Magebreaker (In progress kinda)

So, I'm going to preempt this saying that I have not *Yet* added my Magebreaker levels. They are going to be the last 18 levels of my character build. But, I've put a lot of thought into this character, and these are a few suggestions that I have that I think will make the class more suitable without breaking anything.

I haven't been here long, so I don't know how you guys normally make suggestions and stuff, but my hope is that this thread will be kept unlocked, so as I play the class I can add more input on anything that seems insurmountable, or over-powered.


My first suggestion is more of acknowledgement and agreement with a previous suggestion made by Daveyeisley: On hit Breach.
I completely agree that Damage shields are a big problem for a class that is designed to kill mages.

My second suggestion is based on the assumption that Ioun stones lose their power just like everything else. While they are a magical item, that is the only way to explain how they work. My only opinion on this is the stones that remove the need to breath underwater and the one that removes the need for sustenance. While they aren't big deals, in the time it has taken me to level to 17, I have seen multiple ways for people with access to magical items to get these exact same effects, very easily at little cost.

The sustenance isn't a big deal, I wouldn't even care if it wasn't an Ioun stone at all. The biggest one is the underwater breathing. I don't know how many underwater areas there are, or how strong the creatures in there are. But if a magebreaker is suddenly useless against underwater creatures after a few rounds because they run out of air, while everyone else can just wear an item, it just seems sort of a major drawback.

Finally, the bonuses in all from Ioun stones aren't large. Unless there are way better stones later, +2 on a stat isn't that great when a non-mage breaker can easily just put on a ring to get +4 or more in some stats. In just 2 or 3 item slots, any other class can get the 12 (Max total stats you can get from Ioun stones that I know of) stats, or more. Leaving quite a large number of other item slots for even larger and better stat increases.

My third suggestion is, add either a fire or acid as possibly a scaling bonus to their weapons to deal with trolls. Since there is no other way for them to be able to kill a troll. Something simple like, +1d4 fire damage at level 1, 1d6 at level 5, 1d8 at level 9, ect. to whatever cap you think reasonable. It doesn't have to be a magical fire either, maybe through magebreaker training, they developed techniques to overcome their weakness by covering their weapons in an oil or resin that burns or corrodes.

My currently final suggestion is, add Tumble to the list of class skills, this is mainly a suggestion to help them very slightly defensively. Without all the magical AC bonuses, the class would be prey to all manner of creatures. While I realize that they are designed to be mage killers. While leveling, you won't be able to just kill mages, you'll be fighting melee units also. this will help them level a little easier, so they don't die to every melee trash pack they see.


Comments and opinions very welcome. I intend to give a lot more feedback and suggestions once I am into my Magebreaker levels.


- James

They all sound like good suggestions but just one thing stood out to me; "last 18 levels"... the Magebreaker is a 10-level custom prestige class.. I'm not sure you can have 18 levels in it ?

Someone correct me if I'm wrong... ... ... ...

If it is only 10 levels, then there really isn't a point in getting it, as you'd cap out at 50 SR (5-level). I assumed (Maybe incorrectly) that by "10-level class" they meant that the new magebreaker bonuses and feats stop, and you just level as you would any other prestige class if you wanted to level past the normal stopping points.

Otherwise a level 40 straight monk would be a far stronger character in every way. A level 40 single classed monk would have 50sr (Up to 70 SR with improved spell resistance ranks) Along with access to magical items.

Valid points all...

You touched on one of my lines of thinking with your Monk comparison. Its the challenge I have been pondering, how to make Magebreaker good by having thematically and mechanically reasonable abilities to answer the challenges the class presents, but without making them unreasonably powerful.

The point about the SR I think is kind of already better than monk, however. Magebreakers get 50 SR for 10 levels invested. A monk would need to invest over 20.

I kind of like the thematics of the build vagabond and I discussed, with barbarian/ironheart/magebreaker - warhulk or dead stalker for semi-class. Warhulk helps the AB and damage, dead stalker helps with immunities (and other nifties).

