[Spell] Master's Touch

[Beskytter]

Master's Touch
Divination
Level: Bard 1, sorcerer/wizard 1
Components: V, F
Casting Time: 1 swift action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 minute/level (D)
Focus: Specific Item Held

You finish chanting and command the item in your hand to obey your desire to wield it effectively.
I think for mechanics it would be cool if it gave a bonus to proficiency with a specific weapon (type) for a duration that equals the skill of the spell. The better at casting it, the longer and more proficient you are with the item. The restrictions would be on exotic weapons or using bastard swords with one hand.

This would stack with proficiency already owned too, which could give lower level wizards a bit of a boost when dealing damage with quarterstaves or daggers. It also gives wizards in later levels the chance to compete with fighters for damage done, improving the options for RP when it comes to specialists.

[Yemin]

Master's Touch
Divination
Level: Bard 1, sorcerer/wizard 1
Components: V, F
Casting Time: 1 swift action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 minute/level (D)
Focus: Specific Item Held

You finish chanting and command the item in your hand to obey your desire to wield it effectively.
I think for mechanics it would be cool if it gave a bonus to proficiency with a specific weapon (type) for a duration that equals the skill of the spell. The better at casting it, the longer and more proficient you are with the item. The restrictions would be on exotic weapons or using bastard swords with one hand.

This would stack with proficiency already owned too, which could give lower level wizards a bit of a boost when dealing damage with quarterstaves or daggers. It also gives wizards in later levels the chance to compete with fighters for damage done, improving the options for RP when it comes to specialists.

As for wizards gaining help with dealing damage at lower levels. I personally would rather like to simply see cantrips made to never run out. I think it's a development in path finder and in later editions of dnd that was probably the most universally liked. there may need to be a trainer who can train said cantrips up a bit, or have starting wizards already know it at apprentice rather than novice or amateur to be doing reasonable damage per hit. something equivalent to the 1D6+0 wizards are likely to do at that stage.

They wouldn' need weapons. Wizards spend their time learning magic. If the char wants to be good at weapons they can already build for it. Apart from HP, there is little difference levels 1 - 5 between a wizard and a fighter's hit ratio and damage if they've both got 16 str. I believe after that point is where Bab starts to push fighters on but yeah.

Could you clarify what you meant by dealing damage during later levels to keep up with fighters and specialist's rP? Even with this spell there would still be a huge gap between weapon damage from a wiz vs from a fighter.

This spell immediately made me think of this though
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spell ... emind-link

[Beskytter]

In 3.5e there are archetypes for wizards, such as; the sniper, warrior, and so on; that are limited to being played through here. Certain limitations are inadvertently imposed due to the need for spells not already programmed in.
Master's Touch adds the ability for an invoker to RP out being more of a warrior caste character, which fits in line with who invokers typically are.

I don't know that I agree with cantrips being unlimited, Ray of Frost doesn't do much damage to start with and I barely used orb of acid for damage. Typically I've seen players RP non-coded cantrips that can be used with a snap of the fingers, like making their clothing smell nice or dry off, things that don't interfere with the game's coded sector. One challenge of playing a wizard was spell management, an important aspect to learning your character's personality when it comes time to select their spells.

[Yemin]

Hrm, I have a wizard who takes great personal pleasure in the martial arts but I always assumed that those types of wizards with militaristic backgrounds were xposed to some military force or a sword tutor or something that trained them. As a result I simply trained his Str and dex and dumped other things to make up for it. whereas a sage wizard without that background would dump the physical stats in favor of his mental ones.

As to prioritizing spel selection. the later editions solved this by simply reducing how many actual slots you had to memorize 0 levle spells. a first lvl wizard has 3 and it maxes out at 4 in path finder. You don't get bonus spell slots for level 0 no matter how High your int is, though there are other ways of increasing it in that game.

I also meant to ask, did you mean proficiency originally or both proficiency and damage bonus? Proficiency with a great sword 2D6 vs say a staff 1D6 is fair enough but,, and I'm not criticizing anyone in particular here cos I found it hilarious at the time,, but a wizard with next to above normal strength and who's desc is rped accordingly to be weak, sickly, small of stature what have you wielding a great sword seems anatomically... not right when I visualize it and such things ought be relegated to the realm of anime where you believe everything because reasons.

