Looking for some experienced people to help me flesh out a custom class/subclass. Based off Final Fantasy Black Mage from XIV. I know I know. Some of you probably think its dumb lol. If anyone is interested in seeing what I have come up with and has valuable input let me know below. A little something to go off of
You see a man, his hands resting calmly at his side as he looks to the beasts peering at him from across the darkness. one of the beast snarls, drool falling from its mouth as it raises it club getting ready to spring forward. the rest following suit. The man spots another shadow out of the corner of his eye and a sly grin slowly creeps across his face. he begins to raise his hand toward the knolls as they start to slowly move forward. the veins in his arm glow a ruby red, clearly visible from under his pale Moon Elf skin. In a instant his finger extends as a large dark fiery orbs appears in front of the group of beasts and just as quickly it appears to condense and get smaller. in that moment the candles and touches in the room go dark and the knolls feel themselves get pulled forward like a force of gravity. all that remains is a small bead of fiery light that is impossibly bright and rests in the air before the knolls.Then before they can react, the bead explodes. Everything around it instantly turned to ash and those far enough away start running around trying to put the fires out that now cling to their bodies but to no avail. the flames that catch burn with such intensity and seemly without end. searing into the flesh. The man not looking away or covering his eyes from the blast, just stands watching; enjoying the destruction he set upon these filthy beasts. then from the shadows to the left another creature jumps out toward the man with a rusty jagged axe ready to cleave his head off. without even glancing over, the man holds his hand out again. but his veins not a ruby red any more but a icy blue. mist forms around his hand and a javelin forms in the air above his palm; and as he goes to clutch it, a spark of electricity cracks over the ice formed javelin. It flies out of his palm and into the chest of the knoll who was mid air and throws him backwards against the wall. Part of the spear piercing and pinning him in place as a surge of lightning burst from the ice spear, shattering it and leaving a gaping hole where it once was. The mysterious man not seeming affected by any part of the ordeal continues further into the darkness as the ice blue in his veins fade and the body of the last knoll falls to the ground.
Your power derives from the beginning of creation, the primal elements of fire and ice crackle with forces of lightning. A gift or a curse? no one truly knows how one manifest these powers. All that is known is it comes with a price. For a mortals body was not meant to be a conduit for such power. Free flowing magic without end….what would one do with such power?
I know there are other black mage builds. But I really wanted to make something as close as possible to an Actual FF black mage
I haven't played FF, but a quick google search tells me they're elemental focused offensive mages. Based on that, it seems like a few Sorcerer subclasses or the evoker wizard would work. Is there a specific set of abilities you're looking to replicate?
The original Final Fantasy I black mage was based on the early D&D wizard. The class even had something akin to Vancian spellcasting! In time, Final Fantasy mechanics grew a bit more complex, and came up with different systems of magic. That said, at its root, the black mage is still best represented by the standard Evoker wizard. Or perhaps the new War Wizard subclass.
Final Fantasy's Black Magic is primarily defined by use of Fire / Ice / Lightning magic, as well as the occasional other spells, like gravity or poison; at the highest levels, black magic includes Meteor Swarm. Traditionally, black mages need to learn spells through leveling or from researching books, and rely on using the correct element against the appropriate foe, lending themselves to more tactical approach than the sorcerer with their limited spells can.
Now, if there's some other abilities you'd like to see added in that the evoker mage lacks, we can talk further about it. But without more details, I'm going to have to agree with Evoker wizard.
Sorry for posting late. The idea is to create an eb and flow type magic caster not relaying on spells slot but instead a flow and consequences for going over that. This is what I had for an idea. It might seem over powered and could vary well be. The numbers them selves don't matter just want the idea behind the spells/traits etc
The entire idea is a bit tricky, because it flies against the idea of resource management that every other class uses - you start off with X abilities, and deplete them over the course of the day until you rest. This? I'm not sure how to balance things when its like this. But I'll point out some areas that could use some tweaking at least.
You're going to need to go into more detail with your fire/ice stacks here. Do they refresh on short rest? Long rest? After a minute? I'm guessing that you're going with an Ivalice-based absorb-magic-during-fight to cast bigger spells theme; start off with 0 MP and charge over time. But it doesn't seem to be spelled out anywhere, so I'm not sure.
There's no options for non-combat magic here. Even the sorcerer has the option to pick up something like Fly and Dispel Magic. Heck, no option for Detect Magic, and that's one of the most useful magics to a mage-class in the game for exploring. Even the Fighter has been getting more non-combat options. This is probably my biggest issue with the proposed class. There are three pillars in the game (interaction, exploration, and combat) - now, the interaction is still a bit rules-lite, so I don't expect much in the way of magic for intrigue or slice-of-life romance stories, but dungeon exploring is still a major part of the game that does need some options.
All your abilities are keyed on milestone levels. Well, close to - it should actually be levels 11 and 17, not 10 and 15. Anyways, the point I'm bringing up is that you seem to have a lot of dead levels here. At level 2, for instance, you have absolutely no gain, while at level 3 you get one "metamagic" option. Which brings me to the next point - all these metamagic upgrades are scattered everywhere, and it seems to be hinting that you get them all? That's a bit much, not to mention a wee bit much - even sorcerer doesn't get access to all metamagic abilities, but a limited number of them, usually based on magic style. You're going to need to work out a level-by-level chart and smooth out the gains over time.
