Olo Demonsbane
2020-10-29, 12:56 PM
I've been playing around with some builds that use Synchronicity for one thing or another, and I came across an idea that I hadn't seen before. You should be able to chain Synchronicities, namely, manifest a Synchronicity, use that readied action to manifest another Synchronicity, and so on. Your last Synchronicity can be used to take whatever action you wanted to take normally. If you can apply any sort of rider on that power, you can apply it to yourself a large number of times. Given that there are a number of ways to get power points out of combat for free, you should be able to apply it many many times. Combining a couple of ideas that I had led to a new TO build, which still becomes high-power CO if your DM doesn't allow Synchronicity chaining. In fact, given how ridiculous that gets, I'm writing the majority of this assuming your DM houserules that you can only manifest Synchronicity once per round.
The Weaver of Time and Fate
Build stub: Azurin Wizard 2/Psion 1/Cerembrancer 2/Spellguard of Silverymoon 4/War Weaver 5/Cerembrancer +2/Fatespinner 2/Wyrm Wizard 2
ACFs: Conjurer Wizard, Immediate Magic, Seer speciality, Fate Points
Feats: Combat Casting (1st), Psycarnum Infusion (Azurin), Eldritch Corruption (Flaw), Enlarge Spell (Flaw), Improved Initiative (Martial Wizard1), Azure Talent (3rd), Magic of the Land (6th), Extend Spell (SoS2), Practiced Manifester (9th), Persist Spell (SoS4), Psionic Meditation (12th), Twin Power (15th), Reach Spell (18th)
Relevant Powers Known: Synchronicity, Bestow Power
Build Snapshots:
EL1: Starting off as a Conjurer with Abrupt Jaunt is always nice, even if you are setting a lot of feats on fire right now. As painful as it is, it's much better, in my book, than doing that later on.
EL3: Your reasonably standard wizard opening gets interrupted with a level of Psion. And Seer, instead of Shaper or Telepath? Seer has an ACF listed here (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070411a) which gives you access to "Fate points", which are identical to action points, even in a game that doesn't already allow them. This can be immensely helpful in general, as action points always are, but forms an integral part of the combo that comes online at level 11. You can expend your Psionic Focus to gain two free power points from Psycarnum Infusion and Azure Talent, which gives you a lot of sustainability right now, even if it's just with low level psion powers.
EL6: Your first few real tricks come online here, and this is a pretty excellent level in general. First of all, your essentia cap increases, letting you get 4pp from Azure Talent. Combined with Bestow Power, you have now gotten yourself NI power points, albeit at the rate of two every other round. This opens up another trick. With Magic of the Land, if you are in a natural setting, any spell (or power, using transparency) you cast heals two damage per spell level. So if you were injured, you can manifest Synchronicity chained as many times as you'd like, healing yourself back to full, without actually costing you an action in the end. If your DM rules that you can't chain Synchronicity like this, it's still a nice little healing boost you can trigger every round, and you can heal both you and your allies (using Bestow Power) to full out of combat.
Just in case that wasn't enough, you also get 3rd level spells at this level, which is the same a single classed Wizard would have right now. Finally, starting as a Spellguard of Silverymoon gets you attuned to Silverymoon's mythal. I am assuming that the myriad spell-like abilities that grants you only function when within the mythal, though that is not explicitly stated. If your DM rules otherwise, more the better for you. Those spells include things like air walk, lesser ironguard, and silence, to name a couple of the more useful ones.
EL9: Practiced Manifester shoots your ML up to 7, making you actually your psionic powers quite useful again, given how nicely they scale. You finally get access to the Spellguard ability, which lets you cast personal range spells as touch spells. These spells have to improve AC, increase a saving throw, or grant hit points (either temporary hp or healing). Thanks to Magic of the Land, all of your spells can heal, letting you use any personal spells at a touch. This becomes particularly useful...
EL10: When you get access to your eldritch tapestry. Any 1st level spell you can cast into the tapestry can affect Int-mod allies, and touch spells are valid options. Synchronicity makes this ridiculously potent. Augmented to 3pp, you effectively give anyone within touch range a free standard action, which can be used at any point before their next turn. Given that this includes yourself, you can then manifest a second Synchronicity, and then a third... depending on how many power points you have stored up, you can give your allies a ridiculous number of standard actions without even sacrificing your turn.
