so you want an arcane half caster concept?

so you want an arcane half caster concept?

one of the concepts that people endlessly bat about is the arcane half caster.

a long wanted but never created class however we do have classes which were made to fill this gap.

they all have a problem of thematics.

mechanically they mostly work not quite as well as 5e's paladin does but when it comes to the 5e ruleset few things work as well. (pathfinders magus works mechanically but I have problems with it.)

do not get me started with the bunch of 3e/3.5e ones how they have the thematics of a brick.

so here is what I am going to hurl into the ring for you lot to rip apart.

first, why would an arcane half caster appear in-universe?

fairly simply the most likely set of people to generate the need for this kind of class is a magocracy as they would need some less squishy enforcers of their will that can not just be dispelled by other magic.

eventually, they would want something with more power than a fighter but less of the restrictions of the paladin. thus teaching fighter magic would giver rise to things like the eldritch knight, arcane trickster and the echo knight. as anyone could tell they would not quite be what they(and we)want.

my blog is called dragon blood infusions for a reason more exactly this one.  in myth dragon blood does strange things to people, grant powers to people without them. so lets grab that and graft it to the following.

a noted thing in fantasy media that I have not seen properly supported in tabletop is what I will call the magically enhanced fighter, by training, alchemy or other stuff these people have been forged into arcane weapons (nice rp potential in the why they ended up in this job?)

aside from making it's armour and weapon selection as varied and customizable as the fighter(paladins can only really be built as heavy armour warriors and I doubt we will get many more arcane options)

 

creating something as useful as smite but very different

thinking about things which damage a bit but are mostly ways to inflict status effects and debuffs. no idea what to call it but its basic use is structurally similar to smite in basic mechanics?

 

basic level up ideas

Here is where things start getting tricky as level up abilities are a heavily mechanic based thing.

okay here is the idea people love the customisability of the warlock so why not have a somewhat lesser variant of that as each subclass level up, given the thematics I set up for this class it would also work nicely.  

concepts for subclasses

each subclass spell level only goes up to five like other half casters but each one is based on two types of arcane magic. 

I must not base the subclasses on just the logical combinations of the magic schools. I suck at names but here it goes.

 

1 evocation and conjuration lots of bouncing around the battlefield like the swordmage but with a lot more elemental damage attacks and summons backing them up when numbers are needed. most likely designed to be medium armoured the standard one first built designed to conquer territory and remove external threats.

 

2 abjuration and necromancy your arcane juggernaut, hard to hurt, heavily armoured, can regain health by hurting its enemies, lots of necrotic damage, and ways to hurt your enemies soul. basic in-universe function somewhere between mage policers(example templars from dragon age) heavy troops and undead killer.

 

3 illusion and enchantment closer to rogues than fighters, stealthy with seemingly endless ways to deceived others and exploit the mind. need a magic item, spellbook or scroll "collected" get these guys on it, need intelligence on a place get one of these to handle it, need a population deceived into rebellion this subclass was built for it. basic inspiration what would a secret agent be if given magic and they were made for a fantasy setting. I think my concept here is weaker than I would like but lots of people would still pick it.

 

4 divination and transmutation.medium armoured will likely be getting most of its damage form weapons but is the subclass for people who find reality unsatisfactory(possible class motto reality is an illusion and I can prove it.) with the highest number of ways to flat out modify the situation for people who live to make combat "interesting" some subtle luck manipulation and giving them some chronomancy powers late game? think they arose as an attempt to make a better battlefield fighter then they mutated into a cult believing that reality is not real(whether or not they are right is dm discretion.)