Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Kron-Karn Aug 21, 2015 10:55:18	I was recently working on a middle eastern flavered spell caster and came up with this. I used the pathfinder genie Bloodline as a template and tryed to 5e-afy it. I am particularly unsure about the first lv ability. Let me know that you think.   Sha'ir   Your innate magic comes from genie magic that was mingled with your blood or that of your ancestors. Most often sorcerer of anciant times who made a bargain with a genie or who might even have claimed a genie parent.   Genie Ancestor: At 1st lv you choose one type of genie as your ancestor. The damage type associated with each genie is used by features you gain later.   Genie  Element language  Movement Dao      Acid           Terran   Burrow 30 Djinni   Lightning   Auran    Fly 30 Efreeri  Fire             Iganan  Speed 10 Marid   Cold            Aquan   Swim 30   You can speak read and write the language associated with your ancestor. Additionally when you make a charisma check when interacting with genies your proficiency bonous is doubled.   Genies Gift: As magic flows threw your body it causes physical traists of your genie ancestors to emerge.   At 1st lv you can innatly cast the disguise self spell at will. The duration of this spell changes to number of hours equal to half your lv (rounded down to a minimum of 1hr) Or 1st lv learn minor illution. Once per day at 7th lv cast polymorph but only on self. The duration of this spell changes to number of hours equal to half your lv (rounded down). Or At lv 1 gain the Elemental adept feat with the damage type corresponding to your ancestry.   Elemental Affinity: Starting at 6th lv when you cast a spells that deals damage of the type associated with your ancestry, add your charisma modifier to that damage. At the same time you can spend one sorcery point to gain resistance to that damage type for 1hr.   Genie Glide: At 14lv you gain the type of movement associated with your ancestor   Power of a Genie: At 18th lv you gain the power of genies to grant wishes. Once per day You can cast the wish as a spell. Such wishes must begin with the words “I wish,” and cannot duplicate a wish you have granted within the past 24 hours. If you use this ability to duplicate a spell with a costly material component, you must provide that component. Before the wish comes true you must roll a d20. On a roll a 6 or lower, roll on the wild magic surge table and that effect takes the place of your wish. Even if the spell sucseeds the DM still has final say on the outcome of the wish as the spell specifies.
#2 shintashi Aug 21, 2015 12:51:38	i haven't looked at the Shair in a long time, but i think they would work somewhat like the familiar of a wizard, but better. I was planning on writing up a 5e Channeler for people to play with, and i guess glancing over the Shair would have a similar purpose -- to introduce wizard archetypes that are significantly different enough to merit their own rules. After I re-examine how the Sha'ir worked, I'll follow up with better prepared notes. Genie Bloodline wouldn't quite make sense though, as Sha'ir are closer to Warlocks. I get you are taking the Dragonborn template and applying the Genasi in place of Dragonborn, although in this particular case, you could be better off seeing the Sha'ir as a Warlock build, and playing a Genasi. I could be wrong, I won't know for sure until i get a hold of the Arabian adventures book, but alas, i traded mine in the 90s, but a friend has it. Should have more coherent answers in a couple of hours.   if you still want it to be a sorcerer dragon blood reflavored with genie blood, that is your choice ^_^
#3 shintashi Aug 21, 2015 14:34:26	ok, apparently I have acted in the role of a Gen, and retrieved the "right' spell from the planes.. i.e., learning how Sha'ir work.   first of all, they are nearly unplayable in a 5e context. Let me get that out there right now. They are probably mechanically similar to playing a Priest of knowledge, A Diviner wizard, or a Beastmaster ranger.   While i have a lot of information in front of me, there's a couple of stand out points.   Sha'ir are special ability heavy Sha'ir are spells/day light You have a powerful familiar called a Gen, similar to a Mephit/Imp/Quasit/Pseudodragon in power Gen have four elements just like Genies, air, fire, water, earth, and you can pick which one Summoning the Gen the first time takes either all day, a long rest, or a short rest (1d20 hours) You will have to summon a new Gen if you lose them, obviously, just like Beastmasters who lose pets.     If the spell you want to cast is both low enough level for a spellcaster to cast, and is a spell you are likely to know (see below), then your Gen takes 1d6+spell level rounds to retrieve it. For example, Burning Hands might take 2-7 rounds to retrieve, while 1 in 6 (1d6+0) elemental cantrips would be useable in 1 round.   You have to take the time equivalent to a short rest to cast spells that a Sha'ir is likely to know but are too high level. You get 1st and 2nd level wizard/sorcerer spells, and especially the Elemental Evil handbook wizard spells (like ice, fire, earth, and wind spells) as your principle access. That's what they mean by land of fate spells. Pretty much any of the four element spells plus basic player handbook spells, and bam, done, you now know what kinds of spells take a short rest's duration for your Gen to fetch. You don't have spells per day, but considering how long it takes to fetch one spell, it really doesn't matter.   