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By PnP, archmage is a 5-level PrC, so it's more of BGTSCC custom changes that made it into 10-level PrC.
Truth be told, I think Archmage might be more interesting if it followed the model set down by PnP's Hierophant. You don't get spell progression, but you do get caster levels, and your bonus feats don't cost you any spell slots.
)Agreed. There's a reason it was ballooned out into a 10-level PRC.EasternCheesE wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 8:59 amBy PnP, archmage is a 5-level PrC, so it's more of BGTSCC custom changes that made it into 10-level PrC.
https://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/archmage.htm
Though, having it as 5 level will open wide opportunities for super strong arcane builds in my view.
it was my mistake, it requires spell focus in two schools. What i meant with the RP background is that, yes it is a mage of renown but it does not need to be a mage of great importance for a city or a group, it can very well be a reclusive mage, that has a lot of freedom compared to other mage PRCs, you can be either evil or good or do whetever with such power.YYA wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 2:09 am The Arch Mage PRC was introduced in the 3.5 Dungeon Master's Manual, page 178.
It requires two spell focus feats, and the High Arcana abilities do cost a spell slot.
As for lore the burdens of Archmages, well, an Arch Mage in the Forgotten Realms is usually a somebody of gerat local importance -- and it showed up as one of the reasons not to add the PRC in the first place.
As for other Arch Mage feats: The source material lists: Spell-Like abilities, Mastery of Shapeing, Master of Elements, Mastery of Counter Spelling (Some spells are redirected back at their original casters), Arcane Reach (Touch attack spells become ranged touch attack spells), and Arcane Fire (Which in source material deals 1d6 damage, while on the server it deals 1d8).
The High Arcana Spell Power feats that exist on this server are server specific additions.
A pretty hefty one, I'm afraid. Many builds are currently only prevented from reaching CL30 by the fact that they'd have to take between 2 and 6 archmage levels. Some of the SLAs can also be pretty potent (though most of them still aren't worth the loss of flexibility on a wizard), and the extra 5-7 levels could be used to obtain any number of perks from other spellcasting PRCs. Imagine, for instance, a Wizard 5/Archmage 5/Blood Magus 10/Pale Master 10 with your proposed system. They could have a caster level of 33 for most spells, and bump it up to 35 with Bloodseeking Spell for anything that was eligible for Bloodseeking Spell... and still keep their BM/PM capstones, and take two SLAs.
Hmm a caster with CL 35 is not something hard to get. But in this case you would only reach CL 33 beause BM takes away 2 CL due to the class progression. You could go BM 9 to only loose 1 CL tho. (thats presuming you took the feat to fix the PM CL loss as well)DaloLorn wrote: ↑Tue Sep 14, 2021 2:56 amA pretty hefty one, I'm afraid. Many builds are currently only prevented from reaching CL30 by the fact that they'd have to take between 2 and 6 archmage levels. Some of the SLAs can also be pretty potent (though most of them still aren't worth the loss of flexibility on a wizard), and the extra 5-7 levels could be used to obtain any number of perks from other spellcasting PRCs. Imagine, for instance, a Wizard 5/Archmage 5/Blood Magus 10/Pale Master 10 with your proposed system. They could have a caster level of 33 for most spells, and bump it up to 35 with Bloodseeking Spell for anything that was eligible for Bloodseeking Spell... and still keep their BM/PM capstones, and take two SLAs.
That's not even one of the scary picks; when it comes to powerbuilding, I'm nowhere near as creative as some of the people on this server. I suspect the scarier options involve a lot of multiclassing with non-caster classes and PRCs.
So in this case the massive power spike would be 2 archmage feats? Since 3 are already taken for spell power. I really dont see it as something out of this world....nothing that a mage can't do already would be possible thanks to this change really. Or am i missing something? In this supposedly mad spirit shaman build we are talking about 2 extra archmage feats. At the cost of spell slots too...DaloLorn wrote: ↑Tue Sep 14, 2021 4:39 am Good catch on BM being an 8/10 instead of a 9/10 class. But Blood Component offsets the CL loss from BM5, so you could get a defensive CL of 33 and an offensive CL of 35 with Blood Component and Bloodseeking Spell if you only took BM9.
Like I said, though, that's not even the scary one. For something scarier, you're probably looking at Spirit Shaman 9 with Blood Magic instead of Pale Master, using Practiced Wizard/Sorcerer to hit CL24, Blood Component for 25, Spellpower for 28, Bloodseeking Spell for 30 (offensive only), and Blood Magic for 34 (for spell penetration/dispelling/counterspelling only, but you do get a flat +4 to DCs, which is effectively CL41). Again, already doable with the current system, but at the cost of not being able to get any of the other things Archmage offers.
High Arcana: Spellpower 3
Requirement : Archmage level 8
Okay, yeah, that one does put a damper on the current viability of the builds I proposed.
If the Archmage was a 5 level PRC, Spell Power 3 would require 4 levels of the PRC.
So the main advantage here is in the form of a +1 epic feat, is that correct? Since the same DC can already be achieved with the way things are. Also i should say that spell power 3 is rarely taken by any mage because it will eat a lvl 9 spell slot. So far i don't see it as gamebreaking at all, naturally changing the max to to 5 IS making the class stronger what i mean to say is that its not unfairly strong.YYA wrote: ↑Tue Sep 14, 2021 11:48 amIf the Archmage was a 5 level PRC, Spell Power 3 would require 4 levels of the PRC.
