Zinc Saucier XXXVII: Blast From The Past

[AvatarVecna]

Welcome one and all to the thirty-seventh Zinc Saucier challenge, where Playgrounders come to test their skill in the art of beautiful and bizarre (and bizarrely beautiful) builds, summoning a savory dish of superb swordplay and sublime sorcery.

The challenge? To come up with a build that has the same abilities and feel as the Secret Ingredient WITHOUT actually using it!

For the thirty-seventh challenge, after a five year haitus, we'll be making an explosive reentry with the Warmage

Our challengers will have about 2 weeks to build a complete build up to Effective Character Level 20 using a 32 point buy and all official WOTC D&D 3.5 materials (excluding Dragon Magazine, but including any WOTC online enhancements) with the abilities and feel of a Warmage without actually using any levels in it.

Entries must be submitted by Friday, 9:00pm GMT, August 20th, 2021. As usual, please submit your entries via private message to the chairman, so as not to influence the other sauciers.

Judges will then have until Friday, 9:00pm GMT, September 3rd, 2021, to post scores for all dishes.

Contestants will be judged and awarded a score of 1 through 5 in each of 4 categories:
Innovation (Uniqueness in character concept, race, class, etc)
Power (How powerful and versatile it is compared to the base class)
Elegance (What can only be described as how well the build "flows", i.e not using lots of 1-2lv dips, sacrificing flavour for power or using flaws)
Ingredient (How well the build captures the abilities and feel of the base class)

Presentation would be best in the style of how the iron chef does their presentations, however any style is allowed so long as it is clear on how the build was made.

Submission:
To standardize Entries, please use this format when sending it in:

PM: AvatarVecna
Subject: Zinc Saucier 37, Name of your Entry

For Revisions and disputes, do the same thing. It makes it easier for me finding the entries in my mail box.

If you have questions about the contest that feel inappropriate to ask in the main thread, please PM me with "Zince Saucier 37 Questions". Keep in mind that I am not a judge, and so questions about how acceptable X or Y might be to judges will get (at best) a guess on my part due to my somewhat limited familiarity with the competitive community.

Recommended style is as the spoilers below. The end of the second post has a link to a Google Sheet that helps show the layout, if that will help you with planning out your build.

NAME OF ENTRY


Level
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features


1st
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


2nd
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


3rd
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


4th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


5th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


6th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


7th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


8th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


9th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


10th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


11th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


12th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


13th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


14th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


15th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


16th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


17th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


18th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


19th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


20th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities



Code immediately below (spoiler).

Level
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features


1st
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


2nd
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


3rd
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


4th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


5th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


6th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


7th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


8th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


9th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


10th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


11th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


12th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


13th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


14th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


15th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


16th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


17th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


18th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
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19th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


20th
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities


For entries with spellcasting, use the following table for Spells per day and Spells Known. (Spells Known only if necessary, i.e. Sorcerer or Bard, but not Wizard or Warmage)Spells per Day/Spells Known


Level
0lvl
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th


1st
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


2nd
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


3rd
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


4th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


5th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


6th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


7th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


8th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


9th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


10th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


11th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


12th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


13th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


14th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


15th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


16th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


17th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


18th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


19th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


20th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


Code immediately below (spoiler)Spells per Day/Spells Known


Level
0lvl
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th


1st
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


2nd
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


3rd
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


4th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


5th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


6th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


7th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


8th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


9th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


10th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


11th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


12th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


13th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


14th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


15th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


16th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


17th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


18th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


19th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


20th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-



Please do not post details of your build on the board before it is ready, so as not to spoil the surprise for others. Similarly, please try to refrain from speculating on possible builds too much even if you don't intend to use them yourself.

Sauciers may submit up to two builds each, as we don't want to overfeed the judges.

Previous Challenges:
Soulknife
Bard
Monk
Assassin
Barbarian
Warlock
Paladin *
Warblade
Pyrokineticist
Ninja *
Druid
True Necromancer
Dervish
Whisperknife
Epic Infiltrator *
Master of Vipers
Ranger *
Flayerspawn Psychic
Totemist
Walker in the Waste
Drunken Master
Cleric
Duskblade
Psibond Agent
Argent Fist
Fighter
Artificier
Knight
Spellthief
Factorum no cooks submitted
Dragonfire Adept
Battle Dancer
Illithid Slayer one cook submitted
Swashbuckler
Chameleon
Dread Necromancer one cook submitted


*: Classes marked with an asterisk have had their original posts updated to reflect the final results.

This competition is inspired by the Playground Iron Chef Competitions and uses mostly identical rules.

[AvatarVecna]

Competitors will be free to use any official 3.5 rulebook in constructing their builds. Dragon magazine is disallowed, and Unearthed Arcana is allowed; but see Elegance below. Web-exclusive 3.0 or 3.5 materials by WotC are expressly allowed, but take care to verify that an updated version did not appear in print elsewhere, as this may cause an Elegance deduction at the judges' discretion. Alternate rule systems from UA such as gestalt and generic classes are not allowed, as they create a different playing field. Also, item familiars are forbidden because I hate 'em.

Power level is up to you. Cheese is acceptable, but should be kept to a sane level unless you're showcasing a new TO build you've discovered. In the words of one of my predecessors, a little cheddar can be nice, but avoid the mature Gruyere unless you're making a cheese fondue.

Elegance could bear a little elaboration. It basically measures how skillfully you put your build together, and whether you sacrificed flavor for power. We're cooking here - if your dish doesn't taste good, it doesn't matter how well-presented it is. Use of flaws is an automatic loss of one point per flaw in this category. Other things that will cause lost points here are excessive multiclassing, and classes that don't fit the concept - using Cloistered Cleric in a front-line melee fighter, for example, may lose you points. Please note the following: a legal source's relative obscurity should not be considered as penalizing Elegance, excepting the aforementioned issues with Unearthed Arcana. Using too many sources may be an Elegance deduction at the judges' discretion, but a book's relative obscurity may not.

Concerning Experience Requirements: Each build is allotted exactly 200,000 EXP. This is roughly 10,000 EXP more than necessary to get to 20th level. Please take note of this when planning your character for circumstances like LA Buyoff, Item Crafting, Magic Use, Multiclassing EXP Penalties, etc.

Definition of Power for scoring: Since this has been a point of contention, let me lay down this guideline. Since the goal is to emulate the Secret Ingredient, achieving much higher power than the Secret Ingredient is capable of is overkill and should be marked accordingly. Likewise if the build cannot match the power of the Secret Ingredient it should be marked accordingly. Individual judges can decide how much is too much for Power scoring, as each judge will have different tastes. The goal here is to prevent all entries being Wizard 20 because "they do it better."

What's the minimum score in a category? Assuming an entry is legal, the minimum score in any category is 1. If a judge is convinced that an entry is illegal by the RAW, the judge may give a 0 or decline to score a given entry. Because this contest focuses on Player Characters, an entry that is not technically allowed for a PC, but is viable as an NPC, counts as a legal entry, but may receive a minimum score at the judges' discretion.

Is Dragon Compendium Allowed? Yes, but individual issues of Dragon Magazine are not.

What about 3.0 materials? 3.0 materials, whether online or in printed form, are allowed unless they've been officially updated to a 3.5 edition.

Are Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Planescape, Dark Sun, or Kingdoms of Kalamar allowable sources? The Dragonlance Campaign Setting is allowed, but the subsequent books for Dragonlance are considered 3rd party, and are therefore not eligible, despite the "WotC approved" status of those books. The same holds for Oriental Adventures (1st party) and the subsequent Rokugan books (3rd party). Materials from Ravenloft, Planescape, Dark Sun, and Kingdoms of Kalamar are considered 3rd party for purposes of this contest, and are therefore not allowed.

What about online sources in general? If the online source is a) published by WotC, and b) not replaced by an updated version at a later time, it is eligible. Use it, link it.

Where's the line drawn with "acceptable/unacceptable" for Unearthed Arcana? This will likely vary a bit from Chairman to Chairman. Variant class features and variant character classes are espressly permitted. Item Familiars and Gestalt have always been verboten; don't expect that to change. Flaws have similarly always been noted as warranting a deduction; even now that its me that is Chairing, its still extended to Traits, though they warrant 1/2 the penalty in Elegance that a Flaw would because they're roughly 1/2 as useful. Alternate spell systems, alternate skill systems and alternate crafting rules all create an uneven playing field, and as such, will be disallowed for as long as I am Chairman. Bloodlines are ripe for abuse, and will be discouraged as long as I am Chairman. Note that judges are allowed to look askance at any use of Unearthed Arcana not specifically mentioned above, at their discretion, and otherwise penalize Elegance according to their preference.

What, exactly, does the ban on Leadership mean? As folks have started to try to work around the edges of this one, I'm forced to spell it out more plainly. No Leadership, Draconic Cohort, or Feats that grant a similar ability are allowed EXCEPT Wild Cohort while I am chairman. Any PrC you choose with Leadership or a Leadership-analog has that ability entirely ignored for this contest, as it may neither be used nor traded away via any means whatsoever.

How the heck do I even do this? Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to select a combination of race, templates, classes, alternate class features, prestige classes, skills, and feats, meld them into a single character that progresses from ECL 1 to ECL 20, that is as close as possible to the secret ingredient as possible in look, feel, class features. How you do it is up to you, I recommend you read previous competitions if you are interested in seeing how others have done it before you. Capture the essence!

Links amusement/edification:[list]
Handy Tips for the Iron Chef in the Playground Noob
GitP Blank Iron Chef Entry (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BG0-5sq4dL9Ooh7-QfXuyHzO4rXSz-CRcj29t6BeUVE/edit#gid=0) (credit to mattie_p)

[mattie_p]

Hooo boy. As chair emeritus I support this endeavor. I'll be in somehow.

[AvatarVecna]

Title error has been fixed. >.>

[mattie_p]

Oh. Go ahead and link my Google sheets table template if you'd like. It's in my signature.

[AvatarVecna]

Oh. Go ahead and link my Google sheets table template if you'd like. It's in my signature.

Added it to the second post, and referenced it in the first. Hopefully this gets off the ground this time. :smallsmile:

[ciopo]

Ohhhh, I want in! , I want in so badly, but my vacation starts and it's exactly these two weeks, I'll have to skip it *sniffs* or make something rushed, but I'm already rushing the junkward entry :( *inarticulate muttering*

[AvatarVecna]

Ohhhh, I want in! , I want in so badly, but my vacation starts and it's exactly these two weeks, I'll have to skip it *sniffs* or make something rushed, but I'm already rushing the junkward entry :( *inarticulate muttering*

Depedning on interest and past performance, who knows. Deadline might well end up extended a week, giving you a bit of time? But uh...don't take this the wrong way, but I hope there's enough interest that you unfortunately don't get the extension to build. >.>

[Thurbane]

If I can find time, I'd like to try an entry for this. :smallsmile:

Also, you may want to link the easy-format document that mattie_p made, it's very handy: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

[H_H_F_F]

Good luck with the competition, AvatatVecna! I feel like we have a slight inflation of competitions, but hopefully everything'll balance out and we get enough judges and entrants for everything.

Clarification on the power category: does the metric mean that a power score of 5 would be the exact power level of an (optimized? Average? TO?) warmage, while a power score of 1 is the farthest away from such power level? Or is it more of a tipping scale of "the more power the better, unless you go overboard?"

[mattie_p]

Good luck with the competition, AvatatVecna! I feel like we have a slight inflation of competitions, but hopefully everything'll balance out and we get enough judges and entrants for everything.

So all the competitions are: Iron Chef, IC E6, Junkyard Wars, Villainous Competition, Zinc Saucier, and possibly Monster Mash (if it continues). That's 6 that pull from the same limited pool of competitors and judges, each of whom has whatever time constraints. That's just the formal contests, doesn't include whatever spontaneous challenges arise such as the mundane melee monster build.

I might respectfully suggest that the chairs collaborate on timing, such that only one contest out of the group enters a new phase each week. For example, both ZS and JW have entry deadlines at about the same time, and presumably start judging about the same time. If they ended a week apart, both might have more entries because they aren't drawing from the same pool. And then each could have a week in the sun, as it were, all to themselves. This might draw out the length of time for each, but deadlines are pretty casual anyway, and by the nature of the forums tend to stretch anyway.

This is just a thought from a participant and past chair, nothing more.

[Kuulvheysoon]

I've been putting together my (awful) entry for Junkyard Wars together, and although I'm fairly certain my grasp on 3.5E is still hilariously rusty at this point, judging something for how well it emulates something else doesn't exactly take a keen eye for optimization (which I'm pretty sure that I've lost, lol).

Toss me in for a tentative judge here. I'm expecting high scores all around; this isn't exactly a class that's super hard to emulate.

[pabelfly]

This looks like an interesting challenge, I might have a crack at it.

[Krym]

Already have a few ideas I'm building with. I'll see how it goes

[Kuulvheysoon]

Might as well update y'all with some scoring criteria. I'll be starting each category off with 3 points, and deducting or adding from there, to try and establish some sort of savage baseline.

Innovation: If you're coming at me with a straight human wizard, expect to get a 1 in this category (and using an actual Warmage will get you 0 points here, but 5 in the last category). If you can get me to tilt my head and give the screen a 'huh', you can count on a high score here.
Power: We're going to be going against the Warmage. I'm talking straight up until 9th level spells with a heavy focus on blasting. You can accomplish that, expect a good score. If you can't, but you have a damned good reason as to why not, I'm willing to listen.
Elegance: This is what it sounds like. If your class overview takes up half the screen, expect hits. If your build is clean and well thought out, you're golden. Expect hits taken for Flaws (and Traits), while limiting dips and explaining why you're in each (prestige) class and why you stayed in it for that length will get you my approval. Particularly, if you're viable at different levels of play will be looked at here, if if it only holds up at high levels.
Ingredient: If I could put you side by side at the table with a warmage of equivalent level and have to squint to figure out which is the fake, you're going to do well here. Other judges might not hit you here for not being able to match up to the class at certain points, but I will. If you claim to have an equivalent to Warmage Edge, but only get it at 20th level, don't expect to see much of a bonus for accomplishing that. Hitting 9ths by level 20 is fine; I'm only talking egregious disparities. that being said, I expect everyone to take a hit here, so don't worry too much about it.

[AvatarVecna]

Builds are being posted, don't post until I call the all clear.

[AvatarVecna]

Entry Number 1


Mr. Knowitall, just *knows* that the best way to hurt (insert enemy here) is well, generally, a fireball to the face, but sometimes we do something a little more nuanced than fireball to the face, right!?

