More Dakka Fire Cannon

[golentan]

I, taking advantage of a closeout sale on 3.X material, came across the mother of all broken feats. It is a dragonlance feat called "Reserves of Strength," which in exchange for stunning you for 1-3 rounds increases your caster level by the same number and (this is the clincher), REMOVES ALL LEVEL CAPS FROM THE SPELL YOU CAST! This is not a metamagic, and you can apply it every time you cast a spell.

So what I've done is I've built a build which employs more dakka with a low level spell and some metamagic. It's probably not the most efficient use of this feat ever, but still.

The build is Wizard 15/Archmage 5, specializing in evocation. He takes Arcane Thesis (scorching ray), Reserves of Strength, Repeat Spell, Twin Spell, Split Ray, and Empower Spell. He also grabs fiery burst, for a +2 CL with fire spells. He sacks 5 5th level spell slots to gain +5 caster level as an archmage. So his base CL with scorching ray is now 29, and he preps scorching ray as a 9th lvl spell (Split +1, Empowered +1, Repeated +2, Twinned +3). He reserves of strengths his CL up to 31, which by my count fires of 32 rays (16 each round), each of which does 4d6x1.5 damage. That is a minimum 192 damage, to a max of 1152 and has an average of 672.

While this probably isn't as effective as save or suck tends to be, it massively outpaces Meteor Swarm and can be divided among a number of foes (16). Individual metamagic components can be removed to do progressively less dakka. I am now looking for a way to remove the stunned condition (probably through teammates or a cohort) so that the human fire cannon can become a fast repeating fire cannon. Gaining immunity to stunning causes damage, so I don't want to just do that.

Thoughts and feedback?

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Necropolitan. No-LA template that turns you undead.

[golentan]

Necropolitan. No-LA template that turns you undead.

Like I said, if you are immune to stunning, you take damage. 5d6, in this case I think, but I don't have the book out in front of me.

[Kyeudo]

Damage is easy to mitigate. A False Life spell can give you some temporary hp to eat the damage for you, while other methods of prevention exist.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Like I said, if you are immune to stunning, you take damage. 5d6, in this case I think, but I don't have the book out in front of me.

On average, you have 135 HP. 5d6 damage is nothing.

[golentan]

Eh, just worried because the plan is to do this over and over and over (hence the dakka). That's part of the fun of the build, it's about beam spam of death, not efficiency. But it has to be efficient enough that when I hit celerity and belts of battle and begin really pouring on the dakka the character doesn't disintegrate himself instantly.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

How are you getting so many rays? Scorching Ray is capped at 3.

plus one additional ray for every four levels beyond 3rd (to a maximum of three rays at 11th level)

You can have a caster level of 31, but you are still limited to 3 rays.

[golentan]

How are you getting so many rays? Scorching Ray is capped at 3.

You can have a caster level of 31, but you are still limited to 3 rays.

That's why Reserves of Strength is so important. It removes level caps. Doesn't adjust them, removes. The example the feat gives involves a 9th level wizard and a 12d6 fireball.

So no, I'm not limited to three rays. I have as many as my CL will allow if there is no cap. This also leads to a "Magic Missile Madness" version I'm working on.

[Talic]

You can always make yourself immune to damage.

Also, read the text of the ability. If it removes level caps to damage, then scorching ray/magic missile will still have caps. Those spells have caps on the number of missiles allowed.

Fireball, on the other hand, has a cap on the damage allowed, based on level.

[RagnaroksChosen]

I think this would be better used with an orb of fire. For some reason this morning i can't think of any spells that are dmg per caster level.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Eh, just worried because the plan is to do this over and over and over (hence the dakka). That's part of the fun of the build, it's about beam spam of death, not efficiency. But it has to be efficient enough that when I hit celerity and belts of battle and begin really pouring on the dakka the character doesn't disintegrate himself instantly.

Getting stunned isn't a good idea if you're going to be using tons of actions; you can't make use of them while you're stunned. Damage mitigation is fairly easy, so you probably want to go that route.

If it removes level caps to damage, then scorching ray/magic missile will still have caps. Those spells have caps on the number of missiles allowed.

He didn't say removes level caps to damage, just removes level caps period.

