This is kinda embarrassing but my new group for 3.5 DnD has elected me the primary spellcaster...and I have no idea what to do.
See, I usually play martial character or skill based character like a rogue or a sword-sage. I'm usually reliant on abilities, keeping my eye on my BAB and the hard numbers on my sheet. Being a tide-turning, battle-altering, wimpy-to-look at mage is something I'm not used to and have never done before without somehow combining it with and letting it play second fiddle to combat.
So now I don't know what to do. I've considered the Geometer cause I like the concept, and I've put together a skeleton Mystic Theurge and Daggerspell Mage.
But I don't know if any of these are what you would call "primary spellcasters."
What should I do? What's out there that's interesting to play and will get the job done?
This is 3.5, so what books are allowed? Level? Gear and multiclassing restrictions? What is the rest of the party in terms of classes?
In addition, "primary spellcaster" is incredibly vague. Do they need a control- and AoE-heavy boomstick, a buffer, a debuffer, a healer, a utility caster?
Without that info, the only advice I can really give is: don't let your group bully you into playing something you don't want to play. If you get press-ganged into a class and role you don't like, you won't enjoy the game all that much, which will drag everyone else down with you, and nobody wants that.
You can reduce a lot of complexity by choosing classes that have only a limited range of spells to choose from, such as Sorcerers, Warlocks and Favored Souls (but I seem to recall Favored Souls suck or something).
The most complex are probably Wizards and Druids. You will likely spend hours of your life trying to figure out and remind yourself what your spells actually do, in 3.5.
EDIT: Sorcerers are "weaker" than Wizards, in that they don't change the entire universe every combat. You don't necessarily need one of those anyhow. Sorcerers instead just do extremely decent damage and other things dependent on spell choice.
If you don't want to play a certain class, then your party shouldn't just force it on you. It seems nobody in your party wants to deal with magic...sounds like the perfect opportunity for the dm to run a low magic type of campaign.
Ya we're playing 3.5, sans ToB, ToM and Dragonlance. Pretty much everything else is fair game.
My current build as a Rogue 1/Sorcerer 5/Daggerspell Mage 3 (We're starting at level 9). I think I'm looking to make a boomstick/buff sort of character, but i also love stealthy combatants so that's why i sort of defaulted... I've got spells like Scorching Ray and Bit of the Wererat and other things - i guess the character has a very "Now you see me, now you don't, now you see me, now you BOOM!!!" kinda theme going on.
That's also a reason i was thinking Mystic Theurge though because they can do pretty much everything - the hard part for me is realizing that im not SUPPOSED to have beastly AC, BAB and Skills. I keep looking at my AC and Skill set and low HP and thinking "What am i supposed to do with this?!" just cause magic users, while incredibly interesting, are so alien to me.
I just want to make sure I'm playing an effective magic user.
Well, it's not that I don't WANT to play the spellcaster, it's that I'm not USED to it. So I don't know what's good and what's just a terrible awful idea.
Ya we're playing 3.5, sans ToB, ToM and Dragonlance. Pretty much everything else is fair game.
My current build as a Rogue 1/Sorcerer 5/Daggerspell Mage 3 (We're starting at level 9). I think I'm looking to make a boomstick/buff sort of character, but i also love stealthy combatants so that's why i sort of defaulted... I've got spells like Scorching Ray and Bit of the Wererat and other things - i guess the character has a very "Now you see me, now you don't, now you see me, now you BOOM!!!" kinda theme going on.
That's also a reason i was thinking Mystic Theurge though because they can do pretty much everything - the hard part for me is realizing that im not SUPPOSED to have beastly AC, BAB and Skills. I keep looking at my AC and Skill set and low HP and thinking "What am i supposed to do with this?!" just cause magic users, while incredibly interesting, are so alien to me.
I just want to make sure I'm playing an effective magic user.
You only need two spells. Silent Image and Grease. It helps if there's a chasm or a very fast flowing river in the encounter. Create an illusion of a bridge and put a grease spell right on the ground before they get to the bridge.
Stand on the other side of said chasm/river and taunt the monsters into chasing you across the illusory bridge. A couple balance checks later and they'll plummet to their death or be swept away. =)
...i think that just about made my night, actually
Yeah, with the right spells you can do some pretty funny things.
Keep in mind that "Ray" functions as a weapon for things like Precision Damage and feats like Weapon Focus. Ray spells will be your very best friends in this build.
I understand your feelings about your HP, AC, BAB, etc. However, there are two things you should really adhere to when playing a squishy mage.
