We're doing a war campaign and I'm in need of some suggestions for a class that can do some area damage. I don't necessarily need to be killing, though I wouldn't mind blasting, but I wouldn't mind doing a mixture of blasting and crowd control.
One of my buddies was suggesting a Warmage or some derivative thereof, or an Artificer.
Any suggestions or builds would be greatly appreciated be it caster or melee. I'm joining in the game as a level 8 if that will help. I am also assuming that I'm joining in the game fresh so I'm not expecting to be starting with any abnormal amount of gold or equipment.
Thanks in advance for the help.
Maybe. You might just be satisfied with the warmage list of spells, and that's completely fine.
As for an AoE person, don't knock the idea of being a melee build. You might be able to pull off a good AoE with a War Hulk, just don't do the Hulking Hurler cheese. If I did it, here's how it would happen:
Half-ogre/Half-giant/Goliath/other large Barbarian5 or Fighter5/Warhulk 10/ other class more.
Wield a reach weapon and you've got a load of dead baddies. Downside is No Time to Think and the lack of BAB increase. But you can whirl like a top 2 times per turn and doing infinity damage per turn.
Thanks for the suggestions!
One of my Favorite combo's expecially at low lvls is making Humonculi. The ARBALESTER Homunculus (Magic of Eberon pg 152) is a gem. Its a Construct made from a Light Crossbow, however I used a Light Repeating Crossbow in the construction of mine so I (or it) could fire more than once a round.
This thing is beautiful if you combine the Feat Improved Humonculus which lets you give your little guy abilities based on its Hit Dice for free, including allowing it to gain weapon enchants, skills, telepathy, ect. Also these abilities are SEPERATE from its weapon echantments which you can give it just like a normal weapon. Not to mention you can use your infusions on it to give it the BANE property vs whatever you are fighting at the time.
My favorite tactic was to infuse it with a spell (Fireball) and use that first round. Nothing says cool like pulling a living talking crossbow out and shooting a fireball from it first round. Followed by +5 bane shocking, flaming arrows of death afterwards... If i needed to start using wands or anthing else I just threw in up in the air and he took off (One of the HD skills you can give him is flight) and he kept firing HIMSELF. Very pimp visual imo.
And thats just one of the Homunculus you can make. There are guard dog ones, scouts, rogues, and my other favorite... one that can make your magic items for you! No more spending down time making items. Get a portable hole, put a labratory inside and that Homunculus and just reach in and grab your items when they are done... you still have to start it and spend the xp and gold but your time will always be your time.
Isn't there a way he could use an Artificer, and activate more than one wand per round? That would be fairly nasty, yes?
Double Wand Wielder
[General] (CArc p77)
Craft Wand
Two-Weapon Fighting
As a Full Round Action, you can fire a Wand in each hand. The Wand in your secondary hand (your choice) uses up 2 charges, while one in your primary hand uses up 1 charge.
Wand Mastery
[Item Creation] (Eb p62)
Caster level 9th
Craft Wand Any spell you cast from a wand has its DC increased by 2 and its effective caster level increased by 2.
You can also use Quicken to fire off 2 spells a round with one wand. So Double Wand Wielder and Quicken Spell and your throwing 3 spells a round. Show me a mage that can do that without some serious chease.
I know I kind of went off on a tangent but honestly I love the Artificer. He is the most utilitarian caster class in the game. As far as buffing goes, no one can beat him. He can make a decent Healer or Blaster, and as long as he is well funded almost never runs dry on spells.
I am stealing your idea for my next character. Holy crap.
Also, how many homunculi can an Artificer have at one time?
However they start out at 1 Hit dice and you have to "Enhance" them with additional Hit dice which cost 2000 gp per HD plus the 1/25 XP cost. And here is the BIG problem with having legions of them. The fact that you have to use your blood to make them and TAKE 2D10 damage any time one dies. If one croaks thats not so bad but if say 5 died at once.... you get the picture. So make all you want but be warned you dont want to put em all in one spot lol.
Here is an Example:
Based off the 8th lvl character the original poster talked about making:
An arbalester is carved from green wood, threads of silver and gold,
a pint of the creator’s blood, and a masterwork light crossbow
(or Masterwork Light Repeating Crossbow). The materials cost 350 gp. Creating the body requires a DC 14 Craft (sculpting) or a DC 14 Craft (carpentry) check.
Craft Construct, arcane eye, mending; Price — (never sold);
Cost 1,250 gp + 93 XP.
Ok so this gets you a basic Arbalester with 1d10 hitpoints. Now lets add some Hit Dice.
An arbalester with more than 1 Hit Die can be created, but each additional Hit Die adds 2,000 gp to the cost to create.
Lets add 7 Hit Dice. Thats 14,000 gp plus the original cost of 1250 gold.
15,250 gold and 610 xp.
Now you will notice that you need a craft skill to make the body. Each homunculi has its own DIFFERENT craft skill you need to make the body, however most require no more than a 14 or 16 craft check to make the body. This one for instance requires a 14. Now this might sound ruff but you can TAKE A 10 on a craft check. So since craft uses int and lets assume you have a +2 int bonus then you can throw 2 points in craft sculpting or carpentry and you can always make the check. If you have masterwork tools this gives you an additional +2 on the check, however you still need to put 1 point into the skill so you can take the 10. So while it might look like alot at first puting 1 or 2 skill points in 3 or 4 craft skills isnt so bad.
Now you have a 8 HD arbalester. If you have the Imp Homunculus feat this gives you the following.
