Need a bit of help. Ice Sorc. 3.5

[Kin Silvion]

So I'm building an ice sorcerer for my friend's campaign, and I was hoping you guys could help me with a build. We start at 1st level, and are allowed one trait and one flaw.

All books are also allowed, so I was going to either grab Dragontouched, or Draconic Heritage, which would allow me access to Draconic Armor, and possibly Draconic Vigor. My character would also take spells from the Spell Compendium for ice magic.

Any build ideas or help would be greatly appreciated. I would start off with 3 feats. 1st level, human, and flaw.

[Wings of Peace]

So I'm building an ice sorcerer for my friend's campaign, and I was hoping you guys could help me with a build. We start at 1st level, and are allowed one trait and one flaw.

All books are also allowed, so I was going to either grab Dragontouched, or Draconic Heritage, which would allow me access to Draconic Armor, and possibly Draconic Vigor. My character would also take spells from the Spell Compendium for ice magic.

Any build ideas or help would be greatly appreciated. I would start off with 3 feats. 1st level, human, and flaw.

Check Frostburn. There's a lot of good stuff in there, including a metamagic that ignores cold immunity. Going along a blasting theme you could stack metamagic mitigators alongside energy admixture and get some vicious output.

[Psyren]

While you're in there, grab the Frost Mage PrC. 10/10 casting, a couple of bonus spells known, and they put ice in your ice so you can ice while you ice.

[Kin Silvion]

You know, I like the concept of putting ice in my ice, so I can ice while I ice. Especially if I'm ignoring cold. Though it's not a cold specific campaign, I just wanted my character to have something relatively unique about them.

Any other ideas that'll help?

[yugi24862]

4 levels of elemental savant can round of your build nicely. You make all your spells (cold), which works well with the frostburn feats to be able to get a +2 DC to all spells, plus you can add some snow to any spell for a +1CL with snowcasting (which you need for Frost Mage)

[Keld Denar]

If you are going with the Dragonblooded dealy-o, look into Draconic Aura. There is one that increases the DCs of elemental flavored spells significantly. That and (Greater) Cold Focus can really amp up your DCs.

I'm a HUGE fan of Winterhaunts of Iborhgu. Its a snazzy, albeit ebil, PrC with a bunch of cool abilities, most notably, the ability to treat all of your [Cold] spells as if they were augmented with Piercing Cold metamagic. Colder than cold!

[Kin Silvion]

These are all good ideas. My character is only going to be able to cast ice magic, due to dragon's blood being in their lineage, so I think Savant would work nicely. Especially with how I had the character's backstory panned out.

Alright, guys, any other tips would be lovely.

Also, the frost mage doesn't look too good. It gets DR 4/cold, but it gets 50% more fire damage being dealt to it. Doesn't seem like a good trade-off. As well, the other abilities don't seem all that interesting, aside from advancing caster level.

[Keld Denar]

One thing...don't make ALL of your spells direct damage spells. You don't need 20 different ways to say: "Take CLd6 frost damage". You need like, 3-4, tops. Make sure you pick up a fair number of utility spells like Fly, Haste, Benign Transposition, See Invisibility, Solid Fog, etc.

[yugi24862]

You dont need to take all 10 levels of frost mage, a build like sorc6/Elemental savant 1/Frost Mage 4/Winterhaunts of Iborhgu 9 gets all spells as (cold), has his piercing cold bypass all resisance even from items, and gets it for free on all spells, plus 2d6 on all (cold) spells (which are all of yours).

[Kin Silvion]

The thing is, my character isn't going to be optimized in any way, since I'm playing with a bunch of people who are new to D&D, it isn't best if my character comes in and uses a dual element fireball, which targets all enemies, and not my allies in the blast at +0 caster levels.

I'm trying to have fun, and I already know the ice spells I'll take, since I'm going to be using the spell compendium for them. Of course I'll probably stick to the srd for the rest of the spells... maybe.

