[3.5] Level 20 Arcane Caster

[RecklessAbaddon]

Just posting this here to see if i get any suggestions for further epic levels. My DM allowed Me to reduce a skill requirement for Ultimate Magus, so my levels are Wizard 1-3, Sorcerer 4, Ultimate Magus 5-14, Archmage 15-19 (taking it was ok'ed), Wizard 20. Lowering the skill requirement made my sorcerer level = wizard for one of the levels in ultimate Magus where only one levels up. So this give me spell-casting abilities of a 17th level Wizard, and 10th level Sorcerer with +4 CL to both for casting. He also let me take item creation feats for archmage so I have Brew Potion, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, and Craft Wonderous item.

Skills of note are Profession: Strategist and Mad Alchemist (works as Craft Alchemy), spellcraft, concentration, and knowledge arcana, and persuasion (a grouping of all social skills) all being maxed. Other points go towards random Craft Skills.

I have Mastery of Shaping and Elemental Mastery from Archmage, and metamagic feats include Explosive Spell, Widen Spell, Empower Spell, and Twin Spell. And Metamagic Rods of Quicken, silent, and some other cheap one. Spell Focus Evocation and Transmutation as well.

Want to suggest any other classes to visit in whatever future epic levels we receive or just keep doing what I am? I'm thinking about just taking levels in Wizard from now on out, but Epic Archmage would be cool. But i don't really need any other High Arcana.

Looking through some splat books for other PrC's. and just curious if there are any instant suggestions.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

You could have taken the feat Practiced Spellcaster for Sorcerer to put more of Ultimate Magus' single progression levels toward Wizard, without even using any early entry tricks.

Beguiler is a better choice than Sorcerer for Ultimate Magus.

Get one level in Spellthief, and use the Dark Chaos Shuffle to replace one of your existing feats (Brew Potion, it's worthless) with Master Spellthief. Your caster level for both Wizard and Sorcerer will be 32, at level 21.

Your first epic feat at level 21 should be Epic Spellcasting, nothing beyond that really even matters. Check online for some guides on making discount epic spells.

[ranagrande]

I wouldn't recommend the Epic Wizard. Just scan through your available sources and take levels in any prestige classes that offer useful features and improve your caster level. Abjurant Champion, Divine Oracle, Incantrix, Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, there are tons of good choices.

[RecklessAbaddon]

Character is already made, so sorceror is going to have to stick.

I was looking at Master of the sevenfold veil pretty closely. I'm going to talk to my DM about what epic UM levels would be like, in otherwords see if he would just let its abilities continue stacking (like at UM lvl 12 let me burn 6th level spells for metamagic etc...).

Since i'm out of town I have the Xorvataal Exarch Template for free so my character can wander in and out without causing to much of a fuss, and it lets other no shows have some mission to go work on.

Currently my characters goal is to create some intelegent constructs, the brew potion feat is in case the DM requires me to create any potions or anything to create it. So that's part of some missions my character is doing (collecting rare metals to create it with).

My characters goal is to create a retinue of metal warriors that can protect him during battle or help hold a flank (not to be done in game, more of an out of combat venture).

I don't know though, it seems like my character might be the only one with so much work put into it. Some were made right before the session started.

For character descriptions when it was the fighter/rogue's turn to tell us what he did (we were supposed to be reuniting aka we adventured together before) and said he is the kind of character to just charge headlong into battle. And that was about it.

That's me ranting though.

I know there are already guidelines for creating constructs, but have not read through them at all. I'll probably do more of an RP approach to breathing life into the metal man anyways though.

He has the Epic Level Handbook though so i have not gotten to look much through it are there many 10th level spells in there or does it just have guidelines for how to create them?

-just read about epic spells on the SRD, forgot it was SRD material. I'm slightly surprised all epic spells are considered 10th level. I figured there would be 11ths and 12th too, but that is reassuring.-

I might take automatic quickened spell too, because that looks just awesome.

[tyckspoon]

He has the Epic Level Handbook though so i have not gotten to look much through it are there many 10th level spells in there or does it just have guidelines for how to create them?

-just read about epic spells on the SRD, forgot it was SRD material. I'm slightly surprised all epic spells are considered 10th level. I figured there would be 11ths and 12th too, but that is reassuring.-

I might take automatic quickened spell too, because that looks just awesome.

Epic Spells and spells of greater than 9th level are not really the same things. Epic Spells are the ones made with the spell-seed system, constructed from scratch. You get access to them with the Epic Spellcasting feat; they're considered 10th level when that's relevant, but most of the time they're not related to the normal spell-slot system at all. There are a number of example Epic Spells in the Handbook (it's also OGL material, so you can check it out yourself at d20srd.org) but they're almost all terrible (some of them are pretty awesome, but simply completely impractical to ever actually research and cast.) If you plan to make serious use of Epic Spellcasting, you'll be building your own.

Spell slots greater than 9th are gained with the Improved Spell Capacity feat. There are no official spells written for these levels; if you want some, you have to homebrew them with your DM. Mostly slots of level 10+ are used for their greater metamagic capacity, so you can use more powerful metamagics or apply metamagics to higher-level spells.

[Randomguy]

If you want to make constructs, intelligent or not, you'll need craft wondrous item, craft magic arms and armour and craft construct (the first two are prerequisites). If you have only craft wondrous item you can take levels in the effigy master prestige class, which gives the ability to craft effigies, which are robotic versions of: corporeal aberration, animal, dragon, giant, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, or vermin. They aren't intelligent though. Actually, there's a spell called awaken construct in the spell compedium, but it has an exp cost.

The 3.5 version of automatic quickened spell is in complete arcane, just like the effigy master PRC and it only affects spells of first level, so it's not nearly as good.

I suggest you keep taking levels in ultimate magus, (work with your DM to make an epic progression for that prestige class) so that you keep getting spells. At least three more levels will help you fill out your wizard casting while keeping sorcery going.

Another level in wizard will get you a bonus item creation feat, so you'd be further along the path to making intelligent constructs.

If you take epic leadership, you can make your cohort a spellcaster to be your assistant and your followers could be workers (maybe gnomish engineers?) with ranks in various craft skills.

Brew potion really is useless. If you do need a potion for a construct, just get the quick potion spell, cast it on a flask of water and cast the spell you need into the flask. The potion will only last for 1 hour per caster level, but you can use it for whatever you need by then.

[RecklessAbaddon]

All Noted, will i really need the higher level slots for metamagic then if I already have the UM for the cross class metamagic fuel stuff?

I think my initial epic spell might just be a more awesome version of tensers transformation. I already have it where the transformation also causes me to gain even more draconic features (bronze dragon ancestry + an amulet of natural armor +5 I have flavored to give me more draconic NA)

I don't know what to do with the Epic spells other than some other generic damage oriented spell. With spell focus Transmutation and Evocation I'll probably be focusing on spells with effects like that.

Craft Construct will probably be my first feat after Epic Spellcasting.

[RecklessAbaddon]

Also I should note my DMs ruling on xp cost is it costs us 1 gold in material for every xp so 1k xp = 1k gold. I look as it mostly as an excuse to permanency things for money (because i'm the wizard) but it can be used for any xp cost. So xp cost is not an issue, in fact i don't know if we are even keeping track of xp since we are starting out at level 20.