So I have this Character Named Adam who is inspired by a character named Raistlin Majere. for those not familiar with the dragon lance series he is a mage of the order of red robes. So I believe his skill selection is appropriate in terms of magical spells. For those familiar with D&D and the Dragon lance campaign (version 3.5 and above) you'll know that the spells as skills are appropriate for him.

I named the class Red Mage - But I believing war mage is more appropriate. This thread is designed to get opinions on the subject and create a discussion around this class template and things you would consider, change, add to or what not. You have my permission to use this class (not like you need it) and to alter it and do as you wish with it. I am sharing what Works best for Adam - my current character.

Side not: My actual name is Adam. Yet i find my self saying -he a lot of the time.

Lets get on with it shall we?

• Intro to the War Mage
  
• War Mage Lore
  
• War Mage Stats (Skills)
  
• Rules for playing as a War Mage
  
• Guilds For the War Mage
  
• Items, Armor, Weapons
  
• Role Play Ideas
  
• FAQ

1) Intro to the War Mage

Note: For more in depth please see the lore section. Also some of the lore and background is made up.

The War Mage is a character of the Red Robed Mages order from the land of Elsweyr. The mages order in Cyrodiil present day do not and never have had orders of mages. The Red Robes or "The Reds" as they are nicknamed use the skills of Alteration, Conjuration, Illusion and Destruction spells. (it should be noted that in D&d and in the dragon lance series the destruction magic would not exist as a spell set and it would just be the first three). Alchemy is their major theme that is how they make their money. Always looking to grow they venture out and and not only recruit but also join various other types of Guilds. The robed mages are the best ones for war, as there use to be a Grey Robed mages order back in Hammerfell but they were eventually dismissed, run down and slaughtered for being malevolent rouged mages.

Red Robed mages can be of any race, any color (racially) and of any six. Typically they like older (20+) recruits but will take recruits as young as 15. For more information please see the Lore section.

2) War Mage Lore

What is a war mage? Why of the red robes? - The lore stipulates that some where back in the years before the imperial city and back in the days of man fighting the Aylied races there was a order of war mages called the grey robes that roamed and controlled a large portion of the political substance known as the order of mages. back when it was still subjugated by color. Black studied necromancy, White was about alteration, illusion and healing while red was about illusion, alteration and conjuration.

Some time around the turn of the war when the Aylied races were being defeated and the dwarfs of Skyrim were being forced out of their homes and enslaved and eventually killed (Lore may be different in some texts) the grey robes were going rogue and threatening the order of mages, which at that time where scattered across the world in all types of guilds. It was here that the politics of inner circles stipulated and determined that the red robe mages would learn destruction magic and carry a blade (see rules and weapons). This blade would always be single handed and would never be used against that of living mortals.

The grey robes had fought back and eventually the other three colors hunted down and slaughtered them. The god for the mages had left the earth in shame that the colors would hunt down and slaughter one of there own brothers. But eventually returned back in present time.

Today war mages are of the red robed colors and the land only recognizes the colors and order of things in the province of Elseweyr. While every other mage guild is of any color, choosing not to subjugate there fellow guild members based on robe color. A true Red robed mage comes from the land of Elsewhere how ever they can be of any race, of any province. its only in Elsewheyr that they can receive their training and call them selves a red robed mage (war mage)


3) War Mage Stats (Skills)

• Illusion
  
• Conjuration
  
• Alteration
  
• Destruction
  
• Alchemy or Enchantment
  
• Blade
  
• SpeechCraft

Illusion, Conjuration, Alteration, Destruction - Are all about the ability to get the job done. While most red Robes are stuck in the old ways and won't use their destruction magic - the true War mages of today will use and know how to use their major Spell Skills in balance and in harmony with each other.

A true red robed mage will not (because of their history and where they come from) use any blade other then a dagger, and prefer a staff. How ever in present day most war mages will carry a short or long sword and a dagger and a staff.

Due to the political nature of the Red Robes Speech and persuasion is their way of doing things, they believe in the politics of society and will try and create as many contacts as possible to get what ever it is they need done.

To make money, alchemy is used. Also this allows them to make potions and poisons to use on there enemies. - Money is always a friend.

4) Rules for playing as a War Mage

The rules are basic:

- No armor of any kind - you MUST do the first quest of the game, the whole prison thing to get your red robes from the fallen creatures.
- No weapons (see items, weapons, armor) other then that stipulated.
- You must not kill for greed (applies only to innocent people)
- Your character must have a astute fascination for Aylied ruins
- Your character must enjoy the politics of guilds and the world around him.
- Use as few lock picks as possible - Alteration.
- Do not cast spells upon other innocent people to persuade them - Use Speech (Politics)
- Conjure creatures to assist in battle, cast protection spells, create illusions and become invisible.
- DO NOT US HEAL SPELLS - 'cept the one you start with. Create potions and use those (alchemy)
- Money is your prize, but do not be greedy.
- you MUST belong to the mages AND the fighters guild to be a true war mage, failure to join the fighters guild means you are not a true war mage and using destruction magic and blades ('cept a dagger) is prohibited.
- You can only use a Short, Long or Dagger and or staff (See items, weapons, armor below)

Failure to abide means you are not a true red robed/war mage.

5) Guilds for the War Mage

Fighters - For your Blade, destruction magic usage (see rules) (you must advance all the way) <- makes you a true war mage
Mages - For the rest of your magic and your skills. (you must advance all the way) <- makes you just a red robed mage


6) Items, Weapons, Armor

Long Sword, Short Sword, Dagger, Staff
No Armor (See FAQ)
Items - Limited to no lock picks (Use Alteration), All Alchemy Supplies

7) Role Play Ideas

• Your obsession with politics allows you to travel to the land of Cyrodiil to participate in the mages guild and your strategic planning in war allows you to become a war mage.
  