The stars smiles on us, and with a song and a dance we will MELT YOUR FACE, BLAST YOUR FEET, FREEZE YOUR HEART AND something something, peters down
So, the aim is to emulate a warmage, right? Well to me this means, in no particular order
lots of slots
spontaneous, if possible
4 bonus metamagic feats to mirror the suddens
emulate the spell list somehow
emulate warmage edge somehow
emulate advanced learning somehow
cha based, if possible

Side consideration : try to pick a race that would make a good warmage, and try to pick normal feats that a warmage would consider taking, too.

In tinkering with this and that, wizard seemed kinda obvious, metamagic feats GET! but a pure wizard 20 just felt *wrong* to do, both for its prepared nature and for it not being cha.

So I thought, what sort of flavor can I spice in? And after much deliberation I decided to pair it with Sublime Chord, then dual advancing them with ultimate Magus.

Why such a convoluted wigglement? Well, here are a couple of reasons
Gotta have some CHA things, otherwise warmage sad :(
Half spontaneous better than no spontaneous!
kindaish lots of slots? dual advancing let us baloons up the higher level slots
dual advancing let us pick at least some of the banned spells on the spontaneous side


The "trick" is this, Sublime Chord says to pick an arcane class, and the caster level for sublime chord and that class is the sum of the two.
That means that, if we somehow only have those two classes as Arcane, we evade the "lowest class" clause of Ultimate Magus at level 1, 4 and 7, letting us advancing both of them by 6 levels, and 3 levels we can split however we want to! So from a Baseline equivalent of Wizard 15/Sublime Chord 7, we are at 8th/8th casting and we can push for 9th level on one side. From a spell slots amounts,Wizard is better because of the school specialization, letting us better emulate a warmage, despite the caveat of sadly having some banned spells :( . Warmage has 3 spells in total that are illusion and again abjuration, 3 spells, but of the few 9th level spells he knows, one is abjuration and one is illusion, just why! argh!!

Anyway, here we are! Let's Dig In!

NG Star ElfUE, pg. 10, Divine Bard 1 / Wizard 9 / Sublime Chord 1 / Ultimate magus 9
Str 9, Dex 8, Con 12 (14 -2 racial), Int 22 (17+ 5 level), Wis 10, Cha 18 (16 +2 racial)
HP 6 + 18d4 + 1d6 + 20 (74)

Focused specialist Evocation, Banned Schools Enchantment, Illusion, Abjuration

LevelClassBase Attack BonusFort SaveRef SaveWill SaveSkillsFeatsClass Features1stDivine BardUA, pg. 50 1+0+0+2+2Concentration +3, Knowledge(Arcana +4, Dungeoneering +3, Local +3, Nature +3, Religion +3, The Planes +3), Listen +4, Perform(Sing) +4, Profession(Astrologer) +4, Spellcraft +4Apprentice (Spellcaster)(Sublime Chord)DMGII, pg.176Bardic Music, Bardic Knowledge2ndFocused Specialist(Evocation)CM pg. 34 Wizard 1+0+0+2+4Arcana 4+1, Listen 4+1(2), Perform 4+1(2)Scribe ScrollWizard Bonus FeatSummon Familiar3rdWizard 2+1+0+2+5Arcana 5+1, Listen 5+1(2), Perform 5+1(2)Knowledge DevotionCC, pg. 604thWizard 3+1+1+3+5Conc 3+1, Arcana 6+1, Listen 6+1(2), Perform 6+1(2)5thWizard 4+2+1+3+6Conc 4+1, Arcana 7+1, Listen 7+1(2), Perform 7+1(2)6thWizard 5+2+1+3+6Conc 5+1, Arcana 8+1, Listen 8+1(2), Perform 8+1(2)Empower Spell, Piercing EvocationBonus Feat; CM, pg. 467thWizard 6+3+2+4+7Conc 6+1, Arcana 9+1, Listen 9+1(2), Perform 9+1(2)8thWizard 7+3+2+4+7Conc 7+1, Arcana 10+1, Listen 10+1(2), Astrologer 4+29thWizard 8+4+2+4+8Conc 8+1, Arcana 11+1, Listen 11+1(2), Spellcraft 4+2Maximize Spell10thWizard 9+4+3+5+8Conc 9+1, Arcana 12+1, Listen 12+1(2), Spellcraft 6+211thSublime Chord 1+4+3+5+10Dungeoneering 3+1, Local 3+1, Nature 3+1, Religion 3+1, The Planes 3+1, spellcraft 8+312thUltimate MagusCM, pg. 77 1+4+3+5+12Arcana 13+1, Dungeoneering 4+1, Local 4+1, Nature 4+1, Religion 4+1, The Planes 4+1, spellcraft 11+1Residual MetamagicCM, pg. 46Arcane spell power +113thUltimate Magus 2+5+3+5+13Conc 10+1, Arcana 14+1, Dungeoneering 5+1, Local 5+1, Nature 5+1, Religion 5+1, The Planes 5+1,Expanded spell knowledge14thUltimate Magus 3+5+4+6+13same increases as previous levelAugmented casting15thUltimate Magus 4+6/+1+4+6+14same increases as previous levelMetamagic School FocusCM, pg. 45Arcane spell power +2, expanded spell knowledge16thUltimate Magus 5+6/+1+4+6+14same increases as previous levelSudden WidenBonus Feat; CA pg. 8317thUltimate Magus 6+7/+2+5+7+15same increases as previous levelExpanded spell knowledge18thUltimate Magus 7+7/+2+5+7+15same increases as previous levelSudden EmpowerCA, pg. 83Arcane spell power +319thUltimate Magus 8+8/+3+5+7+16same increases as previous levelExpanded spell knowledge20thUltimate Magus 9+8/+3+6+8+16Concentration 18, Knowledge(Arcana 22, Dungeoneering 13, Local 13, Nature 13, Religion 13, The Planes 13), Listen 13, Perform(Sing) 10, Profession(Astrologer) 6, Spellcraft 12Sudden MaximizeBonus Feat; CA, pg. 83
With the Divine Bard, we have 2 cantrip slots, and 4 cantrips known, letting us nicely be at 6 cantrips per day in total when summed to wizard cantrips, just like a warmage! Sadly only Light is shared between them, Bard cantrip known are thus : Light, plus 3 extra ( personal preference: Message, Mending, Mage Hand)
Legenda: W are wizard slots, bonus from high intelligence included
B are wizard specialist slots
S are sublime chord slots, bonus from high charisma included
{} are how many slots a warmage of equivalent level would have, for ease of comparison, bonus from high charisma included

the numbers between (elipses) are with taking in consideration schrodinger Ability boosting item
The assumed charisma for the Warmage is 19 at 1st-3th,20 at 4th-7th, 21(23) at 8th-11, 22(26) at 12-15, 23(29) at 16-19, 24(30) at 20th
LevelInt/ChaWizard/Sublime chord equivalent levelWiz/SB Caster Level1st level slots2nd level slots3rd level slots4th level slots5th level slots6th level slots7th level slots8th level slots9th level slots2nd17/181/-1/-1W+3B {5}--------3rd17/182/-2/-2W+3B {6}--------4th18/183/-3/-2W+3B {8}1W+3B {4}-------5th18/184/-4/-3W+3B {8}2W+3B {5}-------6th18/185/-5/-3W+3B {8}2W+3B {6}1W+3B {4}------7th18/186/-6/-3W+3B {8}3W+3B {7}2W+3B {5}------8th19(21)/187/-7/-4(5)W+3B {8}3W+3B {7(8)}2W+3B {6}1W+3B {4}-----9th19(21)/188/-8/-4(5)W+3B {8}3W+3B {7(8)}3W+3B {7}2W+3B {5}-----10th19(21)/189/-9/-4(5)W+3B {8}4W+3B {7(8)}3W+3B {7}2W+3B {6}0(1)W+3B {4}----11th19(21)/18(20)9/110/104(5)W+3B {8}4W+3B {7(8)}3W+3B {7}2W+3B+3S {7}0(1)W+3B+1(2)S {5}----12th20(24)/18(20)10/112/125W+3B {8}4(5)W+3B {8}3(4)W+3B {7(8)}3W+3B+3S {7(8)}2W+3B+1(2)S {6}{4}---13th20(24)/18(20)11/214/145W+3B {8}4(5)W+3B {8}4(5)W+3B {7(8)}3W+3B+3S {7(8)}2W+3B+2(3)S {7}0(1)W+3B {5}---14th20(24)/18(22)12/316/165W+3B {8}4(5)W+3B {8}4(5)W+3B {7(8)}3W+3B+4S {7(8)}3W+3B+2(3)S {7}1(2)W+3B+1(2)S {6}{3(4)}--15th20(24)/18(22)13/318/185W+3B {8}4(5)W+3B {8}4(5)W+3B {7(8)}4W+3B+4S {7(8)}3W+3B+2(3)S {7}1(2)W+3B+1(2)S {7}0(1)W+3B {4(5)}--16th21(25)/18(22)14/420/205W+3B {8(9)}4(5)W+3B {8}4(5)W+3B {7(8)}4W+3B+4S {7(8)}3W+3B+3(4)S {7(8)}2(3)W+3B+2(3)S {7}1(2)W+3B {5(6)}{3(4)}-17th21(25)/18(22)15/522/225W+3B {8(9)}4(5)W+3B {8}4(5)W+3B {7(8)}4W+3B+4S {7(8)}4W+3B+3(4)S {7(8)}2(3)W+3B+2(3)S {7}1(2)W+3B+1S {6(7)}0W+3B {4(5)}-18th21(27)/18(22)16/524/245W+3B {8(9)}4(5)W+3B {8}4(5)W+3B {7(8)}4(5)W+3B+4S {7(8)}4W+3B+3(4)S {7(8)}2(3)W+3B+2(3)S {7}2(3)W+3B+1S {6(7)}1(2)W+3B {5(6)}{3(4)}19th21(27)/18(22)17/626/265W+3B {8(9)}4(5)W+3B {8}4(5)W+3B {7(8)}4(5)W+3B+5S {7(8)}4W+3B+3(4)S {7(8)}3(4)W+3B+2(3)S {7}2(3)W+3B+2S {6(7)}1(2)W+3B {6(7)}0W+3B {4(5)}20th22(28)/18(24)18/728/285(6)W+3B {8(9)}5W+3B {8(9)}4(5)W+3B {8}4(5)W+3B+5S {7(8)}4(5)W+3B+4(5)S {7(8)}4W+3B+2(3)S {7(8)}2(3)W+3B+2(3)S {7}1(2)W+3B+1S {6(7)}1(2)W+3B {5(6)}
I am going to work my way back, top to bottom, to see how easy and how well we can replicate the warmage list.
Our pool of guaranteed spell known

As Sublime Chord : 1 8th, 2 7th, 3 6th, 4 5th, 4 4th, 1 1st
As Wizard : 4 9th or lower, 4 <=8th, 4 <=7th, 4 <=6th, 4 <=5th, 4 <=4th, 4 <=3rd, 4 <=2nd, 8 1st
Ultimate Magus Expanded Knowledge: 1 4th or lower, 1 3rd, 1 2nd, 1 1st added to the sublime chord


9th level:
Warmage knows 6 spells.
Implosion and Elemental swarm aren't on the wizard list, and Illusion+Abjuration are our banned schools, so no Prismatic Sphere or Weird.
This leaves Meteor Swarm and Wail of the Banshee for us to learn. Down 2 spells.

8th level:
Warmage knows 7 spells, plus one from Advanced Learning.
They're all on the wizard list, so we're good here, but Prismatic Wall and Scintillating Pattern are on banned schools, so our singular Sublime Chord spell shall be one of these two.
Greater shout is 6th level for bard, and per the ruling of sublime chord, we pick the bard level for it, so that's another one taken care of.
That leaves 5 spells learned as wizard.

7th level:
Warmage knows 8 spells.
Earthquake, Fire Storm and Sunbeam aren't on our lists.
5 other spells, 2 as sublime chord and 3 as wizard

6th level:
Warmage knows 8 spells.
Blade Barrier and Fire Seeds aren't on our lists.
6 other spells, 2 as sublime chord and 4 as wizard

5th level:
Warmage knows 7 spells, plus one from advanced learning.
Flame Strike isn't on our lists.
Everything else we have access to, so 4 as sublime chord and 3 as wizard

4th level:
Warmage knows 12 spells.
Phantasmal Killer is on our banned list, but we can learn it as sublime chord.
4 as sublime chord, 8 as wizard.

3rd level:
Warmage knows 10 spells, plus one from advanced learning.
Poison and Ring of blades aren't on our list.
Fire Shield and Ice storm are 4th level for us
Gust of Wind is 2nd level for us
all in all, 9 as wizard.

2nd level:
Warmage knows 11 spells.
Fire trap is on our banned list.
so, 10 as wizard.

1st level:
Warmage knows 13 spells, plus one from advanced learning.
Only Accuracy is not on our lists.
So, 1 Spell as Sublime Chord, 12 as wizard.

On the balance, we "have" to copy to the spellbook from scrolls: 3 4th level, 1 3rd level, 7 2nd level and 4 1st level. Having done that, we know all that a warmage knows with the exceptions listed above.

We are a blaster... It's not exactly rocket science! The only marginal strategic decision we can have is what spells to prepare on the wizard side, so I guess I'll at least list that. The tactics at every level are, you guessed it, blasting!

Level 5:
Slots: 6 1st level and 5 second level slots
Prepared: 4x Magic Missile, 2x Burning Hands; 2x FireburstSpC, pg. 93, 3x Scorching Ray

level 10:
Slots: 7(8) 1st, 7 2nd, 6 3rd, 5 4th, 3(4) 5th;
Prepared: 7(8)x Magic Missile; 2x Gust of Wind, 5x Scorching Ray; 3x Fireball, 3x Lightning Bolt; 1x Wall of Fire, 3x Empowered Scorching Ray, 1x Orb of ForceSpC, pg. 151; 1x Greater FireburstSpC, pg. 94, 1(2)x Cone of Cold, 1x Empowered Fireball

Level 15:
Slots: 8 1st, 7(8) 2nd, 7(8) 3rd, 7 4th, 6 5th, 4(5) 6th, 3(4) 7th
Spontaneous: 4 4th, 2(3) 5th, 1(2) 6th
Prepared: 8x Magic Missile; 2x Gust of Wind, 5(6)x Scorching Ray; 4x Fireball, 3(4)x Lightning Bolt; 1x Wall of Fire, 2x Orb of Force, 4x Empowered Scorching Ray; 1x Greater Fireburst, 3x Cone of Cold, 2x Empowered Fireball; 4(5)x Chain Lightning; 1x Empowered maximized Fireball, 1x Empowered maximized lightning bolt, 1x maximized Cone of Cold, 0(1)x Empowered greater fireburst
Note: Metamagic school focus is applied to the 7th level spells ,except the fireburst

Level 20:
Slots: 8(9) 1st, 8 2nd, 7(8) 3rd, 7(8) 4th, 7(8) 5th, 7 6th, 5(6) 7th, 4(5) 8th, 4(5) 9th
Spontaneous: 5 4th, 4(5) 5th, 2(3) 6th, 2(3) 7th, 1 8th
Prepared: 8(9)x Magic Missile; 2x Gust of Wind, 6x Scorching Ray; 4x Fireball, 3(4)x Lightning Bolt; 1(2)x Wall of Fire, 2x Orb of Force, 4x Empowered Scorching Ray; 1x Greater Fireburst, 4x Cone of Cold, 2(3)x Empowered Fireball; 7x Chain Lightning; 5x Empowered Cone of Cold, 0(1)x Empowered greater fireburst; 1x Empowered maximized Fireball, 1x Empowered maximized Lightning Bolt, 2(3)x Polar Ray; 3x Empowered Polar Ray, 1(2)x Meteor Swarm
Note: Metamagic school focus is applied to the Empowered Polar Rays.

