What do you think of this sorcerer spell selection?

[HunterOfJello]

I'm starting a gestalt Sorcerer//Druid is a high powered game right now and could use some help on switching up my Sorcerer spell selection to optimize it.

The party is just my Sorcerer//Druid and a crazy strong Vampire Lord/Telflammar Shadowlord//Warblade/Disciple of Dispater. Some spells to help him out on rare occasions could prove useful too.

Also, here's a quick list of all the at-will abilities I can use while wildshaped.

At-Will
Empowered Chain Lightning
Mass Charm Monster
Cure Serious Wounds
Dancing Lights
Detect Thoughts
Dispel Magic
Divine Favor
Haste
Greater Invisibility
Major Image
Polymorph Any Object
Righteous Smite
Greater Teleport (self +50lbs)
Telekinesis
Wall of Force
1/day
Meteor Swarm
Heal
Power Word Kill
Time Stop

Current Metamagics:
-Quicken Spell (I have the Metamagic Specialist ACF)
-Split Ray
-Easy Metamagic [Split Ray]
-Extend Spell
-Persist Spell
-DMM [Persist] (Note: I can do 3 per day right now and the DM ignores almost all Errata for everything)

~
Sorcerer Spell List

1st
Benign Transportation
Magic Missle
Distract Assailent
Ray of Enfeeblement
Silent Image

2nd
Wings of Cover
Baleful Transportation
Glitterdust
Scorching Ray
Spectral Hand (probably get rid of this one)

3rd
Melf's Unicorn Arrow
Ray of Dizziness
Shatterground (not sure on)
Improved Mage Armor

4th
Enervation
Wings of Flurry
Rune Delver's Fortune (great to Persist)
Celerity


5th
Prismatic Ray
Greater Fireburst
Wall of Stone
Ottiluck's Resilient Sphere (4th)


6th
Disintegrate
Acid Fog
Repulsion

7th
Planar Bubble (being a native of thelanis makes all my arcane spells Empowered and Extended)
Power Word Blind

8th
Greater Shadow Evocation

~

Thank you for any suggestions you can give. BTW, I currently persist Sirine's Grace (for Ac), Planar Bubble, and Rune Delver's Fortune (for Ref and Evasion). Other ideas for spells to persist each day would be awesome to.

[nedz]

(any) Shadow Conjuration > (any) Shadow Evocation
Because Conjuration > Evocation

I see that you have a Ray spell at most levels already, which is good.
Consider Rust Ray (SpC) Sorc 3, if you have space.
Its very situational, but quite funny.

[ericgrau]

Are you starting at that level or is this for future plans? That affects what goes in the lower level spell slots because many spells become less useful later. Including most of what you have.

[HunterOfJello]

Are you starting at that level or is this for future plans? That affects what goes in the lower level spell slots because many spells become less useful later. Including most of what you have.

Starting with all of this. These are not plans for the future.

[DarkEternal]

Why not put in spells from the Summon Monster school on your list? You can cast them at any time, and depending on the situation, the things you can summon can always help you in some way or the other.

[HunterOfJello]

Why not put in spells from the Summon Monster school on your list? You can cast them at any time, and depending on the situation, the things you can summon can always help you in some way or the other.

I'm playing a gestalt sorcerer//druid. I can use Summon Nature's Ally all I want. The Summon Monster line isn't really necessary.

[ericgrau]

Starting with all of this. These are not plans for the future.

That greatly affects your 1st-5th level spells then. There's no way in the 9 hells you're going to use all 28 spells per day in combat. Let alone 50+ from two gestalted classes. So your 1st-5th & perhaps 6th level spells should be full of mainly hour/level and swift/immediate spells so they don't eat up combat time. Between combat utility can go there too, but you never know which one you need so most of those I'd put on scrolls. The very frequently useful and spammable ones like invisibility can go on the list. You have quicken which is great, so the best quicken targets can stay but even then you don't have any more swift actions than you do standards. Split ray is also great for recycling low level spells known too as are empower and heighten, but make sure you still have options to burn away your low level spells per day (i.e., hour/level or naturally swift, not metamagic). With extend spell and your high level many 10 min/level spells are great options too. For example all day see invisibility (extended x2-5) solves a common high level problem.

See what builds or classes your party is playing because many hour/levels are especially spammable if you can tag the whole party and then one or two spells known can efficiently use a lot of your spells per day for that level. Then your other spells known are free to use for metamagic (burning higher level spells per day).

I don't like to muck with your high level spells too much because your spell selection reflects your individual character and uniqueness. Feel free to pick and choose from among the various suggestions you get but don't feel any pressure to not use something you like unless it's especially bad. 6th level seems solid. For 7th level power word blind might be hard to pull off at level 16 and up due to rising monster hp, but feel free to 1 shot mooks with poor listen (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#invisibility) modifiers and no SR with it. For 8th level greater shadow evocation is pretty horrible. It's terribly weak and good only for versatility and utility. That makes it good for a low level slot for the same reasons mentioned above. Try shadow evocation instead, or neither if you can't fit the 5th, and put your favorite foe smashing spell in your 8th level slot. Once you know a 9th level spell or two (and therefore more 7th-8ths as well) I might upgrade to greater shadow evocation. If you have something to buff shadow spells I didn't know about or notice then please excuse my ignorance.

[TuggyNE]

With extend spell and your high level many 10 min/level spells are great options too. For example all day see invisibility (extended x2-5) solves a common high level problem.

Nitpick: This doesn't work, because "You can’t apply the same metamagic feat more than once to a single spell" (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#multipleMetamagicFeatsonaSpell) and Extend doesn't have a specific exception to that.

Other than that this is good advice, I think.

[ericgrau]

2-5 spell slots, each extended once, not 2-5 extends. Extended CL 16 see invisibility lasts about 5 hours. Sorry if that wasn't clear. Though unless you're an elf or don't sleep I suppose you're limited to 4. And even elves would lose spells per day and an hour for using a spell within 8 hours of spell preparation. Oh well hope you don't get invisible ambushers who get past party security after 3 am, then you might lose a swift action :smalltongue:.

[dascarletm]

take abjurant champion, and fill the lower levels with buffs like shield.

all those buff while wildshaped. Lemme go over the spells and get back with more suggestions.

