Ignatius Metamorphic's page

I was considering making an Eldritch Knight, but I'm a little curious about their spell critical ability. Since it requires a Swift Action to use, you cannot combine it with the arcane armor training feats (or arcane strike for that matter). I was wondering what people can come up with to get around this.

The only options I can think of are:
Use armors with low spell failure chance, such as mithril chainmail.
Rely on mage armor and protective spells/control spells
Rely on bracers of armor and protective spells/control spells

The bracers of armor options seems the best, however it is quite expensive compared to the equivalent AC through a mithril chain shirt.

I don't suppose anyone knows of any item enchants that can reduce arcane spell failure?

Focus on arcane spells that do not require somatic components. Here is a list:

0: Flare, Light
1: Feather Fall, Hold Portal, True Strike, Ventriloquism
2: Blindness/deafness, Blur, Knock
3: Displacement, Suggestion, Tongues
4: Dimension Door, Geas (lesser), Shout
5: Contact Other Plane, Teleport
6: Geas/Quest, Suggestion (Mass)
7: Phase Door, Power Word Blind, Teleport (Greater), Teleport Object,
8: Charm Monster (Mass), Irresistible Dance, Power Word Stun, Shout (Greater)
9: Mage’s Disjunction, Power Word Kill, Prismatic Sphere, Teleportation Circle, Time Stop, Wail of the Banshee

You have decent spell choices at most levels. It makes sense, then, to take still spell and use it to round out your spell selections.

Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote:

At 5th level, the wizard doesn't have much to protect aside from his spellbook and maybe a couple magic items.

Where is the wizard, who's the threat and what the state of mind.

In a city or a village or out in the whops?

Are thieves out for the family silver, is it another mage or the local mafia?

How much paranoia is involved, it pays to be careful or is every out to get me?

Good questions.

He is in a city. He's not paranoid, but he does have thousands of gold pieces invested in magic items. It pays to be careful.

I love the image of a monkey in a little bellhop vest and fez copying a spellbook. I also love the idea of another wizard later on looking at the spellbook and fuming, "Was this transcribed by a trained monkey!?!?!?"

Why yes. Yes it was....

;-)

I'm designing an adventure and I'm looking for ideas on how a 5th level wizard could protect their home.

For the purposes of this discussion, let's assume a small two story cottage with a basement. Let's assume the wizard has put aside 2,500 gp for protecting his cottage. He can cast spells himself, buy scrolls, or hire other spellcasters to cast spells.

Or, he could just buy a realy big dog.

What ideas do people have?

I was talking to one of the players in my game and we were brainstorming way for wizards to make copies of their spellbooks.

Here is a list of ideas we came up with. We haven't given them a whole lot of thought, so there may be problems with some of the ideas.

Familiar: Your familiar has the same number of ranks in a skill as you do. So, as long as it had hands, it could presumeable copy your spellbook. The monkey familiar is an obvious choice. Several of the advanced familiars would work as well. I guess eventually, you could polymorph your familiar into a suitable shape each day and set them to work. Of course, your familiar starts off with a low intelligence, but eventually, they get pretty smart.

Planar Binding: You could use the planar binding series of spells to bind a creature to copy your spellbook. A number of the Devils have ranks in spellcraft, so could presumeably do this for you.

Geas and Dominate: If you could find a creature with the appropriate skills, your could cast Geas or use Dominate Person/Monster to compel them to copy your spellbook. Really more appropriate for evil wizards, but an option.

Leadership Feat: If your cohort and followers are all wizards you could have a team of scribes turning out extra spellbooks for you. You could have each follower make two copies of your spellbook and then have them move to a different town. If you worked this option, you could have a network of agents, with back-up spellbooks, spread throughout the land.

Simulacrum: Anything you can do, your simulcrum can do half as well. So they could copy spellbook for you. Of course, this assumes you are creating a simulacrum of yourself. If you could create a simulacrum of a more powerful spellcaster, you could have a more powerful assistant.

Fabricate: This may be a stretch for this spell. But, with an appropriate spellcraft check, it seems like a possibilty. I don't know about this one.

Polymorph any object: Could you use this spell to create extra spellbooks. Maybe. It seems like a possibility. It's an 8th level spell and is basically the change anything into anything spell.

Wish/Limited Wish: Could you wish for a copy of your spellbook? Sure, why not?

Have people thought about other ways to make copies of spellbooks? I would like to keep the discussion to the core rules, as those would have the broadest appeal.

1. If a summoned monster is in play and the caster who summoned it is killed does it automatically disappear? It doesn't say so in the description but my DM says this is the case. Is this something to do with ongoing spell effects in general (as in all ongoing spell effects end when the caster dies? Is this true?)

2. If the caster is neutral and the summons a fiendish/celestial creature is said creature still considered neutral for the purposes of 'Protection against' spells and the like?

1. Reviewing the spell description, conjuration rules (summoning specifically), and the spell duration rules, I would say that the creature does not automatically disappear. But, if your DM says they automatically disapper, they automatically disappear.

2. The spell description is quite clear on this point, "When you use a summoning spell to summon a creature with an alignment or elemental subtype, it is a spell of that type. Creatures on Table 10–1 marked with an “*” are summoned with the celestial template, if you are good, and the fiendish template, if you are evil. If you are neutral, you may choose which template to apply to the creature. Creatures marked with an “*” always have an alignment that matches yours, regardless of their usual alignment. Summoning these creatures makes the summoning spell’s type match your alignment."

Eating a spell level is NOT worth it. Truthfully by the time you're "online" I'd just give up AC (Mage armor yourself maybe?); most guys you care about will hit you on a 2 even if you put on a magic mithril shirt; and vs large numbers of mooks turn crowd control instead of going to the front line. No real need to worry about AC defense; much talk on these forums is about how ineffective it is.

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If you want to go the route of the platemail wearing, two-handed sword weilding, front line fighter type, who casts spells, then you need to focus on arcane spells that do not require somatic components. Here is a list:

0: Flare, Light
1: Feather Fall, Hold Portal, True Strike, Ventriloquism
2: Blindness/deafness, Blur, Knock
3: Displacement, Suggestion, Tongues
4: Dimension Door, Geas (lesser), Shout
5: Contact Other Plane, Teleport
6: Geas/Quest, Suggestion (Mass)
7: Phase Door, Power Word Blind, Teleport (Greater), Teleport Object,
8: Charm Monster (Mass), Irresistible Dance, Power Word Stun, Shout (Greater)
9: Mage’s Disjunction, Power Word Kill, Prismatic Sphere, Teleportation Circle, Time Stop, Wail of the Banshee

You have decent spell choices at most levels. It makes sense, then, to take still spell and use it to round out your spell selections.

OR, you could skip still spell, and the arcane armor feats, and use your feats to improve your fighting ability. You could be a pretty good fighter and have an interesting selections of spells you could cast at will.