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Coy
2011-01-31, 05:51 PM
So, I have a fellow asking me for ideas related to how to make his blaster-caster a little more interesting. Something that she really seems to want to do is being able to exceed her limits.

I asked her for details, and she explained that while she found being a regular damage dealy linesman much like a fighter or barbarian, she felt that she had less room to go crazy.

After all, spell selection is the be all and end all (be it what you memorise or use your spell slots on) for a blaster. Caster level is set, you roll a bunch of dice without (or, as i see it) alot of feats or bonuses that can be piled on.

So how can you? How can a blaster truly exceed, if only for a few rounds a day, their own limits for that (sorry) < 9000 damage perfect round. Classes, feats, spell combos that really accomplish this greatly appreciated.

Remember metamagic doesn't typically achieve this when you consider levels lost in spells slots. And using easy metamagic stuff means you can do it regularly, defeating the point of the objective. AKA burn with the intensity of a thousand desert suns for a while.

Thoughts?

molten_dragon
2011-01-31, 06:19 PM
The best way to go nova is by breaking the action economy. Being able to cast more than one spell per round or take more than one round's worth of actions in a round is incredibly helpful. Some options for doing so are:

Quickened spells
Celerity
Arcane spellsurge
Time stop
Belt of Battle

I'm sure there are others.

Hammerhead
2011-01-31, 06:26 PM
Arcane Spellsurge (from Dragon Magic) + Arcane Fusion (from Complete Mage) is pretty standard for a sorcerer nova.

Ultimate Magus lets you burn spells to improve other spells.

Metamagic spells would be a cool idea, like Assay Spell Resistance, but for Empowering or enlarging or Explosive-ing or whatever, but that takes some homebrewing.

Arcane Strike lets you burn every spell you have to hit something really really hard. But you still have to hit it.

If you don't mind Psionics, this is the concept behind the Wilder.

ShneekeyTheLost
2011-01-31, 06:34 PM
Well, first you kill off your family accidentally, then get taken in by a slumlord, then undergo Ghost training...

Oh, wait... wrong Nova :smallbiggrin:

Seriously, the best way to Nova is to get as many bangs in as short a period of time as possible. Incantatrix can help wonderfully in this. See also: Mailman.

One of the easy tricks I always loved, for sheer blastomancy, was Time Stop + as many Delayed Blast Fireballs as I could cram into the stopped time. Congratulations, anywhere from two to five DBF's exploding at your feet. Have a nice day.

Tibbaerrohwen
2011-01-31, 06:56 PM
I never used Time Stop but, in hindsight, that would have been a really good idea. I do personally like Quicken/Empowered spells and for that you can't go wrong with Incantatrix.
I have to back-up Hammerhead though; the whole oncept you seem to be going for is in Wilder. Alternatively, however, it is also possible, and very well done, through a Warlock with levels in Hellfire Warlock from Fiendish Codex II. I would suggest you look into both, but I like Warlocks.

Kalaska'Agathas
2011-01-31, 07:10 PM
If you're not afraid of Psionics, you will find they are the absolute kings of going Nova. If you are of high enough level, you'll get access to Fission (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/fission.htm) and Affinity Field (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/affinityField.htm) - manifest the latter, then have your Fission manifest Schism (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/schism.htm) - you now have another Standard Action, as does your Fission. You use this to blast while your Fission uses it to manifest Schism again. Repeat until all targets in range are dead.

This trick works even better if you have two extra psionic characters with you, who have access to Bestow Power (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/bestowPower.htm). Have each of them manifest Bestow Power, targeting you. This will grant them 2 PP each, due to Affinity Field, which gains them 1 PP net. You gain 4 PP, as does your Fission. Congratulations, you can blast forever.

Both these tricks (The Mad Minute and The Psionic Dreadnought) and more are detailed in my *shameless self plug* Psionic Tricks Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=177889) (WIP!) on this very site.

If you want to go Arcane and Nova, then check out The Mailman (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19868534/The_Mailman:_A_Direct_Damage_Sorcerer).

