Ray based Sorcerer advice

[Save_versus_Stupid]

I know that arcane casters have better things to be doing with their unlimited potential than throwing rays around, but I figured it'd be an amusing concept for my next campaign.

What would you gentlemen suggest in regards to this character model?

I'm planning to be a human sorcerer, with a possible level in fighter to grab point blank shot - precise shot, choose the alternate sorcerer from the PHBII, and eventually adventure as a ray slinging character. I'm also probably switching out of sorcerer into Eldritch knight at 10th level.

Feats I can't do without, at least in my mind so far are:

Point Blank Shot
Precise Shot
[Empower Spell]
[Split Ray]

And beyond that, i'm still researching. I'm thinking energy substitution would be the way to go, and one of the complete arcane "lightning/cold" master feats. Perhaps I should take arcane thesis based around the ray I assume ill be shooting for most of my career (scorching ray?)

Also, is there a way to get some sort of low level ray spell as a spell like ability, so I could have ammunition that would benefit from my feats even when I run out of spells? Beyond that, any relevant feats, obscure spells or advice would be appreciated.

[Username17]

You want to shoot damaging rays at people? Ugh. THat's a tall order.

First of all, look long and hard at Searing Spell from It's Hot Outside. It turns your scorching ray into Ultima Damage, so you'll essentially never use another spell ever in your whole life.

So you'll take Arcane Thesis for your scorching ray, and you'll take Twin Spell and Empower and so on and so forth, but while you can do an actual shit tonne of damage with your Seering Rays of Death, who cares?

In order to make sure you hit people, you'll want to have the rest of your spell list be geared towards getting your opponents to lose their Dexterity to AC - becase Touch AC with no Dex or Dodge Bonuses is awesome. That means that blink and improved invis are high priority. You won't burden yourself with something stupid like Eldritch Knight, because getting +5 to-hit doesn't mean dick in the face of delaying improved invisibility for even a single level.

What is worth it, is taking classes that give Sneak Attack. 2 levels for a d6 of damage per attack roll is not something to sneeze at when you're running with a routine based on something so otherwise inane.

-Username17

[Save_versus_Stupid]

Sounds good. So I generally want to stagger my metamagic feats in order of lowest level affecting to highest, such as searing light, empower, split ray, twin spell, quicken spell?

1) Point Blank Shot
1 H) Precise Shot
3) Empower Spell
6) Arcane Thesis : Scorching Ray
9) Searing Light
12) Split Ray
15) Twin Spell
18) Quicken Spell


Something like that for feats?

I checked the spell chart and it says I qualify for this particular arcane thesis at 6th level, since I don't get the ray until 4th. Should I just say fvck it to the archer feats, and just assume i'm going to be an invisible attacker?

[dbb]

Do they have to be damaging rays, or can they do other wacky stuff as long as they're rays and hit as ranged touch attacks? You didn't really specify in the initial post ...

--d.

[Save_versus_Stupid]

Oh anything is game. My first level spells were going to be ray of enfeeblement and grease. I just zero'd in on scorching ray because it seems to be the most efficient based on level and damage.

[Zherog]

Remember that Quicken Spell is useless to a sorcerer.

...from It's Hot Outside.

Just to be sure - this is the pet name for Sandstorm?

[Username17]

My first level spells were going to be ray of enfeeblement

Ugh. Why? That spell is total ass. It can't drop any opponent or set up an opponent to be dropped by another effect. It just reduces their melee damage output, but not even enough to turn the tide of battle.

At 1st level you're better off fighting with a light crossbow or being an Elf and having a longbow.

Just to be sure - this is the pet name for Sandstorm?

Call it what you like.

-Username17

[Zherog]

1150741000[/unixtime]]

Just to be sure - this is the pet name for Sandstorm?

Call it what you like.

-Username17

"A Day at the Beach"

[User3]

Ok, you want to not take Point Blank Shot and Precise shot. I know that in very specific circumstances that amounts to +5 to hit and +1 to damage, but I don't care. Its a ranged touch attack and you don't even need a +5. Seriously. This is not the bad old days of the three core books where spellcasters could take fighter feats that be a viable choice.

