Machiavelli for the Ultimate Magus?

[Palanan]

I could use some advice on an NPC for my campaign, an ultimate magus who's quietly running his own small kingdom. For the overall build, I'll be going Beguiler 1/Specialist 3/Master Specialist 1/UM 7, since the NPC will be around 12th level. (He'll be human, although I'd like to avoid human paragon.)

He's indifferently benevolent, given that he likes to be comfortable, and prosperous kingdoms usually are; so he's a subtle schemer, but not hard evil. He relies on his beguiler side to manipulate the political environment, and falls back on his wizard side for defending himself and his interests.

Given this, I have a couple of questions:


1. What school should he specialize in? I've always played divine casters, so I don't have much of a feel for the arcane schools. I don't see him as a summoner, but otherwise conjuration looks interesting. His emphasis will be on defensive strategies.

2. Will Practiced Spellcaster be worth it on the beguiler side? He'll probably take it on the wizard side, but I'm not sure if it'll be that useful on the beguiler spells.

3. And, what metamagic feats would be appropriate here? Or feats in general? I have very little experience with arcane characters, so I'm all at sea with this.
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[Thrice Dead Cat]

Conjuration or Transmutation, banning illusion, enchantment, and probably necromancy without any real loses.

Definitely take Practiced Spellcaster (Beguiler) to insure you still keep 9s with your wizard casting.

For metamagic, I'm a fan of Extend Spell. If you have any amount of blasting spells, probably also empower.

[Feralventas]

1, Abjuration is the protective school, and if he's concerned about keeping secrets or being magically affected, then Abjuration will be a great choice (Shield, mind-blank, spell resistance and spell-turning.).
Divination will work better if he's more concerned about seeing and knowing everything going on rather than guarding himself with armor, instead guarding himself with knowledge and preparation. Illusion might've been good, but you've got Beguiler for that as well as Enchantment.
Evocation's out; you don't seem to want the blow-stuff-up wizard. It does have Contingency, so since you've got Beguiler for Illusion/Enchantment, those might be a good choice to ban along with Necromancy so that you've got most of your bases covered.
So, Wizard for Info gathering or guarding (Divination or Abjuration) and Beguiler for deception and control (Illusion and Enchantment.) A touch of Conjuration and Transmutation for mobility (teleportation and flight) and you should be golden.


2, Practiced 'Caster is good if he's going to be dealing with targets that have SR as some high-level politicians or powers may do, but for the most part he'd be dealing with them on equal terms or as a Wizard rather than as a Beguiler, so it's somewhat hit or miss. Take it if you think there'll be a need for beguiler application vs SR on a regular basis.

3, Persisted spells and quickened spells are lovely, and retributive spell is a personal favorite of mine, but I'm kinda terrible at char-op in this regard among others. Good luck none the less.

[Randomguy]

Conjuration, transmutation and divination are normally the go-to schools for specialization (in that order). Conjuration has tons of great spells, mostly battlefield control, even if you aren't a summoner. Transmutation is the king of buffs, debuffs and defenses, and is perhaps the most versatile school. Divination is just so that you gain much and lose little, and because you can always find at least 1 divination of each level to prepare. Divination is also great for the Puppetmaster archetype.

Schools to ban are in general enchantment, evocation and necromancy. Enchantment is because while it's a powerful school, most of it's effects are will-negates or mind effecting. Or both. Because of this, they're easily blocked or resisted, and there are other things that target will. Especially since you're also a beguiler, you won't need enchantment on your wizard side as well, since enchantment effects depend more on DC then on caster level.
Necromancy and evocation are also schools that don't have much versatility.

I suggest you ban enchantment and necromancy (or just enchantment if you're a diviner). Evocation does have a few useful spells, like daylight, shatter, contingency and wind wall.


Most Ultimate Maguses take Practiced Spellcaster (beguiler) at level 1 or 3, just so that Ultimate Magus advances Wizard casting for all 10 levels. Wizard casting is more valuable then beguiler casting, so I suggest you do this.

