/should restrict it tsay that you can't use use a Flourish on the same turn that you use Imp. Swordmagic. That prevents some of the damage-stacking.


2. There is a lot of little pools of resources to keep track of and could be difficult. As such finding a more concise mechanic would help everyone looking at this class and playing. Very true. I've thought about ways to consolidate the disparate things into one or two resources. Swordmage Step would almost necessarily have to stay its own thing, but I considered "Swordmage Dice" or "Swordmage Points", but I felt like that was even more bookkeeping. At least for me, it's easier to have abilities that I can just mark off per rest than to have a juggle of points or dice to deal with, in a way that feels like there's enough that each ability can be used.

One thing that I've considered towards this end is converting some of the Aegis subclass features into Flourishes. It doesn't mean you don't have to track them, but it means they're tracked on the same paradigm. Dragon's Teeth, Dual Lightning Strike, Sweeping Frostblade, and Flame Cyclone could all be Flourishes. The Aegis of Shielding features are more along the lines of passive buffs so wouldn't really be good conversions into Flourishes without changing the features completely.


3. So much of the class deals with combat and damage it has no room for utility.
Very true. As a designer I usually have a hard time with Ribbons (non-combat and/or non-technical features), which is exacerbated by working on a class conversion whose original incarnation was also "all combat all the time". I will say that the Swordmage does have a bit of innate Utility via Swordmage Step; teleportation is a powerful utility ability for crossing chasms, escaping bonds, or avoiding AoO. If you have any ideas for a strong Ribbon or Utility, either at the base class or subclass level, please let me know!

Anymage
2018-05-26, 11:23 PM
You're a little overly invested in 4e style abilities where saves were the defacto measure of a spell's duration, and seem to be forgetting that 5e makes concentration a huge thing. Swordmages get to stack effects like nobody else.

And in the name of simplicity, most of the feel of a swordmage could be built with stuff that already exists. If you're playing a fighter, especially one who obviously plans to become an EK, swapping heavy armor proficiency for warding should be a reasonable ask as an ACF. After that you might have to wait a few levels, since most of the 4e Defender concept is currently wrapped up in the Sentinel feat. Pick up the swordmage inspired cantrips, grab War Caster so your Sentinel powered OAs can hit hard (and possibly the Sentinel powered defender-ish reactions, depending on DM interpretation), and both Weapon Bond and Arcane Strike are baked into the package. Not to mention whatever other swordsmanship enhancing spells you might have.

Because I'm not even going into how swordmages make better arcane scholars than wizards, or how Spellbender's Gift can force the enemy's weapons to all take on a particular elemental aspect which your super defendery self can exploit by having an ally cast Protection From Energy on you. Or ask how marking interacts if a swordmage picks up Sentinel. I'm going to instead point out that if a decent approximation can be made from base game materials, it's usually better to use that as your baseline.

WarrentheHero
2018-05-27, 01:14 AM
And in the name of simplicity, most of the feel of a swordmage could be built with stuff that already exists. If you're playing a fighter, especially one who obviously plans to become an EK, swapping heavy armor proficiency for warding should be a reasonable ask as an ACF. After that you might have to wait a few levels, since most of the 4e Defender concept is currently wrapped up in the Sentinel feat. Pick up the swordmage inspired cantrips, grab War Caster so your Sentinel powered OAs can hit hard (and possibly the Sentinel powered defender-ish reactions, depending on DM interpretation), and both Weapon Bond and Arcane Strike are baked into the package. Not to mention whatever other swordsmanship enhancing spells you might have.

Because I'm not even going into how swordmages make better arcane scholars than wizards, or how Spellbender's Gift can force the enemy's weapons to all take on a particular elemental aspect which your super defendery self can exploit by having an ally cast Protection From Energy on you. Or ask how marking interacts if a swordmage picks up Sentinel. I'm going to instead point out that if a decent approximation can be made from base game materials, it's usually better to use that as your baseline.

You're absolutely right that you can achieve a very similar Swordmage in 5e, especially with the Unearthed Arcana Stone Sorcery for Sorcerer. But I want to make a Swordmage base class.

Amnoriath
2018-05-27, 09:23 AM
You're absolutely right that you can achieve a very similar Swordmage in 5e, especially with the Unearthed Arcana Stone Sorcery for Sorcerer. But I want to make a Swordmage base class.
Of course, but to do this right you need to bear down on what this is about. As of now there isn't a lot of reason not to pick up heavy armor proficiency and going with it. Additionally your step feature consumes your movement getting to the point where you can't use it all. On top of all that marking isn't at all a standard thing in 5e. I say penalize the use of heavy armor, open up weapons, adopt a ki point like system, and its own marking mechanic.

Amnoriath
2018-05-27, 09:33 AM
I would also be more selective on how intelligence applies to the attack. Replacing it not only limits you from heavy weapons but it needs room to spread and buff its stats. Focusing on intelligence in a gish build could prove to be a susceptible character.