Your right that ray of frost and acid splash don't do much damage though:
A frenzied dire rat approaches you and prepares to engage you in combat!
c 'ray of frost'
You prepare to cast 'ray of frost'...
You begin to chant.
You point your finger and hit a frenzied dire rat with a ray of freezing air and ice.
c 'ray of frost'
You prepare to cast 'ray of frost'...
You begin to chant.
You point your finger and hit a frenzied dire rat with a ray of freezing air and ice.
c 'ray of frost'
You prepare to cast 'ray of frost'...
You begin to chant.
You point your finger and hit a frenzied dire rat with a ray of freezing air and ice.
cas
You prepare to cast 'acid splash'...
You begin to chant.
You throw a small ball of acid which splashes all over a frenzied dire rat.
cas
You prepare to cast 'acid splash'...
A skittish rat sneaks north.
You begin to chant.
You throw a small ball of acid which splashes all over a frenzied dire rat.
gl dire
A frenzied dire rat has some cuts.
Its head is mangled.
Its left leg is critically injured.
Its chest has several wounds.
A skittish rat sneaks in from the north.
Your punch nearly removes a frenzied dire rat's abdomen.
gl dire
A frenzied dire rat is extremely injured.
Its head is mangled.
Its left leg is critically injured.
Its chest has several wounds.
Its abdomen is mangled.
Your punch nearly removes a frenzied dire rat's right leg.
Your punch nearly removes a frenzied dire rat's abdomen.
A frenzied dire rat is mortally wounded, and will die soon, if not aided.
You score a critical hit!
Your punch nearly removes a frenzied dire rat's right leg.
A frenzied dire rat is DEAD!

The latter part of that fight is what i'd expect from a military wizard. it's a rat, beat it to death. The prior part is what I'd expect a sage wizard to do. I'm kind of curious what you can do with the proposed spell that you can't with a high str and a weapon proficiency feat is what I think I'm getting at. Would it also be be fair for a wizard to overcome these costs with a level 1 spell that in the proposed version could be made persistent in which case it would negate much of the cost in giving it a short duration.

Cantrip damage would need to be upped to keep up. I'm not sure how much hp these dire rats and such have but your lvl 1 wizard with 3 cantrips and 1 lvl 1 spell should be able to deal with at least 1 with his full repetoire since I see both types represented here have 5 hp:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/direRat.htm

If they rolled minimum on each hit I suppose they would be left with an angry dire rat at 1 hp but... well, I relegate such things to tabletop antics.

by making cantrips unlimited but limiting level 0 slots severely you also eliviate the pressures of FK wizards to invest in stats that they may not want to simply because they don't have the patience to spend hundreds of hours from lvl 1 - 16.

Anyway to summarise, I think you can already achieve what you want by making the choice and dumping mental stats for physical ones. My fighter uses a 1D6 weapon and outdamages people who use 1D8 and 1D10 because his bonus +damage is higher and will consistantly do more damage with his saber more than someone else can do with his or her bastard sword. Weapon proficiency won't help you in the long run excluding getting your hands on an incredibly heavily enchanted weapon. Moresoe than your +2. Lastly, why not just use true strike? The FK version lasts more than 1 round and I assume will grow lengthier with practice. the main detracter being that You will need many instances of it to be viable right now

[Beskytter]

A lot of what this spell is supposed to do is make it so that a wizard doesn't have to give up an entire feat point to be able to use a specific weapon. Let's say I get a bastard sword +2 lightning burst but... I'm a wizard and in between feats, and I'm likely not going to want to use /all/ bastard swords just that one in particular. Well then, I use master's touch in order to be proficient in just that weapon for a short time.

When you combine this spell with specialists and RP, you get a field of varieties. Assuming someone adds more magical bows into the game, you could end up with an adhoc version of the Archane Archer who specializes in enchantment so that all his damage modifiers are maxed out.

This spell is simple enough, but would add so much more in the ways of RP options/flavorings and coded benefits for new wizards.

To help clarify, this would work similar to skill bonus items when you don't have that particular skill. My wizard has gloves that can let him steal stuff, he's terrible at it but he's able to do it none the less. This spell would be a skill enhancement to a particular weapons skill, say Double-edged blades, as wells as a reduction of the penalties for not having proficiency with that weapon.

