Help a dead wizard pick another class

[NickTheGreek3]

I have a friend that loves blasters. With the exception of a TWF scout (that he didn't really enjoy), he has played 2 wizards and 1 sorcerer in a single campaign. Last session, his evoker kicked the bucket at the hands of a dread necromancer (who happened to be his last character's father), after the rest of the party got devoured by ghasts (only the monk/ninja survived by literally hiding in a closet :smallbiggrin:).

Now, along with the hilarious possibility of facing two of his former characters as undead abominations (lol :smallbiggrin:), he's facing the challenge of making a character that is not a sorcerer or wizard (after specific instructions from the DM). His playstyle is all about dealing massive damage.

Hit me with some recommendations. All 3.5 non-psionic content is allowed, preferably something not evil.

[Strigon]

Isn't this basically what Warlocks do?
They blast and blast and blast, all day long?

Granted, they lack some of the AOE oomph of a sorc/wiz, but as I understand they're quite fun anyway.

[Albions_Angel]

Duskblades are fantastic out of the box gishes with some incredible damage potential when partnered with a buffing caster. Warlocks dont do massive damage but there are some nice builds, including the blasty hellfire warlock and the slashy glave/claw lock. Archivist is cool.

Wu Jen. Pick something that isnt the fire element. Wood and Metal have some fun "blasting" spells. You could try warmage? Doesnt Mystic Ranger get some interesting things he can do with arrows?

[Hiro Quester]

If he likes doing massive damage, and being hard to kill, a Druid can do all that.

They gave some excellent direct damage spells, as well as many natural disasters (earthquake, control winds).

And instead of just blasting you can also drop a group of large earth elementals into a scene to beat face.

Plus then you in bear wildshape and your bear buddy can tear the enemies to pieces.

Edit: plus it's easy to fluff a Druids as having a hatred of unnatural abominations that undead represent. And they have some good spells that are extra-nasty to undead (sunburst, sunbeam).

[Eldariel]

Any kind of martial type such as Barbarian, Warblade, Crusader or Swordsage would probably be right up his alley. It's very easy to do ridiculous amounts of damage with Barbarian and pretty high with the others. Alternatively, Cleric and Druid buffed for battle are of course amazing.

One option that could tickle his fancy is Artificer specialized on nuking with Wands ("Wandificer"): instead of preparing spells, you build a Wand (you can have your Dedicated Wright crafting stuff for you constantly), metamagic the living hell out of it and show something the way to oblivion. As a bonus, you could also craft your own items and party's items and get free craft XP and not be supersquishy and so on. Wand Mastery [ECS Feat], Double Wand Wielder [CArc Feat], Metamagic Item [Artificer Infusion], Metamagic Trigger [Artificer Ability] and stuff like Twin Spell + Energy Admixture + Quicken Spell + Split Ray + Empower Spell makes for a rather delicious set of booms from rather affordable Wands. Then it's just a matter of picking out the metamagic feats as feats and making Wands cheap (this handbook (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1000.0) goes into detail on the various options), using your crafting abilities and tools to stay alive and going boom city.

[GrayDeath]

I'd.go.warlock.
Simply, fun, and usually underestimated.

[NickTheGreek3]

I forgot to mention that I am rolling a Duskblade, and the party's former cleric will probably roll a druid, so those options are out.

I don't think any pure martial class can compete with the damage of a wizard. The guy is used to throwing handfuls of d6, so a regular weapon will probably not cut it.

I also suggested rolling a cleric, but he won't unless it's a cleric specialized in dealing damage (he "won't be a healbot").

Warlock is a nice suggestion. Wu Jen and Artificer look interesting.

[Eldariel]

I forgot to mention that I am rolling a Duskblade, and the party's former cleric will probably roll a druid, so those options are out.

I don't think any pure martial class can compete with the damage of a wizard. The guy is used to throwing handfuls of d6, so a regular weapon will probably not cut it.

