wizard or sorcerer? why not a third option? Magus

[Nessa Ellenesse]

I have a daughter she is now six years old. Since about the time she was two or three her favorite response to an either or question has been "little both". She has gotten considerably more articulate since then, but the response basically remains the same. Well that's my response to sorcerer or wizard and Ultimate Magus gives this to me. So maybe we should see how this stacks up to wizard or sorcerer?

[Gün]

Classic sorcerer + wizard entry only impedes your spell progression

Sadly, best way to utilize ultimate magus is entering it from full wizard imho. Grab some spontaneous casting on wizard via spontaneous divination or alacritous cogitation or some other way. Enter magus. Turbocharge your casting progression.

Or you might want to backport Arcanist from pathfinder if you are looking for best of Sorcerer and Wizard.

[Nessa Ellenesse]

The ultimate Magus I'm taking took into Castle Greyhawk seems to be doing all right. what you do is you take practiced spell caster to keep caster levels even so you can choose which class to add level 1,4 and 7 spell casting progression to

So far she's made it to level 14 She can prepare and cast 6th level spells and spontaniously cast 3rd

1 wizard1 feat colgic wizard
2 warmage2
3 wizard2 feat (praticed spellcaster warmage)
4 wizard3
5 wizard 4
6 wizard 5feat(point blank shot) bonus (extend spell)
7 ultimate magus 1 (wizard 6 cl 7 warmage 1 1 cl 6) spell power +1
8 magus 2 (wizard 7 cl 8 warmage 2 cl 7) added true casting to warmage spells
9 magus 3 (wizard 8 cl 9 warmage 3 cl 8) precice shot augmented casting *
10 magus 4 (wizard 8 cl10 warmage 4 cl 10) spell power +2 added whelming blast to warmage spells
11 magus 5 (wizard 9 cl11 warmage 5 cl 11) picked up sculpt spell
12 magus 6 (wizard 10 cl12 warmage 6 cl 12) weapon finesse added dispell magic to warmage
13 magus 7 (wizard 11 cl13 warmage 6 cl 14) spell power +3
14 magus 8 (wizard 12 cl14 warmage 7 cl 14) added melf's slumbering arrow to warmage

We are close to hitting 15 and I haven't decided what feat to get I'm playing a female elf so automatic weapons proficancies. I we did the 4d6 drop the lowest and I got really lucky on the die rolls so her stats are str 8 dex 18 con 12 Int 21 wis 15 and chra 18

I upped int at 4 and 8 chra at 12 I managed to find an artifact that granted me one wish I used it to improve chra While in castle Zagig uppped her int by 1 I won't say why but it was something she did and it was written in the module

[Gün]

If you play well you can even be alright with full monk. Okay maybe not with monk. :smallbiggrin:

May I ask for your build? I don't want to make assumptions before making comparisons.

[Nessa Ellenesse]

One last side note, the dice I used to roll up my character have been banned from the game, both because they roll reliably high and they are metal.

[Gün]

Any chance for me to acquire them?

We have party of constant below 5 rollers with a dm who never rolls below 15.

[JET73L]

I find Magus to be good in theory (and it looks like your daughter is doing okay with it). A minimally-optimized Magus (mostly the entry requirements) is slightly worse than a minimally-optimized full Wizard, but a decently- or extremely-optimized Magus seems like it would be better than any equivalent Wizard.

For many people, too, flavour wins over power. In that case, it's better to be a Sorcerer-Wizard than a Sorcerer OR a Wizard even if you're slightly handicapped in some aspects compared to each class (though any of the three are better than a Sorcerer AND Wizard in the same person).

[Nessa Ellenesse]

For me it's a matter of flexibility over power. I when playing a single class wizard I found that I could generally predict which defensive spells would serve me best each day, however I had no clue what offensive spells to prep. With the wizard war mage combo I can prep my defensive/ utilitarian spells on wizard rely on war mage for a wide array of offensive spells from and prepare a few offensive spells on wizard to plug and gaps. I find that my charater is generally ready for almost anything. In the last two encounters in the expidetion to castle greyhawk finale it was her abilty to spontainosly cast shatter that got the party passed the diamond golems standing between the party and the god trap. What defeated the silmulacrum on the other side was a combination of her wizard spells, her warmage spells, having coordingated spell prep with the cleric that morning and good teamwork.

Without being able to cast shatter over and over again the golems would have been a lot harder to defeat.

Our DM gave the simulacrum superior invisibility out of the spell compendium so having access to dispell magic which a single class warmage would not, came in handy. My character brought down her invisibility and the rest of the party brought her down.


Theory? Played right and built right, Magus is awesome bordering on opedness

[Honest Tiefling]

I take it you guys do not use Pathfinder, because the Arcanist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/arcanist) seems right up her alley, but probably lacks many optimization options. I still feel as if I should suggest it, particularly if she ever plays with people who don't have awesome parents to make them awesome characters.

[Gün]

Or you might want to backport Arcanist from pathfinder if you are looking for best of Sorcerer and Wizard.

:smallbiggrin:

I am playing a level 12 Arcanist for a Pathfinder campaign right now. Arcane exploits are neat and if you want you can focus on being more sorcerous then wizardry.

But limited prepared spell slots are killing me right know.

[Story]

Beguiler is more attractive because of the Int synergy, but I suppose Warmage works too.

It seems like the blasting would be pretty weak though. You might as well just do a normal Wizard with Uncanny Forethought and choose some useful spells for mastery like Orb of Fire.

If you're not tied to blasting specifically, just prepare Polymorph. There's pretty much no situation in which Polymorph is not useful. Heck, I think there's a form somewhere that can shatter crystal objects.