Here comes the boom

[angry_bear]

In an upcoming one off game, I'm going to be playing in a large scale battle. So I figured the funnest thing to do is play a Sorcerer who specializes in spells like Fireball and Flaming Sphere. I was wondering; how many times can I cast these explosive spells with only a moderate amount of cheese in the build?

A couple of ground rules, it's level 6, standard WBL, there will be no level adjustment buyoff, and it's a point buy of 86 I think. Aside from that, it's pretty much anything goes. Races, feats, etc. I want to get the charisma up to 24 minimum, I figure that all I have to do for that is cast Eagle's Splendor on myself with a race that has a racial bonus to charisma. If I can get the charisma higher than that, fantastic. I don't want to spend too much time on that though, since I'd need it in the low 30's for any more bonus level 3 spells.

So, any tips on how to maximize my powers of explodey-ness further? Is there any race that provides a charisma boost without a LA? Any help with this would be great, thanks in advance. :smallbiggrin:

[TuggyNE]

A couple of ground rules, it's level 6, standard WBL, there will be no level adjustment buyoff, and it's a point buy of 86 I think.

What. Eighty-six?!?

[iDesu]

What. Eighty-six?!?

Oh that's not that much, it's only 5 18s and a 14.

Edit: Adding on to the actual topic the Unseelie Fey template from page 223 of the Dragon Compendium adds +2 Cha, +2 Dex, -2 Str, and -2 Con.

[Amnestic]

Magic-Blooded (Dragon Magazine #306) is a template of LA+0 which gives +2 Charisma. It's obviously quite a good template.

[Juntao112]

Quick tip, swap out Flaming Sphere for Pyrotechnics.

[Emperor Tippy]

Magic-Blooded (Dragon Magazine #306) is a template of LA+0 which gives +2 Charisma. It's obviously quite a good template.

The Unseelie Fey template (Dragon #304) gives another +2 Cha (and flight, and Darkvision, and DR/Cold Iron based on HD) for LA +0 as well.

[BowStreetRunner]

...it's a point buy of 86 I think....

Are you sure you don't mean 96? That's the max possible without throwing racial maximums out the window. It would man all 18's.

[Fates]

You're probably going to want to take the Fiery Burst Reserve Feat. (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-mage--58/fiery-burst--1123/) As long as you've got a fire spell of at least second level ready to cast, you can create 5-foot radius blast of fire that does 1d6 damage/spell level, at will, as a standard action. You also get the extra little benefit of a +1 bonus to CL for fire spells.


The Unseelie Fey template (Dragon #304) gives another +2 Cha (and flight, and Darkvision, and DR/Cold Iron based on HD) for LA +0 as well.

I thought unseelie fey was "LA + ?"

[BowStreetRunner]

You're probably going to want to take the Fiery Burst Reserve Feat. (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-mage--58/fiery-burst--1123/)

If you're going in that direction, why not skip sorcerer entirely and play a Warlock?

Edit: Or Dragonfire Adept for that matter...

[Mithril Leaf]

You're probably going to want to take the Fiery Burst Reserve Feat. (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-mage--58/fiery-burst--1123/) As long as you've got a fire spell of at least second level ready to cast, you can create 5-foot radius blast of fire that does 1d6 damage/spell level, at will, as a standard action. You also get the extra little benefit of a +1 bonus to CL for fire spells.



I thought unseelie fey was "LA + ?"

It's a number extrapolated from the gnome entry which has +0 LA on a +0 LA monster. There's no entry at all for the LA in the template so it's fairly reasonable to take it from the existing creature. I don't have the issue on me right now, but I believe it had something similar in the dargon magazine.

[TuggyNE]

Are you sure you don't mean 96? That's the max possible without throwing racial maximums out the window. It would man all 18's.

No no, you see, they're sacrificing some power for flavor. It's the best possible compromise! Even PCs can't be perfect in every respect.

[angry_bear]

Whoops, meant 84, not 86. I always thought that 84 was a relatively standard point buy for a heroic campaign isn't it? It averages out so that your abilities would all be 14, or more realistically, 18, 18, 10, 10, 14, 14. That's with your ability points starting at zero of course. I think it was originally in the 3.0 DMG and my groups have been using it since moving on to 3.5. It also cuts out any bonuses to ability scores you'd normally get for leveling.

Pyrotechnics looks like it could be fun... Nice.

Are the templates listed on the WotC site or anywhere else? The DM would probably want to see them first. Like, as long as I've got a source for it he'll probably allow it.

Warlock could work alright, but I've never played the class before; so I'd rather go with sorcerer. :smallsmile:

[Saintheart]

I'd recommend at least having the Energy Substitution feat in there somewhere if your primary shtick is going to be flinging fire damage around. As time goes on a lot of stuff starts to get resistance to fire. Or consider (at level 4 casting, which is in your future) Hellfire from BOVD, since that's diabolic fire to which normal Fire Shield or fire resistances do not apply.

[BowStreetRunner]

Whoops, meant 84, not 86. I always thought that 84 was a relatively standard point buy for a heroic campaign isn't it? It averages out so that your abilities would all be 14, or more realistically, 18, 18, 10, 10, 14, 14. That's with your ability points starting at zero of course. I think it was originally in the 3.0 DMG and my groups have been using it since moving on to 3.5. It also cuts out any bonuses to ability scores you'd normally get for leveling.

