Ultimate Magus - help me give up Evocation

[Redeemer of Ogar]

OK, I'm trying to make a happy Ultimate Magus who contributes well to the party, and I'm having a hard time balancing control and damage.  I could use some advice on feat and spell choice, and opinions on Focused Specialist. 

Caveat: I *know* blasting is Bad(TM), but despite that I wish to include it in my build. Goals: Useful Area Effect (control and/or damage), Extreme Takedown (solid damage at range to a fleeing target), personal and party mobility, and the ability to somewhat cover other party roles (scouting primarily).  Books allowed are all WotC and FR, no other worlds (no Oriental, no Eberron, no Tome of Battle). The GM rewards creativity but discourages overpower, so no God Mode combos needed - part of why I would like to still include some blasting.

I currently have Wiz3/Sorc 2/UM3. I have to lose a second level to Sorc at some point anyway, and I choose to do it early so I get 2nd level sorc casting at 8th (where he is starting) instead of 10th level. I'm leaning toward using the Heart of Air/Water/Earth spells and similar buffs but not set on it.

Current feats: Scribe Scroll (wiz), Calishite Elementalist, Practiced Spellcaster (sorc), Sculpt Spell, Fiery Burst Reserve, Extend Spell, Collegiate Wizard.  Two flaws: Inattentive and Noncombatant (the second one seems appropriate but does it negatively impact ray spells too much?)

Gear: Not chosen, the bad news is the GM chooses just 3 starting magic items for you, the good news is they are usually exceptionally powerful items. Also, he does not use Spell Components at all, even expensive ones!

Focused Specialist - Transmutation (maybe - conjuration is tempting as well).
Banned Schools: Abjuration, Enchantment, Necromancy.

Wizard Spells:
(I have a hard time giving up Magic Missle, Scorching Ray and Fireball, what non-evo spells work in their place?)

1 - Burning Hands*, Kelgore's Fire Bolt, Mage Armor, Unseen Servant, Enlarge Person, Expeditious Retreat, Remove Scent, Repair Light Damage, Targetting Ray, Identify, Mount, Summon Monster I, Grease, Magic Missle, True Strike, Nerveskitter

2 - Pyrotechnics*, Scorching Ray, Heart of Air, Alter Self, Darkvision, Web, Belker Claws, Snowwball Swarm, Invisibility

3 - Fireball*, Gaseous Form, PHantom Steed, Heart of Water, Fly, Haste, Dragonskin, Servant Horde

4 (planned) - Wall of Fire*, Heart of Earth, Summon Monster IV, Channeled Pyroburst, Celerity

*from Calishite Elementalist


Sorcerer spells
(I can't decide whether to use the Sorc list more to fill spells from banned schools, or more for often-used spells.)

1 - Nightshield, Magic Missle, Backbiter, Kelgore's Fire Bolt (moved over via UM)

2 - Invisibility

[Straw_Man]

I don't actually see a problem with your build. Damage is less valuable than BC, that being said God can throw down the hurting if God wants to. Just remember to pick up Dispel Magic and Protection from X and  from your sorceror side.

Your party expects God to take care of them  :wink

[pfooti]

Well, if you had control over your magic items, I'd say that you could use Gloves of the Starry Sky. They're in the back part of MIC, part of the raiment of the four. 3/day you can sacrifice a 1st-level (or higher) spell slot for a magic missile. It also gives you light at will (on the gloves only). It explicitly works even if you don't have magic missile on your list (they talk about them being good for druids), and it scales up (so at CL 9, you can get the 5d4+5 missile blast). Best yet: only 1,100 gp!

Most of the time, especially if your party has 2+ physical attackers (melee or ranged), Haste works out to doing more damage than fireball. It's just that your friends are doing the damage, rather than you. Look at all the d6s or d8s or whatever they're rolling and imagine that each one rolled more!

While Scorching Ray is a nice spell, once you get 4th-level spells, you can cast the orbs (and lesser orbs earlier on). Also ranged touch, but no SR. And the normal orbs have secondary effects (the orb of fire will DAZE someone, which is supergreat).

But that's all moot: because at any level, which would you rather do with your 2nd-level spell slot: some damage which can miss (ranged touch, bleh, SR: Yes, bleh), or target the Will save with a blinding effect, on an AoE? Glitterdust is the best spell for conjurers, ever. Medium range, 10x10 area. Lots of enemies have bad will saves to boot. Blinds for round/level. My ultimate magus is 10th level and still casts a lot of glitterdusts (although he sculpts them), and it still works pretty well against melee types, although not as well as it did back at level 7.

With a wiz/sorc/UM build (incidentally, I prefer beguiler over wizard in there), you can put the occasional blasting spell into the sorcerer list as well, so you ban evocation from the prepared side, but still have the ability to lay down a few fireballs as needed.