[HunterOfJello]

That greatly affects your 1st-5th level spells then. There's no way in the 9 hells you're going to use all 28 spells per day in combat. Let alone 50+ from two gestalted classes. So your 1st-5th & perhaps 6th level spells should be full of mainly hour/level and swift/immediate spells so they don't eat up combat time. Between combat utility can go there too, but you never know which one you need so most of those I'd put on scrolls. The very frequently useful and spammable ones like invisibility can go on the list. You have quicken which is great, so the best quicken targets can stay but even then you don't have any more swift actions than you do standards. Split ray is also great for recycling low level spells known too as are empower and heighten, but make sure you still have options to burn away your low level spells per day (i.e., hour/level or naturally swift, not metamagic). With extend spell and your high level many 10 min/level spells are great options too. For example all day see invisibility (extended x2-5) solves a common high level problem.


Wow, I hadn't thought about a lot of this before. Thanks!

The spells/day is definitely something that will never be a problem. I think I can cast a total of 130 spells per day excluding catrips, orisions, SLAs from Wild Shape, and PLAs from Phrenic. That really does make spells based on swift or move actions much better options...

I had noticed how I can make 10min/level spells last for 5 hours now since they're automatically extended. The only exception to this is obviously the first Planar Bubble I cast at the beginning of the day. I'm not sure if I want to persist Planar Bubble all the time or use the Extend to be able to cast it just a few times per day, but I'll keep it persisted for now.

I'll look up more buffing spells that I can keep up on myself and my party. Currently, the party is only myself and the melee Vampire Lord. His character is surprisingly strong, but could likely use a few handy buffs for things like See Invisibility and that sort of stuff. He has no spells except for 5 or so from Telflammar Shadowlord. My teleport spells can help him a great deal though since they get him extra attacks to take on my turn. My strongest wildshape form, the Tulani Eladrin actually has a constant Blessed Sight, Detect Law, Detect Magic, Magic Circle against Evil, True Seeing, and Lesser Glove of Invulnerability so I won't have to worry about all of those. I don't want to use that form often though because of RP and story reasons.

I agree with what you said about Power Word Blind and Greater Shadow Evocation now. I wanted some strong spells in those slots, but I really wasn't sure what to put there so I just threw some together that didn't look horrible. Some strong spells that avoid SR or saves while also harming enemies powerfully would be ideal. That, or some excellent battlefield control spells. I really don't know much about high level spells since this is my first game with 7th+ level spells in it.

What 10min/lvl and 6+ level spells would you use for this type of character?


take abjurant champion, and fill the lower levels with buffs like shield.

all those buff while wildshaped. Lemme go over the spells and get back with more suggestions.

I was going to take 2 levels of abjurant champion, but I couldn't fit in into my build and decided against taking Combat Casting. I took a level of Academy Sorcerer for a bonus item creation feat (Craft Wondrous Items) and a level of Sacred Exorcist for obviously awesome reasons.


*edit* I should also point out that it's a NG character and a druid so can't cast [evil] spells as a result. ~_~

[TuggyNE]

2-5 spell slots, each extended once, not 2-5 extends. Extended CL 16 see invisibility lasts about 5 hours. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Ahh, fair enough. I tend to be pessimistic about such niggling little details, since a lot of otherwise extremely experienced players tend to forget them. :smallcool:

[ericgrau]

What 10min/lvl and 6+ level spells would you use for this type of character?

7th level battlefield control has reverse gravity, mass hold person (SR and save but multi-target) and waves of exhaustion (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#exhausted) (area, no save, SR yes). Forcecage is expensive but if you don't shy away from using it then 15-30k for 10 or 20 material components isn't a horrible use of a level 16 budget. It instantly dominates anything that can't teleport and has no save nor SR. D&D fights and therefore levels and therefore campaigns are short (in terms of combat time). Don't be afraid to use it often, or you shouldn't even bother selecting it. I'd prefer reverse gravity or forcecage but the other 2 aren't bad.

8th level has maze (save no, SR yes, close range), irresistible dance (save no, SR yes, melee touch), telekinetic sphere (redundant with resilient sphere, SR no, save yes but reflex tends to be low) and scintillating pattern (save no, SR yes, limited HD, mind affecting).

Your 6th level list looks good but personally I like repulsion, acid fog, wall of iron, or contingency. Disintegrate isn't bad because it's both damage and utility in one. It's great for killing undead (low fort, immune to most other fort spells) and for making shortcuts in dungeons. It wouldn't be my level 12 choice but given that you can cast 8ths it's excellent.

I'm sure spell compendium has more. Once you reach higher level there are other spell types to consider too.

For 10 min/level and hour/level spells it depends mostly who you're buffing. For yourself I see you already found greater mage armor for yourself, which is nice while wildshaped. Overland flight, false life, magic circle against evil, heroism, stoneskin and telepathic bond are nice too. IIRC spell compendium has a bunch of nice heart of X buff spells. It probably has many others too. Unfortunately see invisibility is self-only. To help allies you can use quickened glitterdust or if you don't have room on your new list you could carry scrolls of glitterdust.

[Keld Denar]

Don't use the metamagic specialist ACF. Take Arcane Spellsurge as one of you're 7th level slots. Then, metamagic spells are standard actions, and non metamagic spells are swift. Persist it if you can. For even more metamagic for your buck, take the Residual Magic tactical feat in Complete Mage and get more spell levels per round worth of output.

[HunterOfJello]

Don't use the metamagic specialist ACF. Take Arcane Spellsurge as one of you're 7th level slots. Then, metamagic spells are standard actions, and non metamagic spells are swift. Persist it if you can. For even more metamagic for your buck, take the Residual Magic tactical feat in Complete Mage and get more spell levels per round worth of output.

I mainly grabbed metamagic specialist for use with Quicken Spell. I don't know if I can use quicken with Arcane Spellsurge.

As far as Arcane Spellsurge goes, I was originally going to grab it, but I think I'll wait till I have more 7th level spell slots. Right now I only have 2 slots at 7th level and I don't want to spend both of them on spells to enhance spells of lower level. I think Planar Bubble, which gives me Empower and Extend on all my arcane spells, is the better option for now. I'll definitely try to grab that later. I should probably look for ways to get more spells known for Sorcerer. I might have to take another look at Sandshaper.