[Yemin]

Slowly coming around to the idea though I'm starting to recognize it doesn't fit my own personal style of play.
How long a duration do you propose it last? Long?

[Beskytter]

The table top version is a minute per caster level... I'd like to get roughly the same feel out of it.

I'm not sure how long a tick is on FK but I'm guessing we'd see something like:
skill rank * 3 = #Ticks

So at GM you're getting 75 ticks worth of master's touch, which sounds like quite a good amount of time to me.
If that number needs changing then I'm sure it can balanced out. I do think it should be similar in length to maybe the shield spell or possibly armor spell's duration if that helps it play better.

[Yemin]

I think the duration of something like phantasmal armour would suit it. It's short duration at inept but quickly scales up to be bearable before hitting apprentice at a rate a bit quicker than spels like bull's stench.

Honestly though, there are a few core spells I would like to see implemented before this one.

i feel that for level 1 alone we're missing some key ones like:
Alarm - Two syntaxes to allow for both audible and mental pings when triggered. Wizard answer to rogue NPCs that are becoming more common.

Grease - only hits one target, imposes the minuses and bonuses from being prone. Subject can't move as long as they continue to fail reflex.

Alter the summon mount spell to work like communal mount, So for each present PC in the room and in your group it summons a mount.

Sleep: needs to break combat when the targets fall asleep. i would like coup de gras to be an option if it's deemed to not be too overboard.

Burning hands: unsure why this doesn't hit the whole room like colorspray. It currently does what seems like less damage than Magic missile anyway and would help lower level wizards xp as it's doing more damage overall during combat so more x p awarded to the wizard at the end instead of the fighter who chops everything in 3 hits.

Silent image - Does everything major image does but without sound. Most people current images that I've seen don't speak with the exception of one or two players. And I've always felt the power of illusion school is getting milage out of this one level 1 spell all the way to lvl 20 as logn as you have the imagination for it.

Cause fear - lvl 1 necro debuff or acts as fear for levels 1 - 10 critters. One of my favourites when playing necromancers. Perhaps open it up so it still affects things of higher levels but they always make the save, giving them a short term debuff that last as long as say, True strike with scaling length per skill proficiency.

Magic weapon - Unsure why this is a level 3 spell, would help get the hits in with your weapon at lower levels. Though looking at how much the weapon skill itself affects hit rate, perhaps it should include a minor skillbonus as well to whatever weapon is touched though that's up to the peope who can actually see, understand and do the math behind it.

I hope to learn how to implement for this game in the future, but said future is way way off if I'm being realistic. But these would be the first things I would turn my attention to in terms of spells as the different wizard specialities apart from mage, conj and trans need some help.

[Beskytter]

I haven't used phantasmal armor yet so I'm not sure on the duration. I like to keep my durations based on the spell level, so it's comparable to spells of the same level. (With the exception of Floating Disc's super long duration)

I can agree that sleep needs to break combat, not sure coup de gras is all that fantastic but for flavor I could see adding it if it wouldn't take too much programming. Definitely feel like burning hands is humbuggered, along with fireball, in terms of damage. As well it is only a one hit and wonder sort of spell, my wizard never uses it and it's one of his specialty spells.

There seems to be a lot of spells in game already though, I think silent image would be fine in some regards but its use really only shines in tabletop where the options are broader. The code here limits some of the the usefulness of utility spells, it's a plague with code based games to which there isn't a cure yet. Alarm is one of these, in my opinion. It's very useful on tabletop where your DM can ring the alarm when he's trying to get the party moving again, or fail the alarm when he's trying to get the party on their toes in a hurry so they don't stagnate for too long. It's also one of those spells that is cast when the gaming session is finished that gives the party flavor to their intermission, and gives the DM a hook for the next session's beginning.

Grease would be nice, but it has always been an AoE spell and it should stay that way. It coats the ground in an oil slick that forces a balance/reflex save or fall prone. Prone isn't easy on FK because the game code makes us stand up when we're attacked, so a work around would have to be devised other than penalties as they don't adequately represent prone-ism.