[Kin Silvion]

You dont need to take all 10 levels of frost mage, a build like sorc6/Elemental savant 1/Frost Mage 4/Winterhaunts of Iborhgu 9 gets all spells as (cold), has his piercing cold bypass all resisance even from items, and gets it for free on all spells, plus 2d6 on all (cold) spells (which are all of yours).

For that class, Winterhaunt, I'd need at least 1 cleric level. Besides, it doesn't fit with my character. Especially since my character will probably be lawful good, or some kind of good.

[Shadowknight12]

You know, I like the concept of putting ice in my ice, so I can ice while I ice. Especially if I'm ignoring cold. Though it's not a cold specific campaign, I just wanted my character to have something relatively unique about them.

Any other ideas that'll help?

As a self-confessed ice lover, I think I can give you a hand.

Frostburn is actually not that good. Granted, it's better than absolutely nothing at all, but it's still not enough. The divine classes, for example, are mired in fluff that needs pruning if you want to adapt it to other campaigns, and if you loathe the very idea of rimefire, like me, then not even the mechanics are salvageable.

That said, I've found a couple of ideas in other sourcebooks.

Elemental Savant was mentioned. Argent Savant also works, if you refluff force effects as transparent otherworldly ice. If you don't mind the dragon fluff, you have a ton of dragon-oriented feats, classes and options that you can take advantage of, merely by selecting Silver or White dragons. Spell Compendium has cold spells, namely Icelance, Ice Flowers, Ice Dagger, Ice Knife, Ray of Ice, Ice Claw, Cometfall, Corona of Cold, Creeping Cold, Field of Icy Razors, Freeze, Freezing Fog, Frost Breath, Hailstones, Ice Axe, Ice Gauntlet, the infamous Orb of Cold (and its Lesser variant), Snowball Swarm, Snowshoes, Winter's Embrace, Hypothermia, Mantle of the Icy Soul, Heat Drain and Winter Chill, to name a few. :smalltongue:

There's always undeath, for added cold, if you want to go with that, or undeath-lite, in the form of the Half Vampire (only recommended if LA buy off is allowed). Complete Arcane gives you Lord of the Uttercold to synergise with that approach (oh, I forgot, Necropolitan works well, too, even if it has less flavour than a bucket full of gruel). Stormwrack has a few cold things going on for it, but it's also dreadfully lacking.

All in all, unless you feel like refluffing things so that they're cold (like they did with rimefire...), there's not much to choose from. Unless you have a nice DM that lets you pick stuff aimed at monsters and NPCs and make them "not evil" so that you can use them for yourself.

EDIT: You can also go with Druid, for a lot of rather nice cold spells, and wild shape into cold creatures. That works too, I suppose. Arcane Hierophant and Mystic Theurge can be used to satisfy your desire to have it both ways.

[Keld Denar]

See if you can convince someone to play a Barbarian/FistoftheForest/Frostrager. Frostrager has a couple of cool abilities, one of which is total immunity to cold, and the ability to be healed for half of the damage that a cold spell would have inflicted, as long as he's raging. That means you could sic your frothy barbarian friend on your enemies while you blast them from afar with Coldballs to simultaneously heal your ally and harm your enemies and see them driven before you while you hear the lamentations of their women.

Of course, you'd have to drop the Piercing Cold aspect, or at least use it sparingly, as your Piercing Cold will penetrate the Frostrager's immunity and cause him to take 1/2 damage (which will then immediately heal, but you'll lose the cool synergy).

[yugi24862]

For that class, Winterhaunt, I'd need at least 1 cleric level. Besides, it doesn't fit with my character. Especially since my character will probably be lawful good, or some kind of good.

I'm pretty sure patron deity doesnt mean you have to have cleric levels. I was just showing how you can build a good build without all 10 frost mages levels.

[Kin Silvion]

As a self-confessed ice lover, I think I can give you a hand.

