What can you do with this?

[Qwertystop]

Hi everyone,
I've got a character idea, but unfortunately I'm not sure how to optimize it to the point that it would pull its weight in an average game.

I want to see what The Playground can do within the limits I provide:
Must be an arcane caster.
Must have the Fiery Burst and Summon Elemental reserve feats
If it's a prepared caster, must have at least 1 level in Geometer (for the spellbook-shrinking and fluff)


The character, in the end, will be a little kid who has magical talent. Sparkly explosions, lots of odd-looking friends, and a coloring book (if they're a prepared caster).

It should be able to work from any level starting at the first level of Geometer, since I'm making this without having a specific game yet.

[motoko's ghost]

You could go unseen seer and go for a stealthy rogue-like character SA-ing with your fiery burst.
You could be a summoner with your summon elemental(among other spells),possibly going malconvoker or something.

Also this is a really nice concept.

[Qwertystop]

Also this is a really nice concept.

Thanks.

And I suppose the "restrictions" are a bit malleable, as long as it sticks to the "little kid who throws magic everywhere for typical little-kid things" theme. I figured Reserve Feats were the best way to do that, and those were the ones that went best.

[SilverLeaf167]

You could go unseen seer and go for a stealthy rogue-like character SA-ing with your fiery burst.
You could be a summoner with your summon elemental(among other spells),possibly going malconvoker or something.

Also this is a really nice concept.
You can't do sneak attacks with an ability with no attack roll.
It's pretty easy to simply have a single Summon Monster spell of your highest spell level known/prepared and using it to fuel Summon Elemental.

This is an awesome concept for any caster, but still, as the stuff he does seem to be a bit more specific and whimsical, Sorcerer would probably be the best. Yeah, go Sorcerer/Malconvoker and charm those demons with your adorableness :D

[motoko's ghost]

You can't do sneak attacks with an ability with no attack roll.

Yeah, go Sorcerer/Malconvoker and charm those demons with your adorableness :D

Oh right I'm thinking of force needles aren't I? my Bad:smallredface:

Also +1 for the mental image:smallbiggrin:

[Qwertystop]

Oh right I'm thinking of force needles aren't I? my Bad:smallredface:

Also +1 for the mental image:smallbiggrin:

Force Needles could be added on if it fits the fluff. And I say that little sparkly things always fits the fluff.

[SilverLeaf167]

Force Needles could be added on if it fits the fluff. And I say that little sparkly things always fits the fluff.
To clarify, the name is Invisible Needle. It isn't that great though, especially as most of the best builds for this (such as mine :smalltongue:) don't have sneak attack or anything.

You might want to pick up Wings of Cover, Wings of Bounding or Wings of Flurry (or whatever their names were) from Dragon Magic, especially if you intend to take Invisible Needle. They allow you to block with sparkliness, frolick around sparklingly and deal damage with sparkles, respectively. They are Sorcerer-only, fuel your Invisible Needle and are pretty good too!

[Rapidghoul]

All I could think of while reading this was Annie (http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Annie_the_Dark_Child).

I second the thought of a sorcerer fitting this idea better, plus reserve feats tend to work better with spontaneous casters anyway. However, the coloring book thing is amazing, so I think prepared is the way to go.

If you go prepared, there's a lot you can do for fluff to make it viable. Go Focused Specialist Conjurer (giving up three schools that fit the character). You can grab Orb of Fire and various Summon spells to fuel your reserve feats.

Energy Substitution (Fire), Blistering / Fiery Spell, and Cloudy Conjuration can all add a little oomph and a lot of fluff to the character. If you keep your familiar, there's a spell that can make your familiar an elemental (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/sb/sb20011109a), fire of course. It would also make your familiar immune to fire spells you cast.

For fluff, if you're high enough level, a +1 Spell Storing sling could be hilarious. A tiny child picking up a rock, hurling it at the big-bad, and it explodes into a Fireball? Comedy gold.

[Qwertystop]

All I could think of while reading this was Annie (http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Annie_the_Dark_Child).

I second the thought of a sorcerer fitting this idea better, plus reserve feats tend to work better with spontaneous casters anyway. However, the coloring book thing is amazing, so I think prepared is the way to go.

If you go prepared, there's a lot you can do for fluff to make it viable. Go Focused Specialist Conjurer (giving up three schools that fit the character). You can grab Orb of Fire and various Summon spells to fuel your reserve feats.

