Retooling the Warmage (or, how I learned to stop whining and love the blasting) - v2

[T.G. Oskar]

Ladies and gents!! Children of all ages!! Outsiders and Eldritch Abominations are welcome too!! Today, I shall introduce a class that has been neglected by that famous group of people, the Optimizers!!

Since it's introduction, the Warmage was meant to be the kind of class that made things go BOOM!! (Yep, just like a bomb) However, the Powers that Be found a MAJOR flaw in this most singular class devoted to demolitions...that is, that demolitions sucks badly. Really, really, really badly.

Then, it got worse. Sorcerers gained powers from their Dragon ancestors, and forces of chaos provided such a depth of power that caused the formerly red-headed stepchild to gain dominion over the oft-maligned art of making things go BOOM!!! A respite was found by the mighty Optimizers, who found that the Rainbow Servant, follower of the Couatls and all that is shiny and good, granted Warmages with the power of Clerics themselves, which made for a spectacular boost in power...if it weren't because it also made the Warmage a one-trick pony.

Then, came the Beguiler. In a swift stroke, the Warmage lost the only advantage it could possibly get, by having a class that could do what the Warmage couldn't: actually be effective in what it did. Yes, even the oft-maligned school of Enchantment managed to shine a bit (and just a bit) with the appearance of the Beguiler, which used its wits and guile to cast the right spells. Granted, the Elite 5 weren't fazed much with that, but that was cause for the Warmage to falter.

And...come today. I, with some hefty suggestions by the group of fellows that comprise the archfamous Test of Spite (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=124216), made an attempt to make the Warmage faster, stronger...blastier...and quite definitely, a guy that you'd love to have in your group.

So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce to you...the retooled WARMAGE:
*Retooler's note: the Warmage may produce sensations of WTF, OMG, LOL, "this class is still made of fail", or similar. This Warmage is meant to handle blasting better, and also to expand a bit its spellcasting to allow better battlefield control and even some buffing. While not comparable to an Elite 5, it is still meant to be an upgrade from base Warmage, raising it a few levels above the normal.
WARMAGE

"Let the erudites pour upon their tomes and dream of power. I am a realist. I live to win the wars they cannot win alone."

MAKING A WARMAGE (or, what has changed and what hasn't)
Abilities: A warmage's key stat is definitely Charisma, as it is the spell that determines its spellcasting power. Warmage Edge, though, makes Intelligence a very important stat. While Strength, Dexterity and Constitution are valuable choices, they are at best tertiary to Intelligence and Charisma, and usually best replaced whenever necessary with buffing spells.
Races: Humans, naturally, make superb Warmages: they are quite balanced in most regards. Of the other classes, Elves (of the Grey variety principally) make extraordinary Warmages, given their expanded choice of weaponry and their high Intelligence, which should complement Charisma well.
Of the other races, undoubtedly the Aasimar and their Charisma make for wonderful Warmages. Races that have good mental stat increases make for good Warmages.
Alignment: Any. A warmage usually inclines to Lawful because of the extensive training and military discipline infused to a warmage, but a Chaotic warmage can equally show a desire to gain power and thus doesn't particularly fail to suit the class. Warmages have no regards upon good or evil, since both know the importance of tactical warfare and potent artillery and battlefield control.
Starting Gold: as Warmage
Starting Age: as Warmage

Class Skills: The warmage’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (history) (Int), Knowledge (the planes) (Int), Listen (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis) and Use Magic Device (Cha)
Skill Points at 1st Level: (2 + Int modifier) x 4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier.

Compared to the original Warmage, this retooling has given some important skills to the class. Listen and Spot are important to allow the Warmage to serve as a scout, or to prevent the dreaded surprise attacks. Knowledge (the Planes) is mostly to understand outsiders and in a way understand their battle tactics, just as Knowledge (history) allows to understand historical tactics.

Perhaps the biggest surprise should be Use Magic Device. Why UMD?

Why not!? Figure this out: the Warmage is a spellcaster that learns how to manipulate a small but suitable amount of spells on their list. They learn how to complement their magic with scrolls and wands, and even staffs with the spells they know. However, there are chances when a Warmage may find himself (or herself; a Warmage is an equal opportunity employer) with a wand of a spell that he or she doesn't know. Should it be thrown away? No, a Warmage learns how to improvise and use that tool of war as a benefit. Or at least, should do. Hence, coupled with the naturally high Charisma of the Warmage, it is expected that UMD should be on the list. It baffles me why such a simple skill was absent from the list and not added by the devs...

Hit Die: d6.


Level
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Special
0lvl
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th


1st
+0

+0

+0

+2
Armored mage, warmage edge
5
3
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


2nd
+1

+0

+0

+3
Combat Casting
6
4
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


3rd
+2

+1

+1

+3
Advanced learning
6
5
3
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


4th
+3

+1

+1

+4
Bonus feat
6
6
4
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


5th
+3

+1

+1

+4
Energy substitution
6
6
5
3
-
-
-
-
-
-


6th
+4

+2

+2

+5
Spell widening (-1)
6
6
5
4
-
-
-
-
-
-


7th
+5

+2

+2

+5
Advanced learning
6
6
6
5
3
-
-
-
-
-


8th
+6/+1

+2

+2

+6
Bonus feat
6
6
6
5
4
-
-
-
-
-


9th
+6/+1

+3

+3

+6
Discriminating spell (self)
6
6
6
6
5
3
-
-
-
-


10th
+7/+2

+3

+3

+7
Improved warmage edge
6
6
6
6
5
4
-
-
-
-


11th
+8/+3

+3

+3

+7
Advanced learning
6
6
6
6
6
5
3
-
-
-


12th
+9/+4

+4

+4

+8
Bonus feat, spell widening (-2)
6
6
6
6
6
5
4
-
-
-


13th
+9/+4

+4

+4

+8
Dent resistance
6
6
6
6
6
6
5
3
-
-


14th
+10/+5

+4

+4

+9
Discriminating spell (allies)
6
6
6
6
6
6
5
4
-
-


15th
+11/+6/+1

+5

+5

+9
Advanced learning
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
5
3
-


16th
+12/+7/+2

+5

+5

+10
Bonus feat
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
5
4
-


17th
+12/+7/+2

+5

+5

+10

6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
5
3


18th
+13/+8/+3

+6

+6

+11
Spell widening (free)
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
5
4


19th
+14/+9/+4

+6

+6

+11
Advanced learning
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
5


20th
+15/+10/+5

+6

+6

+12
Bonus feat, metamagic edge
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6



The biggest change you'll notice is the more streamlined amount of class features. Warmage Edge has taken a turn much like Cloaked Casting, which has an expanded set of abilities. As niftily pointed out below, Warmage Edge didn't looked much like Cloaked Casting, so it got separated into different abilities. Advanced Learning now has a mathematical progression, and the old Sudden X metamagic feats have changed into a wider set of bonus feats. That'll be introduced later.

The second biggest change, and one you'll probably not notice, is the BAB. Guess what's the Warmage's real BAB? Poor. This retooling, considering that the Warmage must at least train a bit on combat and thus separate from the Sorcerer in that way, improves its BAB to average. However, they don't get any particular boost to Fortitude and Reflex, so they are still weak on that regard. Yet, with the new spells (which shall be introduced on a second post) and how Wizards and Sorcerers boost their abilities? Warmages got that slightly covered.

UPDATE (8/28/2010): I'm going to try a new paradigm on prepared and spontaneous spellcasting. It won't remove the Big 5 from their tier, but it should make the path a bit harder. As you can see, the access to spells for the Warmage has been buffed up to odd levels (so they get spells one level earlier). The Healer and any spontaneous spellcaster from now on will follow that paradigm, while prepared spellcasters will gain spells on even levels. Basically, a switcheroo. How's that for some more love?

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the warmage.
Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: A warmage is proficient with all simple weapons, plus a martial weapon of their choice. Warmages are proficient with light and medium armor, and light shields.

Warmages now have the choice of getting the martial weapon of their choice. This is a slight advancement over the base Warmage, which has only proficiency with simple weapons. Simple Weapon Proficiency is no slouch: there are some decent simple weapons out there. But, this is a Warmage; at one moment, it'll want to use a stronger weapon. This choice can't be changed, but it allows for treating exotic racial weapons as martial weapons, so you can make a dwarf Warmage (not very recommended because of the Charisma penalty, but...) and allow it to have a Dwarven Waraxe, or better yet, an Urgrosh.

Still, the Warmage is based on the spells and not on the weapons, so let's get a move on.

Spells: A warmage casts arcane spells, which are drawn from the warmage spell list below. He can cast any spell he knows without preparing it ahead of time. When a warmage gains access to a new spell list, he automatically learns all the spells for the level listed on the warmage’s spell list. Essentially, his spell list is the same as his spells known list. Warmages also have the option of adding to their existing spell list through their advanced learning ability as they increase in level (see below).
To cast a spell, a warmage must have a Charisma score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a warmage’s spell is 10 + the spell level + the warmage’s Charisma modifier. Like other spellcasters, a warmage can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. His base daily spell allotment is given on Table: The Warmage. In addition, he receives bonus spells per day if he has a high Charisma score.
As noted above, a warmage need not prepare his spells in advance. He can cast any spell he knows at any time, assuming he has not yet used up his allotment of spells per day for the spell’s level.

The catch of the Warmage was its intention as a focused spellcaster. You don't have to look for thousands of books for spells; only for a few additions, and that's it. The Warmage, however, had a pretty poor list since it had too much blasting spells, and only a few worthwhile battlefield control spells such as those that the Sorcerer or Wizard could work with.

Spells will be explained in greater definition at the second post.

Armored Mage (Ex): A warmage can cast warmage spells while wearing up to medium armor and light shields without incurring the normal arcane spell failure chance. However, like any other arcane spellcaster, a warmage wearing heavy armor or using a heavy shield incurs a chance of arcane spell failure if the spell in question has a somatic component (most do). A multiclass warmage still incurs the normal arcane spell failure chance for arcane spells received from other classes.

Another of the nifty quirks. With this, you could get a Mithral Full Plate and cast without arcane spell failure. Of course, adding armor to the bulk of spells a Wizard could cast wasn't pretty interesting, so this ability was kinda lost on the Warmage. There are benefits to wear armor, such as getting some very good enhancements on yourself, which you can activate with but a thought. And, since they don't interrupt your spellcasting, you become a tad more powerful that way.

UPDATE: Since the mechanic was pointed out as being clunky and probably unneeded, I eliminated the vestigial 9th level improvement and made medium armor accessible since 1st level. That makes a Warmage hardier from day 1.

Warmage Edge:At 1st level, a warmage can deal extra damage with spells that deal hit point damage. A warmage adds his class level times his Intelligence modifier, divided by two, to all of the targets of a spell. For spells that hit multiple times, the target receives the extra damage once.

THIS is the signature ability of the Warmage!! What makes a Warmage differ from a blaster Sorcerer? Well...the original only added a miserable amount of extra damage equal to your Int modifier, so at best it added the unsurmountable amount of...6 damage. Or perhaps a bit more. Bummer, right?

Not here. The first ability is a massively boosted version of that ability, made so that it worked differently depending on the spell. Allow me to explain: for spells that have a fixed yet dynamic damage dice cap (such as the orbs, Fireball, Polar Ray, Disintegrate and others), damage depends on the amount of dice you get. This is very important for two reasons: one, it takes advantage of a natural limit; second, it applies to everyone in the area. So, if you throw a Fireball, everyone eats the extra damage. Nifty, no? The second works for spells which don't have such a dynamic damage cap, those spells which have a fixed AND static amount of damage per dice (such as Magic Missile, Scorching Ray, Incendiary Cloud, Acid Fog and the like) would add damage based on the caster level instead. This may sound a bit off, but consider the following: limiting it by dice of damage makes these spells weaker than their rising damage dice counterparts. This specific ability can be awfully exploited, so I expect you people to point out some discrepancies and allow me to work that out nicely. However, this is a good way to see it:

If the spell has a growing amount of damage dice, such as Fireball, apply the first.

If the spell has a fixed amount of dice, such as Incendiary Cloud, apply the second.

If the spell has a fixed amount of damage AND multiple projectiles, apply the second only to a projectile of your choice. So that would mean only ONE missile or ONE ray gets the extra damage, not all (so that it doesn't stack and suddenly you get more damage by stacking missiles or rays)

Big explanation, right? Apparently, it wasn't simple to understand even though I provided a good description of the idea. It apparently provoked epilepsy episodes or something. Thus, although it's power has been nerf-duced to near original levels, and has turned into a smaller linear progression, it still allows for bigger amounts of damage than the pitiful original version. Still, if you have a working idea that stands right on the middle, then please provide it; I'll consider it as I considered all of the below proposals and work to make Warmage Edge much better.

UPDATE: Warmage Edge now deals Int mod. times class level, divided by two. I had to check this out after pointing out something with the Healer. It works "organically" (grows in accord to an expected rate, not exactly linear but almost curved)

Combat Casting: At 2nd level, a Warmage gains Combat Casting as a bonus feat.

When finding what to do for the Warmage's 2nd level, a friend of mine suggested adding Combat Casting, as it fits the idea of a front-line/mid-line spellcaster. It does little, but it helps nonetheless (unless, of course, you're using a better version of Combat Casting which would make it even more useful).

Advanced Learning: At 3rd level and every four levels after that, a warmage can add a new spell to his list, representing the result of personal study and experimentation. The spell must be a sorcerer/wizard spell of the abjuration, conjuration or evocation school, and of a level no higher than that of the highest spell level the warmage already knows. Once a new spell is selected, it is forever added to that warmage’s spell list and can be cast just like any other spell on the warmage’s list.

So yeah...Advanced Learning was made so that a Warmage had options and felt different. This is all good and such...except for a few problems. It was limited to Evocation spells (which, aside from Wind Wall, Contingency and a few others, it is a taboo spell), and it gave you only about 4 more spells, without even considering to give you a 9th level spell that's so important for all spellcasters. Now, the choices have expanded a bit; 5 spells, and the fifth spell can be a 9th level spell. Plus, you can also choose from Conjuration and Abjuration...Maw of Chaos, anyone?

Bonus Feats: At 4th level, and every 4 levels after that, a warmage gains a bonus feat. He may choose from any metamagic feat, any reserve feat, or from the list provided below, provided s/he complies with the feat’s prerequisites.
Warmage Bonus Feat List: Arcane Defense, Arcane Mastery, Arcane Preparation, Eschew Materials, Extra Slot, Extra Spell, Greater Spell Focus, Greater Spell Penetration, Precise Shot, Point Blank Shot, Ranged Spell Specialization, Spell Focus, Spell Penetration, Touch Spell Specialization, Weapon Focus.

The Sudden X metamagic feats were cool to get free of cost, but let's face it; by the time you got the first one, you were already using a real arcanist or going Rainbow Servant. You'd barely, if ever, use these abilities!! So, they got turned into Bonus Feats...yeah, like those of the Wizard!

The list of bonus feats seems small, but it's mostly effective. First, you got access to every single metamagic feat ever published. Lemme repeat again: every single metamagic feat ever published. Maximize? Sure, why not? Empower? Why, but of course!! Twin? Be my guest!!! Quicken? Uh...next choice, please...

The second part is the reserve feats introduced first at Complete Mage. These allow your Warmage to get more bang for their buck, as they are considered to always have at least one of the five major energy types, plus force spells and a few others. Also, with the expansion of spells that a Warmage has, it has a good chance of getting respectable reserve feats.

The third part is the small list over there. These, of course, are a courtesy; spells that would fit the Warmage in either combat or magic. Three-quarters of the list are pretty much worthless; that is entirely intentional. ENTIRELY INTENTIONAL. Because...if feats were to be improved somehow...these might grow to be a tad better, no? Um...what do you say? Filler? Shenanigans!!

Energy Substitution (Su):At 5th level, a warmage can alter the damage dealt by a spell that has the fire, cold, lightning, acid or sonic descriptor. Treat as if the Energy Substitution feat, but with the following changes: the warmage can change the energy damage of his/her spell to the energy type s/he chooses, and the spell does not take a full-round action to be cast. This ability can be used a number of times per day equal to half his/her class level plus her Int modifier.

This ability is pretty simple: assume you have Energy Substitution for all elements (fire, cold, acid, electricity and sonic; force is not an element, nor does negative/positive energy). Take that, replace immediately with an energy type of your choice, no questions asked. The amount is based on both your class level and your Int modifier, so you can work that out a hefty number of times; afterwards, you'll need the feat or the metamagic rod. This ability effectively expands your spell list, as you suddenly find yourself with a Fireball, a Frostball, a Shockball, an Acidball and a Sonicball: five spells for the price of one. The limited quantity means the caster must make their damage count; however, your spells do more damage now, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Spell Widening (Su): At 6th level, a warmage gains the ability to expand the area of any spell he casts. At first, the spells take a great effort on the side of the warmage, but with time, he learns how to do it at a moment’s notice. Treat this ability as if the warmage had the Widen Spell metamagic feat, including for purposes of qualifying for feats or prestige classes that require this feat, but with the following changes. A warmage may only apply this ability to spells of his class list; thus, a warmage that multiclasses into another spellcasting class may not use this ability.
Unlike Widen Spell, a warmage does not need to use a spell slot of three levels higher in order to use this ability. Instead, a warmage requires only a spell slot two levels higher in order to use this ability. At 12th level, a warmage needs only to use a spell slot one level higher, and at 18th level he may use this ability without expending a higher spell slot.

If you're an area blaster, the first thing you really, really, pretty please with sugar on top want for your feat list is Widen Spell. Why? Extra area means more deep-fried (or deep-frozen, or carbonized, or causterized, or bleeding-from-ears) enemies per square inch. Double, to be precise. So...why not have it? Your allies might get on the area of effect? Bah, why do you worry; there are various ways to avoid that (the 15th level Warmage Edge ability, Sculpt Spell, Archmage's Mastery of Shaping...) You want to get as many mooks as you want with that single spell, and this allows you to get more area as needed. So, Widen Spell must be free for them, and not a silly Sudden Widen. More like a "Sudden Widen, when you need it, for what you need it".

Of course, this means having to waste a spell slot of three...wait, two levels higher. You thought it would be pretty easy, no? Well...if you dedicate to the Warmage path, you'll slowly get the chance of reducing that penalty, until at 18th level you eliminate it altogether; free Widened spells when you want them, for what you want them, as promised in the package. Departing from Warmage too soon? Well...suck on that, but you *can* apply the metamagic boosters of spell slot level lessening to reduce the penalty as well.

Discriminating Spell (Ex):At 9th level, any spell cast by a warmage from his/her class list that deals damage affects does not treat you as a target. At 14th level, this benefit extends to all of your allies. A warmage may decide to include an ally in the area of the spell if it so desires.

This ability was originally composed of the 15th14th level ability. Thanks to Set's idea, it was expanded as a better ability. Since Armored Mage now has remained locked on 1st level, the 9th level was now devoid of a class ability. How to fix that? Well...now the Warmage can ignore himself for purposes of dealing damage. That means you can blast yourself with a Fireball, or one in close proximity, and you won't feel anything. Your enemies? Yeah, they'll feel everything.

The 15th14th level ability is a godsend, even though it's a late godsend. It prizes remaining in the class for so long with the dream of every blaster. That being free rein on blasting. That you have the King's Army, that you are not meant to kill, against the forces of the Abyss, and the hordes are tactically placed for a Fireball or Incendiary Cloud? Disregard that, let your foes suck damage from those oh-so-nifty blasts from your magical BFG-OVERNINETHOUSAND. Or, make your enemies suffer the effects of a well-placed Web while your allies move freely. Or better: let the enemy army get tentacle raepd held immobilized by a single casting of Evard's Black Tentacles, while your allies layeth the smackdown on them. Friendly enough? Consider that this ability is far superior than the Archmage's Mastery of Shaping or the Sculpt Spell metamagic feat.

UPDATE: A friend, player of mine, that's playtesting the Warmage suggested dropping Discriminating Spell's 15th level ability for 14th level, as Advanced Learning stands well on its own.

Improved Warmage Edge:At 10th level, a warmage can increase the cap on damage dice of any warmage spell he casts, up to a maximum equal to half his character level. This increase only applies to spells that have a fixed damage dice cap, not to spells that have a different kind of cap (such as Magic Missile or Scorching Ray). The actual amount of damage dice of the spell is still determined by your caster level, as usual.

This ability is magnificent, for one single reason. Why Fireball sucks? Why Wings of Flurry and Maw of Chaos are so powerful and OMGWTFBBQ awesome? Two reasons: no fixed energy and no damage cap. The 5th level ability mostly resolved the first problem; this resolves the second. By expanding the damage cap on spells such as Fireball, Lightning Bolt and whatnot, you are effectively expanding the life of those spells by tenfold! This doesn't work on spells such as the Clouds (they don't have a damage dice growth based on caster level), nor with Magic Missile or Scorching Ray or Melf's Acid Arrow (since those spells have a completely fixed damage cap). By rule of thumb, if the spell is affected by the first variant of the 1st level ability of Warmage Edge, this one affects it too. If it's the second this ability is off-limits.

