Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Elhana 07-30-07, 01:39 AM	Just need to clear up something. 1) A specialist wizard with ranks in sorceror and all other pre-requisites can be an ultimate magus right? 2) Whether an ultimate magus or just a multiclass sorcerer/specialist mage. Can a player take sorceror spells from his wizard prohibited school? Like say the player is a specialist evoker with prohibited schools of necromancy and enchantment. If he is also an ultimate magus, can he choose to take up necomancy or enchantment school spells in his sorceror spells instead? It strikes me that if he can, this is a rather clever way to get around the prohibited school disadvantage that specialist wizards face. 3) Is it possible to be a ultimate magus with 9th level wizard spells? (assume no epic levels allowed).
Tiarn 07-30-07, 02:17 AM	1) Aside from the fact that you take levels in a class and ranks in skills, yes, multiclassing a specialist wizard with sorcerer will allow you to qualify for the Ultimate Magus prestige class. 2) Correct, a multiclassed specialist wizard does not apply her penalties from one class to another. Specializing as a wizard limits only her wizard spells. It would make no difference if the second class was beguiler, sorcerer, cleric, psion, etc. Her wizard levels do not affect any other class's spell selection at all. 3) I'm not sure on this one, you might want to check the optimization forum and see what builds they have. :)
Lawkeeper 07-30-07, 03:06 AM	3) yes, by using a loophole in the UM and the Practiced Spellcaster feat. The UM improves the lowest-caster level spellcasting at all levels, and the highest only on seven levels. By applying Practiced Spellcaster to sorcerer/beguiler/warmage/whatever-spontaneous-spellcasting-class-you-took, you bring its CL higher or equal to your wizard class, allowing you to improve the wizard levels enough to get at least to 17th level spellcasting.
Elhana 07-30-07, 03:13 AM	Hmmm, so, if I can go master specialist wizard and ultimate magus and use the sorceror spells to round out my prohibited spell list? Seems kind of powerful to me. :D It essentially does away with the drawback that a master specialist mage faces. And with the increased effective spells levels from both ultimate magus and master specialist, won't that give you effectively a lv 20 or even a lv 21 specialist master wizard (in terms of casting level) with access to 9th level spells? Plus you have the use of your more limited sorceror spells to round up your prohibited school and burn as meta magic feats when applied to your wizard spells. Where's the draw back? And from what I see, the bonus feats you get from being a master specialist mage and an ultimate magus are feats many wizard mage would take anyway.
Lawkeeper 07-30-07, 03:50 AM	Hmmm, so, if I can go master specialist wizard and ultimate magus and use the sorceror spells to round out my prohibited spell list? Seems kind of powerful to me. :D Yes. It's the main benefit of the class. It's even better with the Focused Specialist variant. It essentially does away with the drawback that a master specialist mage faces. And with the increased effective spells levels from both ultimate magus and master specialist, won't that give you effectively a lv 20 or even a lv 21 specialist master wizard (in terms of casting level) with access to 9th level spells? Plus you have the use of your more limited sorceror spells to round up your prohibited school and burn as meta magic feats when applied to your wizard spells. Barring arithmetic error on my part, you'll have 18th-lvl wizard spellcasting and 9th-lvl "sorcerer-like" spellcasting, with higher caster levels (I don't remember the specifics of UM, and don't have the splatbook at hand here). You also get to use all the magic items, including wands and scrolls. Where's the draw back? And from what I see, the bonus feats you get from being a master specialist mage and an ultimate magus are feats many wizard mage would take anyway. The drawback is a little delay in the reaching of higher spell levels. For example, at 15th character level, your wizard spellcasting progression is 13th : you have 7th-lvl spells when a "pure" wizard would have 8th-lvl spells.