Still at current such a build would have unreasonable challenge from damage shields, trolls, non-magical energy damage (traps), and poor AC.

You could make up for a good bit by choosing a subrace with good constitution, like bestial half-orc... rage would give a great con boost, too.

I'd have to play one to get a better feel, and I have a barbarian I might check it out with eventually.

Is there anyone who has leveled a Magebreaker who can comment if it is possible to level past 10 in the class? If not, I feel like the class is pointless. Losing all magical item usage for effectively making every other spell useless? That is an awful trade-off, and I'll probably just make a new character.

Maybe a monk, and get to 70 sr, and destory everything.

On water breathing.... the methods I know of are ioun, spell, and wearable items (helmet). The helmet doesn't have a "special property" to be stripped, so do they work for mage breakers?

MannyJabrielle wrote:On water breathing.... the methods I know of are ioun, spell, and wearable items (helmet).  The helmet doesn't have a "special property" to be stripped, so do they work for mage breakers?

There is also a potion of water breathing and the wand.

Good point on the helmet though.. the water-breathing from that comes from the OnEquip/UnEquip scripted event handlers I think. This sounds good to me as I always envisioned the helmet more as a oxygen tank/diver set-up then a magical source... This would at least circumvent one issue with the class...

The SR issue is also a good discussion point but only 10levels for a 50SR, that is insanely good. Most other routes require at least a 40 level investment to be better/on-par with this... that gives a MageBreaker SR build a lot of flexibility with the Base Barbarian and a third possible class...

I have an epic level barb/magebreaker/monk (yes, that combo works as long as you factor in the alignment shifts. I started as ironheart, but the benefits were worthless when facing something like a dragon, as the breath weapon was too much to handle. So, monk and imp. evasion, which helps out a lot.

As to magic items, if you boost the will saves (monk, again, helping with this) sufficiently high, then you can use some magic, although you cannot rely on it at all, as there is always the chance that you'll lose the item at next login. ioun stones seem to be usable, probably due to the way they are scripted, so the air breathing one is fine for solving the underwater issue, as is the sustenance stone -- or any other ioun for that matter. I assume this may change in the future, as with anything else magebreaker, we don't depend on the items, just use them as temporary aides. I haven't tried the helm, so I don't know if that would work as well.

The class cannot use any magical weapon of any kind -- just holding a weapon strips off all properties, automatically, regardless of whether or not the will save is made. This is clearly part of the scripting that is used to put the class props onto the held weapon. Other items are wearable, to the extent that they still exist at next login.

Granted, the choice to use any magic items at all is a personal one. I look at it more as "fight fire with fire", at least until such time as an On Hit: breach becomes reality. I can see a situation in which getting that ability coincides with losing all magic items completely, no save.

As to trolls.... I run from them. I can't think of any way to kill them. At level 31. This seems.... ridiculous?

On the one hand, it's refreshing to ignore loot, sac flame everything without sorting through it all, have no worries about buying gear, no buffs, etc. On the other hand, there's a large dimension of the game falling by the wayside with this class, in my opinion, because the mechanics are limiting.

It's a very refreshing PC, to be sure, and it's successfully broken me of my teleportation addiction! On the other hand, I'm already thinking of a new PC build, as I'm not really as into this class as I thought I would be.

Certainly think before taking this class. I'm not sorry for doing it, fun experiment. But, I'm likely to retire this PC and make anew. Simply not enough depth/dimension for me. Maybe if some of these initial wrinkles are worked out, as described above, I'd return to him.

Hrmm, another thing I wonder about....

If weapons are automatically stripped... What about the prophesy quest?

MannyJabrielle wrote:Hrmm, another thing I wonder about....

If weapons are automatically stripped... What about the prophesy quest?

I have a feeling that will need to make some scripting edits before a magebreaker attempts it.

RustyDios wrote:
The SR issue is also a good discussion point but only 10levels for a 50SR, that is insanely good. Most other routes require at least a 40 level investment to be better/on-par with this... that gives a MageBreaker SR build a lot of flexibility with the Base Barbarian and a third possible class...

