Within the ideas and love of the series, the wielder class was based off the game Xenoblade Chronicles; specifically, the class was based off of the main character Shulk and his weapon, the Monado. However, I would've never come to this conclusion if it wasn't for a series of events and a certain person in particular.
At my High School, in my senior year, a group of friends with myself included, created a club based around Dungeons and Dragons and other role-playing games of the like. Blatantly, we decided to call the club, "RPG Club." There were three groups specifically with their own game master. Two out of the three (who happened to be siblings), made a bright idea to set their campaigns in the same world, and likewise made a whole module of the game centered around either making friends with, or killing gods, based on the 5th edition of D&D. Magic was organically different, and the ideas of summoning or just outright killing gods seemed really interesting...but that wasn't the point I am trying to make.
In the group I know more about, Jared Fessler's group rised into my eyes. His part of the campaign had evil ideas and likewise, his cast of members were all evil. There was the monk, the fighter, the wizard, etc, but there was one person who had the most unique and inorganic playstyle I have ever seen. A good friend I have known since the 7th grade, Matt Garcia, played a character that was in fact an almost carbon copy of Shulk, but minus a very few things. As you know, in D&D, there is not a factor of "Mana" or any Cooldown of Arts like in Xenoblade. Therefore, Matt had the bright idea for his Shulk to use his own Hit Points in exchange to use the Arts and abilities of one of my most loved characters in gaming. The problem that one of my friends had when not looking at his character sheet, but fighting him was extremely unbalanced, but in short, he was as well.
To go on a bit of a rant here, my friend (I won't speak his name) was requested by Jared and his sister Kaylee to be the "final boss" of their campaign for the year. He created his character, but in the fight made his character go 3 times more often in the initiative order of the game to go against Matt's character. Not only would he have wiped the entire party, but he constantly went after Matt since he was the only physical threat that could take the damage from him, and at the same time was the only one that could deal any remote amount of damage to him. In a sad stalemate, the battle ended with Matt's character turning back time and the game ending with an island falling from the sky.
My hypothesis and notice of this was clear; Matt's character was meant not for 5th edition, but for 3.5 edition (which now that I look at it more and more, when Matt's character sheet saying dodge and such, they probably were playing 3.5 edition). Not for cheating purposes, but just because I was interested in the subject, I asked for a copy of Matt's character sheet. Turns out, Matt home-brewed his idea to keep up with the idea of slaying gods. Figuring this out, I was determined to make my own homebrew from his character into an entirely brand new class. And thus, the wielder was born.
I started it off with a detailed overlook of his character. Obviously I had to figure out a name for the class, which in total wasn't hard at all. Next I had to figure out the saving throw proficiencies. Originally Matt had Dexterity and Wisdom as his character's saving throws, but I changed it to something that looked better on paper. Constitution is a definite must have for any Hit Point tank, so I based the entire class around Constitution and Wisdom. The hit dice was originally a d12, so I kept it that way, and I did the same for the class skills. What I had to rethink was the ideas of the Arts and a way to keep the class stable with HP. All of the arts were completely debuffed and I created the concept of Soul Enhancements to keep up with the HP or Hit Points. This was actually an idea I got from Matt's character concept, as with levels, he upgraded his Arts. So I kept it that way. Everything else is history.
The only thing I had to completely rehaul in the wielder was the idea of time travel. Matt's character could travel back in time, and even had a certain ability to do so. I had to scrap the idea for it being to overused and cheap in sorts. In its place I put down "Determined Spirit," which fit the wielder a bit more than time travel. After all, the wielder uses one weapon that he uses his own Hit Points for, so it would make sense for him to be harder to kill.
Other than this, thank you for reading.
-Cixal