Sure Bill I hear you but I have a hunch there is more the DM could do in this case.
How experienced is your GM? Some of this sounds like maybe the GM hasn't been doing this for too long. There are a lot of in-game perfectly legitimate strategies for making a casters life very difficult.
But if you GM has never/rarely run games for high level casters, he may not know to use them. Things like black tentacles, ice storm, summoned air elementals, etc... can make casting difficult.
You might gently suggest the possibility that he could come here for some ideas on how to adjust his bad guy tactics.
Hmm those may be effective, I'll look into effects that could make my life difficult. I'll think on this, talk to you guys later, I'm signing off.
I am not sure i see the problem. You have a great character that you enjoy. If you are Gandalf and the rest is hobbits? That is not somthing you should assume responsibillity for.
I have been GMing for high level Spellcasters and it was not the energy based damage spells that made my baddies cry.
44d6 is not a the death of a CR 15 and there is a lot of CR 11 that will have a fair chance against what you PC. Ok you can proberbly take out a gang of Cloud Giants if you winn initiative, but even that is far from a sure thing.
A character that can, with AoE magic, take out a gang of CL 4 below his own in one to two rounds if they do nothing is totally fine. At least at my table.
You might gently suggest the possibility that he could come here for some ideas on how to adjust his bad guy tactics.
If you like, have him PM me. I'd be glad to give him some tactical suggestions.
I don't see why you should have to hold back. It's his job to challenge you.
But if the main problem are these fireballs I have a side note. I've never played in a game where fireballing the enemy was a viable option every fight.
That's a big, loud explosion. Need to fight quietly? Fireball is out. Close quarters like a small room in a dungeon? You're going to toast yourself and your friends. In a city? Collateral damage. Wide open field of battle? Ok now we're talking but the enemies might be spread out, now you are using an AoE to do single target damage, kind of wasteful.
Don't these things come up in your games? Fireballs are awesome but in our games they are the wrong spell for at least half the fights I would say.
In all fairness nothing says the spell makes noise. In movies fireballs make noise because they are explosions but magic could make a ball of fire without it being an explosion and without noise, but the screams of the injured could make noise.. ;)
As to people wondering how I do 44d6 without metamagic rods? Well first I do not use maximize in any way, nor do I use rods in any way. I use one point of metamagic adjust, and spell perfection. This makes a intensified empowered fireball a third level spell, and an intensified empowered quickened fireball a fifth level spell. I did say in the opening post that I had spell perfection.
If you are using magical lineage to reduce your metamagic levels , do note that it is a -1 total, not -1 to each meta
Benefit: Pick one spell when you choose this trait. When you apply metamagic feats to this spell that add at least 1 level to the spell, treat its actual level as 1 lower for determining the spell's final adjusted level.
This would make a fireball
Empowered Intensified
+2+1-1= 5th
Quickened Empowered Intensified
+4+2+1-1= 9th, or 5th if spell perfected, note you still need a 9th level casting ability (level 18 for sorc) to be able to cast this.
With 7th level slots at 15, you can cast a quickened intensified fireball. (+4+1-1= 7th) Only uses a 3rd level slot, but you cant stack as much on it.
Apologies if I am incorrect. I assumed it worked as -1 on each feat when I first saw it as well, however when used on the forum it is clearly pointed out as a -1 at the end, not each step.
Magical Lineage with intensify also doesn't lower the spell below 3rd.
FAQ
Magical Lineage (trait): Can I use this trait to adjust a spell's effective level below the unmodified spell's original level?
No. For example, it won't allow you to alter a wizard's fireball into 2nd-level spell.
This should help slow you down.
Eh, if I were a GM, seven words would take care of the problem:
"We're using 2nd. Edition Fireball area rules."
After you fry your own team a few times, you'll slow down.
Hogeyhead, are you guys actually at Gallowspire or before it? I can think of a couple of bad guys in the last part that would give that build fits, even if ran as written.
Also Book 5 and the early parts of book 6 don't really have a lot of defense against your build and tactics. Most of the bad guys don't have SR or a lot of elemental immunities or resistances, so this may be why your character is having such an easy time.
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I think as a GM I would insert from time to time some enemy designed to counter your specific build (Fire immunity, high ref save + evasion) even better if not as a single encounter but as part of a group so that you have a job (obliterating everything with napalm fireballs) and the rest of the party has a Job (preventing the fireball immunes to get to you)
But most of all I would give you a lot of challenges that are not resolved by a big explosion.
The important thing is... even if you are overpowered it is not ok to strip you away from your power.
It's the gm role to provide challenge, and the difference between a RPG and most other type of games is that the GM has the power to do what is necessary to give a fair challenge to everybody.