Energy Substitution (Fire), Blistering / Fiery Spell, and Cloudy Conjuration can all add a little oomph and a lot of fluff to the character. If you keep your familiar, there's a spell that can make your familiar an elemental (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/sb/sb20011109a), fire of course. It would also make your familiar immune to fire spells you cast.

For fluff, if you're high enough level, a +1 Spell Storing sling could be hilarious. A tiny child picking up a rock, hurling it at the big-bad, and it explodes into a Fireball? Comedy gold.

The fluff wasn't necessarily Fire. That's just the only Reserve Feat that fits. Water makes people inhale water, Earth makes people slow down, Air makes people fall over, Electric is too long-ranged, Acid is actual physical material, Sonic is touch-based, Force is invisible.

[SilverLeaf167]

Force doesn't have to be invisible, make it sparkly or rainbow-colored or something :smallwink:
Some Force spells are really useful too, like the Wings set of spells from Races of the Dragons (Wings of Cover and the gang).

But ye, if you want more detailed and useful advice, you'll have to decide what you want from your build. Summoning is rather interesting and extremely versatile, but is often border-OP and tends to bog down the game. Blasting is fun, cool and easy, but often less effective.

If you don't want to be a Sorcerer or want to use the awesome coloring book idea, I'd second being a Conjurer, Focused or not.

[Tvtyrant]

Is this strictly 3.5, or is it 3.P? If it is the latter you can use the Young template to give yourself -1 to LA, and then take a +1 LA class for free. This can be used to boost your casting stats, and it plays up your little kid stature well.

For casting I suggest either just going Wizard and getting the appropriate feats (throw IotSCV on top for protection maybe), or maybe go Shadowcaster Beguiler and have all of your spells be fluffed as coming from your imagination.

[Qwertystop]

I think I'll go with some form of summoning. I mostly play PbP, so it doesn't bog anything down much. Any more detailed tips? I'm really not that good at optimizing, so I don't know enough details to fill in the gaps in what you're saying (that I assume you assume I know).

Is this strictly 3.5, or is it 3.P? If it is the latter you can use the Young template to give yourself -1 to LA, and then take a +1 LA class for free. This can be used to boost your casting stats, and it plays up your little kid stature well.

Thanks for the tip! I was planning to try and get a refluffed Strongheart Halfling in as a human child.

[Tvtyrant]

Alright, so the reason spontaneous is usually better with reserve feats is that reserve feats are keyed off of the level of the spell you have prepared. With a Sorc if you have an open slot of your highest level and heighten you can treat all of your reserve feats as being from your highest spell slot, so you get a lot more umph out of them than a prepared caster does.

[Unusual Muse]

Mailman Sorcerer with an emphasis on Fire; Searing Spell, etc.

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19868534/The_Mailman:_A_Direct_Damage_Sorcerer?pg=1

[Unusual Muse]

The character, in the end, will be a little kid who has magical talent. Sparkly explosions, lots of odd-looking friends, and a coloring book (if they're a prepared caster).

Firestarter! :smallsmile:

[SilverLeaf167]

Ok, so let's say you're a Wizard.

Take the Focused Specialist alternate class feature from Complete Mage, and specialize on Conjuration. This forces you to ban one additional school and lose one spell per day from each level. In exchange, you get two extra spells per day from your specialized school.
You should ban Necromancy, Enchantment, Illusion or Evocation (two or three of those, depending on your choice on the above).

Now we strike the motherload of alternate class features: Unearthed Arcana, "Specialist Wizard Variants". Take Rapid Summoning, which reduces the Summon Monster casting time to a standard action, but you lose your familiar. The first ability of Enhanced Summoning (free Augmented Summoning instead of Scribe Scroll) is so great, you'll want to take it, even if that means you'll have to take Scribe Scroll as a separate feat. At 5th level, which is the furthest we'll go, you can get higher Dispel DCs to your summons if you want.
Though Spontaneous Summons might seem nice, if you pick it, you should skip Focused Specialist, as it becomes nothing but a loss of spells with that combo.

Pick whichever feats you want, Fiery Burst and Summon Elemental are pretty good.

If you want Malconvoker, which is great for summoners but might not fit your concept, you'll have to take a few cross-class ranks in Bluff, but you should be able to fit Spell Focus (conjuration) into your build without much trouble (you can get Enhanced Summoning with the ACF I mentioned) and you'll Wizardly INT can grant you those bonus languages. Get as many levels as you want, all of the abilities are pretty nice.