ShneekeyTheLost
2011-01-31, 07:15 PM
I never used Time Stop but, in hindsight, that would have been a really good idea. I do personally like Quicken/Empowered spells and for that you can't go wrong with Incantatrix.
I have to back-up Hammerhead though; the whole oncept you seem to be going for is in Wilder. Alternatively, however, it is also possible, and very well done, through a Warlock with levels in Hellfire Warlock from Fiendish Codex II. I would suggest you look into both, but I like Warlocks.

While a Hellfire Warlock would have the damage output he's looking for, the concept he is looking for is, in fact, a 'one minute wonder', in which he novas, and expends his entire repertoire, as rapidly as possible.

Warlocks, on the other hand, have stamina and staying power. They're like the energizer bunny... they just keep going and going and going...

Ionizer
2011-01-31, 07:29 PM
If you want nova-able, flexible blasting, you want psionics. The whole thing is on the SRD, so there's no reason not to utilize it. If you know nothing about the system, it took me less than a week of free time (so, about an hour a day) simply reading the SRD to get fairly good understanding of the system, including a decent knowledge of a good portion of the powers. The augment system also breaks up the "caster level is always the same so I always throw the same dice" monotony because you can choose exactly how much power you feed into each manifestation.

In addition to straight damage, some of the Psionic "blasts" have nifty extra effects, like stunning, or pushing enemies around. Psionics also lets you switch energy types (between Cold, Electricity, Fire and Sonic) on the fly, so that by knowing the power "Energy Bolt" (the psionic version of Lightning Bolt), you can essentially have a "Cold Bolt," "Lightning Bolt," "Flame Bolt," or "Sonic Bolt" whenever you need each one, even switching in subsequent rounds.

There's also meta-psionic feats that let you pump out extra damage (simple Empower Power) and do other nifty stuff (for example, Burrowing Power lets you blast people that are behind walls).

EDIT: Kalaska, don't scare the guy. If he doesn't know about psionics, it's no use listing off the top level cheese you can pull off to break the action economy. Simply using the augment system and meta-psi feats (and maybe some OverChanneling) lets you nova pretty well in the damage-dealing department.

The_Snark
2011-01-31, 07:37 PM
Warlocks, on the other hand, have stamina and staying power. They're like the energizer bunny... they just keep going and going and going...

... unless they're using Hellfire Blast, in which case the diabolic energies they wield will burn them to ash after several rounds of constant use. A lot of people on these boards take it for granted that all Hellfire Warlocks will dip into binder or incarnate to solve that problem, but not everybody does that (and not all DMs would allow it).

Hellfire Warlock is (obviously) intended for warlocks, but it wouldn't be too difficult to adapt it for an ordinary spellcaster (as the adaptation section suggests). Simply tweak the prerequisites, change Hellfire Blast so that it can be added to any fire spell, and there you are! Now your arcane spellcaster can add extra damage to her spells for the low, low price of 1 Constitution damage per spell affected.

Psionics is an excellent option too; I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Temporal Acceleration yet. This is essentially the psionic equivalent of Time Stop, but available much earlier in a weaker form. Not terribly good for blasting, but it'll let you toss out long-lasting area spells, personal buffs, or Astral Constructs. You can do some impressive things that way, especially if you also have Quicken Power, but it eats through your power points insanely fast.

Kalaska'Agathas
2011-01-31, 08:24 PM
EDIT: Kalaska, don't scare the guy. If he doesn't know about psionics, it's no use listing off the top level cheese you can pull off to break the action economy. Simply using the augment system and meta-psi feats (and maybe some OverChanneling) lets you nova pretty well in the damage-dealing department.

Well, like you said, most of Psionics (and everything you need to go Nova) is available on the SRD, I was just listing some examples. And I didn't even get to the part where you use Ardent (from Complete Psionic) with the Dominant Mantle ACF (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070629a) to use Telekinetic Sphere (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/telekineticSpherePsionic.htm) and Burrowing Power (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#burrowingPower) to be essentially untouchable while you Nova!

But yes, you're right, my mistake! And Coy, like Ionizer said, if you spend a little time on it, you can figure out Psionics in about a week (or less). And believe it or not, it's a more balanced system than Arcane Magic!

MeeposFire
2011-01-31, 08:29 PM
Well, like you said, most of Psionics (and everything you need to go Nova) is available on the SRD, I was just listing some examples. And I didn't even get to the part where you use Ardent (from Complete Psionic) with the Dominant Mantle ACF (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070629a) to use Telekinetic Sphere (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/telekineticSpherePsionic.htm) and Burrowing Power (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#burrowingPower) to be essentially untouchable while you Nova!

