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graymachine
2008-11-04, 02:35 PM
I will be joining a game with a character starting at 18th level soon. I've come up with a couple of ideas, but one just came to mind that I like a great deal and wanted to know what others thought about it. The idea is a character based on the Chaos Space Marine Sorcerer from Warhammer 40K. The build I thought of was Warmage until I can quality for Abjurant Champion, with maybe a splash of Alienist in there somewhere for color. I was also thinking that I could try to work down my Spell Failure with an assortment of class abilities, feats, and generous use of mithiral (sp?) to the point I could make reliable use of a heavy armor, maybe Mechanist Armor. Does this seem like a feasible idea? Will it work well, or poorly? Thanks.

hamishspence
2008-11-04, 02:41 PM
Mithril, ultra-heavy plate (the clockwork-ish armour in Planar Handbook) that feat from complete arcane that lets you cast in medium armour with no penalty(if, like beguilers or warmages or duskblades, you already have Armoured Casting).

Note mithral downgrades armour type from heavy to medium.

That leaves you set. Any of those 3 classes could work. Duskblade for spell-through-weapon, almost like a Force Weapon. Beguiler for sneaky, Tzeentch/Slaanesh style illusion magic. Warmage for plain blastiness (warning, not a very good class at anything else)

RagnaroksChosen
2008-11-04, 02:43 PM
How optimised is your group as the build will be slightly unoptimized, but playable.

I guess the question is how much power do you want and how much fluff do you want.

graymachine
2008-11-04, 03:01 PM
How optimised is your group as the build will be slightly unoptimized, but playable.

I guess the question is how much power do you want and how much fluff do you want.

Both me and my friend, which understand optimizing, are joining a group that is more or less unaware of the concept. I'm looking to make the fluff/power about 25%/75%, mostly because they need the strong spellcaster pick-up.

RagnaroksChosen
2008-11-04, 03:06 PM
What type of chaos marine are you going for...

Slaanesh - beguiler
Korne -Cleric(or paladin/duskblade)
Tzeetch -Transmuter
Nurgle - Cleric mabye a necromancer?

if you are just going for more of a dmgish arcanist or a general one.. then i would take the armoured spell casting feats... seeing as an arcanist you are already more powerfull...

What level is this also?

hamishspence
2008-11-04, 03:13 PM
I wondered- do you want to be pounding things with magical artillery, or delivering vicious magical stikes with a blade.

And Khorne can't have sorcerers. Also I think the only Chaos Legion that still has cleric-chaplains are the Word Bearers. Divine-style miraculous magic is rare in 40k- closest things are the Sisters and their Faith points.

Chaplains are more the "Inspiring Marshal" (or warblade/crusader) type.

Suzuro
2008-11-04, 03:17 PM
Khorne doesn't use magic, you nerd...

Haha, I kid, I kid!

This actually sounds like a really cool idea and I'd have to agree with RagnaroksChosen for the most part, minus the Khorne part, of course.

-Suzuro

hamishspence
2008-11-04, 03:19 PM
what he does do well is magic weapons and anti-magic- Collar of Khorne makes wearer almost invulnerable to magic, though it might have disappeared from 40k marines and be rare in Warhammer. At moment in 40k, only the Flesh Hounds of Khorne wear collars.

graymachine
2008-11-04, 03:19 PM
I was planning on Tzeetch. I was even thinking of making an item that casts Greater Visage of the Deity 1 per day, changing me in the Shaper of Ways.

RagnaroksChosen
2008-11-04, 03:19 PM
Fluff wise there is no Divine magic its all a wierd hybrid of the two. the winds of chaos blow randomly...

As far as divine types there are allot technicaly if you where to compaire divine types as in D&d all sorcers of chaos are clerics... and Wordbear's have chaplins.

EDIT:
OP then i would go wizard or Sorc and take the armour feats, and mostly take transmutation style spells

hamishspence
2008-11-04, 03:21 PM
Battlefleet Gothic Execution Hour book had a Chaos Champion with many faced- disguise ability- face shifted form. and aspects of all four- could shift face into growling Khorne visage.

Was about to become Daemon prince, but thanks to failure, the Chaos gods withdrew support and he devolved into Spawn.

Chaos sorcerers are about half-way between wizardly Space Marine Librarian and Cleric of Evil God.

Actually warlocks sound like an interesting idea- patron, arcane magic- hmm.

hamishspence
2008-11-04, 03:26 PM
In fantasy, last ed, Tzeentch didn't get sorcerers- as in weak, fragile, but deadly with magic. they got Lords with powerful casting powers- imagine an elite fighter with powers of a great mage and you get the idea.

