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Time for a new guide, this one for the Blockbuster Wizard: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5t2af1cwekhnrkj/BlockWiz.pdf
Oh, I'm trying out Dropbox.com instead of Google Docs - I'm running into issues with them destroying the quality of images embedded in PDFs. Please let me know how good/bad the document quality is for you. If it's suitable, I may start storing my guides in Dropbox instead of Google.
This is really excellent! Thanks for the guide.
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You forgot that size affects intimidate-checks!
Damn Brewer, now I want to go explode some mooks.
Also, you briefly mentioned traits (well, just lineage really). I think any blaster should consider a CL boosting trait as well. Outlander Lore Seeker being the best (+1 CL to any three spells), but there are others as well. Especially nice at first level - you can be rolling a four die burning hands at level one.
First of all: Great guide! And a total BLAST to read!
The one thing I don't understand: No mention of Preferred Spell?!?
Yes, highten as prereq is less than great, but still...
It allows you to spontaneously cast fireball even with meta magic by sacrificing any spell of appropriate level. You don't need to momorize nothing but blasts. Just load up with any spells you want (utility or GOD wizard spells) and still cast as many fireballs as you need. And never be out of fireballs of the exact meta magic combination you need!
Fun read - well done.
I'm surprised you didn't mention preferred spell. Although it requires heighten spell, and you don't like that for blasters, the flexibility on your spell list is very nice. Greater spell specialization gets you a bit of this too, but preferred doesn't require the casting time.
Also, for 2nd level spells you should consider burning arc as well. It's much more controllable in terms of shape than a fireball although it certainly isn't going to hit as many mooks - topping out a mere 4 at 13th level with intensify.
A fun read, and some good advice for blast lovers. I linked it in my Guide to the Arcane Trickster for tricksters wanting to give their blasts a little more oomph.
Tongue in cheek or not, I agree with the others that say it was a fun read. Just one thought, what about a Pyromaniac Gnome as a possible racial option? +1 caster level on all fire spells.
Good guide :)
You know what they call 8th level casters that only have 3rd level spells? Mystic Theurges.
That had me laughing outloud.
You're underselling Magic Missile. It's only lvl 1 so you can use a lesser rod of empower on it. Memorize one or two quickened Magic Missiles. Now, get an Ice Mephit familiar and hand him some of your personally scribed quickened MM scrolls and a MM wand. Enjoy splurting out 4 casts of Magic Missile when you really need to puke out some guaranteed damage. Besides, you'll have a little machine gun at your side for some nice extra damage.
The thing is that you'll already have the tools for the job and it practically renders fights versus incorporeals and non-wizard casters into a joke. If you take magical lineage (magic missile) you can even knock down the quickened MM to lvl4. Not that I'd recommend that, but it's still damn viable.
Also, at lvl6 an evoker gets insane crowd control spells. Sirocco is ridiculous and when you can admixture it to any element, you'll make DMs cry. Don't even slap any metamagics like Dazing Spell on it, it's bad enough as it is. Evokers are vastly underrated when played right :)
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Thanks for the feedback so far - I've been meaning to post a reply to the various points for a bit now. I'll try to keep it brief for each:
- Orc Bloodline. Yep, missed it. Then again, I don't feel *too* bad, considering it's not in any of the main books and can't even be looked up off the official PRD - you have to either have the splat book in front of you or look it up off a 3rd party site. I'll put a note in about it.
- Fire Snake. Bad spell, a really horrible option in my opinion. You can't hit anything 60+ feet out, you'll have difficulty hitting all your targets, you don't have nearly the flexibility with the Dazing Spell feat, and your damage is generally worse than an optimized fireball. I know Andreww's numbers didn't paint that picture - but that's because he misstated one of the Fireball spell levels, didn't optimize the non-quickened Fireball, and used the highest possible level he could without telling anyone. If anyone wants to run the numbers, here are the optimized spells from both camps:
Quickened Intensified Empowered Fireball + Maximized Intensified Empowered Fireball
Quickened Intensified Firesnake + Maximized Intensified Firesnake
Short story? Anything less than caster level 20, Fireball wins the damage race. And it wins the race while using a lower level spell slot. And at caster level 20? It uses up a higher level spell slot... to deal a total of 2.6% more damage in the round.
- Chain Lightning. I don't like this spell that much, but unlike Fire Snake, I think it's worth adding as a note for the very very high level campaigns. It only starts outpacing Fireball at caster level 20 (like Fire Snake.) The main reason is that the area effect is an improvement over Fireball.
- Lore Seeker. Excellent! I'll look at adding it to the guide (actually I'm using its cousin "missionary" for a guide I'm writing now.)