But yes, you're right, my mistake! And Coy, like Ionizer said, if you spend a little time on it, you can figure out Psionics in about a week (or less). And believe it or not, it's a more balanced system than Arcane Magic!

That is true, not that it says much.

ShneekeyTheLost
2011-02-01, 08:48 AM
... unless they're using Hellfire Blast, in which case the diabolic energies they wield will burn them to ash after several rounds of constant use. A lot of people on these boards take it for granted that all Hellfire Warlocks will dip into binder or incarnate to solve that problem, but not everybody does that (and not all DMs would allow it).

Hellfire Warlock is (obviously) intended for warlocks, but it wouldn't be too difficult to adapt it for an ordinary spellcaster (as the adaptation section suggests). Simply tweak the prerequisites, change Hellfire Blast so that it can be added to any fire spell, and there you are! Now your arcane spellcaster can add extra damage to her spells for the low, low price of 1 Constitution damage per spell affected.

Obviously, you've never heard about Nabereous or (less commonly accepted) Strongheart Vest...

NEO|Phyte
2011-02-01, 10:00 AM
Obviously, you've never heard about Nabereous or (less commonly accepted) Strongheart Vest...

Except BOTH got mentioned, albiet not directly.


A lot of people on these boards take it for granted that all Hellfire Warlocks will dip into binder or incarnate to solve that problem

dextercorvia
2011-02-01, 11:31 AM
Familiar helps a lot here.

Some blasting spells like Cloud of Knives, Light of Lunia/Mercuria/Venya, Lightning Something(Ring?) can be shared with your familiar.

Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability can be used to allow your familiar to cast (on your turn) a fairly large number of spells each day. IIRC, you can Imbue them with high enough level spells that they can get a Quickened 1st or 2nd level spell (at your CL) as well as 5th or 6th level spells...


If you put Arcane Thesis on your favorite Orb, you can Twin and Admix, or Quicken and Admix it with help from Invisible, Energy Sub whatever.

So, with your familiar shooting off a Knife as a Free Action, and a Quickened Scorching Ray, and a Chain Lightning. and you dropping Twinned Admixed Orb of X and Quickened Admixed Orb of X. And you get a Knife as a free action, too. (The knives are mainly useful if you get a source of bonus damage to them, but that is possible.)

senrath
2011-02-01, 11:36 AM
There's also the Reserves of Strength feat. Stun yourself for increased CL and uncapping your spell's limits (like the 10d6 damage limit on Fireball).

tahu88810
2011-02-01, 01:49 PM
Also in Fiendish Codex II are the investiture spells. Combine those with Time stop, arcane spellsurge, arcane fusion, and hellfire warlock (adapted to work for sorcerers or wizards or what have you) and at the end of your burst you've potentially dealt a lot of damage, but you're fatigued and hurt yourself.

ShneekeyTheLost
2011-02-01, 02:47 PM
Except BOTH got mentioned, albiet not directly.

So why would it then be considered 'going nova' when you really have no disadvantages or resources expended?

Heck, even without Binding, a Wand of Lesser Restoration is more than enough to offset any problems caused by Con Damage. And, yanno, being a Warlock, you can't help but make the UMD check.

DruchiiConversion
2011-02-01, 02:56 PM
So why would it then be considered 'going nova' when you really have no disadvantages or resources expended?

Heck, even without Binding, a Wand of Lesser Restoration is more than enough to offset any problems caused by Con Damage. And, yanno, being a Warlock, you can't help but make the UMD check.

If you have those class features, and they were accepted, then no, it's not going nova.

However, standard Hellfire Warlock does not have these features. Also, not all GMs accept those features as working with the class. As the sentence being quoted said, (emphasis added)

A lot of people on these boards take it for granted that all Hellfire Warlocks will dip into binder or incarnate to solve that problem, but not everybody does that (and not all DMs would allow it).

Tvtyrant
2011-02-01, 03:07 PM
Sudden metamagic spells are the ones that you are looking for; they don't use up extra spell slots, instead they have a limited number of uses per day. So Sudden Maximize lets you nuke something from your highest combat spell, Sudden Quicken lets you use two max level spells the same turn, etc.

