Classes of Artheria (Complete Arcane Edition)

*Big update! Doing some edits on a few things, warlock being the first, fixing a lot of typos and changing some things around. If I place an "*" next to the entry, it means it has been altered. (Warlock and spirit shaman are two examples.)

Tackling the final book in the 'complete' series, the complete arcane is probably my 2nd favorite book. The core classes are all decent, and there are a lot of really cool prestige classes. (And some not very good ones as well...) The issue with this book is more my own making then the classes themselves. I buffed wizards and sorcerers a lot, which puts these 3 classes in a bind, because all of them are mostly alright, just like the classes in the complete adventurer, these are mostly good.

The first class up on our list is the Warlock,* a unique caster, with a cursed bloodline. They don't cast spells per say, they have invocations, which are often spell effects, and the eldritch blast ability. Then they get damage reduction and energy resistance, and rogue hp, which if you're using standard everything, is better than mage hp. They are a very balanced class, they don't deal as much damage or have the utility of a wizard, but make up for it with different abilities and a lot of toughness. So what am I doing? Pretty much a full rework. They are pretty buff now, with really cool story line possibilities. First off, I'm increasing the HD to D8, and I'm making another change, power source. The complete arcane says that most warlocks are created by an ancestor making a deal with a dark power, and that is the most common, but there are now options, and depending on what you roll, you will gain certain bonuses. We roll a 1d10 to determine what the source is, and you gain a bonus at level 1, then every 6 levels. (6,12,18) If a player has a specific warlock story idea that one of these fits in with, I could be convinced to just assign an ancestry and not roll one. The majority of warlocks come from some sort of dark contract. (70% on my chart.)

*Update* Reworked a lot of abilities, reformatting the table, and adding explanations of what everything is. I make a lot of assumptions of knowledge, which is a mistake on my part.

