Houserule sanity check: Warmage

[ILM]

Would I be breaking the game by changing their spell list to any spell from any list so long as it has one of the following descriptors: Acid, Air, Cold, Earth, Electricity, Fire, Force, Sonic, Water? According to IMarvinTPA, that's a total of about 550 spells across all sources (up from about 90, but with more variety in uses whereas most of the 550 are some form of blasting or buffing).

I'm willing to drop Force and Sonic (reducing the list by 150 spells), or restricting the choices to the Sorc, Wiz, Druid or Cleric lists (maybe even only Sorc/Wiz/Druid).

Stupid?

[noparlpf]

Well, from what I understand, the purpose of the warmage is to have a ready-made evoker/blaster without having to go through long lists of spells to pick your spells. I would say that this totally changes the class, but that it's still not "broken".

[Fouredged Sword]

Depends on what you want to have a warmage restricted to. You, by doign that have added summoning, as well as many other effects besides blasting.

good for warmage? Yes the class needs help.

Good for balance? Depends on the rest of the party and how much book diveing the player is willing to do. High op, likely good for balance. Low op, doesn't change much.

[DonDuckie]

I don't think it would break anything.
But it does seem like a lot of spells, and I would utility spells. Such as Summon Monster(elementals give it an elemental descriptor)... any extra spells should really be focused on directly killing the enemy, not buffing/debuffing or utility.

I would limit to instantaneous AOE and (ranged) touch attacks and maybe 1 or 2 off-list per level.

[ILM]

Well the class needs change anyway, but the point was to expand their choices while remaining in a narrow blaster focus.

Technically I didn't add summoning since they already had Elemental Swarm, but it's true it's the only option they have and it's a level 9 spell. Still, while I added summoning, I also removed most necromancy debuffs and pretty much all save-or-dies. Nearly half their original spell list has a duration longer than instantaneous so that doesn't seem to be defining criteria for the class' theme.

As long as nobody goes 'holy crap that's broken' I should be fine, but I thought I'd ping you guys for opinions. Aim is to take the class up a couple tiers to T3-ish, but no higher than T2.

[noparlpf]

Definitely not broken, just different. It shouldn't cause any problems.

[Telonius]

Make sure the houserule is that the spell itself, as-written, has to have the descriptor. I'm sure there's some prestige class or metamagic feat or magical doodad that has an "Add [Cold] as a descriptor to any spell you cast!" ability.

[Fax Celestis]

Make sure the houserule is that the spell itself, as-written, has to have the descriptor. I'm sure there's some prestige class or metamagic feat or magical doodad that has an "Add [Cold] as a descriptor to any spell you cast!" ability.

Snowcasting, anyone?

[Urpriest]

This gives them the ability to spontaneously cast any summon monster spell as long as it they used it to summon something with an elemental descriptor. A similar but less limited ability catapults the Binder into Tier 2. So I would strongly consider that particular implication.

Planar Binding and Gate also must be considered.

[noparlpf]

Add in a class feature. At 1st level, 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th, for example, you can choose one descriptor and can cast spells with that descriptor. So at 20th level you have all the spells for those five descriptors.

[Telonius]

Snowcasting, anyone?

Yeah, that's the one.

[ILM]

This gives them the ability to spontaneously cast any summon monster spell as long as it they used it to summon something with an elemental descriptor. A similar but less limited ability catapults the Binder into Tier 2. So I would strongly consider that particular implication.

Planar Binding and Gate also must be considered.
Should I then specifically exclude (Summoning) and (Calling) subschools?

[Fax Celestis]

I would. He's not a summoner, he's a blaster.

[FMArthur]

Its far-reaching implications are a little hard to gauge, and harder still to sort through books and look up. Why not just give them all Sorc/Wiz Evocation? At least books that have spells sort them by school for Sorcerers and Wizards. You won't find any such help for energy spells. The vast majority of Sorc/Wiz Evocation are just energy damage attacks, but there is a lot of really handy utility in Evocation as well that would bump the Warmage up a tier. Moar energy damage spells doesn't really change as much for them.