RobbyPants 07-30-07, 09:51 AM	Barring arithmetic error on my part, you'll have 18th-lvl wizard spellcasting and 9th-lvl "sorcerer-like" spellcasting, with higher caster levels (I don't remember the specifics of UM, and don't have the splatbook at hand here). You also get to use all the magic items, including wands and scrolls. You're correct. You can either get Wiz 18/Sor 9 or Wiz 17/Sor 10. Both have their advantages. The first keeps your wizard levels maxed, getting you more high level spells. The second still gives you 9th level spells (although fewer) and 5th level sorcerer spells. There is a way to do this if your race is Illumin (sp? I don't have the source book on this) that only gives up one level of wizard. Hmmm, so, if I can go master specialist wizard and ultimate magus and use the sorceror spells to round out my prohibited spell list? Seems kind of powerful to me. :D Well, you don't even need Ultimate Magus to do this. A single level of sorcerer is enough for a wizard to do this with scrolls, wands, and staves. What you gain from UM is more spells per day (and you could certainly use sorcerer levels to help fill in the gaps of a specialist). What you lose is some of your high level spells (a big trade-off). EDIT: Here's a class progression and caster level progression that's hopefully not too confusing :D Character Wizard Sorcerer Ultimate Wizard Sorcerer Notes Level Level Level Magus Caster Caster Level Level Level * ________________________________________ ________________________________________ ___________________ 1 1 - - 1 - 2 1 1 - 1 1(1) 3 2 1 - 2 3(1) Take Practiced Spellcaster feat 4 3 1 - 3 4(1) 5 4 1 - 4 5(1) 6 4 1 1 5 5(1) Only lowest caster level increased 7 4 1 2 6 6(2) 8 4 1 3 7 7(3) 9 4 1 4 8 7(3) Only lowest caster level increased 10 4 1 5 9 8(4) 11 4 1 6 10 9(5) 12 4 1 7 10 10(6) Only lowest caster level increased 13 4 1 8 11 11(7) 14 4 1 9 12 12(8) 15 4 1 10 13 13(9) 16 5 1 10 14 13(9) 17 6 1 10 15 13(9) 18 7 1 10 16 13(9) 19 8 1 10 17 13(9) 20 9 1 10 18 13(9) *NOTE that only the sorcerer's caster level is increased with Practiced Spellcaster. In terms of the number of spells known and per day, this will be upward to 4 levels lower. At 20th level, the sorcerer only has the spells known and per day of a 9th level sorcerer. The number in paranthases shows the actual level for spells known and per day.
Tempest Stormwind 07-30-07, 10:34 AM	Word to the wise: Use beguiler instead of sorcerer. Not only does it have a higher HD and more skill points (for first level) and trapfinding, it also has full spontaneous access to any spell on its spell list, the same number of slots as a sorcerer, and -- the big one -- it uses Intelligence for its spellcasting as well.
Lawkeeper 07-30-07, 10:36 AM	Yes, 17/10 is probably better, especially if taking a beguiler/warmage as spontaneous class : you get to know a lot of 5th-lvl spells rather than only one. Beguiler is the best IMO : Int-reliant, Illusion/Enchantment heavy (two schools you could drop as a specialist). Warmage OTOH is Int+Cha reliant and is really focused on only one school. Illumian is indeed able to reach 19th-lvl wizard spellcasting. The Naenkrau sigil is also a way to increase the DCs of the beguiler spells by leaving an empty 4th and 5th level wizard slots (barely a loss due to having up to 9th-lvl spells) to get +1 to the DC of all 4th and 5th level spells. EDIT: busted by Mr Stormwind.
Tempest Stormwind 07-30-07, 10:40 AM	Well, yours was more in-depth. That said, I'd never drop illusion in such a build, instead preferring to drop Evocation. Use your turbocharged wizard caster level (which *can* be much higher than 18, if you use other methods to boost your Beguiler caster level after Practiced Spellcaster) to cast Shadow Evocations, metamagiced up the wazoo by beguiler spell slots. (This is made even better with Shadowcraft Mage present.)
Kuroimaken 07-30-07, 10:58 AM	A friend of ours already adopted this strategy in our group, but that was before I even saw the posts here. :) He took Beguiler and Wizard and got cracking, I've hardly ever seen so many spells flung in a single game session. =P Currently we're up to level 13, so 6th-level spells are just coming into play now, but he's not too worried about getting 9th level spells since we're likely to go epic.
Elhana 07-30-07, 10:29 PM	You're correct. You can either get Wiz 18/Sor 9 or Wiz 17/Sor 10. Both have their advantages. The first keeps your wizard levels maxed, getting you more high level spells. The second still gives you 9th level spells (although fewer) and 5th level sorcerer spells. There is a way to do this if your race is Illumin (sp? I don't have the source book on this) that only gives up one level of wizard. Well, you don't even need Ultimate Magus to do this. A single level of sorcerer is enough for a wizard to do this with scrolls, wands, and staves. What you gain from UM is more spells per day (and you could certainly use sorcerer levels to help fill in the gaps of a specialist). What you lose is some of your high level spells (a big trade-off). [/code] Hmm, but if we take master specialist wizard, it would round up some of the high level spells we lost. An 18th level master specialist wizard would have 3 level 9 spells. This is only one less than a level 20 wizard. And the ultimate magus would have much more spells of other levels. I originally ilked the idea of beguiler too. But I looked at the beguiler's spell list and I am not so sure now. Yes, it does round out the illusion/enchantment school which you can then prohibit on your wizard specialist side. But it doesn't have all of the illusion spells. I was thinking of prohibiting illusion and necromancy, and then being a specialist evoker. Illusion spells needed is just mainly stuff like greater invis, mirror image, possibly phantasm killer. And Necromancy, I just need possibly ray of emfeeblement and enervation. Other Necromancy spells are not really so useful for an evoker. Then can round up other sorceror slots and spells with other stuff, or possible even more evoker spells. (I calculated even the sorceror spells has an effective castor level of lv 17).
