How Bad's My Plan?

[Randrew]

I'm new to 4e. I've only played once before and enjoyed the heck out of some Warlord. This time around, I want to give Swordmage a whirl. However, for in-character reasons, I want to select only Fire powers.

I'm going to do it even if it's blatantly stupid, but I want to get a feel for how stupid first since the GM is under the impression that Swordmage is incredibly powerful and that he'll need to crank up the difficulty.

[Drglenn]

Sticking to one element isn't a terrible idea, though you will have difficulty against creatures immune to fire. Swordmage fire powers tend to be more suited for assault swordmages so that may be something to consider.

Swordmages aren't really any more powerful than any other defender class, what they are is different. Your typical defender will stay right in the enemies' faces as much as possible, a swordmage will be bouncing around like a rabbit on speed. They work best as secondary defenders as, unless you're a shielding swordmage, you don't do a huge amount of protecting your allies, just punishing the enemies when they do eventually give up trying to pin you down and go to attack one of your allies.

[LaZodiac]

You could concievably, later on, multiclass to Wizard and get the feat that lets you ignore fire resistence, which I believe is a thing that exists.

[Drglenn]

You could concievably, later on, multiclass to Wizard and get the feat that lets you ignore fire resistence, which I believe is a thing that exists.

Yea, and you can get it at heroic tier too, you have to be a Tiefling though. Tiefling wizards can take the feat Wizard's Wrath (from Dragon Magazine 381), which lets you ignore fire resistance/immunity of bloodied enemies and replaces Infernal Wrath with Wizard's Wrath which creates a burst 1 zone within 10 squares which lasts until the end of your next turn, gives you combat advantage and lets you ignore ALL resistances and immunities of creatures in the zone. You can take this as early as level 2 as a swordmage (assuming you MC to wizard at level 1).
Tieflings are generally good at dealing out fire damage, its pretty much their shtick along with fear.

[Tegu8788]

Advice I've gathered when I've asked about all fire builds is this. Don't be pure fire, but you can focus heavily on it. Take the occasional lightning or force powers, but if 80% of your powers are fire based, you'll still feel like a solid fire user.

I also second Wizard and Tiefling. Tiefling has great fire support, and wizards have some great fire powers you can poach. A Swordmage with some wizard control can help protect allies more, like a normal defender does.

[AsteriskAmp]

I'm new to 4e. I've only played once before and enjoyed the heck out of some Warlord. This time around, I want to give Swordmage a whirl. However, for in-character reasons, I want to select only Fire powers.

I'm going to do it even if it's blatantly stupid, but I want to get a feel for how stupid first since the GM is under the impression that Swordmage is incredibly powerful and that he'll need to crank up the difficulty.

Genasi Swordmage is the way to go with Fire based swordmages.

You don't actually need to pick all of your powers with the fire keyword. This is due to two reasons. One is that Resist fire will absolutely murder your damage output, the other one is the Summer Longsword which let's you add the Fire Keyword to your power, which means that thematically you can get all your powers to be fire without actually needing them to ALWAYS be fire.

From what I know though, it picks up rather late in Paragon; where you can get ongoing 5 on all the enemies you want while simultaneously making your marked enemies vulnerable 5 to fire. Throw some Icy Clutch of Stygia at the end for added gambit fun.

It's counterpart, the Coldmage picks up Frost cheese a lot earlier, and you could try talking to your DM for re-fluffing cold powers to fire.

Swordmage Handbook:http://community.wizards.com/go/thre...dmage_Handbook

[NecroRebel]

Genasi also has some racial support for fire-based characters, though not nearly as much as tieflings do. Genasi get a somewhat better attribute set for swordmages than tieflings (Int+Str/Con instead of Cha+Con/Int), but probably not enough to make it worthwhile.

Fire as an element has the problem of being all about damage, damage, and more damage. There are few, if any, fire powers that have other secondary effects. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but oftentimes it's better to deal less damage but put a negative status effect on your target, which fire finds difficult. Swordmage fire powers specifically tend to be area-effect powers, either being close powers or striking targets adjacent to the main one, which will make you effective at clearing out minions. However, the L1 AW Greenflame Blade is good enough at that, so further powers along those lines are unnecessary.

The fact that you can simply pick up a Flaming Weapon and use its feature to change all of your attacks to fire damage means that picking actual fire powers will leave you with an annoying lack of versatility.

