Future of a [1 Rogue]-[5 Wiz]-[5 Spellwarp Sniper]?

[killem2]

So I'm the DM currently but my buddy will be swapping out with me probably in a couple months to run his own campaign.

Currently I am 1 rogue, 3 wizard, and will have a fork in the road at 5 spellwarp shaper.

My basic background story here is, I'm a Strongheart Halfling, who started life as a Rogue, was a bit too cocky, tried to rob from a kind hearted, high level wizard. Rather than just having my hand cut off, he had some real pull and put me through some basic tests and now this little halfling has taken the option of going through the ranks.

So he chose that option, but he's still a little eccentric, he didn't want a familiar, he's going to opt out for an animal companion 1/2 druid level. He also took Wild Cohort as one of his feats. So he'll be rolling with a couple animals.

So at this point, he's bored with magic, he's not really interested in going down wizard unless there is clearly something he can gain from doing so in the form of his sniping abilities. He really enjoys this aspect, and clearly is using it to his rogue advantages, rather an appreciation for the dedication to the arcane arts.

Think of this halfling as a person gifted with brilliance, but to all accounts from the snobs at a high end wizard guild would look down him as a "Waste of Talent."

He's banned Illusion, Enchantment, Aburation, he's a focused specialist. He's pretty taken care of for the right feats for a sniper at this point.


Where would you take it?

Dip into a bunch of sneak attack classes?

Go ahead and go up on wizard but just enough to get a really nice range of aoe spells to spell warp?

Look into beastmaster/druid for an animal aspect?


I'm actually really open to anything, I'm L/N, and I like coming up with the story for why I am going which direction.

[Godskook]

Unseen Seer comes to mind as a great hybrid, as does Arcane Trickster(As long as you qualify without losing 9ths).

[killem2]

Are there any prestige classes that would aid me in adding to my wizard level for the purposes of choosing new animal companions? the though of being stuck with a level 1 druid animal companion sucks :( I'd love to at least get to 4.

[Godskook]

Arcane Heirophant is the only option I can think of that progresses both arcane casting and animal companion.

[Azoth]

Broblem with heirophant is the same with most other hybrid casting classes. Not to mention it wouldn't work since he lacks a familiar but instead has an animal companion. My advice on that end is to get a bird or less inconspicuous companion and use it as a scout. Use your cohort for a battle buddy/distraction if you have to. I also second Unseen Seer to keep casting up, nab some good spells (hunter's eye anyone?), and add the trick of divination to your sniping fun. Though you will need practiced spellcaster feet or suffer the loss of 4 caster levels for all your non divination spells. Wish I could be more help but you banned IMHO the best defensive school of magic for a rogue gish...Illusion. Can't count the number of times that school has saved my bacon.

[darksolitaire]

Perhaps you should take feat natural bond to get +3 effective druid levels to your animal companion? I could also imagine swordsage dip for Assassin's Stance. That would open up Jade Phoenix Mage, if mixing close combat and magic is your thing.

[killem2]

Pretty good option. After looking it over, natural bond will def help with out me have to dip into classes to push up the companions.

I was seriously looking at the dips into sneak attack stuff, but after its all said and done, going wizard and using meta magic rays, can get really fun.


We already have a skill monkey rogue, we'll prolly have another wizard who does the "wizard" stuff lol.

The melee will love the companions for flanking bonuses.

Is there any way to further drill down into the ray specialist type ranged touch aspect?

Here is the outline so far:


Polo Swift Wit – Character Outline

• Character Level 1 – Rogue
o Feat granted by racial: Point Blank Shot
o Feat granted by level 1: Precise Shot
o Feat granted by flaw #1: Wild Cohort [Medium Viper]
o Feat granted by flaw #2: Craven


• Character Level 2 – Wizard
o Feat: Ocular Spell [Metamagic] Replaces Scribe Scroll
o Feat: Animal Companion Replaces Familiar [Medium Viper]

• Character Level 3 – Wizard
o Feat: Weapon Focus [Rays]

• Character Level 4 – Wizard

• Character Level 5 – Wizard

• Character Level 6 – Wizard
o Bonus Feat: Able Sniper
o Feat: Practiced Spellcaster [Wizard]

