Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
The name's more for legacy, at this point, I'm afraid, as this is more likely to be a sporadic thing than a regular feature.
As usual for the showcase, these builds are intended to spur discussion and perhaps inspire a few people in the spirit of the old CO boards. They come from members of my gaming group - me, Radical Taoist, DisposableHero_, Andarious, Sionnis, and Seishi - and I'll always identify who wrote the build at the start, so do not assume I'm the guy behind all of them (because I'm not!).
Unless otherwise noted, showcase builds use 28 point-buy, and have their snapshots evaluated using fractional base attack / saves (because it simplifies the math). None of them actually rely on fractional to be built, though. The format I use showcases their progression at key levels rather than just presenting the build and showing off a few tricks at level 20; most of these are capable of being played 1-20 if you so choose.
With that out of the way, let's get started. This week, one of the Overpowered Mages is making an appearance, old-school. The basic design is mine, based on an idea Andarious and RT kicked off.
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GROUNDHOG MAGE
♪Let’s do the time warp again♪
Required Books: Complete Arcane, Complete Champion (one ACF), and one feat each from Cityscape, Exemplars of Evil, Secrets of Xen’drik (not RP-linked to Eberron), Races of the Dragon, and the PHB2. Any spellbooks you want as well (I suggest PHB2/Spell Compendium, which should be enough – your key spells are all from the core books and one from Complete Arcane).
Unearthed Arcana used: Illusion Mastery ACF, and nothing else. That said, a single flaw benfits you far, far more than most and will provide an RP-appropriate ability from the DMG2.
Background: Warning: Old-School Style RAW games follow. They aren’t required, but they do turn this from “Cute” to “WHERE THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM”.
This is one of the “overpowered mages” that I was planning on releasing as a group showcase, but this one honestly makes the most sense on its own (and feels the closest to a true wizard, I think). Very little here is new (I think just the Echoing stunts are new), but when you put together a few established stunts in one place, you sometimes get something new in their interactions.
This build is a bad boy – a possible build for a wizard completely linked in the mage traditions of Thay, quite possibly under the direct tutelage of the Zulkir of Illusion. (One of the other versions is a Hathran, so the two could run as rivals rather easily.) It’ll also work as a recurring villain for that reason. In a player’s hands, you can expect this build to have almost ridiculous flexibility on its spellcasting – there’s legitimate reasons to keep a large number of your spell slots open and unprepared, oddly enough – and a really high level of stamina, especially where lower and mid level spells are concerned. Finally, it actually makes good use of normally-shunned choices such as your familiar and Red Wizard. Walk with me here, I think you’ll appreciate the result.
Why is it called the “Groundhog Mage”? Because all your spells keep coming back to you as if you were starting a new day every few hours. The tagline quote is from an unrelated show (unless you're also a Blue player and read flavor text), but the quote I wanted to use was too long: "Well maybe the real God uses tricks, you know? Maybe he's not omnipotent. He's just been around so long he knows everything." Particularly apropos because God isn't actually omnipotent either - he just uses tricks and years of system mastery experience to get pretty damn close.
The Basics
Skill Notes: You need Spellcraft maxed for most of your prerequisites, but I think that’s about it. Concentration and the assorted Knowledge skills are everything else asking for your time. In other words, completely standard wizard.
Basic Equipment: Standard wizard. Spell component pouch, a big enough backpack for your spellbook and writing tools, and a crossbow are just about all you will ever need. That said, a spare spellbook might not go amiss – you’ll be filling it up very quickly.
For many reasons, you’ll also want to establish your own library / lab / tower / lair as soon as you get a chance and a secure location. It’ll hold your excess spell books and provide spaces for you to cast your multi-spell rituals before setting out.
Magical Gear Goals: You’re going to have a lot – and I mean a lot – of spells in your library simply by gaining levels. Blessed Books are a great investment (you pay 12,500gp for 25,000gp worth of spellbook, and it’s all in a single volume). The usual array of Intelligence boosters, CL boosters, staves, and true defensive items round out your shopping list. You’ll get a lot more bang than usual out of Rings of Wizardy, though, especially at the late levels (or earlier levels, if you use the variant with flaws).
The Build.
Build Stub: Wizard (Illusionist) 5 / Mage of the Arcane Order 7 / Red Wizard 8
1 – Illusionist – (Illusion Mastery, Familiar) (Scribe Scroll, Collegiate Wizard, Invisible Spell)
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[sblock]Give up Evocation and Enchantment. Evocation for obvious reasons, enchantment because it overlaps strongly with illusion (although there really are some great spells in there – see the flaws variant discussed below about how to get around this.)
Hypothetically this build will work with any specialization, but quite frankly Illusion Mastery takes the cake. You’ll see why by level 12. Until then, just keep all your illusion spells in one spellbook and all your non-illusion spells in others – and make sure that anyone who wants to take your spellbook only knows about the first one. You don’t need it.
[/sblock]2 – Illusionist
3 – Illusionist – (Cooperative Spell)
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[sblock]Worthless prerequisite, more or less. If this instead fired off one copy of the spell for each participant, all gaining the benefits, it’d be a lot less of a waste, but…[/sblock]4 – Illusionist
5 – Illusionist – (Spontaneous Divination)
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[sblock] Slot Hijinks time! You can
The text, in typical CCHamp style, doesn’t say “…that you know”, but I think anyone arguing on this point is likely to get a book to the face. That hurts. Don’t try it.
[/sblock]6 – Mage of the Arcane Order – (Guild Member, Spellpool 1st-3rd) (Tattoo Focus)
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[sblock] Slot Hijinks time! You can:
That’s a pretty massive library at your fingertips. Leave a few spell slots open and you should be fine.
Also, check with your DM about how metamagic and spellpool spells work.
[/sblock]7 – Mage of the Arcane Order – (Sanctum Spell)
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[sblock] Curiously, you might actually be using this for its intended purpose, and it is RP-appropriate, but we’re really here because of what it does outside of your sanctum.[/sblock]8 – Red Wizard – (Enhanced Specialization, Illusion Defense +1)
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[sblock] The best school to drop here is probably Necromancy, as sad as that makes me. If you’re nuts, you can try dropping Abjuration, though I really don’t recommend this.[/sblock]9 – Red Wizard – (Spell Power +1) (Echoing Spell)
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[sblock] Spell Power, in addition to the usual goodies, also increases your total number of Spellpool levels available each day and causes called spells to last a little longer. It also works quite nicely with your next feat.
Echoing Spell is a gimmicky feat from Secrets of Xen’drik. It’s prepared-spell-only, so it won’t be usable with your Spontaneous Divination spells (but might be usable with spellpool spells, and is certainly available with any normally-prepared spell). It’s a +3 spell level cost effect, and a nutshell summary of what it does is this: One hour after casting an echoing spell, it prepares itself again, with a cumulative -4 penalty to its CL. It will keep re-preparing itself until that penalty lowers its effective CL below what you need to cast the spell or until the spell is counterspelled during casting.
Critical point here: The example given is of a 9th level caster using Echoing Acid Arrow (2nd level spell in 5th level slot). When it echoes, it comes back as a 2nd level spell in a 5th level slot but with an effective CL of 5. This is still high enough to cast 2nd level spells, so it can be fired off again. If it were looking at effective spell level, this wouldn't work (as CL 5 isn't high enough to hit 5ths). It’s the actual spell level, not the slot, that is being referenced here. This feat is therefore substantially more efficient at returning lower-level spells to you, particularly if they are buffed to hell with metamagic.
It also works quite well with spells that do not have CL-based effects and those that modify spell slots. Look at what happens when you prepare an Echoing Mnemonic Enhancer, for instance.
There are two major points to check with your DM: The first is, what happens to a Sanctum Echoing spell? If, say, a Sanctum Echoing Acid Arrow is cast (effectively a 1st level spell, cast out of a 5th level slot) at CL 9, does it echo once (as listed above), or twice (as the second echo takes place at CL 1, which is high enough to cast 1st level spells)? Get this ruling sorted out now; you’re going to need an answer to use our next trick.
The second depends on the Spellpool ruling earlier. If your DM (at level 6) ruled that you to apply metamagic feats to the spells you retrieve from the pool, what happens if a Spellpool spell gets altered by Echoing Spell? Does it return into the slot you’ve cast it from in the first place? How does the Echoing Spell timer (one hour before re-preparing) interact with the time limit on using Spellpool spells (one minute per caster level)? And, finally, if an echoing spellpool spell returns and has a cripplingly high CL penalty, it’s still a spell of the same level you called – can it be returned to the spellpool to pay off your debt? These rulings are kind of needed (as the implied answers suggest they are “Yes, either restart the timer or resume from the previous point, and yes”, which means this trick is disturbingly good.)
[/sblock]10 – Red Wizard – (Illusion Defense +2)
11 – Red Wizard – (Spell Power +2)
12 – Red Wizard – (Circle Leader) (Spell Mastery, Uncanny Forethought)
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[sblock] Yes, Spell Mastery is on the Red Wizard bonus feat list. Uncanny Forethought requires Spell Mastery, but allows spontaneous access to any spell you’ve mastered – which includes every single illusion spell you’ve learned since level 1 (which is higher than usual due to Collegiate Wizard), since Illusion Mastery operates as if it were Spell Mastery (though you need the actual feat for Uncanny’s prereq). The bonus from Spell Power helps offset the CL penalty from using Uncanny Forethought as well, so those spells appear exactly as strong as they would be for a normal wizard.
I'm a touch resigned at the delay for getting Uncanny Forethought (it's one of those feats that really works better if you get it earlier), but using a wizard bonus feat slot for Spell Mastery and Spontaneous Divination forced this kind of delay. On the positive side, it's not like you have't already been doing some of what Uncanny Forethought can let you do already, via the spellpool and Spontaneous Divination.
Anyway. Pick your favorite non-illusion spells for Spell Mastery (I'd strongly suggest including Mage's Lucubration here - it'll soon be your favorite spell), and let's get a move on.
Slot Hijinks time! You can:
Oh, and you’ve got Circle Magic now. Nice how that’s an afterthought to the build. (Honestly, if I could have gotten Spell Power and a bonus Spell Mastery feat through other classes, I might have used them.) I’ll address what you’ll want to do with Circle Magic later, but you may have already guessed.
[/sblock]13 – Mage of the Arcane Order – (Bonus Language)
14 – Mage of the Arcane Order – (Spellpool 4th-6th)
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[sblock] We’re going with more guild mage to improve the Spellpool at this point, since excess Spell Power is less useful than being able to pull stronger spells out of the ether. At this point, all but your highest spell level is accessible through the Spellpool now.[/sblock]15 – Mage of the Arcane Order – (New Spell) (Arcane Thesis: Mage's Lucubration)
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[sblock] I hear you going: Wait, what? Here's where the build goes supercritical, allowing for stunts like this.
Open by casting Sanctum Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability (CArc – effectively 5th level spell in 6th level slot). Transfer over whatever you wish, really, but check out below when choosing spell levels. Then, use Share Spells to cast an Echoing Sanctum Mnemonic Enhancer (which works out to be a 3rd level spell in a 7th level slot), allowing you and your familiar to prepare (or, more likely in the familiar’s case, recover) three extra spell levels now, plus another three extra spell levels each hour until the spell’s CL drops below 5 (after 4 recoveries). Then, cast a Sanctum Invisible Cooperative Echoing Mage’s Lucubration (5th level spell in 6th level slot - you don't need all of the metamagics here to have this effect) to recover the Mnemonic Enhancer, and then any three spells you want (possibly including the spells you sent over from Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability, or the Imbue itself – you can grab up to 5th level spells this way) over the next four hours before it re-prepares its last echo. If Lucubration is about to expire from repeated echoing, you use its last echo to recover itself (thank you, Sanctum Spell) “as though prepared in the normal fashion” and thus back at full CL.
Voila – this gives you functionally unlimited lower-level spell preparations (peak efficiency at 3rd level spells), and gives your familiar some pretty solid stamina as a backup spell turret, loaded with several of your favorite spells that also continually refresh whenever your Mnemonic Enhancer ticks. If nothing else, this means you can pay back your spellpool debts on the same day you’re adventuring, and still come out ahead on spell slots.
You can also have mutliple Lucubrations echoing around at once, with the same timing points or at specific intervals, giving you continually refreshing spell slots tuned for your daily needs. They're on a one-hour cooldown, and (under a conservative interpretation - see below) they don't touch your super-high-level game-breaking 7ths through 9ths. You can effectively bust out the big guns as often as a classic wizard (though with increased versatility, due to spellpool / Uncanny Forethought), and still have an almost unlimited supply of workhorse lower level spells constantly available.
Clarify with your DM about spell vs spell level vs slot level here. You can quite easily break the game. For instance, an Echoing Mnemonic Enhancer is a 4th level spell in a 7th level slot - can Mage's Lucubration recover it? I assume yes (as it takes specific language, since all PHB spells that reference spell level (i.e. Spell Turning, Globe of Invulnerability) only look at true spell level, and it takes special language like the errata'd version of Arcane Thesis to reference final slot level. With this in mind, you can cast a 4th level spell out of a 7th level slot, and use Lucubration to recover that 7th level slot (even though it couldn't recover a 7th level spell). You can also use that 7th level slot to fuel Uncanny Forethought (or possibly the spellpool), and then recover the slot again (since Lucubration restores any spell that you cast in the last 24 hours - in this case, that slot has since been filled (either through a second lucubration or through a normal echo) and used to fuel something else, but it's still a spell you cast in the last 24 hours. Lucubration can natively restore any 5th level spell, which includes Sanctum Lucubration or any Echoing 4th, 5th, or 6th level spell, in whatever slot it had previously been cast. In short, this allows Lucubration to recharge any spell slot you want, which can be used to fuel your spontaneous spellcasting -- assuming you actually cast the spell at least once first. (Good thing echoing spells return to you, eh?)
(Let this be a cautionary tale about why "spell", "spell level", and "spell slot" are not interchangeable, but early spells often used them as such.)
[/sblock]16 – Mage of the Arcane Order – (Bonus Language)
17 – Mage of the Arcane Order – (Spellpool 7th-9th)
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[sblock] Full spellpool abilities online at exactly the same time your 9ths are available. And since 9ths are available, you can pull off stunts like this.
I was going to give an update on slot hijinks again, but since the next feat adds to that…
[/sblock]18 – Red Wizard – (Spell Power +3) (Versatile Spellcaster)
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[sblock] We’re switching back to Red Wizard because Mage of the Arcane Order’s later level abilities aren't as hot as the improved Spell Power abilities. MotAO 10 actually makes you weaker by tying you to a desk job.
You qualify for Versatile Spellcaster through Spontaneous Divination. This feat allows you to give up two spell slots to spontaneously cast any spell you know. As a wizard, you know every spell in your spellbook. Check with your DM if this works the way it appears to. (Reasonable compromises are “any spell you can cast spontaneously”, meaning just any divination ever, or “any spell you ‘know’ via Spell Mastery” (which is every illusion spell plus whatever you picked when you actually learned the feat”).
This effect is even stronger than it would appear to be normally, because of your self-refreshing Echoing Lucubrations. These can restore any spell you cast of 5th level or lower, by default (and if those spells were Sanctum spells, they were originally your 6th level spells). You can prepare them in higher level spell slots as well (see the writeup of the stunt at level 15), and have the higher-level slot refresh (as the spell you're refreshing is still below Lucubration's limit).
Your only concern is that you can't apply Echoing to your spells if you're casting them spontaneously. But, there is a way around this: let's say you've prepared an Echoing spell in a high level slot. You cast the spell, and when it returns (either on its own or because you cast Lucubration on that spell), you can sacrifice that spell slot later to fuel Versatile Spellcaster. However, since you've actually cast that spell in the last 24 hours, it becomes a valid target for your Echoing Lucubrations. You can use this trick (namely, cast the spell first, then sacrifice the echoes or recharged spells) to recharge your spell slots, even though they're not being spent to cast spells. By properly preparing Echoing (or simply higher-level-slot) versions of spells that resolve at 5th level or lower, you an actually ensure a continually refreshing number of spell slots of any spell level (albeit with a coolown while you wait for the spells or the lucubrations to echo). This means you've got unlimited daily (but limited per-encounter) spontaneous access to your entire spell library - this is just shy of the Holy Grail of wizardry, and one-hour recharge prevents this from getting too out of hand and turning you into even more of an unstoppable magical juggernaut.
Slot Hijinks time! You can:
[/sblock]19 – Red Wizard – (Illusion Defense +3, Scribe Tattoo)
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[sblock] Why this feature exists, I’ll never know. If it exists, you should be able to find an NPC with this ability and get the Tattoo Focus feat without costing you a feat slot. Here, it lets you pressgang people into your circle magic, but that’s about it.
If you want one more metamagic feat, you can use more Mage of the Arcane Order here instead of Red Wizard, but honestly, Spell Power is probably going to serve you better.
[/sblock]20 – Red Wizard – (Spell Power +4)
Snapshot: +6 Int item, +4 Con item, +5 Int tome, +4 Con tome, and an orange Ioun Stone – the bare bones at 20 assuming we’re ignoring Dexterity – set us in at 191 HP, +10 BAB, +16 Fort, +5 Ref, +17 Will (+3 against illusions), level 20 wizard casting at CL 25 (+1 DC, +1 vs SR, +3 on saves against, and automatic Spell Mastery on Illusion, with Evocation, Enchantment, and Necromancy banned; you can easily replicate many useful Evocations (including Contingency) with the illusion benefits via Shadow Evocation spells). This is in line with most wizard build skeletons (though the natural CL is quite high), but it's what's on that skeleton that sets it apart.
You have a Collegiate Wizard library, giving you knowledge of a vast array of spells. You’re capable of using Spontaneous Divination to sacrifice any spell slot to cast any Divination spell (presumably, that you know) on demand. Uncanny Forethought allows you to select 12 spell slots to switch from whatever you’ve filled them with into any Illusion spell in that library (plus any spell you picked when you learned Spell Mastery at 12 - PLUS any valid target from Evocation or Conjuration for a Shadow spell), or any other spell from your immense library (at a slightly longer casting time and with -2 CL, offset by your boosted Spell Power ability). Finally, if you need a spell you haven’t seen, if it's in the PHB, you can tap into the Spellpool and pull it into any empty, unprepared spell slot you’ve got. (The DM can expand the Spellpool as described in the book, but you can count on any PHB spell being available with just an extra full round action.)
The Echoing Spell hijinks here are applied to spells that grant or recover spell slots, in effect giving you continually refreshing spells of up to 5th level under the most conservative intepretation (albeit with a one-hour cooldown). Mage's Lucubration doesn't care about the spell's slot, meaning if you get those spells into 6th-9th level spell slots, those slots can refresh as well, as long as you've actually cast the spell once (which Echoing Spell automatically recovers for you, and conveniently a Sanctum Echoing 6th level spell is a 5th level spell in a 9th level slot). You can then use these refreshing slots in pairs to fuel Versatile Spellcaster, in effect casting any spell you've got in your massive library, without preparation or any worries about daily limits, and then just restore the spell that was originally in that slot (again, provided you cast it) with an Echoing Lucubration.
