Feel free to give formatting feedback as well, this is the first time I've posted such a long post.
Virgil Aethelraed
Background / House rules
DM is running a savage tide campaign. No spoilers, please. The character is a rebuild from my previous level 9 character, who was an Abjurer/Master Specialist planning on going into IotSFV. I was tired of the build, and the character itself was inadvertently in violation of a house rule (although the DM said he didn't mind, I thought it was a good time to fix up the character).
32 point buy, core + completes + SpC, no setting stuff, no races books, no ToB. Favored class rules not used, but characters are limited to 2 base classes and 1 PrC. Some other stuff can get approved by the DM on a case-by-case basis
Rest of the party
- Whisper Gnome Swashbuckler / Blade Bravo / Invisible Blade: a TWF sneak attacker.
- Human Rogue / (modified) Assassin: a homebrew class that's an "assassin of evildoers", swapping poison use for detect evil at will.
- Human Monk/Druid/Nature's Warrior: a grappling specialist. Mostly druid.
- Halfling Warlock/Sorcerer/Eldritch Theurge
My character
Attributes: Str 6 Dex 14 Con 14 Int 22 (26) Wis 8 Cha 10
Gray Elf Beguiler 1 / Focused Conjurer 4 / Ultimate Magus 5
Banned Schools: Illusion, Enchantment, Necromancy
Alternate Class Features: Focused Specialist (CM), Abrupt Jaunt (PHB2), Martial Mage (UA)
Feats:
1: Practiced Spellcaster: Beguiler
Wizard: Improved Initiative (UA Variant)
3: Spell Focus: Conjuration
6: Empower Spell
9: Leadership
10: Sculpt spell
A digression on Practiced Spellcaster and Ultimate Magus:
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We're using the rules as written, which probably come from very imprecise use of language on the part of the D&D design team. The way this works is:
Ultimate magus, at level 1, 4 and 7, advances the class you have with a lower caster level. Notice that they don't say "lowest level in a spellcasting class".
Because of Practiced Spellcaster in beguiler, Virgil enters UM with a Beguiler/Wizard CL of 5/4, and at level 4 it's 9/9. If he doesn't find a way to boost his beguiler CL by +1 by the time he gets to UM 7, that will go to the beguiler side.
This way, Virgil is currently 1 level behind a standard progression wizard, due to the level of beguiler. He'll probably end up being 2 levels back, unless I can figure out a way to boost his beguiler casterlevel permanently. Even losing 2 levels seems like a fair trade for what you gain with UM. More on that later, though.
We're using the rules as written, which probably come from very imprecise use of language on the part of the D&D design team. The way this works is:
Ultimate magus, at level 1, 4 and 7, advances the class you have with a lower caster level. Notice that they don't say "lowest level in a spellcasting class".
Because of Practiced Spellcaster in beguiler, Virgil enters UM with a Beguiler/Wizard CL of 5/4, and at level 4 it's 9/9. If he doesn't find a way to boost his beguiler CL by +1 by the time he gets to UM 7, that will go to the beguiler side.
This way, Virgil is currently 1 level behind a standard progression wizard, due to the level of beguiler. He'll probably end up being 2 levels back, unless I can figure out a way to boost his beguiler casterlevel permanently. Even losing 2 levels seems like a fair trade for what you gain with UM. More on that later, though.
We're in the Savage Tide adventure path (no spoilers please), and I can't speak to how closely the DM is following it or if he's heavily modified it. Either way, I'm having a blast, so I don't really care, but if it's unfamiliar to other people, that's because the DM might have changed something.
We did all our early-adventure stuff in Sasserine, made friends with a rich merchant lady, who hired us to sail in a boat to distant farshore. Now, while the OOC plot-analyzer in me loathes having a PC invest in something like a boat, the characters were all excited about this prospect. We fixed up that boat right nice, installed cannons, hired a crew, including a pegleg captain (we've got a player who loves making custom minis). We sailed down the coast.
Eventually, with the big Island (Isle of Dread, I believe) in sight, we sank. Pegleg died, boat got crushed up against a reef. Again, from an OOC perspective: not surprising, that's what happens when PCs buy boats, they sink. We washed ashore in the Isle of Dread and have been making our way southish toward the Ulman territories and eventually Farshore.
There have been some weird encounters along the way, we found a buried temple with all sorts of undead, a strange spider-lady, and the occasional Legendary Tyrannosaurus (yikes). Along the way, we got winnowed down to only a few of the original boat NPCs: two crewman, a human noble (and his horse), the cabin boy, and a gnomish druid.
