[3.5 PrC] Rage Mage (Rewrite)

[VennDygrem]

Rage Mage



Some men seek glory, or ancient wisdom, or sometimes just peace and tranquility in the world. On the other hand, some men just want to watch the world burn. A Rage Mage channels his fury through his magic, and then into his attacks, becoming a true force to be reckoned with. Which path will he take?

BECOMING A RAGE MAGE

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
Alignment: Any nonlawful
Base Attack Bonus: +4
Feats: Combat Casting
Spells: Able to cast 2nd-level arcane spells.
Special: Rage or frenzy ability


Class Skills
The Rage Mage's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Profession (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), and Survival (Wis).
Skills Points at Each  Level 2 + int

Hit Dice: d8

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special	Spellcasting
1st	+0	+2	+0	+0	Spell Rage, Rage Armor	—
2nd	+1	+3	+0	+0	Arcane Frenzy	+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
3rd	+2	+4	+1	+1	Rage +1/day	+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
4th	+3	+4	+1	+1	Spell Fury	+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
5th	+3	+4	+1	+1	Greater Spell Rage	+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
6th	+4	+5	+2	+2	Rage +1/day, Awaken Rage	—
7th	+5	+5	+2	+2	Outburst 1/day	+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
8th	+6	+6	+2	+2	Spell Rage (improved benefits)	+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
9th	+6	+6	+3	+3	Rage +1/day, All the Rage	+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
10th	+7	+7	+3	+3	Outburst 2/day, Tireless Spell Rage	+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: Rage Mages gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor.

Spellcasting (Ex): At every level except for 1st and 6th, you gain new spells per day and an increase in caster level (and spells known, if applicable) as if you has also gained a level in an arcane spellcasting class to which you belonged before adding the prestige class level. You do not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. If you had more than one arcane spellcasting class before becoming a Rage Mage, you must decide to which class to add each level for the purpose of determining spells per day, caster level, and spells known.

Spell Rage (Ex): A Rage Mage no longer abides the standard limitations of the Rage ability, and as such can now cast spells while in a Rage as long as the spell's casting time is no longer than 1 full round. Furthermore, while under the effects of a rage, the Rage Mage's caster level equals his character level, and he can attempt concentration checks to avoid having a spell disrupted, though he still may not use any other Charisma, Dexterity, or Intelligence-based skills other than Balance, Escape Artist, Intimidate, or Ride. Otherwise, his Rages continue to operate in the same way, except as modified below.

Rage Armor (Su): Rage Mages incur arcane spell failure chances as normal, and thus most resort to their magic as they do not tend to wear any armor. At 1st level, whenever you enter a Rage, you gain the effects of the Mage Armor spell (thus, rather than having a -2 penalty to AC from raging, you now have a +2 armor bonus from your magic). Furthermore, by etching magical tattoos into their body, a Rage Mage may enhance their Rage Armor in the same way armor may be enchanted, treating the Armor effect as masterwork armor and paying the normal costs for enchantment. However, Rage Armor cannot have a total enhancement bonus higher than your Rage Mage class level.

Arcane Frenzy (Su): At 2nd level, a Rage Mage learns to balance his time between spellcasting and melee combat, becoming deadlier at both in the process. While under the effects of a Rage, you may add +1d6 energy damage for every two class levels (round down) to your melee damage rolls for 1 round after you successfully cast a spell. This bonus damage has an energy type that you may select when you enter your Rage, and which remains chosen until the Rage ends. You may choose for this bonus damage to be fire, cold, electricity, or acid damage.
At 8th level, each die of damage from this ability gains a +1 bonus to damage and attacks and your attacks bypass the concealment miss chance of incorporeal foes while under Arcane Frenzy is active. The Rage Mage may also choose to change the bonus damage's elemental type once per round at the start of their turn.

