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[Hewhodrinksbeer]

I have a Dwarven sorcerer currently lvl3 with combat expertise and toughness feats, I chose a raven as my familiar for the +3 to appraise and alertness bonus

Att. 12 str
12dex
14cons
16int
8wis
15cha

The build I'm going for is basically a warmage tank with huge ac and crafting abilities
By cross classing to fight upon reaching lvl5 ill receive feats every lvl after till around 8-10. Fighter feats being shield focus and bash on top of my current toughness comb exp. wearing Dwarven heavy plates and Dwarven bladed shield(or spiked) my metamagic feat being still spell. On top of craft magic arms as general feats

My current skill list is
10craft stone(5 ranks, +3 int, +2 racial)
10craft metal(same as above)
9 perception (11 when raven is within 5 feet, additional +2 if stone based)
7 appraise (10 with raven, additional +2 rare and exotic)
With random numbers elsewhere

Dwarves also get +2 ac against larger creatures for being small
Current hp18

Main spells used is shocking grasp, Mage armor, shield, and summon monster 1

It's really a build I got lucky with, and the campaign is said to stop around level 10-12 roughly, any pointers?

[SolioFebalas]

I think troll detected :smallwink: Original point of view. (Edited)


Dwarves also get +2 ac against larger creatures for being small

Dwarfs are medium, and even if they were small they take only +1 AC.


I have a Dwarven sorcerer currently lvl3

Dwarf ? Realy ? With minus Cha ?


toughness feats

+3 HP for whole feat, yay, jackpot.


warmage tank wearing Dwarven heavy plates and Dwarven bladed shield

and take a 50+ % arcane spell failure ?


My current skill list is
10craft stone(5 ranks, +3 int, +2 racial)
10craft metal(same as above)
9 perception (11 when raven is within 5 feet, additional +2 if stone based)
7 appraise (10 with raven, additional +2 rare and exotic)
With random numbers elsewhere

No Spellcraft ? No Concentration ? No Knowledge (Arkana) ?

[Spuddles]

Still spell. And don't call people troll. Not nice.


OP,
Mage Armor won't stack with the dwarven heavy plate you have on.

[SolioFebalas]

Still spell. And don't call people troll. Not nice.


OP,
Mage Armor won't stack with the dwarven heavy plate you have on.


No problem, I just was too impressed by this build :smallsmile:

And for that matter shield (spell) also won't stack with shield (equipment).

[Hewhodrinksbeer]

Yes I do have points in other skills, spellcraft etc. I just don't have the numbers in front of me, and as for the negative to cha, I got a lucky role on 2-16s

But as for Mage armor and dhp, not even in making it myself?

I'm not sure how I could be trolling, the campaign we are in is pretty brutal without details

[SolioFebalas]

Thought I was trying to express, that you build is...... kinda strange.

If you want to be a tank (although dnd has no concept of the tank as there is no agro) or casting tank, the divine casters like cleric or paladin seems way better. You proficient with heavy armor (instead of sorc you take, which need a feat only to wear it, same for shield), you don't suffer spell failure and you get a bunch of good spells like divine power and rightenous might, shield of faith which are stack with armor equipment and so on. Even dwarf race fits cleric better than sorc.

But if you want to be an arcane caster in any case, take a look at Dusckblade (PHB II) + Battle Caster feat, seems to me it has all what you want.

Or throw away the armor and shield and take prc's abjurant champion and argent savant and use you mage shield/armor spells at their maximum.

[Raendyn]

Solio, dont be rude to an obviously new guy here... Troll and irony never express your shock over "Strange" builds.

As for the OP, You should consider reading Runesmith Prestge Class from Races of Stone. Take a look at him and consider changing Sorcerer to Wizard, so your 16 Int instead of Cha, can help with skill points and Crafting skills modifier.

[SolioFebalas]

Oh comeon, you shouldn't get attached to words (which, moreover, I have long been corrected), maybe i mean an awesomeness of Large Giant of 5 CR and nothing more :smallsmile:

[GutterFace]

you can also consider the Battle Sorcerer variant from UA if its not banned

or clearly you want to get into the think of things by the sound of it? why not try a duskblade?

the best part is if you decide against Dwarf, and go for Illuiman with the strength/spell based sigils you can dump int and be a Str based beast.

just some thoughts.

[gorfnab]

You list perception as a class skill. Is this a Pathfinder game? If so I would recommend an Oradin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=257365) build as an alternative.

[elvengunner69]

Thought I was trying to express, that you build is...... kinda strange.

If you want to be a tank (although dnd has no concept of the tank as there is no agro) or casting tank, the divine casters like cleric or paladin seems way better. You proficient with heavy armor (instead of sorc you take, which need a feat only to wear it, same for shield), you don't suffer spell failure and you get a bunch of good spells like divine power and rightenous might, shield of faith which are stack with armor equipment and so on. Even dwarf race fits cleric better than sorc.


