3.5 Proof of concept using 10th level beastmaster to spam blasting

[ciopo]

Here is the idea.

Use/abuse the share spell feature to have N amount of sources for those shareable spells, specifically buffs spell that give use duration "spammable" blasting. My prime candidates are light of lunia/mercuria/venya and dragon breath.

Basic idea is :

First 5 level:
Precocious apprentice shair 1 for mystic theurge early entry
Cleric 1
Cleric 2
Mystic theurge 2

After that, a combination of mystic theurge and beastmaster, for a final level spread of mystic theurge 7 / beastmaster 10 or mystic the urge 10/ beastmaster 7.

Baseline, at 9th level assuming shair 1 / Cleric 2 / theurge 2/ beastmaster 4 we'd be doing a combined 8d6 damage with a single 1st level slot, or double that against undead, and 16d6/32d6 with a 2nd level slot.

Adding 2 more theurge level is 3rd level slots for 24/48d6
Adding 3 more beastmaster level is adding 6d6/12d6 with the 3rd level slot from the extra critter
Adding 2 more theurge level is unlocking dragon breath on the shair side, for a baseline of ~ 20d8 cone per round
Adding 1 more theurge means dragon breath on 5th level Cleric, and therefore open to DMM persist
We're now 17th and we must decide if we care more about a 5th critter with 3 more beastmaster levels or about 6th level slots with 3 more theurge levels.

With theurge 10 and practiced spellcaster, our Cleric CL means each breath is 8d8, so 40d8 with the familiars and ACs
With theurge 7 / BM 10, CL 13 the singular breath is 6d8, 32d8 with all the critters, but if we can CL+ from some other source, it goes up to 7d8/ 42d8.
If we somehow reach CL 20 with both, the difference is 50d8 or 60d8. Good domain is an easy +1, reserves of strength +3, that's CL 20 for theurge 10. Ioun stone, missing a +2 from somewhere to CL 20 the beastaster 10 alternative

Feats would probably be practiced spellcaster, companion spellbound and then metamagic of this or that sort, likely DMM persist dragon breath.

Thoughts anyone? I understand those low HD animal companions would be very fragile, it is what it is, but the blasting potential seems solid to me.

[remetagross]

Seems a great idea. You could run the same without the spell slot issue by going, say, Incarnate 10/Beastmaster 10. You use Share Soulmeld so that all 4 animal companions gain the effect of your (bound) Dissolving Splittle soulmeld. Taking Magical Training + Practised Spellcaster + Obtain Familiar nets you a 5th source of Dissolving Spittle. Taking Wild Cohort gives a 6th source. Take Expanded Soulmeld Capacity feat to stuff 6 essentia points into the soulmeld. Then, everyone (including yourself for a 7th source of attack) fires off a 30ft ranged touch attack dealing each 7d6 acid damage, and then 7d6 acid damage again on the following round. That means, over 2 turns, 14d6 acid damage per source. Times 7 sources: you're looking at 98d6 acid damage (over two turns) every turn, all day long, never being limited by your spell slots.

Of course you're stuffed if facing a monster with acid immunity, or a high spell resistance (though the sheer number of SR rolls you'll make should even things out a little bit). And the range is short. Your build is more versatile in this regard.

[ciopo]

acid spittle sounds interesting but in that regard I owuld probably just take shape soulmeld rather than go incarnate. Without some equivalent of companion spellbond share soulmeld ( which I personally love as a concept, and I have been houserule approved that if I have companion spellbond, share soulmeld extendes to the range that share spell works, but that's an hosuerule) would mean me and all the critters have to always stay within 5ft of me, that's kind of limiting, Unless I can finagle some mass reduce animal so that we can occupy the same space

wild cohort doesn't have share spell last I checked, there was a 5 level prc that gave it, outrider something something?

incarnate seems to be a lot of investment when with 2 feat we can do half of that damage anyway ( shape soulmeld+ bonus essentia )

I'm confused about the "damage 1 round later", isn't that from binding? throat binding is on the "greater" side of open chakra iirc, so on class level it's probably higher than 10

[remetagross]

Really good point on the fact the animals all get clustered up. That's not too bad though if you pick really small or flying ones: a hawk can easily fly near you, same for a raven familiar, an owl can do the same...

