The Gaming Den

I am not sure if I am using this part of the forum as intented by doing this, but I have a question to ask.

Anyone ever thought of making a Tome / normal 3.5 class that has abilities focused on magnetism and such? Like, making some mage or something like that who uses abilities similar to Magneto from X-Men (plus using not just normal forms of magnetism (like diamagnetism, paramagnetism and ferromagnetism), but also electromagnetism to his/her advantage) and such.

Like some kind of magnet mage (that sounds retarded compared to fire mage or time mage though)

That said, the Puppeteer is more electro- than -magnetism, but does get a little bit of magnetic power.

Okay, here's a stab at it. A little heavy on the "metal this, metal that" and using at-will pre-existing spells, but probably workable. If I revise it, I'd want to spread a few of the attack spells out in favor of some more flavor abilities. Possibly gets iron golems, wall of iron and reverse gravity at levels over 10th. Other possible directions for such a class could involve adding a bit of electric damage or psuedo-pyschic enchantment stuff


The Magnetist

"Don't you find me attractive?"

Playing a Magnetist: Magnetists use their magic to manipulate metals, people and forces. That magic is powered by their force of personality, so it is expected that magnetists will have Charisma as their highest stat. They also have decent ranged attack capacity and powers that limit opponent's mobility and ranged capacity, so Dexterity is often their second highest attribute.

Alignment Magnetists' abilities involve the interplay between forces and objects, so many magnetists see paralells between those forces and the forces in society - this results in a tendency for magnetists to be more often lawful than chaotic.

Starting Gold as Cleric

Starting Age as sorcerer

Hit Die d8

Class Skills The Magnetist's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Concentration (Con), Diplomacy (Cha) Escape Artist (Dex), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (Arcana) (Int), Knowledge (Architechture and Engineering) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (-), Search (Int), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis), Use Magic Device (Cha), and Use Rope (Dex).

Skills/Level: 4 + Intelligence Bonus
BAB: Medium (as Cleric),
Saves: Fort: Good; Reflex: Poor; Will: Good

Level: Special
1: Attractive Idea, Mage Hand, Floating Disk, Handless Weapon, Strengthen Metal
2: Animal Magnetism, Armor Crush
3: Levitate, Ensnare
4: Magnetic Shield
5: Control Water, Tiny Hut
6: Temper, Rusting Grasp
7: Resilient Sphere
8: Animate Metals
9: Repulsion
10: Repel Metal or Stone, Telekinesis


Class Features:

Weapon and armor proficiency: Magnetists proficient with simple weapons, all forms martial and exotic sword and any additional three exotic metal weapons of choice. They proficient with Light Armor and Funny Purple Helmets, but not with Shields. If a magnetist wears armor or wields a shield he is not proficient in, then all of his Spell-like abilities suffer as if from an arcane spell failure chance.

Attractive Idea: A magnetist's caster level for any magical effect is always equal to their character level - it doesn't matter how much they multiclass, whether they are casting a spell from an item, or if they try to abuse Death Knell and candles of invocation.

Mage Hand (Sp) A magnetist may use Mage Hand at will

Floating Disk (Sp) A magnetist may use Floating Disk at will

Handless Weapon (Su) A magnetist may use a swift action to have his own or any unattended metallic melee weapon within close range of himself make a melee single attack (or disarm or trip) against a target within close range (25 ft + 5/2 levels). This weapon strikes using the magnetist's BAB + Cha Mod and does not get flanking, charge or similar bonuses. The weapon deals its standard damage (with no Strength modifier) and has the standard critical range and multiplier for a weapon of its size and type.

Strengthen Metal (Sp) A magnetist may use Magic Vestment at will on any metal shield or armor he touches. He also gains the spell-like ability to enhance a metal weapon with Greater Magic Weapon at will. As always, caster level is equal to total character level.

Animal Magnetism (Ex) and (Sp) At 2nd level, a Magnetist gets the Wild Empathy ability of a Druid. They also get the spell like ability to use Animal Trance at will

Armor Crush (Sp) At 2nd level, A Magnetist gains the ability to warp and deform a suit of metal armor with an attack action. This ability works out to medium range (100 ft + 10' level) and the Magnetist may target any number of unattended objects within that range or all both the armor worn and shield carried by a single character with an attack action. Anyone wearing armor that has been subjected to this ability is treated as non-proficient (and therefore suffering the Armor Check Penalty to attack rolls and all Str and Dex based skills). If the armor or shield is being worn by a foe when the Magnetist uses this ability, that foe is entitled to a Fortitude save to resist (DC = 10 + 1/2 Magnetist's character level + Magnetist's Cha).