Residual metamagic is tempting. I'll see if I can fit it into my feats. Those are mostly taken up so far though.


7th level battlefield control has reverse gravity, mass hold person (SR and save but multi-target) and waves of exhaustion (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#exhausted) (area, no save, SR yes). Forcecage is expensive but if you don't shy away from using it then 15-30k for 10 or 20 material components isn't a horrible use of a level 16 budget. It instantly dominates anything that can't teleport and has no save nor SR. D&D fights and therefore levels and therefore campaigns are short (in terms of combat time). Don't be afraid to use it often, or you shouldn't even bother selecting it. I'd prefer reverse gravity or forcecage but the other 2 aren't bad.

8th level has maze (save no, SR yes, close range), irresistible dance (save no, SR yes, melee touch), telekinetic sphere (redundant with resilient sphere, SR no, save yes but reflex tends to be low) and scintillating pattern (save no, SR yes, limited HD, mind affecting).

Your 6th level list looks good but personally I like repulsion, acid fog, wall of iron, or contingency. Disintegrate isn't bad because it's both damage and utility in one. It's great for killing undead (low fort, immune to most other fort spells) and for making shortcuts in dungeons. It wouldn't be my level 12 choice but given that you can cast 8ths it's excellent.

I'm sure spell compendium has more. Once you reach higher level there are other spell types to consider too.

For 10 min/level and hour/level spells it depends mostly who you're buffing. For yourself I see you already found greater mage armor for yourself, which is nice while wildshaped. Overland flight, false life, magic circle against evil, heroism, stoneskin and telepathic bond are nice too. IIRC spell compendium has a bunch of nice heart of X buff spells. It probably has many others too. Unfortunately see invisibility is self-only. To help allies you can use quickened glitterdust or if you don't have room on your new list you could carry scrolls of glitterdust.

I have Reverse Gravity on my druid side, so I might prepare some extra ones of those each day. Mass Hold Person sounds interesting. I really hate the save per round though. Stun Ray has been looking good to me lately since it would last 2 rounds on a successful save and ((1d4*1.5)+1)*2 rounds on a failed save, which is between 4 and 14 rounds.

I'll check out all these other spells. I don't have money for Forcecage though. I was thinking about using it through Shadow Evocation, but I'm going to drop that.

[Spuddles]

If you want some save-or-lose mind affecting debuffs, the cerebrosis feat adds 11 spells from 1st to 9th to spells known. You can get the feat as a bonus for 1400gp and a ritual that costs you 1 con point. Google should find the feat handily- was in a dragon magazine.

It's really heavily tied to far realm fluff, though. By RAW, you can swap out its spells it grants you for better ones, so it's basically a bonus 1st through 6th level spell known.

I would swap out ray of enfeeble or magic missile for nerveskitter. Ray of enfeeblement never seems to be worth the action to me, but with a free empower it may be nice. Scorching Ray isn't very great; you have to make multiple rolls and it's sr yes and fire damage. Not sure what you'd want to replace it with. Maybe whatever the second level heart of element is, but I think those might also show up on the druid list.

I would definitely go for arcane spellsurge. It lets you use all those spells in combat. Getting more actions is really, really good, and I think a much better use than mass hold monster. Mass hold monster is pretty bad. I'd rather shoot off a slow and a heightened slow, cause that works on everything.

Is greater mage armor necessary? I would consider replacing it with slow or shrink item.

[Keld Denar]

You don't NEED to use Quicken with Arcane Spellsurge. Everything you cast that doesn't have MM directly applied to it (by you, not by the Planar Bubble) is automatically Quickened. Spells with MM on them take a standard action under the influence of Arcane Spellsurge.

The trick with Residual Magic is then this:

Round 1:
Swift: cast any spell
Standard: cast spell A with metamagic

Round 2:
Swift: cast spell A normal (get metamagic free from RM)
Standard: cat spell B with metamagic

Round 3:
Swift: cast spell B normal (get free metamagic)
Standard: cast spell C with metamagic

Etc.

[Silma]

Just a question, I'm not trying to be a troll here, I was just curious. Where do u see this character going? i mean he is already as badass as he could possibly be, what more is there to explore when it comes to his personality and experiences? I've never played such a high powered game, and I was always curious.

[HunterOfJello]

You don't NEED to use Quicken with Arcane Spellsurge. Everything you cast that doesn't have MM directly applied to it (by you, not by the Planar Bubble) is automatically Quickened. Spells with MM on them take a standard action under the influence of Arcane Spellsurge.

The trick with Residual Magic is then this:

Round 1:
Swift: cast any spell
Standard: cast spell A with metamagic

Round 2:
Swift: cast spell A normal (get metamagic free from RM)
Standard: cat spell B with metamagic

Round 3:
Swift: cast spell B normal (get free metamagic)
Standard: cast spell C with metamagic

Etc.

Damn... that does sound really sexy now. I'll really try to drop a feat for Residual Metamagic then. I could always get rid of my metamagic reducer feat for split ray.

Residual Metamagic would also let me double up on castings of Persistent Ruin Delver's Fortune since it has different effects per casting.

If I dropped Meatmagic Specialist, is there another ACF you would suggest? I don't really want or need a level 4 Familiar. The minor save bonus of one could be nice, but that's about it.


Just a question, I'm not trying to be a troll here, I was just curious. Where do u see this character going? i mean he is already as badass as he could possibly be, what more is there to explore when it comes to his personality and experiences? I've never played such a high powered game, and I was always curious.

I'm still working on his backstory and everything, but here is some information. In many ways, being at such a high level means that the character's morality and decisions are far more important and must be made much more carefully than a normal PC's. The choice of killing or sparing changes from being on an individual level of sparing or killing a goblin, to sparing or killing a species or kingdom of goblins.

To be honest, I'm really not quite sure. The other two people involved always wanted to play a high level game and we never had. I'm noramlly the DM, but I wasn't comfortable in that type of game and didn't know what the heck to do, so one of the normal players offered to DM a high level game. That's where we are now.

