Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Dr.Cornelius 05-14-07, 06:14 AM	Working on a Warmage and looking for advice on Feats and Prestige Classes So Far: Feats: Point Blank Shot Precise Shot Extra Warmage Edge Combat Casting or Skill Focus Concentration Empower Prestige Classes: Spellwarp Sniper Argent Savant
Jay_Ibero_911 05-14-07, 07:29 AM	Race:Human Alignment: STR-10 (2) DEX-16 (10) CON-14 (6) INT-10 (2) WIS-8 (0) CHA-15 (8) Lv1(Rogue)Point Blank Shot, Quicken Spell Lv2(Warmage) Lv3(Warmage)Spell Focus (Evocation) Lv4(Warmage)+1 CHA Lv5(Warmage) Lv6(Warmage)Metamagic School Focus Lv7(Warmage) Lv8(Warmage)Sudden Empower, +1 CHA Lv9(Spellwarp Sniper)Split Ray Lv10(Spellwarp Sniper) Lv11(Spellwarp Sniper)Precise Shot Lv12(Spellwarp Sniper)Twin Spell, +1 CHA Lv13(Spellwarp Sniper) Lv14(Unseen Seer) Lv15(Unseen Seer)Rapid Metamagic SORCHING RAYSTORM 1/day: Twin Spell/Split Ray(reduced by 1 MMSF)/Empowered Scorching Ray, 8 Rays at 6d6, 7th level slot Quickened/Split Ray(reduced by 1 MMSF)/Empowered Scorching Ray, 4 Rays at 6d6, 7th level slot 15th level: 72d6+12d6 sneak attack/sudden raystrike=308 average damage
Sieylianna 05-14-07, 07:42 AM	Unless you need combat casting for a prestige class, take skill focus - concentration. Do not wait until 11th level for precise shot or you will be ineffective for most of your LG career. Ed
_metz_ 05-14-07, 08:44 AM	Extra Warmage edge really doesn't seem worth it... I would love to see a maximise in there somewhere, maximised orbs are fun... No SR, no Saves..
trollbill 05-14-07, 09:38 AM	Holy Scourge works pretty good for a Warmage.
Timlagor 05-14-07, 11:29 AM	DO NOT GIVE UP A SPELL LEVEL YOU ARE ARTILLERY DO NOT GET NEAR MELEE DON'T take: Concentration Feat Extra Edge (unless you plan to Retrain it away again) Anything that costs you a level of spell progression DO take Rapid Metamagic (I wouldn't wait for 15th) Metamagic Feats Improved Initiative if you feel like it. Don't overlook: - Energy Substitution - Nonlethal Substitution - Sculpt Spell I recommend taking PBS+PS early and then dumping them again when they start to wear thin. DO NOT GIVE UP A SPELL LEVEL
UMiskatonic 05-14-07, 11:57 AM	I really like Craft Arms and Armor for a Warmage. I know that some people disagree with me, but here's my thinking. 1) Your spell list is pretty narrow, but you get lots of spells/day. You won't have much of a need for scrolls or wands, and you can't use pearls of power at all. 2) You have no other defensive abilities or spells. 3) You won't be successful with Craft Wondrous (see #1). ------------------------------------------------------------ So, you'll have the best AC that you can get with Arms and Armor, and you will make an acceptible archer if you ever run out of spells. I'd have to be pretty desperate to start shooting arrows as a warmage, but handing out a pile of flaming arrows before the fight starts is one more way to leverage your spellcasting ability, and provide a kind of long-term buff. ------------------------------------------------------------ That said, I'd take Point Blank, Precise, and Empower first. Extra Edge is bogus, avoid it. The difference between 10d6 and 10d6 +3 is NOT worth a precious feat slot. Try to look at feat selection in terms of opportunity cost. The question is NOT "Is this a good feat?" Extra edge passes that test. The question is "Is this feat better than the other feats that I could be taking?" Extra edge loses out to Non-lethal substitution and Empower spell clearly, and you can make the case for plenty of other feats as well. ------------------------------------------------------------ In general, I think you are better off with feats that broaden the scope of what you can do, instead of making you yet more specialized.
