CO Compilation : Kell's Builds

[KellKheraptis]

I've been working on compiling what are generally considered the top notch tricks of magic, and so far it looks like action economy, circle magic, and control over time and rerolls look to be the leading culprits.  All other things are just gravy, and ultimately, he who controls time, controls all.  So, acting out of turn and such pretty much takes the cake for action economy, as that opens the door for making it your turn (this is any wizard so far).  Five levels are pretty much tied up with Circle Magic, as I don't think any classes grant full access to leading a circle before level 1.  Shadowcraft seems to have the highest degree of versatility, but getting innate shadow miracles has a drawback, namely it's a LOT harder to pile metamagic on an SLA.  As such, we have for all intents, 9 levels to work with, assuming A)SCM is vital to take beyond Shadow Illusion, B)No PrC exists capable of circle magic before it's fifth level, C)One level of Wizard is required as a base, and D)All spells and powers are available to a sufficiently high level SCM, given the nature of greater effects from shadow miracles.

Going off that, Wizard 1/Halruuan Elder or Red Wizard or Hathran 5/Shadowcraft Mage 5 can be the build stub.  From there, Incantatrix or Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil seem the most powerful options, particularly the first three levels of Incantatrix for the stupendously powerful metamagic effect.  If we stopped there, that would leave 6 levels for breaking the game in half with action economy abuse or impenetrable defense, though if Hathran grants earlier full access to circle magic, we can get both of them in there.  Full Iot7V and Incant 3 would also effectively allow us to have persistent veils, negating the need for annoying things like worrying about Shadow AMF even, since WoF/PrisSphere blocks LoE as I recall (thus the reason they can still use the veils...someone mentioned it in the recent thread about their interaction with AMF).  Shadow Adept would still be an excellent dip if available, as would Mindbender, though with epic capability, mindbender can easily be rolled into either an epic spell or the mythal itself.  Anybody know what a Hathran can do circle-wise, and when?  Also, if it's reflavored, it could be akin to the SCM's, a non-state organization (and thus not matriarchal ), though if you're a changeling you don't care...

[Archmage Joda]

Just like Red Wizard and Halruaan Elder, the Hathran gets to participate in circle magic as a contributor at level 1, but doesn't get to lead the circle until level 5.

Also, for SCM, I dunno if you count those things as vital, but level 4 gives you either free extend or free silent on illusions, and the 5th level is an extra 20% reality on your shadow illusion and the shadow evocation/conjuration spells.

[KellKheraptis]

Just like Red Wizard and Halruaan Elder, the Hathran gets to participate in circle magic as a contributor at level 1, but doesn't get to lead the circle until level 5.

Also, for SCM, I dunno if you count those things as vital, but level 4 gives you either free extend or free silent on illusions, and the 5th level is an extra 20% reality on your shadow illusion and the shadow evocation/conjuration spells.

That begs the question then of which one is the best one for 5 levels.  One feat from Red Wizard, plus some CL boost, two signature spells (perfect for SCM) and two MM reducers for HalEld, and easily justified spontaneous casting with Hathran.  All told, I think the Elder wins, though the Red Wizard is the easiest to get into.  The next question being can a greater effect from a miracle replicate Metamagic Effect?  Given it can practically call down direct divine intercession, I would imagine so.  If we assume that, given it's power capabilities, Iot7V is the better deal, since then we get 100% assured survival, with 0 persistent spells, and we can persist them with a single shadow miracle if we want to.  So we'd get after retraining : FocSpec Illusionist 1/Mindbender 1/Shadow Adept 1/Halruuan Elder 5/Shadowcraft Mage 5/Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 7 (or Incantatrix 7 if you wanna be safe about MM Effect).  Sexy!  Really, I imagine we can replicate most of Iot7V with the resources at our disposal, so taking the incantatrix option, we'll end up with (assuming a single Ring of Wizardry 1 and Arcane Manipulation) 724 cantrips that over time we heighten to 20th level slots, each at CL 40, using the Shadow Weave.  Mimicked evocation and conjuration spells will hurt like HELL, given they're getting over double (and in some cases triple) realism.  Circle Magic combined with Metamagic Effect can make for spells that last for as long as we want them to (keep applying Extend Spell after Persisting as desired) at insane CL.  And our BFC that's based on level will be super hard to avoid, with a titanic area.  Awroo!

[Archmage Joda]

I've never really been a fan of recursive retraining like that, but I do agree that the Halruaan Elder wins out, especially with a SCM (using Adroit Casting to reduce Heighten? Yes please).

[KellKheraptis]

I've never really been a fan of recursive retraining like that, but I do agree that the Halruaan Elder wins out, especially with a SCM (using Adroit Casting to reduce Heighten? Yes please).