Tempest Stormwind 07-30-07, 10:49 PM	Evokers are weak, even at their chosen role. (Conjurers (and illusionists, if built right) do their own jobs *and* handle Evocation better than evokers.) For the record, the beguiler's spell list has all the illusion spells you'd need except Shadow Conjuration and Shadow Evocation. The main reason you take it is because it synergizes with Intelligence, so you don't need to split your casting stats. In any case, you generally use the slots on your spontaneous side to fuel your metamagic on your wizard side, or to cast a spell you didn't have prepped. (And let's face it, beguilers have more spells known than a sorcerer -- their entire list!).
zorgling25 07-30-07, 11:24 PM	Evokers are weak, even at their chosen role. (Conjurers (and illusionists, if built right) do their own jobs *and* handle Evocation better than evokers.) For the record, the beguiler's spell list has all the illusion spells you'd need except Shadow Conjuration and Shadow Evocation. The main reason you take it is because it synergizes with Intelligence, so you don't need to split your casting stats. In any case, you generally use the slots on your spontaneous side to fuel your metamagic on your wizard side, or to cast a spell you didn't have prepped. (And let's face it, beguilers have more spells known than a sorcerer -- their entire list!). Agreed. Wizards focus on spell versatility over spell volume (if you wanted that, you'd stick to a sorcerer), and an Evoker's spell list seems more suited for the 2nd. IMO NEVER drop Illusion. For me, it comes in third behind Abjuration and Conjuration (Dispel Magic and Teleport) for the most important schools. It has a balance of combat-useful and situationally versatile spells. In fact, its the one school I would feel most comfortable with when dealing with the Specialist limitation of learning at least 1 spell of your specialty at each level.
Elhana 07-31-07, 03:06 AM	Abjuration is important. But why conjuration? If its teleport, wouldn't getting a scroll solve the problem? You probably won't be teleporting every other battle. And why is illusion so needed? I would agree that lower level illusion spells like greater invis and invis and mirror image are very useful. But stuff like shadow conjuration or shadow evocation? I mean, why cast shadow conjuration and have to risk a disbelief save? Why not just cast the actual spell? And the same goes for shadow evocation. Why not just cast that delayed fireball instead of casting a shadow version of it? If the monster can fail the saves to your illusion spell, it means your instant poly, death, disintigrate spells would have a good chance of killing it too. And if its the will save. Then enchantments are more powerful and definitive in their effect in the event of a failed will save then just a disbelief save for illusion spells. Or am I out of the loop with illusion spells here? :D
The_Jhereg 07-31-07, 08:40 AM	First of all: "Spells of the prohibited school or schools are not available to the wizard, and she can’t even cast such spells from scrolls or fire them from wands.". Admittedly, a UMD rogue could help, or a Cleric with a decent domain. However, Conjuration contains a lot of other useful stuff than teleportation; consider the virtues of Black Tentacles, Glitterdust, Web, Solid Fog, Cloud Kill, Planar Binding, Wall of Stone, etc. It's got battlefield control awesome-ness, as well as the best utility magic. It's probably one of the strongest schools. Second of all, Shadow Illusion spells are useful for doing crazy stuff. Even if you're not getting a PrC that allows your spells to be more real than reality, Greater Shadow Conjuration can still allow you to cast Major Creation as a standard action to create adamantine containers filled with lava or whatever around enemies in combat - which is, of course, stupid. Using spells as a Shadow Whatever bypasses stuff like casting times and material components, I believe, quite nicely. The virtues of this in actual gameplay may vary, as DMs are likely to not actually allow it as written, so you should probably discuss how (or if) the DM is going to houserule it before the actual game.
Lawkeeper 07-31-07, 10:12 AM	First of all: "Spells of the prohibited school or schools are not available to the wizard, and she can’t even cast such spells from scrolls or fire them from wands.". Your "First of all" - it only applies for spells gained from the class subject to this prohibition. In the same way that the armored casting abilities of the beguilers, warmages, duskblade, etc, only apply to beguilers, warmages, duskblade, etc, spells. If another of your class's spelllist has those prohibited spells, you're free to use them.
