The Gaming Den

I doubt entire classes need be made to make successful warrior-mages (and Magus blows ass).
I have a theory that all it would take is a feat or two.

These are both feats with no prereqs, making them ideal for low level hybrids.

Combat Casting
• Character does not Provoke by using spells within melee reach of opponents.

Spellstrike
• As a Standard action you may make a single melee attack, or single ranged attack within the first range increment of your weapon. If the attack hits you may cast a spell you know as an Immediate action targeting all opponents hit by your attack in the same round. Targets make saves as normal.

1) Are these for 3.0, 3.5, PF, or none of these above?
2) Do these assume Tome?
3) Are these meant to be balanced with...anything existing, at all?

Like, just off the top of my head, besides invalidating numerous (mostly admittedly shitty) PRCs and 20 level classes, that first feat makes the Concentrate skill pretty much worthless. My other problem is that it is ridiculously useful for NON-GISHES and makes "Magic > Fighters" even worse because every Wizard ever should take that and then they can give a shit about a guy with a sword EVEN LESS.

Of course this comment assumes the rules of 3.X are somehow relevant here. Needs more info.

Spellstrike seems...initially I was going to say OP, but just strange, really. I think it ought to be restricted to melee weapons and touch spells and it would still be pretty awesome and maybe more...thematically consistent?

I mean, okay, limitation to touch spells...might be going too far, but I don't really understand the point of shooting ranged spells into people with a crossbow anyway...you're just reducing range to less range kind of arbitrarily, and adding some weapon damage to the spell that won't matter for most spells at most levels (there's not much difference between "Make a Fort Save or Disintegrate" and "1d10 damage and Make A Fort Save or Disintegrate").

When I first saw Spellstrike my initial thought was "Nice Druid feat brah."


In retrospect, this was a really dumb post. Druids couldn't seriously give less of a shit even if they are casters that occasionally bite people in the face. I don't really know who would take it.

Schwarzkopf wrote:1) Are these for 3.0, 3.5, PF, or none of these above?
2) Do these assume Tome?
3) Are these meant to be balanced with...anything existing, at all?

1. Any.
2. No. I could scale them but IMO there's too much of that around here. I've encountered people new to Tome that outright said 'too much crap for one feat', so while I do make some feats scale, I want these to stay simple.
3. Balanced with Magus (or better), Spellsword PrC, and Eldritch Knight PrC, but provided early so that the role can be accomplished when low levels are active. No point in building up to a gish role if that's what you want from the start.

The intent is that a player would grab noncaster and caster levels in any combination they wish, throw in those two feats, and have at it.
The armor problem could be solved with Bracers of Armor rather than the typical, and if you want more HP then take Imp. Toughness and boost CON.

I'll answer the rest after... tacos.

EDIT: Tacos with a Dorito shell are amazing.

OK.
I made (remade) Combat Casting based on experimenting friends and I did with 3.0 a decade ago. We got tired of casters having problems delivering touch spells, so we changed Combat Casting to outright not provoke, just like using combat tactics such as Trip provoke unless the feat Improved Trip is taken.
You can still disrupt spells if you delay and deal enough damage that the caster fails their Concentration check, but they just won't provoke in the meantime. No more dancing back and forth with 5-foot steps.

Spellstrike might be uninspiring but it was based on the Spellsword and Magus abilities to use spells through a weapon. Spellsword must store spells in their weapon, while Magus does some complicated fancy shit that I never bothered to remember because it was stupid and convoluted.
Anyway, you'd probably want CC before Spellstrike since using the latter will provoke.