[Triaxx]

According to Wizards the effect is to increase the caster level at the cost of exhausting yourself. So it appears to have been errata'd.

Page 86 for those that want to look it up.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

According to Wizards the effect is to increase the caster level at the cost of exhausting yourself. So it appears to have been errata'd.

Page 86 for those that want to look it up.

That's only the summary text, and there's no errata on the WotC page, so I doubt it has received errata. Mostly because a boost to CL at the cost of exhausting yourself for a feat, when you can find many other CL increases without a penalty, would be strictly inferior to every other option, and I'd like to retain some illusion that the devs have any idea what they're doing.

[golentan]

According to Wizards the effect is to increase the caster level at the cost of exhausting yourself. So it appears to have been errata'd.

Page 86 for those that want to look it up.

As PairO'Dice said, I checked the errata on dragonlance and there is nothing. Given that that is the original flavor text in the book (which I do find weird), I'm going by the rules as written. The exact text for removing level caps is

Your increased caster level affects all level based variables of the spell, including range of effect, spell penetration, and the difficulty of dispelling the spell. You can exceed the normal level fixed limits of a spell with this feat,

and then it gives an example. I don't know about you, but I read that last line as any time they say "to a maximum of ____ at ____ level" it's struck from the spell description when employing this. I wouldn't allow it in my game, but it's certainly fun to look at.

[Doc Roc]

It does not specify the flavor of level caps, merely that it removes level caps.
I will begin research on the feat. It is rare to find something that does this.

Worth noting is that it could be read such that only the bonus from the feat itself extends things above the level cap. Potentially, though, that's still very useful. I think it might be interesting to research the worst-case build, and see if anything cool is in the basement.

[Deth Muncher]

Here's my MOAR DAKKA build:

Take a caster. Any caster, although Artificer works well for mitigating item cost. You'll need feats that let you dual-wield wands/rods. I know there's a Two Wand Fighting feat, unsure about the rods. Either way, the lowest version of MOAR DAKKA using this method is to use the Rod of Many Wands, which lets you fit three wands into one rod, which all may be triggered at the same time. The catch is that it burns as many charges from each wand as there are wands in the rod - i.e. three wands = three charges each. So, you do three wands of MM in each hand, each with max caster level to get max missiles, netting you 5 per wand, so 15 per hand, so 30 total, getting 30d4+30 damage, divided as you choose.

Pretty...not amazing, right? I mean, sure, it COULD be, but it's not WOW-worthy, right?

So as an Artificer, you can slap on metamagic things to your wand. So slap on any horribly awesome effects you want.

BUT WAIT. Spell Compendium gives you the bigger badder versions of Magic Missile. So basically, you can use Force Missiles, page 98 of SpC. Each shot does 2d6, and you can have 4 shots per wand per casting. So suddenly, do the above but with Force Missiles, and you're doing 48d6, plus whatever hilarity you want to metamagic on.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! If you order right now, you can try the above with CHAIN MISSILE (p. 45 SpC), which is, effectively, a Magic Missle that hits things, and then bounces and hits more things. Furtheremore, you can get up to 10 missiles per casting, so suddenly you're doing 60d4+60 primary damage, with the exact same in secondary damage. Secondary damage, however, only applies in awkward ways. As in, the secondary missiles can only strike something once, so you can't hit something and then blast it with the secondary hits too.

My favorite non-damage adding thing to do with MM or its extrapolations? Bracers of Entangling Blast. Makes each target entangled for like 3 rounds.


And that's without your nonsense feat from Dragonlance.

[Indon]

Is this only for arcane magic?

A cleric might like a more potent Divine Favor, and a Druid could do well with a better Barkskin.

Greater Magic Weapon could also potentially benefit, but you'd only be looking at 6+ bonuses when you're practically level 20 anyway.

As for the Wizard, Shocking Grasp caps at 5d6 damage, 1d6 per level, and Burning Hands caps at 5d4.

You could also Polymorph into something with over 15 HD, for when you don't want to burn a Shapechange slot.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Hey.

Wings of Flurry. Maw of Chaos.

