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The Demiurge Molecule: A Sorcerer's (and Elementalist's) Handbook (by DuelistDelSol)
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<blockquote data-quote="Nibelung" data-source="post: 6712057" data-attributes="member: 74499"><p><strong>Originally posted by DuelistDelSol:</strong></p><p></p><p>Essentials: The Elementalist</p><p></p><p>As an alternative to the PHB2 Sorcerer, you can create an Elementalist (Essentials: HoEC), which is quite radically different from the base Sorcerer. Instead of Encounter or Daily powers, they have a bank of at-wills dependant on the Element (Air/Water/Fire/Earth) they favor. What this tends to do is give the class more of a "grenade launcher" style, where you are encouraged to waylay bursts and blasts everywhere with little regard to strategy or Controlling. There's still some element of Control amongst the Encounter "attacks" you do get, but we'll get into those later.</p><p></p><p>The guide is going to be formatted as a guide independant of the Sorcerer's, though the item and feat list will apply to both of them.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 15px"><strong>Elementalist Class Features</strong></span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: #00ccff"><strong>1st Level Feature (Elemental Bolt):</strong></span> Congratulations - you gain the strongest Ranged Basic Attack in the game. Your other features will fuel this puppy up, making this a surprisingly nice single target power to pull out when you only have one enemy left on the board.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: #00ccff"><strong>1st Level Feature (Elemental Magic):</strong></span> This is one of the biggest differences between the PHB2 Sorcerer and this class. Your extra damage bonus feature (and your light-armored AC) does not care about your Dexterity or Strength score anymore; instead, it depends entirely on Constitution. This means several things - Half-Elves and Tieflings now become far and away the best races for this class, as the former's utter freedom in picking Warlock At-Wills and the latter's ability to buff Fire powers ridiculously high make them insanely good Elementalists. It also means a lot of the CON-based races get a bit of a boost, especially Dwarves. Dragonborn, of course, are still a brilliant choice. Speaking of that extra damage feature, it is humongous, becoming 0/2/5/8+CON instead of 0/2/4+STR or 0/2/4+DEX. Seeing as how you use At-Wills for everything, it's more of a replacement for those powers' extra damage, but it's still incredibly cool.</p><p></p><p><strong><span style="color: #008000">1st Level Feature (Elemental Specialty):</span></strong> This is what makes you an Elementalist, firmly setting you apart from the Sorcerer. The four elemental choices will be described below.</p><p></p><p><strong>Air Elementalist</strong></p><p>[sblock]<span style="color: #008000"><strong>Attack Power:</strong></span> You gain either Howling Zephyr or Static Charge.</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Howling Zephyr:</strong> An unfriendly CB1 that deals Thunder damage and slides. A tad hard to use effectively, since you need to position yourself in such a way where you don't smack any of your allies while also making yourself a veritible tornado. This power, however, becomes amazing at Paragon when Resounding Thunder comes into play, becoming even better than the Swordmage Sword Burst - and you have to admixture Thunder onto that one to make that work. Positioning issues still exist, but the extra reach makes you a much better Skirmisher.<br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><span style="color: #00ccff"><strong>Static Charge:</strong></span> This one, however, is definitely the much more powerful option at Heroic. It's a friendly Cb3 that deals Lightning damage, and every single target of that power feeds your primary stat as damage to another enemy adjacent to it. You can focus-fire on an enemy in the center of the blast if you so desire, dealing extreme damage to him while still dealing respectable damage to everybody else in the blast. If you have access to Dragonmarks, get Mark of Storm to add some extra Control to this power. You certainly won't regret it come Paragon...<br /> </li> </ul><p></p><p><span style="color: #800080"><strong>Enhanced Elemental Bolt:</strong></span> Your Bolt now deals Lightning damage and inflicts Vulnerability 3 to your own Elemental attacks. Kind of a pigeonholed benefit, and depending on the board's composition, you may not be able to take advantage of this. It's certainly not bad, but a little bit disappointing.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000"><strong>Elemental Escalation:</strong></span> Add a target within range, or adjacent to the burst or blast you create, before making attack rolls with a Sorcerer At-Will power. This in itself is damn skippy, as, especially with the bursts and blasts you favor, you can make some interestingly shaped carpets of damage, and essentially will give you more freedom as to where to place bursts.</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>1st Level:</strong> Deal 1d10 extra damage, and... you fly half your speed. That's really not impressive. The extra damage is definitely welcome, don't get me wrong, but you then have to wait 16 levels for something substantial to happen.