The "Killer Jeweler" build.

[tadkins]

This would just be the bare bones of an idea I came up with just now.

Gnome, either Cleric or Wizard with Arcane Disciple for the Gembomb spell in the Gnome Domain.
Gembomb spell, metamagic'ed up the yin-yang.
Maxxed Craft (Gemcutting) skill.
Attune Gem feat.

Would probably have to account for some trips to the Elemental Plane of Earth for gem supply runs as part of the concept. This could be fun I think, but in terms of effectiveness, how well do you guys think this would work? Anything additional I can add/tweak?

[Snowbluff]

Well, low damage with SR and a Save. It sounds like Hail of Stone is just a better spell.

Can you throw more gembombs with TWF and a full attack?

Grar, it's 10 min/level. I wish that was longer for stacking up a stockpile.

Incantatrix is obvious for MM. Spelldancer, too. Residual Magic is nice for this.

Arcane Disciple only lets you cast it once, right?

[tadkins]

Arcane Disciple only lets you cast it once, right?

Hmm, I'm actually not sure. Didn't account for this. As a domain spell there'd only be one cast a day. Gotta be ways to get more of it though, no?

[Snowbluff]

A loose reading of Extra Spell?

[WhamBamSam]

Go Archivist if you want to be a divine caster. Get one scroll of it and it's in your prayer book and works like any other spell.

If you want to be an arcane caster, then be the prepared kind and take two levels of Wyrm Wizard (Wu Jen might be fun, since your Body Outside Body clones should be able to toss gembombs even if they can't cast the spell to make them), or else use the Domain Access Sorcerer variant (Complete Champion I think) which lets you just take the domain spells as spells known and not be stuck with a limit to the number of times per day they can be cast.

[tadkins]

Archivist

This might actually be the way to go. Would open up more race options too. I wonder if Dark Knowledge/Knowledge Devotion as well as the above feats that Snowbluff mentioned could all be worked in conjunction to buff Gembomb's effectiveness. Turn this character into the most pro of gem-chuckers. xD

[Inevitability]

Fun fact: The material component of Gembomb can be Eschewed. Eschew Materials says that you don't need any components costing 1 GP or less. Gembomb needs a gem at least 1 GP in worth. This means you can turn gems with virtually no value at all into bombs, making this tactic far more interesting.

EDIT: Also, if you take leadership and make all of your followers wizards/duskblades with Precocious Apprentice (Gembomb) you can get a small army of gem-throwers. Then again, they can only do it 1/day...

[Sewercop]

Reserves of strength to remove the cap on damage and you can use this more effective :)

[Uncle Pine]

If you're willingly to lock yourself into the arcane path of the gemcutter gembomber and create a cabal of gembombers, things could get interesting:

A necropolitan something X/Red Wizard 10 with Reserves of Strength has a CL floor of 48*, which translates into 24d8 damage gembombs (this requires a literal reading of the Reserves of Strength feat, otherwise your gembombs will only deal 6d8 damage). You can also Empower, Intensify and Maximize your gembombs for free and get your own cabal of gembombers.
If you and each of your fellow gembombers take Cooperative Spells, you get a whooping +18 DC bonus and a +9 to CL to beat SR.
A CL 48 Gembomb spell has a duration of 480 minutes, or 8 hours, which means that you can prepare your gembombs during the morning and toss them (almost) all day long. If you're worried, add Extend Spell or further boost your CL.
Gembomb is a [force] spell: [force] isn't an energy descriptor, so you can't apply Energy Substitution and Born of the Three Thunders to turn your gembombs into flash gembombs... or is it? Apply Snowcasting and Lord Of The Uttercold and suddenly your gembomb qualifies for Energy Substitution and Born of the Three Thunders! Remember that undead are healed from negative energy, so you should only prepare some flash gembombs and some normal gembombs to use against them. Moreover, flash gembombs comes at a hefty price: you need 5 feats for this to work (Born of the Three Thunders, Energy Substitution (cold), Energy Substitution (electricity), Lord of the Uttercold and Snowcasting). Add Flash Frost Fell if you feel like it (grease-like effect for 1 round plus 2 damage/spell level, or 40 bonus damage if you intensified one of your gembomb to 20th level for some reason).
Along with flash gembombs you can also get deafening gembombs (Deafening Spell), but they kinda suck in comparison.
Add Fell Drain. Because yes.
Ocular Spell and Split Ray can potentially double the number of gembombs you can prepare. Remember that you're not shooting gembombs from your eyes: you're preparing your gembombs twice as fast by shooting them with brilliant energy from your eyes.
Obviously Arcane Thesis: an ocular (+1) split (+1) cooperative (-1) fell drain (+1) gembomb spell nets you 2 24d8 (or 6d8) gembombs with a 4th level slot. An ocular (+1) split (+1) cooperative (-1) fell drain (+1) snowcasting lord of the uttercold (-1) energy substitution (electricity) (-1) born of the three thunders (-1) gembomb is a 1st 2nd level spell (as per errata) that gives you 2 flash gembombs! Add Invisible Spell to make that a 0th slot and go crazy with Arcane Manipulation (how do 108 extra flash gembombs/day sound?). Damn errata, although it still remains a flashy way to use a 2nd level slot.
Unfortunately, you can't apply Chain Spell and Enlarge Spell to Gembomb (I guess gembombers can't have nice things).