I know that this character may look very strong, but there's always tons of room to grow ESPECIALLY when your character can use Divine Metamagic Persist.

I'd like to see the character grow from being equivalently apathetic to finding something he cares about other than the denizens of Thelanis. Right now his druidic perspective is that anything that is natural within the multiverse should not necessarily be viewed as "wrong" and situations should be regarded very carefully before judgements are made upon them. He was born as a Dragon descended from prismatic dragons and has the (Augmented Fey) subtype from being born by fey of the Unseelie Fey court. That made him a highly unqiue being and an outsider among outsiders.

He regards the act of a vampire killing and drinking the blood of a human as natural, since that's why undead do. Also, undead are merely beings powered by Negative Energy. Some regard negative energy as evil, but there are plains of existence powered by negative energy just as there are some powered by positive energy. To someone who is dedicated to maintaining the balance of the Multiverse as it is, no one way in between those two options is inherently superior. Now, if super strange extraplanar aberrations become involved, then he might have to take that into a stronger degree of consideration.

Maybe being played around with by this powerful wizard will change some of his perspective on things. Perhaps it is against the best interest of the Multiverse for non-deities to be allowed to wield such power for their own selfish gains.

[ShriekingDrake]

I would give some consideration to Friendly Fire (4th level) from Exemplars of Evil (page 27). It is not an evil spell, but gives unprecedented protection from ranged attacks.

[ericgrau]

I would swap out ray of enfeeble or magic missile for nerveskitter. Ray of enfeeblement never seems to be worth the action to me, but with a free empower it may be nice. Scorching Ray isn't very great; you have to make multiple rolls and it's sr yes and fire damage. Not sure what you'd want to replace it with. Maybe whatever the second level heart of element is, but I think those might also show up on the druid list.

I would definitely go for arcane spellsurge. It lets you use all those spells in combat. Getting more actions is really, really good, and I think a much better use than mass hold monster. Mass hold monster is pretty bad. I'd rather shoot off a slow and a heightened slow, cause that works on everything.

Is greater mage armor necessary? I would consider replacing it with slow or shrink item.
Those other spells are nice, but metamagic on ray of enfeeblement is downright sexy. Empowered it averages -13 strength. Anything melee sees its damage drop dramatically with no save. Quickened empowered is even nicer. Ya scorching ray isn't that great, though when it does work it's a good chunk of damage with metamagic. Ya heighten adds options if he can squeeze it in and the two SR yes options I mentioned aren't that great in general. Even heightened slow is mediocre, though better. It would be better to bust out more books for other spells or as a last resort give up on that spell level and look into non-control spells for it early.

Greater mage armor is so-so on a high level sorcerer, but it's excellent on a wild-shaped druid. He could pick up wild armor instead if he has the money and do even better. Otherwise the spell should stay.

[HunterOfJello]

Those other spells are nice, but metamagic on ray of enfeeblement is downright sexy. Empowered it averages -13 strength. Anything melee sees its damage drop dramatically with no save. Quickened empowered is even nicer. Ya scorching ray isn't that great, though when it does work it's a good chunk of damage with metamagic. Ya heighten adds options if he can squeeze it in and the two SR yes options I mentioned aren't that great in general. Even heightened slow is mediocre, though better. It would be better to bust out more books for other spells or as a last resort give up on that spell level and look into non-control spells for it early.

Greater mage armor is so-so on a high level sorcerer, but it's excellent on a wild-shaped druid. He could pick up wild armor instead if he has the money and do even better. Otherwise the spell should stay.

I grabbed Greater Mage Armor because I can use it while Unarmored and can use it on my Animal Companion. The next level I take on the druid side will be in Mystic Wanderer which gives me my Charisma bonus (+16) as a sacred bonus to AC. So, I could run around in a +2 Mithril Chain Shirt (or heavy armor if I wanted), but it wouldn't be advantageous after my next level. Also, I only have 5 strength in my kobold form, so that could turn into a problem if I use heavier armor.

Ray of Enfeeblement can be pretty great on this character since I'm not doing 1d6+5 strength damage. I'd be doing (1d6*1.5)+5 strength damage and split that's [(1d6*1.5)+5]*2 strength damage. That would give my split ray of enfeeblement a range of 12-26 strength damage per split ray double shot. I think that's pretty good.

Scorching Ray is a solid damaging spells and applies the same way. If I split and auto-empower it, then it can do some very nice damage for such a low level spells. It's also a nice candidate for quicken, as you mentioned. I didn't grab it because it's amazing, I grabbed it because it's reliable (and can be used on up to 6 enemies at once if i'm up against mooks I need to get rid of quick).

I think I'll drop magic missle, but i already have nerveskitter in a wand.


I would give some consideration to Friendly Fire (4th level) from Exemplars of Evil (page 27). It is not an evil spell, but gives unprecedented protection from ranged attacks.

That is a pretty badass spell for its level. However, I would need to persist it to use it all day long and at that point I might as well just Persist Stormrage to be immune to ranged weapon attacks, be unaffected by magical and natural wind, fly with perfect maneuverability, and shoot lightning bolts from my eyes.

[ShriekingDrake]

That is a pretty badass spell for its level. However, I would need to persist it to use it all day long and at that point I might as well just Persist Stormrage to be immune to ranged weapon attacks, be unaffected by magical and natural wind, fly with perfect maneuverability, and shoot lightning bolts from my eyes.

Stormrage is a great eighth level spell--especially when you imagine how it looks. I think you'll find Friendly Fire having more utility over time. Moreover, Friendly fire will prevent ranged attacks and ranged touch attacks, not just ranged weapon attacks. It is true that you get a whole bunch with Stormrage--like a printer/fax machine/copier. But, I'd say that Friendly Fire, gives you really solid protection, like just getting a really good printer.

With limited spell slots, I can see why you'd want to go one way or the other. Were it me, I'd go with Friendly Fire.

[Spuddles]

Scorching ray is a little better than I thought it was- monster energy resistances ignore energy on a per round basis; the spells on a per instance of danage basis.

For instance, if you shooot a dretch with 4 scorching rays, he's going to take 16d6-10 damage. If you shoot a wizard with resist energy fire, he is going to take 16d6-40 damage to 16d6-120 damage.

