Elemental Savant

[PaladinFreak]

I currently have a Sorcerer 6/Air Savant 1, and I'm wondering if any of you have thoughts on the PrC. It seems pretty useful, and I really like the special abilities. I mean, Fly 100 ft. maneuverability perfect? All that kind of stuff. Grants, in the end, the aforementioned fly, all the other traits of the air elemental as well (keeping my own hit dice and spellcasting stuff). But, what I'm wondering is: Is it worth losing the two levels in spellcasting? I would like some analysis.

[Dausuul]

I currently have a Sorcerer 6/Air Savant 1, and I'm wondering if any of you have thoughts on the PrC. It seems pretty useful, and I really like the special abilities. I mean, Fly 100 ft. maneuverability perfect? All that kind of stuff. Grants, in the end, the aforementioned fly, all the other traits of the air elemental as well (keeping my own hit dice and spellcasting stuff). But, what I'm wondering is: Is it worth losing the two levels in spellcasting? I would like some analysis.

From the point of view of mechanical power: Hell no. Fly speeds are easy enough to get at high levels. Not only that, but all your direct-damage spells change to the same type of damage, making them even less useful than they were to begin with. Arcane caster levels are so powerful that very little can justify giving them up, at least if you're optimizing for raw power and versatility.

That said, the elemental savant is pretty cool conceptually, and it's not like full casters are hurting for power. If you're having fun with it, hey--it's all good. You can lose two caster levels and still contribute plenty to the party, though you should be careful not to overspecialize in direct damage. And you can always just take the first 4 levels and then branch out into something else.

[Starsinger]

True, arguably, wizards, clerics, and druids are the best candidates for a "flavor" prestige class, since even with only... 7th level spells, they're still very formidable.

[barawn]

From the point of view of mechanical power: Hell no. Fly speeds are easy enough to get at high levels.

With better than average maneuverability? What're the easiest ways?

[Counterspin]

I really dislike the elemental savant PRC. If you take it you're likely a blaster, and it makes you a vastly worse blaster. No longer can you play your enemies elemental vulnerabilities against them. Instead all of your spells get slaved to one type. Straight sorceror is better, in my opinion.

[PhoeKun]

With better than average maneuverability? What're the easiest ways?

... Casting Fly?

I don't find Elemental Savant to be a particularly interesting or useful PrC, but if someone can have fun with it, I won't be there to tell them they shouldn't.

[kpenguin]

It's a fun PrC, to be sure. Air is the way to go. I mean perfect flight and that little whirlwind attack? Versus burn and some whirlpool only usable in the water? Don't put too many spells into blasting, though. It dampens your versatility. Although, you could make some interesting combos with area-control spells as well. WALL OF ELECTRICITY!

EDIT:@PhoeKun: Fly only gives you 60 ft. speed with good maneuverability. Air Elemental Savant can out manuever and outpace a normal wizard with fly. And out outlast, an Air Elemental Savant's powers don't run out and can't be dispelled.

[Dausuul]

With better than average maneuverability? What're the easiest ways?

Better than average is tough, but you really don't need super maneuverability. You're a caster, you don't need to be able to hover next to the enemy and trade full attacks. Mainly what you want is the ability to go like a bat out of hell.

I recommend a phantom steed. Not only does its move speed cap out at an utterly insane 240, but you can do flybys with it--the steed makes a quadruple move and you cast a spell halfway through, just as you pass the enemy. You start 480 feet away, end 480 feet away, but you can still come close enough in the middle to throw close-range spells like enervation.

If you want something a little more durable, get a pegasus or nightmare cohort with class levels, or have your druid buddy cast phantom stag, if you have a druid buddy and the Spell Compendium. If you're dead set on good maneuverability, wings of flying offer good maneuverability and speed 60.

Thinking about it, I don't offhand know of a way to match the maneuverability of an air elemental, other than summoning an air elemental to carry you around. And the 100 move speed is certainly solid. It just doesn't seem like it's worth two caster levels... but, as I said before, full casters at that level have power to spare, so if you want to go for it, by all means don't give it up just for the sake of super-optimization.

Note also that unless you have a really dedicated DM, the odds of you ever making it to 16th are quite low. I find it's best not to work too hard on optimizing my 20th-level build; I prefer to concentrate on having fun and kicking ass at the levels I'm likely to actually reach before the end of the campaign.