Do Remember that 7 times per day we can metamagic "for free" a 3rd or 4th level Sublime Chord spell by expending a 2nd/3rd level Wizard slot, which means either empowered/maximized fireballs or empowered/maximized Cone of Cold.

Of Course, we built in some redundancy, since we got Residual Magic to empower/maximize "for free" the next round, if we cast the same spell.
Q: why divine bard!?
A: to avoid the problem of having ultimate magus 1st,4th and 7th level "+1 to lowest caster level arcane class" be applied to Bard. With Divine bard we still qualify for sublime chord but we don't have a third arcane class messing up our plan. Almost all +CHA races have -CON anyway, except the overused lesserPGTF, pg. 191 aasimar

Q: Star elf?
A: a warmage would seek to boost it's charisma!, also, the favored class bard let us neatly avoid multiclassing penalties

Q: what's up with apprentice?
A: we wouldn't qualify for ultimate magus otherwise. Ironically sublime chord has only 4th level and higher spell known, but by being an apprentice sublime chord, we will have one 1st level bard/wizard/sorc spell known with it! Thus qualifying for ultimate magus. If you grumble that we can't cast it because we don't have 1st level slots, we just need to metamagic it to +3, then we can cast it with our 4th level slot, but it's still a 1st level spell :). Friendly reminder that by rules prepared spellcasters can prepare lower level spells on higher level slots even without metamagicking them, spontaneous are in a grey area since afaik there is no mention about doing that same thing too, but lucky us we have metamagic!

Q: Knowledge Devotion?
A: I'm trying to think "why would a warmage have high int?" and the answer I came to is that what it would most help with would be this. From this point of view the 1st level feat of our theoretical warmage is EducationECS, pg. 52 instead of apprentice. A warmage would try to have a somewhat high intelligence for the purpose of warmage edge anyway, and this sinergies well to that, or lowkey emulates it in the case that the warmage doesn't take high int

Q: Piercing Evocation?
A: We are an evoker, so we're allowed to take it as one of our bonus wizard feats. This is a feat that a warmage might take, but they would need spell focus(evocation), so we "gain back" the normal feat we later spend to get Sudden Empower. Note that we qualify by being an evoker

Q: Empower and Maximize metamagics?
A: Empower -> the warmage wouldn't otherwise be able to use the sudden empower at the level he unlocks it, because it has a "any metamagic feat" prerequisite. Besides, these are normal choices for blaster casters anyway.

Q: Residual Metamagic?
A: Dude, we're blasting, we got the cookie cutter blasting metamagics, now we gotta start doing some reducing!

Q: Metamagic School Focus?
A: Ditto, especially if the theoretical warmage took spell focus for the purpose of piercing evocation.

Musings: We are only missing sudden enlarge on the comparison, but that's generally useless anyway, so no big harm here.
We got very high caster level, too bad most spell caps :(
Ultimate magus Expanded knowledge let us add one 1st, 2nd, and two 3rd level spells as spell known on the sublime chord, giving us sinergy with residual metamagic, now we can fireball/lightning bolt with our spontaneous slots!
we "save a feat" by already having a familiar, in case the warmage would take Obtain familiarCA, pg. 81 we're safe to copy spells, spellcraft 12 ranks +2 sinergy (arcana) +2 competence (apprentice) +4 circumstance(masterwork tools, familiar aid another) +6(9) Intelligence
I feel I have a bit of missed opportunity to be a Manifest SpellshaperPGtE, pg. 124, given the astrologer and stuff, to maybe go for mastery of Ice and Fire, but oh well. You can still fluff that way if you want to? We shall be known as The ultimate spellshaper!
Ultimate Magus Augmented casting can be used to Empower/Maximize Sublime Chord slots with 2nd/3rd level wizard slots, and then combo it with residual metamagic the next turn! Also we could argue it doesn't increase the casting time to full round
Didn't take any ACF, and the bard stuff is a bit of a wayside, but consider Spellbreaker SongCM, pg. 35.
We self-perpetuate the tradition, Our Mentor, going by the table of Apprentice, is 11-12th level, so he, too, is a Divine Bard 1 / Wizard 8 / Sublime Chord 1 / Ultimate Magus 1


CA = Complete Arcane
CC = Complete Champion
CM = Complete Mage
DMGII= Dungeon Master Guide II
ECS = Eberron Campaign Setting
PGtE = Practical Guide to Evil Player's Guide to Eberron
PGTF = Player's Guide to Faerun
SpC = Spell Compendium
UA = Unearthed Arcana
UE = Unapproachable East

[AvatarVecna]

Entry Number 2



https://i.imgur.com/v8bYNhZ.png

Cecilia, Master Elementalist

Build Stub: Sorcerer 7/Human Paragon 3/Incantatrix 10
Race: Silverbrow Human. Size: M. Gender: Female. Alignment: Blasting Chaotic Neutral. Patron Deity: Boccob

Highlights:
Blast away with enlarged ranged touch attacks, forget saving throws.
Switch between fire, electricity, cold and acid elements and combine them into increasingly powerful multi-element spells
Cast arcane spells in light armor
HP: 127. BAB: 12. Saves: 8/10/17

Point Buy/Level 1: 10/15/14/14/10/15
Level 20: 10/18/14/14/10/19
Stat bonuses: CHA: 4, 8, 12, 16. DEX: 10 (+2), 20

High DEX helps our ranged touch attacks, AC, Initiative, and Reflex Saves, and we need 19 CHA for spells. A few points for CON, for HP and Concentration, and INT for skill points.



Level
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features


1st
Sorcerer 1
0
0
0
2
Concentration 4
Intimidate 4
Knowledge (Arcana) 4
Spellcraft 4
Enlarge Spell
Iron Will
Weapon Focus: Longsword
Stalwart Sorcerer
Battle Sorcerer
Weapon Proficiency: Longsword
Weapon Proficiency: Trident
Metamagic Specialist



2nd
Sorcerer 2
1
0
0
3
Concentration 5
Intimidate 5
Knowledge (Arcana) 5
Spellcraft 5




3rd
Sorcerer 3
2
1
1
3
Concentration 6
Intimidate 6
Knowledge (Arcana) 6
Spellcraft 6
Energy Substitution: Electricity



4th
Sorcerer 4
3
1
1
4
Concentration 7
Intimidate 7
Knowledge (Arcana) 7
Spellcraft 7




5th
Sorcerer 5
3
1
1
4
Concentration 8
Intimidate 8
Knowledge (Arcana) 8
Spellcraft 8




6th
Sorcerer 6
4
2
2
5
Concentration 9
Intimidate 9
Knowledge (Arcana) 9
Spellcraft 9
Arcane Thesis: Scorching Ray



7th
Sorcerer 7
5
2
2
5
Concentration 10
Intimidate 10
Knowledge (Arcana) 10
Spellcraft 10




8th
Human Paragon 1
5
2
2
7
Concentration 11
Intimidate 11
Knowledge (Arcana) 11
Bluff 2
Spellcraft 11

Adaptive Learning (Bluff)


9th
Human Paragon 2
6
2
2
8
Concentration 12
Intimidate 12
Knowledge (Arcana) 12
Bluff 4
Spellcraft 12
Energy Substitution: Cold
Energy Substitution: Acid



10th
Human Paragon 3
7
3
3
8
Concentration 13
Intimidate 13
Knowledge (Arcana) 12
Bluff 6
Spellcraft 13

Ability Boost (+2 DEX)


11th
Incantatrix 1
7
3
3
10
Concentration 14
Intimidate 14
Knowledge (Arcana) 14
Spellcraft 14
Energy Admixture (Electricity)
Focused Studies
Forbidden School: Transmutation


12th
Incantatrix 2
8
3
3
11
Concentration 15
Intimidate 15
Knowledge (Arcana) 15
Spellcraft 15
Practical Metamagic: Energy Admixture (Electricity)
Cooperative Metamagic


13th
Incantatrix 3
8
4
4
11
Concentration 16
Intimidate 16
Knowledge (Arcana) 16
Spellcraft 16

Metamagic Effect


14th
Incantatrix 4
9
4
4
12
Concentration 17
Intimidate 17
Knowledge (Arcana) 17
Spellcraft 17
Energy Admixture (Cold)



15th
Incantatrix 5
9
4
4
12
Concentration 18
Intimidate 18
Knowledge (Arcana) 18
Spellcraft 18
Practical Metamagic: Energy Admixture (Cold)
Metamagic Spell Trigger


16th
Incantatrix 6
10
5
5
13
Concentration 19
Intimidate 19
Knowledge (Arcana) 19
Spellcraft 19

Seize Concentration


17th
Incantatrix 7
10
5
5
13
Concentration 20
Intimidate 20
Knowledge (Arcana) 20
Spellcraft 20
Energy Admixture (Acid)
Instant Metamagic 1/day


18th
Incantatrix 8
11
5
5
14
Concentration 21
Intimidate 21
Knowledge (Arcana) 21
Spellcraft 21
Practical Metamagic: Energy Admixture (Acid)
Snatch Spell


19th
Incantatrix 9
11
6
6
14
Concentration 22
Intimidate 22
Knowledge (Arcana) 22
Spellcraft 22

Instant Metamagic 2/day


20th
Incantatrix 10
12
6
6
15
Concentration 23
Intimidate 23
Knowledge (Arcana) 23
Spellcraft 23
Twin Spell
Improved Metamagic





Level
0lvl
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th


1st
4
3
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


2nd
5
4
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


3rd
5
5
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


4th
5
6
3
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


5th
5
6
4
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


6th
5
6
5
3
-
-
-
-
-
-


7th
5
6
5
4
-
-
-
-
-
-


8th
5
6
5
4
-
-
-
-
-
-


9th
5
6
6
5
2
-
-
-
-
-


10th
5
6
6
5
3
-
-
-
-
-


11th
5
6
6
6
4
2
-
-
-
-


12th
5
6
6
6
6
3
-
-
-
-


13th
5
6
6
6
6
4
2
-
-
-


14th
5
6
6
6
6
5
3
-
-
-


15th
5
6
6
6
6
5
4
2
-
-


16th
5
6
6
6
6
5
5
3
-
-


17th
5
6
6
6
6
5
5
4
2
-


18th
5
6
6
6
6
5
5
5
3
-


19th
5
6
6
6
6
5
5
5
4
2


20th
5
6
6
6
6
5
5
5
5
3



We could add spells to our list (our spells after level 6 are disregarded) but they don’t fit our build focus or flavour. Scorching Ray outstrips our other options.

Level 1:
(0th-level spells) Acid Splash, Ray of Frost, Disrupt Undead
(1st-level spell) Lesser Orb of Cold
Level 2:
(0th-level spell) Light
Level 3:
No new spells
Level 4:
(1st-level spell) Lesser Orb of Acid
(2nd-level spell) Scorching Ray
Level 5:
(1st-level spell) Lesser Orb of Fire
Level 6-8
Scorching Ray deals Fire or Electric damage, with Lesser Orb spells as backup. Scorching Ray is equal or better than any other touch spell we can be casting
Level 9-10
Scorching Ray is equal or better than other options, including level 4 touch spells like "Orb of Acid". Orb spells can inflict status effects, but our build prefers more damage and lower-level spell slots. Scorching Ray can be a Fire, Electric, Cold or Acid spell.
Level 11+
With Energy Admixture, Scorching Ray outstrips other ranged touch attack spells. This difference in power only increases at higher levels.
Cecilia studies the four elements of Fire, Electricity, Cold and Acid, using elements her opponents is weakest against. At low levels, her high DEX allows her to supplement spells with ranged crossbow shots.

Cecilia is an aggressive, no-nonsense character, mixing academic study and combat to hone her elemental abilities. She has little patience for subtlety or lies, and typically intimidates when she needs to. Our spells support this, we're focused on damage, disregarding support, buff or debuff options.

Level 1:
Silverbrow Humans: eligible for Human Paragon, bonus feat, Dragonblood subtype. It also comes with "feather fall".
Sorcerer: spontaneous arcane spellcasting, ninth-level spells.
Metamagic Specialist: apply metamagic without increasing casting time. We'll be doing quite a lot of this.
Stalwart Sorcerer - extra HP, a martial weapon proficiency, Weapon Focus.
Battle Sorcerer - extra HP, Intimidate, another martial weapon proficiency, 3/4 BAB, arcane spellcasting in light armor. There is little difference between light and medium armor since we're after a decent DEX bonus for other DEX-related abilities.
Enlarge Spell: We want to keep our distance from enemies.
Iron Will: +2 to our most important save
Concentration: We don't want a poor Concentration check to prevent us casting when it matters. .
Intimidate: We hate diplomacy and subtelty. We're going to be making Intimidation checks.
Knowledge (Arcana): we're studying the arcane, spellcasting and the elements.
Spellcraft we also study magic through combat
(Spell Level 1) Lesser Orb of Cold – 1d8 (Cold damage)
Level 2: No new abilities or spells, but increases to spell damage, spell slots, and attack rolls.
Level 3: We can do Electric damage with our spells.
(Spell Level 1) Lesser Orb of Cold – 3d8 (Cold or Electric damage)
Level 4: Lesser Orb of Acid and Scorching Ray added to our spell slots. We can now use each of the four elemental damage types, although Fire currently requires our level two spell slots.
(Spell Level 1) Lesser Orb of Cold or Acid – 4d8 (Acid, Electric or Cold damage)
(Spell Level 2) Scorching Ray – 4d6 (Fire or Electric damage)
Level 5:Increases to spell damage, spell slots, and attack rolls.
Cecilia begins to master her spell of choice, Scorching Ray, casting it with any of the four element types. After this, she further studies the Electricity element, learning to use it for powerful dual-element magical blasting.