Furthermore, while in a Rage, when you deal damage from a melee attack your spells have a +1 bonus to Caster Level and to Save DCs for 1 round. This bonus doubles at 8th level.

Rage (Ex): At 3rd level a Rage Mage can enter a Rage one additional time per day, and another additional time per day at 6th and 9th levels.

Spell Fury (Sp): At 4th level a Rage Mage can cast a spell with a range of Personal as a free action when they first enter a Rage. This ability functions once per encounter.

Greater Spell Rage (Sp): Starting at 5th level, Whenever the Rage Mage enters a Rage, they are also automatically affected as though by the Rage spell, gaining a +2 morale bonus to Strength and Constitution and a +1 morale bonus to Will saves, as well as taking a further -2 to AC. The Rage Mage may choose not to benefit from this effect if they so choose. This effect lasts until the Rage ability ends.

Awaken Rage (Sp): At 6th level, when a Rage Mage enters a Rage, they may affect a number of their allies equal to their class level with an effect similar to the Rage spell, granting them a +2 morale bonus to Strength and Constitution and a +1 morale bonus on Will saves, while also imposing a -2 penalty to AC. This bonus lasts as long as the Rage Mage remains under the effects of their Rage ability. This ability's effect does not extend to the Rage Mage.

Outburst (Su): At 7th level, 1/day while in a Rage, the Rage Mage may affect all enemies within a 30-ft. radius with a violent outburst. A ghostly illusion with the appearance of the Rage Mage appears next to each foe, and attacks with a single blow. The Rage Mage makes a melee attack against each target. Upon a successful hit, the target takes normal damage from the Rage Mage's melee attack, plus 1d4+1 bonus damage per class level, and the target must make a Reflex saving throw against a DC of 10 + 1/2 character level + primary casting ability modifier or be knocked prone. Flying enemies may fall to the ground upon being knocked prone. All damage from this ability is considered force damage, and the attacks are not subject to the concealment miss chances for an incorporeal target. The attacks made as part of this ability do not benefit from the Rage Mage's Arcane Frenzy ability.

At 10th level, the Rage Mage may use this ability one more time per day, but only once per encounter.

All the Rage (Ex): At 9th level while in a Rage, a Rage Mage doubles the effect of all Morale effects that they become subject to, or subject others to. This includes the morale bonus to will saves from their Rage ability, as well as the Awaken Rage ability or morale bonuses gained from spells.

Tireless Spell Rage (Ex): You want to know the Rage Mage's secret? He's always angry! At 10th level a Rage Mage no longer needs to be Raging to benefit from Greater Spell Rage's effects. The spell's benefits become permanent, Extraordinary effects, and thus no longer activate upon entering a Rage. This bonus can be suppressed or reactivated as a swift action. Additionally, the Rage Mage is no longer fatigued after ending his Rage ability, and the Rage Mage need no longer enter a Rage to benefit from the Rage Armor, Outburst, and All the Rage class abilities.

PLAYING A RAGE MAGE
 The Rage Mage is, first and foremost, all about bringing the pain. Through magic and might, the Rage Mage is capable of becoming the most fearsome combatant on the battlefield. Rage early, buff up, and paint the town with your enemies' blood.
 Combat: Strangely enough, the Rage Mage is a natural party buffer, granting greater melee strength while later boosting any morale effects they impart on others. In combat, the Rage Mage will want to alternate between casting spells and melee attacks in order to keep their Arcane Frenzy ability going.
 Advancement: As arcane spellcasters, Rage Mages will likely seek ways of advancing their durability while progressing spellcasting. Rage Mages should already qualify for Abjurant Champion levels, and its class abilities in particular may help offset the AC penalties incurred from Raging. Eldritch Knight also helps improve the Rage Mage's base attack bonus while further advancing spellcasting.
 Resources: Though quite capable on their own, Rage Mages function best as part of a team. Regardless of whether you are functioning as an adventurer or a tribal shaman, there is no reason to turn down aid where it is available, or to provide it when it is needed.

