Spellsword

Notice: The spellsword class is now available for selection again, but armor imbues are currently disabled. Please note this is an experimental path, and changes may be done at any time..

NWN requirements

Base Class: Wizard.

General spell school (no specialization)

General information

Spellswords, also known as spellblades, are arcane warriors; students of both might and magic that combine their arts to retain the massive array of abilities of the mage and the prowess of a martial fighter. Whilst their art is unique, they do not excel at neither form of their disciplines, often cutting edges to meet ends, not only having to sacrifice one whole school of magic, but for either code, ritual, choice or dogma, they are forced to forego the use of creation and summoning spells.

Mechanical information

The spellsword is a wizard path. A character can become a spellsword at character creation, turning the wizard levels into spellsword levels, as long as they have no school specialization. There is a way to become a spellsword after creation as well by talking to the correct NPC(s).

Spellsword Abilities

• Wizard Hit Die upgraded to d8 (but d6 at level 1)
• Wizard AB progression upgraded to 3/4
• They gain Simple and Martial Weapon proficiency
• They gain Light and Medium Armor proficiency
• They gain Uncanny Dodge
• They gain 5% Arcane Spell Failure reduction to Armor
• They gain +15 Discipline at level 28 (currently not working)
• If they aren't holding anything in their offhand (shield, bow, two-hander, etc), they gain +1 (Shield) AC per int modifier, capped by wizard level/6+1 to a maximum of 6 at 30
  • Monks using a single Kama are denied this bonus for balance purposes
• Gains the ability to Imbue. Upgrade to Greater Imbue at level 21.

Spellsword Mage Armor and other spells

At level 8, Mage Armor (spell) gives the spellsword twice as much AC. At 15, it gives thrice as much. Note that multiclass characters need the majority of their levels in spellsword to receive any bonus. For example, a character with 8 spellsword/4 fighter/4 rogue, would not receive any bonus to mage armor, whereas an 8 spellsword/4 fighter/3 rogue would get the initial double bonus.

The epic spell, Epic Mage Armor behaves differently in the hands of a spellsword. Instead of granting the usual +5 to all four armor types (Armor, Natural, Deflection, and Dodge), it grants only +4, totaling in a +16 to AC - however, it also grants a bonus to +4 AB while it is active. Note that EMA does not stack with the regular Mage Armor in any way.

True Strike also behaves slightly different - for the short duration it is active, the spellsword's imbues will proc as many times as they connect in a round, and not just once per flurry.

Imbuing

Spellswords have the unique trait of being able to "charge" spells into their weapons, with different conditions and different effects.

Weapons can be imbued using damage spells. This will grant the weapon a corresponding energy damage and an additional on-hit effect based on the energy damage of the spell. At level 21, spellswords gain Greater Imbue: They are able to imbue their weapons with two damage properties at once.

Limitations

• You cannot cast or use death armor, elemental shield, or mestil's acid sheath
• You cannot imbue spells from your barred schools.
• You can only imbue from spells casted by yourself; scrolls, wands and other sources may not be used to imbue.
• The on-hit property of the imbue can only trigger once per hit in a Flurry, or every two seconds. Characters with more than 3 attacks benefit less from Imbue effects (if character has a majority of levels in Spellsword).
• You can only imbue melee weapons.
• You cannot imbue gloves.
• The imbue can stack with nearly any weapon buff. Restrictive weapon buffs (those that require the weapon to be blank) must be cast BEFORE imbuing, and the same applies to weapon essences.

Energy Type	On-hit Effect (Save)		Spell Level	Bonus Damage
Magic	Single Breached Spell and -2/-4/-6 SR for 10 Rounds (Will) Will stack during duration		Tier 1 Levels 0 to 3	1d4 (1 for Magic, 1d2 for Negative)
Acid	-2/-3/-4 AB for 10 Rounds (Reflex)
Cold	50% Movement speed reduction		Tier 2 Levels 4 to 6	1d8 (1d4 for Magic or Negative)
Electric	Up to 2/3/4 nearby Targets are struck by lightning (Reflex) Damage is Xd4 On failed Reflex save, all saves reduced by 1 for 10 Rounds (Will) Stacks during overlapping duration
Fire	-2/-3/-4 AC for 10 Rounds (Reflex)		Tier 3 Levels 7 to 9	1d12 (1d8 for Magic, 1d6 for Negative)
Negative	Deals additional Damage equal to Xd2 (Will) Spellsword heals equal to negative damage dealt
Sonic	Silences for 1 Round (Will)

Xd4 is Wizard level/5 + 1*Imbue Tier.
The save DC is 10+Spellsword level+0/2/4 (Tier 1 imbue increases in 0, Tier 2 increases +2, Tier 3 increases +4)

Examples:

1. A level 20 Spellsword using a stilled Acid Fog (Spell level 7, tier 3), would gain an imbue of 1d12 Acid and an on hit effect of -4 AB, at DC 34 Reflex lasting for 10 rounds.

2. A level 20 Spellsword using a Finger of Death (Spell level 7, tier 3), would gain an imbue of 1d6 Negative and an on hit effect of 7d2 Negative damage, at DC 34 Will and also a heal equivalent to the damage delivered by the (7d4)/4 on hit effect.

