Spellwarp Sniper: Worth it for Clerics?

[Cj304]

I've recently been looking into Prestige Classes that offer complete arcane/divine caster progression and brushed up on the Spellwarp Sniper prestige class from Complete Scoundrel, whose main draw is the ability to convert aoe-instantanious spells into rays that roll for distance touch attacks without reflex.

While this is undoubtedly a powerful and useful ability in the hands of a sorcerer or wizard, I have to ask:

Is it worth it for a cleric, or paladin, or other divine spellcaster class, who have access only to divine spell lists, to take a dip into this class?

Thoughts?

[sleepyphoenixx]

You can't just take a dip since you can only spellwarp spells up to your class level.
That said the class is barely worth taking even for wizards/sorcerers if you're not specializing into sneak attacking with spells. So it's basically limited to finishing up an Unseen Seer build.

There's also the issue of enemies with high reflex saves or Evasion (the main reason to spellwarp aside from getting sneak attack) also having high touch AC. Not to mention the tons of ways ranged touch attacks can be defended against.

You don't lose any casting so it's not a bad class, assuming you wanted to multiclass with rogue anyway. It's just not a very good class either.

[umbergod]

You can't just take a dip since you can only spellwarp spells up to your class level.
That said the class is barely worth taking even for wizards/sorcerers if you're not specializing into sneak attacking with spells. So it's basically limited to finishing up an Unseen Seer build.

There's also the issue of enemies with high reflex saves or Evasion (the main reason to spellwarp aside from getting sneak attack) also having high touch AC. Not to mention the tons of ways ranged touch attacks can be defended against.

You don't lose any casting so it's not a bad class, assuming you wanted to multiclass with rogue anyway. It's just not a very good class either.

Wouldn't it be possible to continue advancing spellwarp sniper via the Legacy Champion prestige class? Allowing you to spellwarp higher level spells? Or is that just a favorable interpretation?

[ExLibrisMortis]

Wouldn't it be possible to continue advancing spellwarp sniper via the Legacy Champion prestige class? Allowing you to spellwarp higher level spells? Or is that just a favorable interpretation?
You (probably) could; it does say you get to Spellwarp higher-levelled spells "each level". For advancing class features, there's also the Uncanny Trickster, which has superior flavour for a rogue/caster build, in my opinion.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Wouldn't it be possible to continue advancing spellwarp sniper via the Legacy Champion prestige class? Allowing you to spellwarp higher level spells? Or is that just a favorable interpretation?

That's possible, yeah. Whether it's actually worth doing is another question. I'd say probably not.
There just aren't (m)any spells that suddenly become awesome when you turn them from a reflex save aoe attack into a ray, at least not that i know of.

[umbergod]

That's possible, yeah. Whether it's actually worth doing is another question. I'd say probably not.
There just aren't (m)any spells that suddenly become awesome when you turn them from a reflex save aoe attack into a ray, at least not that i know of.

Now im curious as to how a spellwarped meteor swarm would be, or a delayed blast fireball

[Cosi]

I agree that ray blasting is bad, and that the class is fairly unimpressive looked at that way. However, I do think ranged touch is clearly superior to Reflex save, ceteris paribus, simply because it becomes pretty close to auto-hit if you can make your target flat footed.

But that's not the only thing you can do. You can also spellwarp a Reflex save-or-die, which then turns into a no-save-just-lose effect. That's not a bad trick for a couple of levels worth of investment, particularly because it's guaranteed to be a low-level spell. If you can swing Primal Scholar + Persisted unfettered heroism, you can even get it at will.

Cleric's not a terribly bad chassis for doing this, really. You can get Point Blank Shot for free from the Elf domain, DMM: Persist as a Cleric, and greater anyspell can turn into unfettered heroism if you take the Spell domain. However, the prerequisites aren't trivial. You need to get sneak attack (which probably means either dipping, or sinking two feats into Martial Study (shadow jaunt) and Martial Stance (assassin's stance)), three feats for DMM: Persistent, and another feat on Mysterious Magic for Primal Scholar. Your final build looks something like Cleric 5/Spellwarp Sniper 5/Primal Scholar 5.

However, the big problem is that you need a 5th level or lower instantaneous duration area-of-effect Reflex based save-or-lose spell. The only one I know of is sandblast, which is a couple of points of damage married to a one round stun, but it's a Druid spell, so you would have to figure out some way to get it as a Cleric.

If you're not sold on Cleric/Spellwarp Sniper, you can get it fairly easily as an Arcane caster. Something like Beguiler 5/Unseen Seer 1/Spellwarp Sniper 1/Incantatrix 3/Primal Scholar 1 gets you there. Beguiler qualifies you for Unseen Seer, which gets you Sneak Attack for Spellwarp Sniper. You need to sink feats into Point Blank Shot, Iron Will, and Mysterious Magic, but at least the meta-magic pre-reqs for Incantatrix and Primal Scholar overlap. You also need knowstones of sandblast and unfettered heroism, but the end result is that you can run around permanently invisible and shoot no-save stuns at flat-footed touch AC at will. Which is not bad, especially considering that you have a full Beguiler spell list and nine levels to spend on other PrCs.

[Anthrowhale]

Clerics have Surge of Fortune and Sense Weakness which allows you to autocrit and double damage with a ray so a Spellwarp Flame Strike with a rod of maximize spell does 90 divine and 90 fire damage.