TakeABow
2011-02-01, 03:38 PM
Sudden metamagic spells are the ones that you are looking for; they don't use up extra spell slots, instead they have a limited number of uses per day. So Sudden Maximize lets you nuke something from your highest combat spell, Sudden Quicken lets you use two max level spells the same turn, etc.

Sudden Quicken has some steep prereqs, IIRC. Like each of the other sudden metamagic feats or something.

ArcanistSupreme
2011-02-01, 03:49 PM
One of the easy tricks I always loved, for sheer blastomancy, was Time Stop + as many Delayed Blast Fireballs as I could cram into the stopped time. Congratulations, anywhere from two to five DBF's exploding at your feet. Have a nice day.


Familiar helps a lot here.

Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability can be used to allow your familiar to cast (on your turn) a fairly large number of spells each day. IIRC, you can Imbue them with high enough level spells that they can get a Quickened 1st or 2nd level spell (at your CL) as well as 5th or 6th level spells...

If you put Arcane Thesis on delayed blast fireball, you can Twin and Admix, or Quicken and Admix it with help from Invisible, Energy Sub whatever.

And if we put these two ideas together, how many delayed blast fireballs can we get off in one timestop?

Corlindale
2011-02-01, 03:50 PM
Sudden metamagic spells are the ones that you are looking for; they don't use up extra spell slots, instead they have a limited number of uses per day. So Sudden Maximize lets you nuke something from your highest combat spell, Sudden Quicken lets you use two max level spells the same turn, etc.

Sudden Quicken has a trillion prereqs, though. I considered it for my Warmage myself, but had to give it up.

In general I think the Sudden Metamagic feat are a bit subpar, despite the ability to use them on your highest lvl spells. Once a day is just not that much for a precious feat slot. Their nova potential is also limited by that annoying non-stacking rule for Empower and Maximize. If there were other power-boosting sudden metamagic feats you could stack on top of a single spell they would have had more nova potential (Sudden Twin in particular would have been nice).

DeltaEmil
2011-02-01, 03:58 PM
I agree with psionics, especially wilders. They can suddenly nova around. All one needs is a way to boost caster/manifester level so that the psionic effects become several times more powerful, and then combine it with maximised or empower.

senrath
2011-02-01, 04:00 PM
Yeah, Sudden Quicken requires Quicken Spell, Sudden Empower, Sudden Extend, Sudden Maximize, Sudden Silent, and Sudden Still. In other words, Quicken Spell plus all of the other Sudden Metamagic feats.

Corlindale
2011-02-01, 04:13 PM
Yeah, Sudden Quicken requires Quicken Spell, Sudden Empower, Sudden Extend, Sudden Maximize, Sudden Silent, and Sudden Still. In other words, Quicken Spell plus all of the other Sudden Metamagic feats.

Nitpicking here, but it doesn't require Sudden Enlarge or Sudden Widen, at least. Still ridiculous, though :smallannoyed:

senrath
2011-02-01, 04:16 PM
To be perfectly honest, I kinda forgot that Widen and Enlarge were feats, because I never use them.

Keld Denar
2011-02-01, 04:24 PM
Cleric4/Crusader1/RKV7/OrdainedChamp4/Fullcaster4

Important feats: Rapid Metamagic (CArcane), Metamagic feats

OC allows you to spontaneously cast spells from the War domain. Flame Strike is a War5 spell. So, you can spontaneously convert all of your non-domain spells into Flame Strikes. OC also makes all War domain spells you cast swift actions. This is also good.

RKV allows you to burn TU attempts to gain extra swift actions per round. As long as you have 1 TU attempt per 5th+ level spell you have prepped, you can cast ALL of your 5th+ level spells as Flame Strikes in a single round. With Rapid Metamagic, you can cast them with metamagic for no time increase as well. That means that all of your 5th level slots are Flame Strkes, all of your 6th level spells are Fiery Flame Strikes, all of your 7th level spells are Empowered Flame Strikes, all of your 8th level spells are Empowered Fiery Flame Strikes, and all of your 9th level slots are Twinned Flame Strikes.

