Combat Wizard Optimization

[Kavurcen]

So... this thread is no longer about warmages. Instead it's about wizard builds for a flying character with +4 Int, +2 Con and -4 Char. I'm ideally looking for any way I could get up a high AC and still be a potent spellcaster offensively. At the moment I'm looking mostly at a Wizard build, since most other alternatives require charisma. Open to any suggestions.

[Keld Denar]

I'll skip staight to 3. Honestly. Play a Sorcerer (although your stats on that race are a little off for Sorcerer), take 2-3 blasty spells, fill the rest up with utility and control, and you'll be WAY better off. You don't need 30 different ways to say CLd6 damage. You need 3, tops. Fireball (LONG range AoE), Scorching Ray/Orb of Fire (close touch w/ no save, replace SR with OoF as you level), and something non-Fire based like Arc Lightning or Vitrolic Sphere?

Then take actual useful spells like Glitterdust, Solid Fog, Teleport, See Invis, etc. Have some character depth, rather than being a glorified archer. You'll enjoy it a lot more, I'd imagine, and your party members will appreciate your versatility.

[Vandicus]

Everyone is going to tell you to play a different class or go for the Rainbow Servant PRC.

[Kavurcen]

Okay, in that case, I'll just axe all three questions in favor of one.
Is there any way, at ALL a warmage could be decent?

The reason I was thinking warmage is that I would like to play a caster, but the one thing I'm 100% set on is the race I'm using. So if there are any other casters that would function better in the same capacity as a warmage but still fit with both the idea of a caster and utilize the con/int bonuses of the race I'm playing then that would be great.

I have one last question too.
Is this build at all a good idea? It looks like it would be incredibly fun to play, but it also doesn't look like it would work very well, although it should be noted that I play with a huge group (7-10 people) so I don't need to be ridiculously powerful in my own right.
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Arcane_Tank_that_actually_works_(3.5e_Optimize d_Character_Build)

[Vandicus]

go for the Rainbow Servant PRC.

The Rainbow Servant PRC makes the warmage great. I absolutely despise the fluff though. It eventually allows the warmage to spontaneously cast the entire cleric spell list, and by topping it off with Sacred Excorcist at the end the warmage can also get DMM persist.

[yugi24862]

Or you could use beguiler to enter, who does rainbow servant better than Warmage. Even that's been taken from it now.

[Keld Denar]

Yea, Rainbow Warsnake (Warmage + Rainbow Servant + Couatl sex) does get decent with the text > table reading. If your DM makes you lose 4 spellcaster levels, it becomes very much not worth it.

Honestly, with a party that big, you could do decent with a Warmage just plain (1-20). Just know that you are, for the most part, not a spellcaster, but something more akin to a Fighter Archer. You have very few skill points, no real decent non-personal buffs, and only a handful of disable spells, most of which are AoO in nature and not friendly-fire friendly.

The only things I'd recommend at that point is to take Arcane Mastery (CArcane) so SR is less of an issue for you, and at some point take Rapid Metamagic so you can benefit from Quicken Spell.

[Morty]

The thing about the Warmage is what while he casts spells, the role he plays in the party isn't that of an arcane spellcaster, since his spells are geared purely towards offense, without the problem-solving and ally-assisting capabilities of a wizard or sorcerer. So the question is: are you fine with just blasting away or do you want to do more?

[Vandicus]

Or you could use beguiler to enter, who does rainbow servant better than Warmage. Even that's been taken from it now.

I've heard it argued both ways. What in your opinion makes it definitevely better?

[Reverent-One]

Okay, in that case, I'll just axe all three questions in favor of one.
Is there any way, at ALL a warmage could be decent?

You'd have to define decent. Decent as in comparable to a tier 1, 2, or even 3 caster? Not likely (though the Rainbow servent trick can move you up a step or two). Decent in terms of fitting in with a less optimized party that includes classes like the Fighter (or heaven forbid, Monk)? I'd wager yes. A warmage, without some interesting character building tricks, is pretty much an archer that uses magic instead of arrows. If you're fine with that and it fits your party, then it's usable, but if you want more the varied capabilties the other caster classes have, you should look elsewhere.

[Urpriest]

Okay, in that case, I'll just axe all three questions in favor of one.
Is there any way, at ALL a warmage could be decent?