This technique also allows you to transfer up to 8 spells of 5th level or lower (possibly 6th or lower, depending on what Sanctum does) to your familiar, and simply recover the use of those spells directly from a self-recovering Lucubration effect. These spells take place as if you’d cast them, but they use the familiar’s position and actions to do so. There's more you can do with familiars as spellcasting assistants, but quite frankly I won't do a better job explaining this than Dictum Mortuum did. (All spellcasting familiar / familiars and metaspell links can be found here.)
Oh, and full Circle Magic. As an afterthought. You can hypothetically use this to get up to something like +40 on your CL (which means your echoes return every hour for up to 15 hours, depending on the spell; note that Sanctum Spell appears to lower the required CL by 2, which may give you one extra echo per spell). Eventually you can staff your circle with full-strength Simulacrums, insanely over-CRed planar-bound assistants, or possibly even your familiar this way, and toss out Heightend-to-20th-level kill moves at insane CRs if you’re feeling saucy.
Questions to ask your DM: It turns out there's quite a few ambiguous points on your abilities here. Here's the list of what you should ask your DM:
Show
[sblock]
[/sblock] Curiously, the build is surprisingly robust to how these can get answered. You will NOT need all of these answered permissively for the tricks to work in a recognizable fashion. Even if your DM answers conservatively on all of these, you'll still have impressive spell stamina and practically spontaneous access to an enormous array of spell options. You might need to drop Versatile Spellcaster or Sanctum Spell at absolute worst, but the build still works just fine (only slower) with nothing more than Spellpool, Uncanny Forethought, Spontaneous Divination and Echoing Lucubration - and there are ready-made replacements for the feats you'd drop listed in the variants below.
Overall Strengths: The usual abilities for a full-casting wizard, with even more Swiss-Army-Knifing going on. You have spontaneous access (with very few limits) to the entire wizard list from most schools, and the closer you come to having the spell already known and prepared, the fewer those limits get. You have functionally unlimited spells of any level, depending on how your DM answers those questions, otherwise it’s unlimited spells from a subset of those you know. Oh, and your familiar is a force to be reckoned with, carrying a self-reloading set of mid-level spells at your full casting prowess, but with a different set of actions available to it. Plus, if you wish, you can use Circle Magic.
Overall Weaknesses: Most of your stamina tricks come online a little late (the self-recovery is technically online to a point as soon as you have Echoing Spell, but it isn’t until you get Arcane Thesis that you become completely self-sustaining. You also have to know how to play the wizard spell list well enough to know what to DO with all of these slot mechanics – but at the same time, this also encourages a bit of experimenting, now that I think of it. Plus, if you want a book to the face, you can use Circle Magic.
Variants: You could, if you want, pull Versatile Spellcaster much earlier in the build (as early as 6th if you're willing to monkey with feat timing a bit), but I leave it as late as I do because, if your DM rules that it can cast "every spell in your library", then builds similar to the basic Wiz5 (Spontanous Divination) / Fullcasting 1 build, taking Versatile Spellcaster at 6th, become all but ubiquitous. That's basically the wizard's Natural Spell. I timed it later in the build to give you something to work towards, quite frankly, as putting it earlier with this interpretation is just unfair. Plus, I wanted to emphasize the returning-spell-slots thing rather than the Versatile Spellcaster thing, which is why there's a bit of redundancy (i.e. Spellpool, Uncanny Forethought).
If you're forced to drop a feat or two, or if flaws are allowed, there’s three bonus feats that stand out.
The first is Apprentice (Spellcaster) from the DMG2, which fits perfectly with the theme of a wizard student graduating to be a high Red Wizard. The reason I mention this is because once you graduate from apprentice to mentor, the Apprentice feat changes into the Mentor feat, which operates as a cohort-only Leadership. Having a sidekick capable of casting the schools you can’t suddenly use helps provide even more versatility, especially if he’s being trained in your style. And he's a fully-functional cohort, meaning if you do bust out the Circle Magic, you've got at least one decent assistant.
The second is Signature Spell (Player's Guide to Faerun), which is normally not taken because it requires the awful Spell Mastery. However, we already have Spell Mastery for a very good reason, and it's even at the right level to learn the best spell to pair it with: Rary's Arcane Conversion (Complete Mage). Putting the two together lets you spontaneously swap out any spell you've prepared for any other spell in your spellbooks of the same level or lower, basically. Honestly, I'd consider mainbuilding this if I were rewriting the build, since I found out about this trick (first proposed by Tleilaxu Ghola ages ago) quite some time after finishing the build.
The third is Practiced Spellcaster. It's a bit contentious as to whether this works, but it's possible that Practiced Spellcaster might offset the CL penalty on your Echoing spells, allowing each echo to be stronger and possibly getting you an extra echo (or two, depending on Sanctum) out of each one. It's the same logic as to why Practiced Spellcaster + Wild Mage works, but with different wording. Check with your DM on this one.
If you want to amp the power up, you can look into Twin or Repeat Spell as well. This requires the DM interpretation that Lucubration brings along a new spell slot, rather than refilling the old one, so it's less useful for Uncanny Forethought - but significantly more useful for Versatile Spellcaster. Observe: a Repeating Echoing Lucubration, for instance, restores two spell slots (the second of which could easily be its own), and then, one hour later, readies two new copies of itself. (Twin does something similar, but can't be used to restore itself on the same casting) This can lead to a substantial feedback effect, producing a very large number of spell slots of assorted levels (just combine metamagic in unusual amounts or prepare in higher spell levels than normal), which can be sacrificed for Versatile Spellcaster or Spontaneous Divination as necessary. Doing this requires stronger use of metamagic cost reducers (Arcane Thesis combined with Cooperative, Sanctum, and Invisible won't be enough for both Twin and Repeat on an echoing spell, but can handle either one on its own), plus puts an increased demand on metamagic - and the Incantrix is giving a thumbs-up in the background.
There are two other builds that are similar to this one – the other two Overpowered Wizards – that are more dramatic variants. Both are fully capable of doing the same sort of spontaneous library access that the Groundhog Mage does, except both of the variants have access to every single spell school. One gives up on Spellpool and the Red Wizard specialization in favor of using Hathran to have access to the entire wizard library spontaneously, of any school. The other is much closer to the presented variant but gives up on Red Wizard, instead using a Divination specialist and the Arcane Transfiguration feat to recover access to the lost spell school. Neither is quite as good with Uncanny Forethought, and only this build has enough feats to truly make use of the slot-refreshing techniques, but all are at least solid.
Finally, if you like this, Luna Trigger made a pretty badass variant downthread if you are willing to use incantrix (as I refuse to use that class). It's very impressive and based on the twin/repeat observation above: unlimited spell stamina and spontaneous access to the entire spellbook, more or less, and unlike the main build, he does this without any cooldown (though Echoing still plays a role). That's pretty much the Holy Grail of Wizardry.
There you have it. And people wonder why I don’t particularly like wizards.
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
...I don't even know what to say. This is beautiful.
I have to ask, though, what do you really gain? As awesome as it is, which is really, really awesome, I don't see how much practically superior this would be to, say, an Incantatrix with 48-hour buffs. And, even more important, are the gains worth the immense cost of having to be in Forgotten Realms?
The only problem I can see is it being somewhat lacking in SoDs, although there are a few SoDs scattered in what you have left. Finally, it's worth noting that MotAO is limited to PHB spells only unless the DM steps in and gives you more.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Given how the build is on sketchy ground in some cases (i.e. can you apply Echoing Spell to a spell you're preparing through the spellpool? Is a spell that's returned from an echo "the same" slot (in which case it can be burned for Spontaneous Divination/Versatile Spellcaster or to fuel Uncanny Forethought after it's on its last CL legs), or is it a different, new, slot (in which case it can still be burned for Spontaneous Divination or Versatile Spellcaster, and the spells you send to your familiar become available again in an hour)? What spells does a wizard "know", vis-a-vis Versatile Spellcaster? How badly designed is Sanctum Spell, anyway? Questions like that. Thankfully, none of them need to be answered in a specific way for the tricks to work on some functional level), I'd really not want to get into a tussle around the Incantrix.
In terms of what it can do, well, it's still a full-casting wizard. And we've gone so far in other cases as to say a full-casting wizard, even without metamagic, is pretty much a deity anyway. (This is also an illusionist with Invisible Spell, so let the good times roll.) This just happens to get virtually unlimited stamina on lower-level spells, particularly if they pick spells that just happen and aren't terribly dependent upon their caster level - which in several cases involve functioning save-or-dies, even with only moderate DCs. (What's that? Circle magic, holding on line two.) Your highest levels of spells are the ones that end encounters, while your lower-level utility effects (and some of those utilities are pretty badass, let me say) essentially become at will, if on a one-hour cooldown.
And, if Versatile Spellcaster is as awesome as it appears here, you can have multiple Sanctum Lucubrations echoing around, recovering a 5th level slot each time it resolves (and recovering themselves on their last echo), which allows free casting of any 6th level spell you know. Even without Versatile, that's every single 5th-level illusion or divination spell. And if Sanctum is as messed up as it seems, this might allow those unlimited spell thresholds to climb one level higher. (The basic idea of having more than one Lucubration or Mnemonic Enhancer echoing around is something I didn't talk about too much, but you can probably have something like a third of your slots dedicated to constantly refreshing the remaining two thirds, and wind up with roughly 80% of your overall stamina available even by your 20th encounter or so. I'm handwaving, naturally, but still.)
There's also the open possiblity that I missed any effect that directly monkeys with spell slots. Featwise there's Arcane Manipulation (in a flaw, since it's nice but not required), Versatile Spellcaster (found a way to get that to work on a wizard, which is its own can of worms), and Echoing Spell. Spellwise there's Mnemonic Enhancer and Lucubration. Equipmentwise, there's the Rings of Wizardry (observe that extra slots from Mnemonic Enhancer or Arcane Manipulation are not from high ability scores or spell specialization, so they're still freely doubled). Did I miss anything? They'd fit right in here. All that's coming to mind is Triadspell, and while the interaction between that and Echoing Spell is intriguing, it's also Cleric-only.
And while I'm on the topic, I did end up spending a lot of feats on the Mnemonic Enhancer, which may not be the best choice (though it certainly is a good one). Any feats you can shave - which include feats that introduce arguments, like Sanctum Spell and Versatile Spellcaster - can be shifted over on to regular old metamagic effects. Echoing Spell is very efficient at returning low-level spells with insane metamagic loadouts (since the CL to cast the spell in the example clearly references only the actual level - CL 5 is too low for a 5th level slot, but handles the 2nd level spell with the +3 metamagic just fine), meaning any extra metamagic you can find that works in combat contexts can be made to reload itself as well. The lower the spell's actual level, the more metamagic you can load on, and the more times it can echo - but, contrariwise, low-level spells that are worth using in combat tend to be CL-dependent, so those echoes get less and less useful. I opted not to play that game in the main build, but it's worth exploring. (One possibility I considered briefly is what happens if there's Twin or Repeat on an Echoing spell - do you get back two copies of a Twin Echoing spell, which can then both be cast with the CL penalty, and return as four more copies? I kind of left this out, but if you're playing around with Echoing on an Incantrix, this might definitely be a direction to consider. I'd love to see someone else's take on an Echoing Incantrix, probably with some snappier name (bonus points if it's more fun to say than "Groundhog Mage".))
EDIT: I didn't realize, but you do actually know Lucubration at the level you have to take Arcane Thesis. My first stab at an Echoing abuser used Mnemonic Enhancer because I'd forgotten about Lucubration (I was doubling up on the slots it added through Rings of Wizardy - note that the slots last 24 hours, and it's unclear when exactly the ring "doubles" a slot gained in the middle of the day), but I think it might actually be better if you're using that on Lucubration. It means you don't need to spend a 9th level slot to trigger Lucubration, you can do it with a 5th or 6th, depending on Sanctum. That's well within the range of what can be reached with Versatile Spellcaster, which can be enough to fire off a (Sanctum or standard) Lucubration to recover your Echoing Lucubration in the case of catastrophic failure (i.e. someone counterspells your last one, which is the only thing that'll ever stop it from echoing).
Of course, you can get around this to some extent thanks to Collegiate Wizard (there's a lot of overlap in spell access here), by concentrating on learning spells that won't appear in the spellpool (or on ones in the PHB that you will use frequently enough to make spellpool access inconvenient.)
EDIT: SWEET CTHULHU ON A POGO STICK SINGING PEPPY J-POP
Please open your DMG2 to page 266. Look for an item costing 60,000gp (but it's bought as a pair - split the cost with your buddy). Wear one, give the second to your Incantrix friend.
Even under the metamagic, Mnemonic Enhancer and Mage's Lucubration are Range: Personal and Target: You.
Emergency medical attention can be reached by dialing 911 and telling them your heart stopped.
EDIT-2: Well, damn. I misread something - half of "instantaneous" is still less than 1 round, so this won't work. I guess turning yourself into a human-sized nuclear breeder reactor for your team's Incantrix was a bit too good to be true.
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
And Incatatrix was just an example. Any hardcore Persistomancer would work just as well for my question.
But, I concede that point regardless.
It's a shame it doesn't actually lower the caster level, or Practiced Spellcaster could have some fun. Same with Wild Mage.
EDIT: I missed that too. Oh, well, it still lets your Incatatrix make the whole party invincible.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
It's actually not clear what happens, I think. I did consider it, but left it out because it would clearly be contentious. (You'll notice that all of the "contentious" things here still work together if their worst abilities are all shot down by the DM? ...Except for Sanctum Spell, I think, which is only useful as a second +0 slot metamagic spell if its worst is shot down.)
The phrasing is "you treat your caster level as four lower for the purpose of effect, area, range, duration, and overcoming spell resistance" and "...reducing your effective caster level by four until your effective raster level is no longer high enough to cast the original spell".
Compare to Wild Mage, "...she reduces her caster level by 3 for all spells she casts from now on. However, every time she casts a spell, her use of wild magic adds 1d6 to her adjusted caster level.".
Contrast with Practiced Spellcaster, "Your caster level for the chosen spellcasting class increases by 4." with the usual HD cap.
It's always talking about raising or lowering, and there's no sense that they wouldn't work together. If this build at CL 20 casts an echoing spell, after its first echo (recovered at -4), that spell would treat your caster level as four lower, or 16. But your caster level for wizard is increased by 4, so long as that increase doesn't put it over your HD. And 16+4 is not over your HD. And so on and so forth.
I think it does work, for what it's worth, but it's certainly not robust to the DM saying "no". If you really want one more echo (and higher CLs on the intermediate echoes), go nuts with PSc. I'll put this in the variants section; it's probably a better fit than Arcane Manipulation (which really just smooths out the uneven spellpool progression).
And while the spell recharger doesn't work, it looks like a spell chain reaction can. Check my edits in the previous post for a bold sentence. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that (especially if it inspires someone to build it.)
EDIT: I just realized I didn't explain why this is absolutely killer in this build. (If I had included Twin or Repeat, I would have main-posted this.) It's got nothing to do with the echoing spell itself and everything to do with what you do with the "spent fuel".
Let's pick a pretty basic case - you're CL 25 (as this build is with an orange stone) and cast a Twin Repeat Echoing Detect Magic (0th level spell in 9th level slot). Since it's twinned and repeated, it resolved four times, and one hour later, four Twin Repeat Echoing Detect Magics come back (at CL 21). Cast them all. An hour later, you get 16 slots back holding Twin Repeat Echoing Detect Magic (CL 17(, so you cast them. And so on and so forth until your CL drops too low to cast 0th level spells: at beginning of hour seven, after six such castings, puts you at effecitve CL 1 when the last echo arrives, restoring 5460 Twin Repeat Echoing Detect Magics.
The thing is, the spell that returns comes back with all its metamagic attached, taking up a slot of its final level. For a Twin Repeat Echoing Detect Magic, that's a 9th level slot. You just got 5460 9th level spell slots, which can be sacrificed to power Versatile Spellcaster to cast any spell you know, of any level, at full caster level (since you're not casting the echoing spell so much as sacrificing its slot), spontaneously, with more stamina than any build I've seen that didn't involve an infinite loop. And you can do this once per actual 9th level slot you have before you begin this process (or longer, since unlike Mnemonic Enhancer slots, these do not appear to go away if you rest, although the CL penalty remains.)
Or, if your DM's getting ultraconservative on Versatile Spellcaster, try this. After the cat comes back for the sixth and final time, just cast Spell Engine.
...I'll be in my bunk.
(Edit-2: Apparently, there was such a specialist built when this trick was discovered before, but even the original finder, DavidWL, thinks Echoing isn't well-known enough. Maybe the Groundhog Mage (which isn't anywhere near as powerful, but I think is much more robust to DMs using conservative rulings) might aid that.
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
If it flat-out lowered the CL, Echo could go in indefinitely, because 20-16+4=20 each time.
Since Metamagic Effect on the Echoing Spell is sketchy, having a second player around who uses Cooperative Metamagic would be easier. But that kinda takes the fun out of it, doesn't it?
I'm kinda ill at the moment, so this build may not be that high-quality, but here's my idea:
Show
[sblock]Human Diviner 5/Incantatrix 10/Wizard +5And let's use Spontaneous Divination, too, and sacrifice Evocation and Illusion. Illusion just because I feel like being contrary.
1:Iron Will
H:Extend Spell
3:Sanctum Spell
6
ersatile Spellcaster
6B
eristent Spell
9:Echoing Spell
9B:Repeat Spell
12:Arcane Thesis(Lucubration)
12B:Invisible Spell
15: Spell Mastery
15B:Twin Spell
18:Uncanny Forethought
20B:Open
Variants: Eh, the last five levels are up to you. I guess you could take Sacred Exorcist and DMM things, although you need flaws. Really, this thing is just riding the ludicrous power of Incantatrix. You could be a transmuter for more lucubrations, but I actually decided the versatility was worth the lower number of castings.
So, to sum it up, on a Lucubration, Echoing is +1, Repeat is +1, Twin is +2, Invisible and Sanctum are -1 each. This means that, for a level 8 slot, you can get back two spells twice and get the slot back. Versatile Spellcaster turns that into whatever you want. So, in essence, you have your entire spellbook spontaneous and at-will. to hell with this sissy "one-hour cooldown."
This build doesn't take off until level 12, sadly, but it's still a persistomancer until then.
[/sblock]So that's my contribution to the thread. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go find my helmet.
EDIT: You just had to Swordsage me before I unveiled it. Sigh. Oh well. The build stands.
Edit 2: Updated the whole thing.
Edit 3: Tempest, you know you can't VS away 9th level slots, right?
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
The second sentence only works if it trumps the first. And if it trumps the first, then there's nothing stopping Practiced Spellcaster from kicking in.
It's still not quite "your entire spellbook", since Lucubration only restores up to 5th level spells (which could easily be 5th level spells cast from higher level slots via metamagic, but it won't restore slots you sacrifice for Versatile Spellcasting). The post I linked to mentions a weird way of using Sanctum with Versatile Spellcaster to leapfrog spell levels, but I'm not entirely convinced it works the way he advertises (he's using "of level X" somewhat loosely).
And this did prove what I was thinking about on the walk home: Lucubration is the superior spell for Arcane Thesis (even without repeatwinning things).
