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Methabroax
2008-03-04, 11:19 PM
My wife is making a new human cleric to replace her combat priestess that was a melee monster. She wants to be a human uber-summoner. Any advice on her build will be greatly appreciated with PrC and feats recommended for maximum Gouda. Our group is full of power gamers and the DM has been pouring on the hurt so the sky is the limit.

We are currently 9th level. So far i'm thinking about going Cleric 7 straight into Thaumaturge in the DMG. I'm not super familiar with the spalt books, but we have full access thanks to the DM owning every book in the universe.

Thanks,

Methabroax

CASTLEMIKE
2008-03-05, 09:51 PM
The Dragon Nexus Method feat could be interesting particularly with a Druid.

The Arcane Disciple feat Summoning domain is nice for an arcane spellcaster getting into Thaumaturgist.

The Malconvolker PRC is really sweet.

An interesting variant at L9 would be going Cloistered Cleric -5, Soverign Speaker -3, Thaumaturgist -1 which loses a spellcasting level but picks up 3 bonus domains for the PRC in addition to the Knowledge domain for going Cloistered Cleric along with an extra domain spell slot at each level so spellcasting as a Cleric -8 with 2 bonus domain spell slots at each level.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-03-05, 09:53 PM
Eschewing Thaumaturgist is also a good idea. It's not too good a PrC.

Jayngfet
2008-03-05, 09:59 PM
pimp your thaumaturge...


...give it a purple suit and call it a priest named mage armor(potion) back.

Magnor Criol
2008-03-06, 09:19 AM
pimp your thaumaturge...


...give it a purple suit and call it a priest named mage armor(potion) back.

Maybe I'm just reading it wrong, but I'm fairly certain the last half of that sentence was unintelligible. =p

I kinda like Thaumies in the way I like Binders - fluff reasons, mainly. Azerian's right, the class lacks oomph mechanically. But that shouldn't stop you if you're interested in playing a theme.

In Complete Divine there's a Summoner domain which she should take if she's wanting a summoner focus. It adds +2 to CL for Conjuration (Summoning) or (Calling) spells, perfect for this idea. Couple this with feats that strengthen domain casting (Domain Focus - +1 CL for domain spells; Domain Spontaneity - spend 1 turn/rebuke to spontaneously cast a domain spell) and she's got some strong summons going on.

Also in Complete Divine there's a feat called Spontaneous Summoning that lets you spontaneously cast Nature's Ally spells like a druid; you have to be able to cast SNA spells to take it, unfortunately, but perhaps the DM will allow a retool that lets the feat apply to Summon Monster rather than Nature's Ally. Dunno if that raises balance issues.

Alternately - and still unsure of balance issues here - if she really wants a summoning focus, perhaps she could convince the DM to allow her to do summoning rather than heal spells spontaneously? That's pretty iffy, though.

SamTheCleric
2008-03-06, 09:26 AM
You definately need spinners. Leather seats... :smalltongue:

In regards to the domain spontaneity thing... you could just have the PHB2 alternate feature that lets you cast from one of your domains instead of cure spells... like the above mentioned Summoning Domain.

mostlyharmful
2008-03-06, 01:42 PM
Druid with Greenbound summoning from Lost empires of Faerun, turns your summon nat ally into plant creatures with hefty stat bonuses, big spell-like abilities (including Wall of Thorns 1/Day for ALL animals you summon, even stuff you summon with SNA1), fast healing 3, +6 Nat Armour and a few other beannies. No prereqs. ridiculous cheesetastic feat and even without it you're still uber summon monster class of smashiness.

Benejeseret
2008-03-06, 01:46 PM
Vote for Malconvoker...summoning 2 for the time/price of 1 is very useful.

RTGoodman
2008-03-06, 01:52 PM
Druid with Greenbound summoning from Lost empires of Faerun, turns your summon nat ally into plant creatures with hefty stat bonuses, big spell-like abilities (including Wall of Thorns 1/Day for ALL animals you summon, even stuff you summon with SNA1), fast healing 3, +6 Nat Armour and a few other beannies. No prereqs. ridiculous cheesetastic feat and even without it you're still uber summon monster class of smashiness.

As it stands, Greenbound Summoning is ridiculously good, but also ridiculously broken and cheesy. According to the creator, it's actually supposed to be a Metamagic Feat with a +2 adjustment. (You can read his statement here (http://www.enworld.org/archive/index.php/t-128424.html") on the EN World forums, under the username edbonny.) If you're okay allowing it as just a normal feat, that's cool - but just know that it's way overpowered and that's not how it was originally intended.

As others have said, the Thaumaturge is generally considered pretty bad. I'd stick with straight Cleric or find a different summoning PrC. Also, you might want to see about homebrewing some sort of variant losing Turn Undead or maybe one domain and replacing it with one or more of the variant Conjurer class features here (http://systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/unearthedSpecialist.html#conjurer).

mostlyharmful
2008-03-06, 02:09 PM
[QUOTE=rtg0922;4028189]As it stands, Greenbound Summoning is ridiculously good, but also ridiculously broken and cheesy. According to the creator, it's actually supposed to be a Metamagic Feat with a +2 adjustment. (You can read his statement here (http://www.enworld.org/archive/index.php/t-128424.html") on the EN World forums, under the username edbonny.) If you're okay allowing it as just a normal feat, that's cool - but just know that it's way overpowered and that's not how it was originally intended.[QUOTE]

That makes a lot more sense than as it stands, wish they'd done the same with Natural Spell, I don't use Greenbound in game but I was under the impression from the OP that semi-cheese was ok in his (powergamer) group

Methabroax
2008-03-07, 10:17 AM
Thanks for all the advice. Yea, we have some fairly cheesy characters in our game, but it's okay. The DM likes to throw uber monsters at us so we have a nice balance between power and difficulty. I'm going to look into Summoning Domain, Domain Focus, and the PHBII variant spontaneous domain casting theme for flavor. She'll mound up the figs of her divinly summoned allies and make every battle an epic mound of slaughter. The number of summons she'll be able to pump out will be amazing.