The reason I was thinking warmage is that I would like to play a caster, but the one thing I'm 100% set on is the race I'm using. So if there are any other casters that would function better in the same capacity as a warmage but still fit with both the idea of a caster and utilize the con/int bonuses of the race I'm playing then that would be great.

I have one last question too.
Is this build at all a good idea? It looks like it would be incredibly fun to play, but it also doesn't look like it would work very well, although it should be noted that I play with a huge group (7-10 people) so I don't need to be ridiculously powerful in my own right.
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Arcane_Tank_that_actually_works_(3.5e_Optimize d_Character_Build)

If you'd like to play a caster and you have a race with Int and Con bonuses, why not play a caster that uses Int, like a Wizard or Beguiler? What made you decide against those options?

[Crow]

If optimization levels in your group are low, the Warmage is just fine.

As another option, you could use warmage as the chassis for a ray-fighter gish. I'd rather use wizard, but that's just me.

[Vandicus]

If you do end up going straight warmage, the warmage edge feat isn't as bad as everyone says it is. If one really wanted to become focused(we are talking about a glorified ranged dps class as the base here so its not too big a difference), arcane thesis/empower/energy admixture/maximize/cost reducers will get you a level 2 Melf's Acid Arrow that can do around 50 damage per round(rods for fun with quicken to get two out per round). Once I get back to my books I might post the build here.

*EDIT
It changed the type to fire/cold depending on preference and used searing spell/cold version of searing spell to avoid those pesky resistances/immunities.

[Aergoth]

Or if you want to play a non-core caster class, Wu Jen (Complete Arcane) or Archivist (Heroes of Horror, Divine, Prepared from a Book, Int-Based, can learn other divine spells and in short almost exactly like a wizard only uses divine spells!) are both valid options.

[dextercorvia]

Okay, in that case, I'll just axe all three questions in favor of one.
Is there any way, at ALL a warmage could be decent?

The reason I was thinking warmage is that I would like to play a caster, but the one thing I'm 100% set on is the race I'm using. So if there are any other casters that would function better in the same capacity as a warmage but still fit with both the idea of a caster and utilize the con/int bonuses of the race I'm playing then that would be great.



The Warmage can be fun, but while edge is a real boon at levels 1-3, it quickly loses its luster. A high Int isn't going to do you much good by level 6 or so. For your high Int and Con, Wizard would be a better choice than Sorcerer. You could be a Focused Specialist Evoker, dropping Enchantment, Necromancy, and Illusion or Abjuration (both will hurt -- but we are trying to not be full blown T1 Gods.)

[koscum]

Okay, in that case, I'll just axe all three questions in favor of one.
Is there any way, at ALL a warmage could be decent?

The reason I was thinking warmage is that I would like to play a caster, but the one thing I'm 100% set on is the race I'm using. So if there are any other casters that would function better in the same capacity as a warmage but still fit with both the idea of a caster and utilize the con/int bonuses of the race I'm playing then that would be great.

I have one last question too.
Is this build at all a good idea? It looks like it would be incredibly fun to play, but it also doesn't look like it would work very well, although it should be noted that I play with a huge group (7-10 people) so I don't need to be ridiculously powerful in my own right.
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Arcane_Tank_that_actually_works_(3.5e_Optimize d_Character_Build)

A Warmage is a strictly blaster type caster and those guys are not usually very welcome in a typical party (Rogues and Rangers fit striker roles much better and you bring no controller abilities of other casters). However, in case of a large group such as yours, you could actually be useful as a Warmage if you take War Mage PrC (yeah, I know... the names are awesome /end_sarcasm) assuming you have a Wizard or equivalent class in your party. It's a 5 level PrC which grants you bonus damage per damage die (+1 at lvl2, +2 at lvl3 and +3 at lvl5). This may not seem as much, but put that on an Sudden Empowered Twin Disintegrate and you'll get a damage which approaches save-or-die HP of most stuff (2x (1.5x40d6+120+Warmage Edge+Extra Edge) is a lot). It also grants you ability to add your Charisma modifier to AC as morale bonus to 1 target at lvl1, 2 at lvl3 and 3 at lvl5. You also get 2 free MM feats and full caster progression. This'll allow you to be a bit tanky, but your HP is still a problem for such a role.