Re: the 9th level thing: Whoops. Thought Versatile had an "or lower" clause. Well, just find any single-level metamagic cost reducer (i.e. Metamagic School Specialist is easy to qualify for). You only need it to work once (when preparing the intial spell) and all the echoes will inherit it, and you'd get about that many slots. You'd need one more level reducer for every spell level you want to emulate after that, unless you're using Versatile to copy spells that themselves emulate other spells.
Or just cast Spell Engine and use Heighten Spell to buffer your new spell selection to taste (with a nice DC boost on the side). Or, if you're absolutely nuts, use Earth Spell (you don't need shadowcraft mage for this, just earth spell) so that you also get a massive CL boost on all of those spells. The CL boost would be lower on the lower-level spells, which are exactly the ones who get the biggest benefit from a high-CL Echoing effect. (You could hypothetically rinse and repeat this for nearly unlimited caster level, which is the most obvious clue that this is an exploit, not a feature.)
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
Also, I find it rather novel that an incantatrix build has abilities worth mentioning other than Persistomancy, maybe even more powerful.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Basically, your 1sts through 5ths/6ths are recharged by casting Lucubration, which can be repeatwinned to recover up to four slots (over two rounds) per casting. Your 7ths through 8ths are recovered by waiting for the echo to return, and your 9ths are recovered by recovering two 8ths and using Versatile. Thus, the highest level spells take longer to recover - which is perfectly fine with me, as you'd just save those for bigger fights. Anyone able to play a wizard competently should be able to hold his own against most foes with unlimited spells of 6th level or lower, with the 7ths and 8ths on a 1 hour cooldown and the 9ths on a two-hour cooldown.
EDIT: Something just hit me: Any spell that's been recycled, be it through its own Echoing metamagic or a Lucubration hitting it, has been cast in the last 24 hours. Thus, if I cast a Lucubration in an 8th slot and its twin/repeats kick in and I eventually lucubrate the spell... it's still a spell I cast in the last 24 hours, meaning a different lucubration should be able to restore it if the spell slot is drained by other means. You just need the slot itself to be empty when you cast the lucubration (since lucubration won't grant an extra slot if the spell you're trying to restore was already restored when you cast the lucubration). This is getting even more bizarre than I imagined.
It also shows one of many reasons I dislike wizards. This wasn't all that hard to come up with, and it causes quite a few assumptions about the game to explode even without going into the mental gymnastics (and set theory, to be honest) to investigate the finer points of meta-meta-spells. (So in other words, with no mental effort, wizard optimization makes the game explode. With mental effort, you wind up talking more impenetrably than a parody of bad mathematics jargon. Neither is what I'd consider an ideal result in a game.)
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
The best part is the Repeat Spell part of the Twin/Repeat Lucubration should be able to select the Lucubration from the previous round.
I mean, this build isn't more broken than Shapechange, Ice Assassin, or really a good number of other spells. While I much prefer playing sorcerers(Because a sorcerer, psion, or the like can still effectively be challenged at mid or high level), at lower levels wizards aren't game-wreckingly ludicrous.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
[Slot contains Lucubration] -> Cast Lucubration -> [Slot is empty]
Lucubration restores slot -> [Slot contains Lucubration]
[Slot contains Lucubration] -> Versatile Magic or other sacrifice effect -> [Slot is empty]
Here, I assumed you couldn't use Lucubration to restore the slot, since it wasn't emptied by casting the spell.
The thing is, Lucubration doesn't reference the slot. It references any spell you've cast, and actually cast, in the last 24 hours. Which includes the lucubration.
So you're restoring Lucubration (which was cast earlier - and then restored) into a slot that was not emptied by casting (but had, previously, held a lucubration which was restored after casting).
I view D&D as two separate games: Resource management (mostly during character creation and strategic-scale adventuring) and risk management (mostly on tactical-scale combat). There's some overlap, and they inform each other, but the two games are approached very differently.
In this case, I wasn't even trying - this was one of a few builds were were toying around with using Uncanny Forethought / Mage of the Arcane Order (the first gives you every spell you know, the second gives you (almost) every spell you don't; natural combo). We zeroed in on Illusion Mastery right off, and pulled in Spontaneous Divination because of Reasons, and then I hit on the idea of using Red Wizard as the source of Spell Mastery (to allow getting Spontaneous Divination at 5th without being behind a feat, or being forced to take 10 levels of wizard - plus, come on, when was the last time you saw any Red Wizard build at all? And have you ever seen one that wasn't built around Circle Magic? I sure haven't. Figured the novelty would be a good exercise.). I had a spare metamagic feat on one of the builds from MotAO's bonus feats, and did a very quick search for metamagic feats I hadn't heard of (to try something interesting), hit on Echoing Spell, instantly saw how it worked with Spell Power and on spells that altered spell slots, and put two and two together. A bit of shuffling for timing later, and recognizing what Spontaneous Divination meant for Versatile Spellcaster, and this just fell out.
In other words, this is pretty entry-level optimization skill - if I were teaching a course on optimization, this would be a second-week assignment question. And it's quite possibly the strongest build I've ever showcased. (Both objectively, and even if you constrain yourself to relative strength within its tier.) Compare to some of the less powerful builds that I would consider more interesting (Ashardalon Reborn, the Pinball Brothers, the A-Game Paladin, the Evasion Tank, the Psycarnum Warrior, Flip the Bird, Edge of the Light...), which often took several days and in some cases several weeks of work to get right.
If optimization can be done this lazily and still come out like this, there's no fun in it for me. I'd much rather find an elegant build that excels in particular areas and has answers for others while still being challenged when all the stops are pulled out, as opposed to effortlessly crushing every encounter before it happens with a build that took maybe a coffee break or two to put together. (I'm only slightly exaggerating here, as this is far from the strongest wizard around - your own incantrix version blows this out of the water in terms of stamina, with mine only coming ahead on spell versatility at the lower levels).
It's the same reason I avoid the incantrix or divine metamagic (or rather, a closely related reason, as those two are (largely) ways of getting around very important costs). Options like that are too good and require next to no real thought to use if they're available. They turn the character building game into a lazy sunday, and with only minimal player skill can turn the game world into a smoking ruin. And, in the long run, this leads to lazy optimization in other areas, as there's no challenge in it.
...Sorry. Rant over. I'll stop now.
EDIT: I did remember something constructive here - I forgot about Cooperative Spell, as one is wont to do since it's right and proper stupid. (I would love it so much better if the individual spells readied during the casting still took effect, just with the cooperative bonus on each one, but...). It's another +0 cost metamagic, meaning it's a reducer for whatever spell Thesis is modifying (which will be Lucubration once I get around to editing that - thanks, by the way). With Invisible, Cooperative, and Echoing, the net cost modifier is +0, meaning that even if a DM gets super-restrictive on Sanctum (again, as one is wont to do - that feat is never used for its clearly intended purpose, and was apparently written with the elegance and clarity of a paint roller), the build can move on without it. So I guess this does have the advantage of a sort of robustness to DM decisions that I don't recall many of the old-school caster exploit builds having.
Just to put it all in one place, here are the necessary questions for the DM.
-Is Spontaneous Divination (which says "any spell of the divination school") limited to spells on my spell list or to divination spells that I know? (It can't be "any divination spell", which is patently broken at face value, thank you Complete Champion editing.)
-Can a Spellpool spell have metamagic applied to it? (I.e. I call a Summon Monster 2 from the pool, and apply Invisible Spell to it as it's prepared, OR can I call an Invisible Summon Monster 2?). I think we can all agree that calling metamagic spells with feats we don't have is not kosher.
-Does Echoing Spell restore the original slot that the spell had, or does it add a new, temporary slot to hold it when it returns? (This matters due to interaction with Lucubration, Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability, and Uncanny Forethought. The uncanny forethought interaction is most significant.)
-Does Sanctum Spell lower a spell's required CL to cast? (i.e. if the example Echoing Acid Arrow at CL 9 (5th level slot, effective level 2 - echo returns at CL 5, it can be cast; echo returns at CL 1, too low, echo disappears) was instead an Echoing Sacntum Acid Arrow (5th level slot, effective level 1), could it be cast for the third echo?
-If I can apply metamagic to Spellpool spells, what happens if that metamagic is Echoing Spell? Does the spell return as if it were a normal echoing spell? If so, can I return it to the spellpool on its last castable echo?
-What spells do you "know" for Versatile Spellcaster? Typically, wizards "know" any spell in their spellbooks, but if a DM is going to pinch somewhere, this is one of the major spots.
-When I cast Lucubration to recover a spell that I've cast of level X, and the spell of level X happened to be in a higher slot due to metamagic, does the higher slot get recovered? (It appears so, but a few later spells, such as Arcane Fusion, suggest that they could interpret that as spell slot, and I'd like to know a DM ruling on this.)
-Finally, if you're using an alternate build such as Luna Trigger's, what happens to a Twin or Repeat Echoing Spell when it echoes?
All of these need answering, really, for the build to run.
Thankfully, even if they answer in the conservative manner for each of them, the impact on the build is minor - you replace Sanctum Spell with something else and switch to Mnemonic Enhancer as your thesis spell (it's not as good but it's not open to debate - it can be recovered directly with a lucubration and it grants loads of spell slots which can be doubled with a ring of wizardy and used to fuel uncanny / spontaneous just fine). The MOST conservative outcome (which includes putting some arbitrary squeeze on Versatile Spellcaster) is you end up with an impossibly huge number of spells of levels 1-4 (but neither an arbitrary nor infinite number; while echoing lucubrations work, under the conservative interpretation they can't recover themselves), spontaneous access to every divination spell you know, 12 slots of Uncanny Forethought (access to every illusion spell you know, twelve spells that you chose for Spell Mastery, or any other spell you know at -2 CL, offset by your spell power ability), and if all else fails you can fill empty spell slots with up to 12 levels of spellpool spells per day. I would consider this more than acceptable as a conservative-DM lower bound on overall power/versatility.
So I suppose the groundhog mage really should be marketed on its robustness - or used as an example of the role of DM decisions in overall player power, since the relative swing between "permissive" and "conservative" is still pretty high.
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
Since you're using Scion anyways, it just seemed like something that deserves to pointed out.
That reminds me, Ocular should be that last bonus feat.
That said, this build does have one DM weakness: MotAO's "Please screw me over, GM" button. Not that losing MotAO really weakens the build, but it's still there. And the reason I've never bothered to build with that PrC.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
The reason I didn't do that at first is because I was building it up level by level, and it's only at the tail end of the build that I realized I needed to kluge it a bit with Dantalion. I never considered what would happen if I shuffled the kluge earlier - apparently that works out much better.
Personally, I'd've loved to see more uses for turn attempts, rather than simply using them as fuel for casting. (One creative, if abusable, example was on a villain in Elder Evils, called Divine Intercession. It was basically a Turn Undead attempt in every standard result, except it looked at the number of divine spellcasting levels creatures nearby had instead of HD of undead. If they would have been turned, they instead are cut off from the gods, being unable to use their turn attempts or divine magic for 1 minute. If they would have been destroyed, it's cut off for a day. Like turning, this ended early if he directly attacked them. I think this ability is a little ham-fisted (I'd be tempted to use Impedance rules, double the turn attempt costs of anything, and cut their caster and turning levels in half rather than directly cutting them off, personally, as well as expand the "dispel turning" rules to include countering this intercession - let the clerics fight to bar each others' gods from intervening in this fight), but it's a good example of getting creative with new abilities in ways that Divine Metamagic really didn't.)
The screw-you buttons are there, but they've got quite a lot of wiggle room before they trigger.
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
On the upside, this frees up one of your pacts, since Tenebrous isn't helping much other than that. You'd still bind Ashardalon (naturally), Ipos (stronger claws, Rend, emergency True Seeing, +1 DC to vestige powers), and Chupoclops (large debuff aura, Pounce, extra bite attack, Ghost Touch natural weapons, a weak form of blindsense, and an ethereal ambush ability), but the last one would be up to you. It's been a while since I revisited that, so I don't have on hand a good go-to to replace him on a "main build".
Originally posted by aelryinth:
Hmm. Since when can you feed the spellpool from anywhere? I thought you could only feed it from the guild itself.
Regardless, a few points:
Ugh, after I let you know my head exploded thinking this could work.
1) Your twinned echoing Detect Magic trick won't work, because of order of application.
remember, you have to decide in what order your metamagic feats resolve. YOu get to determine them, but order makes a definite difference.
If you Twin the Echo, sure, it doubles the spell below it twice, but it doesn't double the echo, i.e. it's outside the modification. So you'd get your Echo back without the Twin attached to it.
If you echo the Twin, you just get a returned spell slot.
2) Spells Known and spells in a spellbook is verrrry tender territory you're jumping on.
3) I'm pretty sure no DM in their right mind is going to let you cast a 2nd level +3 Meta spell below 9th level caster ability appropriate for a level 5 slot.
4) Pretty sure the modifier for the -1 on Sanctum spell doesn't apply until the spell is actually cast, which stops a lot of the shenanigans you're talking about with it.
5) Rings of Wizardry only double arcane spells per day. Slots gained via Mnemonic are not Spells per Day. They are extra spell slots, even if typeless. So pretty sure that doesn't work, either. Bonus spells ARE spells per day, but are explicitly not doubled by the rules. You read too much into it. Preparing additional spell levels is NOT Spells per Day.
6) You are taking some liberties with the whole 'extra spells slots' language, especially when dealing with meta'd magicks. You do still have to follow Order of Application on all your metas, and if the Echo is to be modified by any of them, it can't Echo those metas.
7) I believe it was mentioned as errata that you couldn't Thesis the meta modifier of an effect below 0? tacking on a +0 Meta to get another -1 modifier from Thesis isn't going to fly with most DM's, and you should probably avoid it.
8) I don't have my DMG2 around. What magic item and what were you trying to do?
Even with those limitations...wow, just stacking the +CL modifiers and using Circle Magic makes this a totally killer combo in and of itself. Imagine if you had room to stick in Archmage for more more +Spellpowr fun?
==Aelryinth
Originally posted by aelryinth:
Also, re: Practiced Spellcaster. Practiced is a feat and a constant effect, where the CL penalty for Echoes is a temporary effect.
Pretty sure that Practiced Spellcaster would apply all the time as a universal rule, and then your CL penalties would apply on a case by case basis. Since your base CL will always be maxed, the CL penalty wouldn't apply. You could 'order of operations' it around your also-permanent spell power, but that would only apply if your CL was naturally lower then your HD by your Spell Power. It's not a metamagic feat where you can determine order of operations on the fly.
i.e. Practiced Spellcaster wouldn't work, either.
==Aelryinth
Originally posted by Anagorisis:
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
There is no such thing as an "order of application" on metamagics. The end result is the end result
And I don't think "sane GM" matters here. Didn't you read the OP?
Originally posted by Anagorisis:
Incidentally, if online sources are available, one could also take the Green Lady vestige alongside Tenebrous and go to DMM city, with a summer home in Cheesevile.
Using the Green Lady is whisper-close to a houserule, but, weirdly enough, the case for officialdom becomes stronger if people at your table are using Pathfinder material.
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
This means that you can use a turn attempt. which you have independantly from the vestige, to do extra damage or whatever when turning with the vestige.
Originally posted by Anagorisis:
And as an aside: you don't need non-vestige turning to enter the class. Vestige-granting turning satisfies the class requirement. After that, you're permanently bound to a vestige that grants turn undead, so you're still meeting the requirement.
*Also, note that the distinction between "attempts" and "that thing that the vestige does" is wholly artificial. Before the vestige, there was only one kind of turning: turning. Sure, you could turn different things, but turning was turning. After the vestige, the vestige seems to claim that, still, the only kind of turning is turning. Again, it explicitly stacks with turning. So I submit that before one can even claim that vestige turning is not "turning," one must first establish why "attempt" has suddenly become a reserved word when all relevant texts do not single it out, all relevant texts make no explcit distinctions between vestige-turning and "turning," and the only time distinctions are noted are when a) the distinctions are explictly negated (vestige turning stacks with clerical turning) or b) when those distinctions explictly describe "attempt" as being part and parcel of vestige turning.
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2h3qh?The-Green-Lady#4
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2he3y?Stats-for-Tyralandi-Scrimm#9
So Tenebrous Apostate has optional rules, which many optimizers seem to think is official. Fair enough, but creating new abilities takes the shine off of the officialdom apple. James Jacobs is Creative Director at Paizo, though, so if you're already running Pathfinder crap, pointing out that this stuff has the James Jacobs Seal of Approval might make it more palatable than official Pathfinder crap.
It's a very strong vestige yet not Zceryll-strong, so it's the usual binder bit where the earlygame is solid but it offers little for later levels. The class (Apostle of the Green Lady) is another deep kiss to arcane casters, but isn't table-crushingly unbalanced.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
I'm just going to address the points Luna Trigger didn't.
If I make a Twin Lucubration Echoing, then it casts itself twice... and each of those casts was modified by Echoing, since the spell I cast was Twin Echoing Lucubration.
What really impressed me here is that despite every option having a super-conservative and a super-permissive interpretation, even if you take nothing but the conservative ones, the build still works. It's the most robust build with this many open DM calls that I've ever seen.
Regarding the turning thing, I'm just taking a third option and using a shroudcrown. Frees up the vestige for something better than Tenebrous and more official than the Green Lady. Fewest arguments.
Besides, it should help popularize the shroudcrown. Will help all non-cleric builds that like Devotion feats, methinks - you don't need to have Turning to get Travel Devotion, but sometimes a head slot item is cheaper than a class level if you're trying to use it more often.
Originally posted by Anagorisis:
The shroudcrown runs 113,600 gp. That's rolling pretty deep, isn't it?
Worse, how does the shroudcrown stack with turn undead from other sources? (This is the bizarre thing about turn undead: the turn undead rules are at their worst when you use turn undead as turn undead; when you use turn undead for ancillary functions (which require hits of turn undead use and don't care about the puissance or characteristics of standard turn undead employment), the rules become quite clean -- it's implied that pretty much everything just stacks right on up.)
If you can afford it, I'd agree that the shroudcrown is nifty, but binder aside, perhaps it's easier to be an Azurin cleric, grab conventional turning via a PrC, and use Plant Control, Plant Defiance, Initiate of Nature and so on to stack up turn attempts. That is, it's easier if everyone agrees that those pools all stack. Which could be controversial.
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
The order is you activate the ability of the vestige, then spend a turn attempt to use the super turning.
Unless you're going to argue that Tenebrous grants 3+Cha turn attempts per day and just has an extra restriction on them, you've got absolutely nothing.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Can we move the discussion regarding vestiges and turning to Ashardalon Reborn(x), please? That's the build under discussion at this point, not the Groundhog Mage. I've moved my reply there, and this will be my last post on the subject here
Originally posted by aelryinth:
You can't have a Twin Lucubration Echoing...the Echoing wouldn't be modifying anything.
order of Operations is VERY key on all metamagic. Now, for damage spells, it might not matter much, but let's use a basic set up.
Would you rather have a Persistent Extended spell, or an Extended Persistent spell?
Waiting....
The First version, Persistent modifies the Extended Spell, turning a double duration spell into a 24 hour spell. Extended is wasted.
The Second version, Extended modifies the Persistent spell. You now have a spell that lasts 48 hours.
In 3.0, when Empower and Maximize stacked, it also made a difference. An Empowered, Maximized 10th level fireball did 60 + 5d6 points of damage. A maximized, Empowered Fireball did 90 points of damage.
