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Help With Melee Caster

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
khorus
Feb 11, 2009 8:47:40 Starting a new campaign (btw thx for the help last time char really shined 1-10)
I want a melee caster focusing mainly on buffs. I was thinking Silver Brow Human with dragon husk and ice axe using planning domain to pick up extend spell, moving into persist later and life domain for the huge boost to hp. Maybe energy admixture to trick out my ice axe. I like the geomancer and was thinking cleric till lvl 3 and maybe going arcane casting and then using geomancer to cast spells in "armor" and using my divine focus to eschew materials. What arcane class am I better off using or am I better going a different route to accomplish these things? Is using ice axe suboptimal to maybe a wooden war mace or a conjured weapon that I don't know about? I'm kinda new to playing casters.

TY for all the help. OH and we are starting level one but I can break the builds down.
#2
pithica
Feb 11, 2009 9:04:04 1st off, you may want to post which books you are allowed, and any house-rules you know of, as you'll get more, faster, and more accurate help that way.

If you're planning on sticking to Cleric as your primary class, Geomancer is completely useless. The 1 or 3 levels of wizard won't get you enough to be worth the lost levels to your primary caster level. You can already cast all your primary classes spells in armor and with DF instead of material. If you're planning on taking Wizard (or whichever is the arcane side) as your primary class, Geomancer isn't as bad, but you'll only want to take one level of (cloistered) cleric, and use Southern Magician to qualify you for Geomancer. If you can't get away with Southern Magician, Geomancer should be avoided like the plague.

I'm assuming though, that since you mentioned Ice Axe (which is 3rd level), you're planning on taking Cleric as your primary.

A lawful neutral Human Cloistered Cleric 3 (with Knowledge Devotion)/Church Inquisitor 4/Divine Disciple 5/Contemplative 2/XXX 6 is where I would generally start off the top of my head with cleric builds. Planning and Undeath give you two of the 4 feats you need for DMM:Persist so those would be the two I'd start with. Take Knowledge Devotion in exchange on CC for Knowledge domain. You get Inquisition for free and then two more bonus domains from DD and Cont, for those you could take Law devotion and maybe life domain (if that's what you want) or War devotion or Pride Domain.

This only works, though, if you aren't limited on domain choices.
#3
khorus
Feb 11, 2009 10:35:15 Any and all books 3.5, no web stuff. Can have no more than 3 classes/prestige. Sorry forgot about this. OH no pets or monks allowed for whatever reason.

I'm open to more than just cleric, any caster that could be made into an effective melee. I just mentioned ice axe b/c it looks awesome, I'd use any other summonable weapon or like I said some kinda wooden weapon with brambles or some other buffs on it.

Mostly I was doing cleric and geomancer to do some full armor casting cheese but in actuallity I only need to be able to cast in medium armor if I do go dragon husk.

Ty for the reply.
#4
khorus
Feb 11, 2009 10:53:53 K been looking around and I don't think geomancer is going to cut it lol. So cleric or arcane, and what prc to boost cleric melee abil / buffs.

Sorry to ramble lol on meds for migraine and home sick from work lol. SO divine metamagic and work into cleric of pelor I think. But what for a weapon? Should I go ICE AXE energy admixture it and maximize it or something or should I just use a big weapon with high dmg and buff it to amazingness lol? Also would I be better dragon husk or just going with some full plate or something? I noticed I can't target dragon husk with spells like I can armor.
#5
pithica
Feb 11, 2009 11:06:36 If you're only interest in Cleric is full armor casting, you only need one level of cleric and southern magician to qualify you for Geomancer. Any higher would be a waste of caster levels in your other class. If you do go that route, take Cloistered Cleric variant and Knowledge Devotion (in exchange for Knowledge Domain). Paired with Wizard this isn't that bad, as you'll advance spells at the same rate as a sorcerer, overall.