[ILM]

I thought about that (or tossing Conjuration in the mix) but it really seems unfair. I mean, the Warmage is bad enough as is. Spontaneous casting of all his spells known is cool, but restricting him to Evocation completely gimps him. He's losing out on 7 of the 8 schools, which makes him about a million times weaker than a mage, and spontaneous casting of the entire school doesn't save him from the loss of versatility, even from a sorcerer. I'd have to rewrite all the class features (and make them great) to make up for that. I'm planning to bump up the Warmage Edge, but it wouldn't be nearly enough.

Restricting by descriptor means I can be both thematically appropriate and still conserve access to multiple schools. Apparently I should remove summoning and calling, that's fine with me. So far nobody seems shocked by getting access to all spell lists or all energy/element descriptors. Cool. I can see what you mean about far-reaching implications, but that's kind of what I was hoping to get from this thread :smallbiggrin:.

[Fax Celestis]

I'm planning to bump up the Warmage Edge, but it wouldn't be nearly enough.

+INTdX dice when using a spell that deals damage in dice determined by caster level, +INTdX to damage caps for spells that deal damage in dice determined by caster level.

IE: fireball normally caps at 10d6. For a warmage with Int 20, it caps at 15d6 and he gets +5d6 on its damage.

[FMArthur]

Oh, I didn't know this thread was for restricting a Warmage to a certain list of spells. I thought we were talking about adding stuff. No, I was talking about giving them all Evocation in addition to their own list, which is a commonly suggested and relatively easy buff. Restricting them only to spells with energy descriptors would devastate what little non-blasting options Warmages have; is that what you want? Usually people are trying to buff Warmages, so I assumed you meant that but I guess that was never said. What are your goals in changing the Warmage?

Regardless of whether you're trying to take them upwards, downwards or just in a new direction, with just 'all energy descriptor spells' as a spell list, you'll wind up with a huge library of mind-numbingly similar spells. I don't think that would be very interesting for all the reading and research involved. Why not instead just come up with a simplified system for creating their own customized energy spells? It would probably be easier to make and would accomplish very similar results.

[Person_Man]

Here's an even easier fix. Just allow the player to pick out a reasonable number of spells that you think are thematically appropriate. They can cast all of those spells spontaneously. If the player isn't contributing much to combat or feels too weak, let them have more spells.

[dextercorvia]

+INTdX dice when using a spell that deals damage in dice determined by caster level, +INTdX to damage caps for spells that deal damage in dice determined by caster level.

IE: fireball normally caps at 10d6. For a warmage with Int 20, it caps at 15d6 and he gets +5d6 on its damage.

Edge was already strong at first level, this makes the Rockets larger. Granted it applies to fewer spells, but Burning Hands dealing 6d4 damage, or Shocking Grasp for 6d6, is probably a bit much.

Maybe limit the extra dX's by Warmage level as well as Int.

[kestrel404]

Would I be breaking the game by changing their spell list to any spell from any list so long as it has one of the following descriptors: Acid, Air, Cold, Earth, Electricity, Fire, Force, Sonic, Water? According to IMarvinTPA, that's a total of about 550 spells across all sources (up from about 90, but with more variety in uses whereas most of the 550 are some form of blasting or buffing).

I'm willing to drop Force and Sonic (reducing the list by 150 spells), or restricting the choices to the Sorc, Wiz, Druid or Cleric lists (maybe even only Sorc/Wiz/Druid).

Stupid?

Just to streamline things a bit, I'd recommend that the player get to CHOOSE one such descriptor, and they get that (including spells that get that descriptor when you choose a particular element). It would give the class a bit more flavor, and reduce the 'should I use X or Y?' factor that would otherwise slow down combat.