1-2. Demon: Typically chaotic evil outsiders of the Abyss, called Tanar'ri. Brutal and impulsive creatures, one bright side to their chaotic nature is these creatures are the most likely of the 3 primary demonic races to free a mortal. Alignments can be any, but tend towards chaotics and evils.
Level 1: Darkvision +60, Level 6: Darkness 2/day Level 12: 5 fire and acid resistance, stacks with any warlock resistance, Level 18: +2 charisma and strength, word of chaos 1/day
2-5. Devil: Lawful evil outsiders of the Nine Hells of Ba'ator, known as Baatezu, often make signed contracts with mortals. A descendant of that contract gains in power, but has a contractual agreement often on their soul. Alignments for warlocks of this descent can be any, but they will suffer consequences of some sort from that choice no matter what it is.
Level 1: Familiar, always infernal and matches character alignment. This is in essence a small companion placed by the owner of your contract on you. If you are evil it will be a willing servant of the devil who owns your soul, reporting on you or some other personal story events. If the player is a non-evil alignment, the creature is a fiendish misaligned companion, that wishes to get out from under the devils contract.
Level 6: Blur 2/day, Level 12: 5 fire and electricity resistance, Level 18: +2 charisma and intelligence, dictum 1/day.)
6-7. Yugoloth: Neutral evil outsiders that reside in Hades, they are known as great mercenaries of the blood war, ruthless, efficient, and motivated by pure greed. They hold on to the dark contracts that form the warlock with malicious greed, only freeing a family line when given no other choice.
Level 1: Natural poison immunity, (scorpions, centipedes, etc.), Level 6: Spider Climb 2/day, Level 12: 5 cold and sonic resistance, Level 18: +2 charisma and +2 dexterity, spell dependent on character alignment, blashpemy, dictum, etc. 1/day.)
*8.* Pseudonatural: Pseudonatural is a template that was originally introduced in the epic level handbook, then again in the Tome and Blood wizard book. It is in essence taking a creature, and making it a writhing, tentacled, spikey nightmarish mess. (Here is an example, a troll.) There are two separate templates in these books, a lower powered one used mainly for the alienist prestige class, and the epic level making anything over CR 20 version. All abilities with templates use the complete arcane version.
Moving on from the technical, epic psuedonatural creatures arrived on Artheria when the reckoning occurred 1000 years ago. These creatures arrived from space, piercing the atmosphere encased in a strange ore, capable of atmospheric entry. (There will be a blog entry about the reckoning in greater detail later, I'll cover the various ores and specifics of those things at that point.) These creatures were in all manner of shapes and sizes, types, species, they all seemed to serve a greater force though. That force tempted mortals during that time, 1000 years ago, with power from beyond space and time. The ancestors of those mortals are cursed with power that drives most of them insane. (Much like the alienist prestige class in the complete arcane.) Warlocks from this ancestry are very much reworked. Unlike other warlocks, this ancestry forces a non-lawful alignment restriction. Major change, the primary ability stat for pseudonatural warlocks is intelligence, not charisma. Anything that is based on charisma, (like spell and invocation DCs) is now based on intelligence. This power source ONLY.
*Level 1:* +2 intelligence, -2 wisdom and charisma, +1 natural armor, all knowledge skills become class skills. Level 6: Companion from Beyond Space and Time, above average strength animal companion with pseudonatural template. Level 12: 5 all elemental resistances, +1 natural armor, -2 wisdom and charisma. Level 18: +2 intelligence and constitution, +1 natural armor, -2 wisdom and charisma, Contact Pseudonatural plane 1/week. As Contact outer plane, just only goes to incredibly powerful pseudonatural entities to answer questions/receive aid, etc.)
9. Fey: The only non-evil alternative to warlock power listed in the complete arcane, the intentional or unintentional surge of wild magics can cause the strange abilities that warlocks gain. Those that have this ancestry most likely don't have a contractual force peering down their very soul. Only evil fey would make contracts like this, and of the evil fey that exit, very few have the patience and desire to enslave a line of mortals. Most evil fey are creatures like brownies or ragewalkers, that prefer killing and torturing over subtle centuries long soul ownership. This makes this ancestry the most 'natural' of all of them, as the vast majority don't have a dark power looking over them, they are the most 'free' of the warlocks. Fey warlocks of all alignments exist, and for the most part, they don't suffer the social stigmas of other warlock types.
 Level 1: +2 charisma, spirit animal companion, animal from standard druid list, with an elemental template from the manual of the planes. (Fire, water, wood, etc.) Level 6: invisibility 2/day. Level 12: 5 acid and electricity resistance. Level 18: +2 charisma and wisdom, Wind walk as the spell, 1/day)
10. Paragon: Paragon is another absurd template from the epic level handbook, and like pseudonatural creatures, paragon creatures came from the stars as well, crashing down onto Artheria encased in powerful ores. While a pseudonatural creature is a chaotic, unstable form of the base creature, a paragon form is the perfected one. They are better than the base version in every way, gaining massive stat bonuses, always max rolls on HP, and other great epic level bonuses.
These creatures can be of any alignment, though the ones that enslaved mortal souls are obviously evil. Like pseudonatural creatures, the vast majority of paragon creatures seemed to be serving some other force. Also like psuedonatural, this is another rework. First off, the warlock must be lawful good, lawful evil, chaotic good, or chaotic evil. whatever force has the contracts of paragon warlocks does not accept neutrality of any kind, and has altered the very souls of those mortals lines as such. This ancestry also has a significantly different upgrading style, they won't gain the abilities of the others, but they will have all manner of innate bonuses.  
Level 1: All weapons count as chaotic or lawfully aligned to overcome damage reduction, dependent on character alignment. +2 to all stats. Level 6: +1 all stats, 8+con mod bonus HP. Level 12: +1 all stats, 10 all resistances. Level 18: +2 all stats, touch of perfection 1/day. Make any roll you make a natural 20. You can apply this to anything you personally do, attack roll, reflex save, skill check, etc. (This can not contribute in any way to surges)

Eldritch blast types: While there is a lot of variety in the style of individual warlock blasts, this is a general guideline for how they will be described and what options you have.

Demon, Devil, or Yugoloth: These all are the stereotypical types of warlock blasts, purple being the most common color. Any darker color can be used though, red, orange,  dark blue, or even black.

Pseudonatural is very unique. Your blasts and invocations peel away at space and time, and rip the folds of reality itself. Blasts seem to be starlight, or stardust. Some even just warp gravity in on itself momentarily in the shape and style of the performed blasts. The best I can think of to describe this is with this classic from Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI.

Fey will have their own unique style as well, nature colors are common, greens, blues, browns, whites, and yellows. There is also those that seem to blasts leafy, pebble filled blasts of wind that do the exact function. Fey warlocks, even at their most terrible, don't have the evil intimidating blasts that the other ancestries have.