RobbyPants 07-31-07, 10:13 AM	Abjuration is important. But why conjuration? Also, if you're using the Spell Compendium (of some of the books that feuled it), schools like Conjuration have been made even more powerful. In many respects, Conjuration can do as good of or a better job than Evocation. There are plenty of spells that do Xd6 damage and ignore spell resistance. About the only thing some of the Evocation spells have is better range. As WotC keeps producing more spells, and the lines between schools get blurred, specialist wizards become more powerful. They lose less and less from their prohibitted schools with each book that comes out.
sleyvas 07-31-07, 03:25 PM	Just a side note. You also get the arcane spell power bonus at 1st,4th, 7th, and 10th. Therefore, that 18th wizard/9th sorceror is having his spells enhanced as though he were a 22nd lvl wizard and 13th sorceror (you can't gain more than +4, so the practiced spellcaster bonus begins to not apply on the sorceror side). Personally, I wouldn't waste practiced spellcaster, because you can get a 11th wiz/10th spontaneous just starting off as a 3rd wiz/1st spontaneous. From there you can do 17th wiz/10th spontaneous. I'd spend that feat on a metamagic feat that I might want to use, or maybe on metamagic school focus (especially if I planned on persisting some evocation spells with 5th lvl spell slots, like sonic shield (PH 2), fire shield or abjuration spells like shield).
zorgling25 07-31-07, 07:40 PM	Abjuration is important. But why conjuration? If its teleport, wouldn't getting a scroll solve the problem? You probably won't be teleporting every other battle. And why is illusion so needed? I would agree that lower level illusion spells like greater invis and invis and mirror image are very useful. But stuff like shadow conjuration or shadow evocation? I mean, why cast shadow conjuration and have to risk a disbelief save? Why not just cast the actual spell? And the same goes for shadow evocation. Why not just cast that delayed fireball instead of casting a shadow version of it? If the monster can fail the saves to your illusion spell, it means your instant poly, death, disintigrate spells would have a good chance of killing it too. And if its the will save. Then enchantments are more powerful and definitive in their effect in the event of a failed will save then just a disbelief save for illusion spells. Or am I out of the loop with illusion spells here? :D Conjuration spells have the one big advantage is that of all the spell schools, they are the most likely to have SR: no. In addition, many of the good disabling spells (Web, Black Tentacles, all the "cloud" spells) are all Conjuration spells, meaning as long as you aren't playing to blast the enemy to death (which you shouldn't, as my post before about spell versatility over spell volume pointed out) you play a much more overall effective character, since you don't need to cast every round, but instead watch the effects of your previous spell. Illusion is great. If you would allow me, I'd like to list several of my favorites: Color Spray - Like Sleep, but more useful in the long term Mirror Image - It effectively grants you concealment, which, for a Wizard, could be much more useful than AC. Blur - Same as Mirror Image, except that it ACTUALLY grants concealment Image spells (major, minor, etc.) - while these don't seem that useful, if you actually take one, you will suddenly open up a bunch of doors in noncombat encounters. Invisibility (and similar) - self explanatory Shadow spells (Conjuration, Evocation) - Keep in mind that you don't actually have to choose the spell until you cast it. What happens when you go up against salamanders and only have fireballs prepared, or if you go up against vrocks and only have lightning bolts prepared? Now, there is the argument of sorcerers getting to cast whatever they want, but then these spells has a different use. Since sorcerers have precious few spells they can learn, these spells can be used to make up spell knowledge gaps. Prismatic Spray - Do me a favor? Spell the word awesome for me.
Magius_Rerecros 07-31-07, 07:51 PM	3) Is it possible to be a ultimate magus with 9th level wizard spells? (assume no epic levels allowed). Assuming 20th level, yes, you should be able to. Granted, this is an example and does not reach maximum Ultimate Magus level. You could be an 18th level wizard/1st level sorcerer/1st level Ultimate Magus. You therefore are an Ultimate Magus, and have spells known/spells per day as an 18th level wizard/2nd level sorcerer. This is in no way a recommended build. It is simply a possibility. :P
zorgling25 07-31-07, 08:07 PM	Assuming 20th level, yes, you should be able to. Granted, this is an example and does not reach maximum Ultimate Magus level. You could be an 18th level wizard/1st level sorcerer/1st level Ultimate Magus. You therefore are an Ultimate Magus, and have spells known/spells per day as an 18th level wizard/2nd level sorcerer. This is in no way a recommended build. It is simply a possibility. :P Its legitimately possible too. Wizard 4/Sorcerer 1/Ultimate Magus 10/Random Wizard PrC with full spellcasting 5 (Archmage?) Get Practiced Spellcaster (Sorcerer). The levels where you gain only 1 spellcaster's casting go by caster level. Practiced Spellcaster increases your caster level such that at the first two out of the three such levels, the caster levels are lower or tied for Wizard, therefore allowing you to take 2 of the 3 single-casting levels in Wizard. You therefore lose only 2 levels of spellcasting, meaning that you get the spells per day of an 18th level Wizard at Level 20.
