Warmage...too weak? (Survivability)

[Thurbane]

Hah!

BS is playable, but it loses so much for what... armor and a better BAB? Meh.

...don't forget a d8 HD instead of a d4...unless your Con is pretty high, it makes a massive difference to your HP total. A free Martial Weapon Prof isn't too bad, either.

BS is also good for PrCs that have both a BAB and minimum spell level requirement...

 

[Kat']

I get a lot of mileage out of Blast of Flame and Arc of Lightning (no SR), Acid Fog (unavoidable crowd control), Waves of Exhaustion (handy debuff), Horrid Wilting (non-energy, only hits the bad guys, hits all of them), and Polar Ray (when you just want to hit one guy hard).

Sure, great spells, no problem. Is there ANY of the things you listed that you couldn't do as efficiently, if not better, with a Wizard, and still have the versatility to do something else?

And while a really good AC (and by virtue of being a sword and board guy, and therefore having the ability to use the cheapest method in the game for getting a high AC, a warmage should have a really good AC once mid-level magic becomes affordable) does have limitted use against high-level opponents, it does mean you can't be Power Attacked easily, and that counts for something. And that itterative attacks will probably miss. Besides, you can get a relatively cheap magic item to be able to fly, and that goes a long way in keeping brutes from squishing your warmage.

Any charger worth his name has Shock Trooper and will Power Attack you without even thinking, and the iteratives will hit too. And there are other dangers than Power Attack. TWF ranger with Favored Enemy, Magebane weapons, Duskblades, trippers, grapplers, flanking Rogues, any gish with Arcane Strike... Sure, your AC is decent. But your Hit Points aren't. And you have no other defensive options than AC.

And yeah, you can throw in 12000 to get a wondrous item granting you flight. Wizards get Overland Flight or Phantom Steed for free.

Someone threw in the interesting comment that warmages aren't wizards and shouldn't be played the same way. Sure. OTOH, ask yourself: is there ANYTHING a Warmage does that a wizard couldn't do better?

 

[Legildur]

...is there ANYTHING a Warmage does that a wizard couldn't do better?

The ONLY advantages that I can think that a Warmage has is the number of spells per day and the extra damage from the Warmage Edge ability. And the former is offset to some degree through earlier access to higher level spells, which has a range of implications.

 

[dvvega]

Actually I did see a "broken" build of a Rainbow Servant Warmage that was crazy somewhere.

However the Warmage does killing better than a normal Wizard. With the Warmage's Edge class ability that little bit of extra damage (especially with the feat to increase it) is valuable.

However utility abilities are non-existant. Its a great support character, not a main choice for a party of 4.

D

 

[Kat']

However the Warmage does killing better than a normal Wizard.
D

I've come to doubt even that. At low levels yes, definitely. At higher levels Warmage Edge is plain useless, and the Wizard has less spells per day, but more options than the Warmage, making it IMO an even match.

BTW, Extra Edge does not compare to Empower Spell or Black Lore of Moil. Who cares about +6 points of damage at level 20 when you can turn your 40d6 Disintegrate into a 60d6?

 

[Drowbane]

Fair enough, but there is also the better hp too...D8. I personally like the BS. I've played one over 2 years now: Swashbuckler 3/Martial Rogue 2/Battle Sorcerer 17. I lessend the blow of 1 less spell known per level by taking the Anarchic Bloodline feat from the Dragon Compendium which gives you a list of extra spells known, one for each spell level.

That is a feat slot and feats are scarce for Battle Sorcerers and Sorcerers, but I found it worth it.

Thanks,
Rich

...don't forget a d8 HD instead of a d4...unless your Con is pretty high, it makes a massive difference to your HP total. A free Martial Weapon Prof isn't too bad, either.

BS is also good for PrCs that have both a BAB and minimum spell level requirement...

Valid points.

I suppose that if my DM didn't allow Psionics I might give the BS another look.

 

[JRR_Talking]

think you guys play at higher levels than me!!

im thinking in the 1st to 4th region its pretty-very good and 5 to 8th acceptable, maybe after that it starts to loose out, but i will never play at these levels so its ok for me.

 

[drothgery]

Sure, great spells, no problem. Is there ANY of the things you listed that you couldn't do as efficiently, if not better, with a Wizard, and still have the versatility to do something else?

Having all of them available, every day, without thinking about it, and without keeping a stash of scrolls and wands at hand. Which was the main reason for playing a warmage to begin with; spell management for a high level wizard is insane, and it would have taken hours to pick out spells for a high-level sorcerer (it's not a big deal when you're adding one or two each time you level up, but when you're starting from scratch at level 13 or so because your old PC died, this is a big deal).

Any charger worth his name has Shock Trooper and will Power Attack you without even thinking, and the iteratives will hit too.

My warmage has an AC 34 without trying very hard. Iterative attacks miss him.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I find it interesting that most of the criticism of the warmage involves "theoretical" objections, while the people who are actually playing them think they're pretty much fine.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

BTW, Extra Edge does not compare to Empower Spell or Black Lore of Moil. Who cares about +6 points of damage at level 20 when you can turn your 40d6 Disintegrate into a 60d6?

Remember, Edge adds onto Every Single Damaging Spell. Over the course of a battle, this can easily add up to an extra Empower by itself, without using a higher level spell slot. Also, not only is there no restriction about empowering or otherwise metamagicing spells as a warmage, but you get bonus Sudden Metamagic feats that encourage you to do so.

Someone threw in the interesting comment that warmages aren't wizards and shouldn't be played the same way. Sure. OTOH, ask yourself: is there ANYTHING a Warmage does that a wizard couldn't do better?

Yes. Do damage, AND have less bookkeeping. For the same amount of spell slots used, a warmage will do more damage. Also, the warmage requires vastly less preparation time than a wizard of the same level. As drothgery mentioned, that may not seem like much, but if all I want to do with my character is blast things, I'd rather spend as little time as possible allocating spell slots.

Remember, they're two separate classes. Both sorcerer and wizard are more versatile, but warmage is a perfectly fine class, so long as you realize you what your role is going to be, and don't pretend that you're something you're not.

Brad