Session Report, level 9, traipsing through the wilderness.
This session we were down two players, who were run as kind-of NPCs. They mostly just stood around and drooled, but occasionally did useful stuff.
Because we were so far down, the DM didn't want to advance the plot too much. We had a run-in with some Bal-Lgura, who teleported in and kidnapped our cabin boy. Apparently, these Bal-Lgura were the creatures who have been deviling us for ages.
Even worse, this was literally the FIRST FRIGGIN' DAY I didn't cast Anticipate Teleportation at the start of the day. Of course, it wouldn't have helped, since I was too far away from the party (inspecting a statue for hidden compartments) to have helped anyway. Sigh.
On the plus side, I managed to get off an Icelance on one of the Bal-Lgura, stunning it for 3 rounds, which was all it took to kill it. The other two grappled our smaller party members (the cabin boy and gnomish druid) and teleported off. Luckily (heh, heh), those were NPCs. A side note: Icelance is a crappy spell. It doesn't scale with level, half of the damage is piercing (DR problems), it requires a regular ranged attack (not touch), and it's subject to SR, unlike most conjuration attacks. I had not realized the regular attack or SR nature of the spell. All I saw was "stunned for 1d4 rounds". In the end, that was good enough, as I made my attack and SR checks. I'll probably not be casting that spell very often in the future, even though an empowered icelance would be pretty neat, since the stun duration would be empowered as well.
We were left really not knowing what to do, since we all made high enough Knowledge (Planes) checks to know that these guys have real teleport SLAs, so could be Anywhere. We had to keep on going. I'll be casting anticipate teleportation 1/day in the future. One problem is, it isn't optional, so the people who have anklets of translocation in our party might be in trouble. Hard to say if it's worth it, but it probably is.
The rest of the session was a series of escalating CR encounters with spiders and spiderkin. Most of the spiders were huge or bigger, so the grappler was having some issues. He still did a lot of damage, though. A side note: Evard's Menacing Tentacles (PHB2) is an amazing spell for a druid, especially one who shares spells with his animal companion, and has the feat that lets him keep sharing up to 30' away. Two free action tentacle attacks? This means a lot of damage, on top of the ridiculous bite/grab routine that the druid and his companion already do (they're both crocodiles). Don't forget that they get AoOs and have reach. Wow, that's a nice spell.
In the last fight of the session, we were in real trouble. The spiders got the jump on us (web climbers who knew where we were, and there was fog and missed spot checks on our side). We were spread out, and it looked bad.
Luckily, Virgil won initiative (nerveskitter + improved initiative + 14 dex = +11 init). Two of the spiders that were really menacing our weakened party members got hit: Orb of Fire, Celerity, Orb of Fire. Very, very nice. Neither were downed by the damage, but both failed their saving throws, and were therefore dazed for a round. That bought the party enough time to regroup and attack. A side note: While celerity is good to the extreme, the fact that you're dazed starting from right after you cast it until your next turn means you're vulnerable - Virgil couldn't Abrubt Jaunt out of danger during that whole time. Luckily, the spiders focused on other people, because he was already in the middle of the party, but still, it's not cool. Even if you weren't dazed, Celerity is still your immediate action, so you're in trouble no matter what. Use with caution, but it can be helpful indeed if you've got people to cover you.
After all that carfuffle, we ended up finding an Eeeevil Temple to Demogorgon. That's where we stopped that night, since we didn't want to go in without the rest of the party.
We're in the middle of a dark temple to Demogorgon. Things are looking okay, but Virgil wasn't at his most useful last night. Some observations:
We fought a mob of monkeys. Similar rules to swarms, it seems. No AoE and a lot of useless status effects meant Virgil was largely useless in this fight.
We fought some more Bal-lgura. Killed two, but the rest teleported out to regroup when the fight started going pear-shaped. I really need Dimensional Anchor, sigh.
Summon Monster III came in really handy - some party members were trapped in a cave-in. I took it because I couldn't see myself casting three icelances a day, so I had 2 Icelance and 1 SMIII. I thought, worst case, we get a badger for flanking. But this badger has a burrow speed, so our party members were out in no time. Totally unexpected that I'd need/use that.
Monsters are starting to get SR and higher saving throws. Glitterdust (DC 21) failed for one of the first times last night, twice. I might have to start looking for other spells.
After two big fights, Virgil still has plenty of gas in his tank, which is good because we still have a lot of the temple left to explore.
Haste was, once again, terribly effective. Two party members are TWF sneak attackers, so giving them extra speed to get into position and an extra attack is always good. One of the Bal-lgura got ginsu'd for 100+ damage in a full round attack.
Abrupt Jaunt is really, really good for getting away from badguys, but it does put me in a weird moral quandry. Two or three times last night, a party member got attacked because he was standing next to me when the monster walked up and I ran away. That doesn't seem all that cool, karma-wise, especially since one of my "meat shields" is the halfling sorcerer. Still and all, it was handy. I've used 4 of my 8 jaunts so far, I'll have to start husbanding them in the future - taking an attack or two is bad, but getting grappled and abducted is worse.
Next week: this game again, so another update on friday.
I'm actually trying to decide between this build and a daring outlaw build for our next campaign that goes through at least 5-10. We have 5 person groups so one of those spots should be open.
That's an awesome feat for this character in general, but I won't be able to take it, as the DM doesn't allow races of the dragon.
Do Gloves of the Starry Sky work if Magic Missile isn't on your spell list? I've got a pure Beguiler that I'm playing from level 1 (we're level 2 now) and I've been kind of dreading level 3 (after Sleep becomes mostly useless and before Glitterdust comes on-line). I might have to invest in a pair (assuming they work for a beguiler).
Yes, it does. The wording of it allows you to use any 1st level slot to power it, regardless of what spell list you've got. The flavor text even indicates that they were first worn by druids.
The Goggles of the Golden sun do the same thing, but for fireball. The problem with them is, even though you use your own CL for the damage dice, the save DC is still just 14. So, not as useful. I am thinking about getting a Belt of the Wide Earth or Periapt of the Sullen Sea, though, because freedom of movement and teleport are both very useful spells to be able to whip out in an emergency, and the 2-piece set bonus is cold resist 5, which I wouldn't throw out of bed, if you know what I mean.
And yeah, teleport interdiction is a pain in the ass. There's also a 5th level Cleric (and Wizard?) spell called Zone of Respite that blocks all dimensional travel nearby.
Unless Bar-Lgaras are different, the Greater Teleport SLA that most outsiders have can't be used to abduct people, since it specifies "self plus 50 pounds of objects only".
The Bar-Lgura's Abduct ability is different, in fact. Even if it weren't, remember Rule 0.
Master Spellthief ( have to take a level in spellthief too)
This will cap you out as 20th level beguiler, 20th level wizard, 20th level spell stealer. Of course it will also give you light armor abilities.
Master Spellthief ( have to take a level in spellthief too)
This will cap you out as 20th level beguiler, 20th level wizard, 20th level spell stealer. Of course it will also give you light armor abilities.
This is definitely good advice for anyone looking at this kind of character. For my character, however, it won't work. The DM is only allowing 3 classes, total, for the characters.
A digression on Master Spellthief, not really relevant but still - this is my thread, so I can do as I will:
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Also, I'm not 100% convinced that master spellthief is as good as people make it out to be for two reasons. Both are debatable, which means if your DM allows it, you're good, but it is conceivable that your DM won't allow it.
First of all, Master Spellthief increases the level of spell you can steal from someone, but not the number of spell levels you can retain and recast. Those abilities are listed separately in the Steal Spell ability in CA, and my read of master spellthief is that you could steal a 9th-level spell, but you wouldn't be able to cast it; it would just dissipate as if you'd stolen too many spell levels as a normal spellthief.
Secondly, while it's clear that wizard and spellthief levels would stack for wizard, and that beguiler and spellthief levels would stack for beguiler, and all three would stack for spellthief, I'm not convinced that the text of the feat stacks wizard and beguiler levels for determining each others' caster levels. It is unclear, since the example in the feat only uses wizard and spellthief. Either way, as a DM I wouldn't allow it without good convincing otherwise, and I don't want to push my DM too far on that front.
Also, I'm not 100% convinced that master spellthief is as good as people make it out to be for two reasons. Both are debatable, which means if your DM allows it, you're good, but it is conceivable that your DM won't allow it.
First of all, Master Spellthief increases the level of spell you can steal from someone, but not the number of spell levels you can retain and recast. Those abilities are listed separately in the Steal Spell ability in CA, and my read of master spellthief is that you could steal a 9th-level spell, but you wouldn't be able to cast it; it would just dissipate as if you'd stolen too many spell levels as a normal spellthief.
Secondly, while it's clear that wizard and spellthief levels would stack for wizard, and that beguiler and spellthief levels would stack for beguiler, and all three would stack for spellthief, I'm not convinced that the text of the feat stacks wizard and beguiler levels for determining each others' caster levels. It is unclear, since the example in the feat only uses wizard and spellthief. Either way, as a DM I wouldn't allow it without good convincing otherwise, and I don't want to push my DM too far on that front.
