How many spells could a spellwarp sniper warp...

[Pazu]

...if a spellwarp sniper...ahh, never mind.

Anyway, I was toying with a few character ideas the other day and looked at the Spellwarp Sniper (Complete Scoundrel, p. 64). For those unfamiliar with this prestige class, it's a five-level class with full caster progression and a set of nifty abilities relating to ray spells.

The 1st-level ability, Spellwarp (Ex), allows the caster to warp an area spell with an instantaneous duration and a range greater than touch. This turns it into a ray spell. The spellwarp sniper can warp spells of a level up to his class level (so, up to 5th level spells can eventually be warped).

So, okay, sounds neat! Let's look for a bunch of area spells that can be warped. Starting with the PHB:

Level 1: Burning Hands, Color Spray (any reason to warp this one?)

Level 2: Shatter (or this one?)... anything else?

Level 3: Fireball, Lightning Bolt (which is probably what the designers had in mind)

Level 4: Shout (or this one?)... any others?

Level 5: Cone of Cold, Waves of Fatigue (or this one?)

So, unless I'm missing something, there are basically eight spells in five levels that can be modified in this way, half of which don't seem to gain any particular benefit from being turned into rays.

Am I missing something, or is this ability a lot more limited than it appears at first glance?

 

[szilard]

Spellwarping is more useful when you can use spells outside of the SRD.

If you are good with rays and you only have one target, most of these will benefit tremendously from ray usage. A sniper is probably going to stay in back and, you know, snipe... while other party members are in melee. You generally don't want to use area effect spells when your party members are in melee.

-Stuart

 

[bestone]

Rays are great for sneak attacks, so being able to convert spells to rays is nice nice nice! plus you roll to hit, and can crit, yummy!

Looking at spell compendium, duration instantaneous and r-greater than touch

some that might be usefull

1st- Hail of stone (ok not usefull) Ice dagger (tho i dont think splash damage counts as an area of effect for the ability, so nix this)

2nd - Fireburst (interesting if you read it) - Frost breath - Scorch - Snowball swarm (giggle) -

 

[bestone]

3rd - Acid breath, Nauseating breath (interesting), Flashburst (wow), Great thunderclap, hailstones, Rainbow blast, scintillating sphere

 

[bestone]

4th - Blast of flame, forcewave (yay ranged bullrush)

5th- Arc of lightning, cacophonic burst, cyclonic blast, fireburst (greater), Shard storm
miasma of entropy (useless?), earth reaver

5th level viscid glob would be sweet if it worked! damn duration!

 

[Corsair]

Note that an empowered/maximized fireball is still only a 3rd level spell.

 

[Felon]

2nd - Fireburst (interesting if you read it)

Having read it, I'm not sure what makes this interesting, other than the fact that it illustrates that "range greater than touch" requirement of spellwarp is fairly meaningless, as area spells tend to have ranges even when they eminate from the caster.

 

[bestone]

And thats what i found interesting

 

[szilard]

Othsr spells (from the Spell Compendium) that might be useful as rays:

Cyclonic Blast
Fireburst (not sure how this would work)
Ironthunder Horn
Junglerazer


-Stuart