so a beguiler, a war mage and a dread necromancer walk into a bar...

[chainer1216]

and a gnome passes safely beneath it.

alright, now onto the topic, i've been playing around with the idea of getting rid of core wizard/sorcerer in my games, and replaceing them with the above classes, and classes like them.

so we have the beguiler who is enchantment/illusion

dread necro thats necromancy (duh)

and the war mage thats an evoker.

but those are the only classes i know that work like that, are there any more? if not, i'll have to hand create the rest. i'm thinking making a conjuration/transmution class, but i dunno if somthing like that might be too powerful and should be split into two classes. what kind of class features do you think i should give it?

i'm also thinking i'd change the duskblade to an abjuration version of the above classes, mostly likely only added in the advanced learning class feature like the other classes have, and maybe add a few abjuration spells to theyre spell list.

i'm also thinking i'd need to give all those classes access to divination spells, because a baseclass devoted to divination seems like it'd kinda suck, though i may be wrong and am willing to hear arguments about that.

and without wizard/sorcerer do you think clerics and druids would become even more powerful? would i need to find a way to balance them out?

[Lateral]

There are no other official classes built along the same lines. Transmutation and conjuration are the two most powerful schools, split them up.

You could probably tack on Transmutation to War Mage, since they're kind of weak and it's a thematic fit. Divination is a very strong discipline, but should probably be paired with another school because it lacks in-combat uses.

Conjuration and Divination would make sense, but would probably be too powerful- I might make Conjuration its own class, and make a Divination/Abjuration class instead. Abjuration fits thematically, and the buffs would be nice.

[Firechanter]

Basically I like that idea, been toying with stuff like that myself.

The snag is that even a pure Conjurer or Transmuter without any other schools may still be T1. So you won't get around looking at the spells individually and nerf them -- particularly the Polymorph line (from Alter Self to Shapechange) and the Calling spells (particularly the Planar Binding line and Gate).

Warmage is a rather dumb class imho. "Lokee, I can go 'boom'!" - "Yeah great, and what else can you do?" - "... lookee, I can go 'boom'!"

and without wizard/sorcerer do you think clerics and druids would become even more powerful? would i need to find a way to balance them out?

In a way, yes. They are both T1, and not a few say that the Druid is the most powerful of all core classes, so you shouldn't ignore them.

You could basically split the Druid class into two, i.e. make one "Caster" with just the spells and one "Shapeshifter" with Wildshape (starting at lv 1 maybe) and everything else, and they both would still be pretty solid. You may still need to nerf some spells manually.

As for the Cleric. One option would be to make it a Spontaneous class, that should reduce it to a high T2.
Maybe also strip Turn Undead entirely, since people use their TU attempts for anything, just not for turning undead. Think DMM (fuel metamagic) or RKV (get extra actions).

Besides, I am considering to let _all_ characters pick one or two domains. Non-clerics don't get the spells, but they still get the domain power. This because I hate it that only casters get all the good stuff in D&D. For example, why should I be forced to take a Cleric level if I want to _walk faster_?

Taking this thought even further: maybe _do_ give each character not only the domain powers but also one domain spell per day, CL as character level. This might be fitting in a more spiritual, religion-focuseed campaign.

[Gorgondantess]

Arguskos did a whole set of these. They're pretty good.
Summoner (Conjuration), Savant (Abjuration/Divination) & Rearranger (Transmutation).

[chainer1216]

i like the summoner, i may very well use that.

[Bang!]

There's quite a bit of homebrew along these lines already floating around the internet.

Here are my first results from a Google search of this site (I'm assuming homebrew from giantitp is going to be most acceptable here):

• Arguskos's Savant, Summoner and Spellweaver (Abjuration/Divination, Conjuration and Transmutation, respectively) and Rearranger (Transmutation)
• The Demented One's Planeswalker (Conjuration)
• GryffonDurime's Alchemist (Mostly Transmutation, but the spells seem all over the place)
• The Glyphstone's Witch Doctor (Buffs and Curses)
• Darth Stabber's Court Mage (Abjuration/Divination) and Mutationist (Transmutatation)
• The-Mage-King's Barrier Mage (Abjurations, Walls and Clouds)
• Ghost Warlock's Shadowmage (debuff necromancy and shadow illusions)
• Violet Octopus's Time Mage (there might be a theme... divinations, Summons, teleports and speed/time-related buffs/debuffs)
• PairO'Dice Lost's Oracle (Abjuration, and a huge hodgepodge of spells that I'm not seeing a pattern in)
• Frog God's Seer (Abjuration/Divination) and Spellshifter (Transmutation)
• DragoonWraith's Puppet Master (Transmutation and summoning)

I'm certain there are more from these boards and plenty of others from other sites. Pathfinder has one or two on its srd, iirc.

You'd probably want to implement the Spontaneous Divine Casters variant and axe all the other limitless full prepared casters like the Wu Jen, Archivist, Erudite, etc.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Wu Jen aren't limitless casters. They have their own list in CAr, with a modicum of additional support in SpC.

Actually, there's a couple of splatbook full casters that might work for that - seeing how they never get support beyond their own book. Shujena come to mind, for example.

[Bang!]

Wu Jen aren't limitless casters.

You're right.

I originally had 'full prepared spellcasters.' I don't know why I changed it, it was definitely more specific and direct.

But Wu Jen have a nearly identical spell list to the core Wizard, so they should probably be cut for this style of game.

[The Glyphstone]

Hehe, I haven't seen the Witch Doctor brought up in ages. It'd need some heavy tweaking, now that I look back on it...it's very much dependent on a solid, balanced group, since it takes too long to self-buff otherwise.

[dspeyer]

Also homebrew: a corresponding divine class