Get the Free PDF!

With just simple tricks and the indescribable power of perception, a magician runs circles around their foes. Combine swordplay with simple magic tricks to slip past defenses, and deftly swap between weapons to demonstrate the depth of your techniques. 

The current version of this class is freely available for your use and perusal, and always will be. All future rule updates will be available for free as well, but this commitment may exclude non-rules content. This work is under the ORC license, and we are committed to the principles of open gaming.

Many years ago I came to my GM with the concept of "parlor trick magician in a high fantasy setting", and decided I wasn't particularly happy with any of the options I had available to express that character back then. Since picking up Pathfinder, I was chatting to my partner about what a non-caster occultist would look like, and realized it tied quite nicely into that magician concept. Pathfinder had the mechanical framework necessary to make the concept work well, and things got rolling.

Since then, I became we, and the concept has moved on quite a way. We believe that unlike a Bard, who utilizes ancient narratives to empower emotions and dreams, the magician actively seeks to disrupt their audience's expectations, subverting narratives by taking their performances in impossible directions. 

Mechanically, we latched onto the notion of choosing 'a volunteer from the crowd', and thought it would be interesting to have the magician choose specific enemies, perform to them, but apply buffs to themselves through that process that affect the entire encounter. Keeping in the theme of performance, we tied in some elements of circus skills into the class as well, giving the class a few features to encourage regular weapon switching and thrown weapons, in particular.

We were also keen to keep the class campy and queer, because there isn't really much point in playing this concept straight-laced. Without talented artists, it can be hard to express such things, but we hope that the mechanics are thematic enough to get some of that love across.

We have something of a design notes diary that we will be neatening up and giving out to backers on release. It won't be much, but we hope some people will find it interesting to see our thought processes laid out in order.

So far, this project has been entirely unpaid, and we have taken it as far as we are able to whilst also working full-time jobs. 

Our main goal with this funding push is to allow us to take the time off work necessary to develop a Foundry module for the class. This module will also be freely available.

Any additional funds raised will go towards tidying up the rough edges on the project and playtesting. Mechanically, we are yet to sort out details of a multiclass archetype, and we would ideally include at least one sample build. There will also be feedback from players that we will be looking to integrate into the project. We also have some flavor text already written around our iconic magician concept, but due to layout issues we've cut that from the current release, hoping to get it out after the campaign when we can commit to a final layout.

Beyond this, we are open to hear what other things you would like to see. We would like to investigate Pathbuilder integration, especially as we will have already done much of the data entry work for the sake of the Foundry module.