On the purpose of Fighter/Mage

[moritheil]

I've been reading up on various threads about fighter/mage builds, most of them here on these boards. Having been away from 3.5 for a few years, I've decided to get back in and build a Battle Sorcerer.

The thing is, most people say it's horrible. Figuring out why this is has proven rather interesting.

Insofar as "giving up spellcasting is always bad in the end," I'm inclined to admit that there's nothing quite as powerful as 7th-9th level spells, and even extra hit points and BAB don't really matter next to the power to shape reality. But that's not why a lot of people are bashing the Battle Sorcerer - they say it simply doesn't put out damage next to, say, a Sorcerer/Paladin build or a straight Duskblade.

Is that the only reason? Because if we accept the first premise - the power to shape reality is what matters - then inherent in that is the idea that damage doesn't really matter next to the ability to ensure conditions are right for your party to win. (Once the enemy is blinded/feebleminded/polymorphed into squirrels, you can do damage at your leisure, or just move on.)

I guess what I'm getting at is, why would anyone build a fighter/mage and look at damage as the metric for effectiveness?

The mage's power to arrange things conveniently for victory is limited by spells per day, but it's also limited at the other end by the "squishy" nature of mages. To me, it seems like this, then, is the main point of building mages to be part fighter: make them tankier, so they won't fold like wet paper airplanes. Give them error tolerance. Perhaps 3.x will never see arcanes on par with clerics and druids for the degree to which they can simply not care if some melee monsters are getting in their faces - but surely some mitigation of their main flaw isn't bad.

Put the other way around: What's scarier, an enemy mage that can burn spells to keep pace with the barbarian in melee for damage output? Or an enemy mage who surprises you by not having the biggest traditional weakness of a mage, so you'll have to find another way to kill him? An enemy mage can already drop one or more of your party per round. I find it difficult to accept that he becomes that much more of a threat by having an alternate pathway for turning your allies into corpses that requires him to expose himself to more danger.

So how come 90% of the threads rating fighter/mages, even those trying for 9th level spells, are built around how much damage they can do on a power attack/charge? Isn't survivability the really impressive thing to add?

[Ranting Fool]

So how come 90% of the threads rating fighter/mages, even those trying for 9th level spells, are built around how much damage they can do on a power attack/charge? Isn't survivability the really impressive thing to add?

Threads i've seen for mages do seem to be geared toward either "Bend Reality to my will with my godlike powers" or "put out so much damage to make any monster expload within the first round" Both fun and valid tactics mind, but you are right there isn't much love for a less powerful but tougher mage type out there. *Waits for someone to explain to him that it's due to monster damage / cross class HP scaling or some such :smallbiggrin: *

[eggs]

Battle Sorcerer sucks as a replacement for Sorcerer levels in [Noncaster]/Sorcerer builds, because it gives up a lot of spells known, usually just for one point of BAB.

But Battle Sorcerer/AbjChamp is solid as a replacement for [Noncaster]/Sorcerer builds themselves, because higher-level spells are awesome.

---

The reason gish builds usually focus on the melee element of the build is that melee is the point. If the goal is just to make the caster tougher, that's usually better achieved by investing resources in spellcasting than wasting feats and levels for a couple extra HP.

[Answerer]

High-level spellcasters, even single-classed are nigh-on untouchable if you wish them to be. There's nothing that a few extra HP or slightly better AC are going to do to improve that.

Knowing more spells, on the other hand, can.

Your confusion stems from the fact that you believe that casters have "traditional weaknesses" – in 3.5, tier-1 casters traditionally don't have weaknesses.

[moritheil]

Battle Sorcerer sucks as a replacement for Sorcerer levels in [Noncaster]/Sorcerer builds, because it gives up a lot of spells known, usually just for one point of BAB.

But Battle Sorcerer/AbjChamp is solid as a replacement for [Noncaster]/Sorcerer builds themselves, because higher-level spells are awesome.

This is a conclusion I was leaning towards myself: you can get full iterative attacks and full BSorc casting, which isn't identical to full casting but is awfully close for a fighter/mage build.


The reason gish builds usually focus on the melee element of the build is that melee is the point. If the goal is just to make the caster tougher, that's usually better achieved by investing resources in spellcasting than wasting feats and levels for a couple extra HP.

I'm afraid I don't follow at all. Battle Sorcerer, to me, is a way to trade some of the awesomeness of sorcerers at 16-20 for a very real difference in survivability from 1-8 and possibly beyond (depending on how much your DM likes monsters with rending, and such.) As a battle sorcerer, once you get level 2 spells, you are basically a backup tank and can survive anything that the tank can survive. What resources are you investing other than feats and levels if you want to make a low level pure sorcerer capable of wading through combat (having both HP and AC to do the job)?

[moritheil]

Your confusion stems from the fact that you believe that casters have "traditional weaknesses" – in 3.5, tier-1 casters traditionally don't have weaknesses.

I agree, that statement confuses me.

In DnD, mage weaknesses are traditionally expressed as, "might not live long enough to attain ultimate power." Do you mean to say that in 3.5 gameplay, with enemies priority targeting spellcasters, you don't really notice an appreciably higher death rate for your mages from levels 1-8 as opposed to, say, rangers or rogues of that level? Or that when they die it's not due to a lack of AC or hit points?

[Answerer]

Battle Sorcerer gets you +0.25 BAB and +2 HP per level, as well as saving you some money on your armor since you can replace your Twilight Mithral Chain Shirt with just a plain Chain Shirt (savings of more than four grand, for whatever that's worth). Unless the Sorcerer knows Mage Armor...

It loses one spell per day per level and one spell known per level.

The spellcasting loss isn't even remotely compensated by slightly higher BAB and HP, and saving some gold.

Note also that by level 19 (I know, that's most of the game, but for the record), you'd have been better off losing one spellcasting level than you would having full BSorc casting: 1 spellcasting level costs you one 8th-level and one 9th-level spell known and spell per day, while Battle Sorcerer costs you one of every level. And at 20th, you get the 8th-level spell back, so you're only down one 9th-level spell known and one 9th-level spell per day.

I suspect that a similar story is also true at every odd level, which is a far more significant and larger portion of the game.

Plus if you lose a spellcasting level, you can get into a good PrC, or at the very least use both Abjurant Champion and Eldritch Knight (along with Spellsword 1) to get 17 or 18 BAB, which is better than the BSorc 15/Abjurant Champion's 16.

[moritheil]

Battle Sorcerer gets you +0.25 BAB and +2 HP per level, as well as saving you some money on your armor since you can replace your Twilight Mithral Chain Shirt with just a plain Chain Shirt (savings of more than four grand, for whatever that's worth). Unless the Sorcerer knows Mage Armor...

It loses one spell per day per level and one spell known per level.