1. If you are getting hit, something is wrong.
2. If you want to damage something, you hit it with the Fighter.
Yes, you should invest in some direct-damage spells - Scorching Ray, Fireball, Magic Missile - but what you want to get are utility and crowd-control spells. Here are a few that are *incredibly* useful.
Glitterdust: Blinds everything in an area of effect if they fail a save. Sculptable.
Web: Immobilizes everything in an area of effect if they fail a save; if they make it they still have to make Strength checks to move.
Invisibility: Self-explanatory.
Dispel Magic: You will want this. Always.
Fly (Also Overland Flight at later levels): A grounded wizard is a dead wizard.
Black Tentacles: Grapples everything in an AoE and gives the DM a headache. Ultra-useful.
Feeblemind: Take out that annoying spellcaster in one shot.
Dimension Door: Get-out-of-jail-free card for you and most of the party.
As for feats, metamagic is your friend. Sculpt is incredibly useful - turn your Glitterdusts and Fireballs into friendly-fireless precision strikes. Energy Substitution means your Scorching Ray can suddenly become Freezing. Empower and Maximize are great when you're firebombing crowds. Also consider investing in Rods of these feats, thus allowing you free uses of them.
This can all broadly be applied to Divine spellcasters as well - many of these spells have Divine equivalents. There are many, many more spells out there, but always look at what it might do to turn the battle before you let large damage figures hypnotize you.
Unseen Servant - great for retrieving things where it might be dangerous for the party to go - on the other side of a trap, amidst a yellow mold, etc.
Disguise Self - fun for situations where you need to infiltrate the bad guys.
Feather Fall - so much nicer than landing splat at the bottom of...almost anything.
Comprehend Languages - very useful if the NPCs speak other than Common. Also useful in conjunction with Disguise Self.
Message - great for secret commuication when you don't want the NPCs to hear.
Alarm - the mental version is nice for letting you know if your room at the inn has been disturbed by enemies.
Ghost Sound - all sorts of fun effects. Great for diverting attention from you and the party, or making the baddies think that you have backup on the way.
Detect Thoughts - can let you know if there are intelligent creatures on the other side of the door. Depending on the DM's whim you might get anything from passwords to cookie recipes.
Hideous Laughter - good for momentarily nulifying the bad guy.
Tongues - useful with Disguise Self
Secret Chest - good for stashing your spellbooks or valuables while you adventure.
Quickblade is also a good path for people who like both being primary caster and getting into combat
Remember that scrolls and wands are your friends. Those tools greatly improve your versatility by not making you waste precious spell slots on utility spells and buffs. Conversely, since wands (and most other magic items) have static resist DCs that don't get modified by the caster's abilities, don't sink cash in to magic items that use offensive spells. Lastly, magic item creation is highly underrated- sure it costs experience, but spell casting classes tend to fare a little bit better than other classes anyways- it's worth being one level behind the rest of your party (by a relatively small margin) when you have two copies of every spell you can cast in scroll form somewhere on your person (just remember to keep the important stuff near the top of your bag
)!At level 9 you can do some serious wild shape melee and with natural spell you can fire off ice lances or splinterbolts with your dexterity boosted so that they are very high probability hits.
Druids have some the best buff spells in the game, have some of the best battelfield control spells in the game and generally have the best summon abilities in the game (since you can always cast a summon spell in place of any other spell, you basically can summon at will). And they have some great direct and area damage spells too. Wizards and clerics get more spells, but druids get wild shape and an animal companion, which more than makes up for it, imho.
And when you get your combat jones on and feel like you just have to get into the fight, wild shape, buff yourself (and your companion if you can stay side by side) with bite of the wererat and wade on into combat. Wild shape into a big cat with pounce and you can pretty much rip your enemies apart with up to five attacks per round.
Druids rule. There is no other class with half as much flexibility, and no other class that tops them in pure raw power. Plus they have great role playing potential. Just don't play your druid like a tree hugging hippy.
Druids rule. There is no other class with half as much flexibility, and no other class that tops them in pure raw power. Plus they have great role playing potential. Just don't play your druid like a tree hugging hippy.
First of all, this. You can be a bear, with a bear, then summon more bears! Druid are probably the easiest spellcasters to play. Nearly the same utility as the wizard, healing to rival the cleric, and more physical power than most melee classes hands down. They're just plain not fair :P
Second, between wizards and sorcerers, the former are the overall more powerful. Spellcasters live and die on the spells they choose, and wizards offer more overall flexibility in spell choice. And with Int as their primary stat, they are going to have more skill points for miscellaneous things. Wizards are also a bit more newbie friendly than sorcerers, I think. A sorcerer's spells known are rigidly locked once selected, so they have to live with their decisions, good or bad, for a long time. A wizard merely has to buy a new scroll if a spell's not working out for them. Personally, I prefer sorcerers for the on-the-spot flexibility, but it helps that I'm used to playing them and can put together a list of spells known that compliment each other.