You mentioned wanting Geometer... it's pretty good, too, and fits the drawing book concept, but requires some more cross-class skills and Scribe Scroll, which you might or might not get as a bonus feat. Though you'll get what you wanted at level 2 already, well, you're a Wizard, so you don't have much reason not to take the rest of the levels. On the other hand, you could go into yet another prestige class, if you still have empty levels left in your build (Master Specialist is ok and easy to qualify for).

So, your final build might be Wizard 6/Malconvoker 9/Geometer 5. Feel free to swap around the order in which you take those prestige classes.

I hope that helped!
And that I didn't get ninja'd while writing this...

[kulosle]

I think the coloring book would be fun for fluff. But if you play a wizard you have to take rapid summoning and give up your familiar. Every wizard summoner needs to do this. Its too amazing. Go master specialist and then you can make summoning a swift action.

[Qwertystop]

Thanks very much!

[Qwertystop]

Wait, one thing I don't quite understand. The "Young" template gives LA -1. Does this mean that I can take an extra class level, or do I have to find an LA +1 template?

[SilverLeaf167]

I think it means you get an extra level, compared to the rest of the party and in regards of EXP rewards and WBL. So, in a level 6 party, you would be level 7.

[Qwertystop]

I think it means you get an extra level, compared to the rest of the party and in regards of EXP rewards and WBL. So, in a level 6 party, you would be level 7.

But still get Level 6 XP and WBL? Okay. I'm working on the character sheet now, so I wanted to make sure I was doing it right. I'll post the sheet here when it's done, for review.

EDIT: I'm having trouble with the skill points. Is there a calculator anywhere for them?

[Chronos]

Hi everyone,
I've got a character idea, but unfortunately I'm not sure how to optimize it to the point that it would pull its weight in an average game.Well, one way to guarantee you can pull your weight in an average game is to play a full arcane spellcaster, preferably prepared, with a few reserve feats and maybe a prestige class. But that might be a little more high-op than you're looking for.

[Zombulian]

No that is not how negative LA works. Unless you go and use it on something then it disappears and doesn't help you. Pick up a template or something.

[Zombulian]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=130731&page=2
take a look at this post. Although if you are doing 3.0 then it might be different. Also I think you should probably check with your DM before you go and have an extra class lvl :smallamused:

[Qwertystop]

Ah. Any good +1 LA templates that fit this?

Also, does anyone know of a way to easily calculate skill points when you have things like using your every-4-levels statboost on INT and you have multiple classes?

[Zombulian]

Ah. Any good +1 LA templates that fit this?

Also, does anyone know of a way to easily calculate skill points when you have things like using your every-4-levels statboost on INT and you have multiple classes?

Yeah the skillpoints with altering INT is weird. I honestly don't know.
There are a whole slew of nice templates to choose from. It all depends on the fluff. You wanted to be a little kid caster who is magically gifted? hmmm maybe Draconic? OOH or you can be a young Strongheart halfling with Half-Ogre. You become medium sized but your type changes to Giant, so you can stack on Primordial Giant for free, netting int and cha bonuses as well as invisibility at will and the whole magic blooded fluff. Also look in the MM for size changing stat stuff.

[Qwertystop]

Yeah the skillpoints with altering INT is weird. I honestly don't know.
There are a whole slew of nice templates to choose from. It all depends on the fluff. You wanted to be a little kid caster who is magically gifted? hmmm maybe Draconic? OOH or you can be a young Strongheart halfling with Half-Ogre. You become medium sized but your type changes to Giant, so you can stack on Primordial Giant for free, netting int and cha bonuses as well as invisibility at will and the whole magic blooded fluff. Also look in the MM for size changing stat stuff.

The problem with those is appearance. I want it to look like a normal human kid up until the point when he/she starts throwing explosions and summoning elementals.

[Xyk]

Maybe a Tiefling? They look like really cool humans and have a couple of minor abilities. Depending on your DM, you can probably get away with just having dark hair and eyes.

[Qwertystop]

Maybe a Tiefling? They look like really cool humans and have a couple of minor abilities. Depending on your DM, you can probably get away with just having dark hair and eyes.

If I could manage that, great.

As this isn't planned for high-op, it'd be manageable if I had to just drop the extra and eat the penalties for flavor.

So, nobody has any guide for easier calculation of skill points besides just working it out one level at a time? No shortcuts at all?