• Character Level 7 – Spellwarp Sniper
o Gain: Spellwarp (Ex)

• Character Level 8 – Spellwarp Sniper
o Sudden Raystrike + 1d6

• Character Level 9 – Spellwarp Sniper
o Bonus Feat: Sharp Shooting
o Feat: Splitray [Metamagic]

• Character Level 10 – Spellwarp Sniper
o Gain Extraordinary ability: Sudden Raystrike +2d6

• Character Level 11 – Spellwarp Sniper
o Gain Extraordinary ability: Ray Mastery

• Character Level 12 – Wizard
o Feat: Maximize Spell [Metamagic]

[Benly]

The obvious way to go is to take two levels of Unseen Seer and fill out the rest with Arcane Trickster. The qualifications should be pretty trivial assuming you've been maintaining your "sneaky" skills at all, and you'll get full sneak attack progression, full casting progression, the ability to put Hunter's Eye on your spell list for even more sneak attack damage, and various minor benefits.

[killem2]

The obvious way to go is to take two levels of Unseen Seer and fill out the rest with Arcane Trickster. The qualifications should be pretty trivial assuming you've been maintaining your "sneaky" skills at all, and you'll get full sneak attack progression, full casting progression, the ability to put Hunter's Eye on your spell list for even more sneak attack damage, and various minor benefits.


Thanks for the reply.

Do you think it's better then if I decide to pick up levels in wizard (figuring in the addition spell slots I could get for metamagic stuff, animal companion) that it is worth it over the hunter's eye/tricksters?

Will I net more damage from sneak attack dice than just out right blasting someone with a really really nasty maximized spell + the 2d6, 1d6 from rogue/spellwarp?

[Benly]

Thanks for the reply.

Do you think it's better then if I decide to pick up levels in wizard (figuring in the addition spell slots I could get for metamagic stuff, animal companion) that it is worth it over the hunter's eye/tricksters?

Will I net more damage from sneak attack dice than just out right blasting someone with a really really nasty maximized spell + the 2d6, 1d6 from rogue/spellwarp?

Going this route won't make you significantly worse at metamagic - you won't get the wizard's bonus feats, but you can still take metamagic with your regular feats. The thing is that pretty much anything you would be doing to boost your damage as a straight wizard, you can do with this build and also put the pile of sneak-attack damage on top of that. Metamagic-focused PrCs could probably outpace the damage on this, but it would involve a more elaborate and focused build.

You do lose out on some animal companion advancement, but by the levels where your animal companion is really falling farther behind, it probably wouldn't be able to bring much to a fight anyway - even a full-power animal companion starts to lag at higher levels, and one that's scaled to half your wizard level when you've already got six levels of multiclass is going to exacerbate that no matter what you do from there.

[killem2]

Going this route won't make you significantly worse at metamagic - you won't get the wizard's bonus feats, but you can still take metamagic with your regular feats. The thing is that pretty much anything you would be doing to boost your damage as a straight wizard, you can do with this build and also put the pile of sneak-attack damage on top of that. Metamagic-focused PrCs could probably outpace the damage on this, but it would involve a more elaborate and focused build.

You do lose out on some animal companion advancement, but by the levels where your animal companion is really falling farther behind, it probably wouldn't be able to bring much to a fight anyway - even a full-power animal companion starts to lag at higher levels, and one that's scaled to half your wizard level when you've already got six levels of multiclass is going to exacerbate that no matter what you do from there.

Oh ok ok, so with the unseen seer, I still get the per day increases as though I did progress, just not the access to said higher level spells? Am I reading that right?

The only issue I see is if I wanted to for instant maximize two ocular versions of : (and this is just digusting as a spell that avoids all saves...)

Parboil
Evocation [Fire]
Level: Sorcerer 4, Wizard 4, Cleric 5,
Components: V, S, M, DF,
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Area: 20-ft.-radius spread
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Fortitude partial; see text
Spell Resistance: Yes
You flash-heat the air in an area, boiling the blood and baking the brains of creatures caught inside.
The hot air deals 6d6 points of fire damage and 2d4 points of Intelligence damage.
Creatures that make successful Fortitude saves take half fire damage and no Intelligence damage.
Arcane Material Component:Water and a pinch of sulfur.

