Seward
2022-02-20, 11:39 AM
I was playing around with flame arrow optimization for an imagined all-archer party and came to the rather inelegant conclusion that you either needed to blow 3 feats on energy substitution, or you needed 3 rods of energy substitution to really get the most out of whatever approach you were going for.
A human wizard can get the required feats together by L5 (if a focused specialist), L6 if he wants to get the +6 fire damage/arrow for Blistering spell via arcane thesis or metamagic school focus (or is not a focused specialist and doesn't want to scribe a new scroll every day he does this tactic). A warmage (I really want to add edge to each arrow shot, 1 time per element and again for sonic weapon taken via eclectic learning at L6) can manage just the energy substitution, if human, by level 6, but would do so much better spending those 3 feats on blistering spell, extra edge and arcane thesis(flame arrow). A kind GM might let me get access to 3 rods of metamagic substitution of fire, electricity and acid by level 6, but I hate assuming that level of magic mart. If retraining isn't allowed, the wizard takes metamagic school focus+blistering spell at level 1 instead of arcane thesis at level 6, the warmage probably accepts that it will be slow and goes with blistering spell and extra edge at L1, and adds in more substitution at L3, 6, 9, using sudden empower on his blistering spell at L8+ to multiply that +6 and his edge.
Either wizard or warmage approach would probably dip martial (fighter1/eldritch knight 1, then continue EK to get fullbab+casting) to get rapid shot to join in the fun when the arrows are supercharged, but want to keep advancing levels to make slots later to empower all those arrows etc, or just do it more than 1x/day. Yes it would take a crazy obsessed spellcaster to blow high level slots (in the L6-8 range) on this kind of thing, but a party of archers would just have an insane nova for a few rounds if you passed enchanted ammo out to everybody who could shoot. A wizard would eventually GMW the weapons too, the warmage party would have a cleric do it, or just let their launchers do that job. Somebody else in the party is supplying the equivalent of bless/prayer, or inspire courage, or whatever. A party of archers will likely have other spellcasters of some kind, if gishy-oriented.
In Pathfinder 1e, I'd have a similar problem, as the really good energy substitution power is evocation-only (evoker/admixture) and doesn't work on transmutations, and I know I'm hosed there without either the feats or metamagic rods.
So basically - are there any feat/acf/racial features/non-metamagic-rod magic items/anything that would let you either do without those energy substitution feats or at least retrain them later (without waiting for archmage+mastery of elements, preferably, as this kind of build would also eventually want piercing cold and searing flame to keep it working vs higher level enemies and the feat tax on archmage is stupid high). When I started thinking about a wizard taking a warmage level later and craft staff to cast the spell via staff and get warmage edge I knew I was flailing.
A human wizard can get the required feats together by L5 (if a focused specialist), L6 if he wants to get the +6 fire damage/arrow for Blistering spell via arcane thesis or metamagic school focus (or is not a focused specialist and doesn't want to scribe a new scroll every day he does this tactic). A warmage (I really want to add edge to each arrow shot, 1 time per element and again for sonic weapon taken via eclectic learning at L6) can manage just the energy substitution, if human, by level 6, but would do so much better spending those 3 feats on blistering spell, extra edge and arcane thesis(flame arrow). A kind GM might let me get access to 3 rods of metamagic substitution of fire, electricity and acid by level 6, but I hate assuming that level of magic mart. If retraining isn't allowed, the wizard takes metamagic school focus+blistering spell at level 1 instead of arcane thesis at level 6, the warmage probably accepts that it will be slow and goes with blistering spell and extra edge at L1, and adds in more substitution at L3, 6, 9, using sudden empower on his blistering spell at L8+ to multiply that +6 and his edge.
Either wizard or warmage approach would probably dip martial (fighter1/eldritch knight 1, then continue EK to get fullbab+casting) to get rapid shot to join in the fun when the arrows are supercharged, but want to keep advancing levels to make slots later to empower all those arrows etc, or just do it more than 1x/day. Yes it would take a crazy obsessed spellcaster to blow high level slots (in the L6-8 range) on this kind of thing, but a party of archers would just have an insane nova for a few rounds if you passed enchanted ammo out to everybody who could shoot. A wizard would eventually GMW the weapons too, the warmage party would have a cleric do it, or just let their launchers do that job. Somebody else in the party is supplying the equivalent of bless/prayer, or inspire courage, or whatever. A party of archers will likely have other spellcasters of some kind, if gishy-oriented.
In Pathfinder 1e, I'd have a similar problem, as the really good energy substitution power is evocation-only (evoker/admixture) and doesn't work on transmutations, and I know I'm hosed there without either the feats or metamagic rods.
So basically - are there any feat/acf/racial features/non-metamagic-rod magic items/anything that would let you either do without those energy substitution feats or at least retrain them later (without waiting for archmage+mastery of elements, preferably, as this kind of build would also eventually want piercing cold and searing flame to keep it working vs higher level enemies and the feat tax on archmage is stupid high). When I started thinking about a wizard taking a warmage level later and craft staff to cast the spell via staff and get warmage edge I knew I was flailing.