Third, Mystic Thurge is a trap. Unless you use some early entry cheese (which I'll admit, I'm not too familiar with), the number of levels your spellcasting will be behind is going to hurt all the way until near epic levels. This prc makes for a better backup/secondary caster than primary.
Forth, reader Treantmonk's guide to wizards. While mainly focused on wizards, lots of the advice can be applied to any spellcaster.
Fifth, echoing what Cao-Megde said earlier, damage is not your job. Everybody can do damage. Not just anybody can summon, buff, debuff, shape the battlefield, divine, and the like. Don't get me wrong. Boomstick spells are fun and you should keep a good few of them around. Just be sure not to ignore your other options.
You're a spell caster. You need to be able to cast spells. (The ring of spell storing lets you cast other spellcasters' spells, which can be a big help if you're a druid and you are the party's main healer.)
And damage may not be your job, but then again it may be. One of the best roles a sorcerer can fill is artillery, lobbing the big shells at the enemy. It really does tend to soften up a room if you can send a fireball or two into it before the martial dudes go in... And don't underestimate the effectiveness of magic missile on a target with seriously high AC....
If you want to be a primary spellcaster that still kicks the crap out of things, be a Druid. Okay, it'll be more like eating them than kicking them, but the point stands.
Exactly this.
It's like being a melee character with all the benefits of being a spellcaster added in. And you get a free bonuse melee character (Animal Companion) to hang out with you!
As an added bonus, take the Natural Spell feat and you won't even need to wild shape out of your bear/dinosaur/elemental/whatever (elemental dinosaur?) form to cast spells.
But yeah, a druid is great if you're looking for a controller who can still hit things and make them fall down. I have a borderline broken elf druid with speed 8 and a +8 initiative bonus who can go toe-to-toe with a savage minotaur.
1. It's heaps of paperwork and rules. You need paperwork for spells, for your wildshape stats and animal companion (which change a lot with different buffs applied) and for the stuff you can summon (which can also change if you want to take summoning feats).
2. It requres a whole lot of micromanagement(you're playing yourself, the animal companion and any summoned animals yoyu might have) and decision making (should i go melee, cast a spell or summon this round?)
For the first spelclaster, I'd advise a cleric. It's pretty resilient(decent AC and HP, can hold his own in melee, so it's much more forgiving to mistakes than a wizard for example) and also has acess to the whole spell list, so if you picked a bad spell no worries, you can just pick another one tomorrow.
As an added bonus, take the Natural Spell feat and you won't even need to wild shape out of your bear/dinosaur/elemental/whatever (elemental dinosaur?) form to cast spells.
This is true, but remember, all your gear will become inert when you shift into wild shape form, so be sure to factor that in when you wildshape.
And please, don't resort to "wilding clasps" to keep your magic doodads active... druids are awesome enough already without cheese.
If it's the first time for you playing a 3.5 spellcaster, I'd advise staying away from the Druid for 2 main reasons:
1. It's heaps of paperwork and rules. You need paperwork for spells, for your wildshape stats and animal companion (which change a lot with different buffs applied) and for the stuff you can summon (which can also change if you want to take summoning feats).
2. It requres a whole lot of micromanagement(you're playing yourself, the animal companion and any summoned animals yoyu might have) and decision making (should i go melee, cast a spell or summon this round?)
For the first spelclaster, I'd advise a cleric. It's pretty resilient(decent AC and HP, can hold his own in melee, so it's much more forgiving to mistakes than a wizard for example) and also has acess to the whole spell list, so if you picked a bad spell no worries, you can just pick another one tomorrow.
Yeah, there's some truth to this. Druids have several really involved mechanics with lots of errata. Wild Shape has been errata'd so much that it's difficult to keep it all straight. So if you are intimidated by paperwork and don't like to read through rules and errata, perhaps a druid might be a bit much.
As for me, I love that stuff.
It is also the case that, in a game where spellcasting characters are just plain more powerful than nonspellcasting characters in the middlegame and endgame, druids and clerics are pretty close to the cheesiest, most overpowered base class in the game. If you want that, there's nothing stopping you, but....