The spellcasting loss isn't even remotely compensated by slightly higher BAB and HP, and saving some gold.

Ok, I see what you're saying, but 4k gold is only "not a lot" viewed from the lofty perspective of high levels. Early on, it's a significant portion of your resources, isn't it?

So the sorcerer knows Mage Armor and wishes to do away with armor entirely. Fine. But at low levels, Mage Armor is AC 4 for 4-5 hours, while at the same time a Battle Sorcerer can be running around with either another item (and at 9,000 total wealth at 5th level, 4,000 gp is almost half your wealth), or a Mithral Breastplate for an edge to AC. It takes how many castings of Mage Armor per day to keep it up? 5? 6? Do you have 6 spell slots to spare? Isn't the loss of 6 spell slots a greater resource loss than going Battle Sorcerer? Or do you have a lenient DM who never surprises you in the middle of the night?

Obviously as you gain levels there will come a point at which you will only need 1-2 slots to keep Mage Armor or Greater Mage Armor up, and later than that, a point at which AC is rather meaningless to you. But until then, doesn't this analysis show that the Battle Sorcerer has increased survivability?

What I'm asking is not "will you regret the loss of those spells later" (as I said in my first post, I fully realize they are worth far more at 18-20) but "don't you think this could make it a lot easier for the character to survive, to make it to high levels?"

Put another way: how much low-level survivability would be worth that tradeoff? And how does Battle Sorcerer compare to the amount it's worth? Because if your answer is something like "no amount is worth giving up spells" then having this discussion with you is unlikely to be fruitful. :smallbiggrin:

[Answerer]

The thing is, the Sorcerer is not particularly at risk at low levels. The Sorcerer is a very powerful class. While he's not godly-immune to everything, the things that are threatening his life are not going to be slowed much by 2-8 HP more or even 6 more AC.

[eggs]

Just looking at the spells per day (even though Spells known are the bigger loss):

Battle Sorcerer is worth 2 HP per level. At level 5, that's 10 HP. At level 10, that's 20, at level 20, that's 40.

In rough terms, that's a bit below the damage dealt by one attack action or unaugmented CLd6 attack spell at those levels, after energy resistances and saves.

The spells per day that the Sorcerer gives up could be used for 8 immediate action denial spells like [Lesser/Greater] Celerity, Wings of Cover or Greater Mirror Image - all of which can downright deny multiple attacks and/or spells from targeting the Sorcerer at all. (It's true that not all Sorcerers have those, but with the extra spells known, the only reason they wouldn't is that they'd have something even better.)

Before level 10, this translates less directly into damage prevented, but at that point, it's the difference between having a Slow or Sleet Storm to cast in the fourth fight per day and spending those rounds dinking around with low-CL wands.

[Ravens_cry]

I think it's all about the concept. As powerful or not, some people like the visceral appeal of getting into the thick of things directly, yet they also want a certain level of skill in the magical arts as well.
They want sword AND sorcery.
And whether that's numerically superior or not, if that's what they want to play, then that is the Fighter/Mages purpose, to allow that concept.
Some gish-in-a-can classes work well for furthering this goal and some do not.

[Answerer]

I think it's all about the concept. As powerful or not, some people like the visceral appeal of getting into the thick of things directly, yet they also want a certain level of skill in the magical arts as well.
They want sword AND sorcery.
And whether that's numerically superior or not, if that's what they want to play, then that is the Fighter/Mages purpose, to allow that concept.
Some gish-in-a-can classes work well for furthering this goal and some do not.
Perfectly valid; the main point is that Battle Sorcerer is not a good way to do this, not that it's not a valid concept.

[hamishspence]

Elric seems like a pretty early "sorcerer with a sword" archetype. Also Gandalf.

[Ravens_cry]

Elric seems like a pretty early "sorcerer with a sword" archetype. Also Gandalf.
The eponymous characters of the Sword Dancer novels (http://www.cheysuli.com/author/a.sword.html) are another example.
@Answerer:
I can agree with that; the title of the thread seems to disagree somewhat however, questioning the purpose of the gish concept in general.

[Tengu_temp]

Giving up some of your magic ability in order to gain mediocre fighting ability is playing a gish wrong, at least in DND 3e. A good gish uses magic and martial abilities in synergy, either by self-buffing or using abilities that allow it to attack and cast an offensive spell at once. Such characters tend to be less powerful than pure casters, but they're also fun to play, and pure casters are so overpowered it's not even funny anyway.

[Eldariel]

Elric seems like a pretty early "sorcerer with a sword" archetype. Also Gandalf.

The traditional archetype has a point of course; magic in most fantasy is hard and slow and risky and when you're fighting in melee, you simply don't have the chance to use it. Also, classic fantasy magic tends to be costly so if you can do something through mundane means, you generally do. As such, sword (or well, any melee weapon, but due to the associations it's usually a sword) is the only actually convenient means of dealing with situations where you're actually fighting.

Now, 3.X made magic a bit too easy for this to really be a relevant consideration; casting in melee is relatively safe, avoiding melee is exceedingly easy, spells are very quick to cast and very few spells carry any relevant risks. It's still a finite resource, but abundant enough to usually last you through a day anyways, and convenient in that it tends to also function as a way to secure the time needed to attain rest. For AD&D mages it kinda made sense to want some melee prowess since they simply couldn't deal with some problems otherwise. For 3.5 mages, it doesn't. Like everything else, most choices for 3.5 aren't made because of necessity or requirements of the game but because of will to play something. As such, the only reason Fighter/Wizards really exist is because many people want to play a Fighter/Wizard (just like many want to play mundane warriors in spite of their weaknesses compared to magical classes).


To extrapolate, most of your HP in 3.5 comes not from HD but Constitution. 3.X unified the previously-separate Con-based bonus health for various classes quickly catapulting it to the status of the primary source of health (many level 20 characters easily get 2/3rds+ of their health from Con). Furthermore, False Life is an exceedingly potent second level spell that reduces arcane casters' lack of health significantly, making the bonus HD from Battle Sorcerer percent-wise even less relevant. And 3.5 is also such a system that the best defense is a good offense.

Warriors have arcane casters beat on AC early on (Mage Armor only goes so far) but the most dangerous attacks usually target saves or touch AC in which casters are generally favored or at least evenly matched with warriors. Enemies will try to gun down the casters but casters can generally gun down the enemies faster; warriors have some extra health but no extra saves or touch AC so they're more resistant to some attacks and less resistant to others. It actually evens out. Most early deaths I've encountered have been not due to running out of HP (since outside stupid criticals from Orcs with Greataxes, most attacks don't do enough damage to oneshot anybody and if you're badly hurt, you can generally withdraw and take some cover in most fights, or use few charges from your Healing Belt) but due to failing some extremely dangerous save; Color Spray is a particularly nasty lethal low level spell and there are others.