- Preferred Spell. I'll look at getting it added.
- Words of Power Sorc vs Blockbuster Wizard? Unless the GM rules very unfavorably on how the feats/traits interact ("No Spell Specialization with Words of Power!") the WoP Sorc would blow everything out of the water blast-wise. Nothing can come close to the versatility and sheer power they've got.
- Burning Arc. Hadn't heard of that spell. I'll look it up and give it a look.
- Pyromaniac Gnome. Same as above. I'll give it a review, though I'm skeptical. They don't get an INT bonus, do they?
- Magic Missile. You know, I've never really been a huge fan of that spell, especially with dedicated blasters. I'll give it another look-over, but I'm inclined to go with my gut of: "it doesn't work well with the feats/traits the blaster would be taking, so it probably doesn't compare very well to the actual blasts." Plus, we're after henchmen, not single targets...
- Sirocco. I keep forgetting about this spell - this is the third freaking guide I've written where the spell was brought to my attention. I'll give it a look-over.
- The whole "Not Treating Sorcerers Right".
Was I tongue-in-cheek? Yes.
Was I out to simply say that Wizard Blasters aren't suboptimal? Yes.
Was I doing a Straw-Man? Heck no.
Actually, I think a lot of people missed something mentally with the picture.
Okay, let's start with one Sorcerer type: someone that's focused their bloodlines on Fire damage (Orc/Draconic, Orc/Primal, whatever.) Someone that's chosen a race (Half-Orc) to eke just a bit more out of those spells as well (1/2 pt per level.)
They do more damage than the wizard. They also suck when it comes to fire-immune foes - all their traits/feats that apply to a single spell don't work, and the only bloodline they've got working for them is the Orc bloodline. Basically, they're going to have to use a bad blast with suboptimal damage when that happens.
Now, you can say, "You're not being fair! A sorcerer could take the Elemental bloodline and be able to swap that damage out for a different element!"
You're absolutely right. They covered that hole... at the cost of opening up another one: They lost damage by doing that. Before this swap-out, both of their bloodlines was devoted to increasing their damage dice.
Same thing with all the rest of the fixes - using Arcane for higher saves (you lost damage by losing one of those damaging bloodlines), using Human to counteract losing spells to crossblooded (you lost damage from the Half-Orc's favored class bonus, etc.) All of them have a different weakness they're swapping for.
That was the point of that comparison. I started out with a double-bloodline build. It beat the Admixture Wizard's damage... but had a huge weakness when dealing with Fire-Immune creatures. So one of those bloodlines shifted over to Elemental, plugging that hole... only to watch the Admixture Wizard beat it when it came to damage!
That's the crux of it. The only way the Sorcerer outclasses the Wizard at blasting damage is if they select two bloodlines that increase damage... but if they do that, they set themselves up for a hosing when they run into enemies with resistances/immunities to that element. One way or another, the Admixture is doing *something* better than the sorcerer. In short, Admixture Wizards aren't just suboptimal sorcerers.
Magic Missile together with Toppling Spell is a rather nice combo. Five trip attempts on a second level spell is quite decent (Or first level with Magical Lineage or other such cheesiness).
IMO Eldritch Researcher really needs to me acknowledged, as does Mage's (Varisian) Tattoo.
Focusing on Cold isn't so bad, as one could take Elemental Focus, and raise those DCs even higher.
My best blasters are also battlefield controllers.
You Said switching from fire to ice damage, but what you should actually be switching to is Sonic damage, because basically nothing is resistance to sonic
Admixture can't select sonic AFAIK
.. I CAST MAGIC MISSILE AT THE DARKNESS ..
Well, handing your trusted mephit buddy a wand of magic missile of CL costs 6750 gp or 135 a charge. It's hardly OP, but if you also hand him some quickened scrolls for on the side, he can add quite the punch in those rounds that you need it. I found that as a Michael Bay devotee you need to 1) burninate the BBEGs assistents and 2) blow up things that menace the martial classes such as incorporeals. Fireball and co do 1 very well, Magic Missile is a cheap way to chunk down 2.
I'm only saying that having some empowered and quickened magic missiles on the side on you and your familiar can be a boon in certain circumstances. No way should this become a characters main staple :D though it's fun when you roll tons of 4s and go shazaam on their asses.
Besides, you already have quicken spell at your disposal and with a lesser empower rod you're ready to go.