ARBALESTER
Small Construct
Hit Dice: 8d10 (40 hp)
Initiative: +4
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares), fly 20 ft. (good)
AC: 19 (+1 size, +4 Dex, +4 Natural Armor), touch 15, flat-footed 15
Base Attack/Grapple: +6/+1 +3
Attack: Bite +7 melee (1d4+1) or masterwork light crossbow
+14 ranged (1d8/17–20)
Full Attack: Bite +7/+2 melee (1d4+1) or masterwork light
crossbow +14/+9 ranged (1d8/17–20)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Receive enhancement
Special Qualities: Construct traits, darkvision 60 ft.,
low-light vision
Saves: Fort +2, Ref +6, Will +2
Abilities: Str 12, Dex 19, Con —, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 7 (-2 dex from size increase and +2 dex from lvl increase)
Skills: Balance +8, Listen +4, Spot +4 (21 additional skill points from lvl)
Feats: Point Blank Shot (Hover, WF(Crossbow))
(2 additional feats) I would go with Weapon Focus(Crossbow) and Hover(these two feat bonuses are already included in stats)
Gained from Improved Homunculus feat:
+4 Natural Armor
2 Special Abilities: Flyer(20 ft. (good)), Weapon Ability(Keen)
Construct Traits: A homunculus has immunity to
poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, death
effects, necromancy effects, mind-affecting spells and
abilities (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and
morale effects), and any effect that requires a Fortitude save
unless it also works on objects or is harmless. It is not subject
to extra damage from critical hits, nonlethal damage,
ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, or energy
drain. It cannot heal damage, but it can be repaired. It has
darkvision out to 60 feet and low-light vision.
Now these abilities can be increased by your infusions(weapon enhancements and spell storing such as a fireball hehe) and by enchanting your weapon. My favorite is a first lvl infusion that gives your weapon a +1 weapon enchanment... this doesnt sound like much but lets look at bane. Since you give it the ability before or as you are fighting you can make it bane whatever your fighting at the time hehe... basicly you can add an additional +2 to hit and dmg and 2d6 dmg against ANYTHING you are fighting... not bad for a 1st lvl infustion lol. The enchantment of this weapon works seperatly from the rest of your enhancements. As you can see even at lvl 8 you have a badass weapon most melee characters would die for not to mention most archers will cry when seen in action lol.
A good guide on Artificers can be found at:
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=11846818
For a CL boost, I'm probably going to select Consumptive Field to boost my CL, so that when I cast Animate Dead, I can make Necrosis Carnex. Requires that caster CL 11 cast Animate Dead. I can cast it, boosting with Consumptive just a few CL's will allow a Lvl 8 DN to do so.
I chose Hover because without it his Hit Dice Special ability to fly is nice but he cant just sit there and plink away at enemys... this way he can go up 40 feet or so and just hover above me and shoot if I need to do other things.
But he has a nice balance score so he could just climb up onto your shoulder and shoot and save himself a feat... but a flying crossbow just seemed cooler lol.
But yeah you have to advance his Hit dice, skill points, size(he moves from tiny to small at 4 hd i think), feats, stat ajustments.... just like a character gets.
As a construct they get cleric BAB(3/4), 2 +int skills, feats and ability gain as a normal character would, and all three saves increase on the weak chart(they dont have a strong save
)
.But the idea is you drop yourself from 200 ft into the air and fall from that distance to the ground against a large group of enemies
. Make sure your huge and you got Featherfall going, Some DR would help, Martial spirit stance powers your fun to heal. Martial stance: Any strike against a enemy grants you 2 HP per strike.
With a 15 by 15 square your not hitting a group of people
Ummmm 40 people bunched up means, your striking all 40 :D. Thats 80 HP back, DR would help as I previously said.Items required: Growth item of any kind, (Enlarge, Giant size) that sort. Ring of Featherfall helps too.
----------------------------------
Caster.........
Changling Duel specialization Wizard (Transmuter/Illusionist) 5 or 6, Nightmare Spinner 5/Recaster 5/Archmage 5.
You transmutation/Illusionist/Diviner schools. You specialize in Transmuter and Illusion. Im still trying to figure out how Focused spellcaster (Comp Mage) works with Dual Specialist.
Items: Get a Robe of Eyes ASAP and make it smart, add Spot and Listen ASAP.
Tactics: Use he Nightmare spinners deadly 5th lvl ability to kill BBEG ASAP. Buff the part with your transmutations. Use fly on your party members.
Comment: These 2 characters work the best when they are PC and Cohort. Sense the Transmuter was made to support the Warforged Cannonball.
Hi all. I'm fairly new to the game and am going to be playing this weekend with some buddies.
We're doing a war campaign and I'm in need of some suggestions for a class that can do some area damage. I don't necessarily need to be killing, though I wouldn't mind blasting, but I wouldn't mind doing a mixture of blasting and crowd control.
Thanks in advance for the help.
First off, thanks for telling us some of the parameters. I'd suggest that a warmage can be a lot of fun, but I'd recommend warlock. You can shoot 4d6 all day long (6d6 with a chausable, worth EVERY penny - especially if you take craft wondrous item) and you can chain it to hit a secondary target. You can UMD a staff of fireballs at level 8 and shoot 10d6 fireballs until you run out of charges... A ranged touch attack is a great thing...
so, self crafted chausable is 9k cost (leaving 18 k)... a staff of fire is 17,750 gp (but id wait until 12th level
and craft it for half cost since you can do the fireball requirement via imbue item class feature)...
you can also do something like this:
get 800gp worth of Black Onyx gems.
perform "the dead walk" lesser invocation 4 times, and walk around with four 8 HD skeletons
(assuming you can come across 4 dead 8 hd or bigger corpses - shouldnt be a problem at level 8)
and use them as speed bumps.
Isn't there a way he could use an Artificer, and activate more than one wand per round? That would be fairly nasty, yes?
Rod of Many Wands+Wands of Celerity+Factotum levels for Surge. nI standard actions. Works wonders with spellcaster novas.