Yea...thats a lot of fire in a VERY short period of time, half of which burns with the fire of a thousand fiery suns, and the other half burns with the indignation of a thousand fiery dieties.

Tvtyrant
2011-02-01, 05:47 PM
Right, normally they aren't great, but in this case it is literally what the OP's friend wants. The ability to Nova and have a few turns of WOW followed by normal casting. And Sudden Widen has uses for some blasty spells; its the perfect anti-mook swarm ability.

Keld Denar
2011-02-01, 06:07 PM
Sudden Widen is actually better for CC. Sudden Widen Solid Fog is absurd for trying to find your way out. Sudden Widen Entangle is like...a 1/4 square mile.

prufock
2011-02-01, 06:12 PM
Caster level is set

Not necessarily. For a blaster character, caster level increases the potency of your spells (generally with extra d6s). Consider ways to increase caster level temporarily.

Blood Magus (Complete Arcane) - Cut yourself for 1 point of damage to get +1 to CL as a free action.
Strand of Prayer Beads - Karma is the one you want. Gives +4 CL for 10 minutes when activated. Daily use. Requires either the ability to cast a divine spell or UMD to fake it in order to know how to use it; the effect, however, is NOT divine-only.
Ring of Arcane Might (Magic Item Comp) - Well, this one is actually a continuous effect, granting a +1 flat CL, arcane only. A nice DM might slash the cost to make it uses/day.
Arcanist's Goves (Magic Item Comp) - Twice per day get +2 CL to a 1st-level spell.
Orange Ioun Stone is a flat +1.

Oh heck, there's a whole list (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19872350/Raising_Caster_Level) of ways.

bloodtide
2011-02-02, 04:22 PM
Remember metamagic doesn't typically achieve this when you consider levels lost in spells slots. And using easy metamagic stuff means you can do it regularly, defeating the point of the objective. AKA burn with the intensity of a thousand desert suns for a while.


Metamagic is the basic way to do it.


Quicken Spell This gives you a free spell to cast in the round. So you can blast away with a Cone of Cold and four Scorching Rays at the same time. You can even use Empower Spell on both of them too.

Chain Spell You can hit a number of targets equal to your caster level. That is a lot of Scorching Rays. Plus add in Maximized Spell to this, so the chain rays do half the max damage. Lots of the ray spells are great when chained.

Corlindale
2011-02-02, 08:01 PM
Chain Spell You can hit a number of targets equal to your caster level. That is a lot of Scorching Rays. Plus add in Maximized Spell to this, so the chain rays do half the max damage. Lots of the ray spells are great when chained.

Many ray spells would be good chained, but it's debateable whether chaining ray spells is legal by RAW. They are "effect" spells rather than "Target" spells, and Chain Spell makes specific requirements in this regard. You should check how your GM interprets the rules before trying something like this.

Also, remember that even if the maximized scorching ray example worked, all secondary targets would get a reflex save for half damage (which they would most likely pass, since you're casting a 2nd level spell with 12 base DC by the time you have 8th-level slots to throw around). So I don't think it would be that impressive as far as blasting goes.

On a different note: Another type of nova abilities to consider are the ones which allow you to boost your spell save DC by a sizeable amount only once or twice a day, which can be very nova-riffic when combined with other stuff.

Consider something like a caster with 5 Fatespinner levels, and the feats Arcane Consumption, Split Ray, Sudden Maximimize and Sudden Empower. Once a day he can pull off a Split Ray Maximized Empowered Disintegrate with +9 to its save DC. If both saves are failed, that's 480 + (80d6)/2 damage with one spell at level 20 - and that's really a trick that burns all your power in one round - it even literally burns you out, with Arcane Consumption's subsequent Con penalty. Very flavourful - not optimal by any means, but for what you're asking it certainly seems to fit the bill.

Corlindale
2011-02-02, 08:06 PM
Double post, sorry.

Koury
2011-02-02, 08:09 PM
Nitpicking here, but it doesn't require Sudden Enlarge or Sudden Widen, at least. Still ridiculous, though :smallannoyed:

I know I'm like a day late, but I'm pretty sure that they would hve required them too if it wasn't already a seven feat chain. You know, every feat you get (minus one if you're Human). I assume those got left off so it was possible pre epic.