kestral287 |
So I got a bit of a curveball chucked at me. A player in my game asked about the possibility of getting VMCs handed out as freebies. After talking to them about what they wanted, I figured it wouldn't break anything (one of them was already going VMC so he just gets his feats back, the other's initial thoughts were "Gunslinger or Druid" so I'm... not worried. Jury's out on the third but he's the least active member anyway and I'm not worried about him breaking anything).
After okaying it, the player who happened to be my GM in our table's other game mentioned off-hand that he was cool with it for that game too.
I'd toyed with what I would do off-hand, but now that it's actually on the table I'm torn.
First off, the basics:
-Gestalt, Mythic, semicustomized races, 3.5/3rd party stuff on a case by case basis. We have a lot of options at our fingertips.
-Homebrewed campaign, because I don't think there's an AP around that could withstand the above without massive editing.
-The rest of the party consists of a Barbarian//Druid (Naga Aspirant) and a Kineticist//Alchemist. We had a Fighter//Warlock but he's dropped; if his schedule clears up he may come back but we're not holding out hope.
-Shariza, my character, is a tricked-out Magus//Sorcerer (Cross/Wildblooded for Sage+Draconic, and the Magus is tweaked over as a spontaneous Int-based caster). Mythic is Champion Dual Pathed to Archmage. Combat wise she's heavily specialized around a Cold-based version of Shocking Grasp, using various shenanigans to cast it way more than any caster should be able to spam a spell (I've got her up to six Twinned castings in one round once she hits level 13, though that's eating a lot of mythic power and spell slots so it's not sustainable).
If there's anything else that needs laying out I'll give it, but that should cover the basics. I've settled in on Wizard for her VMC, but what I'm torn on is the school.
I've got it largely narrowed down to Void or Admixture. As I figure it, these are the advantages of each:
Void: Provides a passive bonus to her saves, which is nice because I'm not quite satisfied with them; they're roughly middling for the party right now. It also has Reveal Weakness, which combined with a GM ruling gets really nasty. While Spell Combat is a strong incentive to not burn a standard action normally, the Amazing Initiative mythic ability grants an extra standard action for the cost of one mythic power, with the caveat that it can't be used to cast a spell. Against a difficult target, dropping Reveal Weakness to tank their AC/saves is nice. But, the GM decided that using the Archmage's arcana to cast a spell does not run afoul of Amazing Initiative's restrictions, and I already plan on taking Coupled Arcana.
Originally, this was designed for use with her Draconic bloodline breath weapon, for a sequence of Amazing Initiative-> Breath Weapon-> Coupled Arcana spellcasting that can be tacked onto the normal Swift/Full routine. Slotting Reveal Weakness into that scenario makes for some extremely nasty save-or-suck spells.
On paper that's awesome. However, my glaring problem is that she... doesn't carry many of that sort of spell. I don't tend to like save or sucks, so prior to level 15 she's only carrying two of that sort of spell (one is a modified 3.5 single-target Blast with a Fort vs. Stun for one round, the other is Accursed Glare), plus a few that are save-partials like Ray of Exhaustion/Enfeeblement.
At the high levels that reverses; her entire ninth-level spell arsenal is Dominate Monster, Mass Icy Prison, Mass Suffocation, and Wish, and even at level 15 she's picking up a few SoD style spells. But that's nine levels of minimal utility of the ability-- not that throwing it out to boost the DC of a one-round stunning blast is ever bad, mind, but I feel like it wouldn't really be capitalized on. Further, even at higher levels I'm not sure how badly I want to be throwing around a trick like Reveal Weakness -> Dominate Monster at -9 to save. I could see that breaking up the GM's fun a little too easily.
So, in short: Void grants better passive defenses and a decent offensive trick that might get a little too good in the late game.
Admixture is the other option. It was almost a gimmee, what with element-swapping be so very useful normally. However, Shariza has a rather awesome metamagic feat from 3.5 called Piercing Cold. It's a +1 (+0 for her Grasp by the time it matters) that lets a Cold spell ignore Cold Resistance outright and do half damage to creatures immune to cold, unless they have cold immunity and the cold subtype (in which case they retain the immunity and Shariza is in for a bad day).
That doesn't make Admixture's element-swapping trick useless, but it does make it far more situational. Compounding this is that Shariza is utterly unable to cast Fire spells, which I believe my GM would expand to her not being able to switch elements to Fire. She'd still have Electric and Acid to fall back on, but it does limit the utility of using Admixture to buff offenses: Cold subtype creatures, the biggest threats, tend to be vulnerable to Fire, and relatively few things are vulnerable to Electricity or Acid.
Admixture does grant a static damage bonus to evocations, which is nice on its own. Shariza is somewhat light on those outside of her Grasp, but it still boosts her key spell and a few other tricks so I certainly won't call it useless.