Frostburn is actually not that good. Granted, it's better than absolutely nothing at all, but it's still not enough. The divine classes, for example, are mired in fluff that needs pruning if you want to adapt it to other campaigns, and if you loathe the very idea of rimefire, like me, then not even the mechanics are salvageable.

That said, I've found a couple of ideas in other sourcebooks.

Elemental Savant was mentioned. Argent Savant also works, if you refluff force effects as transparent otherworldly ice. If you don't mind the dragon fluff, you have a ton of dragon-oriented feats, classes and options that you can take advantage of, merely by selecting Silver or White dragons. Spell Compendium has cold spells, namely Icelance, Ice Flowers, Ice Dagger, Ice Knife, Ray of Ice, Ice Claw, Cometfall, Corona of Cold, Creeping Cold, Field of Icy Razors, Freeze, Freezing Fog, Frost Breath, Hailstones, Ice Axe, Ice Gauntlet, the infamous Orb of Cold (and its Lesser variant), Snowball Swarm, Snowshoes, Winter's Embrace, Hypothermia, Mantle of the Icy Soul, Heat Drain and Winter Chill, to name a few. :smalltongue:

There's always undeath, for added cold, if you want to go with that, or undeath-lite, in the form of the Half Vampire (only recommended if LA buy off is allowed). Complete Arcane gives you Lord of the Uttercold to synergise with that approach (oh, I forgot, Necropolitan works well, too, even if it has less flavour than a bucket full of gruel). Stormwrack has a few cold things going on for it, but it's also dreadfully lacking.

All in all, unless you feel like refluffing things so that they're cold (like they did with rimefire...), there's not much to choose from. Unless you have a nice DM that lets you pick stuff aimed at monsters and NPCs and make them "not evil" so that you can use them for yourself.

EDIT: You can also go with Druid, for a lot of rather nice cold spells, and wild shape into cold creatures. That works too, I suppose. Arcane Hierophant and Mystic Theurge can be used to satisfy your desire to have it both ways.

I had already planned on taking all those spells at one time or another. That was actually the main reason for my character being an ice mage.

Hmm, I think I'd probably stick with human for the extra feat, and I was probably going to grab some kind of dragon fluff, because it can add so much to a character. That being said, I know there aren't very many good PrCs for ice classes.

About Frostburn, I'll probably end up just grabbing Piercing Cold, so that if I encounter any ice creatures I can easily dispatch them with some cold spells.

[Kin Silvion]

I'm pretty sure patron deity doesnt mean you have to have cleric levels. I was just showing how you can build a good build without all 10 frost mages levels.

It actually specifically says ability to cast first level divine spells. Otherwise it'd be a decent choice... aside from the alignment problems.

[Keld Denar]

If you want human, but want a touch of dragon blood, check out Dragon Magic. They have Silverbrow Humans, a racial varient with VERY VERY VERY distant silver dragon blood. Given that silver dragons have the [Cold] subtype, this also matches and could possibly even explain your cold fetish.

The biggest change is that you give up your bonus human skill points for the [Dragonblooded] subtype which allows you to qualify for Draconic feats like the above mentioned Dragonic Aura. You still get to keep the bonus feat though, which is mainly what being human is good for.

[Kin Silvion]

If you want human, but want a touch of dragon blood, check out Dragon Magic. They have Silverbrow Humans, a racial varient with VERY VERY VERY distant silver dragon blood. Given that silver dragons have the [Cold] subtype, this also matches and could possibly even explain your cold fetish.

The biggest change is that you give up your bonus human skill points for the [Dragonblooded] subtype which allows you to qualify for Draconic feats like the above mentioned Dragonic Aura. You still get to keep the bonus feat though, which is mainly what being human is good for.

I'll look that up. Frankly I've just been looking at the feats from Dragon Magic, but if there is a race that gives the ability as well, it works perfectly.