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Looking for some experienced people to help me flesh out a custom class/subclass. Based off Final Fantasy Black Mage from XIV. I know I know. Some of you probably think its dumb lol. If anyone is interested in seeing what I have come up with and has valuable input let me know below. A little something to go off of
You see a man, his hands resting calmly at his side as he looks to the beasts peering at him from across the darkness. one of the beast snarls, drool falling from its mouth as it raises it club getting ready to spring forward. the rest following suit. The man spots another shadow out of the corner of his eye and a sly grin slowly creeps across his face. he begins to raise his hand toward the knolls as they start to slowly move forward. the veins in his arm glow a ruby red, clearly visible from under his pale Moon Elf skin. In a instant his finger extends as a large dark fiery orbs appears in front of the group of beasts and just as quickly it appears to condense and get smaller. in that moment the candles and touches in the room go dark and the knolls feel themselves get pulled forward like a force of gravity. all that remains is a small bead of fiery light that is impossibly bright and rests in the air before the knolls.Then before they can react, the bead explodes. Everything around it instantly turned to ash and those far enough away start running around trying to put the fires out that now cling to their bodies but to no avail. the flames that catch burn with such intensity and seemly without end. searing into the flesh. The man not looking away or covering his eyes from the blast, just stands watching; enjoying the destruction he set upon these filthy beasts. then from the shadows to the left another creature jumps out toward the man with a rusty jagged axe ready to cleave his head off. without even glancing over, the man holds his hand out again. but his veins not a ruby red any more but a icy blue. mist forms around his hand and a javelin forms in the air above his palm; and as he goes to clutch it, a spark of electricity cracks over the ice formed javelin. It flies out of his palm and into the chest of the knoll who was mid air and throws him backwards against the wall. Part of the spear piercing and pinning him in place as a surge of lightning burst from the ice spear, shattering it and leaving a gaping hole where it once was. The mysterious man not seeming affected by any part of the ordeal continues further into the darkness as the ice blue in his veins fade and the body of the last knoll falls to the ground.
Your power derives from the beginning of creation, the primal elements of fire and ice crackle with forces of lightning. A gift or a curse? no one truly knows how one manifest these powers. All that is known is it comes with a price. For a mortals body was not meant to be a conduit for such power. Free flowing magic without end….what would one do with such power?
I know there are other black mage builds. But I really wanted to make something as close as possible to an Actual FF black mage
I haven't played FF, but a quick google search tells me they're elemental focused offensive mages. Based on that, it seems like a few Sorcerer subclasses or the evoker wizard would work. Is there a specific set of abilities you're looking to replicate?
The original Final Fantasy I black mage was based on the early D&D wizard. The class even had something akin to Vancian spellcasting! In time, Final Fantasy mechanics grew a bit more complex, and came up with different systems of magic. That said, at its root, the black mage is still best represented by the standard Evoker wizard. Or perhaps the new War Wizard subclass.
Final Fantasy's Black Magic is primarily defined by use of Fire / Ice / Lightning magic, as well as the occasional other spells, like gravity or poison; at the highest levels, black magic includes Meteor Swarm. Traditionally, black mages need to learn spells through leveling or from researching books, and rely on using the correct element against the appropriate foe, lending themselves to more tactical approach than the sorcerer with their limited spells can.
Now, if there's some other abilities you'd like to see added in that the evoker mage lacks, we can talk further about it. But without more details, I'm going to have to agree with Evoker wizard.
Sorry for posting late. The idea is to create an eb and flow type magic caster not relaying on spells slot but instead a flow and consequences for going over that. This is what I had for an idea. It might seem over powered and could vary well be. The numbers them selves don't matter just want the idea behind the spells/traits etc
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RTPSmDRZ8x2vPHvh8s4fHzbWAlq3AGtX8fnp5oFb2os/edit?usp=drivesdk
If you can't access that let me know and I'll trying something else
The entire idea is a bit tricky, because it flies against the idea of resource management that every other class uses - you start off with X abilities, and deplete them over the course of the day until you rest. This? I'm not sure how to balance things when its like this. But I'll point out some areas that could use some tweaking at least.
You're going to need to go into more detail with your fire/ice stacks here. Do they refresh on short rest? Long rest? After a minute? I'm guessing that you're going with an Ivalice-based absorb-magic-during-fight to cast bigger spells theme; start off with 0 MP and charge over time. But it doesn't seem to be spelled out anywhere, so I'm not sure.
There's no options for non-combat magic here. Even the sorcerer has the option to pick up something like Fly and Dispel Magic. Heck, no option for Detect Magic, and that's one of the most useful magics to a mage-class in the game for exploring. Even the Fighter has been getting more non-combat options. This is probably my biggest issue with the proposed class. There are three pillars in the game (interaction, exploration, and combat) - now, the interaction is still a bit rules-lite, so I don't expect much in the way of magic for intrigue or slice-of-life romance stories, but dungeon exploring is still a major part of the game that does need some options.
All your abilities are keyed on milestone levels. Well, close to - it should actually be levels 11 and 17, not 10 and 15. Anyways, the point I'm bringing up is that you seem to have a lot of dead levels here. At level 2, for instance, you have absolutely no gain, while at level 3 you get one "metamagic" option. Which brings me to the next point - all these metamagic upgrades are scattered everywhere, and it seems to be hinting that you get them all? That's a bit much, not to mention a wee bit much - even sorcerer doesn't get access to all metamagic abilities, but a limited number of them, usually based on magic style. You're going to need to work out a level-by-level chart and smooth out the gains over time.