Looking at it from a balance issue, I have a hard time beliving that it combines and armor feat, and 2 practiced spellcaster feats in one feat.
That said I think that you will need to replace the last level of UM with a level of beguiler, to keep you CL as a beguiler highter than the CL as a Conjurer and to have access to 2nd level spells.
This is the way I'm using a similar build and is very cool. Cloaked Casting and Surprise Casting are very peculiar and usefull abilities.
Yikes! My DM will spank me.
Hmm, given the cool UM ability to shift a prepared spell to the spontaneous side, I'd say getting that next level of beguiler ASAP is probably a good idea, otherwise it lags a spell level behind its potential. I'll have to take it eventually, might as well get it out of the way, I suppose.
I'll rework the first post accordingly ASAP.
Considering you are using Glitterdust so often, has the beguiler cloaked casting been helpful?
Anyway, Cloaked Casting hasn't come up yet, because that's a beguiler-2 ability. It will soon, at level 11, he'll take beguiler-2, so to realign the highest spell level available with the advanced spellbook feature of ultimate magus.
Okay, on to the report from last night. The newly disempowered Virgil had no 2nd-level beguiler spells and one fewer 1st-level spell. All I do with 1st-level beguiler spells is cast mage armor on virgil and partymates, and cast nerveskitter each combat. +11 on initiative is pretty good when you're casting AoE debuffs, you want the foes all to be grouped together and not mixed in with your allies.
Even still, he had plenty of juice left, lots of 3rd- and 4th-level spells available to wreak havoc with. There were two main combat scenes, followed by a coda. Remember that this is the second half of the temple adventure, so we were already depleted in resources (Virgil had used a lot of his 2nd-level spells and his magic missile gloves earlier).
One thing I've definitely noticed is that the monsters we fought (bal-lgura, spirit naga, and two construct thingies) all had pretty good saves. Two or three sessions ago, Glitterdust was an encounter-ender. Now, it is only good for its original use, preventing the Bal-lgura from going invisible, because they kept hitting the DC 21 save. I'm going to have to start casting higher-level spells. Of course, the DM also rolled pretty well (he rolls out in front where we can see, but he just rolled high last night).
Due to saving throw issues, Virgil was pretty useless for a while. He caught the chief Bal-Lgura unprepared (he had turned invisible, but our party warlock pointed him out with his see invisible ability, so Virgil followed up with glitterdust). Nobody was around him, it was the start of the fight, so I decided to try out the Icelance! Still a crappy spell. After making the ranged attack (not touch, and I only had a +10 total damage) and the SR check (gah! a conjuration with a SR!), he made his fort save and wasn't stunned. Took a little bit of damage, but no love there. And now Virgil was dazed, since he cast celerity to be able to do that right after the glitterdust.
Stuff like that kept happening. Two of the minion bal-lgura were in the same 10' square during my turn. Cloud of bewilderment! Save, save. I need to learn how to target the weak saves on my foes, it seems.
During the fight, the chief Bal-lgura and one of the minions used their abduct ability to teleport off with our warlock. Luckily, the construct died not too much later, so Virgil tore off back up the hallway. Fly + haste = pretty speedy.
Virgil found his friend only in time to see him being pulled limb from limb by the bal-lgura. If only he were a little faster.
This time, the monsters weren't hitting their saves. Big bad guy got hit with an orb of fire, took a crapton of damage and was dazed for a round. Little bad guy came to a bad end when the two angry crocodiles caught up with him. Big bad ended up getting taken over by the bard cohort, who cast Puppeteer and made him punch himself in the face. Big bad failed a few DC 15 and 10 will saves in the end of the fight, but at the beginning, he was hitting DC 21 ones. Well, at least he's dead.
An end-note. The party druid offered to cast reincarnate. He's been wanting to bring someone back as a Gnoll for ages. The DM liked the sound of that so much, he gave the halfling warlock a one-time deal: take the reincarnate and you won't have a level loss.
So the Druid starts up... "Oh mighty Lherg, please bring back our friend, in whatever form you choose, such as a "... rolls dice... looks at the table .. "Halfling! What the heck!"
That's right, the halfling was reincarnated as a halfling. Some folks have all the luck. You just know that if that was me, I'd be coming back as an Owl or something. Somehow, the roll would come up just right to make us reroll on the 2e table. :P
So, reflections:
Abrupt Jaunt has saved my bacon countless times. Between flying and jaunting, Virgil rarely gets hit, and when he does it's only once. Gotta be careful with it, but at 8/day, it's pretty awesome.