In last book, they got cut- now Tzeentch lords are not wizards, and Tzeentch does get fragile sorcerers. Fragile being a somewhat relative term.

This actually fits books, like William King's Beastslayer, rather better.

RagnaroksChosen
2008-11-04, 03:30 PM
hes looking for 40k fluff and all of them are not fragile sorcerers eaither your a sorcerer in the fluff or your just walking armour.

hamishspence
2008-11-04, 03:41 PM
Sorcerers of Tzeentch don't have to be Thousand Sons any more. with the many Renegade Chapters, some of which follow Tzeentch, can certainly be done.

And CSM sorcerer is slightly physically less deadly than CSM Lord, and now, always comes with Force Weapon.

graymachine
2008-11-04, 03:46 PM
I'm basically looking to be a caster that explodes things with the power of Chaos while still being able to wade into combat and hold my own. Furthermore, I think it'll be interesting to see the reactions to a heavily armored mage. I mentioned Alienist because being able to put the pseudonatural template on summoned things seems in theme with the character. Also, there's the nice addition of immortality at the end of the class, which all Astartes enjoy.

18th level is he start for me, to answer an earlier question.

hamishspence
2008-11-04, 03:50 PM
yes, and then getting sucked away and Never Seen Again.

great excuse to bring them back with some adjustments and heavy templating as Daemon Prince.

I wonder- warlock with Eldrich Glaive? done right, can combine blasting with hellish energy, and up-close devastation, and creepy utility stuff that says- "like wizard, but Nasty"

The pact concept helps some too.

RagnaroksChosen
2008-11-04, 03:54 PM
I'm basically looking to be a caster that explodes things with the power of Chaos while still being able to wade into combat and hold my own. Furthermore, I think it'll be interesting to see the reactions to a heavily armored mage. I mentioned Alienist because being able to put the pseudonatural template on summoned things seems in theme with the character. Also, there's the nice addition of immortality at the end of the class, which all Astartes enjoy.

18th level is he start for me, to answer an earlier question.

I would say go duskblade... into alienist and see if you can get the GM to let you have the summoning line of spells added to your list.

hamishspence
2008-11-04, 03:56 PM
how important is magic, and is being able to cast, non-stop, forever, worth a tight list?

Duskblade is probably more of a spellcasting fighter.

RagnaroksChosen
2008-11-04, 03:58 PM
True but it can blast things from range and get up close and personal plus it has armour casting.

hamishspence
2008-11-04, 04:01 PM
So do warlocks.

Duskblade is probably better melee and more versatile ranged- Eldrich Glaive from Complete Mage is probably the best way to deal melee damage.

Only thing really going for warlock is flavour, style of some Powers, and ability to spam blasts ad infinitum.

RagnaroksChosen
2008-11-04, 04:12 PM
if you are going to go Tzeech i would eaither go:

Duskblade 5 or warmage 8 and take battle caster (which would let you where heavy armour with no problem... or arcane spell failure) then any thing else after that...

I meen you could even do duskblade/warmage...

Mabye like 10warmage/8 duskblade... you'd have a ton of blasting power per day and i belive you can channel your warmage spells...

I could totaly picture that as a sorcerer of Tzeetch... just no warping spells :(

hamishspence
2008-11-04, 04:14 PM
Mithril or similar heavy armour, but yes.

Glassteel was almost Mithril and Adamantine properties combined. Then they changed it.

RagnaroksChosen
2008-11-04, 04:17 PM
Mithril or similar heavy armour, but yes.

Glassteel was almost Mithril and Adamantine properties combined. Then they changed it.


battle caster does the need away with that.

It allows you to done with out arcane spell failure one size above what your class can..

Duskblades at lvl 5 and warmages at level 8 both get medium armour with no arcane failure so with battle caster it would allow you to where heavy armour with no arcane failure.


OP thought of another build you could do
hexblade 8/warmage10 or hexblade8/warlock10

hamishspence
2008-11-04, 04:27 PM
Glassteel in Champions of Valor is as good as mithril, pricier, but also harder (hardness 20, 40 HP to mithril's hardness 15, 30 HP)

Weapons made of it are auttomatically masterwork.

The armour check penalty avoidance is always worth it, and lighter category trait might save a feat. Or, if medium mithril/glassteel, works well with classes that have to wear light armour.

OverdrivePrime
2008-11-04, 05:06 PM
While normally I don't have a lot of respect for the Warmage class, I think it really fits the bill for what you're looking for.

Warmage 8/Alienist 8/Abjurant Champion 2 seems halfway decent.
Grab the Spontaneous Summoner feat from Complete Divine and go berserk.

Definitely consider Battle Caster for full-plate casting thematic goodness.
Make liberal use of Back Tentacles.

Tenser's transformation turns you into a force of pure melee destruction.

The only real trouble I see is convincing your DM to allow you to use the Alienist's extra Summon Monster spell for a pseudonatural summon nature's ally... or simply talk your DM into allowing you a variant of Spontaneous summoner that requires 4 ranks of Knowledge Arcana and allows you to access to the Summon Monster spells instead.

Attaining a familiar through a feat seems like a good idea, to take full advantage of the Alienist's abilities.

RagnaroksChosen
2008-11-04, 05:52 PM
i never thought of this but Are psyonics aloud?
Cuz that could also solve some of your problem and psykers are pritty frequent in 40k fluff

goram.browncoat
2008-11-05, 06:09 AM
I dont know if warmage is all that representative of the concept. Warmages are mostly about the blasting, while chaos sorcerors can generally do more than that (freaky mind tricks and whatnot). This would imho be better represented by a class with a more general spell list.

The longing for heavy armor (power armor) would also be much easier for a divine caster who does not have the burden of ASF. And divine casters can make fine summoners if you wanna play the demon-summoning angle. I dont know if you can take alienist as a divine caster (probably not as i recall it being from complete arcane). But there are other fun summoning prcs that do apply. Thaumaturgist for example.
The cleric is also an out-of-the-box gish with the ability to hold his own in melee, so that part of the character would also take much less effort to pull off.
Unless you want the "sorcerer" part to directly map onto an arcane class because sorcerers are an arcane class, though personally i wouldnt consider this a nessecity.

Still, if youre set on warmage it could probably work, i just think its doing alot of effort for what a divine caster can do straight out the box.

sleepy
2008-11-05, 08:30 AM
Battle Sorcerer from UA?

3/4 BAB, d8 HD, casts in light armour out of the box (so you can do the mithral heavy armour bit), tons of casting for a gish. The lost spells per day won't be too painful as an 18th level Sorcerer, you cast from the wizard spell list, you are 1 level away from learning a 9th level spell and if you can get your paws on a free level 9 Spell Known somehow (perfect tzeentchian quest reward) you can start casting it right away. And Intimidate is a class skill, which seems right somehow.

You could even pick up Draconic Claw, call it a mutation, and slap people with free Power Attacks when you cast in melee. Actually, if you pick Elan for your race and take Draconic Claw, I'm pretty sure you could qualify for the Rapidstrike chain and pull a King Of Smack type deal except with arcane casting backup. Hmm...

edit: rapidstrike needs a pair of natural weapons. Draconic Claw says "claws" at first, but gives only one attack and then talks about "your claw" singular, so it'd probably fall in the realm of munchkinnery to try and convince your DM to let you do this, and he'd be well within his rights to limit your extra attacks to the one hand you could attack with in the first place. Safe to rule this one out. Oh well, it'd require a build that doesn't fit this character anyway.

graymachine
2008-11-05, 12:02 PM
I suppose I could go cleric, although I've played clerics much more recently than arcanists. However, such a departure from a normal cleric might make it fresh. Hmm.

I think that psionics are allowed, but I've always been hesitant to use them as I don't think they feel much like D&D. Is there a build that would match the concept?

Assuming I went Nurgle, is Cancer Mage a decent class? I've heard some things about it, but never read it over. For that matter, does anyone think Druid into Blighter would work for Nurgle?

RagnaroksChosen
2008-11-05, 01:48 PM
I suppose I could go cleric, although I've played clerics much more recently than arcanists. However, such a departure from a normal cleric might make it fresh. Hmm.

I think that psionics are allowed, but I've always been hesitant to use them as I don't think they feel much like D&D. Is there a build that would match the concept?

Assuming I went Nurgle, is Cancer Mage a decent class? I've heard some things about it, but never read it over. For that matter, does anyone think Druid into Blighter would work for Nurgle?


Psionics, pritty much any build
Psywarrior1 / Psion or wilder 17 would work. And you can be in full plate.
With the wilder is a little more chaotic though your restriction on Powers is low... it would definetly have the 40k feel though you where looking for.


the blighter idea i agree with.

goram.browncoat
2008-11-06, 04:57 AM
Psionics would be very '40k-psyker'ish offcourse :)
And psionic warrior is a great glass imho. Or as mentioned a psywar/psion. Take the discipline that gives astral construct summoning and call them daemons :)