Biffoniacus_Furiou
2014-01-05, 11:37 PM
Pretty much any tricks that don't rely on prestige class features will still work. Plus you can use silly gimmicks that don't rely on prestige classes, especially with Dragon content. You can throw a Web and then a Fell Drain Kelgore's Grave Mist that opponents can't escape from. You can use Fell Drain with Power Word: Pain or even Black Tentacles. You can still get Arcane Thesis for a single-spell gimmick, for example:
Silverbrow Human Wizard 20, Focused Specialist in Conjuration, with Evocation, Enchantment, and either Necromancy or Abjuration prohibited. Abrupt Jaunt, Spontaneous Divination, standard Wizard bonus feats at 10, 15, and 20. Two flaws, probably Love of Nature and Bravado (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=258440#30).
Fell Drain Spell (F), Easy Metamagic: Fell Drain Spell (F) Extend Spell (H), Metamagic School Focus: Conjuration (1), Scribe Scroll (W1), Repeat Spell (3), Easy Metamagic: Repeat Spell (6), Persistent Spell (9), Easy Metamagic: Persistent Spell Spell (W10), Arcane Thesis: Cloud of Knives (12), Practical Metamagic: Persistent Spell (15), Twin Spell (W15), Invisible Spell (18), Easy Metamagic: Twin Spell (W20)
At 1st level you can use Fell Drain Spell at +0 metamagic with three conjuration spells/day, so Hail of Stone or a Lesser Orb is almost guaranteed to kill or seriously hinder whatever it hits. Also keep in mind that Easy Metamagic is labeled a metamagic feat so it counts toward Arcane Thesis. Thus you get the following:
Easy Practical Persistent, Easy Twinned, Easy Repeat, Easy Fell Drain, Invisible, Lesser Rod of Anything (silent, still, doesn't matter) Cloud of Knives
Cloud of Knives: 2nd level
Easy Practical Persistent: +4 levels, 2 metamagics
Easy Twinned: +3 levels, 2 metamagics
Easy Repeat: +2 levels, 2 metamagics
Easy Fell Drain: +1 level, 2 metamagics
Invisible: +0 level, 1 metamagic
Lesser Metamagic Rod: +0 levels, 1 metamagic
Arcane Thesis: -10 levels, +2 caster level
Total: Spend one 2nd level spell slot to have four instances of Fell Drained Cloud of Knives active. You get four dagger attacks per round as a free action, each of which deals 1d6+5 damage and one negative level.
Cast this as many times as you have Lesser Metamagic Rod charges to spend on it, or skip those and use a 3rd level slot. For five spell slots you can make 20 such dagger attacks each round. With a 2nd level Ring of Wizardry and Int 30 you should have 14 2nd level spells per day, five of which are specialist slots assuming focused specialist slots get doubled by the ring. Get three lesser metamagic rods and spend nine of those on Cloud of Knives, plus one 3rd level slot, and you can make 40 level-draining dagger attacks per round in addition to your other actions.
Kraken
2014-01-06, 09:02 PM
Yeah, I will point out that with my core only (core only meaning PHB, DMG, and MM) character, it's non-core spells that I'm missing dramatically more than prestige classes. A PM asked me for my exact build, so here we go:
Gray elf conjurer wizard 12 (started with it at level 5), necromancy and enchantment banned. The campaign won't go past 14, and I'm sticking with wizard levels only for no particular reason.
Feats (in order taken): Scribe scroll, alertness (from familiar), spell focus (conj), greater spell focus (conj), extend spell, improved initiative, flyby attack, quicken spell, empower spell.