NOTE: After being pointed this out by Baron Corm, I feel I need to explain this a bit: your damage dice cap grows, but not your damage dice per se. Those are still determined by your caster level. Hence, a Fireball that is cast by a 12th level Warmage deals 12d6 points of damage, not 16d6. At 20th level, a Warmage would deal 20d6 points of damage, not 30d6. A Magic Missile or Scorching Ray, though, would still deal 1d4+1 times the number of max projectiles (5) or 4d6 times the number of rays (3), plus the extra damage from Warmage Edge.

Dent Resistance (Su): At 13th level, a warmage adds his Int modifier on caster level checks to defeat spell resistance. This ability stacks with both Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration.

If there's something that won't infuriate a blaster more, is that the carefully crafted spell that goes OMEGABOOM!! gets foiled by Spell Resistance. This allows to use your Intelligence modifier to enhance those caster level checks. By the moment you get it, that's probably a +4 - +5 on the CL check, which is effectively half of Assay Spell Resistance, at EVERY MOMENT. It is elegant, not so powerful, it respects those characters that have SR but it also allows you to feel less worried because of too high SR.

Metamagic Edge:At 20th level, the spell level cost for applying metamagic feats to spells on the Warmage spell list is reduced by 2. The final cost of the increased spell level may not be lower than 1. A warmage may not reduce the cost of Heighten Spell with this feat, nor this ability nulls the increased casting time of the spell. You may further reduce this cost by 1 a limited number of times per day equal to the warmage's Intelligence modifier.

Finally, for all the dedication of not-multiclassing or going into a Prestige Class at all, you get a nifty benefit: your use of metamagic is enhanced. No longer do you have to use a spell slot of three levels higher to cast a Maximized Warmage-Edged Fireball; now, you use a spell slot of two levels higher. Add more shenanigans, and you can reduce that to at least one, but no higher than one. (Or, you can go Incantatrix and disregard that, but just how much are you willing to sacrifice? Choices, choices...which is exactly what this class should work with!)

UPDATE: This little ability has caused more troubles than necessary. I was pointed out by one fellow friend o' mine semi-personally that such ability encouraged "dumpster diving", or basically loading a spell with metamagics. Zaydos addressed the point of how Arcane Thesis superpowers this simple ability. Now, I don't want to bring Sudden X metamagics again aside from taking them as bonus feats, since that would be akin to overloading the capstone with too many feats and it would be less elegant. Despite the problem it causes, I feel it is a fitting capstone for a class that should definitely master blasting. Thus, whatever is up there will be (hopefully) a fitting replacement.

--

So, in summary: you deal far more damage than a Sorcerer or Wizard while blasting, you blatantly disregard immunities and resistances to a point, you again deal more potential damage, your spells won't ever affect your allies in terms of dealing damage, and your metamagic uses are reduced. This isn't exactly a "suck on this, Wizard/Sorcerer/Druid/Cleric/etc.!!", but it's darn pretty close, don't you think?

Uh...hey, Mr. Wizard, how you doin'? What you...oh, hi Mr. Graz'zt, I didn't noticed the Wizard mindraepd youwas your acquaintance... Heheh... *sweats*.

Now, please examine this retooling and be sincere with your opinion. Feel free to say "wow, it rocks my socks" or "wow, it fails more than a Commoner; heck, it sucks more than an unoptimized Truenamer!!". Or something in between. As for the spells...watch them below. The spell process is pretty interesting, as it allowed me to discover something I didn't imagined the Warmage actually had.

[T.G. Oskar]

Warmage Spell List
0—acid splash, detect magic*, disrupt undead, light, ray of frost, resistance*
1st— accuracy, burning hands, chill touch, expeditious retreat*, fist of stone, grease, hail of stone, lesser orb of acid, lesser orb of cold, lesser orb of electricity, lesser orb of fire, lesser orb of sound, mage armor*, magic missile, magic weapon*, obscuring mist*, produce flame*, shield*, shocking grasp, true strike
2nd—acid arrow, bear’s endurance*, blades of fire, continual flame, eagle’s splendor*, fire trap, fireburst, flame blade*, flaming sphere, fog cloud*, fox’s cunning*, glitterdust*, gust of wind*, ice knife, protection from arrows*, pyrotechnics, resist energy*, scorching ray, see invisibility*, shatter, sound burst*, web*, whirling blade
3rd—call lighning*, daylight*, dispel magic, fire shield, fireball, flame arrow, greater mage armor*, greater magic weapon*, ice storm, haste*, keen edge*, lightning bolt, poison, protection from energy*, ray of exhaustion*, resonating bolt*, ring of blades, searing light*, sleet storm, slow*, stinking cloud, vampiric touch*
4th—arcane eye*, black tentacles, blast of flame, blistering radiance*, contagion, dimension door*, enervation*, hallucinatory terrain*, mass resist energy*, orb of acid, orb of cold, orb of electricity, orb of fire, orb of force, orb of sound, phantasmal killer, shout, solid fog, spike stones*, stoneskin*, wall of fire, wall of ice*
5th—arc of lightning, blight*, call lightning storm*, cloudkill, cone of cold, flame strike, freezing fog*, greater fireburst, mass fire shield*, prismatic ray, prying eyes*, sending*, sword of deception*, telekinesis*, telepathic bond*, teleport*, vitriolic sphere*, wall of stone*, waves of fatigue*
6th—acid fog, blade barrier, brilliant blade*, chain lightning, circle of death, disintegrate, fire seeds, freezing sphere, greater dispel magic*, mass bear’s endurance*, mass eagle’s splendor*, mass fox’s cunning*, transformation, wall of iron*
7th—control weather*, delayed blast fireball, earthquake, emerald flame fist*, finger of death, fire storm, greater teleport*, mage’s sword, prismatic spray, reverse gravity, sunbeam, waves of exhaustion
8th—greater shout*, greater prying eyes*, horrid wilting, incendiary cloud, iron body*, moment of prescience*, polar ray, prismatic wall, sunburst, whirlwind*
9th—energy drain*, elemental swarm, implosion, mage’s disjunction, meteor swarm, prismatic sphere, sphere of ultimate destruction*, storm of vengeance*, wail of the banshee, weird
*: spells not on the original Warmage list.

As promised, I'll now deal with the thought process of the Warmage spell list. This might be long, or might be short, but I expect it to be very, very long.

The first thing I noticed when dealing with the Warmage was that it barely had spells that would aid in war. A warmage, as it stood, could deal nothing more than blasting and a few instant kill and battlefield control spells that were barely justified. Looking at most guides that detailed how a Sorcerer or Wizard could be twinked, I noticed that a few spells essentially grounded battles to a halt without dealing a single point of damage.

What mostly inspired me to deal with the spell list was a thread, done long ago here at the Roleplaying forum section of GitP, that proved how a Sorcerer, with it's tweakable spellcasting, out-blasted a Warmage in its own game. Looking closely, it is evident: there's enough evidence that blasting spells won't scale well with the game's progression, and would stop being useful at particular levels. Spells that should have been bread-and-butter, such as Fireball, stop being useful at all by the time you reach level 12, if not earlier (since fire is the energy type most resisted or immunized against). Those concerns were dealt with in the main class write-up, increasing blasting spells' damage in order to keep up with the escalating power curve of D&D.

However, after checking that, I noticed that the Warmage was awfully devoid of utility spells, and mostly, utility spells that just made sense for the Warmage to have. As an example: a Warmage is supposed to be better in melee combat than a Sorcerer or Wizard, yet it couldn't do much in that regard: while it had better weapons and the ability to cast spells on armor, the Wizard and the Sorcerer could outmanage the Warmage in melee combat just with one or two spells that the Warmage awfully lacked (Magic Weapon, Mage Armor, Shield), just barely trying. At the same time, Sorcerers and Wizards could handle the battlefield much easier than a Warmage, which was limited in its blasting area and couldn't do much with the spells it had. Furthermore, without Energy Substitution, nearly half of its spells were resisted, so they slowly turned useless.

On the rework of spells, I decided to group spells into several categories, which I found were crucial for a mage dedicated to the art of war:
Pinpoint Blasting: as it stood, the Warmage has it in bulk. Between Magic Missile, Scorching Ray, Polar Ray, Disintegrate, between others, the Warmage could easily handle that task.
Area Blasting: again, another strong point for the Warmage. Loads of area of effect spells that dealt explosive damage, including and not limited to Fireball.
Battlefield Control: one way to win the battlefield is manipulating it to your benefit. Here, the Warmage lacked a few good spells, although it had strong ones such as Stinking Cloud, Evard's Black Tentacles, Acid Fog, Incendiary Cloud and Prismatic Wall. However, there's more to battlefield control than just clouds and fogs: it had an awful lack of walls which are every bit as effective as defense points, and some of the mightier battlefield control spells were notoriously absent.
Buffing: when you're out of spells, the least thing you want is be unprepared by not buffing enough. The Warmage specialized so much in dealing damage that forgot some of the best methods to sustain on the battlefield; namely, supportive and protective buffs. Standards such as Resist Energy, Haste, Mage Armor, Shield, Greater Magic Weapon and such are equally as valuable for a Warmage as they are for a fellow warrior. It is odd that, a mage specialized in war, the Warmage lacked such simple and basic spells.
Debuffing: just by debuffing an opponent, you can turn the tide of war to your side. Just as much as you can prep Haste and support your troops, you can take the fastest opponent nearly completely out of the battle with Slow. Glitterdust (which is surprisingly Conjuration-based) and Web (Transmutation) are also mighty ways to debuff opponents, and even dabble as BFC spells.
Tactical Movement: of all things, why can't the Warmage move through the battlefield as he would desire? It required having a fellow caster move him around in order to work, and that needlessly placed him down. With spells such as Dimension Door and Teleport, a Warmage can literally rain down fire and hail upon his enemies, and move back with little effort. The only surprise is the lack of Fly and Overland Flight (aka, flight spells) as well as Spider Climb; those can be provided by so many items, it's no problem at all.
Scouting: first thing to win a war is to know what will lie ahead. Oddly, the Warmage lacked some of the most important divinations to even move ahead; a Warmage could be, and most likely WILL be, taken by surprise and out of the battle faster than you can say "It's a trap". By just adding such reasonable spells as Detect Magic, Arcane Sight, Prying Eyes and even Greater Prying Eyes, a Warmage can work as a range scout, supporting his allies before battle even starts.

This makes a Warmage more than capable of holding his own in battle. With the power to do great damage, shape the battlefield into strong defensive points and protecting weak points, moving great distances and scouting ahead in order to grasp the battlefield, the new spell list should definitely allow him to stand his ground even with the strongest of creatures roaming around, including and not limited to dragons.

To understand this process a bit better, let's explain how it was mostly made. The spells are pretty standard; mostly limited to Player's Handbook and Complete Arcane. Spell Compendium has most of the spells from Complete Arcane, and it serves as a good source material for spells to add through Advanced Learning. As a contrast, I noticed what spells were apparently out of touch with the Beguiler, which has a good bit of Transmutation and Conjuration spells around; it even has Mage Armor and Shield, when it has far much better defenses (such as Invisibility, Blur, Displacement and Mirror Image) I took those spells that almost speak "hey, I would work fine with a Warmage!!", and added them to the list. The spell list was mostly limited to Sorcerer/Wizard originally, adding mostly assorted buff spells, fogs, clouds, traps, walls, spheres and even the occasional eyeball spell. When it ended, another concern was included: the Warmage wasn't limited to Sorcerer/Wizard spells. Why would it have Fire Storm, or Fire Trap, or Fire Seeds of all things, when those aren't Sorcerer/Wizard spells?

Then I noticed something hilarious. The Warmage draws spells, believe it or not, from the Druid. Yes, no less and no more than the Druid of all spellcasters. I noticed since it got to my attention that the Warmage had some divine spells, and I went straight to Cleric (since I know better of Cleric than of Druid). I halted at Searing Light, when I noticed "hmm, Warmage has no Cleric spells...", then it struck, right at the moment I saw Fire Trap.

Aside from Sorcerers and Wizards, Druids have an awful lot of attack spells. Furthermore, they have a pretty hefty lot of varied attack spells, and even more, natural traps that the Warmage could yoink out and give them better use. So, with that revelation, I took some of the spells that would make a Warmage a really considerate force on the battlefield: Spike Stones, Control Weather, Storm of Vengeance. I also watched which spells were suited for the Warmage on Complete Arcane, and when I finished, I took one good look at the spell list and said "this is enough".

So, if you find that the Warmage may have too much spells or perhaps not as enough, and you as a DM wish to homebrew this list a little bit more, consider the following:
The Warmage's list is limited. Giving him knowledge of all Evocation spells would make him not much of a powerhouse, but it would automatically make it better than a Wizard or Sorcerer in sheer spells known available at all times.
The Warmage's list is not only Evocation spells. It has Conjuration, it has Abjuration, it has Transmutation, it even has Necromancy of all things!! One thing I found hilarious was that Circle of Death was a spell originally located at the Warmage's list, but that spells that could have made good sense (such as Vampiric Blade) didn't. That was a serious bummer, and one that had to be fixed. As a rule of thumb, if you're going to add a new spell, first look upon Evocation and Conjuration (energy type or force) spells, then look for Abjuration or Transmutation, then look at the rest. Enchantment and Illusion should be last, Divination only works if it allows scouting (or to prevent pre-emptive attacks), and Necromancy only for damage or limited debuffing. If you're going to remove a spell, consider the above mentioned groups and consider which doesn't fit with your vision of Warmage.
If you're going to add some utility spells, make sure they are justifiable in combat. Detect Magic is justifiable, as you can use it as a deterrent for most hidden characters through their magic auras; walls are justifiable because they solidify weak points. Dominate Monster, though, has as much utility in a battlefield as taking a specific monster or enemy commander, and then...well, your ethics and your superior officers may not wish to have him alive, so it will be a short lived spell (and mostly tweaked for a mindbender, or Beguiler)
One spell type that can be gained through Advanced Learning but isn't recommended to be added as a default list spell are summoning spells and calling spells. Elemental Swarm works roughly well with the theme, and it's a legacy spell so it's not as shocking, but Planar Ally and Planar Binding are spells of another league. That is best left to the Sorcerer or Wizard that can make better use of them, or the daring Warmage that uses Advanced Learning to gain them. However, summons and callings are a mechanic that works on a very different degree; in a way, a Warmage that uses his spells to bind many creatures isn't following the spirit of the class, which is roughly pointed out on the quote (lone person bringing the smackdown on armies; not lone person with outsider "allies" standing there while his "allies" lay the smackdown on armies). Yet, it is not a tactical blunder (even if I start to sound repetitive.

As a final point: more than half of the Warmage's power, and what makes the Warmage different from a Sorcerer or Wizard is his or her spell list. Keeping the original list and not expanding the Warmage's options (as the Beguiler does) seems quite irresponsible in retooling a class to be stronger and useful. I hope this spell list deals with that concern in the best possible way, but feel free to discuss what spells from either PHB or CA could do an entry, which make little sense and should leave, or what can make the Warmage better. After all, it will never have the sheer versatility of the Wizard or the insurmountable utility of the Sorcerer, but it should stand on a niche of its own and do that work the best way possible.

One final note: I didn't wrote this yesterday, but I wanted to add it today: I'd like to thank most of the people of the Test of Spite for helping me on the brainstorm process, specifically to Cieyrin and Olo Demonsbane who provided much of the ideas (my memory might be hazy, but I also think Ithilanor St. Pete and imperialspectre collaborated on the process). If I forgot any of you, feel free to bash me (but not so much!!). Also, big thanks to Doc Roc for essentially building the community: you and I may not agree much on some stuff, but we're cool like that. And, also, to those who take the time to comment* on the class: this is still a work in progress, and might remain as such but it is mostly ready for use.

(*: since this was written one day after, this means deuxhero, Baron Corm for his valuable concern, and Xefas)

Version log:
Version 1.0 (November 11, 2009): First version of the retooling.
Version 1.1 (November 13, 2009): Minor edits (mostly explaining some items)
Version 2.0 (November 15, 2009): Major edits to the class. Separated the original Warmage Edge into their own skills; upgraded Armored Mage to give full effect at level 1; upgraded 15th level ability to Discriminating Spell and added a 9th level lower ability; reworked capstone into Metamagic Edge.
Version 3.0 (August 28, 2010): Warmages get higher level spells one level earlier! Changed the spells per day section to reflect the idea.

[deuxhero]

So now the Warmage is Evocation/Arbitration/buffs to go along with the Beliguer's Illusion/enchantment and Dread Necromancer's Necromancy/I forget? A big improvement. There are a few issues with the spell list thanks to some stupid WoTC school choices (Mage Armor in conjuration) but nothing you can do about that.

[Baron Corm]

The warmage now has cheesy optimization built right in? I guess that's alright when you're partying with uberchargers and batmen, but I think the class would be better off if the cheese was just an option that optimizers could take.

With your warmage, at level 20, most encounters can be taken out with a single fireball, energy substituted appropriately. That's something like 20d6 (average 70) plus 5 x 20 = 100 (1/2 Int x dice) = 170. That might leave opponents with middling HP a bit of health, but the encounter is essentially won. And that's from a multitarget level 3 spell. Magic missile (15d4 + 5 = 42.5, 5 x 25 = 125, 167.5) is nearly the same never-missing force damage from a level 1 spell, but single-target (unless you wish to spread a few of your d4s around for some reason).

Getting into higher levels, you've got polar ray dealing 297.5 damage (35d6 + 5 x 35) without any kind of metamagic or optimization at all. This will kill a balor in one shot if it is 2.5 points above average damage. All the player has to do is select polar ray and there's nothing you can throw at him any more, short of the tarrasque. Now, if you need to start throwing things with tarrasque HP at an unoptimized party, I think there might be something wrong.

So my suggestion is to have warmage edge start out as less powerful, and have it upgradeable through either feats or a list of selectable special abilities, among which are less powerful class features.

[Xefas]

Evocation/Arbitration/Buffs

That should totally be a school of magic. Or maybe a class? Arbitrator? Anyway...

I like the new Warmage class. I'm all for power being built right into a class, though that may just be from the standpoint of a DM with players who don't know the first thing about optimization. I want to throw one fight a day at them with a CR 1 or 2 over the party, using reasonably intelligent tactics, without worrying about an unmitigated TPK massacre.

Its not going to happen without power right out of the box (fortunately, they're a Crusader, Swordsage, Wizard, Druid and a homebrew class, so I have that and don't have to worry :smallsmile: ).

[T.G. Oskar]

So now the Warmage is Evocation/Arbitration/buffs to go along with the Beliguer's Illusion/enchantment and Dread Necromancer's Necromancy/I forget? A big improvement. There are a few issues with the spell list thanks to some stupid WoTC school choices (Mage Armor in conjuration) but nothing you can do about that.

Well...what you're talking about is the Warmage's specialties. If you notice the spell lists, Warmage has most Evocation and Conjuration and only a few of other spells (some increase in Divination and a bigger dabble in most spell schools, including Transmutation and Necromancy). This isn't so shocking, since the original Warmage actually dabbled in most schools (in fact, once I write the thought process on the new and improved spell list, I'll mention a funny something I noticed)

One particular I left from the writing process were marking the new spells added to the class. Abjuration still isn't as abundant as Evocation and combat Conjuration, which are the mainstays of the class. I added some more Abjuration as a few of those spells (such as Shield, or Greater Dispel Magic) are considerable from a mass combat standpoint. However, the original had some odd gems added into it.

I worked on that given how the Beguiler, of all classes, actually behaves. Beguiler, while being mostly Enchantment and Illusion inclined, had spells such as Dispel Magic and Mage Armor and Shield added on, which are good protection spells but not particularly spells you'd think having on a Beguiler. Furthermore, those are spells that were oddly absent on the Warmage, so I mostly rectified that mistake.


The warmage now has cheesy optimization built right in? I guess that's alright when you're partying with uberchargers and batmen, but I think the class would be better off if the cheese was just an option that optimizers could take.

With your warmage, at level 20, most encounters can be taken out with a single fireball, energy substituted appropriately. That's something like 20d6 (average 70) plus 5 x 20 = 100 (1/2 Int x dice) = 170. That might leave opponents with middling HP a bit of health, but the encounter is essentially won. And that's from a multitarget level 3 spell. Magic missile (15d4 + 5 = 42.5, 5 x 25 = 125, 167.5) is nearly the same never-missing force damage from a level 1 spell, but single-target (unless you wish to spread a few of your d4s around for some reason).

Getting into higher levels, you've got polar ray dealing 297.5 damage (35d6 + 5 x 35) without any kind of metamagic or optimization at all. This will kill a balor in one shot if it is 2.5 points above average damage. All the player has to do is select polar ray and there's nothing you can throw at him any more, short of the tarrasque. Now, if you need to start throwing things with tarrasque HP at an unoptimized party, I think there might be something wrong.

So my suggestion is to have warmage edge start out as less powerful, and have it upgradeable through either feats or a list of selectable special abilities, among which are less powerful class features.

A very good concern, sir. However, it is difficult to predict huge escalation through theoretical mathematics. However, I'll point things out to see if that works out a bit better, and then I'll respond in property.

