Post/Author/DateTime	Post
UMiskatonic 10-12-06, 04:17 PM	Hey all, I've got a 2nd level warmage with the Improved Initiative Feat. I'm looking for future feats, and wondering if anyone had some ideas. Currently, the plan is... 3rd: Empower Spell 6th: Sculpt Spell 9th: Craft Arms and Armor In hindsight, I would have preferred to get Sculpt Spell earlier. However, it requires a metamagic feat, so I have to take Empower first.
phibrizzow 10-12-06, 07:08 PM	i think you got a problem with your meta magic feats. sense you do not need to memorize your spells, the spells you use your metamagic feats on are going to take the full round to cast. i would suggest taking point blank shot and precise shot. You should also take extra edge for the extra damage.
copper_wyrmling 10-12-06, 09:35 PM	UMiskatonic, it looks good to me. Empower is an excellent bread-and-butter feat for a blaster-caster - my sorcerer has both Empower and Sculpt Spell, and if I had to lose one, I'd lose Sculpt, no question. What are you planning to sculpt, out of interest? I like Split Ray (adds one extra ray to any ray spell, so acts as a cheap Twin on single-ray spells), but I'm not sure how useful it'd be for a warmage, I'm not that familiar with their spell list. Does your PC have a good Dex? Since you don't have PBS and Precise Shot, maybe you don't want to focus too much on ranged-touch spells. Don't worry about extended casting times for metamagic, it's honestly not that big a problem. However, you could take Arcane Preparation and later Quicken Spell if you really want to increase your damage / round. Maybe that feat that lets you cast spells in heavier armor, or Steady Concentration, if you're actually going to be in melee? (Craft Arms and Armor suggests you might be looking at this.) Hope some of that helps. (PS I haven't played a warmage, but my wild mage sorcerer is L11 now, with Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Empower Spell, Sculpt Spell, and she'll pick up Split Ray next level.)
solbergb 10-13-06, 01:54 PM	i think you got a problem with your meta magic feats. sense you do not need to memorize your spells, the spells you use your metamagic feats on are going to take the full round to cast. . Uh...no. Spont casters revel in metamagic. Losing your move action? No big deal, no moreso than an archer doing his full attack volley. Having the metamagic whenever it is helpful? Priceless. Any spont caster with metamagic will use it many times more a day than any prep caster, with the only exceptions being quicken and perhaps extend spell
jstorrie 10-13-06, 06:07 PM	Extra Edge is bunk. I think your feat choices are pretty good, here, though I question Craft Arms and Armor on an artillery arcanist - unless you're multiclassing out to Wrm/Pal/Spellword?
UMiskatonic 10-23-06, 02:18 PM	I don't plan on using most of the weapons and armor myself, I plan on giving my fighter buddy a flaming sword and better armor. I've got a pretty tight group I usually play with, so lending gear makes sense.
Japangirl 10-23-06, 06:27 PM	Sculpt Spell for a warmage is less useful than for other arcane casters, but still really good. The ability to sculpt a fireball, ice storm, or other AOE blastiness can save a party member who is standing right in the middle of the bad guys. It's too bad warmages don't get the utility battle spells: a real "war mage" would have spells like grease, ray of enfeeblement, glitterdust, and other crowd control and battle utility spells.
Donald_Cannith 10-26-06, 08:07 PM	well you can take that feat that allows yo uto take spells from toher schools of magic
okoiza_br 11-13-06, 09:06 PM	It's good get some fight feats if you use some melee weapon...
