Storm-themed Class

[MrSandman]

Hi there. I like storm themed characters. Does anyone know of any such themed class in D&D 3.P? I'm looking for special abilities such as calling lightning, thunder, controlling wind, rain, snow, that sort of stuff. I know that there is one in the 3.5 splat book for divine casters, called something like storm walker, but I don't find that one particularly appealing.

[Zombulian]

Well there's the Stormlord from Complete Divine, the Stormcaster from Stormwrack, and the Stormsinger from Frostburn.

Stormlord is the one I think you're familiar with. Stormsinger most represents what you want I think, as you gain ways to manipulate the weather with your Bardic Music ability as you progress the class.
Stormcaster is also pretty neat, but otherwise just adds a little flavor and a few neat tricks (immediate action wind wall and stunning effects tied to all electricity spells is pretty cool) to a pretty basic blaster caster where you just pick thematic spells or take Energy Substitution.

[Mehangel]

And if you are okay with 3rd Party Content, there is always Spheres of Power, which has an entire sphere of magic devoted to Weather magic (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/weather).

[Andor13]

Pathfinder has a PRC called the Master of Storms (called the Stormkindler (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/s-z/master-of-storms/) on the SRD 'cause lawyers.)

You need one fairly bad feat and get to start turning into an angry tornado.

[Ramza00]

For low level spells look at these options.

2nd Level Electric Loop. Close Ranged Multiple Target Save or be Stunned for 1 round (Will), also small amount of damage

2nd Level Frost Breath. Ask your DM to allow you to spell research an electric version. 30ft Cone with Targe Save or be Dazed (Reflex), also small amount of Damage

2nd Level Elemental Darts (Dragonlance). A damage spell that scales well at later levels but at early levels its damage is not as good. Can create up to 5 element darts if your caster level is high enough and they do 1d6+Caster Level damage (max 10) so 5d6+50 eventually and a lot more if you empower it for the +50 is also empowered. You choose at time of casting, electric, fire, acid, cold.

3rd Level Scintillating Sphere is the electric version of fireball, same exact spell but electric.

3rd Level Great Thunderclap, Medium Range, 20ft Spread. Save or Stunned (Will)+Save or Prone / Tripped (Reflex)+Save or Deaf (Fort)

Now all of these spells are good to great, but realize you can sculpt spell Frost Breath, Scintillating Sphere, and Great Thunderclap and you can do it on a fly if you get a lesser metamagic rod of sculpt spell.

Remember Sculpt Spell gives you these options.


a ball (20ft Radius Spread) aka like Fireball / Scintillating Sphere
120ft line (aka like lightning bolt)
four 10-foot cubes
cyllinder (10ft Radius, 30ft high)


Now those are electric damaging spells for your storm caster.

But also think these spells have a storm flavor (even if it does not have an electric flavor) and they are also sculpable

Cloud of Bewilderment (2nd Level) and this is Sculpable. Fort Save or Nauesated (only move actions) for 1d4+1 rounds so aka 2 rounds to 5 rounds as long as they stay in the cloud, and the rounds do not start counting till they leave the cloud. Aka this is a stormcloud.

Grease reflavor as a slick / wet ground. Also sculptable.

Glitterdust (reflavor as a burst of light) Also sculptable.

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You get the point.

[weckar]

Storm domain wizard, maybe?

[Kaje]

Storm Sentry is a dragonmark-based class.

[Uncle Pine]

You might enjoy giving this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?361628-Collateral-Damage-Man) a read, specifically the discussion about avr's build.

[MrSandman]

Thank you guys for your input. You've given me a lot to look through and consider^^

[Red Fel]

You might enjoy giving this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?361628-Collateral-Damage-Man) a read, specifically the discussion about avr's build.

Funny story, that specific build actually spun off into its own thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?363006-Building-a-Tempest). Because I, too, wanted to build the stormiest storm-maker that ever stormed a storm.

