FFXIV x D&D - White Mage as Druid Archetype: Circle of Life

This is part of a series of posts I'm making in prep for a FFXIV x D&D sourcebook I'm writing. Other related articles are:

• Astrologian
• Bard
• Black Mage
• Dark Knight
• Dragoon
• Gunbreaker
• Machinist
• Monk
• Red Mage
• Scholar
• Summoner
• White Mage

Here's a copy of the unfinished product if you want to see it in a coherent form: https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/BkhxYHFIr

White Mage

One of the things that D&D 5th ed. doesn't really have, it's a pure healing subclass. The closest that we have is the Life Domain cleric, which is meant to be next to the action, making attacks of their own. This is probably done as a conscious design choice, as there will often be times when damage is hardly dished out to the PCs, or at least not enough to warrant a "pure healer" in the party. So I went into this subclass with the idea in mind to allow White Mages to do something else besides healing during their turn. 

I initially thought that players that wanted to play a White Mage should just roll a Life Cleric, but after looking at it more, I decided it really wasn't the same, as the Life Cleric has heavy armor proficiency and the Divine Strike feature. Now, this would make for a badass battle White Mage, but that's not really part of the toolkit that White Mage is known for.

I thought of making White Mage into Cleric subclass at first, but the Channel Divinity and Divine Intervention turned me away from it. The cleric really lays on thick that you gain your abilities from a divine entity or power that you revere or pray to in some form. The astrologian can get away with this, because they get their powers from the stars that answer their calls. Sure, FFXIV White Mages have elementals, but.... it's not like the elementals grant them powers themselves.

I considered Sorcerer briefly, and it made a little bit of sense thanks to the idea behind the Padjal, but I ended up dropping it because it didn't feel right. And the sorcerer spell selection clashes with the White Mage way too much.

A gut feeling told me to look into Druid from the beginning, but I shrugged it off because Cleric always seemed to be the obvious choice. A White Mage Druid seemed like a scandalous idea at first, but the more I read into it, the more it made sense. They don't wear metal. Their spells are nature based (so they get stone, water, and wind spells that fill their motif). And it wouldn't be far-fetched to think that Kan-E-Senna is capable of transforming into a small animal to secretly check in on what's happening in the Shroud. They're really just missing a few essential healing spells, which is an easy fix.

I thought that maybe a White Mage player isn't interested in the idea of using Wild Shape, and I didn't want anyone to feel like they're playing sub-optimally because they want to stick to playing what they think is a faithful version of the job. So with Divine Seal, I thought it could use the same resource as Wild Shape, and therefore give the player the option to use it instead and never have to worry about Wild Shape. Divine Seal is really strong at the level it's available, since it's a "free" 3rd level spell you get when you're still only casting 1st level spells, and it recharges every short rest! 

I think this balances out at 2nd level because it's an action to cast, so you're not going to do any healing during that turn (or anything else for that matter, since druids don't have any non-spell options in the bonus action department at that level), and it's a concentration spell, so if you get hit at that level, there's a good chance you can lose it! Plus the effect of the spell, though very helpful, it doesn't really break the game. You can't combine it with your own healing spirit, for example.

This ability improves at later levels; you can use it twice per short rest at level 6, more or less around when you're supposed to cast the spell, and at level 10 you can cast it as a bonus action. Because this feature uses the Wild Shape resource as it's base, I used the Circle of the Moon's Wild Shape features as a reference to determine what is expected from an ability that is based on Wild Shape. Because Circle of the Moon's Combat Wild Shape allowed them to use the resource as a bonus action, it made sense for Divine Seal to do the same eventually.

This is where I come back to my earlier point of making sure the healer always has something to do besides healing. While the cleric does this by getting spells that allow them to use their bonus actions to attack while they use Cure Wounds or other restorative spells as their actions, the White Mage does the opposite; They use their bonus actions to heal, and their actions to do something else.

Because they get Secret of the Lily later (and because their healing is already greatly empowered by Divine Seal), I had to balance Tetragrammaton by limiting it in a similar way that the Celestial Warlock did in it's similar feature, in particular when comparing it to the Circle of Dreams feature that also has a pool of dice to heal with.

I was initially just going to have White Mages heal a little for each heal they dole out, but I wanted to include lilies in some way. I figured that a great way for them to keep having healing resources available without breaking the game too much is by letting them replenish their tetragrammaton dice pool, and we see this in action with Secret of the Lily.  

