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Infernum
2010-01-29, 12:33 PM
I have been playing a Warmage in an on-going campaign and have become a little stumped as to where to take him and what feats to give him. The world he is existing in is a home-brew of my DMs and certain things work in a different ways.

He is currently a level 4 Human Warmage. A noble born Warrior from the shattered empire to the south. Trained in the trenches from a young age. Using his physical superiority as a leg up over most other mages, plus it doesnt hurt to be hardy and strong when your fighting with fighters.

His stats are Str:18 Dex:16 Con:18 Int:16 Wis:11 Cha:17 (I know his stats are high, but i rolled em right there at the table.)

His first feats are:
*Educated(It granted him a lot of knowledge skills which are important to have in this particular world setting.)
*Martial Weapon Proficiency(In this world setting it grants all martial weapons, plus with his high Str he fights about as well as a cleric with normal Str.)
*Energy Substitution: Cold(The reason for cold was because he gained an elemental familiar in game, its a bit more powerful than a normal familiar cause it levels and gains other abilities not on the familiar list.)

I am not sure what feats to take next. I am possible looking at getting access to the Arch Mage Prestige class using his Eclectic Learning to facilitate the 5 5th level spells of 5 different schools of magic. Although that is only and idea and that prestiege class would take some time to get to.

I would love any input on this as far as feat selection goes or other ideas as well.

Artanis
2010-01-29, 01:24 PM
The first thing you have to do is decide whether you want to stay a blaster. Many of the strongest build options for the Warmage wind up boiling down to not being a Warmage anymore. So you have to decide whether you want to follow those or ignore those.

arguskos
2010-01-29, 01:26 PM
Well, you're built is such a way that you could probably duck into Spellsword and Abjurant Champion with little issue. That might be worth looking into. If you take Haste for your Eclectic Learning, you can get into Swiftblade, which is pretty sweet.

Corlindale
2010-01-29, 01:31 PM
I would love any input on this as far as feat selection goes or other ideas as well.

I just started playing a Warmage as well, it's good fun so far. Note that it is widely considered a somewhat underpowered class, but certainly not unviable.

For my Warmage I intend to focus on feats that improve his general usefulness as a blaster/controller, which means I go for stuff like Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus in Evocation, as well as Spell Penetration and Arcane Mastery later, since a lot of the good warmage spells are SR: Yes.

If you want to go into metamagic Sculpt Spell might be an interesting choice, allowing you to blast more freely without hitting your allies. If you intend to melee at all Retributive Spell is another fun choice, which has the additional advantage that it isn't really affected by the spontaneous full-round metamagic drawback.
Rapid Spell may also be good to grab later on if you're doing a lot of metamagic, and it's pretty much a necessity if you want to pick up Quicken.

I also took Improved Initiative at lvl 1, adhering to the philosophy that if you're going to be throwing fireballs and the like around, it's optimal to do so before your party's meleers have become entangled with the enemy forces.

I note that you have taken some "gishy" feats with your WM. That's certainly viable with your high strength score, but just keep in mind that the Warmage, despite the name, is not really made to do any actual weapon-fighting. He's got only very few spells that benefit gish-style play, and his class features don't really go that way either. My own warmage is str 8, and does not intend to do any kind of weapon-fighting if it can possibly be avoided.

For prestige classes Archmage is certainly a decent choice, which I'm also considering for my warmage. Note that you can qualify for it even without using Eclectic Learning if you wait until lvl 16.

Fatespinner is another all-round decent spellcaster prc, which is really easy to qualify for.

Thematically your character would seem well-suited for the Elemental Savant prc, having already grabbed Energy Sub (Cold), and even having an elemental companion. Just be warned that it is not really a very good prc, and that taking it will actually hurt your casting quite a bit with the 2 lost caster levels. It will also remove one of the great assets of the warmage class - its elemental damage versatility (though of course that will eventually be negated if you grab Archmage and Mastery of Elements at the end of it).

There are also some more cheesy options for warmage which expands its limited spellist a bit. I'm not fond of using these myself, because I want to try to play my warmage as just a warmage, but apparently you can gain spontaneous access to the entire Cleric spellist using Rainbow Servant, or to a good bit of extra arcane spells if you use Mage of the Arcane Order (qualifying for it with the Arcane Preparation feat).