[Godskook]

Warmages are tier 4, which is considered a good tier by the tier system. Tier 3 would be slightly better, but tier 4 isn't anything to sneeze at. And all it would take, really, to bump them up, has almost nothing to do with spell versatility. All it would take would be:

-Improve warmage edge to be more relevant across the board, instead of only being decent at level 1ish.
-Give them things to do outside of combat
-Give them access to a small handful of 'basic' spells that are generally required to be a functional caster, like dispel magic.
-Make them SAD casters like most everyone else is.

*BAM* tier 3.

And of course, if you wanted to play a tier 2 or 1 caster, WoTC already provided you with versions of the Warmage in those tiers. They go by the names "Wizard" and "Sorcerer".

[noparlpf]

Just to streamline things a bit, I'd recommend that the player get to CHOOSE one such descriptor, and they get that (including spells that get that descriptor when you choose a particular element). It would give the class a bit more flavor, and reduce the 'should I use X or Y?' factor that would otherwise slow down combat.

I agree. That's why I suggested giving them one of those descriptors at first level, and considering increasing that at higher levels. (Pick a new descriptor to add to spells known at a given level.)

[TroubleBrewing]

Here's an even easier fix. Just allow the player to pick out a reasonable number of spells that you think are thematically appropriate. They can cast all of those spells spontaneously. If the player isn't contributing much to combat or feels too weak, let them have more spells.

This sounds suspiciously like a Sorcerer. :smallbiggrin:

[Redshirt Army]

Didn't the trapsmith have some abuses because of how low level his spells were? "From any list" has far ranging consequences, I'd honestly restrict it to the Wizard/Cleric/Druid lists, just to avoid abuses of that type. (If there's honestly a blasty spell that doesn't appear somewhere on one of those lists, I'll be shocked.)

[ILM]

Good points all around. For the Edge I'm changing it to +1 and an additional +1 per four Warmage caster levels (max +5) per damage die. More in line at low levels, stays relevant at higher levels, benefits from metamagic proportionately, makes him SAD. Extra Edge tacks on another +2.

The point is that in 3.5, the only way to make elemental blasting work is to metamagic your way through, and I don't like this because if you want to go anywhere with that Incantatrix 10 is pretty much a requirement along with stacking all the reducers you can find. I'd like more than one way to make blasting work, and preferably one that doesn't rely on one PrC universally recognized as one of the most powerful, and at least one Dragon Mag feat.

I've also always thought characters usually (I did say usually) specialize as they go up in level, which is why the 'gain one element every X levels' doesn't appeal to me so much. Finally, I don't want to let players choose a few spells from a great list because:
- sorcerer
- I'd rather avoid all those ad-hoc decisions
- if they have access to the entire spell list and it is as redundant as I think it is, the players will probably pick a few spells they prefer and forget about the rest anyway.

In concept, the new (and old, IMO) Warmage is not a wizard but an AoE fighter. He does one thing fairly well - burninating the country - but has few options outside of that. I'm fine with Warmages not having stellar BFC and debuffs and utility and even them not having summons at all, so long as I can say they're getting something else out of it such as extra damage per die and some more feats. I'm trying to make it PrC-friendly too (hence why the extra damage/die is keyed to Warmage caster level and not actual class levels). In the homebrew forum I further suggested that the Advanced Learning ability could be used to get another spell not on his list OR a metamagic feat OR a +1 to his DCs.

If you think this approach weakens the class further, well, I'm open to suggestions to even it out but I am pretty much set on him having only limited options outside of pure blasting. What I was originally worried about was whether giving him access to all spell lists was going to give him some crazy powerful options as opposed to just Sorc/Wiz. It seems the answer so far is no with the exception of summons. I'm also ok with restricting to Sorc/Wiz/Cleric/Druid.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention: as with the old Warmage, a modified Warmage with the Arcane Disciple feat can get a few spells he wouldn't normally have access to (and since he adds them to his list, AFAIK he can cast them like they're going out of fashion).