OP, feel free to hop over to this link. Has a lot of useful tidbits. Five classes in particular come to mind - Storm Disciple, Stormlord, Stormcaster, Stormsinger, and Storm Sentry - depending on whether you want to rely on psionics, divine casting, arcane casting, Bardic performance, or Dragonmarks, respectively.

Fun fact: There is a class called "Tempest." It has nothing to do with storms. If you have nothing better to do, give it a skip.

[eggynack]

There's always bog standard druid. Call lightning, control winds, blizzard, eye of the hurricane, boreal winds, summoned storm elementals, cloudburst, hell, even weird stuff like Darsson's cooling breeze, all right there on list. There's not much storm or weather related stuff that druids can't do. Granted, you may face a bit of the inverse problem, in that you can also do a million things that aren't storm related, but, y'know, you can just mostly not do that stuff.

[Mato]

Hi there. I like storm themed characters. Does anyone know of any such themed class in D&D 3.P?Stormcaster is the most powerful PrC every printed in this area so it's worth a look. Basically with energy substitution every single spell you cast is a storm powered lightning bolt complete with a sonic boom and stunning.

It get ridiculous insane when combined with the Incantatrix. Like persisted substituted lord of the sky and persisted lightning ring, you're surrounded by a constant storm that deals 10d6+8 damage and using free & swift actions you can fire off two 5d6+8 lightning bolts and one bolt that deals your caster level plus five in damage and halves your target's speed. Plus whatever you'd like to do with your standard action.

If your DM allows you to take obtain familiar to gain a second pet. Through share spells you're looking an a combined elemental fury of your opponents taking up to 60d6+20 electricity and +29 sonic damage and needing to make twelve saves against being stunned while you fly around. Combine with persisted friendly fire and you can say your winds are so strong they deflect rays away too.

[Afgncaap5]

While Stormcaster is the way to go, I wanna toss out Storm of Vengeance for consideration if Eberron material is on the table. It can cast Storm of Vengeance twice a day if you take all three levels in it, which is nothing to sneeze at.

[Ruethgar]

Should note that there is an Elemental Familiar spell that will let you turn anything into an itty bitty elemental. It has specific allowance for familiars, but technically a plant companion druid could still improve pretty well(since you can boost its size).

[MrSandman]

It get ridiculous insane when combined with the Incantatrix. Like persisted substituted lord of the sky and persisted lightning ring, you're surrounded by a constant storm that deals 10d6+8 damage and using free & swift actions you can fire off two 5d6+8 lightning bolts and one bolt that deals your caster level plus five in damage and halves your target's speed. Plus whatever you'd like to do with your standard action.

Could you elaborate a bit more on how this works exactly?

[Ramza00]

Could you elaborate a bit more on how this works exactly?

Incantatrix (3.5 PGTF version for I am doing this from memory and I am just going to talk about the most recent version) has a 3rd level class ability called Metamagic Effect. It allows you to apply metamagic without adjusting the spell level but instead using a skill check. The skill check is Spellcraft 18+(3 * (Base Spell you are modifying+The amount of metamagic adjustment you are changing the spell))=DC. Note this effect only works on spells with a duration and not at the time of the casting.

So if you had a 4th Level Black Tentaclesl and you want to widen it (a +3 metamagic) you have to make a Spellcraft DC check of 18 + (3* (4+3)) = 18+(3*7)=18+(21)=DC of 39. Now your 40-ft. radius spread covers 172 5-ft. squares instead of the 20-ft. radius spread of 44 5-ft. squares.

Persist Spell is the same thing but you are adding a DC of 18+ (3*+6 Metamagic that Persist has) so to persist a spell with metamagic effect you must meet these Spellcraft DC targets

DC 39 for a 1st Level Spell18+3+18
DC 42 for a 2nd Level Spell18+6+18
DC 45 for a 3rd Level Spell18+9+18
DC 48 for a 4th Level Spell18+12+18
DC 51 for a 5th Level Spell18+15+18
DC 54 for a 6th Level Spell18+18+18
DC 57 for a 7th Level Spell18+21+18
DC 60 for a 8th Level Spell18+24+18
DC 63 for a 9th Level Spell18+27+18

Oh yeah add +3 to the DC to make your spells be extended+persist so the duration is 48 hours instead of 24 hours.