In short, the survivability benefits offered by Battle Sorcerer aren't as relevant as they might appear on paper. 3.X reduces the relevancy of Hit Dice with Con, and due to the way the combat works, AC isn't the most important defense, really. Especially not due to positioning.

[eggs]

The two discussions that are happening simultaneously are making my head hurt:

1. Battle Sorcerer is weaker than stock Sorcerer.
This I wholly agree with. Spells are amazing. More spells are more amazing.

2. Battle Sorcerer sucks as a gish/melee character
This I disagree with. Battle Sorcerer is very competent. Moreso than most of its competition.

The staple Sorcerer gish is a spinoff of:
Paladin 2/Sorcerer 4/Spellsword 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Sacred Exorcist 8
(Yes, I know you can do better, whoever you are. But this is the stock advice you'll see in any gish thread, and it's hard to seriously call ineffective.)

Compare it to Battle Sorcerer 7/Abjurant Champion 5/SE 8:

Base Attack is essentially the same.
Except level 3, the Battle Sorcerer has access to higher-level spells than the Sorcerer gish.
Until level 13, the Battle Sorcerer has an indisputable advantage in spells known. Then it gets a bit hazy, but is not clear-cut.
The Battle Sorcerer doesn't spend a feat on Practiced Spellcaster. The Sorcerer gish does.
The Sorcerer gish gets amazing saving throws.

Are 7 low-level spells known and a saving throw buff worth giving up Shapechange and a feat slot? (Or Gate, Timestop or Wish)

I wouldn't answer that with a definite "Yes" - even if I'd lean in the Sorcadin's favor, I consider the decision rather well balanced.

[Particle_Man]

What has tended to kill low level mages in campaigns I have been in are traps, actually. Both fighters and mages have low reflex saves, mages have low hit points, and mages don't yet have enough spells to have them "ready or always on" in case of unexpected situations for every contingency.

Generally the "hide behind the warriors" things works for mages in combat though, unless we are dealing with low level swarms. Then it hurts for mages because of the fort saves but so far hasn't outright killed them, IME.

I could see a level of a warrior type at level 1, then multi-classing into wizard. Yes you take a hit in spells, but the early hp could help vs. traps and stuff. Then maybe go Eldritch Knight?

I suppose one might use retraining rules later on to get back to full wizard. Don't have the books with me, not sure if that works. There is always level drain/level regain though.

[Roguenewb]

Choose battle sorcerer for one, and only one, reason: you think blending arcane talent and blade is cool. Its not the most powerful option, but from the fantasy literature idea, walking around having to keep casting a spell of force armor on yourself doesn't make a great linkage, where the Battlemage concept of a caster in light armor and a sword fits the literature pairing bettter.

[moritheil]

Giving up some of your magic ability in order to gain mediocre fighting ability is playing a gish wrong, at least in DND 3e. A good gish uses magic and martial abilities in synergy, either by self-buffing or using abilities that allow it to attack and cast an offensive spell at once. Such characters tend to be less powerful than pure casters, but they're also fun to play, and pure casters are so overpowered it's not even funny anyway.

The trouble is that relative to a pure sorc, they are indeed giving up some of their magic ability in order to gain fighting ability. Whether or not that fighting ability is mediocre is one of the things we are currently discussing - but my question is, why is the damage-dealing side of fighting ability the focus of so much discussion?

On the one hand, I can see what you're saying with the idea that if you have a BAB, you must actually USE that BAB (or what have you bothered trading for?) But we need to assign values of importance to things in order to make some kind of comparison. And if we accept the idea that throwing out save-or-lose spells, or similarly reshaping the battlefield, is 10x more potent than anything even a full BAB pure attack character can do - then the difference between attacking and not attacking is going to amount to maybe 5% or 10% of your character's contribution. Spells cast will still be the biggest part of it.

I'm not arguing against you when I say this. I agree that it's fun to play a character capable of multiple threats, because having more options is inherently fun. I would just like to be able to explore and better understand what it is people look for in fighter/mages and why damage seems to be valued more than the ability to make people fail saves, when nearly everyone seems to agree that mages can best spend their time making people fail saves.


Warriors have arcane casters beat on AC early on (Mage Armor only goes so far) but the most dangerous attacks usually target saves or touch AC in which casters are generally favored or at least evenly matched with warriors. Enemies will try to gun down the casters but casters can generally gun down the enemies faster; warriors have some extra health but no extra saves or touch AC so they're more resistant to some attacks and less resistant to others. It actually evens out. Most early deaths I've encountered have been not due to running out of HP (since outside stupid criticals from Orcs with Greataxes, most attacks don't do enough damage to oneshot anybody and if you're badly hurt, you can generally withdraw and take some cover in most fights, or use few charges from your Healing Belt) but due to failing some extremely dangerous save; Color Spray is a particularly nasty lethal low level spell and there are others.

I do love color spray. But what you're saying is that essentially the entire idea of trading off spells for survivability is inherently flawed. To hear you tell it, this is a world of glass cannons, and he who fires first wins (assuming he fires true.)


In short, the survivability benefits offered by Battle Sorcerer aren't as relevant as they might appear on paper. 3.X reduces the relevancy of Hit Dice with Con, and due to the way the combat works, AC isn't the most important defense, really. Especially not due to positioning.

What you appear to be saying is, "Your AC can get arbitrarily large and that still won't make it worth it to trade off maximum spell potential." But I would take the opposing view: if you have enough AC, positioning doesn't really matter, does it? Massive numbers make tactical nuances irrelevant. If you're rolling around with, say, AC 54 at level 8, do you think it really matters whether or not you get flanked if you'll still have an AC twice the highest number anything challenging you can roll?

Granted, enemies can always roll and confirm a crit - a 1 in 400 chance. And there are certainly ways for clever enemies to get at you without defeating your AC, so saves and immunities matter. But what about the joy of feeling invincible? Isn't that feeling of being an unstoppable tank as much of a part of the fun of being a fighter as the feeling of being a ferocious damage-dealer? Why is it just the damage we focus on? It's cool to have NPCs drop their jaws at how you smoked the BBEG in one round, but why isn't it at least equally cool to make the BBEG tear his hair in impotent rage, screaming, "Why doesn't anything WORK? WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO KILL YOU?"


The two discussions that are happening simultaneously are making my head hurt:

1. Battle Sorcerer is weaker than stock Sorcerer.
This I wholly agree with. Spells are amazing. More spells are more amazing.

2. Battle Sorcerer sucks as a gish/melee character
This I disagree with. Battle Sorcerer is very competent. Moreso than most of its competition.