nightwyrm 07-31-07, 08:15 PM	Just a side note. You also get the arcane spell power bonus at 1st,4th, 7th, and 10th. Therefore, that 18th wizard/9th sorceror is having his spells enhanced as though he were a 22nd lvl wizard and 13th sorceror (you can't gain more than +4, so the practiced spellcaster bonus begins to not apply on the sorceror side). Personally, I wouldn't waste practiced spellcaster, because you can get a 11th wiz/10th spontaneous just starting off as a 3rd wiz/1st spontaneous. From there you can do 17th wiz/10th spontaneous. I'd spend that feat on a metamagic feat that I might want to use, or maybe on metamagic school focus (especially if I planned on persisting some evocation spells with 5th lvl spell slots, like sonic shield (PH 2), fire shield or abjuration spells like shield). You count the CL gain from practiced spellcaster and the CL gain from arcane power seperately. The feat gives you a +4 and arcane power gives you +4 for a total of +8. You can't take UM until 6th level because of skill ranks requirements, which means you can't get 9th level wiz spells unless you do the practiced spellcaster trick.
Magius_Rerecros 07-31-07, 08:45 PM	Its legitimately possible too. Wizard 4/Sorcerer 1/Ultimate Magus 10/Random Wizard PrC with full spellcasting 5 (Archmage?) Get Practiced Spellcaster (Sorcerer). The levels where you gain only 1 spellcaster's casting go by caster level. Practiced Spellcaster increases your caster level such that at the first two out of the three such levels, the caster levels are lower or tied for Wizard, therefore allowing you to take 2 of the 3 single-casting levels in Wizard. You therefore lose only 2 levels of spellcasting, meaning that you get the spells per day of an 18th level Wizard at Level 20. I'm not in the mood for excessive thinking right now (too hungry), but you are keeping in mind that Practiced Spellcaster only increases caster level, not spells known/spells per day, right?
nightwyrm 07-31-07, 08:50 PM	You take practiced spellcaster for your sorc casting so that your sorc CL is higher than your wiz. UM single class spell level increases are for the class with the lowest CASTER LEVELS.
Tempest Stormwind 07-31-07, 10:12 PM	For a long, sordid, and downright hilarious in retrospect explanation of the effect, look no further (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=780018). It's also a shining example of what happens when you cast Animate Objects on a brick wall and give it a keyboard.
nightwyrm 07-31-07, 10:48 PM	For a long, sordid, and downright hilarious in retrospect explanation of the effect, look no further (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=780018). It's also a shining example of what happens when you cast Animate Objects on a brick wall and give it a keyboard. That is an incredibly hilarious thread. I have a question about the augmented casting ability. If you use the ability with a metamagic feat that has zero spell level increase (ie. energy substitution) do you burn a 0-th level spell slot?
Elhana 08-01-07, 12:24 AM	I think if I intend to go down the ultimate magus route, then I should play to its strengths. And one of the strengths of the ultimate magus is that he has tons of spells. And he is able to apply feats on the fly to spells. This means that once I get to a decent enough level of ultimate magus, I will be able to open with quickened Haste. And subsequently, I can lob three spells each round? (One quickened, and two normal with haste in effect). Maybe one fireball a round won't do that much. But 3 in one round will certainly hurt. Not to metion, two of them can be twinned. I looked at some of ths illusion spells listed. Other than the shadow spells, most of the others are all at level 1 to 4. So having the sorceror part of ultimate magus take them seems like a good way to then take illusion as the prohibited school for the master specialist wizard part. A sorceror faces more spell constraints. A wizard has a lot more variety. An ultimate magus probably has more spells than he needs.
nightwyrm 08-01-07, 12:26 AM	Haste doesn't allow you to cast two spells in the same round in 3.5.
Elhana 08-01-07, 12:31 AM	Oh. I didnt know that. was using an older edition. :( Well, quickened spells still allow me to cast two spells a round right?
nightwyrm 08-01-07, 12:33 AM	Yeah, they had to tone haste down. Quicken still works.