It doesn't matter if the guy who is dispelling your protections and giving away energy resistances is a CR many times higher than the party. as long as the encounter is designed to challenge you and not to kill you all without escape.
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I'm not trying to be offensive, but why are you asking the PF community to help nerf you?
If I were a cynic I would suggest you are sneakily trying to seek external validation for your "detrimentally impressive" build.
Are you in control of your PC or not?
If you actually feel that your sorcerer is contributing to balance issues and you'd like to stop it then my advice is - go ahead and stop it.
Is there a gun to your head forcing you to make all these metamagic enhanced fireballs? If not then just stop.
It really isn't a big deal if you don't want it to be.
Hmm, about the globes of invulnerability and metamagic rods, well I guess house rules just give me the worst of both worlds. But you guys are right raw fireball does not pierce a globe without heighten. However keep in mind in that case I would just spam greater dispel magic and quickened dispel magic till all buffs were gone. (Which I really can do)
As to people wondering how I do 44d6 without metamagic rods? Well first I do not use maximize in any way, nor do I use rods in any way. I use one point of metamagic adjust, and spell perfection. This makes a intensified empowered fireball a third level spell, and an intensified empowered quickened fireball a fifth level spell. I did say in the opening post that I had spell perfection.
Yes I have 28 cha 18 lvl 1 +3 level up +1 inherent in story, +6 enhance =28
I think I will talk to my gm about redoing my char with standard 15 point buy, but I don't think this will change much. Still it's probably an appropriate gesture.
Edit: Ninja'd by people explaining that worst of both worlds is RAW not a house rule.
From what I've read on the APG and the forums, Spell Perfection works with any singular metamagic feat. The casting time doesn't increase as far as that particular metamagic is concerned, but others still affect it. In the example of your Intensified Empowered Fireball, I'm assuming you are tagging the Empowered Spell because it is +2. Spell Perfection prevents Empowered Spell from increasing the casting time to a round. However, Intensify Spell isn't affected by Spell Perfection, because it is already using Empowered Spell. So, as far as I can see, your fireball still takes a full round to cast. This leaves you vulnerable to damage and a concentration check if hit.
As for bypassing your defenses to do this, without the obvious dispel magic? Well...
An archer can get through stoneskin easily enough, especially with Clustered Shots. They could use adamantine arrows, but without it they can damage you to force a concentration check. Would also take care of the flying issue since they can reach you.
Mirror image can be bypassed by area of effect spells, which tend to ignore DR as well. Lightning Bolt is good, and there are others the DM can throw at you to force the concentration check. Saves as well. Sure you have a reroll for will, but how often can you do that? I'd probably drop a curse or mind fog first to soften up the sorcerer. Bard's dirge is nice for dropping -2 to saves without a save, while throwing Arcane Concordance to boost a save.
Flying is easy. Low ceilings, flying enemies, ranged attackers. Half the things at your level can fly and pack a punch. GM needs to use them more because flying becomes status quo in higher levels. A flying brute is a scary thing for any caster.
Honestly, you've got good defenses, but they aren't as unsurmountable as they seem. And this is coming from experience as a high-level GM. Your GM needs to start stepping up encounters a bit. Nothing against them, I'm sure they are awesome GMs. Just sometimes as a GM, you gotta step it up. I've had those moments too where I've had to up the difficulty a little bit with more options, rather than overpowered builds.
I Build an Efreet (Beasty 1) with a reach weapon and lot of barbarian class levels. With his natural(magic) flight he could move to cover the entire pc team with opportunity attacks. Coupled with a hefty custom Ring of spell resistance he was a mighty foe indeed, never got to put him to use though.
If you face spell resistance, dont trigger your penetrating feat against foes untill after you fail the check for the first time, it only makes sense that you start trying to get through SR AFTER you fail the 1st time.
As to people wondering how I do 44d6 without metamagic rods? Well first I do not use maximize in any way, nor do I use rods in any way. I use one point of metamagic adjust, and spell perfection. This makes a intensified empowered fireball a third level spell, and an intensified empowered quickened fireball a fifth level spell. I did say in the opening post that I had spell perfection.
If you are using magical lineage to reduce your metamagic levels , do note that it is a -1 total, not -1 to each meta
Benefit: Pick one spell when you choose this trait. When you apply metamagic feats to this spell that add at least 1 level to the spell, treat its actual level as 1 lower for determining the spell's final adjusted level.
This would make a fireball
Empowered Intensified
+2+1-1= 5thQuickened Empowered Intensified
+4+2+1-1= 9th, or 5th if spell perfected, note you still need a 9th level casting ability (level 18 for sorc) to be able to cast this.
With 7th level slots at 15, you can cast a quickened intensified fireball. (+4+1-1= 7th) Only uses a 3rd level slot, but you cant stack as much on it.