Ah, but the discussion I propose to have is:

What is the metric we use for 'weaker' here? Why are questions of "stronger" and "weaker" focused on damage?


The staple Sorcerer gish is a spinoff of:
Paladin 2/Sorcerer 4/Spellsword 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Sacred Exorcist 8
(Yes, I know you can do better, whoever you are. But this is the stock advice you'll see in any gish thread, and it's hard to seriously call ineffective.)

Compare it to Battle Sorcerer 7/Abjurant Champion 5/SE 8:

Base Attack is essentially the same.
Except level 3, the Battle Sorcerer has access to higher-level spells than the Sorcerer gish.
Until level 13, the Battle Sorcerer has an indisputable advantage in spells known. Then it gets a bit hazy, but is not clear-cut.
The Battle Sorcerer doesn't spend a feat on Practiced Spellcaster. The Sorcerer gish does.
The Sorcerer gish gets amazing saving throws.

Are 7 low-level spells known and a saving throw buff worth giving up Shapechange and a feat slot? (Or Gate, Timestop or Wish)

I wouldn't answer that with a definite "Yes" - even if I'd lean in the Sorcadin's favor, I consider the decision rather well balanced.

That is indeed the staple (I think my usual concept of the build is to finish it with something other than Sacred Exorcist, but that's pretty fair as an approximation.) But I note that again we focus on offense. To me, the way to pitch Sorcadin isn't by highlighting +1 or so BAB, it's by showcasing the difference that +18 or so to saves from Divine Grace can make. That could be the difference between having to pray you win initiative, and not having to care what you roll for initiative, because even if you get hit with 3 or 4 save-or-dies, you'll probably be able to laugh off the combined best efforts of a team of enemy spellcasters. Hell, that's actually a difference that you can point to relative to even the pure sorcerer that isn't negligible because it's relevant in the endgame, and always on.

Is this inglorious, somehow? I get the sense that instead of being really, really hard to kill, people would rather have slightly better damage, slightly higher caster level, or be able to claim that they had 201 points of overkill damage on the boss instead of "only" 175.

I'm just not really sure why.

[Eldariel]

What you appear to be saying is, "Your AC can get arbitrarily large and that still won't make it worth it to trade off maximum spell potential." But I would take the opposing view: if you have enough AC, positioning doesn't really matter, does it? Massive numbers make tactical nuances irrelevant. If you're rolling around with, say, AC 54 at level 8, do you think it really matters whether or not you get flanked if you'll still have an AC twice the highest number anything challenging you can roll?

Granted, enemies can always roll and confirm a crit - a 1 in 400 chance. And there are certainly ways for clever enemies to get at you without defeating your AC, so saves and immunities matter. But what about the joy of feeling invincible? Isn't that feeling of being an unstoppable tank as much of a part of the fun of being a fighter as the feeling of being a ferocious damage-dealer? Why is it just the damage we focus on? It's cool to have NPCs drop their jaws at how you smoked the BBEG in one round, but why isn't it at least equally cool to make the BBEG tear his hair in impotent rage, screaming, "Why doesn't anything WORK? WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO KILL YOU?"

Well, what you say is frankly possible; through spells. Polymorph goes a long way already. Battle Sorcerer hardly helps in that deal; indeed, spell-based armor is probably preferable there. Be a Druid with Wilding Clasped Monk's Belt, Greater Luminous Armor, Barkskin, Halo of Sand and Wildshape into something tough-hided and then we're talking. Armor is only halfway there; Armor-based AC (that is, AC you get while wearing armor with max Dex, Shield & Amulet of Natural Armor and Ring of Deflection) caps around 45.

Now though, the thing is, like I said, AC is not really the most important defense. BBEG wailing at your with weapons probably isn't much of a threat to start with. AC grants you no protection against Outsiders' spell-likes, Dragons' breaths, Liches' spells, Ghosts' touch or any such. Indeed, none of the BBEG-material monsters really primarily attack your AC. Their underlings and maybe lieutenants? Sure. Humanoid BBEGs vary of course but monstrous BBEGs I'd assume would hit you with magic first. And it's the only one armor helps you with, and even there only partially; a Sorcerer can achieve similar and eventually superior AC with spells.


Do you want to make BBEG's mouth drop? Wearing a Chain Shirt isn't going to do it (ironically, spells can; Shapechange into e.g. a regenerating creature, become immune to its weaknesses alongside all save-or-X effects and watch your foes either try in vain to Dispel your defensive enhancements or wail on you helplessly thinking they're actually doing damage). First of all, the ability to wear the Chain Shirt isn't going to catapult your AC to the stratosphere but rather act as a permanent Mage Armor which can, early on, be convenient (around level 6 Sorc really has no issues keeping it up all day).

As such, it doesn't really have that drastic of an effect in the end; mildly useful but hardly anything to actually give up spells offering ultimately superior protection for. And again, here are the defenses a normal character has:
AC
Touch AC
HP
Fortitude Save
Reflex Save
Will Save
Spell Resistance
(Immunities)

Now, the most devastating effect tends to be when your Will Save is penetrated. What's worse than dying? Killing your party before being finished off. And that's a very real possibility with a failed Will Save. Fortitude is the second; a failed Fortitude Save tends to lead to your death.

Then Spell Resistance, AC, Reflex Save and Touch AC are about the same; they usually (though not always; few especially potent attacks tend to only target for one and then go through) offer a secondary defense after penetrated. AC, Reflex and Touch AC often (but not always of course) offer HP-based defense and Spell Resistance often offers either Touch AC or Save.

It's also a fact that things like Cover, Concealment and simple Reach will help you avoid being hit by AC-targeting attacks in the first place. Mages have access to many defensive tools that remove the need for AC in the first place, though those are too expensive to deploy consistently on the first levels of course. Terrain and illumination alongside your teammates can also provide Cover, Concealment and inability for the opposition to Reach you though. For most intents and purposes, defending by not being attacked in the first place is much more safe than defending by pitting a number against a number since numbers always offer the random chance.

Out of all the defenses, AC is most rarely going to do anything more than HP damage when penetrated; as such, having your AC penetrated is relatively the safest option when you're taking hits. As such, trading class features to boost your least important defense is a relatively minor overall boost in your survivability.

[moritheil]

Choose battle sorcerer for one, and only one, reason: you think blending arcane talent and blade is cool. Its not the most powerful option, but from the fantasy literature idea, walking around having to keep casting a spell of force armor on yourself doesn't make a great linkage, where the Battlemage concept of a caster in light armor and a sword fits the literature pairing bettter.

With the low-level safety/high-level power tradeoff discussion, I'm trying to point out that it situationally can be the most powerful option - in the sense that a dead sorcerer isn't very powerful at all. :smallwink:


What has tended to kill low level mages in campaigns I have been in are traps, actually. Both fighters and mages have low reflex saves, mages have low hit points, and mages don't yet have enough spells to have them "ready or always on" in case of unexpected situations for every contingency.

Interesting. While Battle Sorc would do nothing for the saves, I guess that's a situation where the hit points would help.


Generally the "hide behind the warriors" things works for mages in combat though, unless we are dealing with low level swarms. Then it hurts for mages because of the fort saves but so far hasn't outright killed them, IME.

I dunno, when you fight 12 goblins, can your warrior and cleric really hold them all back? That's EL 4; I think I can see a battle sorcerer 4 having markedly better odds of survival than a sorcerer 4 in that kind of situation, because he can tank and the pure sorc, unless built very weirdly, can't.

Then again, I may simply have repeatedly been in parties with fighters more interested in doing damage than locking down the enemy.


I could see a level of a warrior type at level 1, then multi-classing into wizard. Yes you take a hit in spells, but the early hp could help vs. traps and stuff. Then maybe go Eldritch Knight?

I suppose one might use retraining rules later on to get back to full wizard. Don't have the books with me, not sure if that works. There is always level drain/level regain though.

Interesting idea, story-wise. Of course if you wanted to keep EK you'd have to keep whatever qualified you for it.




Armor-based AC (that is, AC you get while wearing armor with max Dex, Shield & Amulet of Natural Armor and Ring of Deflection) caps around 45.

I think you've gotten fixated on AC and I'm not sure why. Anyway, here we go:

AC 45? Uh . . . no. I've built into the mid-50s by level 7. (Granted, the character could do nothing but tank, but obviously that disproves the idea that there is a cap around 45.) It has to be possible to get into the 60s or 70s by high levels, and while I don't recall the build, I have it on reasonably good authority that 100+AC is possible at 20 if you really want it and are willing to use shapechange to help get it.

I don't claim to know exactly where the AC cap is, but it's certainly not around 45. Look at it this way: AC 45 would mean you could still be hit by most things intended to be credible melee threats at 20; heck, a great wyrm red dragon has +40 to hit right out of the box. If the DM optimizes just a bit to bring that up to 44, it will be guaranteed to hit on anything other than a 1 if your AC is only 45. When I say "having high AC is neat," I'm not talking about making a token effort at AC that just wastes resources by not having enough points to really matter; I'm talking about having the AC to actually not be hit by things that challenge you.


Now though, the thing is, like I said, AC is not really the most important defense. BBEG wailing at your with weapons probably isn't much of a threat to start with. AC grants you no protection against Outsiders' spell-likes, Dragons' breaths, Liches' spells, Ghosts' touch or any such. Indeed, none of the BBEG-material monsters really primarily attack your AC. Their underlings and maybe lieutenants? Sure. Humanoid BBEGs vary of course but monstrous BBEGs I'd assume would hit you with magic first. And it's the only one armor helps you with, and even there only partially; a Sorcerer can achieve similar and eventually superior AC with spells.

I guess I've been thinking that stereotypically dragon, balor, death knight, etc. iterative attacks are among the things that commonly kill mages. Since mages typically have low AC . . . as a result of this kind of thinking that AC isn't important. :smallcool: Anyway, almost every special attack you mentioned above as "common" is endgame. For levels 1-8 - when you are actually more likely to be hard put to live as a mage, because you do not have potent spell defenses - it is AC that will form the basis of most attacks. And for reference, when there's a level 5 evil knight who uses nothing but melee attacks, lording it over a hobgoblin tribe of level 2 fighters, opposing the level 4 party - yes, I do call him the BBEG.

Most of your higher level threats are dealt with by magic. Dragon's breath? You are a mage and have probably cast energy immunity. Outsider spell-likes? They don't usually have that nasty of a save DC, unless the DM tinkers with the feats. But again, energy resistance/immunity, maybe SR if your cleric is up to it. Lich spells come down to you or another party caster counterspelling while your cleric ends them. Ghosts are annoying, but that touch comes down to a type of AC, doesn't it?


Do you want to make BBEG's mouth drop? Wearing a Chain Shirt isn't going to do it (ironically, spells can; Shapechange into e.g. a regenerating creature, become immune to its weaknesses alongside all save-or-X effects and watch your foes either try in vain to Dispel your defensive enhancements or wail on you helplessly thinking they're actually doing damage). First of all, the ability to wear the Chain Shirt isn't going to catapult your AC to the stratosphere but rather act as a permanent Mage Armor which can, early on, be convenient (around level 6 Sorc really has no issues keeping it up all day).

There's nothing ironic about it. See, I'm not arguing that battle sorcerer is the only way to get a higher AC. Far from it. Rather, I'm asking in general why we don't value high defenses as much as we value damage output, and in the process examining why battle sorcerers are evaluated by damage output. The "how" doesn't matter as much as the fundamental issue of what we value and why.

For the record, around level 6 you can indeed keep Mage Armor up for 4 AC, losing 2 AC relative to a +1 mithral breastplate and tying up 4 spell slots/day to do so (which, it seems to me, would leave your remaining spell slots fewer than that of a battle sorcerer, though I guess you would be ahead in gold.) The thing is, AC tends to be all or none: either you get hit, or you don't, so the 2AC loss isn't necessarily trivial. At level 6 you can reasonably expect enemies to have at least +8 attack bonuses, and your AC being, say, 25 (requiring a 17 or better to hit) is going to play very differently from your AC being 23 (requiring a 15 or better to hit.) You are getting hit twice as often if you are missing that 2 AC. And if I am playing a battle sorcerer in this situation, I can use those spell slots that you are burning on Mage Armor for Shield instead, and the difference between us then becomes 6AC, which is very significant indeed. I can become briefly unhittable by the same monsters that were hitting me on good rolls before, meaning that if it ever gets dangerous and I run low on hit points, I can expend resources for safety; if not, I can tolerate a measure of risk. By having a higher base AC before spells I gain better resource control.


As such, it doesn't really have that drastic of an effect in the end; mildly useful but hardly anything to actually give up spells offering ultimately superior protection for.

I'd say it's pretty drastic if you die before you gain any of those higher level spells that offer superior protection, and your part in the campaign ends. This is the tradeoff I mentioned in an earlier post: battle sorcerer seems to give more early level safety for less power in the endgame. You repeatedly belittle low level safety, but so far you've always done so from the perspective of a high level character.


And again, here are the defenses a normal character has:
AC
Touch AC
HP
Fortitude Save
Reflex Save
Will Save
Spell Resistance
(Immunities)

Now, the most devastating effect tends to be when your Will Save is penetrated. What's worse than dying? Killing your party before being finished off. And that's a very real possibility with a failed Will Save. Fortitude is the second; a failed Fortitude Save tends to lead to your death.

