Air Genasi Storm Mage

[Theseus358]

I'm about to start a new 3.5 campaign and need help making an air genasi storm mage. No homebrew, unfortunately. The closest thing that I can find for a prestige class is the Stormcaster from Stormwrack, so I think I need to make it on my own. Any ideas on a build (e.g. feats, prestige class I may have missed)? I'm not set on making the genasi, either. ECL's make me angry.

[sonofzeal]

Stormcaster, Storm Disciple, Stormlord, Stormsinger, and Stormtalon are all at least moderately decent PrCs. That might broaden your horizons a bit.

[Ageir]

While not altogether powerful the Elemental savant in the complete arcane might be qhat you want.

[Diovid]

Raptoran Sorcerer 6 / Stormcaster 5 / Elemental Savant 9 with the 1st and 5th Raptoran Sorcerer substitution levels. Raptoran and the Raptoran substitution levels are from Races of the Wild and Elemental Savant is from Complete Arcane.

Beg your DM for a homebrew version of the Searing Spell feat (from Sandstorm) which works with electricity instead of fire. I know you said no homebrew but this is a very low amount of homebrew which will make your life a lot easier.

The feat Born of the Three Thunders (Complete Arcane) and the various air and electricity related reserve feats (Complete Mage) might interest you.

[nedz]

You might be better with a Druid (or Spirit Shaman), they have better stormy spells. Stormlord is possible, but that's more of a Divine Gish.

You can also do this with Cleric, by choosing the appropriate domains.

Or stick with Wizard (or whatever) and take the Arcane Disciple feat: to add more stormy spells. This does require Wisdom though.

[Theseus358]

Thanks for the help. I found a Storm Domain in Unearthed Arcana. Not sure what the down side of it is, but it works for what I want.

[herrhauptmann]

Thanks for the help. I found a Storm Domain in Unearthed Arcana. Not sure what the down side of it is, but it works for what I want.

This one? http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#stormDomain
It's wizard only. And to take that domain, you have to give up your ability to specialize in a school of magic. So it's best to take Domains that provide the largest number of spells that aren't normally wizard spells.

[Spuddles]

If you want to throw lightning bolts around all the time, a Reserve Feat from Complete Mage could be quite helpful.

Call Lightning (Storm) can also be buffed quite a bit.

The first level spell Cloudburst from SpC creates a temporary storm that should enhance your lightning bolts.

Ring of Mystic Lightning from MIC costs 7500 gp and comes with 3 charges. It adds +1 CL to lightning spells and the charges can be used to do the following:
1 charge +2d6 damage
2 charges +3d6 damage
3 charges +4d6 damage

They're cheap enough that you can get a few as you gain levels and swap them out for battles.

A lesser rod of empower combines nicely with a ring of mystic lightning.

If you really want to go all out, pick up arcane thesis and elemental substitution (fire), searing spell, energy admixture, and a ring of mystic fire. From a 5th level slot, you can get up to 10 bolts that do 11d6 fire (which ignores fire resistance and does half damage to fire immune) and 11d6 lightning. If outside and cloudburst cast before hand, it becomes a total of 22d10 damage. Sudden metamagic feats also become really useful here. Sudden maximize, for instance, gets you 10 bolts of 220 damage.

Reflex for half and spell resistance apply, but a pretty neat trick, especially because it only takes up one or two slots and leaves others open for utility stuff.

Throw sculpt spell in there, which, thanks to Arcane Thesis, doesn't affect spell level. Now you can call down 4 lightning cubes, a 20 ft radius of lightning, a cone of lightning, or a line of lightning.