Elhana 08-01-07, 12:52 AM	The way I see it. One of the main strengths of ultimate magus is its wide number of spells and how it generally makes specialising relatively painless. It also allows a large number of quickened or maximised spells which means you indirectly exchange multiple level 3 to 5 spell slots for a fair number of additional lv 7 to 9 spell slots. This is pretty huge at higher levels. IF we go the lv 18th specialist wizard and lv 9 sorceror route. We have 4 lv 4 spell slots to burn and 6 lv 3 spell slots in our sorceror slots we can burn for applying meta magic feats. (max is 8 only though). This means we can cast 4 quickened spells and 4 maximised spells as a lv 10 ultimate magus. Applying those to level 4 and 5 spells means we get 8 additional spells which would have required a lv 8 or lv 9 spellslot. And this is without touching any of the wizard's existing lv 8 and 9 spell slots. Having so many effectively high level spell slots is very nice. Which is why I am pondering evoker. Lobbing that many damage spells is bound to hurt. :D
Tempest Stormwind 08-01-07, 12:52 AM	For the record: 1) The 3.5 rules are available online. Check d20SRD.org. 2) Use beguiler (PHB2) instead of sorcerer. Same number of spell slots, but far more skill points, a higher HD, trapfinding... oh, and it's also intelligence-based. 3) Quicken Spell is a swift action. You can only cast one quickened spell per round. This was also the case in 3.0, except it was a free action that carried the "you can't cast more than one quickened spell in a round" clause explicitly instead of as part of the action. 4) Evokers suck, even at what they're supposed to be good for. There are exactly four evocation spells in the entire game that I would consider actually using -- Contingency, Shatter, Wall of Force, and Forcecage. You want damage, play a conjurer (or a good illusionist. My current illusionist is at a point where he makes warmages cry, since he can out-blast them (both in terms of damage and in terms of diversity of effect) and *still* keep going in his chosen debuff/control field). 5) Damage is a subpar idea past levels 5-7. Most blast spells at that point gain +1d6 damage per level, while monsters average +1d8 or more HP per level, modified by Constitution, *and* increase their saving throws faster than you can increase your DCs. It's so much easier to focus on save-dropping debuffs, battlefield control effects, and save-or-dies, especially past levels 5-7.
StevenO 08-01-07, 12:59 AM	Just need to clear up something. 1) A specialist wizard with ranks in sorceror and all other pre-requisites can be an ultimate magus right? 2) Whether an ultimate magus or just a multiclass sorcerer/specialist mage. Can a player take sorceror spells from his wizard prohibited school? Like say the player is a specialist evoker with prohibited schools of necromancy and enchantment. If he is also an ultimate magus, can he choose to take up necomancy or enchantment school spells in his sorceror spells instead? It strikes me that if he can, this is a rather clever way to get around the prohibited school disadvantage that specialist wizards face. 3) Is it possible to be a ultimate magus with 9th level wizard spells? (assume no epic levels allowed). Yes to all of those but that has already be said. Even before UM, taking a level of sorcerer was seen as a way around prohibited school problems when dealing with magic items. The best builds of UM will use the Practiced Spellcaster loophole and go eventually end up with 18/9 or 17/10 spellcasting at 20th level. Assuming Wizard is the "prepared" class how I fill that out varies on the spontaneous class. When building with a Sorcerer I'm likely to go with the 18/9 build; there aren't a lot of +5 metamagics and you'd have a very small selection of 5ith level spells with 10 levels plus when character building with Point Buy I can easily get CHA 14 to cast those 4th level spells without hurting my other stats too much. When building with a Beguiler I'd probably go the 17/10, especially if the DM allows me to add a wizard/sorcerer spell to my beguiler; thing doesn't have the casting stat problems and you have a MUCH larger selection of 5th level spells so your odds of having the right one goes up. When building with the Beguiler I'd actually take the extra levels in Beguiler instead of getting the "virtual" level from UM if possible because the goodies are much better. If building with a Warmage I'd probably go 17/10 with the Wizard being the support side as most of what the warmage does is damage so I should keep it as high as possible even if it doesn't mean 9th level spells.
Elhana 08-01-07, 01:01 AM	Its just that the beguiler spell list has just about zero offensive damage spells. So, all those spell slots are the lower levels are kinda wasted if they are only for the odd utility spell here and there. If we go with the specialist 18th level build, even the sorceror class would cast as a 17th level castor. So, damage spells can scale pretty well.
zorgling25 08-01-07, 01:03 AM	Having so many effectively high level spell slots is very nice. Which is why I am pondering evoker. Lobbing that many damage spells is bound to hurt. :D I remember when I still played evokers...then our 10th level party came up against a Glabrezu. Its not fun when your spells have a less than 50% chance of getting through. Eventually, the spell that saved us was Evard's Black Tentacles, combined with the cleric using Freedom of Movement.
nightwyrm 08-01-07, 01:04 AM	As Tempest has pointed out already, monsters hps scale faster than damage dies of damage spells. Also, most damage spells are capped at some point (ie. fireball is capped at 10d6).