Broadly speaking, that's correct. Of course mages have good will saves and fighters have all kinds of PrCs that offer better will saves to correct that horrible deficiency of theirs. Sorcs can take Force of Personality to make Will saves a nonissue (or go Sorcadin.) But ultimately this is a dodge: just because you'll die if you have bad saves doesn't mean you won't die if you have bad AC.


Then Spell Resistance, AC, Reflex Save and Touch AC are about the same; they usually (though not always; few especially potent attacks tend to only target for one and then go through) offer a secondary defense after penetrated. AC, Reflex and Touch AC often (but not always of course) offer HP-based defense and Spell Resistance often offers either Touch AC or Save.

... What?

I think you mean that spells use SR, saves, or touch AC to defend against.

Look, I'm not saying those aren't important. I'm only saying that AC (yes, including touch AC) can keep you alive longer. The fact that your Saves being terrible will get you killed is not disputed.

"Does having great defenses, including AC, keep you alive longer?" You fixate on the AC part to say AC does not matter; I say yes it does, it all keeps you alive longer. Then you bring up all the other ways you can die that don't involve AC - when I've already acknowledged that there are other ways to die. It's like I was asking "I know there are lots of ways to die, but can you die from gangrene?" and you responded with, "Not if you get shot in the head first! Haha!"

Furthermore, while I agree that mages often have better things to do than damage, having a small hit point pool means you can't just ignore damage. You actually WILL run out of hit points. Damage is only a lesser priority in the sense that monsters take multiple hits to kill instead of dropping instantaneously. But you can't afford to look at it from a monster perspective if you're a pure mage. With low hit points and low AC, you're just as dead if you eat a full power attack as if you fail a save. You can still die from hit point loss, and as you go up in levels, enemies go up in strength and iterative attacks faster than you go up in hit points.


It's also a fact that things like Cover, Concealment and simple Reach will help you avoid being hit by AC-targeting attacks in the first place. Mages have access to many defensive tools that remove the need for AC in the first place, though those are too expensive to deploy consistently on the first levels of course. Terrain and illumination alongside your teammates can also provide Cover, Concealment and inability for the opposition to Reach you though. For most intents and purposes, defending by not being attacked in the first place is much more safe than defending by pitting a number against a number since numbers always offer the random chance.

Nothing is unique to mages where utilizing cover is concerned (unless you're talking about spells that magically give you the benefit of cover/concealment, which are powerful in mid-levels and become useless again in the endgame because nearly everything capable of actually threatening you has True Seeing.) And yes, it's fine to assume that you're going to try to play smart, but that certainly doesn't mean you're going to go your whole campaign without being attacked, unless you play some very bizarre campaigns. It's naive to say "well I just won't let myself enter melee" and assume that the world will play along. The issue isn't what happens when your plan goes right. It's what happens when your plan goes wrong - how badly do things fail? Can you survive a power attack to the face if you get cut off from your group? What will you do at level 6 when greater teleporting demons become valid enemies, popping up right next to you for melee?

If you're depending on your teammates to keep you from being targeted and/or hit, and that forms the real basis of your survival strategy, this is repugnant for a couple reasons: 1. You're undercutting the entire argument that "tier 1 casters don't have any weaknesses" by admitting that you need the fighter and cleric to hold your hand, and 2. You're precisely the sort of character builder that causes TPK, in the sense that once the fighter and cleric go down the rest of the party can't take hits and fold quickly. I suppose this depends on whether you build with the assumption "everything goes well" or plan for disaster.


Out of all the defenses, AC is most rarely going to do anything more than HP damage when penetrated; as such, having your AC penetrated is relatively the safest option when you're taking hits. As such, trading class features to boost your least important defense is a relatively minor overall boost in your survivability.

But as a pure sorcerer you run out of hps the easiest of any class. And a single leap attack or lion's pounce charge will end you if your AC is so low that the opponent can full power attack and still hit you easily. I'm sure you know that an opponent doesn't even have to be near level 20 to be able to hit you with 400+ damage in a round if you neglect your armor class. That damage shrinks dramatically if they can't afford to power attack because you actually have a high AC.

Putting aside this side issue about AC, I don't think you're understanding my overall point, which is that in general, having powerful defenses can be cool. Where sorcery is concerned, it can quite conceivably leave the sorcerer alive another round, during which he alters reality or explodes more enemy heads or whatnot. Yet nobody seems to value being alive another round when evaluating their fighter/mage builds. Everybody seems to be fixated on doing a few more dice of damage.

Furthermore, my assertion isn't that battle sorcerer helps you out at levels 18+ (where I said at the start it is a regrettable loss of spells) but rather helps you get a character to 18: past the initial levels where AC really matters, armor is unambiguously a huge deal, and it is very easy for a sorcerer to die because they have pitiful hit points and hardly any protections.

Obviously if you are flat-out creating a character at 14+, and don't have to suffer through the uncertainty of being a low-level mage, there isn't as much appeal to the battle sorcerer. But then you're talking about a very different set of assumptions than this thread was started with.

[LordBlades]

.



I dunno, when you fight 12 goblins, can your warrior and cleric really hold them all back? That's EL 4; I think I can see a battle sorcerer 4 having markedly better odds of survival than a sorcerer 4 in that kind of situation, because he can tank and the pure sorc, unless built very weirdly, can't.

Then again, I may simply have repeatedly been in parties with fighters more interested in doing damage than locking down the enemy.

You don't need to tank by physically being in front of the enemy and absorbing blows vs. your AC. You can either lock them down from distance (Color Spray, Sleep, Web, Cloud of Bewilderment etc.) or use AC independent ways of tanking (Mirror Image, Blur, Invisibility). A decently built Sorcerer should have at least a couple of those.





. AC 45? Uh . . . no. I've built into the mid-50s by level 7. (Granted, the character could do nothing but tank, but obviously that disproves the idea that there is a cap around 45.) It has to be possible to get into the 60s or 70s by high levels, and while I don't recall the build, I have it on reasonably good authority that 100+AC is possible at 20 if you really want it and are willing to use shapechange to help get it.

I don't claim to know exactly where the AC cap is, but it's certainly not around 45. Look at it this way: AC 45 would mean you could still be hit by most things intended to be credible melee threats at 20; heck, a great wyrm red dragon has +40 to hit right out of the box. If the DM optimizes just a bit to bring that up to 44, it will be guaranteed to hit on anything other than a 1 if your AC is only 45. When I say "having high AC is neat," I'm not talking about making a token effort at AC that just wastes resources by not having enough points to really matter; I'm talking about having the AC to actually not be hit by things that challenge you.

AC is trivial to rise as a spell caster if you want. Hell, with a modicum of optimization (picking something with Outsider type) you can be walking around at level 5 with an AC of 27+dex+armor+whatever other buffs via Alter Self into Dwarf Ancestor.




