So I'm in a level 7 starting game, my current build is following...
wiz5/rog1/spellwarp1.
str:13
dex:16
con:14
int:19
wi:13
cha:12
I desperately need help with my spell list (2nd and 3rd lvl), feats...(just advice), and most importantly gear advice...i have nearly no knowledge of wizard gear beyond the famous items.
Feel free to criticize any section, i cannot change my class and I cannot take more classes, but i still have leeway on the spells/items. I also wanted to hopefully discuss tactics (spell order combinations, etc., different uses for spells, etc.)
my feats as it stands are:
Able learner(no cross class)
collegiate wizard(6lvl 1 known instead of 3, 4 per lvl instead of 2)
meta: ocular spell
point blank (prereq for spellwarp)
craven(adds caster lvl to sneak)
My spell list as it stands, please feel free to criticize, comment, etc.
1st:
color spray
grease
shield
mage armor
change self
magic missile
guided shot
sniper's shot
hail of stones
obscuring mist
lesser sonic orb
benign transposition(switch places w/willing target)
2nd:
arcane turmoil(ccounter+they lose top lvl spell)
belker's claws(dmg is great, but i can't use spectral hand with it since it changes my own hand, cant make it a ray...is there a way to makee ranged touch atk? if so might be a great one)
combust
darkbolt (2d8 per bolt + will vs save)
invisibility
mirror image
seeking ray (dmg + bonus to rays vs target)
spectral hand (i see this as a potential bread n butter spell, makes a lot of spells ranged w/o having turn into ray)
3rd
need help here bad i think)
Bands of steel
Dimension Step
flashburst
great thunderclap
invisibility sphere
rainbowblast
vampiric touch (w/spectral hand, ranged drain life, personal i can sneak with it)
dm is giving us a +2 item of value, and a +1 item of value.
Right now I'm thinking a +2 headband of intelligence...no idea on the +1...would GREATLY appreciate some help in this department.
Any help would reeeeaally help me out.
Thanks in advance guys!
wiz5/rog1/spellwarp1.
str:13
dex:16
con:14
int:19
wi:13
cha:12
I desperately need help with my spell list (2nd and 3rd lvl), feats...(just advice), and most importantly gear advice...i have nearly no knowledge of wizard gear beyond the famous items.
Feel free to criticize any section, i cannot change my class and I cannot take more classes, but i still have leeway on the spells/items. I also wanted to hopefully discuss tactics (spell order combinations, etc., different uses for spells, etc.)
my feats as it stands are:
Able learner(no cross class)
collegiate wizard(6lvl 1 known instead of 3, 4 per lvl instead of 2)
meta: ocular spell
point blank (prereq for spellwarp)
craven(adds caster lvl to sneak)
My spell list as it stands, please feel free to criticize, comment, etc.
1st:
color spray
grease
shield
mage armor
change self
magic missile
guided shot
sniper's shot
hail of stones
obscuring mist
lesser sonic orb
benign transposition(switch places w/willing target)
2nd:
arcane turmoil(ccounter+they lose top lvl spell)
belker's claws(dmg is great, but i can't use spectral hand with it since it changes my own hand, cant make it a ray...is there a way to makee ranged touch atk? if so might be a great one)
combust
darkbolt (2d8 per bolt + will vs save)
invisibility
mirror image
seeking ray (dmg + bonus to rays vs target)
spectral hand (i see this as a potential bread n butter spell, makes a lot of spells ranged w/o having turn into ray)
3rd
need help here bad i think)Bands of steel
Dimension Step
flashburst
great thunderclap
invisibility sphere
rainbowblast
vampiric touch (w/spectral hand, ranged drain life, personal i can sneak with it)
dm is giving us a +2 item of value, and a +1 item of value.
Right now I'm thinking a +2 headband of intelligence...no idea on the +1...would GREATLY appreciate some help in this department.
Any help would reeeeaally help me out.
Thanks in advance guys!
Train out Collegiate Wizard and Craven. Focus on what a Spellwarp Sniper does....dmg with Rays. You want to up your dmg with Rays.
To do that, you need to focus on a spell, up its dmg to the moon, and make it a ray.
Your only viable candidates are Scorching Ray and Burning Hands.You need Spellwarp 2 to do this to Scorching Ray.
Pick Up Arcane Thesis, Scorching Ray.
Grab Empower.
Grab Metamagic Spell (reduces costs of Metamagic applied to a spell by 1). This reduces the cost of Empower to Scorching Ray to 0.
Grab SPlit Ray.
Grab Practical Metamagic, Split Ray (reduces MM Cost from 2 to 1, which is reduced to 0 by Arcane Thesis)
What do you have? Well, before your next level of Spellwarp Sniper, you have three Scorching Rays, all dealing 6d6 dmg each. Still 2nd level.