Level 6: "Arcane Thesis" enlarges Scorching Ray for free, and we do two rays of damage. Two ranged attack rolls also help mitigate low attack rolls. Lesser Orb of Cold, Acid and Fire are backup spells if we need to take advantage of cold or acid weaknesses or run out of higher-level spell slots.
(Spell Level 2) Scorching Ray – 4d6 x 2 (Fire or Electric damage)
(Spell Level 1) Lesser Orb of Cold or Acid or Fire - 5d8 (Fire, Electric, Cold or Acid damage)
Level 7: General stat boosts and more spell slots.
Level 8: Human Paragon trades a caster level for a new class skill (Bluff for Intimidate synergy), 6 extra skill points, a bonus feat, and +2 to a stat.
Level 9: We can now use any type of energy when casting Scorching Ray, making it our main spell.
(Spell Level 2) Scorching Ray – 4d6 x 2 (Fire, Electric, Cold or Acid damage)
Level 10: Boosts to DEX, BAB, Intimidate (Skill synergy), and our Scorching Ray spell gets a third ray of damage.
(Spell Level 2) Scorching Ray – 4d6 x 3 (Fire, Electric, Cold or Acid damage)
Level 11: We start studying Blasting School (Incantatrix) and learn to combine multiple elements together – electricity plus fire, cold or acid. This is a fifth-level spell slots.
(Spell Level 5) Scorching Ray – 4d6 x 3 (Fire, Cold or Acid damage) + 4d6 x 3 (Electricity damage)

Having mastered Electricity damage, Cecilia decides to study Cold damage, learning to add it into her spells for a very powerful tri-element magic blast.

Level 12: We get more uses of our preferred spell. If we have allied spellcasters, we can give them the benefits of our various metamagic feats too.
(Spell Level 4) Scorching Ray – 4d6 x 3 (Fire, Cold or Acid damage) + 4d6 x 3 (Electricity damage)
Level 13: Another spellcasting level and more spell slots..
Level 14: Our continued studies in Blasting School means we cam add Cold element into our spells, giving us more spell options.
(Spell Level 4) Scorching Ray – 4d6 x 3 (Fire, Cold or Acid damage) + 4d6 x 3 (Electricity damage)
(Spell Level 5) Scorching Ray – 4d6 x 3 (Fire, Electricity or Acid damage) + 4d6 x 3 (Cold damage)
Level 15: With seventh-level spells and reduced metamagic cost for "Energy Admixture (Cold)", we can now blast with three elements at once.
(Spell Level 4) Scorching Ray – 4d6 x 3 (Fire, Electricity, Cold or Acid damage) + 4d6 x 3 (Electricity or Cold damage)
(Spell Level 6) Scorching Ray – 4d6 x 3 (Fire or Acid) + 4d6 x 3 (Electricity damage) + 4d6 x 3 (Cold damage).

Cecilia focuses on the Acid Element, culminating in the seldom-seen four-element spell, combining Fire, Cold, Electricity, and Acid damage into one overwhelming magical blast.

Level 16: We can wrest spells with a duration of "Concentration" from nearby spellcasters.
Level 17: Eighth-level spells. Further studies in blasting means we can add Poison damage to spells, albeit at +1 level compared to combining Cold or Electricity.
(Spell Level 7) Scorching Ray – 4d6 x 3 (Fire damage) + 4d6 x 3 (Electricity or Cold damage) + 4d6 x 3 (Acid damage).
Level 18: We can combine the four elements into a single attack.
(Spell Level 6) Scorching Ray – 4d6 x 3 (Fire damage) + 4d6 x 3 (Electricity, Cold or Acid damage) + 4d6 x 3 (Electric, Cold or Acid damage).
(Spell Level 8) Scorching Ray – 4d6 x 3 (Fire damage) + 4d6 x 3 (Electricity damage) + 4d6 x 3 (Cold damage) + 4d6 x 3 (Acid damage)
Level 19: We double the amount of uses of our four-element combination spell from previous level.
Level 20:. Our study of metamagic has been so thorough that we now know how to use metamagic with much more efficiency, while also gaining more power for our ultimate spell (Twin Spell) and doubling the amount of uses we get per day. Boosts to both DEX and BAB are also appreciated.
Improved Metamagic: reduces metamagic costs by 1 level. Our ultimate combined metamagic spell for Sorcerer is able to be cast 13 times a day, more than doubling how often we could cast our previous spell (and doubling damage atop that due to Twin Spell).
Saves and HP - approx 127 HP, base saves are 6/6/15 (8/10/17 adjusted). HP is roughly that of a Warmage with 16 CON, saves are quite similar to Warmage, most differences due to Iron Will and character base stats.

Concentration 25, Intimidate 29, Knowledge (Arcana) 25, Bluff 10, Spellcraft 27 (Includes skill synergy and base stats. Does not assume equip items, etc.)
See notes on Arcane Thesis after the end of the build for more information.

Enlarge: 0 (+1 level, -1 (Arcane Thesis) -1 (Improved Metamagic))
Energy Substitution: 0
Energy Admixture (Electricity): +1 (+4 level, -1 (Arcane Thesis) -1 (Improved Metamagic) -1 (Practical Metamagic))
Energy Admixture (Cold): +1 (+4 level, -1 (Arcane Thesis) -1 (Improved Metamagic) -1 (Practical Metamagic))
Energy Admixture (Acid): +1 (+4 level, -1 (Arcane Thesis) -1 (Improved Metamagic) -1 (Practical Metamagic))
Twin: +2 (+4 level, -1 (Arcane Thesis), -1 (Improved Metamagic))
(Spell Level 2) Scorching Ray – 4d6 x 3 (Fire, Electricity, Cold or Acid damage) (42 damage, presuming all rolls hit)
(Spell Level 3) Scorching Ray – 4d6 x 3 (Fire, Electricity, Cold or Acid damage) + 4d6 x 3 (Electricity or Cold or Acid damage) (84 damage, presuming all rolls hit)
(Spell Level 4) Scorching Ray – 4d6 x 3 (Fire, Electricity, Cold or Acid damage) + 4d6 x 3 (Electricity or Cold or Acid damage) + 4d6 x 3 (Electricity or Cold or Acid damage) (126 damage, presuming all rolls hit)
(Spell Level 5) Scorching Ray – 4d6 x 3 (Fire damage) + 4d6 x 3 (Electricity damage) + 4d6 x 3 (Cold damage) + 4d6 x 3 (Acid damage) (168 damage, presuming all rolls hit)
(Spell Level 6) Twin Scorching Ray – 4d6 x 3 x 2 (Fire, Electricity, Cold or Acid damage) + 4d6 x 3 x 2 (Electricity or Cold or Acid damage) + 4d6 x 3 x 2 (Electricity or Cold or Acid damage) (246 damage, presuming all rolls hit)
(Spell Level 7) Twin Scorching Ray – 4d6 x 3 x 2 (Fire damage) + 4d6 x 3 x 2 (Electricity damage) + 4d6 x 3 x 2 (Cold damage) + 4d6 x 3 x 2 (Acid damage) (332 damage, presuming all rolls hit)

Arcane Thesis reduces total spell level by 1 per metamagic, and this can be (ab)used by adding +0 metamagics, reducing their cost to offset other metamagics.

An example from level 11:

Scorching Ray
+ Enlarge (0): +1 - 1 (Arcane Thesis)
+ Energy Substitute (Acid) (-1): 0 - 1 (Arcane Thesis)
+ Energy Admixture (Electricity) (+3): 2 - 1 (Arcane Thesis)
(Level 4) (We treated this as level 5 in the build)

An example from level 20:

Scorching Ray
+ Enlarge (-1): +1 - 1 (Arcane Thesis) - 1 (Improved Metamagic)
+ Energy Substitute (Acid) (-2): 0 - 1 (Arcane Thesis) - 1 (Improved Metamagic)
+ Energy Admixture (Electricity) (+1): +4 - 1 (Arcane Thesis) - 1 (Practical Metamagic) - 1 (Improved Metamagic)
+ Energy Admixture (Cold) (+1): +4 - 1 (Arcane Thesis) - 1 (Practical Metamagic) - 1 (Improved Metamagic)
+ Twin Spell (+2): +4 - 1 (Arcane Thesis) - 1 (Improved Metamagic)
(Level 4) (We treated this as Level 6 in the build)

With the above examples, we still don’t reduce the spell level "below it's original level with the use of this feat".

We have elected not to use this exploit. Instead, we have not further reduced any metamagic effect after reaching +0.
Energy Admixture tells us that we can add an element of the same type to our spell to double damage. It also says we can apply Energy Admixture to a spell with Energy Substitution, and while it isn't explicity said, it seems that we are able to change our spell with Energy Substitute and use the same type of element with Energy Admixture. For example, we could use Scorching Ray + Energy Substitute (Electricity) + Energy Admixture (Electricity), dealing 4d6 x 3 (Electricity damage) + 4d6 x 3 (Electricity damage). However, this option has been disregarded for the more flavourful option of combining multiple element types together into a single spell.
While Cecilia is Chaotic Neutral, she doesn't have any alignment-specific spells, abilities, classes, etc. and can easily be inserted into a campaign as either a good, neutral or evil NPC, depending on your needs.

As a good or neutral NPC, her skills and abilities make her an aggressive character that juggles the academic and practical study of magic. Some suggestions include a hot-headed teacher focused on making students undertake risky but invaluable practical combat experience, an explorer of dangerous lands and ancient ruins looking for arcane knowledge, a magical scholar eagerly enrolling for war for revenge against those that wronged her in the past, or an agent of the deity Boccob, attempting to restore balance against forces of evil.

As an evil NPC, her attack consists of spamming Scorching Ray with various metamagics applied is a rather simple, which means you won't have to spend much time learning and looking up spell rules, slowing combat during table play. She'll be doing a great deal of damage and has good range with her magic. High HP characters will be of use during combat, while Cecilia can greatly threaten distant spellcasters with her extended reach and high raw damage. She can also split her damage among several party members or focus fire on one or two, depending on what suits the combat situation at the table. As an evil NPC, she would be suited to be a magically-oriented enforcerer-type character.

If there are extra feats available, “Empower Spell” boosts damage further, “Residual Magic” gives free metamagic, since we're spamming the same spell, and feats like "Improved Toughness" and "Improved Initiative" are always appreciated.
Suggested traits would be "Abrasive" to boost Intimidate, at the expense of Diplomacy, and "Aggressive" to boost Initiative at expense of AC.
The order of acquisition of "Energy Admixture" and "Practical Metamagic" are interchangeable, depending on the requirements of the campaign setting and typical enemies faced. A player might also choose to forgo "Practical Metamagic: Energy Admixture (Acid)" for Empower Spell, which sacrifices some character flavour for more power.

Complete Arcane: Energy Substitution, Energy Admixture feats, Twin Spell, assorted spells
Complete Mage: Stalwart Sorcerer ACF
Dragon Magic: Silverbrow Human
Frostburn: Character Art (P60)
Player's Handbook: Empower Spell, Enlarge Spell, Iron Will, Weapon Focus, Assorted Spells, Sorcerer base class
Player's Handbook II: Arcane Thesis feat, Metamagic Specialist
Player's Guide to Faerûn: Incantatrix prestige class
Races of the Dragon: Practical Metamagic
Unearthed Arcana: Battle Sorcerer ACF, Human Paragon

[AvatarVecna]

Entry Number 3


Roshal Averic was born under an unfortunate planar conjunction, which would turn out to set the tone for most of his life. Afflicted with both a strange affinity for fire and a scandalous aberrant dragonmark, he rarely stayed in one place long, doing his best to win people over with good cheer and tricks but always knowing that suspicion was never far behind. Eventually, this began to wear on him... realizing that he would never have a true home, he decided to embrace his power instead. Now he works as a mercenary, still always on the move, but seizing respect with grandiose displays of fiery magic rather than groveling for acceptance.

Fire Gnome Bard 5/Child of Khyber 5/Pyrokineticist 10

Str 12, Dex 14, Con 16, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 16
(racial: -2 str/+2 con)

+1 Str at level 4/8/12/16/20

Spells known:
1st: Cure light wounds, disguise self, grease
2nd: Invisibility, silence



Level
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features


1st(*)
Bard 1
+0
+0
+2
+2
Concentration 4, Craft: Alchemy 1, Knowledge: Psionics 2 (c/c), Perform (juggling) 4, Sleight of Hand 3, Use Magic Device 4
Aberrant Dragonmark
Bardic music, bardic knowledge, countersong, fascinate, inspire courage +1


2nd
Bard 2
+1
+0
+3
+3
Concentration 5, Craft: Alchemy 1, Knowledge: Psionics 2 (c/c), Perform (juggling) 5, Sleight of Hand 5, Use Magic Device 5
--
--


3rd
Bard 3
+2
+1
+3
+3
Concentration 6, Craft: Alchemy 1, Disguise 1, Knowledge: Psionics 2 (c/c), Perform (juggling) 6, Sleight of Hand 6, Use Magic Device 6
Aberrant Dragonmark Gift
Inspire Competence


4th
Bard 4
+3
+1
+4
+4
Concentration 7, Craft: Alchemy 1, Disguise 4, Knowledge: Psionics 2 (c/c), Perform (juggling) 6, Sleight of Hand 6, Use Magic Device 7
--
--


5th
Child of Khyber 1
+3
+3
+6
+6
Bluff 3, Concentration 7, Craft: Alchemy 1, Disguise 4, Knowledge: Psionics 2 (c/c), Perform (juggling) 6, Sleight of Hand 6, Use Magic Device 7
Lesser Aberrant Dragonmark (B)
Aberrant Affinity


6th
Child of Khyber 2
+4
+4
+7
+7
Bluff 6, Concentration 7, Craft: Alchemy 1, Disguise 4, Knowledge: Psionics 2 (c/c), Perform (juggling) 6, Sleight of Hand 6, Use Magic Device 7
Mighty Dragonmark
Additional action points, Improved aberrant dragonmark


7th
Child of Khyber 3
+5
+4
+7
+7
Bluff 9, Concentration 7, Craft: Alchemy 1, Disguise 4, Knowledge: Psionics 2 (c/c), Perform (juggling) 6, Sleight of Hand 6, Use Magic Device 7
--
Improved lesser aberrant dragonmark


8th
Child of Khyber 4
+6
+5
+8
+8
Bluff 11, Concentration 7, Craft: Alchemy 1, Disguise 5, Knowledge: Psionics 2 (c/c), Perform (juggling) 6, Sleight of Hand 6, Use Magic Device 7
Greater Aberrant Dragonmark (B)
--