At the beginning, Warmage Edge works actually weaker than the original Warmage Edge (although a bit more spread out). Assuming a respectable Int score for a secondary stat (let's say 14-16, which would be a +2-+3), the same Magic Missile would do 1d4 + 1 (fixed damage) + 1 (from Warmage Edge), for a grand total of 1d4+2 damage. Original Warmage Edge would instead have 1d4+3~1d4+4, accounting for the same Int modifier. At level 20, that same Magic Missile would do 5d4+5 (the base score) + 40 (assuming Int was raised to 20 as a bare minimum, which would be a +5, rounded down to half, hence CL 20 + 2) on a single person, unless it's spread out. I also want to point out two specific things, since the calculation you made assumes two things I corrected earlier, specifically for Magic Missile:


If the spell deals a fixed amount of damage, or is comprised of multiple projectiles (such as Magic Missile or Scorching Ray), the warmage instead deals bonus damage equal to half his Int modifier times his caster level. In the case of multiple projectiles, the damage only affects one chosen target.

Your assumption (correct me if I'm wrong on at least one) was using full Int instead of half Int, or else the character is already pretty optimized (since it would have Int 30, which would be pretty high for a secondary stat, pointing that Charisma would be primary). In that case, Warmage Edge deals considerably good damage without much Metamagic, which is understandible since the damage output for high-level combat pretty much requires it. After all, Wizards with even moderate levels of optimization facing monsters out of the box already end battles with a single spell, or are meant to do so. Second...


[...]a warmage can increase the cap on damage dice of any warmage spell he casts, up to a maximum equal to half his character level. This increase only applies to spells that have a fixed damage dice cap, not to spells that have a different kind of cap (such as Magic Missile or Scorching Ray).

Again, bolded for reference. Magic Missile has a different method of dice cap, in which it gains more damage dice through more missiles. I specifically pointed out Magic Missile as one of those spells that didn't qualify, as it doesn't have the same damage dice cap that spells such as the Orbs, Fireball, Lightning Bolt or Polar Ray hold (increase in amount of damage dice through caster level, topping a specific point); Magic Missile increases it's potential damage through the addition of projectiles, which I assumed was pretty clear it was not contemplated in the retooling. As what one of my friends told me when I was brainstorming for ideas (I think it was Cieyrin of this same forums); "If you want more missiles for MM, go Force Missile Mage (PrC on Dragon Compendium which deals with improving Magic Missile spells)". Scorching Ray follow the same suit, as its damage potential is determined through extra rays instead of extra damage dice on a single ray. The reason the second type of Warmage Edge's 1st level ability was keyed off caster level is because not only does it works similar to the first (after all, limiting your Warmage edge based on dice means you're technically using your caster level, and Empower multiplies your spell after the dice roll), but because those spells lose power (and thus, are discarded or rejected faster) than other spells of the same kind. This ability, as written (the second part of the ability, the one that's 1/2 Int x CL) is meant to benefit the cloud and fog spells, which would receive a nifty boost in damage.

Now, to answer your concern; it is very, very difficult to determine how well does a mathematical equation will escalate compared to the relative power level. As it stands, blasting (even well optimized) is a poor alternative to other spells; save or die spells, save or lose spells and no save, just suck spells dwarf blasting spells out of the water as written. Disintegrate is one of the few strong spells, as it has little resistances and a potent effect that also makes it a potent utility spell. Evard's Black Tentacles, as written, pretty much dwarfs any blasting spell through sheer immobilization and constant damage; you can pretty much fire EBT and forget about the battle, or allow your people to mop up those who survive. Increasing that damage potential, thus, is crucial for the Warmage to escape from the drain in which pure spellcasters have left them; just exactly how much is the question.

As a note; originally, Warmage Edge was determined to have full Int modifier times dice (or CL) for damage. I noticed it was pretty much, and I reduced application of Int to half, which in theory reduces the power acquired through this ability by half. It would be pretty complicated to further reduce the power of Warmage Edge's first level ability in order to make it reasonable enough for low optimization; first thing that comes to mind is limiting to half damage dice or half caster level, rounded up, but that would imply ample testing in comparison to how the ability stands right now against monsters of equivalent Challenge Rating. Yet, it is not a bad concern and I hope you may point any other concerns you might have. If you wish, and can work some spells that might get some hefty damage boosts in order to strengthen your claim, be my guest; I am but one, and making a class can be draining.

Though, Polar Ray by itself is insanely powerful out of the box. At level 25, for example, a Polar Ray (which is an 8th level spell) originally dealt 40d6 cold damage; now, it would deal 50d6 cold damage plus (1/2 Int x 50) damage, which can be energy substituted free of cost (since the damage dice cap would augment by 17, and each increase in CL for Polar Ray adds 2d6 points of damage, which technically qualifies for the 11th level ability), which translates to a massive amount of damage on a single target. This, however, may be intentional as it focuses all that damage on a single target, while spells such as Maw of Chaos would still deal 25d6 points of damage plus the rider effect to everyone on the damage area (and if cast through a Warmage, as it technically can, it would be 25d6 + [1/2 Int x 25] plus rider effect, without affecting allies at all)

Still, valuable concern. I'd wish to keep discussing the range of this concern, in order to fine-tune the class.


I like the new Warmage class. I'm all for power being built right into a class, though that may just be from the standpoint of a DM with players who don't know the first thing about optimization. I want to throw one fight a day at them with a CR 1 or 2 over the party, using reasonably intelligent tactics, without worrying about an unmitigated TPK massacre.

Thanks. Not quite used to praise, but good that you consider my class as such.

As it stands, a pure Warmage can quite considerably make battles easier (Baron Corm nails that concept well, although I'd prefer some testing in order to measure how damage should be escalated properly). Taking this Warmage and giving it to a player who doesn't get much optimization implies the character may reach a point where it gets a bit too powerful, even with an increased CR, just by lobbing a Fireball or two; however, it can also allow you as a DM to work a challenge in which you can drop a strong character and slightly tool it so that it becomes more of a tactical challenge. One of the best ways to increase CR is adding more monsters of the same base CR, which adds a considerable amount of CR per each two monsters added.

[Volin]

Nothing important to say here. Just props on your post title. I actually snickered in a room full of people.

[Baron Corm]

I'm about to be late for class, but in a nutshell:

Force missile mage sucks. It adds very little damage to magic missile. If your main class feature isn't going to improve spells like magic missile, I wouldn't put them on the spell list.

I think Intelligence is actually your primary stat. It determines your damage, and you are a warmage. The best spells don't allow saving throws. Even so, you don't need to spend gold on a weapon, so you definitely have enough to buy yourself a +6 item of both Intelligence and Charisma, and a +5 tome of inherent Intelligence and Charisma. I think it's reasonable to expect even an unoptimized character to have those things because there's little else for a mage to spend money on. If you start with 16 Intelligence (because you think it's secondary, and you're either on point buy or have a +2 Intelligence race with a bad roll) and add 11 from items, you get 27. If I was playing I would put my level up points into Intelligence as well, netting 32, or up to 36 if you placed more importance on it initially/got good rolls. This makes for a +4 to a +6 warmage edge bonus. I picked 5 *shrug*. The number you settle on actually makes your damage vary drastically, so it's hard to say.

Polar ray has a damage cap of 25d6. Not sure if you were aware of that from what you said.

A lot of monsters have a high Fortitude save so disintegrate is typically not very reliable.

Gotta go!

Edit: Now for a suggestion as to what I would specifically do about this. One solution is to force all of the spells to allow a saving throw. If polar ray had a saving throw line of Fortitude: Half, the (unoptimized) caster is going to be dealing 150 damage instead of 300 most of the time. I think this is a much better number for an 8th level spell. Most of the area spells allow Reflex saves for half damage already, so they're pretty much fine.

Another solution is to change the class feature. Instead of having it as a multiplier or a static damage amount, have it grant an amount of bonus damage dice. So with 30 Intelligence, you're adding +10d6 damage to your fireball from Intelligence, and +10d6 from being level 20 (as the other part of that class feature). You're throwing around 30d6 (average 105) damage fireballs and 45d6 (average 157.5) damage polar rays. Significantly more powerful than the originals, yet not encounter-shattering. I also like that this allows you to use your entire Intelligence modifier, because subtracting 10 from your score and dividing by 4 is saddening.

With some metamagic and/or metamagic reducers, both of those can still be broken. Orb of acid is a favorite for those who currently optimize damage, as it's 4th level and deals 15d6 damage with few things resisting it. With any of the new warmage edges in this thread, it's very easy to break that. Taking my latter suggestion, which is lower in damage than the one in your post, a twinned empowered orb of acid takes up a 4 + 4 + 2 - 2 (warmage class feature) = 8th level spell slot and deals 70d6 + 35d6 * 1.5 (average 428.75) damage. Arcane Thesis it and you can Repeat and Maximize it, but since we're just concentrating on non-optimized right now we can leave that out. Could be a problem with that class feature. If I read it wrong and it's a -1 total reduction in spell level, not for each metamagic (which should be clarified if so), you can still Twin and Empower it for a 9th level slot. Even without the class feature Twinning becomes a problem for all of your low level spells, since the damage from Warmage Edge is added in equal power to lower and high level spells, and lower ones are easier to metamagic. I rather like how it makes lower level spells useful, so a quick fix to this is to state that Warmage Edge is applied after any metamagic.

Bonus Suggestion: It would be helpful if you listed the different aspects of Warmage Edge as separate class features (maybe Lesser, Improved, Greater, Superior?) as they're pretty separate entities and it's hard to talk about them individually if you don't, and it would cut down on that wall of text.

[T.G. Oskar]

Force missile mage sucks. It adds very little damage to magic missile. If your main class feature isn't going to improve spells like magic missile, I wouldn't put them on the spell list.

Well...I was just mentioning what I was mentioning. The damage dice for Magic Missile depends on a different method than the usual; it behaves like a static damage dice cap, except that it increases the total damage by increasing projectiles. Thinking on this, I made the second (or the variant, so to speak) damage increase method for the 1st level ability of Warmage Edge. I pointed Force Missile Mage out because it behaves as how you presented Magic Missile; whether it sucks or not as a PrC isn't what I wanted to express, but the point that if you wanted to increase the amount of projectiles from MM, then go FMM.


I think Intelligence is actually your primary stat. It determines your damage, and you are a warmage. The best spells don't allow saving throws. Even so, you don't need to spend gold on a weapon, so you definitely have enough to buy yourself a +6 item of both Intelligence and Charisma, and a +5 tome of inherent Intelligence and Charisma. I think it's reasonable to expect even an unoptimized character to have those things because there's little else for a mage to spend money on. If you start with 16 Intelligence (because you think it's secondary, and you're either on point buy or have a +2 Intelligence race with a bad roll) and add 11 from items, you get 27. If I was playing I would put my level up points into Intelligence as well, netting 32, or up to 36 if you placed more importance on it initially/got good rolls. This makes for a +4 to a +6 warmage edge bonus. I picked 5 *shrug*. The number you settle on actually makes your damage vary drastically, so it's hard to say.

I'd say quite the contrary. The main blasting spells allow saving throws, and even a few rays also allow them (Disintegrate, as you mentioned). But I'll expand on that below.

Charisma is, IMO, primary because it's your casting stat, and you're a Warmage. It not only determines your DC and your spellcasting (which means at least a minimum of 19 by the time you get 9th level spells), but your bonus spells. It also allows you to have a higher UMD total score, or Intimidate if you so desire (and with an equally high Int, you'll have some points to spare)

Optimizing yourself for damage may leave you weakened on other stats, which means some openings on your defense: low Dex means low Reflex and AC, low Con means low HP and Fortitude. A Warmage suffers from MAD, if you notice. Furthermore, you will still have some ways to spend money: a Cloak of Resistance, for example, or Boots of Flying, or even lowly Rings of Protection and Amulets of Natural Armor. It's great and stuff that you can pretty much destroy an entire battlefield, but it's terrible and bad when you don't even get the chance, because you went way too far on cranking up your defense.

Again, I don't say it's not a valid concern, but usually, the main boosters for ability scores are the headbands/gloves/belts/amulets/periaps/cloaks. Tomes are insanely rare, and even more insanely expensive. You might miss on strong defenses by consuming half of your resources on those four things, and that's just going by WBL standards exactly at level 20. I find your claim to be mildly contradictory, as you're suggesting that someone with little optimization skills will do something of moderate optimization without falling with the usual things (such as having a weapon, or a medium armor with enhancements); mildly, because even I recognize that those recommendations may eventually become notable through some thought.


Polar ray has a damage cap of 25d6. Not sure if you were aware of that from what you said.

For some reason, I thought of Disintegrate. Since Disintegrate does have the 40d6 cap.


Edit: Now for a suggestion as to what I would specifically do about this. One solution is to force all of the spells to allow a saving throw. If polar ray had a saving throw line of Fortitude: Half, the (unoptimized) caster is going to be dealing 150 damage instead of 300 most of the time. I think this is a much better number for an 8th level spell. Most of the area spells allow Reflex saves for half damage already, so they're pretty much fine.

As I mentioned above: most of the blasty spells do have a saving throw (typically, spells like Fireball and Lightning Bolt). Those that don't are because of rays or orbs, which work through a different method (aiming through a ranged touch attack), or the fogs and clouds which have a fixed space. Forcing all of the spells to allow a saving throw would mean dealing with the entire set of spells, which means indirectly nerfing rays or orbs.

Consider that rays also must deal with spell resistance, which the Dent Resistance ability only lessens (not eliminates). Furthermore, some creatures have a pretty high spell resistance, and there are spells that completely null the effectiveness of rays. Furthermore, some spells already offer saving throws, and they offer it because their effects are far stronger than a damage-dealing ray. Going with Fortitude, as you mentioned, would again turn those damaging spells into nothingness, as you pointed out earlier:


A lot of monsters have a high Fortitude save so disintegrate is typically not very reliable.

Changing all those spells that have no save to Fort (half) needlessly dents them again. Furthermore, Disintegrate is very reliable for other purposes: with some luck, it's the most effective way to deal damage to most constructs (including dreaded golems), and it also works wonders with objects, which include walls. It also destroys force effects.

Orbs, however, are effective for one purpose; they are built for being nearly unblockable. No save, no SR, not even fizzling out on an AMF because they're Conjuration spells of Instantaneous effect, and if they do have a saving throw, it's for their rider effect. That problem is with the spells, not with the Warmage Edge; adding a nerf in order to fix a potential amount of damage would kinda beat out the purpose of increasing the damage, no?


Another solution is to change the class feature. Instead of having it as a multiplier or a static damage amount, have it grant an amount of bonus damage dice. So with 30 Intelligence, you're adding +10d6 damage to your fireball from Intelligence, and +10d6 from being level 20 (as the other part of that class feature). You're throwing around 30d6 (average 105) damage fireballs and 45d6 (average 157.5) damage polar rays. Significantly more powerful than the originals, yet not encounter-shattering. I also like that this allows you to use your entire Intelligence modifier, because subtracting 10 from your score and dividing by 4 is saddening.

I can work with this, though. Perhaps not as you're suggesting, but dealing with the effect itself.

As you suggest, you're making one ability become redundant as the other appears. What the ability does is increasing your total cap as your character levels increase, but not your damage dice. I reckon I wasn't clear on the intention, which is great since that allows me to clarify something out.

As the ability stands, and using the second example (Polar Ray), you're still supposed to have a 25d6 ray at level 25th, not a 37d6 ray. What the original 10th level ability is supposed to do is break the limit on your damage dice cap, so that by 20th level your Fireball spell would still do damage. Note that this only applies to spells such as Fireball and Lightning Bolt and Polar Ray and Disintegrate, since spells such as Incendiary Cloud and Acid Fog don't get a benefit from this ability (they get a benefit from the 1st level static damage increase only). Even then, a Polar Ray still would deal 20d6 points of damage as it did before at 20th level, because while its cap is now 35, it's damage dice are restricted by caster level. If you have something that increases your caster level, then that ability would apply (such as having an item that grants you +1 to CL on cold spells, which means you'd have 21d6 at level 20). Once you reach the cap, your CL remains adjusting the damage dice until it reaches a new cap, which will then increase at a slower rate.

If I were to replace the first ability with your proposed fix, yet keep the original intention on both (as in, limit damage dice growth to CL as usual), then one gets redundant as the other appears until epic levels. You'll still be dealing a 20d6 damage Fireball instead of a 30d6 Fireball, since you're still at CL 20. Only when you reach about character level 31st, you'll notice a difference. If I were to replace the first ability with your proposed fix, but only enforce that small restriction on the second ability, then you'd get what you proposed for Fireball, but perhaps not for Polar Ray (35d6 of damage instead: +10 from the first ability, +25 from caster level)

Also, it is a bit messier to introduce. As it stands, while it is easier to understand (Int 10: no increase, Int 12: +1 die, etc.), as it probably stands out it would be perhaps a bit too much; it would make the Warmage stronger from the beginning, and only begin to normalize at higher levels, instead of the opposite. If I were to impose the caster level cap, then I would cause redundance.

Finally, there's a reason why I find static damage slightly better than dice damage. One of the big problems of the Warmage is that, as it stands, Resist Energy and huge HP essentially reduce the power of blasting. That can also manifest with Sneak Attack dice, or weapon-based damage. While this is mostly the voice of optimizers, static damage works better than dice-based damage because you'll do roughly the same amount of damage each time. You can make a variance between the lowest and the highest amount of damage, but in the end, you'll do a constant amount of damage. This is crucial in-game, as most creatures at high levels have too high amounts of HP (which in turn, helps their already massive Fort score) to even be dented by the damage, not to mention energy resistances (which is why Force spells and Energy Substitution work wonders) and huge stats, which would make all the work only be a moderate inconvenience for them, instead of virtually nothing.

However, I still say I could work this out. Static damage increases are harder to deal with than dynamic damage increases, but more effective. Half may seem not as elegant as full (and perhaps saddening on your part), but it's a good method of restricting an overflow of damage. I'll propose this, and you tell me if it's a good method or not:

1st level is a static increase, not based on Intelligence but on caster level. That makes a Warmage depend less on Int, but it will still deal much more damage. It will still behave like the original (extra damage applies to all creatures in area, but in the case of multiple projectiles, it only applies to one of the projectiles), but it will be less powerful. If it's not enough, let's say you add your Int modifier to the damage (as the original Warmage Edge does) plus your caster level (or your character level, whichever sounds best).

10th level ability is an increase based on Int. The higher your Int, the higher the damage cap will be. It won't be as elegant as the original (which allows you to increase the damage dice cap well beyond your class level or your Int), but it still makes Int relevant (although, as the class works, it still makes Int a relevant choice for Warmage)

The end result still allows for extra damage, but it's of a less potent degree. At most, at 20th level you'd have a Fireball dealing 20d6+30 points of Fire damage, which averages to a solid 100 damage, compared to your feared amount. It would allow for optimizers to do large amounts of damage, but still make non-optimizers do at least respectable damage; furthermore, it would still make Int a viable choice, and keep it as a secondary choice compared to Charisma (which should be the primary)


With some metamagic and/or metamagic reducers, both of those can still be broken. Orb of acid is a favorite for those who currently optimize damage, as it's 4th level and deals 15d6 damage with few things resisting it. With any of the new warmage edges in this thread, it's very easy to break that. Taking my latter suggestion, which is lower in damage than the one in your post, a twinned empowered orb of acid takes up a 4 + 4 + 2 - 2 (warmage class feature) = 8th level spell slot and deals 70d6 + 35d6 * 1.5 (average 428.75) damage. Arcane Thesis it and you can Repeat and Maximize it, but since we're just concentrating on non-optimized right now we can leave that out. Could be a problem with that class feature. If I read it wrong and it's a -1 total reduction in spell level, not for each metamagic (which should be clarified if so), you can still Twin and Empower it for a 9th level slot. Even without the class feature Twinning becomes a problem for all of your low level spells, since the damage from Warmage Edge is added in equal power to lower and high level spells, and lower ones are easier to metamagic. I rather like how it makes lower level spells useful, so a quick fix to this is to state that Warmage Edge is applied after any metamagic.


You read it right. It's a reduction of -1 to each metamagic feat you apply, but that use cannot reduce your metamagic spell slot cost to less than 1. So, if you try to use Energy Substitution, or any of those MM feats that cost no points to reduce, you'll still be adding +1 per each one you add; it's meant to reduce the cost on the really useful and really expensive ones, and meant to synergize with metamagic reducers. I don't see it as much of a problem, since you've effectively cut out of the solid metamagic reducers through way of Prestige Classes, and it would make you consider staying on the Warmage path instead of PrCing early, since at the end you'll have the same result as if you had multiclassed to one of the broken PrCs. Arcane Thesis is potent but seriously limited, as it only affects one spell, and it causes you to determine which spell is the most effective on all the list; just right there, you're super-optimizing (since you're effectively determining the best spell of the entire bunch, including those you can get through Advanced Learning)

However, your second suggestion (applying the Warmage Edge bonus damage after any metamagic) is one I could consider. It would seriously dent the first version and make it manageable, but it would severely nerf the second one; since you couldn't Maximize it, it applies to only one projectile so it would be good to assume that it wouldn't work with Twinned, and just about the only MM feats that really would provide an advantage would be Repeat and Empower.


Bonus Suggestion: It would be helpful if you listed the different aspects of Warmage Edge as separate class features (maybe Lesser, Improved, Greater, Superior?) as they're pretty separate entities and it's hard to talk about them individually if you don't, and it would cut down on that wall of text.