I agree that only 10 levels for that much SR is great. But 50 SR isn't really super impressive. I mean, reincarnate your character, and level to 40. Boom 40 SR.

Maybe I'm looking at things wrong, but when I think of a class called a Magebreaker, I think of a class that could stand there and laugh will you FoD over an over again. Not at class that literally relies on the flip of a coin. Lose that coin flip, and you're going to die, due to normally much lower saves then any other class due to the magical item limitations.[/quote]

Well, yeah, reincarnation/ascension changes a LOT of game balance issues.... Ascension for examples gives crit immunity, which is a massive feature for both the Ironheart and palemaster Prcs. Reincarnation seriously reduces the 'value' of the subraces that have SR and pay an XP penalty for their SR (and continue to pay the same XP penalty after reincarnation as well even though the non-subraced character isn't paying anything for their SR)

However, I believe that intends reincarnation and ascension as "optional", and doesn't balance the whole server with them in mind. We could debate if that's a good or bad thing overall for the server, and I could say it has some significant balance concerns... BUT... reincarnation *is* optional and has some pros and cons to it.

Bright gnomes get 45 SR, but only after 40 levels, MB's get 50 for just 10 (plus the base class levels to qualify for MB)... only three classes can get higher SR than that.... clerics/druids with 38 class levels for the spell, and monks with 30 to 40 levels (depending on how many imp.spell resitance feats they take)..... regardless of the reincarnation/ascension considerations, that's a huge bonus for far less investment than the other classes. Bard's can get close with 48 SR, but that requires pure class bard, plus an aenean bard song feat, and the song has some MASSIVE drawacks (bard won't be able to cast any spells with both the normal singing penalty AND the song's own spell failure penalty, AND massive penalties to concentration, spellcraft and UMD.

Bright Gnome SR is Level +7 according to the Website.. SR47 at Level 40
(Which is still lower then 50 for 4x the investment in levels)

50 SR looks good till you realize that at-level monsters and pcs will have a 50% chance to breach it before feats and staff of steps. Really the thing about magebreaker is that it's a couple upsides (entangle immunity, high SR available at low levels) that you have one class left (since you need barb and magebreaker) to fix the fairly massive downsides of.

While also having access to an insanely small multiclassing list. Things the class desperately needs, whether through multiclassing, class-additions, and possibly feats:

Fear immunity (emulated by monk and fool's weed, but the latter would need a massive duration boost to be useful)
Fire or Acid damage for trolls (maybe script in that if you're holding a torch, you do fire damage to trolls every couple hits)
Some way to mess up damage shields.

I feel like everyone is missing my point on the spell resistance...

While yes, 50 spell resistance for such few levels is great!

But is it worth all the downsides? As a magebreaker, you won't have many if any magical items, which means your saving throws will be pretty bad. Which means, you will probably die to death magic faster then a class not designed to kill mages. Sure, 50% of the time, they won't work, but the other 50% of the time they will kill you.

While most other classes can gear specifically for fighting mages if they need to. getting some SR (While obviously not as high as 50), and really good saves, so they might only fail on a roll 5 or lower (Or maybe only on a 1).

So a magekiller, dying roughly 50% of the time to death magic, vs most any other class, who only dies on a really unlucky roll?


From a roleplayers perspective it makes even less sense to me. For example, Avra, a world renowned Magebreaker shows up to do combat with the dreaded evil Necromancer Bob. Rumors of the Magebreakers have spread far, the Magebreakers are said to devotes his or her life to destroying magic of all sorts. So powerful is this conviction, the Magebreaker's very touch has the potential to destroy magic.

Everyone breaths a sigh of relief as they see him walk forth onto the battle field. Bob, laughs humorously at the new challanger, raises his finger for a death spell. It flies towards the magebreaker and dissipates. The necromancer, having confronted strong enemies before, rarely expect the first spell to do the trick, foes strong will can resist the spell a few times, but eventually magic wins out.

