CHAOS MAGE

Alignment: Any chaotic.

Hit Die: d4.

Class Skills

The chaos mage’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Knowledge(arcana) (Int), Profession (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int).

Skill Points at 1st Level: (2 + Int modifier) x 4.

Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier.

Table: The Chaos Mage

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the chaos mage.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Sorcerers are proficient with all simple weapons. They are not proficient with any type of armor or shield. Armor interferes with the chaos mage's ability to 'feel' the flows of chaos in the environment, leading to a greater chance his spell will fail. Any armor worn by a chaos mage has the same chance for causing arcane spell failure as it does for a static mage, though with far more dire consequenses.

Chaos Magic: The chaos mage is attuned to the forces of chaos and can manipulate these forces to create magical effects. See Chaos Magic for information regarding the chaos magic system.
In addition, chaos magic is anathema to those practising the static arts. A character cannot multiclass into chaos mage if he has any levels as a sorcerer of wizard.

Chaos Familiar: The chaos mage does not start his carreer with a familiar. Unlike wizards and sorcerers, the chaos mage crafts his own familiar from the primal forces of chaos, infusing the creation with a fraction of his own essence. Chaos familiars are much stronger and more capable then their static magic counterparts, but the pain caused by their death or injury is also much more devastating for the chaos mage. See Servants of Chaos for more information.

Multiple Effects: The chaos mage may start to combine several effect elements into single spells. The maximum number of effect elements that may be included within a single spell is listed within parentheses on the table above.

To determine the Casting DC of a spell with more than one effect determine which of the effects begins with the lowest base Casting DC. Add one-half of this to the higher to find the Casting DC of the final spell.

When multiple effects exist within a single spell, they all share the same area of effect, range, duration, saving throws, ability to defeat Spell Resistance and trigger. An instantanious element may be included with effects of a different duration, however, without penalty. Persistent damage effects may be included, too, and will last as long as necessary to deliver their damage (unless the caster's concentration is broken) even if the rest of the spell's effects end before this time.

It is possible to stack multiple effect elements of the same category (damage, materialisation, movement and transformation) within the same chaos magic spell. However, multiple elements of the same type cannot be the only effect elements contained within the spell. For example, if you are able to cast a spell containing three effect elements, all three cannot be damage effect elements.

In addition, you cannot put two elements of the exact same type in the same spell. So, you can have a spell with two transformation effect elements (provided there is at least one other effect element in the spell that is NOT transformation), but they must be elements of a different degree – one minor and one major, for example.

When combining multiple damage effects into the same spell, the chaos mage may never cause more than 2d8 hit points per chaos mage level. Thus, a 20th-level chaos mage could never cause more than 40d8 hit points of damage from a single spell, regardless of the number or types of damage effects he applied to the spell, and a 10th-level chaos mage is limited to 20d8 hit points of damage, total, for a given spell.

Countermagic: Chaos mages are able to unleash raw chaos to counter spells of their opponents. This is identical to the counterspell ability of any arcane caster, but with the following changes:

The chaos mage does not need to make a spellcraft check to determine the spell being cast. As he is not attempting to disrupt a specific spell, but instead using sheer force to thwart the casting, it is unnecessary to know exactly what spell is being cast.

A Casting check at DC 15 + the level of the spell being countered must be made for succes. The standard chances for backlash, manifestation and steps along the Path of Chaos apply as normal. See Chaos Magic for more details.

Note that countermagic is capable of blocking any arcane spell, even those not normally effected by counterspell. This fearsome ability to shut down the powers of static mages causes practitioners to cast a leery eye towards chaos mages. Countermagic has no ability to affect divine spellcasting.

Purge Chaos: The build up of chaotic energies around chaos mages is one of the great hazards of the profession. Those who survive long enough learn how to shunt the primal forces away from themselves, and will increase their lifespan (and quality of life) considerably. Once per week, a chaos mage can invoke this ability and free himself from one level of his path of chaos. This has a experience cost equal to 500 x the level of the step being negated.

For example, chaos mage Argren Lurz deceides that the eighth step is too far along his Path of Chaos, and paying the cost of 4000 Xp (8 x 500), he puts himself back to the seventh step, a little further from the maw of chaos, but still uncomfortably close.

Ex-Chaos Mages: If a chaos mage ever becomes nonchaotic in alignment, or multiclasses as a static mage, he will no longer be able to use chaos magic, or any of his other class abilities. Furthermore he will be unable to advance further as a chaos mage. If the character ever returns to a chaotic alignment, he will be able to continue his pursuit of this class from the point he left it. As long as the chaos mage retains his chaotic alignment he may freely multiclass as a divine spellcaster without penalty.

It should be noted here that chaos magic is considered arcane spellcasting - clerics gaining the Chaos domain through their divine caster class do not receive any further benefit to their chaos magic casting.

Spellcraft

The spellcraft of chaos mages is not directly comparable to that learned by static mages and divine spellcasters. Instead, it represents the knowledge a chaos mage has of his own form of magic and its effects. One-half of his ranks in spellcraft may be used if the chaos mage is attempting to study the workings of a static or divine magic item or spell. The reverse is true for divine spellcasters and static mages - they in turn are permitted to apply only one-half of their Spellcraft ranks when dealing with chaos magic items of spells.