Apologies if I am incorrect. I assumed it worked as -1 on each feat when I first saw it as well, however when used on the forum it is clearly pointed out as a -1 at the end, not each step.
Magical Lineage with intensify also doesn't lower the spell below 3rd.
FAQ
Magical Lineage (trait): Can I use this trait to adjust a spell's effective level below the unmodified spell's original level?
No. For example, it won't allow you to alter a wizard's fireball into 2nd-level spell.
This should help slow you down.
Re-read spell perfection, nothing says you need to be able to cast 9th level spells, just that the effective adjusted level cannot be higher than 9th.
I'm not trying to be offensive, but why are you asking the PF community to help nerf you?
If I were a cynic I would suggest you are sneakily trying to seek external validation for your "detrimentally impressive" build.
Are you in control of your PC or not?
If you actually feel that your sorcerer is contributing to balance issues and you'd like to stop it then my advice is - go ahead and stop it.
Is there a gun to your head forcing you to make all these metamagic enhanced fireballs? If not then just stop.
It really isn't a big deal if you don't want it to be.
Wow. Ever heard of the benefit of the doubt?
I did say in the opening post that I had spell perfection.
Actually, you left that out of the list, thus a lot of the confusion.
As others have said, you are pretty optimized for using fireball. However, if you asked your GM to swap out Spell Perfection (for something more versatile perhaps), that would solve most of the problem. You'd still have intensified/empowered and intensified/quickened (~37d6 worth of damage), but at the cost of a 5th and 7th instead of 5th and 3rd.
I have a fireball'ing Sorcerer in CC as well, although I don't have anything really maxing that out.
Have Fun!
I did say in the opening post that I had spell perfection.Actually, you left that out of the list, thus a lot of the confusion.
As others have said, you are pretty optimized for using fireball. However, if you asked your GM to swap out Spell Perfection (for something more versatile perhaps), that would solve most of the problem. You'd still have intensified/empowered and intensified/quickened (~37d6 worth of damage), but at the cost of a 5th and 7th instead of 5th and 3rd.
I have a fireball'ing Sorcerer in CC as well, although I don't have anything really maxing that out.
Have Fun!
Huh, you're right, how embarrassing. My bad I'll edit it in at the bottom.
Edit: or not, it's too late to edit that post.
Edit: I may do as you suggest, seems like an appropriate solution.
Wow. Ever heard of the benefit of the doubt?I'm not trying to be offensive, but why are you asking the PF community to help nerf you?
If I were a cynic I would suggest you are sneakily trying to seek external validation for your "detrimentally impressive" build.
Are you in control of your PC or not?
If you actually feel that your sorcerer is contributing to balance issues and you'd like to stop it then my advice is - go ahead and stop it.
Is there a gun to your head forcing you to make all these metamagic enhanced fireballs? If not then just stop.
It really isn't a big deal if you don't want it to be.
Hogeyhead, I did exactly that, gave you the benefit of the doubt, but I was thinking along the same lines.
When you identify your character as a balance problem and ask for help, but then you shoot down every solution aggressively, it does kind of give a certain impression.
Sorry if that's a misunderstanding, I have just seen a few threads like that before.
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Wow. Ever heard of the benefit of the doubt?I'm not trying to be offensive, but why are you asking the PF community to help nerf you?
If I were a cynic I would suggest you are sneakily trying to seek external validation for your "detrimentally impressive" build.
Hogeyhead, I did exactly that, gave you the benefit of the doubt, but I was thinking along the same lines.
When you identify your character as a balance problem and ask for help, but then you shoot down every solution aggressively, it does kind of give a certain impression.
To be honest, i thought the same... the post kind of read like,
"Hey, I wasn't even trying and my character is just too awesome for... everything! How about you take a look and then try to find flaws... and I will just shoot them down because, even though I didn't try, I have made him flawlessly awesome. Oh, but I will pretend to be humble and concerned with the well being of the group".
That may not have been your intent, but it did kind of come across this way. If that wasn't your intent, hopefully between some of the rules corrections presented here and some of the suggestions on how to just tone yourself down a tad, might help you out to not steal all the spotlight all the time. However, don't completely fall on your sword... you should get your time in the spotlight as well as any other player at the table.
Normally, I will just send someone low CL but long ranged , with poison and high attack bonus monsters at character like this. Because of low CL, I can send a lot at the same time. You can cast fireball all day low, but eventually you will run out of spells like how barbarian run out of rage. Then lead you guys to another encounter when you have no spells left. When you have limited amount of resource each day, you effectiveness decrease after each encounter within a day. While class like fighter and rogue can stand just fine. Of course, there are many other ways to deal with characters like that, GM just have to think better. Once I have a caster who is also a blaster, but he spammed his spells too fast, he can't do much at the second encounter of the day.