PaulH 11-21-06, 08:15 PM	Hi Anything that bumps extra damage like Extra Edge is useful. Remember - you get some 'Sudden' metamagic feats as you progress, as well as the medium armour ability. Not sure about some of the other metamagic feats - increasing spell level negates the advantage warmages have of casting some spells at lower level, plus the full round casting. The only Warmage I've put metamagic feats in is my Changeling Recaster in Mark of Heroes, where it's a prereq. (And you get lots of uses per day on each). But that's probably the beardiest PrC I've ever seen. (Apart from Warmage going Rainbow Servant, who at least retires soon as they add all cleric spells to their spell list). Point Blank Shot/Precise Shot are good, as is the ability to use a familiar. Cheers Paul H
PaulH 11-21-06, 08:18 PM	Hi Also useful are the Tensers Floating Disk & Leomunds Tiny Hut spells from your Advanced Learning ability. Dropping the hut around the party grants total concealment from the enemy, whilst you can still see out. As a Force Effect it even blocks True Sight. ;) Cheers Paul H
_m_ 11-21-06, 08:40 PM	Hi Also useful are the Tensers Floating Disk & Leomunds Tiny Hut spells from your Advanced Learning ability. Dropping the hut around the party grants total concealment from the enemy, whilst you can still see out. As a Force Effect it even blocks True Sight. ;) Cheers Paul H and then gets dispelled :D as for familiars, im a HUGE fan of familiars, but only if you fullfill several requirements: you need good hp to start with. otherwise the poor thing will get flattened by anything that breathes on it. dont take one until you;re high enough to get the one you want. if using a familiar is your thing, take improved familiar. pick up the better familiar buffing spells, particularly the long durations ones, like fortify familiar. buff your familiar independantly, so i can act without having to be 5 feet away from you. for a very long time i used a psuedodragon familiar, and it really is phenomonally usefull. it can telepathically cominucate with the party, and has perfect flight and a +24/28 to hide, making it an incredible scout. it has 10+ saves, 40+ hp when fortified (or more, depending on circumstance), imp evasion, spell resistance. is able to manipulate things like doorknobs, can talk, read, put things to sleep, and gets up around the 40 ac mark. and this is at level 7. so yeah, familiars are fantastic, IF you invest enough resources on them. its not really a half half thing. either you have a powerfull utility tool at your disposal, or you have a tiny weasal who basically dosent exist.. ok fine, so that was a huge rant about familiars, and slightly off topic, but yeah, i would rate 'can get a familiar' as warmage help unless s/he plans on going out of the way to make it worth it. also... try straight + int items for a warmage. they help with alot of things. like... alot.
solbergb 11-21-06, 09:10 PM	If they are spending an action dispelling your hut, that's usually a win. Especially since you're usually casting it to also benefit the party archer, ranged attack rogue or whatever. So even if you're trading actions, bringing it up and having it knocked down, you're still ahead of the game. You inside the hut and them outside = they flatfooted to your touch attacks.
copper_wyrmling 11-21-06, 09:33 PM	If they are spending an action dispelling your hut, that's usually a win. Especially since you're usually casting it to also benefit the party archer, ranged attack rogue or whatever. So even if you're trading actions, bringing it up and having it knocked down, you're still ahead of the game. You inside the hut and them outside = they flatfooted to your touch attacks. The reason I don't much like Leomund's Tiny Hut is that it means your entire party (or at least a good fraction of it) is sitting in a 20ft burst radius at a fixed position on the ground. It seems to be just begging for an Evard's Black Tentacles, Fireball or any nasty sculpted spell. Just to address an earlier comment: taking metamagic feats does not *negate* the advantage of getting certain spells at earlier levels, it enhances it, because it means that you can keep getting the benefit of the reduced spell level at higher levels (e.g. if Fire Shield is your favorite spell because warmages get it at L3 instead of L4, then by L10 you won't really care that it's L3 rather than L4, but you WILL care that you can cast the Empowered version now rather than waiting until L12). More importantly, metamagic is what lets you break the 1d6/caster level cap on spell damage. If you want to be competitive in pure damage (and if you don't, then why are you playing a warmage?), you really want some sort of damage-boosting metamagic. There are a couple of exceptions to this, but that's the general rule.
_m_ 11-21-06, 10:25 PM	More importantly, metamagic is what lets you break the 1d6/caster level cap on spell damage. If you want to be competitive in pure damage (and if you don't, then why are you playing a warmage?), you really want some sort of damage-boosting metamagic. There are a couple of exceptions to this, but that's the general rule. aye, thats a good point. there are very few spells that have more than 1d* per level. unless your thing is casting save-or-die spells, metamagic is the way to pump the damage.
solbergb 11-22-06, 01:46 PM	Speaking of lower level warmage spells.. Ice storm is really, really good in the level 6-7 range. The lower damage vs fireball is more than made up for by the no-save aspect and the fact that it persists for a round and slows movement makes it a half decent battlefield control spell too (people won't want to move into it, and those in it can't 5'step, charge, etc) It's got a high opportunity cost for sorc/wiz to put it on their spells known or spells prepped. But since warmages have it "for free" I find myself reaching for it a lot in those level ranges when doing playtest simulations involving warmages.