Author Topic: Kell's New God (recent game, sort-of CO Diary)  (Read 1803 times)

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KellKheraptis

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Kell's New God (recent game, sort-of CO Diary)
« on: August 11, 2009, 12:46:45 AM »
This past weekend the DM wasn't there for the higher level game where I play an Incantatrix, so I joined up a level 1 game (now level 2), and I must say...I usually go Generalist, and Elven Generalist sub at that, but I'm not missing the three dropped schools from FocConj at all to speak of.  Grease combined with abrupt jaunt and cloudy conjuration have made my little halfling all but untouchable, and the party tank (well, the dwarven fighter...the orc barb would be unstable) even volunteered to have me ride on his back in a howdah (Ride will be shortly added to my list of class skills, either that or I'll invest in it and get enough of a bonus to make the roll to negate damage).  Now here's the first conundrum : which schools do I ban?  I've only ever shot off conj. and trans. spells, which I had okay-ed from the DM, since I had all of 0 advance warning to build a character, so I have 3 schools to forbid.  I was thinking Evocation and Enchantment right away, and possibly Necromancy as the third.  No go is obviously Divination and Conjuration, and Transmutation is too good to lose.  Abjuration has absolute essentials, and I'd rather lose enervation than shades from dropping Illusion.  Any ideas or feedback there would be massively appreciated.

The planned character layout from 1-20 is Wizard 5/MotAO 7/MastSpec 3/Archmage 3/XXX 2, and my second 1st level feat is open (tenatively set for either Sculpt Spell or Extend Spell), and the entire thing roughly follows TMlvl20's iconic FS Conjurer (race and all).  Thoughts or comments there welcome for the XXX 2 :)

Lastly, we began with a random magical item (minor of course, but starting with a 20 int and 18 con is smexy), and also it was determined that since I'm the BC expert, I should have the Ring of the Ram we found.  Between that and the ability (DM allowed) to do fine manipulation with mage hand, we shouldn't be hurting for cash, ever.  We ended up being an evil party, mostly due to the other wizard and my halfling not trusting anyone and then getting greedy (so I wanted a ship with a pet dwarf captain...call me crazy but it seemed cool).

All for now, and reading back, this seems like a giant ramble, but if it spawns something productive for aspiring GODS, it will have served it's purpose.
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Suzerain

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Re: Kell's New God (recent game, sort-of CO Diary)
« Reply #1 on: August 11, 2009, 02:07:57 AM »
Shades is a little far away to base your decision on, though. The next best thing is of course shadow evocation. You'll get that at level 9. And before you can do contingency with greater shadow evocation, you be level 15. So if you want illusion as a school, you'll probably use a lot of image spells.

Necromancy has false life and enervation, however enervation only keeps being good if you can do 'the metamagic thing' and your build isn't really made for that. Depending on your DM/campaign, undead armies could be huge, though. Also depends on how long it'd take you to get to level 7.

Collegiate Wizard and Otherworldly are often tied with Cloudy conjuration as a first level feat (for me, anyways). Otherwordly I'm guessing is out of the question due to race having been chosen and so on. Collegiate Wizard is for those campaigns with extremely limited spell access and no magic marts.

KellKheraptis

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Re: Kell's New God (recent game, sort-of CO Diary)
« Reply #2 on: August 11, 2009, 02:18:18 AM »
Well, Otherworldly would work, since as a Strongheart Halfling I get a bonus feat, and I haven't taken flaws yet either (and I can BS the region requirement if need be).  All martial weapons would be kinda gravy, but I think a nice low cost metamagic would serve better.  I plan on eventually taking both Craft Contingent Spell and the reserve feat (if I have room) to snag the free CL temp hp, since I had thought about the lost of false life.  As for Collegiate Wizard, I'm kinda on the fence as to if it would be needed.  1st level and I already snagged a Ring of the Ram from a random roll, so it tells me there's a good chance of getting just about any spell I need if we're willing to off some spellcasters.  That and there's a second wizard in the group, who seems to like the blasties (which suits me fine...I'll coral em up and he can tac-nuke em around the orc and dwarf, while the swashy plays around all limp wristed and the rogue sneak attacks everything that moves other than my invisible ass).  So really the best options come to either : a cheapo reserve feat, a nice MM feat, Coop Spell to get it out of the way, something else yet unnoticed (I took Imp Init in place of Scribe Scroll, since usually I'd just bite the gp and make a wand/eternal wand if I was going to use a scroll...that and this character isn't above stealing :P ).
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Endarire

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Re: Kell's New God (recent game, sort-of CO Diary)
« Reply #3 on: August 11, 2009, 04:59:17 AM »
I enjoy being a specialist, but there are times when losing a generalist slot hurts.  At low levels, however, focused specialist gets the stamina to throw a spell or two every fight without feeling like he's wasting resources.

One spell I hate losing is contingency.  I keep Evocation for this very reason.  If you want normal specialist, nixing Enchantment and Necromancy would be simple.
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Brainpiercing

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Re: Kell's New God (recent game, sort-of CO Diary)
« Reply #4 on: August 11, 2009, 08:09:01 AM »
Contingency and Great Thunderclap, which rocks. Those are the evocation spells that hurt for me [edit:]to lose, I mean, of course.
« Last Edit: August 11, 2009, 09:58:07 AM by Brainpiercing »

RobbyPants

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Re: Kell's New God (recent game, sort-of CO Diary)
« Reply #5 on: August 11, 2009, 09:33:24 AM »
Now here's the first conundrum : which schools do I ban?  I've only ever shot off conj. and trans. spells, which I had okay-ed from the DM, since I had all of 0 advance warning to build a character, so I have 3 schools to forbid.  I was thinking Evocation and Enchantment right away, and possibly Necromancy as the third.  No go is obviously Divination and Conjuration, and Transmutation is too good to lose.  Abjuration has absolute essentials, and I'd rather lose enervation than shades from dropping Illusion.  Any ideas or feedback there would be massively appreciated.
Are you the only caster in the group, or is there another full caster?  If you're the only caster, I agree that dumping Abjuration is really tough.  If there are other casters to help out, they can pick up things like Dispel Magic, making it much easier to drop Abjuration.

If not, it seems like I'd be quicker to drop Necromancy over Illusion.  I would miss things like Enervation and Ray of Enfeeblement, but Illusion has some real goodies, plus the Shadow Evocation line allows you to spoof having Evocation (particularly for spells like Contigency), so it's like you're only giving up 2.5 schools or so. ;)

I have yet to run a focused specialist, but the last caster I played was a Conjuration Specialist, and I very quickly dropped Enchantment and Evocation.  Really, about the only spell I missed was Scorching Ray from about levels 3 to 8, and Light in one of our first adventures.
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