CC1/Martial Wiz (or Transmuter) 3/Geomancer 10/Incantatrix 4/Abjurant Champion 2

Is a very solid melee caster, using a combination of DMM (I'd actually go with DMM-Quicken over persist and use metamagic effect for persist) and Metamagic Effect to buff yourself through the roof and melee just about anything to death.

However, you specifically said you were limited to 3 classes. The same above can work with CC1/Martial Wiz (or Transmuter) 3/Geomancer 10/Wiz +6 but not nearly as effectively. In this latter one, I might also consider trading my 5th level feat for a Domain Power, but I'd have to drop the martial wizard variant (I think).

Either way, I'd add Arcane Disciple-Competition so that I could abuse Divine Power (and Righteous Might and Greater Visage of the Diety) persistence.

If you go with Ice Axe as your melee damage of choice, make sure you pick up Piercing Cold from Frostburn so that you can damage Cold Immune/resistant creatures.

Better than Ice Axe, though, is Greater Mighty Wallop, which, if you can get away with it, is crazy and hella broken. The visual for that spell, found at the bottom of page 114 in Races of the Dragon, speaks more for it than anything I can say about it. A quarterstaff with that spell (at max caster level) alone will do base damage of 4d6 and a Greatclub does 6d8. Better, though, is a Small Sized Goliath Greathammer, which does 8d8 at max. I built a TWF gish taking advantage of that with oversized TWF to have 8 attacks/rd all at base damage 8d8, which isn't bad at all if I do say so myself.
#6
PlzBreakMyCampaign
Feb 11, 2009 11:40:09
Greater Mighty Wallop, which, if you can get away with it, is crazy and hella broken.

Kinda. Its actually not as useful as a secondary buff as the normal version which allows exceeding colossal size. As the single buff on weapon size, it is still very powerful even though it doesn't play nice with other size increases.
#7
khorus
Feb 11, 2009 11:51:05 TY pithica! That is pretty much what I had in mind. I'll give this a try.
#8
pithica
Feb 11, 2009 12:29:01
Kinda. Its actually not as useful as a secondary buff as the normal version which allows exceeding colossal size. As the single buff on weapon size, it is still very powerful even though it doesn't play nice with other size increases.

I disagree, as a 'normal' medium sized character, I can alter self/poly/shapechange into something small and get the full benefits of GMW and those of being small sized. I can also poly/shapechange into something tiny and then Righteous Might up to small and get the same thing (only better). A small-sized character with a Goliath Greathammer has a base damage of 8d8 with Greater Mighty Wallop (at CL20), one step shy of the max base damage of 12d8 possible. A tiny-size character with a Goliath Greathammer does a base of 12d6 with Righteous Might (or Enlarge Person) and Greater Mighty Wallop, even closer to the max of 12d8 possible.

Personally, I think this is superior to trying to use size/shape magic into larger sized forms anyway, as the those forms put a huge target on your back (literally). I'm sure that isn't always true, because the higher strength from the better larger forms probably outweighs the difference in die size.
#9
khorus
Feb 11, 2009 12:37:00 Following that train of thought would I be better off going kobold? Also what exactly does dragonwrought do for me?
#10
pithica
Feb 11, 2009 12:59:20 I personally really like Kobolds (and Goblins), flavor wise and RP wise, so I'm never going to tell someone not to play one. I've never not had fun playing one. Without a way to increase damage, though, they typically don't make great melee combatants. Of course, if you can use GMW, they're pretty tight.

Dragonwrought turns your type to dragon, which gives you a number of benefits. Dragons don't age (don't take age penalties), dragons are immune to sleep/paralysis, dragons are immune to affects that target humanoids, etc.

Dragonwrought Kobold can also take advantage of the Greater Rite of Draconic Passage...(here) to cast as sorcerers but gain new spell levels as quickly as wizards.