Pyrotechnics looks like it could be fun... Nice.

Are the templates listed on the WotC site or anywhere else? The DM would probably want to see them first. Like, as long as I've got a source for it he'll probably allow it.

Warlock could work alright, but I've never played the class before; so I'd rather go with sorcerer. :smallsmile:

All 14s is a 36 point buy.

Edit: For that matter, 18, 18, 10, 10, 14, 14 is a 48 point buy.

A 9 costs 1 point total
A 10 costs 2 points total
An 11 costs 3 points total
A 12 costs 4 points total
A 13 costs 5 points total
A 14 costs 6 points total
A 15 costs 8 points total
A 16 costs 10 points total
A 17 costs 13 points total
An 18 costs 16 points total

[Ursus the Grim]

Whoops, meant 84, not 86. I always thought that 84 was a relatively standard point buy for a heroic campaign isn't it? It averages out so that your abilities would all be 14, or more realistically, 18, 18, 10, 10, 14, 14. That's with your ability points starting at zero of course. I think it was originally in the 3.0 DMG and my groups have been using it since moving on to 3.5. It also cuts out any bonuses to ability scores you'd normally get for leveling.
I see where the confusion is.

18+18+10+10+14+14=84.

That's uh, not how point buy works

This is how it works. (http://emrilgame.netau.net/Dmstuff/pointbuy.html)

Its not a flat one-for-one exchange.

[iDesu]

Whoops, meant 84, not 86. I always thought that 84 was a relatively standard point buy for a heroic campaign isn't it? It averages out so that your abilities would all be 14, or more realistically, 18, 18, 10, 10, 14, 14. That's with your ability points starting at zero of course. I think it was originally in the 3.0 DMG and my groups have been using it since moving on to 3.5. It also cuts out any bonuses to ability scores you'd normally get for leveling.

Ah, there's the misunderstanding. Point buy, at least in 3.5, has your stats start at 8, and you can buy additional points for the current ability modifier value or 1, whichever is greater.

[angry_bear]

Ah, there's the misunderstanding. Point buy, at least in 3.5, has your stats start at 8, and you can buy additional points for the current ability modifier value or 1, whichever is greater.

Ah, that works alright too, seems more balanced to be honest... DM will probably still want to stick with the older method, which I'm completely cool with. :belkar:

Where is Energy Substitution found again? Complete Arcane right?

[Saintheart]

Where is Energy Substitution found again? Complete Arcane right?

Got it in one. Although also bear in mind any metamagic turns a standard action spell into a full-round spell for spontaneous casters, which a sorcerer is, so you may want to resort to this rarely. It's a backup, and should be thought of as such.

[angry_bear]

From the description of the campaign, I'm not worried about it right now. It will be a good backup though, since the majority of opponents will be human and savage kin; he'll probably throw in a couple of different threats after I drop a lot of fire based AoE... From what I gather it's partially an experiment with the guidelines in Complete Warrior to see how well a group of players with minimal reinforcements can handle a large scale battle.

Which is interesting since, I've never actually had a fight in D&D on the scale he's planning. Typically I'm used to a handful of opponents, and then a boss character to take on in a session. So this is a bit different from what I'm used to.

[Ursus the Grim]

From the description of the campaign, I'm not worried about it right now. It will be a good backup though, since the majority of opponents will be human and savage kin; he'll probably throw in a couple of different threats after I drop a lot of fire based AoE... From what I gather it's partially an experiment with the guidelines in Complete Warrior to see how well a group of players with minimal reinforcements can handle a large scale battle.

Which is interesting since, I've never actually had a fight in D&D on the scale he's planning. Typically I'm used to a handful of opponents, and then a boss character to take on in a session. So this is a bit different from what I'm used to.

Heroes of Battle may be of use to both you and him.

[GilesTheCleric]

If you're planning on being overwhelmed with enemies, you should probably spend more time thinking about defenses than about damage, frankly.

Reserve feats give you an endless amount of damage, so that's all you need on that front. In terms of defenses, you'll want to make sure that you have good saves, a miss chance (go for 50%, but 20% is easiest), and some form of teleportation/escape from grapples/AoOs.

Even if you can blow up a 20' radius of enemies every turn, that leaves a lot of enemies shooting their 1d8 bows at you. Some will get 20s, and sorcerers are squishy.

Freedom of Movement and Wind Wall are easy spells that you should definitely have, and a counter to dispel magic (or possibly to AMF if your DM is mean) is also necessary. In order to make sure that you'll survive, you just need to think about each type of enemy that you'll be facing: ranged, grapplers, casters, debuffers, mind-controllers, melee, incorporeal/plant/construct/undead etc, etc; then make sure that you have an answer to each of those things.

[angry_bear]

Not super concerned about my defenses. Another party member is a wizard who'll be focusing on countering ranged attacks. It was initially what I was going to do, but figured we could use a nuke more than a second shield. Combined with a druid and cleric, we're fairly set on field control I think. My main concern is still maximum damage output right now. :smallsmile: