Area burst 2 at-wills

[kerbarian]

Arcane power has a new feat, Enlarge Spell. On any arcane attack power, you can take -2 to each die of damage to increase the size of its blast or burst by 1. It looks like this could be used, along with some other feats, to create quite powerful at-wills for sorcerer or wizard.

For a wizard, you could take Enlarge Spell, Destructive Wizardry (+2/3/4 damage when you hit 2+ creatures), and Elemental Empowerment (Genasi Wizard, +Str damage to elemental wizard powers).

That would let you cast Scorching Burst as an area burst 2 for 1d6 + Int + Str + Implement fire damage.

You need a few stat points to cover the feat prerequisites, but you could have Int 19, Str 18 by 4th level, when all the feats are in place. With, say, a +2 implement, that would be a burst 2 for 1d6 + 10 (or a burst 1 for 1d6 + 12).

Enlarge Spell is wizard-only, so a sorcerer would have to take the (otherwise completely useless) wizard multiclassing feat first. So a sorcerer could take Arcane Initiate, Enlarge Spell, and Destructive Wizardry.

That allows Blazing Starfall as an area burst 2 for 1d4 + Cha + Str/Dex + Implement radiant damage, plus a decent secondary effect if you're a cosmic sorcerer.

You could also add on Dual Implement Spellcaster, the appropriate elemental damage feat, and/or a Staff of Ruin for even more damage.

 

[Nifft]

Also, Arcane Admixture (Thunder) + Resounding Thunder. Both are Paragon feats.

The expanded areas stack.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Kinneus]

Pretty cool... but is your concern that it's overpowered? It may be, but they have to invest an awful lot of feats into it to make it work, plus take a -2 on attacks. If a player wants to invest three or four into getting a super-charged At-Will (and wait until about level 8 or so to get there), I say let them go for it. They earned it.

Overall, though... I'm little concerned with the amount of cheese I'm hearing about in Arcane Power. I haven't it bought it yet, simply because I don't have the scratch, but I'm starting to think about passing it up, and not allowing it in my games. I never got Martial Power because I thought it was overpowered and because I dislike martial characters. I love arcane characters, but if it's blatant power creep...

 

[kerbarian]

Pretty cool... but is your concern that it's overpowered? It may be, but they have to invest an awful lot of feats into it to make it work, plus take a -2 on attacks.

-2 damage, not -2 attack, and you can make up the damage with other feats like Destructive Wizardry. I don't know if it's overpowered, but it's definitely more area damage than has been available so far for at-wills.

 

[fissionessence]

I love arcane characters, but if it's blatant power creep...

The primary source of 'power creep' is the interactions between all the new pieces of the game. The more pieces there are, the more interactions there are going to be, and the more the overall power level of the game is going to increase. This is inevitable, unless they intentionally released feats that are crappier than older feats (and even then, some powerful interactions would make it through).

More on topic, I think the collection of feats described in the OP would make for a pretty cool, specialized character. Not overpowered as much as 'good at what he does'.

~

 

[Kinneus]

The primary source of 'power creep' is the interactions between all the new pieces of the game.

True.

More on topic, I think the collection of feats described in the OP would make for a pretty cool, specialized character. Not overpowered as much as 'good at what he does'.

I'm inclined to agree with this as well. Cool, effective, specialized... but not quite overpowered. Especially not versus, say, an encounter heavy on elite or solos.

 

[DMingNicholas]

Sounds fine to me. It would turn them into an epic minion slayer and good against big groups in general. However, the player could have used those feats to become more powerful in another area and so is going to suffer against the big bads.

Seems like a legitimate and cool build.

 

[keterys]

I actually like Enlarge Spell a lot - though it does make the Staff of the War Mage to Staff of Ruin comparison a little more glaring

 

[webrunner]

I thought Metamagic was going to be utility powers now? I remember there were some in the phb..

 

[Squizzle]

Add Coordinated Explosion and War Wizardry, and you don't have to worry about hitting allies--in fact, it will often be beneficial to include them in the area.