Mithreinmaethor 05-14-07, 03:42 PM	From the SRD: "QUICKEN SPELL [METAMAGIC] Benefit: Casting a quickened spell is a free action. You can perform another action, even casting another spell, in the same round as you cast a quickened spell. You may cast only one quickened spell per round. A spell whose casting time is more than 1 full round action cannot be quickened. A quickened spell uses up a spell slot four levels higher than the spell’s actual level. Casting a quickened spell doesn’t provoke an attack of opportunity. Special: This feat can’t be applied to any spell cast spontaneously (including sorcerer spells, bard spells, and cleric or druid spells cast spontaneously), since applying a metamagic feat to a spontaneously cast spell automatically increases the casting time to a full-round action. Race:Human Alignment: STR-10 (2) DEX-16 (10) CON-14 (6) INT-10 (2) WIS-8 (0) CHA-15 (8) Lv1(Rogue)Point Blank Shot, Quicken Spell Lv2(Warmage) Lv3(Warmage)Spell Focus (Evocation) Lv4(Warmage)+1 CHA Lv5(Warmage) Lv6(Warmage)Metamagic School Focus Lv7(Warmage) Lv8(Warmage)Sudden Empower, +1 CHA Lv9(Spellwarp Sniper)Split Ray Lv10(Spellwarp Sniper) Lv11(Spellwarp Sniper)Precise Shot Lv12(Spellwarp Sniper)Twin Spell, +1 CHA Lv13(Spellwarp Sniper) Lv14(Unseen Seer) Lv15(Unseen Seer)Rapid Metamagic SORCHING RAYSTORM 1/day: Twin Spell/Split Ray(reduced by 1 MMSF)/Empowered Scorching Ray, 8 Rays at 6d6, 7th level slot Quickened/Split Ray(reduced by 1 MMSF)/Empowered Scorching Ray, 4 Rays at 6d6, 7th level slot 15th level: 72d6+12d6 sneak attack/sudden raystrike=308 average damage
UMiskatonic 05-14-07, 03:53 PM	Mithrein, I notice you didn't quote any of the text from Rapid Metamagic? I don't have the book for that, but I don't think it takes a genius to figure out that it must allow you to use metamagic feats more rapidly. So, your criticism is correct until 15th level, where it promptly becomes false. Jay, 15 levels is a ridiculously long time to take something like Quicken Spell, and do nothing with it. I'd much rather take Quicken at 15th level, and move all the other feats down three levels. You'll get a benefit from Spell Focus (evocation) right out of the box. And are you sure that Quicken is a legal choice? You're not a spellcaster at 1st level, and that looks shaky, but I'm at work at can't easily check my books.
solbergb 05-14-07, 03:58 PM	DO NOT GIVE UP A SPELL LEVEL YOU ARE ARTILLERY DO NOT GET NEAR MELEE (good feat advice) DO NOT GIVE UP A SPELL LEVEL Word. Listen to the man. There really is no reason to ever give up a spell level on a warmage in the 1-15 game. The "Warmage PRC" (ie, NOT taking any PRC's) is one of the better options too.