A DW Kobold (Battle maybe) Sorcerer 5/Mindbender 1/Incantatrix 4/Abjurant Champion 4/Incantatrix +6 is potentially quite a solid melee caster, having a final caster level of 21 (at 20), and great damage potential with Arcane Strike and/or Greater Mighty Wallop.
#11
phaedrusxy
Feb 11, 2009 13:06:13 Dragonwrought also lets you be venerable age, getting a +3 to all mental stats, without the -6 penalty to the physical ones.

And what levels is this for? I think in general, clerics are easier to buff up for melee than arcane casters, but the arcane guys have some tricks that are a bit harder to get for the cleric. The arcanists can always take Arcane Disciple to steal some of the cleric's best tricks. :D Clerics can also start out as melee specialists at level 1. It usually takes the arcane casters longer to get good at it.
#12
keithio
Feb 11, 2009 21:58:59 Build ideas:

Barbarian1/Wizard8/AbjurantChampion5 (Lion totem)
Wizard4/Sorcerer1/UltimateMagus6/Wizard1 (Practiced caster [sorcerer])
Paladin2/Sorcerer6/AbjurantChampion5
HumanParagon1/Sorcerer2/HumanParagon2/UnseenSeer8
BattleSorcerer7/AbjurantChampion5
Swordsage1/Sorcerer4/Swordsage1/JadePhoenixMage10
#13
jameswilliamogle
Feb 11, 2009 22:10:52 Anima Mage, using the adaptation section for divine spellcasting, looks like its in the direction you want it to be.

Cleric 2 / Binder 1 / Cleric +1 / Anima Mage 9 / Tenebrous Apostate 5 / Divine Oracle 2

or you can drop the Tenebrous Apostate levels and just use any full divine casting PrC (which is a good choice if you can use Divine Metamagic, since the Planning Domain is useful for that and making the Anima Mage prereqs).

Anima Mage 9 will give you 3 free metamagics per day, and Divine Metamagic can give you (x) per day on top of that. If you picked Persistant Spell for both, you could have upwards of 5 24h buffs on at all times (before items).

The non-adapted Anima Mage can work well, too, but I like having more binding levels in the builds, personally.
#14
dawnmor
Feb 11, 2009 23:01:45 Alot of people will say this is a bad idea, but I got it from a mantis thrower build using Warblade and master thrower.

Kreen 3, Warblade 1, Wizard 3, JPM 8, Master Thrower 1, Abj Champ 4.

I suppose it could be redone into a melee type but Im not sure if it would work or not.

Or if you want a more kick ass IMO, drop 2 lvls of JPM, drop Abj Champ altogether, then grab 6 lvls of horizon walker.

YEAH! your CL will suck but atleast you get dimension door every d4 rounds.

However, this would work best when playing into Epic lvls, IE beyond lvl 20,

So you would get something like.....Kreen3/Warblade 1/Wizard 3/JPM 10/MT1/Abj Champ 5/Horizon Walker 6.

Thats a 29 lvl character.
#15
PlzBreakMyCampaign
Feb 12, 2009 8:54:50
I disagree, as a 'normal' medium sized character, I can alter self/poly/shapechange into something small and get the full benefits of GMW and those of being small sized. I can also poly/shapechange into something tiny and then Righteous Might up to small and get the same thing (only better).

But GMW says "a maximum of five size categories or up to an effective size of Colossal" but limitations for spells always work out so they give the worst possible way it could work right?

So GMW can go from a small damage amount to a colossal damage amount, or from tiny to gargantuan. Once you go up in size at all GMW no longer gives its full bonus. Righteous might would not change weapon damage size even if cast after GMW.
#16
khorus
Feb 12, 2009 8:58:29 I'm thinking Cleric x/ Ordained Champion 1 or 5/ and Bone knight from 5n, I'll loose 3cl and get 9th lvl spells at 20.
Cleric 1 Extend spell (planning domain) Martial Weapon and Weapon Focus (war domain) persistant spell and divine metamagic.
Ordained Champ lvl 1 trade out some planning domain spells for fighter feats and take life or healing domain to make up for some of my missing healing spells.
Ordained Champ lvl 2
Then I start into bone knight.