The White Mage's last feature, Temperance, was me trying to give them something really cool that didn't boost healing directly, but still could help in their healing duties. I yanked it right from the Divine Soul sorcerer, because I figured that flight would be extra helpful to stay in harm's way as well as increased mobility for reaching your allies.

I can't finish without mentioning that Divine Seal get unlimited uses at level 20. Compared to Life Domain cleric, who automatically maxes all their heals at level 14 at no action cost, I think the features balance out with each other.

I hope I don't get backlash from basing White Mage off of druids, but it's really what made the most sense to me. And I really like how this turned out. I think the subclass itself is solid; If anything, I could make a few druid spells to help them be a bit more offensive, magic-wise.

FFXIV x D&D - Warlock Archetype: Dark Knight

This is part of a series of posts I'm making in prep for a FFXIV x D&D sourcebook I'm writing. Other related articles are:

• Astrologian
• Bard
• Black Mage
• Dark Knight
• Dragoon
• Gunbreaker
• Machinist
• Monk
• Red Mage
• Scholar
• Summoner
• White Mage

Here's a copy of the unfinished product if you want to see it in a coherent  form: https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/r1R7P-gUr

Dark Knight

This week I made the Dark Knight. I was originally going to make it a Paladin subclass, but the more I kept looking into it, the less sense it made. I felt like Dark Knights shouldn't have easy access to healing spells or party buffing auras. There were a lot of things that Paladins had by default that didn't feel right for a Dark Knight. I then considered turning into a Fighter subclass for a while, giving it the Paladin abilities it could use, and then cherry-picking from the wizards' spells. When I noticed that it was difficult for a Fighter subclass to really feel right, I looked to other jobs. And that's when I remembered... the Warlock's Hexblade subclass.

The Hexblade turns the Warlock into a melee fighter; a sort of "dark paladin", if you will. Looking at it now, I probably should have considered doing something similar to the Hexblade from the start, but I didn't think the Hexblade turns the Warlock into enough of a melee fighter to be receiving hits like the Paladin does. So that's my angle with Dark Knight: Take Hexblade, and make it a more martial counterpart of itself, all while molding it into a faithful representation of the FFXIV job. Because Warlock subclasses all have a patron, I named this one The Darkness Within, alluding to the fact that a Dark Knight gains it's powers from one's own darker alter ego.

For the most part, the Hexblade's expanded spell list was on point with what I would have had in mind for Dark Knight. I made some changes to add some more Paladin spells to include in the Warlock's very Dark-Knighty repertoire. I made sure not to include any healing spells on purpose. The most notable additions are Death Ward and Destructive Wave, which gives the Dark Knight more staying power and a powerful AOE, respectively.

I changed the Hexblade's Curse by, first of all, removing it's 19-20 crit chance feature that Champion Fighters (The flagship users of this ability) need to wait two more levels for. Instead of this, I decided to add a few options of Fighting Style, including Spellslinger, a fighting style I made for Red Mage. With the inclusion of the Fighting Style feature, it should help reinforce the Dark Knight as a martial character.

I then continued tweaking Hexblade's Curse further. I removed the ability to heal after making a kill and turned that into an invocation called Blood Weapon, which is essentially Dark Knight's version of the Fighter's Second Wind. Finally, I turned the feature from a curse to a form of rage, so that it may better interact with another feature I cover below, Living Dead. Finally, I toned down the damage bonus of Hexblade's Curse to use a 1d4 (later upgraded to 1d6) instead of a straight proficiency modifier. I called the final product Delirium. I wanted to add something like the Rage's resistance to nonmagical weapon damge, but I felt like I was already giving too much at level 1, and Delirium didn't need to have any restrictions.

I left Hex Warrior largely untouched, and just added Heavy Armor proficiency. I renamed it to Grit.

I was originally going to leave Living Shadow as the 14th level ability, but when I decided to include Living Dead, I opted in making a modified version of Hexblade's Accursed Specter instead. Living Shadow allows you to conjure it at will as an action, instead of for free after slaying a foe. The catch is that your Living Shadow stays just long enough for a fight, which Accursed Specter stays for the rest of your adventuring day. Their stats are largely similar, and the way you control Living Shadow is very similar to the Artificer's Iron Defender, which I thought was very intuitive.

