Cancer Mage... How?

[Diegodod]

Hello everyone

I'm starting at a table, we're all evil, a class that sounds pretty macabre to me, it's cancer mage. I want to make one but I have no idea how to progress it. originally I'm thinking of:(starting lv 3)


Cleric 6/Cancer mage 7/ Ur maybe?


how would you do?
What feats?
What progression?
What sickness?

I can use all books 3.5 and pathfinder, except for (psion,Dragon Magazine and homebrew) No flaw and low gold.

[Thurbane]

There was an Iron Chef round dedicated to CM, might have some ideas for you: Iron Chef Optimisation Challenge III (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?148584)

It's not really a class that dovetails or plays well with other classes or PrCs.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

What's your acceptable level of cheese? I seem to recall a build that used Strength as its casting stat and Cancer Mage's immunity to the negative effects of disease to give it constantly increasing Str (and thus bonus spells).

[Troacctid]

PoeticallyPsyco is referring to the festering anger disease, also from Book of Vile Darkness, which increases your Strength every day, cumulatively, but deals you Constitution damage. People often point to this disease as a vector for cancer mage optimization, while conveniently forgetting that a.) cancer mages have no way to actually infect themselves with the disease as it's not one of the ones they can inflict, and b.) the only actual advantage cancer mages have in regards to it is ignoring the Constitution damage, which literally anyone can do with a single feat or a couple thousand gp. Somehow, nobody seems to talk about vile rigidity, the one that cancer mages actually have a real advantage in dealing with.

Anyway, it turns out cancer mage is actually a pretty solid prestige class for rogue-type characters in its own right, and you don't even need to do a ton of work outside of having decent Intelligence and Wisdom. Who knew? I recommend packing at least a couple good spells or spell-like abilities for your tumor buddy to cast for you. For my part, I kind of like combining it with nosomatic chirurgeon, as the two classes seem fairly well-aligned thematically.

[Telonius]

The big problem with Cancer Mage is that +5 Fort Save requirement. You can't just go straight Rogue, or you'll be waiting until 16th level to get in. If you want to skill-monkey it up, you'd have to do something like a Savage Bard or Ranger. Combining Rogue with something else usually involves a feat (like Daring Outlaw) to combine features.

Cancer Mage doesn't work well with most of the casting classes, since it doesn't advance casting at all. But something like a Binder, Dragonfire Adept, or Totemist might combine well.

[Diegodod]

What's your acceptable level of cheese? I seem to recall a build that used Strength as its casting stat and Cancer Mage's immunity to the negative effects of disease to give it constantly increasing Str (and thus bonus spells).

I have no problem being cheese

[Diegodod]

PoeticallyPsyco is referring to the festering anger disease, also from Book of Vile Darkness, which increases your Strength every day, cumulatively, but deals you Constitution damage. People often point to this disease as a vector for cancer mage optimization, while conveniently forgetting that a.) cancer mages have no way to actually infect themselves with the disease as it's not one of the ones they can inflict, and b.) the only actual advantage cancer mages have in regards to it is ignoring the Constitution damage, which literally anyone can do with a single feat or a couple thousand gp. Somehow, nobody seems to talk about vile rigidity, the one that cancer mages actually have a real advantage in dealing with.

Anyway, it turns out cancer mage is actually a pretty solid prestige class for rogue-type characters in its own right, and you don't even need to do a ton of work outside of having decent Intelligence and Wisdom. Who knew? I recommend packing at least a couple good spells or spell-like abilities for your tumor buddy to cast for you. For my part, I kind of like combining it with nosomatic chirurgeon, as the two classes seem fairly well-aligned thematically.

I saw one sickness who give me AC, but now I cant found.This STR one I will for sure use.

[Troacctid]

That's the thing, you can't just contract any disease you want just because you're a cancer mage. You can only infect yourself with the diseases listed in the contagion spell.

[Thurbane]

I saw one sickness who give me AC, but now I cant found.This STR one I will for sure use.

Festering Anger (BoVD p.30) = Strength bonuses
Vile Rigidity (BoVD p.32) = natural armor bonuses

...one of the common tricks, if allowed, is to be an Illumian (RoD) with the Aeshkrau sigils, so you use Str to determine your bonus spells. Dip Cancer Mage, contract Festering Anger, and get a ton of bonus spells. Often used in combo with the Arcane Strike feat (CW), so you can blow a bunch of spells on a hit for bonus damage (again, somewhat contentious as to whether you can expend multiple spells in one hit for bonus d4s of damage).

FWIW, woulnd't be allowed in my games, but I've seen it discussed...

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Now I kind of want to see diseases as the theme for the next optimization challenge. Gamewarpers is probably the best challenge for a theme like that. Maybe start with one disease for free, but you can acquire others through the contagion spell and similar.

