Building a 12th Warmage

[Gez]

Any advice on building a warmage?

The basic concept is a new PC to replace a retired one in an FR campaign (Northern Journey, for those who know it, currently wandering in Myth Drannor). 12th level. I want to try the Warmage (CoAr)+Arcane Disciple (CoDi) combination. Probably human, don't want a half-breed or an elf.

Warmages are like better sorcerers, except their spell list, while bigger than sorcerers', is set once and for all and extremely specialized. Arcane Disciple (AD) is a feat that lets you add a whole domain from the deity your character follows to his arcane spell list. AD can be taken several times, to add multiple domains. However, you can cast only one domain spell of each level each day.

I thought about five possible starts:

• A calishite warmage, following Sharess, AD for Travel and Trickery, with Bloodline of Fire.
• A silverraen warmage, following Torm, AD for Healing and War.
• A follower of Mystra, AD for Spell (the interest here is in anyspell) and maybe Magic and/or Rune.
• A follower of Lathander, AD for Glory (BoED).
• A follower of Waukeen, AD for Trade and Travel.

Any suggestion of feats, nasty combos, etc? Also, what are the best spells to take with Advanced Learning?

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Any suggestion of feats, nasty combos, etc? Also, what are the best spells to take with Advanced Learning?

For the love of God, take Improved Edge. Even more extra damage is your friend.

You'll probably also want to grab Empower Spell; while your Sudden Empower is okay for once/day, you'll probably want it more often. Also, Easy Empower, from Dragon # 325 Theurgy article, is useful, so you can Empower fireballs with only 4th level slots instead of 5th levels.

Brad

 

[shilsen]

A calishite warmage, following Sharess, AD for Travel and Trickery, with Bloodline of Fire.

That sounds like a nice combo. The warmage's biggest weakness is the lack of maneuverability/protective spells, and the Travel and Trickery domains provide a nice bunch of them.

For the spells with Advanced Learning, I'd get Tenser's Floating Disk (at 3rd; not like you have any wealth of choices at that point), Resonating Bolt (at 6th) and Wall of Force (at 11th). If you are using books besides the PHB and CA, you can probably get something better than Tenser's FD and Resonating Bolt.

 

[Gez]

For the love of God, take Improved Edge. Even more extra damage is your friend.

You mean Extra Edge, I suppose. Good idea, I overlooked it.

It makes me think about Extra Domain Spell (MiniHB). A spellcaster with Arcane Disciple could qualify for it, if he has a high enough Wis score. Since the domain spells gained through AD can only be cast once per day, EDS could be useful.

For the spells with Advanced Learning, I'd get Tenser's Floating Disk (at 3rd; not like you have any wealth of choices at that point), Resonating Bolt (at 6th) and Wall of Force (at 11th). If you are using books besides the PHB and CA, you can probably get something better than Tenser's FD and Resonating Bolt.

That's about what I picked, except I thought about Leomund's tiny hut or wind wall instead of resonating bolt. A big bad sonic damage spell could be useful, though.

 

[Yig]

You could also use the feat that give you one extra know spell to get Assay Resistance.

That will be useful.

 

[Thanee]

A calishite warmage, following Sharess, AD for Travel and Trickery, with Bloodline of Fire.

Not very fitting, if you are worried about that kind of stuff.

A follower of Mystra, AD for Spell (the interest here is in anyspell) and maybe Magic and/or Rune.

I'm afraid, Anyspell does exactly nothing, if cast by a Warmage.

Also, what are the best spells to take with Advanced Learning?

Not sure, what are the best... but good ones are:

- Firebrand (tho, you probably have enough blast spells already )
- Wall of Force
- Bigby's Interposing Hand (or other Bigby's spells)
- Fireshield (or Mass Fireshield)

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

You could also use the feat that give you one extra know spell to get Assay Resistance.

That will be useful.

Definitely. Unfortunately, there is no feat, that does that...

Which brings up another point...

Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration should be high on your must-have feats list.

Bye
Thanee

 

[shilsen]

That's about what I picked, except I thought about Leomund's tiny hut or wind wall instead of resonating bolt. A big bad sonic damage spell could be useful, though.

Incidentally, Leomund's tiny hut can work well defensively in a pinch. If you cast it, those outside can't see you or know exactly where in it you are. Since it's a 20 ft. radius sphere, you need a decent-sized area of effect spell to be sure of nailing someone inside it.

 

[Gez]

Not very fitting, if you are worried about that kind of stuff.

You mean for background justification? One can always work. True, the easiest background to do is with the Tormite one.

I'm afraid, Anyspell does exactly nothing, if cast by a Warmage.

How so? When cast, the spell allows to prepare in its slot a wizard spell from a scroll or spellbook, which can then be cast. Why wouldn't it work for a warmage? Obviously, the bits about "your cleric level" will be replaced by "your warmage level". I'm sure you can find lots of other domain spells where it is assumed the spellcaster is a cleric, and that isn't surprising.

Anyspell lets you prepare and cast an arcane spell as a wizard of your cleric level. Thanks to the AD feat, that "cleric level" for purpose of domain spells is warmage level. There is a certain transitivity in all this.

Anyway, the Spell domain also features limited wish, which makes it all worthwile regardless of rules-lawyering.

 

[Nail]

Depending on the wording......warmages don't prepare spells, so the spell Anyspell doesn't work.