*I'm not entirely sure about this: the Italian DMG seems to imply that the CL boost from circle magic applies to all your spells for the day (while the free metamagic effects explicitly work on single spells), but I can't check the original text because Red Wizard isn't in the SRD (thank you WotC). If the CL boost applies only to a single spell Red Wizard becomes a suboptimal (albeit cool) option: take Incantatrix instead and go crazy with even more metamagic reduction do something else, as Incantatrix can't reduce metamagic modifiers to +0 or lower and you can't go under 2nd level slot with Arcane Thesis. A CL 23 Gembomb does 11d8 force damage anyway, so it's not entirely useless.

[Sewercop]

Metamagic dont reduce levels beyond intial level like that. So not a 1st lvl spell

[Uncle Pine]

Metamagic dont reduce levels beyond intial level like that. So not a 1st lvl spell

Correction: some metamagic reducers (like Incantatrix) don't. Arcane Thesis (http://www.realmshelps.net/cgi-bin/featbox.pl?feat=Arcane_Thesis) definitely does as it lacks a line that says otherwise.

[Feint's End]

Metamagic dont reduce levels beyond intial level like that. So not a 1st lvl spell

Actually yes they do by completely sticking to RAW albeit it is highly unlikely to fly at any reasonable table and will more likely get books thrown at you.

[Uncle Pine]

Actually yes they do by completely sticking to RAW albeit it is highly unlikely to fly at any reasonable table and will more likely get books thrown at you.

It's not even "sticking to RAW": it's both RAW and RAI as there is no different interpretation possible for the feat's description. Although you'll still get book thrown at you if you try abusing it.

[Waddacku]

Arcane Thesis can't reduce a spell below it's original level. That's RAW. Errata is a thing.

[nedz]

Arcane Disciple only lets you cast it once, right?

Yes, though it is in two domains (Gnome and Trade) so for two feats you could cast it twice.

1/day is adequate for making Wands though, however using Metamagic with Wands requires still more resources.

This works better via Cleric since this is only a domain spell — but you still need some means of casting this out of non-domain slots, or you are stuck with the 1/day here too. This is, at least, easier — just the one feat, IIRC there are a couple of choices.

[Uncle Pine]

Arcane Thesis can't reduce a spell below it's original level. That's RAW. Errata is a thing.
You're right. I should read erratas more often. Still, a heavily metamagiced 2nd level spell is still better than a plain 2nd level spell.


Yes, though it is in two domains (Gnome and Trade) so for two feats you could cast it twice.

1/day is adequate for making Wands though, however using Metamagic with Wands requires still more resources.

This works better via Cleric since this is only a domain spell — but you still need some means of casting this out of non-domain slots, or you are stuck with the 1/day here too. This is, at least, easier — just the one feat, IIRC there are a couple of choices.

Recaster and Wyrm Wizard can add Gembomb to your list if you're a wizard/sorcerer. The Spontaneous Domain Casting ACF lets you convert any of your prepared spells into one of your domain spells if you're a cleric.

EDIT: Is there any English user that can confirm whether or not Red Wizard CL boost apply to a single spell or not?

[nedz]

EDIT: Is there any English user that can confirm whether or not Red Wizard CL boost apply to a single spell or not?

For the duration of the circle — so all spells.

