All,

I am working on a Wizard subclass for a homebrew game that is similar to the Requip magic of the Fair Tale anime series (Erza Scarlet being the most-famous user).

The idea is that by being able to don the armor (which is planar-spell based), the Wizard can gain spells embedded in the armor.  The Wizard still must use up his spell slots, but the benefit is not having to wait to prep a spell type.

I'm not going to pretend it's balanced yet—this is for a home table, and home brew, for fun (and will be used by an NPC at first).

Nevertheless, after tweaking out a DND Beyond Subclass somewhat (unbalanced/tested), I realize I need to think about the armor types/spell options that would be the "common" options.

Any ideas?  Legendary armor is always easier to build (just go full munchkin-mode!, then adjust down), but the basic standard sets I am having some creative blocks on.

Right now I can come up with fire, ice, thunder, and acid.

Also speed (haste, flying, etc), and holy.  (Yes, not Wizard spells . . . but that's the idea of the flexibility, you just have to have the armor with the spells and spell-slot levels.)

Any ideas or thoughts welcome!

Keep having fun!

Oh, and yes, this class requires me to make homebrew armor/weapons for each set!  So . . . getting bogged down, lol.

Seems better to make a spell or a magic item that does that. Like a magic ring. 

Rather than making armour sets, I'd suggest a much simpler alternative would be to HB a version of Mage Armour such than when they cast the spell they can changed X of their prepared spells for new spells from their spellbook of their choice.

Alternatively, you can use the special wizard focuses from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything that do something very similar, and just reflavour it as magical armour. Because remember wizards aren't proficient in any armour which means they can't cast spell while wearing it.

The armor sets meet the design goals and best imitate the value of the skills from the source material I am looking to imitate.

Distinct armor and weapons will be the way to go, not spells.  (I did do a lot of modeling of that kind of thing.  While pen-and-paper wise this COULD be doable, it still doesn't quite meet the flavor and it is very difficult, if not impossible, to implement using the DND Beyond Homebrew mechanisms.)

As to the proficiency in armor, that is why this is a homebrew sub-class.  The subclass gains the proficiencies necessary depending on the subclass focus (it's not all armor; there are other types, including range-based re-quip focuses) plus spells/skills to implement the flavor type.

Which leads to base spell-type attacks and defenses.

What I am really looking for are ideas about the most classic damage type spells/buffs/debuffs one might find.

So, for example, Fireball for fire is a clear classic.

However, as I've often been on the periphery of DND, I don't grok the "classics" as well as most might.  (Cut my teeth playing other fantasy or Sci-Fi RPGs, so I get it to some degree, but I reckon I am missing a lot of commonly-thought-of classics.

So what are some classic 1-5 level wizard spells folks can think of?

1st level : Magic Missile, Shield, Mage Armour, Detect Magic, Identify, Find Familiar, Sleep

2nd level : Shatter, Mirror Image, Invisibility, Misty Step, Levitate,

3rd level : Fireball, Haste, Hypnotic Pattern, Fly, Tiny Hut, Counterspell, Dispel Magic, 

4th level : Banishment, Dimension Door, Greater Invisibility, Resilient Sphere, Polymorph

5th level : Bigby's Hand, Teleportation Circle, Telepathic Bond, Animate Objects, Telekinesis, Wall of Force

Quote from PacerGH >>

 

Right now I can come up with fire, ice, thunder, and acid.

Also speed (haste, flying, etc), and holy.  (Yes, not Wizard spells . . . but that's the idea of the flexibility, you just have to have the armor with the spells and spell-slot levels.)

 Are you sold on these? Cause my first thought is that you could give it an interesting D&D twist by having each armor tied to a school of magic. From what I've seen of Fairy Tale most of the "magic" they use is in battle, but much of a D&D wizard's spellbook is about out-of-combat utility. I think armors that span both battle and utility magic would be ideal so the wizard is still using their subclass out of combat too, and schools of magic seem like a readymade setup for that. It also means you don't have to curate lists for each armor.

This would be more of an adaptation than a recreation, and I get that you might not want that as you seem more into Fairy Tale than D&D.

Oh, I have a whole Requip Type for Deception-based stuff.

Plus I do intend to do some other out-of-combat armor.

(In fact, in Fairy Tale, Era does use I think Chef/Baker armor, and dancing armor.  Well, less armor, more outfits.)

But I am trying to sort out some basic, entry-level stuff for the newbie Requip Wizard.

(I also have the Gunner type with ranged-based weapons and attacks.  And a Generalist.)

Giving the subclass distinct armor sets that the player needs to actively equip or remove depending on which one the conjure feels a bit messy. I think you only need to make the armor into actual, statted-out items if you intend for the Wizard to have the option of giving these items to players other then themselves.

Out of what already exists in the game, to me this sounds a bit like a cross between the Bladesinger Wizard and the Lunar Sorcerer. As fun as it is to conceive of a dozen different outfits that you can summon for all different situations, I think you're better off just creating 3 core forms, and giving each form  a short spell list that gets added to their spell list when transforming. At that point, I think it would also make sense to allow non-wizard spells through these different forms.

So, with that mind... I'd probably focus on one form focused just on combat utility, one form focused on stealth/non-combat utility, and finally a third form that adds some healing (even if it's just Cure Wounds, that's still a boost for a Wizard) and buffs for allies.

And if this is too far away from what you had in mind... I might just rework this concept for myself because I'm getting a lot of ideas for this now that I'm writing out this reply, but I want to be able to sit down and work on it in more detail before posting anything online.