Add wizard, psion and archivist to that list. In D&D 3.5 there is a huge power gap between the aforementioned classes (pretty much everything with full spellcasting and decent spell list) and anything else. The only 2 options are either learn to live with it or switch to 4th edition
Since the introduction of the game (and I've been playing since about that time) there has always been a "sweet spot" where D&D is the most balanced and, I think, the most fun. For 3.5 that tends to be from about level 7 to about level 14 or so. Below that and traditional, typical spellcasters can be tough to play, while martial characters (particularly rogues and rangers) take the spotlight. Above that and your spellcasters start to overpower anyone else.
At low levels you can address the imbalance with some clever builds and good choices of gear and magic items. At high levels a wizard is going to be a wizard.
But in that sweet spot, things are reasonably equal and you can more or less pick any class and feel like a valuable member of the party. Even 4e has a sweet spot I think. At least 4e can be frustrating and devolve into at-will spamming sessions at low levels. I haven't played Epic yet, but based on some of the builds I've seen on these boards, I expect there are more "super heroes" than Wizards would care to admit. However, "spellcasting" classes aren't the only classes that can become godlike (well, in a sense in 4e all characters are "spellcasting" characters, so that's a bit misleading).
You will multiclass Sorcerer Barbarian and then prestige into Rage Mage. This is nonnegotiable (Actually don't even know what rage mages do, but they're called ****ing rage mage ). But yeah, personally I reccomend Wu Jen, just for the Taboos. "Must correct the grammar of everyone they interact with"
"Must groom all cats they see" etc.
As an added bonus, take the Natural Spell feat and you won't even need to wild shape out of your bear/dinosaur/elemental/whatever (elemental dinosaur?) form to cast spells.
This is true, but remember, all your gear will become inert when you shift into wild shape form, so be sure to factor that in when you wildshape.
And please, don't resort to "wilding clasps" to keep your magic doodads active... druids are awesome enough already without cheese.
As a spell casting dinosaur, I don't need gear. I expect my enemies to react in one of two ways:
1. Flee in terror. Regular dinosaurs are scary enough, let alone ones calling down fire and lightning.
2. Form a cult and worship me. While I don't promote this behavior, there's always a use for minions.
As an added bonus, take the Natural Spell feat and you won't even need to wild shape out of your bear/dinosaur/elemental/whatever (elemental dinosaur?) form to cast spells.
This is true, but remember, all your gear will become inert when you shift into wild shape form, so be sure to factor that in when you wildshape.
And please, don't resort to "wilding clasps" to keep your magic doodads active... druids are awesome enough already without cheese.
As a spell casting dinosaur, I don't need gear. I expect my enemies to react in one of two ways:
1. Flee in terror. Regular dinosaurs are scary enough, let alone ones calling down fire and lightning.
2. Form a cult and worship me. While I don't promote this behavior, there's always a use for minions.
My DM won't allow wild shape into any animal forms my druid hasn't encountered. So, no dinosaurs, not yet anyway.... That's alright, spell-casting mountain lions are pretty freaky too.
...except that the druid/cleric is also fully competent even at level 1, and high-level druids, with the right shapeshiftign forms, can beat specialized fighters at the things that the fighters are supposed to be good at via shapeshifting, leaving them their full spell progression to be overpowered in completely different ways with.
The same goes for a wizard. For exampe Polymorph+Arcane disciple(war)=pretty much unstoppable melee killing machine at lvl. 9+. Psionic melee stuff is somewhat harder to make, but not impossible.
As for being overpowered, this is a relative thing. Of course a mid-to-high level Druid is orders of magnitude better than a mid-to-high level fighter, but this might also mean that the fighter is underopwered, and not the other way around. It all depends on what you define as the 'appropriate' power level.
Also, regarding wilding clasps being cheesy: keep in mind that a polymrphing wizard retains all his gear if the new form can use them(and most melee oriented wizards polymorph into humaniod stuff: war troll or outsiders anyway, unless you're doing stuff like hasted hydra).
I will kill you with my bear hands!
The best thing about a druid is annoying enemies with puns.
I will kill you with my bear hands!
And I'm not lion!
The best thing about a druid is annoying enemies with puns.
I will kill you with my bear hands!
And I'm not lion!
and I'll give you some crabs( cramps)
*turns into a bear, commands companion bear to attack, summons more bears*
Ouch. That was horrible.
My DM won't allow wild shape into any animal forms my druid hasn't encountered. So, no dinosaurs, not yet anyway.... That's alright, spell-casting mountain lions are pretty freaky too.
Can he prove that your character hasn't seen a dinosaur in his lifetime?
I could bear-ly take that awful bear-arge of bear puns.
Just grin and bear the punishment.
Just grin and bear the punishment.
Fortunately, I have a potion of Bear's Endurance. It's bear-ry flavored.