Evoker Wizard!

[root9125]

What can I do to make an Evoker 6 / MotAO 9 suck less? Banned conjuration and illusion.

All 3.5 books open.

[SaintRidley]

You could not be an evoker.

Working with it...

Not sure there's much to do to save you, considering the rather good schools you barred.

[taltamir]

how much cheese can you get away with?

You can really rack up the damage as an evoker using metamagic + metamagic reducers...

1. Arcane thesis: choose 1 spell you know, all metamagic of that spell now cost 1 level less.
This is abuseable because the wordings do not prohibit using +0 level metamagic giving you -1 level per metamagic added... however, your DM will likely not allow that. Still, split ray, twin spell, empower, and maximize are very nice.

2. Easy metamagic: choose one metamagic feat, it now takes 1 less level higher, to a min of 1 level higher. (so a +1 metamagic is still +1, but a +2 is now +1, a +3 is now +2)

3. Metamagic school focus: Choose a spell school, you can apply metamagic feats to spells in this school 1 level lower X times per day. Also a limit of +1 min

4. rods of metamagic: you can apple a metamagic feat to a spell on the fly, for free, X times a day.

5. various classes get special metamagic abuse... I think incantantrix and initiate of the 7 fold veil. IIRC.

Combine all of those metamagic reducers together. And suddenly you are doing enough damage to one shot anything without good dex + evasion...


The painful thing about banning conjuration is that you lose out on teleport, dimension door, etc...

[Tavar]

Meta-magic reducer cheese? It works best on the orb series, but other spells can work with it as well.

Also, make sure you take...Arcane Mastery? I forget the feat name, it's in Complete Arcane/Complete Mage, lets you take 10 on CL checks.

[Eldariel]

Use the good evocations; Resilient Spheres, Walls of Forces, Contingencies, Instant Refuges, etc. allow Evocation to do so much more than pure damage. Howling Chain is a good one too. Take a cursory glance at this list; it lists a bunch of awesome evocations alongside their sources.

Also, use metamagic and Metamagic School Focus [CMage]/Practical Metamagic [RotD]/similars along with Residual Magic [CMage] to reduce the cost. This enables you to actually deal decent damage. Split Ray [CArc], Twin Spell [CArc], Energy Admixture [CArc] and Empower Spell are some of the better metamagic feats to apply.

Finish MTAO since you started it; it's a fine PrC. Then you can enter something like War Mage [Age of Mortals], Incantatrix [Player's Guide to Faerun] (tho being so many levels in, this isn't that good), Archmage or so and pick up various bonuses to your blast booms.

[taltamir]

Meta-magic reducer cheese? It works best on the orb series, but other spells can work with it as well.

Also, make sure you take...Arcane Mastery? I forget the feat name, it's in Complete Arcane/Complete Mage, lets you take 10 on CL checks.

I thought "orb of" spells were conjuration...

[Tavar]

I thought "orb of" spells were conjuration...

Hence why I was saying that it works best on them, but that it can work on other spells(such as the evocation school) as well.

[Eldariel]

I thought "orb of" spells were conjuration...

He meant "use it with something else"; Scorching Ray makes for a great base damage output for example, if a tad easily resistable with SR, energy type and touch attack all going against it.

Since we're working with non-core spells, there's this wonderful spell called "Combust" in Spell Compendium that's a great no-save damage spell. I suggest Arcane Thesising that for metamagic abuse. No save, 10d8 base damage, 2nd level spell.


Archmage's "Arcane Reach" gets by the annoying Range-issue (Combust is a Touch-spell). If going this route, I suggest entering Archmage now and picking up, in order:
- Arcane Reach
- Mastery of Elements
- Mastery of Shaping
- Arcane Reach #2
- Spell Power or SLA: Time Stop

That should keep you running.


Oh yeah, and use non-Evocation schools too. You still have Enchantment, so Irresistible Dance is a fine option for the few non-mind affecting creatures you may run into (especially with Arcane Reach). Transmutation is obviously obscenely good for movement, battle magic, defense and brokenness (you can cast Polymorph Any Object now; Time Stop in one level).

Use Abjuration's and Evocation's defensive abilities to compensate for lacking Illusion. It's not quite as good as with Illusion, but you can get something done. And you can still acquire Ring of Invisibility to be awesome vs. things that can't see Invisibles (or things that have dispellable modes of detection).

And yeah, use enchantment buffs where appropriate (note how long Heroism lasts; worth keeping up all-day with Extends and Lesser Metamagic Rod of Chain).

[tyckspoon]

Go through your spellbook. Find all those d6/level spells. Now ignore most of them- they're largely redundant with each other and the damage isn't all that impressive unless you focus on it. There *are* good and somewhat hard to replace spells in Evocation- in Core alone, you have native access to Contingency, Wall of Fire, Ice, Force, and Wind, the Bigby's Hands line of spells, Shatter, Prismatic Spray, and Resilient/Telekinetic Sphere. Focus on careful use of those and any other similar spells that you can find in allowed sources and you can do a pretty fair job of control and debuff even as an Evoker.

[sofawall]

Meta-magic reducer cheese? It works best on the orb series, but other spells can work with it as well.

Also, make sure you take...Arcane Mastery? I forget the feat name, it's in Complete Arcane/Complete Mage, lets you take 10 on CL checks.

I prefer it on enervation, although Orb of XXXX works on more folks.

[taltamir]

Actually, I am gonna make an example...

You are level 15... I assume that the prestige class you chose is full cater, so you cast as a 15th level wizard... meaning level 8 slots...

Arcane thesis fireball (15d6) + empower (+2 -1 from thesis) + lesser rod of maximize 3/day (+0) + metamagic-school focused (-1) easy (-1) twinning (+4 -1 from thesis)
This already gives you 270 AoO fire damage fireball (reflex for half) for a 5th level slot (and a daily use of a rod).

Add Energy Admixtures of choice (example, energy admixture [acid] is a feat that lets you add acid damage equal to normal damage dealt... you can take the feat once per type of damage...) I don't remember the exact + on those, but you could fit a few of them on that fireball... even energy admixture [fire] to just double the fire damage.

This is WITHOUT abusing special classes or the broken reducers (could have kept it at 3rd level by abusing a mistake in the arcane thesis description and +0 metamagic.. but don't try that, it will not fly and is not nice).

For less targets: Scorching Ray + metamagics works best... you can also use "split ray" which is natively a +2, -1 due to thesis...
a split ray + twinned scorching ray would in theory be X4 damage (you produce 4 rays, giving you 4 seperate touch attacks, and you MAY target them at DIFFERENT OPPONENTS if you so choose)

[SaintRidley]

Admixture is a +4

[Eldariel]

Admixture is a +4

Thanks to Thesis, only +3. Which makes it a level 8 slot, something he can still cast.

[sofawall]

Arcane thesis fireball (15d6) + empower (+2 -1 from thesis) + lesser rod of maximize 3/day (+0) + metamagic-school focused (-1) easy (-1) twinning (+4 -1 from thesis)
This already gives you 270 AoO fire damage fireball (reflex for half) for a 5th level slot (and a daily use of a rod).

Actually, 10d6, maximized to 60, twinned to 120, empowered to 120+20d6/2, or approx 155 damage.

Just over half what you gave. Huh.

[root9125]

Those of you who say I banned great schools... What would you ban, given that it must be an evoker? I accidentally created a warmage for my first ever character, and after a semester, my DM has been kind enough to allow me to retrain it to specialist wizard. What would you do?

[taltamir]

Thanks to Thesis, only +3. Which makes it a level 8 slot, something he can still cast.

right then... since he is saving his metamagic school focus 3/day uses for twinning, and since he probably lacks feats to make admixture "easy metamagic". Then he would probably have to settle for adding only one admixture at a +3... making it a 540 damage fireball (half fire, half admixture damage) @ level 8 slot... 3 times per day...