The onlookers have seen this happen many times. Numerous have been the number of challengers the looked strong before eventually having their will broken, and death consume them. But this is a Magebreaker! Not one to be beaten by magic. Their life is dedicated to beating such a thing.

So the necromancer lets his spell fly again. but unlike last time, the spell doesn't break apart, it connects! The Magebreaker's life force suddenly fades away with a startled expression his face.


So, while it is amazing that you can get 50 SR in 10 levels. By leveling the Class Magebreaker, you are dedicating so much more then 10 levels into the character. The other 30 levels mean much less, when equipped with mundane equipment. A level 30 barbarian/10 magebreaker Could easily be beaten by a sorcerer 10 levels lower with ease, the class they are designed to beat.

Dargodd wrote:While yes, 50 spell resistance for such few levels is great!

But is it worth all the downsides?

Beyond leveling against beholders? Not in its current state. 50 SR and half-functional Freedom for: outstandingly subpar damage, terrible saves against anything that's not an outright defensive spell, and an at level caster only needs two spells to annihilate them.

There's ways to make it work, but like playing a pure 40 level fighter, there are always better ways to do it. A paladin with evasion, like.

That's pretty much 100% because magic is better in DnD based games, full stop.

ANYWAY enough complaining let me suggest some changes (again):
In General: The Magebreaker can use anything created by the player tradeskills, including alchemy and herbalism. Items created by enchanting feats are still a no go.
Level 4: Burning Hate: The Magebreaker adds 1d4 fire damage to held weapons per 2 levels.
Level 6: Spellshredder: The Magebreaker gains Lesser Spell Breach on held weapons.
Level 8: Crushing Blow (Updated): The Magebreaker deals normal crushing blow damage, plus 1d4 Massive Criticals damage per 2 levels.

Extra Feats: A magebreaker gains access to the following feats:
Breaker's Defense 1, 2, 3, 4: Requires 10 Magebreaker, lightning reflexes, iron will, great fortitude, Level 21, and the previous Breaker's Defense feat: Grants the magebreaker immunity to spells per feat. 1 grants immunity to level 0 to level 3 spells. 2 grants immunity to level 4 to level 6 spells and fear effects, and Breaker's Defense 3 grants immunity to level 7 to 9 spells. Breaker's Defense 4 grants immunity to epic spells.

Arcane Annihilator 1 through 4: Requires 10 Magebreaker, Epic Weapon Focus (melee weapon), power attack, blind fight, 15 Barbarian: Grants 1d6 unblockable damage to spellcasters on hit for each Arcane Annihilator Feat, to a maximum of 4d6. (magic damage for irony, I guess). Arcane Annihilator 2 adds a Banishment effect to the Magebreaker's strikes, to send summoned creatures back to wherever they came from. Arcane Annihilator 4 changes the Magebreaker's lesser spell breach to Greater.

DerusTal, those sound like some killer ideas!

Reincarnation is an effective investment of 80 levels to gain 40 SR. Its also optional, and not a good thing to base balance considerations on.

It is possible to gain 50SR using Magebreaker by level 14 (maybe even earlier). It wouldn't be an optimized build, but consider that such a character would be immune to any spell cast by on-level enemies - so long as the spell can be resisted.

To the point about a 50/50 chance for a spell to penetrate - that only holds up for a caster enemy with 40 caster levels, of which there are almost none in Aenea. Any caster enemy with less would almost assuredly fail to penetrate on pretty much every spell - and most don't even have 30 caster levels, let alone multiple spell penetration feats.

Penetrating SR doesnt mean the spell automatically succeeds - most still involve a saving throw, on top of that. A good constitution, rage bonus, and the Magebreaker's class abilities to disrupt or stun enemy casters should make it pretty easy to lay out most any spellcasting enemy. Damage shields are the big problem there.

In theory, the class drawbacks (aside from lack of breach), would seem to penalize Magebreakers more against non-spellcasting enemies (trolls, etc). I agree they need a reasonable bump for this sort of situation, but I think it still makes thematic sense to have mechanical difficulties against non-spellcasters since Magebreakers focus so much on defeating magic that they make a tradeoff in conventional combat.