Thirdly, Meta effects do NOT happen simultaneously, much as JaronK might want to argue. Because then You'd Get a Twinned Maximized Empowered Fireball that was a 60 +5d6 fireball,+ a 10d6 fireball, the metas ignoring one another, OR you'd properly apply them in order, gettiing 2x 60+5d6 fireballs.
So, your Twinned, Echoing Lucubration means you cast two Lucubration spells, and those Lucubration spells are Echoed...ignoring the Twinned, which they don't modify, letting you end up with 2 Lucubration spells.. Echoing Twinned Lucubration alternate? You'd end up with....a single Echoed, twinned Lucubration, not TWO of them. Since Twin isn't doubling the Echo, you get exactly what you had before, no more, no less, no matter which way you cast it. The first one you'd get 2 Lucubrations you could use on different spells, but have to cast independently of one another after they Echo. The second, you'd get a Twinned Lucubration, casting it over again.
You're essentially trying to get the effects of the meta twice, and that's not how it works.
I find it difficult to believe that you can Lucubrate that 6th level Sanctum spell. At any moment that the Lucubration checks it, it's going to see a spell in a 6th level slot. The fact the spell was effectively cast at 5th level isn't going to be relevant. It can also be cast at 7th level. When the Lucubration checks, all it's going to see is a spell cast out of a 6th level slot and beyond its power.
I still consider using +0 Arcane Thesis Meta reduction total cheese..
The example for the level 2 spell being reduced to 5th level does not reference any other Meta then Echoing, which we can assume is being ignored for this calculation. The Echoing level 2 takes up a 5th level spell, and Echoing bases its effect on that level 2. If we're talking an Echoing Maximized Scorching Ray, you'd now be burning an 8th level slot to Echo a 5th level spell, and you can't cast a 5th level spell below 9th level.
YOu basically took an example and read too much into it. In proper order of operations, Echo looks at the 2nd level spell and it can be cast at level 5, you're good. But you blew that up into a Echoing Twinned Enhancer still being castable below normal spell level, looking at it as a level 4 spell, not a level 8.
I also have to wonder extensively about applying metacost reducers on reborn echoed spells. One of the ways I'd stop this in its tracks is simply not to have metacost reducers apply to the reborn spells, which would either eliminate them from Lucubration or Enhancer, and/or make them take up higher spell slots, as suddenly you can't fit that Twinned Enhancer into a level 6 slot like you want to. After all, you aren't preparing the spells, so why should you get the spell get the cost reducers? All the new spells are going to see is a Twinned Lucubration, not the -2 cost attached to it. I.e. is there PRECEDENT for Metacost reducers being applied to spontaneously reformed spells via means other then just preparing them?
I mean, seriously, the reborn spells should all be identical, regardless of who let them loose originally. Someone with a -2 Echoing Enhancers can now stuff them in a 6th level slot, but someone without it has to use an 8th level slot, and can't cast the spell below a CL of 15. As successive metacost reduction is not included as a function of Echoing, it's a bit of a stretch, and kind of unfair, for the rebirth effect to be so uneven.
Just things to think on.
Still a crazy design.
==Aelryinth
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
But, I assume since you're making such a big claim, you've got some very nice passages of text for us.
Post some text. Until then, your post is meaningless.
Originally posted by aelryinth:
Wow, and I thought you were good at math and order of operations.
i just laid out a very, very simple order of operations, and you can't see it. That's...amazing. I had no idea your odd opinions so clouded your ability to do basic logic calculations.
In any event, since you seem incapable of comprehending the proof that was posted, I'm just going to ignore the rest of your opinion.
Extended Persistent and Persistent Extended are the same spell. HAH!. That IS funny.
I'm 99.99% sure Tempest knows exactly what I'm saying, and how it affects his Twinned Echoing plans, at the very least. The order in which you apply Metamagic can definitely have an effect on the final spell. You get to choose them, but that hardly means they are identical every time.
This is especially crucial if you want the metamagics to affect each other. If they all take effect simultaneously, they ignore one another. So you have to determine which meta modifies what meta that modifies what meta'd spell. Very basic.
===Aelryinth
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
Yeah, I think you've just proven my point for me.
Originally posted by Slagger_the_Chuul:
This would actually give the spell two durations (since its duration is set to both double and 24 hours at the same time), but since spells expire when they reach the end of their duration, it would reach the shortest duration first and end there.
Without an order of operations, all metamagic applies to the base spell, since the spell will not already have the changes from any given metamagic when another one is applied.
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
But maybe I'm wrong. Anyone want to provide explicit text backing up the absurd claim that Ael made?
EDIT: To rephrase, since it seems to be missed, any order you apply metamagics in doesn't matter. There is nothing preventing a twin spell from echoing because something being applied after it doesn't magically mean it doesn't exist. A twinned spell is a twinned spell regard, regardless of any effects on it, and there is nothing preventing the metamagicks from echoing beyond Ael's completely unsupported assertions.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
The only time I think order of operations applies at all is if the metamagic changes the validity of the modified spell. (This is why I used the "Detect Magic + Snowcasting + Flash Frost + Coercive" example above - you can't make a spell coercive without it dealing damage, which here only comes from flash frost, which can only be applied to cold spells, which is only here because of snowcasting...). However, that's order of operations on application, not on triggering.
The reason I asked about Twin Echoing earlier wasn't because of order of operations, really - it was because I wasn't sure if the thing that echoed was a result of the spell resolving or of the spell being cast. I.e. I only "cast" a Twin Echo spell once, but it takes effect twice. Echoing doesn't really alter the "effect" so much, it just causes the spell to return after an hour. I'm not sure if what's returning is the (single) spell I'm casting, or the (twin) results of it resolving.
Originally posted by aelryinth:
You'd get the two results of it back, but the two spells would no longer be Twinned...they would just be two spells in spell slots, as I noted above.
Now, if you Echoed the Twin Spell, as opposed to Twinning the Echoed Spell, you'd get a single Twinned Spell back, ready for use in one, higher level slot.
The net effect is the same, but the results are slightly different...two spells independently in two lower level slots, or one Twinned Spell in a higher level slot.
Order of operations usually doesn't mean anything. But (Correction: EruditeApe's) explanation is all opinion and no logic, and doesn't hold any water, so it's safe to ignore it. It definitely makes a difference on what you want to have happen here.
==Aelryinth
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
Again, if your post is so much more than mere opinion, let's see some sources.
Originally posted by Slagger_the_Chuul:
If you attempt to apply both modifications simultaneously, neither one of them has been applied by the time the other takes effect, so you're applying both modifications to the completely unmodified form of the spell.
Originally posted by aelryinth:
oi, oi, Slagger, he's asking you to 'prove' logic, when he can't prove anything. Don't worry about him, he doesn't know what he's talking about. I thought he was smart enough to understand the basic logic, so I think he's just being willfully obtuse to start an argument. It's how JaronK is, you know.
He's always right.
If someone else is right, he tells them they have to prove it.
He doesn't have to prove anything, even if he's obviously wrong.
When they prove they are right, he tells them they are wrong.
Meh, Just ignore him. It's not worth the argument. He's followed the same pattern dozens of times, there's no point to letting him bait you.
The only one important here is Tempest, who is EXTREMELY reasonable and open-minded.
==Aelryinth
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
As TS pointed out, Metamamagics can be used to make a spell qualify for other metamagics, but beyond that there is no difference.
I'm more than willing to entertain the possibilty that I'm wrong. Post some proof.
Also, I just want to be clear, you're claiming that, despite it being you who's been throwing the insults, I'm the one who's baiting? I'm highly curious as to your definition of "baiting."
Do you really not see what's wrong with this?
Originally posted by Slagger_the_Chuul:
or
If we instead try applying both changes simultaneously we get:
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
I honestly don't know how to make it much more clear. The duration is twice normal and the base duration is made to be 24 hours. The only possible result is that the duration is 48 hours.
Or, to put it in the utterly silly way that you and Ael keep wanting to put it in, Y is the final duration and X is the base duration.
Normally, Y=X
Extended, Y=2X
Persisted X=24
So, extended and persisted, Y=2(24)
Originally posted by Slagger_the_Chuul:
A formula like Y=2(24) works by following a standard order of operations. Specifically, you perform the operations in brackets (setting the duration to 24) before the operations outside the brackets, because mathematical formulas already recognize the need to perform operations in a way that avoids ambiguous results.
The formula you've written here describes applying Persistent Spell first, then Extended Spell.
The name's more for legacy, at this point, I'm afraid, as this is more likely to be a sporadic thing than a regular feature.
As usual for the showcase, these builds are intended to spur discussion and perhaps inspire a few people in the spirit of the old CO boards. They come from members of my gaming group - me, Radical Taoist, DisposableHero_, Andarious, Sionnis, and Seishi - and I'll always identify who wrote the build at the start, so do not assume I'm the guy behind all of them (because I'm not!).
Unless otherwise noted, showcase builds use 28 point-buy, and have their snapshots evaluated using fractional base attack / saves (because it simplifies the math). None of them actually rely on fractional to be built, though. The format I use showcases their progression at key levels rather than just presenting the build and showing off a few tricks at level 20; most of these are capable of being played 1-20 if you so choose.
With that out of the way, let's get started. This week, one of the Overpowered Mages is making an appearance, old-school. The basic design is mine, based on an idea Andarious and RT kicked off.
------------------
GROUNDHOG MAGE
♪Let’s do the time warp again♪
Required Books: Complete Arcane, Complete Champion (one ACF), and one feat each from Cityscape, Exemplars of Evil, Secrets of Xen’drik (not RP-linked to Eberron), Races of the Dragon, and the PHB2. Any spellbooks you want as well (I suggest PHB2/Spell Compendium, which should be enough – your key spells are all from the core books and one from Complete Arcane).
Unearthed Arcana used: Illusion Mastery ACF, and nothing else. That said, a single flaw benfits you far, far more than most and will provide an RP-appropriate ability from the DMG2.
Background: Warning: Old-School Style RAW games follow. They aren’t required, but they do turn this from “Cute” to “WHERE THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM”.
This is one of the “overpowered mages” that I was planning on releasing as a group showcase, but this one honestly makes the most sense on its own (and feels the closest to a true wizard, I think). Very little here is new (I think just the Echoing stunts are new), but when you put together a few established stunts in one place, you sometimes get something new in their interactions.
This build is a bad boy – a possible build for a wizard completely linked in the mage traditions of Thay, quite possibly under the direct tutelage of the Zulkir of Illusion. (One of the other versions is a Hathran, so the two could run as rivals rather easily.) It’ll also work as a recurring villain for that reason. In a player’s hands, you can expect this build to have almost ridiculous flexibility on its spellcasting – there’s legitimate reasons to keep a large number of your spell slots open and unprepared, oddly enough – and a really high level of stamina, especially where lower and mid level spells are concerned. Finally, it actually makes good use of normally-shunned choices such as your familiar and Red Wizard. Walk with me here, I think you’ll appreciate the result.
Why is it called the “Groundhog Mage”? Because all your spells keep coming back to you as if you were starting a new day every few hours. The tagline quote is from an unrelated show (unless you're also a Blue player and read flavor text), but the quote I wanted to use was too long: "Well maybe the real God uses tricks, you know? Maybe he's not omnipotent. He's just been around so long he knows everything." Particularly apropos because God isn't actually omnipotent either - he just uses tricks and years of system mastery experience to get pretty damn close.
The Basics
- Race: Human, from Thay, required for a mandatory feat. Thay is more than a little racist, but it might allow other races with the Human subtype if your DM swings that way. You won’t need any of their special properties, though.
- Ability Scores: Absolutely standard for a wizard: 8/10/14/18/10/10 at 28 PB should be fine. Pulling four points out of Wis and Cha for 14 Dex is a viable alternative, depending on what you want to do with your spells. Both are completely textbook ability score arrays for wizards; nothing out of the ordinary here.
- Alignment: Any nongood. You’ve got a lot of possible ways to play this.
Skill Notes: You need Spellcraft maxed for most of your prerequisites, but I think that’s about it. Concentration and the assorted Knowledge skills are everything else asking for your time. In other words, completely standard wizard.
Basic Equipment: Standard wizard. Spell component pouch, a big enough backpack for your spellbook and writing tools, and a crossbow are just about all you will ever need. That said, a spare spellbook might not go amiss – you’ll be filling it up very quickly.
For many reasons, you’ll also want to establish your own library / lab / tower / lair as soon as you get a chance and a secure location. It’ll hold your excess spell books and provide spaces for you to cast your multi-spell rituals before setting out.
Magical Gear Goals: You’re going to have a lot – and I mean a lot – of spells in your library simply by gaining levels. Blessed Books are a great investment (you pay 12,500gp for 25,000gp worth of spellbook, and it’s all in a single volume). The usual array of Intelligence boosters, CL boosters, staves, and true defensive items round out your shopping list. You’ll get a lot more bang than usual out of Rings of Wizardy, though, especially at the late levels (or earlier levels, if you use the variant with flaws).
The Build.
Build Stub: Wizard (Illusionist) 5 / Mage of the Arcane Order 7 / Red Wizard 8
1 – Illusionist – (Illusion Mastery, Familiar) (Scribe Scroll, Collegiate Wizard, Invisible Spell)
*
[sblock]Give up Evocation and Enchantment. Evocation for obvious reasons, enchantment because it overlaps strongly with illusion (although there really are some great spells in there – see the flaws variant discussed below about how to get around this.)
Hypothetically this build will work with any specialization, but quite frankly Illusion Mastery takes the cake. You’ll see why by level 12. Until then, just keep all your illusion spells in one spellbook and all your non-illusion spells in others – and make sure that anyone who wants to take your spellbook only knows about the first one. You don’t need it.
[/sblock]2 – Illusionist
3 – Illusionist – (Cooperative Spell)
*
[sblock]Worthless prerequisite, more or less. If this instead fired off one copy of the spell for each participant, all gaining the benefits, it’d be a lot less of a waste, but…[/sblock]4 – Illusionist
5 – Illusionist – (Spontaneous Divination)
*
[sblock] Slot Hijinks time! You can
- Fill any open slot with any illusion spell you know, without using your spellbook, taking the normal time to do so.
- Sacrifice any spell slot you’ve got to cast any divination spell.
The text, in typical CCHamp style, doesn’t say “…that you know”, but I think anyone arguing on this point is likely to get a book to the face. That hurts. Don’t try it.
[/sblock]6 – Mage of the Arcane Order – (Guild Member, Spellpool 1st-3rd) (Tattoo Focus)
*
[sblock] Slot Hijinks time! You can:
- Fill any open slot with any illusion spell you know, without using your spellbook, taking the normal time to do so.
- Sacrifice any spell slot you’ve got to cast any divination spell.
- Use the spellpool as a full-round action to fill any blank slot with any PHB wizard spell you can cast of up to 3rd level. The spell can be cast any time in the next 6 minutes before fading. You can call up to 3 spell levels per day at this point, and have to repay the slot with a prepared spell within 1 day.
That’s a pretty massive library at your fingertips. Leave a few spell slots open and you should be fine.
Also, check with your DM about how metamagic and spellpool spells work.
[/sblock]7 – Mage of the Arcane Order – (Sanctum Spell)
*
[sblock] Curiously, you might actually be using this for its intended purpose, and it is RP-appropriate, but we’re really here because of what it does outside of your sanctum.[/sblock]8 – Red Wizard – (Enhanced Specialization, Illusion Defense +1)
*
[sblock] The best school to drop here is probably Necromancy, as sad as that makes me. If you’re nuts, you can try dropping Abjuration, though I really don’t recommend this.[/sblock]9 – Red Wizard – (Spell Power +1) (Echoing Spell)
*
[sblock] Spell Power, in addition to the usual goodies, also increases your total number of Spellpool levels available each day and causes called spells to last a little longer. It also works quite nicely with your next feat.
Echoing Spell is a gimmicky feat from Secrets of Xen’drik. It’s prepared-spell-only, so it won’t be usable with your Spontaneous Divination spells (but might be usable with spellpool spells, and is certainly available with any normally-prepared spell). It’s a +3 spell level cost effect, and a nutshell summary of what it does is this: One hour after casting an echoing spell, it prepares itself again, with a cumulative -4 penalty to its CL. It will keep re-preparing itself until that penalty lowers its effective CL below what you need to cast the spell or until the spell is counterspelled during casting.
Critical point here: The example given is of a 9th level caster using Echoing Acid Arrow (2nd level spell in 5th level slot). When it echoes, it comes back as a 2nd level spell in a 5th level slot but with an effective CL of 5. This is still high enough to cast 2nd level spells, so it can be fired off again. If it were looking at effective spell level, this wouldn't work (as CL 5 isn't high enough to hit 5ths). It’s the actual spell level, not the slot, that is being referenced here. This feat is therefore substantially more efficient at returning lower-level spells to you, particularly if they are buffed to hell with metamagic.
It also works quite well with spells that do not have CL-based effects and those that modify spell slots. Look at what happens when you prepare an Echoing Mnemonic Enhancer, for instance.
There are two major points to check with your DM: The first is, what happens to a Sanctum Echoing spell? If, say, a Sanctum Echoing Acid Arrow is cast (effectively a 1st level spell, cast out of a 5th level slot) at CL 9, does it echo once (as listed above), or twice (as the second echo takes place at CL 1, which is high enough to cast 1st level spells)? Get this ruling sorted out now; you’re going to need an answer to use our next trick.
The second depends on the Spellpool ruling earlier. If your DM (at level 6) ruled that you to apply metamagic feats to the spells you retrieve from the pool, what happens if a Spellpool spell gets altered by Echoing Spell? Does it return into the slot you’ve cast it from in the first place? How does the Echoing Spell timer (one hour before re-preparing) interact with the time limit on using Spellpool spells (one minute per caster level)? And, finally, if an echoing spellpool spell returns and has a cripplingly high CL penalty, it’s still a spell of the same level you called – can it be returned to the spellpool to pay off your debt? These rulings are kind of needed (as the implied answers suggest they are “Yes, either restart the timer or resume from the previous point, and yes”, which means this trick is disturbingly good.)
[/sblock]10 – Red Wizard – (Illusion Defense +2)
11 – Red Wizard – (Spell Power +2)
12 – Red Wizard – (Circle Leader) (Spell Mastery, Uncanny Forethought)
*
[sblock] Yes, Spell Mastery is on the Red Wizard bonus feat list. Uncanny Forethought requires Spell Mastery, but allows spontaneous access to any spell you’ve mastered – which includes every single illusion spell you’ve learned since level 1 (which is higher than usual due to Collegiate Wizard), since Illusion Mastery operates as if it were Spell Mastery (though you need the actual feat for Uncanny’s prereq). The bonus from Spell Power helps offset the CL penalty from using Uncanny Forethought as well, so those spells appear exactly as strong as they would be for a normal wizard.
I'm a touch resigned at the delay for getting Uncanny Forethought (it's one of those feats that really works better if you get it earlier), but using a wizard bonus feat slot for Spell Mastery and Spontaneous Divination forced this kind of delay. On the positive side, it's not like you have't already been doing some of what Uncanny Forethought can let you do already, via the spellpool and Spontaneous Divination.