9th
Child of Khyber 5
+6
+5
+8
+8
Bluff 12, Concentration 7, Craft: Alchemy 1, Disguise 7, Knowledge: Psionics 2 (c/c), Perform (juggling) 6, Sleight of Hand 6, Use Magic Device 7
Wild Talent
Aberrant Burst


10th
Pyrokineticist 1
+6
+7
+10
+8
Bluff 12, Concentration 7, Craft: Alchemy 1, Disguise 7, Knowledge: Psionics 3, Perform (juggling) 6, Sleight of Hand 6, Use Magic Device 7
--
Fire Lash


11th
Pyrokineticist 2
+7
+8
+11
+8
Bluff 12, Concentration 7, Craft: Alchemy 1, Disguise 7, Knowledge: Psionics 4, Perform (juggling) 6, Sleight of Hand 6, Use Magic Device 7
--
Fire adaptation, Hand Afire


12th
Pyrokineticist 3
+8
+8
+11
+9
Bluff 12, Concentration 7, Craft: Alchemy 1, Disguise 7, Knowledge: Psionics 5, Perform (juggling) 6, Sleight of Hand 6, Use Magic Device 7
Power Attack
Bolt of Fire


13th
Pyrokineticist 4
+9
+9
+12
+9
Bluff 12, Concentration 7, Craft: Alchemy 1, Disguise 7, Knowledge: Psionics 6, Perform (juggling) 6, Sleight of Hand 6, Use Magic Device 7
--
Weapon Afire


14th
Pyrokineticist 5
+9
+9
+12
+9
Bluff 12, Concentration 7, Craft: Alchemy 1, Disguise 7, Knowledge: Psionics 7, Perform (juggling) 6, Sleight of Hand 6, Use Magic Device 7
--
Nimbus


15th
Pyrokineticist 6
+10
+10
+13
+10
Bluff 12, Concentration 7, Craft: Alchemy 1, Disguise 7, Knowledge: Psionics 8, Perform (juggling) 6, Sleight of Hand 6, Use Magic Device 7
Quicken Spell-Like Ability (Scorching Ray)
Firewalk


16th
Pyrokineticist 7
+11
+10
+13
+10
Bluff 12, Concentration 7, Craft: Alchemy 1, Disguise 7, Knowledge: Psionics 9, Perform (juggling) 6, Sleight of Hand 6, Use Magic Device 7
--
Fear no fire


17th
Pyrokineticist 8
+12
+11
+14
+10
Bluff 12, Concentration 7, Craft: Alchemy 1, Disguise 7, Knowledge: Psionics 10, Perform (juggling) 6, Sleight of Hand 6, Use Magic Device 7
--
Greater weapon afire


18th
Pyrokineticist 9
+12
+11
+14
+11
Bluff 12, Concentration 7, Craft: Alchemy 1, Disguise 7, Knowledge: Psionics 11, Perform (juggling) 6, Sleight of Hand 6, Use Magic Device 7
Ability focus (Heat death)
Heat death


19th
Pyrokineticist 10
+13
+12
+15
+11
Bluff 12, Concentration 7, Craft: Alchemy 1, Disguise 7, Knowledge: Psionics 12, Perform (juggling) 6, Sleight of Hand 6, Use Magic Device 7
--
Conflagration


20th(*)
Bard 5
+13
+12
+15
+11
Bluff 15, Concentration 7, Craft: Alchemy 1, Disguise 9, Knowledge: Psionics 3, Perform (juggling) 6, Sleight of Hand 6, Use Magic Device 7
--
--



*: I included 20 class levels for the sake of the table, but the character starts with +1 LA, so he's ECL 2 at level 1 and presumably won't get to level 20.

1st-5th: Tragically, Roshal's fate as a happy-go-lucky bard is not to last very long, but he did try. In addition to some minor spellcasting and bardic music, he has Burning Hands and Heat Metal each 1/day from his race, plus another Burning Hands 1/day from his dragonmark, all boosted by +2 CL, which is pretty scary for a first level character. At level three he picks up Aberrant Dragonmark Gift for another two uses, although his CL actually starts to fall in line with his HD since it only scales by half level, and at level 5 his dragonmark burning hands is tragically only CL 4. On the other hand, level 5 is also when he enters Child of Khyber and gets Lesser Aberrant Dragonmark as a bonus feat, for two scorching rays at CL 7. That gives him six offensive SLAs per day, not too bad.

6th-10th: Mighty Dragonmark gives another boost to the SLAs, simple but reasonably effective. He gets another Burning Hands and another Scorching Ray at level 5 and 6, and hilariously picks up Flame Strike at level 7, at CL 14. It's only once per day, and it has a decent chance of dazing him, but it's certainly spooky. Aberrant Burst comes in at level 8 for an extra boost.

Unfortunately, while Roshal's ability to throw fire at people has been doing fairly well so far, it's unfortunately also more or less as good as it's ever going to get. So 10 will be Pyrokineticist, giving the angry little guy some more options in the form of a big old whip made of fire. Just think of it like a really big flame dagger spell...

11th-15th: At level 12 we can throw fire bolts at will, which is nice as a fallback option, and get +2d6 more damage on the whip with Weapon Afire at level 13. More importantly, level 12 also gives him Power Attack, which is pretty huge on touch attacks even with his mediocre base attack bonus. Nimbus acts like a fire shield and actually boosts his dragonmark DCs, which is nice. And Firewalk is just handy, although you really want some source of extra power points to use it. Quicken SLA for Scorching Ray requires CL 12, by level 15 we should have that and more swift actions is always good.

16th-20th: Aside from continued fire bolt and weapon afire scaling, the big deals here are Heat Death and Conflagration, two abilities that fit Roshal's modus operandi very well. Heat Death is effectively 1/encounter and Conflagration is 1/day, so he should have plenty of flashy abilities to throw at people in most encounters.

It's worth noting that this build's overall power level can scale quite a bit with items. A +1 Dragonmark Focus at a lower level would be nice, a Channeling Rod at mid levels would be a huge boon, and a Dragonshard Reservoir or two would be a nice higher end investment. On the utility side of things, a manifesting weapon would also be handy for some extra Firewalk usage. If you start the build at a later level, switching some of the dragonmark abilities might be appropriate as well, although you're trading thematics for effectiveness at that point.

Eberron Campaign Setting: Aberrant Dragonmark
Player's Guide to Eberron: Aberrant Dragonmark Gift
Dragonmarked: Lesser Aberrant Dragonmark, Greater Aberrant Dragonmark, Mighty Dragonmark
Expanded Psionic's Handbook (and SRD): Pyrokineticist, Wild Talent
Monster Manual: Ability Focus
Planar Handbook: Fire Gnome
Web article: Child of Khyber (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20070416a)

This is more of a thematic parallel to a Warmage rather than an attempt to perfectly emulate its capabilities. To me, the Warmage is defined by its limitations more than its abilities, so I wanted to make a similarly focused build. The idea of trying to do this entirely with SLAs, rather than just an intentionally limited spell selection, was funny to me.

While warmages don't get weaponlike spells by default, they can easily pick them up with advanced learning (and I usually do, if I play one), so I think fire lash is fitting. The lack of element flexibility is unfortunate and I wish I could have figured out a way around that -- there's some argument that +0 metamagics like Elemental Substitution could be applicable to SLAs, which would help a lot, but I'm not quite willing to make that argument. Still, feel free to pretend that I did if it would have helped... For added parallels, Roshal can in fact wear armor without interfering with his abilities, and would surely benefit from a mithril breastplate at some point.

As far as power... well, I think there are some points on the progression where he holds up favorably to a (non-optimized) warmage, but it's true that it falls off by the end. Sometimes, you just have to commit to the bit.

[AvatarVecna]

Entry Number 4



Kzayu Yurindell
CN Azurin Battle Sorcerer 6/Incantatrix 10/ Elemental Savant 4

Initial Ability Scores (32-point buy)
STR 10
DEX 12
CON 14
INT 12
WIS 8
CHA 18
Ability score increases go to cha.
Final ability scores:
STR 10
DEX 12
CON 14
INT 12
WIS 8
CHA 23

A human wearing brightly colored full plate was sighted hastily flying around a corner, followed by blasts of various magic, orbs of energies both great and small, multicolored rays, and a fireball or two.
This human was Kzayu Yurindell, a sort of rebel in the land where regimented magic was the law.
“Kzayu Yurindell!” Alamesten Kiryan, Lord High Commander of the Warmage Brigade yelled out as he saw the rebel again. “You’re under arrest for practicing spellcasting without a license!”Alamasten then sent a bolt of energy at him.
“Your practice of magic is stifling to real magic, Lord Alamasten.” Kzayu replied. “My independent work with metamagic and studying fire elementals has given me true freedom, sir.”
Despite how confident his speech was, he really was terrified. Lord Alamasten’s Elite Brigade was the reason their group had so few members now. But he’d gone through much more training. He breathed in and breathed out. Showtime.
His first action was to whip out a rat’s tail, dissolving it as his agility was enhanced, and then he fired off a ray that directly hit Lord Almasten. By far the most powerful warmage in the Wizard Hunters, it would be a good idea to eliminate Lord Almasten from the equation, then it would be a matter of cleaning up the others. And then maybe they could start the revolution. Behind Lord Almasten, more warmages and even a few paladins from the Mage-Killer Order.
Lord Almasten made the motions for a spell, but nothing emanated from his hands. “What sort of evil magic do you wield, devil?”
“Magic you restrict yourselves from using.” He felt more confident now that Lord Almasten could no longer cast spells. “I know that you have by far the most powerful spells out of the warmages, but you've only dipped your toes into the true nature of magic."
Without wasting a second, he grabbed a small amount of dust and crushed it in his palm, speaking the words of power, and two black beams emanated from his fist, striking two different people, setting them alight with dark fire which quickly spread amongst the crowd, spreading from person to person. Using Blackfire was dangerous, but if anything’s going to get rid of Lord Almasten for good, it’s going to be Blackfire. He should thank Talren for discovering it. He threw up a quick disguise spell, and then landed somewhere else in the city. This time, he activated something the artificer of their group had added to his armor, changing his form to look like a soldier in full plate. Yuir d’Salen would meet him at the waypoint in thirty minutes, and he needed to be at that point quickly. The mage would be happy to hear about Lord Almasten’s death (Resurrection magic was difficult to come by, after all, and Blackfire was particularly nasty according to Talren). Maybe this way he can finally rebuild their group.
Kzayu was fortunate enough that his sorcerous powers closely replicated those of a warmage. When it comes to melee combat, Belker Claws allows him to deal devastating damage to a single target, and then he attacks using his fist of stone and longsword, sometimes sending out a magic missile on a particularly tough opponent. He puts spell levels into his divine companion to get extra healing during a fight, making him more self-sufficient.
Spells Known: 0th- Launch Bolt, Arcane Mark, Prestidigitation, Acid Splash, Disrupt Undead; 1st- Magic Missile, Fist of Stone, Expeditious Retreat 2nd- Belker Claws
Kzayu’s experiments with shaping metamagic meant he gave up the ability to create illusions, but in his mind that’s a small price to pay for the unique powers of metamagic granted from his study of metamagic. Kzayu still appreciates melee combat, and pumps a lot of lower-level spell slots into his divine companion, because healing is always useful.
Spells Known: 0th- Launch Bolt, Arcane Mark, Prestidigitation, Acid Splash, Disrupt Undead, Ray of Frost, Sonic Snap, Amanuensis; 1st- Magic Missile, Lesser Acid Orb, Expeditious Retreat, Disguise Self; 2nd- Scorching Ray, Ray of Ice, Belker Claws; 3rd- Fireball, Haste 4th- Orb of Cold 5th- Draconic Might
Kzayu shows up to battle in full plate and wielding a longsword and shield, which makes people think he’s a fighter, but then he opens with powerful evocations. Kzayu is a practical spellcaster, wanting to end battles as soon as possible, slinging out disintegrate, finger of death, and vitriolic sphere, but still ready to fight on the frontlines, with the great skill metamagic offers him. The few non-damaging spells he has are to support his fight.
Spells Known: 0th- Launch Bolt, Arcane Mark, Prestidigitation, Acid Splash, Disrupt Undead, Ray of Frost, Sonic Snap, Amanuensis; 1st- Magic Missile, Lesser Acid Orb, Expeditious Retreat, Fist of Stone; 2nd- Scorching Ray, Disguise Self, Belker Claws, Melf’s Acid Arrow; 3rd- Fireball, Haste, Lightning Bolt 4th- Orb of Cold, Solid Fog, Assay Spell Resistance 5th- Draconic Might, Vitriolic Sphere, Overland Flight 6th- Chain Lightning, Disintegrate; 7th- Finger of Death
Kzayu always had an interest in fire, able to charge his magic with fiery energy that is unusually hot. Attacking with the variety of rays he has at his disposal is particularly potent, given the metamagic he can shape and charge them with, making him a fearsome sight on the battlefield. His extra skills with fire magic allow him to partially overcome spell resistance, the bane of the warmage.
Spells Known: 0th- Launch Bolt, Arcane Mark, Prestidigitation, Acid Splash, Disrupt Undead, Ray of Frost, Sonic Snap, Amanuensis; 1st- Magic Missile, Lesser Acid Orb, Expeditious Retreat, Disguise Self; 2nd- Scorching Ray, Disguise Self, Belker Claws, Melf’s Acid Arrow; 3rd- Fireball, Bite of the wererat, Lightning Bolt 4th- Orb of Cold, Solid Fog, Assay Spell Resistance 5th- Draconic Might, Vitriolic Sphere, Overland Flight 6th- Chain Lightning, Disintegrate; 7th- Finger of Death, Antimagic Ray; 8th- Polar Ray, Blackfire 9th- Wail of the Banshee, Meteor Swarm