Compatible Damage Spells

Note that metamagic can be used to fill the gap and push spells into higher categories for an imbue of greater power.

Level	Magic	Fire	Cold	Acid	Electric	Negative	Sonic
0	-	Flare	Ray of Frost	Acid Splash	Electric Jolt	-	-
1	Magic Missile	Burning Hands	Ice Dagger	-	-	Negative Energy Ray	Horizikaul's Boom
2	Death Armor, Lesser Dispel	Combust, Scorching Ray	-	Melf's Acid Arrow	Gedlee's Electric Loop	-	-
3	Dispel magic	Fireball Fireball (Shades) Flame Arrow	-	Mestil's Acid Breath	Lightning Bolt Scintillating Sphere	Negative Energy Burst Vampiric Touch	Silence Sound Lance
4	Isaac's Lesser Missile Storm Phantasmal Killer Magic Missile (SC)	Wall of Fire Wall of Fire (Shades)	Ice Storm, Wall of Ice	-	-	Enervation	-
5	-	Firebrand	Cone of Cold Cone of Cold (Shades)	Acid Arrow (GSC)	Ball Lightning	-	-
6	Isaac's Greater Missile Storm, Disintegrate, Greater Dispelling	Fireball (Shades), Wall of Fire (Shades)	Freeze, Cone of Cold (Shades)	Acid Fog	Chain Lightning	-	Wounding Whispers
7	-	Delayed Blast Fireball	-	-	-	Finger of Death	Great Thunderclap Power Word: Stun
8	-	Incendiary Cloud	-	-	-	Create Undead Create Greater Undead Horrid Wilting Avascular Mass	-
9	Weird, Mordenkainen's Disjunction	Meteor Swarm	Burst of Glacial Wrath, Iceberg	-	-	Energy Drain Power Word: Kill	Wail of the Banshee

Restrictions

Spellswords lose access to:

• One spell school of their choice
• All summoning spells and abilities (the only exception being the wizard familiar)
• All epic spells, including command spells like -scry, except Epic Mage Armour. Other side effects and non-epic commands work as normal.

Notes

• The change to the BAB progression works as a bonus. This means that they cannot take feats that require a minimum BAB until their wizard BAB (1/2) is high enough.
  • For example, a full spellsword cannot take Improved Critical (requires 8 BAB) until level 18.
• The bonuses (AC, AB, disc) are soft, counting toward their respective caps and not counting for feat/class requirements.
• Their summoning restriction is absolute. All spells and abilities means all of them, even abilities that are not strictly summoning, like the druid's animal companion, the shadowdancer's shadow, or Mordenkainen's Sword spell. They are prevented from using these spells even from scrolls and other sources. Domination and charm abilities, however, work normally.
• They cannot choose Conjuration as their forbidden school.
• Using the -twohand command counts as having the offhand occupied for the purposes of the bonus AC.
• Imbuing equipment will tend to show the feedback of "invalid target for this spell", but check the item. If it applied an on-hit property, it should be working.
• Spellswords can only imbue their own equipment. if an imbued weapon leaves the spellsword's inventory, it will lose all its buffs.
• Shades[1] is a lvl 6 spell, however the innate level of each variant is the innate level of the corresponding "normal" spell.
• When cast by a Spellsword, Truestrike increases Attacks Per Round by 1 and temporarily (if character has a majority of levels in Spellsword) removes the limit on the number of imbue procs that can occur per round.

Roleplaying Tips

The following is a view on spellswords that may help you put the class in perspective. It is not the only way to play them or explain their abilities, at all.

Wizardry is often regarded as a highly intellectual study that takes many, many years to even become an initiate in. It is truly a feat and an achievement to become a proper wizard, and advance through the many echelons of magic. Spellswords, under this light, are a rare breed of mage, for not only they manage to keep up and pay the incredible mental toll that is the study of magic, but at the same time they prove capable fighters, apt in the use of either blade or staff as it personally suits them.

This doesn't mean that they favor one side more to the other. No, the true power of the spellsword is not merely setting things on fire and then stabbing them - from their two arts, their true power is born - the power known as imbuing. This unique characteristic allows them to reduce spells to their basic semantics and charge their equipment with different effects.

Their duality and versatility of trade, however, comes at a cost. They often find themselves taking shortcuts and cutting corners to meet ends and keep up with their studies. It is common for them to disregard a whole school of magic, and even more - all of them are completely cut off from summoning and creation magic, either by their choice to remain independent and mark the distinction from the cowardly wizard that hides behind their towering elementals, or simply as another price to pay for their uncanny versatility.

The greatest and most powerful spellswords realize, once the mysteries of the higher magic unfold to them, that they may have cut too many corners on their journey to manage a true grasp on nearly all epic magic. The best they can hope to achieve is dominion of Epic Mage Armor, as it is one of the few spells that they learn to wear like a second skin. But where their grasp in magic is lacking, there is still the potential to become a true force to be reckoned, bearing enchanted blades and enough spells to worry both the dedicated mage and the martial master. After all, they know exactly what both worlds can offer - the spellsword carries them in each hand.

External Links

Neverwinter Nights wikia wizard article.