[ninjarabbit]

Evocation is an easy school to give up. Conjuration has many blast spells like Orb of X and the illusion school has the shadow evocation line of spells.

Have you considered a beguiler instead of a sorcerer. You'll get trapfinding, and a bunch more skill points and class skills, int-based spellcasting that synergizes well with your character, and a lot more spells known including many enchantment spells so banning enchantment from your wizard side is less of a big deal.

Focused specialist (conjuration) is the way to go with your character. You'll get blasting (orb of x), mobility (dimension door and the similar type spells, teleport), area control (fog spells, wall spells, grease, glitterdust), and many more useful spells. Transmutation is nice but it's more for a buffer/debuffer.

[Straw_Man]

If your going to take Evo. (and yes its suboptimal, but I assume you know that and still choose to play it), don't take low level Evo spells. Too little damage and at really critical times you don't want to waste time with Evo. spells at all. Searing Ray is good as your 'cannon', a force damage spell and thats really all I'd recommend.

Throw in Greases, Glitterdusts, Webs, Dimension Doors, Benign Transpositions, Summon Monsters for utility and BC. You're God, so you can afford to mess around with damage, but you still have to do a God's job first.

I'd check out this thread for useful Evo. spells http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=968899

[RobbyPants]

Evocation is an easy school to give up. Conjuration has many blast spells like Orb of X and the illusion school has the shadow evocation line of spells.

Have you considered a beguiler instead of a sorcerer. You'll get trapfinding, and a bunch more skill points and class skills, int-based spellcasting that synergizes well with your character, and a lot more spells known including many enchantment spells so banning enchantment from your wizard side is less of a big deal.

Focused specialist (conjuration) is the way to go with your character. You'll get blasting (orb of x), mobility (dimension door and the similar type spells, teleport), area control (fog spells, wall spells, grease, glitterdust), and many more useful spells. Transmutation is nice but it's more for a buffer/debuffer.

+1.

Conjuration is a good way to have your cake and eat it too when it comes to crowd control and direct damage.  If you're looking for solid take-down power, the lesser orb spells do decent damage, and scale well with metamagics due to their low level.  If you really feel like you need to be doing more direct damage (or more often, rather), consider picking up a reserve feat from Complete Mage.  There are plenty of conjuration spells to fuel these.

I'd also consider beguiler instead of sorcerer.  I'd also do a 4/1 split insteat of a 3/2 split, but that's because I like to advance my conjurer side faster than the beguiler side.  With the Practiced Spellcaster feat, you can advance conjurer at 9 of the 10 levels, thus only losing two conjurer levels the entire time.

But as mentioned before, Evocation is easily spoofed, so you don't lose much by dropping it.

[pfooti]

Going 3/2 as a prefix to UM ends up making the UM class a 10/10 progression, since going into UM7 you've got wiz CL 9 and sor/beg CL 10 (actually higher with the spell power bumps, but those are symmetric). It has the additional benefit of pushing spells from the wizard side to the sorcerer side right when you get access to that level of spells as a sorcerer (this is more satisfying with the beguiler, once again, due to the number of spells/day a beguiler gets from limited lists).

[Shadeseraph]

First, there are a couple reasons that make blasting Bad(TM) besides being an inferior tactic. First, many DMs will see more "munchkinism/overpowering" in big numbers than in overwhelming tactics. Also, a wizard who focus in doing damage robs the meatshield on the group of his only activity: killing things, making him angry with you. Those are the main reasons that compel me to not use damaging spells, more than raw power.

That said, if you want damage, for the first time, I have to support sorcerer over beguiler on a UM build. Mostly, because of the "Wings of ****" line of spells, form Races of the Dragon, available only to sorcerers (though you can use it on your wizard side thanks to UM). Wings of Flurry is, in my opinion, the "greatestest" damaging spell. Low level (4), uncapped, and with an extra, nasty effect. UM, with his increased CL and affinity for metamagic.
And you would have access to Wings of cover, too, also a great spell.

That said, while it isn't a "killer combo", it can make your DM feel uneasy, depending on how he plays the NPCs/Monsters.

[RobbyPants]

Going 3/2 as a prefix to UM ends up making the UM class a 10/10 progression, since going into UM7 you've got wiz CL 9 and sor/beg CL 10 (actually higher with the spell power bumps, but those are symmetric). It has the additional benefit of pushing spells from the wizard side to the sorcerer side right when you get access to that level of spells as a sorcerer (this is more satisfying with the beguiler, once again, due to the number of spells/day a beguiler gets from limited lists).

I guess I've always looked at the 4/1 split approach as trading a small amount of wizard casting for a decnet amount of beguiler casting.  I'd rather have 9th level spells.