Elhana 08-01-07, 01:05 AM	If building with a Warmage I'd probably go 17/10 with the Wizard being the support side as most of what the warmage does is damage so I should keep it as high as possible even if it doesn't mean 9th level spells. Warmage 17/10 sounds nice too. :D But is it really worth giving up lv 9 spells? Lots of nice level 9 spells that are very powerful. :D
Elhana 08-01-07, 01:11 AM	I remember when I still played evokers...then our 10th level party came up against a Glabrezu. Its not fun when your spells have a less than 50% chance of getting through. Eventually, the spell that saved us was Evard's Black Tentacles, combined with the cleric using Freedom of Movement. Was it a final boss? Cos Glabrezu is a CR 13 monster. Seems a bit high to throw that against your level 10 party. And why would evard's black tentacles help in this case? I thought Glabrezu could cast greater teleport at will?
zorgling25 08-01-07, 01:15 AM	Was it a final boss? Cos Glabrezu is a CR 13 monster. Seems a bit high to throw that against your level 10 party. Yes it was a "boss" fight, though it wasn't the BBEG. Still, BBEG or not, having your spells do nothing is really irritating.
Tempest Stormwind 08-01-07, 01:34 AM	Its just that the beguiler spell list has just about zero offensive damage spells. So, all those spell slots are the lower levels are kinda wasted if they are only for the odd utility spell here and there. You're looking at things slightly off. Let's bust out level 1 as a simple example. At level 1, looking strictly at the SRD, the following stats are average (with standard deviation) for all CR 1 monsters: HP: 12.26 (5.91) HD: 2.04 (0.77) (Max 4; this is important) Will save: 1.06 (1.96) Your earlier example was an evoker who'd banned illusion, right? Let's assume he's got 16 Intelligence (a bit higher than the 15 in the elite array, but hey). This evoker's best spell is most likely Magic Missile. He can cast three per day, each time striking a single target for 1d4+1 damage (average 3.5). This means that if he blows all of his spell slots (he'll have three), he can dish out 10.5 damage to this creature over three rounds, who still keeps on going. Now, the beguiler has 4 first-level spells per day if he's worth his salt. He uses COLOR SPRAY. Go ahead, look that one up. It'll have a save DC of 14, assuming no Spell Focus or gnome trickery, meaning that the average CR 1 creature has a 35.3% chance of succeeding on the save. Note that the most powerful creature in this CR bracket has 4 HD and the vast majority (62% or so) have HD between 1.27 and 2.81. This means that most of the creatures you hit it with fall unconscious for numerous rounds (and *every* creature will at least be blinded and stunned for 1d4 rounds, then stunned for 1 round), which is more than enough time to coup de grace them, and even after that they remain weakened and easy targets for the rest of your team. Each of your 4 Color Sprays hits multiple squares, as well. Now, you can think of it this way: Magic Missile: 3.5 damage / 12.26 average HP = 28.5% of monster's HP. Color Spray: 64.7% chance of utterly killing the monster (via guaranteed coup de grace, equivalent of dealing 22.26 damage to this monster) = equivalent of 117% of monster HP, even accounting for the chance of failure, over the two rounds needed to cast and CdG (note that the monster can't attack in the round after, so we have no drawback of considering it over two rounds) = 58.7% of the monster's HP per round, equivalent. 58.7% vs 28.5% of the monster's HP in one round equivalent. Color spray wins, even before you consider the fact that it hits an area and gives your allies something to do. Odds like this continue to increase with level, and often the save-or-lose spell has other intangibles (i.e. Evard's Black Tentacles has a long duration, does damage, prevents enemies from entering or leaving the area, and hinders their actions in the area; combine this with Solid Fog or Acid Fog and they're utterly BONED. And look, both of those are Conjuration). This doesn't even begin to factor in Spell Resistance, which moves Direct Damage's king from Evocation to Conjuration (read the Spell Compendium; countless blasting spells in Conjuration that scale just like evocation ones do and are not only SR: No, but also instantaneous creation effects, meaning they penetrate antimagic fields). Conjuration also has all the good battlefield control effects and the teleports (or both; I've caused more havoc and saved more lives with a benign transposition spell than anything else in my current game.) By the way, the beguiler doesn't *need* damage spells. The beguiler's Spells That ****ing Kill People are: level 1: Color Spray, Sleep level 2: ...Very few, but Invisibility, Silence (on an arcane caster!), Blinding Color Surge, mirror image, minor image, fog cloud and glitterdust aren't reason enough? level 3: Vertigo Field (OMG!), Legion of Sentinels ...And so on and so forth. And remember -- the main reason you're taking Beguiler is because of the spell SLOTS. You use your wizard half to do the killing.
red_wizard69 08-12-07, 11:41 AM	I've always enjoyed playing evokers in DnD. They've always been fun. But I believe (unfortunately) Tempest Stormwind is correct. Its part of the flaw of the 3.5 rules system. No system is perfect. 3.5 seems to put casters at significant disadvantage over previous editions, particularily those casters who rely on spell DCs to be effective. For instance, my evoker character Azalin (whom was a character I had played for 3 and a half years, from the very onset of 3rd edition, and for abit in 3.5) In 3rd edition I had a healthy spell DC of 38 + spell level. This allowed me to have DCs of up to 47 with my 9th level spells, which most creatures would fail to save against. Then 3.5 came out. Spell focus, greater spell focus, and epic spell focus were all nerfed. My archmage spell power abilities were either nerfed or eliminated all together. My redwizard spell power was nerfed horribly. Persistent spell now increases the slot of the augmented spell by 6, instead of 4. My toad familiar was nerfed. The bull's strength series of spells I frequently used were nerfed. Overall, 3.5 changes lowered my maximum hp by 45 (which is alot for a d4 hp a level character!) and my DCs were reduced by 15 points, from 38 + spell level to 23 + spell level. Suddenly enemies who previously presented no challenge were unbeatable. However, I do enjoy playing evokers. I do wish it were a feasible possible in 3.5 rules. I have tried playing a focused evoker with ultimate magus levels, but the character was highly ineffective. The most feasible evoker I've been able to come up with in 3.5 rules is the spellwarp sniper. 2 spelltheif/6 sorcerer/5 spellwarp sniper has turned out to be a fairly decent powered PC from my perspective. For a level 13 character, he can spell warp a fireball or lightning bolt, split ray it, and after successfully making 2 touch attacks deal 20d6 points of fire damage, plus 3d6 sneak attack damage. 23d6 damage no save is pretty good for a level 13 PC by my standards.
Tempest Stormwind 08-12-07, 12:53 PM	Even in 3e, they had the same scaling problems. It was just more likely for them to fail the save. And if you had used that incredible DC on save-or-die effects instead, well, you would have been even more powerful. Compare Meteor Storm's 24d6 fire + 8d6 bludgeoning (we're assuming that with your high 3e save DC that no monster makes the fire saving throws or has fire resistance, which is silly since many monsters at that level *would* have had fire resistance)... to, say, a DC 47 Wail of the Banshee, if you want core (there's better spells noncore, especially in the FR books which were ported to the spell compendium, but we're talking 3e here). With a DC that high many things auto-fail (average Reflex and Will saves of CR 20 creatures are ~+16 and +19 respectively). Meteor Storm would thus deal 84 fire damage on average to everything in that 40' radius burst and an additional 28 to one target in the area, if you hit the ranged touch attack. 20 creatures average 364 hit points (there's a significant standard deviation, though, mostly because of the Big T's 868 HP at the upper end) -- and thus this is not enough damage to do *anything* to them except make them mad. Assuming ten targets (a big number at that point), this is a total of 868 damage for your 9th level spell. Wail of the Banshee hits 20 creatures (or more if you've been a good boy and boosted your caster level) and flat-out kills them -- your save DC is so high it may or may not be . With those same 10 targets, this is an average of 3690 effective damage (you killed those 10 targets, effectively dealing their HP+10) -- more than quadruple what you would have gotten with the meteor storm, and they're no longer around to fight back on the following round. The ONLY serious advantage the storm had was range. Enemy HP scales up faster than damage spells do. This means that even an irresistable damage spell won't kill the enemy quickly. You therefore apply your resources into making spells that *will* kill the enemy work. This multiplies your effectiveness manyfold. This trend holds for pretty much any point in the game pre-epic. It also held in 3e, except that with save DCs so high the save-or-die became the just-****ing-die. This wasn't fun for players or for DMs (non-caster players never got a chance to do anything if the casters discovered they should be casting these spells, and DMs couldn't use them on the players without getting an undeserved killer-DM reputation). The natural solution was to reduce save DCs (I think they should have rewritten the spells, personally, but some of those spells go back to 1e and they didn't change too much for legacy reasons). I hope this makes sense. Blasting, even back in 3e, was never very good except in a narrow level range (typically levels 5-7, when you get big area blast spells and Scorching Ray improves to multiple rays for free, but before enemies have too many hit points for you to wipe out with one casting and before you get good save-or-dies or large-scale battlefield control effects). Even then, you wanted to lay out save-or-dies, but it was so easy to get the DC so high the save was a mere formality. This wasn't conductive to a good game.
red_wizard69 08-12-07, 07:53 PM	Not conductive to a good game. Precisely why I never play characters who use save or die effects.