Warmage - how balanced?

[Fishbone]

Then get enemies with a ton of HP, too. Like drakes, plants, or aberrations.
Personally if I were in a party with a Warmage as the only caster I'd be sorely dissapointed.

 

[drothgery]

You can make a pretty good argument for the warmage as the best blaster in D&D. But the evocation specialist wizard, the druid, and the psion (kineticist) also have pretty good arguments. Also throw an archery-specialist fighter, ranger, or fighter/ranger into the mix of guys whose primary role is to throw down lots of HP damage from range, and are very good at it.

 

[Victim]

Yeah with 2 skill points a level a sorcerer and the wizard aren't that great either it's not like they have points free to dump into diplomacy and Knowledge (Heraldry).

I don't like them myself previously if you wanted arcane versatility you went wizard if you wanted to blast things lots you went a sorcerer. Now their doesn't seem a point to taking a sorcerer. Sure your sorcerer can take invisibility or fly but they have so few spells known, you can bet a sizeable number use to be used for blasting, which means they don't have the versatility of a wizard nor the combat ability of the Warmage (who gets armour and better hit points as well).

This class and the other arcane specialists (Beguiler for example) effectively make the sorcerer a redundant class, or at least significantly weaker in most campaigns.

Bwuh?

Sorcerers have so few spells known that it's best for them to avoid largely redundant effects. It's not difficult at all to have a decent array of magic attacks, mobility, defenses, and buffs with a smidgen of utility. Overspecialization just kills sorcerers.

 

[Felon]

Yeah, unless they die to Phantasmal Killer (4th), get blind by Prismatic Ray (5th) or Disintegrate (6th), etc. etc. They have plenty Save or Die spells and can cast them more often than a wizard so that it's more likely that the enemy will fail a save.

I dispute that warmages have good access to save-or-die spells. phantasmal killer entails two saves, Fort and WIill, and it is a big pain-in-the neck to expend a 4th-level spell that's all-or-nothing with a such high chance of nothing. Prismatic spray is only going to blind creatures with 8 HD or less--wouldn't count on even mooks having HD that low at 14th level (direct damage will kill them pretty handily anyway at that level). And disintegrate is a direct-damage spell.

Lucky they get so many Area of Effect attacks so they can damage all the enemies at once.

That's providing they can get them all in the area, and then there's generaly going to be saves for half. From what the OP is telling us, we're not looking for ways to defeat a warmage, just challenge him. Throwing masses of hit points at him boosts the challenge while still playing to his strengths.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think that several of the posters above have accurately pointed out just how balanced and specialized a Warmage is.

I tried to play one- it fit the PC concept I had- but my DM balked. While I suspect he thought it was overpowered, his given rationale was that his campaign world lacked the kind of magic schools that made such classes viable.

Instead, I'm running a Sorcerer with some armor proficiency and an oversized weapon (the PC has powerful build due to some unknown giant or elemental in his ancestry)...I am trying to limit my PC to the Warmage spell list, but it is SO hard.

 

[Kristivas]

I found a warmage to be awesome fun whenever I played one. Our games were about 70% combat, 30% other stuff. Even during the role playing and clue sniffing, my guy was fun to play. He had enough Charisma that he could deal well with NPCs, even if he couldn't charm their pants off or bluff them enough that they believed he was a Lord of Waterdeep.

Yes, a wizard can cast improved invisibility and fly, and zip around in the air shooting. But come on.. who doesn't do THAT every encounter? A caster focused totally on damage is just plain FUN! Finesse? HAHA who needs it?!

 

[Sejs]

IWhat is the downside to the warmage? Not being able to cast untility spells?

Please tell me there is something I'm missing.

Not being able to cast utility spells.

No scry. No teleport. No buffs. No haste. No invisibility. No slow. No dispel magic. No antimagic field. No energy resistance. No dominate person. No rope trick. No dimensional anchor. No water breathing. No enervation. No polymorphs. No dimension door. No control weather. Etc. Etc. Etc.

You are a walking artillery piece. That is all. That is the downside.

 

[Ian Demagi]

With Adavanced and Eclectic Learning you can cast invisibility, at 11 level you can get either get Fly or Greater Floating disk (which you can ride on) and teleport at level 16 or
Limited Wish a ton of times if you need it (it is banned in our game along with Wish and Miracle).

Warmages who should have high intelligence should have a good UMD even though its a cross class skill and dump points into it and max it out.

Warmages should not be the only arcane caster in the party. Our party has a full wizard as well. A party who is doing a good job of protecting their warmage should not be penanlized.

Ian

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Where is Greater Floating Disk from?

And if I were to play a Warmage, I'd be tempted to grab the feat that allows casters who can cast in armor to go up a category of armor, so that I could start off with chainmail and end up, later, clanking around in full plate while casting spells.

 

[Bagpuss]

Throwing masses of hit points at him boosts the challenge while still playing to his strengths.

Throwing masses of hit points at any party will present them problems. In combat the warmage is going shine pretty much all the time, it's out of combat stuff that you need to throw at him to make him wish he was more flexible.