zhazz wrote: ↑Mon Jan 24, 2022 1:27 pm
To answer that question I'll have to get a bit technical. Sorry
The maximum baseline Caster Level (CL) is 30 (includes Practiced Spellcaster adjustment for non-caster levels).
Red Wizard adds a total of +5 to the CL, for a total of 35.
Archmage adds a total of +3 to the CL, for a total of 33.
Shadow Adept adds a total of +3 to the CL, for a total of 33.
Regardless of replacing Archmage or Shadow Adept with Red Wizard, the combined total will still be a +8 to the CL, for a total of 38. While Archmage and Shadow Adept combined adds to a total of 36.
Every 3 CL above 20 adds +1 to the DC of spells cast.
This puts the Archmage + Shadow Adept combo to (35 - 20) / 3 = 5.3333, which rounds down to a +5 DC bonus.
Replacing either with Red Wizard puts the combo to (38 - 20) / 3 = 6, which equals a +6 DC bonus.
This all assumes maxing out each PrC to 10 for a 10 Wizard / 10 X / 10 Y split.
Other splits can be considered, but will not increase the final DC bonus, even though the total CL does increase.
E.g. 6 Wizard / 10 Red Wizard / 10 Shadow Adept / 4 Archmage:
+5 from Red Wizard
+3 from Shadow Adept
+2 from Archmage
This gives a +10 bonus to CL, putting it at 40. However, using the calculation for DC bonus (40 - 20) / 3 = 6.6666, which rounds down to 6, there is no actual increase in the DC bonus.
In the end we get the following for Red Wizard:
+5 CL from full Red Wizard specilization (Chosen school only).
+3 CL from full Shadow Adept (All schools).
+1 DC from Red Wizard specilization (Chosen school only).
+2 DC for Shadow Adept schools (Enchantment, Illusion, Necromancy, and spells with the darkness descriptor).
+1 DC from Spellcasting Prodigy.
+3 DC from Epic Spell Focus (In Enchantment, Illusion, or Necromancy).
+12 DC from Wis/Int of 34 (buffed, with 5 Great Stats).
+6 DC from having 18 CLs (10 + 5 + 3) above 20.
Those all stack for a +25 bonus to DC, which adds to the base of DC 10 for a total of DC 35.
Depending on the spell it's a DC of 36 to 44 for levels 1 to 9 respectively.
However, this does require the Red Wizard specilization to be one matching with Shadow Adept (Enchantment, Illusion, or Necromancy). Out of which the best in terms of offenses will be Necromancy, many of which are considered evil, and thus will greenlight PvP against your character (on Duchal lands at least). Both Enchantment and Illusion have good spells too, but many of those are based on Will saves, rather than Fortitude, which does pose a problem on this server, since Will saves tend to be quite high for a lot of enemies. Even more so than Fortitude saves.
Shadow Adept can of course be replaced by Archmage to avoid such narrow options for Red Wizard specilization.
This will, however, drop the total DC by 2 points. Depending on your preferences in playstyle, character development, and roleplay, I'll suggest asking other players of Red Wizards what they've found to be work well for them. It may be that Shadow Adept, despite its potency, is not a good match for a Red Wizard character.