[Vandicus]

However, in case of a large group such as yours, you could actually be useful as a Warmage if you take War Mage PrC (yeah, I know... the names are awesome /end_sarcasm) assuming you have a Wizard or equivalent class in your party. It's a 5 level PrC which grants you bonus damage per damage die (+1 at lvl2, +2 at lvl3 and +3 at lvl5)

As a side note that PRC is from Dragonlance and I've heard the ability was eratta'd to only work so many times per day.

[Kavurcen]

If you'd like to play a caster and you have a race with Int and Con bonuses, why not play a caster that uses Int, like a Wizard or Beguiler? What made you decide against those options?

The main reason would be my frequent and likely stupid tendency to completely disregard logic, reason, practicality and optimization in favor of flavor and an image of my character in my head. To be honest I may end up going the rainbow route, but at this point I'm going to go ahead and retract any possibility of not playing a Warmage. At this point it just sounds way too cool to me to not do. Besides, my group really isn't that optimized and again I'm big on flavor.
Vandicus, I'd be interested in your build.
And Crow, could you elaborate a bit? That sounds interesting.

EDIT: Koscum, that sounds like a good plan. I may end up going that route if nothing else catches my eye.
Also, I completely disregarded that my race has a -4 to Charisma. So yeah... adding that to AC wouldn't be very good.

[yugi24862]

I've heard it argued both ways. What in your opinion makes it definitevely better?

For the reason Beguilers are T3 and warmages T4 mainly. Beguilers can do more with their spell list and have more and better skills. It means that the levels to 16 are less painful than with warmage. This is all my opinion however.

[Reverent-One]

EDIT: Koscum, that sounds like a good plan. I may end up going that route if nothing else catches my eye.
Also, I completely disregarded that my race has a -4 to Charisma. So yeah... adding that to AC wouldn't be very good.

In that case, do not be a warmage. Charisma is their casting stat, a -4 to that is very, very bad.

[Kavurcen]

Damn, that just goes to show again how clueless I am. Something's probably wrong if I read through the class and didn't notice that, so yeah. Different class route time!

It should also be noted that optimization wise, somebody plays a Drunken Master. *facepalm*

[Crow]

A ray-fighter gish specializes in landing ray spells of all different types to hurt/disable/debuff while increasing the chance of getting criticals with them, and then switching to a bow/melee/direct damage to finish the enemy off.

Any ranged touch attacks would work fine for a "ray" fighter, really.

[Keld Denar]

I'd go with Wizard then, as a base. If you want to keep with the caster/archer role, consider something like a Spellwarped Sniper build. Start with 1 level of Rogue or Spellthief, tack on 4 levels of Wizard, 2 levels of Unseen Seer (CMage), and you'll be into Spellwarped Sniper. Now take your Fireball spell, focus it through a lens into a nice tight ray, and sneak attack with it!

[Kavurcen]

A ray-fighter gish specializes in landing ray spells of all different types to hurt/disable/debuff while increasing the chance of getting criticals with them, and then switching to a bow/melee/direct damage to finish the enemy off.

Any ranged touch attacks would work fine for a "ray" fighter, really.
That's definitely interesting. You mentioned that you'd rather use a wizard as a ray fighter chassis, and that's looking like a pretty good option at this point. Any specific things needed to play one?


I'd go with Wizard then, as a base. If you want to keep with the caster/archer role, consider something like a Spellwarped Sniper build. Start with 1 level of Rogue or Spellthief, tack on 4 levels of Wizard, 2 levels of Unseen Seer (CMage), and you'll be into Spellwarped Sniper. Now take your Fireball spell, focus it through a lens into a nice tight ray, and sneak attack with it!
Hm. At this point I'm straying more in the direction of a more general arcane caster as opposed to the pure ranged blasting role.

It was mentioned that a sorcerer would be a good option but then people were mentioning wizards too, so there's some conflict in that regard.

Is there any sort of caster build I could get with a high AC and decent casting power?

[Keld Denar]

Well, given the 8 point modifier between your Int and Cha scores, it'll be really hard to pull a Sorcerer who'll even be able to compete with a Wizard with that adjustment. Sorcerers are Cha casters too, just like Warmages. If Warmage is out, you'd best stick with Wizard.