[Redeemer of Ogar]

I guess I've always looked at the 4/1 split approach as trading a small amount of wizard casting for a decnet amount of beguiler casting.  I'd rather have 9th level spells.

You will end up with 9th level spells as a wizard, and 4th level spells as sorc (or beguiler), no matter how you go about it. At level 12 the 2/3 catches up with the 1/4. I exchange getting wizard spell levels one level later from levels 5-11 in order to pick up sorc spell levels two levels earlier from levels 6-12.  See progression:

S W
1 0
2 0
2 1
2 2
2 3
2 4 <-- UM with Practiced Spellcaster, 5/3 bumps wiz
3 5
4 6
4 7 <-- effective 8/6 bumps wiz
5 8
6 9
6 10 <-- effective 10/9 bumps wiz
7 11
8 12
9 13
9 14 <-- wiz PrC of Choice
9 15
9 16
9 17
9 18


Otherwise:
S W
1 0
1 1
1 2
1 3
1 4
1 5 <-- UM with Practiced Spellcaster, 5/4 bumps wiz
2 6
3 7
3 8 <-- effective 7/7 bumps your choice (wiz)
4 9
5 10
6 10 <-- effective 9/10 bumps sorc
7 11
8 12
9 13
9 14 <-- wiz PrC of Choice
9 15
9 16
9 17
9 18

[ninjarabbit]

Another option is spellthief1/wizard3/beguiler1 or sorcerer1/UM10/unseenseer4

UM gets full 10/10 progression on the wizard side and depending on how the DM interprets the Master Spellthief feat you can have your caster level skyrocket on both sides, which is great for wings of flurry.

[Redeemer of Ogar]

Another option is spellthief1/wizard3/beguiler1 or sorcerer1/UM10/unseenseer4

UM gets full 10/10 progression on the wizard side and depending on how the DM interprets the Master Spellthief feat you can have your caster level skyrocket on both sides, which is great for wings of flurry.

Heh - just the sort of thing I love that my GM loathes. 

also @Shadeseraph: Wings of Flurry looks nice, but as this build doesn't see 4th lvl sorc spells until 13th level, it's hardly something to build around when starting at 8th.  I'll keep it in mind though, definitely a good one for a pure sorc as well and I often forget to comb through the Races Of books for spellcasting.

[RobbyPants]

You will end up with 9th level spells as a wizard, and 4th level spells as sorc (or beguiler), no matter how you go about it. At level 12 the 2/3 catches up with the 1/4. I exchange getting wizard spell levels one level later from levels 5-11 in order to pick up sorc spell levels two levels earlier from levels 6-12.

I see.  That makes sense.  I guess the difference is if you want to be one or two levels behind in wizard casting earlier in your career vs having lots more low level spells.

[Redeemer of Ogar]

I've been looking at the beguiler - it requires some changes to the concept but not really too much. Quick fairly obvious question: Is it safe to assume that, even if I am taking the 2 levels of beguiler as discussed above, that there is never a good reason to take the 3rd level for Advanced Learning at the cost of a wizard caster level?   

For instance, would you be able to use AdvLrn to get Wings of Flurry on a beguiler, and if so, should you? 

[Straw_Man]

Why bother? You have wizard on the other side.

[ninjarabbit]

I don't think wings of flurry is an enchantment spell (I could be wrong) so you couldn't learn it with via advanced learning.

Personally I think the wizard CL is worth way more than a beguiler CL and the chance to learn a (relatively) low level spell. Hell you learn 2 spells for your spellbook just by taking another wizard CL.

[Redeemer of Ogar]

That's what I figured, but if anyone was going to come out with "but you may have overlooked the Level 4 Sorc-only enchantment spell that makes all your enemies commit suicide" they would have been here.   

I was giving up Abj, Ench and Necr. Now if I go Beguiler I should give up Evocation, Illusion and Enchantment, and go Focused Specialist: Conjuration.  Ill stick with Fiery Blast (reserve feat) - I now need to determine what good non-evo Fire spells are out there.  I know Fiery Orb, lvl 4. Are there any good ones at 3, 5 and 6? 

One rules question about Kelgore's Fire Bolt: If I have access to Conjuration but not Evocation, is Fire Bolt castable by me? It is listed as Conjuration/Evocation {Fire}, is it either, or both?

[pfooti]

One rules question about Kelgore's Fire Bolt: If I have access to Conjuration but not Evocation, is Fire Bolt castable by me? It is listed as Conjuration/Evocation {Fire}, is it either, or both?

Nope. You can't cast KFB if you've banned Evo. Personally, I find Summon Elemental to be a better reserve feat. As an ultimate magus, you're really not going to run out of spells to cast, anyway. But if you do, pop out an elemental and give your rogue a flank bonus or something like that.