- Fire Snake. Bad spell, a really horrible option in my opinion. You can't hit anything 60+ feet out, you'll have difficulty hitting all your targets, you don't have nearly the flexibility with the Dazing Spell feat, and your damage is generally worse than an optimized fireball. I know Andreww's numbers didn't paint that picture - but that's because he misstated one of the Fireball spell levels, didn't optimize the non-quickened Fireball, and used the highest possible level he could without telling anyone. If anyone wants to run the numbers, here are the optimized spells from both camps:Actually I was explicit with which metamagic feats I was applying to each spell and the actual spell slot level which ultimately was used. I even acknowledged that it was possible to get more damage from Fireball but you completely ignore the major benefit of Fire Snake and Chain Lightning which is the ability to target enemies far more easily than with Fireball. Fireball is not a bad option for the blast optimiser but it is not the automatic best choice. A guide which is looking at different options shouldn't ignore extremely effective options because its writer is rather blinkered.
On the Sorcerer issue you continually harp on about Fire Immune creatures without noting how easy an issue it is to get around. Sorcerers, especially human ones with the alternate favoured class ability, have more than enough spells known to select a range of single target and area effect spells across all of the different elemental damage types. If you are very paranoid about Fire Immunity then taking Elemental Spell (Cold) is also a very straight forward option.
Okay, at this point I just have to assume, Andreww, that you're not being intellectually honest.
"On the Sorcerer issue you continually harp on about Fire Immune creatures without noting how easy an issue it is to get around."
Really? Really?
From the Guide:
Fire With Backup: This cagey half-orc sorcerer can take down Fire Immune foes, because they’ve got the ability to turn any blast into Acid damage – between Draconic (Fire) + Elemental (Acid) bloodlines, an 8th level sorcerer deals either 36 (8d6+12) fire damage or 28 (8d6) Acid damage.
Also from the Guide:
What about the Fire with Backup? Not too shabby… except they actually do less than the Admixture Wizard does – even with their specialty element (fire).
From my previous Post:
...Now, you can say, "You're not being fair! A sorcerer could take the Elemental bloodline and be able to swap that damage out for a different element!"
You're absolutely right. They covered that hole... at the cost of opening up another one: They lost damage by doing that. Before this swap-out, both of their bloodlines was devoted to increasing their damage dice.
Also from my previous post:
That's the crux of it. The only way the Sorcerer outclasses the Wizard at blasting damage is if they select two bloodlines that increase damage... but if they do that, they set themselves up for a hosing when they run into enemies with resistances/immunities to that element.
... but, yep, I definitely haven't noted how easy it is for Sorcerers to take the elemental bloodline. Nope, not a word about it. You got me.
I even acknowledged that it was possible to get more damage from Fireball
Really? You said you could add more metamagic to all three, not that Fireball's damage could be vastly increased to the point where Firesnake and it dealt the same amount of damage.
You went through a big numbers comparison and picked a weak version of Fireball and didn't even state the right spell level for it. And here's the difference between us: when I was doing my damage comparison, I was fair to Fire Snake: I found the best damage I could for it (the non-quickened spell should've been Maximized, not Empowered - deals more damage that way.)
A guide which is looking at different options shouldn't ignore extremely effective options because its writer is rather blinkered.
Yep. Blinkered. I mentioned I'm adding Chain Lighting when I get a chance - but because I don't agree on Fire Snake, I'm Blinkered.
And Fire Snake is a horrible area-of-effect. You have to be within 60 feet to hit something (aka, "within charge distance".) You also have to be extremely high level to have any chance of hitting even the majority of a large-group encounter - and most of the time, it'll force you to get in even closer to your enemies (you don't have much chance of hitting 6 separate creatures if you're 40 foot away from the closest.
I wouldn't recommend it to any blaster, even a 20th level one. It's got a worse area, and unless you're actually a 20th level caster, it deals less damage. Fireball beats it in almost every circumstance - and the ones where it doesn't, Chain Lightning cleans its clock.
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Fire sorcerers only work under optimal circumstances whereas the Michael Bay devotee makes sure the circumstances are nearly ALWAYS optimal. Also, the fire sorcerer is giving up all his utility and other options to reach that burning potential whereas the Michael Bay devotee simply took some feats, but can memorize an entire different set of spells if the circumstasnces require it.
And from my personal experiences with these fire-based sorcerers, they're rarely worth their slot on the table. They're like an inverted barbarian - they only got one trick and when that trick ain't possible, they're sitting there pouting.
Nuking arcane casters are sub-optimal to begin with, but a proper evoker wizard can mix optimal AoE boom potential while retaining his utility potential. But perhaps I'm a puritist. Wizard 4 lyfe, homies.
The difference with fire sorcs is that they can be a non-blaster too. Michael-bay is memorizing a ton of fireballs, and that's what he can cast. A fire sorc can use his 4th level slots to cast a ton of intensified fireballs, or a ton of enervation or dimensional doors if needed. They can use Elemental Spell on the fly to dodge fire resist. Yes, they lose some damage in the fights vs fire inmunes, but it does more against anyone else, which isn't bad.