<br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><span style="color: #0000ff"><strong>17th Level:</strong></span> Deal 2d10 extra damage, and in addition to the flight, inflict a mass slide. Aw yea, that's much better. Reposition everyone you hit into a better position to bomb the hell out of them next turn, perhaps?<br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><span style="color: #00ccff"><strong>27th Level:</strong></span> Deal 3d10 extra damage, and add the blinding effect. At this level, you'll have four uses of this power. A four-use AOE slide+blind is some extreme debuffing the likes of which your parent class really could never match.</li> </ul><p>[/sblock]</p><p></p><p><strong>Earth Elementalist</strong></p><p>[sblock]<span style="color: #008000"><strong>Attack Power:</strong></span> You gain either Erupting Earth or Seismic Shock.</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><span style="color: #0000ff"><strong>Erupting Earth:</strong></span> Well, look at that. We already have an Area Burst that's better than Blazing Starfall. One thing you'll notice about these powers is that they don't have levels, which is regretable - pretty much all of these powers would be amazing in a Sorcerer's hands, but luckily for you, they're solely yours to keep. While it doesn't deal that much more damage, what it also does is place down a carpet of difficult terrain as an Effect. Terrain Advantage pretty much is required here, since it's an easily applied source of Combat Advantage for you now.<br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><span style="color: #0000ff"><strong>Seismic Shock:</strong></span> Another unfriendly CB1 Thunder power that forces everyone hit to grant combat advantage. To get the most of this power, you have to center yourself on a point where your allies are also going to be attacking, and also make sure that they can't really get Combat Advantage any other way. You automatically get it for yourself, of course, but the Leader-like benefit of it doesn't quite work for anyone else, considering how easy CA is to get nowadays. To be fair, it does give you a close range option in case your two other Ranged options aren't optimal.<br /> </li> </ul><p></p><p><span style="color: #0000ff"><strong>Enhanced Elemental Bolt:</strong></span> Your Bolt now deals Acid damage and slows. Hello, Ray of Frost, glad you could join us. In any case, it is nice to gain some competent control with a Ranged power.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000"><strong>Elemental Escalation:</strong></span> Add a target within range, or adjacent to the burst or blast you create, before making attack rolls with a Sorcerer At-Will power. This in itself is damn skippy, as, especially with the bursts and blasts you favor, you can make some interestingly shaped carpets of damage, and essentially will give you more freedom as to where to place bursts.</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><span style="color: #00ccff"><strong>1st Level:</strong></span> Deal 1d10 extra damage. And then, in a very odd change of pace, you gain temporary hitpoints. You only need to hit once with the power you selected to make this work, turning you into an off-Defender. Your powers being Controller- and Leader-based to begin with, you seem to be pretty much dipping into all sorts of roles here.<br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><span style="color: #0000ff"><strong>17th Level:</strong></span> Deal 2d10 extra damage, and in addition to the temps, immobilize everything. That'll work.<br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><span style="color: #00ccff"><strong>27th Level:</strong></span> Deal 3d10 extra damage, and you gain an amazing amount of Resist All. Rest assured you'll be incredibly difficult to knock off the board.</li> </ul><p>[/sblock]</p><p></p><p><strong>Fire Elementalist</strong></p><p>[sblock]<span style="color: #008000"><strong>Attack Power:</strong></span> You gain either Blazing Cloud or Ignition.</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Blazing Cloud:</strong> CB1 Fire, and what basically amounts to automatically equipping a Heavy Shield for a turn. I can get behind this, especially since you're still stuck in Cloth for the most part, and you won't have a good Reflex score without this.<br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><span style="color: #0000ff"><strong>Ignition:</strong></span> And to truely make Blazing Starfall obsolete, not only do we have an AOE that deals substantially more damage, but also provides the same area of autodamage. Unfortunately, it doesn't punish anyone that starts their turn inside and then leaves, so you can't make a cage on the board, but it's still a cool source of autodamage should you be able to target correctly.<br /> </li> </ul><p></p><p><span style="color: #00ccff"><strong>Enhanced Elemental Bolt:</strong></span> Your Bolt now deals fire damage, and does 1d6 extra damage. An RBA that does 1d12+1d6+CON+0/2/5/8+CHA will definitely make your Warlord giddy with excitement, and if you're a Tiefling with the right feats, this power becomes incredibly deadly.