Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Caliban" data-source="post: 705593" data-attributes="member: 284">The only reason I'm including the FRCS is because that where the both the prestige classes we are discussing come from. Psionics are not a normal part of the 3E version of the FRCS, although it does include options for including them. I mentioned a single item (headband of intellect), and noted that it wasn't necessary, as it could be duplicated (or exceeded) with a single spell. Actually, I had the CR wrong.  The Great Wyrm Red Dragon is CR 25.    A CR 25 creature should annihilate a single 18th level character.    The fact that the example wizard has a better than 33% chance of killing it with a single spell illustrates my point.And if everyone played the game the way you do, I'm sure there would never be any problems.   In general I agree with you.  They are certainly more fun.But what does your counterspell mage do when the dragon just attacks you without casting spells? My save or die mage might have already killed it. How effective you are really depends on the situations you have to deal with.   The "save or die" mage is basically set up for one thing: combat.    He's still got a ton of spell slots he can devote to other purposes, but that's where he shines.If you have to deal with a lot of combat situations without enemy spellcasters, he will outperform your counterspell mage. If you have to deal with a lot of combat situations with enemy spellcasters, your guy will do a lot better.    Of course, my guy can still kill multiple enemy spellcasters and non-spellcasters with a single spell, if they aren't prepared for it. Its when you have to deal with a lot of non-combat situations that the "save or die" mage has to take a back seat.   But he still has all those skill points and knowledge skills from being a wizard, and other members of the party should be able to take up the slack. You say that my 18th level wizard should be able to easily deal with one or more CR 20 threats, but since you wouldn't build a red wizard/archmage it's not a broken combination. "Yeah, that's really powerful, but since I wouldn't do it, it's OK."You are not the yardstick by which Prc's are measured.   Just because you wouldn't do it does not mean that it's not overpowered.   And it's really not the PRC that's overpowered, it the Spell Power ability.   Other than that, I think the Archmage is great.</blockquote>

Verification