Playable in PvE 1-40. PvP Lite - not designed for it, but you are an epic arcane caster and that counts for something
Works best in environments where there are a lot of magic items and where SR penetration isn't too difficult.
Human - Non-Lawful
Str 8 Dex 10 Con 14 Int 16 Wis 10 Cha 16
Alternate stats: drop Dex and Wis to 8, raise Con to 16.
1 Wiz (1): Luck of Heroes*, Spell Focus (Evocation), Specialist (Illusion) 2 Wiz (2): 3 Wiz (3): Extend Spell 4 Wiz (4): +1 cha 5 Wiz (5): Greater Spell Focus (Evocation)% 6 Sor (1): Spell Penetration 7 Sor (2): 8 Sor (3): +1 cha 9 Sor (4): Empower Spell 10 Sor (5): 11 Sor (6): 12 Sor (7): +1 cha, Maximize Spell 13 Sor (8): 14 Sor (9): 15 Sor (10): Silent Spell 16 Sor (11): +1 cha 17 Sor (12): 18 Sor (13): Toughness* 19 Sor (14): 20 Sor (15): +1 cha 21 Sor (16): Great Cha 1 22 Sor (17): 23 Sor (18): 24 Sor (19): +1 cha, Great Cha 2 25 Sor (20): 26 Sor (21): 27 Wiz (6): Great Cha 3 28 Wiz (7): +1 cha 29 Wiz (8): 30 Wiz (9): Great Cha 4 31 Wiz (10): Epic Spell Focus (Evocation)% 32 Sor (22): +1 cha 33 Sor (23): Epic Spell (Epic Warding), Epic Spell (Epic Mage Armor)+ 34 Sor (24): 35 Sor (25): 36 Sor (26): +1 cha, Great Cha 5, Great Cha 6+ 37 Sor (27): 38 Sor (28): 39 Sor (29): Great Cha 7, Great Cha 8+ 40 Bard (1): +1 cha
Skills - Discipline, Tumble, UMD, Spellcraft, Concentration. Should be enough left over to max another skill - Lore is very in-character.
Ending Vitals 34 Cha
AC 18 284 max hp (324 in 16 con version) F 20 R 18 W 25
AB 20 ranged, 19 melee. -1 damage in melee.
Penetrates item-based SR reliably as a sorcerer. Unbuffed evocation spell save DC of 28 + spell level as a sorcerer. Up to 34 + spell level fully buffed.
FAQ: Whoa whoa whoa, isn't combining wizard and sorcerer redundant? And then throwing bard on top of that? I mean, there are three arcane caster classes in the game, and this build uses all of them! Besides, you're obviously making a caster-sorcerer, why bother with wizard at all? A: Heh heh. Yes there's a bit of redundancy here, but that's exactly the point: mitigating the sorcerer's weakness (poor spell selection preventing them from knowing much buff and utility magic) while maintaining their strength (blowing things up).
Most of the general purpose arcane buff and utility spells are level 5 or lower. Level 6 and up spells focus more in on combat. That's why I picked wizard 10 (getting the two bonus feats is a nice help, however) as the target there.
This build is environmental, however... in environments where you are likely to encounter custom SR over 42 on many boss monsters, this build is not recommended.
Q: But you're losing significant damage on uncapped spells, and you can't learn level 6 or higher spells as a wizard, so is the tradeoff worth it? A: That's a matter of style. I actually find this character more fun and useful in most environments than either a pure wizard or pure sorcerer build - though not quite as useful as its sister-build in my stable, the Blessed Sorceress. Heal is a pretty tough trick to beat after all.
To a degree this is a "fun" build with strong arcane-caster roleplaying potential, but ends up quite able to get the job done as an attack caster. You can pick up a lot of spells that sorcerers rarely have, giving yourself more depth and versatility in general play. Thanks to your high charisma you tend to do well at social skills, and your final level being bard can let you skill dump into them too. These factors combine to make the character surprisingly well suited to playing with a DM, or to playing in story-modules and puzzle/trap modules.
Q: You already said this build's not meant for custom SR environments... what about high saving throws? Why are you focusing in evocation, anyhow? A: You can get pretty worthwhile saving throw DCs from this character - only two less than the max a player can achieve, actually. If that's not enough to crack the bad guys' saves, then you can stop you charisma earlier (as early as 20, but I recommend 28 for the bonus spell slots) and pump your constitution.
Honestly though if you can't crack the bad guys' saves, an arcane build that focuses on damage-return shields and IGMS is probably more effective - unfortunately
As for why evocation, the effective choices boiled down to evocation or necromancy. You could pick either, I picked evocation so that I wouldn't be limited to flinging IGMSes and Ice Storms at death-immune enemies and could pick various element-attacks like Cone of Cold or Acid Breath to attack enemies with weaknesses.
