inspired by Rob Donoghue, who is awesome.
Arcane magic has few talented practitioners within the world, each creating powerful effects and dweomers in the material planes. While intelligence and skill are the hallmarks of arcane power, there is also room for inheritance — some individuals pass powerful magical effects from themselves to their kin. The descendants of such mages are born with inherent magical knacks and quirks, without needing to learn anything other than control of these special abilities.
Ironblood mages are descendants of a bloodline that defies the typical abhorrence mages have for heavy metallic armor. Ironblood mages encase themselves in plate armor to create arcane resonance that amplifies magical effects. Ironblood mages and warlocks live inside their armor, sommetimes mistaken for men or women of arms before they release an eldritch blast at their enemies.
Ironblood usually are part of a larger clan or family of arcanists. The Ironblood tend to create tightly regimented and hierarchal societies which you adventurer will have some place in. Advancement is based on the power and skill one uses to defeat those above them in the hierarchy.
Prerequisites: Any arcane class
Ironblood Features and Powers
Armored Resonance — Ironblood Feature
While others use heavy armor for protection, armor to you is a second skin and a tool that you use for the
You gain proficiency in heavy armor. You may use arcane daily powers only when you are wearing metallic heavy armor.
Metal Will — Ironblood Utility 2
You shape magic energy into a fortress that protects your will.
Encounter
Immediate Interrupt
Trigger: You are hit with an attack that targets your Will.
Requirement: You must expend an arcane encounter power you have.
Effect: You gain a +4 bonus to Will until the end of your next turn.
Iron Riposte — Ironblood Attack 3
Those who wish to harm you must pass not only your armor, but your arcane power as well.
Encounter * Implement
Immediate Interrupt
Trigger: you are hit with an attack.
Effect: You may attack the target with an arcane at-will power. If the power it a burst or blast attack or targets more than only one creature, it only hits the triggering creature.
You Shall Kneel — Ironblood Daily 5
A blast of concussive arcane force displays dominance to your enemies.
Daily * Implement
Standard Action – Burst 2 within 10
Attack: Primary Ability vs Fortitude
Hit: Primary Ability modifier damage, and target is slid 2 squares, knocked prone and slowed (save ends)
Miss: The target is slid 2 squares and is slowed until the end of its next turn.
Focused Resonance — Ironblood Feature 6
You have harnessed your abilities to channel magic energy through armor to such an extent that you can use the armor as other arcanists use implements.
Choose one implement. When in metallic heavy armor you can use the armor as an implement of that type.
Arcane Fist — Ironblood Attack 7
You deliver extra impact to your arcane attacks, crushing the will and constitution of your foes.
Encounter
Immediate Reaction
Trigger: You hit one or more targets with an arcane at-will attack.
Effect: Any target hit with the attack is slowed and weakened until the end of its next turn.
Iron Vengeance — Ironblood Daily 9
Your resonance raises to peak levels. Just as you feel ready to burst with arcane energy, you release it against your foes. You will be vulnerable if anyone is left to oppose you.
Daily
Immediate Reaction
Trigger: you hit one or more targets with an arcane attack.
Requirement: you must expend a healing surge. You gain no hit points from expending the surge.
Effect: The triggering power deals extra radiant damage to all targets equal to your primary ability modifier. You subtract your primary ability modifier from your AC (save ends).
Like the theme? Hate it? Want to see more? Tell us in the comments as it’s how we know what to spend time on it. While you’re at it, check out Jester’s “Drunkard” theme or one of our martial arts themes.
Similar Posts:
- Fighting Styles of the Invincible City, Part 2: Discipline of The Southern Wind
- Fighting Styles of the Invincible City, Part 1: Mysteries of the Liquid Sword
- Paladin Power Pack #2: Challenges
A Jack of All Trades ,or if you prefer, an extreme example of multi-classing, Gamefiend, a.k.a Quinn Murphy has been discussing, playing and designing games straight out of the womb. He is the owner and Editor-in-Chief of this site in addition to being an aspiring game designer. As you would assume, he is a huge fan of 4e.
By day he is a technologist.
Follow gamefiend on 
Interesting. *Which* heavy armor? Plate feels a bit too powerful, especially for dragonblood sorcies who don’t have a dex/int. The utiliy 2 should be an at-will, since you’re powering defenses with other encounter powers. (That would almost be an iconic power then…)
For the feature 6, would it be better phrased as: “Use the armor as if it was a magic implement of equivalent bonus to that type?” Which allows the caster a saving on implements at a cost of all the cool implement powers. Or would it be better as: “you may enchant your armor as if it was an implement of that type. Armor enchanted this way acts as if it was magic armor of the same enchantment bonus as the weapon enchanted into it.”