Level Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Reflex Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features
1st Battle Sorcerer 1 +0 +0 +0 +2 Concentration +4, Knowledge (Arcana) +4, Spellcraft +4 Shape Soulmeld(Arcane Focus), Iron Will Divine Companion ACF
2nd Battle Sorcerer 2 +1 +0 +0 +3 Concentration +5, Knowledge (Arcana) +5, Spellcraft +5
3rd Battle Sorcerer 3 +2 +1 +1 +3 Concentration +6, Knowledge (Arcana) +6, Spellcraft +6 Searing Spell
4th Battle Sorcerer 4 +3 +1 +1 +4 Concentration +7, Knowledge (Arcana) +7, Spellcraft +7
5th Battle Sorcerer 5 +3 +1 +1 +4 Concentration +8, Knowledge (Arcana) +8, Spellcraft +8
6th Incantator 1 +3 +1 +1 +6 Concentration +9, Knowledge (Arcana) +8, Spellcraft +9, Knowledge (The Planes) +1 Energy Substitution(Fire), Sudden Empower Bonus Metamagic Feat, Focused Study(Lose illus)
7th Incantator 2 +4 +1 +1 +7 Concentration +10, Knowledge (Arcana) +8, Spellcraft +10, Knowledge (The Planes) +2 Cooperative Metamagic
8th Incantator 3 +4 +2 +2 +7 Concentration +11, Knowledge (Arcana) +8, Spellcraft +11, Knowledge (The Planes) +3 Metamagic Effect
9th Incantator 4 +5 +2 +2 +8 Concentration +12, Knowledge (Arcana) +8, Spellcraft +12, Knowledge (The Planes) +4 Split Ray, Rapid Metamagic Bonus Metamagic Feat
10th Incantator 5 +5 +2 +2 +8 Concentration +13, Knowledge (Arcana) +8, Spellcraft +13, Knowledge (The Planes) +5 Metamagic Spell Trigger
11th Incantator 6 +6/+1 +3 +3 +9 Concentration +14, Knowledge (Arcana) +8, Spellcraft +14, Knowledge (The Planes) +6 Sieze Concentration
12th Incantator 7 +6/+1 +3 +3 +9 Concentration +15, Knowledge (Arcana) +8, Spellcraft +15, Knowledge (The Planes) +7 Armor Proficiency (Medium), Quicken Spell Bonus Metamagic Feat, Instant Metamagic 1/day
13th Incantator 8 +7/+2 +3 +3 +10 Concentration +16, Knowledge (Arcana) +8, Spellcraft +16, Knowledge (The Planes) +8 Snatch Spell
14th Incantator 9 +7/+2 +4 +4 +10 Concentration +17, Knowledge (Arcana) +9, Spellcraft +17, Knowledge (The Planes) +8 Instant Metamagic 2/day
15th Incantator 10 +8/+3 +4 +4 +11 Concentration +18, Knowledge (Arcana) +10, Spellcraft +18, Knowledge (The Planes) +8 Battle Caster(Medium), Enlarge Spell Bonus Metamagic Feat, Improved Metamagic
16th Elemental Savant 1 +8/+4 +5 +5 +12 Concentration +19, Knowledge (Arcana) +11, Spellcraft +19, Knowledge (The Planes) +8 Energy Specialty(Fire), Resistance to fire 5
17th Elemental Savant 2 +9/+4 +5 +5 +14 Concentration +20, Knowledge (Arcana) +12, Spellcraft +20, Knowledge (The Planes) +8 Immunity to sleep
18th Elemental Savant 3 +9/+4 +5 +5 +15 Concentration +21, Knowledge (Arcana) +13, Spellcraft +21, Knowledge (The Planes) +8 Sudden Maximise Energy Penetration +2
19th Elemental Savant 4 +9/+4 +6 +6 +15 Concentration +22, Knowledge (Arcana) +14, Spellcraft +22, Knowledge (The Planes) +8 Resistance to fire 10
20th Battle Sorcerer 6 +10/+5 +6 +6 +16 Concentration +23, Knowledge (Arcana) +15, Spellcraft +23, Knowledge (The Planes) +8



Level Class 0th level 1st level 2nd level 3rd level 4th level 5th level 6th level 7th level 8th level 9th level
1st Battle Sorcerer 1 4(3) 4(1)
2nd Battle Sorcerer 2 5(4) 5(1)
3rd Battle Sorcerer 3 5(4) 6(2)
4th Battle Sorcerer 4 5(5) 6(2) 3(1)
5th Battle Sorcerer 5 5(5) 6(3) 4(1)
6th Incantatrix 1 5(6) 6(3) 5(1) 3(1)
7th Incantatrix 2 5(6) 6(4) 6(2) 4(1)
8th Incantatrix 3 5(7) 7(4) 6(2) 5(1) 3(1)
9th Incantatrix 4 5(7) 7(4) 6(3) 6(2) 4(1)
10th Incantatrix 5 5(8) 7(4) 6(3) 6(2) 5(1) 3(1)
11th Incantatrix 6 5(8) 7(4) 6(4) 6(3) 6(2) 4(1)
12th Incantatrix 7 5(8) 7(4) 6(4) 6(3) 6(2) 5(1) 3(1)
13th Incantatrix 8 5(8) 7(4) 6(4) 6(3) 6(3) 6(2) 4(1)
14th Incantatrix 9 5(8) 7(4) 6(4) 6(3) 6(3) 6(2) 5(1) 2(1)
15th Incantatrix 10 5(8) 7(4) 6(4) 6(3) 6(3) 6(3) 5(2) 3(1)
16th Elemental Savant 1 5(8) 7(4) 7(4) 6(3) 6(3) 6(3) 6(2) 5(1) 2(1)
17th Elemental Savant 2 5(8) 7(4) 7(4) 6(3) 6(3) 6(3) 6(2) 5(2) 3(1)
18th Elemental Savant 3 5(8) 7(4) 7(4) 6(3) 6(3) 6(3) 6(2) 5(2) 4(1) 2(1)
19th Elemental Savant 4 5(8) 7(4) 7(4) 6(3) 6(3) 6(3) 6(2) 5(2) 5(2) 3(1)
20th Battle Sorcerer 6 5(8) 7(4) 7(4) 6(3) 6(3) 6(3) 6(2) 5(2) 5(2) 5(2)

Warmage Edge: The Arcane Focus Soulmeld, powered by the Azurin single point of essentia, to deal 2 extra damage, equivalent to having an int of 14-15. A similar, but not exactly identical, ability.
Sudden Feats: Sudden Maximise, Sudden Empower (Instant metamagic allows Kzayu to effect spells with Quicken Spell, Enlarge Spell, Searing Spell, or Split Ray 2/day without increasing it’s spell slot or casting time, similar to a sudden metamagic feat)
Spell Selection: Kzayu replicates most of the spells a warmage has access to, plus a few utility spells that help some of the weaknesses (Assay Spell Resistance to handle spell resistance, for example), or spells that enhance his physical fighting ability.
Armored Spellcasting: Battle Sorcerers have proficiency in light armor, and ignore arcane spell failure chance from light armor, and with two feats, Kzayu can freely cast spells in medium armor.

Player’s guide to Faerun (Incantatrix)
Player’s Handbook (Sorcerer, Scribe Scroll, Iron Will, most metamagic feats, Sorcerer spells)
Complete Arcane (Sudden Metamagic feats, Battle Caster, Elemental Savant)
Unearthed Arcana (Battle Sorcerer)
Magic of Incarnum (Azurin, Arcane Focus)
Spell Compendium (More Sorcerer Spells)

[AvatarVecna]

All clear!

We have four chefs this time around. And no clever introductions from the chair becomes I'm creatively bankrupt. >.>

[Kuulvheysoon]

Four builds, eh? That should be too hard to judge.

Just from a quick look, well done people. With this few builds, I should be done by Sunday.

[Thurbane]

Congrats to the competitors! I couldn't think of anything interesting, other than a Sorcerer loading up on Warmage type spells...

[H_H_F_F]

I had it in my mind that divine crusader were spontaneous... I was thinking a duskblade/ divine crusader / sovereign speaker / mystic theurge. Just enough speaker to get all the blasting domains.

Gave it up once I realized the DC was a prepared caster.

[ciopo]

my vague plan was of a energy mantle dominant ideal ardent

[Kuulvheysoon]

my vague plan was of a energy mantle dominant ideal ardent

...Not gonna lie, that would have been really cool to see, and probably would have scored well with me.

As a reminder, here’s what I’m using to judge:Might as well update y'all with some scoring criteria. I'll be starting each category off with 3 points, and deducting or adding from there, to try and establish some sort of savage baseline.

Innovation: If you're coming at me with a straight human wizard, expect to get a 1 in this category (and using an actual Warmage will get you 0 points here, but 5 in the last category). If you can get me to tilt my head and give the screen a 'huh', you can count on a high score here.
Power: We're going to be going against the Warmage. I'm talking straight up until 9th level spells with a heavy focus on blasting. You can accomplish that, expect a good score. If you can't, but you have a damned good reason as to why not, I'm willing to listen.
Elegance: This is what it sounds like. If your class overview takes up half the screen, expect hits. If your build is clean and well thought out, you're golden. Expect hits taken for Flaws (and Traits), while limiting dips and explaining why you're in each (prestige) class and why you stayed in it for that length will get you my approval. Particularly, if you're viable at different levels of play will be looked at here, if it only holds up at high levels.
Ingredient: If I could put you side by side at the table with a warmage of equivalent level and have to squint to figure out which is the fake, you're going to do well here. Other judges might not hit you here for not being able to match up to the class at certain points, but I will. If you claim to have an equivalent to Warmage Edge, but only get it at 20th level, don't expect to see much of a bonus for accomplishing that. Hitting 9ths by level 20 is fine; I'm only talking egregious disparities. that being said, I expect everyone to take a hit here, so don't worry too much about it.


With that, onto judging!


Innovation: 4.5 I’ve got to say, Sublime Chord and Ultimate Magus were not on the shortlist of classes that I expected to see here, nor was Divine Bard. Star Elf was on the list of expected races (as a +2 Charisma race and because of all the elfy magic classes that exist). On the other hand, I absolutely expected to see Focused Specialist (Evocation)

Power: 4.25 Focused Specialist gives you extra blasty goodness, so you get points for endurance, even if you lose some for versatility. So a slight bump here. Full casting, though, means you hit the baseline expected for Power. While late, Metamagic School Focus lacks the traditional “cannot reduce the cost below +1” of most metamagic reducers, and it’s even linked to Evocation. Augmented Casting through UM is a big help, though giving up all of those low level slots isn’t quite as good for you as it is for the typical entry into UM, given that your spontaneous casting lacks spell slots of lower than 4th level to burn (though Focused Specialist makes up for that somewhat). You’ve got a lot of solid blasting spells memorized, though I do worry a bit about your low BAB combined with your low Dexterity and all of the ranged touch spells you have (it’s great, assuming that enemies don’t catch onto your trick). You’re also hilariously fragile at low levels, which is worrying, and even as you level up you’re vulnerable. It’s also a shame that you can’t use the Song of Arcane Power from Sublime Chord (as you lack 12 ranks in Perform).

Elegance: 1 I mean, it’s pretty clean and simple. I’d love to ding you for that Divine Bard dip, but you manage to justify yourself well with the explanation about the interaction with Ultimate Magus, so I can’t really fault you there. I narrowed my eyes at your entry ‘trick’ into Ultimate Magus, but I’m going to have to disagree with your interpretation. RAW, the Apprentice feat does nothing special for a spontaneous divine caster beyond the added class skills and skill points. Divine Bard changes your previous arcane spellcasting to divine, meaning that you can’t spontaneously cast 1st level arcane spells. Would I let this trick work at my table? Probably. Will I let it fly here? I’m afraid not.

Ingredient: 4.5 Even though you literally leave it to the last possible second, you manage to nab a good selection of the Sudden X metamagic feats. Knowledge Devotion is an acceptable stand-in for Warmage’s edge, especially given your wide range of possible opponents that it applies to. Your various straight wizard spells gives you the flexibility to ape Advanced learning (though losing three spell schools hurts, but it’s mostly patched up through Sublime Chord), and you do a pretty decent job of emulating the spell list..



Innovation: 2 (Battle/Stalwart) Sorcerer, check. Incantatrix, check. Human, check (though Silverbrow, so minor penalty).

Power: 4.75 I mean, It’s full-blown Incantatrix. I’d be doing the entire edition a disservice if I ranked you lower than this, I feel. I dislike not having Rapid Metamagic on a spontaneous caster focused on metamagic, though. Hells, I’d have even taken the Metamagic Specialist ACF from PHB2, given as how you don’t make mention of using a familiar in any way. Even with an Intelligence of 14, that’s 5 times a day that you can laugh. So alas, I cannot in good conscience award you a full 5 for power, though you come damned close. If you had a way to reduce the casting time, you could have slipped a Quicken metamagic in here somewhere for even more POWAH, which is the focus of your build. Twin Spell has a weakness to counterspelling, which is a little unfortunate for any Arcane Thesis build. You’ve also got no particular way to overcome SR besides rolling the dice, which can completely shut down your entire build.

Elegance: 3.75 It’s a clean build. Legal, far as I can see, though I don’t like wasting the skill from Adaptive Learning. Silverbrow Human finally pays off with the assortment of Practical Metamagic feats. I’m not sure of why/where Weapon focus (longsword) comes in, but as far as I can tell, you shouldn’t have it. Enlarge Spell as your 1st level feat and Iron Will as your human bonus feat means that you don’t have another feat leftover unless you took a Flaw. So either way, it’s a hit to your score. Bit of amusing synergy with a Stalwart Battle sorcerer is that they both limit you to a minimum of 1 spell known per spell level, and if they hadn’t had that stipulation you wouldn’t have gained any spells at 1st level or for a while. So good on you.

Ingredient: 2.5 You lack access to any sort of “free” bonus damage, so you get no points for Warmage Edge, and your severe lack of spells known (through your ACF choices) really hits you here. Warmages not only have full list access, but they get their advanced learning. If this was a competition emulating Spellwarp Sniper or the like, you’d score highly. But in the end, the warmage is about more than ray spells for stupid amounts of damage; you’re not touching the AoE effects at all. You've got a sick amount of metamagic, though, so credit where it’s due.
NOTE: Cecilia's score was increased to 14 (see below for reasons).


Innovation: 5 Zero doubt that Roshal wins for ‘Best in Class’ for Innovation. Fire Gnome? Child of Khyber? Pyrokineticist? Making the build SLA-focused rather than spell-based was a neat idea that I hadn’t at all considered, so give yourself full points.

Power: 2.5 You knew that this was coming. Full marks for Innovation, but I specifically stated that I’d be going off of base Warmage for Power, and you don’t match up. Early levels, you’re actually not too bad off, but the higher you go, the farther behind you fall. Child of Khyber helps keep your SLAs relatively relevant through T2, though given the small CL for dragonmark SLAs, it doesn’t help that much past about mid-tier 3. Id’ have liked to see some way to help with your extreme focus on fire damage; though being SLAs makes it considerably harder than pure spellcasting. Fire resistance/immunity is just too common for me to rank you higher than this, no matter how much I’d like to.

Elegance: 3.5 Pretty straightforward, and you didn’t try to cheese in the extra level (though I’m sympathetic to your plea, and appreciate the added level of “just in case”) by assuming that LA buyoff would be in effect. Base class 5/5 level prestige class/10 level prestige class. Hard to get cleaner than that, and I really like how you (ab)used the ability to enter CoK by 5th level. Alas, you fail to qualify for Pyrokineticist; you’re short 1 rank in Concentration (requires 8, but you only have 7), so the second half of your build is illegal.

