Battlemage. What would you do?

[GILGAMESH]

Hi all,
I'm presently in a long run game, rotating DM duty with a couple other out standing DM's . During our last session thing got pretty nasty. Power hitters did fine until badguys showed up with heavier hitters and more of them.
Our group has two great spellcasters but on this run, one more would have been helpful.

Some I'm thinking of a battlemage type spellcaster but don't really have much resources at the momment to really research it.

Anyone out there ever come up with a good one? Any Ideas?

I've only ever played a cleric before and found it kinda limiting.

Thanks!

 

[Thurbane]

The Battle Sorcerer from UA and Warmage from Miniatures Handbook/Complete Arcane are both good options...

 

[rgard]

The Battle Sorcerer from UA and Warmage from Miniatures Handbook/Complete Arcane are both good options...

Yes, those are the best two. The Battle Sorcerer is in the SRD.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Nyaricus]

Yes, those are the best two. The Battle Sorcerer is in the SRD.

Thanks,
Rich

Link to Battle Sorcerer

cheers,
--N

 

[was]

The Warmage is good..I think there's an option in phb 2 to give you access to a couple non-evocation spells

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If you don't have permssion to non-PHB stuff, one thing you can do is design a PC with Still Spell and multiclass with a class with the ability to wear armor you want. Any arcane spell with somatic components can be cast in armor without ASF with Still spell (at a cost of a single bump in spell level), and the rest won't be affected at all. Armor proficiency will remove the other armor wearing penalties.

So a PC with dip levels in Cleric or most of the warrior classes would be fine, and go the rest of the way with the Arcane caster of your choice.

A Cleric (with the right domains- say War and Destruction)/Wiz, Spec Wiz or Sorc/Mystic Theurge for instance, could be quite an effective "battlecaster."

 

[Klaus]

Another Battle Sorcerer vote here. Not only is it a great class, it is by far the most customizable of the bunch.

 

[Stormborn]

Battle Sorcerer. Playing one now and he is great, although feat poor. Nevertheless, highly recommended. Consider a Reserve Feat like Acid Splatter and something like Battle Caster (IIRC) tha allows you to use Medium Armor.

 

[rgard]

Another Battle Sorcerer vote here. Not only is it a great class, it is by far the most customizable of the bunch.

I'll agree with that. The BS isn't hampered with a specific spell list. HD and BAB are better too.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[drothgery]

For a pure blaster, Psion (kineticist) is a pretty good option; if you're above 7th level or so and 3+ combat encounters/day are uncommon, it's arguably the best option. And if you don't mind the paperwork, an evoker can nearly match a sorcerer in spells per day even before scrolls and wands get into play -- and despite losing two schools, he'll have versatility that the sorcerer or psion just can't match.

If you want a magically-augmented melee guy, cleric really is the way to go, though duskblade and the standard eldrich knight (or Knight Phantom in Eberron) builds (ftr/wiz or pal/sorc) work pretty well, too.

Having said that... I'm playing a warmage right now (using the PHB2 options to pick up a few non-evokation/non-warmage spells), because I thought building a 14th-level blaster from scratch was too much paperwork...