Is that at tier 3 or have I really failed to make up for removing the 30-odd cool spells that he doesn't have access to anymore? (actually if you're pationt, I can even list them all)

[DeAnno]

Is the player planning on going Warmage 20? There isn't much reason to if Warmage Edge scales with Caster Level and not Class Level (I did it that way here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=208053)). He could theoretically still pile up a bunch of metamagic reducers and go Incantatrix/War Mage (The dragonlance PRC) and become a total monster if he still got his Warmage Edge +5/die. This might actually end up being nearly as scary as optimized Sorcerer and Psion blasters (he lacks the Sorcerer's unbelievable accuracy, and has inferior versatility and casting speed to either, but would output stupidly more damage per spell slot.)

If you ban War Mage and Incantatrix, there aren't really any more good blasting PRCs, so letting him out of the Warmage Base Class "free" in those conditions isn't so bad, he could improve his versatility maybe but not really his damage potential or blasting fundamentals.

If for whatever reason he ends up with Warmage 20 with the Edge and Spell List changes I'd say that'd be low tier 2, not as good as a Psion or Sorc but still capable of doing a lot of blaster damage with a bunch of extra tricks to pull out like the Heart of X spells, Wall of Force, Flashflood, Sleet Storm, Freezing Fog, Wings of Cover, and probably some more random excellent stuff I can't think of now. Remember that even without reducers, vanilla Empower or Maximize or even Twin can give him a pretty serious damage boost since they all stack with Warmage Edge.

EDIT: Lightning Leap, Firestride Exhalation, Lord of the Sky, Frostfell, Conjure Ice Beast (neither Summoning nor Calling!), Shivering Touch, the list goes on. Honestly this thing is probably more versatile than a blaster Psion or Sorc in some ways, what with him having access to his whole highest spell level instantly complete with obscure elemental flavorings of half the best spells in the game and all sorts of ways to bring the pain.

[ILM]

Is the player planning on going Warmage 20? There isn't much reason to if Warmage Edge scales with Caster Level and not Class Level (I did it that way here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=208053)). He could theoretically still pile up a bunch of metamagic reducers and go Incantatrix/War Mage (The dragonlance PRC) and become a total monster if he still got his Warmage Edge +5/die. This might actually end up being nearly as scary as optimized Sorcerer and Psion blasters (he lacks the Sorcerer's unbelievable accuracy, and has inferior versatility and casting speed to either, but would output stupidly more damage per spell slot.)

If you ban War Mage and Incantatrix, there aren't really any more good blasting PRCs, so letting him out of the Warmage Base Class "free" in those conditions isn't so bad, he could improve his versatility maybe but not really his damage potential or blasting fundamentals.

If for whatever reason he ends up with Warmage 20 with the Edge and Spell List changes I'd say that'd be low tier 2, not as good as a Psion or Sorc but still capable of doing a lot of blaster damage with a bunch of extra tricks to pull out like the Heart of X spells, Wall of Force, Flashflood, Sleet Storm, Freezing Fog, Wings of Cover, and probably some more random excellent stuff I can't think of now. Remember that even without reducers, vanilla Empower or Maximize or even Twin can give him a pretty serious damage boost since they all stack with Warmage Edge.

EDIT: Lightning Leap, Firestride Exhalation, Lord of the Sky, Frostfell, Conjure Ice Beast (neither Summoning nor Calling!), Shivering Touch, the list goes on. Honestly this thing is probably more versatile than a blaster Psion or Sorc in some ways, what with him having access to his whole highest spell level instantly complete with obscure elemental flavorings of half the best spells in the game and all sorts of ways to bring the pain.
Oh cool, the maker of the Mailman :smallsmile:. Good to have your input!
Thing is, I'm also nerfing metamagic to disallow any two sources of reduction to stack, with the exception of Arcane Thesis. This means that a lot of the insane blastomancer tricks can't work so well anymore. Furthermore, the Dragonlance War Mage requires 3 pretty much useless feats (though he does get 2 metamagic feats back) and a blaster is starved enough. To be honest, while I really like the War Mage, I've never been able to make it really shine; and my theorycrafting wuth my new Warmage (this is getting confusing, isn't it? :smalltongue:) hasn't changed my mind so far.

