Author Topic: [Official and 3rd Party] What non-Vancian classes are as versatile as casters?  (Read 2119 times)

Offline Libertad

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3.X:

There's psionics, but that's a given. The binder class has some stuff going for it, but truth be told I'm not well-versed in its mechanics.

Factotum can replicate a lot of class features and gain temporary access to spells.

There was a class in Dragon Compendium by Paizo which had a jack-of-all-trades class the Savant. Which is a lot like the Factotum, but less powerful from what I remember.

Pathfinder:

In terms of official Paizo material, nothing's come to mind right now, in that the designers generally don't go for extensive rules variants. I can't speak to the quality of Occult Adventures, as I don't own that book.

For third party, Spheres of Power's pretty nifty, but as spells are gained on a per-level basis, they don't approach the level of Cleric/Druid/Wizard but can hold up with spontaneous and non 9th-level casters. Even surpass them, depending on the Spheres and classes used from the sourcebook.

Offline Keldar

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I don't think any, even Psionics thanks to splat support, match the Vancian classes.  And I'm all but positive that's intentional.  The Core Casters are so above and beyond the other classes in Core, down in power and versatility is actually a strength of later design. 

That said, Tome of Battle has lots of versatility.  In all the ways the Vancian classes do.  (Even in a plethora of home brew.)  It just doesn't have the raw power over all.
Incarnum was fairly versatile, if weak.
The two Invocation classes weren't as versatile, but were strong in their own niche.

The Savant was...poor.  Poor arcane casting, poor divine casting, middling skillmonkeying, tons of MAD.  Completely Vancian.

Occult Adventures looked to be largely more Vancian junk only with the word psionic slapped on it.  The only one that wasn't was Kineticist, and that was on the Truenamer end of the curve.

Offline Nanshork

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Just a clarification, Occult Adventures is Psychic, not Psionic, and a completely separate spellcasting system (but still vancian).

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Leadership, Thrallherd, Animal Companion and similars, and then the things that show up, are the things that can be versatile.

Chameleon 2 for the swap out feat, and could refrain from using the caster stuff (but doesn't want to).

Natural Shapechangers that can utilize the (su) abilities of the things they morph into.
Your codpiece is a mimic.

Offline Maelphaxerazz

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There is the Spell Points variant from Unearthed Arcana. It is not fire-and-forget, and therefore it is not Vancian. Then there is the Recharge Magic variant, which is sort of un-Vancian. Since both variants have access to the same spells as core spellcasting, they are as versatile (or more) than Vancian casters.

Offline Nanshork

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For Pathfinder, look into the book Strange Magic.  It's like their third party version of 3.5's Tome of Magic.  You get three new casting systems: Ethermagic, Composition Magic, and Truenaming.  Note: I've only skimmed the book because I don't expect to ever use it.

Ethermagic is a point based casting system and I'd say it's got the versatility that you're asking for. 

Composition magic looks versatile but is too complicated to grasp with a simple skimming so I can't guarantee that.  Also there is a Breakdancer class.  You can do the Electric Boogaloo or the Moon Walk.

Truenaming looks like a buffed up version of the 3.5 version but I don't know how versatile it can be when you still get penalties for using the same utterances.