Ultimate magus for Tomb of horrors.

[Delusion]

So I am participating pbp Tomb of horrors game on another forums and since the group lacks a skill monkey and I have been playing assasin/rogue type charcters a lot inother groups lately I decided to do something outlandish and decided on something like Beguiler 1/Wizard 4/Ultimate magus 4. Originally I was thinking of normal Beguiler 9 but the module might be a wee bit filled with undead for that to be effective.

Main thing I am looking for advice are feats and spells to get most of Ultimate magusses Augmented casting.

Thanks in advance.

[Fouredged Sword]

I am a big fan of fell weaken. Slap that on a magic missile and you have a multi target - no attack roll/no save -4 to str penelty and a small amount of damage.

Also you could go the mailman route with orb spells and empower.

There is a feat that drops the cost of a metamagic feat by one. It's great for something like empower. Also there is a metamagic tactical feat that lets you repete a metamagic effect on a spell for free imidiately in the round following a casting. One level one spell is definatly worth empowering two scortching rays or orbs. Also useful for maximiseing a spell one round and then casting a maximised / empowered spell the next, both useing spell slots to augment them rather than spell levels.

[Delusion]

Where is this fell weaken and that metamagic tactical feat? And does fell weaken work on undead?

I'd rather not go actually mailman route since I am afraid that would overshadow the rest of the party. They are not that highly optimised

[dextercorvia]

Fell Weaken is in LM. Residual Magic is a tactical feat from CM, if you cast the same spell twice in a row, one metamagic applied to the first instance is applied to the second for free. Practical Metamagic/Easy Metamagic from RotD/DragonMag resp. reduce the cost of a metamagic feat by 1 to a minimum of 1.

Fell Weaken is for living foes only.

[Fouredged Sword]

Fell weaken is in libermortis. I think it may have no effect on undead. Also read into fell animate from that same book. It makes free zombies for trap finding when you kill something with it. Remember to bring a large bag of zombie monkeys into the dungeon just for this reason. So many things are solveable with 1500lbs of zombie monkeys.

The tactical feat is in one of the completes I think, arcane or mage. I am not sure.

If you want to go batman, then look into extend and shape metamagic. Nothing is as funny as grease being shaped. "I explode outward with grease, everything around me falls over."

[Delusion]

aww, practical metamagic is just beyond what I can at this moment. Reguires 3rd level spontanous spells. Heh, with that arcane thesis I would have been throwing around quickened spells...

[Fouredged Sword]

There is also the summon elemental reserve feat. Very useful in the tomb, as you can summon unlimited numbers of elementals to test traps/pull levers/touch everything.

For third level spells, look no further than versitile spellcaster. Now if you can cast 2 second level spells, you qualify as being able to cast 3rd level spells becuse a bugiler knows his whole spell list!

[Talya]

An infinte number of zombie monkeys in an infinite number of dungeons ...

[Delusion]

Thanks for all the adivce, I foresee myself running out of spell slots by room two with all these metamgic things xD

Tree quick wizard questions: Which schools should I band/specialise in?

Which ACF should I trade familiar for?

And how do I determinate how many spells do I have in my spell book since I start at higher level?

[Fouredged Sword]

Money, tiny animal. 1HD. Wikipedia says a spider monkey weighs about 22lbs each. That is 60 monkeys per bag... You will go through all of them before you get very far into the tomb.

You are likely better off with a bag of zombie squirles. Smaller and less heavy. Just pull one out and command undead on it. Don't bother trying to control all the HD at once.

As for running out of spells, pick a nice reserve feat that will give you something to do without casting a spell every round. The acid one is good for most resistances.

Consider tradeing away illusion and enchantment. They are covered by bugiler nicely. Focus on conjuration is the default for wizard. If you really want to, you can trade evocation as well for focused specialist conjuror and just use orb spells for damage. You get more spells per day that way.

[Delusion]

What does Empower actually do if I slap it on Ray of enfeeblement.

At my level the spell gives str penalty of 1d6+4, does this became a) (1d6+4)x1.5, b) 1d6x1.5+4 or does it do anything?

[dextercorvia]

What does Empower actually do if I slap it on Ray of enfeeblement.

At my level the spell gives str penalty of 1d6+4, does this became a) (1d6+4)x1.5, b) 1d6x1.5+4 or does it do anything?

RAW is a), but I've seen people rule b), so check with your DM.

[Fouredged Sword]

The variable is the str penelty it causes. That variable has a value of 5-10. That is the value that is increased by 1.5, not the 1d6.

[CTrees]

There is also the summon elemental reserve feat. Very useful in the tomb, as you can summon unlimited numbers of elementals to test traps/pull levers/touch everything.

This.

Earth elementals are heavy, have high strength, and have earth glide. Air elementals can fly. Fire elementals are on fire. Water elementals... well, they're moist, anyway. Having an unlimited number is very, very handy in a place like the tomb of horrors.

[Fouredged Sword]

I think you may be able to drink them if you run out of water.

[Ruinix]

the familiar swap off for Improve Inciative.
then get the feat Obtain Familiar :D and if it want, improve familiar.

[Keld Denar]

If you compare Ray of Enfeeblement to the Magic Missile example under Empower Spell (you have to look in the actual book, the example text isn't in the SRD), you'll see that Empowered MM is (1d4+1) x1.5. That leads me to conclude that Ray of Enfeeblement would also be (1d6+4) x1.5.

RoE definitely works on Undead. They are immune to Str damage, but RoE doesn't do Str damage, it inflicts a Str penalty. Thats VERY different from damage, and thus works. Of cource, doesn't work on Incorps, though, since they don't have a Str score, but otherwise...

I'd swap your familiar for Abrupt Jaunt (Immediate Magic, PHBII). You're gonna be a Conjourer, and Abrupt Jaunt is the best ACF in there. Its useful for both getting out of trouble, and getting into trouble. Its good.

[Delusion]

Summon elemental reserve feat would be nice but it reguires 4th level spells. Something I don't have yet.

[KerlanRayne]

Standard Operating Procedure for the Ultimate Magus PrC is to get Practiced Spellcaster (Beguiler). This is because the levels where you only increase one of the classes is based on Caster Level. This trick lets you add levels to Wizard for two of those three times.
You could chose Beguiler for the first and Wizard for the second in order to get Access to 4th level Wizard spells and 2nd level Beguiler spells at the start of the game. The third one would go for Wizard.
This means you can choose the Summon Elemental reserve feat and use the +2 Metamagic feats.