That is the way Cloaked Casting is written for the Beguiler in the PHBII. All of the abilities that comprise Cloaked Casting are roughly different from each other. I just used "familiar" formatting, familiar to the extent of "hey, this is how the Beguiler's Cloaked Casting is written!!" The reason it seems like a wall of text is because those abilities have to be described in detail, unlike Cloaked Casting which works on much more familiar abilities (increase in DC and checks to bypass SR). Furthermore, Cloaked Casting should also have the format you described, as the two main abilities have an improved version (and you can argue that one isn't merely improved but rather greater)

Anyways: I'll edit the class a bit, adding the clarification on the increased damage dice cap, and I'll meditate on how Warmage Edge will apply and on the format. I want to see your opinion on the compromise with Warmage Edge, and see if it's closer to what you imagine.

[Corporate M]

I liked the warmage as he was. Albeit I love your Dr.Strangelove reference...

Hell, the only thing I'd have changed about the warmage was he could pick any spell, not just evocation school for his "advanced learning" spell. And maybe expand/deflate his spell-list to being an all evocation mage, but none of the conjuration or other spells that should've been evocation but weren't for some reason.

But then basicaly I'm playing a specialist wizard who's extremely specialized in favor of better hit die/proficietcy/medium BaB. I suppose it's a decent tradeoff. But it makes you wonder why not just take a whole lot of classes and call them variants of one dictating class like they did in AD&D..

Like a warmage isn't it's own class but rather a variant of the wizard who specializes in blaster spells.. This really doesn't effect cheese too much because casters generally don't multiclass much anyway. But it can hamper those prestige classes a bit. And the non-caster/dabblers need all the help they can get!

[T.G. Oskar]

I liked the warmage as he was. Albeit I love your Dr.Strangelove reference...

Hell, the only thing I'd have changed about the warmage was he could pick any spell, not just evocation school for his "advanced learning" spell. And maybe expand/deflate his spell-list to being an all evocation mage, but none of the conjuration or other spells that should've been evocation but weren't for some reason.

But then basicaly I'm playing a specialist wizard who's extremely specialized in favor of better hit die/proficietcy/medium BaB. I suppose it's a decent tradeoff. But it makes you wonder why not just take a whole lot of classes and call them variants of one dictating class like they did in AD&D..

Like a warmage isn't it's own class but rather a variant of the wizard who specializes in blaster spells.. This really doesn't effect cheese too much because casters generally don't multiclass much anyway. But it can hamper those prestige classes a bit. And the non-caster/dabblers need all the help they can get!

Technically, a Warmage isn't a Wizard variant, but a Sorcerer variant. It replaces the Sorcerer's limited spell list for a wider, but more specialized, list of spells that do damage. Sorcerer doesn't have written in-game a super-specialization bonus, so it's pretty pointless to devote yourself to a single school as a Sorcerer (and even then, it would still cause some oddities since Contingency is an Evocation spell; so does Miracle, even though it's not a Cleric spell) A Warmage isn't an evocation specialist more than the Beguiler is an Enchantment/Illusion specialist: a Warmage is a specialist on blasting and dealing raw damage/instant killing, in comparison with the Beguiler's focus on subterfuge and deceit (and the Dread Necromancer's focus on raising undead).

Expanded Learning (the PHBII alternate class feature for Warmage) does exactly what you ask, except that it penalizes you: you can choose any single spell from the Sorcerer/Wizard school, but you choose up to a maximum of one level less than the highest spell level you can cast. Extra Spell does this as well. So a Warmage has options with spells, it's just that they're kinda limiting.

Also, one of the ideas of this edition was to separate the original variants into full-fledged classes, but they kinda got stuck in the middle. There was no reason why an Illusionist should exist as a different class, but there was no reason why a Barbarian shouldn't exist as a Fighter variant. Warmage is mostly on the middle: it's meant to be a class specializing on a very small category of spells, but it uses the Sorcerer as a base, not a Wizard. And even then, most of the Sorcerer variants are better than the Warmage as it stands.

You're free to keep using the Warmage as-is and retool the spell list into simply Evocation; this is a retooling, not a replacement after all. I just wanted to address some concerns regarding the class and how they could be dealt with: improving X thing, changing Y, adding Z. Compare the original Warmage with, for example, the specialist Evoker variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/specialistWizardVariants.htm#evokerVariants) from Unearthed Arcana; they are strikingly different, in regards with the effectiveness of the spell list (Wizards will still have loads of spells, they'll just be unable to choose from two of the remaining six, if we count both the chosen specialization and Divination), the class abilities (the Evoker variant works a tad better than a Warmage which only gets extra damage and a few free spells, as well as armored casting), and even the proficiencies and skill lists. New-Warmage adopts those variant abilities, but confronts them with a reality: blasting spells are far less useful that save-or-die spells, or buffing/debuffing spells, and tries to make them useful in exchange for removing most of the spells that actually make Wizards almighty and potent.

Consider that, at level 20, neither version of Warmage will have either Time Stop or Wish (core broken spells), nor it will have Permanency for those few spells that should be worthwhile, and depending on the class version, it will make one of the few worthwhile Evocation spells (Contingency) completely useless. An Evoker variant from UA will quite probably have those spells, plus prepared spellcasting (thus, a spellbook and the chance of surpassing the limited Warmage spell list), and since you won't get any truly worthwhile class abilities (you get them all at 1st level, and you'll get 5 uses of one and 10 uses of the other at 20th level, which the Energy Substitution [X] feat and Assay Spell Resistance completely nullify), you'll have no chance but to PrC very, very early. Much like...what a Wizard does now.

Also, recall that only a few PrCs are valuable to a Wizard, because they break the class more than it already is. Incantatrix takes those few bonus feats you lost from the Wizard variant, and pretty much returns them with the benefit of exploiting Metamagic; Archmage has Spell Power, Mastery of Shaping, Mastery of Elements and even Arcane Reach for the exchange of four spell slots; Mage of the Arcane Order pretty much solves your spellbook dependency (in exchange for providing spells to the pool). Even Geometer works for some glyph specialization and maximizing Boccob's Blessed Book's spell capacity (one BBB will now hold 500 spells, which is more than enough to cover both PHB, PHBII and Spell Compendium, and still have extra pages). Few people actually recommend taking more than 5 levels of Wizard: even less if you go Master Specialist.

In general: a Warmage isn't more of an Evoker than a Sorcerer specializing in blaster spells. Making it a Wizard variant won't do much, as generalist Wizards (not Elven Generalist Wizards, a very different thing) are more often than not better than specialist Wizards (except for Conjurers and Abrupt Jaunt, which are broken beyond belief). That would relegate the Warmage Evoker variant into nothing, if it's exactly like it already was except for the ultra-specialization: even then, that is a moot point since it would be a Sorcerer variant instead. And the Warmage has various things in which it holds difference towards a Sorcerer, much like the Beguiler has differences and so does the Dread Necromancer. Finally, you'd be depriving the Warmage of his stolen Druid spells, the Beguiler of his stolen Bard spells, and the Dread Necro of his stolen Cleric spells, even if those are from the same school in which any of the three specialize in.

[Baron Corm]

I'd say quite the contrary. The main blasting spells allow saving throws, and even a few rays also allow them (Disintegrate, as you mentioned). But I'll expand on that below.

The main blasting spells are bad, which is why you've made this class.


Charisma is, IMO, primary because it's your casting stat, and you're a Warmage.

I disagree. Warmage :smallcool:. But we can leave it at that.


That problem is with the spells, not with the Warmage Edge; adding a nerf in order to fix a potential amount of damage would kinda beat out the purpose of increasing the damage, no?

Well, it was just because your proposed damage increase was about 2x too high, and using 1/4 of Intelligence modifier would be bad. This idea also allows a player to deal massive damage every once in a while when they beat a save, which is fun for him. Just throwing it out there. I realized that I said above that spells which allow saving throws are bad, but I was talking about normal spells, not considering your Warmage Edge.


As you suggest, you're making one ability become redundant as the other appears. What the ability does is increasing your total cap as your character levels increase, but not your damage dice.

I was assuming that the player would have caster level increases. I suppose an unoptimized player would only have +1 or +2 at most, so that was a mistake. So your ability makes fireballs equal to delayed blast fireballs for an unoptimized player... and is essentially useless to him at higher levels, unless he runs out of higher level spells.


Also, it is a bit messier to introduce. As it stands, while it is easier to understand (Int 10: no increase, Int 12: +1 die, etc.), as it probably stands out it would be perhaps a bit too much; it would make the Warmage stronger from the beginning, and only begin to normalize at higher levels, instead of the opposite. If I were to impose the caster level cap, then I would cause redundance.

A solution would be to start it out as static damage then change it to dice damage later on. Your idea down below is good though so we can forget this one.


Finally, there's a reason why I find static damage slightly better than dice damage.

Static damage might be more reliable, but dice damage can potentially kill monsters with much higher hp, can be Maximized, and is generally more suspenseful and exciting. I'd say there's definitely an argument either way there. I don't think either one increases or decreases the power of a class, as long as the average damage is the same.


1st level is a static increase, not based on Intelligence but on caster level. That makes a Warmage depend less on Int, but it will still deal much more damage. It will still behave like the original (extra damage applies to all creatures in area, but in the case of multiple projectiles, it only applies to one of the projectiles), but it will be less powerful. If it's not enough, let's say you add your Int modifier to the damage (as the original Warmage Edge does) plus your caster level (or your character level, whichever sounds best).

10th level ability is an increase based on Int. The higher your Int, the higher the damage cap will be. It won't be as elegant as the original (which allows you to increase the damage dice cap well beyond your class level or your Int), but it still makes Int relevant (although, as the class works, it still makes Int a relevant choice for Warmage)

The end result still allows for extra damage, but it's of a less potent degree. At most, at 20th level you'd have a Fireball dealing 20d6+30 points of Fire damage, which averages to a solid 100 damage, compared to your feared amount. It would allow for optimizers to do large amounts of damage, but still make non-optimizers do at least respectable damage; furthermore, it would still make Int a viable choice, and keep it as a secondary choice compared to Charisma (which should be the primary)

As mentioned above, since the level 10 ability is pretty irrelevant for non-optimizers unless they run out of spells, this is basically just adding 30 damage to your high level spells. I think that's on the lowish side. An idea is to make it easier to increase your caster level, maybe through warmage-specific feats. If you tack the extra 10d6 onto your better spells, I think you've come up with some good numbers.


That is the way Cloaked Casting is written for the Beguiler in the PHBII.

However, Cloaked Casting has only two aspects, both of which function only when the target is flatfooted, and both serve the same function of reducing the target's defenses. Warmage Edge abilities are not nearly as related and have twice the number of aspects. This is of course a minor thing and up to you.

[Dante & Vergil]

I would like to add that Warmage's Edge should probably always add half of the Intelligence modifier to each dice for damage spells including Magic Missle, Scorching Ray, and the like. "Why?" you ask, because I think it's too confusing just to differenciate between the spells and what benifits they get.

[DracoDei]

Ok, before I forget... I just gotta ask: How well would this work with my Artillery Mage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6485821#post6485821) PrC?

It would require taking the Acquire Familiar feat at first third level, and Extra Spell(Invisibility) at some level to make it work, but I would think they would go together like bread and butter in many ways. Although the boldness of the Warmage is somewhat are odds with the evasive sniper nature of Artillery Mage.

[T.G. Oskar]

The main blasting spells are bad, which is why you've made this class.

Well...I didn't make it per se. I just took the old Warmage and used the chassis and body, then pimped it out. Hence, a retooling, not a creation...


I disagree. Warmage :smallcool:. But we can leave it at that.

...but just like this, it's mostly semantics, no?

Somewhat like this other example, it's mostly a question of semantics. Indeed, the main blasting spells are bad, so something had to be done. Whether it's creating a new class or reworking an existing one, the idea is fixing that. So yeah...


Well, it was just because your proposed damage increase was about 2x too high, and using 1/4 of Intelligence modifier would be bad. This idea also allows a player to deal massive damage every once in a while when they beat a save, which is fun for him. Just throwing it out there. I realized that I said above that spells which allow saving throws are bad, but I was talking about normal spells, not considering your Warmage Edge.

Well, there are ways to increase your saving throw, and some are better than others. There's Heighten Spell, for example, as well as raising your main casting stat. And yet, the best caster is the one that knows which kind of spell to use, although in most senses it resorts to:

Big and burly: probably low Reflex
Weak and frail: probably low Fortitude
Not very smart: probably low Will, but beware of mindlessness.

So since most monsters have strong Fortitude, it's usually best to use spells that attack their weakest save (Reflex or Will) or use a no-save spell; usually, use an ability damage spell since that usually lowers or nerfs the saves.

Just extending on your point. Now I'll answer the other part:

Indeed, Warmage Edge as it currently stands seems quite powerful, but D&D tends to work well with simple arithmetics. Since you already have the Intelligence modifier and either the damage dice or the caster level provided, an equation of (1/2 Int. Mod x CL) ends up simple. Doing something else would be a bit more complex, or too weak. Which is why I agreed to the compromise of (CL + Int. modifier) extra damage, since it's both considerable and simple (and considering it, also easier to implement)


I was assuming that the player would have caster level increases. I suppose an unoptimized player would only have +1 or +2 at most, so that was a mistake. So your ability makes fireballs equal to delayed blast fireballs for an unoptimized player... and is essentially useless to him at higher levels, unless he runs out of higher level spells.

Technically yes, technically no. Fireball behaves on a different way than a Delayed Blast Fireball: think of it as launching a rocket-propelled grenade (Fireball) to throwing a timed grenade (Delayed Blast Fireball). Both have different means of execution, but one tends to deal greater damage than the other. This is both understandable and expected, since you're using a higher level spell, hence you should do greater damage.

Which is why I might keep the 10th level ability of Warmage Edge as it currently stands (half of character level). It allows to, at 20th level, have a Fireball deal as much damage as a Delayed Blast Fireball, but in the end, Delayed Blast Fireball will have a smaller edge and it will be roughly a bit more tactical. It doesn't use Int that much, but between the 1st and 5th level abilities of Warmage Edge, and Dent Resistance, Int retains its utility. That's what I meditated on a bit, since it prevents the volley of static damage and allows for optimizers to take advantage, but it doesn't affect the bulk of the blaster spells.


Static damage might be more reliable, but dice damage can potentially kill monsters with much higher hp, can be Maximized, and is generally more suspenseful and exciting. I'd say there's definitely an argument either way there. I don't think either one increases or decreases the power of a class, as long as the average damage is the same.

A considerable point. I'm on the line of static, but I can agree that most of the fun of a blasting spell with dice damage is actually rolling high.


A solution would be to start it out as static damage then change it to dice damage later on. Your idea down below is good though so we can forget this one.

[...]

As mentioned above, since the level 10 ability is pretty irrelevant for non-optimizers unless they run out of spells, this is basically just adding 30 damage to your high level spells. I think that's on the lowish side. An idea is to make it easier to increase your caster level, maybe through warmage-specific feats. If you tack the extra 10d6 onto your better spells, I think you've come up with some good numbers.

I decided to join these two quotes in order to handle your discarded idea, and later expand a bit on the feats. I've wanted to tackle Extra Edge, since I usually like to do a slight "errata" on the feats after working on the class, in order to make the complete package. I feel it's important to deal with all aspects of a brainstorm, since a previously discarded idea might come to relevance later on (or not).

Starting as static and then exchanging to dynamic damage is a bit complex, since it means you're changing entirely the original mechanic. Few spells begin as "deal X points of damage per caster level", then change to "deal 1dX dice of damage per caster level", if any (IIRC, I think none). To keep it simple, it's better to handle the extra damage mechanic on two different sides, where you still retain your static damage but also enhance the dynamic damage of those spells that have them. There's a few spells that deal 1dX points of damage, plus X damage per caster level which gets capped usually to 10 or 15. I think this is going out of simplicity, but this point could also be addressed.

Now, to the caster level increase. Reserve feats, as they stand, offer a simple method of increasing caster level even though they're not exactly warmage-specific. However, a warmage will make even better use of reserve feats than other spellcasters, if only because the increase in CL will always apply no matter what. So, with at least +1 to CL, that means an extra 1d6+1 points of damage, or an average of 4.5 damage per increase in CL, with a range between 2-7. There are also magic items that also increase your CL for a single spell, and they also provide another +1. So, warmage-specific feats aren't exactly needed, since there's already a method to increase CL if ever so slightly.

However, as I mentioned before, there's the question of Extra Edge. As it stands, it's almost needed if you want extra damage (mostly, +1 to damage, +1 additional damage per 4 class levels), but it provides too little damage (at 20th level, Int + 5, which is hilariously low). However, this serves as a mainframe for fixing the feat and even expanding the options. For example:

Extra Edge can, instead of adding to the damage, serve as a multiplier for Int (which is the lowest, but also the easiest variable to handle). Extra Edge would treat your Int bonus as double for purposes of adding damage to Warmage Edge, so in terms it would replace (CL + Int.) to (CL + [2xInt.]). This would make Int increases much more valuable, but even a low Int or the lack of a feat wouldn't punish the non-optimizer.

Improved Extra Edge would affect the damage dice cap. Although with some hefty requirements (Warmage level 10th, Extra Edge), it would serve as the original Extra Edge, but with the dynamic modifier: add 1d6 to all spells, plus 1d6 per four class levels starting from the 1st; alternatively, say "add 3d6 points of damage to all spells, plus 1d6 per four class levels". I'd go with the first idea, since it would mean roughly an end result of 5d6 by level 20, and 6d6 by level 21st.


However, Cloaked Casting has only two aspects, both of which function only when the target is flatfooted, and both serve the same function of reducing the target's defenses. Warmage Edge abilities are not nearly as related and have twice the number of aspects. This is of course a minor thing and up to you.

I thought of that, and at least the 5th, 15th and 20th level abilities of Warmage Edge are considerably separate options. I might consider renaming them. 1st and 10th would remain as Warmage Edge, although there's a slight point in treating 10th as "Improved" Warmage Edge. I'll think about that, though.


I would like to add that Warmage's Edge should probably always add half of the Intelligence modifier to each dice for damage spells including Magic Missle, Scorching Ray, and the like. "Why?" you ask, because I think it's too confusing just to differenciate between the spells and what benifits they get.

That's something I've been discussing these few days. I'll change the original ability to a simpler and low-powered version, in order to address that confusion. That way, it's a much easier thought process: IF spell does damage, THEN apply Warmage Edge (1st).


Ok, before I forget... I just gotta ask: How well would this work with my Artillery Mage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6485821#post6485821) PrC?

It would require taking the Acquire Familiar feat at first level, and Extra Spell(Invisibility) at some level to make it work, but I would think they would go together like bread and butter in many ways. Although the boldness of the Warmage is somewhat are odds with the evasive sniper nature of Artillery Mage.

It mostly depends on the breaking point.

Consider the following: since Advanced Learning essentially behaves the same as the original Warmage's Advanced Learning, it is more than acceptable that you can replace it with Eclectic Learning and thus, at 7th level, get the Invisibility spell and Obtain Familiar, so that at level 8th you can enter the class (recall that you also get Weapon Focus, so you can use it on ray spells and qualify).

At the lowest entry point (6th, since you have Fireball as a Long range spell, Scorching Ray and Ray of Frost already learned, you can use your 3rd level bonus feat for Weapon Focus [ray], and then use your 3rd and 6th level feats for Obtain Familiar and Extra Spell , respectively), you'd have extra damage that will always scale, about 3 + Int. uses of the 5th level Warmage Edge Energy Substitution feature, Widen Spell with a metamagic reduction of 1, and at least one extra spell. Your familiar, at the very least, would gain the effect of [I]Greater Mage Armor, Shield, and use a few touch spells; furthermore, the greatest synergy would exist on the large amount of blasting and cloud spells you can unleash with Rapid Barrage without seriously depleting your resources.

10th, however, would be the main breaking point, since there you'll have the 10th level ability to increase your damage cap. In that moment, aside from the extra feat and the ability to cast on Medium armor, your spells will do a pretty huge amount of damage as your caster level increases, so instead of using bombs of 100-tons, you'd be using bombs of 200-tons that look like bombs of 100-tons. That's mostly the synergy I see, along with the familiar-as-scout which can serve as a focal point for Prying Eyes, so that essentially you form a radar around your familiar, which you can both Scry and check.

15th would sacrifice some of your Rapid Barrage power, but it would introduce the anti-friendly fire 15th level ability of Warmage Edge, which in short terms means you can load your spells right on your Familiar and your Familiar will end up unscathed (and your enemies well toasted, deep-frozen, carbonized, devoid of skin and muscle or bleeding from their ears; your choice)

In any case, fun synergy.

It should be a fun synergy, tho.

[DracoDei]

Very glad of your response!

I just woke up so I am still processing your comments. There is one issue that is potentially important enough that I am going to mention it immediately though. This issue has one or two sources (depending on how clearly I am reading your response):
1.) I goofed through not actually knowing how "Obtain Familiar" was worded as far as requirements.
2.) You MAY have skimmed over one of the most important clauses of the pre-requisites.

Special: Must have had a familiar from the first level you ever took of any arcane casting class.
This means that Obtain Familiar must be taken at Warmage 1 for you to qualify for the class... which isn't technically possible now that I get my first direct look at that feat ever. Ok, I will have to reword that feat to get the nit-picking aspect of the rules right, but for these purposes assume that to get into the PrC you have to take Obtain Familiar as your 3rd level feat and use it immediately. I am not sure if all of your scenarios include this or not (as I said, I just woke up).