[Yemin]

I haven't used phantasmal armor yet so I'm not sure on the duration. I like to keep my durations based on the spell level, so it's comparable to spells of the same level. (With the exception of Floating Disc's super long duration)

I can agree that sleep needs to break combat, not sure coup de gras is all that fantastic but for flavor I could see adding it if it wouldn't take too much programming. Definitely feel like burning hands is humbuggered, along with fireball, in terms of damage. As well it is only a one hit and wonder sort of spell, my wizard never uses it and it's one of his specialty spells.

There seems to be a lot of spells in game already though, I think silent image would be fine in some regards but its use really only shines in tabletop where the options are broader. The code here limits some of the the usefulness of utility spells, it's a plague with code based games to which there isn't a cure yet. Alarm is one of these, in my opinion. It's very useful on tabletop where your DM can ring the alarm when he's trying to get the party moving again, or fail the alarm when he's trying to get the party on their toes in a hurry so they don't stagnate for too long. It's also one of those spells that is cast when the gaming session is finished that gives the party flavor to their intermission, and gives the DM a hook for the next session's beginning.

Grease would be nice, but it has always been an AoE spell and it should stay that way. It coats the ground in an oil slick that forces a balance/reflex save or fall prone. Prone isn't easy on FK because the game code makes us stand up when we're attacked, so a work around would have to be devised other than penalties as they don't adequately represent prone-ism.

Phantasmal armor at apprentice lasts some 10 minutes or so. It's pretty good.

The reason for a coup de gras mechanic I agree is only one of the main ways of capitalizing on a sleeping foe but to give an example. A normal crit with str 12 and a quarterstaff or club = 2D6+2 damage, that is a range of 4 daamge, or 14. The attraction of coup de gras lets you do 14 guaranteed, which on tabletop will kill a lot more than rats. Not sure how it will equate to here though since goblins certainly have more than 6 hp. In the end I'd rather see sleep break combat than focus on this though.

Major image and thus silent image are both better in table top, but I've seen major image used in ways here that is beyond devious, it just takes imagination. i just don't think it need be such a specialty spel that the only way to manage the mechanic should be 1 fairly locked down in terms of learning level 5 spell when in dnd equivalently, illusions are apparently so easy that barely apprenticed hedge witches can manage it.

Alarm, I'll admit has some transfer issues to be more useful on this format and It may be the wrong lvl 1 spell to give abjurers more options and advantages. Instead, I could see it having a slightly different purpose than originally in dnd. Perhaps including among it's abilities in addition to pinging when someone enters an area, it lets you know if someone scries on you and tells you who it is as well as telling you who is casting even if they ahve still and silent spell on as well as revealing people using ventriloquism? All that might be a bit much for a level 1 spell but 1 of those ontop of it's standard use is still more useful than alertness at the moment.

As for grease. It's an AoE in table top, however, it's only a 10 square spread. Technically means it's only covering 4 squares and I was taking a page out of the FK lightning bolt and reasoning that if a lightning bolt for purposes of variety and options a single hit here. Grease should probably be reduced to a single target because it's a level 1 spell, and conjuration is already a strong enough school without adding the kind of penalties that grease imposes to everything in the room whether it be 2 rats, or 30x Zhentarim warriors. As for prone, I'm proposing that if successful, it imposes an affect on the victim's list just called Grease, like how weaken works, except with this it imposes -4 to melee attack rolls, and -4 AC perhaps a touch less, I'd be fine with -3 or -2 at the worst. and an immobalisation like effect where the victim can stillc ast, but they can't actually move north south etc as long as they continue to fail their reflex saves.

[Beskytter]

Master's Touch doesn't need to last quite that long, it could even simply be triggered to end after combat has ended. In the book the casting time is a swift action, so if we could make it instantly cast (as without having to attempt to cast, chant, then cast) to reflect this then I wouldn't see an issue if you made most of your level 1 spells Master's Touch.

The other level 1 spell I think might be nice is Wraithstrike. It is also a swift action casting and it allows the caster to bypass AC bonuses by treating all melee attacks as melee touch attacks. With master's touch and wraithstrike in effect I could see a greater push for more military style 'warwizards' in game that aren't just beefy mages with greatblade proficiency feats.