For skills, I put one rank in craft (paint), maxed spellcraft, spot, listen, concentration, search, and spread the remaining skill points around knowledge, favoring arcana, and grabbing 5 in architecture and engineering for the +2 search bonus. Listen, spot, and search being cross-class hurts, but elves get +2 to each of those, alertness is another +2 to listen and spot, and search is int based and has the synergy bonus. All told, my listen and spot modifiers are +12, and my search is +17, or +19 when looking for hidden doors or compartments. Not great, but not poor either. And don't forget that your raven shares your skill ranks, and with its +2 wisdom mod, at this point gets +8 on listen and spot, and +6 on search. For active searching, don't forget that your familiar can aid you (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/usingSkills.htm#combiningSkillAttempts) for a +2 bonus (total of +21 for secret doors and compartments, +19 everything else).
I do make use of the ability to scribe scrolls, if I can't buy the ones I want. Remember that you can scribe more than one spell onto a single scroll, so always shoot for spending as close to each thousand GP mark as possible. Further, if your DM is doing EXP by the book, then the EXP cost of scrolls is going to generally not matter. If you lose enough EXP to not level up with the rest of your party, that means the next time you get EXP, you're probably going to end up with more experience than them (not just for that session, but overall), due 3.5 awarding higher experience to lower level characters completing the same encounters.
With 30 point buy I chose the following allocation: 8/12/15/18/12/8. It turned into this:
Str: 6 - early on I used a blind and deaf (so it couldn't easily be spooked) pack mule
Dex: 18 (12 base, +2 racial, +4 item)
Con: 14 (15 base, -2 racial, level 12 bump)
Int: 28 (18 base, +2 racial, +6 item, level 4 and 8 bumps)
Wis: 14 (12 base, +2 item)
Cha: 8 - I roleplay my character as quite arrogant and somewhat reclusive. Not socially awkward in any way, and not speaking the minimum amount of words at all times (aka, the "I have low cha so I can put no effort into roleplaying!" approach), he just generally feels everyone and everything else is beneath him, and will thus converse freely, but condescendingly and begrudgingly, to the extent that it is prudent and purposeful. Has a soft spot for those that are disadvantaged because of circumstances beyond their control, especially if they're of a lesser, poorly treated race (think Raistlin with gully dwarves). This soft spot immediately disappears for anyone or anything that's talkative or arrogant, however.
Notable possessions:
Handy haversack
Periapt of wisdom +2
Headband of intellect +6
Gloves of dex +4
Cloak of resistance +3
Longbow +1
Marvellous pigments (entire threads could be devoted to how useful these are)
Sovereign glue (around half an ounce), universal solvent (5), and salve of slipperiness (2).
Ring of protection +2
Staff of fire (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/staffs.htm#fire) (15 charges)
Several mundane items (sunrods, oil, rope, etc.), potions, and scrolls that I can't be bothered to list (check mundane item handbooks for inspiration). I have no idea whether I'm under or over WBL, though according to the DMG I should be working towards 110k GP for of things for level 13, so I definitely don't think that I'm over.
Saves:
Fort: 9 (4 base, +3 cloak, +2 ability mod)
Reflex: 11 (4 base, +3 cloak, +4 ability mod)
Will: 13, +15 against enchantments (8 base, +3 cloak, +2 ability mod, +2 elf enchantment bonus)
Not great, but this is also core only with no multiclassing.
Spell focus and greater spell focus are there to make grease, web, glitterdust, cloudkill, and other such things even nastier.
Early on extend spell is excellent for mage armor, later on it's great for 10 minutes/level buffs like stoneskin.
Overland flight is cast every day, because of course it is. It combos nicely with flyby attack, because unlike spring attack, it has no pre reqs, and you can take any standard action during a flyby attack. Note that you do provoke AoOs as normal, unlike with spring attack.
For summoning, I tend to favor summoning 1d4+1 from lower lists. I generally find that more is better, due to them typically only being used as a distraction or shield, and the action economy ramifications of multiple enemies are usually more severe for opponents. Though higher level summons are also useful. Bralani eladrin are nice for their SLAs, for instance.
I tend not to worry about spell resistance. There are enough core only SR:no spells, such as web, grease, cloudkill, acid fog, solid fog, silent image (and its higher level brethren), and black tentacles, it's not much of a concern. I reserve spells such as fireball and lightning bolt for large groups of enemies, and larger groups of enemies tend not to have SR anyway.