Therefore, one could very well make a class combination as follows:
Wizard 10/Red Wizard 10/Blood Magus 6/Archmage 4.
It would have the offensive caster level of 41 [29 (Base Caster level) + 5 (Red Wizard) + 3 (Blood Magus) + 1 (Practiced Spell Caster) + 3 (Archmage)], thus it would provide a total of +7 to the spell DCs of the primary chosen school of magic, probably Necromancy.
Currently, if you want to make such a build, it will have to take the following form:
Wizard 6/Red Wizard 10/Blood Magus 6/Archmage 8.
And this build will as well have that very same +7 to the spell DCs of the primary school of magic, probably Necromancy.
However, the primary difference between these two builds is as follows, the first could go something like Wizard 9/Red Wizard 3/Blood Magus 3/Archmage 4 pre-epic, and thus it would have three three extra Wizard epic feats to spare.
The build that is currently available has to go something like: Wizard 6/Red Wizard 3/Blood Magus 6/Archmage 5 pre-epic, and thus it would only have only two extra Wizard epic feats to spare.
Now what could a Wizard do with that extra feat? Well, it could let them grab extra Great Intelligence, or maybe an additional Epic Spell, or perhaps even Epic Spell Focus in their secondary school of magic, which in and of itself might have additional perks for our wizards in the form of even stronger summons. Monsters can make their saves on this server, and thus the 'Goodly Aligned' Necromancer can be guarded by a host of less 'offensive' or 'aggravating' summons. Thus the summons can take care of the straggles, which in turn might help explain away the increase in power.
And if we want to improve the Necromancy spell DCs even further, Wizard 5/Red Wizard 10/Shadow Adept 10/Archmage 5 would have a total of +9 to the Necromancy spell DCs, and the Archmage Spell Power feats would actually help off-set the penalties suffered in other schools of magic due to the usage of Shadow Weave. But because the Archmage is a ten level PRC, you could go for Wizard 5/Red Wizard 10/Shadow Adept 7/Archmage 8, and you would get a total of +8 to the Necromancy spell DCs, and you would have one that High Arcana feat fewer. (No quickened Mords of Wails, for you, so to speak.)
And while some might argue that what difference is a mere +1, it is still +5%. It can take you from 50% coin flip to a coin flip that is 55% in your favor. And since you have to kill thousands and thousands of enemies on this server, the +5% simply means that you kill more.
Which finally brings us to matters of PvP, and I should mention that I do have a character that will have Fortitude save of 42 at level 30, with +2 Universal save equipment -- Spell Craft not included -- who will probably just laugh at any Save or Die spell cast at him. And then you have characters that struggle to meet 20 with their Fortitude saves. Thus a Quickened Mord cast on the ground, UMD Death Armor just went poof, followed by that High DC Wail of Banshee in more or less the same round... And the conclusion of it is simply how PvP is terrible in NWN2, or in D&D in general.
With DC builds that can, and already do, exist on the server.
And here I would just say the following: 'My character is a secret Thayan and a worshipper of Shar, who is on the coast on personal reasons and not associated with any of the factions, for I care not to be involved with guild politics.' So, the huge RP implications here would be those of yet another secretive mage among the secret warlocks of the many campfires of this server. And both Thayans and worshippers of Shar have their reasons to be secretive, so even if you might accuse such players from shirking away from huge RP implications, being secretive is still valid role-play.
This is just poor, AM is one of the few PRCs that don't require someone to take such drastic measure, perhaps the only one for DC casters.YYA wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 3:04 am And here I would just say the following: 'My character is a secret Thayan and a worshipper of Shar, who is on the coast on personal reasons and not associated with any of the factions, for I care not to be involved with guild politics.' So, the huge RP implications here would be those of yet another secretive mage among the secret warlocks of the many campfires of this server. And both Thayans and worshippers of Shar have their reasons to be secretive, so even if you might accuse such players from shirking away from huge RP implications, being secretive is still valid role-play.
The buff (+1 epic feat in most cases )is mostly for wizards. For me that is not necessarily a bad thing. Sorcerers got a huge buff out of nowhere because of the +1known spell. Mechanically, when it comes to spell book management, sorcerers are now far superior. This buff will an edge to wizards compared to sorcerers when it comes to build mechanicsdolorof wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 3:42 amThis is just poor, AM is one of the few PRCs that don't require someone to take such drastic measure, perhaps the only one for DC casters.YYA wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 3:04 am And here I would just say the following: 'My character is a secret Thayan and a worshipper of Shar, who is on the coast on personal reasons and not associated with any of the factions, for I care not to be involved with guild politics.' So, the huge RP implications here would be those of yet another secretive mage among the secret warlocks of the many campfires of this server. And both Thayans and worshippers of Shar have their reasons to be secretive, so even if you might accuse such players from shirking away from huge RP implications, being secretive is still valid role-play.
In any case the reduction of a 10 lvl prc to 5 is undeniably a buff, that is for sure. But we are talking about one extra epic feat compared to what you can already get with the way things are. My point is that nothing insane will come out of this. The things mages are doing today won't change, perhaps in pvp since a more bulkier mage can be built but if pvp was the main balance for the server then all is lost anyway lol