I think the Knight class has some 'tanking' abilities were they can force an enemy to attack them but that might the closest.

I would also suggest maybe looking at Crusader - stances aren't magic spells but might give you more what you are looking for?

[Zeb]

The dwarf sorc substitution levels found in races of stone might be of interest to you.

Combined with battle sorc and/or stalwart sorc nets an ok "tanky" sorc.

If you really want to cast on heavy armor runesmith as suggested earlier is nice. Dwarf paragon levels give you proficiency but you do lose out on casting.

There is also a feat in Races of stone that lets you cast without aoo's as long as you have a shield.

[DMVerdandi]

Well beer-drinker, the truth is this, This isn't well made in the slightest being nice does not really cover up bad decisions. While I am not sure if you were limited to core (Which would be difficult for a new player like yourself, and if this actually is a pathfinder build or not. If so, in future reference tag the OP with [PF] for all of our sakes.)

From this, I am going to make some small critiques on what you should, or possibly can do to not end up like so.

Just remember this,3.5 Flavor feats are almost always traps. survivability is the most important thing. You can wax poetic until the cows come home and not by a single feat. Builds are for killing.
:smallredface:





I have a Dwarven sorcerer currently lvl3 with combat expertise and toughness feats, I chose a raven as my familiar for the +3 to appraise and alertness bonus
This is your first hickup. Sorcerer is non-optimal. Dwarves take a hit to charisma and charisma is your main casting stat. Really not that great. Also, since you don't gain hp based on race, but on class hd per level, you will not gain that dwarven hardiness that they are known for.

The way that you could have chosen better if you had access to this (and everyone on the computer does), would have been to choose the spellcaster class from the SRD. It allows you to cast as a sorcerer, with the lists of the sorcerer, cleric, and druid to pick from. It also allows you to choose if your spells would have been divine or arcane. Divine is the best choice as it has 0 ARCANE SPELL FAILURE.
That's right. None. That means that really, you wouldn't have to choose a single divine spell, and you could choose nothing but sorcerer spells, and have full armor.

Secondly, if you DID want to be more of a gish, guess what... You can choose divine buffing spells too. That means divine power. That means you will be a combat beast as well as having a large number of options for a spontaneous caster.

With the divine spellcaster, you would have to have wis as your main casting stat, but that is fine. There is plenty of wis love out there.


Att. 12 str
12dex
14cons
16int
8wis
15cha
Aside from the build I just showed you, I am going to let you know why this is bad for a sorcerer.
1. Your int is higher than your charisma. NOPE.
2.Your int is higher than everything. DOUBLE NOPE. Int should have been your secondary dump stat. Since Dex is your next lowest, I would have ordered it out like this.

Str 14
dex 12
con 15
INT 12
WIS 8
Cha 16






The build I'm going for is basically a warmage tank with huge ac and crafting abilities
By cross classing to fight upon reaching lvl5 ill receive feats every lvl after till around 8-10. Fighter feats being shield focus and bash on top of my current toughness comb exp. wearing Dwarven heavy plates and Dwarven bladed shield(or spiked) my metamagic feat being still spell. On top of craft magic arms as general feats
Since you are new, I suggest STRONGLY, that you stay away from crafting.
You really need to do a lot of independent study, out of game DM interaction, and system mastery to get it. I know you don't have it because you are suggesting crafting with a sorcerer, that has been multiclassing all over the place.

If you were REALLY intending to do everything you said, you would have chosen an artificer without fail. You would have had the casting, the crafting, and the ability to use and wear optimal gear. Perhaps after this game if you still like the idea, go and REALLY delve into the system, read some handbooks, and talk to your DM about playing an artificer.








My current skill list is
10craft stone(5 ranks, +3 int, +2 racial)
10craft metal(same as above)
9 perception (11 when raven is within 5 feet, additional +2 if stone based)
7 appraise (10 with raven, additional +2 rare and exotic)
With random numbers elsewhere

Dwarves also get +2 ac against larger creatures for being small
Current hp18

Main spells used is shocking grasp, Mage armor, shield, and summon monster 1

It's really a build I got lucky with, and the campaign is said to stop around level 10-12 roughly, any pointers?
Ask if you can go get re-trained. Have yourself a rocky training montage kind of thing where you go speak to some dwarven masters who have gone the middle way of spellcasting.


become a level 3 spellcaster (divine)
With your bonus feats being turn undead, and chose whichever for the rest.
With your regular feats, chose extend spell for the first, and persistent spell for the next. Whichever next feat you get after that, choose divine metamagic persist.

From there, I suggest perhaps smiting spell, or power attack+intuitive strike, extra turning also works well.