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000"><strong>Elemental Escalation:</strong></span> Add a target within range, or adjacent to the burst or blast you create, before making attack rolls with a Sorcerer At-Will power. This in itself is damn skippy, as, especially with the bursts and blasts you favor, you can make some interestingly shaped carpets of damage, and essentially will give you more freedom as to where to place bursts.</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>1st Level:</strong> Deal 1d10 extra damage, and execute a small shift. This is beautiful for any of your Close bursts, since you can very easily reposition yourself, but if you favor long-range AOEs, this is much less important.<br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>17th Level:</strong> Deal 2d10 extra damage, and ongoing 10 fire damage. Yea, this is a Striker's path all right: nothing but damage and mobility. That is a lot of ongoing damage to spread around...<br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><span style="color: #0000ff"><strong>27th Level:</strong></span> Deal 3d10 extra damage, and add a Miss effect of half damage to your At-Will. Now you'll really want to be careful where you place your burst before throwing this out there, because even with a -10 to attack rolls on your allies (War Wizard's Expertise + War Wizardry), you'll still deal a large amount of damage to people you really don't want to touch.</li> </ul><p>[/sblock]</p><p></p><p><strong>Water Elementalist</strong></p><p>[sblock]<span style="color: #008000"><strong>Attack Power:</strong></span> You gain either Deluge or Ice Prison.</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><span style="color: #800080"><strong>Deluge:</strong></span> An unfriendly Cb3 that just pushes and doesn't deal typed damage. Very disappointing.<br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><span style="color: #0000ff"><strong>Ice Prison:</strong></span> Hey, this power is typed! And it has much better Control! The better of the two powers, far and away. Just wait until you get more At-Wills to get your blast - you won't really regret not having Deluge.<br /> </li> </ul><p></p><p><span style="color: #00ccff"><strong>Enhanced Elemental Bolt:</strong></span> Your Bolt now deals Cold damage, and has an incredibly awesome side effect for you: every creature (not just every enemy) adjacent to the target is slid one square. How your powers work allows you to make misshapen bursts and blasts, so take that into account and slide everyone around as you wish. To emphasize, this does work on allies, making you a decent sub-Leader in that regard.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000"><strong>Elemental Escalation:</strong></span> Add a target within range, or adjacent to the burst or blast you create, before making attack rolls with a Sorcerer At-Will power. This in itself is damn skippy, as, especially with the bursts and blasts you favor, you can make some interestingly shaped carpets of damage, and essentially will give you more freedom as to where to place bursts.</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><span style="color: #00ccff"><strong>1st Level:</strong></span> Deal 1d10 extra damage, and gain a nice bonus to all of your defenses. Keep in mind that it and the Fire Elementalist's Blazing Cloud power both give Power bonuses, so they won't stack, but this is still an excellent basic bonus.<br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><span style="color: #00ccff"><strong>17th Level:</strong></span> Deal 2d10 extra damage, and add dazed. Dazed+slowed is a lethal cocktail of effects to apply on a bunch of targets at range, giving you the opportunity to bunch everyone up again and blast them all to smithereens with ease. It works well with pretty much all of your powers, of course, but the obvious opportunity is there.<br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><span style="color: #ff9900"><strong>27th Level:</strong></span> Turns out I was reading the powers wrong when I first made this guide. You add the prone state to the daze and slow conditions, which will prevent charges. This is pretty much the ultimate lockdown, and to do this four times per encounter with all of your targets is ludicrous.</li> </ul><p>[/sblock]</p><p></p><p><span style="color: #0000ff"><strong>3rd Level Feature (Escalating Elements):</strong></span> You gain an additional use of your Elemental Escalation power, on top of additional uses at 7th and 13th levels. You'll appreciate being able to apply some of these effects four times in one encounter, especially as most fights don't last more than three or four rounds anyway.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: #800080"><strong>5th Level Feature (Elemental Soul):</strong></span> Depending on your Element of choice, you finally gain your Resistance feature. Air Elementalists get Resist 10 Lightning, Earth Elementalists gain Resist 10 Acid, Fire Elementalists get (surprise) Resist 10 Fire, and Water Elementalists get Resist 10 Cold. Unfortunately, you do not pierce these resistances on other enemies, which makes absolutely no sense. For a class built entirely around dealing typed damage, this is a massive oversight. Also, my biggest apologies to <span style="color: #ff0000"><strong>Tiefling Fire Elementalists</strong></span>, who get pretty much nothing here.