Sorcerer/Wizard - AOE Blaster

[blowuup]

Hello everyone!

How would you go about creating a blaster?

This build is focused mostly on the destruction of large groups of enemies, a super glass cannon. Focused mostly on blasting spells with a little bit of AOE CC spells in order to work against the enemies over time such as stacking Cloudkills/Greases/Acid Fogs and finishing them off with high damage spells.

The build can be found below.

http://nwn2db.com/build/?294914

Some things I am doubting is the feat selection, the spell list, the class combinations. None of these things are set in stone.

I'd like to get opinions on how to improve on the build.
Preference would be to remain neutral in alignment.


Posting as a reference for an older version of the build (with Cleric) before updated to Blood Magus Levels.

Hidden: show

Level 1: Ray of Enfeeblement, Grease, Magic Missile, Expeditious Retreat, Protection Against Alignment

Level 2: Blindsight, Invisibility, Ice Darts, Cloud of Bewilderment, Mirror Image

Level 3: Displacement, Flame Arrow, Vampiric Touch, Stinking Cloud

Level 4: Orb of Lightning, Evard's Black Tentacles, Enervation, Ice Storm

Level 5: Cloudkill, Firebrand, Lesser Spell Mantle, Arc of Lightning

Level 6: Ethereal Visage, Isaac's Greater Missile Storm, Acid Cloud

Level 7: Ethereal Jaunt, Shadow Shield, Avasculate

Level 8: Incendiary Cloud, Polar Ray, Horrid Wilting

Level 9: Wail of the Banshee, Shades, Shadow Simulacrum


Archmage Level 2: Flame Arrow (SLA)

Archmage Level 4: Mordenkaisen's Disjunction (SLA)

Archmage Level 6: Bigby's crushing hand (SLA)

Archmage Level 8: Master of Elements

Archmage Level 10: Ice Darts (SLA)

[Sun Wukong]

The mobs on BGTSCC have bloated amount of hitpoints. This is a fact you cannot escape. Thus to make most out of a spell book you have to look at 'save or die' or 'damage over time' spells. The former is a dice roll to determine whether you gain experience and loot or not, the latter on the other hand is to deal as much damage as possible.

Since you have leaned towards 'direct damage burst' spells, your spell selection would be greatly improved with the following spell:

Wall of Fire. It creates a wall of fire that you and you enemies can pass through as often as you like. With proper spell placement you can produce a 'Corridor of Fire' as well. Not to mention that with your Mastery of Elements you can change the fire damage into something else. It is one of the stronger spells in the Wizard/Sorcerer spell list, and damage wise it is like Acid Fog on steroids. I would drop Ice Storm in favour of Wall of Fire.

Moreover, since your spell selection is missing summoning spells, you might actually get more bang for your buck with Spell Focus (Evocation) instead of (Conjuration).

Additionally, you could lower your Wisdom and raise your strength to at least 11. This way you can get most of the Belt of Growth that grants +3 strength and constitution. Not to mention that every little bit of carrying capacity helps.

[Deathgrowl]

Sorcerer/asoc/archmage. Just enough archmage to get shaping and elements. ASoC for those tasty metamagics that makes blasting better. So the split required is something like sorc6/asoc7/archmage8, leaving 9 levels open (although adding something else might get very feat heavy, indeed).

Harper mage is a good one, for instance, since it gives you some of the required feats (skill focus spellcraft and one spell focus).

Eldrich knight is a possibility, increasing your BAB to better ensure those RTA polar rays and orbs of fire hit. It also gives skill focus concentration, so even though you have to pick up martial weapon proficiency, it doesn't lose out on feats. Well, you may want to pick up practiced spellcaster, but it's not really necessary, since you have spell power from archmage and you won't really need to worry about DCs on spells as a blaster.

Dragonslayer is a possibility, but this is going to get too feat heavy probably. Here you'd get armour proficiencies to make yourself an armoured caster. This is possibly better without archmage.

Paladin or blackguard are also good ideas, for the same reason as dragonslayer. Probably even better ideas, that is. Paladin isn't even feat heavy.

For spells, pick mainly non-DC spells. IGMS, orb of fire (this is the best orb because of secondary effect, and the element doesn't matter as you have Mastery of Elements), polar ray, ice storm, ice darts, etc... Beyond that, wall of fire is always a great spell in combination with grease or web.

...

Or go warlock and be a better blaster than a mage can ever be!

[Hendrak]

An idea i sadly never played myself:

http://dnd.arkalseif.info/classes/ultim ... index.html

What if you add 7 Wizard levels to your Sorc Blaster? give scribe scroll and a bonus feat on 5th lvl wizard. Many items have bonus slots for Sorcs and Wizards on them. 4th tier spell on Wizard could also help with some finishing or just once in a while used spells you dont want on your sorc spell list or to refresh buffs. Also more useful if you have Arcane Scholar and improved metamagics.

And the char concept would feel "unique"; always a big bonus.

[Deathgrowl]

That would take a significant hit to your caster level. You could still potentially be 30 CL as sorcerer with practiced spellcaster and three spell power feats from archmage, but I don't see why the 7 (or 11 with psc) cl wizard addition would be of any real benefit here. You could instead use those archmage high arcanas for SLAs of spells you don't already have in your repertoire and get those at full CL.