He could then use lower level slots of less beefed up versions (aka, ones without the maximized and without the metamagic school focus)...

So, that means no admixture, so... spell level 6 for 45d6 fireball.

[Siosilvar]

Actually, 10d6, maximized to 60, twinned to 120, empowered to 120+10d6/2, or approx 137.5 damage.

About half what you gave. Huh.

Err... you forgot to twin your empowered. It's really (60 + 10d6/2) * 2, or ~155 damage.

[Glimbur]

Those of you who say I banned great schools... What would you ban, given that it must be an evoker? I accidentally created a warmage for my first ever character, and after a semester, my DM has been kind enough to allow me to retrain it to specialist wizard. What would you do?

Ban Enchantment and... Necromancy?

[taltamir]

Actually, 10d6, maximized to 60, twinned to 120, empowered to 120+10d6/2, or approx 137.5 damage.

About half what you gave. Huh.

ack... since when did fireball cap at 10d6? I was sure it went 1d6/CL up to 20d6 @ level 20...

my bad then... use something else. still, very nice damage output on this one example.

540 damage using SL8 slot is actually 360 damage due to the cap of 10d6.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Those of you who say I banned great schools... What would you ban, given that it must be an evoker? I accidentally created a warmage for my first ever character, and after a semester, my DM has been kind enough to allow me to retrain it to specialist wizard. What would you do?

Choose two: enchantment, abjuration, and necromancy. For the most part, all three of them are Will save or suck/lose.

If you want reasons for why illusion and conjuration are good, look at the shadow x spells to see why illusion is good (Also your imagination, but that's very player dependent). Conjuration is good by virtue of having so many damned (good) options, from teleport, to no-save-just-lose to summons to....

[sofawall]

Err... you forgot to twin your empowered. It's really (60 + 10d6/2) * 2, or ~155 damage.

I actually remembered that and fixed it while you posted that. Ninja edits ftw.

[Toliudar]

Given that choice, I'd ban enchantment and necromancy. Illusion will give you better defenses, and conjuration has too many good things to count. Enchantment is all too easily nerfed at high levels, and its buffs are missable. Necromancy is harder to give up, but not as hard as any of the others.

[sonofzeal]

Floating Disk
Shatter
Tiny Hut
Ice Storm
Resilient Sphere
Wall of Force
Contingency
Delayed Blast Fireball
Forcecage
Bigby’s Significant Digit Interposing/Forceful/Grasping/etc Hand



Conjuration is a bad one to ban in general, but an Evoker can afford it more than most. Evoc and Conj cover a lot of similar ground (blast/BC), and while Conj is superior, Evoc can manage as a replacement in a lower power game.

[taltamir]

Choose two: enchantment, abjuration, and necromancy. For the most part, all three of them are Will save or suck/lose.

If you want reasons for why illusion and conjuration are good, look at the shadow x spells to see why illusion is good (Also your imagination, but that's very player dependent). Conjuration is good by virtue of having so many damned (good) options, from teleport, to no-save-just-lose to summons to....

I would NOT ban abjuration... other wizards become too dangerous then...

necromancy is a good one to ban for an evocation specialist... you don't need to level drain them, they are taking hundreds of damage :)

As for illusion... what are you missing out on enchantment?
A lot of things have "immune: mind effects" which make them immune to the entire school of enchantment... those same things that are immune to enchantment often AUTOMATICALLY FAIL any save against an illusion school spell.

The biggest loss with conjuration is the ability to teleport IMAO.

[Tavar]

ack... since when did fireball cap at 10d6? I was sure it went 1d6/CL up to 20d6 @ level 20...

Perhaps you're thinking of delayed blast fireball?

[Thrice Dead Cat]

I would NOT ban abjuration... other wizards become too dangerous then...

Everything a wizard has in abjuration that is important a cleric has, too. I am working under the assumption that root remains an evocation specialist, which leaves him with three schools.

