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Neon Knight
2007-01-29, 10:28 PM
So I recently began Dming and have started receiving character sheets. So far, all the characters I have received have been fairly balanced against one another.

And then I hit my trouble, the reason I posted this.

His character is a Ranger 3/ Warmage 3. I know that I committed a serious error when I allowed the War Mage class (from Complete Arcana) without looking it over.

Could someone give me some advice on the strength's and weaknesses of the Warmage class?

Rigeld2
2007-01-29, 10:41 PM
Its a blaster. Thats all it does. And multiclassing it with Ranger means it does it poorly.

Treat it like you would a Wizard with a gimpy spellbook. The Warmage Edge lets him do a little more damage than he normally would, but nothing exceptional, and Wizards shouldnt be doing damage anyway.

oriong
2007-01-29, 10:43 PM
Yeah, by splitting his casting in half he's more than weakened himself enough for you. sacrificed a whole spell level right there, by the time he's getting 3rd level spells the wizard would be getting 4th, at best.

PinkysBrain
2007-01-29, 10:51 PM
Warmage is a pure blaster, and as such unplayable as a gish (which rely on spells which synergize with martial combat, which blasting does not). It's name and it's ability to wear armor without ASF is rather annoying in that regard, it leads people towards very poor characters such as this.

Basically he won't be able to do very good damage with spells (practiced spellcaster helps a little, but only a little) and his lowered BAB combined with MAD and a complete lack of buff spells means he isn't very effective in martial combat either. He has 2 classes which in combat are mainly aimed at direct damage, with only one of them being able to be used in any given round and with both detracting from the other's ability to accomplish it.

Zincorium
2007-01-29, 11:07 PM
So I recently began Dming and have started receiving character sheets. So far, all the characters I have received have been fairly balanced against one another.

And then I hit my trouble, the reason I posted this.

His character is a Ranger 3/ Warmage 3. I know that I committed a serious error when I allowed the War Mage class (from Complete Arcana) without looking it over.

Could someone give me some advice on the strength's and weaknesses of the Warmage class?

Weaknesses? No. Defensive. Spells. Ranger is not the ultimate defensive class, and it would pretty much need to be to make a warmage viable in a standard campaign. There's a reason it was put in the Miniatures Handbook, it's excellent for dealing damage as a 'tim' type of character in a tactical wargame.

In the typical dungeon, a warmage is going to be hanging in back and trying to get off a decent spell without killing a wounded party member.

Turcano
2007-01-29, 11:22 PM
As other people have pointed out, your fears of cheese are completely unjustified. Not only is the warmage a comparatively lame class, your "problem" player pissed away half his caster levels. If anything, you may have to worry about him being underpowered in comparison to the rest of the party.

Darrin
2007-01-29, 11:34 PM
Could someone give me some advice on the strength's and weaknesses of the Warmage class?

Strengths: None. Worst BAB, worst skill points, second worst HD, only one good save, only simple weapons, and a spell selection that makes a bard look useful.

Weaknesses: Pretty much everything.

The one distinguishing trait is the ability to wear armor (easily duplicated with one feat or couple PrCs), but with the worst possible BAB and only d6 hit points, you're odds of survival in melee are just barely above wet kleenex. If you really want to gish and wear armor, there are much more effective builds. Battle Sorcerer, Hexblade, or Duskblade, for example.

The Sudden Metamagic stuff is slightly useful, but only usable once per day, which most folks around here tend to sneer at. It's a slight improvement over the feats the Sorcerer gets (that is, none) but you're better off going straight wizard, picking up metamagic every 3 or 5 levels, and taking a feat or PrC that allows you to wear armor, if that's what you really want to do.

As has been repeatedly pointed out in previous threads, spellcasters who focus on direct damage spells are suboptimal and ineffective.

Bears With Lasers
2007-01-29, 11:34 PM
Exactly. His weaknesses are that he's fragile and has no real defenses against anything. His strengths are... well, he HAS no strengths. He can do small quantities of damage each round, whether in melee or at ranged. Except him to be consistently subpar at both. You might want to have a talk to him about being afraid that he's worse than the other characters (unless they're likewise gimped).

oriong
2007-01-29, 11:42 PM
Now, at low levels he could manage to be fairly effective, the ranger's combat ability will let him threaten monsters in the CR 4-7 range relatively well, and he'll be at least moderately sucessful at resisting those attacks. The spells he has are all damage focused, but before level 7 or 8 that can be acceptable since damage is a fairly viable way to go. I certainly hope he at least picked up practised spellcaster. He is nowhere near the most effective, but he won't be a gaping waste of space.

