Heavy armored ultimate mage

[Mickey Williams]

So I was thinking about making an ultimate mage wearing heavy armor. Its for a campain in which the way to powergame is to develope a strange or qurky build that the dm likes. Any way here goes...

Human
Level one Warmage 1
Armored mage light 2x flaws slow and unreactive (walks around with its nose in a book), 4 feats, battle caster (warmage spells in medium armor), medium armor prof, extend spell (prereq for UM), practised spellcaster warmage
Level 2 Wizard 1
Scribe scrolls, summon familiar
Level 3 Fighter 1
Varient fighter armored mage wizard, heavy armor prof, battle caster (wizard spell in medium armor)
Level 4 Sorceror 1
Level 5 Wizard 2
Level 6 Wizard 3
Battle Caster (warmage spells in heavy armor)
Level 7-9 Ultimate Magus 1-3
Level 9 feat battle caster (wizard spells in heavy armor)

This is where the character comes into their own they can walk around in full plate armor casting Wizard and War Mage spells and sacrificing sorcerer spells to apply metamagic feats. Sorcerer spell selection should attempt to pick up as many non semantic spells as possible, or else non combat type spells.

From that point on just add metamagic feats for flavor until Level 17 or UM 10. I dont know what to do with those last three levels but I don't imagine the game will last that long anyways. I guess my only real question is, is there a moer feat efficient way to get to heavy armor casting?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Runesmith. A single level lets you turn all your spells into runes, bypassing somatic components (and, thus, asf) altogether. You need only need one level, though you have to be a dwarf. Requires heavy armor proficiency and scribe scroll to enter, but those are easy to pick up. Wizard 4/Fighter 1 gets you access no sweat.

EDIT: If you want to do it without losing more caster levels, since you need to dip War Mage to get into Ultimate Magus... Dragonslayer sort of works, as one level gives you proficiency without losing caster levels, but with two crappy entry prereqs (Dodge and Iron Will) and a BAB requirement it's quite possibly not worth it. Maybe if you're starting later and can buy Iron Will with the Otyugh Hole.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

You're trying to make this character do too much, and it's going to end up extremely underwhelming. Armored Mage only works with one class, only works with light armor, and only with 2nd level and lower spells if you only take one level of Fighter. You're not going to have high enough level spellcasting to contribute in a meaningful way for most of your character's career, and there's nothing this character is going to be good at.

Use Runesmith as Grod pointed out, and only use one spellcasting class such as Wizard. Go Dwarf, Fighter 1/ Wizard 4/ Runesmith 5, then spend your next ten levels advancing your Wizard spellcasting. From your 6th character level you'll have no somatic components for any spells you prepare as runes, so you'll be able to ignore the arcane spell failure chance of any armor or shields you use.


I'd just make a Warforged Psion (Shaper) with Adamantine Body, psionic powers don't have any arcane spell failure chance.

[Eladrinblade]

there's also twilight feycraft mithril full-plate with a single level of spellsword to consider

[ATHATH]

Step 1: Take the Southern Magician feat.
Step 2: Take the Alternative Source Spell feat.
Step 3 (optional): Take the Practiced Spellcaster feat to offset the CL loss caused by using the Alternative Source Spell feat.
Step 4: Walk around and cast spells in heavy armor without losing a single caster level.
Step 5 (optional): Go enter a nice prestige class for gishes like Abjurant Champion (possibly extended with the Legacy Champion PrC).

There, I achieved what your entire build was based around achieving (according to the title) with 2 feats (3 if you count Practiced Spellcaster).