Ingredient: 2.75 Unfortunately, you miss a lot of the benchmarks that I’m looking for. I don’t like appearing to ding you twice for lacking 9th level spells, but you could have made that up in Power. Here, you aren't so lucky. You lack any sort of analogue to Warmage Edge, but you do manage to fit in a way to alter your “spells” with Quicken SLA, though it’s only the one. I applaud you for wanting to do it the ‘fun’ way, but since the warmage doesn’t focus on SLAs, I unfortunately cannot give you credit for that, especially when it impacts the build in such a prominent way. Although you tout the fact that wearing medium armour doesn’t affect your (greater) abilities, you aren’t actually proficient with it. So that’s a little awkward.



Innovation: 2.5 You get the same penalties as Cecilia here, I’m afraid. (Battle) Sorceror and Incantatrix, as well as Elemental Savant, which was expected. Azurin gets my attention, though. Incarnum is definitely not something that I expected to see in Warmage.

Power: 4.5 you’ve got a lot in common with Cecilia, and this falls under that category. High marks in Power; it’s a goddamn Incantatrix. This thing is thrown around a lot in CO circles for a reason. Nice to see you getting some usage out of your basically useless familiar by throwing it away for the divine companion which scales off of your arcane CL instead of sorcerer levels. I approve. That being said, I’d have loved to see something beside the feats to use Medium armor. I know why you took them, but the optimizer inside me (and the spirit of this competition) can’t stand to see some of your valuable feats used like this. You’ve got a focus on fire spells, but you do actually try and overcome this somewhat, through the bonuses on elemental savant and nabbing Searing Spell, and Rapid Metamagic means that you can use all of your metamagic feats efficiently.

Elegance: 2.5 You don’t actually qualify for Incantatrix at 5th level; sorcerer spell progression is delayed a level in 3.5E (which is stupid, but it is what it is), so you can’t cast the required 3rd level spells until 6th level. Solved easily enough by tossing that last level of Battle Sorceror to 6th level and pushing everything back a level, but it’s still a hit. Other than that, the build looks legit, and you finished Incantatrix before pushing through as much of Elemental Savant as you could.

Ingredient: 4.75 Out of everyone, you come the closest to replicating Warmage Edge, though I would have loved to see Bonus Essentia (and maybe another Incarnum feat) to get that bonus essentia to really help represent the scaling on it. You’re the only participant that can actually cast in medium armor, so I’m going to give credit to you for that. Giving us a complete spell list for Kzayu would have given you a higher score here, showing me how you emulate a warmage’s spell list, given that they do have access to a few unique spells that normal arcane casters don’t have access to.


Sorry for the tie for 1st place? I suppose that's what disputes are for though right? Seriously, don't dispute purely for a higher score. If you've got a legitimate grievance, I'm more than happy to revisit your score.

[loky1109]

When I read builds, idea was coming to me. Psion-Erudite with convert spell ACF.

[ciopo]

...Not gonna lie, that would have been really cool to see, and probably would have scored well with me.


Thank you for judging!

I had to get the junkwars entries in before my vacation, then vacation happened. Now I've been back and I had... yesterday morning to make that ardent entry, but I didn't manage to finish it in time before my Curse of Strahd game, and then AV posted the entries, oh well :)

What appealed me the most about an ardent entry was that I could do a straight ardent 20, and be fairly sure I would be relatively unique in making a "base class 20" entry, to better mirror the "warmage 20" we're pitted against :D. but alas

[AvatarVecna]

Couple disputes:


Hey, Kuulvheysoon, thanks for taking the time to judge.

I’d also like to thank AvatarVecna for running the competition.

I’m wondering if my choice in metamagic options is worth any points in innovation. While my race and class choices are pretty regular, and I fully agree with these point deductions, I don’t see too many builds utilizing Energy Substitution (outside of prestige class prereqs), stacking Energy Admixture metamagic, or casting spells with multiple elements to do damage. I would opine that Scorching Ray is also not a common spell to focus a build upon.

Weapon Focus is a bonus feat that comes from Stalwart Sorcerer template. I also mentioned that I had taken the Metamagic Specialist ACF in both my writeup and my build table. This reduces all spell casting to a standard action. Sorry for not making this more clear in my writeup.

While the build doesn’t have Quicken Metamagic, I wanted to keep the same action economy that a typical Warmage would have with my build, rather than making a more standard blasting Sorcerer build that can cast multiple spells per turn. Warmage doesn’t get Quickened spells without significant investment either.

You critique that the build doesn’t have any AoE. While Scorching Ray is not, technically speaking, an area of effect spell, we do have the option to target multiple enemies each turn (we can target up to three enemies that are within 30ft of eachother) or focus fire on one. These enemies don’t have the option to roll any saves to reduce damage either. I feel is sufficiently similar, if not better than the typical AoE spell. Sorry for not being more clear about this either.

You mention that the build has no way to overcome Spell Resistance, which is a fair critique of a straight damage build for a mage, but I’d point out that Warmage doesn’t either.

I’d argue that the skill from Adaptive Learning isn’t wasted, we use it to get a skill synergy bonus for our Intimidate skill. Intimidate gives us stuff to do out of combat, and is a main class skill for both a Battle Sorcerer and Warmage.

The build gets some free bonus damage by increasing Scorching Ray casting level by 2 and allowing 4d6 extra damage at levels 6, 10, and 11 that it wouldn’t otherwise have if you feel this is relevant at all to the critique of a lack of bonus damage.

Again, thank you for taking the time to judge.


Hello Kuulvheysoon, thank you for judging!

The character is an apprentice sublime chord, not an apprentice divine bard! It works because sublime chord has indipendent casting of it's own instead of the more common "+1 of existing class", it's explictly arcane, and thus falls under the umbrella of spontaneous arcane caster. I've said so both in the musing section and it's bracketed as such in the leveling table. I was expecting a bit of ding on elegance because taking (Apprentice -PrC-) is squintable, but not a downright no-sell on it.

You talk about spontaneous divine spellcaster, but sublime chord is spontaneous arcane, are you of the opinion that we can only be apprentice of base classes? The feat sure seems to imply that by way of examples, but it doesn't actually say that such limitation is in place. This could use some discussion, but without knowing your mind on this, I don't know what arguments I could pose here, other than reiterating that the character is training under a sublime chord/ultimate magus to become a sublime chord/ultimate magus himself. I'll shush now about this, because I don't know if I was misunderstood on that, or if I was understood but not accepted? is your objection the pure RAW of it? I feel I'm safe on that? It's sublime chord that I'm using to qualify for ultimate magus.

a nonRAW argument I could put forth is that 4th level spontaneous arcane spellcasting should count for that "1st level spontaneous" prerequisite, but that was the "meh" argument I had before getting clever with apprentice...

side comment that's not an actual dispute : the suddens closely mirror when a warmage would get them, except for sudden empower. Originally I had it as the 5th wizard level bonus feat at ECL 6, but I sacrificed that "for power" to get the resist energy bypass earlier.

side comment that's not an actual dispute2 : You mention song of arcane power, but we're already overcapping the "maximum caster level", besides we woulnd't have it anyway since ultimate magus doesn't grant us the class features?

[Kuulvheysoon]

Hah, I knew that these were incoming. I remember well from the Iron Chef days...

If you'd gone a different route than Incantatrix, I probably would have rated you higher for the hilarious amounts of Admixture, but the fact is that Incantatrix is the prestige class to stack metamagic, and admixing energy onto a spell (especially with the many reducers that your choice of class/race/spell allows) is an easy way to boost damage while mostly dodging energy resists. Scoring stands

Somehow, I've never noticed that Stalwart Sorceror gives you Weapon Focus. It's been how many years decades since the edition has been out and this is new to me. Shame. +0.5 to Elegance

Metamagic Specialist isn't on the build table that you submitted to AvatarVecna, but looking again I do see it called out in the build notes. We'll call that me being blind, shall we? +0.25 to Power

The commentary on not being able to overcome SR is more a reflection on your choice of spell and the absurd amounts of damage that you can pump out; if confronted with an opponent with good SR, the warmage simply switches to an orb of X spell, which you can also do, sure, but you lose out on most of your Power score by 'lowering' yourself away from your favoured spell, bringing you down to the assumed power level of the warmage, and lowering your overall score. Make sense? Scoring stands

You don't have quicken, but as I awarded you the highest possible Power score (before deductions) I might have judged you by that standard instead of pulling back and judging you on the original rubric, which is on me. Power is already at max

Multiple opponents within 30 feet on a close range spell is not the same thing as AoE in my books. If you're faced with a horde of lower levelled creatures, for example, you need to massively overkill each creature a few at a time instead of having a single spell, like wall of fire to spread out and hit them all. Four creatures does not a true AoE make, imo. Scoring stands

Curse these obscure skill synergies. I wasn't kidding when I said that my 3.5E was rusty. +0.25 to Elegance

Actual damage isn't your issue; Warmage Edge to me is that little bit of bonus damage that gets added regardless of spell cast, like I mentioned in Knowitall and Kzayu's scores. If you had to disgrace yourself and cast an orb of X spell to ignore SR, you wouldn't deal any extra damage. You got credited for the absurd amounts of damage in Power. Scoring stands

When you take the feat (specifically, 1st level only) defines the type of relationship that you and your mentor have. You can claim that you get a bonus 1st level spell known, but that only applies at 1st level, as I read it. You might claim 1st class level, not first character level, so Sublime Chord 1 is perfectly legal reading of the text, but I point to the Apprentice feat itself: "Once you start gaining experience, your methods of learning are already too ingrained for you to be able to gain the benefits of a mentor–apprentice relationship." This, more than almost anything else, means that (imo) whatever your first class is, that's the class that the feat locks you to, not any old class that you might obtain. In this case, a spontaneously casting divine class. It wouldn't apply to divine bard, wizard and sublime chord. Even if you make the claim that since your mentor has Sublime Chord levels, it should be kosher, I'll point out that the mentor's levels are purely DM Fiat, and would also warrant an Elegance penalty. Scoring stands

From the build that you submitted, you get Sudden Widen at 16th level, Sudden Empower at 18th, and Sudden Maximise at 20th, as opposed to the vanilla warmage getting them at 15th/7th/20th respectively. You didn't actually lose any score, it was more of a tangent than anything else.

Damn, I left the mention of the song of arcane power in there? Sorry, my bad. I know that that only applies to sublime chords of 2nd level and higher - my first draft misread and thought that they got it 1st level. Must have missed that in my editing pass.

Oh, and I'm going to toss out Roshal as my Honourable Mention. Even though his name doesn't follow Eberron gnomish gnaming conventions at all.

[AvatarVecna]

Another one:


"When you take the feat (specifically, 1st level only) defines the type of relationship that you and your mentor have. You can claim that you get a bonus 1st level spell known, but that only applies at 1st level, as I read it. You might claim 1st class level, not first character level, so Sublime Chord 1 is perfectly legal reading of the text, but I point to the Apprentice feat itself: "Once you start gaining experience, your methods of learning are already too ingrained for you to be able to gain the benefits of a mentor–apprentice relationship." This, more than almost anything else, means that (imo) whatever your first class is, that's the class that the feat locks you to, not any old class that you might obtain. In this case, a spontaneously casting divine class"

Ehr, but that is not what the feat says? The apprentice (spellcaster) has 3 effects

+2 competence bonus to spellcraft and 2 extra skill points to be spent, this is gained when the feat is taken, added skills to all classes skill
a different bonus depending on the category of spellcasting, this is gained when a level in that class is taken
further effects on further levels depending on the category of spellcasting


To use an off-topic example, if a character with apprentice spellcaster (wizard) were to be a fighter 1-> wizard 14 -> abjurant champion 5, he would gain a bonus 1st level spell known when he'd be taking his second character level, 1st level of wizard, if he was starting out as a fighter. Imagine if you will a greenhorn figther dillydallying here and there, only to find out that MAGIC IS AWESOME! And pronto he scrambles to go study under the tutelage of some wizard because he has to play catch up against those other people that knew what was good for them and started out directly as spellcaster!

the bonus spell known is gained at the first level of the class you are apprenticiping as, not at first character level. My reading of it is that I do not gain it at all until character level 10, and this is clearly supported by the text of the feat, which specifically say "The apprentice only gains these benefits when he gains a level in this class", implying very clearly that you can start out in a different class, and later gain this benefit if you multiclass to the class you're apprenticiship as.

The mentor of the character is a sublime chord/ultimate magus, because I have the charisma and matching alignment/race. So, indeed, I'm learning to be a sublime chord and become one as soon as possible ?

I don't read that part about ingrained ways as a limitation on *what* you can be an apprentice of, only that it must be taken at first level, because indeed a leveled adventurer is too set in his way to accept tutelage.

Our opinion differs, but is that worth a minimum score on elegance? I was expecting to have to defend "can you cast a first level spell without a first level slot", but not the mechanical effect of taking the feat itself

[Kuulvheysoon]

Mr. Knowitall:

Even if I agreed with your interpretation of the Apprentice feat (which I don't), you're still dependent on DM Fiat to find a mentor who can make your plan work. "A character can try to gain a mentor of a particular race, class and alignment, but the actual details are left to the DM." That in itself is worth a penalty to Elegance, but not as severe.

And by my reading, you literally cannot gain access to the sublime chord class at all. I'm not hitting you in multiple categories (see the high score in Power), but Elegance is where I address the legality of the build, and I'm afraid that I don't see the build as legal.

My scoring remains as it is.

[AvatarVecna]

I'm assuming you meant Ultimate Magus, we qualify for sublime chord without any problem and without apprentice, but fair's fair. If you think I don't qualify for ultimate magus, that's that

PM indicates no further disputes from this chef.

[mattie_p]

Zinc Sauciers, a little late for this round, but I updated the GitP competition builder spreadsheet. Link is the same.

VERSION 2.0 (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BG0-5sq4dL9Ooh7-QfXuyHzO4rXSz-CRcj29t6BeUVE/edit?usp=sharing) is here.

Skill table is completely revamped. You simply enter the skill names at the top of the columns. At each level, select the cross class status and the number of skill points applied at that level. It will give you a single column that you can copy and paste back into the leveling table. It will automatically ignore skills without ranks. It will "remember" ranks assigned previously and keep printing them. But you only need to enter a "Y" or "y" at each level for cc status, and then the number of points assigned at that level. Does the rest for you.

Good luck, Zinc Sauciers.

[Kuulvheysoon]

...I hope that I don't end up being the only judge for this round. That'd be deeply unfortunate.