While Wild Cohort does not have share spells, it doesn't prevent it from being subject to Share soulmed, but I guess that means indeed it doesn't apply to your example.

Shape Soulmeld + Bonus essentia will net you a total of 1 essentia, so your Dissolving Spittle will only deal 2d6 acid damage. On the other hand, the Incarnate can get that up to 7d6 with the proper Expanded Essentia Capacity feat. And good catch for the chakra bind, but Open Greater Chakra can fix that at ECL 18.

[ciopo]

I've always had bonus essentia give 2 points of essentia if you have the shape soulmeld, so it would be 3d6 to me

we are, after all, "able to shape a soulmeld" if we have shape soulmeld.

Anyway, it does sound like a solid way to have an all-day long option without going the DMM:persist route (which I personally prefer to avoid)

spellbond companion + share soulmeld = share soulmeld up to 30 ft at my table ( as houserule) so we are good on that either way. the cluster is kind of a liability against enemy AoE, at least if we're a bit spaced out they won't all die to one fireball :D

This was a quick proof of concept, but now that I'm workshopping it a bit, I'm finding it difficult to promptly qualify for beastmaster, because of the handle animal 8 ranks prerequisite

the "stupid" way would then be
1 shair with precocious spellcaster
2-3 cleric 2
4-13 mystic theruge 10
14-20 beastmaster 7

but that's somewhat unfullfilling, delaying beastmaster critters to so late

my first idea is going human with a gm approved apprentice feat, something like apprentice beastmaster, that makes handle animal and survival class skills

a different option is dropping that cleric 2 from the third character level, and put something with handle animal there, druid is an amusing proposition, , shair 1/ cleric 1 /druid 1 / theurge 2 / beastmaster 4 and so on, and it'd pans out well because it gives us the third blaster 3 levels earlier

feats, in general, assuming we manage to have the skill ranks to qualify for stuff without feats investment

tentatively assumed domains : good domain ( +1 CL), travel domain ( survival class skill )
1 precocious apprentice
3 skill focus handle animal
6 companion spellbond
9 extend spell
12 persist spell
15 DMM(persist) ( 18 cha with items should be easy enough to have by this level, 14 starting after racial cha + 4 item)
18 ?? feat (enspell familiar?, but I feel it can sit on our shoulder without much problem, it's just the one)

that extend/persist/DMM could easily be shape soulmeld/share soulmeld/bonus essentia, but that's kind of "late" for 3d6 spammable, when the light triplets is limited use/day , but at that point we should have at least 10 1st level slot and 8 2nd level slot? thereabouts, I'm not making slot tables yet. that's still 20 and 16 uses of "equivalent or better", meanwhile the persisted dragon breath when/if we get to it is big and aoe


if going spittle
1-5 ?? class
6-15 beastmaster
16-20 ?? class

feats
1 shape soulmeld
3 skill focus handle animal
6 share soulmeld
9 companion spellbond
12 bonus essentia
15 ?? one of those incarnum feats for another point of essentia
18 ?? one of those incarnum feats

I accept getting some level of incarnum classes here makes sense, but if I do that I'm keen to theurge it, I don't know if sapphire hierarch or soulcaster, but generally speaking

2 level of meldshaping class ?
3 level of divine or arcane class
10 level of beastmaster
5 level of hierarch/soulcaster

or more likely, 1 level of meldshaping and 4 level of divine/arcane class, that way with 5 theurgic levels we are at CL9 = 5th level slots. Will probably need 1 or 2 feats to qualify on the meldshaping side.