Post/Author/DateTime	Post
kaiza 10-13-06, 07:44 AM	I've got two ideas in mind, and I'd appriciate some help to develop them. I'm not asking for a build, actually, because I'd like to make it myself (that's the funny part). 1) The first concept is an arcane spellcaster who focuses on the conjuration of walls, fogs and, in a minor way, summoning. I think I want a battlefield controller, then. No preferences over Wiz or Sor... I'm waiting for the Complete Mage to come out to see whether the Master Specialist could prove useful for my build, what I need now is an advice about what PRCs and feats I should consider to create it. 2) The second concept is far fainter: I would like to create a sorcerer which gets her versatility from metamagic of all sorts. Few spells, but "metamagiked" in a way they greatly boost the effectiveness of the character. The problem is that I'm not really into metamagic, I'm just used to the Divine one. I know Incantatrix, Archmage, Halruaan Elder, mmmmh, maybe Mage Lord could be useful... what else? Then, I really need advice about the feats. There are tons of metamagic feats and I don't know what to focus on. Chain, Split, Sculpt, Quicken, but then also the ones which influence the behaviour of the other feats, like Rapid Metamagic, the new Spell Trigger, Metamagic School Focus or whatever they're called... Thank you, k.
sCRuLooSe 10-13-06, 11:51 AM	What books are available? 1) Every fog conjurer I have seen combines illusions and summons with the fogs. This generally results in one of two builds. Illusionist: This generaly evolves(or devolves) into a variant of the killer gnome. The illusionist variants in UA support this build. In addition, several FR options support this build (see the killer gnome post for more details). Summoner: There are several summoner builds out there depending on your avaialble sources. I like arcane hierophant for this type of build. Slower progression really hurts, but for a themed caster the extra spells are superior. Again FR adds a whole bunch of options into the mix (Rashemi Elementalist, Greenbound Summener). Also, again the UA varaints can boost up the benefits of the conjurer powers. 2) Incanatrix is definately a powerful option, especially where FR is allowed. One of my favorite builds combines sorcerer and anima mage. Human (or better yet Illumian) Sorc 4 Binder 1 Anima Mage 10 Spellcasting PrC 5 (Archamge is a bit feat intensive but a possibility, same with incanatrix) Feets-Improved Binding Extend Spell Persist Spell Elemental Substitution (Cold) Lord of the Uttercold Anima Mage will allow you to persist 3 spells of your choice for free. I like shapechange, Lord of the Uttercold Elemental Substitutioned Thunder Ring, and either Undermaster or Bite of the Werebear. Make sure to take animate dead to make some skeletons. I also like to persist wraithstrike and balor's nimbus with 8th level slots. Here is the reasoning. You can bind acererak which makes you immune to cold and allows you to heal from negative energy. Take sorcerer evocation spells such as flaming sphere, thunderhead, or chain lightning that are elemental substituted lord of the uttercolded. The result is that your spells heal yourself and your skeletons (immune to cold and heal from negative energy) half the damage they deal. Suddenly blasting yourself is a good thing. Moreover, skeletons within range of your modified Thunder Ring spell (adjacent to you) heal 5d6 a round and you have 2 free action lightning bolts per round for more healing/evocation damage. You can take a second bind to either promote healing of your party (Buer) when necesary, or to provide some endurance when you are running out of spells and are being dispelled. Take the sorcerer substitution class effect option in Players Handbook II to get rid of your familiar and be able to use quicken spell a certain number of time per day. Personally I do not like most of the other metamagics, preferring the higher level spells to the modified spells. Some others that might be interesting are Born of Three Thunders and Fell Drain. Good luck
kaiza 10-13-06, 02:21 PM	What books are available? You are right, the posting guidelines. Every WotC 3.5 book. Illusionist: This generaly evolves(or devolves) into a variant of the killer gnome. I know the killer gnome, and I would play it if I liked the gnomes. I would go for human, or illumian at best. Summoner: Actually, I would like to focus more on fogs, walls and other conjuration than on summoning. The reason behind this is a bit unusual, but it should serve as a starting point for both the builds: I want to keep it simple. That is, I would like to have few, set, but flexible options to play with smartly. I'll explain this better: I played a druid, but I eventually got bored not only because it's strong, but because I spent my playing session searching for the right spell to preapare, reading through several sheets to find the most suitable form to wild shape into, writing down statistics for the animals to summon... It is a flexible class, indeed, but it slows down my game. I have too many things to think about, and I just don't want to. I've been playing with a cleric for the last year, and I spend too much time searching for spells. I limited my list to PHB and SC, I wrote every spell in my character sheet file (there's a table, and the name of a spell is a link to an html page with its description), and yet I waste too much time just to do one thing, because I can't memorize everyhing my character can do, thus I have to search for it. Now I want to keep it simple. I want my spellcaster to know less spells, but I will know which they are, and so I will be able to optimise their use. I would like my character sheet to be on three pages, not twenty. Moreover, I play D&D every other week. I don't really want to spend my gaming session reading stats to find the right monster to conjure... 2) I like your idea, though the binder falls into my personal category of "too tiring to play". It's like when you play a computer game. I don't have much time, so I'm quite forced to play the more arcade - and maybe less involving - ones... but I try to get the most out of them. :) In this case I was thinking about some sort of "metamagic master". Sorcerer was chosen just for ease... Anyway it's my fault, I didn't make myself clear enough. But thank you for your help so far! :) k.
sCRuLooSe 10-15-06, 01:14 PM	1) You still may want to play an illusionist for your fogs/walls even if you choose not to take gnome. Fogs and walls both have one severe restriction; they tend to affect your party. Bypassing this type of disadvantage is fairly difficult requiring: a) Granting the party blindsight or the ability to ignore concealment. (All fogs, wall of gloom, blacklight, other concealing walls), b) Granting the party Freedom of Movement (Any solid wall effect) c) Granting the party decent resistance to energy (Incidiary cloud, acid fog, wall of fire) d) Granting the party immunity to nausea (stinking cloud) e) Granting the party immunity to poison (Cloudkil) f) Granting the party blink or some other ability to walk through obstacles (Any solid wall other than walls of force and prismatic walls) Most of these are incredibly difficult to grant an entire party. Specifically: a) As far as I know there is not way to grant blindsight to an entire party either long term or en masse. This makes concealment type spells hard to utilize in a party without affecting the party. The psionic power zone of alertness may bypass this limitation somewhat and a diadem of pure light (a soulmeld) can negate the disadvantage while enabling your enemies to see you as well. All in all, this effect is most easily bypasses if every member of your party springs for a blinsight magicla item, and that can get expensive b) See a) c) This is easily accomplished with the mass resist energy spell. Unfortunately this effect is generally found in combination with one of the harder to bypass effects. d) Remove stinking clud from your list. Immunity to nausea in mass is incredibly difficult to obtain or duplicate with magic items e) Ask your friendly cleric for a heroe's feast. Otherwise, this is difficult to pull off. f) see a) I know of no way to bypass the limitations of wall of force (short of epic escape artist checks) and prismatic walls/spheres. For all of these reasons, using illusions to fake walls and fogs is a typical tactic. Unlike the real deal, if you have some signal that lets your party kn ow what type of spell you are casting, your party can disbelieve the illusion and suffer no effects from your spell while your opponents do not get an automatic save until they are in the cloud and lack a circumstance bonus to disbelieve. Given all of these restrictions, I really cannot recommend many prestige classes or feats to enhance your roll. I do have a couple of tricks, however. One level of archmage can allow you to shape many of your effects, which can be extremely useful. If you are playing a non-good character energy substitution and lord of the uttercold combined with certain fogs and walls can act as fastheal for your (or an allies since you do not want to have to look up the stats) skeletons (so can body of the sun and thunder ring). Incorporeal undead likewise have few problems with the weaker walls. Blacklight is a friend to most spellcasters. It allows you to target opponents while they cannot target you, unless they can see through magical darkness. Finaly, incanatrix is a very good class to choose when summoning walls and fogs. As non-instantaneous combat spells, you can spend a round applying a metamagic feat to a fog or wall after you cast the wall. Just max your spellcraft. 2) If you are going metamagic master, the master of metamagics are the artificer and the incanatrix. Given your desire for simplicity and fogs, incanatrix is probably the way to go. Depending on the cheese your storyteller allows, another viable option is the 3.0 spelldancer and an undead template (or immunity to fatigue from sopme other feature). The latter option, taken with sorcerer, is still a fairly simple combination, but most DMs will outright disallow it. A few other prestige classes work, but most of them are too complex or circumstantial to compete with the incanatrix. I am going back to the anima mage as another possible cheese. If you want to go simple with anima mage, it is fairly simple. Choose 2 binds and stick with them for an entire level. Binders do have a limited option list (although it is no bigger than your sorcerers) The advantage of taking anima mage, besides a couple of nice non-dispellable effects, is that you can persist a few more spells for free. This is the build: Human Wizard Precocious Apprentice, Improved Binding Binder Any class of your choice (probably wizard) Any metamagic Anima Mage Anima Mage Anima Mage Iron Will Incanatrix Incanatrix Incanatrix Incanatrix Incanatrix Incanatrix Incanatrix Incanatrix Incanatrix Incanatrix Anima Mage Anima Mage Anima Mage Anima Mage Yes, unlike most of the multiclass prestige classes, precocious apprentice has a good chance of working. If flaws are allwed in your game, level 3 can be remove altogether. The levels of anima mage will allow your two more persistant spells per day. Anyway, for recommended metamagic, I would recommend born of three thunders to enhance your character endurance (at least until and unless you choose a reserve feat). Lord of the Uttercold is good for undead if you use them. Extend and persistant are always good choices. I like repeat better than twin or energy admixture, but take neither unless you are trying to open up spell slots for your sorcerer spells. More often you are better off with a higher level damagin spell than a lower level spell + the metamagic feat. For most games widen and enlarge are very specialized so think twice abouttaking them (for a fog mage widen is barely decent). For sorcerers quicken is only nice with the optional sorcerer build from the PHII (or possibly the new feat from CM). If you take either of these, however, take quicken. Fell animate can save some cash but make inferior zombies, and given that you do not want to look up stats is probably not worth it. However, fell drain has good bang for your buck. There are so few spells that work with chain spell it is not worth it, and still, silent, and eschew spell are completely game dependent but well worth it if you want to conceal your sorcerer nature. Good luck.