[Fizban]

Doesn't earth get you the earth glide? If so, it's no slouch either. Though I'd take the flight and limited gaseous forming (whirlwind) myself.

I'd suggest getting your DM to let you get a metamagic feat similar to Piercing Cold or Scorching heat: for +2 levels you ignore resistance and get half damage against immunity to the element the feat focuses on. The savant needs this applied to all their spells free to retain it's effectiveness, and considering how they bandy it about in Frostburn, it's not like it's overpowering (a cleric PrC with much more potent other abilities gets it as a footnote for free on all their spells).

Another example: the planar sorcerer substitution level costs a spell known at a lowish level in return for letting you deal half your energy damage as force, at will. This is another possibility for keeping your usefulness, found in the Planar Handbook.

[PhoeKun]

EDIT:@PhoeKun: Fly only gives you 60 ft. speed with good maneuverability. Air Elemental Savant can out manuever and outpace a normal wizard with fly. And out outlast, an Air Elemental Savant's powers don't run out and can't be dispelled.

The question was asked "how do you get a fly speed with better than average maneuverability?" The answer, using the "easiest" clause is Fly, which means a Wizard can do it from level 5 onward.

Really, the benefits the Air Savant gets you over the Fly spell are irrelevant. A caster doesn't need to zip around and weave between small objects - he's going to drop a spell (probably Long range), watch his target explode, and call it a day. Maybe conjure a biscuit. 40 extra feet on a move action don't help that, and Good Maneuverability already lets him hover and move vertically.

And, if we must compare the utility of the two abilities, remember that Fly can also be cast on other people...

[kpenguin]

100 ft. perfect also gives you better overland movement than most spells (teleport included, you can't use it to go where you haven't been). Perfect maneuverability means that you can fly anywhere you want without having to worry about the flight rules. Since your playing a savant, you can fly away quick and hit with electricity balls and other long-range blaster spells before almost any of your opponents catches up.

[Dausuul]

100 ft. perfect also gives you better overland movement than most spells (teleport included, you can't use it to go where you haven't been). Perfect maneuverability means that you can fly anywhere you want without having to worry about the flight rules. Since your playing a savant, you can fly away quick and hit with electricity balls and other long-range blaster spells before almost any of your opponents catches up.

At that level, you can greater teleport. No need to have been there before.

And if you're giving up two caster levels and blasting and being restricted to electricity only, then you will be underpowered. If you're going to go this route, you should really concentrate on the following types of spells:

1) Save-or-die
2) Save-or-lose
3) Lose-no-you-don't-get-a-saving-throw-what-were-you-thinking?

[kpenguin]

At that level, you can greater teleport. No need to have been there before.

And if you're giving up two caster levels and blasting and being restricted to electricity only, then you will be underpowered. If you're going to go this route, you should really concentrate on the following types of spells:

1) Save-or-die
2) Save-or-lose
3) Lose-no-you-don't-get-a-saving-throw-what-were-you-thinking?

I'm not saying an Elemental Savant is optimized. It is far from optimized and is, of course, a blaster-type build. That's restricted to only one type of energy. Might be a bit better than a Mystic Theurge. Might. They are, however, a fun class to play. There are PrCs that are optimized, but not fun. Namely the overpowered ones.

Oh yeah, you also need a reliable description of an area for Greater Teleport. Which, depending on the DM, campaign, and situation, might be hard to get.

[PhoeKun]

I'm not saying an Elemental Savant is optimized. It is far from optimized and is, of course, a blaster-type build. That's restricted to only one type of energy. Might be a bit better than a Mystic Theurge. Might. They are, however, a fun class to play. There are PrCs that are optimized, but not fun. Namely the overpower ones.

What's fun varies from person to person. Personally, I would have more fun (and be more effective) as a straight Wizard or Sorcerer than I would as an Elemental Savant.

I would like to point out, however, that overpowered PrCs are not optimized. They are, in fact, overpowered. Those are entirely different words. Elemental Savant happens to be a PrC that is the exact opposite of optimization, actually reducing the power of the base class you used to get into it. But some people enjoy the class anyway. They're allowed to; I'm not trying to stop them.