Optimystik
2010-01-29, 01:36 PM
As Corlindale said, your biggest weakness is spell selection. Almost the entirety of a warmage's list does one thing (i.e. blast,) and they don't even do that very well.

Thus, list-expanding PrCs, like the aforementioned MotAO and Rainbow Servant are very helpful. Sandshaper is another very useful one that wasn't mentioned.

Alternatively, use a theurge to expand your list, like Ultimate Magus or Ur-Priest/MT, and get all your utility from there.

Artanis
2010-01-29, 01:42 PM
As Corlindale said, your biggest weakness is spell selection. Almost the entirety of a warmage's list does one thing (i.e. blast,) and they don't even do that very well.

Thus, list-expanding PrCs, like the aforementioned MotAO and Rainbow Servant are very helpful. Sandshaper is another very useful one that wasn't mentioned.

Alternatively, use a theurge to expand your list, like Ultimate Magus or Ur-Priest/MT, and get all your utility from there.

This is the sort of thing I meant by deciding whether or not to stay a blaster. Most of these sorts of builds are the most powerful, but that comes via not really being a blaster anymore :smalltongue:

Corlindale
2010-01-29, 01:46 PM
Alternatively, use a theurge to expand your list, like Ultimate Magus or Ur-Priest/MT, and get all your utility from there.

This is also a good idea.

I strongly considered going for Eldritch Theurge with my wm at one point - there would be Charisma-dependency on both sides, Warlock would give me some general utility powers, and the ET class features synergize quite well with a blasty caster.
I did eventually decide against it - both because I dislike builds that only really start to shine after lvl 10 (when the campaign might be almost over anyway), and because it would probably deny me access to both 9th level spells and Dark Invocations.

Optimystik
2010-01-29, 02:24 PM
This is the sort of thing I meant by deciding whether or not to stay a blaster. Most of these sorts of builds are the most powerful, but that comes via not really being a blaster anymore :smalltongue:

But that's exactly the problem with Warmages - the best spells for a blaster are actually the ones that DON'T deal damage. Spells like (Greater) Arcane Fusion, Moment of Prescience, Celerity, Assay Resistance, Heart of Water etc. are crucial to a blaster, but Warmages don't get them. And when it comes to expanding their list, all they can add on their own is more blasting.

The various orbs and missiles and bursts... hundreds of ways of doing one thing. At least a psion doesn't have to take different blasting spells for each element.

Infernum
2010-01-29, 03:20 PM
Well all of those are very interesting ideas, but not really what Im looking for. I dont really intend for this character to be cheesy kinda char. He was designed around an idea for a character who would have great role play potential.

A lot of the PrC's you all have mentioned are quite useful, except for a few things. First off, alot of those PrC's arent gonna be in this world or if they are, they will be hard as you know what to gain access to. Next, the character is a more traditional Warmage, who is a very lawful oriented person. He has how ever made a pact with the elemental "Queen" of cold and has a sort of Geas upon him. He will strive to "advance" cold in the world. In exchange he was granted knowledge of cold spells, and the location of a powerful cold artifact was revealed to him. So a lot of those PrC's mentioned before (Rainbow Servant, Ur-Priest, MT) are not really viable for the character.

I am looking more for ideas, PrC's and feats that will aid him in this manner. I look forward to any help i can get. Thanks.

Optimystik
2010-01-29, 03:24 PM
Frost Mage (FrB) sounds like just what you're looking for, though it won't help with your limited spell set.

Alternatively, you can still go with Sandshaper - Deserts get VERY cold at night. Or refluff to Snowshaper and make it a tundra instead.

EDIT: Actually, Frost mage might help, since you can grab a bunch of cold damage spells and Piercing Cold will handle immunities for you.

Corlindale
2010-01-29, 03:28 PM
Thematically I think the aforementioned Elemental Savant Prc would be the perfect fit for such a character, then, if you can live with the lost caster levels. Provided of course it exists in your campaign world.
It makes all your elemental spells cold spells, it makes your cold spells harder to resist, and it gives you cold resistance and - eventually - immunity. It also transforms you partly into an elemental at the end, giving you a lot of interesting elemental traits and powers.

You also fulfill the prereqs as soon as you reach level 6, seeing as how you've already got Energy Substitution (Cold), and have made peaceful contact with an outsider of the Cold subtype (except that you need to grab the ranks in Know (The Planes), if you haven't got them).

