Warmage, how does it stack up?

[Imperialus]

I'm starting to DM a new campaign this coming weekend and one of my players wants to play a warmage. Looking at the class it seems to fit the campaign well as it's going to be a very military oriented campaign but I'm concerned about balance issues. Has any one played one or DM'ed a player who has played one and if so what were your experiances? Thx in advance.

 

[Stone Angel]

I think the warmage is awesome, it fits very well with your theme. It reminds me of the old battle mage prestige class out of the old 2e splatbooks


The Seraph of Earth and Stone

 

[Imperialus]

Yeah it does seem to fit the campaign quite well and the player is pretty good about not munching out characters so I've given him a tentative yes but since I very rarely play mages when I'm a player I wanted to check with some of the people on the board to make sure I wasn't allowing a Vow of Poverty or something like that into the game.

 

[jRocket]

Warmages are like sorcerers except that they are pretty much limited to damage dealing evocation and conjuration spells. They can wear armor, which is good for them because their limited spell list means that they will never be able to cast a fly spell or turn invisible to get away. If you are playing a hack-n-slash style of game, you will find them to be slightly more powerful than the standard sorcerer when it comes to pumping out fireballs, but their limited versitility makes them almost useless in other situations.

 

[Gez]

they will never be able to cast a fly spell or turn invisible to get away

Unless, of course, they use the Arcane Disciple feat to get access to the spells from the Travel & Trickery domains...

 

[FungiMuncher]

I played a warmage for about 6 months. I agree with the others - a lot of fun blasting stuff, but mostly useless in other situations. I really enjoyed not needing to prepare spells. The other benefits never seemed to be over the top.

However, my main experience with playing a warmage was one of frustration - those other situations of being useless came up too often. If you're expecting the party to have all the bases covered, as many D&D parties typically are, the warmage alone can't do it. Get those divinations and abjurations covered by a different source, or adjust your adventures accordingly.