But when I say "the Air Savant's flight ability is not spectacular", I say it because it's true. It's an underpowered ability for what you give up to get it, and it isn't that much better in practice than a 3rd level spell.

[kpenguin]

What's fun varies from person to person. Personally, I would have more fun (and be more effective) as a straight Wizard or Sorcerer than I would as an Elemental Savant.

I would like to point out, however, that overpowered PrCs are not optimized. They are, in fact, overpowered. Those are entirely different words. Elemental Savant happens to be a PrC that is the exact opposite of optimization, actually reducing the power of the base class you used to get into it. But some people enjoy the class anyway. They're allowed to; I'm not trying to stop them.

But when I say "the Air Savant's flight ability is not spectacular", I say it because it's true. It's an underpowered ability for what you give up to get it, and it isn't that much better in practice than a 3rd level spell.

The flight ability isn't spectacular. But its fun. Flying around lobbing spells is fun to blaster mages. which most people who take Elemental Savant are. I prefer illusionists myself.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

I mean perfect flight and that little whirlwind attack?

Can't say the whirlwind is all that worthwhile. No matter what your size, you get the Whirlwind as a Medium elemental, which only really affects small creatures. Might be good for the occasional Evil Level 17 Halfling Sorcerer, but most monsters at the level you obtain whirlwind are considerably bigger.

Don't put too many spells into blasting, though. It dampens your versatility.

Exactly.

A lot of the PrC abilities are geared towards blasting spells. But you don't have to focus exclusively on that. My namesake was a Transmuter/Elemental Savant, after all. And he certainly did a lot more Transmuting than Blasting.

As to the drawbacks of having all your energy blasting spells transformed to electricity spells, tou aren't in too bad a position. Resistance against electricity is ever slightly more rare than resistance to fire, acid, and cold. Find at least one blasting spell that doesn't use elemental energy, and you'll be able to overcome resistance to electricity. Throw in a couple of wands or scrolls (created by someone else, of course), and you'll even be able to take advantage of the occasional elemental vulnerability. Do that, and you should be set.

"Is it worth losing the two levels in spellcasting?" If you're having fun, it certainly is. I think some people tend to go a bit overboard on the "importance" of keeping every single caster level that crosses your path. The important part of the game is having fun and playing a character you enjoy. And, believe it or not, it is possible to do that without being the über-spellcaster with 10-gazillion 9th level spells at level 18. Even then, this sort of build just means you have to wait until 20th level to do that. Not like 8th-level spells are devoid of practicality.

[barawn]

... Casting Fly?

Whoops - I keep forgetting I nerfed that down to average on my own. Yeah, never mind. Better than good maneuverability isn't really that big an improvement.

[aarondirebear]

What are you smoking?
You get 2 free DC points for your element, gain all kinds of immunites, your effective caster level for popping spell resistance goes through the roof, there is still nothing stopping you from obtaining and casting non-elemental spells such as haste and illusion spells, and you can center an admixtured/maximized/empowered fireball on yourself to cause some serious damage and get away with nary a singe.

Of course it lowers your elemental "diversity" but since when did diversity become the catch all, must have super duper all important attribute...there's a little thing called "specialization". Becoming extremely powerful at doing one thing; there's no law against that and it certainly isn't weak.

Specialization is stronger than versatility. Well rounded is RPG slang for "Dead".

[AtomicKitKat]

Not like you can't take Born of Three Thunders to bombard your Electric-immune opponents with Sonic damage anyway. You can still take move actions in a Daze, IIRC, so you can just fly off(and if you're Perfect Maneouvrability, you're not going to fall just because you're Dazed either. And Stunning you, or any Precision Damage/Critical, is out of the question. No Paralysis, thereby rounding out your "Unstoppability". You can't even be Flanked(that's pretty rare, and you can't even be Flanked by people with Darkstalker Feat).

[Quietus]

Not like you can't take Born of Three Thunders to bombard your Electric-immune opponents with Sonic damage anyway. You can still take move actions in a Daze, IIRC, so you can just fly off(and if you're Perfect Maneouvrability, you're not going to fall just because you're Dazed either. And Stunning you, or any Precision Damage/Critical, is out of the question. No Paralysis, thereby rounding out your "Unstoppability". You can't even be Flanked(that's pretty rare, and you can't even be Flanked by people with Darkstalker Feat).