EDIT:
Ok, I now have some more workable wording... it doesn't handle multiclassing very well, but since arcanists don't multiclass much, it will do.
Special: Must have had a familiar from the lowest level you ever took of any arcane casting class that offers such (so 1st for a Sorcerer or Wizard, 2nd for a character who started out in Adept*, and etc), or third level of an arcane casting class, whichever is lower.

ALSO:

At 5th level, a warmage can alter the damage dealt by a spell that has the fire, cold, lightning, acid or sonic descriptor.
Shouldn't that be "electricity"?

[T.G. Oskar]

Very glad of your response!

I just woke up so I am still processing your comments. There is one issue that is potentially important enough that I am going to mention it immediately though. This issue has one or two sources (depending on how clearly I am reading your response):
1.) I goofed through not actually knowing how "Obtain Familiar" was worded as far as requirements.
2.) You MAY have skimmed over one of the most important clauses of the pre-requisites.

This means that Obtain Familiar must be taken at Warmage 1 for you to qualify for the class... which isn't technically possible now that I get my first direct look at that feat ever. Ok, I will have to reword that feat to get the nit-picking aspect of the rules right, but for these purposes assume that to get into the PrC you have to take Obtain Familiar as your 3rd level feat and use it immediately. I am not sure if all of your scenarios include this or not (as I said, I just woke up).

Hmm, I did skimmed over that clause. I was most interested on minimum entry requirements, since the intention is to define all scenarios by means of the level in which one exits from Warmage and enters Artillery Mage; I did remember the requirement from Obtain Familiar (I checked it on Complete Arcane just to be sure), and estimated that you could use your 3rd level feat for it, at any possible scenario. The wording, however, I didn't realized so it's mostly a problem caused by the entry wording (mostly, since you specified entry through Obtain Familiar, assuming thus it was a legal method of entry). I guess the problem would be the need of a familiar ASAP, although I figure your class places way too much emphasis on a familiar instead of using him as a tool (which I imagine on the visualization of an artillery-specialized mage).

Even if you fix it, the limiting requirement is the need for both Weapon Focus (ray) (or Spell Focus [evocation]) and the acquisition of Extra Spell at level 6th (since you would be capable of choosing 2nd level spells at that moment) or Eclectic Learning (Invisibility), assuming (as I intend to) that you replaced Advanced Learning through the PHBII alternate class feature, at level 7th. As well, the scenarios mostly focus on the 10th and 15th level exits, as those provide valuable Warmage Edge abilities.

[DracoDei]

I originally thought Obtain Familiar could be taken at 1st level. Now that I know better I modified the entry requirements.
Keeping the familiar alive/replaced from 3rd to 10th level, instead of 3rd to 6th before getting something major back for it is a noticeably burden.

Perhaps Warmage 6, Artillery Mage 3 (or something), then to Warmage 10, then to Artillery Mage 10, and then on to Epic Warmage...

[Zaydos]

I like what you did, and throughout most of the game it should work fine, but I'd be a little worried about the Lv 20 ability especially with arcane thesis. They could easily apply searing and burning spell (not that they need it so much but the +60 damage is nice), maximized, twinned, energy admixture, and empowered, and any other +2 or less metamagic they can get their hands onto (since you apply reducers in the most beneficial way possible thus arcane thesis comes second) and cast a Lv8 spell which is a heavily modded fireball dealing 320+Int+either 50% or 20d6/2 or well it depends upon how you read empower spell + another 50% to living foes (or half to unliving) + 2 negative levels just from metamagic that I can remember... oh yeah you do this twice with one spell, and can do it 14 times per day. This does involve some optimization, or metamagic spamming at least, but it is a dangerous ability to give as proven by the incanatrix. It is better than the incanatrix in that you wait longer and it doesn't give you several dozen ways to break metamagic before this, but it is still something to worry about. Other than that I really like the retool, and in any game not going to 20th that's not a problem. I might limit it to 1 feat per spell (which it might be supposed to be, if so I'm sorry I misread it), or so many times per day equal to your Int modifier, or just ban Arcane Thesis.

tl;dr metacheese might get dangerous at 20th, limit it to 1 feat/spell or Int mod metamagics/day and that might cover it, other than that it looks really cool and fun (I can blow stuff up :smallbiggrin:) and like some really good work, I kept wishing warmage would be playable and this would be.

[DracoDei]

Warmage 20 + Arcane Thesis = has to be Epic levels, right? Because you need some levels of (Some PrC that DOESN'T appear to be Archmage) to get that, correct?

[Zaydos]

Arcane thesis is a feat from PHBII, only applies to one spell but is quite potent.

[Set]

So I've got a bunch of thoughts upon reading this, but the first is;

The 15th level ability is very cool, and, as you state, comes a bit late, but is still invaluable. It would follow that theme for the Warmage himself to have the ability to ignore damage from their own blasting spells at, say, 5th level, allowing the Warmage to drop fireballs at her own feet, knowing that he'll be fine. (Weaker alternatives would be giving the Warmage Evasion and then Improved Evasion, to his own spells only.)

You've definitely put a lot of thought into trying to address some of the inadequacies of direct damage spells in 3.X, at the Energy Resistance level (through built in Substitution), the Spell Resistance level (through Dent Resistance) and the piddly damage level (although I'm not in love with the mechanic you use, just because it seems overly complicated).

Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Magic Missile, etc. were designed to be useful spells to throw when the largest beastie you'd face was an 88 hp. Red Dragon (or, shudder, the 66 hp *Demon Queen of Spiders!*). It's been a couple of decades, and that same Red Dragon now has 660 hit points, and the direct damage spells not only haven't kept up, but the Red Dragon can cast energy resistance spells, has Spell Resistance, and the damage die caps *are lower.*

You are definitely swimming against the tide of history, but I wonder if you've perhaps neglected the survivability of the class. A blaster mage seems well suited to not just have Evasion against it's own blasting spells, but even to eventually have it versus the blasting spells of others...

[T.G. Oskar]

I like what you did, and throughout most of the game it should work fine, but I'd be a little worried about the Lv 20 ability especially with arcane thesis. They could easily apply searing and burning spell (not that they need it so much but the +60 damage is nice), maximized, twinned, energy admixture, and empowered, and any other +2 or less metamagic they can get their hands onto (since you apply reducers in the most beneficial way possible thus arcane thesis comes second) and cast a Lv8 spell which is a heavily modded fireball dealing 320+Int+either 50% or 20d6/2 or well it depends upon how you read empower spell + another 50% to living foes (or half to unliving) + 2 negative levels just from metamagic that I can remember... oh yeah you do this twice with one spell, and can do it 14 times per day. This does involve some optimization, or metamagic spamming at least, but it is a dangerous ability to give as proven by the incanatrix. It is better than the incanatrix in that you wait longer and it doesn't give you several dozen ways to break metamagic before this, but it is still something to worry about. Other than that I really like the retool, and in any game not going to 20th that's not a problem. I might limit it to 1 feat per spell (which it might be supposed to be, if so I'm sorry I misread it), or so many times per day equal to your Int modifier, or just ban Arcane Thesis.

tl;dr metacheese might get dangerous at 20th, limit it to 1 feat/spell or Int mod metamagics/day and that might cover it, other than that it looks really cool and fun (I can blow stuff up :smallbiggrin:) and like some really good work, I kept wishing warmage would be playable and this would be.

The original version is intentionally -1 to spell level increase per metamagic feat, minimum of 1. I've gotten a similar complaint on the same matter, in which the ability essentially prizes "dumpster diving" (aka, adding as many metamagic feats as possible to the spell). The other suggestion was limiting the total metamagic spell level reduction to -1 at 10th level and -2 at 20th level, which was the suggestion I was most comfortable with. Might consider that option, though I'm also considering your idea of using Int modifier in a variance (as in, limit that ability to Int. times per day, but that would again place a lot of importance on Int rather than Charisma)

Yet, I don't consider Arcane Thesis much of a problem. The feat is hilariously broken, but it's extremely limiting in terms that it only works on one single spell, and nothing can be worse than losing that spell slot or that benefit by bad casting. So, while I don't find it meritory to ban it, I can work out a restriction.


The 15th level ability is very cool, and, as you state, comes a bit late, but is still invaluable. It would follow that theme for the Warmage himself to have the ability to ignore damage from their own blasting spells at, say, 5th level, allowing the Warmage to drop fireballs at her own feet, knowing that he'll be fine. (Weaker alternatives would be giving the Warmage Evasion and then Improved Evasion, to his own spells only.)

The reason why I placed it at so high a level has various reasons. Prevention of friendly fire is a staple of PrCs like Archmage, or feats like Sculpt Spell and Extraordinary Spell Aim. This decision extends the life of the Warmage to at least level 15, even though there's a reasonable decision to PrC at or around that level.

To answer your proposal...a suggestion was placed upon me to give Medium armor proficiency and Armored Mage since the very first level, which would grant the Warmage a better AC at the most needed moment. Since that would free the 9th level of a class ability, and since I was thinking about separating the Edges into much more reasonable abilities, I could grant the ability to allow the Warmage to ignore himself as a target at 9th level. While it's a tad late, it's not reasonable and it maintains symmetry (since 5th level is best for Energy Substitution)


A blaster mage seems well suited to not just have Evasion against it's own blasting spells, but even to eventually have it versus the blasting spells of others...

The Warmage has at least a simple method to deal with blasting spells, and Evasion isn't an effective method since it relies on Reflex, which the Warmage has as a weak save and having Dex as a tertiary/quaternary stat at best. Resist Energy allows a respite from elemental spells, even though in a limited way; so does Protection from Energy. If the character is a fellow Warmage, then the other Warmage may sacrifice his blasting for counterspelling, which is a far much more effective method than immunity to blasting spells since: a) it's already on the rules, clunky as they may be, b) the Warmage quite probably has the right spell to counterspell or barring that, Dispel Magic (or Greater Dispel), c) the definition of a blasting spell is pretty wide and could be messy and d) it's a Globe of Invulnerability that affects up to 9th level and even Epic Spells. So, such an ability is not strictly necessary, because it could crank up the power level of the class a hefty bit.

So...with that dealt with, I'll start the v2.0 revision. Changes:
Warmage Edge will be split into a few "Edge" abilities. 1st and 10th will retain connection, while 5th, 15th and 20th will be different abilities. Further changes:

*1st level ability will retain the Warmage Edge name. Instead of half of Int. modifier, it'll be CL + Int. modifier extra damage (essentially, regressing to the original ability but adding CL to the damage) to all damage spells.

*5th level ability will be renamed to Energy Substitution (or better name). Ability will remain the same.

*10th level ability will be renamed to Improved Warmage Edge. Ability will remain the same (only affecting spells with damage dice caps)

*15th level ability will be renamed to X. Ability will remain the same.

*20th level ability will be renamed to Metamagic Edge.


Armored Mage will provide ASF-free casting with up to Medium armor since 1st level. Also, Warmages will be proficient with Medium armor since 1st level.


A new 9th level ability that allows the Warmage to ignore himself from his own blasting spells. Will be thematically linked with the 15th level ability and share the same name.

[DracoDei]

I guess the problem would be the need of a familiar ASAP, although I figure your class places way too much emphasis on a familiar instead of using him as a tool (which I imagine on the visualization of an artillery-specialized mage).

Was rereading, and I discovered I never really understood this part of what you said. Do you mean that Artillery Mage places too much emphasis on the familiar (including adding a lot of abilities to the familiar that help it survive)? If so I would point out that the definition I am using for "artillery" is a subtly modern one, and artillery guys LIKE their spotters, and DON'T like it when they get killed.

[T.G. Oskar]

Was rereading, and I discovered I never really understood this part of what you said. Do you mean that Artillery Mage places too much emphasis on the familiar (including adding a lot of abilities to the familiar that help it survive)? If so I would point out that the definition I am using for "artillery" is a subtly modern one, and artillery guys LIKE their spotters, and DON'T like it when they get killed.

Mostly, I find that the problem lies on requiring a familiar way too fast. That makes the entry for the PrC exist only on a window of opportunity that's insanely short (levels 1-3, where you're pretty much forced to get a familiar or else you lose the entry chance forever). I can understand that the familiar gets a load of benefits for being the equivalent to an AWACS, but you need to relax your restriction or else you might find yourself having six nightmarish levels (in the case of most arcanists) just to get access to a very niche class (pinpoint blasting). I'd relax the restriction of "get a familiar ASAP or else" for entry; as it seems, it's good, but it makes you cut on very, very, very good options. It also allows for other builds to enter, such as the Evoker specialist variant from Unearthed Arcana (which would gain a moderate benefit from entering this class), or an Instant Metamagic Sorcerer which would highly benefit the PrC.

In other points to deal:
Regarding Warmage Edge (or the first level ability that increases static damage of spells), I was pointed to a very good alternative which I'm strongly considering given the mathematical evidence proving its relative balance.

The 1st level ability, as suggested, would grant an increase in static damage equal to the warmage's Int. modifier times its class level, divided by half. After doing a comparative test, the differences are notable: damage with this new variant starts as 84.61% of the current version, and it grants a damage increase exactly equal to the current at about levels 5-6, before increasing very, very slightly; at 20th level, the damage dealt by this suggested progression would be of around 117% of the damage dealt by the current version of Warmage Edge. Furthermore, the expected damage is of around 42.26% of a CR 20 creature's average HP at 20th level using average rolls, so that means it can take somewhere between 3-4 blasts without metamagic, with a very unoptimized Int of 21. Using the same parameters and the best possible Int, it would still require two spells to defeat a creature using average HP.

Since I don't want to penalize those whom, for one reason or another wish to PrC out of the class, I'm thinking of making the growth based on character level instead of class level. There's also the point of using caster level, but that could get messy fast. I know it's a pretty wild shift from taking one posture to the other, but there's a good reason why I'm subscribing to this new version of Warmage Edge: while it is a bit awkward, it is quite balanced when looked at a mathematical level on average. Some luck or extensive use of metamagic might break it, but that implies taking some choices out of the normally intended; however, it won't break a battle with an average HP creature of the same level, and much less with a creature using maximum HP, even if the variance on HP between creatures of different Challenge Ratings is erratic at best.

[DracoDei]

Hmmm... you may have a point, I shall have to consider.

[Revan Ordo]

I really like the changes made to this version of the warmage. However, for the standard warmage edge gained at 1st, I would make it simpler to calculate by making the damage equal to your Int modifier + 1/2 your caster level. Just my 2cp.

[whydoibover]

This Warmage version of advanced learning, can he use it to add to his 9th level slots? He seems to be able to add to any spell level he knows, and a warmage begins knowing all spells on his spell list.

Otherwise I love it and am now using it in my campaign rather than the warmage i originally had in mind, thanks a bunch.

[Cieyrin]

This Warmage version of advanced learning, can he use it to add to his 9th level slots? He seems to be able to add to any spell level he knows, and a warmage begins knowing all spells on his spell list.

Otherwise I love it and am now using it in my campaign rather than the warmage i originally had in mind, thanks a bunch.

Ignoring the threadomancy here, if you check the note under Advanced Learning, he does note that your 5th Advanced Learning can indeed by a 9th level spell.

[T.G. Oskar]

Better late than never, but...

I decided to establish a new something after some careful consideration. This will affect the Warmage, the Healer, and any other spontaneous spellcaster I retool or create (this implies that if I retool the Favored Soul or Sorcerer, it'll follow this simple exchange).

So: prepared spellcasters gain access to new levels on odd levels, but the idea is that they take eons to learn the use of magic. On the other hand, spontaneous spellcasters (and this includes spontaneous specialists, whom learn a simpler and focused way to unleash their innate power) simply explode in power, with few to little training (aside from spontaneous specialists, such as the Warmage above), yet they gain their higher level spells later than prepared spellcasters.

Isn't that a bit ironic? Part of the lack of love is that spontaneous spellcasters get their spells one level late, and even one level late is punishing. With their very specific spell list and/or small list of spells known, there is absolutely no advantage to being a spontaneous spellcaster.

Thus, after pondering, I decided to have all of my homebrew thus far (and whatever comes later) hanging on a simple exchange. Spontaneous spellcasters (and spontaneous specialists such as Warmage) that gains spells as Sorcerers, Favored Souls and whatnot get their spells one level earlier, on odd levels. Meanwhile, any prepared spellcaster that gains spells as Clerics, Wizards or whatnot get their spells one level later, on even levels (so they won't get their first 2nd level spells up until 4th level). Any spellcaster that doesn't gain their spells in that way (such as Bards, Duskblades, Paladins, Rangers) keep their original acquisition rates.

Considered I might bump my work that way a small bit. Again, won't harm the Big 5 but it should even the playing field a bit.

[NineThePuma]

Since the OP has posted detailing an update (and one I'm not sure how to react to, given my utter lack of experience playing a spell caster at high levels) I feel safe pointing a small typo out

'Spell Widening' has its listing in the table reversed on 12th and 6th levels.

It confused the hell out of me for twenty minutes a few days ago is the only reason I mention it.

[M. Mayonnaise]

I have a question. In Complete Arcane, I believe it says that warmage edge does not apply to spells cast from spell completion items, except for staffs. Can this warmage also apply its edge to spells cast from staffs?

[T.G. Oskar]

Since the OP has posted detailing an update (and one I'm not sure how to react to, given my utter lack of experience playing a spell caster at high levels) I feel safe pointing a small typo out

'Spell Widening' has its listing in the table reversed on 12th and 6th levels.

It confused the hell out of me for twenty minutes a few days ago is the only reason I mention it.

Perhaps I should make it clearer, but the table has no error.

Basically, the "-2" means the actual reduction of the spell slot required to cast a Widened spell. Spell Widening at 6th level uses a spell slot two levels lower (hence, it has a reduction from Widen Spell of -1), and Spell Widening at 12th level uses a spell slot one level higher (hence, it has a reduction from Widen Spell of -2). At 18th level, you can apply the metamagic feat without requiring a higher level spell slot (effectively, a reduction from Widen Spell of -3, and since Widen Spell requires you to use a spell slot 3 levels higher, 3-3=0).

But yeah, perhaps making it, for example, "Spell Widening (1 level lower)" could dispel any doubt.

Also, if you have a question with a homebrew and you think you might incur in thread necromancy, ask the OP via PM. Usually, you can post on old threads if the OP makes an update, unless the OP explicitly requests that no one makes a follow-up post.


I have a question. In Complete Arcane, I believe it says that warmage edge does not apply to spells cast from spell completion items, except for staffs. Can this warmage also apply its edge to spells cast from staffs?

Hmm...hadn't seen that, but I'd say both staffs and scrolls. Staffs are understandable (you use a spell as if you had a spell slot available, except you expend a charge from the staff), so given that you use your own caster level you can add the edge. Scrolls, on the other hand, were similar to wands in that they have a specific caster level; however, being spell completion items that require the right caster level to activate safely, I would consider that you can apply the benefit (since, although by means of a staff you can apply feats as if it were a spell, Warmage Edge is more of an automatic enhancement to a spell). However, you'd add damage equal to the caster level to activate the item times the minimum amount of Int to use the spell (thus, using the edge on a scroll would be weaker). I don't find any trouble by using a spell from a scroll, even though it's the second most complex of the spellcasting items (wand being the easiest, staff being the most complex).

[T.G. Oskar]

With another session of playtesting, I decided to revive an old PC and turn her into a DMPC to playtest the Warmage. Since it was a former PC, the character does not use elite array but the original point buy selection done by the player, so she began with a reasonable 18 Charisma and 16 Int. Since the character was boosted to 4th level, she has 2 points worth of ability score improvements (a houserule which I plan to adopt on any game I DM) which she hastily added to Intelligence. Thus, she has a +4 Int modifier, which with her caster level (4th) means she has a Warmage Edge modifier of +8.

Her two battles, IMO, were pretty much a curbstomp. The first spell she casted was Magic Missile, with which she dealt about 11 points of damage against two different enemies, both of which had about 32 hp. Then, her second spell was a Shocking Grasp spell that ended up with a natural 20, which by the rules from Complete Arcane means the damage is doubled. Since Warmage Edge is static damage which progresses based on a mathematical calculation and not through damage dice, they were eligible to become increased; thus, she dealt 16 points of raw damage. She dealt a total of 43 points of damage, with which she pretty much carbonized an offending creature from full to -10 in a single (lucky!) blow. Her third spell, since she had no way to deal non-lethal damage, was a Gust of Wind to prevent the enemy from moving upon her while the two warriors (the Fighter and the Paladin) prevented the enemy from moving both ways. The Fighter was the MVP of the battle, of course, but that 43 on a single hit was scary enough.