• You have hear of the troubling times in the land of Cyrodiil and have come to the aid of the emperor - (Requires you to do main quest)
  
• Your Obsession with Aylied ruins takes you all over the world exploring them and reading their lore.

And of course any others you can come up with.

8) FAQ

What if I find Armor that is better then that of what I waring, Example - robes that are blackish and have epic enchantments

Your order would allow you to equip them - if there are white or off white you are of the white robes and are limited from using our destruction magic. You will not be able to complete any more contracts for the fighters guild and will not be able to use blades, except that of daggers, and are also limited to staves.

What do I do if I completed both the guilds, the main quest and explored all the aylied ruins?

What ever you like - keeping in mind that you are now war mage and must compete in wars and be at the call of the fighters and mages guild.

Can I join other guilds -like the dark brother hood?

Yes, How ever, for example if you join the dark brother hood you are now limited to black robes (necro robes) you are not a war mage and can only use the spells of conjuration (undead only) and destruction magic. You can only ware daggers and staves. when joining a diffrent guild keep in mind the limitations and restrictions.

Mage + Fighters: War Mage.
Mage + Dark brother hood: Black robed mage (do all the mages quests before doing the dark brother hood as you will be waring necromancy robes) - if your robes are dark green or some other very dark color you are still part of the black robe mages (Weapons: daggers, stave's) - cannot do the fighters guild any more. limited to Destruction, conjuration (undead only)
Mage + Thieves - See Mages + Dark brother hood with the exception of also using Alteration (for locks only) and Illusion (for persuading and charming along with invisibility)

Other minor Guilds:

Mages + BlackWood: See Mages + Dark brother hood.
Mages + Knights of nine, Knights of thorn or Order of the Dragon + Fighter Guild: War Mage
Mages + nine divines, Knights of the White Stallion, Mythic Dawn + Fighter Guild: War Mage with one exception - Destruction magic is not used. Robes must be Red or White.
Mages + Order of the virtuous blood: See Mages + Dark brother hood - must be a vampire and must NOT cure the vampirisim.


What if I dont follow any of these?

Then your character is a sham! - not of any order and is just another oblivion character.

I has other questions!

Please reply to thread and I will answer as best as I can.

No oppinions?

I know nothing about Dragonlance, so I'm not qualified to comment on that aspect of your post. But the rest of what you write here sounds very interesting. You've put a lot of work into this and I think you've come up with something that makes sense.

This is a different approach to roleplaying from the one I use. I approach roleplaying through character psychology. When I roleplay I don't think about "class." The personal idiosyncrasies of my characters dictate all of the rules in my games. In fact as they age and grow my characters often switch "classes" in response to life experiences. I attempt to emulate the ways in which we are altered by our experience in real life. So I may not be the best person to reply to this idea.

But from a practical standpoint, this sounds like an interesting list of class-based, roleplaying-oriented limitations. I'm going to link people to this thread in the future, whenever someone asks for new roleplaying ideas. Nice work.

Thank you. you don't have to know anything of the series to understand the class I have laid out here. the idea is to allow you to make your own choices with some limitations based on the choices. as you see switching guilds causes your class to switch from war mage to what ever class based on the guilds and imposes new limitations from the mages council in ElsWeyr.

The idea was to allow people to role play and experience a world and be apart of something bigger then them selves and realize that its not all about them, some unknown force in some part of the world dictates and governs the rules of how a mage of this order acts and is treated and the role they play. So many people here play based on them selves and alone -this allows you to take into account that some other force is out there.

Another \role playing idea is going rogue against the mages guild and slaughtering most of -if not all - the mages guild here in the current province. and then to arrist arrest and fight the guards - your death would mean the council of mages in another province took it upon them selves to abolish you for your actions. How ever you could run, you could stay on the run slaughtering people across the country side and waring the robes of the black mage - taking into consideration the limitations of that class and living in the aylied ruins.

Its just another role play idea

I see some people voted for moderate and even garbage -I am wondering what their thoughts are on the class and How it can be improved.

I imagine some of those votes could probably be intepreted as "I don't like class templates". That's the option I would pick, if it were there.

I don't see anything particularly wrong with your class template, I just don't like artificial limitations like that. For example, if I join the Dark Brotherhood I am suddenly no longer allowed to use any blades other than daggers. That's much too arbitrry for my taste. I prefer to base my roleplaying limitations around my character's personalities instead.

Understandable while at the same time I believe I created the class template for people who want a challenge when role playing or playing he game in general. I could deffently look at the class template and modify it to allow for any one to use it - how ever it is more of a challenge and I believe add character to a game whos people are "disliking" specific parts of the game or for those who need a new challange.

Any one else have any opinions, ideas?

I forgot one other thing to add:

If your character joins the arena as a war mage so Mage+Fighter+Arena Guild they are classified as a elite war mage. This means the character is able to (take this into consideration when building the war mage and choosing your starter stats) ware light armor among using single handed blades.

This type of character should be considered when building your character at the start of the game.

Yes, this is about where I am, too. I didn't vote, for that reason.

I don't really care for "rules." Most of the characters I play are more interested in finding ways to break free of the limitations imposed by the game, rather than being limited by some set of arbitrary conditions. That's not to say that arbitrary rules can't be interesting; one of my characters, whom I still play from time to time, is a mage who was cursed by Sheogorath such that she was unable to equip any item not freely given to her. But this was one "extra rule" for that character, not a whole set of roleplay limitations. And the challenge was to find ways around the "rule," not to be bound by it.

But the great thing about Oblivion is that it allows all kinds of freedom, even the freedom to impose more limits.