I haven't found empower to be all that useful yet, the rest of the party is adept enough at dealing damage, that I've found my higher level slots are more efficiently used for other purposes. However, I want it in my toolbox, there are plenty of scenarios where I might want to prepare an empowered fireball, lightning bolt, or even cone of cold come level 13. An item creation feat would have been a candidate here, but in this campaign, and most that I've played in, crafting time is too low to make this worthwhile. Fitting in a scroll every few days is hard enough.
My familiar is a raven, because I find having a talking emissary is quite useful.
I make liberal use of share spells with my familiar, especially with polymorph. We recently went into combat with a dragon, and had an opportunity to buff beforehand. I needed potions for greater magic fang and heroism, but everything else I cast on myself came off my own list. Per Skip Williams, your HP does go up or down if your con score changes when you polymorph (see examples, here (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040525a), see thoughts on this at the bottom of my post). Don't forget this will also affect your familiar's HP. Combine this with stoneskin, shield, mage armor, and other defensive buffs on top of a polymorph form with lots of natural armor, and you'll be a force to be reckoned with. Good forms to consider are hydras, behirs, and bulettes. Against the dragon we fought, my familiar and I turned into 12 headed hydras, and I summoned a bralani eladrin before going in to heal us during combat. Or if you want to go a different route, the strength draining attack of ropers is pretty darned nice too.
Something to keep in mind when with polymorph is that you keep your class abilities, and that means all those enhancements to your familiar are still there. While it had lower HP, it actually had higher AC and faired better against breath weapon attacks, due to familiars receiving a natural armor increase and improved evasion. The speak with master ability also allows you to communicate with one another in what is essentially gibberish, basically as long as your current forms have mouths. Even if you don't currently have mouths, empathic link is sufficient if you need to communicate something very basic, such as fleeing. Also, at level 11 it got spell resistance, though this is rarely going to be relevant.
Even if you don't have time to buff beforehand, quickened shield followed by polymorph (with mage armor active beforehand due to its hours/level duration) is potent. Always bear in mind that your new form might not be capable of casting spells, so if you're going to commit to tearing it up in melee, there's no going back.
Ever since getting extend spell at level 5, most sleeping has unsurprisingly been done in a rope trick. The need to extend it ceases at level 9, of course, or level 8 if you don't mind preparing spells outside.
The quickened spells that I like to prepare are shield, grease, glitterdust, fog cloud, web, and silent and minor image. Not all of these make it into the rotation every day, obviously.
Note the very large area of "visual figment that cannot extend beyond four 10-ft. cubes + one 10-ft. cube/level" for silent and minor image. These make for fantastic distraction spells to get a group of enemies with low will saves to waste actions. Basically, like any good battlefield control, your goal is to trade one of your actions for several enemy actions. Minor image is especially useful for lasting an additional 2 rounds after your stop concentrating. I usually relegate persistent image to a scroll. One great thing about their ability to affect groups is that "if any viewer successfully disbelieves an illusion and communicates this fact to others, each such viewer gains a saving throw with a +4 bonus." If the foes have poor will saves, there's still a chance you're going to keep on fooling a few of them. There are four five basic tactics that I find to generally be effective:
Creating things your enemies can't see through or move through is useful for taking several enemies out of a fight for a time. "Creatures encountering an illusion usually do not receive saving throws to recognize it as illusory until they study it carefully or interact with it in some fashion." That means if you throw down an illusory wall (and remember you can create five '10 cubes right at first level), unless an enemy thinks to go up to it and touch it, they don't get a save, and think that a real wall has been conjured in front of them. Don't forget that your illusory barrier can be shaped nicely, so use it to separate enemies from one another if you can by making the wall snake between them so they can't see one another. I find this to generally be the most useful course of action.
Making things your enemies want to run away from is of limited use with silent image, but not impossible, because remember that your character can still make noise. So if you shout "great angel of wrath, spring forth and slay my foes!" and create an imposing figure of some sort, you might fool a few people into surrendering or fleeing (a poor bluff modifier will hurt this effort often, though). However, this strategy really comes online with minor image, now that you have sound. You can create the appearance of an oncoming wave of acid, lava, and so forth, or making it look like the floor is collapsing. Surrounding enemies with a crackling moat of lava belching gouts of flame is a good standby, at which point you can demand they throw across their weapons and you'll let them live. Or, as with silent image, you can summon something that will make your enemies want to poop their pants and surrender, but now you can make whatever you summon produce sound, so your crappy bluff check won't hurt you anymore. A roaring huge or gargantuan dragon is simple and effective for this purpose, though pick any beast that suits you. This strategy also has a related use with flying creatures. Due to maneuverability ratings affecting available flight paths, it's fairly easy to disrupt the flight and tactics of flying foes by pretending to make a wall of stone, for instance, or some other thing that they'd need to maneuver to avoid.
Creating illusory fortifications can be a useful way to focus enemy attacks on whoever you want. Summon up an illusory wall with arrow slits and windows, so that all the combatants out on the field will ignore you and your other squishy ranged combatant buddies inside, and focus on your party meatshield(s). Once you (and hopefully the rest of the part) can fly, make the illusory fortification raised, so that there's no ground to stand on in front of the windows, which will confound even flying creatures, as long as they don't have the ability to hover. Even if only you can fly, make it a multi level fortification, with you on the top level, and non-flyer party members that are also squishy on the bottom.
Edit: oops, forgot one of my favorites: creating traps. This is as simple as covering a hole or gap in some walking surface, and luring enemies to cross over the illusion, plummeting to their doom. Quite honestly, just look at actual mundane traps for inspiration, and use silent image to cover them up.
Lastly, you can create things that you enemies want to attack or run to. It is a certainty that your enemies will eventually figure out that these illusions are real before long, as the AC to hit an illusion is 10+size mod, and hitting one probably triggers instant disbelief under most DM interpretations. However, this can be the best way to get an enemy to go precisely where you want, as enemies swayed by this tactic tend to be more predictable in how they'll respond. If they're going to attack it, they're most likely to travel in a straight line towards their new quarry. Another useful tactic is to create illusory items that enemies would want to use.
Flyby attack is a nasty combo with quickened fog cloud. Cast fog cloud, move 20 feet to get out of fog cloud, take standard action, move 20 back into fog cloud. Because you're flying with overland flight, anything relying on sight and/or tremorsense won't be able to target you effectively without readying an action. Great for foes that can see invisible creatures.
Quickened grease and acid fog are a great combo. It becomes a full round action for a creature to move 5' in these circumstances, and even then it can only move after making a DC 10 balance check to not slide around on the grease like a cartoon character (their being prone doesn't matter for this purpose).
Solid fog on its own is great for flying creatures with average or worse maneuverability, because unless they're very high off the ground, they're going to stall and then hit the ground due to not being able to maintain their minimum forward speed. If you can then keep them on the ground, this is excellent.
My contingency is to teleport away if I'm about to lose control of my actions (for example, unconscious or dominated). I keep a dimension door and teleport prepared for daily travel on top of this.
Note that "Additionally, the master may cast a spell with a target of "You" on his familiar (as a touch range spell) instead of on himself." Therefore, your familiar functionally allows you to have a second contingency, though its usefulness is limited by the fact that it needs to target the familiar. I have obscuring mist set to go off when I or my familiar make a particular tongue motion. It makes for a decent panic button that doesn't require you to flee the scene.
Further notes for familiars: I haven't come upon one in this campaign, but rings of spell storing (or other no-UMD-required spell firing items) are a great way to use your familiar to gain actions. Harkening back to illusions, one of the simplest things you can have your familiar do is cast silent image with its action, and put you and it in an illusory stone box (or something similar). Because a "figment or phantasm remains as a translucent outline" to someone who knows it to be unreal, you're able to see out of your box and cast through it just fine (just don't, say, shoot an arrow, ray, or similar thing through the illusion, otherwise you'll likely spoil it), whereas anyone that doesn't interact with it or disbelieve it somehow can't target you inside it. Even if your DM wants to rule they can shoot at it, you can 5' move to a different square each round, and if they pick the wrong square then their attack doesn't matter.
While rings of spell storing are great for their versatility, in general, think of your familiar as a source of extra magic item body slots, which is great for items such as hand of the mage. With the hand (which I also wish I had for this character), as a standard action your familiar can cast mage hand, and as a move action direct it in the same turn, excellent for creating distractions, and tons of other things (in combat uses for mage hand could have its own thread). Also, if you choose to multiclass into loremaster to pick up UMD as a class skill, because ravens can speak, arguably they can use wands.
Spell loadout at level 12 generally looks something like this:
Level 0
Prestidigitation x2
Mage hand
Message
Ghost sound
Level 1
Mage armor (cast shortly after day begins)
Magic missile x2
Grease x2
Feather fall
Silent image
Unprepared
Level 2
Rope trick
Invisibility
Glitterdust
Web
Minor image
Alter self
Unprepared
Level 3
Lightning bolt x2
Protection from energy
Sleet storm
Displacement
Wind wall
Unprepared
Level 4
Greater invisibilty
Dimension door
Solid fog
Polymorph
Black tentacles
Unprepared
Level 5
Extended stoneskin
Overland flight (cast shortly after day begins)
Cloudkill
Teleport
Quickened grease
Quickened shield
Level 6
Acid fog
Summon monster 6
Quickened glitterdust
Quickened fog cloud
As you can probably tell, I prefer to let the other members of my party be the primary damage dealers. Throughout all levels I've done what I can to prevent myself from being targeted in the first place
There are some clunkers in here that I found scrolls of and scribed for giggles, and there are a few spells I haven't found that I'd enjoy having, but on the whole I'm satisfied with it. Here's my full spellbook:
Level 1
Alarm
Animate rope
Color spray
Comprehend languages
Detect secret doors
Endure elements
Feather fall
Grease
Mage armor
Magic missile
Obscuring mist
Reduce person
Shield
Silent image
Summon monster 1
Unseen servant (don't underestimate this spell in and out of combat, I keep a couple high CL scrolls of it)
Ventriloquism
Level 2
Acid arrow
Alter self
Arcane lock (have a scroll of this, great for sealing a door behind you)
Bear's endurance
Bull's strength
Cat's grace
Detect thoughts
Energy resistance
Fog cloud
Fox's cunning
Gust of wind
Invisibility
Knock
Mirror image
Rope trick
Scorching ray
Shatter
Summon monster 2
Web
Level 3
Arcane sight
Blink
Displacement
Fireball
Fly
Haste
Magic weapon, greater
Major image
Phantom steed
Protection from energy
Sleet storm
Summon monster 3
Wind wall
Level 4
Arcane eye
Black tentacles
Dimension door
Enlarge person, mass
Invisibility, greater
Minor creation
Polymorph
Resilient sphere
Scrying
Shout
Solid fog
Summon monster 4
Level 5
Cloudkill
Cone of cold
Overland flight
Passwall
Persistent image
Secret chest
Summon monster 5
Telepathic bond
Teleport
Transmute mud to rock
Transmute rock to mud
Wall of stone
Level 6
Acid fog
Contingency
Summon monster 6
True seeing
Note that while polymorph inherits from alter self, it is merely preventing you from using the monster's hit dice, so you're still stuck using your squishy D4 hit dice. For instance, you don't open up the MM, see that a behir has 94 HP, and that's what your current HP score becomes, it's still based off of your own hit dice and [temporary] con score, regardless of what it says that monster's HP is in the MM. I understand this comes off as a dubious use of an already powerful spell, but the commentary from one of 3.5's core designers, while not RAW itself, does show clear intent for how the spell is to be properly interpreted.
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