:D


Wife thanks you all very much,

Methabroax

mostlyharmful
2008-03-07, 11:51 AM
Thanks for all the advice. Yea, we have some fairly cheesy characters in our game, but it's okay. The DM likes to throw uber monsters at us so we have a nice balance between power and difficulty. I'm going to look into Summoning Domain, Domain Focus, and the PHBII variant spontaneous domain casting theme for flavor. She'll mound up the figs of her divinly summoned allies and make every battle an epic mound of slaughter. The number of summons she'll be able to pump out will be amazing.

:D


Wife thanks you all very much,

Methabroax

Bare in mind any fight your wife is involved in is liable to grind to a dice juddering halt as the number of participants ratchets alarmingly. Four or five to a side when they know what they're doing can go fast, ten or twenty each gets bogged down a little, I've found talking to the DM and have him handwave the results of non-PC combats/rolls/??? averaging their effectiveness just to keep the pace up. I know it's very dependant on how strong your DM thinks of the summons and undermines the spirit of being able to suddenly have an army of uber minions on call but after one four hour combat lasting three rounds my group gave up on that angle.:smallfrown:

CASTLEMIKE
2008-03-07, 02:16 PM
Almost forgot check out some of the Summoning threads at Wizard's where they break down the monsters available to be summoned from many of the various source books.

Call Faithful Servants (BoED) is a great spell for a Thaumaturgist.

The L3 Create Lantern Archon (CoV) is kind of cool for a LG PC.

I like SM7 for summoning Movanic Devas (Fiend Folio Commune and Freebie Raise Dead).

To speed up encounters have various 3 by 5 summoning cards already made up with all the various Augments they are receiving from feats and PRCs.

Methabroax
2008-03-08, 01:10 AM
3x5 cards sound like a great idea for speeding up combat with minions. At least if she keeps dropping the same type of creature she'll be using the same to hits and bonuses for her mass rolls. I don't want to bog the game down too much, having a plan to keep things moving along is sage advice. Thanks for the tips on which monsters to use, finding the best allies to drop is the key to making her build work I think.

Methabroax

The_Snark
2008-03-08, 02:22 AM
If your wife is not terribly concerned with her character's sanity, an alienist can make for a fun summoning class, though admittedly it probably isn't the strongest one out there.

Feats- Beckon the Frozen, from Frostburn, will add 1d6 cold damage to all your summoned creatures' attacks. Except the fire-subtyped ones. Requires Augment Summoning, which isn't too arduous.

Cloudy Conjuration, from Complete Mage, is sorta mediocre; you produce a single 5-ft cloud of smoke with conjuration spells, which provides concealment and sickens enemies for a round. Problem is, if you use it to sicken an enemy, they get concealment from the summoned monster that just popped into existence next to them. (Alienists can neatly sidestep this problem by having their summoned things burn their True Strike ability, but it's still not the most exciting of feats.) Worth mention, but probably not worth taking unless you really have nothing better.

Summon Elemental, also from Complete Mage, will let you summon an elemental whenever you feel like it; not much use in combat, but it's handy for setting off traps and maybe for flanking.

Ashbound is an excellent summoner feat, but it's from an Ebberon sourcebook and restricted to druids, so it's not much use. Augment Elemental is another Ebberon feat, but potentially much more useful to you; it provides all summoned elementals with +2 to attack and damage rolls, and 2 temporary hit points per HD. The same thing as Augment Summoning, really—except that the two feats stack. Very handy if elementals are among your preferred summons.

The Summon Desert Ally and Conjure Ice Beast spells, from Sandstorm and Frostburn respectively, can be quite good, though the former is only available to druids.

Beren One-Hand
2008-03-08, 12:50 PM
In Complete Divine there's a Summoner domain which she should take if she's wanting a summoner focus. It adds +2 to CL for Conjuration (Summoning) or (Calling) spells, perfect for this idea. Couple this with feats that strengthen domain casting (Domain Focus - +1 CL for domain spells; Domain Spontaneity - spend 1 turn/rebuke to spontaneously cast a domain spell) and she's got some strong summons going on.

If you can swing it, go for the 3.0 version of the domain instead... The spells granted are the same, but the power doubles your caster level for all Summon Monster spells. Doesn't help with the calling spells or any other type of summoning spell, but it sure is fun to have an exteneded Summon Monster spell that lasts upwards of 10 minutes :smallbiggrin:


Also in Complete Divine there's a feat called Spontaneous Summoning that lets you spontaneously cast Nature's Ally spells like a druid; you have to be able to cast SNA spells to take it, unfortunately, but perhaps the DM will allow a retool that lets the feat apply to Summon Monster rather than Nature's Ally. Dunno if that raises balance issues.

Alternately - and still unsure of balance issues here - if she really wants a summoning focus, perhaps she could convince the DM to allow her to do summoning rather than heal spells spontaneously? That's pretty iffy, though.
This shouldn't be too hard as there is an option in the PHII for clerics to spontaneously cast from one chosen domain instead of cure spells. If that is chosen they can prepare cure spells in the domain slot if they want to.