In the second battle, I decided to add some fluff by ruling that the Fighter should make a Will saving throw to prevent one-shotting the Warmage by halting the blow; since the story of her character was that she belonged to an order of "wands" (artillery support) in the Last War and the entire regiment went rogue (as in, Emerald Claw rogue), she wants to slay each and every one of them. The group agreed to let the two mages hit each other. The other mage happened to be a warmage as well, so this was a rare chance to play both a DMPC and an enemy NPC with the same class. The enemy NPC was a character of 6th level, but since it was using elite array his damage was lower (about 6 points, not much); however, having a modified version of the Improved Warmage Edge (sp?) feat made a difference by adding nearly 3 extra points of damage to the warmage's potential (9 points total). The battle went with the DMPC warmage using her advanced learning spell Luminous Swarm; with the edge she dealt about 11 points of damage on her first strike, which was pretty interesting. The warmage retorted by casting an Acid Arrow to the group Fighter, which dealt a very large amount of damage (well, somewhere around 16 points of damage IIRC), something no melee character had ever done before to the Fighter (well, maybe the bears). The warmage responded with a SOLID Scorching Ray to the face, which dealt something around 23 points of damage plus an extra 5 from the Luminous Swarm; since it wasn't so clear how I should rule that, the idea is that you add the edge damage on your first successful strike. This would affect the subsequent level of Acid Arrow damage as well, with a piddling 7 points of damage.

The next round, and the next action of the Warmage, was to use a Web spell to trap all the creatures nearby. With a DC of 16, it was rather easy for the group to pass, except the Paladin whose save was rather poor, so he was entangled because of it. The warmage ended the spell duel with a well-landed Sonic Burst, which took the last few hit points with a reasonable 13 points of damage. So, it took about 3 spells to end the battle, if only because I wanted to test mostly damage, not the other spells. I mean, Glitterdust would have easily disabled the three fighters, and I wanted the Fighter to taste some steel, while the other warmage would have been beaten with a single spell.

So, what do we learned today?
6-8 points of extra damage isn't so bad if you think about it. While still without definite testing, I might want to see how a typical Warmage deals with higher level creatures. The enemy warmage was basically 2 levels above, missing one feat (which could have easily been Spell Focus: Conjuration or Empower/Maximize Spell), the DMPC warmage with higher stats ended up above.
The battle was done with classic damage dealing spells, with the enemy delivering a Web to halt the stronger guys (the Fighter, mostly). While I would have wanted the Fighter to be halted for at least one round, I felt a bit happy knowing that the options worked somewhat.
Evoker's Edge at early levels is pretty good. The ability to improve your warmage edge even further, gaining nearly three extra points worth of damage per spells, definitely can make a difference on a better built party. The Fighter was the defining aspect of the battle, but had he been struck by the web, the Acid Arrow could have dealt some serious damage.

There are some different things to mention:
While I was forgetting a bit, full spellcasters cast spells as full-round actions. This is to make their spellcasting a bit more tactical. Moving and casting is really such a bad idea...
She has a low Constitution score, but she has Toughness to compensate. So what Toughness is now, you ask? Basically, think as if having one extra point of Constitution for purposes of hit points and Fortitude saves, so you get 1 hp per level and +1 to Fortitude.
As mentioned above, a character gains 2 points to expend on ability score improvements, so that combined 18 Int and 18 Cha works nicely.
The Fighters had Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization, which have a slight caveat that makes them scale per level. Thus, while using a heavy flail as a 2-handed weapon, they had a +2 bonus to attack rolls and a +4 to damage rolls (instead of the basics). Funny part is, if they used a regular flail they'd still get the same bonus, if only because I used the weapon groups to base WF and WS on. They also got a few other feats they didn't use, such as Power Attack, Cleave and Flay if only because of how easily the Fighter carved a path through them.
Speaking of Fighters and feats, I *nearly* sundered the Fighter's massive weapon. Sunder works differently, though, in that it *disables* rather than destroys the weapon; it is unusable unless repaired, but it can be repaired. I would have killed the Fighter's damage potential with that, but didn't have the luck; the Fighter had Wall of Blades thanks to a Martial Study choice of feat, so it interrupted the move.

So: questions? Comments? The warmage is still a level 4 character, but at level 5 she should have 3rd level spells and thus access to nice spells such as haste, slow, greater magic weapon, dispel magic, and even fireball and lightning bolt. Oh, and an increase of 2 in damage rolls.

[Cieyrin]

You're certainly giving your Retools a workout, which is nice for getting data on what works and what doesn't. What next, Hexblades and Healers? :smallbiggrin:

[YouLostMe]

Oh. My. God. This is what casters should be. Beautiful.

Here's my list of problems:
Widen Spell: All right, I've never liked the adjustment of widen spell, it's dumb. But what you're doing is awesome. However, I recommend making the spacing between each decrease a little less. My preference would be obtaining the ability at level 6 (as you have it), then making it +1 spell level at class level 10, and +0 at class level 14.
Discriminating Spell: First off, I'd like to give a shout-out to the interestingness of this ability. The Warmage has a spell on its spell list call Black Freaking Tentacles, and it basically wins combats all over. The warmage will want to use this spell, and wants to not hurt its party members, but those two things don't work together.

I recommend allowing the warmage to select targets that his/her spell would normally affect and choose for it not to affect them. Allies or self, at her option, right from level 9 (because not including people in your field of effect is just a hassle).
Improved Warmage Edge: This should just remove dice caps entirely. The extra work is bookkeeping (even if it's not a lot) that can be reduced, and it's almost mildly insulting not to be able to deal 1d6/caster level damage with a spell. :smallwink:


I really like it. The massive damage stuff is totally fine, since you're beating up dragons at level 20.

[DracoDei]

A weapon being repaired after Sunder sounds very reasonable to me... I can't think why anyone would do any differently.

[T.G. Oskar]

You're certainly giving your Retools a workout, which is nice for getting data on what works and what doesn't. What next, Hexblades and Healers? :smallbiggrin:

Hopefully so. I'd love to see how a Hexb...I mean, Bez-Kismet fights against the team when it starts to debuff some enemies, and perhaps that same enemy trying to beat a Healer which can support the party quite a lot. But that depends. I've tried a retool which I haven't released yet in terms of classes (the Lurker, which is basically most of the best the Lurk and the Psionic Rogue have to offer in a simple package) and some feats, as well as alternate rules so...


A weapon being repaired after Sunder sounds very reasonable to me... I can't think why anyone would do any differently.

It makes Sunder viable, and it also prevents the "weapon breaks, hence it can't be sold" conundrum. It also makes sunder a debuffing tactic, if you decide to hinder natural weapons or armor with it.


Oh. My. God. This is what casters should be. Beautiful.

Here's my list of problems:
Widen Spell: All right, I've never liked the adjustment of widen spell, it's dumb. But what you're doing is awesome. However, I recommend making the spacing between each decrease a little less. My preference would be obtaining the ability at level 6 (as you have it), then making it +1 spell level at class level 10, and +0 at class level 14.
Discriminating Spell: First off, I'd like to give a shout-out to the interestingness of this ability. The Warmage has a spell on its spell list call Black Freaking Tentacles, and it basically wins combats all over. The warmage will want to use this spell, and wants to not hurt its party members, but those two things don't work together.

I recommend allowing the warmage to select targets that his/her spell would normally affect and choose for it not to affect them. Allies or self, at her option, right from level 9 (because not including people in your field of effect is just a hassle).
Improved Warmage Edge: This should just remove dice caps entirely. The extra work is bookkeeping (even if it's not a lot) that can be reduced, and it's almost mildly insulting not to be able to deal 1d6/caster level damage with a spell. :smallwink:


I really like it. The massive damage stuff is totally fine, since you're beating up dragons at level 20.

The thing with Widen Spell is how it follows a precise mathematical pattern. Notice, for example, how Improved Warmage Edge appears at level 10, nearly 10 levels after Warmage Edge. As well, Energy Substitution appears at level 5, an ability which was originally part of Warmage Edge. If I were to fix that in order to make the progression move much faster, I'd have the problem of having 10th level provide two abilities instead of one (and a brutal ability at that), while leaving 12th level dead and potentially 18th level as well. I might settle for 6th/11th/16th, though, which has two abilities with low power (though Advanced Learning is quite the bomb).
Discriminating Spell offering such a benefit might be a tad too much for that level. Consider the only two other options; Sculpt Spell and Mastery of Shaping. Sculpt Spell is a metamagic feat, and it creates small holes within the area of effect of the spell to prevent affecting allies; still, it requires higher level spell slots to work. Mastery of Shaping, on the other hand, is a very high level ability that only Archmages can get. Both don't offer what Discriminating Spell does offer, which is basically allowing your allies to move freely (as if they had Freedom of Movement) and prevent being affected by the spells at all, so having that at 9th level might be a tad too much. I *might*, though, plan to make it some sort of "Sculpt Spell"-like ability that increases based by level, and at the highest level it discriminates against all allies instead of a few; however, it starts with self only, then with self and two allies, and so on. This would be effective at a 9th/12th/15th progression, though, if Spell Widening has a similar rearrangement.
Bookkeeping or not, suddenly having Burning Hands (as an example) deal 20d4 points of damage might seem like a bit much for a 1st level spell. The artificial restriction is merely to prevent low-level spells from overcoming the power of higher-level spells. A Reach Shocking Grasp spell might deal more damage while using a lower spell slot, and low-level spells with a d6 or d8 damage dice become powerhouses. It might seem like book-keeping, but in the end it's not THAT complex, and certainly fairer.

--

Having said that, lemme mention what little playtesting I did with the PC-turned-DMPC, Laerlytha Lempycka (see what I did there!?).

Since the group split for a while for the first of the battles, she wasn't used to test her resolve against elephants (or "lesser mastodons", as I mentioned my players), but she fought well against the Dragonnes. Scorching Ray, of course, was the winning choice if only because she was one of the last (the Paladin was dead last), so the creature already was at range before she could even cast. Having an increased casting time for all her spells (full-round casting time) doesn't help a lot, but since the enemies were focused against a single target, there was little need for tactical movement.

The bonus feat I chose for 4th level, believe it or not, is Toughness. The feat has been retooled and works differently, in case I haven't mentioned (+1 hit point per character level and a +1 to Fortitude saves, as if she had a +2 to her Constitution), so she has a solid amount of HP on her belt (which helps, since she has only average HP and a d6 HD).

5th level should be interesting for two things: Energy Substitution used for the first time, and 3rd level spells. Have I mentioned that the Warmage gains access to new spell levels at odd levels (1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th...)? And with her increased variety in spells, she will be a bit more useful than merely a damage dealer (Greater Magic Weapon and Haste should be two clear examples, but Ice Storm, Ray of Exhaustion, Dispel Magic and others should also do the trick). Hence, interesting! The 10 points of damage shouldn't be a problem either.

P.S.: Did I mention metamagic feats work differently as well? And that I'll attempt to test that with Explosive Spell? There's a reason the revision calls them metamagic techniques...

[Gideon Falcon]

:smallconfused:No, I don't see what you did thar...

But anyway, as I've said before, this is Blasting, done RIGHT.

[Insert Demotivator of the Mythbusters]

[T.G. Oskar]

:smallconfused:No, I don't see what you did thar...

But anyway, as I've said before, this is Blasting, done RIGHT.



Well, it's rather obscure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita_Lempicka), but...

In any case, albeit delayed (I finished playing at about 2 AM, then we spent one hour delivering XP and loot, then about another hour taking one of the guys to his home, thus I couldn't handle two consecutive updates), here's more results from playtesting!

The day went with three battles at tow, but not before moving away from Krona Peak, the "capital" of the Mror Holds. To add a bit more of damage potential, I bought for the Warmage (fairly, as that was part of the share from the PCs into the NPCs) a Burning Veil, to add an extra punch to her fire spells. Since she has Energy Substitution, she can use it with just about any spell she wants, in case she wants to do a "Flaming Bolt" instead of a Lightning Bolt. She also bought the Artificer's Monocle in order to provide the team with some serious identifying abilities. This makes determining which items the group gains easier.

The first battle was against a pair of Ettins and a Hill Giant, and the Warmage started almost immediately with a Scorching Ray aimed at the giant. While a bad idea (that meant she had to be within firing range, and that made her a target), to remove almost 1/3rd of the Hill Giant's hit points was quite a hit. The Half-Giant Fighter, as usual, finished the entire team but it was quite interesting to see that damage. Up until then, the Warmage mostly focused on dealing damage, so she didn't use her wider variety of spells.

The second battle, with the Quaraphons, did allow her to use a staple spell to aid melee characters: HASTE! Adding 50% extra damage potential to the Fighter was just downright brutal; a Wizard would have started play doing this, and a Warmage is meant to be not only artillery but also a unit commander; being a former military conscript surely meant she'd take advantage of this. With the bard's song and the Warmage's haste, the battle swiftly went from tough to none. One point to mention, though, was that the Warmage has a pretty severe weakness to deafness; one of her turns was lost after she failed her saving throw against the Quaraphon's deafening bellow attack, mostly because of the imposed penalty (she would have cast a Fireball accompanied by the Burning Veil, of course). The battle was almost grind to a halt trying to find a spell that required no verbal components, since missing yet another turn because of deafness could be deadly. Since I wanted to push the Warmage to the limits, I searched nearly her entire spell list (including the spell I used for Advanced Learning which was Luminous Swarm from Complete Mage) and only ONE spell did this. Namely, the Warmage resorted to using Ice Knife (a spell from Complete Arcane which, IIRC, wasn't upgraded into Spell Compendium as far as I know), which not only dealt ice damage but also caused Dexterity damage. I must make a note that such a spell is already on the Warmage spell list, in case you didn't knew.

Thus, in order to "assist her comrades", the warmage decided to use an Energy-Substituted Ice Knife spell and use her swift action to activate the Burning Veil (because she substituted cold damage for fire damage) and add even more damage. The Quaraphon passed the Fortitude save (oh, did I mention the ability damage has a Fort save? I guess not...), but still took damage. A combined effort from all characters (with the Bard, multiclassing on Ranger AND Rogue, taking advantage of flanking and dealing a sneak attack) took down the last Quaraphon, but most of the group really felt the sonic damage. However, I felt proud that, despite the debuff, the Warmage had the right spell on her list and could transform it into any type of damage she desired, which she used to improve her damage overall.

The final battle, as I mentioned on the Project Heretica thread, was against a white dragon. By now you must have figured it would be easy peasy because the White Dragon is vulnerable to fire damage, which the Warmage dealt in spades, right? Well, here's where the Warmage earned her chips, because the dragon went first, and guess what he did? That's right, a breath weapon that took almost half of the Warmage's hit points! However, a timely save from the Paladin and some regrouping saved her from dying at the hands of a critical hit from the dragon (thank the Paladin's aura for that). She did deliver some damage (a Fireball improved with Burning Veil AND her Warmage Edge), but while she could remain blasting, she was smarter (and really, her decisions were pretty smart, not just me trying to help the party). With Resist Energy, she could reduce the damage of the next breath weapon, even as she failed her save against 5d6 points of cold damage. Knowing that she could be attacked next, but that the Paladin was taking quite a few hits, she decided to protect the Paladin as well.

It was there that I made a silly realization, if only because I was worried about the Paladin being protected. When I checked the spell list once again (thus, it's important that you memorize the spells you have and use your time carefully to determine what to do), I remembered she had Fire Shield. Talk about inappropriate... Of course, she cast it on her next turn, and since the group was having problems trying to hit a Dragon which insisted on remaining aloft, that meant the Warmage had several options to do while the rest of the group found themselves with few. The Fighter, as usual, ended up finishing the battle (because the dragon wanted to sunder the Fighter's Large Fullblade/prospective Weapon of Legacy) but the fact that the Warmage had options even when the rest of the group couldn't, and that she could merely choose to blast the blastard (stacked pun intended) but didn't made for a huge victory.

So, what did we learn from these?
The expanded spell list really works wonders. Resist Energy, Haste and Fire Shield were but simple options, but they improved the entire team, which made the Warmage a phenomenal party player.
Deafness is bad. Silence is equally bad. Thus, consider Ice Knife while at it, if only because it's a rare Conjuration spell that deals damage, is a save-or-lose, and requires no verbal component. Stacking damage towards it also works.
Learn the list of spells a Warmage gets. Ice Knife, a spell on the original Warmage spell list, has quite the amount of stuff it can do (no verbal component, ability damage as a SoL, [Creation] which means it can be used against a character in an AMF), and with increased damage (from the Warmage Edge) and the ability to turn it into a different energy type (through Energy Substitution) makes it a very decent spell to use in a pinch.
Following from the above, think carefully what to use. The Retooled Warmage offers quite a variety of options, even if the spell list is deceptively simple. The original version was even simpler, but offered a huge lot of ways to deal blasting. This revamped spell list is a bit more complex, and may offer rare options such as Fire Shield at 3rd level, a spell that's definitely a boon for a melee Warmage...or phenomenal against a White Dragon. Remember Energy Substitution for that.
Energy Substitution really did a phenomenal job, allowing just about any kind of spell to transform pretty much into another, hence allowing for choosing the right spell for the right task, change it to a more appropriate energy type, and stack even more damage on it.
While at it, make sure you get some serious good Charisma, and [I]maaaaaybe Spell Focus (evocation or conjuration). Particularly Spell Focus (conjuration), because most of the Warmage's save or die spells are actually conjuration spells. SF (evocation) opens up the Complete Mage feats related to energy types, such as Piercing Evocation and Energy Gestalt, which work formidably with the larger feat list a Warmage gets.

Also, a few changes that merit an explanation:
Because of the changes I made to spellcasting, all spells require a full-round action to cast, unless they apply a metamagic technique (Rapid Spell, which is no longer a feat but something all spellcasters gain for free). This means spellcasters must choose whether to move and attack, or cast defensively.
Why so; to ONLY move and cast a spell OR cast a spell defensively? You see, I got the inspiration from metapsionic feats; you can use them pretty much at any time, but you need power points and expending your psionic focus. This means, at most, that you can only use ONE metapsionic feat, which prevents the unusual stacking of metamagic feats (so no Twinned, Maximized, Empowered Split Ray Enervation). That line of thought now applies to spellcasters, which may use their metamagic feats on the fly but only ONE per round (unless they get a specific feat, of course).
Speaking of revisions to metamagic: because they now use them as if metapsionic feats (except no need for psionic focus), meaning they can be used at any time, metamagic feats may be used right from 1st level, making those feats far more useful.
But wait...don't metamagic feats require higher level spell slots? Please attend to me and hear what I must say:
If you've seen the SRD and the Unearthed Arcana sourcebook, you may have seen a few variants related to magic. One particular variant I noticed was quite useful was the spontaneous metamagic variant. At first glance, it really evokes a powerful sight; that of a learned spellcaster using secret hand movements and uttering words to improve the effects of their spell. However, the methods they used really, really, really blow: either you have limited uses but you can use it just about every time (basically, the same as having Metamagic Rods as feats, which is elegant in practice but inelegant in execution) or the consumption of spell slots. None really managed to evoke that feeling and still provide a balanced method to apply such powerful traits.
Come The Dark Spire.
This DS game, a dungeon crawler on the same vein as Wizardry, Might & Magic or the first The Elder Scrolls games, offered all classes options to improve either their attacks OR their spells. Clerics and Mages on that game, for example, could choose one of two options: to either cast their spell quickened but have a higher chance of having their spell disrupted, or cast their spell safely and delay their casting but prevent the spell from being disrupted. The way I envisioned a revision to spellcasting draws pretty much entirely from this: all spells that originally required a standard action to cast now take a full-round action to cast, but you can enhance the spell in order to cast it quickly or cast it defensively, using Rapid Spell and casting defensively as the two closest methods.
Now, after seeing that, I realized that I could combine the spontaneous metamagic variant with this method of spellcasting to create a different spellcasting method which is quite similar to psionics in that regard, but without augmentation. Now, doing this meant that metamagic had to be easy to use, and requiring a higher level spell slot really didn't cut it. Thus, the best way to work with that was...to ditch the requirement altogether. However, to reach that fine balance point, I needed something to balance it out.
Thus, I devised that each metamagic "technique" has a recharge time. Being the most basic ones, Rapid Spell and Defensive Spell (aka, casting a spell as a standard action or cast a spell without provoking attacks of opportunity) can be used every round. A metamagic technique such as Extend Spell (which requires a spell slot one level higher) now requires a 1-round recharge time; Quicken Spell (which requires a spell slot four levels higher) now requires four rounds to recharge, and may be used on full-round action spells or spells that require a lower casting time (not those that require 1 round, but since all spells now have a casting time of a full round, it makes little sense to prevent spellcasters from having access to them). Metamagic feats with no recharge times (such as Energy Substitution) may be used every round. Heighten Spell has a recharge time equal to one round per spell level improved, so a spellcaster using Heighten Spell to increase a 1st level spell into a 9th level spell may not use it for 8 rounds afterwards, which can be pretty painful. Finally, Persistent Spell has its own recharge rate: once every six hours, which means you can use it only 3-4 times per day.
The idea behind this, of course, was to allow those feats to be used easily, with few restrictions, but placing the few meaningful ones where they matter (preventing complete stacking of metamagic techniques to create uber-powerful low-level spells). The idea was also to nerf prepared spellcasters a bit by means of a more reasonable variant (since they can no longer prepare spells with metamagic techniques with them) and boost spontaneous spellcasters (by making the use of metamagic feats much simpler, and allowing them access to Quicken Spell which was always their most ardent desire).
Now, why this has to apply to Warmage? For starters, the Warmage is a full spellcaster, so these rules apply. You see, only full spellcasters have the full-round casting time requirement, for half-casters such as Paladins or Rangers, or two-third spellcasters such as Bards don't have this requirement and thus may cast their spells as standard actions. Second, they get two (three if you consider Discriminating Spell) pseudo-metamagic feats on Spell Widening and Energy Substitution, and this exchange in metamagic requires a few changes:

If using this variant, Energy Substitution works quite similarly, but blocks use of any other metamagic feat. Thus, you may use Energy Substitution as a class feature as if a metamagic technique, but not use Rapid Spell or Defensive Spell on the same round.
Spell Widening works exactly as Widen Spell, but now requires two rounds to recharge. At 12th level it requires only one round to recharge, and at 18th level it may be used at every round.
The intention, of course, is to redefine how metamagic feats are used, but also to reduce some of the power of spellcasters unless they do their homework. This definitely doesn't nerf the Wizard (it requires far more work, of course) but levels the playing field with the Warmage and other spellcasting classes, I'd dare say even Paladins or Rangers.

