Building a Fire Mage (all 3.5+settings)

[KellKheraptis]

Here's the nominees :

1)Evoker Incantatrix that uses War Mage of Krynn and snowcasting for mass +damage to each die, resulting in very high average damage, untyped from Sanctified One

2)My take on Anklebite's Master Spellthief, achieving a CL of 110 before items or spells, or Song of Arcane Power, using Reserves of Strength to abuse that CL and Spellwarp Sniper to pick off targets at retardedly long range like a D&D Death Star.

3)Jade Phoenix Mage endowed Combust-er, a la 339's King of Combustion, only centered on a different blasty spell.

4)Enter a good one here!

[kamikasei]

A kineticist.

It's what I'd do if I wanted a "fire mage". Or does it have to be not just firey and magelike, but heavily optimized too?

[Starbuck_II]

Homebrew allowed? Frank Trollman's Fire Mage
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t...er=asc&start=7

Only 15 levels long because he figured you'd Prc out before 16th level.

It is around Tier 3. Doesn't have any real spells. Instead Supernatural/spell-likes.
He can activate any wand, scroll, staff, etc relating to fire though.

[KellKheraptis]

A kineticist.

It's what I'd do if I wanted a "fire mage". Or does it have to be not just firey and magelike, but heavily optimized too?

Optimized is good, too. Just plain Kineticist = Decent, Kineticist with recharge and ways of raising or ignoring ML caps = INFERNO!

Homebrew allowed? Frank Trollman's Fire Mage
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t...er=asc&start=7

Only 15 levels long because he figured you'd Prc out before 16th level.

It is around Tier 3. Doesn't have any real spells. Instead Supernatural/spell-likes.
He can activate any wand, scroll, staff, etc relating to fire though.

Well...I can do about 3 times that with a hellfire warlock build, so not really what I was after. Thanks though!

[Optimystik]

Elemental Savant isn't a bad choice, though you lose 2 caster levels. You even become a fire elemental as the capstone.

[KellKheraptis]

Elemental Savant isn't a bad choice, though you lose 2 caster levels. You even become a fire elemental as the capstone.

I'd only go with ES if I could use the 3.0 version that sucked less (though that is a possibility). Has anyone ever put together a Spellthief/Master Spellthief build using both War Mage and War Weaver? If it were ran off an Ur-Priest, that'd seem pretty decent, what with two spell lists to draw from (well, three with a level of PrC pally, my usual trick, and the algernon trick until SotAO kicks in). No epic progression to speak of though. Spellthief + UM Trickery is already godly, and basing it all of one progression even better, but there's gotta be more. Perhaps a way to get Spellthief/Master Spellthief into Fred Astaire? I can link to him once BG is up and running again.

[SaintRidley]

Elemental Savant isn't a bad choice, though you lose 2 caster levels. You even become a fire elemental as the capstone.

Elemental Savant has that drawback of only being able to cast [element] spells, though. Unless you start piling on effects like Searing Spell you're incredibly limited since it's almost like everything has some degree of fire resistance at higher levels.

[KellKheraptis]

Elemental Savant has that drawback of only being able to cast [element] spells, though. Unless you start piling on effects like Searing Spell you're incredibly limited since it's almost like everything has some degree of fire resistance at higher levels.

That would be the one level dip in Sanctified One of Kord :)

[Nate the Snake]

That would be the one level dip in Sanctified One of Kord :)

Silver Pyromancer from Eberron Five Nations works too. Granted, it requires five levels instead of one, but still.

[Rad]

Here's the nominees :

1)Evoker Incantatrix that uses War Mage of Krynn and snowcasting for mass +damage to each die, resulting in very high average damage, untyped from Sanctified One

2)My take on Anklebite's Master Spellthief, achieving a CL of 110 before items or spells, or Song of Arcane Power, using Reserves of Strength to abuse that CL and Spellwarp Sniper to pick off targets at retardedly long range like a D&D Death Star.

3)Jade Phoenix Mage endowed Combust-er, a la 339's King of Combustion, only centered on a different blasty spell.

4)Enter a good one here!

There has been an errata on War Mage published in Towers of High Sorcery that nerfed it substantially.

[KellKheraptis]

There has been an errata on War Mage published in Towers of High Sorcery that nerfed it substantially.

Like, how badly and what class feature got the nerfbat? If they hosed the damage bonus, there is no reason whatsoever to even DREAM of looking at the class, when Spellguard of Silverymoon grants the same metamagic without the restriction, a bonus CL, and fewer requirements :P Assuming an equal 5 class comparison.

EDIT : Found it on google. Par for the course, making the redeeming value of the class utterly useless. - errata designers.

[imperialspectre]

It's still a really brilliant class if you're a sorcerer. Getting Charisma to AC is always a good thing if you're unfortunate enough to be using Charisma for something already.