I would go with ray of stupidity. Subject to similar limitations, but downright brutal when you have it split and empowered, followed by a quickened split empowered one. Girallon's Blessing is a terrific 3rd level spell, but you can always get that from the druid side.

The two extra armor on greater mage armor over mage armor was what I was asking about. A wild clasped monk's belt is pretty amazing stuff, especially for the price. I just really like 3rd level spells and an all day buff over haste, slow, or shrink item spam

You should check out halo of sand, from sandstorm. It's basically shield of faith for druids. Freezing fog from frostburn is a 5th or 6th level soild fog, grease, and a small cold damage DoT. I would go with that over Acid Fog, because RAW empowered acid fog will destroy whole loot classes if anything dies in it (leather, paper, glass risk breaking within a round or two, wood within a minute or so, iron and steel in around 5 minutes).

Did you have a limit to what books you could use?
Do you have a familiar (I am guessing not)? If you do, putting Undermaster or Mental Pinnacle on it could be pretty darn good.

In my opinion, given your level, and metamagic focused druid gestalt build, you get very little out of sandshaper unless you have a way to shuffle those spells into useful ones. Everything sandshaper gives you is on the druid list. The loss of a feat and a caster level isn't worth the few useful spells- dispel magic, speak with animals, flesh to salt, wall of sand, and sandblast. Maybe there is one or two other good ones there, but not worth the price of entry.

You probably know this, but ray of enfeeblement does non-stacking str penalty. A split ray enfeeble just uses the best of your two rolls. Not bad at all, just not the brutality of doubling up on str penalty.

[HunterOfJello]

Stormrage is a great eighth level spell--especially when you imagine how it looks. I think you'll find Friendly Fire having more utility over time. Moreover, Friendly fire will prevent ranged attacks and ranged touch attacks, not just ranged weapon attacks. It is true that you get a whole bunch with Stormrage--like a printer/fax machine/copier. But, I'd say that Friendly Fire, gives you really solid protection, like just getting a really good printer.

With limited spell slots, I can see why you'd want to go one way or the other. Were it me, I'd go with Friendly Fire.

I honestly have too many other things to persist already anyway. If I get Residual Magic then I might be able to triple cast Persist Ruin Delver's Fortune, which would be awesome. Arcane Spellsurge, Sirine's Grace, and Planar Bubble are at the top of my list right now though.

I was going to avoid cheesing things up by grabbing tons of nightsticks or other items to get more Turns per day, but maybe I'll have to break that rule.


Scorching ray is a little better than I thought it was- monster energy resistances ignore energy on a per round basis; the spells on a per instance of danage basis.

For instance, if you shooot a dretch with 4 scorching rays, he's going to take 16d6-10 damage. If you shoot a wizard with resist energy fire, he is going to take 16d6-40 damage to 16d6-120 damage.

I would go with ray of stupidity. Subject to similar limitations, but downright brutal when you have it split and empowered, followed by a quickened split empowered one. Girallon's Blessing is a terrific 3rd level spell, but you can always get that from the druid side.

The two extra armor on greater mage armor over mage armor was what I was asking about. A wild clasped monk's belt is pretty amazing stuff, especially for the price. I just really like 3rd level spells and an all day buff over haste, slow, or shrink item spam

You should check out halo of sand, from sandstorm. It's basically shield of faith for druids. Freezing fog from frostburn is a 5th or 6th level soild fog, grease, and a small cold damage DoT. I would go with that over Acid Fog, because RAW empowered acid fog will destroy whole loot classes if anything dies in it (leather, paper, glass risk breaking within a round or two, wood within a minute or so, iron and steel in around 5 minutes).

Did you have a limit to what books you could use?
Do you have a familiar (I am guessing not)? If you do, putting Undermaster or Mental Pinnacle on it could be pretty darn good.

In my opinion, given your level, and metamagic focused druid gestalt build, you get very little out of sandshaper unless you have a way to shuffle those spells into useful ones. Everything sandshaper gives you is on the druid list. The loss of a feat and a caster level isn't worth the few useful spells- dispel magic, speak with animals, flesh to salt, wall of sand, and sandblast. Maybe there is one or two other good ones there, but not worth the price of entry.

You probably know this, but ray of enfeeblement does non-stacking str penalty. A split ray enfeeble just uses the best of your two rolls. Not bad at all, just not the brutality of doubling up on str penalty.

Oooh these sound good! I totally forgot about Ray of Stupidity. That one doesn't even have a minimum does it? That will be killer.

What is the point of Girallon's Blessing? I've heard other people talk about it before, but I just don't get it.

Halo of Sand looks good, but I've been using a Persisted Sirine's Grace so far which gives me +16 to deflection ac. If I stop using that and persist something else, then i'll definitely start using Halo of Sand.

Freezing Fog sounds cool. I found it in the Spell Compendium. It does half the damage of acid fog (which isn't much anyway) and the kickers are much better. I switched it for Acid Fog on my list.

I have no limits at all on the books I can use. The only rule is that the book has to be at the table or a printed copy of the material has to be at the table. So, I can have anything at the table if I need it.

I dropped my Familiar to get Metamagic Specialist. If I did have my familiar, it would only be a level 4 version since I only have 4 actual levels in Sorcerer.


Do you have a familiar (I am guessing not)? If you do, putting Undermaster or Mental Pinnacle on it could be pretty darn good.

I completely forgot that I could cast these sorts of spells and make good use of a familiar...

Wow, both of those spells would be very handy, especially if I persisted them. Having a familiar like a snake coiled around me and having it benefit from Persisted Stormrage would give me an effective free lightning attack every round.

Undermaster is a 9th level and is pretty costsly, but do you know of any other spells that would be good for that sort of thing? I think I might keep my familiar after all.

[Keld Denar]

Where are you getting TU attempts from? Bone Talisman?

[HunterOfJello]

Where are you getting TU attempts from? Bone Talisman?

I have 1 Reliquary Holy Symbol, 37 Charisma and a +5 charisma item. That gives me 19 turn attempts from Sacred Exorcist and 2 more from the Bone Talisman for a total of 21 to use for Divine Metamagic.

I read up on the Bone Talisman item but didn't get how it would be cost effective. Plus, the timelessness goo added to it didn't seem to make any sense to me.

