The warmage--which spell do I choose?

[ForceUser]

Why don't the enemies benefit from concealment? The hut's opaque.

The hut is opaque from the inside, and invisible from the outside. Those inside the hut have total concealment from those outside, but not vice-versa.

 

[Felon]

Ah, OK. Kinda broken heh.

 

[ForceUser]

Yeah, LTH is a stationary bubble of total concealment, which can be extremely useful in certain combat situations, especially if the tanks are in the front and the spellcasters are in the back. Bad guys can't usually hit what they can't see. On top of that, LTH is also pretty darn good for its intended purpose of protecting from bad weather and providing an invisible shelter.

Ah, OK. Kinda broken heh.

Nah. I've seen it in play a bunch of times, and while it was occasionally neat, it never broke the game. This is largely because the hut is stationary once deployed. This severely limits its combat utility.

 

[Warmage-in-Onley]

I like Leomund's Tiny Hut, but Wind Wall (being a shapeable effect) has many uses as well. Remember, you already have Gust of Wind. Resonating Bolt is interesting and effective, but most of its utility will be covered by Orb of Sound later. Wall of Force is often mentioned as a given, and is certainly useful, but, if you live long enough, you will pick up Prismatic Wall later. I would advise you to choose spells offering more variety of uses at higher levels - Bigby's Hands, Otiluke's Telekinetic Sphere, and Forcecage being exceptional at this.

 

[ForceUser]

I like Leomund's Tiny Hut, but Wind Wall (being a shapeable effect) has many uses as well. Remember, you already have Gust of Wind. Resonating Bolt is interesting and effective, but most of its utility will be covered by Orb of Sound later. Wall of Force is often mentioned as a given, and is certainly useful, but, if you live long enough, you will pick up Prismatic Wall later. I would advise you to choose spells offering more variety of uses at higher levels - Bigby's Hands, Otiluke's Telekinetic Sphere, and Forcecage being exceptional at this.

You make some good points. Still, it sounds a bit like the whole "bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" thing. If I can get wall of force now, or prismatic wall three levels from now, I would be inclined to go with wall of force now. Although sending is an evocation, and an extremely useful utility spell. It's essentially a cell phone in a cell phone-less world. In the right campaign, I'd take sending over wall of force.

You make a good point regarding the shapeable effect of wind wall, however. Quite useful.

 

[Warmage-in-Onley]

I like Sending as well, it's full of flavor and appears often in WoTC novels. Yeah, the bird in the hand analogy is on-target, I was thinking in terms of the "best future model", which may not come to pass. Hopefully your associates will provide another spellcaster to fill-in some of the holes that will inevitably appear in a Warmage build.

 

[Victim]

I like Wind Wall for 6th level. It's one of the few defensive spells warmages can get. Also, it makes sense considering the idea of the warmage. You can protect a whole bunch of people from normal missiles while your ranged spell attacks function perfectly.

 

[Felon]

Note that if you add the Minis Handbook to the mix, you get a few more low-level options (and that's the book where the warmage debuted, after all).

1st level--guiding light, mordenkanen's buzzing bee
2nd level--bigby's slapping hand, veil of darkness

It is pretty weird that they would stick the warmage with TFD like that heh.

 

[Glyfair]

Note that if you add the Minis Handbook to the mix, you get a few more low-level options (and that's the book where the warmage debuted, after all).

1st level--guiding light, mordenkanen's buzzing bee
2nd level--bigby's slapping hand, veil of darkness

It is pretty weird that they would stick the warmage with TFD like that heh.

One thing to note is the Complete Arcane & Minis Handbook versions have different spell lists. As long as you don't combine them, you should have some additional options from the version you don't choose. It does work better if you choose the Complete Arcane version, though, since that version has a number of Wu Jen spells that the Minis version couldn't touch.