The level 10 ability, Dark Missionary, follows the Warlock subclass' pattern of being a defensive feature. They gain proficiency to Constitution saving throws, which not only helps solidify their identity as a martial subclass, but it'll also help them with Living Dead. They also gain a limited version of a Paladin's aura by allowing them to use a reaction to grant themselves and others a bonus to constitution saving throws. 

I initially thought against adding Living Dead to the Dark Knight's repertoire, having them use Death Ward instead, but I figured that the lack of staying power that their d8 hit dice provided, compared to Paladin's d10, and Barbarian's d12, did actually merit a little more help. With their incredible constitution saving throw modifier, as well as the ability to cast Death Ward on themselves, Dark Knights can stay in the front lines for a very long amount of time.

I'm fairly satisfied with the end result. I think it encapsulates the feeling of Dark Knight well, and it looks fun to play. My two concerns with it are giving it three features at level 1 (even though I think they're all balanced) and any action economy issue that the Living Shadow might bring (since it requires a bonus action from you in order to attack, and your smite spells require a bonus action to trigger).

FFXIV x D&D - Wizard Archetype: Scholar

This is part of a series of posts I'm making in prep for a FFXIV x D&D sourcebook I'm writing. Other related articles are:

• Astrologian
• Bard
• Black Mage
• Dark Knight
• Dragoon
• Gunbreaker
• Machinist
• Monk
• Red Mage
• Scholar
• Summoner
• White Mage

Here's a copy of the unfinished product if you want to see it in a coherent form: https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/SJbK-u2ICV

Scholar

The Scholar is one of FFXIV's healing jobs. Their method of healing involves planning, preparation, and prevention. In comparison to their more direct healer counterparts, the scholar has a wide toolkit of ways to keep their party up, often in roundabout ways.

It wasn't too difficult to pick the Wizard as the class to base this archetype upon. After all, it's the only pure spellcaster that uses intelligence as their spellcasting ability modifier. Wizard spells will give the Scholar many options to help and protect their fellow adventurers in and out of combat, with spells such as Magic Weapon and Leomund's Tiny Hut.

I had to be careful, however. Wizards are not commonly known as healers. Knowing that WotC has yet to release a healing Wizard when all other non-healing spellcasters had a healing subclass, I started looking for any reasons that the written class itself might provide, and I found it in the level 18 ability: Spell Mastery.

Spell Mastery grabs one 1st and one 2nd level spell and essentially lets you cast them at will. This immediately spoils any attempts at simply giving the Scholar an expanded spell list with Cure Wounds on it, because having Cure Wounds at will trivializes spending hit dice at a short rest.

Therefore, in order to make a healing Wizard, they would have to be able to use Cure Wounds in a different manner...

Originally, Aetherflow was going to be Scholar's Metamagic, usable only for certain healing spells. However, once the realization that the Wizard couldn't just have Cure Wounds dawned, Aetherflow then turned into a resource with which to cast "demi-spells". Through these demi-spells, or Aetherflow Maneuvers, they are able to cast heals with a resource similar to spell slots.

Emergency Tactics allows Scholars to "sacrifice" their spell slots and use them for healing instead. In a tough fight, they'll find their bonus actions occupied as they convert slots in order to heal their allies.

Originally, the Nymian Fairy was going to be a variant familiar, having no spells of it's own and instead healing with spells that you transferred through it. However, after seeing how critical it was going to be for the Scholar's toolkit, I realized the Scholar really couldn't afford the fairy having hit points, and therefore being capable of dying. It would suck that they'd spend aetherflow stacks on this thing, only for it to die a turn later from a stray fireball. Now the fairy is essentially a Spiritual Weapon that heals instead.


Deployment Tactics, partly a remnant of my idea of making this a healing metamagic subclass, this feature allows you to spread a spell's use to one more target than Twinned Spell can.  My logic behind Deployment Tactics being balanced is that, while Twinned Spell works on any spell that targets one creature, and so it can be used offensively, Deployment Tactics can only be used on lower level spells that targets allies. This is a very limited selection of spells, some of which already let you select more targets if you spend higher level spell slots; If anything, this ability allows you to save one high (i.e. 3rd, 4th or 5th) level spell slot and use the subclass's resource instead.