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: #00ccff"><strong>9th Level Feature (Elemental Versatility):</strong></span> Part of your Elemental Magic feature, you gain another At-Will Sorcerer power of your choice, and this time you have the entire list from both the Elementalist list and the PHB2 list. You can now finally take Ensorceled Blade if you've been lusting after that power for awhile (though keep in mind the secondary effect doesn't work; it just basically gives you an Arcane MBA), and Burning Spray is as good as ever if you want a Fire-based blast. Unfortunately, Blazing Starfall has been demoted, as aside from its doing Radiant damage, it's been outclassed by all of your other Area bursts. None of the other PHB2 powers are worth consideration.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: #800080"><strong>11th Level Paragon Path (Elemental Savant):</strong></span> Described below.</p><p><strong>Elemental Savant</strong></p><p>[sblock]<span style="color: #008000"><strong>Strategy:</strong></span> At-Will Optimization</p><p><strong><span style="color: #008000">Overall Rating:</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color: #800080">Purple.</span></strong> Since you don't gain Encounter or Daily powers, this serves to give you some very lackluster features in place of it. The attack roll bonus is welcome, but replicated by similar paths.</p><p></p><p><strong>11th Level Feature (Elementalist Action):</strong> The damage bonus sounds huge, but half your level isn't that big of an amount. It won't go to waste, of course, and it does add up to fifteen damage at endgame, but man...</p><p><strong>11th Level Feature (Savant Focus):</strong> You gain a bonus to attack rolls on one power. One power. It's a power you'll like using, sure, but blech.</p><p><strong>11th Level Feature (Savant Power):</strong> In place of an 11th Level Encounter Power, you instead get another Sorcerer At-Will. Having four At-Will attacks before you normally would is certainly handy, but how many At-Wills do you honestly need after that?</p><p><span style="color: #0000ff"><strong>16th Level Feature (Confer Protection):</strong></span> Everyone cluster around you so that everyone gets Resists! And then everyone explodes due to being targeted by AOEs. Pessimism aside, this is still a good feature, as handing out Resistances is something your Sorcerer cousin could only really do with utilities.</p><p><span style="color: #800080"><strong>20th Level Feature (Elemental Nature):</strong></span> And in place of a daily power, you instead get a second use of a Utility power that's useless in combat and a small bonus to saving throws against Dazed or Stunned. I like the latter benefit, especially combined with Superior Will, but this has to come at the lack of a proper Daily power? What a disappointment.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000"><strong>12th Level Daily Utility (Elemental Form):</strong></span> Flavorful? Oh definitely. The side benefits look lovely, and it seems like this is a cool thing to break out. Then you look closer: you cannot take Standard Actions. Um... you're a Striker. Your entire class is built around using Standard Actions to blow the crap out of things. To use this for anything but scouting ahead would be asinine.[/sblock]</p><p><strong>Alternative Paragon Paths</strong></p><p>[sblock]So, you ask, what alternatives do I have? That's a good question.</p><p></p><p>Air Elementalists can happily disregard this path entirely, because as long as they have access to Eberron Dragonmarks, <span style="color: #ff9900"><strong>Lyrandar Wind Rider</strong></span> is freaking amazing. A bonus to attack rolls with all of your Lightning and Thunder powers, plus a further bonus to damage rolls on them equal to your Constitution modifier(!) is leagues and bounds better than everything you could have gained from the path above.</p><p></p><p>Fire Elementalists can take <span style="color: #0000ff"><strong>Master of Flame</strong></span>, if they so desire. Yes, the Intelligence thing is still an issue, but it gives you a very backwards benefit in being able to gain a PHB2 Sorcerer Encounter power when you take Reserve Maneuver. Could be spiffy. They can also Multiclass into Warlock and pick <span style="color: #0000ff"><strong>Hellbringer</strong></span>, which is a surprisingly good option for those with attack-caliber Constitution; it does at least contain a daily that rivals <em>Blizzard Mage</em>'s.</p><p></p><p>Water Elementalists can also Multiclass Warlock, choosing Fey Pact instead of Infernal Pact with Pact Initiate, and take <span style="color: #0000ff"><strong>Long Night Scion.</strong></span></p><p></p><p>Everyone can, of course, take <span style="color: #00ccff"><strong>Academy Master,</strong></span> <strong>Blizzard Mage,</strong> <span style="color: #00ccff"><strong>Speaker of Xaos,</strong></span> or <span style="color: #0000ff"><strong>Demonskin Adept</strong></span> (don't leave home without your Robe of Eyes!) just fine as well. Don't worry, gents; you've got options.