JamesMaissen 05-14-07, 04:07 PM	Working on a Warmage and looking for advice on Feats and Prestige Classes So Far: Feats: Point Blank Shot Precise Shot Extra Warmage Edge Combat Casting or Skill Focus Concentration Empower Prestige Classes: Spellwarp Sniper Argent Savant Working from the back up: Those PrCs involve loosing caster levels, don't do it. Empower: Comes standard on any warmage, consider it a default. Combat Casting/SF Concentration: there's a feat from Races of Stone that lets you take 10 on Concentration checks.. take that if you need to do so, but feats are precious. Extra Edge: This is a very specialized feat for a warmage and should only be taken if you are looking to really play with a high, high edge build. If you are not having a higher INT than CHA and are not planning on Headbands of Intellect then this isn't the feat for you. Pointblank/Precise shot: these are pricy at 2 feats. With retraining available perhaps you can by with them at low level, but if so then plan your exit out of them (and part of that cost is lesser ability to react to new access and rules changes as your retrains will already be spoken for). Now, do look at Nonlethal Substitution for a warmage. Sculpt and Energy Sub are very nice even though you have alot of change up spells to accomodate this. Metamagic school focus is a natural fit, but you will need to choose between conjuration and evocation. It requires spell focus so it's a 2 feat combo and thus very pricy. It will also put great pressure on you to favor one damage school over the other. -James
Mithreinmaethor 05-14-07, 04:28 PM	Hmm didnt know that I was criticizing, was just pointing out the lack of the ability for him to take that feat where he took it. Rapid Metamagic is from Complete Mage (Pg 46). 9th level is the earliest the build could take this feat, moving Quicken to 12th as the earliest it could be taken.
Mithreinmaethor 05-14-07, 04:36 PM	Actually his build loses 1 level of casting. Costing him one 6th and one 7th level spell. He still gets 1st thru 7th level spells. Both PRC's are full caster level progression. I understand why he put the rogue level at 1st for the skill points, but if the need for those skills is not that great I would move it to 8th level instead of 1st.
solbergb 05-14-07, 04:48 PM	Actually his build loses 1 level of casting. Costing him one 6th and one 7th level spell. He still gets 1st thru 7th level spells. No, it costs him more than that. It costs him twelve of fifteen levels, nearly his entire career of being "behind the curve" with the only thing his character brings to the table, artillery. Or it costs one more feat (practiced spellcaster) and only being behind for half the levels (the even ones) At level 1, he doesn't have any spells. At level 2, he's doing less damage with every area spell At level 3, he's doing a bit over half the damage with orbs and magic missile his full caster level peer is doing. at level 4, a "real" warmage has 2nd level spells. you don't, including the ability to metamagic L1 slots At level 5, he's only doing 2/3 the damage with his bread/butter orb and magic missile spells compared to the "real" warmage at level 6, the "real" warmage not only has the powerful L3 spells, but he has L3 spells slots to metamagic lower level slots. you don't. At level 7, the real warmage has armored mage (medium) and sudden empower, and his scorching rays are attacking 2x per round instead of 1x per round At level 8, the real warmage has L4 spell slots, including things like empowered scorching rays and evards. You're still using L3 spells At level 9, the difference isn't that big a deal At level 10, the real warmage has L5 slots, including empowered fireballs and arc lighting. You don't. At level 11, the real warmage is getting his third scorching ray and sudden enlarge. At level 12, he's got L6 slots, and you don't. At level 13, the difference isn't that big a deal At level 14, he's got L7 slots and you don't At level 15, he's got sudden widen (which isn't a huge deal, but is possibly more useful than that level of rogue all by itself)