And a Orc sorcerer doesn't have any problem to change elements
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And from my personal experiences with these fire-based sorcerers, they're rarely worth their slot on the table. They're like an inverted barbarian - they only got one trick and when that trick ain't possible, they're sitting there pouting.
i disagree. I had a draconic sorcerer in kingmaker, and he was the absolute star. I had 3 combat spells, scorching ray, fireball and a magic missile that I NEVER used. The rest of my spells were the usual suspects: fly, haste, glitterdust, dimensional door, black tentacles, invisibility, summon monster....
I have the option to spam fireballs, or the option to spam dispel magic, as needed. That's an advantage too
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Magic Missile together with Toppling Spell is a rather nice combo. Five trip attempts on a second level spell is quite decent (Or first level with Magical Lineage or other such cheesiness).
Although it should be noted that this is heavily dependent on what types of creatures you find yourself fighting.
In my group, by the time you'd get five missiles many of the creatures we encounter are difficult to trip, if not immune. Remember that flying creatures (for example) are completely immune to trip.
Also, I'm not sure if the limitation that you can only trip an opponent that is no more than one size category larger than you would apply to Toppling Spell or not. If so, a halfling caster couldn't trip an ogre.
Has anyone seen anything that explains whether or not this limitation applies?
Okay, at this point I just have to assume, Andreww, that you're not being intellectually honest.At this point I as assuming you simply don't read things. No-one is talking about taking the elemental bloodline. Elemental bloodline is unnecessary. you take Orc/Draconic bloodline of your preference together with either a selection of spells of different elements or the feat Elemental Spell (a.n.other element). You will lose the benefit from the draconic damage bonus if you have to switch but not the benefit of the Orc bloodline.
Which puts you in the unenviable position of lacking in spells, will saves, and overall versatility when it comes to your damage types.
Love the Guide cant wait to show a few of my friends
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magical lineage is a key factor for sure, you can take reduce fireball's metamagic cost by 1 per feat.
I'm pretty sure it's not -1 per feat but -1 total.
When you apply metamagic feats to this spell, treat its actual level as 1 lower for determining the spell's final adjusted level.
magical lineage is a key factor for sure, you can take reduce fireball's metamagic cost by 1 per feat.I'm pretty sure it's not -1 per feat but -1 total.
When you apply metamagic feats to this spell, treat its actual level as 1 lower for determining the spell's final adjusted level.
But it's untyped. So it stacks with metamagic Master/wayang spellhunter regional trait. 3rd level empowered fireballs that can be maximized with a lesser rod. Including varisian tatoo/spell specialist and gnome, that's like 5d6+63 or so at 5th level :P
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As far as I know, you can apply a lesser rod to any meta magic'ed fireball (except heighten) since it's still a level 3 spell.
As far as I know, you can apply a lesser rod to any meta magic'ed fireball (except heighten) since it's still a level 3 spell.
yes. But this guide doesn't follow that and I didnt want to start a debate :P
Anyway my sentence os still true. You can cast an empowered rod-maximized fireball with a 3rd level slot at 5th level and do enough damage to completely crush any CR 5-8 if you have the proper feats and traits.
Btw: the fact it's only a 3rd level spell is a boon for lesser rods. But also a weakness this guide doesn't adress. A single minor globe of invulnerability cripples it. That's ome of the reasons Chain Lightning and/or Fire Snake are still needed (or heighten spell fireball, but much less efficientu
Just another reason to go with Heighten + Preferred Spell ;)
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For the record, Agent Colson was a badass.
For the record, Agent Colson was a badass.
The Son of Cole lives....
Brewer: I'm reading all your guides. Neat stuff! I look forward to seeing more!
My thoughts on Burning Arc (from Humans of Golarion.)
I prefer Burning Arc over Scorching Ray for a level 2 fire spell mainly because I do not like making attack rolls.
It doesn't have the punch or (multi-target) range of Scorching Ray...but it is immensely more useful in pick up groups that don't coordinate with each other because of the method of targeting and not having to worry about firing into melee/cover/etc. And if you're trying to mix it up with controllerly metas it's arguably superior. By 8th level you are hitting up to 4 targets.
Agree. Burning Arc beat Scorching Ray for several reasons. Multitarget is one, but also is stronger vs low fire resistant monsters, and doesn't need to hit, and allow you to attack monsters that are in melee (with Scorching ray, unless you drop 2 feats into precise shot, you probably face a -4 to -8 to hit, including the melee and cover bonuses. Unless you are fighting a Brute-like monster with really low dex, you won't hit)
Burning Arc is the best single target low level spell right now.