[/sblock]</p><p></p><p><strong>15th Level Feature (Elemental Soul):</strong> You now gain a bonus to saving throws against ongoing damage that matches your original Soul's Resistance type. Well, alright then. Unless the ongoing damage has something else tied into it, you're probably not going to care anyway.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: #0000ff"><strong>19th Level Feature (Elemental Versatility):</strong></span> You repeat the process from 9th Level by giving yourself a fourth (or fifth or sixth) Sorcerer At-Will.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: #00ccff"><strong>25th Level Feature (Fly, Burrow, Teleport, Swim):</strong></span> Self-explanatory - it gives a benefit of that type to Air, Earth, Fire, and Water Elementalists respectively. Airs get to Fly half their speed as a move action; Earths have Tremorsense 5 and can burrow half their speed as a Move Action, something incredibly rare for Player characters to be able to do; Fires can just teleport everywhere now; and Water Elementalists can now swim and breathe underwater. While the Water Elementalist trait could be construed as a bit weak, none of them are exactly bad, and give you some neat mobility options to round out your career.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: #800080"><strong>25th Level Feature (Elemental Soul):</strong></span> You finally gain a second Element to resist. Every one of them for some reason has the choice of Thunder as a secondary, but if you don't want that, Airs can pick cold; Earths can pick fire; Fires can pick lightning; and Waters can pick acid. You still can't pierce anything, which I still find stupid.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Nibelung, post: 6712057, member: 74499"] [b]Originally posted by DuelistDelSol:[/b] Essentials: The Elementalist As an alternative to the PHB2 Sorcerer, you can create an Elementalist (Essentials: HoEC), which is quite radically different from the base Sorcerer. Instead of Encounter or Daily powers, they have a bank of at-wills dependant on the Element (Air/Water/Fire/Earth) they favor. What this tends to do is give the class more of a "grenade launcher" style, where you are encouraged to waylay bursts and blasts everywhere with little regard to strategy or Controlling. There's still some element of Control amongst the Encounter "attacks" you do get, but we'll get into those later. The guide is going to be formatted as a guide independant of the Sorcerer's, though the item and feat list will apply to both of them. [CENTER][Size=4][b]Elementalist Class Features[/b][/size][/CENTER] [COLOR=#00ccff][b]1st Level Feature (Elemental Bolt):[/b][/COLOR] Congratulations - you gain the strongest Ranged Basic Attack in the game. Your other features will fuel this puppy up, making this a surprisingly nice single target power to pull out when you only have one enemy left on the board. [COLOR=#00ccff][b]1st Level Feature (Elemental Magic):[/b][/COLOR] This is one of the biggest differences between the PHB2 Sorcerer and this class. Your extra damage bonus feature (and your light-armored AC) does not care about your Dexterity or Strength score anymore; instead, it depends entirely on Constitution. This means several things - Half-Elves and Tieflings now become far and away the best races for this class, as the former's utter freedom in picking Warlock At-Wills and the latter's ability to buff Fire powers ridiculously high make them insanely good Elementalists. It also means a lot of the CON-based races get a bit of a boost, especially Dwarves. Dragonborn, of course, are still a brilliant choice. Speaking of that extra damage feature, it is humongous, becoming 0/2/5/8+CON instead of 0/2/4+STR or 0/2/4+DEX. Seeing as how you use At-Wills for everything, it's more of a replacement for those powers' extra damage, but it's still incredibly cool. [b][COLOR=#008000]1st Level Feature (Elemental Specialty):[/COLOR][/b] This is what makes you an Elementalist, firmly setting you apart from the Sorcerer. The four elemental choices will be described below. [b]Air Elementalist[/b] [sblock][COLOR=#008000][b]Attack Power:[/b][/COLOR] You gain either Howling Zephyr or Static Charge. [LIST] [*][b]Howling Zephyr:[/b] An unfriendly CB1 that deals Thunder damage and slides. A tad hard to use effectively, since you need to position yourself in such a way where you don't smack any of your allies while also making yourself a veritible tornado. This power, however, becomes amazing at Paragon when Resounding Thunder comes into play, becoming even better than the Swordmage Sword Burst - and you have to admixture Thunder onto that one to make that work. Positioning issues still exist, but the extra reach makes you a much better Skirmisher. [*][COLOR=#00ccff][b]Static Charge:[/b][/COLOR] This one, however, is definitely the much more powerful option at Heroic. It's a friendly Cb3 that deals Lightning damage, and every single target of that power feeds your primary stat as damage to another enemy adjacent to it. You can focus-fire on an enemy in the center of the blast if you so desire, dealing extreme damage to him while still dealing respectable damage to everybody else in the blast. If you have access to Dragonmarks, get Mark of Storm to add some extra Control to this power. You certainly won't regret it come Paragon... [/LIST] [COLOR=#800080][b]Enhanced Elemental