fatal flaw: low hitpoints

[Dannyalcatraz]

-The character concept revolves around draconic feats as well as metamagic feats. Replacing those with 'life saving' feats breaks the concept.
<snip>
-Wearing armor isn't really going to improve things. I've already got an AC of 18 (using mage armour) or 20 (using greater mage armour) increased to 22 or 24 with shield.

Seriously- reexamine armor, given your concept.

The Draconic Feats chain has 3 feats that will help your survivability: Draconic Skin gives you +1NAC. Draconic Armor (from Draconomicon) gets you a round of DR based on the level of the spell you just cast. Draconic Breath makes being an effective armored mage viable by letting you maintain distance from your foe and avoiding ASF penalties by letting you deliver a magical AE attack (cone or line) doing 2d6/spell level per affected space.

My Mage Brute had an AC of 19- Scale + Lg Shield + 16Dex- all without expending a spell slot. No worries about the time it takes to cast your buffs; no worries about provoking AoOs casting the buffs; no worries about spells getting disrupted, dispelled or simply expiring. And once he had the GP to spend, he could get masterwork- or better yet, Mithril- armor that he could then enchant with further protective energies. (The campaign ended before then due to real world issues.)

Add to that:

1) Still Spell lets you maintain most of your spell arsenal at your now-armored fingertips

2) Dragon #354 has a (flawed) list of arcane spells in the PHB and Spell Compendium that don't have somatic components.

3) Learn Reduce Person and it will get you another +2AC boost without affecting your effectiveness.

4) You're hiding in plain sight- most NPCs won't pick out the guy in heavy armor as an Arcanist and won't react to him as such...especially if he's not waving his hands about like a spellcaster. A good reason to have your crossbow handy.

 

[pawsplay]

All good advise. I won't be responding to all of it, but here is the gist:

-The character concept revolves around draconic feats as well as metamagic feats. Replacing those with 'life saving' feats breaks the concept.
Even if that means having a character with a better chance of survival, it's simply not an option. (I'm still roleplaying, not optimizing)

You are welcome to do as you see fit. However, I must point out the fallacy if this argument. You already do not have all the draconic feats you will ever have. Continuing to not have them will not "break the concept." Presumably, the concept does not include being so fragile a stiff breeze will break you, or you wouldn't be asking what to do about it.

Let's phrase the problem thusly: you want more hit points and AC, but would rather spend gold than feats. To summarize:

- Spells that cause miss chances are better than AC bonuses
- Cast false life early and often
- Cast or acquire bear's endurance
- Elemental resistances are very important when facing enemy spellcasters or dragons
- Keep the Shield spell up or you will be killed by magic missiles, no saving throw

 

[billd91]

All good advise. I won't be responding to all of it, but here is the gist:

-The character concept revolves around draconic feats as well as metamagic feats. Replacing those with 'life saving' feats breaks the concept.
Even if that means having a character with a better chance of survival, it's simply not an option. (I'm still roleplaying, not optimizing)

Your choices are your own. You can make whatever ones you want. But worrying about "breaking" a concept you are unlikely to realize because of lack of survival is not necessarily a good priority.

Plus, it's not necessarily bad roleplaying to work on your health if you recognize that it's not so good. People do this in real life all the time and we're not optimizing against a set of known concrete rules.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For that matter, Cat's Grace will get you a +4Dex which will further improve your AC.

Oh yeah- do you have a Toad familiar?

 

[AuraSeer]

I don't think AC and specialized resistances are going to do much. When a caster of your own level can one-shot you with magic missile, you've got very serious problems.

I think you should reexamine your priorities. You don't have to give up roleplaying to realize that would be sensible. Think about it: this PC did not materialize into the world as a 7th-level character. She's had a dangerous career for the past 6 levels-- at least several dozen serious battles-- and obviously didn't get killed. Even from a pure RP standpoint, you would need to justify how she survived so long.

And in game terms, having dual spellcaster classes sounds cool and all, but you won't be able to take advantage of them because you'll be expending so many of your spell slots on defense. Just to survive, you will have to use multiple buff spells in every fight, which means you can't do anything else useful in the important first few combat rounds. Any time you're hit at all, either you have to use up yet more time (and money) drinking potions, or else pull the cleric away from more useful duties in order to come keep you alive.