If you want to go general buff/debuff Batman type caster, Conjourer specialist (or Focused Specialist) is a strong path. Conjouration is the broadest school, able to do anything it wants because its just THAT cool. Load up on spells that don't allow SR, put that +2 DC modifier to use with some power disables like Glitterdust or Stinking Cloud, and you'll be a god amongst men, delivering your foes into the welcome arms of your party Sickened, Enfeebled, Stunned, Dazed, Prone, and Paralyzed, just for good measure. If you can't disable it, drop a Haste (Transmutation does do SOME things right) and watch your large party turn into a mobile blender of flying blades.

Basically, read up on the Batman (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104002) and GOD (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=394.20) wizard guides, and you'll be pretty good to go.

[Vandicus]

The Warmage Assassin was a build I created to kill single targets, although its damage output is high enough to consider it as a pure damage based combat caster. It builds better with Incantatrix but I'm posting straight warmage based on what I can find on the net for the feats I recall. I believe Warmage/Incantatrix can keep it to 2nd level while also being able to heighten it if need be to avoid the globe of invulnerability.

Warmage(dragonblood race) with 2 flaws
Feats:
1st level: Empower Spell, Invisible Spell, Warmage Edge
3rd level: Searing Spell
6th level: Arcane Thesis (Melf's Acid Arrow)
9th level: Rapid Metamagic
12th level: Energy Affinity(cold)
15th level: Energy Admixture
18th level: Practical Metamagic (empower)

I'm afraid this build has a total +2 to cost for Melf's arrow. The damage average at level 20(assuming starting int 16 and a +6 int item) (4d4+24)*1.5 doing an average of 51 damage per round for 6 rounds. Again, the Incantatrix does better in terms of cost effectiveness, although I believe the damage average is slightly lower. Rods of quicken spell will allow you to fire off two of these per round.

*EDIT
The feats can probably be rearranged to be more convenient while leveling up. I also forgot to mention that the spell bypasses resistance and does half-damage to those who are immune.

*EDIT 2

I should also note that there is no save or SR.

*EDIT 3
Both of these builds will end up not emphasizing int. Since if they really only wanted to use Melf's Acid Arrow, which offers no saves, they could ignore DCs, they could theoretically put all points into int. Starting score of 18+6 int item+5 int stat increases+5int tome = int mod of 12. This changes damage to (4d4+36)*1.5=69 damage on average for 6 rounds(not exactly an incredible difference IMO but if one does want to go all the way).

[Piggy Knowles]

Mage of the Arcane Order is an OK alternative to Rainbow Servant for a Warmage. You can qualify with the Arcane Preparation feat. It's not going to give you unlimited "I Win" buttons in combat, but it's good with some preparation, and it adds a fantastic amount of utility out of combat.

Warmage 5/MatAO 4 is a pretty good start. Then I'd probably take a sixth level in Warmage (Advanced Learning is better the longer you delay it). From there, you can finish it however you want. More levels in MatAO will give you higher level spellpool spells, and I'm always a fan of Paragnostic Apostle for any filler levels.

It's not as crazy good as Rainbow Servant, but it also doesn't require convincing DMs that Rainbow Servant should be a fullcasting class (I know that texts trumps table, and supposedly some of the non-English copies show a table with full casting, but not every DM will go along with that). And it comes into its utility fairly early, unlike the Warsnake build.

[Keld Denar]

Acid Arrow is a poor spell to optimize, given that most of the damage comes over the duration (as opposed to killing it NOAW). You'd be better off with Scorching Ray, a low level spell that scales well. Empowered Scorching Ray deals 18d6 damage from a 4th level slot, with almost no optimization to it. Split Ray Scorching Ray deals 24d6 from a 6th level slot, or Empowered Twined Scorching Ray does 36d6 damage from an 8th level slot. Add in MM Reducers and you're looking at a much more efficient damage vehicle than Acid Arrow is.

[Vandicus]

Acid Arrow is a poor spell to optimize, given that most of the damage comes over the duration (as opposed to killing it NOAW). You'd be better off with Scorching Ray, a low level spell that scales well. Empowered Scorching Ray deals 18d6 damage from a 4th level slot, with almost no optimization to it. Split Ray Scorching Ray deals 24d6 from a 6th level slot, or Empowered Twined Scorching Ray does 36d6 damage from an 8th level slot. Add in MM Reducers and you're looking at a much more efficient damage vehicle than Acid Arrow is.