Couldn't it also be used with Earth Spell?  Adding even more to the mix, and making it easier to get to 20th level slots, which in turn means you get them faster with less time investment.  Sanctum Spell too.

[Archmage Joda]

Looking at your post about adding in action economy abuse and reading that wizard prc thread in giantitp, what could we do with war weaver in this, since I hear that it's good for exploiting the action economy?

[KellKheraptis]

Looking at your post about adding in action economy abuse and reading that wizard prc thread in giantitp, what could we do with war weaver in this, since I hear that it's good for exploiting the action economy?

Well, War Weaver was 100% in my first UM build, but was gradually phased out as it lost a CL, and it's main function was roughly subsumed by Time Stop, but even then was less efficient than blowing the tapestry after loading it up in a time stop.  I checked out that class from BoEF, and it's like Incantatrix-lite, with a sprinkle of unrestricted Hellfire Warlock.  You can still boost up your metamagic with 0 limits to it per day, and not take a lick of ability damage if you're immune.  Only problem is BoEF is technically 3rd party.  I think my initial War Weaver build included DK and Incantatrix, though, and of course Fred Astair used UM.  I'm gonna see if I can combine War Weaver, that monster above (Metaphysical something), and UM with Red Wizard or Halruuan Elder.

[KellKheraptis]

Ok.  In order to get maximum efficiency (IMO) out of War Weaver, we need a means of increasing the effective level we can stuff into the Tapestry.  This is a problem with circle magic, as it requires a good deal of epic levels to get that tapestry to accept level 20 slots.  Both Circle Magic and War Weaver require 5 character levels, with a minimum of 1 level for base casting, or 3 levels if we can't retrain.  That's a pain in the ass.  We need a trick to get War Weaver to buff with all spells available to it (or nearly all anyway), like SGoS, which eats another 4 levels, though granted it's a good class.  Now, we're looking at 15/20 filled in best case scenario.  Here's the bitch of it : we still need Shadowcraft Mage in there, and that trick to increase levels on WW.  Sooo which to go, ultimate power and versatility, or ultimate selection on buffs?  Oh, and no incantatrix or metaphysical spellshaper in either event.  So...the War Weaver would be a different specialty than Red Wizard/Hal Eld IMO.  War Weaver makes an excellent cap to Red Wizard, or if you only take it to 5, an excellent way to provide buffs, as you can still benefit from CL 40, and can still take 5 levels of Legacy Champion to stuff level 9 spells in there.  That will also give you 8 spells in the Tapestry, by the way.  Now...what I wonder is what happens when we hone in on the War Weaver interaction with Circle Magic exclusively, and then use the other stuff (while really nice, not absolutely vital) supplementally, all being feed through Legacy Champion.  LC would allow for higher than 9th level spells to go into the tapestry, though since it can't be used offensively, the DC wouldn't really matter...though with that 40 CL, it'll be even harder to bring down those buffs, which is the main benefit I'm seeing of using Circle Magic with War Weaver.  Now, Wiz 3/War Weaver 5/SCM 5/SpGd 4/Incant 3 could work, as it would be able to reduce metamagic (and since it'll all be based on Silent Image, you could mimick 9th level spells and still fit them into the tapestry).  But that still doesn't have Circle Magic as well...unless SpGd isn't used (are there any ways of stuffing more shit into the tapestry without Spellguard abuse?), which would free up room for Circle Magic on there.  Still capped on our spells in the tapestry though  Ultimately, there just aren't enough levels!

EDIT : WAIT!  We don't have to be a circle leader to benefit from Circle Magic do we?  What if the leader is a cohort or construct/sim?  We could simply instruct them to invest all the used spell levels on US!  All we would need is a means of participating, which amounts to two feats right off the top of my head (Tat Foc and Hal Adept, respectively).  I'll try and get a build in here once I come up with it, probably into this post.

[Archmage Joda]

Looking at the circle magic entry in the DMG, it looks like our character here would need to be the circle leader to benefit. Ok, so since War Weaver won't work, what would be some other means of controlling the action economy with our previous monstruosity?

[KellKheraptis]

Ultimately I think it all comes down to the perennial favorite of rocket tag, and how many rounds you can bring to bear in the rocket tag game.  Circle magic with spontaneous capability = every single slot can be used for celerity.  Chain Spell, Twin Spell, Split Ray, Quicken Spell, Schism, Arcane Spellsurge, Uncanny Forethought, Repeat Spell, all of these increase volume of spell might being brought out.  War Weaver is great, as it allows for up to 8 spells at once, but it's limited in that it doesn't drop the quality of spells an Incantatrix or Shadowcraft Mage can fling.  What I'm aiming for is matching the War Weaver's efficiency while preserving the raw power of the classes noted above.  Most of the above, an Incantatrix alone can do, particularly with Metamagic effect (chain that massive debuff the BBEG got to his whole contingent, for example).  Arcane Spellsurge makes UF and Quicken somewhat redundant, and a persistent Spectral Hand can function as Reach Spell with 0 feat investment beyond the manditory Persist and Extend Spell.  Arcane Fusion and Greater Arcane Fusion both allow for getting more spells out per action, and can be quickened in their own right.  The greater one with Earth Spell and Sanctum Spell could conceivably shit out a 9th level spell even with the use of 1 8th level slot.  Now, here's what I'm wondering : can you Circle Magic all your slots up to 9th level, swap them around with a spell engine to the spells you want with metamagic pre-applied, then heighten them to 20th slots?  It would still fall within the parameters of both, as you aren't using the Circle levels to increase levels/apply metamagic, and the additional 11 levels are coming from Heighten, which is explicitly allowed (and if it's a numeric variable spell, Empower and Maximize, of course).  Assuming a SCM (5 levels), a base (1 Wizard level), access to circle magic (Halruuan Elder 5) and two metamagic boosting classes (Incantatrix 3 and Metaphysical Shaper 3), we're left with 3 class levels.  I wonder if this can all be done without SCM, though.  DK allows one Miracle per day for free if we free one more level, and if we can get Supernatural Transformation, absolutely anything with a 17th level or higher slot can do Godless Miracle at will for no XP, including greater effects.  I never got an answer to that question in the Q&A thread, most likely since no one wanted to touch it, but given the wording of Innate Spell (fuck, it's in the NAME even), it could be interpreted to work.  The feat makes it an intrinsic quality of your character as a Spell Like Ability, instead of a spell, meaning it exists as an SLA on all future forms of you (i.e. Simulacrums), so making it supernatural should work.  If it requires changing type, even, that's easy enough.  Going off of this base, however, we now have 8 levels to work with, as all spells can be aquired as Transmutations, and SCM is no longer the key to our versatility.  Now that we have the raw power and versatility part out of the way, what looks good for 8 levels?  Finishing Incantatrix will give -2 to all metamagic increases.  One level to go...my favorite is Mindbender, but Shadow Adept is nice too.  Thoughts?

DISCLAIMER : Yes, I know.  It's TO as hell, but meh.

[Archmage Joda]

Well, I'd go with Mindbender over Shadow Adept if you're removing SCM (although i never really found any but the first 3 levels of shadowcraft mage to be essential, the extra reality at level 5 is just icing on the cake that doesn't even add much in the context of circle magic). I suppose using the SCM-free version would also free up feat slots, since SCM is known to be feat-tight. Of course, weren't we getting free epic mythals from SCM?

[KellKheraptis]

We were getting free epic mythals from Dusk Giant trickery and DCFS.  We can buy our dream mythal from Boccob's Reading Room and persistextend our polymorph as long as needed to retain the [epic] descriptor, so that even when we lose it, it won't matter as we'll have our mythal up with all the epicness we want.  SCM just made it a lot easier, since it negated a Spellcraft check.  However, we have NI spell levels to throw at this mythal, since all of our sims can conceivably have 20th level spell slots as well if we make sure we get Hal Eld 5 by level 10 after reformatting, so the Spellcraft check is a moot point.  And even if SuTrans won't work, we can mimick an at will item of miracle via Major Effect on the mythal.  So far, so good, I'm seeing.  Hell, even if we have to spend resources on the mythal, we've got all the time we need.

[Archmage Joda]

Well, looking at the supernatural transformation feat, i don't see why it wouldn't work. So, without using SCM, does this mean the build is going back to being a focused transmuter instead of an illusionist?

[KellKheraptis]

Well, looking at the supernatural transformation feat, i don't see why it wouldn't work. So, without using SCM, does this mean the build is going back to being a focused transmuter instead of an illusionist?

I would say so, as Illusionist was only used to get into SCM.  Hell, as long as we don't ban Abjuration or Transmutation, the rest don't matter, and we could go Focused Diviner   Given that we're spontaneous so we can swap anything out for anything.

[Archmage Joda]

So then, what would a level progression of this look like anyway? Judging by your earlier comment, I assume the using of the tome of ancient lore is used to get transmutation versions of all the spells we need?

[KellKheraptis]

So then, what would a level progression of this look like anyway? Judging by your earlier comment, I assume the using of the tome of ancient lore is used to get transmutation versions of all the spells we need?