Anyway. Pick your favorite non-illusion spells for Spell Mastery (I'd strongly suggest including Mage's Lucubration here - it'll soon be your favorite spell), and let's get a move on.
Slot Hijinks time! You can:
- Fill any open slot with any illusion spell you know, without using your spellbook, in the normal time (15 minutes)
- Sacrifice any spell slot you’ve got to cast any divination spell.
- Use the spellpool as a full-round action to fill any empty, unprepared slot with any PHB wizard spell you can cast of up to 3rd level. The spell can be cast any time in the next 14 minutes before fading. You can call up to 7 spell levels per day at this point, and have to repay the slot with a prepared spell within 2 days.
- Designate up to [Int Mod] spell slots (even ones you’ve prepared) for use with Uncanny Forethought, which allows you to cast any spell you have mastered (read: every illusion spell, plus the non-illusions selected for the feat) as a standard action, or any spell you know (from your massive Collegiate library) as a full-round action with -2 CL (offset by Spell Power). Prepare spells as Echoing spells, which causes them to re-prepare themselves in the same slot a few extra times. These echoes can be used to cast the spell again at lower CL, or used to fuel most of the above abilities that require a prepared spell slot at full CL.
Oh, and you’ve got Circle Magic now. Nice how that’s an afterthought to the build. (Honestly, if I could have gotten Spell Power and a bonus Spell Mastery feat through other classes, I might have used them.) I’ll address what you’ll want to do with Circle Magic later, but you may have already guessed.
[/sblock]13 – Mage of the Arcane Order – (Bonus Language)
14 – Mage of the Arcane Order – (Spellpool 4th-6th)
*
[sblock] We’re going with more guild mage to improve the Spellpool at this point, since excess Spell Power is less useful than being able to pull stronger spells out of the ether. At this point, all but your highest spell level is accessible through the Spellpool now.[/sblock]15 – Mage of the Arcane Order – (New Spell) (Arcane Thesis: Mage's Lucubration)
*
[sblock] I hear you going: Wait, what? Here's where the build goes supercritical, allowing for stunts like this.
Open by casting Sanctum Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability (CArc – effectively 5th level spell in 6th level slot). Transfer over whatever you wish, really, but check out below when choosing spell levels. Then, use Share Spells to cast an Echoing Sanctum Mnemonic Enhancer (which works out to be a 3rd level spell in a 7th level slot), allowing you and your familiar to prepare (or, more likely in the familiar’s case, recover) three extra spell levels now, plus another three extra spell levels each hour until the spell’s CL drops below 5 (after 4 recoveries). Then, cast a Sanctum Invisible Cooperative Echoing Mage’s Lucubration (5th level spell in 6th level slot - you don't need all of the metamagics here to have this effect) to recover the Mnemonic Enhancer, and then any three spells you want (possibly including the spells you sent over from Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability, or the Imbue itself – you can grab up to 5th level spells this way) over the next four hours before it re-prepares its last echo. If Lucubration is about to expire from repeated echoing, you use its last echo to recover itself (thank you, Sanctum Spell) “as though prepared in the normal fashion” and thus back at full CL.
Voila – this gives you functionally unlimited lower-level spell preparations (peak efficiency at 3rd level spells), and gives your familiar some pretty solid stamina as a backup spell turret, loaded with several of your favorite spells that also continually refresh whenever your Mnemonic Enhancer ticks. If nothing else, this means you can pay back your spellpool debts on the same day you’re adventuring, and still come out ahead on spell slots.
You can also have mutliple Lucubrations echoing around at once, with the same timing points or at specific intervals, giving you continually refreshing spell slots tuned for your daily needs. They're on a one-hour cooldown, and (under a conservative interpretation - see below) they don't touch your super-high-level game-breaking 7ths through 9ths. You can effectively bust out the big guns as often as a classic wizard (though with increased versatility, due to spellpool / Uncanny Forethought), and still have an almost unlimited supply of workhorse lower level spells constantly available.
Clarify with your DM about spell vs spell level vs slot level here. You can quite easily break the game. For instance, an Echoing Mnemonic Enhancer is a 4th level spell in a 7th level slot - can Mage's Lucubration recover it? I assume yes (as it takes specific language, since all PHB spells that reference spell level (i.e. Spell Turning, Globe of Invulnerability) only look at true spell level, and it takes special language like the errata'd version of Arcane Thesis to reference final slot level. With this in mind, you can cast a 4th level spell out of a 7th level slot, and use Lucubration to recover that 7th level slot (even though it couldn't recover a 7th level spell). You can also use that 7th level slot to fuel Uncanny Forethought (or possibly the spellpool), and then recover the slot again (since Lucubration restores any spell that you cast in the last 24 hours - in this case, that slot has since been filled (either through a second lucubration or through a normal echo) and used to fuel something else, but it's still a spell you cast in the last 24 hours. Lucubration can natively restore any 5th level spell, which includes Sanctum Lucubration or any Echoing 4th, 5th, or 6th level spell, in whatever slot it had previously been cast. In short, this allows Lucubration to recharge any spell slot you want, which can be used to fuel your spontaneous spellcasting -- assuming you actually cast the spell at least once first. (Good thing echoing spells return to you, eh?)
(Let this be a cautionary tale about why "spell", "spell level", and "spell slot" are not interchangeable, but early spells often used them as such.)
[/sblock]16 – Mage of the Arcane Order – (Bonus Language)
17 – Mage of the Arcane Order – (Spellpool 7th-9th)
*
[sblock] Full spellpool abilities online at exactly the same time your 9ths are available. And since 9ths are available, you can pull off stunts like this.
I was going to give an update on slot hijinks again, but since the next feat adds to that…
[/sblock]18 – Red Wizard – (Spell Power +3) (Versatile Spellcaster)
*
[sblock] We’re switching back to Red Wizard because Mage of the Arcane Order’s later level abilities aren't as hot as the improved Spell Power abilities. MotAO 10 actually makes you weaker by tying you to a desk job.
You qualify for Versatile Spellcaster through Spontaneous Divination. This feat allows you to give up two spell slots to spontaneously cast any spell you know. As a wizard, you know every spell in your spellbook. Check with your DM if this works the way it appears to. (Reasonable compromises are “any spell you can cast spontaneously”, meaning just any divination ever, or “any spell you ‘know’ via Spell Mastery” (which is every illusion spell plus whatever you picked when you actually learned the feat”).
This effect is even stronger than it would appear to be normally, because of your self-refreshing Echoing Lucubrations. These can restore any spell you cast of 5th level or lower, by default (and if those spells were Sanctum spells, they were originally your 6th level spells). You can prepare them in higher level spell slots as well (see the writeup of the stunt at level 15), and have the higher-level slot refresh (as the spell you're refreshing is still below Lucubration's limit).
Your only concern is that you can't apply Echoing to your spells if you're casting them spontaneously. But, there is a way around this: let's say you've prepared an Echoing spell in a high level slot. You cast the spell, and when it returns (either on its own or because you cast Lucubration on that spell), you can sacrifice that spell slot later to fuel Versatile Spellcaster. However, since you've actually cast that spell in the last 24 hours, it becomes a valid target for your Echoing Lucubrations. You can use this trick (namely, cast the spell first, then sacrifice the echoes or recharged spells) to recharge your spell slots, even though they're not being spent to cast spells. By properly preparing Echoing (or simply higher-level-slot) versions of spells that resolve at 5th level or lower, you an actually ensure a continually refreshing number of spell slots of any spell level (albeit with a coolown while you wait for the spells or the lucubrations to echo). This means you've got unlimited daily (but limited per-encounter) spontaneous access to your entire spell library - this is just shy of the Holy Grail of wizardry, and one-hour recharge prevents this from getting too out of hand and turning you into even more of an unstoppable magical juggernaut.
Slot Hijinks time! You can:
- Fill any open slot with any illusion spell you know, without using your spellbook, in the normal time (15 minutes)
- Sacrifice any spell slot you’ve got to cast any divination spell
- Use the spellpool as a full-round action to fill any blank slot with any PHB wizard spell you can cast of up to 9th level. The spell can be cast any time in the 24 minutes before fading. You can call up to 12 spell levels per day at this point, and have to repay the slot with a prepared spell within 7 days. Improved CL will boost this, and it can be used to grab spells you don’t otherwise know.
- Designate up to [Int Mod] spell slots (even ones you’ve prepared) for use with Uncanny Forethought, which allows you to cast any spell you have mastered (read: every illusion spell, plus the non-illusions selected for the feat) as a standard action, or any spell you know (from your massive Collegiate library) as a full-round action with -2 CL (offset by Spell Power).
- Prepare spells as Echoing spells, which causes them to re-prepare themselves in the same slot a few extra times. These echoes can be used to cast the spell again at lower CL, or used to fuel most of the above abilities that require a prepared spell slot at full CL.
- Take any 2 spell slots (unfilled or prepared, but not expended) of the same level and use them to cast any spell you “know” of 1 level higher; your constant flow of slots (see above) can keep this ability fueled, albeit with a slight cooldown. Just be sure to sacrifice spell slots that have been already recovered, be it through an echo or a lucubration. (Spells that are natively higher than 6th level cannot be recovered this way; you have to choose between using them like any other wizard, or using them once every hour at the cost of two spell slots exactly one level lower.)
[/sblock]19 – Red Wizard – (Illusion Defense +3, Scribe Tattoo)
*
[sblock] Why this feature exists, I’ll never know. If it exists, you should be able to find an NPC with this ability and get the Tattoo Focus feat without costing you a feat slot. Here, it lets you pressgang people into your circle magic, but that’s about it.
If you want one more metamagic feat, you can use more Mage of the Arcane Order here instead of Red Wizard, but honestly, Spell Power is probably going to serve you better.
[/sblock]20 – Red Wizard – (Spell Power +4)
Snapshot: +6 Int item, +4 Con item, +5 Int tome, +4 Con tome, and an orange Ioun Stone – the bare bones at 20 assuming we’re ignoring Dexterity – set us in at 191 HP, +10 BAB, +16 Fort, +5 Ref, +17 Will (+3 against illusions), level 20 wizard casting at CL 25 (+1 DC, +1 vs SR, +3 on saves against, and automatic Spell Mastery on Illusion, with Evocation, Enchantment, and Necromancy banned; you can easily replicate many useful Evocations (including Contingency) with the illusion benefits via Shadow Evocation spells). This is in line with most wizard build skeletons (though the natural CL is quite high), but it's what's on that skeleton that sets it apart.
You have a Collegiate Wizard library, giving you knowledge of a vast array of spells. You’re capable of using Spontaneous Divination to sacrifice any spell slot to cast any Divination spell (presumably, that you know) on demand. Uncanny Forethought allows you to select 12 spell slots to switch from whatever you’ve filled them with into any Illusion spell in that library (plus any spell you picked when you learned Spell Mastery at 12 - PLUS any valid target from Evocation or Conjuration for a Shadow spell), or any other spell from your immense library (at a slightly longer casting time and with -2 CL, offset by your boosted Spell Power ability). Finally, if you need a spell you haven’t seen, if it's in the PHB, you can tap into the Spellpool and pull it into any empty, unprepared spell slot you’ve got. (The DM can expand the Spellpool as described in the book, but you can count on any PHB spell being available with just an extra full round action.)
The Echoing Spell hijinks here are applied to spells that grant or recover spell slots, in effect giving you continually refreshing spells of up to 5th level under the most conservative intepretation (albeit with a one-hour cooldown). Mage's Lucubration doesn't care about the spell's slot, meaning if you get those spells into 6th-9th level spell slots, those slots can refresh as well, as long as you've actually cast the spell once (which Echoing Spell automatically recovers for you, and conveniently a Sanctum Echoing 6th level spell is a 5th level spell in a 9th level slot). You can then use these refreshing slots in pairs to fuel Versatile Spellcaster, in effect casting any spell you've got in your massive library, without preparation or any worries about daily limits, and then just restore the spell that was originally in that slot (again, provided you cast it) with an Echoing Lucubration.
This technique also allows you to transfer up to 8 spells of 5th level or lower (possibly 6th or lower, depending on what Sanctum does) to your familiar, and simply recover the use of those spells directly from a self-recovering Lucubration effect. These spells take place as if you’d cast them, but they use the familiar’s position and actions to do so. There's more you can do with familiars as spellcasting assistants, but quite frankly I won't do a better job explaining this than Dictum Mortuum did. (All spellcasting familiar / familiars and metaspell links can be found here.)
Oh, and full Circle Magic. As an afterthought. You can hypothetically use this to get up to something like +40 on your CL (which means your echoes return every hour for up to 15 hours, depending on the spell; note that Sanctum Spell appears to lower the required CL by 2, which may give you one extra echo per spell). Eventually you can staff your circle with full-strength Simulacrums, insanely over-CRed planar-bound assistants, or possibly even your familiar this way, and toss out Heightend-to-20th-level kill moves at insane CRs if you’re feeling saucy.
Questions to ask your DM: It turns out there's quite a few ambiguous points on your abilities here. Here's the list of what you should ask your DM:
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[sblock]
- Is Spontaneous Divination (which says "any spell of the divination school") limited to spells on my spell list or to divination spells that I know? (It can't be "any divination spell", which is patently broken at face value: I consider Complete Champion's editing a clerical error.)
- Can a Spellpool spell have metamagic applied to it? (I.e. I call a Summon Monster 2 from the pool, and apply Invisible Spell to it as it's prepared, OR can I call an Invisible Summon Monster 2?). I think we can all agree that calling metamagic spells with feats we don't have is not kosher, but what about metamagic feats that we do have? And what effective level of spellpool access is needed for it (the base spell's, held in a higher level slot, or the final effective slot level - this influences what spells you can make Echoing during, say, the window where you only have Spellpool I.)?
- If I can apply metamagic to Spellpool spells, what happens if that metamagic is Echoing Spell? Does the spell return as if it were a normal echoing spell? If so, can I return it to the spellpool (i.e. paying off the spellpool debt) on its last castable echo?
- Does Echoing Spell restore the original slot that the spell had, or does it add a new, temporary slot to hold it when it returns? (This matters due to interaction with Lucubration, Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability, and Uncanny Forethought. The Uncanny Forethought interaction is most significant.)
- Does Sanctum Spell lower a spell's required CL to cast? For example, if the example Echoing Acid Arrow at CL 9 (5th level slot, effective level 2 - echo returns at CL 5, it can be cast; echo returns at CL 1, too low, echo disappears) was instead an Echoing Sacntum Acid Arrow (5th level slot, effective level 1), could it be cast for the third echo? This may give extra echoes every so often.
- What spells do you "know" for Versatile Spellcaster? Typically, wizards "know" any spell in their spellbooks (I think this is actually pretty consistent throughout the rules), but if a DM is going to pinch somewhere, this is one of the major spots - it determines what you can spontaneously cast late-game with all those recovering spell slots.
- When I cast Lucubration to recover a spell that I've cast of level X (where X is 5 or less), and the chosen spell of level X happened to be in a higher slot due to metamagic, does the higher slot get recovered? (It appears so, but a few later spells, such as Arcane Fusion, suggest that they could interpret that as spell slot, and I'd like to know a DM ruling on this.) And does this change if it's simply a lower-level spell prepared in a higher level slot (without Heighten Spell)?
- Finally, if you're using an alternate build such as Luna Trigger's (see below), what happens to a Twin or Repeat Echoing Spell when it echoes?
[/sblock] Curiously, the build is surprisingly robust to how these can get answered. You will NOT need all of these answered permissively for the tricks to work in a recognizable fashion. Even if your DM answers conservatively on all of these, you'll still have impressive spell stamina and practically spontaneous access to an enormous array of spell options. You might need to drop Versatile Spellcaster or Sanctum Spell at absolute worst, but the build still works just fine (only slower) with nothing more than Spellpool, Uncanny Forethought, Spontaneous Divination and Echoing Lucubration - and there are ready-made replacements for the feats you'd drop listed in the variants below.
Overall Strengths: The usual abilities for a full-casting wizard, with even more Swiss-Army-Knifing going on. You have spontaneous access (with very few limits) to the entire wizard list from most schools, and the closer you come to having the spell already known and prepared, the fewer those limits get. You have functionally unlimited spells of any level, depending on how your DM answers those questions, otherwise it’s unlimited spells from a subset of those you know. Oh, and your familiar is a force to be reckoned with, carrying a self-reloading set of mid-level spells at your full casting prowess, but with a different set of actions available to it. Plus, if you wish, you can use Circle Magic.
Overall Weaknesses: Most of your stamina tricks come online a little late (the self-recovery is technically online to a point as soon as you have Echoing Spell, but it isn’t until you get Arcane Thesis that you become completely self-sustaining. You also have to know how to play the wizard spell list well enough to know what to DO with all of these slot mechanics – but at the same time, this also encourages a bit of experimenting, now that I think of it. Plus, if you want a book to the face, you can use Circle Magic.
Variants: You could, if you want, pull Versatile Spellcaster much earlier in the build (as early as 6th if you're willing to monkey with feat timing a bit), but I leave it as late as I do because, if your DM rules that it can cast "every spell in your library", then builds similar to the basic Wiz5 (Spontanous Divination) / Fullcasting 1 build, taking Versatile Spellcaster at 6th, become all but ubiquitous. That's basically the wizard's Natural Spell. I timed it later in the build to give you something to work towards, quite frankly, as putting it earlier with this interpretation is just unfair. Plus, I wanted to emphasize the returning-spell-slots thing rather than the Versatile Spellcaster thing, which is why there's a bit of redundancy (i.e. Spellpool, Uncanny Forethought).
If you're forced to drop a feat or two, or if flaws are allowed, there’s three bonus feats that stand out.
The first is Apprentice (Spellcaster) from the DMG2, which fits perfectly with the theme of a wizard student graduating to be a high Red Wizard. The reason I mention this is because once you graduate from apprentice to mentor, the Apprentice feat changes into the Mentor feat, which operates as a cohort-only Leadership. Having a sidekick capable of casting the schools you can’t suddenly use helps provide even more versatility, especially if he’s being trained in your style. And he's a fully-functional cohort, meaning if you do bust out the Circle Magic, you've got at least one decent assistant.
The second is Signature Spell (Player's Guide to Faerun), which is normally not taken because it requires the awful Spell Mastery. However, we already have Spell Mastery for a very good reason, and it's even at the right level to learn the best spell to pair it with: Rary's Arcane Conversion (Complete Mage). Putting the two together lets you spontaneously swap out any spell you've prepared for any other spell in your spellbooks of the same level or lower, basically. Honestly, I'd consider mainbuilding this if I were rewriting the build, since I found out about this trick (first proposed by Tleilaxu Ghola ages ago) quite some time after finishing the build.
The third is Practiced Spellcaster. It's a bit contentious as to whether this works, but it's possible that Practiced Spellcaster might offset the CL penalty on your Echoing spells, allowing each echo to be stronger and possibly getting you an extra echo (or two, depending on Sanctum) out of each one. It's the same logic as to why Practiced Spellcaster + Wild Mage works, but with different wording. Check with your DM on this one.
If you want to amp the power up, you can look into Twin or Repeat Spell as well. This requires the DM interpretation that Lucubration brings along a new spell slot, rather than refilling the old one, so it's less useful for Uncanny Forethought - but significantly more useful for Versatile Spellcaster. Observe: a Repeating Echoing Lucubration, for instance, restores two spell slots (the second of which could easily be its own), and then, one hour later, readies two new copies of itself. (Twin does something similar, but can't be used to restore itself on the same casting) This can lead to a substantial feedback effect, producing a very large number of spell slots of assorted levels (just combine metamagic in unusual amounts or prepare in higher spell levels than normal), which can be sacrificed for Versatile Spellcaster or Spontaneous Divination as necessary. Doing this requires stronger use of metamagic cost reducers (Arcane Thesis combined with Cooperative, Sanctum, and Invisible won't be enough for both Twin and Repeat on an echoing spell, but can handle either one on its own), plus puts an increased demand on metamagic - and the Incantrix is giving a thumbs-up in the background.
There are two other builds that are similar to this one – the other two Overpowered Wizards – that are more dramatic variants. Both are fully capable of doing the same sort of spontaneous library access that the Groundhog Mage does, except both of the variants have access to every single spell school. One gives up on Spellpool and the Red Wizard specialization in favor of using Hathran to have access to the entire wizard library spontaneously, of any school. The other is much closer to the presented variant but gives up on Red Wizard, instead using a Divination specialist and the Arcane Transfiguration feat to recover access to the lost spell school. Neither is quite as good with Uncanny Forethought, and only this build has enough feats to truly make use of the slot-refreshing techniques, but all are at least solid.
Finally, if you like this, Luna Trigger made a pretty badass variant downthread if you are willing to use incantrix (as I refuse to use that class). It's very impressive and based on the twin/repeat observation above: unlimited spell stamina and spontaneous access to the entire spellbook, more or less, and unlike the main build, he does this without any cooldown (though Echoing still plays a role). That's pretty much the Holy Grail of Wizardry.
There you have it. And people wonder why I don’t particularly like wizards.
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
...I don't even know what to say. This is beautiful.
I have to ask, though, what do you really gain? As awesome as it is, which is really, really awesome, I don't see how much practically superior this would be to, say, an Incantatrix with 48-hour buffs. And, even more important, are the gains worth the immense cost of having to be in Forgotten Realms?
The only problem I can see is it being somewhat lacking in SoDs, although there are a few SoDs scattered in what you have left. Finally, it's worth noting that MotAO is limited to PHB spells only unless the DM steps in and gives you more.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Thank you! This was a slight modification of the second of three similar builds, and the one that went for broke on Echoing (Spell Slot) spells - and there were numerous pick-jaw-off-floor moments during this process.
I did say I consider the Incantrix unsporting, didn't I? Could you imagine what could happen with that level of metamagic cost savings?I have to ask, though, what do you really gain? As awesome as it is, which is really, really awesome, I don't see how much practically superior this would be to, say, an Incantatrix with 48-hour buffs. And, even more important, are the gains worth the immense cost of having to be in Forgotten Realms?
Given how the build is on sketchy ground in some cases (i.e. can you apply Echoing Spell to a spell you're preparing through the spellpool? Is a spell that's returned from an echo "the same" slot (in which case it can be burned for Spontaneous Divination/Versatile Spellcaster or to fuel Uncanny Forethought after it's on its last CL legs), or is it a different, new, slot (in which case it can still be burned for Spontaneous Divination or Versatile Spellcaster, and the spells you send to your familiar become available again in an hour)? What spells does a wizard "know", vis-a-vis Versatile Spellcaster? How badly designed is Sanctum Spell, anyway? Questions like that. Thankfully, none of them need to be answered in a specific way for the tricks to work on some functional level), I'd really not want to get into a tussle around the Incantrix.
In terms of what it can do, well, it's still a full-casting wizard. And we've gone so far in other cases as to say a full-casting wizard, even without metamagic, is pretty much a deity anyway. (This is also an illusionist with Invisible Spell, so let the good times roll.) This just happens to get virtually unlimited stamina on lower-level spells, particularly if they pick spells that just happen and aren't terribly dependent upon their caster level - which in several cases involve functioning save-or-dies, even with only moderate DCs. (What's that? Circle magic, holding on line two.) Your highest levels of spells are the ones that end encounters, while your lower-level utility effects (and some of those utilities are pretty badass, let me say) essentially become at will, if on a one-hour cooldown.
And, if Versatile Spellcaster is as awesome as it appears here, you can have multiple Sanctum Lucubrations echoing around, recovering a 5th level slot each time it resolves (and recovering themselves on their last echo), which allows free casting of any 6th level spell you know. Even without Versatile, that's every single 5th-level illusion or divination spell. And if Sanctum is as messed up as it seems, this might allow those unlimited spell thresholds to climb one level higher. (The basic idea of having more than one Lucubration or Mnemonic Enhancer echoing around is something I didn't talk about too much, but you can probably have something like a third of your slots dedicated to constantly refreshing the remaining two thirds, and wind up with roughly 80% of your overall stamina available even by your 20th encounter or so. I'm handwaving, naturally, but still.)
There's also the open possiblity that I missed any effect that directly monkeys with spell slots. Featwise there's Arcane Manipulation (in a flaw, since it's nice but not required), Versatile Spellcaster (found a way to get that to work on a wizard, which is its own can of worms), and Echoing Spell. Spellwise there's Mnemonic Enhancer and Lucubration. Equipmentwise, there's the Rings of Wizardry (observe that extra slots from Mnemonic Enhancer or Arcane Manipulation are not from high ability scores or spell specialization, so they're still freely doubled). Did I miss anything? They'd fit right in here. All that's coming to mind is Triadspell, and while the interaction between that and Echoing Spell is intriguing, it's also Cleric-only.
And while I'm on the topic, I did end up spending a lot of feats on the Mnemonic Enhancer, which may not be the best choice (though it certainly is a good one). Any feats you can shave - which include feats that introduce arguments, like Sanctum Spell and Versatile Spellcaster - can be shifted over on to regular old metamagic effects. Echoing Spell is very efficient at returning low-level spells with insane metamagic loadouts (since the CL to cast the spell in the example clearly references only the actual level - CL 5 is too low for a 5th level slot, but handles the 2nd level spell with the +3 metamagic just fine), meaning any extra metamagic you can find that works in combat contexts can be made to reload itself as well. The lower the spell's actual level, the more metamagic you can load on, and the more times it can echo - but, contrariwise, low-level spells that are worth using in combat tend to be CL-dependent, so those echoes get less and less useful. I opted not to play that game in the main build, but it's worth exploring. (One possibility I considered briefly is what happens if there's Twin or Repeat on an Echoing spell - do you get back two copies of a Twin Echoing spell, which can then both be cast with the CL penalty, and return as four more copies? I kind of left this out, but if you're playing around with Echoing on an Incantrix, this might definitely be a direction to consider. I'd love to see someone else's take on an Echoing Incantrix, probably with some snappier name (bonus points if it's more fun to say than "Groundhog Mage".))
EDIT: I didn't realize, but you do actually know Lucubration at the level you have to take Arcane Thesis. My first stab at an Echoing abuser used Mnemonic Enhancer because I'd forgotten about Lucubration (I was doubling up on the slots it added through Rings of Wizardy - note that the slots last 24 hours, and it's unclear when exactly the ring "doubles" a slot gained in the middle of the day), but I think it might actually be better if you're using that on Lucubration. It means you don't need to spend a 9th level slot to trigger Lucubration, you can do it with a 5th or 6th, depending on Sanctum. That's well within the range of what can be reached with Versatile Spellcaster, which can be enough to fire off a (Sanctum or standard) Lucubration to recover your Echoing Lucubration in the case of catastrophic failure (i.e. someone counterspells your last one, which is the only thing that'll ever stop it from echoing).
A completely valid point that I glossed over on my first pass - I'll fix it soon.
Of course, you can get around this to some extent thanks to Collegiate Wizard (there's a lot of overlap in spell access here), by concentrating on learning spells that won't appear in the spellpool (or on ones in the PHB that you will use frequently enough to make spellpool access inconvenient.)
EDIT: SWEET CTHULHU ON A POGO STICK SINGING PEPPY J-POP
Please open your DMG2 to page 266. Look for an item costing 60,000gp (but it's bought as a pair - split the cost with your buddy). Wear one, give the second to your Incantrix friend.
Even under the metamagic, Mnemonic Enhancer and Mage's Lucubration are Range: Personal and Target: You.
Emergency medical attention can be reached by dialing 911 and telling them your heart stopped.
EDIT-2: Well, damn. I misread something - half of "instantaneous" is still less than 1 round, so this won't work. I guess turning yourself into a human-sized nuclear breeder reactor for your team's Incantrix was a bit too good to be true.
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
I really don't think "I can cast just about every spell spontaneously and effectively at-will" is terribly "sporting."
And Incatatrix was just an example. Any hardcore Persistomancer would work just as well for my question.
I'm pretty sure a wizard knowing every spell in its book has been explicitly stated multiple times.
The biggest problem I've seen at higher levels isn't DCs so much as immunities.
But, I concede that point regardless.
Wow.
It's a shame it doesn't actually lower the caster level, or Practiced Spellcaster could have some fun. Same with Wild Mage.
...What. I don't even... Just... wow. That sounds like that would make for a hilarious game.
EDIT: I missed that too. Oh, well, it still lets your Incatatrix make the whole party invincible.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
(I need to edit that section to illustrate something: it's not just every 5th (or 6th, if Sanctum's working as advertised) level illusion / divination spell. 5th level is high enough to include Shadow Evocation and Shadow Conjuration, so you have unlimited use of any spell those could copy (albiet with CL limitations and a one-hour cooldown between castings). That's approaching shadowcraft mage levels of versatility, if not the same level of power (the ScM wins out, I think, because it can copy higher level spells and make those copies even more powerful. 7th-9th level Evocation / Conjuration spells are probably more useful than 1st-6th level illusions, divinations, 4th level evocations, and 3rd level conjurations. But we're still in the same league, which I don't think has happened with a new wizard build in years, if at all.)
It's actually not clear what happens, I think. I did consider it, but left it out because it would clearly be contentious. (You'll notice that all of the "contentious" things here still work together if their worst abilities are all shot down by the DM? ...Except for Sanctum Spell, I think, which is only useful as a second +0 slot metamagic spell if its worst is shot down.)
The phrasing is "you treat your caster level as four lower for the purpose of effect, area, range, duration, and overcoming spell resistance" and "...reducing your effective caster level by four until your effective raster level is no longer high enough to cast the original spell".
Compare to Wild Mage, "...she reduces her caster level by 3 for all spells she casts from now on. However, every time she casts a spell, her use of wild magic adds 1d6 to her adjusted caster level.".
Contrast with Practiced Spellcaster, "Your caster level for the chosen spellcasting class increases by 4." with the usual HD cap.
It's always talking about raising or lowering, and there's no sense that they wouldn't work together. If this build at CL 20 casts an echoing spell, after its first echo (recovered at -4), that spell would treat your caster level as four lower, or 16. But your caster level for wizard is increased by 4, so long as that increase doesn't put it over your HD. And 16+4 is not over your HD. And so on and so forth.
I think it does work, for what it's worth, but it's certainly not robust to the DM saying "no". If you really want one more echo (and higher CLs on the intermediate echoes), go nuts with PSc. I'll put this in the variants section; it's probably a better fit than Arcane Manipulation (which really just smooths out the uneven spellpool progression).
And while the spell recharger doesn't work, it looks like a spell chain reaction can. Check my edits in the previous post for a bold sentence. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that (especially if it inspires someone to build it.)
EDIT: I just realized I didn't explain why this is absolutely killer in this build. (If I had included Twin or Repeat, I would have main-posted this.) It's got nothing to do with the echoing spell itself and everything to do with what you do with the "spent fuel".
Let's pick a pretty basic case - you're CL 25 (as this build is with an orange stone) and cast a Twin Repeat Echoing Detect Magic (0th level spell in 9th level slot). Since it's twinned and repeated, it resolved four times, and one hour later, four Twin Repeat Echoing Detect Magics come back (at CL 21). Cast them all. An hour later, you get 16 slots back holding Twin Repeat Echoing Detect Magic (CL 17(, so you cast them. And so on and so forth until your CL drops too low to cast 0th level spells: at beginning of hour seven, after six such castings, puts you at effecitve CL 1 when the last echo arrives, restoring 5460 Twin Repeat Echoing Detect Magics.
The thing is, the spell that returns comes back with all its metamagic attached, taking up a slot of its final level. For a Twin Repeat Echoing Detect Magic, that's a 9th level slot. You just got 5460 9th level spell slots, which can be sacrificed to power Versatile Spellcaster to cast any spell you know, of any level, at full caster level (since you're not casting the echoing spell so much as sacrificing its slot), spontaneously, with more stamina than any build I've seen that didn't involve an infinite loop. And you can do this once per actual 9th level slot you have before you begin this process (or longer, since unlike Mnemonic Enhancer slots, these do not appear to go away if you rest, although the CL penalty remains.)
Or, if your DM's getting ultraconservative on Versatile Spellcaster, try this. After the cat comes back for the sixth and final time, just cast Spell Engine.
...I'll be in my bunk.
(Edit-2: Apparently, there was such a specialist built when this trick was discovered before, but even the original finder, DavidWL, thinks Echoing isn't well-known enough. Maybe the Groundhog Mage (which isn't anywhere near as powerful, but I think is much more robust to DMs using conservative rulings) might aid that.
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
The issue is that it doesn't actually lower your caster level. It's lowered for those things things, but it is still fundamentally at its own CL.
If it flat-out lowered the CL, Echo could go in indefinitely, because 20-16+4=20 each time.
I'd actually been thinking about just that, myself.
Since Metamagic Effect on the Echoing Spell is sketchy, having a second player around who uses Cooperative Metamagic would be easier. But that kinda takes the fun out of it, doesn't it?
I'm kinda ill at the moment, so this build may not be that high-quality, but here's my idea:
Show
[sblock]Human Diviner 5/Incantatrix 10/Wizard +5And let's use Spontaneous Divination, too, and sacrifice Evocation and Illusion. Illusion just because I feel like being contrary.
1:Iron Will
H:Extend Spell
3:Sanctum Spell
6
6B
eristent Spell9:Echoing Spell
9B:Repeat Spell
12:Arcane Thesis(Lucubration)
12B:Invisible Spell
15: Spell Mastery
15B:Twin Spell
18:Uncanny Forethought
20B:Open
Variants: Eh, the last five levels are up to you. I guess you could take Sacred Exorcist and DMM things, although you need flaws. Really, this thing is just riding the ludicrous power of Incantatrix. You could be a transmuter for more lucubrations, but I actually decided the versatility was worth the lower number of castings.
So, to sum it up, on a Lucubration, Echoing is +1, Repeat is +1, Twin is +2, Invisible and Sanctum are -1 each. This means that, for a level 8 slot, you can get back two spells twice and get the slot back. Versatile Spellcaster turns that into whatever you want. So, in essence, you have your entire spellbook spontaneous and at-will. to hell with this sissy "one-hour cooldown."
This build doesn't take off until level 12, sadly, but it's still a persistomancer until then.
[/sblock]So that's my contribution to the thread. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go find my helmet.
EDIT: You just had to Swordsage me before I unveiled it. Sigh. Oh well. The build stands.
Edit 2: Updated the whole thing.
Edit 3: Tempest, you know you can't VS away 9th level slots, right?
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
I'm not so sure of that, since the first and second sections disagree with each other in at least one way: the first doesn't say you lower the CL for purposes relating to casting the spell. If it only lowered CL for what it said, then if you found a spell that had no level-dependent variables (like Lucubration), you could continue to have it echo indefinitely. (Similarly, a spell that's echoed twice would be no easier to dispel than its full strength counterpart.)
The second sentence only works if it trumps the first. And if it trumps the first, then there's nothing stopping Practiced Spellcaster from kicking in.
That's quite a lot better than what I could do. Incantrix persistomancy always rubs me the wrong way (about as wrongly as divine persistomancy rubbed me when it was first discovered), and as such I don't visualize things like "persistent spell at level 6" as "affordable and manageable".I'm kinda ill at the moment, so this build may not be that high-quality, but here's my idea:
Show
[sblock]
Human Diviner 5/Incantatrix 10/Wizard +5
And let's use Spontaneous Divination, too, and sacrifice Evocation and Illusion. Illusion just because I feel like being contrary.
1:Iron Will
H:Extend Spell
3:Sanctum Spell
6: Versatile Spellcaster
6B
9:Echoing Spell
9B:Repeat Spell
12:Arcane Thesis(Lucubration)
12B:Invisible Spell
15: Spell Mastery
15B:Twin Spell
18:Uncanny Forethought
20B:Open
Variants: Eh, the last five levels are up to you. I guess you could take Sacred Exorcist and DMM things, although you need flaws. Really, this thing is just riding the ludicrous power of Incantatrix. You could be a transmuter for more lucubrations, but I actually decided the versatility was worth the lower number of castings.
So, to sum it up, on a Lucubration, Echoing is +1, Repeat is +1, Twin is +2, Invisible and Sanctum are -1 each. This means that, for a level 8 slot, you can get back two spells twice and get the slot back. Versatile Spellcaster turns that into whatever you want. So, in essence, you have your entire spellbook spontaneous and at-will. to hell with this sissy "one-hour cooldown."
This build doesn't take off until level 12, sadly, but it's still a persistomancer until then.
[/sblock]
So that's my contribution to the thread. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go find my helmet.
EDIT: You just had to Swordsage me before I unveiled it. Sigh. Oh well. The build stands.
Edit 2: Updated the whole thing.
Edit 3: Tempest, you know you can't VS away 9th level slots, right?
It's still not quite "your entire spellbook", since Lucubration only restores up to 5th level spells (which could easily be 5th level spells cast from higher level slots via metamagic, but it won't restore slots you sacrifice for Versatile Spellcasting). The post I linked to mentions a weird way of using Sanctum with Versatile Spellcaster to leapfrog spell levels, but I'm not entirely convinced it works the way he advertises (he's using "of level X" somewhat loosely).
And this did prove what I was thinking about on the walk home: Lucubration is the superior spell for Arcane Thesis (even without repeatwinning things).
Re: the 9th level thing: Whoops. Thought Versatile had an "or lower" clause. Well, just find any single-level metamagic cost reducer (i.e. Metamagic School Specialist is easy to qualify for). You only need it to work once (when preparing the intial spell) and all the echoes will inherit it, and you'd get about that many slots. You'd need one more level reducer for every spell level you want to emulate after that, unless you're using Versatile to copy spells that themselves emulate other spells.
Or just cast Spell Engine and use Heighten Spell to buffer your new spell selection to taste (with a nice DC boost on the side). Or, if you're absolutely nuts, use Earth Spell (you don't need shadowcraft mage for this, just earth spell) so that you also get a massive CL boost on all of those spells. The CL boost would be lower on the lower-level spells, which are exactly the ones who get the biggest benefit from a high-CL Echoing effect. (You could hypothetically rinse and repeat this for nearly unlimited caster level, which is the most obvious clue that this is an exploit, not a feature.)
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
Not quite right. It says "effective" At every time. It's actually better worded than many abilities.
Actually, I improved the build a little more. I'm just sad I couldn't fit in Mindsight early.
It's actually at level 9, but I get your point.
Also, I find it rather novel that an incantatrix build has abilities worth mentioning other than Persistomancy, maybe even more powerful.