Also, Silver Dragon's blood was the exact reason that my character was a sorcerer to begin with, so that'd work out more than beautifully.

[Keld Denar]

And thus the glorious marriage between fluff and crunch begins. May their first son be a masculine son.

[Shadowknight12]

I had already planned on taking all those spells at one time or another. That was actually the main reason for my character being an ice mage.

Hmm, I think I'd probably stick with human for the extra feat, and I was probably going to grab some kind of dragon fluff, because it can add so much to a character. That being said, I know there aren't very many good PrCs for ice classes.

About Frostburn, I'll probably end up just grabbing Piercing Cold, so that if I encounter any ice creatures I can easily dispatch them with some cold spells.

A lot of the more "interesting" ice spells are on the druid list (meaning, they do more than just Xd6 cold damage), so you can go with that or spirit shaman (and like I said, if you want both spell lists, it won't be too hard to find a PrC that advances both) for spells that you otherwise wouldn't have access to as a wiz/sorc. Be prepared to be MAD, however, since not even Sorc/Spirit Shaman is free from needing more than one ability score (pesky Wisdom...).

Piercing Cold is a must, really. There's a trick I've seen somewhere with Snowcasting and all those "You get a bonus if you are in a very cold area" abilities, if you want to go that way.

[Kin Silvion]

Well, now I have to work on the character themself. Plus feats, abilities, spells, etc. It'll be a long day today.

[Volthawk]

If you want human, but want a touch of dragon blood, check out Dragon Magic. They have Silverbrow Humans, a racial varient with VERY VERY VERY distant silver dragon blood. Given that silver dragons have the [Cold] subtype, this also matches and could possibly even explain your cold fetish.

The biggest change is that you give up your bonus human skill points for the [Dragonblooded] subtype which allows you to qualify for Draconic feats like the above mentioned Dragonic Aura. You still get to keep the bonus feat though, which is mainly what being human is good for.

You also get Feather Fall as an SLA, which might come in handy sometime. Oh, and a bonus to Disguise, which will probably not be very useful.

[Kin Silvion]

A lot of the more "interesting" ice spells are on the druid list (meaning, they do more than just Xd6 cold damage), so you can go with that or spirit shaman (and like I said, if you want both spell lists, it won't be too hard to find a PrC that advances both) for spells that you otherwise wouldn't have access to as a wiz/sorc. Be prepared to be MAD, however, since not even Sorc/Spirit Shaman is free from needing more than one ability score (pesky Wisdom...).

Piercing Cold is a must, really. There's a trick I've seen somewhere with Snowcasting and all those "You get a bonus if you are in a very cold area" abilities, if you want to go that way.

I honestly doubt we'll be in cold environments more often than not, so snowcasting would be a waste of a feat.

[Shadowknight12]

Oh, forgot the better alternative: Wizard/Archivist, with the archivist zealously hunting down druid spells. There, no MADness.


I honestly doubt we'll be in cold environments more often than not, so snowcasting would be a waste of a feat.

That's what the "trick" is about. There's a way to get a permanent frostfell environment around yourself. Somehow. It's one of those rule synergisms exploited for the good of all.

[Keld Denar]

When you finish, feel free to post the results here, and we'll try to offer commentary. Sorcerer spell selection is actually one of the most important and difficult parts. You want to cover as many bases as possible without being redundant. Make sure you have one LONG range spell (Cold sub Fireball is probably best), one ranged touch, one no-save, and a few cold based disables. Freezing Fog is an AMAZING frosty disable, for example. You can also easily refluff certain spells like Ray of Enfeeblement or Ray of Exhaustion. Muscles operate at peak efficiency when they are warmed up, so Ray of Enfeeblement could work by chilling the subjects muscles while Ray of Exhaustion could cause fatigue by simulating hypothermia, etc. Most really good spells can be refluffed in such a way that they are ice themed even if they don't have the [Cold] subtype.

