Pyromancy

[DonutBoy12321]

I'm trying to build a pyromancer character, and was wondering what some good base and prestige class options there were. What can you think of, Playground?

[Rhaegar14]

Depends what exactly you want him to do, but some suggestions:

Elemental Savant (Fire) (CA)
Pyrokineticist (XPH)
Silver Pyromancer (Five Nations)

[sonofzeal]

The obvious answer is pyrokineticist (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/pyrokineticist.htm). It's... not the greatest PrC ever, but it can work if you plan your build carefully. And the Requirements are amaaaazing.

[Yuki Akuma]

Pyromancer? You'd want a Diviner with some spell thematics related to fire. Stare into bonfires instead of crystal balls, that sort of thing.

[Urpriest]

If you want to deal loads and loads of damage with a fairly straightforward castery chassis, look up the Mailman. The core of the build is a Sorceror/Incantatrix, using Orb of Fire with lots of metamagic to burn anything you fight into ash.

Silver Pyromancer is actually good for that sort of build. Elemental Savant is fun, but it's a tad weaker. And Pyrokineticist makes you more of a melee fire character than an archetypal Pyromancer (that said, Psionics is pretty good at Pyromancy, with a Kineticist Psion having a lot of very efficient energy damage powers).

[Manateee]

Fire Shugenja of the Unseeing Eye seems like it would be spot on.
Maybe with a dip into Sanctified One of Kord to make the blasty spells punch through resistances/immunities.

It wouldn't be the most powerful caster, but if it's an a party with a Fighter and a Scout or something, it would be fine.

[Ivellius]

Pyromancer? You'd want a Diviner with some spell thematics related to fire. Stare into bonfires instead of crystal balls, that sort of thing.

Ah, a language nerd. It warms my heart...

As a suggestion, the Dragonfire Adept might be nice as a base class. Not quite as powerful as a Wizard or Sorceror, but in the words of a particular dragon from a long-ago RTS, "Do you like fire? I'm full of it."

Also, I've wanted to play a pyrokineticist since I got XPH, but I'm always a GM.

[DrMike105]

Whatever you choose, if it's a non-psionic caster then make absolutely sure you take Searing Spell (from Sandstorm). It makes single-energy casting viable when you meet up with the inevitable resistances and immunities.

[Socratov]

I'd like to point to FCII's hellfire warlock. no problems dealing with pesky fire resistance (or any resistance at all), and per FCII's explanation of hellfire: if you can think of it, it burns (even a vacuüm).

[Dsurion]

If homebrew is cool, FrankTrollman's Fire Mage (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=32798&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=7).

[NeoSeraphi]

Dragonfire adept (Dragon Magic) is good if you want to burn things at will. If you want to burn things SUPER HOT, you need Blistering Spell (PHB II), Searing Spell (Sandstorm), and Fiery Spell (Sandstorm), along with orb of fire (Spell Compendium) and Arcane Thesis (Orb of Fire) (Complete Arcane).

The end result is you dealing 15d6+45 fire damage with a single 4th level spell slot, with no save allowed, no spell resistance allowed, and you can lob it into an antimagic field, or even use it to kill a golem.

Then you're free to stack your metamagic on it and use the rest of your spell slots for varying degrees of burn.

5th level spell slots? 15d6+45+1/2 15d6 (Empower Spell)

6th level spell slots? 135 damage (Maximize Spell)

7th level spell slots? 135 damage +1/2 15d6 (Maximize and Empower)

Etc.

And your 3rd level spell slots can be used for fireballs, of course.

So grab sorcerer, and have lesser orb of fire, scorching ray, fireball, orb of fire, delayed blast fireball and meteor swarm. Good luck!

[umbergod]

EDIT: Nevermind, it appears the version of Arcane Thesis I was reading was outdated, carry on :P

[Zaq]

Pyromancer? You'd want a Diviner with some spell thematics related to fire. Stare into bonfires instead of crystal balls, that sort of thing.

I would love to actually see this.

Spoilered for semi-off-topicness:
Anyone know when "-mancy" stopped meaning "divination" (to the general populace) and started meaning, well, "magic"? Just how recent is that?

[sonofzeal]

Anyone know when "-mancy" stopped meaning "divination" (to the general populace) and started meaning, well, "magic"? Just how recent is that?
I tried looking up the etymology of "necromancer", because I figured that's the word that served as a transition - if we can find when it stopped meaning "medium" and started meaning "master of undeath", that'd be the point. Unfortunately, all I discovered was what the word evolved out of.

Double-spoilered for controversy. If racially-sensitive words bother you, don't open this.
"Nygromauncy", or by more modern spellings, "Negromancy"

If you know your root words, you'll know it has nothing to do with race, but it's still just a little awkward these days. Unfortunate Implications (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnfortunateImplications) much.

[The_Snark]

I would love to actually see this.

I did that once! Though not in D&D. Sadly, the game ended before I got the opportunity to divine anything, but I really liked the idea.