Optimized Fire Wizard/Sorcerer?

[MissJynx]

Hey there!

I'm now looking to build a level 10-ish Boss for my party. I want her to be a very powerful spellcaster, based on fire damage. She will also have mobs to "protect her", so she does not really need high AC.

I was looking to make her either thiefling or fire genasi.

Any tips?

Thanks! :smallbiggrin:

[Brova]

There's a bunch of stuff you can do with fire. For a blaster, some combination of metamagic feats, Arcane Thesis, and caster level boosts should be fairly effective (note: Incantatrix is not super great here, unless you're going to use wands + item metamagic). For a summoner, I kind of like bumping Bonded Summoner up to full progression for a nice big mook. You can do a respectable fire based gish with Persist + Fell Drain + body of the sun.

[GreatDane]

Definitely check out Sandstorm's Searing Spell feat. It lets you ignore fire resistance (and still deal half damage to immune targets) for only a +1 spell level adjustment.

[Inevitability]

Bloodline of Fire is a possible feat here. Both races you list qualify for it.

Sudden Maximize is also a very, very, good feat for boss fights. Take for example a Maximized Fireburst, for 80 fire damage (reflex half) to all enemies near you. At 10th level, only tanks and fire-resistant PC's are going to survive that if they fail the save.

[Troacctid]

Pick out a small handful of fire spells to use during the fight. They don't have to be existing spells; feel free to design custom ones that fit your NPC's style.

Make use of the environment. If the fight happens inside an active volcano with lava flumes and heat dangers—with the NPC being immune to fire, of course—you win extra style points for being cinematic.

Plan in advance how long you want the combat to last, and adjust the NPC's damage output and HP accordingly. (Don't worry about boosting their hit dice or Con, just give them a bunch of extra HP. You can do that. It's allowed.) I strongly recommend a lower damage output and higher HP rather than the reverse. Glass cannons are not conducive to dynamic, exciting fights. When both sides can knock out the enemy in one or two hits, the battle is mostly decided by initiative rolls, and players feel like they don't have much influence over the outcome.

As a fire mage, the character will most likely focus on area attacks (fireballs and explosions) and damage-over-time (lighting you on fire), maybe with some debuffs targeting Fortitude (heat dangers, smoke, blinding flashes). They may use smoke to impair vision and gain concealment, which is great for them, since their big AoE blasts let them ignore it.

[nedz]

Use Energy Substitution on spells which are normally based on some other element.

You are aware though that your Boss will be very easy to counter since the PCs will just cast Energy Resistance or similar, at which point the game is up.

[MissJynx]

Use Energy Substitution on spells which are normally based on some other element.

You are aware though that your Boss will be very easy to counter since the PCs will just cast Energy Resistance or similar, at which point the game is up.

To be fair, the party doesn't have any casters, at this point. They let their druid leave and the cleric died. Just trying to make them "sweat" for it, hehehe

[Flickerdart]

Consider that a blaster mage is actually not a super great enemy - if sufficiently optimized, she could reap a PC every turn with little in the way of middle ground between full HP and dead.

I would instead play up two aspects of fire. One is that fire makes a great obstacle - spells like wall of fire control the battlefield by both dissuading the PCs from going in a certain direction, and concealing what's happening behind the wall. Pyrotechnics blinds and chokes. Fire elementals are excellent disposable minions.

The other is that fire consumes gradually. Give her some damage-over-time spells or poisons/diseases fluffed as fire, and watch your PCs struggle to douse themselves. Never underestimate the psychological effect of your HP falling slowly and predictably towards 0.