[yugi24862]

It actually specifically says ability to cast first level divine spells. Otherwise it'd be a decent choice... aside from the alignment problems.

Ah. Dont know how I missed that.

[Kin Silvion]

Oh, forgot the better alternative: Wizard/Archivist, with the archivist zealously hunting down druid spells. There, no MADness.



That's what the "trick" is about. There's a way to get a permanent frostfell environment around yourself. Somehow. It's one of those rule synergisms exploited for the good of all.

If I could find out how to do that, I would consider it. Until I can, then I will just be keeping it on the "maybe" list.

Keld, chances are that the character won't be super awesome, since again, I'm not going for min/maxing. Otherwise I wouldn't be an ice sorc, and I would easily be a control sorc. It's so much more powerful, but if I remember, I'll post up what I have, and maybe some build ideas.

[Kin Silvion]

Ah. Dont know how I missed that.

It's fine. It happens to the best of us sometimes.

[Kin Silvion]

Alright, first 5 hours from here on out I'll be thinking of a name. Any ideas, guys? I dunno, I was thinking perhaps Eleanor somethingorother. Last name is pending, but I guess the PCs can call my character Ellie, El, or something like that.

[Kin Silvion]

Using point buy, I'm thinking maybe

10
14
12
14
10
18

Seems alright, since I shouldn't need str, since they're ranged touch attacks.

[Keld Denar]

Swap Int and Con. You'll appreciate the extra HP...trust me.

Also, having an 8 in Str or Wis won't be THAT bad, if you don't want to spend the points there.

[Kin Silvion]

Well, the 2 points in wisdom is so I don't get a negative wisdom score, since I dislike negatives. As well, I guess I could swap in and con. Though I doubt I'd be fighting often, I guess it's better to be prepared than not.

[Keld Denar]

Will is your strong save already, especially if you'll be PrCing into at least 1-2 other caster PrCs (which almost always have a strong will save) and you aren't using fractional saves. In the end, its only a 5% less chance to make/fail the save.

And you don't always get to choose when you "get into combat". Most of the time, combat finds you. HP are the one thing that are generally useful vs just about any form of attack. You can never have too many HP. Ever. Nope, not even then.

[Kin Silvion]

Very true. As well, since my character is young and kinda sheltered, I took the Naive flaw.

Now I need 3 feats.

[Kin Silvion]

I'm thinking Draconic Vigor, Draconic Armor, and depending on my DM, probably Eschew Materials.

[darksolitaire]

You can never have too many HP. Ever. Nope, not even then.

The above statement makes me want to design a build that optimizes the amount of HP. :smallbiggrin: Perhaps Draconic Frost Dwarf Barbarian/Warblade/Bear Warrior with Slow trait...

[Keld Denar]

Try Bearfist Fistbear...Frost Dwarf Barbarian/FotF/Deepwarden/BearWarrior/Warshaper

2x Con to AC, and an AC that actually goes up significantly when you rage. Also, more HP than you can shake a Pit Fiend at.

[Shadowknight12]

Try Bearfist Fistbear...Frost Dwarf Barbarian/FotF/Deepwarden/BearWarrior/Warshaper

2x Con to AC, and an AC that actually goes up significantly when you rage. Also, more HP than you can shake a Pit Fiend at.

Okay, that's good. That's the best bear ever. Now, as a druid, how do I turn into, ride and shoot that?

[Kin Silvion]

The thing there wouldn't be the amount of HP you have, but rather how much of it could you deflect, or heal. That more than likely would put your health to technical super high limits. Though it's not real health.

Then again, no matter the HP, you'd need the con to shrug off a "Massive Damage" attack.

[Retech]

A good name would be Jen.


Not for any reason except that once I played a character of an aspiring ice mage - lich thingy that attacked children and abducted travellers with giant crab minions for nefarious experimentation and other evil.

[Kin Silvion]

A good name would be Jen.


Not for any reason except that once I played a character of an aspiring ice mage - lich thingy that attacked children and abducted travellers with giant crab minions for nefarious experimentation and other evil.