Paragon is based on alignment, lawful good warlocks might have gold or silver, lawful evil red or black. Chaotic alignments might have vibrant colors, pink or blue on good ones, mixed grey/red or perhaps black/purple for evil.

Overall, warlocks are no longer an even close to simple class. They are great, even more powerful than before. Gestalt combos will be really absurd. (Try a warlock/sorcerer or warlock/wizard for extreme magical ability, perhaps a lawful good warlock/paladin for a warrior warlock.)

This is a really big upgrade, and may make the warlock look overpowered, and maybe it is late game, I did run a trial fight though with a paladin/warlock and paladin/sorcerer though, both set at level 6 so they would have just reached their first real tier of abilities. (First upgrade on warlock chart, level 3 sorcerer spells) I used a demon base warlock. The few quick sparring matches I ran placed them as a balanced class, I won 1 of the 3 matches with the warlock/paladin. (Haste was my paladin/sorcerers best friend, gave her a big advantage.) So while it is a big rework, they are really comparable to a sorcerer, with a very different style, which is exactly what I believe they were meant to be.

Simplified: HD to d8, ancestry chart. (1d10)

(Dark power incarnate, warlocks are a tough, different type of caster.)

Warmage: The warmage is essentially a damage focused, armored sorcerer. They are really similar to sorcerers, just better. (Before my sorcerer upgrades.) Cast the exact same way as sorcerers, same casting stats, same BAB, better HD, and really good armored casting. The "downside?" Rather limited spell selection to purely battlefield damage type spells. Yes, this greatly limits the versatility of the class to things like fireball and magic missile. You aren't going to fly or haste your allies as a warmage, but you will be able to launch fireballs and meteorswarms while wearing armor and using a shield. So, the warmage is kind of like a sorcerer evoker style specialist, with armor. This is another class that if I didn't change sorcerers around so much, they'd be fine. To make them stand out from the new sorcerer, we're changing the HD to a d8, and giving them cleric BAB. The other major change I'm making to the warmage is continuing with the armored mage motif, they are now the most heavily armored casting class in the game. The armored progression will continue, at level 12, the warmage gains medium shield proficiency, and at level 17, they gain heavy armor proficiency, at level 20, heavy shield. This will allow warmages to be the most heavily armored casters in the game. Adamantine full plate, heavy shield, meteor swarm, 'nuff said.

*Minor Update* Warmages may choose, when they gain ranks of advanced learning, any spell from the conjuration, transmutation, alteration, necromancy, or evocation schools. This will enhance their versatility a bit.

Simplified: HD increases to d8, cleric BAB, armored mage continues to advance, medium shield at level 12, heavy armor at level 17, and heavy shield at level 20.

(The most heavily armored, no nonsense battle style mage, the warmage is a great introductory caster.)

*Wu Jen:* The oriental adventures wizard, and the best class in the complete arcane, in my opinion. Pretty much identical to the wizard, just with a greater emphasis on elemental spells. The spell secrets are fantastic, permanently altering a spell with 1 of 4 metamagic feats is a fantastic skill, and elemental mastery is fantastic too. This is one of those classes that would need very little adjustment if I hadn't buffed everything else. The first change we're doing is they gain wu jen's edge, which adds intelligence modifier to spell damage, like wizards and warmages have. They also now gain a spell secret and elemental mastery at level 6, and the final change is a bonus metamagic feat every 6 levels. (10 was too slow, wizards are buff as hell.) These three relatively small changes should hopefully make the wu jen comparable to the wizard. If you want the best caster in the game, Wu Jen/Wizard is the way to go. *update* Elemental mastery now has one more effect, a +1 bonus on all damage dice for the chosen element. Example, level 10 wu jen picks fire mastery, fireball now does 10d6+10 instead of 10d6.  

Simplified: Spell secret level 6 and elemental mastery, intelligence modifier to spell damage, and bonus metamagic feats every 6 levels. Elemental mastery now adds +1 damage per dice.

(The Wu Jen is a master of elemental wizardry)

Thus concludes the final class entry for Artheria. Classes are only allowed from the PHB, PHB II, and complete books. I will add psionics at some point, but I've never ran a 3rd edition psionics, so I need to learn that a little more first. Really glad to have these done.... if anything needs to be changed as play continues, we will do that. A lot of these are untested.

"For even the very wise cannot see all ends." J.R.R. Tolkien