Levitate (Sp) At 3rd level, A Magnetist gains the ability to use Levitate at will.

Ensnare (Sp) At 3rd level, a Magnetist may, as a standard action invoke an effect that is similar to Entangle save that it uses requires metal objects in place of plants to entrap victims. Thus foes may be entangled by ship chains, metal tools, lodes of iron ore, cages of swords and similar things, but the effect is useless in areas without metals.

Magnetic Shield (Su) At 4th level the Magnetist continuously repels harmful weapons from himself. Nonmagic ranged attacks from metal weapons (such as metal-tipped arrows, metal-tipped crossbow bolts as well as musket shot and even cannon balls) automatically miss. Magic metal ranged weapon attacks as well as ranged attacks from non-metal weapons (such as rocks thrown by giants, manticore spikes, flasks of alchemist's fire, ray spells, etc) suffer a 30% miss chance against the magnetist. This ability functions constantly with no action needed from the magnetist - it applies while he is flatfooted, while he is unaware of attacks and even while he is sleeping or KOed.

At 5th level, the Magnetist gains the spell-like abilities to use Control Water and Tiny Hut each at will

Temper (Sp): at 6th level, the magnetist gains the spell-like ability to use Keen Edge at will on metal weapons.

At 6th level, the magnetist gains the spell like ability to ruin metal with a touch. Thus he may use Rusting Grasp at will.

At 7th level, the magnetist gains the ability to use Resiliant Sphere. This may be used at at will - but the magnetist may only have a single such sphere in existence at a given time, so he must dismiss the first sphere before evoking a new one.

Animate Metals (Sp) : At 8th level, the Magnetist gains the ability to use an effect much like Animate Objects save that it may only animate objects which are mostly metallic, and has a duration of Concentration plus 1 round per level. The magnetist may use this ability up to once per hour.

At 9th level, the Magnetist gains the ability to use Repulsion at will.

At 10th level, the Magnetist gains yet more at-will spell-like abilities. Repel Metal or Stone which you've probably never even read before and Telekinesis which lets you make 10 attacks per round, so go nuts.

I love it. Now to just make use of this with designing a death spirit who can control magnetism who might be a neutral NPC of a villain one in some future campaign. Or if I want to be crazy and try to play a crazy outsider, then I would take this class for her.

If you're going for just something undead, Magnetist 9 / Death Knight 1 is good--you can be a Revenant or Swordwraith or something.

If it's a ghost? That's beyond me.

Not exactly, it's more of a sadistic valkyrie. Just look up Keres on Wikipedia or something.

Edit: I went on a long-winded rant about said character. Nobody needed to read it though.
But I now wonder should that character count as both a fiend and an elemental of some sort?
(Shadow elemental-bodied + Fiend, kinda like Kyton except more evil shadow valkyrie and less chain fetish)

Thinking about it, I would probably make her a Magnetist / Some class granting Spheres that might fit...though that depends on WHAT exactly would the Keres be like in the D&D campaign where she'd show up. Also, does a Rakshasa count as a fiend so it can take Fiend feats or levels of Conduit of the Lower Planes and such?

icyshadowlord wrote:Also, does a Rakshasa count as a fiend so it can take Fiend feats or levels of Conduit of the Lower Planes and such?

Tome of Fiends wrote:Further, any elemental or outsider with an Evil alignment is a Fiend regardless of its plane of origin.

SRD, "Rakshasa" wrote:Size/Type: Medium Outsider (Native)... Alignment: Always lawful evil

All sources point to yes.

Oh, that made designing the keres a lot easier.

Sorry for beating on a relatively dead horse, but will this end up on that sticky thread, this class?

Also, I was reminded by a pal that Railguns work on magnetism. Now I just imagined having enough knowledge of such mechanics could make the Magnetist shoot with one...firing a massive railgun shot aimed straight at the face of a dragon would be epic indeed.