The original excercise was also an attempt to optimize a DoT spell(something sort of rare in D&D) as an assassination method(which is why the SR bypass was important). I'll see how it works with scorching ray for a warmage/incantatrix and probably post both for comparison. The current melf's acid arrow does about 300 damage(with the less optimized only warmage build) over the course of 6 rounds(which is a short enough span that the spell will get much of its damage in many cases). I think I'll avoid twinned spell and go for energy admixture though, as twinned has more attack rolls for the same damage output.

*EDIT

Looking at sorching ray again, when I post cons and pros for both builds I'm going to list scorching ray's range as a con. With either a cross classed or regular spot skill(I don't recall whether warmages have it as a class skill and I'm still AFB) Acid Arrow does have a certain advantage when it comes to being able to fight over distance.

[faceroll]

In my experience, warmages perform fine. People disparage damage frequently, but if you do enough damage, it's actually pretty good stuff. Judicious application of fireballs can solve quite a few problems. Metamagic abuse is also totally doable with a warmage.

Due to the warmage mechanics of spellcasting, you have a few neat tricks up your sleeve. As mentioned, the rainbow servant prc does neat things if you take 10 levels of it. Arcane Disciple will add 9 spells known to your list, from a chosen domain. You can use that feat to pick up stuff like Anyspell from the Spell domain.

You also can get earlier access to spells, up to 8 levels before anyone else. If you use earth spell, heighten spell, versatile spellcaster, easy metamagic: heighten spell, and sanctum spell, you can use a 1st level spell slot to cast a 5th level spell, while in your sanctum. If you pick up a useful domain, like travel or creation, you've got the potential to be doing epic wizardy stuff waaaay before a wizard can.

The downside to doing this, though, is that your spells get better with caster level, as they're mostly just hurling a bunch of d6s at an opponent. It'd be different, if you were say a dread necro, with planar binding on your list. Then you could get a succubus minion at like level 4.

In order to boost caster level, there's a prestige class called the Wild Mage. The Wild Mage gets a permanent -3 penalty to its caster level, but rolls a 1d6 and adds that to their caster level whenever casting spells. So they have a caster level of CL-3+1d6. If you pick up the Practiced Spellcaster feat, you can apply the benefits of that feat in whatever way you like. So you'll have a CL of CL+1d6.

The warmage can be made T3 or even T2 with a little work, but that's mostly due to how its spellcasting mechanic works, and that mechanic isn't unique to the warmage. I would only use warmage as the base if you REALLY want about 30 different, but similar, ways to do damage in a variety of spreads and bursts.

[Piggy Knowles]

Arcane Disciple will add 9 spells known to your list, from a chosen domain. You can use that feat to pick up stuff like Anyspell from the Spell domain.

This is debatable, as the Arcane Disciple feat does specifically state that may only cast the spells on its list once each day. While it wouldn't be unreasonable to say that adding the spell to your spell list overrides this for a Warmage, as written, it's pretty explicit.


Each day, you may prepare (or cast, if you cast spells without preparation) a maximum of one of these domains spells of each level.

It also adds a Wisdom requirement to the Warmage, who already wants Intelligence, Charisma, Con, and probably Dexterity as well.

[faceroll]

This is debatable, as the Arcane Disciple feat does specifically state that may only cast the spells on its list once each day. While it wouldn't be unreasonable to say that adding the spell to your spell list overrides this for a Warmage, as written, it's pretty explicit.

True, but outside of crap like grease and web, a wizard doesn't usually prepare more than one casting of stuff like stone shape or phantom steed in a given day, anyhow. He has the advantage of loading up on fabricated on his down time, but every fabricate he prepares while adventuring is one less wall of iron or stone. The Warmage always has fabricate handy, if it's needed.


It also adds a Wisdom requirement to the Warmage, who already wants Intelligence, Charisma, Con, and probably Dexterity as well.

If going the swiss warmage route (or warsnake), int isn't really that important, as the damage from warmage edge isn't noticeable past CL6 or 7, unless you're putting it on DoT spells.