For the record, around level 6 you can indeed keep Mage Armor up for 4 AC, losing 2 AC relative to a +1 mithral breastplate and tying up 4 spell slots/day to do so (which, it seems to me, would leave your remaining spell slots fewer than that of a battle sorcerer, though I guess you would be ahead in gold.) The thing is, AC tends to be all or none: either you get hit, or you don't, so the 2AC loss isn't necessarily trivial. At level 6 you can reasonably expect enemies to have at least +8 attack bonuses, and your AC being, say, 25 (requiring a 17 or better to hit) is going to play very differently from your AC being 23 (requiring a 15 or better to hit.) You are getting hit twice as often if you are missing that 2 AC. And if I am playing a battle sorcerer in this situation, I can use those spell slots that you are burning on Mage Armor for Shield instead, and the difference between us then becomes 6AC, which is very significant indeed. I can become briefly unhittable by the same monsters that were hitting me on good rolls before, meaning that if it ever gets dangerous and I run low on hit points, I can expend resources for safety; if not, I can tolerate a measure of risk. By having a higher base AC before spells I gain better resource control.


But why on earth would you spend 4 spell slots for all day mage armor, when I can fork out 3000 GP and buy a lesser rod of extend which you use for 12 hours of Mage Armor and 12 hours of Rope Trick which provides shelter for the whole party while sleeping?
Or you can even buy a +1 Twilight Mithral Chain Shirt (0% ASF, 0 ACP) for 5000 GP , and wear it at no penalty for 1 less AC than your battle sorc.





But as a pure sorcerer you run out of hps the easiest of any class. And a single leap attack or lion's pounce charge will end you if your AC is so low that the opponent can full power attack and still hit you easily. I'm sure you know that an opponent doesn't even have to be near level 20 to be able to hit you with 400+ damage in a round if you neglect your armor class. That damage shrinks dramatically if they can't afford to power attack because you actually have a high AC.

How many pouncing chargers would have leap attack but not shock trooper?

Also, if you're so worried about being charged, there's always Slippers of the Setting Sun for Counter Charge.

[Eldariel]

I think you've gotten fixated on AC and I'm not sure why. Anyway, here we go:

AC 45? Uh . . . no. I've built into the mid-50s by level 7. (Granted, the character could do nothing but tank, but obviously that disproves the idea that there is a cap around 45.) It has to be possible to get into the 60s or 70s by high levels, and while I don't recall the build, I have it on reasonably good authority that 100+AC is possible at 20 if you really want it and are willing to use shapechange to help get it.

I don't claim to know exactly where the AC cap is, but it's certainly not around 45. Look at it this way: AC 45 would mean you could still be hit by most things intended to be credible melee threats at 20; heck, a great wyrm red dragon has +40 to hit right out of the box. If the DM optimizes just a bit to bring that up to 44, it will be guaranteed to hit on anything other than a 1 if your AC is only 45. When I say "having high AC is neat," I'm not talking about making a token effort at AC that just wastes resources by not having enough points to really matter; I'm talking about having the AC to actually not be hit by things that challenge you.

You misread. I said Armor-based AC. I even defined what I said; bonuses from Shield, Armor, Natural Armor and Deflection cap out there. You can get more. However, that won't be Armor-based. We're talking Improved Combat Reflexes, Polymorph-effects, magic-based AC boosts, typeless stats into AC or similar. That's not a factor of your Armor.

If you're asking why we don't value defense as highly as offense? Well, we do; it's just that a comprehensive defense is far harder to achieve than comprehensive offense. Google Twice-Betrayer of Shar if you will; that's an example of what can be done with defense. However, generally all you need for great defense is "a bunch of spells". Offense is both, more broadly applicable (you need the right defense for the right threat) and better (if you kill opponent before he can act, defenses don't very much matter, right?) than defense. Also, best forms of Defense actually ensure you never get hit in the first place.


I guess I've been thinking that stereotypically dragon, balor, death knight, etc. iterative attacks are among the things that commonly kill mages. Since mages typically have low AC . . . as a result of this kind of thinking that AC isn't important. :smallcool: Anyway, almost every special attack you mentioned above as "common" is endgame. For levels 1-8 - when you are actually more likely to be hard put to live as a mage, because you do not have potent spell defenses - it is AC that will form the basis of most attacks. And for reference, when there's a level 5 evil knight who uses nothing but melee attacks, lording it over a hobgoblin tribe of level 2 fighters, opposing the level 4 party - yes, I do call him the BBEG.

There are plenty of low level threats with special attacks. NPC Adepts, Wizards, Sorcerers, Clerics, Druids, etc. Shadows, Allips, Incorporeals in general. Various plants; basically anything but Humanoid Warrior Creatures and Animals, really.

Spellcasters have the edge that they don't need to be in melee to use their craft; therefore they can generally avoid melee attacks by simply either having allies blocking the enemies, or having move actions to stay away from the enemy. Casting spells that makes the enemies go down before they reach melee also works. Bows are a more relevant worry, of course, but that's even more specialized (Animals don't use bows, for instance).


There's nothing ironic about it. See, I'm not arguing that battle sorcerer is the only way to get a higher AC. Far from it. Rather, I'm asking in general why we don't value high defenses as much as we value damage output, and in the process examining why battle sorcerers are evaluated by damage output. The "how" doesn't matter as much as the fundamental issue of what we value and why.

We don't especially care about damage output. That's an irrelevant offensive stat. Only damage output worth having is "more than target has health". We value offense that has the potential to deal with enemies immediately so we can minimize the time we're subjected to their attacks. We value defense too, but only when it comes at an acceptable cost.

Losing spells known as a Sorcerer is not really an acceptable cost; you already have too few and then you lose even some of those few spells known. How do you setup your Contingencies, Prescience and company while having your Teleports and Scrying available if you lack spells known?


For the record, around level 6 you can indeed keep Mage Armor up for 4 AC, losing 2 AC relative to a +1 mithral breastplate and tying up 4 spell slots/day to do so (which, it seems to me, would leave your remaining spell slots fewer than that of a battle sorcerer, though I guess you would be ahead in gold.) The thing is, AC tends to be all or none: either you get hit, or you don't, so the 2AC loss isn't necessarily trivial. At level 6 you can reasonably expect enemies to have at least +8 attack bonuses, and your AC being, say, 25 (requiring a 17 or better to hit) is going to play very differently from your AC being 23 (requiring a 15 or better to hit.) You are getting hit twice as often if you are missing that 2 AC. And if I am playing a battle sorcerer in this situation, I can use those spell slots that you are burning on Mage Armor for Shield instead, and the difference between us then becomes 6AC, which is very significant indeed. I can become briefly unhittable by the same monsters that were hitting me on good rolls before, meaning that if it ever gets dangerous and I run low on hit points, I can expend resources for safety; if not, I can tolerate a measure of risk. By having a higher base AC before spells I gain better resource control.