jstorrie 05-14-07, 04:51 PM	I think Spellwarp Sniper is a fine idea if you have some way of guaranteeing you can land those Sudden Raystrikes. Arcane Disciple for Invisibility or Improved Invisibility, or cross-class UMD ranks? If you can't guarantee that you'll get that slight extra bump, I'd avoid the prestige class; you have plenty of ray spells on your spell list anyway to Split. If you want to do a trapmage with bonus damage dice, I don't think Spellwarp Sniper is the way to go. I think that Scout/Unseen Seer is the way to go. You can dip one level and get fair skirmish progression, or three and go above the curve (by taking Unseen Seer and Improved Skirmish at 6.) Unseen Seer levels eat away at your blasting caster levels, though, so the feats are difficult to manage–and you need Arcane Disciple to get a second Divination spell to get you in. For a Scout 3 build, I'd go with something like– Human 1 Warmage: Arcane Disciple (Knowledge, Inquisition, Liberation, Mind, or Oracle) 2 Scout 3 Scout: Practiced Spellcaster: Warmage 4 Scout 5 Warmage 6 Unseen Seer: Improved Skirmish 7+ Unseen Seer A flavourful but not super-optimal way to go might be to take Arcane Disciple (Inquisition) and multiclass into Holy Scourge for your last five levels, as a sort of evil-hunter roaming Pholtus mage type. The breakpoints for Warmage are weird. 6, where you'd normally break for Sor/Wiz, is okay, but Sudden Empower is only one level away. 7 unfortunately offers no bonus to your saves or BAB, though. 8 nets you an AC bonus (Mithril Fullplate!) but puts you even further behind the saves curve. I think 7/8 are going to be the best breakpoints for most builds. If you're going straight caster with Warmage (which I think is the way to go, aside from the Unseer/Skirmish trick) then good prestige classes are going to be Elemental Savant, Holy Scourge, Archmage, Loremaster, Divine Oracle and Sacred Exorcist. If you're going to take any dips that lose you caster levels, aim to lose two or three and top them up with Practiced Spellcaster; just remember that if you lose any spellcaster levels, you're going to need to keep your DCs and spell resistance penetration rolls up, so be prepared to drop feats on Spell Focus, Spell Penetration, etc. Losing caster levels doesn't kill you as much with a Warmage as your additional caster levels don't really offer you more versatility, anyway–you only lose some damage (which you can top up with Practiced Spellcaster) and DCs/spell penetration (which likewise there are feats for.) Just remember that since you pretty much have to take those feats if you lose caster levels, you'd better be getting something in return that is significantly better than that feat slot!
boogahwoof 05-14-07, 05:21 PM	I would suggest going into fatespinner, no spell progression lost, and you get some cool little abilities to offset your limited spells. I play a boomcaster warmage,, I dipped into bonded summoner to be different, but I lost alot in doing so.
Mithreinmaethor 05-14-07, 05:25 PM	I think Jay at least was wanting to focus on Rays. 1st thru 7th - Your argument is moot here since I recommended the Rogue level at 8th not 1st. 8th level - Rogue (Putting off his level of spell advancement by 1 level) 9th level - Spellwarp (and 8th level of casting) 10th level - Sudden Raystrike +1d6 (9th level of casting) 11th level - Precise Shot or if he has it already which I hope he can exchange it for another feat that requires PBS as a prereq (10th level of casting) 12th level - Sudden Raystrik +2d6 (11th level of casting) 13th level - Ray Mastery (12th level of casting) 14th level - I would take Warmage here myself 15th level - I would take Warmage here myself No, it costs him more than that. It costs him twelve of fifteen levels, nearly his entire career of being "behind the curve" with the only thing his character brings to the table, artillery. Or it costs one more feat (practiced spellcaster) and only being behind for half the levels (the even ones) At level 1, he doesn't have any spells. At level 2, he's doing less damage with every area spell At level 3, he's doing a bit over half the damage with orbs and magic missile his full caster level peer is doing. at level 4, a "real" warmage has 2nd level spells. you don't, including the ability to metamagic L1 slots At level 5, he's only doing 2/3 the damage with his bread/butter orb and magic missile spells compared to the "real" warmage at level 6, the "real" warmage not only has the powerful L3 spells, but he has L3 spells slots to metamagic lower level slots. you don't. At level 7, the real warmage has armored mage (medium) and sudden empower, and his scorching rays are attacking 2x per round instead of 1x per round At level 8, the real warmage has L4 spell slots, including things like empowered scorching rays and evards. You're still using L3 spells At level 9, the difference isn't that big a deal At level 10, the real warmage has L5 slots, including empowered fireballs and arc lighting. You don't. At level 11, the real warmage is getting his third scorching ray and sudden enlarge. At level 12, he's got L6 slots, and you don't. At level 13, the difference isn't that big a deal At level 14, he's got L7 slots and you don't At level 15, he's got sudden widen (which isn't a huge deal, but is possibly more useful than that level of rogue all by itself)