[Keld Denar]

The warmage can be made T3 or even T2 with a little work

Thats not really how the tier system works. Low tiers explicitly take a "little work" to get the same results. That doesn't change what tier they are. I can make a Fighter deal enough damage to destroy the planet, but it takes a lot of effort and still doesn't lead to a lot of versatility, which is why the Fighter is a low tier. Just because you have the ability to destroy the planet doesn't mean you are a high tier! Likewise, if you PrC your Warmage into Incantatrix and roll like the Mailman, you are applying high op building to a low tier class, and getting the predictable results (lots of damage). That doesn't change the fact that Warmage itself is T4 and requires something like Incantatrix to compete at high op levels while a higher tier class can produce similar results with less effort.

Tiers are a measure of base versatility of a class, and the level of effort required to get a high op result out of the class. Warmage is T4, no matter how you dress it, because its potential and versatility start much lower and require more effort to increase.

Gah!

[Kavurcen]

-snip-
That debuffing build does sound like it would be good, but I think I'm going to go a little more in the direction of combat centric, and which probably means I'll end up with Conjuration. Now I just need to figure the rest out. Thanks for the help.

Now the question is, is there any way I could up my AC considerably? With wizard, armor is out of the picture (unless there's some creative multiclassing way to get it) and that isn't very good for my character's longevity if he's going to be very near the front lines.

[Vandicus]

Thats not really how the tier system works. Low tiers explicitly take a "little work" to get the same results. That doesn't change what tier they are. I can make a Fighter deal enough damage to destroy the planet, but it takes a lot of effort and still doesn't lead to a lot of versatility, which is why the Fighter is a low tier. Just because you have the ability to destroy the planet doesn't mean you are a high tier! Likewise, if you PrC your Warmage into Incantatrix and roll like the Mailman, you are applying high op building to a low tier class, and getting the predictable results (lots of damage). That doesn't change the fact that Warmage itself is T4 and requires something like Incantatrix to compete at high op levels while a higher tier class can produce similar results with less effort.

Tiers are a measure of base versatility of a class, and the level of effort required to get a high op result out of the class. Warmage is T4, no matter how you dress it, because its potential and versatility start much lower and require more effort to increase.

Gah!

This is all true. Its curious that you bring up the Incantatrix however, was this supposed to be pointed at me as well? I'm pulling out the Warmage/Incantatrix builds (now with both Acid Arrow and Scorching Ray flavors to choose from) because the OP wanted to play a warmage.

*EDIT
Looks like the warmage builds won't be necessary any longer, so lets move on to building Wizards!

[faceroll]

Now the question is, is there any way I could up my AC considerably? With wizard, armor is out of the picture (unless there's some creative multiclassing way to get it) and that isn't very good for my character's longevity if he's going to be very near the front lines.

Mage Armor + Shield gets you +8 armor. If you're good, pick up (greater) luminous armor. That gives you +5 and +8 armor, as well as a -4 penalty to attacks from enemies in melee. That's book of exalted deeds, and you have to target a good creature with it.

Bite of the WereX, from spell compendium, gives you +lots of natural armor, and in some cases, +lots of dex.

If you're going to be in melee, I would go with transmutation. That gets you stuff like ploymorph, terrific self buffs, and some pretty nasty touch attack stuff, like belker's claws.


Thats not really how the tier system works.

Mmmm, yeah it is.


Also note that with enough optimization, it's generally possible to go up a tier in terms of tier descriptions, and if played poorly you can easily drop a few tiers, but this is a general averaging, assuming that everyone in the party is playing with roughly the same skill and optimization level.

[Amphetryon]

For the reason Beguilers are T3 and warmages T4 mainly. Beguilers can do more with their spell list and have more and better skills. It means that the levels to 16 are less painful than with warmage. This is all my opinion however.

Beguilers also go off of INT for their spellcasting needs, as opposed to CHA with INT being a necessary tertiary stat for damage. So, their skill point advantage is increased, and their MAD is decreased.

[Vandicus]

I find it a bit strange that you're going for a wizard who specializes in damage dealing, as this isn't a commonly tried build.

The first question is of course whether or not you actually want to spend your feats on damage. Are you truly going for damage/killing with utility as a sideshow, or are you going for damage as your sideline job while focusing primarily on utility?

Assuming you wish to go for damage/killing, you now have to choose between save or dies, single target damage, and AoEs as your main source(with a generalist wizard you can keep all of these, but specialist damage wizards often drop the other types of damage).

Save or dies tend to have the issue of monsters being immune to death attacks, having bonuses to death attacks, or generally having high fortitude saves.

