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EphU437
2008-01-30, 10:40 AM
A PC in my campaign wants advice on designing a homan sorcerer focused on area effect damaging spells. What feats, prestige classes, and overall build would you recommend?

Thanks,
Eph

EphU437
2008-01-30, 10:43 AM
Also, what do you think of Stormcaster?

Talya
2008-01-30, 11:00 AM
Also, what do you think of Stormcaster?

Stormcaster breaks the cardinal rule of caster PrCs, but only once.

You only need a couple area spells to ben an area-blaster as a sorcerer, which won't cut into your spell selection, then take metamagics. Energy Substitution is the obvious one. The second is a way to not hit your idiot party members who rush into the middle of a dozen bad guys. Sculpt Spell can help somewhat in this case, but it's not perfect. There's a PrC that grants "Shaped Spell" as a class metamagic ability, but the PrC otherwise sucks. If your party are a bunch of do-gooders battling evil, Purify Spell can work well in this regard. It also can greatly increase the damage against evil outsiders. Purified Delayed Blast Fireball does no damage to good creatures, 10d6 damage to neutral creatures, 20d6 damage to evil creatures, and 20d8 damage to evil outsiders.

Aerogoat
2008-01-30, 11:20 AM
Sculpt Spell (Complete Arcane?), Empower Spell, Heighten Spell and Rapid Metamagic (Complete Mage) are all probably going to be useful. In general, it's going to be a better choice to Metamagic a wide variety of spell effects than it is to learn and relearn the same effects repeatedly.

I'm afraid that I'm away from Stormwrack at the moment, so I'm not sure what meshes well with the Stormcaster's abilities.

Draz74
2008-01-30, 11:39 AM
Archmage. Yeah, it's a "duh" answer, but it's especially important for area blasters. At least as a two-level dip for Mastery of Elements and Mastery of Shaping. (Might as well take a third level for Spell Power too.)

Even if blasting is your main thing, if you select your spells wisely you'll still have enough slots for some good utility/buff spells.

You need some way to deal with Evasion. Maybe Spellwarp Sniper? (I don't know much about the PrC, but I know it's good at changing area spells into targeted spells to deal with Evasion critters.)

Person_Man
2008-01-30, 11:46 AM
Stormcaster + Born of Three Thunders feat + Quick Recovery feat

Cast any area spell with an Energy descriptor.
Born of Three Thunders turns it into 50% sonic, 50% electricity damage.
Stormcaster forces any enemy damaged by it to Save or be Stunned.
Born of Three Thunders forces any enemy damage by it to Save or be Stunned.
Born of Three Thunders forces any enemy that is Stunned by your spell to Save or be knocked Prone.
Born of Three Thunders would normally force you to be Dazed for 1 round as a side effect of using it.
Quick Recovery allows you to use a Move action to Save against any Stun or Daze effect, including effects that did not initially allow a Save. Thus you can usually take another Standard action the round after using your cool combo.

Use the PHBII Sorcerer metamagic variant, to speed up the casting time of your modified spells.

Born of Three Thunders is in Complete Arcane.
Quick Recovery is in Lords of Madness.

The HUGE weakness of any blaster build is anything with Evasion and a high Reflex Save. Be sure to have back up spells to cover this, especially Summon spells and Solid Fog.