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I've been looking through Ultimate Magic recently, and while the Metal wizard *looks* cool (turn your skin into metal!), mechanically it just turns into a crappy, half-powered Mage Armor as a Supernatural ability, and a semi-decent damage buff against targets in medium/heavy armor.
At first I thought the metal skin thing would be good for dipping into as a monk, but giving up the monk's already mediocre BAB for a +2 armor bonus seems like a waste. Has anyone seen a good build for a metal wizard?
Yeah, it doesn't seem amazing for a dip, once you go deeper in, the Iron Skin ability gets better, and saving spell slots you might use on Mage Armor is a good thing, considering having a slightly less crappy AC is not really the biggest priority anyways, so getting some for free is nice. The Shrapnel Burst is nice (non-Energy AoE), and the 20th Capstone is good too.
My biggest problem with it is identical to all the Elemental Schools, the Elemental Schools themselves are way too small, they are only including EXTREMELY literally related spells mostly concentrating on damage types, and avoiding much 'symbolic' relevance of the Elements to cover ALL Core Spells, i.e. splitting up all Core/APG/etc spells between the Elemental Schools. Having all spells covered by the Elemental Schools would make each School more valuable by having Spell Focus apply to a broad set of spells normally split into different schools. As well, the opportunity should have been taken to have follow-on feats like Augment Summoning, specific to the Elemental Schools. Over-all, the Elemental Schools fail to be a true alternative to the 'Core' Schools.
Probably all the other Elemental schools (Wizard Specializations) are better over-all though.
Iron Skin doesn't even become *equivalent* to Mage Armor, bonus-wise, until you hit level 10. I just don't understand what the idea was when the ability was designed. Shrapnel Burst is nice, but you have to wait a good long while before you get it, and the bonus spells you're getting (Magic Weapon, Shocking Grasp) seem to imply a wizard who is getting into melee, which is a poor match for Iron Skin's fairly weak AC boost.
Magic Weapon/GMW is usually more useful cast on the party's Big Bad Fighter/Barbarian.
I agree, they could have just made it work like Mage Armor period, given it's lower duration that isn't overpowering at low levels...
Air Elemental School gets crap tons of at-will castings of spells like Feather Fall, Levitation, Fly (eventually).
Shocking Grasp is also on the bonus spell-list of Evokers who also don't have uber AC, and makes sense as a Metal School spell: what other Elemental School should it be? There are plenty of Touch spells on the spell list of ALL Wizards, and on most of the Schools as well... The issue is that Metal and all Elemental schools have so few spells, period.
fantastic? really, even with your change, i wouldn't call it that....
i agree with your change though, i think the author thought metal=armor, even though it's stated as your SKIN, and classing it as armor conflicts with mage armor which itself is a force effect which shouldn't conflict with your iron skin being tougher. that would definitely help the school to be at least decent.
i hit FAQ in case it was an editing mistake/over-looking.
I don't see why it would be good for a Rogue; there are plenty of light armors that offer more than a +2 bonus.
The best I can think of is a Monk, who can't wear armor, dipping into the class for some 1st level spells and a minor AC boost.
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My first response to the title was,
"Hoouh-yeah! Good God, y'all! ABSOLUTELY NOTHIN'!"
My first response to the title was,
"Hoouh-yeah! Good God, y'all! ABSOLUTELY NOTHIN'!"
lol
I agree that a more total partitioning of spells into elemental schools would've made the system work better.
It's slightly awkward though; you'd need separate partitions depending on which elements are in your elemental system.
yes and no. for example considering void, metal, and wood schools,
even if you aren't playing with those, and there is still spells uniquely reserved for those (that thus aren't classed in the other elemental schools), there will still be more spells classed in the other schools than there is now = signifigant improvement.also, if you are using metal and wood, that means you aren't using air and void, so spells can be dual-classified between those schools without issue. (in the same game, characters could use different elemental systems, as they can use the 'normal' magic schools, but the point is that each character's elemental system is internally consistent)
now, i would agree that's not ideal, because the different elemental systems aren't really giving the same association to the same elements that they share, which is important for classifying all the non literally-obvious spells. each 'system' (4+1 western/ 5 eastern) doesn't even have to cover ALL spells, either, although that would be the general goal, some could be reserved for only the other elemental system to cover... i think part of the problem is that when you go by any reasonable elemental association, not every elemental school will get close to the same number of spells (although that's also a problem with the core magic schools, so no difference).
still, the current state of affairs is just such a dis-service to the entire concept... i really hope that it is given more in-depth treatment, classifying ALL spells within the elemental schools - both for kelesh elemental schools (including void) and eastern elemental schools (including wood and metal). if the overlapping element names have different spell lists in each system, i don't have a problem with that, it just needs to be indicated clearly.
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The metal skin ability is just garbage as written. It should have been identical in effect to any of the armor revelations the oracle has available.
Starting 4 AC and 1 hour/level duration. AC bonus increase of +1/5 levels.
Of course, it's still a better deal than the Void Mage's bonus spells. Wizards already have access to all but one of them at the stated level.
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I'm pretty impressed by the Void's school powers though, and the spells are adequate for preparation. It's not so much that they're new or not, but whether I'd want to prepare them every day in the school's bonus slot.
But maybe I'll see about making a division of spells according to 4/5/more elements; I guess it'll be a couple of separate pages, one for each elemental system.