Swordmages are unique among defenders in that they don't have to continuously engage the target of their mark and their mark-defiance punishment feature works from a fairly long range. A swordmage can mark one target, then go off and fight another on the other side of the battlefield, and their aegis will still hinder the first foe. While assaultmages do tend to stay with their target - their mark-defiance punishment effect brings them to it, after all - shieldmages are well-suited to marking the biggest threat and then working to clean up weaker targets. However, shieldmages' aegis doesn't actually kill the marked target; while they can drastically reduce the damage it deals per round, if they just sit back and trigger the aegis round after round the target will still eventually win. Shieldmages tend to be significantly lower-damage than other defenders, while assaultmages have a far more limited ability to punish their marked target and attack something else. Swordmages in general aren't significantly more powerful than other defenders because of this; they can choose targets more freely, but they still deal only as much total damage.

[Kurald Galain]

Advice I've gathered when I've asked about all fire builds is this. Don't be pure fire, but you can focus heavily on it. Take the occasional lightning or force powers, but if 80% of your powers are fire based, you'll still feel like a solid fire user.

Precisely. Occasionally, for some level, you'll have the choice between a crappy fire spell and a good non-fire spell. Pick the latter. That goes for any other element as well.

[tarlison]

Precisely. Occasionally, for some level, you'll have the choice between a crappy fire spell and a good non-fire spell. Pick the latter. That goes for any other element as well.

Yup specially in 4e since fire is reasonably for damage dealing and wiz is definitely doesn't excel on those choosing all fire spells will turn you into a half bake striker it's always wise to get some good non fire spells. But an all fire Mage might be an interesting role playing character a pyromaniac hehehe :-) out the Mage of our Group is an all fire mage who is gityanki wizard/warlock(infernal)/hell bringer his damage is still a half bake striker but the way he role play the character really gave us a lot of fun :-) he act like a kender who love to play with fire

[Adoendithas]

I eventually had to remove the "light a fire" effect from Prestidigitation after the wizard kept using it on enemies' cloth armor. Basically the big important Mage of Saruun guy saw him abusing the power and took it away. Then he met a wizard NPC...

[NecroRebel]

I eventually had to remove the "light a fire" effect from Prestidigitation after the wizard kept using it on enemies' cloth armor. Basically the big important Mage of Saruun guy saw him abusing the power and took it away. Then he met a wizard NPC...

Yeah, see, I wouldn't let that work, at all, unless the guy wearing the clothes was heavily restrained, and I'd justify that by claiming that that effect of Prestidigitation is a result of focusing magic on a small area until it is set alight, but that this takes time. Lighting clothes on fire with that power would be like trying to do it with a magnifying glass and sunlight - it simply wouldn't work unless the target was completely immobile, at which point you could just as easily perform a coup de grace.

[tarlison]

Yeah, see, I wouldn't let that work, at all, unless the guy wearing the clothes was heavily restrained, and I'd justify that by claiming that that effect of Prestidigitation is a result of focusing magic on a small area until it is set alight, but that this takes time. Lighting clothes on fire with that power would be like trying to do it with a magnifying glass and sunlight - it simply wouldn't work unless the target was completely immobile, at which point you could just as easily perform a coup de grace.

I agree with you on that one :-) but gotta admit it would be very useful if u wanna torture someone

[Raimun]

Prestidigitation:

"Nothing you create with this cantrip can deal damage,
serve as a weapon or a tool, or hinder another creature’s
actions.

So you can light a fire even during a combat but only if the use is peaceful.

Still, I'd let the player to try to light a fire to a Cloth armor anyway but the effect would be exactly like trying to hit someone with a zippo or lighter during a fight. That means no effect. Edit: Yes, even if the target is doused in oil or alcohol. That's a cutscene power.

All you can do with Prestidigitation in combat is to annoy someone or mark him (mark, not Mark!).

[darkdragoon]

Fire has gotten better support as of late. Not sure about later powers but Greenflame Blade and Shielding Fire are quite nice to have early.

[Randrew]

Well, I'm happy to hear that my plan wasn't as stupid as I originally assumed. Thank you for the responses, everyone! It's true that there aren't enough Fire powers for me to take ONLY Fire, but Force and Thunder would also be acceptable. I think this should work!

[Tegu8788]

Remember, everything can be reflagged in 4E. It's a trade off for nothing stacking.