What fighter feats should I take and should I take the wisdom instead of Str for melee attack feat ( I think it is insightful strike)

I'm thinking High Wis and Charisma, followed by con, int, str in that order.

Feedback? I'll be a feat monkey at lvl's one and 2 and shine with a brambled great club, followed by Ice axe when I get lvl 3 spells and then a bone knight long sword pimped out with MagicWeap.
#17
innabinder
Feb 12, 2009 9:12:33 You look like you've already got a good base of ideas, but nobody's yet mentioned War Weaver, which, for a melee buffer, is phenomenal.

CC1/Martial Wiz (or Transmuter) 3/Geomancer 10/Warweaver 4/Abjurant Champion 2, for example.
#18
pithica
Feb 12, 2009 9:34:21
But GMW says "a maximum of five size categories or up to an effective size of Colossal" but limitations for spells always work out so they give the worst possible way it could work right?

So GMW can go from a small damage amount to a colossal damage amount, or from tiny to gargantuan. Once you go up in size at all GMW no longer gives its full bonus. Righteous might would not change weapon damage size even if cast after GMW.

That's not the way I'm reading the text. You are tiny, you cast GMW, your weapon does damage as if Gargantuan. You cast Righteous Might, your weapon size increases to small, and now (because it still goes up 5 size categories from GMW) your weapon does damage as if Collossal.

Nothing in the text for GMW says that it doesn't stack with other size increases. It says that it cannot take it past Collossal or past 5 size categories by itself. Since GMW doesn't actually increase the size of the weapon/wielder, it doesn't invoke the clause from Righteous Might that says that RM doesn't stack.

Now, since every other 'size increasing' type spell explicitly states that it doesn't stack with other spells, I think it would be safe to assume that RAI was that they shouldn't stack, but by RAW, they do, at least the way I'm reading it, and I don't see any errata or FAQ entry to correct that assumption (correct me if I'm wrong).