When I showed this to my DM, he immediately house-ruled that you can only cast Synchronicity once per turn, in effect, disallowing Synchronicity chaining. That turns this build from a TO method of getting NI standard actions to a more reasonable, though still very powerful, party buffer. You do lose a caster level at this level, which definitely stings, but its hard to complain with what you are getting access to.
EL11: I am assuming for this level that your DM isn't letting you grant NI standard actions. However, even if he were, this is still a very worthwhile level. I would be assuming not, though. First of all, this level gets you quiescent weaving, which lets you store a spell that you can trigger into your tapestry as a move action. This can let you start off the battle granting your allies all an extra standard action, which is always incredibly useful.
Secondly, and more importantly, you gain access to 5th level spells here, and with your action points granted by being a Seer, you can cast Unfettered Heroism. This ridiculously bonkers spell gives you an action point per turn for its duration. Now, I mainly see action points referenced with regard to Artificers, but they have some incredible uses for normal casters as well. First of all, you can spend an action point to regain a spell you cast that round. That Unfettered Heroism? Yoink. You can also apply a metamagic feat for free. How about using your Unfettered Heroism to cast Persisted Unfettered Heroism. Yo dawg, I heard you liked Unfettered Heroism... This will let you then persist any buffs you want to (sharing the 2nd level and lower ones via the tapestry), and then, for the rest of the day, instantly recall any spells you cast, giving you effectively unlimited spells per day.
EL14: Finishing out War Weaver is essential. First of all, it gives you four spells in your Quiescent Weavings (four standard actions for everyone, including you, should give you quite a leg up on ending a battle). It also lets you share your 3rd-5th level persisted buffs through your tapestry, which your party will certainly thank you for. If you can get your hands on a Ring of Spell Storing, or even a minor one, any spellcaster allies you have can pass you any buff spells they have, which you can persist and pass through your tapestry. Most importantly, actually, however, the capstone of War Weaver extends your touch spells cast through the tapestry to close range, letting them be significantly more useful in an actual battle. Synchronicity can now be used each turn, and you will actually be able to target everyone, rather than just anyone standing right next to you.
EL16: Two more levels in Cerembrancer, combined with your Practiced Manifester feat, gets your ML up to nine. That's just enough to manifest Twinned Synchronicity. Eight standard actions to each of your allies as your initial move action is hard to overstate. You can also manifest it each round, giving all of your allies two standard actions. Your move action can be used with Psionic Meditation to regain psionic focus, just in time to do the same thing next turn.
EL18: Fatespinner is a nice little prestige class that is very easy to qualify for, but typically the benefits that it gives you aren't earth shattering. Fickle Finger of Fate, which you get at this level, lets you force an ally or an enemy to reroll any roll they just made as an immediate action 1/day. One of the other things that action points let you do is to get additional uses of per day abilities. If you don't need to recall spells you are casting with the action points, that means that you can use this ability every single round, if you'd like. Furthermore, given that you would typically use this to force an enemy to reroll a save on a spell you just cast, you can wait until after they roll the save before deciding if you want to recall the spell or force them to reroll.
EL20: This last trick is inspired by Piggy Knowles's White Elephant build, which you can find here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?600206-Optimization-Showcase-in-the-Playground-The-White-Elephant). Wyrm Wizard gives you a new spell known; we will take as Tree Shape from the Druid list. Spellguard of Silverymoon lets us apply this personal spell with a touch, letting you turn an enemy into a Tree, with no saving throw, as a 2nd level spell. Reach Spell, which we got at 18th level, lets us extend that to a ranged touch attack as a 4th level spell, which is a much safer option. You do lose a caster level at this level to get this spell, but given that you got 9th level spells last level, and your Unfettered Heroism makes spells per day a thing of the past, you aren't really going to be missing those extra couple spells.
In summary, this build gets casting as a 17th level wizard and manifesting as a 5th level psion (ML 9) with infinite power points, and it can grant its allies standard actions out the wazoo. With quiescent weavings and Twinned Synchronicitiy, your allies will have an extra ten standard actions in the first round of combat, and two extra every round after that. You can also persist and share buffs better than most incantatrixes, retain many/most of the spells that you cast, force rerolls as an immediate action effectively at-will, and turn your enemies into trees without a saving throw with your lower level spells. If your DM allows Synchronicity chaining, your allies start combat with NI standard actions, and the rest of what you get is pretty irrelevant, but it still definitely doesn't hurt.