Bolt:[/b][/COLOR] Your Bolt now deals Lightning damage and inflicts Vulnerability 3 to your own Elemental attacks. Kind of a pigeonholed benefit, and depending on the board's composition, you may not be able to take advantage of this. It's certainly not bad, but a little bit disappointing. [COLOR=#008000][b]Elemental Escalation:[/b][/COLOR] Add a target within range, or adjacent to the burst or blast you create, before making attack rolls with a Sorcerer At-Will power. This in itself is damn skippy, as, especially with the bursts and blasts you favor, you can make some interestingly shaped carpets of damage, and essentially will give you more freedom as to where to place bursts. [LIST] [*][b]1st Level:[/b] Deal 1d10 extra damage, and... you fly half your speed. That's really not impressive. The extra damage is definitely welcome, don't get me wrong, but you then have to wait 16 levels for something substantial to happen. [*][COLOR=#0000ff][b]17th Level:[/b][/COLOR] Deal 2d10 extra damage, and in addition to the flight, inflict a mass slide. Aw yea, that's much better. Reposition everyone you hit into a better position to bomb the hell out of them next turn, perhaps? [*][COLOR=#00ccff][b]27th Level:[/b][/COLOR] Deal 3d10 extra damage, and add the blinding effect. At this level, you'll have four uses of this power. A four-use AOE slide+blind is some extreme debuffing the likes of which your parent class really could never match. [/LIST] [/sblock] [b]Earth Elementalist[/b] [sblock][COLOR=#008000][b]Attack Power:[/b][/COLOR] You gain either Erupting Earth or Seismic Shock. [LIST] [*][COLOR=#0000ff][b]Erupting Earth:[/b][/COLOR] Well, look at that. We already have an Area Burst that's better than Blazing Starfall. One thing you'll notice about these powers is that they don't have levels, which is regretable - pretty much all of these powers would be amazing in a Sorcerer's hands, but luckily for you, they're solely yours to keep. While it doesn't deal that much more damage, what it also does is place down a carpet of difficult terrain as an Effect. Terrain Advantage pretty much is required here, since it's an easily applied source of Combat Advantage for you now. [*][COLOR=#0000ff][b]Seismic Shock:[/b][/COLOR] Another unfriendly CB1 Thunder power that forces everyone hit to grant combat advantage. To get the most of this power, you have to center yourself on a point where your allies are also going to be attacking, and also make sure that they can't really get Combat Advantage any other way. You automatically get it for yourself, of course, but the Leader-like benefit of it doesn't quite work for anyone else, considering how easy CA is to get nowadays. To be fair, it does give you a close range option in case your two other Ranged options aren't optimal. [/LIST] [COLOR=#0000ff][b]Enhanced Elemental Bolt:[/b][/COLOR] Your Bolt now deals Acid damage and slows. Hello, Ray of Frost, glad you could join us. In any case, it is nice to gain some competent control with a Ranged power. [COLOR=#008000][b]Elemental Escalation:[/b][/COLOR] Add a target within range, or adjacent to the burst or blast you create, before making attack rolls with a Sorcerer At-Will power. This in itself is damn skippy, as, especially with the bursts and blasts you favor, you can make some interestingly shaped carpets of damage, and essentially will give you more freedom as to where to place bursts. [LIST] [*][COLOR=#00ccff][b]1st Level:[/b][/COLOR] Deal 1d10 extra damage. And then, in a very odd change of pace, you gain temporary hitpoints. You only need to hit once with the power you selected to make this work, turning you into an off-Defender. Your powers being Controller- and Leader-based to begin with, you seem to be pretty much dipping into all sorts of roles here. [*][COLOR=#0000ff][b]17th Level:[/b][/COLOR] Deal 2d10 extra damage, and in addition to the temps, immobilize everything. That'll work. [*][COLOR=#00ccff][b]27th Level:[/b][/COLOR] Deal 3d10 extra damage, and you gain an amazing amount of Resist All. Rest assured you'll be incredibly difficult to knock off the board. [/LIST] [/sblock] [b]Fire Elementalist[/b] [sblock][COLOR=#008000][b]Attack Power:[/b][/COLOR] You gain either Blazing Cloud or Ignition. [LIST] [*][b]Blazing Cloud:[/b] CB1 Fire, and what basically amounts to automatically equipping a Heavy Shield for a turn. I can get behind this, especially since you're still stuck in Cloth for the most part, and you won't have a good Reflex score without this. [*][COLOR=#0000ff][b]Ignition:[/b][/COLOR] And to truely make Blazing Starfall obsolete, not only do we have an AOE that deals substantially more damage, but also provides the same area of autodamage. Unfortunately, it doesn't punish anyone that starts their turn inside and then leaves, so you can't make a cage on the board, but it's still a cool source of autodamage should you be able to target correctly. [/LIST] [COLOR=#00ccff][b]Enhanced Elemental Bolt:[/b][/COLOR] Your Bolt now deals fire damage, and does 1d6 extra damage. An RBA that does 1d12+1d6+CON+0/2/5/8+CHA will definitely make your Warlord giddy with excitement, and if you're a Tiefling with the right feats, this power becomes incredibly deadly. [COLOR=#008000][b]Elemental Escalation:[/b][/COLOR] Add a target within range, or