[golentan]

Well, it does just say it requires "Spellcaster level 1st and Iron Will" so I see no reason a cleric or druid couldn't use it. Oh, and @Deth Muncher. You can't do your example if you can't keep stocked with the wands. Your final example has less average damage by a massive factor (minimum is higher, but max is a mere 600, only around our average here). The magic missile variant spawns 64 missiles, which have a range of 400 feet (twice what your wands would have, allowing a monty pythoning of the artificer). And artificer cheese is cheesy.

Seriously (Personal length comparisons aside), like I said I'm aware this isn't the optimal use of the feat. I did it for fun, and for Dakka Fun. And to alert any charops who could take advantage of this feet to its existence.

[Doc Roc]

Deth, that's gonna cost a HUGE pile of cash, for relatively little gain. :S

I for one am glad to be reminded of the feat.

[woodenbandman]

Nobody seems to care about the potential to, you know, SHAPECHANGE INTO A FORCE DRAGON? It removes the level cap on shapechange! Hell, Alter Self into a Planetar!

[Doc Roc]

Yes, I care. I've just been playing with it a little first, trying to eke out some other cool things.

[The Gilded Duke]

False Theurge Dakka

Human Necropolitan
Beguiler 5/Chameleon 10/ Master of Masks 1


Chameleon 10 can cast Wizard spells up to 6th level and Cleric spells up to 6th level at CL 20.

Master of Masks, Orange Ioun Stone and Bead of Karma give a total of +7.

The other four levels can be used to increase casting ability for specific schools of spells or spell types. Some spells can also be used to push this up higher.

Without the cap though the Chameleon doesn't suffer as much from the lack of higher level spells.

Ray of Enfeeblement doing 1d6+13 strength damage.
Using polymorph to turn into epic level monsters.
Divine Favor for a +9 luck bonus to attacks.

[Deth Muncher]

Deth, that's gonna cost a HUGE pile of cash, for relatively little gain. :S

Oh, I'm well aware of the cost inefficiency. But it IS reminiscent of The Heavy from TF2, no? :D

And to mitigate cost, take the Artisan Feats from ECS that reduce cash/XP cost! And do it by RAW, so you take the one that cuts the price until you reach 100% price cut! YAY ABUSE!

::cough, hack::

I'm sorry guys, I think I must be sick or something. Must be too much exposure to CharOp.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

And to mitigate cost, take the Artisan Feats from ECS that reduce cash/XP cost! And do it by RAW, so you take the one that cuts the price until you reach 100% price cut! YAY ABUSE!

Eratta'd so that doesn't work. Apparently, the ability to craft any magic item for no cost, no XP, in no time at all is no longer doable.

So, we have this feat. It makes any number of spells incredible. How high can we get our CL at ECL 20? So far I have:
Heirophant(+5), Bead of Karma (+4), Orange IWin stone(+1), Divine Spell Power(+4), and stacked Consumptive Field(+19)

[Doc Roc]

::cough, hack::

I'm sorry guys, I think I must be sick or something. Must be too much exposure to CharOp.

That sounds like a bad case of lost objectivity!

I'd like to offer up the classical wild mage one dip with practiced spellcaster, alongside sublime chord abuse.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Incantatrix requires Iron Will.

Just toss this onto an existing Incantatrix build and call it a day.

Or, you know, combine it with Divine Power and a few Beads of Karma.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I had a build a while back on the WotC boards which achieved an arbitrarily high caster level with Thrallherd (the wizard was one of the thralls). I'll see if I can find that again.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Incantatrix requires Iron Will.

Just toss this onto an existing Incantatrix build and call it a day.

Or, you know, combine it with Divine Power and a few Beads of Karma.

Okay, granted, but let's see how ridiculous you can get before putting that on top of it.

Let's look at Chain Missiles, for example. It always hits, force damage, and bounces around like ping-pong balls.

Then we dip a level of Argent Savant, for +1 damage per missile, so now it is doing 1d4+2

is there anything else we can use to further increase these missiles before stacking Incantatrix and Metamagic Abuse on top of it?

I'm pretty sure we could be dishing out upwards of 1k force damage/round without trying to hard. Plus the sheer awesome factor of killing off epic encounters with magic missiles.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Isn't there a Force Missile Mage prestige class?