I think I'll buy a nightstick, but I'd still be 3 turn attempts away from another persisted spell (and I'd feel bad for sneak multiple nightsticks past my DM).

[Keld Denar]

Ah, SacEx levels. This was never disclosed in the OP. You just said Druid//Sorc. I was confuzzled.

I assume that your DM is at least keeping you to only divine spells (druid spells) for your DMM.

[Spuddles]

Girallon's blessing is good depending on the fighting styles of your group. Another set of arms gets you:

Arms to manipulate stuff while in a form without arms. If you had a snake familiar with a pair of arms, it could UMD a wand (though I would argue its tail is prehensile enough to wand things). If you wildshape into a crocodile- now you have arms. Etc.

It gives you another set of arms- wield a runestaff and a couple wands. Hold a crossbow, a greatsword, and a shield. Finally be able to drink scotch, smoke a cigar, and fling spells all at the same time.

Double up on arms for better returns on str damage- it adds another multiple of str, so 4 arms is 2.5x str damage.

It gives you 4 natural attacks. Apply to monks for 4 extra attacks.

Speaking of monks, if anything in your party is doing bludgeoning damage, greater mighty wallop from races of the dragon is tits-out awesome. More of a wizard spell, IMO, but putting it on you, your AC, and the vampire (if he uses a bludgeoning weapon) might be worth it. Maybe.

Wildshape into a dire ape (or a hexbriar from MMIV for plant immunities), or anything else with arms, wield a club or quarterstaff with shillelagh, girallon's blessing, and greater might wallop. That staff is now doing more than colossal damage with str x2.5 damage. Put spikes on it to turn it into a +2 weapon with a +10 damage bonus. I guess 4d6 isn't terrific, and you could almost get there by being large in the first place, then putting shillelagh up. Proficiency with a great club would get you d8s, up to 6 of 'em.

If you have room for the prestige class, you should put a level of arcane heirophant in there. It is dual progression, but the same rules that suggest no dual progression also suggest that it take up both sides of your gestalt. Why should you include it? By RAW, it turns your animal companion into a familiar companion even if you don't have a familiar! It also makes the familiar benefits a total of arcane caster level and arcane heirophant level, which means it's a 16th level familiar.

Your character will qualify for AH at level 6, by virtue of being druid//sorcerer. Very easy to meet entry reqs.

If you do go this route, and you don't mind polymorph abuse, get an animal companion whose bonus HD+base HD is at least your caster level. Why? Because polymorph effects are limited by the HD of the target. More HD will tend to mean more HP, BAB, and saves, too. I think a bison familiar companion may be the best investment, but that means you have a pet cow.

I would recommend you look at the of the beast set in complete champion. The ring in particular is very nice- cast higher level summon nature's allies out of the same slot, as long as you're capable of summoning an ally of that level in the first place. So you can use your 7th level slots to summon 8th level allies. It's a steal at 8k. I am a big fan of SNA, though.

Can you use knowstones or whatever? They are from a dragon magazine, get a spell known at spell level squared x1000gp. Slotless magic item that you have to attach to other items. Might be a bummer with wildshape, though.

Do you know what you're going to put in your runestaff yet?

[HunterOfJello]

Ah, SacEx levels. This was never disclosed in the OP. You just said Druid//Sorc. I was confuzzled.

I assume that your DM is at least keeping you to only divine spells (druid spells) for your DMM.

Nope! My DM is kind of a weird guy when it comes to stuff like this. He says that if it doesn't say it in the books, then it isn't there. I don't normally try to abuse his position in order to take advantage of the situation, but I am using the situation to persist arcane spells. :smalltongue:

I didn't want to put up an actual rundown of my build in my first post because posts that do that are usually ignored. If you really want to know what my build is, I'll put it in this spoiler so you can see.

Avatas, The Avatar of Elsewhere and Elsewhen


Race: Dragonwrought Desert Kobold (Dragon)
Templates: Magic-Blooded, Unseelie Fey, Phrenic
Type and Subtypes: Outsider[Extraplanar-Thelanis] (augmented Fey, Dragon, Humanoid) (Psionic, Reptilian)

Class Side 1: Sorcerer 4/Geomancer 9/Academy Sorcerer 1/Sacred Exorcist 1
Class Side 2: Druid 5/ Planar Shepherd 10 (plane=Thelanis)

Stats w/ additional bonus from item in []:
Str 5 [+2]
Dex 20 [+2] or [+4 from Sirine's Grace]
Con 14 [+2]
Int 20 [+2]
Wis 14 [+2]
Cha 37 [+5]

Feats
1: Quicken Spell
Flaw Feat: Dragonwrought
Flaw Feat: Dynamic Priest
3: Greensinger Initiate
5: Split Ray MM
7: Draconic Resovoir
9: Extend MM
Academy Sorcerer Bonus: Craft Wondrous Items
11: Persist MM
13: DMM (Persist)
15: Easy MM (Split Ray)
Bonus: Iron Will

Skill Point focuses:
Bluff
Concentration
Diplomacy
Handle Animal (1)
Listen
Spellcraft
Spot
Survival
Tumble
Use magic Device
K Arcana
K Geography
K nature
K Religion
K The Planes
K etc. (1 each)
Craft Alchemy
Prof Herbalist
Iajutsu Focus (1)

Usual Persisted Spells:
Ruin Delver's Fortune (+16 to one save)
Sirine's Grace (+16 Deflection AC)
Stormrage (pew pew pew)
Planar Bubble (Constant Extend and Empower on all my Arcane spells!!!)
Arcane Spellsurge (might grab as a spell)

Geomancer Benefits:
Feathers
Flowers
+5 land speed
+4 diplomacy
2 claws & Weapon Finesse
ANTLERS (awesome!)
Fight while disabled or dying
Free Trip w/ natural attacks
Blindsense 30ft

Main Items:
Veil of Allure (yay dc increases)
Mantle of the Beast w/ +5 Cha (WS as swift action)
Ring of the Beast (better summoning)
Gauntlets of Heartfelt Blows (+16 fire damage per hit if i go in melee)
Belt of Magnificence +2
Anklets of Translocation x5
Bracers of Blast Barrier
Druid Vestments w/ +5 Resistance
Circlet of Rapid Casting
+1 Moderate Fort. Darkwood Shield
Cursed Luck Blade (got free with 3 wishes) (note: PC doesn't know it's cursed)
Tome of Leadership and Influence +5
Wildling Clasp x10
Robe of Blending
Reliquiary Holy Symobl
Wands (a few)
Heward's Super Backpack
Belt of Hidden Pouches
Survivor's Pouch
Wildshape Amulet

That's about everything, I think. Oh, DM ruling for Wildshape Amulet lets me WS as if I had 19 HD. That gives me access to every Eladrin form.