adjacent to the burst or blast you create, before making attack rolls with a Sorcerer At-Will power. This in itself is damn skippy, as, especially with the bursts and blasts you favor, you can make some interestingly shaped carpets of damage, and essentially will give you more freedom as to where to place bursts. [LIST] [*][b]1st Level:[/b] Deal 1d10 extra damage, and execute a small shift. This is beautiful for any of your Close bursts, since you can very easily reposition yourself, but if you favor long-range AOEs, this is much less important. [*][b]17th Level:[/b] Deal 2d10 extra damage, and ongoing 10 fire damage. Yea, this is a Striker's path all right: nothing but damage and mobility. That is a lot of ongoing damage to spread around... [*][COLOR=#0000ff][b]27th Level:[/b][/COLOR] Deal 3d10 extra damage, and add a Miss effect of half damage to your At-Will. Now you'll really want to be careful where you place your burst before throwing this out there, because even with a -10 to attack rolls on your allies (War Wizard's Expertise + War Wizardry), you'll still deal a large amount of damage to people you really don't want to touch. [/LIST] [/sblock] [b]Water Elementalist[/b] [sblock][COLOR=#008000][b]Attack Power:[/b][/COLOR] You gain either Deluge or Ice Prison. [LIST] [*][COLOR=#800080][b]Deluge:[/b][/COLOR] An unfriendly Cb3 that just pushes and doesn't deal typed damage. Very disappointing. [*][COLOR=#0000ff][b]Ice Prison:[/b][/COLOR] Hey, this power is typed! And it has much better Control! The better of the two powers, far and away. Just wait until you get more At-Wills to get your blast - you won't really regret not having Deluge. [/LIST] [COLOR=#00ccff][b]Enhanced Elemental Bolt:[/b][/COLOR] Your Bolt now deals Cold damage, and has an incredibly awesome side effect for you: every creature (not just every enemy) adjacent to the target is slid one square. How your powers work allows you to make misshapen bursts and blasts, so take that into account and slide everyone around as you wish. To emphasize, this does work on allies, making you a decent sub-Leader in that regard. [COLOR=#008000][b]Elemental Escalation:[/b][/COLOR] Add a target within range, or adjacent to the burst or blast you create, before making attack rolls with a Sorcerer At-Will power. This in itself is damn skippy, as, especially with the bursts and blasts you favor, you can make some interestingly shaped carpets of damage, and essentially will give you more freedom as to where to place bursts. [LIST] [*][COLOR=#00ccff][b]1st Level:[/b][/COLOR] Deal 1d10 extra damage, and gain a nice bonus to all of your defenses. Keep in mind that it and the Fire Elementalist's Blazing Cloud power both give Power bonuses, so they won't stack, but this is still an excellent basic bonus. [*][COLOR=#00ccff][b]17th Level:[/b][/COLOR] Deal 2d10 extra damage, and add dazed. Dazed+slowed is a lethal cocktail of effects to apply on a bunch of targets at range, giving you the opportunity to bunch everyone up again and blast them all to smithereens with ease. It works well with pretty much all of your powers, of course, but the obvious opportunity is there. [*][COLOR=#ff9900][b]27th Level:[/b][/COLOR] Turns out I was reading the powers wrong when I first made this guide. You add the prone state to the daze and slow conditions, which will prevent charges. This is pretty much the ultimate lockdown, and to do this four times per encounter with all of your targets is ludicrous. [/LIST] [/sblock] [COLOR=#0000ff][b]3rd Level Feature (Escalating Elements):[/b][/COLOR] You gain an additional use of your Elemental Escalation power, on top of additional uses at 7th and 13th levels. You'll appreciate being able to apply some of these effects four times in one encounter, especially as most fights don't last more than three or four rounds anyway. [COLOR=#800080][b]5th Level Feature (Elemental Soul):[/b][/COLOR] Depending on your Element of choice, you finally gain your Resistance feature. Air Elementalists get Resist 10 Lightning, Earth Elementalists gain Resist 10 Acid, Fire Elementalists get (surprise) Resist 10 Fire, and Water Elementalists get Resist 10 Cold. Unfortunately, you do not pierce these resistances on other enemies, which makes absolutely no sense. For a class built entirely around dealing typed damage, this is a massive oversight. Also, my biggest apologies to [COLOR=#ff0000][b]Tiefling Fire Elementalists[/b][/COLOR], who get pretty much nothing here. [COLOR=#00ccff][b]9th Level Feature (Elemental Versatility):[/b][/COLOR] Part of your Elemental Magic feature, you gain another At-Will Sorcerer power of your choice, and this time you have the entire list from both the Elementalist list and the PHB2 list. You can now finally take Ensorceled Blade if you've been lusting after that power for awhile (though keep in mind the secondary effect doesn't work; it just basically gives you an Arcane MBA), and Burning Spray is as good as ever if you want a Fire-based blast. Unfortunately, Blazing Starfall has been demoted, as aside from its doing Radiant damage, it's been outclassed by all of your other Area bursts. None of the other PHB2 powers are worth consideration. [COLOR=#800080][b]11th Level Paragon Path (Elemental Savant):[/b][/COLOR] Described below. [b]Elemental Savant[/b] [sblock][COLOR=#008000][b]Strategy:[/b][/COLOR] At-Will Optimization [b][COLOR=#008000]Overall Rating:[/COLOR] [COLOR=#800080]Purple.