But a Dazing Fireball can lay down some hurt.
Take one of the traits that reduce the metamagic cost.
By the time you can get decent damage on those fireballs, the hit points of the enemy will be so high that they will barely put a dent in them. We are talking about gargantuan giants and dragons, not goblins.And at 10th level, vanilla fireballs average 35 damage. Many are going to be empowered or maximized or both, some intensified at 11th and later, and quickened at 13th or sooner with a rod. A lot of these options are accessible earlier via traits.
But big blasts work pretty well in RotRL. Lots of groups of targets with low Reflex saves.
Many of those giants and dragons are going to have energy vulnerabilities, so you just need (an ally) to dispel any energy resistance they have going. And the appropriate rod of Elemental Spell. And maybe a Knowledge check....
That's when you summon magic missile balls! ;-)
I've heard it both ways!
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I am currently wondering if it's such a good idea to have a Druid as a solo tank, honestly. But If you are not wanting to be a toe to toe combatant to help out your Druid friend here, (as I seemed to have gathered), you should make a mystic thurge. The combined ability of a wizard and cleric makes for decent healing and enough spell power to very well buff your allies in a fight. Just remember, the Druid Is the only thing that will stop that ogres club from a painful impact with your hit point total. Protect that Druid with your life.
Druids are TWO tanks--if you choose to have an animal companion. And later more, when you can summon natures allies for more than just a few rounds.
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I am currently wondering if it's such a good idea to have a Druid as a solo tank, honestly. But If you are not wanting to be a toe to toe combatant to help out your Druid friend here, (as I seemed to have gathered), you should make a mystic thurge. The combined ability of a wizard and cleric makes for decent healing and enough spell power to very well buff your allies in a fight. Just remember, the Druid Is the only thing that will stop that ogres club from a painful impact with your hit point total. Protect that Druid with your life.
Mystic theurge is a terrible idea. The only way that class is remotely useful is with early entry via racial spell like abilities of aasimar and tieflings. MT makes you so far behind on casting with both classes that you quickly become irrelevant. There a number of archetypes that give you arcane spells on a divine caster or divine spells on an arcane caster that are much better options.
I am currently wondering if it's such a good idea to have a Druid as a solo tank, honestly. But If you are not wanting to be a toe to toe combatant to help out your Druid friend here, (as I seemed to have gathered), you should make a mystic thurge. The combined ability of a wizard and cleric makes for decent healing and enough spell power to very well buff your allies in a fight. Just remember, the Druid Is the only thing that will stop that ogres club from a painful impact with your hit point total. Protect that Druid with your life.Mystic theurge is a terrible idea. The only way that class is remotely useful is with early entry via racial spell like abilities of aasimar and tieflings. MT makes you so far behind on casting with both classes that you quickly become irrelevant. There a number of archetypes that give you arcane spells on a divine caster or divine spells on an arcane caster that are much better options.
There is also the faith magic trick (Take Faith Magic on a Wizards gives you one divine spell, you take one level divine and good to go. Your cleric divine casting is sub par, but your arcane casting is still decent)
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There is also the faith magic trick (Take Faith Magic on a Wizards gives you one divine spell, you take one level divine and good to go. Your cleric divine casting is sub par, but your arcane casting is still decent)
Hmmm, that's not a bad idea.
The reason I suggested MT is mainly for the large amount of spells you aquire, because you do not need a high level to heal and buff well if you have enough low level heals/buffs. While this would make for a much less damage dealing character, the only other character in the party who can heal good amounts of damage is the Druid. You can also buy wands to supplement your low level casting and such
Mystic theurge is a terrible idea. The only way that class is remotely useful is with early entry via racial spell like abilities of aasimar and tieflings. MT makes you so far behind on casting with both classes that you quickly become irrelevant. There a number of archetypes that give you arcane spells on a divine caster or divine spells on an arcane caster that are much better options.
Why do you think that the MT is irrelevant if you attain it without selecting a race with powerful spell like abilities? What makes the class so bad if you get it at 7th level?
A white Mage Arcanist could also be a good choice as well, as The Diviner said before me. you lose out on less of the arcane magic, but you would need to be buying wands of Healing a lot to keep up with the damage done to your friends because relying on both your arcane pool and spell slots to heal is going to rapidly drain your other spell casting abilities.
I really like the concept of MT. I don't think you lose that much if you consider that you can buff a lot and have lots of Spells.
God Wizard spells don't need CL, most of them just need high DC and even so most of them work anyway.
Yes, you're behind a couple of spell levels, but it should work anyway.
As someone who mightbe dming this one day, There is alot of talk of spell book using caster support in this adventure which makes a wizard or arcanist very attractive I was wondering if either in a spoiler or a PM if someone could give me a little more detail on the specifics of this support?
All I can say is I have found 1 spell book by level 4
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There is also the faith magic trick (Take Faith Magic on a Wizards gives you one divine spell, you take one level divine and good to go. Your cleric divine casting is sub par, but your arcane casting is still decent)Hmmm, that's not a bad idea.
The reason I suggested MT is mainly for the large amount of spells you aquire, because you do not need a high level to heal and buff well if you have enough low level heals/buffs. While this would make for a much less damage dealing character, the only other character in the party who can heal good amounts of damage is the Druid. You can also buy wands to supplement your low level casting and such
Mystic theurge is a terrible idea. The only way that class is remotely useful is with early entry via racial spell like abilities of aasimar and tieflings. MT makes you so far behind on casting with both classes that you quickly become irrelevant. There a number of archetypes that give you arcane spells on a divine caster or divine spells on an arcane caster that are much better options.Why do you think that the MT is irrelevant if you attain it without selecting a race with powerful spell like abilities? What makes the class so bad if you get it at 7th level?