That's... my character is kinda lawful good, so I don't think I'll go for that name, if only for the purpose of avoiding killing and abducting children for fun.

[Kin Silvion]

Alright, so Elseia Ymir, the Ice Sorcereress is complete. For 1st level, anyways.

I went with putting points into Craft Alchemy so I could do the Fabricate trick and earn lots of money when I hit 10th.

I also went with the obvious of Concentration and Spellcraft.

For feats I went with Draconic Heritage, since I needed it for Draconic Armor, and I was going to go with Draconic Vigor, but my DM actually suggested I get Dragon Wings.

So, now I have a glide speed of 30ft, can cast featherfall as a spell like ability, have my spells listed, and although I'm going to be forgoing a few heals for free from my magic, I'm also going to be getting damage reduction which will help in the long run.

Though before I finish my character, do you think from an RP standpoint I should go with Vigor, so I heal. I mean it would fit more in with my character. Healing herself, rather than denying damage.

[Keld Denar]

Alternatively, get Draconic Aura: Vigor. That gives everyone within 30' of you Fast Healing 1 as long as they are south of 50% HP. In the long run, this'll result in mountains of healing, and serves as a good middle point from which to continue the patch-up job after combat is over.

I'd pick up Empower Spell at some point. I like Empower because it's only a +2, and is decently useful with some spells. Ray of Enfeeblement is a BIG one, 1d6+5 x 1.5 Str penalty is brutal at any level and kicks booty from a 3rd level slot. There's also some decent low level blasting to be done. Scorching Ray, assuming you could get a [Cold] version, is actually pretty efficient on a damage/CL basis. When you get your 2nd ray at 7th, and then hit 8th for the 4th level slots, an Empowered Scorching Ray does 12d6 damage. Thats pretty efficient, especially compared to Orb of Cold's 8d6 from the same slot. Of cource, Orb of Cold eventually catches up and surpasses it, but not until MUCH later because by the time Orb of Cold gets to 12d6 (CL12), Empowered Scorching Ray got its 3rd ray 1 level ago and is now spitting out 18d6. The only advantage of Orb of Cold is the rider save vs blindness effect.

What spells did you go with at level 1? Mage Armor + Enlarge Person?

[Kin Silvion]

Well, the DM says that we can substitute one element of magic for another, so hello maximized empowered frozen ray.

165 points of ice damage at a 9th level spell slot.

[Kin Silvion]

For 1st level spells, Lesser Ice Orb, and Alarm. Might swap the first one up for some kind of other ice spell.

[Kin Silvion]

Campaign update for all those who are interested.

Alright, so it's been going simple enough. We've retrieved a dagger. The dwarf drank some poison, so I had to run back to town and get a cleric to remove his negative strength. Since we were in an undead filled area, the cleric cleared the quest for us. Free loots.

Then we went to fight a "wolf" turned out to be a warg. Dwarf died, but I made a deal with it for my life. Returned to town and paid to have the dwarf brought back.

We went back to his cave, after I spent all my money reoutfitting the dwarf. Spent a couple rounds casting Daze as the dwarf DIDN'T die. I also tricked the warg into drinking the poison before we went back to town.

THEN on our way back to town, I think it was either Ghouls or Ghasts, I forget, diseased the dwarf. We made it back to town, but his con hit 0. He died again.

Paid for reincarnation. He got Kobold. He killed himself. Tried again, Elf. He killed himself again. He really wanted to be a dwarf.

THEN the DM rolls a 100 on it, and since that's "DM's Choice" the DM rolls 2 D%, adds them together, and chooses that page in the MM.

The dwarf is now a Bronze Dragon.

Also, I'm 3rd level. Was thinking Weapon Finesse so I could use touch attacks with my dex. I know, I know, RTA, but there are some that are regular touch.

As well, any good ideas for another cantrip to take?