CdrcJsn 05-14-07, 06:27 PM	If you don't lose any caster progression, it's pretty easy to fulfill your role of artillery even if you choose subpar feats. Warmage is good on offense, but pretty lacking on defense. A while back I thought it would be amusing to see if I can create an Inititate of the Seven Fold Veil (the ultimate defensive PrC) with a warmage base. It's actually doable, provided you get at least a 14 wisdom by 9th level and take Arcane Disciple a couple of times to acquire the needed Abjuration spells. Taking Luck and Protection is sufficient to meet the requirements. Farlanghn is a suitable deity that have both domains. You can also take Travel if you want later. With the feats for Arcane Disciple, and the feats needed to qualify for the PrC (spell focus, greater spell focus, skill focus), you won't have any free slots and would need to be human to take the class at 10th. You can choose more useful feats at low level (point blank/precise/?) and simply retrain those away for the PrC prereqs at 7th, 8th and 9th level. human, N aligment (worshipper of Farlanghn) Str 8, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha15 Skills: Max out Knowledge Arcana, Concentration and Spellcraft. Get 4 ranks crossclass in knowledge nature. 1) Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot 2) 3) Empower Spell 4) 5) 6) Arcane Disciple: Luck 7) Retrain Precise Shot into Spell Focus: Abjuration 8) Retrain Point Blank Shot into Greater Spell Focus: Abjuration 9) Arcane Disciple: Protection, Retrain Empower Spell into Skill Focus: Spellcraft 10) Inititatve of the Seven Fold Veil from here on out 11) 12) Empower Spell 13) 14) 15) Arcane Disciple: Travel For reference, here's what you get for the domains: Luck: Entropic Sheild, Aid, Protection from Energy, Freedom of Movement Protection: Sanctuary, Shield Other, Prot from Energy, Spell Immunity Travel: Longstrider, Locate Object, Fly, Dimension Door
Jay_Ibero_911 05-14-07, 07:22 PM	Just in response to the criticism of my previously posted build, it is pretty much a gimic build, designed for the sole purpose of pulling of a DBZ style barage of rays at 15th level...
Hariman 05-14-07, 07:48 PM	Fatespinner doesn't lose casting progression if you don't take it's final level to get "Seal Fate".
GrahamWills 05-15-07, 05:10 PM	1) HAVE FUN 2) DON'T SCREW UP THE CHARACTER COMPLETELY I think that's enough shouting. Feel free to listen to any other shouting you like, but honestly, play the game to have fun, and do enough to make sure you don't end up with an unplayable character. There's a lot you can do that yes, DOES drop you d6 damage behind the others and yes, does indeed delay another level of split ray / whatever. But the bottom line is have fun and stay effective enough that people don't groan when you turn up at the table. With that said: 1) Do give up a spell level. It's easy enough to get that d6 back with practised spellcaster, so all you're losing is casting levels which is known badness. You might consider being a reasonable warmage first however. Basically at lowish levels you are way ahead of the curve in terms of killing things (your edge makes a relatively large difference, you burn spells like candy, nothing has SR, no-one's metamagicing) so falling behind the 'warmage curve' is still ahead of the general evoker curve. Yes, you absolutely will not be optimal -- but if you look down the list, you will see that pretty much all the posters who own warmage made that chocie, admit that it made them sub-optima, but are not unhappy they did so. Optimality is a chimera that reduces fun. Make your save versus it. My sub-optimal choice is a marshall at 7. 8 would be better, but even so, it's not going to make the character better at artillery. It just fits Napoleon's desires. Also, the 3rd level spells are cool, but 4th level doesn't excite me, so delaying them doesn't worry me. At level 7, I'm still doing 8d6 scorching, 7d6 fireballs and the like. A straight warmage just gets the sudden empower on me. I'll be behind the curve for a level at the level when I could have empowered scorching rays, but that really doesn't worry me. 2) Get into melee if you like. With decent mithril chain and a buckler/shield, you should have 22+ AC pretty easily at low-mid levels. d6 hits and basically, you're rogue-like. My strength 6 halfling warmage is happy to be in melee range occasionally. An empowered fireburst is a wonderful way to say "welcome to melee range" to your enemies (you may want to warn your friends to stay back ...) 3) Have Fun Worth repeating. Take a class that you will enjoy playing.