Focused Transmuter 1/Incantatrix 1-4/Halruuan Elder 5/Metaphysical Shaper 3/Mindbender 1/Incantatrix 5-10

That's what I'm seeing so far.  We can snag all the feats we need with the DCFS trick, one of either, and really, we could pick up any of the more esoteric/usually useless feat chains just by doing the familiar shuffle while watching a master.  Less limits that way  And yes, this assumes use of a ToAL.  20/20 casting progression, CL 40, 20th level slots, and a ton of action abuse (especially given schism access and possibly shapechange shennanigans).  Barring any truly infinite loops, we can safely assume he'll be doing more mechanically than just about anyone, since any metamagic he has will be dropped with ease (Chain and below is free, one feat makes Quicken and/or Twin free, and if we want Admixture, we can twin).  Persist is the only one above +4, and is handled seperately.  We can get up to 5th level maneuvers through feats, so worst case scenario is we have to use one of our several standard actions to IHS an AMF away, assuming it's a Shadow AMF (the one holdover from SCM, as it makes us immune to normal magic-stopping).  And we won't lose or gain anything extra from it, since the CL cap is 40, regardless of what else it does (so we spend a little more on some spells, and a little less on others, and we don't HAVE to use the Shadow Weave, we just have access to it...I think).  If IHS is enough, we don't even need SWM.  The standard War Weaver is dropping 4 spells of up to 5th level from a semi-restricted list to buff his party.  We are dropping far more thanks to Arcane Fusion and Greater Arcane Fusion (as I don't think those can fit into a tapestry, even with Spellguard), with an upper limit of however low we can make 9th level spells, the needed number being at least down two levels, and further can debuff with at least 4 spells per round if we choose that route, using DC 30+Int Mod and affecting up to 40 targets per casting.  The ultimate war weaver even, while affecting his tapestry recipients with 8 spells of up to 9th level, can't drop that kind of nukage.  Our quantity requirement is fulfilled, despite a highly optimized War Weaver most likely going far beyond what is here, because we haven't lost any quality (super high DC's, offensive capability).  All in all, I'd say mission accomplished.  The only thing left would be if we found a better PrC to go in the place of Mindbender, assuming we DID raise a mythal and include telepathy+mindsight.

EDIT : And here's the irony...if we were to make a slightly dumbed down version to see play in a real game, either the SCM with 5 wizard levels or a FS Transmuter 5/Incantatrix 10/Halruuan Elder 5 could do the exact same damn thing.  They just have to work a little more and use DCFS more often.  Which is almost exactly identical to my initial powerhouse wizard build I use as a fallback.  Who knew grand cosmic power was tickling my nose the entire time!

EDIT #2: And further, the really really cheap version would be Diviner 5/Red Wizard 5/Incantatrix 10, which would be the easiest on DMs that are Nazi's about early entry, and sneaks right in to cosmic power under their nose.  Your Sims can lead circles with this build too, and only requires one setting book to boot (that is almost manditory for high tier wizard play IMO).

Last EDIT I Promise! : Wizard 5 (spec or not)/Incantatrix 3/Halruuan Elder 5/Incantatrix 4-10 would probably be the most optimal progression for the above.  If you went epic...oh my.  Either more free metamagic from HE, or epic feats galore with incantatrix.  Given their non-epic progression, wouldn't that be one every other level starting at 12th?  Since none of the other class features scale into epic?

[Archmage Joda]

For epic incantatrix, the bonus epic feats come at every third level, and the instant metamagic ability gets an additional use every other level. That progression is found in the epic section of PGtF.

[KellKheraptis]

For epic incantatrix, the bonus epic feats come at every third level, and the instant metamagic ability gets an additional use every other level. That progression is found in the epic section of PGtF.

Hell, that's right.  Even better IMO   Is there a way to swap HD/Levels instantaneously?  Epic ascensions...muahahaha!  If I ever move from here to another geographic area, I may do that if I'm high enough level.  Ascend to godlike status and lay waste to the place before I go! 

[Archmage Joda]

What's the preferred method of dealing with the ability damage of metaphysical spellshaper? Also, what are the spontaneous capabilities happening here without the use of shadowcraft mage?

[KellKheraptis]

What's the preferred method of dealing with the ability damage of metaphysical spellshaper? Also, what are the spontaneous capabilities happening here without the use of shadowcraft mage?

Diplomat trick.  And there are several spells (all easily persistified, until rendered a prevelant power in the mythal) that make one immune to ability damage.  However, that version I haven't fully opened up full tilt yet, as I plan on playing the transmuter tomorrow   I would almost argue it's better than Incantatrix, since it gives it's two main effects without losing a school of magic.  This would allow A)3 levels to be freed up, and B)a generalist, thus precluding the need for tricky wordings.  It's just contingent upon a DM allowing a specific 3rd party supplement, and if I only get one, it won't be that one (ever seen an ascended elf?)