The daily 9 is *absolute rubbish* Spending a daily and a healing surge for +stat to damage on an encounter or at-will as a once-off is a trap, not even counting the debuff. If it was encounter long without one of the two debuffs (HS or AC) it would be slightly competitive.
My immediate question was the same as Brian’s. It seems like Chain and Scale (or maybe even just Chain, since you could augment your proficiency with feats as normal) would be about fair.
Metallic Resonance is definitely intriguing, and dances into some untapped design space. I like how it fits with the overall theme of these powers, creating a bulwark-type arcanist who can stand in the front lines and take hits. In fact, I have a dwarven mage I probably would have taken down a similar path if the option had existed 2 years ago.
It does, however, probably need more expansive language. I took it to mean that your magical armor is also treated as a magical implement (and non-magical armor at the very least counts as wielding an implement for the purpose of things like Wizard Implement Masteries or implement feats), but some explicit terminology like: You add the armor’s enhancement bonus to attack and damage rolls you make with implement powers through the armor. On a critical hit, you deal +x damage per plus.
As much as I love it, though, I’m left wondering who WANTS it, relative to having one or more implements already. Is the intent to free up a character’s hands for wielding a two-handed weapon? If so, that’s mostly going to appeal to, what, Str-sorcs? Freeing up your hands for a ranged weapon is A) usually unnecessary for an arcane caster and B) unlikely to appeal to this approach, since having a high dex doesn’t play nice with heavy armor. Of course, any character could expend a feat for melee training and either another one for weapon proficiency or pick up a weapon that grants profiency…but that all seems somewhat unnecessary. If I can’t effectively use my hands to wield a weapon that serves some other purpose, and I’m getting my implement from my armor, that leaves…two potions, maybe?
Also, how would Resonance interact with Dual-Implement Spellcasting? I know high dex won’t play nicely with armor, but many implement users get to that threshold for the feat; would the be considered to be wielding the armor in their main hand and one implement in either hand counts as being an off-hand?
I find the possibilities of this Theme very fascinating, but (perhaps because I’ve yet to be to bed) I’m still struggling a bit with how it all fits together, in particular with the character’s two very empty hands. Everything I come up with seems to benefit most from a multi/hybrid class approach, in which case these features almost seem better suited to a paragon path.
In addition to needing to specify what kind of armor they get from the feature, the restriction also needs to be reworded. Right now it can be read two ways, both of which have issues:
1) Your arcane daily powers can be used only while wearing heavy armor.
2) While wearing heavy armor, you cannot use any powers except arcane daily powers.
The first is an odd interpretation and clearly not what you were intending, but it’s a valid reading of the sentence. The second one is problematic:
- they’re shut entirely out of at-will powers. Which means a level 1 character can attack once per day.
- they’re shut out of non-arcane powers– this means everything from melee basic attacks to item dailies to potions.
- it conflicts with the other powers– for example, the level 3 attack lets them use an at-will power. This breaks twice: first of all, you can’t use the theme power at all in the first place, because it isn’t an arcane daily attack power. Second, even if you allow it, you can’t use the at-will it tells you to use, because you can’t use those.
And so on.
I love the concept you’re going for, but personally I’d make the features be purely about expenditure of encounter powers. I’d change the feature to:
“You gain proficiency with chainmail and scale armor. While wearing heavy armor, you can’t use arcane encounter attack powers from any class.”
The wording is there to stop them from using multiclass trickiness to dodge the restriction. I’d then change all the Theme powers to be substitutes for, and expenditures of, your arcane encounter powers. I agree with the above poster about making the level 2 utility an at-will (it’s corner-case enough at early levels to make this not an abusive effect, especially because you’re trading offensive output for the benefit).
I’d also specify that the level 6 feature is gained in place of a 6th level utility power, if that was your intention (as themes don’t currently give any freebies past level 1). I really like the idea of theme features instead of just theme powers.
You could even do higher-level upgrades of that effect– at level 16 you don’t provoke AoO when making ranged/area attacks with your armor as an implement, and at level 26 you automatically push 2 when you hit a target with a close attack made using the armor. Or something neat like that.
This is a great idea overall. It would be really fun to work on a set of “total overhaul” themes like this.
<– looooooooves homebrew
The level 7 power needs to be either a free action or no action — you can’t take immediate actions on your own turn. Ditto with the level 9 power, for which I’d also ditch the surge requirement.
I might do the heavy armor proficiency by role — plate for defender, chain otherwise (unless the class already has chain proficiency, and then grant scale).
How would you scale the attack powers up for paragon/epic tier?
Hi guys! Just a quick note to say I’ll be doing some editing on this guy thanks to some of your comments.
I’m going to leave it default with plate until I playtest it. If there are problems I need to see where it is…but I’m not convinced that it will be a problem.
Warlocks work really well with this theme, as do swordmages. Other arcane users might lose some advantages but would look pretty awesome in plate.
Thanks guys!