Their level 8 abilities aren't kicking in until level 19 but both are solid; I weight them equally personally. Admixture's is a strong defensive bonus, while Void is a bonus across the board that also helps allies, so I can go either way on that one. But I'm stuck on deciding between the level 1 abilities, so I thought I would turn to you guys.
Eigengrau |
Wow, your build and game sounds amazing, looks from here to be epic in scale. I've pondered your predicament for some time and can't really decide between Void/Admixture. Either one, like you've said already, would help, but I think you're already brimming with power as it is.
With Mythic & Gestalt & custom classes, you're not lacking in power at all, maybe think about a VMC school that gives you some utility or always available powers?
Air School gives you Supernatural At-Will Flight/Levitate/Feather fall.
Earth- gives you serious combat bonuses and later Earth glide.
Teleportation school etc...
No choice is really a bad one at all since you're not losing any feats.
Personally I'd go with utility-perks for a school in your situation.
kestral287 |
Yeah, my GM is awesome.
I considered Air, but with the Draconic bloodline at-will Flight will be available anyway. Not as quickly, but it'll be there. Earth's CMD bonuses are nice, and if there was an anti-grapple feature I would be all over that, but the Earth Glide kicks in a bit too late for my tastes.
I'd originally knocked Teleportation off the list because I'm intentionally avoiding summoning spells and you're stuck with Summoner's Charm, but that might've been a mistake. She gets some teleportation off her spells at a decent level (Dimension Door's a bloodline spell, so 9th), but that's not a swift action panic-button.
It's worth considering-- which means now I have three schools to debate between! Xp
Thanks for the input though. You do raise a strong point on utility options.
kestral287 |
Survival, alright. Here's the rundown:
AC is what I lovingly refer to as "completely ridiculous".
Even going Str- over Dex- based (and in fact not investing in Dex at all), she'll endgame between 64 and 66. 70 is plausible if I push for it. Kensai's Canny Defense + Sorcerer's natural armor + Archmage's Enduring Armor is just fun (for me. I actually nerfed her AC once already because the GM was a bit annoyed with it).
HP is fairly solid. I missed mentioning it in the first post, apparently, but she's going into Dragon Disciple (using Magus levels to offset the caster level loss; she'll end at Magus 17/Disciple 10/Sorcerer 13. Magical Knack and an Orange Prism Ioun Stone will get to CL20 with Magus spells). So, that means half her levels are D8 hit dice, the other half are D12. Roughly as durable as a Fighter. No DR, though at the high-end levels if I really wanted I could burn feats for DR 2/- apiece. Not likely to do that though. No native Fast Healing, but the GM's open to obtaining it via Permanencied Infernal Healing.
CMD's... decent. She's a 3/4ths BAB class, so it's not great, but it's decent. She's been on the wrong end of a few grapples, and her going tactic with them is usually "kill the thing holding me right the hell now".
She doesn't have a miss chance yet, but she'll be picking up a Minor Cloak of Displacement and has a racial ability that ups any miss chance by 5%, so she'll wind up dodging a quarter of attacks outright.
As the group's primary buffer she's invested in Spell Resistance, 11+hit die. But if something breaks through that, her saves are only so-so. 9/6/5 right now (at 4th), which ties her for the high Fort but puts her in the middle of the other two. That's one of the reasons I was leaning toward Void; the passive bonus to saves against spells helps a fair bit.
The other defensive weakspot is fire. She has minor resistances to Acid and Electricity and a scaling resistance to Cold (capping out at full immunity at level 15; the GM and I modified Dragon Disciple's capstone to more-or-less just finish applying the Half-Dragon template). But I built a fire vulnerability into her, and while I could get rid of it with a handful of feats... I can't fit those feats in until level 20.
For that one Admixture would be more help, as the level 8 (19 for her) ability to, say, switch any incoming Fire attack to Cold would turn that weakness off for a few fights. But, level 19.
It is worth noting I suppose that I'm building her with more than a few defensively oriented spells. Emergency Force Sphere is on her list, as is what's more-or-less a 2nd-level version of it from 3.5 called Wings of Cover (grants total cover against one attack, she can extend that out to cover one adjacent ally per three caster levels). She's got another more-or-less home built spell that's an immediate action cast for +1/3rd caster level to a Will save (it's based on a maneuver from Tome of Battle, but it's been pretty heavily tweaked since that one is... kinda broken). Greater Stunning Barrier is a favorite of mine; break her AC and unless your Will is good, you're going to get eaten alive next turn. And of course stuff like your basic Obscuring Mist-- I'm particularly fond of that one since Disciple grants Blindsense; with a Heartseeker weapon she can fight basically unhindered in fog.
Of all that her Will save is my biggest worry. The GM isn't the sort to throw out a Dominate, which is a good thing because she'd slaughter the Druid//Barbarian in a straight fight and the Alchemist//Kineticist would have to stay out of her range (not easy, what with mythic making super-Pounce a thing for every Champion) and go for kill shots with lots of fire. But even if he's not keen to Dominate her, a Hold Person or Fear can still take her out of the fight quite effectively.