Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Felon" data-source="post: 3168461" data-attributes="member: 8158">My friend, there's so much you're missing that it's not even funny.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" />  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/paranoid.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":uhoh:" title="Paranoid    :uhoh:" data-shortname=":uhoh:" /> First of all, warmages are just good at blasting opponents. That's it. At the risk of sounding bombastic, one of the rites of passage to becoming a master of this game is the grand realization that throwing out a bunch of direct-damage at a foe is not the most overwhelming thing a caster can be doing. Why? In a nutshell, it's because the ability to absorb hit-point damage is the one thing desingers almost always consider when they put a monster together. You want to overwhelm? Abuse the stuff the game's designers didn't account for properly.As a DM, I really love to see players fall for the warmage's allure. That means they're not starting off by casting improved invisibility and flying up in the air so that melee-only monsters become fish in a barrel. That means they're not handing out buffs like enlarge person, bull's strength, and haste that make warriors laugh at the prospect of fighting giants, or that damnable P-from-E buff that renders mind-control critters impotent. That means they're not tossing out conjuration spells like web and EBT that tie opponents down and deny them the ability to take the offensive. That means they're not summoning monsters that wind up boxing opponents in so that all of their attacks are wasted on expendable NPC's. That means they're not tossing out a hold monster spell that instantly turns a beholder into a piñata.In short, a warmage is secretly a DM's best friend, because they never do an end run around his opponents and their tactics.OK, now that we've got that out of the way, let's move on to the next big realization: a warmage's class features  really offer little advantage over a wizard specializing in evocation. The ability to wear armor when casting spells is simply a patch for not being able to cast mage armor. Receiving a d6 hit-die bump is just a patch for being unable to cast false life. Advanced learning is a really lousy patch for not being able to add spells to your repertoire any other way. Sudden metamagic feats are a patch for not getting access to bonus feats. What warmages have going for them? Spontaneous casting from a list of spells that are available automatically. That makes them much easier to play, and ease-of-play is certainly attractive. But a wizard is a much stronger class specifically because of its complexity.</blockquote>

Verification