[3.5] Blasting a city combo, and two other questions

[herrhauptmann]

Hey all, I got a few questions for you tonight.

First question

I've seen a combination of feats with a spell which allows one to blast a large portion of a city, but can't find those threads.
1) Need explosive spell feat (Com Arc)
2) Energy substitution feat (Com Arc)
3) A feat which forces people in the area make a reflex check to avoid falling when in area of a cold spell. (Maybe in Frostburn?)
4) Finally the spell. Don't know what the spell is called, nor where the third feat is.



Second,
The DM rocked us during playtesting with a tauric creature which he stated had a +1 ECL, and mounted combat as a free feat. He used it with leap attack/shock trooper/ combat brute.
Looking for that creature. Either its name, or the book to find it in.

Finally,
Any good ways to get UMD for a sorceror besides taking loremaster? I'm open to prestige classes and multiclassing, but only PrC I can think of is Loremaster, and multiclassing to either rogue or bard.

[Fostire]

You're looking for the locate city bomb trick, it uses the locate city spell and the metamagic feat explosive spell (from complete arcane). I don't remember the name of the cold feat, but you need another feat before that adds 2 points of lightning damage so that you can then apply energy substitution

[alchemyprime]

1. Locate City (from Cityscape IIRC). You mean the Locate City Bomb, which I say doesn't really work...

Locate City + some feat that makes it a Cold spell + some feat that makes all cold spells do +1 cold damage + energy substitution for lightning damage + energy admixture for it does 1 electricity and 1 cold + explosive metamagic.

Dang impossible to pull off.


2. ???

3. Profit. Just kidding. Um... multiclass into Factotum (Dungeonscape) I think.

[MountainKing]

Okay, for the second question, you're not actually looking at a creature at all. What you encountered is an application of the Tauric creature template, which can be found on page 216 of Monster Manual 2.

I have to say, as an aside, that your DM is brilliant. Possibly one of the most magnificent bastages I've heard tell of. Congratulate him on the monster for me, but don't mention to him that it's in fact not ECL +1, but CR +1, which is a massive difference. I have no idea what the actual ECL would be for a Tauric creature, but there's no way it's +1. Not to mention the individual LAs reworked together to make the creature in the first place, and whatnot.

The third question, only works if you can use Unearthed Arcana (I've never heard of a DM unwilling to use it), and if you're okay with losing a single level of spellcasting. I know a lot of people go nuts over a single caster level, but, come on... it's a roleplaying game, not rollplaying game, etcetera.

Anywho, look into the Human Paragon class in Unearthed Arcana. Should have just the fix for you.

[Keld Denar]

1 The spell is Locate City, in Races of Destiny, IIRC. The other feats you apply to it are Snowcasting from Frostburn and Flash Frost, also from Frostburn, which gives it the cold discriptor, and then tacks on 2 cold damage to the entire area. Then you Energy Sub: Electric on it and apply Born of 3 Thunders, which changes it from 2 electric to 1 electric 1 sonic. It also forces a reflex save vs prone, and a fort save vs stunned. Now you apply Explosive Spell, which, if you fail the reflex save vs prone, violently expels you from the area.

Funny thing, it wouldn't actually level a city, since explosive spell explicitly only expels creatures. Also, it would be blocked by people in doors (no line of effect) and by people standing next to walls (no where to be knocked back). Still it would devistate a large portion of people, and more importantly livestock and other animals.

2 Tauric is in Savage Species MM2, and should be way more than ECL +1. He probably neglected to increase the ECL even after giving it all the bonus HD of the base creature.

3 Maybe Unseen Seer from Complete Mage? I think you can get into it straight from sorc, although it'll cost you a TON of crossclass skills and won't be available until about ECL10. Taking a level of Rogue allows you to get in at Rogue1/Sorc4 and procced to USS10 and then Arcane Trickster 5 or maybe some Archmage or whatever you wish. USS is a really good class though.

[Mushroom Ninja]

3. Just take Cross-class ranks in UMD. You'll probably have the CHA to make up for it.

[herrhauptmann]

I have to say, as an aside, that your DM is brilliant. Possibly one of the most magnificent bastages I've heard tell of. Congratulate him on the monster for me
I'll tell him, his weapon was a lance of course. My only chance with my own combat brute/leap attack/shock trooper was a readied action to sunder when he came close. Which required me to go first, which I didn't do 9 tries in a row. When he LET me go first because I kept losing in initiative, I sundered his lance that cost as a +9 weapon. Pyrrhic victory.

He also had a monk that was awesome. Choker monk, with a prestige class from BoVD. Every hit did a level drain, and something else he had (maybe from same PrC) gave him about 30 bonus hitpoints per level drained(they stacked). ECL 16 I think.
Polymorph into a girallon or something else with multiple arms then unleash a flurry of blows....
Wasn't especially effective against our psion who came specifically prepared to the playtesting with a power that turned him undead and immune to level drain and crits. On the downside, we're now going to face more evil clerics.

[herrhauptmann]

1 The spell is Locate City, in Races of Destiny, IIRC. The other feats you apply to it are Snowcasting from Frostburn and Flash Frost, also from Frostburn, which gives it the cold discriptor, and then tacks on 2 cold damage to the entire area. Then you Energy Sub: Electric on it and apply Born of 3 Thunders, which changes it from 2 electric to 1 electric 1 sonic. It also forces a reflex save vs prone, and a fort save vs stunned. Now you apply Explosive Spell, which, if you fail the reflex save vs prone, violently expels you from the area.
Funny thing, it wouldn't actually level a city, since explosive spell explicitly only expels creatures. Also, it would be blocked by people in doors (no line of effect) and by people standing next to walls (no where to be knocked back).

Now it might be because its late and I'm tired, or I'm just being an idiot, but I've found Snowcasting. I don't see a feat called 'flash frost' in my pdf (so it might have been errated), and while there is a 'cold spell specializtion' which adds +1 (or +2 in cold weather), but it requires the feat 'frozen magic'.