That also makes an awesome image in my mind of someone whose whirlwind ability is a whirling cone of greyish winds, arcs of lightning crackling ominously throughout.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

The angle not really being looked at here is that while the class is a bit less versatile it does offer some compensation for what is essentially a PrC made for flavor. I currently have a player I'll be gaming with in a short while who's playing the classic pyromaniac, guess what PrC his sorc is taking? =P Sure it's notgoing to make him the most flexible of characters, but I seriously doubt we're ever going to be lacking decent light sources while his character lives.

[Counterspin]

I once had the possibility of playing an elemental savant. I looked at the class, and found that it made me a worse blaster, and decided I'd just play a sorceror straight. Seriously, being a blaster is all about damage, and your damage is at it's highest when you're playing to the weakness of a creature, which you can't do when you're an elemental savant, because all of your spells become a single element. Though there are work arounds, an elemental savant is worse at what it should be doing than a straight sorceror. Bleh.

[Kurald Galain]

What splatbook is this?

[AtomicKitKat]

What splatbook is this?

Complete Arcane.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

I'm not going to try and make the claim that the ES is a PrC worth taking on a mechanical level, I never would. however, there ARE players out there who are more than happy to kill a little effectiveness for flavor. What else excuses the existence of the Bard?

[albertstoop]

Elemental savant is from complete arcane.

I am playing one now wizard (evolker) 5 /elemental savant (air) 1
1. Spell focus (electricity) (if spell focus (alignment) is allowed why not element) (DM approved)
1. Still spell (needed 1 meta magic spell) (i better had choosen empowered but i was lvl 1)
3. energy sub (electricity)
5. Born with the three thunders
6. spell penetration

I took indeed Born with the three thunders. So i can change electricity spells into 1/2 electricity - 1/2 sound.
I did not choose sorc because you lose already 1 level with spellcasting. Yes i know that sorc is more a blaster then a wizard. But i am now a blasting wizard.

5 wizard/10 ES vs 15 Sorc means that you have 1 spell level less (2 caster levels). but you got +4 spell penetration + 2 DC on your choosen element.
With born with the three thunder// Piercing Cold // Scorching heat you can come around immumitys. It's not perfect.

It is fun to play.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

I know I'm late to this party but I had an inspiration the other day, as I only recently looked through Frostburn, and I was checking to see if anyone else had thought of this. Remember snow casting from Frostburn? It makes ALL your spells cold spells, even nondamaging ones. Frostburn also has Cold Spell Focus and Improved Cold Spell Focus that both up your cold spell save DCs. So... Here we have a class that if you pick Water ups the save DCs of all your cold spells-- which will be all of your spells.
Oh and it also ups your caster level by four for getting past spell resistance (well, two if you subtract the lost caster levels, though you can make that up with practiced caster).
So, in the end, the 'optimal' Elemental Savant appears not to be a blaster at all but a save-or-die (or save-or-be-incapacitated which is really the same thing in combat) master who uses freezing cold to get past the enemies defenses.
And remember, cold immunity only protects against cold damage, not other cold stuff that's damage independent.
Plus, freezing death and paralysis/sickness effect spells even seem dramatically appropriate.
So, lose two caster levels to improve my save DCs and spell penetration on all my spells AND get the less than vital but really cool elemental abilities.
That sounds worthwhile to me.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

If you are going Air Savant, make sure to get a weapon made of Pandemonic Silver. Forces a Will save DC dependent on how strong the wind is or be Frightened. Combine with Whirlwind and Gnomish Quickrazor for amusing effects.

Having said that, Elemental Savant, mechanically, sucks. It is less powerful than straight Sorcerer, and that's saying something. Even with Born of Three Thunders, you're still gonna be not as powerful. But hey, 'not as powerful' means in this case 'slightly less reality-warping', so we're all good.

[Knaight]

Having said that, Elemental Savant, mechanically, sucks. It is less powerful than straight Sorcerer, and that's saying something. Even with Born of Three Thunders, you're still gonna be not as powerful. But hey, 'not as powerful' means in this case 'slightly less reality-warping', so we're all good.

Exactly. Straight sorcerer is a powerful class, just not at the Cleric, Druid, Wizard, Psion, Artificer level.