So in my mind Metamagic Effect is just stupid game design, it is an ability that gives you a free resource with almost no downside. There is a limit how many times you can use metamagic effect per day, the limit is 3+your Int Modifier. This is not really a limit though since the earliest you can get Metamagic Effect is level 8 due to skill requirements of the PC and by that time your Int should be 18 or higher so you get 7 or more Metamagic Effects per day.

[MrSandman]

Thorough and nice explanation

Thanks a lot!

[Vizzerdrix]

I love me so e stormlord mixed with a glove of endless javelins. Good times right there.

[Ramza00]

I love me so e stormlord mixed with a glove of endless javelins. Good times right there.

Meh Endless Javelins is great for a throwing build and it is cheap at 7,000 GP but I see that as 9 different wands I could have bought with the same money (750 GP * 9). Now if the rest of your build is built for throwing weapons the Gloves of Endless Javelins is Superb! But its utility goes down for a fullcaster with lower BAB and very little feats invested into throwing.

That said I forgot all about the Dalamar's Lightning Lance Spell from the Dragonlance Campaign Setting. 4th Level Spell up to 3 Javelins that can do up to 13d6 damage each. It is a superb spell but I did not mention it earlier for I find the Elemental Darts (2nd level, same setting) to be more useful for most levels. Sure Lightning Lance does more damage, but does it do more damage enough to be worth +2 spell levels when there are so many great 4th level spells? That I am doubtful.

Also Lightning Lance is a weird spell that barely scales by caster level with a small damage boost from caster level 7 to 9 (10d6, 11d6, and 12d6) only to have a massive damage increase at caster level 10 (26d6 due to 13d6 with 2 javelins) only to have no more scaling until caster level 15 and suddenly the javelins do 39d6 damage for each javelin is 13d6 and you can now do 3 javelins.

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Personally I build different builds that do not take full advantage of Dalamar's Lightning Lance but for a 4th level damage spell it is actually pretty good at caster levels 10 and caster level 15 but there are better damage spells from caster level 7 to 9, and often you can end encounters much better with 4th level slots than direct damage.

So getting direct damage in a tasty 2nd level slot (Elemental Darts) just seems so much more appealing, for it is something you can easily have plenty of slots, and something you can quicken with Circlet of Rapid Casting (3 times a day quicken a 1st or 2nd level spell for 15,000 GP or 7,500 GP if you craft it). It is just so tasty these snack size damage spells!

[Mato]

Could you elaborate a bit more on how this works exactly?Ramza00 did an excellent breakdown of the Incantatix's ability but it's not the only way. Illumians with turn undead or bards with metamagic song can pay for metamagic costs using other class features. Undead Battery also lets you suck hit dice out of undead (allies or enemies) too.

But the goal is to persist something that does something cool all day. Like lord of the sky out of dragon magic, it gives you a fly speed of 40ft (good) and while airborne you can use a swift action to shoot any other currently airborne target within 60ft and deal one electricity damage per CL (max 20) and it reduces their fly speed to 1/2 for the entire duration of the spell.

Then as mentioned, the 5th level of stormlord grants an ability called thunderbolt. Any spell you cast that deals lightning damage also deals one extra point of sonic damage per spell level and stuns anyone damage by it (fort negs) for one round. Even if your DM tries to nerf some of this to 'once', you can potentially stun any single creature once per day, halve their fly speed for a day, and deal up to twenty damage, all as an extra bonus for picking flight using a 5th level slot instead of a 3rd.

MMX has some extrapolations, like energy admixture which basically doubles the base damage, which is where I got the idea from. It's better than WotC's old mailman build which gets referenced here a lot.