For metamagic feats: Quicken spell is a must have at higher levels. Extend spell is also very useful. If you see a few spells that you wish would last all day, then there's no reason not to pick up persist spell, especially since you can mitigate it's cost by giving up a beguiler slot. Persistent Acid Arrow is a death sentence for your enemies, persistent Blur is a great defense, persistent Greater Invisibility is good to sneak around all day while still being able to cast, persistent See invisibility or Arcane Sight are always great (until you permanency them), persistent Fox's Cunning is good until you can afford a good Int boosting item, and so on.

Since persistent spell is a bit strong, if you want to avoid that there are a few other options (or you could pick these up as well): Retributive spell is a good defence (retributive vampiric touch is a good one, but Hold Person and glitterdust and slow also work). Twin spell is good for damaging spells, and it forces 2 saves. Sculpt spell and transdimensional spell are both good low cost feats, one to increase the area of battlefield controls like glitterdust, another to hit ghosts with webs and solid fog. Lastly, sudden metamagic feats are great for NPC's, because they go into combat much less often then PC's do.

[legomaster00156]

Funny how everyone talks about high-level spells as if this 12th-level NPC will actually get any.

[Feralventas]

Funny how everyone talks about high-level spells as if this 12th-level NPC will actually get any.

Beggy1/Wizard3/MS1/UM, so Beggy gets CL 11ish, with 3rd level spells, and the wizard should get about the same. 6th level spells on a Wizard is pretty potent, and I'm pretty sure Contingency is 6th, as well as Dimension door being 4th, flight and overland flight being 3rd and 5th, with things like charm and suggestion being easily available.

12th is pretty dang potent.

[Urpriest]

Beggy1/Wizard3/MS1/UM, so Beggy gets CL 11ish, with 3rd level spells, and the wizard should get about the same. 6th level spells on a Wizard is pretty potent, and I'm pretty sure Contingency is 6th, as well as Dimension door being 4th, flight and overland flight being 3rd and 5th, with things like charm and suggestion being easily available.

12th is pretty dang potent.

The max he can get with just Practiced Spellcaster is Wiz 10. He'd need another source of caster level to get to 6ths.

[Randomguy]

Funny how everyone talks about high-level spells as if this 12th-level NPC will actually get any.

I'm pretty sure contingency is the only spell above 5th level that I mentioned. Sadly, without 6th level spells from either casting class, persist spell is unatainable. (Except with a huge amount of metamagic reducers).

[Palanan]

Thanks for the suggestions so far. Enchantment, illusion and necro are indeed the schools he'll be dropping.

I'm leaning divination for his specialty, since he would want to keep an (arcane) eye on things, but I'll have to look at conjuration and abjuration more carefully.

Also, on spell levels and Practiced Spellcaster: by my calculations, he'll be casting as an 8th-level beguiler and an 8th-level wizard, which means no higher than fourth-level spells on both sides. My understanding of Practiced Spellcaster is that it improves numeric effects of existing spells, but on its own doesn't grant additional spellcasting levels.

So, where do Wizard 10 and the 5th-level spells come from? Am I miscalculating with the UM stacking?

[Malachei]

Unless you are set on Human, go Illumian (Krau), which makes UM a 10/10 progression for wizard.

I'd suggest going generalist (and Elf Generalist if no Illumian), because your beguiler will be heavily behind your wizard, so banning illusion might be an issue. Also, Spell Focus synergy.

If you want to specialize, also for Master Specialist, then I'd choose Conjuration or Transmutation. I'd ban Illusion and Enchantment, but consider Necromancy, as well, and check for higher-level illusion spells you might not get through beguiler in time.

For Metamagic feats, definitely take Quicken Spell, whose 4 level adjustment will be supported your highest Beguiler spell slots. Also, consider Empower Spell and Twin Spell. As your UM MM uses are limited per day (max. 8 times at UM 10), I'd spend those for the big ones, and plan MM feats accordingly. Extend spell is really nice, but you don't need UM for it.

[Urpriest]

Thanks for the suggestions so far. Enchantment, illusion and necro are indeed the schools he'll be dropping.

I'm leaning divination for his specialty, since he would want to keep an (arcane) eye on things, but I'll have to look at conjuration and abjuration more carefully.

Also, on spell levels and Practiced Spellcaster: by my calculations, he'll be casting as an 8th-level beguiler and an 8th-level wizard, which means no higher than fourth-level spells on both sides. My understanding of Practiced Spellcaster is that it improves numeric effects of existing spells, but on its own doesn't grant additional spellcasting levels.