Does he care more about the number of dice than the actual damage? 'cause while a Barbarian might not throw a lot of dice, let's make a quick character:

AnyRace Barbarian 4/Fighter 2

18 Str (19 on level 4, 23 with a +2 item)

Feats:
1. Power Attack
3. Extra Rage (or anything)
Fighter Bonus. Improved Bull Rush
6. Shock Trooper
Fighter Bonus. Leap Attack

Alternative Class Features:
Lion Totem Barbarian: Lose Fast Movement, gain Pounce
Whirling Frenzy (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/classFeatureVariants.htm#rageVariantWhirlingFrenzy ): Trade Rage for Whirling Frenzy

Give him a Masterwork Guisarme (or Greatsword or Falchion or whatever). He Frenzies, his Strength is now 27 and he can do an extra attack with all at -2. His BAB is 6/1 and his Strength gives him +8, with +1 from the weapon. Thus he can Charge and get 3 attacks at +13/+13/+8. Thanks to Shock Trooper he can Power Attack for full and take that as a penalty in his AC instead of To Hit. Thanks to Leap Attack, he gets 4 points of damage per a point lost to Power Attack. Thus, taking 6 penalty to AC gives him +24 damage per attack. In addition, he has +8 Strength for +12 damage on a two-handed weapon. Overall, his attack run looks like:

+13/+13/+8 for 2d4+36 at 20/x3

Average AC for CR6 enemies is 19 and Charge gives +2 more, so our level 6 Barbarian averages 104 damage on the Charge. If it were an Orc (pumping the Strength by further +4), it would look at +17/+17/+12 for 2d4+39 for an average of 126 damage. And yeah, his AC suffers but he has a lot of HP plus reach (meaning attacks of opportunity and the option to trip if enemies try to close in), and a very good chance of deadifying targets before they can hit back. Can even take Cleave to hit multiples on a charge.


Take it from someone who wrote a handbook on the subject: Barbarians can certainly do damage :smallwink:

[ComaVision]

Warmage, it's just a blaster w/ a little bit of armor.

[NickTheGreek3]

No need to convince me, I know what a barbarian can do. But he'll simply answer "an empowered Fireball can deal more than that at level 10, in everything within 20ft". We're currently mid-level (around level 10-11), so casters are really powerful.


Warmage, it's just a blaster w/ a little bit of armor.
Meh, warmage is the same character he played before but with less utility spells.

[ComaVision]

Meh, warmage is the same character he played before but with less utility spells.

So go into some prestige classes that expand the spell list.

[WhiteBread]

So how about a Psion from 3.5? :D They can go NOVA for a round.

[NickTheGreek3]

So go into some prestige classes that expand the spell list.
What I mean is that it's the same character he played before. The whole point is for him to play something different.


So how about a Psion from 3.5? :D They can go NOVA for a round.
"All 3.5 non-psionic content is allowed"

[Albions_Angel]

What I mean is that it's the same character he played before. The whole point is for him to play something different.

I mean, he plays blasters, wants to play a blaster, and there arnt all that many different plasters. You can have Wizard, Sorc, or something thats kinda of like a Wizard or a Sorc. Special mention goes to warlock, who can blast all day, every day, and the Druid, who you can butcher and turn into a blaster, but frankly its probably what they are worst at.

I mean I think you can make a Factotum into a blaster, but then you just have a Sorcerer. Archivist can blast. But only from scrolls and wands. Artificier can make things that blast. But then you might as well play a warforged sorcerer.

The only thing I can think of that has a lot of damage dice but isnt, you know, a blaster, is Duskblade, which you have ruled out.

Even if Psionics was allowed, its just refluffed magic with the ability to blow all your daily spells in one round.

If he wants to play something different, he has to give up the AoE massive numbers of dice, in favour of single target huge damage. If he wants to play a blaster, well he can play a Wiz, a Sorc, or something smaller and more focused.

Honorable mentions go to the Dragon Fire Adept. With the right feats, a DFA can become a blaster with some amazing levels of precision, but you are still just an AoE warlock.

[meemaas]

I suggest a Warmage taking the Rainbow Servant Prestige class. It's possible to enter at level 2, and at level 11 gives him spontaneous casting off the Cleric list alongside what he wants to do. It'll give him all the options you seem to want him to have, while letting him keep the options he wants.

Most importantly, as a Cha-based Spontaneous caster, he'll have more spell slots thsn he knows what to do with, so he'll be able to do anything out of combat that doesn't require rolling handfuls of D6s.

If he doesn't want to look over the Cleric list for spells, note some good utility spells for him, without listing the cure spells, since you did note he didnt want to be a healbot

Edit:Bonus points for Spontaneous Heal to help him annihilate his previous characters, and Harm for anything living, albeit in a few levels

[Hiro Quester]

Another option to consider would be a bard 9 virtuoso1/ sublime chord2/ virtuoso 9. A buffer/blaster with a music/magic synchrony going on.