Mongoose87
2010-01-29, 03:47 PM
Well all of those are very interesting ideas, but not really what Im looking for. I dont really intend for this character to be cheesy kinda char. He was designed around an idea for a character who would have great role play potential.


STORMWIND FALLACY ALERT!

Infernum
2010-01-29, 03:53 PM
Frost mage is defiantly along the lines of what i am looking for as far as a PrC goes, except the low hit die. But the Sand shaper also has merit in my DM's world as the south is nothing but a large COLD desert. So both of those are definitely going on the list as far as options go. Any idea of feats that would be useful?

Also, what does "STORMWIND FALLACY ALERT!" mean?

Did I type something wrong or is this meant for humor. (New to GITP, not sure what this means).

Faleldir
2010-01-29, 04:03 PM
http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=stormwind+fallacy

Corlindale
2010-01-29, 04:05 PM
Also, what does "STORMWIND FALLACY ALERT!" mean?

The Stormwind Fallacy is basically a name for the (mistaken) belief that good RP is incompatible with an optimized/powerfully built character, which you might have seemed to ascribe to in some of your comments.


Frost mage is defiantly along the lines of what i am looking for as far as a PrC goes, except the low hit die

You have 18 (!) Con - I don't think a slightly lower hit die will hurt you much:smallsmile:

Infernum
2010-01-29, 04:24 PM
The Stormwind Fallacy is basically a name for the (mistaken) belief that good RP is incompatible with an optimized/powerfully built character, which you might have seemed to ascribe to in some of your comments.

Ah i see, no i wasn't trying to say that, I was trying to say that they would not fit well with the character that i am playing, i can see that validity of them for other characters, just not my Warmage. For example, I love the Rainbow Servant PrC but it would be a little odd to say the least for this Warmage to go into it. I think it would be a little out there for him to go into some of those PrC's.


You have 18 (!) Con - I don't think a slightly lower hit die will hurt you much

Ya, he is a mage in a Fighters body. I am thinking 4 levels in Frost Mage and at least 1 in Sand Shaper. The Frost mage grants awesome ice powers for first 4 levels and the Sand Shaper grants spell list expand.

Just need some good ideas for feats now and im all set. Any help in the area of feats would also be appreciated.

Draz74
2010-01-29, 05:17 PM
Just need some good ideas for feats now and im all set. Any help in the area of feats would also be appreciated.

Well, Piercing Cold from Frostburn seems like an obvious top priority, unless Frost Mage already has class features that let it ignore its targets' cold resistance.

Rapid Metamagic from Complete Mage is great for any spontaneous caster that plans to use metamagic (including Piercing Cold). Hope you were planning on using some skill ranks on Spellcraft ...

Really, metamagic is the direction you want to go. I'm not enough of a metamagic guru to tell whether e.g. Split Ray or Twin Spell is better.

I do know enough to tell you to look at the Fell metamagic feats from Libris Mortis. Fell Drain is my favorite, but other people swear by Fell Frighten, and Fell Weaken might be the most thematic for a cold-mage.

Also, if you have one spell you plan to use as a sort of specialty (the base spell, or metamagic'd versions thereof), Arcane Thesis is amazing.

Infernum
2010-01-29, 09:53 PM
Ya Piercing Cold is granted via that PrC, plus it also bypasses spells thanks to the class. Rapid Metamagic is also really nice, but i would need more meta magic feats in order to make it useful. The fell feats are also interesting, but im not sure how to rationalize to my DM how he learned them.

I have found two feats that could be viable.

Energy Gestalt grants special abilities when using one kind of damaging spell then another, and two of them involve cold, so thats a plus.

Winters Grasp grants the ability to use a cold burning hands that does 1d4 damage per level of the max cold spell you have prepared, and its supernatural i believe so not subject to SR.

Spell focus and G Spell focus are always good to.

If anyone else has any other ideas im still game.

Artanis
2010-01-30, 01:03 AM
But that's exactly the problem with Warmages - the best spells for a blaster are actually the ones that DON'T deal damage. Spells like (Greater) Arcane Fusion, Moment of Prescience, Celerity, Assay Resistance, Heart of Water etc. are crucial to a blaster, but Warmages don't get them. And when it comes to expanding their list, all they can add on their own is more blasting.

Ah. I guess I just automatically thought back to a so-called Warmage guide I once saw that came right out and said, "Stop being a Warmage", then went about saying how to become the exact opposite of a Warmage :smallyuk: