need help with some builds

[pyromanser244]

there are 2 things I've wanted to play as for a while now, master transmogrifist and a cleric of fire and chaos.

to start, master transmogrifist. I love the flavor of this class. but it requires that I be a squishy arcane caster who likes to get up close and personal :smalleek:. I've looked at a couple different things but what I like best so far is a monk/sorcerer build. this is nice since it lets me use touch spells easily, and enlarge person gets funny. latter on I can get ascetic mage/arcane strike for more damage and ac and polymorph should let me become huge and keep monk damage. the thing I'm not so sure about is the spell and feat selection since the more I sink into improving my strike the less I have for metamagic and item creation. or there may be some other build which is just better.

compared to the above the cleric should be relatively straight forward starting with a cleric with the domains chaos and fire. as I understand it a cleric can get very powerful with divine metamagic feats and a lot of turn/rebuke granting domains, but I'm fuzzy on the details. I figure I'd take contemplative when I get the chance, but I'm not sure if there are any other ways to get more domains of my choice. essentially what I want is a build that is ok to good with healing but also ready to pyroblast anything that looks either too evil or too lawful.

this is what I've got so far, you guys have any advice?

[Andvare]

Master Transmuter?
Is that a class?
What, precisely, do you want this one to do?
In any case, stay away from monk. A long way away.
Instead, buff yourself. Use Abjurant Champion (complete mage) if you need more protection than standard spells can provide.


A Cleric can use his turn attempts to fuel meta magic at a cost of one turn attempt per spell level rise. An example is the most popular one, persist spell, which requires six turn attempts as it will raise the spell level of the spell six levels.
To do this you need some feats. The meta magic feat you want to use, and the divine meta magic feat that corresponds to that feat. This is mostly used to boost a clerics fighting prowess.
It can, however, be used for any meta magic feat.
You seem to want to blast things, so you could take the empower spell feat and the divine meta magic empower spell feat, then use your turn attempts to empower your blasting spells.
On that note, neither fire nor chaos does a very good job with blasting, if you want that, go with the storm domain (but keep in mind that clerics are not all that good blasters). The fire domain is a lot better than the chaos domain, in fact, the chaos domain is downright pathetic.

All clerics are good healers, as long as they retain their spontaneous healing.

[eggs]

Minor Shapeshift (from CMage) and Knowledge Devotion (CChamp) can help the master Transmuter out with an ever-recharging Temporary HP pool and big Insight bonuses to attack and damage, respectively. Add in some of the typical caster defenses like Greater Invisibility, Mirror Image and Celerity, and the Transmuter shouldn't have much trouble doing its thing.

On the Cleric, Divine Metamagic is indeed pretty fantastic. The gist of it is simple: You take the feat, you spend some turn attempts and your spells get better. That could be useful for a summoner (Rapid Spell), a self-buffer (Persistent Spell), a party buffer (Reach and/or Chain Spell) or a primary party caster (Ocular, Quicken, Sculpt, Twin, etc. Spells).

A domain staff from Complete Champion would allow the Cleric to spontaneously cast Fire domain spells (both making things easier tactically and giving more than one fire spell per level per day). I want to recommend Sanctified One of Kord (CChamp), because it gets to bypass Fire Immunities and Energy Resistance, but it has some problems for Clerics who also want access to the Fire Domain (namely that it isn't in Kord's portfolio).

One set of feats that aren't astoundingly good, but which I've always wanted to to try on a Cleric blaster are Dragon Prophesier and Prophecy's Shaper (Both from Magic of Ebberon), which let a Cleric empower spells without adjusting their spell levels or casting times.

On getting more domains, I'm just going to copy/paste from the Lists of Stuff (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19871954/Lists_of_Stuff), with a special mention of the Substitute Domain spell in Complete Champion, which allows any domain to be swapped out for any other domain available to you - it essentially turns any locked bonus domain like the Cloistered Cleric or Church Inquisitor's into a selectable domain like the Contemplative's.


Bonus Domains

Church Inquisitor 1, ecl 4, Complete Divine – Inquisition
Contemplative 1, 6/10, ecl 11, Complete Divine – Any one
Divine Oracle 1, ecl 6 Complete Divine – Oracle
Radiant Servant of Pelor 5, ecl 11, Complete Divine – Glory or Purification
Rainbow Servant 1, 4, 7/10, Complete Divine – Good, Air, Law (in that order)
Seeker of the Misty Isle 1, 7/10, Complete Divine – Travel, Magic
Temple Raider of Olidammara 10, Complete Divine – Luck
Warpriest 1, ecl 6, Complete Divine – Glory or Domination
Holt Warden 1, ecl 5, Complete Champion, plant
Ordained Champion 1, ecl 5, Complete Champion, war domain or any other by your deity
Sovereign Speaker 1-9/9, ecl 6, Faiths of Eberron – *9 bonus Domains* (1 per level), selection restrictions, see text
Singer of Concordance 2, ecl 7, Races of the Dragon - choose from: dragon, healing, knowledge, magic, strength, travel, wealth
Cloistered Cleric 1, Unearthed Arcana - Knowledge Domain, plus any two others as a standard Cleric
Divine Disciple 4, ecl ?, Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (3.0) – any one of your diety’s Domains
Dracolyte 1, ecl 6, Draconomicon - Glory or Domination
Wavekeeper 1, ecl 6, Stormwrack, choose: Blackwater, Ocean, Storm or Water
Knight of the Raven 3, ecl 7, Expedition to Castle Ravenloft
Arachnomancer 1, ecl 6, Drow of the Underdark, spider domain
Swift Wing 1, ecl 5, Dragon Magic - Dragon
Earthshaker 1, ecl 9, Dragon 314 p.58, Earth domain

Faiths and Pantheons
Wearer of Purple 1 – one bonus Domain from the following; Death, Evil or Scalykind (requires Iron Will, Spell Focus (necromancy))
Gondsman 3 – one bonus Domain from the following; Craft, Earth, Fire, Knowledge, Metal or Planning (requires Craft Wondrous Item, Skill Focus (craft))
Horned Harbringer 1 – Death
Auspician 1 – Fate (requires Dodge, Iron Will, Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes)
*Windwalker 1 – Air and Travel Domain spell access only (do not gain Domain power or Domain slots, if you don’t already have them)
*Waveservant 1 – Ocean spell access only (do not gain Domain power or Domain slots, if you don’t already have them)
*Silverstar 1 – Moon Domain spell access only (do not gain Domain power or Domain slots, if you don’t already have them)


Special Mention
Planar Touchstone (Catalogues of Enlightenment), feat, Planar Handbook, gain access to a domain power and spells, see text
Heretic of Faith, feat, Power of Faerun (p.46), stray from your path, exchange domain spells, etc, see text

EDIT:
Oh, I'd assumed Master Transmuter meant Master Transmogrifist, but I suppose Master Specialist (Transmuter) is also an option. I wouldn't change my advice too much, but with the latter, I'd recommend tacking War Weaver into the build as well, to share the buffs around.

[pyromanser244]

EDIT:
Oh, I'd assumed Master Transmuter meant Master Transmogrifist, but I suppose Master Specialist (Transmuter) is also an option. I wouldn't change my advice too much, but with the latter, I'd recommend tacking War Weaver into the build as well, to share the buffs around.

you assumed correct, that was a typo.:smallfrown:

and just for clarity master transmogrifist is a PrC from complete arcane that lets you pic a number of "favored forms" that you can polymorph into and then removes some of the drawbacks of polymorph when using those favored forms.

so if I'm not going to use monk, is there any other martial class that can help or is straight caster really going to be enough?

sanctified one of kord irks me. no scratch that the class is cool, the standard pantheon irks me. seriously, 1 god gets to horde the elemental domains?:smallfurious:
I'll have to look through those suggestions, maybe I can find a good low prereq PrC that will help.

[Andvare]

you assumed correct, that was a typo.:smallfrown:

and just for clarity master transmogrifist is a PrC from complete arcane that lets you pic a number of "favored forms" that you can polymorph into and then removes some of the drawbacks of polymorph when using those favored forms.

so if I'm not going to use monk, is there any other martial class that can help or is straight caster really going to be enough?


I had a hunch that that was what you meant, but I wasn't sure.

Monk does nothing for you. The only thing it does, is to hamper your already limited (by the transmogrifist) spell level. And, until you hit CL 15, your polymorph spell is limited by your caster level, which means any time you do not gain a caster level when you level up, you lose some power from your primary feature. Monk is a trap. It usually is, but more so here because you are so limited by your CL. Any class that does not provide you with a CL level is a trap here. If it doesn't boost your polymorph, it probably isn't worth it. Otherwise you should go with wizard/PrCs with full spell casting, as he would get shapechange at level 17, which a MT wont get outside of epic levels.

This thread is a good read for polymorph users:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19872134/The_Complete_Polymorph_Thread_3.5

If you worry about your melee strength, then, again, take abjurant champion. You lose nothing compared to wizard/sorcerer, but gain a much higher hit die, full BAB, increased AC from your protection spells, and an automatic quicken spell on a number of abjuration spells per day. (this PrC is very strong).

Get something that boosts your CL so you can use your polymorph for better creatures. Practised spellcaster is a given, it ensures that you aren't behind your HD in CL when you go through the master transmogrifist. (edit: otherwise, at level 15, when you are potentially done with the transmogrifist PrC, you have 15 HD, but can only polymorph into HD 11 or less creatures, which is really not good)

Here is a fun build, with some inspiration. It is quite optimized though, so usually outside the scope of most campaigns:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19861174/Shifty_Does_Everything_%28Master_Transmographist%2 9?pg=1


sanctified one of kord irks me. no scratch that the class is cool, the standard pantheon irks me. seriously, 1 god gets to horde the elemental domains?:smallfurious:
I'll have to look through those suggestions, maybe I can find a good low prereq PrC that will help.

Refluff it to function with your pantheon, as long as you keep the god in the same area, it should be fine and dandy.

But if you only want the PrC for its ability to fight fire with fire, take searing spell (metamagic feat; sandstorm), and either just eat the +1 spell level it gives, or Divine Metamagic your way out of it.
Sanctified One is a fun class, but the three hits to spell level really hurts.
Other than that, I agree with eggs.


BTW, if I come across as a little grumpy, it is because I have had a really bad week and now stuck with a hangover. So sorry about that.

[pyromanser244]

wow that's helpful. thanks a lot.

I'm pretty sure abjurant champion is going to make its way into a lot of my future characters now. there is almost no reason to not get it in a build like this.

if I use arcane strike with the 4th level champ ability I could run out of spells fast. would a ring of wizardry lvl 4 stack if you have 2 equipped?

[eggs]

Sanctified One is a fun class, but the three hits to spell level really hurts.
Yeah, that's one of those classes that's one level long - still not worth it if you aren't casting a lot of fire spells; but if you are, it's an option.

[Andvare]

wow that's helpful. thanks a lot.

I'm pretty sure abjurant champion is going to make its way into a lot of my future characters now. there is almost no reason to not get it in a build like this.

if I use arcane strike with the 4th level champ ability I could run out of spells fast. would a ring of wizardry lvl 4 stack if you have 2 equipped?

If you get two different kinds, I don't see why they wouldn't both work. I'm not sure of two level four rings would work together. I would probably use the spells for casting anyhoo. Being a part-time transmuter, you have quite a few great buffing spells, coupled with illusion (greater invisilbility is a fantastic combat buff) and abjuration, and you should be stacked.

Also, the elves get a couple of martial weapon feats from the start (a requirement of the abjurant champion), and if you go sorcerer, you could go with wild elf, they get a penalty to intelligence instead of constitution, and they favourite class is sorcerer, not that that should matter all that much, but a penalty to con is always bad, especially when it is your weakest save.
Unfortunately, it have to be a martial weapon, otherwise you could have taken spiked chain.
Still, this means that elves are as strong, if not stronger, a race for the abjurant champion. One of the few times they are that.


Yeah, that's one of those classes that's one level long - still not worth it if you aren't casting a lot of fire spells; but if you are, it's an option.

True. One level is feasible, if and only if you specialize heavily in fire (and I'd probably still take searing fire instead), more is outside the realm of optimization.