I can only think of 2 npc spell casters who are possibly up that high in caster levels. Both are boss-type encounters, not mob-spawns. And of those, the one's casting AI I do know totally blows. The other one is more likely to pummel you to death with his fists than spells, although he does throw out a few nasty high damage telemus arcanus spells lol.

I like Derustal's ideas.

I think of all the ideas, the on-hit dispelling idea holds a lot of merit. It's not unheard of either. Paladins are able to do effectively the same thing, although the dispell chance for holy avengers is not a certain thing. It is possible though, and I see no issue at all with mage breakers having a similar ability on par or even more effective.

I thought of two more points to bring up while we are discussing stuff.

when potions roll to see if they lose their powers, is it by potion, or by stack?



Secondly, and this is just a comment, not a complaint or anything. Making gold on a Magebreaker will be a lot harder, since the stripped item's, I assume will be base item value, since all of the items properties are gone that gave it value.

You got that right about the base item value, Dargodd ... I was at a merchant recently, and had the honor of shopping after a magebreaker went through - at least I'm assuming that's what happened, as many items had their normal titles (Peripat of Wisdom, Ring of Fortitude, etc.) but no properties and rang in at a whopping 1 gp. Moneymaking types might want to look elsewhere, unless you can consider that another one of the inherent challenges of the class.

What are they going to buy?

Food?

Raising_Cain wrote:What are they going to buy?

A house?

Magebreakers don't need to make money, they have nothing to spend it on. Mine has 2M gold, more or less, and that's mainly from grabbing the big sums of gold found in areas like the Bee's, without having to worry about hauling a bunch of stuff back to sell to a merchant. I don't even bother looking at anything other than the chests, only take big sums of gold, but I haven't purchased anything for a long time.

The only things I sell are those items that I've managed to beat the save, use for a while, but then break when I login again after reset. That being said, you may have gone to the merchant I sold to, since that sounds like the stuff I'd have to sell!

In reality, thinking about it, I could just sac it all, too...but that's slower, to be honest, than just dumping it onto a merchant all at once.

A_Vagabond wrote:In reality, thinking about it, I could just sac it all, too...but that's slower, to be honest, than just dumping it onto a merchant all at once.

You could always kill something, go to loot the remains, put the stuff you don't want on the remains (just drag and drop), then sacrifice the remains.   Probably almost as fast as using a merchant without clogging a merchant's inventory with useless junk, plus there's a chance for a little gain in piety.

You could always kill something, go to loot the remains, put the stuff you don't want on the remains (just drag and drop), then sacrifice the remains.   Probably almost as fast as using a merchant without clogging a merchant's inventory with useless junk, plus there's a chance for a little gain in piety.[/quote]

That's what I do, when there are to many enemies to do one by one, but spaced to far to get with the auto sacrifice. I just loot all of them and stack the loot I don't want on one body.

There's so little piety gain from sacrificing remains Last time I grinded beholders, I got like 10 piety over the course of two hours. You get more piety selling that same loot and donating it to a diety altar... a LOT more, on the order of 50 times more.

That's probably the only real use a MB would have for gold... altar donations.

However.... if you dump all that loot into one remains (or sacrifice a lot of remains clumped close together that have a lot of stuff.... You have a chance for some really nice bonus XP. In that two hour beholder grind, sacrifices netted me only 10 piety, but also got me some 30K more XP One sacrifice got me a bit over 2700 XP because of all the stuff in the remains.

So I've gained my 10 levels in Magebreaker. Only noticed 2 really annoying problems.

The biggest problems being a mage slayer are Elemental shields. I killed myself in 1 round on an Acid Sheath/elemental shield combo. (Atleast 449 damage)


The second problem, Light sources. Pretty much means if fighting underground at all, you are going to have to use a torch.

Can you make the item "Battlefield Journal" immune to the magic stripping? I just realized today when I was going to update my journal, that it no longer have the use function.