So, where do Wizard 10 and the 5th-level spells come from? Am I miscalculating with the UM stacking?

UM has levels on which it advances the class with the lowest caster level.

Suppose you're taking your first level of Ultimate Magus. If you don't have Practiced Spellcaster, then as a Beguiler 1/Wizard 4 the class will advance Beguiler, making you cast as a Beguiler 2/Wizard 4. If you do have Practiced Spellcaster (Beguiler) then your caster level (the only thing the class checks) for Beguiler will be 5, higher than your Wizard caster level, even though your actual Beguiler casting will be as a 1st level Beguiler. Then when you take your first level of Ultimate Magus it will add to your Wizard casting, making you cast as a Beguiler 1/Wizard 5.

Divination isn't a bad choice, and lets you keep Necromancy in case you need a few spells from it. That said, Focused Specialist is probably not worth it for Divination, unless the guy is constantly cranking out divination spells you won't need all the extra divination slots.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Malachei
Unless you are set on Human, go Illumian (Krau), which makes UM a 10/10 progression for wizard.

Thanks, but actually I am pretty set on human. :smallbiggrin:

Also, Illumians wouldn't work in this particular setting. (I almost mentioned this in the OP, since Illumian (Krau) comes up in every single UM thread, but didn't want to clutter the OP. So it goes.)


Originally Posted by Ur-Priest
Then when you take your first level of Ultimate Magus it will add to your Wizard casting, making you cast as a Beguiler 1/Wizard 5.

I'm right with you until this line, which kind of confuses me. Are you saying that Practiced Spellcaster (beguiler) would somehow add to the wizard casting level?

[Thrice Dead Cat]

It's due to the wording. Ultimate Magus only cares about the class's caster level to determine which class gets the boost. Because Practiced Spellcaster (Beguiler) boots your beguiler caster level beyond your wizard caster level, your wizard caster level is lower.

Beguiler CL 5 = 1 lvl Beguiler+4 levels from PS(B)
Wizard CL 4 = 3 Wizard + 1 MS

Thus, at first level of UM, the lower one is wizard, so it gets the boost. The second time, either could get the boost since they are tied.

[Palanan]

Okay, thanks for clarifying. I'm looking at the details on the UM, on p. 78 of Complete Mage, and I see the part about equal spellcasting classes.

That said...I'm still hung up on how Practiced Spellcaster works here. As I understand it, the feat grants an increase in caster level, but not spells known. Each new level of Ultimate Magus grants both an increase in caster level and spells known. I follow the logic for the advancement in caster level, but not sure how it works for spells known.

Urf. The brain, it is not working here.

[Urpriest]

Okay, thanks for clarifying. I'm looking at the details on the UM, on p. 78 of Complete Mage, and I see the part about equal spellcasting classes.

That said...I'm still hung up on how Practiced Spellcaster works here. As I understand it, the feat grants an increase in caster level, but not spells known. Each new level of Ultimate Magus grants both an increase in caster level and spells known. I follow the logic for the advancement in caster level, but not sure how it works for spells known.

Urf. The brain, it is not working here.

The feat grants an increase in caster level. Ultimate Magus 1 increases the spells known of the class with lowest caster level. So if Beguiler has a higher caster level than Wizard, Ultimate Magus 1 will increase the spells known for Wizard.

[Palanan]

Aha. Thanks for explaining that...now it makes sense.

So, adding things up, would Practiced Spellcaster boost the caster level on both sides to 10/10, from the original 8/8? And would the beguiler still be at level 8 for spells known, lagging behind the wizard at 10?

[Urpriest]

Aha. Thanks for explaining that...now it makes sense.

So, adding things up, would Practiced Spellcaster boost the caster level on both sides to 10/10, from the original 8/8? And would the beguiler still be at level 8 for spells known, lagging behind the wizard at 10?

The Beguiler would be at level 6 for spells known, since the Wizard would be the one advancing in that at UM 1 and 4. Other than that you have it correct.

[Palanan]

Okay, thanks for helping me work through that. He can live without 4th-level beguiler spells.

The downside is that it limits him for powering metamagic, though. Rules out Quicken and Twin, unfortunately, but Sculpt and Extend look like good low-cost options.