If you have room for the prestige class, you should put a level of arcane heirophant in there. It is dual progression, but the same rules that suggest no dual progression also suggest that it take up both sides of your gestalt. Why should you include it? By RAW, it turns your animal companion into a familiar companion even if you don't have a familiar! It also makes the familiar benefits a total of arcane caster level and arcane heirophant level, which means it's a 16th level familiar.

Your character will qualify for AH at level 6, by virtue of being druid//sorcerer. Very easy to meet entry reqs.

If you do go this route, and you don't mind polymorph abuse, get an animal companion whose bonus HD+base HD is at least your caster level. Why? Because polymorph effects are limited by the HD of the target. More HD will tend to mean more HP, BAB, and saves, too. I think a bison familiar companion may be the best investment, but that means you have a pet cow.

I would recommend you look at the of the beast set in complete champion. The ring in particular is very nice- cast higher level summon nature's allies out of the same slot, as long as you're capable of summoning an ally of that level in the first place. So you can use your 7th level slots to summon 8th level allies. It's a steal at 8k. I am a big fan of SNA, though.

Can you use knowstones or whatever? They are from a dragon magazine, get a spell known at spell level squared x1000gp. Slotless magic item that you have to attach to other items. Might be a bummer with wildshape, though.

Do you know what you're going to put in your runestaff yet?


I considered AH. I'm level 15 right now, so I might take levels in that next level. I could try to fit it in on my sorcerer side, but I'm going to take some time to rebuild that side in a little bit. I think I'm going to drop Quicken Spell.

I've been considering Polymorph abuse by casting it on my animal companion. I'm also strongly considering grabbing a familiar instead of metamagic specialist. Since there Firre Eladrin get Polymorph at-will (note: DM enjoys ignoring errata) and Tulani Eladrin get PAO at-will it could be good to cast it on my familiar and see it run rampant for a while if necessary.

I have 2 out of 3 of the Beast items. They're freaking awesome. They improve the character a heck of a lot.

Shamefully, I don't actually have any knowstones or even a runestaff... I started out with 300,000 gp, but I spent most of it on a +5 Charisma Manual in order to boost my charisma as high as possible. I use Geomancer on one side of my build as well as Dynamic Priest (my DM is allowing double prestige classing, he's crazy). So, all of my spellcasting for both classes is completely based off of charisma.

Do you have any suggestions for low cost knowstones or a staff that would be useful without costing too much? I have Craft Wondrous Items, so I should be able to get all knowstones at half price.

[Spuddles]

Damn, that's a neat character. I like it.

Requiring extend and persisit to pick up DMM persist is an errata thing. RAW by CD all you need is DMM:persisit. Frees up two slots.

You have to dismiss your familiar when you go AH; otherwise pick up obtain familiar with one of those free feats. I would also be sorely tempted to pick up versatile spellcaster. That should get you the next level of druid spells available, which when combined with ring of the beast, will let you summon nature 9 with summon nature 8. If you had a bloodline or cerebrosis (a quick google will get you the whole dragon issue on scribd), it would also get you a handful of 9ths on the sorc side. That is pretty abusive, imo, but if your DM is fine with it, go for it. Cerebrosis is 1400 gp, free feat. The spells are pretty neat, I think. Not too powerful, but great fluff. Not sure I see a NG character using them, though.

You can, RAW, change bloodline feat spells out as you level. A bloodline would get you two pre-chosen 7 & 8th level spells, and 1 through 6 that you could move around.

If heart of X line, from complete mage, is not available as druid spells, a runestaff of them once per day is 10k. They last 24 hours and give you some nice benefits- faster fly speed, a swim speed, fire resist, full fortification, and each can be discharged as an immediate action for stuff like freedom of movement or stoneskin.

I think you can only have one runestaff attuned to you at a time. Anything over 4th level spells is pretty expensive.

Identify may be a good choice for a knowstone. 500 gp to make one, +110 gp to pay someone to cast it. I would be tempted to get a lot of 1st and 2nd level knowstones, just for the versatility. Unseen servant is pretty neat. So is rope trick and grease. Holy cow, grease is such a great spell. I am DMing for a level 12ish party, and the number one spell for our ultimate magus is still grease. Granted, they fight a lot of giants. Like hundreds of them. But even then, the +20 or +30 it gives to get out of grapples has saved lives numerous times.

[Keld Denar]

Identify is never a good spell known. Just get an Artificer's Monocle and make sure you have at least 5 ranks in Know:Arcana. 1500g pays for itself after 15 casts of Identify.

[Spuddles]

Identify is never a good spell known. Just get an Artificer's Monocle and make sure you have at least 5 ranks in Know:Arcana. 1500g pays for itself after 15 casts of Identify.

I thought that was 8k and you got one a day. Must be thinking of the spectacles.

[HunterOfJello]

Requiring extend and persisit to pick up DMM persist is an errata thing. RAW by CD all you need is DMM:persisit. Frees up two slots.

Holy Crap! That definitely frees my character up quite a bit. I'm going to have to review everything I've done now and see what else i can get him to do!

Damn, that's a neat character. I like it.


Thanks!

I'm going to read up on Cerebrosis. I'll probably grab it. My NG character is a dragon turned outsider who shepherds a crazy plane of fey creatures. I don't consider much to be too far beyond him. His outlook is Good in a very broad sense. He's nowhere near exalted.

I'm still on the fence about Arcane Heirophant. I just don't care that much about my animal companion. I think I can get more mileage out of a familiar that never leaves my side and benefits from Share Spell. I can do some crazy stuff with that and DMM (Persist).