I need to work more on figuring out what the bad saves of my foes are and bringing in a good assortment of spells to target the bad saves.
Icelance still stinks. SMIII at least got me the celestial badger digging squad. I'll probably never memorize Icelance again. SMIII can help with flanking as well, I suppose.
I need to learn and prepare assay spell resistance. Some of my better debuffs went unused in favor of SR:No ones.
The 3.5 ed version of reincarnate is much friendlier than the 3.0 ed and earlier ones.
I'm still not really using any UM features of note, beyond the expanded spell knowledge that gave my spontaneous casting side nerveskitter. Starting soon, I'll actually have metamagic feats that I can actually apply to spells I cast (2nd-level slots for empower, and the brand-new sculpt spell) and spells I'm able to apply them to (still only 2nd-level and below, at UM6, which is CL 12), it'll be more interesting. So the spontaneous metamagic isn't really doing a whole lot yet. Still all that nerveskitter, the trapfinding, and not feeling too bad about being a focused specialist makes me pretty happy.
Also, any suggestions for spells of any level (remember, he's banned Evocation, Enchantment, and Illusion, though) are welcome. Before next session, we'll be teleporting back to sasserine and buying stuff, including scrolls.
I kind of like Summon Undead IV & V. Sometimes summoning a shadow or an allip can be useful and owlbear/troll skeletons can make decent grapplers. The mummy gets a special note because of its (Ex) save-or-die effect with a range of "sight". Plus it drives me nuts when I roll a "1" for how many creatures I summon.
Note that it's a spell with the [Evil] descriptor, so your DM or your party might not like that.
Also, any suggestions for spells of any level (remember, he's banned Evocation, Enchantment, and Illusion, though) are welcome. Before next session, we'll be teleporting back to sasserine and buying stuff, including scrolls.
If you were lucky enough to get another metamagic feat, you could try to improve Glitterdust with an Augmented casting powered Heighten Spell. That would pump up the DC.
Please note I don't see a posting of your spell list.
My suggestion would be to learn Heroics. Not quite as good without ToB, but still useful.
Anway, today I'll be discussing breaks, and how you can't really buy them.
That is, I had some new strategies for last night's session that just didn't work out.
Enervates are great, as long as you're not fighting constructs.
Vitriolic sphere might have distracted me: God doesn't need too much DD, but 18d6 at level 10 was fascinating. Then again, if they make their reflex save, it's only 3d6 damage. And the DM kept rolling 18s and 19s, so that wasn't good. We fought a construct - I rolled poorly on both Knowledge (arcana) and Knowledge (planes) checks (it was an extraplanar one), despite the +16 I have on the roll, sigh. So I didn't know he was immune to fire. So much for my Orb of Fire. Then he made two saves vs Vitrolic Sphere. Then I got so frustrated, I did a Celerity-Slow casting. Made his will save. All I did that fight was daze myself and deal 6d6 damage to the critter.
The other Big Fight was against a plant, who had me paralyzed during most of it. Our rogue got paralyzed by some pollen, and I had the bright idea to benign-transposition, abrupt jaunt away, to keep them safe. Of course, I forgot that I'd have to make a fort save too, which I failed. So I got paralyzed instead. Bad move, especially since I could have cast Dimension step instead. Yeesh.
So, I wasn't terribly effective last night. The rest of the party picked up the slack, but I need to re-look at my strategies and re-evaluate my aversion to summoning. I think some SM-Vs will start populating my castings, especially once I start getting tricks to make them standard actions. That's a nice and easy way to be handy at any level, I think.
Next level, I'll pick up wall of stone, which will also come in really handy in a lot of these fights.
Anyways, I'm not terribly surprised the character hasn't been that effective against Constructs and Plants, even w/ more diversity than a regular Beguiler. I remember our Beguiler used the sleep / hypnotic pattern class of spells a lot, but the most effective stuff came from the fey-heritage line of feats she had picked up (that scaling confusion is so freakin' buff).
One thing that has just (duh!) dawned on me is that a lot of my spells are geared toward crowd control. Solid fog, web, black tentacles, wall of stone (later). None of these help against the One Big Guy, especially when the party has two roguealikes and a grapple-Druid. Them again, the grappled and (deathstrike bracers) therefore flat-footed One Big Guy doesn't present much of a need for the wizard to do much more than cast haste, and unluck, and then curse when the guy makes his will save. Its a good thing the DM rolls in the open, I'd call shenanigans otherwise. Normal rolls, attacks, hide, he's normal. When I say "roll a save", he never rolls below 18 on the d20.