Also, Towers of Sorcery isn't a WotC book. Dragonlance Campaign Setting and the book that War Mage was in are the only WotC Dragonlance books. If you're using third-party material, the errata applies, but I'm fairly certain that we can do better in other places.

[Optimystik]

Warmage (are we talking about the same one?) is in Complete Arcane, a 3.5 source. I don't know anything about this Towers supplement, but it sounds third-party and therefore irrelevant.

[dob]

I took an Elemental Savant to the capstone level once. It got really cool once it was pointed out to me that he could polymorph into demons and devils since his type had changed to outsider. Not exactly optimized, but it was fun.

[Emmerask]

Elemental Savant has that drawback of only being able to cast [element] spells, though. Unless you start piling on effects like Searing Spell you're incredibly limited since it's almost like everything has some degree of fire resistance at higher levels.

Elemental savant can cast any spell the entry class has so you can cast glitterdust, teleport, force spells all as normal. The only difference is that any [element] spell is automatically cast as a fire spell (in the ops case). but with searing spell thats not much of a hindrance

[KellKheraptis]

Warmage (are we talking about the same one?) is in Complete Arcane, a 3.5 source. I don't know anything about this Towers supplement, but it sounds third-party and therefore irrelevant.

We aren't. War Mage of Krynn is a 5 level PrC that adds a good amount of damage to spells. However, if the errata is 3rd party, yay! Consider it back in the mix. How would Evoker (Elemental Focus, or whatever it was that gives +1 CL with chosen energy) 3/Sanctified One 1/Spellthief 1/War Mage 5/Ultimate Magus 10 work out? It would have Wizard 18/Spellthief 8 casting, with a CL of 34 for each, 38 if I took Practiced Spellcaster (Spellthief), plus easy persistification from UM and easier blast augmentation. Thoughts?

[Rad]

I thought Age of Mortals was third party too... anyway, if it's not good for you. I agree that the nerf made it useless (and in general dragonlance classes are quite poorly designed I'm afraid)

[SaintRidley]

It's still a really brilliant class if you're a sorcerer. Getting Charisma to AC is always a good thing if you're unfortunate enough to be using Charisma for something already.

Also, Towers of Sorcery isn't a WotC book. Dragonlance Campaign Setting and the book that War Mage was in are the only WotC Dragonlance books. If you're using third-party material, the errata applies, but I'm fairly certain that we can do better in other places.

Not written or published by WotC, true. WotC licensed, though. If that makes any difference whatsoever. Age of Mortals is also written and published by Sovereign Press, WotC licensed, and is the source for the War Mage.

Elemental savant can cast any spell the entry class has so you can cast glitterdust, teleport, force spells all as normal. The only difference is that any [element] spell is automatically cast as a fire spell (in the ops case). but with searing spell thats not much of a hindrance

Poor wording on my part. I meant that spells with element descriptors would always be [element] with element = fire in this case. Fire is just generally an inadvisable choice for an elemental specialist.

[Emmerask]

sadly that is completly right though I still love to play a fire or ice specialist from time to time in my oppinion the most iconic wizardy stuff you can do (if not concerned with power that is^^)

[SaintRidley]

Indeed. Even when I create a wizard to be more Batman-ish, I can't help but make him a generalist so I can throw a few blasting spells around when it suits me.

[imperialspectre]

Not written or published by WotC, true. WotC licensed, though. If that makes any difference whatsoever. Age of Mortals is also written and published by Sovereign Press, WotC licensed, and is the source for the War Mage.

On the WotC website, Age of Mortals is listed as a WotC publication. Subsequent Dragonlance titles are not.

Frankly, as fun as the War Mage is, I wouldn't allow any Dragonlance books in a game that I ran. I don't like the setting, and the vast majority of Dragonlance material for 3.5 is really bad. But if we're talking "WotC sources," I think one has to consider Age of Mortals a WotC source. The same is not true for any later Dragonlance book.

[KellKheraptis]

Well, the version we're using of Mantle of the Fiery Soul matches the cold version in Frostburn, so there's the fire immunity (and cold immunity for that matter, since most smart a$$es will catch on quick the flamey dude doesn't like the cold), and Silver Pyromancer is nice for CL stacking. If we start at low level, I'm thinking Evoker 5/Silver Pyromancer 5/War Mage 5/xxx 5 with the xxx being something like Spellguard or Incantatrix. If we start at high level, I'll bust out my CL 110 Spellthief build, that also snagged Sculpt Spell, Reserves of Strength, and a level of Spellwarp Sniper, for single target annihilation. Imagine disintegrate...even if they make their save, they're probably still screwed.

EDIT : Oh, and in addition to the Snowcasting trick to get +2/die, will probably also use Fiery and Blistering Spell, and if at all possible Born of Three Thunders as well. Gotta have that AftS bomb ready if I'm going to be a proper fire mage :P