After the battles, the Warmage ended up getting a free item for her troubles, which she definitely coined with a Veil of Storms. Later on, as I was rolling loot, the RNGs blessed me with a pretty amazing surprise; between the stash of randomly-rolled loot was a Caustic Veil, meaning she had access to three of the Seven Veils (the magic item set with a Prismatic Wall theme). And I kid you not; that was randomly rolled. I was amazed, and the group definitely agreed to give that item to the Warmage. Thus, now she can deal an extra 1d6 with fire spells, 2d6 with acid spells, or 4d6 with electricity spells. This makes Energy Substitution brutal, as all those dice really have to mean something.

Oh, and her 6th level feat? I wasn't sure if I should have added her Spell Focus (evocation), but I went with Cooperative Spell. She already has Explosive Spell, but the thing is that she can assist the Bard or the Paladin with her own metamagic feats, in case she decides to take Extend; that means she can use Spell Widening to improve the spells of her allies as well.

So: questions? Comments? The warmage has 5000 gp on her stash, so ideas are welcome. I'd also like to know your thoughts regarding that massive overhaul to spellcasting, including how metamagic feats work, because that's part of a series of alterations to the rules I'd like to share eventually, and that will become part of my table from now on (unless I have a fit to use the old rules, that is). Do they work to reduce some of the power of Tier 1s and improve the power of Tier 2 spellcasters? Does this make spellcasting a bit too risky, or doesn't really make a dent on their power? I do realize it requires a bit more work (mostly switching the progressions of prepared and spontaneous spellcasters, as well as turning some spells into incantations such as Gate, Wish, Consecrate, Hallow and Teleportation Circle), but this should work somewhat.

[Othniel Edden]

I'd like to see this treatment and design philosophy given to the other spellsword class, the duskblade. I think both are brilliant classes in terms of damage dealers, and would love to see them go head to head.

[Cieyrin]

Interesting take on metamagic. I assume metamagic reducers now reduce the time it takes for metamagic to recharge?

Item suggestions are the various Chronocharms, especially of the Uncaring Archmage (MIC 85-86, 500 gp ea.), Infinite Scrollcase (MIC 162, 2800 gp), Cloak of Charisma +2 (4000 gp), Cloak of Comfort +1 (CM, 3000 gp), Ring of Silent Spells (MIC 127, 2000 gp), Hellcat Gauntlets (MIC 111, 3200 gp), Arcanist's Gloves (MIC 72, 500 gp), Boots of Swift Passage (MIC 78, 5000 gp), Anklets of Translocation (MIC 71, 1400 gp), Third Eye Clarity (MIC 141, 3000 gp), Crystal Mask of Knowledge (MIC 91, 2500 gp), Deathguardian Bracers (MIC 93, 5000 gp), Bracers of Repulsion (MIC 81, 4000 gp), Bracers of the Blast Barrier (MIC 80, 3200 gp) and Bracers of the Entangling Blast (MIC 80, 2000 gp).

[T.G. Oskar]

As mentioned on the Project Heretica thread, a chance for one or two more playtests opened during this week, and yesterday the group had one of its last chances to play before classes start (and thus, one of my players has to return to college, which is a good 100 miles away).

Still, the Warmage got to shine, and pretty well if I may add.

The first battle was a naval battle between a caravel full of pirate skeletons and the group, traveling in the far faster elemental galleon of House Lyrandar. The galleon wasn't equipped for combat, so it was the perfect moment for the Warmage to shine using the one spell that's shunned nearly everywhere.

Yep, that's right. I mean Fireball.

Of course, not really understanding the naval combat rules, I did much less damage than I could, mostly because of the sections thing. They had a light ballista (criss-crossing rules from Heroes of Battle) so they dealt some damage, but since I had to improvise a bit the composition of the elemental galleon, they couldn't deal too much damage.

Tired a bit of the little damage I apparently was dealing (which was incorrect; I dealt oodles more of damage), I decided to aim the Fireball at the soldiers, which all failed their Reflex save. It was somewhere along the lines of 31 points of damage out of the 45 I calculated them having, so it was essentially 2/3rds of their damage taken on a single blow. Since it was at that moment when I calculated the total damage I could do to the ship with a Fireball spell, I decided to calculate exactly how many creatures I could take with the consecutive damage of three blows, by using the damage dealt with this spell (which was quite similar to the damage dealt by the two other Fireballs, as she cast three), and the result was about 69 or so skeletons beaten between three Fireballs (and other factors, such as the caravel going in flames). But, that's not very reliable info, mostly because of how badly I misunderstood the rules, so I decided to go a bit closer with a boarding team.

Once inside, I attempted to use a few spells she had on her list: Haste, of course, assisted the team quite well in terms of speed and multiplying the Fighter's already absurd damage potential. I attempted a Searing Light to see the power of the spell but the first time missed; still, knowing I have the right spell for undead creatures is really a joy. Another nifty spell I tested was Call Lightning; I made the Paladin protect her (though the skeletons were really distracted by the Fighter, you see...), and afterwards I basically killed one Skeleton per smack. The spell worked quite well since it allowed her to attack while moving (though she may do this with Rapid Spell, the fact that she can move and attack and probably get a way to prevent attacks of opportunity while at it really works), and also to activate her secret weapon: the Veil of Storms. Since Call Lightning is a spell with the [Electricity] descriptor, that means she can add 4d8 to the attack, which is really snazzy. The battle basically ended after she used the ever-reliable Magic Missile at the remaining skeletons, empowered by the Warmage Edge.

The second battle was against a trio of Kuo-Toa (two Monks and a Cleric), and for this one I tried to use Energy Substitution with a Flame Blade (turning it into a Lightning Blade, though the Kuo-Toa have energy resistance), Fist of Stone (in case they got too close) and had to provide the Paladin with Mage Armor (because they were attacked while sleeping, so the Paladin was without armor and without a Restful Crystal). The intention was to test the Monks against the powerhouse that was the Fighter, and the area was too small (and the enemies too close) to cast something like Web. Since the last battle pretty much wasted all 3rd level spells of the Warmage, she had to work with 2nd level spells, and she still held quite a bit of power. She did finish the battle with a well-landed Hail of Stone, by the way.

So, what were the results of this? The results are:
Apparently, the Warmage works really well with the Seven Veils magic item set. Even being a 6th level spellcaster, she struck like if she was a 7th level one because of the bonus damage. Energy Substitution really plays well with that, and being capable of doing this at a moment's notice even more.
I could finally use more spells! Searing Light, albeit a failure, made her a potential powerhouse against the undead, while Call Lightning could potentially become a potent spell she can combine with another to deliver some serious firepower per turn. Truly, one of the Druid spells that really seems a shame the original Warmage couldn't steal.
Seeing a Strength 12 on the Warmage through Fist of Stone brought a smile to my face (and surprised the Fighter player), considering the original had a Strength of 6. Although she wears a light shield, if she were to miss it, she could combine Fist of Stone, Flame Blade (energy substituted for more power) and the Shield spell for engaging into melee.
Speaking of Flame Blade: since it's a spell that deals hit point damage, that means the Warmage can deal 1d8 + half her caster level several times, PLUS her Warmage Edge damage on top. Truly not enough to beat high damage builds, but the Warmage is powerful in melee, and can play with adding natural weapons as well! And, with medium BAB and Haste, that means a Warmage could deal somewhere between 3-4 attack with the Flame Blade PLUS a secondary slam attack, and add Warmage Edge damage to the list...and with Call Lightning on top...
Mage Armor DOES has an utility, after all; it allows the armored warriors to retain some of their AC even when they're unarmored. Also, it should be the favorite spell of the Bard, who just happens to have a Wild Cohort which also happens to be a brown bear.

The end result was that the Warmage, given that they fought 26 CR 7 creatures, gained two levels at once, being two levels behind the highest level character (which happens to be the Bard). Skipping to 8th level granted her a new bonus feat (which I wasted on Spell Focus [evocation]) and a new spell to learn (which I decided to fill with Ray of Deanimation, because sometimes you need something to deal with constructs). I also got her (through her share of the loot from the party) a pair of Bracers of the Blast Barrier, so a good deal of her spells can be turned into walls. Also, she has her 4th level spells, including the ever-painful Evard's Black Tentacles and the walls, so she has even MORE control now (which she can change through Energy Substitution), meaning she has quite the set of options now.

So: questions? Comments? Suggestions? One question I have is whether you can find a way to relay concentration from Call Lightning so you can cast a spell (without the need for Quicken Spell) and deploy a bolt at the same time, in order to improve the power potential. Call Lightning already is good (thing is, since you can cast it and then keep it around for when you need it, you basically can save spells that way), but I'd like to see if you could pull firing a bolt, moving and casting a spell or even firing a bolt and making a full attack with Flame Blade/Fist of Stone/Haste. 8th level seems like a fine moment to create some combos, if only because of the Warmage spell selection.

[T.G. Oskar]

Like all good things, the playtest sessions lasted a bit too much, but eventually they had to end. This, so far, will be the last session for a long time, but it definitely ended with a satisfactory flavor in my mouth. For once, even as a DMPC, I felt the Warmage truly contributed to the group in all ways conceivable. This was my goal, and I'll be darned if I didn't looked for this.

Reaching level 8 allowed the Warmage to reach a milestone in spells, getting such goodies as all Orb spells, Black Tentacles, Wall of Fire, Enervation, Mass Resist Energy and Stoneskin, not to mention Arcane Eye if you want some long-lasting sensing ability. Nearly all spells in the list are really good, and with stuff such as Energy Substitution and Spell Widen, even more so.

The first battle was a rather lopsided battle against a giant squid, one in which the Warmage dealt over 60 points of damage in a single blow (or rather, bolt). A single hit from the Bard (the BARD!! The KENDER BARD fighting with a Sithak!!) finished the squid, which was rather easy to defeat.

The second battle was against a small boarding party, in yet another attempt to use the Stormwrack rules for maritime combat. This time, having read a bit more, I could use the rules to my benefit; a Fireball followed by a Wall of Fire made short order of the caravel, considering all the damage dealt within 2-3 turns. The Fighter made short order of the boarding party, but Wall of Fire was rather exciting as a deterrent for further assaults. The battle was a rather easy one, with the ship sinking just as fast as it was reached.

The third battle, though, was a quite interesting one. I wanted to surprise the Fighter, so I made them fight an elite Inspired squad comprised of two lurk(er)s, two psychic warriors and a telepath. I was quite worried that the group could be taken down quite easily because the biggest source of damage (the Fighter) nearly killed himself with a failed Death Urge (well, he made the save at exactly the right score, but I played my hand correctly and decided to apply Greater Psionic Endowment alongside it, meaning the Fighter failed his Will save. After rolling a 20 and failing, I could see the look of fear in his eyes when he took enough damage to drop him to negatives (actually, I'll be fair; I felt proud of actually killing the Fighter with his own damage, but I was merciful and decided to allow him to waste all his Action Points to survive the blow at -9 and stable). Knowing that a single spell could change the course of the battle, the Warmage went for broke. And that was using Stinking Cloud with the Spell Widening class feature, the only way that she could deal with ALL opponents at once. The Psion, arguably the most dangerous of them all, was eventually neutralized, alongside the Lurk(er)s that were trapped by a Black Tentacles spell cast by her at the first round. Afterwards, she went for spells such as Ice Storm (to halt the movement of the ONLY PsyWar that made the Fort save vs. nausea and deal some serious damage), a one-shot Orb of Electricity (with Veil of Storms to further increase her damage), and eventually she rested for a while until they slain the Psion.

But...that wasn't the end of the fight. Once the Fighter made a full attack to overkill the Psion, I made a special "cutscene" and used plot power to force them to fight an incarnated Quori, necessary for the Fighter to activate the power of his Weapon of Legacy. The Fighter easily got dazed for a few rounds, so it was up to the rest of the group to face the former Psion.

For starters, Empathic Feedback HURTS. 12 points of damage may not be much, but it reduced quite a lot of the damage from the Warmage's Acid Arrow (with Caustic Veil extra damage). Still, she could resist more than that. Much more than that. Afterwards, she decided to wait until the Fighter recovered, but she tried one last Enervation to see if she could weaken the creature even more; unfortunately, she couldn't bypass the spell resistance.

Oh yeah...she also casted Haste. And she grew to be so awesome, she was THIS CLOSE to deflect a cannonball with a readied Fireball spell.

So, in closing, did we learn something? Well, I learned:
That the Warmage really needed the boost on the spell list. While 5th level is great, 7th level is really a milestone because of ALL the good spells the Warmage gets. This was the second or third time the Warmage was capable of doing something pretty much EVERY action, and each attack dealt insane amounts of damage. The Fighter, used to see huge numbers, was quite surprised by the flexibility and the potency of the Warmage in combat.
Spell Widening definitely boosts the overall power of the Warmage. The Warmage could have simply ended part of the battle just by going with a widened Black Tentacles spell, taking everyone around and dealing some serious damage. However, it was that lapse of thought that made the widened Stinking Cloud even more dangerous.
Charisma 21 really makes a difference. Few enemies could make their saves, and while that +1 to DC from the Spell Focus (evocation) spell may not seem like much, since the Warmage relies on dealing as much damage as possible, the DC definitely helps. Even then, the Warmage had a solid enough DC to neutralize potentially lethal battles.
The damage from Warmage Edge is still tame compared to the Fighter's damage output, but this was the first time I could see damage reaching upwards of 50-60 per spell, which while it couldn't take enemies in one blow was pretty much enough to allow the party to do so.
5-9 thus far is the sweet spot for the Warmage, where it gains several extremely useful spells and a large amount of spell slots to expend them. Really, the Warmage this time didn't exhaust her list of 4th level spells and even her 2nd level spells had some use.
As a final entry to the list: wow, the Seven Veils list really powers up the damage potential of Warmages, even the original ones! That she won't need the benefit of the full set is more than understood, but thus far the lowest rung of the items have more than increased her damage potential. Definitely a must-buy for them.

So far, I am quite excited for how the Warmage ended up working. Truly, it is the spell list that adds all the more power to the class, but the extra abilities really mix up. I can say I had a lot of fun playtesting it, if only because it has succeeded thus far (and with flying colors) the challenges imposed thus far. I don't like playing up arcane casters that much, but I'd definitely ask someone (if they decide to DM and allow me to play) to allow me to play my own Warmage, because it really has options for a lot of things inside of combat. I'd have to test how she works outside of combat, but thus far her insane Charisma score has helped her in some Gather Information checks, and she could do well with Intimidate if she wants to.

Thus, I leave you with one last "questions? comments?" Well, at least for the moment. Of course, if the group ever reunites again, I'll be sure to gather some more info regarding the class, and test the character at 9th level. I'll probably add Energy Gestalt to the mix just to exploit all the different combinations of spells and add even more damage (or a status effect) to the mix. And, I'd love to see how she works with 5th level spells...

[Roc Ness]

Thus, I leave you with one last "questions? comments?" Well, at least for the moment. Of course, if the group ever reunites again, I'll be sure to gather some more info regarding the class, and test the character at 9th level. I'll probably add Energy Gestalt to the mix just to exploit all the different combinations of spells and add even more damage (or a status effect) to the mix. And, I'd love to see how she works with 5th level spells...

Hey there. I'll question/comment. :smallbiggrin:

Now, ever since Cadian 9th hit us with, what was it, 60 damage/round acid arrows and magic massiles in the Tower of Deadly Doom games (Your warmage class served as his boss monster), I was always of the mind that this particular piece of homebrew (or, more specifically, the warmage edge ability) was overpowered. This is probably an incredibly unfair assumption of mine, especially since the warmage that Cadian built was quite optimised (understatement).

That said, I've always really loved this warmage for getting done exactly what it set out to do. :thumbsup:

However, reading your playtests, I still cannot shake the feeling that it your warmage is overpowered, and this primarily because your playtest focused particularly on how effective the warmage was. I guess that's granted, because the whole purpose was to make the warmage effective, but, well, it still leaves me uncertain about where exactly the warmage sits other than in a different spot from before. Would it be possible if you could provide a comparison of how the warmage performed in relation to the rest of the party? :smallsmile: Because as far as I can tell it mostly had the Warmage save the day while the rest of party alternatively twiddled their thumbs or started killing themselves. :smallwink: I can only find vague snippets of what the fighter did, and some allusions to the paladin meatshielding and the bard finishing off something the warmage weakened.

[T.G. Oskar]

Hey there. I'll question/comment. :smallbiggrin:

Now, ever since Cadian 9th hit us with, what was it, 60 damage/round acid arrows and magic massiles in the Tower of Deadly Doom games (Your warmage class served as his boss monster), I was always of the mind that this particular piece of homebrew (or, more specifically, the warmage edge ability) was overpowered. This is probably an incredibly unfair assumption of mine, especially since the warmage that Cadian built was quite optimised (understatement).

That said, I've always really loved this warmage for getting done exactly what it set out to do. :thumbsup:

However, reading your playtests, I still cannot shake the feeling that it your warmage is overpowered, and this primarily because your playtest focused particularly on how effective the warmage was. I guess that's granted, because the whole purpose was to make the warmage effective, but, well, it still leaves me uncertain about where exactly the warmage sits other than in a different spot from before. Would it be possible if you could provide a comparison of how the warmage performed in relation to the rest of the party? :smallsmile: Because as far as I can tell it mostly had the Warmage save the day while the rest of party alternatively twiddled their thumbs or started killing themselves. :smallwink: I can only find vague snippets of what the fighter did, and some allusions to the paladin meatshielding and the bard finishing off something the warmage weakened.

Well, the second part of the playtest is really on the Project Heretica thread, and mostly focuses on the Paladin instead of the Warmage. So you'd need to read both in order for that to work. Still, in terms of how the Warmage dealt with the rest of the group:

The Fighter, a Half-Giant using a Large Fullblade, dealt far much more damage than the Warmage can pull off. He has a Strength of 24, so he has a +7 to attack and damage rolls right from the bat. Then, he has Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization, which have had their own changes (for example, they scale to Fighter level and they apply to weapon groups, so the Fighter gets a +2 to hit and +4 to damage when using a weapon of the Heavy Blades group, to which the Fullblade belongs to). His weapon is a measly +1, but being a Large weapon it deals a reasonable 3d8 points of damage. With the 1.5 to Strength, the Fighter deals an extra 3 points of damage per hit, so you're looking at a base to-hit bonus of +19 (from his BAB of +9 currently), and a damage of around 3d8+15, so he deals quite a lot of damage. Then, since he reduces all his base attack bonus into his Power Attack, he adds a strong 18 points of damage for a grand total of 3d8+33, which is enough to take a single enemy in one blow most of the times. He has chosen feats such as Improved Critical, so he threatens within 17-20, and he has great luck when rolling dice (no matter the dice, actually), so he delivers constantly over average. Since there are a few changes applying (for example, all martial characters can use their iteratives as standard actions or attack using your highest base attack bonus with all iteratives as a full-round action, Power Attack has a caveat that eventually grants twice your Strength bonus to damage), he deals a very consistent amount of damage. He also experiments a bit with maneuvers, such that he's using feint, trip and even sunder sometimes (and some changes apply to those, which help me to gauge the differences). Since he's the most experimented player of the duo, I can relay to him a bit more technical info for live feedback. He has also used alchemical items to great avail, such as making impromptu combinations of alchemist's fire, oil and noxious smokesticks as "grenades" to deal slight amounts of damage AND cause a minor debuff; with his high BAB, he can pull off hitting the specific creature and causing a temporary bout of nausea, so he's not limited only to a single weapon. Outside of battle he leaves the rest to the bard, but intervenes sometimes, usually with Aid Another or Intimidate.

The Bard, on the other hand, is a blast to play...except when he gets angry (the player, not the character). For starters, the bard is a Kender, mostly because it really, really, REALLY fits the player (which, ironically, is taller than me and almost as tall as the Half Giant Fighter player). Second, being a musical composition student, he loves playing Bards, so he decided to play one as well. He has formidable Hide, Move Silently, Sleight of Hand and Bluff checks, so high that pretty much no NPC can really beat them; he also has acquired a bit of skill at Diplomacy, eventually reaching a point where he can pretty much convince anyone of anything. That, and he has a superb Perform bonus, which he constantly uses for money. He's great when playing outside (doing everything a Kender does, including being annoying, handling, crying when things doesn't seem to go their way, and acting childish), but in battle...well, he's currently finding himself. For starters, he's not using your typical weapon; he's using a 3rd party supplement weapon (a Sithak, which is a combination between a water holder, a bow and a fiddle), and fights rather poorly in battle. He mostly focuses on singing (Inspire Courage with Song of the Heart and Inspirational Boost so that he can do something), alongside a few spells he uses (Blur, Improvisation, Cure Light/Moderate Wounds). He delayed his progression of spells to gain some leverage in combat by adding sneak attack dice (and all the skill points of a Rogue), which doesn't seem to help him so much. Compared to the Fighter and the Warmage, he deals far too little damage to work, and constantly gets frustrated because he seems to do very little (although he does a lot with the song, actually). However, he IS necessary outside of battle, being the party face after all.