You lose 3-4 level 1 spell slots (how much armor you need while sleeping really depends). Battle Sorcerer loses level 2 and 3 spell known and slot. Level 1 slots really begin to lose their meaning here so this is kind of a trivial decision; level 2 and 3 slots (and especially spells known, since it's a Sorcerer we're talking about) are infinitely more important.

You also save a ton of Gold; +1 Mithril Breastplate is over 5000 gold. You could easily spend that on Ring of Protection and Amulet of Natural Armor and end up with the same AC with 1000 gold leftover. There is no real AC advantage there (it's also worth noting that +1 Twilight Mithril Chain Shirt can be worn by a stock Sorcerer for grand total of 1 less AC for the same cost, and that 1 AC will remain the difference for the whole game).


I'd say it's pretty drastic if you die before you gain any of those higher level spells that offer superior protection, and your part in the campaign ends. This is the tradeoff I mentioned in an earlier post: battle sorcerer seems to give more early level safety for less power in the endgame. You repeatedly belittle low level safety, but so far you've always done so from the perspective of a high level character.

But Battle Sorcerer doesn't meaningfully enhance your survivability, which is my whole point. Hell, I'd argue that Battle Sorcerer only has any advantages for levels 1-5 and even that's only if you get surprised when you don't have your defensive spells on, and comes at the cost of losing a level 2 spell known (in other words, versatility in either defense or offense). The cost is too high.


Broadly speaking, that's correct. Of course mages have good will saves and fighters have all kinds of PrCs that offer better will saves to correct that horrible deficiency of theirs. Sorcs can take Force of Personality to make Will saves a nonissue (or go Sorcadin.) But ultimately this is a dodge: just because you'll die if you have bad saves doesn't mean you won't die if you have bad AC.

When you die because you have a bad AC, you generally take multiple hits. When you die because of bad save, you die in a single hit. That's the point; if you take hits and go dangerously low on Health due to AC-penetrating stings, you can just turn Invisible, take Withdraw action or whatever. Taking hits to AC is forgiving; it allows you to take action afterwards and ensure you take no more damage.

Then you can still do something; this is a defense where being penetrated generally doesn't kill you in one hit (aside from things you, as a Sorcerer, can generally block such as death charges).


But as a pure sorcerer you run out of hps the easiest of any class. And a single leap attack or lion's pounce charge will end you if your AC is so low that the opponent can full power attack and still hit you easily. I'm sure you know that an opponent doesn't even have to be near level 20 to be able to hit you with 400+ damage in a round if you neglect your armor class. That damage shrinks dramatically if they can't afford to power attack because you actually have a high AC.

If they have Leap Attack they probably have Shock Trooper means it doesn't matter; they'll hit anyways. If you get hit by a charger it's over for you. The only real defense there aside from absurd armor class (which Battle Sorcerer does not help you with), even which can be overcome if the Charger is built thusly, is not being there in the first place or being immune to the weapon damage.

Thing is, in a party you shouldn't be in the front; it's going to be incredibly hard for any Leap Attacker to actually get to you. Which reduces the importance of your AC; you should be able to negate the most dangerous AC-targeting attacks in most cases by just not being there. I'm not saying AC is useless; I'm saying it's relatively low on the importance list especially for ranged casters. And that you don't really lose that much in terms of AC by not being a Battle Sorcerer.

Putting aside this side issue about AC, I don't think you're understanding my overall point, which is that in general, having powerful defenses can be cool. Where sorcery is concerned, it can quite conceivably leave the sorcerer alive another round, during which he alters reality or explodes more enemy heads or whatnot. Yet nobody seems to value being alive another round when evaluating their fighter/mage builds. Everybody seems to be fixated on doing a few more dice of damage.

Furthermore, my assertion isn't that battle sorcerer helps you out at levels 18+ (where I said at the start it is a regrettable loss of spells) but rather helps you get a character to 18: past the initial levels where AC really matters, armor is unambiguously a huge deal, and it is very easy for a sorcerer to die because they have pitiful hit points and hardly any protections.


Obviously if you are flat-out creating a character at 14+, and don't have to suffer through the uncertainty of being a low-level mage, there isn't as much appeal to the battle sorcerer. But then you're talking about a very different set of assumptions than this thread was started with.

Well, I'd say level 6+ rather than level 14+. I'm fairly sure around level 6, Battle Sorcerer has very few if any advantages survivability-wise. And levels 4-5 you still miss one absolutely key spell known. He doesn't learn Mage Armor which frees up the missed level 1 spell slot but the level 2 slot?


Concise answers to the two separate questions you seem to be presenting:
1. Battle Sorcerer gives you some AC and HP on levels 1-5 but little benefit beyond that. It also comes at the horrendous cost of losing a spell known on every level as a Sorcerer, who is already strapped for spells known. It does not give you enough bonus AC to truly make you immune to any attacks you'd normally have trouble with. Twilight Armor also means that even non-Battle Sorcerer swiftly gains the ability to wear light armor at no cost to his abilities. Overall, the survivability advantages a Battle Sorcerer gives are too minor for the cost you pay to gain them.

It's not a matter of it being worthless, it's simply a matter of the price you pay for them. Losing Mage Armor for armor is kind of an even trade. After that you begin to lose out on actual key spells known reducing your survivability a ton in that you either miss out on some key offense (which reduces the chance of you removing the opponent in one round and thus increases the chance of opponent being able to kill you) or defense (which reduces the chance of you ever getting that one round) on every level.

2. Nothing wrong with defense. You just have to be sure you're not investing too much in defense (since most intelligent creatures generally fight on the "destroy highest threat target first"-basis) and that you're investing in the right defenses.

Contingency is the ultimate defense; there are very few ways to penetrate it other than it being misworded. Things like Invisibility and Fly are also incredible defenses since they're hard to penetrate. The less reliable a defense, the less valuable it is. Chain Shirt? Not very reliable; only defends you vs. AC-targeting attacks and it's not an absolute defense but a 20 percent-unit improvement in your odds of not being hit by every AC-targeting attack, so you don't want to pay a large price for it. It's also replicable by a spell for an hour-long duration so you need to consider if you're likely enough to be attacked when you don't have said spell on to make it worth having armor.

In general, defense is good as long as it doesn't make your character useless (that is, leave him without any relevant form of offense) and cost you too much (be it any resource; feats, gold, spell slots). Again, see Twice-Betrayer of Shar for instance; we can certainly approve good defense, just we know how and it's fairly easy given the levels/spells (early gaining of spells not withstanding) and not really doable before then.