As an aside, one of the things I like the most about this build is that it is built to avoid dead levels. Aside from 2nd and 3rd level, which are painful on many characters, the closest things you have to dead levels are level 7 (where you get Extend Spell) and level 12 (which gives you a second quiescent weaving buff and the ability to cast 3rd level spells through your eldritch tapestry). Every single other level gives you either a new level of spells, a new level of powers, or a really useful class feature. That's one of those things that I try to build into every character that I can, and I feel like I really succeeded here, which I'm very happy about.
Please let me know if you have any questions or thoughts about the build!
The Weaver of Time and Fate
Build stub: Azurin Wizard 2/Psion 1/Cerembrancer 2/Spellguard of Silverymoon 4/War Weaver 5/Cerembrancer +2/Fatespinner 2/Wyrm Wizard 2
ACFs: Conjurer Wizard, Immediate Magic, Seer speciality, Fate Points
Feats: Combat Casting (1st), Psycarnum Infusion (Azurin), Eldritch Corruption (Flaw), Enlarge Spell (Flaw), Improved Initiative (Martial Wizard1), Azure Talent (3rd), Magic of the Land (6th), Extend Spell (SoS2), Practiced Manifester (9th), Persist Spell (SoS4), Psionic Meditation (12th), Twin Power (15th), Reach Spell (18th)
Relevant Powers Known: Synchronicity, Bestow Power
Build Snapshots:
EL1: Starting off as a Conjurer with Abrupt Jaunt is always nice, even if you are setting a lot of feats on fire right now. As painful as it is, it's much better, in my book, than doing that later on.
EL3: Your reasonably standard wizard opening gets interrupted with a level of Psion. And Seer, instead of Shaper or Telepath? Seer has an ACF listed here (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070411a) which gives you access to "Fate points", which are identical to action points, even in a game that doesn't already allow them. This can be immensely helpful in general, as action points always are, but forms an integral part of the combo that comes online at level 11. You can expend your Psionic Focus to gain two free power points from Psycarnum Infusion and Azure Talent, which gives you a lot of sustainability right now, even if it's just with low level psion powers.
EL6: Your first few real tricks come online here, and this is a pretty excellent level in general. First of all, your essentia cap increases, letting you get 4pp from Azure Talent. Combined with Bestow Power, you have now gotten yourself NI power points, albeit at the rate of two every other round. This opens up another trick. With Magic of the Land, if you are in a natural setting, any spell (or power, using transparency) you cast heals two damage per spell level. So if you were injured, you can manifest Synchronicity chained as many times as you'd like, healing yourself back to full, without actually costing you an action in the end. If your DM rules that you can't chain Synchronicity like this, it's still a nice little healing boost you can trigger every round, and you can heal both you and your allies (using Bestow Power) to full out of combat.
Just in case that wasn't enough, you also get 3rd level spells at this level, which is the same a single classed Wizard would have right now. Finally, starting as a Spellguard of Silverymoon gets you attuned to Silverymoon's mythal. I am assuming that the myriad spell-like abilities that grants you only function when within the mythal, though that is not explicitly stated. If your DM rules otherwise, more the better for you. Those spells include things like air walk, lesser ironguard, and silence, to name a couple of the more useful ones.
EL9: Practiced Manifester shoots your ML up to 7, making you actually your psionic powers quite useful again, given how nicely they scale. You finally get access to the Spellguard ability, which lets you cast personal range spells as touch spells. These spells have to improve AC, increase a saving throw, or grant hit points (either temporary hp or healing). Thanks to Magic of the Land, all of your spells can heal, letting you use any personal spells at a touch. This becomes particularly useful...
EL10: When you get access to your eldritch tapestry. Any 1st level spell you can cast into the tapestry can affect Int-mod allies, and touch spells are valid options. Synchronicity makes this ridiculously potent. Augmented to 3pp, you effectively give anyone within touch range a free standard action, which can be used at any point before their next turn. Given that this includes yourself, you can then manifest a second Synchronicity, and then a third... depending on how many power points you have stored up, you can give your allies a ridiculous number of standard actions without even sacrificing your turn.
When I showed this to my DM, he immediately house-ruled that you can only cast Synchronicity once per turn, in effect, disallowing Synchronicity chaining. That turns this build from a TO method of getting NI standard actions to a more reasonable, though still very powerful, party buffer. You do lose a caster level at this level, which definitely stings, but its hard to complain with what you are getting access to.
EL11: I am assuming for this level that your DM isn't letting you grant NI standard actions. However, even if he were, this is still a very worthwhile level. I would be assuming not, though. First of all, this level gets you quiescent weaving, which lets you store a spell that you can trigger into your tapestry as a move action. This can let you start off the battle granting your allies all an extra standard action, which is always incredibly useful.