I was aware of the elemental movement spells but I'm unfamiliar with Lord of the Sky. Conjure Ice Beast isn't summoning or calling? That's retarded.

The problem with letting players choose X spells is that either I restrict the sources they can choose from and the Warmage becomes a less versatile Sorc, or I don't and there's no reason anymore to pick a Sorc since the Warmage is getting free extra damage. I was thinking of making the +x/die an ACF thing, but it does seem a bit powerful...


Is the player planning on going Warmage 20? There isn't much reason to if Warmage Edge scales with Caster Level and not Class Level
I did that on purpose; there's zero reason to stay in Wiz or Sorc instead of PrCing, I thought it made sense for the Warmage to go the same way.

[DeAnno]

The name of the game with blaster PRCing is really all about getting feats back for useless ones you spend (if I knew about War Mage when I made the Mailman originally it would've been Sorc 5/War Mage 5/Incantatrix 10, I should probably do a revision or something).

By preventing reduction from stacking, are you preventing reducers on one metamagic to stack, or preventing two reducers on two metamagics from being applied at once? For example if you have Practical Maximize and Practical Twin, is Twinned Maximized Orb of Force a 9th level spell or a 10th level spell? What about for Incantatrix 10?

But regardless, look at this build:

Human Warmage 5/War Mage 5/Whatever 10
1Human)Weapon Focus Ranged Touch (fairly useful with no True Strike)
1)Combat Casting
3)Eschew Materials
6)Extra Edge
7WM)Empower Spell
9)Practical Empower
9WM)Free Metamagic Feat

Even with a minimum of investment (War Mage, Empower Spell, Practical Empower, Extra Edge), you have x1.5 for 1 level and +5+2+3=+10 damage per die (and Empower multiplies added damage per die as shown in the Magic missle example). So Empowered Orb of Fire at level 20 would be a 5th level spell doing (15d6+150)*1.5 = 303.75 damage. You could even apply full strength twin to that and get 600 damage for a 9th level spell.

At level 10 with Extra Edge as you described it you +2+2+3 damage per die, a caster level of 10, and +1 Empower. So an Orb of Whatever (even Force) at level 10 is a 5th level spell that deals (10d6+70)*1.5 = 157.5 on a Ranged touch attack of (assuming no fractional BaB, which is kinda dumb, since thats a great rule) +4+1+dex vs Touch AC.

If those types of numbers sound like too much (it's actually not that bad since he kind of has trouble hitting and can only cast 1 spell/round) the more obvious culprits are the War Mage PRC and the Extra Edge Feat, which would still be pretty good at +1 incidentally. You could also houserule that Empower doesn't multiply added damage, and that would tone things down a bit too (Maximize won't be nearly as ridiculous, Twin is blargh at 3 slots).

Lord of the Sky is a 5th level spell from Dragon Magic that allows him to Fly and grants some other random benefits including a tiny swift action at will attack. Normally it's kinda bad but since he can't get Fly on his list he'll be using it a lot. Conjure Ice Beast isn't Summoning or Calling because the fluff is literally conjuring a bunch of ice and making an Ice beast (they're all constructs) out of it right then and there.

[ILM]

Preventing of metamagic stacking means that Practical (Twin) and Practical (Empower) wouldn't work at the same time. Basically no single metamagic feat could be reduced more than once, except if using Arcane Thesis (and I'm still kind of on the fence with that one). An Empowered Twinned Fireball on an Incantatrix 10 chassis would be level 8, not 7.

Still, with the example build you posted (btw War Mage also requires 3rd level spells, so you need Sorc 6) you do get high numbers but you're as vulnerable as ever to immunities (I guess when we're talking 300 damage, resistances don't really matter anymore), your save DCs suck and your to-hit is shameful. I guess it does kind of worsen the rocket tag aspect though... Leaving aside the fact War Mage isn't 1st party and therefore may not be accepted everywhere (personally, I like that book), maybe I should lay off on the extra damage. Perhaps +1 and another +1 per 5 levels, max +4, and Extra Edge only adding +1? Or is reducing Extra Edge to +1 sufficient?

