The archwizards of ancient Netheril were arguably the greatest human spellcasters in all of Faerûn’s history, though the elves often point out that the Netherese learned all they knew from elf wizards. But even so, the spellcasters of Netheril were renowned for the mighty magic under their control—spells that could shear the tops from mountains and levitate them in the air to serve as floating enclaves. Some say that these archwizards even had access to a spell that could make a man into a god.

The Netherese arcanist is a pioneer of epic spellcasting who focuses his efforts on mastering the secrets of spells that go beyond ordinary limits. Most members of this prestige class died when their floating enclaves plummeted from the sky and their mighty empire crumbled into the desert of Anauroch, though at least one still survives as a lich. But two means remain by which modern day wizards and sorcerers can approach the techniques of ancient Netheril. They can explore lost Netherese ruins and find records of the arcanists’ forgotten secrets, or they can visit the living heirs of those powerful spellcasters—the shades. Among the shades, Netherese arcanists are once again rising to a level of prominence in society, to the great concern of their neighbors.

Role: Spell Utility

Characteristics: Specialized arcane casters with reduced epic casting costs

Source: Player's Guide to Faerun

Game Rule Information

The Netherese Arcanist has the following game statistics.

Abilities: Whatever your casting stat is, Intelligence for your Spellcraft and skill points, Constitution for keeping your arcane fueled corpse alive.

Alignment: Any

Hit Die: d4

Starting Gold: N/A

Class Skills

The Netherese Arcanist's class skills are Concentration (Con), Decipher Script (Int), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Search (Int), Spellcraft (Int), and Spot (Wis).

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

Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the Netherese Arcanist.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A Netherese Arcanist is proficient with whatever they were already proficient with prior to taking levels in this class.

Epic Spellcasting: At 1st level, the Netherese arcanist gains Epic Spellcasting as a bonus feat if he does not already have it.

Field Specialization: Every Netherese arcanist chooses one of three "fields" of magic—invention, mentalism, or variation—for his major field of specialization. He also chooses one of the remaining two fields as his minor field. He cannot cast spells based on seeds from the third field.

The epic spell seeds covered by each field are given in Table 1-2.

The base Spellcraft DC for developing spells in the arcanist's major field of specialization is reduced by 5, as though it were within the caster's specialist school. If it already is withing the caster's specialist schoo, there is no additional benefit.

Spell Focus (Epic): At 2nd level, the saving throw DC for each of a Netherese arcanist's epic spells increases by 1, but the Spellcraft DC does not increase.

Backlash Resistance Su: At 3rd level, a Netherese arcanist gains resistance 5 to backlash damage from casting epic spells. Each time he casts an epic spell with a backlash, that damage is reduced by 5 points. If the backlash damage continues for more than 1 round, the reduction is 5 points each round.

Epic Spell Artisan: At 4th level, a Netherese arcanist gains the ability to develop epic spells with less expense in time and resources. When determining the cost of raw materials for researching an epic spell, he multiplies the Spellcraft DC by 7,000 gp instead of the development time and XP cost accordingly.

Greater Spell Focus (Epic): At 5th level, the saving throw DC for each of a Netherese arcanist's epic spells increases by 1, but the Spellcraft DC does not increase. The increase stacks with that provided by his Spell Focus (epic) ability, for a net increase of +2.