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 khorus Feb 11, 2009 8:47:40	Starting a new campaign (btw thx for the help last time char really shined 1-10) I want a melee caster focusing mainly on buffs. I was thinking Silver Brow Human with dragon husk and ice axe using planning domain to pick up extend spell, moving into persist later and life domain for the huge boost to hp. Maybe energy admixture to trick out my ice axe. I like the geomancer and was thinking cleric till lvl 3 and maybe going arcane casting and then using geomancer to cast spells in "armor" and using my divine focus to eschew materials. What arcane class am I better off using or am I better going a different route to accomplish these things? Is using ice axe suboptimal to maybe a wooden war mace or a conjured weapon that I don't know about? I'm kinda new to playing casters. TY for all the help. OH and we are starting level one but I can break the builds down.
#2 pithica Feb 11, 2009 9:04:04	1st off, you may want to post which books you are allowed, and any house-rules you know of, as you'll get more, faster, and more accurate help that way. If you're planning on sticking to Cleric as your primary class, Geomancer is completely useless. The 1 or 3 levels of wizard won't get you enough to be worth the lost levels to your primary caster level. You can already cast all your primary classes spells in armor and with DF instead of material. If you're planning on taking Wizard (or whichever is the arcane side) as your primary class, Geomancer isn't as bad, but you'll only want to take one level of (cloistered) cleric, and use Southern Magician to qualify you for Geomancer. If you can't get away with Southern Magician, Geomancer should be avoided like the plague. I'm assuming though, that since you mentioned Ice Axe (which is 3rd level), you're planning on taking Cleric as your primary. A lawful neutral Human Cloistered Cleric 3 (with Knowledge Devotion)/Church Inquisitor 4/Divine Disciple 5/Contemplative 2/XXX 6 is where I would generally start off the top of my head with cleric builds. Planning and Undeath give you two of the 4 feats you need for DMM:Persist so those would be the two I'd start with. Take Knowledge Devotion in exchange on CC for Knowledge domain. You get Inquisition for free and then two more bonus domains from DD and Cont, for those you could take Law devotion and maybe life domain (if that's what you want) or War devotion or Pride Domain. This only works, though, if you aren't limited on domain choices.
#3 khorus Feb 11, 2009 10:35:15	Any and all books 3.5, no web stuff. Can have no more than 3 classes/prestige. Sorry forgot about this. OH no pets or monks allowed for whatever reason. I'm open to more than just cleric, any caster that could be made into an effective melee. I just mentioned ice axe b/c it looks awesome, I'd use any other summonable weapon or like I said some kinda wooden weapon with brambles or some other buffs on it. Mostly I was doing cleric and geomancer to do some full armor casting cheese but in actuallity I only need to be able to cast in medium armor if I do go dragon husk. Ty for the reply.
#4 khorus Feb 11, 2009 10:53:53	K been looking around and I don't think geomancer is going to cut it lol. So cleric or arcane, and what prc to boost cleric melee abil / buffs. Sorry to ramble lol on meds for migraine and home sick from work lol. SO divine metamagic and work into cleric of pelor I think. But what for a weapon? Should I go ICE AXE energy admixture it and maximize it or something or should I just use a big weapon with high dmg and buff it to amazingness lol? Also would I be better dragon husk or just going with some full plate or something? I noticed I can't target dragon husk with spells like I can armor.
#5 pithica Feb 11, 2009 11:06:36	If you're only interest in Cleric is full armor casting, you only need one level of cleric and southern magician to qualify you for Geomancer. Any higher would be a waste of caster levels in your other class. If you do go that route, take Cloistered Cleric variant and Knowledge Devotion (in exchange for Knowledge Domain). Paired with Wizard this isn't that bad, as you'll advance spells at the same rate as a sorcerer, overall. CC1/Martial Wiz (or Transmuter) 3/Geomancer 10/Incantatrix 4/Abjurant Champion 2 Is a very solid melee caster, using a combination of DMM (I'd actually go with DMM-Quicken over persist and use metamagic effect for persist) and Metamagic Effect to buff yourself through the roof and melee just about anything to death. However, you specifically said you were limited to 3 classes. The same above can work with CC1/Martial Wiz (or Transmuter) 3/Geomancer 10/Wiz +6 but not nearly as effectively. In this latter one, I might also consider