It actually says "as if prepared in the normal fashion." That would seem to indicate it would keep it's overly-high slot. If not, though, you've still got everything at 7 or below pretty much completely at-will.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
It'd keep the overly high slot, but once you burn it to fuel Versatile Metamagic, you haven't "actually cast" the spell in the slot, so it becomes untouchable by Lucubration. You can use Lucubration to recover any spell you've actually cast (including an earlier lucubration) though, so this does mean you can refill your normal slots of up to 5th (or 6th, if they were prepared and cast as sanctum spells) indefinitely, and twin/repeat Lucubrations to get an inflated number of 6th, 7th, and 8th level slots (toggle twin and/or repeat to get lower than 8th), which is all you'd need for truly unlimited higher level ones.
Basically, your 1sts through 5ths/6ths are recharged by casting Lucubration, which can be repeatwinned to recover up to four slots (over two rounds) per casting. Your 7ths through 8ths are recovered by waiting for the echo to return, and your 9ths are recovered by recovering two 8ths and using Versatile. Thus, the highest level spells take longer to recover - which is perfectly fine with me, as you'd just save those for bigger fights. Anyone able to play a wizard competently should be able to hold his own against most foes with unlimited spells of 6th level or lower, with the 7ths and 8ths on a 1 hour cooldown and the 9ths on a two-hour cooldown.
EDIT: Something just hit me: Any spell that's been recycled, be it through its own Echoing metamagic or a Lucubration hitting it, has been cast in the last 24 hours. Thus, if I cast a Lucubration in an 8th slot and its twin/repeats kick in and I eventually lucubrate the spell... it's still a spell I cast in the last 24 hours, meaning a different lucubration should be able to restore it if the spell slot is drained by other means. You just need the slot itself to be empty when you cast the lucubration (since lucubration won't grant an extra slot if the spell you're trying to restore was already restored when you cast the lucubration). This is getting even more bizarre than I imagined.
It also shows one of many reasons I dislike wizards. This wasn't all that hard to come up with, and it causes quite a few assumptions about the game to explode even without going into the mental gymnastics (and set theory, to be honest) to investigate the finer points of meta-meta-spells. (So in other words, with no mental effort, wizard optimization makes the game explode. With mental effort, you wind up talking more impenetrably than a parody of bad mathematics jargon. Neither is what I'd consider an ideal result in a game.)
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
That's what I was saying. You have effectively infinite slots for any level up to eight which means you have whatever spells you feel like at will.
The best part is the Repeat Spell part of the Twin/Repeat Lucubration should be able to select the Lucubration from the previous round.
Really? This seems to be a high-level spellcasting problem more than a wizards problem. And the arbitrary number of spells seems to be just as much Incantatrix's fault.
I mean, this build isn't more broken than Shapechange, Ice Assassin, or really a good number of other spells. While I much prefer playing sorcerers(Because a sorcerer, psion, or the like can still effectively be challenged at mid or high level), at lower levels wizards aren't game-wreckingly ludicrous.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
The procedure that I was hitting the snag on was:
[Slot contains Lucubration] -> Cast Lucubration -> [Slot is empty]
Lucubration restores slot -> [Slot contains Lucubration]
[Slot contains Lucubration] -> Versatile Magic or other sacrifice effect -> [Slot is empty]
Here, I assumed you couldn't use Lucubration to restore the slot, since it wasn't emptied by casting the spell.
The thing is, Lucubration doesn't reference the slot. It references any spell you've cast, and actually cast, in the last 24 hours. Which includes the lucubration.
So you're restoring Lucubration (which was cast earlier - and then restored) into a slot that was not emptied by casting (but had, previously, held a lucubration which was restored after casting).
I did say "one of many" reasons, didn't I? Here, It wasn't the power of the stunt so much as how easily the game of resource management was to break.
I view D&D as two separate games: Resource management (mostly during character creation and strategic-scale adventuring) and risk management (mostly on tactical-scale combat). There's some overlap, and they inform each other, but the two games are approached very differently.
In this case, I wasn't even trying - this was one of a few builds were were toying around with using Uncanny Forethought / Mage of the Arcane Order (the first gives you every spell you know, the second gives you (almost) every spell you don't; natural combo). We zeroed in on Illusion Mastery right off, and pulled in Spontaneous Divination because of Reasons, and then I hit on the idea of using Red Wizard as the source of Spell Mastery (to allow getting Spontaneous Divination at 5th without being behind a feat, or being forced to take 10 levels of wizard - plus, come on, when was the last time you saw any Red Wizard build at all? And have you ever seen one that wasn't built around Circle Magic? I sure haven't. Figured the novelty would be a good exercise.). I had a spare metamagic feat on one of the builds from MotAO's bonus feats, and did a very quick search for metamagic feats I hadn't heard of (to try something interesting), hit on Echoing Spell, instantly saw how it worked with Spell Power and on spells that altered spell slots, and put two and two together. A bit of shuffling for timing later, and recognizing what Spontaneous Divination meant for Versatile Spellcaster, and this just fell out.
In other words, this is pretty entry-level optimization skill - if I were teaching a course on optimization, this would be a second-week assignment question. And it's quite possibly the strongest build I've ever showcased. (Both objectively, and even if you constrain yourself to relative strength within its tier.) Compare to some of the less powerful builds that I would consider more interesting (Ashardalon Reborn, the Pinball Brothers, the A-Game Paladin, the Evasion Tank, the Psycarnum Warrior, Flip the Bird, Edge of the Light...), which often took several days and in some cases several weeks of work to get right.
If optimization can be done this lazily and still come out like this, there's no fun in it for me. I'd much rather find an elegant build that excels in particular areas and has answers for others while still being challenged when all the stops are pulled out, as opposed to effortlessly crushing every encounter before it happens with a build that took maybe a coffee break or two to put together. (I'm only slightly exaggerating here, as this is far from the strongest wizard around - your own incantrix version blows this out of the water in terms of stamina, with mine only coming ahead on spell versatility at the lower levels).
It's the same reason I avoid the incantrix or divine metamagic (or rather, a closely related reason, as those two are (largely) ways of getting around very important costs). Options like that are too good and require next to no real thought to use if they're available. They turn the character building game into a lazy sunday, and with only minimal player skill can turn the game world into a smoking ruin. And, in the long run, this leads to lazy optimization in other areas, as there's no challenge in it.
...Sorry. Rant over. I'll stop now.
EDIT: I did remember something constructive here - I forgot about Cooperative Spell, as one is wont to do since it's right and proper stupid. (I would love it so much better if the individual spells readied during the casting still took effect, just with the cooperative bonus on each one, but...). It's another +0 cost metamagic, meaning it's a reducer for whatever spell Thesis is modifying (which will be Lucubration once I get around to editing that - thanks, by the way). With Invisible, Cooperative, and Echoing, the net cost modifier is +0, meaning that even if a DM gets super-restrictive on Sanctum (again, as one is wont to do - that feat is never used for its clearly intended purpose, and was apparently written with the elegance and clarity of a paint roller), the build can move on without it. So I guess this does have the advantage of a sort of robustness to DM decisions that I don't recall many of the old-school caster exploit builds having.
Just to put it all in one place, here are the necessary questions for the DM.
-Is Spontaneous Divination (which says "any spell of the divination school") limited to spells on my spell list or to divination spells that I know? (It can't be "any divination spell", which is patently broken at face value, thank you Complete Champion editing.)
-Can a Spellpool spell have metamagic applied to it? (I.e. I call a Summon Monster 2 from the pool, and apply Invisible Spell to it as it's prepared, OR can I call an Invisible Summon Monster 2?). I think we can all agree that calling metamagic spells with feats we don't have is not kosher.
-Does Echoing Spell restore the original slot that the spell had, or does it add a new, temporary slot to hold it when it returns? (This matters due to interaction with Lucubration, Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability, and Uncanny Forethought. The uncanny forethought interaction is most significant.)
-Does Sanctum Spell lower a spell's required CL to cast? (i.e. if the example Echoing Acid Arrow at CL 9 (5th level slot, effective level 2 - echo returns at CL 5, it can be cast; echo returns at CL 1, too low, echo disappears) was instead an Echoing Sacntum Acid Arrow (5th level slot, effective level 1), could it be cast for the third echo?
-If I can apply metamagic to Spellpool spells, what happens if that metamagic is Echoing Spell? Does the spell return as if it were a normal echoing spell? If so, can I return it to the spellpool on its last castable echo?
-What spells do you "know" for Versatile Spellcaster? Typically, wizards "know" any spell in their spellbooks, but if a DM is going to pinch somewhere, this is one of the major spots.
-When I cast Lucubration to recover a spell that I've cast of level X, and the spell of level X happened to be in a higher slot due to metamagic, does the higher slot get recovered? (It appears so, but a few later spells, such as Arcane Fusion, suggest that they could interpret that as spell slot, and I'd like to know a DM ruling on this.)
-Finally, if you're using an alternate build such as Luna Trigger's, what happens to a Twin or Repeat Echoing Spell when it echoes?
All of these need answering, really, for the build to run.
Thankfully, even if they answer in the conservative manner for each of them, the impact on the build is minor - you replace Sanctum Spell with something else and switch to Mnemonic Enhancer as your thesis spell (it's not as good but it's not open to debate - it can be recovered directly with a lucubration and it grants loads of spell slots which can be doubled with a ring of wizardy and used to fuel uncanny / spontaneous just fine). The MOST conservative outcome (which includes putting some arbitrary squeeze on Versatile Spellcaster) is you end up with an impossibly huge number of spells of levels 1-4 (but neither an arbitrary nor infinite number; while echoing lucubrations work, under the conservative interpretation they can't recover themselves), spontaneous access to every divination spell you know, 12 slots of Uncanny Forethought (access to every illusion spell you know, twelve spells that you chose for Spell Mastery, or any other spell you know at -2 CL, offset by your spell power ability), and if all else fails you can fill empty spell slots with up to 12 levels of spellpool spells per day. I would consider this more than acceptable as a conservative-DM lower bound on overall power/versatility.
So I suppose the groundhog mage really should be marketed on its robustness - or used as an example of the role of DM decisions in overall player power, since the relative swing between "permissive" and "conservative" is still pretty high.
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
You're also forgetting that each Lucubration gives you the same slot back twice from the Twin, plus any other slot you want. Even if you nerfed it a bit, it's still endless.
To be fair, the limitless spontaneous is probably the strongest part here. While endless magic is cool, wizards already approach that with Focused Specialist, items, and so on.
This reminded me of something. Your Ashardalon Reborn has room for Scion of Dantalion before KotSS, which lets you pick up Ashardalon as your favored vestige.
Since you're using Scion anyways, it just seemed like something that deserves to pointed out.
Preaching to the choir. Wizards are boring. By mid-level, they simply can't be challenged without DM fiat or rocks fall encounters even if we're talking about wizard 1-20.
To be fair, I pretty much copied your build over minus prereqs, threw the extra metamagic on, then figured out what what I should do with the remaining bajillion bonus feats. It was pretty autopilot beyond the timing issues.
That reminds me, Ocular should be that last bonus feat.
I disagree on DMM. Or rather, DMM isn't the sole perpatrator in its case. Without Nightsticks or the like, ou'd have one persisted buff, maybe two, and the feat cost of adding any more could be almost crippling. While DMM is badly designed, it's only as ludicrous as it is because other elements made the cost trivial.
Huh. I'd missed that.
That said, this build does have one DM weakness: MotAO's "Please screw me over, GM" button. Not that losing MotAO really weakens the build, but it's still there. And the reason I've never bothered to build with that PrC.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
...Aye, that it does! Thank you!
The reason I didn't do that at first is because I was building it up level by level, and it's only at the tail end of the build that I realized I needed to kluge it a bit with Dantalion. I never considered what would happen if I shuffled the kluge earlier - apparently that works out much better.
Perfect example, right there.
I'd argue it's guilty, but its crime is lesser. I've suggested DMM clerics before, but try to avoid Persist as their metafeat of choice entirely because down that path lies the Dark Side.
Personally, I'd've loved to see more uses for turn attempts, rather than simply using them as fuel for casting. (One creative, if abusable, example was on a villain in Elder Evils, called Divine Intercession. It was basically a Turn Undead attempt in every standard result, except it looked at the number of divine spellcasting levels creatures nearby had instead of HD of undead. If they would have been turned, they instead are cut off from the gods, being unable to use their turn attempts or divine magic for 1 minute. If they would have been destroyed, it's cut off for a day. Like turning, this ended early if he directly attacked them. I think this ability is a little ham-fisted (I'd be tempted to use Impedance rules, double the turn attempt costs of anything, and cut their caster and turning levels in half rather than directly cutting them off, personally, as well as expand the "dispel turning" rules to include countering this intercession - let the clerics fight to bar each others' gods from intervening in this fight), but it's a good example of getting creative with new abilities in ways that Divine Metamagic really didn't.)
Which "button"? The "member in good standing" thing, or the "you didn't pay your spellpool debt in time" thing? I find both of those are as easy to manage as "Can't willingly perform an evil act" or somesuch (i.e. the Silver Pyromancer Code of Conduct). The second is only handled "normally" from 6th through 8th level; after that it takes care of itself via Echoing (returning a CL-depleted spell slot is still returning a spell slot of the right level). The first is a little hard to break at all, since being "in good standing" is exactly as easy as a teleport or a short amount of downtime every so often (which is what the game assumes, more or less).
The screw-you buttons are there, but they've got quite a lot of wiggle room before they trigger.
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
Glad to help. I think it's just about the coolest build I've ever seen, but the lack of Ashardalon as the KotSS's vestige had always bugged me. Also, it makes it generally more powerful earlier.
When you look at the investment involved, one or two semi-permanent buffs isn't terribly problematic on its own. The problem falls on the shoulders of the item purely designed to bypass limits and costs like that.
I had a build floating around somewhere that was based around Divine Defiance. It only took one level of cleric, though, I'm pretty sure it was sorcerer-based.
Both the "Member in good standing" thing and the "Regent" thing.
And, having read both BoVD and BoED, I think we both know that that one is ludicrously hard.
Yes, but they're there. I also find it amusing that the capstone of the PrC makes the PrC worse.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
The other thing that bugged me is that, upon rethinking, I'm not convinced the Tenebrous pact will actually work here, as it doesn't technically grant turn attempts, but rather allows Turn Undead as a pact's cooldown ability. It wouldn't be able to recharge Death Devotion. There's an easy way around it though - a shroudcrown (Player's Guide to Faerun), among other undead-related things, gives Turn Undead as an 8th level cleric and is surprisingly affordable for what it does. Given the build's high Charisma, wearing such a crown would provide more than enough turn attempts to keep Death Devotion running in nearly every fight. I just don't think you can afford one prior to about level 10 or so.
On the upside, this frees up one of your pacts, since Tenebrous isn't helping much other than that. You'd still bind Ashardalon (naturally), Ipos (stronger claws, Rend, emergency True Seeing, +1 DC to vestige powers), and Chupoclops (large debuff aura, Pounce, extra bite attack, Ghost Touch natural weapons, a weak form of blindsense, and an ethereal ambush ability), but the last one would be up to you. It's been a while since I revisited that, so I don't have on hand a good go-to to replace him on a "main build".
Originally posted by aelryinth:
Hmm. Since when can you feed the spellpool from anywhere? I thought you could only feed it from the guild itself.
Regardless, a few points:
Ugh, after I let you know my head exploded thinking this could work.
1) Your twinned echoing Detect Magic trick won't work, because of order of application.
remember, you have to decide in what order your metamagic feats resolve. YOu get to determine them, but order makes a definite difference.
If you Twin the Echo, sure, it doubles the spell below it twice, but it doesn't double the echo, i.e. it's outside the modification. So you'd get your Echo back without the Twin attached to it.
If you echo the Twin, you just get a returned spell slot.
2) Spells Known and spells in a spellbook is verrrry tender territory you're jumping on.
3) I'm pretty sure no DM in their right mind is going to let you cast a 2nd level +3 Meta spell below 9th level caster ability appropriate for a level 5 slot.
4) Pretty sure the modifier for the -1 on Sanctum spell doesn't apply until the spell is actually cast, which stops a lot of the shenanigans you're talking about with it.
5) Rings of Wizardry only double arcane spells per day. Slots gained via Mnemonic are not Spells per Day. They are extra spell slots, even if typeless. So pretty sure that doesn't work, either. Bonus spells ARE spells per day, but are explicitly not doubled by the rules. You read too much into it. Preparing additional spell levels is NOT Spells per Day.
6) You are taking some liberties with the whole 'extra spells slots' language, especially when dealing with meta'd magicks. You do still have to follow Order of Application on all your metas, and if the Echo is to be modified by any of them, it can't Echo those metas.
7) I believe it was mentioned as errata that you couldn't Thesis the meta modifier of an effect below 0? tacking on a +0 Meta to get another -1 modifier from Thesis isn't going to fly with most DM's, and you should probably avoid it.
8) I don't have my DMG2 around. What magic item and what were you trying to do?
Even with those limitations...wow, just stacking the +CL modifiers and using Circle Magic makes this a totally killer combo in and of itself. Imagine if you had room to stick in Archmage for more more +Spellpowr fun?
==Aelryinth
Originally posted by aelryinth:
Also, re: Practiced Spellcaster. Practiced is a feat and a constant effect, where the CL penalty for Echoes is a temporary effect.
Pretty sure that Practiced Spellcaster would apply all the time as a universal rule, and then your CL penalties would apply on a case by case basis. Since your base CL will always be maxed, the CL penalty wouldn't apply. You could 'order of operations' it around your also-permanent spell power, but that would only apply if your CL was naturally lower then your HD by your Spell Power. It's not a metamagic feat where you can determine order of operations on the fly.
i.e. Practiced Spellcaster wouldn't work, either.
==Aelryinth
Originally posted by Anagorisis:
This is wrong.
This is in the description of the Tenebrous Apostate class as opposed to being in the Tenebrous vestige writeup. That is incompetent, so it's understandable that this would be missed. (Speculation: because ToM was written by committe and good ideas were attacked often in order to please some of the questionable thinkers in WotC's roster, I think it likely that several different people touched the class and vestige writeups.) In any event, this is one of the better examples of authorial intent in the face of ambiguity by d20 authors. The author here clearly expected that Tenebrous' would be used with divine feats, even using the term "attempt" that you seem to think is key. The Turn Undead ability granted by Tenebrous also explicitly stacks with other classes' Turn Undead abilities.
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
I thought you'd replaced it, actually. I thought I saw an old post somewhere on the subject.
This is completely untrue.
We're talking about either Arcane Thesis or after it's cast, so even if you were correct, it'd be irrelevant.
Care to provide a source?
There is no such thing as an "order of application" on metamagics. The end result is the end result
Nope. It was erratad that the end result can't be a negative.
And I don't think "sane GM" matters here. Didn't you read the OP?
It lets you cast a personal spell on both yourself and a friend at half the duration.
Because the Tenebrous Apostate PrC requires that you have turning or rebuking.
Originally posted by Anagorisis:
This does not dispel the aformentioned incompetence.
That is a direct reference to the vestige-granted ability. Indeed, what you seem to be implying -- that the text refers to non-vestige-provided turn undead -- is actually a weaker interpretation of that text than the idea that the entire ability only works for the vestige-granted turning, and not with other sources of turning at all. I think that the latter interpretation is bad and that the ability applies to all kinds of turning, but that is because of the fact that the vestige (and therefore Binder levels) explicitly stacks with other classes that grant turn undead. Again, all this text should have been reconciled, and the implications of Tenebrous-mediated turn undead made explicit, in the vestige writeup.
Incidentally, if online sources are available, one could also take the Green Lady vestige alongside Tenebrous and go to DMM city, with a summer home in Cheesevile.
Using the Green Lady is whisper-close to a houserule, but, weirdly enough, the case for officialdom becomes stronger if people at your table are using Pathfinder material.
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
No, it doesn't. It doesn't, however, mean that the Vestige grants proper turn attempts.
Fair enough. I'd just skimmed the ability
Actually, you're missing one thing.It says "When you use the turn or rebuke undead ability granted by Tenebrous, your connection to your dark master allows you to channel the energy in a unique way. You can use a turn attempt to..."
This means that you can use a turn attempt. which you have independantly from the vestige, to do extra damage or whatever when turning with the vestige.
I don't see any official rules for it. Can you link to an official article?
Originally posted by Anagorisis:
As I mentioned upthread, the vestige grants turn attempts: Tenebrous's Rebuke specifically refers to "attempts"* as the thing that is modified and utilized by Tenebrous's Rebuke and then specifically refers to the vestige ability as the thing that is modified and utilized by Tenebrous's Rebuke. A = X, Y = X, and therefore Y = A.
That is specificially what it does not do. That is exactly wrong. As mentioned above, the class refers to the vestige turning ability. Thus, if it excluded either turning type, it would have to be read to exclude non-vestige turning. Which I don't think it does. But, in any event, it explictly contradicts your interpretation.
And as an aside: you don't need non-vestige turning to enter the class. Vestige-granting turning satisfies the class requirement. After that, you're permanently bound to a vestige that grants turn undead, so you're still meeting the requirement.
*Also, note that the distinction between "attempts" and "that thing that the vestige does" is wholly artificial. Before the vestige, there was only one kind of turning: turning. Sure, you could turn different things, but turning was turning. After the vestige, the vestige seems to claim that, still, the only kind of turning is turning. Again, it explicitly stacks with turning. So I submit that before one can even claim that vestige turning is not "turning," one must first establish why "attempt" has suddenly become a reserved word when all relevant texts do not single it out, all relevant texts make no explcit distinctions between vestige-turning and "turning," and the only time distinctions are noted are when a) the distinctions are explictly negated (vestige turning stacks with clerical turning) or b) when those distinctions explictly describe "attempt" as being part and parcel of vestige turning.
No. It's hella not-quite-official, a.k.a., not official. The Green Lady, and a PrC designed around it as per Tenebrous' optional rules, was described by James Jacobs:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2h3qh?The-Green-Lady#4
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2he3y?Stats-for-Tyralandi-Scrimm#9
So Tenebrous Apostate has optional rules, which many optimizers seem to think is official. Fair enough, but creating new abilities takes the shine off of the officialdom apple. James Jacobs is Creative Director at Paizo, though, so if you're already running Pathfinder crap, pointing out that this stuff has the James Jacobs Seal of Approval might make it more palatable than official Pathfinder crap.
It's a very strong vestige yet not Zceryll-strong, so it's the usual binder bit where the earlygame is solid but it offers little for later levels. The class (Apostle of the Green Lady) is another deep kiss to arcane casters, but isn't table-crushingly unbalanced.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
I'm just going to address the points Luna Trigger didn't.
The spellpool doesn't have a physical location. The fact that you can draw a spell out of the pool anywhere should be proof of that. There's nothing that says returning a slot to the pool doesn't work the same way - in fact, it says that returning a spell functions like calling one.
That is in fact precisely the situation described in the feat's text itself, quite clearly, as its example. A CL 9 Echoing Acid Arow returns to the caster after one hour, and he can cast it again at CL 5. It returns again after one more hour, but since its CL is now 1, it dissipates.
It won't stop Lucubration recovering it. If I cast a Sanctum Lucubration, I have just cast a 5th level spell. Lucubration's effect is to return a 5th level spell. It doesn't care about what metamagic was on the thing or if it was cast from a higher level slot (even if I, say, prepared Teleport in a 9th level slot without any metamagic, as is perfectly allowable, Lucubration could recover that slot.) Since I've cast the Sanctum Lucubration, the sanctum drop occurs.
I'm not sure this works how you say it works. Let's take a more traditional perspective: If I use Coldcasting to give a Grease spell the Cold subtype, then make it a Flash Frost spell so it does trivial damage, then make it a Coercive Spell (DotU, if you're damaged by the spell you take a Will save penalty for a while), the chain works. Each one operates on the spell as presented earlier.
If I make a Twin Lucubration Echoing, then it casts itself twice... and each of those casts was modified by Echoing, since the spell I cast was Twin Echoing Lucubration.
The errata made it clear that you can't reduce the thesis spell below its initial level, but that all metamagics get -1 on their slot costs. Thus, you can use 0-slot metamagics to offset the costs of other metamagic, but you could never push it lower than its starting level. A Sanctum Invisible Cooperative Lucubration with Thesis is still 6th level. I can just add Echoing on that and have it still be 6th. (Echoing is +3, reduced to +2; all of the others reduce the slot cost by 1, but the final spell can't be lower than the original spell.)
I did consider that, but this is basically just standard Circle Magic cheese, and getting the right feats prevented Spell Focus and Skill Focus.
What really impressed me here is that despite every option having a super-conservative and a super-permissive interpretation, even if you take nothing but the conservative ones, the build still works. It's the most robust build with this many open DM calls that I've ever seen.
Regarding the turning thing, I'm just taking a third option and using a shroudcrown. Frees up the vestige for something better than Tenebrous and more official than the Green Lady. Fewest arguments.
Besides, it should help popularize the shroudcrown. Will help all non-cleric builds that like Devotion feats, methinks - you don't need to have Turning to get Travel Devotion, but sometimes a head slot item is cheaper than a class level if you're trying to use it more often.
Originally posted by Anagorisis:
The shroudcrown runs 113,600 gp. That's rolling pretty deep, isn't it?
Worse, how does the shroudcrown stack with turn undead from other sources? (This is the bizarre thing about turn undead: the turn undead rules are at their worst when you use turn undead as turn undead; when you use turn undead for ancillary functions (which require hits of turn undead use and don't care about the puissance or characteristics of standard turn undead employment), the rules become quite clean -- it's implied that pretty much everything just stacks right on up.)
If you can afford it, I'd agree that the shroudcrown is nifty, but binder aside, perhaps it's easier to be an Azurin cleric, grab conventional turning via a PrC, and use Plant Control, Plant Defiance, Initiate of Nature and so on to stack up turn attempts. That is, it's easier if everyone agrees that those pools all stack. Which could be controversial.
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
Nope.
Something it already has/
Incorrect.
The order is you activate the ability of the vestige, then spend a turn attempt to use the super turning.
Wrong.
Yes. It says you can spend a turning attempt when you use the ability. Since Tenebrous has a cooldown, using a turn attempt is the only possible explaination.
You have a very odd defition of "explicit." See, it explicitly requires a turn attempt, something Tenebrous does not give, so either your definition of "explicit" or "contradict" needs some work
Oh, boy. This is going to start the Sanctum debate again and I don't want any part of that.
Incorrect. There are various types of turning, and the ability to turn does not mean you have any turn attempts to spend. Tenebrous can Turn. It does not grant Turn attempts.
Unless you're going to argue that Tenebrous grants 3+Cha turn attempts per day and just has an extra restriction on them, you've got absolutely nothing.
No. That is even less official than Mouseferatu's fix of the Shadowcaster, or not at all. That's flat-out homebrew there.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
Can we move the discussion regarding vestiges and turning to Ashardalon Reborn(x), please? That's the build under discussion at this point, not the Groundhog Mage. I've moved my reply there, and this will be my last post on the subject here
Originally posted by aelryinth:
You can't have a Twin Lucubration Echoing...the Echoing wouldn't be modifying anything.
order of Operations is VERY key on all metamagic. Now, for damage spells, it might not matter much, but let's use a basic set up.
Would you rather have a Persistent Extended spell, or an Extended Persistent spell?
Waiting....
The First version, Persistent modifies the Extended Spell, turning a double duration spell into a 24 hour spell. Extended is wasted.
The Second version, Extended modifies the Persistent spell. You now have a spell that lasts 48 hours.
In 3.0, when Empower and Maximize stacked, it also made a difference. An Empowered, Maximized 10th level fireball did 60 + 5d6 points of damage. A maximized, Empowered Fireball did 90 points of damage.
Thirdly, Meta effects do NOT happen simultaneously, much as JaronK might want to argue. Because then You'd Get a Twinned Maximized Empowered Fireball that was a 60 +5d6 fireball,+ a 10d6 fireball, the metas ignoring one another, OR you'd properly apply them in order, gettiing 2x 60+5d6 fireballs.
So, your Twinned, Echoing Lucubration means you cast two Lucubration spells, and those Lucubration spells are Echoed...ignoring the Twinned, which they don't modify, letting you end up with 2 Lucubration spells.. Echoing Twinned Lucubration alternate? You'd end up with....a single Echoed, twinned Lucubration, not TWO of them. Since Twin isn't doubling the Echo, you get exactly what you had before, no more, no less, no matter which way you cast it. The first one you'd get 2 Lucubrations you could use on different spells, but have to cast independently of one another after they Echo. The second, you'd get a Twinned Lucubration, casting it over again.
You're essentially trying to get the effects of the meta twice, and that's not how it works.
I find it difficult to believe that you can Lucubrate that 6th level Sanctum spell. At any moment that the Lucubration checks it, it's going to see a spell in a 6th level slot. The fact the spell was effectively cast at 5th level isn't going to be relevant. It can also be cast at 7th level. When the Lucubration checks, all it's going to see is a spell cast out of a 6th level slot and beyond its power.
I still consider using +0 Arcane Thesis Meta reduction total cheese.
.The example for the level 2 spell being reduced to 5th level does not reference any other Meta then Echoing, which we can assume is being ignored for this calculation. The Echoing level 2 takes up a 5th level spell, and Echoing bases its effect on that level 2. If we're talking an Echoing Maximized Scorching Ray, you'd now be burning an 8th level slot to Echo a 5th level spell, and you can't cast a 5th level spell below 9th level.
YOu basically took an example and read too much into it. In proper order of operations, Echo looks at the 2nd level spell and it can be cast at level 5, you're good. But you blew that up into a Echoing Twinned Enhancer still being castable below normal spell level, looking at it as a level 4 spell, not a level 8.
I also have to wonder extensively about applying metacost reducers on reborn echoed spells. One of the ways I'd stop this in its tracks is simply not to have metacost reducers apply to the reborn spells, which would either eliminate them from Lucubration or Enhancer, and/or make them take up higher spell slots, as suddenly you can't fit that Twinned Enhancer into a level 6 slot like you want to. After all, you aren't preparing the spells, so why should you get the spell get the cost reducers? All the new spells are going to see is a Twinned Lucubration, not the -2 cost attached to it. I.e. is there PRECEDENT for Metacost reducers being applied to spontaneously reformed spells via means other then just preparing them?
I mean, seriously, the reborn spells should all be identical, regardless of who let them loose originally. Someone with a -2 Echoing Enhancers can now stuff them in a 6th level slot, but someone without it has to use an 8th level slot, and can't cast the spell below a CL of 15. As successive metacost reduction is not included as a function of Echoing, it's a bit of a stretch, and kind of unfair, for the rebirth effect to be so uneven.
Just things to think on.
Still a crazy design.
==Aelryinth
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
Incorrect.
But, I assume since you're making such a big claim, you've got some very nice passages of text for us.
Either one. They're the same spell.
Incorrect. They are the same spell.
Nice thing we're not talking about 3.0, then.
Nope. Your assertion, though. Let's see some text here. Because all I see are combination of effects that change the spell. Show me where an order is required.
Post some text. Until then, your post is meaningless.
Originally posted by aelryinth:
Wow, and I thought you were good at math and order of operations.
i just laid out a very, very simple order of operations, and you can't see it. That's...amazing. I had no idea your odd opinions so clouded your ability to do basic logic calculations.
In any event, since you seem incapable of comprehending the proof that was posted, I'm just going to ignore the rest of your opinion.
Extended Persistent and Persistent Extended are the same spell. HAH!. That IS funny.
I'm 99.99% sure Tempest knows exactly what I'm saying, and how it affects his Twinned Echoing plans, at the very least. The order in which you apply Metamagic can definitely have an effect on the final spell. You get to choose them, but that hardly means they are identical every time.
This is especially crucial if you want the metamagics to affect each other. If they all take effect simultaneously, they ignore one another. So you have to determine which meta modifies what meta that modifies what meta'd spell. Very basic.
===Aelryinth
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
It's a good thing there's no such thing as order of operations for metamagics. They all alter the spell.
So, personal attacks instead of actually posting text?
Yeah, I think you've just proven my point for me.
That you don't see that doubling 24 is 48? I agree, that is kinda funny.
Incorrect.
I wholeheartedly agree.
Originally posted by Slagger_the_Chuul:
Your reasoning assumes that the duration has become 24 before you double it. But If both feats apply simultaneously (without any order of operations), then the spell's duration has yet to become 24 hours, so the doubling instead applies to the spell's original duration. The spell would have its duration set to both double its base rate and to 24 hours.
This would actually give the spell two durations (since its duration is set to both double and 24 hours at the same time), but since spells expire when they reach the end of their duration, it would reach the shortest duration first and end there.
Without an order of operations, all metamagic applies to the base spell, since the spell will not already have the changes from any given metamagic when another one is applied.
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
Incorrect. An Extended spell lasts "twice as long as normal." A persistent spell lasts 24 hours. The only possible end result is 48 hours.
Incorrect.
But maybe I'm wrong. Anyone want to provide explicit text backing up the absurd claim that Ael made?
EDIT: To rephrase, since it seems to be missed, any order you apply metamagics in doesn't matter. There is nothing preventing a twin spell from echoing because something being applied after it doesn't magically mean it doesn't exist. A twinned spell is a twinned spell regard, regardless of any effects on it, and there is nothing preventing the metamagicks from echoing beyond Ael's completely unsupported assertions.
Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
The only time I think order of operations applies at all is if the metamagic changes the validity of the modified spell. (This is why I used the "Detect Magic + Snowcasting + Flash Frost + Coercive" example above - you can't make a spell coercive without it dealing damage, which here only comes from flash frost, which can only be applied to cold spells, which is only here because of snowcasting...). However, that's order of operations on application, not on triggering.
The reason I asked about Twin Echoing earlier wasn't because of order of operations, really - it was because I wasn't sure if the thing that echoed was a result of the spell resolving or of the spell being cast. I.e. I only "cast" a Twin Echo spell once, but it takes effect twice. Echoing doesn't really alter the "effect" so much, it just causes the spell to return after an hour. I'm not sure if what's returning is the (single) spell I'm casting, or the (twin) results of it resolving.
Originally posted by aelryinth:
You'd get the two results of it back, but the two spells would no longer be Twinned...they would just be two spells in spell slots, as I noted above.
Now, if you Echoed the Twin Spell, as opposed to Twinning the Echoed Spell, you'd get a single Twinned Spell back, ready for use in one, higher level slot.
The net effect is the same, but the results are slightly different...two spells independently in two lower level slots, or one Twinned Spell in a higher level slot.
Order of operations usually doesn't mean anything. But (Correction: EruditeApe's) explanation is all opinion and no logic, and doesn't hold any water, so it's safe to ignore it. It definitely makes a difference on what you want to have happen here.
==Aelryinth
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
And your source for this assertion is?
No, that's you.
Again, if your post is so much more than mere opinion, let's see some sources.
Originally posted by Slagger_the_Chuul:
That would contradict Extend Spell making the spell last twice as long as normal, since the spell's normal duration isn't 24 hours (except in a few cases where Persistent Spell wouldn't be needed, like a 2 hour/level duration with a 12th-level caster). To get 48 hours, you'd have to change the "normal" duration to 24 hours before extending it.
If you attempt to apply both modifications simultaneously, neither one of them has been applied by the time the other takes effect, so you're applying both modifications to the completely unmodified form of the spell.
Originally posted by aelryinth:
oi, oi, Slagger, he's asking you to 'prove' logic, when he can't prove anything. Don't worry about him, he doesn't know what he's talking about. I thought he was smart enough to understand the basic logic, so I think he's just being willfully obtuse to start an argument. It's how JaronK is, you know.
He's always right.
If someone else is right, he tells them they have to prove it.
He doesn't have to prove anything, even if he's obviously wrong.
When they prove they are right, he tells them they are wrong.
Meh, Just ignore him. It's not worth the argument. He's followed the same pattern dozens of times, there's no point to letting him bait you.
The only one important here is Tempest, who is EXTREMELY reasonable and open-minded.
==Aelryinth
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
Incorrect. One changes the duration to 24 hours, the other doubles it. To put it in a way Ael might get it, 2X and X x 2 are the same thing.
As TS pointed out, Metamamagics can be used to make a spell qualify for other metamagics, but beyond that there is no difference.
Actually, that's you. You are making an assertion that is as best I can tell totally unsupported by any text.aelryinth wrote
I'm more than willing to entertain the possibilty that I'm wrong. Post some proof.
Oh, yes, comparing me to someone well-known and generally respected in the optimization community. Truly, this is a massive "burn."
This is strikingly similar to your behavior, especially since you can't be bothered to even post a single snippet of text.
Looking at my post count, I don't think that's likely. Are your posts just getting meta?
Also, I just want to be clear, you're claiming that, despite it being you who's been throwing the insults, I'm the one who's baiting? I'm highly curious as to your definition of "baiting."
And basically posted what I did.
Do you really not see what's wrong with this?
Originally posted by Slagger_the_Chuul:
The part you're leaving out there is that only one of the effects is "X = X * 2"; the other effect is actually "X = 24" (in this case, the "=" sign is setting the value). Let's assume that X = 10 (a duration of 10 hours, for a spell). We have either:
- X=10
- X=X*2 (X becomes 20)
- X=24 (X becomes 24)
or
- X=10
- X=24 (X becomes 24)
- X=X*2 (X becomes 48)
If we instead try applying both changes simultaneously we get:
- X=10
- X=24 and X=X*2 (X becomes both 20 and 24)
Originally posted by Luna_Trigger:
I honestly don't know how to make it much more clear. The duration is twice normal and the base duration is made to be 24 hours. The only possible result is that the duration is 48 hours.
Or, to put it in the utterly silly way that you and Ael keep wanting to put it in, Y is the final duration and X is the base duration.
Normally, Y=X
Extended, Y=2X
Persisted X=24
So, extended and persisted, Y=2(24)
Originally posted by Slagger_the_Chuul:
And look at exactly what you've done there; you've applied the operations in a given order.
A formula like Y=2(24) works by following a standard order of operations. Specifically, you perform the operations in brackets (setting the duration to 24) before the operations outside the brackets, because mathematical formulas already recognize the need to perform operations in a way that avoids ambiguous results.
The formula you've written here describes applying Persistent Spell first, then Extended Spell.