Also, necromancy uses Fort and Will saves - the former tend to be sky-high such that focus wouldn't help overcoming them, while the latter tend to be easier to beat so focus isn't as critical.
Q: Since you are specializing in illusion as a wizard, do you get illusionist bonuses as a sorcerer? And, does it prohibit you from learning enchantment spells as a sorcerer? A: You don't get illusion bonuses as a sorcerer from what I can tell, and it doesn't prohibit you from learning enchantment spells as a sorcerer either.
It does, however, prevent you from using enchantment scrolls - even though you have UMD. I tested this twice to make sure. Goes for divine scrolls as well as arcane ones.
Q: What familiar do you recommend? A: Your wizard and sorcerer levels "stack" for your familiar's power, which is a pleasant surprise. Since you can have knock and find traps as a wizard, you have more flexibility with your familiar than many sorcerers do - they tend to go pixie for utility at higher levels.
The most effective upper level combat familiar is the eyeball. I still am a fan of the pixie because she's very convenient and cuts down on how often I have to rest in a trap-heavy environment, but people who don't like to hear her jingling or who want extra oomph in battle are encouraged to take the eyeball or, failing that, the panther. _________________ Experience is the mother of good judgement; bad judgement is the father of experience.
A steady glow was visible from the old tower's upper window again tonight, Len saw as he walked down Grishaville's main street. It was late, the Inn where he worked as a cook and sometime-bartender had closed. "The old tower..." he mumbled and frowned. When he was little his grandmother had warned him never to go near it. Her words came back to him now.
"Don't you go playing near the old tower on Yellow Hill," she'd said, "For it long ago was the home of a wizard, and a powerful wizard he was indeed, was Mahjaret. His magic helped him defy age itself! For many decades he lived there peacefully, a friend of our town who sheltered us from monsters and kindly aided us in times of despair. But he made a discovery, a terrible discovery of some sort, and his soul turned dark with this knowledge. His kindnesses grew fewer and farther between, and soon he himself became a menace to us. Dread creatures spawned from unspeakable experiments were released into the woods without a care for us once he had learned all he could from them."
At that point the story had paused, "The worst was yet to come, however. Children began disappearing, even young men and women. At first nobody could believe it was the work of our wizard - surely he had just gotten a little lax with his experiments, or gone away for a time and his beasts had escaped. We began casting about for other explanations but in our hearts we were chilled by the obvious truth. But not unlike today, this was an age of adventure and a group of sell-swords soon came to our town, drawn by travellers' tales of the monsters in the woods."
"Despite our warnings they stormed the tower after dispatching many of the monsters. Their clash with old Mahjaret shook the ground and split the sky with thunder and lightning, and it pains me to say that little joy came of their victory. Two of their party were slain, as was Mahjaret himself. Our worst fears were confirmed - our youngfolk had suffered horrible fates at the mage's hands; those who still lived were given mercy by one of the adventurers, an elf whose sorrow at the deed has brought her back here every third year to lay a wreath on their graves."
"There's no way to tell what horrible traps, magics, or beings might reside in that old ruin, so stay clear if you value your life!"
The tower had been quiet for those intervening decades. No one from the town wanted any part of it, and even the adventurers who trickled through scarcely gave it a thought. But now - for the fifth night in a row, according to the whispers in the Inn - there was a light in the topmost window. Len took a breath and steeled himself, "Someone has to go up there. It may as well be me... I have little enough to lose, now." His wife had died in childbirth some years back; the baby had not made it through the night.
Len stopped at his house, and from under his bed withdrew an old sword. Despite years of neglect the blade was still sharp and free of rust; a quick rubbing with an oiled cloth restored its gleam instantly. The weapon had been given to his grandfather by the departing survivors of the adventuring party that slew Mahjaret, it was a sword they had found in the wizard's possession and they had said it would help protect the town from the few remaining creatures in the woods.
Thus armed he started up the path to the tower. All was quiet, the night was breezey but not too chilled. Summer was just beginning to turn to autumn and if anything the air was pleasant and refreshing. Excitement and the fine night chased away the day's fatigue, and he made good time on the disused path in the woods that lead someplace no one had wanted to go for half a century. The nearer he grew to the tower, however, the more his nerves frayed. What if the wizard had somehow revived himself? What if he had become an undead monster? What was that shadow over there? Why did that tree branch just sway? What was that nosie?
Len was sweating and gripping his sword fearfully when he finally reached the tower's door. It was a solid door of thick oak bound in iron, but it had seen better days. He readied himself to force it open, but to his surprise he found it swung open easily. At first he sighed with relief, but then his spine went cold at the implication: this door had been recently oiled and repaired.