[tadkins]

The Spontaneous Domain Casting ACF lets you convert any of your prepared spells into one of your domain spells if you're a cleric.



Just wondering, how would this one work with metamagic? Can you spontaneously throw a bunch of Gembombs at different levels with varying metamagic applications?

[Uncle Pine]

Just wondering, how would this one work with metamagic? Can you spontaneously throw a bunch of Gembombs at different levels with varying metamagic applications?

You choose which metamagic feats to apply on the spot:

Sorcerers and Bards
Sorcerers and bards choose spells as they cast them. They can choose when they cast their spells whether to apply their metamagic feats to improve them. As with other spellcasters, the improved spell uses up a higher-level spell slot. But because the sorcerer or bard has not prepared the spell in a metamagic form in advance, he must apply the metamagic feat on the spot. Therefore, such a character must also take more time to cast a metamagic spell (one enhanced by a metamagic feat) than he does to cast a regular spell. If the spell’s normal casting time is 1 standard action, casting a metamagic version is a full-round action for a sorcerer or bard. (This isn’t the same as a 1-round casting time.)

For a spell with a longer casting time, it takes an extra full-round action to cast the spell.

Spontaneous Casting and Metamagic Feats
A cleric spontaneously casting a cure or inflict spell can cast a metamagic version of it instead. Extra time is also required in this case. Casting a 1-action metamagic spell spontaneously is a full-round action, and a spell with a longer casting time takes an extra full-round action to cast.
Note that in the Gembomb case "on the spot" means "when you create the gembomb", not "when you throw it".

[nedz]

Recaster and Wyrm Wizard can add Gembomb to your list if you're a wizard/sorcerer. The Spontaneous Domain Casting ACF lets you convert any of your prepared spells into one of your domain spells if you're a cleric.

The feats I was thinking of don't help. Another option though is to play a Spontaneous Cleric — from UA, or the SRD here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/spontaneousDivineCasters.htm).

[tadkins]

Thank you everyone for your contributions. :)

I think I'm leaning toward a Gnome Archivist with a thing for gembombing. Mainly as a side but signature thing to do in between all the neat T1 stuff that they're expected to do.

Any suggestions on feats/tricks I could do, with this foundation? I'm thinking of focusing on Knowledges and then buffing Gembomb's effectiveness with Dark Knowledge/Knowledge Devotion, but I'm not 100% on how well that'd work. Any thoughts?

[Uncle Pine]

Any suggestions on feats/tricks I could do, with this foundation? I'm thinking of focusing on Knowledges and then buffing Gembomb's effectiveness with Dark Knowledge/Knowledge Devotion, but I'm not 100% on how well that'd work. Any thoughts?

Reserves of Strength is a must. For the rest, see my post above and cherry-pick as desired.

[tadkins]

Reserves of Strength is a must. For the rest, see my post above and cherry-pick as desired.

Roger that! Could you tell me where Reserves of Strength might be found? Would normally use Dndtools in this situation, but...yeah. :(

[Uncle Pine]

Roger that! Could you tell me where Reserves of Strength might be found? Would normally use Dndtools in this situation, but...yeah. :(

Dragonlance campaign setting.

[tadkins]

Dragonlance campaign setting.

Thank you kindly. You've been very helpful.

Going to hold onto this post for when I get a chance to play this character. xD

[Uncle Pine]

Thank you kindly. You've been very helpful.

Going to hold onto this post for when I get a chance to play this character. xD

You're welcome. I think I'll probably end up building a NPC like this for my campaign or dumping this build into the "characters I'll never play because I'm always the DM" pile. :smallbiggrin:

[tadkins]

You're welcome. I think I'll probably end up building a NPC like this for my campaign or dumping this build into the "characters I'll never play because I'm always the DM" pile. :smallbiggrin:

If you ever do play something like this, tell me how it goes. xD

[Uncle Pine]

If you ever do play something like this, tell me how it goes. xD
Sure do, although it'll probably require some time: if I'll use it in the current campaign, the PCs will first need to gather the 5 Gems of Power, defeat the dethroned evil king and his minions and escape the d&d world defeating Death, thus returning to the Real World. After that, they still need to end up in a place were a group of crazy rich people so bored that they had to found a cabal of gembombers just to find a way to blow their money would make sense (I'm thinking of something like Egypt, Turkey or Dubai).