Sublime chord picks up up sorcerer wizard spells and virtuoso extends that to 9th level, while giving musical buffing/debuffung abilities Plus all the sixth level bard spells he gets very early, as 6th level spells (irresistible dance at level 13 or so).

This way he becomes group buffer for the first round or two of combat, then when everyone is hastened, and has inspire courage and inspire greatness bardic music, you then turn into a decent blaster/debuffer.

Plus healing wands and spells. And a lot of skills to power UMD of rune staves for the other spells you want to learn.

Also has access to some awesome debuffer abilities (Doomspeak!!!). Make the enemy fail their save against the basketful polymorph, disintegrate, or irresistible dance spell.

EDIT:

One essential spell here is Harmonize. Enables you to start a bardic music as a move action. Get a rod of quicken as well, and then you can cast a quickened haste spell,sing inspire courage (or dragonfire inspiration) and then cast a disintegrate spell all in the first round of combat.

A Bard like this can be a bit feat-starved. But melodic casting is essential. Use perform instead of concentration to cast while attacked.

But one feat in a combat ability is useful: snowflake war dance is awesome (add your cha bonus to attack rolls). That plus a Chrystal echo blade and sirine's grace spell at 4th level to add your cha bonus to AC and buff cha and Dex adds your cha bonus to AC, attack and damage, making you into a melee powerhouse. Esp if you target yourself with inspire greatness (even better if you use a horn of resilience to grant one recipient of inspire greatness an extra 50 Temporary hi points, and grant them to yourself).

[Waker]

The obvious solution is to make a Warforged Warmage/Warlock and then go into Eldritch Theurge. So much blasting and it has War in the name three times.

[Kelb_Panthera]

No need to convince me, I know what a barbarian can do. But he'll simply answer "an empowered Fireball can deal more than that at level 10, in everything within 20ft". We're currently mid-level (around level 10-11), so casters are really powerful.

First, point out that this ^ is wrong and show him the math. Empowered fireball caps out at 90 damage with a -very- slim chance of actually rolling that. It's much more likely to roll very near 52-53.

That out of the way, I get the impression your DM would like him to play something that is -not- a variation on "blows stuff up good." So even if the above -were- true, it wouldn't matter because he's not going to be allowed to play that.

I'm gonna second the suggestion of a martial adept (assuming your DM allows ToB.) The crusader and warblade are similar enough in how they operate mechanically to a spellcaster (I know, I know) that it should be a comfortable fit for what he's accustomed to playing and doesn't take massive system mastery to get solid damage figures. Both are built to wade in, sword hewing and shield bashing, and just wreck face, so it's not like finessing the might of the classes should be a stumbling block for him.

I'm hesitant to say this but a swordsage can get AoE attacks and a few very mystical (though not magical) tricks that allow them to compare quite favorably to a low-op spellcaster like he's accustomed to playing.

And, of course, he could always go into either Ruby Knight Vindicator or Jade Phoenix Mage (DM permitting) and be both a warrior -and- a spellcaster.

[Erit]

The obvious solution is to make a Warforged Warmage/Warlock and then go into Eldritch Theurge. So much blasting and it has War in the name three times.

Drop in some Cleric levels with the War domain, insert "Yo dawg I herd you liek" meme.

[Fizban]

I also suggested rolling a cleric, but he won't unless it's a cleric specialized in dealing damage (he "won't be a healbot").
Then spec it to deal damage. How do you blast? Applying metamagic to blasting spells. What do clerics have? Cheap metamagic and delayed blasting spells, with access to a couple unique multi-round blasting spells (and some less-unique). If he likes Empowered Fireball, he should love Divine Empowered or Maximized Boreal Wind.

Or if he needs to "blast" less, how about some Ordained Champion, the cleric PrC that gets more ways to beat face than just about every divine martial that's not an RKV? In particular there's free quickened spontaneous War domain spells, which include gems such as Spiritual Weapon, Flame Strike, Blade Barrier, and all the Power Words. You pay two levels of casting for it, which is even better (for arguing that you're not being a straight caster again).

[Eldariel]

Then spec it to deal damage. How do you blast? Applying metamagic to blasting spells. What do clerics have? Cheap metamagic and delayed blasting spells, with access to a couple unique multi-round blasting spells (and some less-unique). If he likes Empowered Fireball, he should love Divine Empowered or Maximized Boreal Wind.

Or if he needs to "blast" less, how about some Ordained Champion, the cleric PrC that gets more ways to beat face than just about every divine martial that's not an RKV? In particular there's free quickened spontaneous War domain spells, which include gems such as Spiritual Weapon, Flame Strike, Blade Barrier, and all the Power Words. You pay two levels of casting for it, which is even better (for arguing that you're not being a straight caster again).

If his only objection is to being a healbot, that might not even be necessary. You can just use the usual set of battlefield control, summon, save-or-X, buff and damage effects and call it a day. A normal Cleric is anything but a healbot, and indeed, you can bring about the divine hammering most righteous with a hammer or a Holy Word.

[Calthropstu]

Isn't this basically what Warlocks do?
They blast and blast and blast, all day long?

Granted, they lack some of the AOE oomph of a sorc/wiz, but as I understand they're quite fun anyway.

Seconded. Soon as I saw the op, I thought "this screams warlock"


The obvious solution is to make a Warforged Warmage/Warlock and then go into Eldritch Theurge. So much blasting and it has War in the name three times.

I am going to make a D&D god with those classes... he will be the god of war.

[TheFurith]

How about...a rogue dual wielding wands of various ranged touch attacks? There's a feat somewhere that lets you attack with them for 1d6 as a touch attack and also activate them. Double sneak attack damage as a touch and half as elemental. That's a lot of d6s if you optimize for sneak attacks.

[Extra Anchovies]

How about...a rogue dual wielding wands of various ranged touch attacks? There's a feat somewhere that lets you attack with them for 1d6 as a touch attack and also activate them. Double sneak attack damage as a touch and half as elemental. That's a lot of d6s if you optimize for sneak attacks.

That would be Wandstrike (CArc), and it's... not great. The touch attack can only be made as a standard action, and extra damage of any sort doesn't apply to the 1d6 from Wandstrike (this includes an explicit block on sneak attack). It also only allows one touch attack as a standard action. It does allow you to deliver ray spells through melee touch attacks, which could have some niche uses, but that's about it.

[weckar]

Here's something I need to ask: Is the player okay with this? I mean, telling someone not to play something because they play it all the time is like taking away someone's favorite toys. It's... Why?

I mean, even if not a sorc/wiz I assume they at least get some say in what they do play?

[denthor]

No need to convince me, I know what a barbarian can do. But he'll simply answer "an empowered Fireball can deal more than that at level 10, in everything within 20ft". We're currently mid-level (around level 10-11), so casters are really powerful.


Meh, warmage is the same character he played before but with less utility spells.

Interesting we had a 10 level druid drop two fireballs first one did 30 points second did 39 points. DRUID was dropped the next round by two fighters.

[ben-zayb]

Oh, so he constantly winds up dead?
Then, how about getting a Jotunbrud Human Ghost using Overwhelming Attack (Unearthed Arcana) Monk 2 / Dungeoncrasher Fighter 2 / Marshal 1 / Master of the Unseen Hand 4? Optimize on getting CHA to bull-rush, attack roll, and damage roll. 4 bull-rush per turn that deals at least x2 CHA modifier each, or let loose a volley off 12 great sword attacks keyed off your CHA mod. Nab Fire Immunity for your ghost from Monsters of Faerun, as well as the ability to make your attacks deal 3x damage a few times a day.

[Name1]

I say let him play a Warlock/Hellfire Warlock and give him the shape soulmeld feat for Strongheart Vest.

[NickTheGreek3]

Thank you all for your suggestions. He finally made up his mind and will roll a Warlock after all. Cheers! :smallsmile:

[Kelb_Panthera]

Here's something I need to ask: Is the player okay with this? I mean, telling someone not to play something because they play it all the time is like taking away someone's favorite toys. It's... Why?

I mean, even if not a sorc/wiz I assume they at least get some say in what they do play?

A couple things come to mind.

First, he might be a newb and the DM is encouraging him to branch out in a bit of a ham-fisted manner. He was asked not to roll a blaster this time, not told he can never roll one again.

Second: D&D is as much a social activity as a game and the DM may want to run some encounters that would be interesting if he -didn't- have to worry about it being nuked to hell by a warmage or the like.

It's not a -great- way to handle such concerns but I can see -some- reason to go this way.