[MoogleMcGee]

That's the thing, you can't just contract any disease you want just because you're a cancer mage. You can only infect yourself with the diseases listed in the contagion spell.

Where does it say that in the class description? I just read it and the only mention of what diseases that can be contracted are "The cancer mage becomes a carrier of every disease he encounters, though he remains immune to most of their effects." It doesn't mention "how" they have to be encountered. So really it's between player and DM on what diseases are available in any given area to encounter.

[Troacctid]

Festering Anger (BoVD p.30) = Strength bonuses
Vile Rigidity (BoVD p.32) = natural armor bonuses

...one of the common tricks, if allowed, is to be an Illumian (RoD) with the Aeshkrau sigils, so you use Str to determine your bonus spells. Dip Cancer Mage, contract Festering Anger, and get a ton of bonus spells. Often used in combo with the Arcane Strike feat (CW), so you can blow a bunch of spells on a hit for bonus damage (again, somewhat contentious as to whether you can expend multiple spells in one hit for bonus d4s of damage).

FWIW, woulnd't be allowed in my games, but I've seen it discussed...
Literally the exact thing I was talking about. You see what I mean? Every time. Cancer mage is maybe like the fifth or sixth best option for removing the drawback of festering anger, guys. In the context of aeshkrau, it's even lower on the list, because you lose a level of casting on top of everything.


Where does it say that in the class description? I just read it and the only mention of what diseases that can be contracted are "The cancer mage becomes a carrier of every disease he encounters, though he remains immune to most of their effects." It doesn't mention "how" they have to be encountered. So really it's between player and DM on what diseases are available in any given area to encounter.
You can contract diseases the same way anybody else contracts diseases, you just can't deliberately infect yourself with whatever disease you want. Yes, if you touch someone who is under the effects of vile rigidity, you can become infected via contact. But cancer mage doesn't give you any special ability to say "Okay, I have this particular disease now," except for the diseases you can grant to yourself and others via contagion. You have to encounter the disease just like anyone else.

[Thurbane]

You can contract diseases the same way anybody else contracts diseases, you just can't deliberately infect yourself with whatever disease you want.

So, pretty much the same "issue" as Archivists. Dependant on the DM and campaign setting for your access to scrolls/diseases?

[Troacctid]

So, pretty much the same "issue" as Archivists. Dependant on the DM and campaign setting for your access to scrolls/diseases?
Not the same issue as archivists, because they can work off of scrolls, which have their own explicit rules for availability. Also, it seems odd to call it an issue for cancer mages if it's really an issue for basically every Strength-based character ever. 🤷*♀️

[Thurbane]

I must be misunderstanding your point: I thought you were saying a Cancer Mage (or anyone for that matter) can't just say "I contract such-and-such" disease without working with the DM and campaign limits to track down a source of infection to come into contact with.

My point was that this is a similar situation for an Archivist looking for access to "obscure" divine scrolls that rely on a particular PrC, ACF or feat to exist/be accessible in a campaign world.

[Gullintanni]

Perhaps a better comparison, rather than scrolls availability v. disease availability would be corpse availability v. disease availability. Scrolls are generally available in marketplaces and have rules for their purchase, so to some extent, provided the players have access to marketplaces, it would be arbitrary and unfair for the DM to deny PCs access to scrolls.

On the other hand, there is no mechanism whereby players have agency over the availability of corpses for the purposes of say, Animate Dead. Similarly, there is no mechanism whereby players have agency over exposure to the festering anger disease.

The point you were making was correct though... I'm just speculating as to Troacctid's perspective.

[Thurbane]

Perhaps a better comparison, rather than scrolls availability v. disease availability would be corpse availability v. disease availability. Scrolls are generally available in marketplaces and have rules for their purchase, so to some extent, provided the players have access to marketplaces, it would be arbitrary and unfair for the DM to deny PCs access to scrolls.

I take your point, but it's quite dependant on the campaign setting though. That's why all the Archivist guides are pretty specific about checking with your DM for availability on some of the more obscure spell sources.

It would be entirely fair, IMHO, to deny access to a divine scroll of spell that only appears on the list of a specific Forgotten Realms PrC, or an Eberron specific domain, if the campaign was set in Greyhawk.

A DMs world may have no Hexers, for example, and the Divine Magician ACF may not be in the list of allowed sources, which could limit the availability of some Sor/Wiz spells as divine versions. No Adepts in the local area may have selected the Scribe Scroll feat.

But as you say, corpses may be a better parallel...

[Troacctid]

Really my point is it's not a cancer mage problem—it's more of a binder, incarnate, cleric, and paladin problem, if anything.

[Diegodod]

ty for the help,that helped aloot