Single Target Damage has the orbs and disintegrate. One of the most popular lines of damage spells, the orbs allow no SR, allow no save against damage, have a decent side effect for a save(which may or may not allow the entire spell to be negated by mettle, depending on DM), and are generally believed to work when fired into Antimagic fields(again depending on DM, I personally don't allow them to work for reasons to long to explain here). Disintegrate is a fort save for half damage, and monsters have a high fort save. Its useful for disrupting casting because of its high damage count. The downside of single target spells is that they are only single target. They often do less total damage than AoEs and require touch attack rolls. Although touch attacks are generally easy to make, many monsters have at least a decent touch AC and wizard has only half-BAB progression, which can be weakened by taking PRCs.

AoE damage is personally my favorite, and it has a lot of options. There are many ways to do damage with AoEs, but my personal favorites are fireballs. :smallbiggrin:

For a not super optimized campaign, you can fireball like a maniac and do just fine.

1st level invisible spell, maximize spell, energy substitution
3rd level Piercing Cold
5th level another feat
6th level arcane thesis(fireball)

Retrain arcane thesis to delayed blast fireball later. At level 6 you have an invisible fireball that does 48 damage in an AoE.

Incantatrix can turn a DBF into a death/save or die for those with evasion AoE pretty easily for later game.

[Kavurcen]

EDIT: I didn't expect anything in the way of optimization for my group really, but today we met for a short dungeon and talked about our campaign characters and some of the group members are going WAY more advanced than I thought any of them even were able to. Apparently I'm going to have to step up my game a lot. /edit

Lol, sorry everyone for the sudden topic change, I know you were having fun talking about Warmages but my reading comprehension is pretty terrible lately.

Mage Armor + Shield gets you +8 armor. If you're good, pick up (greater) luminous armor. That gives you +5 and +8 armor, as well as a -4 penalty to attacks from enemies in melee. That's book of exalted deeds, and you have to target a good creature with it.

Bite of the WereX, from spell compendium, gives you +lots of natural armor, and in some cases, +lots of dex.

If you're going to be in melee, I would go with transmutation. That gets you stuff like ploymorph, terrific self buffs, and some pretty nasty touch attack stuff, like belker's claws.



Mmmm, yeah it is.
I'll do some more reading and see about that. My original intent was to get a sort of melee caster build, which probably isn't the smartest thing to aim for. However at this point I'm just looking for a good mix of basic damage dealing of all sorts. In particular, short-range attacks that could be done while hovering overhead would be good, since that seems to be of the greatest advantage from the scenarios I've played lately.


I find it a bit strange that you're going for a wizard who specializes in damage dealing, as this isn't a commonly tried build.

The first question is of course whether or not you actually want to spend your feats on damage. Are you truly going for damage/killing with utility as a sideshow, or are you going for damage as your sideline job while focusing primarily on utility?
I know it's not the smartest or most common build, and I don't really have any good reason to do it. I just want to do it, and I have a hard time dissuading myself from stuff like this. So to actually answer your question, yeah, I'm concentrating mainly on damage/killing. Utility is a secondary concern, if any concern at all.
Utilitywise, since our group is low on optimization and peaks at about 15 people in attendance we have no lack of bland general skillmonkies and utility players. I'm trying to balance us out a bit with some more damage. Minor obstructions or skill/utility based problem solving? We breeze through that silliness. A single slime that can't be hit with melee weapons? The one person in the group capable of casting any sort of spell has to whittle it down slowly with a 1d8 spell while we all sit around with our thumbs up our butts.


AoE damage is personally my favorite, and it has a lot of options. There are many ways to do damage with AoEs, but my personal favorites are fireballs. :smallbiggrin:

For a not super optimized campaign, you can fireball like a maniac and do just fine.

1st level invisible spell, maximize spell, energy substitution
3rd level Piercing Cold
5th level another feat
6th level arcane thesis(fireball)

Retrain arcane thesis to delayed blast fireball later. At level 6 you have an invisible fireball that does 48 damage in an AoE.

Incantatrix can turn a DBF into a death/save or die for those with evasion AoE pretty easily for later game.
That in and of itself sounds cool enough to plan my character around, but are there any other noteworthy options available? I like the idea of AoE, but if I could in any way get at least one other type of attack then that would be great just for versatility's sake.