trading my 5th level feat for a Domain Power, but I'd have to drop the martial wizard variant (I think). Either way, I'd add Arcane Disciple-Competition so that I could abuse Divine Power (and Righteous Might and Greater Visage of the Diety) persistence. If you go with Ice Axe as your melee damage of choice, make sure you pick up Piercing Cold from Frostburn so that you can damage Cold Immune/resistant creatures. Better than Ice Axe, though, is Greater Mighty Wallop, which, if you can get away with it, is crazy and hella broken. The visual for that spell, found at the bottom of page 114 in Races of the Dragon, speaks more for it than anything I can say about it. A quarterstaff with that spell (at max caster level) alone will do base damage of 4d6 and a Greatclub does 6d8. Better, though, is a Small Sized Goliath Greathammer, which does 8d8 at max. I built a TWF gish taking advantage of that with oversized TWF to have 8 attacks/rd all at base damage 8d8, which isn't bad at all if I do say so myself.
#6 PlzBreakMyCampaign Feb 11, 2009 11:40:09	Greater Mighty Wallop, which, if you can get away with it, is crazy and hella broken. Kinda. Its actually not as useful as a secondary buff as the normal version which allows exceeding colossal size. As the single buff on weapon size, it is still very powerful even though it doesn't play nice with other size increases.
#7 khorus Feb 11, 2009 11:51:05	TY pithica! That is pretty much what I had in mind. I'll give this a try.
#8 pithica Feb 11, 2009 12:29:01	Kinda. Its actually not as useful as a secondary buff as the normal version which allows exceeding colossal size. As the single buff on weapon size, it is still very powerful even though it doesn't play nice with other size increases. I disagree, as a 'normal' medium sized character, I can alter self/poly/shapechange into something small and get the full benefits of GMW and those of being small sized. I can also poly/shapechange into something tiny and then Righteous Might up to small and get the same thing (only better). A small-sized character with a Goliath Greathammer has a base damage of 8d8 with Greater Mighty Wallop (at CL20), one step shy of the max base damage of 12d8 possible. A tiny-size character with a Goliath Greathammer does a base of 12d6 with Righteous Might (or Enlarge Person) and Greater Mighty Wallop, even closer to the max of 12d8 possible. Personally, I think this is superior to trying to use size/shape magic into larger sized forms anyway, as the those forms put a huge target on your back (literally). I'm sure that isn't always true, because the higher strength from the better larger forms probably outweighs the difference in die size.
#9 khorus Feb 11, 2009 12:37:00	Following that train of thought would I be better off going kobold? Also what exactly does dragonwrought do for me?
#10 pithica Feb 11, 2009 12:59:20	I personally really like Kobolds (and Goblins), flavor wise and RP wise, so I'm never going to tell someone not to play one. I've never not had fun playing one. Without a way to increase damage, though, they typically don't make great melee combatants. Of course, if you can use GMW, they're pretty tight. Dragonwrought turns your type to dragon, which gives you a number of benefits. Dragons don't age (don't take age penalties), dragons are immune to sleep/paralysis, dragons are immune to affects that target humanoids, etc. Dragonwrought Kobold can also take advantage of the Greater Rite of Draconic Passage...(here) to cast as sorcerers but gain new spell levels as quickly as wizards. A DW Kobold (Battle maybe) Sorcerer 5/Mindbender 1/Incantatrix 4/Abjurant Champion 4/Incantatrix +6 is potentially quite a solid melee caster, having a final caster level of 21 (at 20), and great damage potential with Arcane Strike and/or Greater Mighty Wallop.
#11 phaedrusxy Feb 11, 2009 13:06:13	Dragonwrought also lets you be venerable age, getting a +3 to all mental stats, without the -6 penalty to the physical ones. And what levels is this for? I think in general, clerics are easier to buff up for melee than arcane casters, but the arcane guys have some tricks that are a bit harder to get for the cleric. The arcanists can always take Arcane Disciple to steal some of the cleric's best tricks. :D Clerics can also start out as melee specialists at level 1. It usually takes the arcane casters longer to get good at it.
#12 keithio Feb 11, 2009 21:58:59	Build ideas: Barbarian1/Wizard8/AbjurantChampion5 (Lion totem) Wizard4/Sorcerer1/UltimateMagus6/Wizard1 (Practiced caster [sorcerer]) Paladin2/Sorcerer6/AbjurantChampion5 HumanParagon1/Sorcerer2/HumanParagon2/UnseenSeer8 BattleSorcerer7/AbjurantChampion5 Swordsage1/Sorcerer4/Swordsage1/JadePhoenixMage10