Because you are a divine spellcaster, you can now wear armor to your contentment. Pick something good.
As for a weapon, after you can start actually using spells for weapons. Weapon spells are generally pretty fregging awesome. Ice axe is insanely good, and so is spectral weapon. If you can make these and divine power persist, you should be good to go as a gish.

Now, the best thing after this is probably to try and find some nice PRC's.

[ericgrau]

It does need a lot of fixing. I would focus on melee touch spells. Try:
1: mage armor, shocking grasp for now but swap it out level 8, whatever
2: false life, web, whatever
3: vampiric touch, whatever

I wouldn't get too many buff spells because they waste time. Instead limit them to mainly mage armor, false life and maybe one other. Since they last 1 hour/level you can cast them in the morning. If you have a buff round before combat you might use a scroll of shield (if you aren't already carrying a shield) or cast another buff from a scroll or your spell list. I say scroll instead of learning a spell because this is an uncommon event, so getting a few scrolls for it is really cheap and saves you from needing to learn a spell. Like people said mage armor doesn't stack with armor, shield doesn't stack with a real shield. That means you don't add them, you take the higher of the two.

I would take sorcerer straight to 8 so you can get still vampiric touches as soon as possible. Empowered still shocking grasp is so-so too, but requires another feat so I dunno. In the mean time you could try casting without armor, or cast vampiric touch as early in the day as the DM will let you and then hold the charge for long periods of time. There's no spell failure to release a held charge (but there still is when you cast it if you're wearing armor). Combat rounds are precious, that's why you don't want to buff or have a spell fail in the middle of combat. Outside of combat if you lose one spell per day then oh well. So it pays to do these ahead of time.

After sorc 8 you could take a level of fighter, then finish the campaign with eldritch knight (DMG) or abjurant champion. Normally a.c. is better but for you I might actually prefer e.k. for the feats.

[Hewhodrinksbeer]

Okay, we'll here's how my dms story goes, 5 were chosen, and stripped of all but one item, to clear out his "basement" the only thing we really had open was a Mage type character, on a second note we are in a pagoda style cave, and since this is my second campaign and the only person who knows crafting like the dm, I slightly chose to handicap myself being a Dwarven sorcerer with a crafting kit... Other players in the group is human bard, cat folk rogue, knoll fighter, and yuan ti Druid(snake lady?) all with poor interest in crafting... But when it comes to making things my mind flies a mile a minute. I didn't know what else to pick race wise since I'm still new and dwarf was what I was before.

[Arkusus]

Okay, we'll here's how my dms story goes, 5 were chosen, and stripped of all but one item, to clear out his "basement" the only thing we really had open was a Mage type character, on a second note we are in a pagoda style cave, and since this is my second campaign and the only person who knows crafting like the dm, I slightly chose to handicap myself being a Dwarven sorcerer with a crafting kit... Other players in the group is human bard, cat folk rogue, knoll fighter, and yuan ti Druid(snake lady?) all with poor interest in crafting... But when it comes to making things my mind flies a mile a minute. I didn't know what else to pick race wise since I'm still new and dwarf was what I was before.

I have yet to meet a new D&D player who was excited about this choice, but picking Human as a race is always nice, as they get an extra feat. Right now at level 3 a dwarf would only have two feats, which means no still-spell yet. A human takes no penalties (which means 2 more of your primary stat) get an extra feat, AND get extra skill points, which lets you pick up more skills.


Generally speaking, I love the Dwarf race, darkvision, a host of situational bonuses, and bonus HP from their con score are useful in ANY class. But, don't use them with a charisma based caster.

If you want to go dwarven war-mage style, the Wizard would have been better, as you don't take a penalty to Int, and then you can put your 15 into Con.


And your feats... There are much better options. I know it's hard to find them when you're new. Metamagic feats are always nice, and I do feel the need to point this out... If you want to craft magic items, you need feats for each type of magic item.

If your crafting just means some improvisational mucking around with stuff found in a dungeon to give you some cover when ambushing some goblins, then nevermind, but if you want to actually be crafting magic armor and weapons... you need feats for that. Also money and experience.



It may sound like a broken record, but yeah, being an arcane caster in heavy armor is possible... but very penalizing. If you take the Still Spell metamagic feat, you're fine, but you basically lose your highest level spells since you can't still-cast them, which is horrifying. I would go along with everyone else and say one of three things:

1: Be a divine caster. No spell-failure chances.
2: Drop the armor and shield, and instead use magic to create your armor bonus without penalty.
3: Be a psionic character. All powers are mental-only meaning no speaking or gesturing when casting. While a psionic warrior is nice for melee, a well built Wilder can actually be pretty terrifying in combat, if they pick up some of the warrior's abilities and wild surge with them. (It would basically sacrifice offensive magic, for stacking up some buffs)