Seriously, you should run this character through a couple of simulated combats and see if she manages to accomplish anything. Even the best character concept can turn out to be frustrating or boring to play, if you're never able to contribute to the success of the party.

 

[milo]

I might have just missed it, but an amulet of health is the most obvious to me.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I don't think AC and specialized resistances are going to do much. When a caster of your own level can one-shot you with magic missile, you've got very serious problems.

Well, that right there is the best argument for using Shield instead of a shield.

Think about it: this PC did not materialize into the world as a 7th-level character. She's had a dangerous career for the past 6 levels-- at least several dozen serious battles-- and obviously didn't get killed. Even from a pure RP standpoint, you would need to justify how she survived so long.

Not really- combat isn't the only way to advance one's self in the world- this PC could have been an academic for many years who is now taking up the mantle of being an adventurer. It could be voluntary- like the guy in the Monte Python skit wanting to become a lion tamer- or involuntary- his patron no longer needs his services.

Seriously, you should run this character through a couple of simulated combats and see if she manages to accomplish anything. Even the best character concept can turn out to be frustrating or boring to play, if you're never able to contribute to the success of the party.

This is actually a decent point.

(FWIW, the Mage-Brute stood up to actual gaming situations.)

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

rethink the character

'Collect all the Draconic Feats' isn't a character concept, it's a mechanics exercise. A character concept is something like, 'sickly orphan left on the streets, using his wits to survive'.

You've done something in D&D that is actually far more common in games with point buy mechanics. You've created a character with an imbalanced offense/defense ratio. A more extreme example would be a character in GURPS who puts all his points into Flame Bolt. D&D uses 'levels' precisely in an attempt to make this kind of PC difficult to create, by forcing people to buy abilities in bundles.


Up to the point where your character eats it, you'll basically be stealing the show from the other players. You'll do more damage and generally have more resources for dealing with problems because you've invested more in this. As a DM, I would make absolutely sure that I gave you no breaks when it came to targetting, etc. because for the game to be remotely fair to the other players the threat of death for your PC needs to be real and constant.

I would seriously rethink things. If you minmaxed to the point where you could only afford 11 CON on an arcane caster, you've minmaxed too much.

Ken

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Ummm...I wouldn't say a PC with a huge number of Draconic feats has an offense/defense imbalance. While some of the feats do provide a little offensive punch, by and large, its not a Power Gamer's path. He may be hell on earth to lesser beings, but to characters of similar XP levels, he's probably just so-so.

And I mean that in general, not just this HP-starved PC.

This is more of a concept trumping mechanics type build...a dogged pursuit of a PC build that provides an unusual RP experience rather than combat dominance.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I would seriously rethink things. If you minmaxed to the point where you could only afford 11 CON on an arcane caster, you've minmaxed too much.

I agree with everything you said in general, but to be fair, he did drop a 13 into Con before racial mods, and needed two high scores because he's a dual caster, so I really don't think it was much an issue of min-maxing. I do not agree with the OP not increasing Con at level 4 or 8, though.

I don't know if stats were rolled or it was point buy...but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume any DM that doesn't let you reroll ones on HD rolls* probably also forced them to roll their stats. I would be amazed if he allowed point buy out of a sense of fairness and keeping everyone on a level playing field, but then said, "yeah, and even though HD rolls also affect you your entire PC's career...I'm going to just make you eat whatever godawful rolls luck gives you." So...what I'm seeing is...OP put his two highest scores into his casting stats. Which is perfectly normal. He then put a 13 in Con, which as likely the third highest stat he rolled. No min-maxing here.

*Much as I loathe DMs that still don't do point buy, the DMs that don't ever allow HD rerolls really have a special place of enmity with me. If I was playing a Barbarian and the DM told me I had to keep that 1 I rolled on my d12, I'd tell him where he could go shove the die. Lord knows warrior types are so much more powerful than the casters, heavens forbid we actually make sure their higher HD actually end up meaning something even if the player happens to have crappy luck. The wizard's 6 rolls came out to a higher total than the Barbarian's, even though it was a d4? So what? Even if he has lower hp, I think the fact that he should be tougher than the wizard is consolation enough. Learn to roleplay and stop obsessing over the numbers, jerk!
/rant. Just be glad you didn't have much to lose on your HD rolls, I guess is my point...