Under this limitations, I would ban enchantment first, straight up, no questions asked. Then, if I was not an evoker, I would ban evocation next. Since this is not the case, I shoot myself in the foot a little, hoping Mr. Cleric can cover my slack and ban abjuration.


For the record, though, I usually play Focused Conjurers, banning Enchantment, Evocation, and Necromancy.

[erikun]

Banning Conjuration and Illusion hurts, but it's not the end of the world. Enchantment still has a number of save-or-lose spells, but they don't work against undead/mindless. Necromancy also has several, but don't work against undead and constructs.

Transmutation will be your new best friend. Flesh to Stone, Disintegrate, and Flesh to Ice (Frostburn) are just off the top of my head. You can't use conjuration to summon stuff, so use Polymorph to turn the fighter into whatever you need.

Get some reserve feats (Complete Mage) to throw around damage without using spell slots. They're not amazing, but a heck of a lot better than shooting stuff with a crossbow.

[The White Knight]

Those of you who say I banned great schools... What would you ban, given that it must be an evoker? I accidentally created a warmage for my first ever character, and after a semester, my DM has been kind enough to allow me to retrain it to specialist wizard. What would you do?

Not banning Conjuration is probably the most concise piece of advice one can offer. It has a bit of everything -- save or suck, crowd control, direct damage, utility, etc.

Illusion also has some of the keenest defenses in the book -- blur, mirror image and greater invisibility to name just a few. Not to mention the utility of the image spells is limited only by your imagination.

If your Evocation specialization is set in stone, then a plausible first choice for prohibition would be Enchantment. While it does have a number of save or suck (and save or be my puppet) spells, there are a lot of things that are immune to them. You will probably get more long-term mileage out of debilitating conjuration, illusion and transmutation spells.

That leaves Abjuration, Necromancy and Transmutation. Abjuration has some great buffs and wards, along with one of the most spectacular damage-dealers on the market. Transmutation offers some great buffs and debuffs, and utility up the whazoo.

So that leaves Necromancy. There is really only one Necromancy spell I truly miss in the school's absence, and that is Enervation. There are some magnificent, rotten things you can do with Enervation and metamagic reduction. It's not tremendously hard to protect against, however, so if you go down a road of Enervation abuse, you will find yourself on the short end of the DM-tactics stick.

If specializing in Evocation, my vote is for banning Enchantment and Necromancy.

[taltamir]

he only needs two banned schools...

I understand a cleric has the other spells too (but is not guaranteed to have them prepared). EDIT: Also, you are asking your cleric friend to use up a bunch of spells per day to buff you, the wizard.

But what does necromancy or enchantment have that is better than abjuration is my question...

I also see you agree with me that illusion is better than enchantment.

Oh, and abjuration also have the most bestest ultimate defense spell in the game:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/prismaticSphere.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/prismaticWall.htm

And he is level 15, meaning he is only two levels away from getting it!
Combine it with a feat that lets you combine casting and move action (make a concentration check, you may use a standard action to both cast a spell and make a move action at the same time)... so you "step out of the sphere, cast a spell, step back in"

Anyone touching the sphere needs to make 7 saves or die, any spell is blocked by it, ANY, it is immune to dispels. And can only be breached by casting 7 spells in order:
Cone of cold
Gust of wind
Disintegrate
Passwall
Magic missile
Daylight
Dispel magic

If you cast them out of order, or don't have them all, they are wasted.

[taltamir]

so... yes, I would flat out ban enchantments... it is the most useless school (well... an evil wizard can take the time to get into the position of royal wizard and then dominate the king... after having studied and disabled his magical protections against such attacks; but that is not likely to ever happen to a player). Anyone important is immune to mind control. In fact, enchantment is less useful than evocation, I would enchantment instead of evocation.

Necromancy has one uniquely useful spell, ennervation. And it is an acceptable loss since its just another way to kill something.