I'm looking up all the possible 1 level dips I can right now for my sorcerer side since I actually have feats available to qualify for things now.

Bloodline feats are looking very good right now. Do you have any favorites?

I'll probably grab those heart spells. They could be good on an eternal wand or minor schema. I think I was going to build a set of them on minor schema on an Archivist character once. Putting them all onto a staff could be good if I don't find enough money for a more expensive staff.


Identify is never a good spell known. Just get an Artificer's Monocle and make sure you have at least 5 ranks in Know:Arcana. 1500g pays for itself after 15 casts of Identify.

Artificer's Monocle is awesome.

[Spuddles]

The biggest problem with bloodline feats is losing access to magic, sometimes whole schools. I think technically it will only apply to sorcerer side, though. Undead is pretty bad with the low level spells, high level Arent so bad. You lose out on conjurarion healing (yawn). Fey is solid, but you lose conjuration creation. If it's only sorc side, might not be awful. Would you lose freezing fog?

Undead is usually my pick. Kinda weird, but whatever. You could also go with mother cyst, but that may require you being not good. Same results- trade out low level spells for the high.

[HunterOfJello]

The biggest problem with bloodline feats is losing access to magic, sometimes whole schools. I think technically it will only apply to sorcerer side, though. Undead is pretty bad with the low level spells, high level Arent so bad. You lose out on conjurarion healing (yawn). Fey is solid, but you lose conjuration creation. If it's only sorc side, might not be awful. Would you lose freezing fog?

Undead is usually my pick. Kinda weird, but whatever. You could also go with mother cyst, but that may require you being not good. Same results- trade out low level spells for the high.

Where are these bloodline feats featured? I only know of the ones in the Dragon Compendium. Are there ones featured anywhere else?

The Anarchaic bloodline looks pretty good to me. It doesn't list a forbidden spell type, but I assume it would be spells with the [Law] descriptor. I doubt many of those even exist.

[Spuddles]

Axiomatic, Anarchic, Fiendish, and Celestial (the Dragon ones) are all decent if only because the spells you lose access to (spells with the opposing descriptor) are pretty rare on both your lists. Be aware that there may be some summons you won't get. I think druids get some decent chaotic creatures.

There are a few in DR 313. I just use the handy crystal keep feat index. AFAIK, it is not in error or omitting important rules info regarding bloodlines.

There are a couple Initiate feats in ECS that are really solid in the spells they put on your spell list (at least for single classed druid). They'll have to go on your druid side, but you should check them out. They may have a lot of overlap with your SLAs or sorcerer casting, but you may want to take a peek nonetheless. I am AFB, so I can't check for you.

[ericgrau]

Wow 140k in tomes on a 300k budget? That's half your money. And a lot of your spells don't even have saves. Why do you even need the cha? There are so many other things you could buy with double the wealth. A staff for even more spells, wands, random tricky magic items, forcecage components, scrolls, wildshape druid smash gear, etc. You can pick up all 5 tomes later when gold isn't so tight.

[HunterOfJello]

Wow 140k in tomes on a 300k budget? That's half your money. And a lot of your spells don't even have saves. Why do you even need the cha? There are so many other things you could buy with double the wealth. A staff for even more spells, wands, random tricky magic items, forcecage components, scrolls, wildshape druid smash gear, etc. You can pick up all 5 tomes later when gold isn't so tight.

Hmm. I think you're right. I could buy a heck of a lot with that much money. I remember that I had a really good reason for buying it originally, but I don't think I have as serious of a reason now. If I drop that item and increase my Charisma enhancement bonus to +6, then my charisma only decreases by 4. That's not too much of a loss for the benefit of gaining 130,000gp.

The hard part will be deciding on items to buy now. =/

~

I just saw an interesting combo which I might run with. If I take a level in Arcane Heirophant and take Enspell Familiar from Dragon Compendium, then my new Familiar Companion will benefit from any spell I share as long as it's within 1 mile. That's pretty awesome.

[nedz]

Ray of Enfeeblement can be pretty great on this character since I'm not doing 1d6+5 strength damage. I'd be doing (1d6*1.5)+5 strength damage and split that's [(1d6*1.5)+5]*2 strength damage. That would give my split ray of enfeeblement a range of 12-26 strength damage per split ray double shot. I think that's pretty good.


Ray of Enfeeblement imposes a strength penalty, which means that it overlaps with itself; it doesn't stack.

[Keld Denar]

Also, per the Magic Missile example in the PHB under Empower Spell, the dice are rolled, the constants are added, and THEN you multiply by 1.5. Magic Missile is (1d4+1)*1.5, so Ray of Enfeeblement would be (1d6+5)*1.5.

[HunterOfJello]

Ray of Enfeeblement imposes a strength penalty, which means that it overlaps with itself; it doesn't stack.


Also, per the Magic Missile example in the PHB under Empower Spell, the dice are rolled, the constants are added, and THEN you multiply by 1.5. Magic Missile is (1d4+1)*1.5, so Ray of Enfeeblement would be (1d6+5)*1.5.

Wow, well both of those details change things quite a bit. I was aware of the stacking mechanics due to type, but I never considered what happens for penalites from the same source. I also thought that the empowered part only effected the variable part of the equation. That definitely improves things quite a bit. I'll have to keep an eye out for spells that could benefit from that.

So, if I'm trying to impose penalites to strength or intelligence, I would have to find another method of decreasing those stats if i want to get them lower than from just the spell I cast. I bet there's a handbook for that sort of thing somewhere around here.

[nedz]

RoE is an excellent 1st level spell, but there are many which target Str.
I'm not aware of a specific handbook for stat draining.

[Keld Denar]

Ray of Exhaustion gives a strength penalty, ass does ours big brothers Waves of Fatigue and Waves of Exhaustion. If you like Ray of Enfeeblement, check out its Dex based cousin Ray of Clumsiness in SpC and its big brother Escalating Enfeeblement in Comp Mage. EE is the same as RoE, but if the foe is already Enfeebled or Fatigued or Exhausted, the penalty is 1d10+ 1/2 CL, cap 5. Average 2 extra points of Str, 3 with Empower.

[Invader]

I'm a big fan of the "Bite of the were... spells