At your next level of Spellwarp Sniper, what you are going to do is dump all base your Scorching Rays into a Sniping Ray, at 12d6, and then Split the Ray. Bingo, 24d6 dmg off two rays.
Your next two feats should then be Twin Spell and Practical Twin Spell, with a cost of 2. As soon as you can do this, your dmg doubles (if you ever take Practical Empower, this cost is 1!)
Your 2nd level slot will end up dealing 36d6 dmg/scorching ray at caster level 9 (thesis gives +2).
Your 4th level slot will end up dealing 72d6 dmg at caster level 9.
Fill your other slots and spells as you like. but your Blaster dmg will be COLOSSAL.
If you get Admixture, you can double this again. If you get Repeat Spell, you can shoot them again on the next round. If you get chain, you can do half the dmg to a number of extra targets equal to your Caster levle. If you get burst, you do that dmg to everything within 10' of the target(s).
A spellwarp sniper is a modified blaster build. Ignore the sneak attack, and make the blaster build what it should be. Don't take anymore Sniper levels then you need to convert your chosen spells. Ask your DM if your Twinned Scorching Ray is a 4th level spell...it's 2nd level for all other purposes, so it should still be level 2 to be Sniped. It's in a 4th level slot, but that doesn't make it a 4th level spell for ANY purpose, so you should be able to stop Sniper levels at 2.
===Aelryinth
Spellwarp says “As a free action, you can warp a 1st-level area spell with an instantaneous duration and a range greater than touch.” Unless there's a trick to convert a ray into an area spell, scorching ray isn't a valid target for spellwarp.
But to be more helpful:
Why would you take Able Learner? You're not going to be a skill monkey — that's a wasted feat for you.
Some feat ideas? Precise Shot, really any metamagic, but particularly ones which will boost your damage output, maybe Weapon Focus (ray)...
Spellwarp says “As a free action, you can warp a 1st-level area spell with an instantaneous duration and a range greater than touch.” Unless there's a trick to convert a ray into an area spell, scorching ray isn't a valid target for spellwarp.
If this is a concern, then 1 level of spellwarp sniper is all you need, and your Area spell is BurningHands.
You can immediately Empower/Split Ray it for a 2 x 7d4 dmg Ray out of your level 1 slot, once you hit level 8. Then apply Twin, Quicken, Repeat, Admixture, and you're still going up, up, up. If you get the Pathfinder feat Intensify from their APG, it ups the base die limit by +5d4, so your dmg will increase all the way to 20th. Get Fire sheath (firevariant acid sheathe) for +1 dmg/die in fire.
==Aelryinth
Basically, you want a low level higher dmg AoE effect you can pump into a Ray, then split, empower and Twin it. you're going to be exceptionally thematic.
==Aelryinth
If the DM uses the rules from Complete Arcane 86, a spell can only gain sneak attack damage once no matter how many attack rolls it requires.
Where is Firecube from? The closest thing I can find is Aganazzar's Scorcher (Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 66). It deals 1d8 fire damage per 2 level (maximum 5d8) and is close range.
Snilloc's Snowball Swarm is an effect spell, so it doesn't technically work with spellwarp. It's effect entry is “10-ft.-radius burst,” so a DM might allow it anyway. Ask your DM before planning anything around it.
If the DM uses the rules from Complete Arcane 86, a spell can only gain sneak attack damage once no matter how many attack rolls it requires.
Don't think so. It says so about spells with more attack rolls, but using metamagic, you'll cast several spells. So scorching ray with 3 rays is only 1 time sneak attack, but a scorching ray with another scorching ray quickened after it are simply 2 different spells, dealing 2 times sneak attack. Same goes for ocular spell, it are two different attacks you make.
For twin and split, it's more difficult to say, for me at least... I'd say that twin spell effectively makes it two spells and split doesn't, but that's mostly because of the name of the feat, I guess...
I agree with that assessment. For some reason I thought Waazraath was suggesting a quickened split ray and a regular split ray, even though that's not at all what he said.
Edit: It turn out the Spell Compendium update to Snilloc's Snowball Swarm (just called Snowball Swarm) changes it to an actual area spell.
I agree with that assessment. For some reason I thought Waazraath was suggesting a quickened split ray and a regular split ray, even though that's not at all what he said.
I'm glad about that, if I was wrong on this, I'd get into troubles with one of the characters I'm playing currently, and my DM also reads this forum
==Aelryinth
The role I had planned to take are using area spells along with split spells (scorching ray, darkbolt etc.) so that I could multitarget-sneak... as well as snipe down the tough guys in the back while my team deals w/fodder
I took able learner originally just so i can meet all the skill requirements for spellwarp and still keep my other skills up
my current spell list as it stands...
Craven I was debating whether or not the added sneak was worth the feat...my DM is very worried I will tilt balance of game since most players are just core builds.