[VennDygrem]

So, this is still a work in progress. I wanted to redo the Rage Mage prestige class for a while now, and had considered doing so as part of the First Homebrew competition ("One Spell Wonders"), but decided against it at the time.

Here, I've decided to almost completely redo the class, with a few nods to the original. A few notable changes, and my concerns:

• Spell Rage is now just an extension of the regular ability to Rage. No reason, I feel, to separate it into its own ability. You're either Raging or you're not. Still not sure if I should keep the original's boost to caster level while in a spell rage, here.
• Rage Armor- I wanted the Rage Mage to get some automatic magic effects and I felt that rather than reduce ASF, it would be more flavorful to inscribe the Rage Mage with magical tattoos that grant Mage Armor. However, eventually Greater Spell Rage means the armor bonus is completely overwritten, and there are some nice armor enchantments that would otherwise be lost on the Rage Mage. Rather than just automatically increase the Mage Armor AC bonus at some set levels, I figured I'd let the player improve it but still have to pay out of pocket for it. I don't want to give too much away for free... Ok, maybe I do.
  
  
• Arcane Frenzy- I wanted something that would both encourage the Rage Mage to continue casting spells in combat, and also mix it up in melee. I also wanted to buff up their melee attacks and make them badasses in combat. I worry that maybe I've overdone it here, though at most it's every other round and only if the Rage Mage keeps casting spells in between attack rounds.
• Spell Fury is almost the same, only instead of a spell level cap, I limited it to Personal spells, and only when you enter a Rage. Basically, you get a buff off for free on your first turn, allowing you to run into battle and attack (and activate Arcane Frenzy while you're at it).
• Not sure I removed enough Casting progression. Maybe increase it from 2 to 3 or even 4 dead spellcasting levels?
• Awaken Rage is kind of like the Frenzied Berserker's Inspire Frenzy, though that's totally by accident. I only noticed after going to look at that class for inspiration for more class features. It's usable more often than Inspire Frenzy, though the bonus is much, much lower, though it's got lesser drawbacks.
• In an attempt to make the class more destructive, I knew I wanted an ability called Outburst, but had no idea what to do with it. This seemed like a pretty interested effect, but I'm not sure it's either any good or if it's even too much. Not usable very often, at least.
• Is All the Rage too much? It improves the bonus granted to allies by Awaken Rage, and also the one gained from Greater Spell Rage. So, at 5th class level, your Rage now grants you +6 Str/Con, then at 9th it's +8 Str/Con. With Tireless Spell Rage, at 10th you have a permanent +4 to Str/Con while not raging and still only going up to a total of +8 while raging. That's not really worse than the second level of Warshaper, but that's a different pile of cheese. Is this too much?

Furthermore, I'm concerned that this really isn't all that interesting. I had idea to spend spell slots to activate other abilities, or just generally being able to boost your melee attacks or spells with more interesting effects through some ability, but I ended up just trying to get something done to put up here while I work it all out.

[Amechra]

Well, I like it.

It also gives me an idea for an interesting base class... thanks.

[Raineh Daze]

I have a question: how, exactly, is Domon Kasshu relevant?

[VennDygrem]

Heh, well it's kind of a temporary quote. I originally had the whole thing but remembered the War Frenzy has the same quote, or part of it. This part, at least, seems almost relevant, but yeah it's just a placeholder really. I mean, I made the whole thing up over about 5 hours or so.

[Bauglir]

I like it. Just a thought, regarding Greater Spell Rage - you might want to specify that they retain their normal exemptions from the Rage limitations when they use that ability, since it's a separate effect that just inherits wording. Intent is clear, and most players won't actually make that mistake, so it's not a big deal.

[hazard]

I like that it's better than the complete warrior's version, but why does it have medium base attack?  It doesn't seem like it would be on par with Abjurant champion or Jade phoenix mage with full so what is the hold up.