The Paladin is really a DMPC I threw up to test the Project Heretica Paladin class. Because of this, it lacks some of the stuff that the other players have (such as using Elite Array instead of 32 point buy, as well as slightly more limited equipment), and uses non-standard weaponry (a battleaxe, which is masterwork ever since he started the splinter adventure). Because of this, he lacks quite a bit of offensive potential, which is sadly shown when compared to the Fighter. He does well when Smiting, since most of the time the creature gets stunned every now and then, but once he does that he can barely contribute to the damage potential (blame that on Strength 15, which became 16 at level 4). His most typical contribution lies on his Smites and his combination of the Shieldmate feat (which I modified so that it applied to 10 ft.) alongside the aura of Devotion (which serves to increase the party AC and reduce some of the damage). That, alongside the slight bit of damage from Divine Punishment make him the conventional "tank", buffing the AC of his allies to prevent them from harm, and in case they DO take damage he absorbs part of that and soaks it with his large amounts of HP. Outside of battle, being a DMPC he does very little (mostly because the spotlight belongs to the players), but he's the voice of reason between the group.

In combat, the Fighter and the Warmage are pretty even (at level 9 thus far), and the Warmage has reached a point where she can buff, blast and do some CC quite reliably (far exceeding my expectations, actually). She's quite frail in terms of hit points (while she has stats considerable to 32 point buy, she has average HP) but being a rear party member she rarely worries about that. While you can see quite a bit of damage from the Warmage, do consider that the Fighter can pull far more than that on a single round, except a bit more focused. He does have ways to expand the pain (Greatreach Bracers + Cleave feat), but not to the way the Warmage does; on the other hand, the Warmage still lacks the raw damage potential of the Fighter going Power Attack with Inspire Courage singing loudly on the background.

Also, do consider a few things. Spells such as Melf's Acid Arrow, Evard's Black Tentacles and other such spells are played in a way that Warmage Edge applies only to the first bit of damage, instead of all damage. This makes Warmage Edge less dangerous when dealing with damage over time, which may lead to your belief that the Warmage is overpowered. While the Warmage has done comparable damage, she HAS been optimized quite a bit (Strength 6, Int 16 and Charisma 19 using a Gray Elf as a base) so it's understandable. Having her Charisma increased to 21 and her Intelligence increased to 20 further boosts her potential, so it's natural to see high numbers flying off her. That, and also the Seven Veils adding lots of damage, so she's actually quite optimized; however, I must admit that she's optimized with very little effort, something I can vouch for since I barely use spellcasters. This has shown me, at least as far as I can see, that the Retooled Warmage can be optimized with the same ease as a Warblade (aka, it's hard to do it wrong, and very easy to play), so I'd say it's far from overpowered. It has a great deal of the best Wizard spells, but it doesn't have its versatility so it can't be Tier 1; however, I can vouch that it's between low Tier 2 (because the DMPC thus far has blasted quite well, buffed reasonably well and done superb crowd control, but little outside of combat) and high Tier 3. While my primary goal was to make the Warmage better than normal, I attempted to do it in a way that it really didn't seem so overpowered. The way Warmage Edge is designed allows the Warmage to deal enough damage that, if the spell deals average damage, it'll deal enough to reduce the HP of an enemy close to 2/3rds of its total hit points, which allows even weak characters (such as the Bard, for example) to have their moment to shine. The Warmage, as much as I can gather, is doing marvelously with very little optimization required, and not even pushing the limits of the class (do recall the Warmage has Use Magic Device), so it IS reasonable that the Warmage can reach Tier 2 quite easily, which may cause it to be catalogued as overpowered. Still, compared to the simple mastery of blasting that the Sorcerer has, it's quite hard to tackle a fix that allows blasting to be reliable (and a blaster-focused caster to actually be effective), but not too powerful. Most Edges I've seen are quite conservative (usually CL + Int), but the damage when compared to average HP is not that much.

I must also say that I incline towards solo battles with tough monsters rather than several small battles with weaker monsters. Thus, the party usually has one or two battles per day, so they barely scratch their resources. The playtest party has yet to test a real back-to-back series of battles or a proper dungeon, actually going through random encounters via traveling. I've currently surprised them at times, but not through the amount of 4 encounters per day which usually the DMG recommends, mostly since I find battles drudge for far too long and I usually want them to have long periods of roleplaying. Thus, the warmage seems far too powerful if only because she barely scratches the limit of her resources. She was quite useful at around level 5-6 when her 3rd level spells were consumed almost entirely and she had to rely on her 2nd level spells; that's as far as her resources being consumed, and that was basically two battles within the same day. This may also influence the results, because the Warmage essentially goes nova each day trying to take as many enemies as possible; if going through four encounters per day, the journey would be a tad too slow and the Fighter would still rarely be tired (since he rarely gets hit anyways, with the Paladin providing him with enough AC to reach 25 plus Wall of Blades to block the most dangerous attack aimed at him anyways). Going nova can teach you a great deal of how powerful the class is (or appears to be), but a sustained amount of battles per day might show a bit better how powerful she may be. In simpler terms: she's shown her strength, but not her stamina and how long she may last, so she lobs Fireballs and Scorching Rays and Lightning Bolts and Hastes with veritable reckless abandon.

So, even shorter: the Fighter can outdamage her, the Bard is better at outside combat anyways, and she's done a magnificent work so far with little optimization, which is more than I'd love to say from the Paladin unfortunately.

[Volthawk]

Hey, just dropping in to say that I'll trying out the Warmage in this game (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=210198), which is going to see how well it does in combat from level 2-20. I'll let you know how it goes, T.G.

Question: Where is the Accuracy spell from?

[T.G. Oskar]

Hey, just dropping in to say that I'll trying out the Warmage in this game (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=210198), which is going to see how well it does in combat from level 2-20. I'll let you know how it goes, T.G.

Thanks. Much appreciated.


Question: Where is the Accuracy spell from?

I wondered myself, but it's in Complete Arcane after all (if you can't find a spell on the PHB or the SpC, default to Complete Arcane since the Warmage was last updated there). It's a quite simple spell that doubles the range of touched throwing weapons, in case you want to assist an ally that uses them.

[Roc Ness]

<snip>

Ah, I see now. :smallsmile: I guess what threw me off earlier was the damage it did to the skeletons on board the ship.

[bobthe6th]

going to try this class in a starting 60 level game, any suggestions?

[TravelLog]

Warmage Edge: At 1st level, a warmage can deal extra damage with spells that deal hit point damage. A warmage adds his class level times his Intelligence modifier, divided by two, to all of the targets of a spell. For spells that hit multiple times, the target receives the extra damage once.

I think a way to prevent this from being too nerf-duced would be the following change.

"At 1st level, a warmage can deal extra damage with spells that deal hit point damage. A warmage adds his class level times his Intelligence modifier, divided by two, to all of the targets of a spell. For spells that hit multiple times, the target receives [Full Extra Damage/(hit #)] extra damage."

Thus, the first attack would deal (Full/1) damage (a.k.a. full damage), then the second would deal 1/2 extra damage, the third 1/3 extra damage, etc.

[T.G. Oskar]

going to try this class in a starting 60 level game, any suggestions?

Hardly any. Ideally, you want to get all 20 levels of Warmage, then afterwards stack as many classes that improve blasting damage to exorbitant levels. That, or Epic Spellcasting; being a full spellcaster allows you to essentially make any spell, and you'll have enough Spellcraft to pull that off (and since you'll need Int for Warmage Edge, that means you have enough Int to assist your Spellcraft). The rest is choosing the right PrCs.


I think a way to prevent this from being too nerf-duced would be the following change.

"At 1st level, a warmage can deal extra damage with spells that deal hit point damage. A warmage adds his class level times his Intelligence modifier, divided by two, to all of the targets of a spell. For spells that hit multiple times, the target receives [Full Extra Damage/(hit #)] extra damage."

Thus, the first attack would deal (Full/1) damage (a.k.a. full damage), then the second would deal 1/2 extra damage, the third 1/3 extra damage, etc.

Actually, the way I place it works pretty well. A Magic Missile Spell cast by a 5th level Warmage with Int 16 deals 3d4+10 points to a single target, or 1d4+8 to three targets, or 2d4+9 to one target and 1d4+8 to another, just to give a small example. Since you want Magic Missile as a sure-fire spell (for those creatures without spell resistance or those who have insignificant SR), the damage is pretty consistent (10-17 points on average, which is between the average damage a Scorching Ray would deal). Most people actually consider 1/2 (CL x Int mod) to be too powerful, but as I've measured it actually works with average HP to force one or two such spells, which combined with melee damage should be enough to one-round most enemies.

It even works fine with spells such as Black Tentacles or Acid Fog or Incendiary Cloud, as you want the first hit to be the most powerful, then the remaining damage to serve as a cleanser (and in the case of those spells, mostly for their main effects, be them disorientation or holding them up). So it's not actually nerfed nor overpowered; worked well, it remains on the sweet spot.

[Darkweave31]

Armored Mage (Ex): A warmage can cast warmage spells while wearing up to medium armor and light shields without incurring the normal arcane spell failure chance. However, like any other arcane spellcaster, a warmage wearing medium or heavy armor or using a heavy shield incurs a chance of arcane spell failure if the spell in question has a somatic component (most do).
(emphasis mine)

I think you may have missed this when you updated it, you say medium armor ignores spell failure, and then that it doesn't.

Great remake btw. I'd ask my DM if I could play it but there's already a blasty sorcerer and i dont want to steal his thunder... or lightning :smallbiggrin: (I'll just go back to my corner now :smallredface:)

[T.G. Oskar]

Alright, so after a new batch of playtesting from a mini-quest with low-level characters, and some suggestions of his (after noticing, as everyone else might have done so) regarding 14th and 17th level, here's a mild set of changes:

Combat Casting is now a 2nd level bonus feat. It fits the idea of the Warmage, even if the amount of Concentration bonus is smaller and more limited. However, being a decent front-liner means you'll have more uses out of it, and it's free, so... Of course, if you find a better type of Combat Casting, then by all means use it!

Second: Discriminating Spell's 2nd tier effect was dropped from 15th level to 14th level. Dunno if some of you guys suggested it, but it actually makes sense after all. Advanced Learning provides a great benefit on its own, and getting the ability to ignore your allies one level earlier always helps.

That means I still have to find something worthwhile for 17th level, so I'll see if that friend suggests more ideas or if you help me on those suggestions. The Warmage really deserves a complete table!

[Morph Bark]

For the bonus feats: would it perhaps be an idea to include Armor Proficiency and Martial/Exotic Weapon Proficiency as possible bonus feats? If you include Armor Proficiency (heavy) as a possibility (or even if not), then Battle Caster could be an option as well, allowing the Warmage to cast in heavy armor (without having to make it mithral).

[Zireael]

This is not a bad idea.

[Zman]

Interesting fix for the Warmage.

The only problem I see is the Warmage's edge. I think it is a bit too much. I could easily see a high level Warmage hitting each of 5 targets for d4+81pts of damage at High levels with a Magic Missile, let alone if metamagic starts getting involved.

I think it needs to be toned down, my suggestion would be Int Mod + Warmage Level instead. It is still a vast improvement over the Base Warmage while keeping the damage reasonable.

Otherwise it looks pretty good to me.

Edit: Looks like this got necrod.

[T.G. Oskar]

Interesting fix for the Warmage.

The only problem I see is the Warmage's edge. I think it is a bit too much. I could easily see a high level Warmage hitting each of 5 targets for d4+81pts of damage at High levels with a Magic Missile, let alone if metamagic starts getting involved.

I think it needs to be toned down, my suggestion would be Int Mod + Warmage Level instead. It is still a vast improvement over the Base Warmage while keeping the damage reasonable.

Otherwise it looks pretty good to me.

Edit: Looks like this got necrod.

First: it's not necro'd if the OP responds, at least in Homebrew Design. Necromancy rules are relaxed over here in that case.

Second: your response has been ninja'd several times over. I've been considering it, BUT I need some solid data on why that kind of nerf is reasonable, because otherwise you're again leaning on the edge of "useless damage" that tends to plague the Warmage. That's probably not the case with higher level spells (particularly those which are affected by Imp. Warmage Edge), but it's the case with other such spells.

Third: to reach 81 on your Warmage Edge damage, the result of multiplying your class level with your Int modifier has to reach 162 (remember the result is halved). That means your Int modifier has to be a 2, 3, 6 or 9 and your class level has to be 81 (WAY too high, plus a bit silly to have such a low Int modifier), 54 (still way too high, and just as silly), 27 (if you get a reasonable Int modifier, but you still need to exceed Epic levels) or 18 (but then that requires you having an Int of 28 or higher, which means you're actually optimizing), in that specific order.

Fourth: remember the damage is limited to your class level. Any prestige class that doesn't specifically advance Warmage class features will serve to reduce that damage. Dropping into a PrC (such as Rainbow Servant) will actively hurt the damage regardless of the method, but the existing version offers better damage.

Fifth: regarding metamagic, until 20th level, you still need to expend higher-level spell slots to increase damage enough to deliver 1-hit kills (let alone twice that range), if you focus on the average HP of creatures per CR. It's quite obvious that, if you Maximize a spell against average HP characters, you'll reach 1-hit kills with them, but you're actually aiming to do that anyways, since you're risking a higher-level spell slot (or various feat slots to reduce Maximize Spell slot penalties to none) to kill the enemy faster and safer (as you're not depending on the whim of the dice).

So yeah: the first thing that everyone who sees the thread notices is that Warmage Edge feels overpowered, but it's actually quite fair at low levels (it requires high levels or insanely good stats to break up at that range). Int + class level at so early can be a powerhouse, believe it or not. Half the result of (class level x Int modifier) is much less than (Int + class level) up until, say, 5th level where the former starts to catch up.

[Zman]

First: it's not necro'd if the OP responds, at least in Homebrew Design. Necromancy rules are relaxed over here in that case.

Second: your response has been ninja'd several times over. I've been considering it, BUT I need some solid data on why that kind of nerf is reasonable, because otherwise you're again leaning on the edge of "useless damage" that tends to plague the Warmage. That's probably not the case with higher level spells (particularly those which are affected by Imp. Warmage Edge), but it's the case with other such spells.

Third: to reach 81 on your Warmage Edge damage, the result of multiplying your class level with your Int modifier has to reach 162 (remember the result is halved). That means your Int modifier has to be a 2, 3, 6 or 9 and your class level has to be 81 (WAY too high, plus a bit silly to have such a low Int modifier), 54 (still way too high, and just as silly), 27 (if you get a reasonable Int modifier, but you still need to exceed Epic levels) or 18 (but then that requires you having an Int of 28 or higher, which means you're actually optimizing), in that specific order.

Fourth: remember the damage is limited to your class level. Any prestige class that doesn't specifically advance Warmage class features will serve to reduce that damage. Dropping into a PrC (such as Rainbow Servant) will actively hurt the damage regardless of the method, but the existing version offers better damage.

Fifth: regarding metamagic, until 20th level, you still need to expend higher-level spell slots to increase damage enough to deliver 1-hit kills (let alone twice that range), if you focus on the average HP of creatures per CR. It's quite obvious that, if you Maximize a spell against average HP characters, you'll reach 1-hit kills with them, but you're actually aiming to do that anyways, since you're risking a higher-level spell slot (or various feat slots to reduce Maximize Spell slot penalties to none) to kill the enemy faster and safer (as you're not depending on the whim of the dice).

So yeah: the first thing that everyone who sees the thread notices is that Warmage Edge feels overpowered, but it's actually quite fair at low levels (it requires high levels or insanely good stats to break up at that range). Int + class level at so early can be a powerhouse, believe it or not. Half the result of (class level x Int modifier) is much less than (Int + class level) up until, say, 5th level where the former starts to catch up.


81 Damage. +8 Int Mod(16 Base, +6 Item, +4 Level = +8Modifier), and that certainly isn't optimized. Optimized would be (18 base +2 Race +5 Level +6 Item +5 Tome of Clear Thought) = +13 Int.

So Non optimized at lvl 20 is 8x20/2 = 80 + d4+1 Magic Missile is a d4+81 Damage Magic Missile per person.

Optimized is 13x20/2 = 130 + d4 +1 Magic Missile is a d4+131 Damage Per Magic Missile vs 5 targets. Now throw in a little metabagic and Twin Spell its d4 +131 Damage vs 10 targets for a 5th level slot.

My proposed Solution would be...

Non Optimized d4+28 vs 5 targets
Optimized d4+33 vs 5 Targets


Now, I agree that my proposed solution will increase the Warmage's Edge damage at lower levels, but the difference isn't that significant.

Lvl 1 Warmage 18 Int
Yours d4+3 vs one target
Mine d4+5 vs one target
-2 Damage

Lvl 3 Warmage 18 Int
Yours d4+7 Damage vs 2 Targets
Mine d4+8 Damage vs 2 Targets
-1 Damage

Lvl 6 Warmage 18 Int +2 Item
Yours d4+15 Damage vs 3 Targets
Mine d4+11 Damage vs 3 Targets
+4 Damage

Lvl9 Warmage 20 Int +4 Item
Yours d4+41 Damage vs 5 Targets
Mine d4+19 Damage vs 5 Targets
+22 Damage

Lvl12 Warmage 20 Int +6 Item
Yours d4+66 Damage vs 5 Targets
Mine d4+22 Damage vs 5 Targets
+44 Damage


My suggestion may not be the best solution, but your current method of Int Mod x Warmage Level Dived by 2 had a damage output which scales extremely fast. I played in a short lived game where an individual used your Warmage and at lvl 5 in a Arena the characters Damage output was scary. They simply out Damaged most of the rest of the party combined and pretty much dominated the engagement. Granted this person was optimizing, but you've got to expect that.

[bobthe6th]

It was true... The fact an unoptimized wizard trying to be a blaster in the same group made it a lot worse.

I also note that Int was way more important than Cha, to the point it was a bit SAD Int.

So yeah, it could do some heavy damage... I think I have the sheet around here some were... *starts rummaging*

I think this was it. (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=329460)
not sure though.

with a 22 int he had a +15 damage on everything at level 5, and I was using produce flame? for 1d6+20 damage as a ranged touch attack.

[Zman]

It was true... The fact an unoptimized wizard trying to be a blaster in the same group made it a lot worse.

I also note that Int was way more important than Cha, to the point it was a bit SAD Int.

So yeah, it could do some heavy damage... I think I have the sheet around here some were... *starts rummaging*

I think this was it. (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=329460)
not sure though.

with a 22 int he had a +15 damage on everything at level 5, and I was using produce flame? for 1d6+20 damage as a ranged touch attack.

Good to see you bobthe6th, and yes, that'd be the one. And this is the level range its's supposed to be fairly balanced at, advance your character to 10th level and it gets really scary, over double the damage boost.

And don't forget the energy substitution either.

[bobthe6th]

Oh yeah... it was fun swinging sonic with every spell.

admittedly the game wasn't well run, but it was a little silly when I know he could one-shot himself with a produce flame.

[white rider]

81 Damage. +8 Int Mod(16 Base, +6 Item, +4 Level = +8Modifier), and that certainly isn't optimized. Optimized would be (18 base +2 Race +5 Level +6 Item +5 Tome of Clear Thought) = +13 Int.


But remember, warmage is a cha based casting class, so you would use your +4 level for cha, you would look for an inherent cha boosting race, not int (obviously avoiding LA), and unless you either roll 2 18s or you are using something like 50 pb, you would have cha as the 18 stat, not int.

[bobthe6th]

But remember, warmage is a cha based casting class, so you would use your +4 level for cha, you would look for an inherent cha boosting race, not int (obviously avoiding LA), and unless you either roll 2 18s or you are using something like 50 pb, you would have cha as the 18 stat, not int.

Cha is at best a secondary stat. +1/2 level damage is a much better investment then maybe a bonus spell slot and +1 to DC.
you would probably put the 18 in int and a 16 in Cha, then put 3 points in cha, and then put the next two points into int.

[Zman]

But remember, warmage is a cha based casting class, so you would use your +4 level for cha, you would look for an inherent cha boosting race, not int (obviously avoiding LA), and unless you either roll 2 18s or you are using something like 50 pb, you would have cha as the 18 stat, not int.



Cha is at best a secondary stat. +1/2 level damage is a much better investment then maybe a bonus spell slot and +1 to DC.
you would probably put the 18 in int and a 16 in Cha, then put 3 points in cha, and then put the next two points into int.

I'm going to disagree with both of you. There are relatively few spells on the list which are really save dependent, and most that are are still better saved maxing the Warmage's Edge ability with Int over trying to net an additional +1 or +2 or even +3 to save DC.

Honestly, make sure Cha is high enough to cast, throw on a cloak of Charisma and max Int is the best route.