Ocular I took thinking that I could hide/invis/etc. and then unload both spells together+sneak to take out anything tough for the party
Also I have reach spell as a possibility, but I'm not sure if it would be worth it but at that point i can basically turn any spell into a ray since spellwarp says that you have to have an area spell with a range larger than touch.....but again, does it add enough to the reportoire to make it worth it?
so far this is spell list as the 1st session started....i can sub out some stuff here since the dm last game was overwhelmed w/new players and didn't pay much atn to me.
1st lv.
- Grease +
- Shield +
Guided Shot + - Mage armor+
- Hail of stones(CA)+
- Obscuring mist+
- Lesser sonic orb(SC19)
- benign transposition+
- Change self+
- Lvl 2:
- Arcane turmoil(CM)+
- BELKER”S CLAWS+
- Darkbolt(lord of madness)+
- SEEKING RaY(PHB2)+
- Combust+
- Scorching ray+
- Spectral hand+
- Invisibility+
- Frost breath+
- Lvl3:
- Bands of Steel +
- Invisibility Sphere:+
- Great thunderclap+
- vampiric touch+
- flashburst+
- Dimension step+
- Rainbowblast+
- Fireball+
Belker's claw I'm not sure about...the damage is awesome....originally I had planned to use it w/spectral hand so I can atk with it from range buuuut...thhe descriptor says that YOUR hand turns into a claw etc etc. however i don't think DM has looked at the descriptor or will bother to....what do you guys think?
Lemme know how to tweak spell list specially....are any of my feats completely worthless (maybe ocular....would be good to have just for backup for example....) if dimension step is considered an area spell, i could prep that and say fireball turned into ray....then if things get hectic i could laay down a blast, target myself with dimension step which would let me then leap to safety..(i'm pretty sure this doesn't work with dimension step....but you get the idea).
thanks again sorry for the ddelay in response....after first day or so i figured it would be a dead post. <3 you all for helping me out...
I would like to get a general consensus on what things to change.
A Direct Damage build (and it's what you have here), works best if centered on ONE spell, not multiple iterations. The AoE spellsa re generally bad news in terms of DoT...high level and designed for killing mooks, not majors. You want to stay away from them.
Metamagic feats are where you get metamagic up to snuff. Arcane Thesis makes those affordable, but you MUST concentrate on one spell. Multiple metas use up higher slots, and you want to keep slot cost low...so you want a low level spell as your base spell to spellwarp.
Sneak Attack dmg for your build is never going to add up to the multipliers you can get with metas, just so you know.
==+Aelryinth
Don't bork your DM, play it straight.
2nd that.
Sneak Attack dmg for your build is never going to add up to the multipliers you can get with metas, just so you know.
==+Aelryinth
True I think, but for most games, it stops mattering at a certain point. You can get wicked damage the way Ael suggest, but with sneak attack combined with metamagic for more attacks, you can get as said into the hundreds of damage/round easily as well. With the rod of many wands (complete mage) you can get even up to 5 spells cast.
With this kind of damage, unless you play in a really high powered campaign, you probably will be slowed down anyway by your DM
Besides, but that's personal, I don't really like to depend on only 1 spell, that makes it easier to counter if you happen to fight the recurring villain type. Had some bad experience with that in the past.Suggestion for the original poster: just pick the ideas from this post that you like, or from which you like the flavour. As far as I can see, everybody gave you solid advise. I sure as hell wouldn't wait for a general consensus to appear though
Firecube was in the original 2e Shining South book from FR, Halruaan spell. Aganazzar's Scorcher, if still second level, would be IDEAL. d8 dmg works VERY well with maximize (+75% dmg, vs +65% for a d6 spell)
That is wrong.
The increase is 71.4% for the D6 and 77.8% for the D8. Not nearly as exciting as Ael makes it out to be.
play it straight.
I agree.
.Maximize with a d8/level spell is +3.5 dmg/die. That's equal to casting a whole nother spell with d6's.
Maximize with a d6/level spell is +2.5 dmg/die. Meh, +70%. For 3 slots, not worth it. Better to have Arcane Thesis and Twin for +100%.
On an absolute, internal basis, it's more like +70% and +80%, yeah. But maximize tends to be a meta you stick on a Rod because the cost/benefit don't add up, and it's clearly better then Empower on the damage scale.
The major benefit of Empower is it modifies all those fixed dmg kickers, which Maximize ignores. Things like Searing Spell, Warmage Edge, and the +1 from Magic Missiles all get multiplied by Empower, where MAximize just affects the dice. A Warmage with +10 Edge using Empower basically gets another die size for 'free' with Empower and Magic Missiles, and actually does more dmg then if he uses Maximize. WIth d6's, 15d6+15 is almost the same as 60+10, for a level less feat cost.
==Aelryinth