[VennDygrem]

Well, the original class has medium BAB too and I addee a bunch of spellcasting progression back in, so I didn't want to over do it. As a caster, it gets a good boost and improves Str which helps make up for the character's lower BAB, and later on any moraoe effects they get are doubled so if they pick the right buff they could  do quite well.

Does anyone else think this is an issue? I thought of also boosting attack bonus through some effect but didn't want to overload the class.

[Raineh Daze]

Well, the entry requirements don't exactly help out that much when it comes to losing BAB and casting progression, do they?

[Amechra]

Barbarian 1/Duskblade 5/Rage Mage 10/Abjurant Champion 4

5th level spells, +17 BAB, and a few nifty benefits. I'm still kinda weirded out by the fact that Mage Armor is an Abjuration spell.

[Maat Mons]

Are you sure you want to limit it to arcane casters? 

One thing to ask when designing this class is, how can you make spells provide a bonus to rage? 

There is the classic idea of sacrificing a spell slot to gain a bonus proportional to the level of the slot.  Obvious possibilities include a bonus to natural armor, damage reduction, a bonus to melee attack rolls, or a bonus to melee damage rolls.  Expending the spell slot as a free action when rage is activated and having the bonus last until the rage ends would be a refreshing change from similar abilities.  Later on, you could allow s second, then a third spell slot to be expended, choosing a different bonus for each one. 

You could allow spell slots to be sacrificed for extra uses of rage in some fassion. 

Another thing to ask when designing this class is, how can you make rage provide a bonus to spells? 

It would be interesting to let the caster use constitution instead of their normal ability score to determine save DCs for spells when in a rage. 

Being able to expend rounds from the duration of rage to add benefits to spells as they're being cast is a direction you could explore.  Adding metamagic feats is one possibility, but I'd try to avoid adding another way to abuse persistent spell. 

You could give some virtual spell levels when rage is activated that can be spent to retain spells when casting them, sort of like absorption, but without the absorbing. 

Instead of allowing concentrations checks during a rage, you could eliminate the need for the concentration checks.  When raging, the caster doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity for casting spells; his mind never wanders from battle.  When raging, the caster doesn't have to make concentration checks when he takes damage or is subject to adverse conditions; he feels no pain and shrugs off petty nuisances. 

You might also look into ways to allow weapon attacks and spellcasting in the same round.  Duskblade and havoc mage are two examples to look at.  As a stranger direction, anytime the character drops a foe with a melee attack, you could allow him to cast a spell as an immediate action, provided the normal casting time of that spell is no more than a standard action.  Maybe you could allow the character to cast a targeted spell and charge the target of the spell in the same full round action. 

[VennDygrem]

I'm still kinda weirded out by the fact that Mage Armor is an Abjuration spell.

Since when? It's Conjuration (Creation); Abjurant Champion just makes a flub in mentioning it as one of the spells an Abjurant Champion uses to defend itself, despite it not being an Abjuration spell, and thus not benefiting from the class features specific to Abjuration effects.

Are you sure you want to limit it to arcane casters? 

One thing to ask when designing this class is, how can you make spells provide a bonus to rage? 

There is the classic idea of sacrificing a spell slot to gain a bonus proportional to the level of the slot.  Obvious possibilities include a bonus to natural armor, damage reduction, a bonus to melee attack rolls, or a bonus to melee damage rolls.  Expending the spell slot as a free action when rage is activated and having the bonus last until the rage ends would be a refreshing change from similar abilities.  Later on, you could allow s second, then a third spell slot to be expended, choosing a different bonus for each one. 

You could allow spell slots to be sacrificed for extra uses of rage in some fassion. 

Another thing to ask when designing this class is, how can you make rage provide a bonus to spells? 

It would be interesting to let the caster use constitution instead of their normal ability score to determine save DCs for spells when in a rage. 