#13 jameswilliamogle Feb 11, 2009 22:10:52	Anima Mage, using the adaptation section for divine spellcasting, looks like its in the direction you want it to be. Cleric 2 / Binder 1 / Cleric +1 / Anima Mage 9 / Tenebrous Apostate 5 / Divine Oracle 2 or you can drop the Tenebrous Apostate levels and just use any full divine casting PrC (which is a good choice if you can use Divine Metamagic, since the Planning Domain is useful for that and making the Anima Mage prereqs). Anima Mage 9 will give you 3 free metamagics per day, and Divine Metamagic can give you (x) per day on top of that. If you picked Persistant Spell for both, you could have upwards of 5 24h buffs on at all times (before items). The non-adapted Anima Mage can work well, too, but I like having more binding levels in the builds, personally.
#14 dawnmor Feb 11, 2009 23:01:45	Alot of people will say this is a bad idea, but I got it from a mantis thrower build using Warblade and master thrower. Kreen 3, Warblade 1, Wizard 3, JPM 8, Master Thrower 1, Abj Champ 4. I suppose it could be redone into a melee type but Im not sure if it would work or not. Or if you want a more kick ass IMO, drop 2 lvls of JPM, drop Abj Champ altogether, then grab 6 lvls of horizon walker. YEAH! your CL will suck but atleast you get dimension door every d4 rounds. However, this would work best when playing into Epic lvls, IE beyond lvl 20, So you would get something like.....Kreen3/Warblade 1/Wizard 3/JPM 10/MT1/Abj Champ 5/Horizon Walker 6. Thats a 29 lvl character.
#15 PlzBreakMyCampaign Feb 12, 2009 8:54:50	I disagree, as a 'normal' medium sized character, I can alter self/poly/shapechange into something small and get the full benefits of GMW and those of being small sized. I can also poly/shapechange into something tiny and then Righteous Might up to small and get the same thing (only better). But GMW says "a maximum of five size categories or up to an effective size of Colossal" but limitations for spells always work out so they give the worst possible way it could work right? So GMW can go from a small damage amount to a colossal damage amount, or from tiny to gargantuan. Once you go up in size at all GMW no longer gives its full bonus. Righteous might would not change weapon damage size even if cast after GMW.
#16 khorus Feb 12, 2009 8:58:29	I'm thinking Cleric x/ Ordained Champion 1 or 5/ and Bone knight from 5n, I'll loose 3cl and get 9th lvl spells at 20. Cleric 1 Extend spell (planning domain) Martial Weapon and Weapon Focus (war domain) persistant spell and divine metamagic. Ordained Champ lvl 1 trade out some planning domain spells for fighter feats and take life or healing domain to make up for some of my missing healing spells. Ordained Champ lvl 2 Then I start into bone knight. What fighter feats should I take and should I take the wisdom instead of Str for melee attack feat ( I think it is insightful strike) I'm thinking High Wis and Charisma, followed by con, int, str in that order. Feedback? I'll be a feat monkey at lvl's one and 2 and shine with a brambled great club, followed by Ice axe when I get lvl 3 spells and then a bone knight long sword pimped out with MagicWeap.
#17 innabinder Feb 12, 2009 9:12:33	You look like you've already got a good base of ideas, but nobody's yet mentioned War Weaver, which, for a melee buffer, is phenomenal. CC1/Martial Wiz (or Transmuter) 3/Geomancer 10/Warweaver 4/Abjurant Champion 2, for example.
#18 pithica Feb 12, 2009 9:34:21	But GMW says "a maximum of five size categories or up to an effective size of Colossal" but limitations for spells always work out so they give the worst possible way it could work right? So GMW can go from a small damage amount to a colossal damage amount, or from tiny to gargantuan. Once you go up in size at all GMW no longer gives its full bonus. Righteous might would not change weapon damage size even if cast after GMW. That's not the way I'm reading the text. You are tiny, you cast GMW, your weapon does damage as if Gargantuan. You cast Righteous Might, your weapon size increases to small, and now (because it still goes up 5 size categories from GMW) your weapon does damage as if Collossal. Nothing in the text for GMW says that it doesn't stack with other size increases. It says that it cannot take it past Collossal or past 5 size categories by itself. Since GMW doesn't actually increase the size of the weapon/wielder, it doesn't invoke the clause from Righteous Might that says that RM doesn't stack. Now, since every other 'size increasing' type spell explicitly states that it doesn't stack with other spells, I think it would be safe to assume that RAI was that they shouldn't stack, but by RAW, they do, at least the way I'm reading it, and I don't see any errata or FAQ entry to correct that assumption (correct me if I'm wrong).