That would be level 9, then again, I suppose at the ranks I'm going I will never get to level 9 spells maximum as a 14 wizard is 7th level.

Either way, if I don't go wizard or at least something that advances my spell casting progression, aren't I hindering the maximums of my metamagic stuff?

I could be understanding the unseen seer wrong as well.

[Benly]

Oh ok ok, so with the unseen seer, I still get the per day increases as though I did progress, just not the access to said higher level spells? Am I reading that right?


Unseen Seer advances your arcane casting at every level and uses the same rules for it as every other prestige class that advances spellcasting. When you advance a level of Unseen Seer, you gain new spell slots and spells known exactly as if you had gained a level in whichever spellcasting class you're building up (wizard in this case). The bit about not getting other benefits means things that aren't spellcasting - in your case, familiar/animal companion advancement and bonus metamagic feats. You still get all the spell slots and new spells you otherwise would.

Now, Unseen Seer does have a special twist, which is that its Divination Spellpower feature reduces the effectiveness of non-divination spells, but that's only starting at the third level of the class. This is why I recommend taking only two levels of it and then going with Arcane Trickster thereafter.

To reiterate: A rogue 1 / wizard 5 / spellwarp sniper 5 / Unseen Seer 2 / Arcane Trickster 7 has exactly the same spellcasting as a level 19 wizard, because every one of those prestige class levels has "+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class". You will have ninth-level spells and so on.

[killem2]

Thanks! That explain a lot and yeah was getting way to hung up on the animal companion, it'll make a nice riding mount or mule.

[Benly]

Thanks! That explain a lot and yeah was getting way to hung up on the animal companion, it'll make a nice riding mount or mule.

That's a pretty good way to go with it. It may not be able to hold its own on the front lines at higher levels, but it'll still be a good upgrade compared to an ordinary horse or whatever you'd be riding otherwise.

[eggs]

Do you think it's better then if I decide to pick up levels in wizard (figuring in the addition spell slots I could get for metamagic stuff, animal companion) that it is worth it over the hunter's eye/tricksters?

Will I net more damage from sneak attack dice than just out right blasting someone with a really really nasty maximized spell + the 2d6, 1d6 from rogue/spellwarp?
Unseen Seer and Arcane Trickster are each full casting classes. They don't lose any spell slots for metamagic.

And the secnd question doesn't make much sense either. Sneak attack from US and AT is no different from sneak attack from Rogue or Spellwarp Sniper. So the comparison is [Spell Damage]+14d6 sneak attack from 10 Unseen Seer levels to [Spell Damage]+3d6 sneak attack from 10 wizard levels.

There's not much that can improve a Wizard's Animal companion ability, unless you do something weird like jumping through hoops to get into Arcane Heirophant or both shipping in the 3.0 Animal Friendship spell and getting it onto your Wizard. I recommend either liberal application of houserules (eg. writing a feat that turns effective druid level into CL-3, or changing Unseen Seer to double non-divination penalties and count as 1/2 druid levels for the AC, or something along those lines); or without houserules, by grabbing the Wild Cohort (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) feat and retraining your Animal Companion ACF to something more useful.

[Benly]

And the secnd question doesn't make much sense either. Sneak attack from US and AT is no different from sneak attack from Rogue or Spellwarp Sniper. So the comparison is [Spell Damage]+14d6 sneak attack from 10 Unseen Seer levels to [Spell Damage]+3d6 sneak attack from 10 wizard levels.

That's not quite true, since if he took ten levels of Unseen Seer he'd be losing spell damage due to the CL penalty from Divination Spellpower. With two levels of US and the rest AT you're correct, though.

[eggs]

That's not quite true, since if he took ten levels of Unseen Seer he'd be losing spell damage due to the CL penalty from Divination Spellpower. With two levels of US and the rest AT you're correct, though.
There are Unseen Seers without Practiced Spellcaster? :smalltongue:

[Flickerdart]

Take another level of Rogue for Evasion and then head into Magelord. More Sneak Attack? Spontaneous casting abilities? Its got it all.