Secondly, and more importantly, you gain access to 5th level spells here, and with your action points granted by being a Seer, you can cast Unfettered Heroism. This ridiculously bonkers spell gives you an action point per turn for its duration. Now, I mainly see action points referenced with regard to Artificers, but they have some incredible uses for normal casters as well. First of all, you can spend an action point to regain a spell you cast that round. That Unfettered Heroism? Yoink. You can also apply a metamagic feat for free. How about using your Unfettered Heroism to cast Persisted Unfettered Heroism. Yo dawg, I heard you liked Unfettered Heroism... This will let you then persist any buffs you want to (sharing the 2nd level and lower ones via the tapestry), and then, for the rest of the day, instantly recall any spells you cast, giving you effectively unlimited spells per day.
EL14: Finishing out War Weaver is essential. First of all, it gives you four spells in your Quiescent Weavings (four standard actions for everyone, including you, should give you quite a leg up on ending a battle). It also lets you share your 3rd-5th level persisted buffs through your tapestry, which your party will certainly thank you for. If you can get your hands on a Ring of Spell Storing, or even a minor one, any spellcaster allies you have can pass you any buff spells they have, which you can persist and pass through your tapestry. Most importantly, actually, however, the capstone of War Weaver extends your touch spells cast through the tapestry to close range, letting them be significantly more useful in an actual battle. Synchronicity can now be used each turn, and you will actually be able to target everyone, rather than just anyone standing right next to you.
EL16: Two more levels in Cerembrancer, combined with your Practiced Manifester feat, gets your ML up to nine. That's just enough to manifest Twinned Synchronicity. Eight standard actions to each of your allies as your initial move action is hard to overstate. You can also manifest it each round, giving all of your allies two standard actions. Your move action can be used with Psionic Meditation to regain psionic focus, just in time to do the same thing next turn.
EL18: Fatespinner is a nice little prestige class that is very easy to qualify for, but typically the benefits that it gives you aren't earth shattering. Fickle Finger of Fate, which you get at this level, lets you force an ally or an enemy to reroll any roll they just made as an immediate action 1/day. One of the other things that action points let you do is to get additional uses of per day abilities. If you don't need to recall spells you are casting with the action points, that means that you can use this ability every single round, if you'd like. Furthermore, given that you would typically use this to force an enemy to reroll a save on a spell you just cast, you can wait until after they roll the save before deciding if you want to recall the spell or force them to reroll.
EL20: This last trick is inspired by Piggy Knowles's White Elephant build, which you can find here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?600206-Optimization-Showcase-in-the-Playground-The-White-Elephant). Wyrm Wizard gives you a new spell known; we will take as Tree Shape from the Druid list. Spellguard of Silverymoon lets us apply this personal spell with a touch, letting you turn an enemy into a Tree, with no saving throw, as a 2nd level spell. Reach Spell, which we got at 18th level, lets us extend that to a ranged touch attack as a 4th level spell, which is a much safer option. You do lose a caster level at this level to get this spell, but given that you got 9th level spells last level, and your Unfettered Heroism makes spells per day a thing of the past, you aren't really going to be missing those extra couple spells.
In summary, this build gets casting as a 17th level wizard and manifesting as a 5th level psion (ML 9) with infinite power points, and it can grant its allies standard actions out the wazoo. With quiescent weavings and Twinned Synchronicitiy, your allies will have an extra ten standard actions in the first round of combat, and two extra every round after that. You can also persist and share buffs better than most incantatrixes, retain many/most of the spells that you cast, force rerolls as an immediate action effectively at-will, and turn your enemies into trees without a saving throw with your lower level spells. If your DM allows Synchronicity chaining, your allies start combat with NI standard actions, and the rest of what you get is pretty irrelevant, but it still definitely doesn't hurt.
As an aside, one of the things I like the most about this build is that it is built to avoid dead levels. Aside from 2nd and 3rd level, which are painful on many characters, the closest things you have to dead levels are level 7 (where you get Extend Spell) and level 12 (which gives you a second quiescent weaving buff and the ability to cast 3rd level spells through your eldritch tapestry). Every single other level gives you either a new level of spells, a new level of powers, or a really useful class feature. That's one of those things that I try to build into every character that I can, and I feel like I really succeeded here, which I'm very happy about.
Please let me know if you have any questions or thoughts about the build!