[mattie_p]

Having only one judge is more the rule than the exception these days. Even with only 4 entries. I myself will not be able to, even with another 5 days. I'm looking at double shifts next week.

[pabelfly]

...I hope that I don't end up being the only judge for this round. That'd be deeply unfortunate.

I'm happy to have just one person that goes through the effort of judging - these comps can't happen without your effort.

[Beni-Kujaku]

I may judge‚ but I will only be able to do so starting next week.

[Sian]

Ah, poo ... rarely around these parts any more, so i completely missed the boat on this one. Would have loved to tinker with the Zinc ruleset again.

[pabelfly]

I may judge‚ but I will only be able to do so starting next week.

Oh I'd definitely look forward to that if you decided to do it. Thanks for considering it.

[AvatarVecna]

A few hours overdue for the reveal.



Chef
Dish
Score
Place


ciopo
Mr. Knowitall
14.25
1st


Krym
Kzayu Yurindell
14.25
1st


pabelfly
Cecilia
14.00
3rd


Eurus
Roshal d'Averic
13.75
HM



A big thank you to our judge Kuulveysoon, as well as to all our competitors!

The next competition is here.

[ciopo]

Thank you, AvatarVecna, for hosting, ZC is fun!


Now that the reveal is out, I'd like to understand where my build fails to be legal, if you could do me this kindness, Kuulvheysoon?

is it the "able to spontaneously cast 1st level arcane spells" of ultimate magus that's problematic? that's the one I mark as problematic, but I'm not sure that that was what caused the problem

a random after-the-fact musing : I tried to have some virtuoso levels instead, like wizard 7 virtuoso 3, to satisfy the "bardic music" prerequisite of sublime chord while staying on only two arcane classes, but unamusingly neither virutoso nor wizard let us get the required listen ranks :(

and of course, thank you for having judged!

[Kuulvheysoon]

Thank you, AvatarVecna, for hosting, ZC is fun!


Now that the reveal is out, I'd like to understand where my build fails to be legal, if you could do me this kindness, Kuulvheysoon?

is it the "able to spontaneously cast 1st level arcane spells" of ultimate magus that's problematic? that's the one I mark as problematic, but I'm not sure that that was what caused the problem

a random after-the-fact musing : I tried to have some virtuoso levels instead, like wizard 7 virtuoso 3, to satisfy the "bardic music" prerequisite of sublime chord while staying on only two arcane classes, but unamusingly neither virutoso nor wizard let us get the required listen ranks :(

and of course, thank you for having judged!

That's the one, yeah. I just truly don't agree with your reading of the feat. When I read the feat, it applies to your first level, not some random class that you're going to take in the future.

[Beni-Kujaku]

What you could have done is use Extra Spell instead so that you can learn a 1st level spell with Sublime Chord‚ since SC's list includes all of the wizard spell list‚ it just doesn't learn any spell below 4th. And since you can cast a 1st level spell out of a 4th level slot‚ it would have qualified for Ultimate Magus

[ciopo]

I know, or a more general "I can use first level sorcerer / bard scrolls without needing UMD" justification, but I suspect Extra spell would not work for Kuulvheysoon interpretation for much the same reason he doesn't agree to my interpretation of apprentice spellcaster. Unless it's taken at 12th level on a sublime chord level I suppose, or cobbled together lycanthrope shenanigans to make the feat "land" on the first level of sublime chord etc

I liked apprentice because it "tied together" the package, so to speak

[Beni-Kujaku]

And here is the promised judgement, probably a bit late but hey, what can you do.




Originality: 4.5
Using both spontaneous and prepared to increase your number of spells per day while still "knowing" every spell on the list (or at least most of them) was something I wasn't expecting. And divine bard to emulate an arcane warmage? Yup, that very weird, and I like that. The feats are all pretty standard, with the exception of Apprentice, and Wizard is quite expected, but it's no sorcerer, so no point here.

Elegance: 2.5
I really liked how you used Divine Bard and the special caster level rule of Sublime Chord to trick the Ultimate Magus and still choose the class you're augmenting. This is an essential part of the build and you did it well. That said, two dips and two classes with 9 levels is far from the most elegant thing, especially since it means you're just one level short of completing your PrC. And even though I agree with your reading on Apprentice (notably because of the "only when he gains a level in this class" wording, implying that it might happen later than first level), the feat has a lot of moving parts requiring the DM's intervention, and is a money sink at low levels that is not taken into account. All of that warrant an elegance tax. And the name of the build implied a kind of better usage of Knowledge Devotion. No hit on this one, but for a mr. knowitall, not that much of the build was centered on knowing your enemy.

Power: 3
You're a spellcaster with 9th level spells and enough spell slots to last all day without going lower than 7th level. All that with a caster level of 28 to bypass spell resistance, and lots and lots of maximizing. You'll probably be fine. You will still have some trouble with things with energy resistance, since piercing evocation only protects 10 of your damage per spell from energy resistance. Even at the level you get it, that's not that good, but it becomes almost negligible at higher levels. Also you have no good spell to take advantage of this enormous caster level level at later levels, and no direct way to cheat action economy. In the end, you're a bit late to the party since your main schtick relies on Sublime Chord, but that's also the part where blasting starts to become less relevant, and you have not many ways to go beyond this.

Ingredient: 4.5
What, you mean this isn't a warmage? Sure, it can play an instrument, and can't wear armor, but you have all the right feats, a class feature and a feat that both improve your spell damage, and a way to get lots of new spells from the wizard list. That's some good argument.

Total: 14.5
A good mix of originality and representation of the ingredient. That's something I like to see and read in these comps. Starsong is a bit lacking in the power department at higher levels, but can make up for it and still has ways to deal with their foe. Nice build here, and my HM.


Originality: 1.5
All of the build is very expected. Sorcerer is the first base class you'd think of to emulate warmage, incantatrix the first prestige class for a metamgicked late game, all of your feats are really standard... The only thing that was a tiny bit unexpected was Human Paragon, and even that wasn't really integral to the build.

Elegance: 3.5
What can I say? 2 finished prestige classes is always nice. Your build is neatly folded and packed. The only problem is that you have a few class features that you don't really utilize. You got Weapon Focus thanks to Stalwart Sorcerer, but I feel like it was forced, and you don't use it at all, to the point that you don't even mention it in your stub. Same with Adaptive Learning(Bluff), which serves no real purpose except for the synergy with Intimidate, which you mention several times but don't really use either was getting 2 more HP per level really worth losing spells known, and getting further from the ideal warmage, who knows their whole spell list? Finally, you tell me none of your spells above second level, which is a problem by itself, but will be penalized in Power instead.

Power: 2.5
You like to roll dice. Lots and lots and lots and lots of dice. At level 20, you can roll 24d20 and 96d6 in a single standard action. That is nice, and in ideal circumstances not much will survive your onslaught. However, ideal circumstances will not be common at these levels. And with your caster level, Spell Resistance will be a big pain. And that's not even counting the fact that you are extremely weak to energy resistances. There's a reason scorching ray is a level 2 spell. Each ray triggers energy resistance. For example, against something with energy resistance 10, a scorching ray of one given element will deal 4.2 damage on average instead of 14. Against a balor, the landmark of what a blaster should be able to evaporate at this level, your full attack, with a twin-five-element scorching ray, assuming you go through spell resistance and everything hits, is going to deal 48 damage on average. That's little more than a tickle, and not enough to kill it before you begin to have to use full-round actions to cast your spells, even if the balor doesn't try anything in return. Higher level spells would be better, but not only did you not mention them, they would still trigger energy resistance several times if the opponent has several of those, which many high-level foes do.

Ingredient: 2
Yeah, no. You're a blaster in light armor, but that's all. You don't have warmage's edge, or the expanded spell list, or the right bonus feats. And your blasting is just about elemental damage, while a warmage can sow destruction in so many other ways. It just doesn't feel like it.

Total: 9.5
I feel like you didn't really read the ingredient, and only took the basic concept of it (a blasting mage in armor) to create your character, then persevered in your "moar elements" idea despite it not being optimal. Just having maximize instead of your 4th admixture would have been much better, for example. I feel like there's some wasted potential in this character.


Originality: 5
Is... Is that a dragonmark I see? Haven't seen one of those in a loooong time. And on a pyrokineticist no less! How did you arrive at that idea!? Seriously, coming to a spellcasting competition with some level adjustment, only 2nd level spells and SLAs is some hardcore power move, and deserves all the points it can get. Nothing here makes sense, and I love it.

Elegance: 3
You finish both your prestige classes cleanly, and have some good focus on what you want to do for half your build. As was already said, you're one skill point short on pyrokineticist, though. Also sad that the two parts of the build feel so disjointed from each other.

Power: 2
The two points is mainly because of your 7 to 10th levels, where you get high-level spells as SLAs with high caster levels. However, it all falls down from there. Pyrokineticist, contrary to what one could understand, doesn't really improve your ability to deal damage with fire, it just gives you other, unoptimal ways to do so. It's close to the definition of a sucky prestige class, with underpowered features that don't synergize with each other or with your base class, and it shows. The capstone and 9th level ability are not that bad, but they don't make for 10 invested levels, and you don't really capitalize on the class yourself.

Ingredient: 1.5
...I'd say it has the feel of a warmage, with some close combat combined with pure destructive energy, with no regard for consequences. However, you really have none of the class features, and are not even a spellcaster. I can't really reward that.

Total: 11
That's a funny one, but it just doesn't work beyond level 10... Probably would have been better in E6. It is still a very nice concept, and few and far between are those who can make dragonmarks work.



Originality: 3
Battle sorcerer into Incantatrix. Not the most original we've seen today, far from it. But I wasn't expecting an Azurin, or some incarnum to replicate warmage's edge. Nice. And Elemental Savant is deliciously thematic. Bonus points here.

Elegance: 1.5
Nothing really elegant, nothing really shocking. You finish incantator (of course you do), you use the correct name for a male incantatrix (nice), you have some really good focus in your skills, and nothing seems really out of place. The 6th level of sorcerer at 20th level doesn't flow that well, though, and should have been at 6th level. Did you forget the 3rd level casting requirement for incantatrix? That will cost you.

Power: 4.5
Two words: Searing Spell. You can't go as much nova as Cecilia (even though an Empowered Maximized Split Disintegrate can be extremely nasty (average 610 against 336 for a Twin scorching dissolving shocking freezing ray), but only 1/day and allows a save instead of allowing energy resistance), but you can choose to just ignore any resistance to your elemental spells, since Elemental Savant automatically changes all your elemental spells to fire. And you have bonuses to bypass spell resistance. And can metamagic all day long without having to spend full-round actions. Still, as an incantator, it would probably have been better to choose the non-sudden versions of Empower and Maximize, and other metamagic feats instead of being able to cast in medium armor, but that's a small critique. And on top of that, you can function pretty well in melee, with some quickened spells and your proficiencies. Really a solid character.

Ingredient: 5
What does he not have? When you start asking this question, you know the character is a good match. And the answer is: Sudden Widen and Sudden Enlarge. Two pretty secondary feats compared to the all-important empower and maximize. If there is one character to which I can give full marks here, it's this one.

Total: 14
An extremely good character in my opinion. That 6th level is a shame. Always check your prerequisites, folks! Still seems pretty fun to play, and a good way to play an incantator without overwhelming a party.

[ciopo]

Thank you Beni-Kujaku for your judging.

The "shenanigans" version of Starsong would use the lycanthrope trick to shave away some wizard levels for more PrC levels, ending up with divine bard 1 / wizard 7 / sublime chord 2 /ultimate magus 10, 9th/9th (wiz17/SC9) spellcasting and an even more absurdly high caster level (32! Plus the song of arcane power), but I strongly dislike lycan fermented milk. Ironically, doing the lycan makes dropping bard for virtuoso easier, because listen is a class skill for most animals, thus it would become wizard 5 / virtuoso 3 / SC 2 / UM 10, with apprentice performer for perform as class skill, and extra spell at 12th level (sublime chord 1 while lycan) for the UM qualification).
It's a class spread that appeals to me, if only we could get it without the uglyness of gaining then losing HDs, but alas

Out of curiosity, does anyone have any good spell in mind that would make use of that high a CL? It irks me that I could find anything that went uncapped/above a limit of 25CL

[Beni-Kujaku]

Out of curiosity, does anyone have any good spell in mind that would make use of that high a CL? It irks me that I could find anything that went uncapped/above a limit of 25CL

I had a character once, who used dispassionate watcher of chronepsis and as many divine spellcasting classes dips as possible (to have many, many classes with caster level 5), then Ur-priest to stack half the caster levels, then elemental theurgy to stack the caster levels once more (and tricks to put the Fire descriptor on everything). The most interesting spells I found are: most level 9 spells. It's interesting to see that a lot of them don't have a CL cap. Permanency (you can permanency high level spells earlier, but it still costs you a lot of XP), obviously Shapechange and Draconic Polymorph, and at low level, Hammer of Righteousness is incredible. Banishment and Dismissal just make fighting outsiders trivial, and Holy Word/Dictum/... make fighting anything else pretty easy too. Finally, my absolute favorite spells are Animate Dead, Minor Servitor, and Mental Pinnacle. Animate Dead can create an undead out of a 60 HD creature, which takes your whole control pool by itself, but really, who cares when you can have a Great Gold Wyrm or a Phaethon as your pet skeleton. Minor Servitor can create intelligent high HD constructs under your control, which means they not only are colossal with strength to match, they can get the feats they need to make grappling even end of campaign bosses trivial. And finally, Mental Pinnacle makezs you an epic psion in a standard action. Bonus points if you also have psion level, and can manifest real powers with your increased pool of power point and manifester level.
There is also Venomfire, but it comes from Serpent Kingdoms. And you don't talk about Serpent Kingdoms. Even if you did talk about Serpent Kingdoms, you shouldn't talk about Venomfire.

[AvatarVecna]

Wings Of Flurry is popular for sorcerers. Also, if you have some way of getting daze immunity, a straightforward reading of "Reserves Of Strength" boosts CL by 3 and completely uncaps the spell cast with it (even if that's very clearly not designer intention).

[Beni-Kujaku]

Wings Of Flurry is popular for sorcerers. Also, if you have some way of getting daze immunity, a straightforward reading of "Reserves Of Strength" boosts CL by 3 and completely uncaps the spell cast with it (even if that's very clearly not designer intention).

It is indeed super strong, borderline broken with the AoE daze (the spell would probably be on par with other blasting spells of its level if it only dealt uncapped force damage in a selective 30ft area), but as a non-gish sorcerer, I rarely want to get closer than 30ft from my foes. If one of them succeeds on the save, that can spell immediate game over for me.