Catching his breath he debated turning away, but he had come this far... and despite his nervous fear, he didn't feel any sense of danger or forboding from the tower. It was just a building... there were no terrors inside the door, no foul stench, no atmosphere of evil: nothing was holding him back but his own imagination. Len went inside. He found himself in a room that took up the entire first floor. It had been swept and cleaned, but there was nothing remarkable in it. Across from the door, stairs started up, spiraling along the outer wall. He judged the tower to have four floors from its height, and the only sign of life he knew of was at the top.
Taking a breath, but starting to feel that the light was a prank or, perhaps, the fire of some squatters, he started up the stairs. He passed two more floors, much like the first, one room taking up everything. All the rooms were clean, but empty of everything, including furniture. As Len got further up he could see the light from the top of the stairs, and he gripped his sword's handle tighter. This would be the moment of truth...
"Aaaiiiiiiyaaaaaaahhhh!" he screamed and charged forward, bursting onto the fourth floor with his weapon up, blinking slightly at the light in the room, unable to really see anything, barely able to make out a squat blob in the middle of the room. He flailed about, holding his sword up in what he hoped looked like an impressive martial stance and striking at the blob's center.
"Eeeeiiiieeeee!" it was a strangely two-toned shriek, followed by a crash and a thump. The blob split in half, a dark liquid staining the tower's floor. Len huffed for breath, his eyes still half-shut against the brightness, but feeling confident he had dealt a mortal blow to whatever creature was here. He grinned foolishly, thinking, "I did it! Maybe I should take up adventuring..."
Then he noticed half of the blob getting up to its feet. It was roughly human-sized, and he gulped as its upper half started moving and swaying in strange patterns. Then a low sound reached his ears, he couldn't make out any words, but it sounded dangerous.
"... take form and heed my will!" Giana finished the spell with a growl and a glowing hand appeared that caught Len in its grasp, pinning his arms helplessly to his sides. She blinked her eyes then, feeling something wet and sticky against her legs looked down at her robes. The lower half was badly stained with ink. "Ruined!" she lamented. "Ruined!" Chia echoed, mimicking her tone. The pixie familiar buzzed around the room aggrevatedly, randomly wailing, "Ruined!"
Then Giana saw her study desk, against which Len had struck his mighty blow. It, too, was ruined. By some stroke up luck, however, her spellbook had been unharmed, as was her journal. The ink had spilled on her instead of the precious pages of those tomes. Then... then she saw her glasses. Both lenses shattered. "Why you...!" she rounded on Len angrily, getting ready to invoke powers that would burn him to ash.
"Ohgods pleaseno don'thurtme!" Len was frantic, "Ithoughtyouwere somemonster Icouldn'tsee! Forreal Imeanithonest!" Giana glared at him harder, but lowered her hands. She was about to cancel the Grasping Hand magic when he passed out from fright... so she left it active to keep him from falling onto his blade or something. "Damned novices," she grumbled, and went about retreiving her valuable books from the floor before something else happened. If he didn't wake up soon she'd just make the Hand carry him out and drop him back on the path. Maybe she'd tie his shoelaces together first - that would at least make this incident worth a giggle.
Chia was flying around Len's head now, repeating, "Damned novices" towards him in a tone that playfully mocked Giana's.
The magic-user spared a few angry words for herself, however: "Just because this is supposed to be a safe territory and the townspeople supposedly left this place alone, you should still have set up some defenses... or at least not fallen asleep with your nose in your spellbook again." She packed the precious tomes away with her other things." Finally she relaxed - her carelessness could have had a tragic result, but luck had been with her. Giana had the Hand set Len down on the floor, and took the sword away from him before he woke up. Despite her carelessness the woman was an Archmage Adept, both a powerful sorceress and a studied wizard, and she could tell that the weapon possessed a mighty enchantment. "No wonder," she murmured, "Even an unskilled buffon like him could have done some damage with this. Maybe I got off easy..."
"Buffon! Easy!" Chia twittered. "Sometimes," the mage thought, "sometimes I really envy wizards with familiars that can't talk."
A sigh. Replacing her reading glasses would cost her a fortune... and Giana already couldn't afford furniture for her new home, the empty tower in a quiet stretch of countryside that she had decided to claim and convert into a library of magic. "I suppose I could sell this weapon," she mused, "It's the least this jerk owes me!" Righting her chair, she sat back down, mentally preparing to deliver a verbal beating for Len the likes of which the tiny hamlet of Grishaville had never seen.
The pixie Chia had already started on that, yelling in her tiny voice, "Novice jerk buffon!" repeatedly at the unconscious man.
Giana had hoped the townsfolk would be accepting of another caster taking up residence here, but realized now it would take a long time to build a trusting relationship with people who still whispered fearfully of the dark Mahjaret. _________________ Experience is the mother of good judgement; bad judgement is the father of experience.