You can also send your Gen out for the time equivalent of a long rest to fetch spells you have seen cast, by other classes, like Clerics, or spells that aren't generic Wizard/Elemental, like Warlock or Other Campaign world spells.   When your Gen is attempting to fetch spells, there is a % chance of failure. So you roll percentile dice to see if they succeed. A roll of 90-00 is automatic failure. Otherwise, your base percent is as follows, trying to roll low:   50% base +5% per Sha'ir level -10% per spell level +10% if you are likely to know the spell (see above element/wizard notes) -30% Spell from other class (such as Cleric or Warlock) or campaign setting (such as modern Technomagic) -10% cumulative, each consecutive failed attempt to retrieve the same spell that day If you rolled a 00, specifically, it means they not only have no spell, but they take twice as long to return. a short rest spell, for example, would take closer to several hours, and a long rest spell all day and probably into the night. The Sha'ir is aware that something went wrong, but the Gen is still alive.   From this, we are able to infer it is possible to send your Gen out to fetch the spell again, even if they failed to find it the first time. Basically, Gen are like shopping for spells, sort of like Ebay or Amazon browsing. When they find the spell, they portal back. They travel the planes to fetch spells. Obviously if the modified chance is 0% or less, the Gen will always come back with no spell. If the Gen succeeds, it appears within 10ft of the Sha'ir and they have up to 30 minutes to use that spell, or it goes poof. For casting level purposes (that's not used hardly at all anymore), use the Sha'ir's level. Since that doesn't make sense in 5th edition most of the time, Use the Warlock table instead, meaning at high levels, most of their spells are treated as 5th level slots. You can even give them the same 6th-9th spell slots a Warlock has, so that they can cast a few spells at higher level, this would make the most sense, and in all probability, all their spells would be cast at the highest level possible, since it takes so long for them to cast spells. A sha'ir probably averages 2-3 familiar higher level spells per day, and 1 spell they know really well each day. This is why i said they weren't exactly playable, not like wizards or sorcerers for example. In battle, you are averaging 2-7 to 10-15 rounds to cast 1 spell that you are high enough level to cast, or 6-11 average rounds, i.e., about 1 in 8 rounds. Since most battles end within 10 rounds, even on the best of days, you are getting 1 spell a minute, and have to do non spell activities. Again, this makes you more like a Bladelock in terms of Balance.   A Sha'ir can only have one spell at a time. That means if the spell has concentration, they cannot concentrate on the current spell and then cast another. They must either extinguish the concentration spell, or wait for its duration to expire, before sending out the Gen to retrieve another spell. Counting in the other two categories of spells that take an hour or longer, that basically means in every combat, the Sha'ir has 1 spell at the most, and quite frequently, no spell at all. See what i mean by unplayable? This is definitely a downtime intense class.   Casting Spells outside the wizard/elemental domain pisses off outerplanar beings like gods and demons. There is a 10% chance per spell level of something like a cleric, druid, warlock, etc. spell (other than obvious 4 element spells) that retribution happens as soon as you cast the spell.   1st and 2nd level forbidden spells: You are cursed, no save, for the full duration. (the original context was Evil Eye. I'm simplifying it for 5e) 3rd & 4th level forbidden spells: For each forbidden spell of this level range you cast until your next encounter, the opponent you face will gain an increasingly larger bardic/fighter inspiration/superiority die to hit and damage against you for the entirely of their combat against you.So the first spell is d6, the second spell means d8s, the third is d10, the fourth is d12. Heaven help you if you cast 5 or more forbidden spells before your next encounter. This could probably be simplified as "you encounter assassins with a total CR equal to the number of 3rd-4th level forbidden spells you cast". The AD&D bonus wouldn't translate right, because wizards used to only have like 30-40 hit points by level 20 so having people attack you with +10 damage per hit is like instant death at most levels. 5th & 6th level forbidden spells: The powers that be don't mess around. They send a planar being to kill you, with a CR equal to your level. Even if you and your allies kill it, it's worth 0 XP. 7th and higher level forbidden spells: You are summoned by the powers to the outer planes to explain yourself, suck up, and then sent on a Quest, as per the spell, as punishment. It won't violate your alignment, but it won't be pleasant either. The punishment may range from 6 months preaching for the god who summoned you, to questing after some horrible artifact on a suicide mission.   Gen have the following notable statistics (this is not even close to complete, i could do that later if requested) AC 15, Tiny, Movement 25 feet, Intelligence 7, and hit points/attack bonuses following the Beastmaster leveling rules. They can normally attack for 1d6 damage unless otherwise noted. Air Gen have flight 30 feet. Fire Gen can produce flame at will (and are probably immune to fire). Water Gen have swim 30 feet and water breathing. Earth Gen are buff and can hit things for 2d6 damage.   A gen bestows Resistance to Damage and Saves vs. its element to the Sha'ir.
#4 cbwjm Aug 21, 2015 14:58:07	There are a few Sha'ir pact warlocks over on ENWorld with one of the best ones being in an AlQadim conversion thread. You might want to check it out.   http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?358985-Al-Qadim-Land-of-Fate-(5e-conversion)&p=6372916&viewfull=1#post6372916
#5 shintashi Aug 21, 2015 15:20:36	i should probably mention the Sha'ir have all sorts of special abilities, similar to Warlock and Druid level stuff, in addition to the above weird spell casting abilities. If you hadn't noticed, the Sha'ir got like 2-5 spells a day tops, for the most part, even cantrips, but they could cast any spell from any class, on a lucky roll with enough levels. Warlocks used to not exist, so i treated them as variant clerics. I frankly don't think you would get in trouble with deities casting sorcerer, bard, or technomagic spells. I think that would be limited to druids, clerics, and warlocks, and to be honest half the druid spells, like fire and wind stuff would probably not be problematic at all. But Warlocks are definitely outer planar power sourced, so you might find yourself summoned by Aasmodeus or something.   3rd level: identify/reconize items/spell effects made by genies and their ilk, like if someone was turned into a toad by a Sha'ir or Genie, you would know. 5th level: Summon a Jann once per long rest, 5% chance per sha'ir level it shows up in d6 rounds 7th level: elemental resistance increases: vs. all elements except that of your Gen, you have Resistance (for damage and saves), for your Gen, your resistance becomes immunity.   You also gain the power to survive unharmed on elemental planes for up to 10 minutes per level. 9th level: Summon a powerful Genie (dao, djinn, etc.) for aid, 5% per level chance of working like the Jann, d6 rounds to show up. Key difference is the Genie wants bribes to help you and wont use its tiny allotment of wishes to help you unless it can benefit personally from the wish. High charisma characters and those skilled in persuasion can reduce (DC 15-20) or even bypass the bribe requests (DC 25-30). If your Gen familiar is the same element as the Genie, it is easier, if they are different elements, it is harder. 11th level: Bind a dao, marid, djinn or efreet for 101 days. This is similar to the Bribing requests from before, but how you treat Genies also impacts the results. You are at severe penalties if you have made use of magic lamps to force genies into service. 13th level; learn the formula for making magic lamps, which act like rings of wishes/prisons for Genies 15th level: Planeshift to Elemental planes at will, by making an Intelligence Check DC 15. Failure indicates you will have to wait another hour. You can take passengers equal to your level. When travelling this way, the Sha'ir and their passengers are protected from that plane for a number of days equal to the Sha'ir's level. 17th level: can make political request to seek audience with the Great rulers of Genies, to pass judgment on Genies and other Sha'ir, or act as an infallible Contact Other Plane.
#6 shintashi Aug 21, 2015 15:33:15	cbwjm wrote:
#7 Kron-Karn Aug 23, 2015 10:37:52	Thanks alot for your input. Maybe i confused things by calling the thred Sha'ir but I am looking for input on the build I put forward not how would I make a traditional Sha'ir.
#8 Macv12 Aug 23, 2015 20:17:06	Kron-Karn wrote: