The Gaming Den

So I'm currently playing in a relatively high powered game (lots of treasure, 2 feats every 3 levels instead of 1). I've been trying to play a beguiler with very high save DCs (ie ~25 for 4th level spells at 9th level). Despite these very high DCs, I very rarely am able to affect opponents. My GM seems to have very good dice luck. Illusions haven't been particularly helpful yet either.

So I've been thinking about going the complete other direction and making a direct damage dealing arcane caster. I was hoping some of you folks might be able to help with this. I'd like the majority of his offensive spells to be no save, and possibly no SR, since SR seems pretty tough to beat as well. I wouldn't mind going heavy into metamagic on just a few low level offensive spells - with things like energy sub/admixture or chain spell to make the couple of spells useful in many situations. Most stuff from the is allowed, although third party stuff would be on a case by case basis.

Now this is not an over the top, chain binding, thought bottle, caster level jacking blasphemy type game, so I don't want to go all the way into crazy town and run for mayor. But I wouldn't mind getting close enough to see the lights from crazy town over the next hill. . .

Grab all the instant metamagic feats you can, as well as Craft Rod.

No save? No SR?
The Orbs.
Force Orb is the best, IMO.

If your party is willing to do subdual/non-lethal damage (or you could use some Whelm spells) you can KO enemies in battle and charm them afterwards while they sleep. Your low save Dc's won't be an issue then.

My favourite direct damage spell is the simple Scorching Ray.
You want Elven Spell Lore and Arcane Thesis for this.
Metamagic feats that are desirable:
Split Ray (+2-1 = +1 level)
Empower (+2-1 = +1 level)
Twin (+4-1 = +3 levels)
Energy Admixture (+4-1 = +3 levels)
Energy Substitution (+0-1 = -1 level)

This 9th level spell does, unfortunately, have SR. On the other hand, you launch 8 rays, each dealing 12d6 damage, and it's any damage you want.

Crazy town translation? "I choose Con damage."
Usual translation: Force, Negative, Positive, Desiccation, whatever-is-super-effective

People on /tg/ get hard over Wings of Flurry, however. You'd either need to be a Sorcerer, or use one of the various tricks to steal it onto the Wizard list. It has SR and a Ref save, but deals an AoE uncapped 1d6 force/level (Ref half), and those who fail the save get to be Dazed for a round. Or Stunned, I forget.

Twin and Empower it for the really simple "3d6 per level". Ocular spell can make it a ranged touch attack (and some argue that doing that should remove the Ref save - because you're already rolling to hit. Argue that to lose the Ref half!), and you can then unleash two of them as a standard action (after casting it twice out of combat, once into each eye). So a couple of Twinned, Empowered, Repeating Ocular Wings of Flurry (remember: metamagic-cost reducers!) is 6d6 per level this round + Daze or Stun (if you can't convince the DM, you're stuck with Ref for no Daze/Stun and half damage, but that's a total of 4 Ref saves per round), and the same again next round.

Koumei wrote:My favourite direct damage spell is the simple Scorching Ray.

Meh. An avg of 336 damage to a single target for a 9th level spell isn't that good of a deal. You might as well be an archer at that point. You would need to pull some more shenanigans to make that a valid spell-build.

Koumei wrote:Crazy town translation? "I choose Con damage."

Where does this come from?
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If you are going to be a nuke-mage, at least choose an AoE spell to base your character around. You might want to check out the shadowcraft mage builds on the WotC CO boards.

SphereOfFeetMan wrote:

Koumei wrote:Crazy town translation? "I choose Con damage."

Where does this come from?

Most likely from the pre-errata version of Elven Spell Lore. (errata specifies "energy" damage, but does not specifically limit it to cold, fire, etc.)

Of course, if you want crazy ability damage, you could always just metamagic the hell out of shivering touch from Cold Outside.

Can you even do more than 336 to a single target with a 9th level spell without using Arcane Thesis and other meta-metamagic?

Yeah, you can Gate them somewhere unpleasant.

If you want to be a direct damage caster, you probably want to be a Cleric or Druid. Either one has decent damage spells, and you get phenomenally better numbers than a Wizard/Sorc.

Spell Compendium + Core has plenty of good Druid damage spells (and probably enough for a Cleric too). If you really want specific wiz/sor spells you can probably find them on a domain and then burn a feat to cast your domain spells spontaneously instead of getting spontaneous Cures.