[/COLOR][/b] Since you don't gain Encounter or Daily powers, this serves to give you some very lackluster features in place of it. The attack roll bonus is welcome, but replicated by similar paths. [b]11th Level Feature (Elementalist Action):[/b] The damage bonus sounds huge, but half your level isn't that big of an amount. It won't go to waste, of course, and it does add up to fifteen damage at endgame, but man... [b]11th Level Feature (Savant Focus):[/b] You gain a bonus to attack rolls on one power. One power. It's a power you'll like using, sure, but blech. [b]11th Level Feature (Savant Power):[/b] In place of an 11th Level Encounter Power, you instead get another Sorcerer At-Will. Having four At-Will attacks before you normally would is certainly handy, but how many At-Wills do you honestly need after that? [COLOR=#0000ff][b]16th Level Feature (Confer Protection):[/b][/COLOR] Everyone cluster around you so that everyone gets Resists! And then everyone explodes due to being targeted by AOEs. Pessimism aside, this is still a good feature, as handing out Resistances is something your Sorcerer cousin could only really do with utilities. [COLOR=#800080][b]20th Level Feature (Elemental Nature):[/b][/COLOR] And in place of a daily power, you instead get a second use of a Utility power that's useless in combat and a small bonus to saving throws against Dazed or Stunned. I like the latter benefit, especially combined with Superior Will, but this has to come at the lack of a proper Daily power? What a disappointment. [COLOR=#ff0000][b]12th Level Daily Utility (Elemental Form):[/b][/COLOR] Flavorful? Oh definitely. The side benefits look lovely, and it seems like this is a cool thing to break out. Then you look closer: you cannot take Standard Actions. Um... you're a Striker. Your entire class is built around using Standard Actions to blow the crap out of things. To use this for anything but scouting ahead would be asinine.[/sblock] [b]Alternative Paragon Paths[/b] [sblock]So, you ask, what alternatives do I have? That's a good question. Air Elementalists can happily disregard this path entirely, because as long as they have access to Eberron Dragonmarks, [COLOR=#ff9900][b]Lyrandar Wind Rider[/b][/COLOR] is freaking amazing. A bonus to attack rolls with all of your Lightning and Thunder powers, plus a further bonus to damage rolls on them equal to your Constitution modifier(!) is leagues and bounds better than everything you could have gained from the path above. Fire Elementalists can take [COLOR=#0000ff][b]Master of Flame[/b][/COLOR], if they so desire. Yes, the Intelligence thing is still an issue, but it gives you a very backwards benefit in being able to gain a PHB2 Sorcerer Encounter power when you take Reserve Maneuver. Could be spiffy. They can also Multiclass into Warlock and pick [COLOR=#0000ff][b]Hellbringer[/b][/COLOR], which is a surprisingly good option for those with attack-caliber Constitution; it does at least contain a daily that rivals [i]Blizzard Mage[/i]'s. Water Elementalists can also Multiclass Warlock, choosing Fey Pact instead of Infernal Pact with Pact Initiate, and take [COLOR=#0000ff][b]Long Night Scion.[/b][/COLOR] Everyone can, of course, take [COLOR=#00ccff][b]Academy Master,[/b][/COLOR] [b]Blizzard Mage,[/b] [COLOR=#00ccff][b]Speaker of Xaos,[/b][/COLOR] or [COLOR=#0000ff][b]Demonskin Adept[/b][/COLOR] (don't leave home without your Robe of Eyes!) just fine as well. Don't worry, gents; you've got options.[/sblock] [b]15th Level Feature (Elemental Soul):[/b] You now gain a bonus to saving throws against ongoing damage that matches your original Soul's Resistance type. Well, alright then. Unless the ongoing damage has something else tied into it, you're probably not going to care anyway. [COLOR=#0000ff][b]19th Level Feature (Elemental Versatility):[/b][/COLOR] You repeat the process from 9th Level by giving yourself a fourth (or fifth or sixth) Sorcerer At-Will. [COLOR=#00ccff][b]25th Level Feature (Fly, Burrow, Teleport, Swim):[/b][/COLOR] Self-explanatory - it gives a benefit of that type to Air, Earth, Fire, and Water Elementalists respectively. Airs get to Fly half their speed as a move action; Earths have Tremorsense 5 and can burrow half their speed as a Move Action, something incredibly rare for Player characters to be able to do; Fires can just teleport everywhere now; and Water Elementalists can now swim and breathe underwater. While the Water Elementalist trait could be construed as a bit weak, none of them are exactly bad, and give you some neat mobility options to round out your career. [COLOR=#800080][b]25th Level Feature (Elemental Soul):[/b][/COLOR] You finally gain a second Element to resist. Every one of them for some reason has the choice of Thunder as a secondary, but if you don't want that, Airs can pick cold; Earths can pick fire; Fires can pick lightning; and Waters can pick acid. You still can't pierce anything, which I still find stupid. [/QUOTE]
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The Demiurge Molecule: A Sorcerer's (and Elementalist's) Handbook (by DuelistDelSol)
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