A white Mage Arcanist could also be a good choice as well, as The Diviner said before me. you lose out on less of the arcane magic, but you would need to be buying wands of Healing a lot to keep up with the damage done to your friends because relying on both your arcane pool and spell slots to heal is going to rapidly drain your other spell casting abilities.
What makes it bad is losing caster levels. You can get away casting lower level spells on easy encounters, but easy encounters don't exist in the later books of this AP. The game expects you to have access to certain level spells at certain levels, and that is for the average, the baseline. RotRL is on hard mode.
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If mystic theurge is your thing and you do not wish to lose caster levels I would suggest this path:
Go Wizard (Spirit Whisperer) 5 taking the lore spirit. Take the Arcane Enlightenment hex. This gives you a number of divine spell (from the wizard spell list :P ).
Then you take a single level of cleric.
You can now go MT and progress both classes with only having lost a single level of wizard progression.
It will however cost you your arcane school.
If mystic theurge is your thing and you do not wish to lose caster levels I would suggest this path:
Go Wizard (Spirit Whisperer) 5 taking the lore spirit. Take the Arcane Enlightenment hex. This gives you a number of divine spell (from the wizard spell list :P ).
Then you take a single level of cleric.
You can now go MT and progress both classes with only having lost a single level of wizard progression.
It will however cost you your arcane school.
But you don't have a Divine Spellcasting class. How does it work?
You can't add +1 to existing divine class if you don't have one, so even if you meet the requisites you will gain nothing from it.|
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What makes it bad is losing caster levels. You can get away casting lower level spells on easy encounters, but easy encounters don't exist in the later books of this AP. The game expects you to have access to certain level spells at certain levels, and that is for the average, the baseline. RotRL is on hard mode.
A low Caster Level does not mean you cannot be a useful member of the party. The point would be that you don't go casting fireball, and instead help your teammate with bull's strength or protection from evil. THIS IS NOT A BUILD MEANT FOR INCINERATING ENEMIES. I understand your concern, though. As someone who owns the anniversary edition of rotrl, I know that a wizard is very tempting to make. A non full level caster in rotrl is kinda dangerous, but if you only have one character that must fill role of both wizard and cleric, (as the party has none), mystic thurge give you a true balance of the two. I know nothing about the party's playstyle though, they might get along just fine without as much healing. And as for the book expecting you to have specific spells, you could just have high UMD and use scrolls.
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What makes it bad is losing caster levels. You can get away casting lower level spells on easy encounters, but easy encounters don't exist in the later books of this AP. The game expects you to have access to certain level spells at certain levels, and that is for the average, the baseline. RotRL is on hard mode.
A low Caster Level does not mean you cannot be a useful member of the party.
The point would be that you don't go casting fireball, and instead help your teammate with bull's strength or protection from evil. THIS IS NOT A BUILD MEANT FOR INCINERATING ENEMIES.
I understand your concern, though. As someone who owns the anniversary edition of rotrl, I know that a wizard is very tempting to make. A non full level caster in rotrl is kinda dangerous, but if you only have one character that must fill role of both wizard and cleric, (as the party has none), mystic thurge give you a true balance of the two.
I know nothing about the party's playstyle though, they might get along just fine without as much healing. And as for the book expecting you to have specific spells, you could just have high UMD and use scrolls.
When I played through it, our arcane caster was a sorcerer that took dragon disciple levels. The loss of caster levels made him so sub-optimal that the DM gave him a pair of red dragon cohorts, and he still sucked. A mystic theurge would have pretty much the same problem.
You're making me scared! We have probaly subpar damage in our party, I'm gonna be really scared of facing new enemies! LOL
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If mystic theurge is your thing and you do not wish to lose caster levels I would suggest this path:
Go Wizard (Spirit Whisperer) 5 taking the lore spirit. Take the Arcane Enlightenment hex. This gives you a number of divine spell (from the wizard spell list :P ).
Then you take a single level of cleric.
You can now go MT and progress both classes with only having lost a single level of wizard progression.
It will however cost you your arcane school.
But you don't have a Divine Spellcasting class. How does it work?
You can't add +1 to existing divine class if you don't have one, so even if you meet the requisites you will gain nothing from it.
That is why you take a single level of cleric so that you have a divine class to progress. It does not matter that it was through wizard that you got the level 2+ divine spell when you start progressing both wizard and cleric with MT.
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Play a witch with healing patron. You get most condition removal, and you have at will hexes you can dump at bad guys all day long.
And you're still SAD.
Yeah, witch is pretty could with a nice variety in it's spell list. Optimizing slumber hex can work well against giants. Too bad it won't work on dragons.
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Because you would then have access to the far more flexible spell list that is the Sorc/Wizard list. Well I like it more but I guess that depend on what you want to be able to do with your spells.
And the witch hexes only really work when you are not facing creatures with a good will save. Which high CR enemies incidentally tend to have.
But yes cure spells are far easier to get access to as a witch.
Personally I like to get a "reliable" way of healing through the planar binding spell. That particular line of spells are very troublesome however and are quite often banned in campaigns for a very good reason.