Being able to expend rounds from the duration of rage to add benefits to spells as they're being cast is a direction you could explore.  Adding metamagic feats is one possibility, but I'd try to avoid adding another way to abuse persistent spell. 

You could give some virtual spell levels when rage is activated that can be spent to retain spells when casting them, sort of like absorption, but without the absorbing. 

Instead of allowing concentrations checks during a rage, you could eliminate the need for the concentration checks.  When raging, the caster doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity for casting spells; his mind never wanders from battle.  When raging, the caster doesn't have to make concentration checks when he takes damage or is subject to adverse conditions; he feels no pain and shrugs off petty nuisances. 

You might also look into ways to allow weapon attacks and spellcasting in the same round.  Duskblade and havoc mage are two examples to look at.  As a stranger direction, anytime the character drops a foe with a melee attack, you could allow him to cast a spell as an immediate action, provided the normal casting time of that spell is no more than a standard action.  Maybe you could allow the character to cast a targeted spell and charge the target of the spell in the same full round action. 

I'm limiting it to arcane casters to keep it similar to the original class. I considered opening it up as it would work well as a sort of primal shaman class, mixing divine magic with the barbarian rage, but that seems better left to a different class.

I did want to address issues such as having rage affect spellcasting, and spellcasting affecting rage, more than I did. I think Arcane Frenzy ends up rather tame as a result of trying not to go overboard and make this overly powerful.

I did consider expending spell slots to enter a rage more often, or to enhance a rage.

I don't think I want to change the Save DC-controlling stat because that might get messy. I think I prefer granting a bonus to save DC's (which I've actually reduced in Arcane Frenzy from the original Angry Spell feature, though in place of a +1 to DC I also boost CL by +1. I'm willing to mess around with Arcane Frenzy in general, to make it more interesting and fun in play.

As for metamagic, I'd prefer not to mess with those too much, though I could do something like treating all, or some subset, of spells as under Still Spell, Empower spell, maximize spell, or some such metamagic while in a rage, or dependent on some effect from the class. Maybe replace the +1 DC/+1 CL from Arcane Frenzy with something along those lines. Apply some metamagic to a spell as long as it's got a casting time of 1 standard or less and a duration of Instantaneous, maybe, or specific metamagic effects in any case.

Your absorption idea is interesting, but I think not for this class. The idea is that a Rage Mage is charging around hitting things with sticks and then unleashing powerful magic with little regard to planning or careful thought. The class works with prepared casters, but is best suited to spontaneous, especially from a fluff standpoint.

If anything, a caster should really need more concentration checks while raging since it's harder to actually think about what you're doing, and spellcasting usually requires focus and forethought. Obviously it would be interesting for a Rage Mage to be able to ignore that while raging, but I think it would have to be limited to certain kinds of spells, which are essentially just being cast as a result of the Rage Mage's unleashed emotions and power.

As for casting/attacks in the same round, I'd rather not do spell channeling a-la the Duskblade, as that's done just fine by Duskblade (and as Amechra pointed out, can be combined with both classes just fine). I actually was thinking of something along the lines of your Charge idea when originally writing up what would have gone into the 4th class level.

I still kinda like the idea of charging at an enemy and exploding in furious magical power.

[Jalle]

I have let one of my players playing this version of the rage mage, but I have one question for you: The 10th level ability "Tireless Spell Rage" states that the Rage mage no longer needs to be raging to get the benefit from Greater spell rage.  Does that mean that the effect (+2 Str, +2 Con, +1 will, -2 AC) is forced upon ANY 10th level Rage mage? I am asking because under "Greater spell rage" it is written that the Rage mage can opt not to accept the extra Str, Con and Will, but such option is not mentioned in the "Tireless spell rage".. And if not this effect is forced upon the Rage mage, can she then decide when to activate and deactivate this bonus?

[VennDygrem]

Changed Tireless Spell Rage to included the ability to suppress and reactivate the effects.