In the long term however he's in trouble, he'll either stop progressing as a Ranger and end up losing 3 spellcasting levels for almost no gain (+3 Bab, some extra hit points, and the very first combat style abilities), it'll rapidly become insignificant, or he'll go with the mixture and keep advancing both, being incredibly subpar at casting and only about as good at fighting as a bard.

clericwithnogod
2007-01-30, 12:55 AM
Strengths: Can do direct damage with a variety of energy types in a variety of shapes. Has Evard's Black Tentacles, which rocks. If you use PHBII, can pick up some other types of spells, albeit at a higher level than a caster with those spells on their list. Has a ton of spells per day. Combined with Versatile Spellcaster, you can shell the crap out of opponents.

Weaknesses: Crappy BAB, making it suck at Orbs compared to a Spellsword/Eldritch Knight combo. Assay Spell Resistance isn't on their list, so you don't have a reliable way of getting out damage against SR. Gets spells later than a wizard. After a certain point, it seems like everything in the game is resistant to multiple energy types, leaving you in a lot of situations where you can't find an appropriate energy type spell of the right shape and power level. New evocations and other Warmage appropriate spells haven't been added to their list. So, even with advanced learning, you're left somewhat lacking at your primary focus. They can't do anything useful with their weapon and probably don't have the strength to wear much armor. And, their Warmage Edge is based off their non-casting stat. It looks like someone designed an interesting class and someone else came by and made all of the abilities just for show.

For all that, you can have a party that gets by with a Warmage as the sole arcane caster and a cleric with domains to cover some utility roles. It's much, much, easier if a Warlock prestiges to something to expand his spell selection. You don't need to be optimized to get through most stuff in the game.

But, if he's three and three Ranger/Warmage, he's going to have trouble being meaningful in encounters. Is he shooting for Daggerspell Mage or something?

Neon Knight
2007-01-30, 07:27 AM
Well, I'm glad I was worried for nothing.

Artanis
2007-01-30, 10:31 AM
Here's a description I saw somewhere that seems to sum up the Warmage pretty well:

The Warmage isn't really an arcane caster, but instead is basically just an archer with really really neat arrows. He's got exploding arrows, and freezing arrows, and never-miss arrows. But they're still all just flashy arrows.

Telok
2007-01-30, 11:04 AM
It may be that the player is planning on taking the Dagger Spell Mage or Arcane Archer PrC, or he could just gowith split classes. While none of the three choices are power build optimal all are prefectly acceptable choices for a character. He probably won't be a shining star who steals the spotlight every other fight, but he will contribute to the success of the party if he's not a total idiot and you don't run too many monsters with high SR.

Chris_Chandler
2007-01-30, 11:17 AM
I agree - the build isn't terribly powerful, but it is an offensive-minded build. If he took the archery chain for ranger he could reasonably be a decent artillerist. If that fits into the group, why not? He's not going to be breaking the game, and, as long as he isn't blasting the party when he blasts the baddies, it shouldn't be an issue.

JaronK
2007-01-30, 01:19 PM
God, that's a seriously underpowered build. You're actually going to have trouble allowing him to actually contribute. Warmage is already a very weak class... they're basically sorcerers that don't get any of the best sorcerer spells, and instead get a wide variety of the same kind of spells (blast spells). As others have said, they don't function like arcane casters... they function like archers with a limited number of arrows. A Warmage 6 would be a useful little damage dealer that doesn't have near the raw power of a Wizard or even Sorcerer 6, but would be at least helpful.

However, a Ranger 3/Warmage 3 has horrendous MAD (Warmages need Charisma and Int. Rangers need Wisdom, Strength, Con, and Dex. Huston, we have a problem). His casting is terrible, as he's already three levels behind, so he's a gimped version of an already weak class. He also doesn't work as a Ranger... poor BAB is not helpful for melee or archery classes.

As a result, this guy is going to be incredibly weak.

JaronK

shaka gl
2007-01-30, 02:19 PM
Has he seen the Duskblade(PHBII)? Maybe theres a solution...

Person_Man
2007-01-30, 02:34 PM
Ranger/Warmage? Wow, that sucks. What are the other players? A Bard/Monk, A Warlock/Healer, and a Samauri/Wu-Jen?