Post/Author/DateTime	Post
aelryinth 11-30-04, 06:17 PM	Level 9 artificer with some Cannith Wand Adept levels, letting them use two wands. Two wands of fireball, level 8. Empower Feat. Metamagic Wand feat. Wand Adept (naturally). Hmm. 3 charges per wand, 2 15 dice fireballs. One round. (blows on smoking sticks before reinserting them into hip holsters after a drummer's spin) Sure you just blew most of a thousand gp, but it sure was fun, wasn't it? And with energy substitution, you could make them sonic without costing any levels... ===Aelryinth
Zagumus 11-30-04, 06:25 PM	How do you get them to 15d6 fire balls?
aelryinth 11-30-04, 06:27 PM	Empower Metamagic feat. If you have the Empower Feat, it allows you to add metamagic feats to wands for the cost of an additional charge per level of spell required. Empower is +2 spell levels, so +2 charges per fireball. Wand Adept, +2 levels to the wand...so a 10 dice fireball, empowered, and the Wand Adept gets to use two wands... ==Aelryinth
jonthegm 11-30-04, 06:36 PM	Empower Metamagic feat. If you have the Empower Feat, it allows you to add metamagic feats to wands for the cost of an additional charge per level of spell required. Empower is +2 spell levels, so +2 charges per fireball. Wand Adept, +2 levels to the wand...so a 10 dice fireball, empowered, and the Wand Adept gets to use two wands... ==Aelryinth or... your math is off... two 8th level fireball wands... check empower wand... check maximize spell... check (+3) so, for a guaranteed double 80 damage whammy... 1d4+3 charges from each wand, or would it be (1d4)*4 each?
aelryinth 11-30-04, 06:40 PM	metamagic applies seperately to spells, not cumulatively. You'd have to use up Empower (2) + Maximize (3) for 6 charges a fireball. Your dmg would be a maxed fireball (60 pts) +5d6 for the Empowered affect, roughly 77 pts a shot. Hmm. 154 dmg. Not bad for one round and about 2k in charges! Not efficent for Damage over Time, of course, but then, it is The Opening Salvo. ==Aelryinth
Ch@pel 11-30-04, 06:46 PM	Empower increases the numeric effects of a spell by 50% again. Your thinking of Heighten Spell, and thats only good up to 9th level, so you'd only get one extra level. For your purposes, I'd go with Empower anyway. And I'm pretty sure that by using two wands, you spend an additional 1d4 charges from each wand, so you're looking at 1d4+3 charges per wand. And damage would be 8d6*1.5. Oh, and hope that no one has improved uncanny dodge. That would suck. ;)
aelryinth 11-30-04, 06:51 PM	Wand Adept Feat...all wands are at +2 levels and +2 DC in your hands. oops on the +1d4 heheh. ==Aelryinth
Ch@pel 11-30-04, 06:54 PM	You're right, my bad. Then 10d6*1.5, 1d4+3 charges per wand. Good gravy, somebody's in trouble.
nick012000 11-30-04, 10:59 PM	*shrugs* You obviously haven't read the Bklaster Artificer threads on the Character Opimization boards, have you? With a Staff of Disintigrate, you can deal over 1000 damage in a single round. How? Maximize Spell, Quicken Spell, Spit Ray, Twin Spell + Metamagic Item infusion x4
Ch@pel 11-30-04, 11:13 PM	I think he was looking for something that would actually be worthwhile, not just a hypothetical "how much damage can I do in a round." With the amount of money that would cost, its just not worth it if you were actually going to play the character. Plus when the hell are you gonna need to do 1000 points of damage? Most great wyrms peak at about 700-800, even the tarrasque has under 900 HP.
aelryinth 12-01-04, 01:53 AM	That staff trick looks pretty nasty...he's abusing the fact that there is no upper level limit on the number of charges you can burn on something, I see. Quicken is +4 Empower is +2 Split ray is +4? Twin Spell is +4. he's also blown 4 of his feats on these feats and 4 more on metamagic infusion....so he's pretty much a one trick pony. At least he forces 4 saves on his target! So you are, in essence, talking about an 20th level spell...something normally only obtainable with what, an Intelligence of 30 and probably around level 34? Yeah, it should be able to do 1000 pts of dmg. Take my above example, stretch it into Epic where you can use wands at iteratives with the right feat. And swap out for Scorching Ray or somesuch. Now take a twinned, split, empowered scorching ray cast at 10th level (wand adept buffs it to 12th), and multiply by 6. That would be 18 d6, x2, x2, x6 (an Artificer would have 3 iteratives). or 452d6 of dmg. There...just did more dmg then your Staff of Disintegrate, and for much less money. I can even affect twice as many targets if I like. Not bad for two 8th level wands of Scorching Ray, right? If I take Twin Spell as a feat twice instead of Split Ray, then I can keep using fireballs...and now I'm shooting out 24 fireballs in one round, instead of 24 rays. Meteor Swarm, pfah. Just gimme a wand I can make it one day with my pocket change, and I'll show ya power. Sure would impress an army when two dozen fireballs of 15d6 strength detonated simultaneously among them, wouldn't it? And, of course, I'm ignoring the fact that at Epic levels, you can make wands with a caster level higher then 10, for real scorching ray abuse. :) ==Aelryinth
Fedifensor 12-01-04, 02:56 AM	Level 9 artificer with some Cannith Wand Adept levels, letting them use two wands. Two wands of fireball, level 8. Empower Feat. Metamagic Wand feat. Wand Adept (naturally). 180 gp per charge used (I'm assuming the artificer is making the wands himself). 1d4 charges used instead of one per wand (dual wand use), +2 per wand from the metamagic spell trigger ability. 2.5 is the average on a d4, so your opening salvo will cost an average of 180 x 9 = 1620 gp. Damage done is an average of 105 points to everyone in the area of effect (Reflex save for half, of course). Of course, if you're going to pay that much, you may as well take Maximize instead of Empower. It's only two additional charges, or an average of 1980 gp to do a reliable 120 points of fire damage (save for half). If you want a slightly cheaper option, use Maximize and drop the level of the wands to 5th. The wands cost a little less, and you'll still drop everyone but the main bad guy with the opening salvo of 42 x 2 = 84 points (save for half). Average cost for a salvo is 1237.5 gp. Does Quick Draw work on wands? You may want to draw two wands of scorching ray, level 6 for more pinpoint targeting in round 2. If you can reliably hit the enemy's touch AC, you can do up to 24d6 (Empower, average of 84) or a consistent 96 points (Maximize) - not counting critical hits. And you're only using 90 gp per charge instead of 180 gp, for an average cost per salvo of 810 gp using Empower, or 990 using Maximize. Best of all, rogues can't use Evasion to escape the effect, and there is no saving throw. You know, this gives me some ideas for a spellcasting assassin... Edit: I didn't take Extraordinary Artisan into account when figuring the prices above. So, if you have the feat, prices drop by 25%. That makes the opening salvo listed in the orignal post cost an average of 1215 gp.
Kaiberon 12-01-04, 05:07 PM	We have a game we've just started. One of the player's figured out the wand Adept with Complete Arcane can bust out 6 wand based spells on round 1 and similiar shenanigans on round 2. It basically equates to burning 2 fresh wands in the first 2 rounds of combat. Here's the build if i'm right (I haven't fine toothed combed this for rules and I'm not sure what level it becomes available certainly up around 9th/10th) Round 1: Swift Wand Action from Quicken: Quicken/maximize/twin/repeat, 2 for this round and 2 more for next First Wand Action: Maximize/Twin/Repeat Second wand Action: Maximize/Twin/Repeat Round 2 Repeat Spells go off and you Empty out your wands doing the same thing you did last round. It actually works best with Scorching ray, tho lightning bolt and any feat that let's you reshape a spells area is a good addition.
Kid SixXx 12-01-04, 05:30 PM	*puts Cannith Wand Adept on Playtest List* :mymy:
Fedifensor 12-01-04, 09:42 PM	Another thought came to mind. What if you could make an Eternal Wand with more than 2 charges? An Eternal Wand with 6 charges would be enough for the Empowered Fireball trick once per day, regardless of what you roll on the d4. Two of those would be much more cost-effective in the long run...though not cheap for the initial investment.
aelryinth 12-01-04, 10:59 PM	Y'know, with tricks like this, I can see why this might get banned quick. I'd force at least one Metamagic Infusion required per feat you want to apply to the wand...that should at least slow the process down. But yeah, that's a lot of firepower you can burn in a very short period of time if you want to, at a pretty low level. Ouchies. ==Aelryinth
Fedifensor 12-03-04, 12:37 AM	Okay, this originally started as an attempt to illustrate a character who would use the opening salvo, and developed into a full-fledged NPC. For your perusal, I give you Arvan d'Cannith, wand-wielding investigator. :cheer: Arvan d'Cannith Male Human Artificer 9/Cannith Wand Adept 3; CR 12; Medium humanoid; HD 9d6+3d8; hp 60; Init +2; Spd 30 ft.; AC 21, touch 15, flat-footed 19; Base Atk +8; Grp +8; Atk +9 melee (1d6+1d6 nonlethal, +1 merciful light mace) or +11 ranged touch (10d4 nonlethal, wand of force hammer); Full Atk +9/+4 melee (1d6+1d6 nonlethal, +1 merciful light mace) or +11 ranged touch (10d4 nonlethal, wand of force hammer); SQ artificer knowledge, artisan bonus, craft homunculus, disable trap, dual wand use, identify wand, item creation, metamagic spell trigger, retrain essence, siphon charge, wand focus, wand quick draw; AL LN; SV Fort +5, Ref +6, Will +10; Str 10, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 18 (22), Wis 12, Cha 13. Skills and Feats: Appraise +7, Concentration +6, Craft (armorsmithing) +13, Disable Device +18 (+20 with masterwork thieves' tools), Disguise +2 (+12 with robe of blending), Gather Information +18, Knowledge (arcana) +11, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +11, Knowledge (local) +15, Knowledge (planes) +8, Knowledge (religion) +13, Open Lock +10 (+12 with masterwork thieves' tools), Search +18 (+23 with lens of detection, +25 secret doors), Spellcraft +23 (+25 deciphering scrolls), Use Magic Device +21 (+23 to activate potions, arms and armor, rods, wands, wonderous items, and scrolls); Brew Potion, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Rod, Craft Wand, Craft Wonderous Item, Ecclesiarch, Education (+1 to Knowledge: Local and Knowledge: Religion), Extend Spell, Favored in House (Cannith), Investigate, Least Dragonmark (Mark of Making, make whole 1/day), Maximize Spell, Scribe Scroll, Urban Tracking, Wand Mastery. Languages: Common, Draconic, Giant, Orc. Infusions: 5/5/4/3 Possessions: +1 merciful light mace, +2 mithral chain shirt, gloves of storing (2 gloves, each contains a fireball wand, see below), headband of intellect +4, lens of detection, ring of protection +3, ring of use magic device (+5 to Use Magic Device checks), robe of blending, winged boots (Improved Flight Item), two fireball wands (7th level, 30 charges each), two magic missile wands (6th level, 35 charges each), force hammer wand (7th level, 35 charges), tasha's hideous laughter wand (wizard version, 3rd level caster, 40 charges), elixir of sneaking, 2 potions of cure serious wounds, potion of glibness, masterwork thieves' tools, wand bandoleer. "Arrow", Homunculus, Expeditious Messenger; CR 1/3; Diminitutive Construct; HD 1/2d10; hp 2; Init +3; Spd 20 ft., flight 100 ft. (perfect); AC 17, touch 17, flat-footed 14; Base Atk +0; Grp -17; Atk or Full Atk +7 melee (1d2, sting); SQ construct traits, darkvision 60 ft.; low-light vision, message; AL LN; SV Fort +0, Ref +5, Will +0; Str 1, Dex 17, Con -, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 7. Skills and Feats: Escape Artist +7; Lightning Reflexes. Possessions: Collar of invisibility (as ring). Arvan d'Cannith is a valued member of the House. As a young artificer, he spent much of his time associating with the priests of Aureon, God of Law and Knowledge. Although he never took holy vows, he is a devout follower of Aureon and tithes a percentage of his earnings to the church. Shortly after the end of the Last War, a House Cannith artificer was found murdered in his workshop. Arvan took it upon himself to investigate, and eventually uncovered the murderer. Since that time, he has been called on by House Cannith anytime an investigation is needed that cannot involve outsiders. He has uncovered assassins, tracked down warforged who have become unstable, and found items stolen from the House Cannith forges. With the split in leadership in his House, Arvan has informally allied himself with Merrix d'Cannith, though he will assist the other two factions of the House if the need for his services is great. Still, most of his time is spent in Sharn, where he often has to put aside his crafting in order to undertake an investigation. Of late, his investigations have taken him to parts of Sharn where the law is corrupt or completely absent. The harsh conditions under which he works has led him to master the use of wands in order to defend himself. He has been offered membership in the Darkwood Watch, but has thus far declined, saying his time is already stretched too thin by his current duties. Tactics: Arvan avoids combat unless it is absolutely necessary. However, once forced to fight, he has no qualms about burning as many wand charges as possible to end the fight quickly. His typical tactic is to quick-draw two wands and attempt to neutralize the opposition before they can act, sending Arrow away to get help. If possible, Arvan prefers to fight to subdue instead of kill, drawing his force hammer (using the maximized feat) and tasha's hideous laughter (using the extended feat) wands. The force hammer does 40 points of nonlethal damage (plus a Fortitude save to avoid being dazed for one round), while the tasha's hideous laughter lasts 12 rounds with a DC 16 Will save. If lethal force is required, Arvan can usually end the fight in one round. By using his metamagic spell trigger class ability in combination with his wand focus ability and the wand mastery feat, he can draw two fireball wands, and in a full-round action activate both maximized at +3 caster level and +3 DC. This makes each fireball do 60 points of damage with a DC 17 Reflex save for half. He is very reluctant to do this in Sharn, as fireball wands are restricted, and the damage is likely to be traced back to him. In situations where a fireball is impractical, he uses two magic missile wands at +3 caster level and maximizes them (five 5 point missiles per wand, no save).
aelryinth 12-05-04, 02:17 AM	Very Nice. Suprised you didn't have more feats to buff up that Unstable Magic Device check (Skill Focus, etc) as I've been told it's pretty important...as well as wearing a Charisma buffer. But not a bad concept character, and not even minmaxed. It's gonna be a while before he wears two rings, but not bad at all:) ==Aelryinth
Neofish 12-14-04, 09:56 PM	Where is Empower Metamagic feat from.?
Fedifensor 12-14-04, 09:59 PM	Where is Empower Metamagic feat from.? Empower Spell, page 93 of the Player's Handbook
Neofish 12-14-04, 10:03 PM	No, No, No, the one that lets you empower wands, the one the original poster is talking about...
Solarious 12-14-04, 10:33 PM	Same thing. Artificers gain an ability at level 7 known as Metamagic Spell Trigger (this is by the latest errata), which allows them to apply Metamagic feats to spell-trigger items, by expending extra charges equal to the level adjustment of the metamagic feat.