Regarding spell selection: assuming I give the Warmage a choice of spells like the Sorc, except he gets to choose from Sorc/Wiz/Cleric/Druid spells with energy descriptors as dexcriped in my OP, would that be better?

[dextercorvia]

I would personally rather have the standard Warmage list than only get to choose spells with an Energy Descriptor.

[DeAnno]

Whoopsie, youre totally right on the Warmage and its 3rd levely ness (more racism against spontaneous casters :smallwink:). Anyways its still a pretty big nuke.

Going with the +1/5 and +1 extra edge should bring the damage down to reasonable levels (and I think you should limit Thesis to -1 total so it isn't OP in your homebrew; it is quite good even in standard where you can stack reduction in many ways).

Since you share my concerns about accuracy and save DCs (SR will be a little annoying as well), you could compensate the damage nerf by implementing an accuracy feature: every time you get +1 of Warmage Edge, choose Touch Attacks, Save DCs, or Caster level Checks, and get +1 to that too. So a level 20 Warmage with extra Edge could have +5 to touch attack rolls, or +5 to save DCs, or +2 Touch attack +2 Save DC +1 Caster level check, etc.

As for concerns over the spell list setup, I think if you give them a spells known mechanic they would need more than the sorc to function since they have a more limited spell selection. Maybe they could learn descriptors for each spell level instead? For example a Warmage would choose a descriptor, like Force, to start and always know all the Force spells he could cast. Once he got 2nd level spells, he could choose another like Fire, and know all the Fire spells of his max level -1 he could cast. Then once he got third level spells he could choose Water for max level -2, and he would be capable of casting 1st-3rd level Force spells, 1st-2nd level Fire spells, and 1st level Water spells.

That may actually be too weak, not sure (he could pick 2 descriptors per level instead maybe? So his top two he can cast anything, second pair -1 spell level known, fifth and sixth -2 spell levels known, etc).

[ILM]

Since you share my concerns about accuracy and save DCs (SR will be a little annoying as well), you could compensate the damage nerf by implementing an accuracy feature: every time you get +1 of Warmage Edge, choose Touch Attacks, Save DCs, or Caster level Checks, and get +1 to that too. So a level 20 Warmage with extra Edge could have +5 to touch attack rolls, or +5 to save DCs, or +2 Touch attack +2 Save DC +1 Caster level check, etc.
Hmm. Maybe that's a tad powerful though; I mean 3.5 is notoriously stingy on the +DCs. Maybe I could see that but keyed to class levels rather than caster levels, this time. And I'd have to stagger it somewhat or the breaking points will be too obvious.


As for concerns over the spell list setup, I think if you give them a spells known mechanic they would need more than the sorc to function since they have a more limited spell selection.
Bear in mind they get to choose from more spell lists than the Sorc. Descriptor only, perhaps, but still.

OR, to get the best of both worlds, I could add all descriptor spells to the regular Warmage list, then let him choose among all that as a Sorc.

[Cerlis]

i think it would be better to stick with the warmage classic list and give them a Emulation class feature. Basically if they see a spell they dont know that has one of those descriptors or is from Evocation then for 1 minute per caster level they can attempt to cast the spell. It would require a caster lvl check , maybe 15+spell level (i think 20+ would be to much while 10 would be to low since this makes their options almost limitless when it comes to certian situations). If they succeed then they can sacrifice a spell slot of equal value to the spell being cast to cast it.

Further more if you successfully cast that spell you may treat it as if it where ont he sorcerer/wizard list and as if it where an evocation spell for the sake of whether or not you could learn it with your advanced learning feature.

Essnetially if an enemy can cast it, so can you, and if you successfully manipulate that spell you learn enough about it to learn it on your own. THis would be great flavor since warmages are militant and a mage tournament would be a great way to learn new spells.