Also avoid Split Ray, as its only good at high levels on spells like Disintigrate, and thats a dog spell best avoided.

That being said, here are some other things you can do:

--Don't max out Cha. As a Scorching Ray fighter, you don't actually need good DCs, as the spell doesn't have any. Dex is actually what you need.

--Check with your DM about Arcane Thesis: It either removes 1 spell level from a metamagic cost on a spell, or it removes one from every metamagic feat (meaning a Subdual, Searing, Fell Weakened, Still, Silent Scorching Ray is a 2nd level slot.

Also check how he wants it to interact with Practical Metamagic from Races of the Dragon. Arcane Thesis doesn't have a "minimum of 1 spell level" clause like practical Metmagic, meaning that with a little work you can get free Empower Spell on a Scorching Ray.

Even if he doesn't let them stack, you can still cast Maximized Scorching Rays as 3rd level spells, which is pretty neat.

--Consider taking the Draconic 1st level substitution level instead of the PHB II one. The one from the PHB only works a few times per day, and by geting the Draconic one you get UMD as a class skill for that level, a bonus to Knowledge(arcana) checks, and Draconic Heritage. Take a fire dragon as your ancestor and get Draconic Power, and then pick up Fire Heritage from the Planar Handbook, and you can get a total of +4 to your caster level on your Scorching Rays, which is an actual extra Ray until total level of 11 and its just a SR puncher after that. (Taking a dragonborn levle usually means that you need to be a dragonborn race, but you can actually be a Human who was of the Dragonborn race and then got turned back for bad actions, and all before your first adventure).


My build for a character I was playing from 1st level would look like this:

Human
1 Draconic Heritage, Draconic Power, Fire Heritage (3d4 on Burning Hands, which is enough to care at 1st level)

3 Empower Spell

6 Arcane Thesis (8d6 on Scorching Ray intead of 4d6, and 12d6 for an empowered 3rd level slot)

7 (12d6 on Scorching Ray and not 8d6, or a 18d6 for a 3rd level slot)

9 Searing Spell

10 (Remember to get Spell Matrix at this level for an extra 18d6 Empowered Searing Scorching Ray and get False Life to cancel out the Matrixes cost)

12 Twin Spell (Twin Empowered Scorching Ray for 36d6 with a Spell Matrix [Scorching Ray] for another 18d6....total of 54d6 to one target)

15 Fell Enervate (with the more lax Arcane Thesis, you can do a Fell Enervate Empowered Twinned Searing Scorching Ray at this level for 48d6 with another 18d6 from a Spell Matrix [Scorching Ray] for a total of 72d6 to a living creature of pure Ultima damage at a +4 caster level).

18 Spell Penetration

----------------------------

For a 9th level caster or above, I'd be tempted to go another route:

Human
1 PHB II Sub level, Empower Spell, Searing Spell

3 Twin Spell

6 Arcane Thesis

9 Practical Metamagic(Twin Spell); 24d6 Searing for a 4th level slot, and 18d6 Searing on a 3rd level slot.

12 Practical Metamagic(Empower Spell); Twinned Empowered Searing for 36d6 as a 4th level spell with a Spell Matrix Empowered Scorching Ray for another 18d6....total of 54d6 to one target)

15 Fell Enervate (with the more lax Arcane Thesis, you can do a Fell Enervate Empowered Twinned Searing Scorching Ray at this level for 48d6 with another 18d6 from a Spell Matrix [Scorching Ray] for a total of 72d6 to a living creature of pure Ultima damage as a 5th level spell.

18 Practical Metamagic(Fell Enervate), just like 15, but as a 4th level spell

[RandomCasualty]

The one issue with taking archery feats are if your DM plays with the rule where you can hit the cover when firing at a monster. In this case, it can be really bad to take down one of your buddies by "striking the cover".

[Save_versus_Stupid]

1150741000[/unixtime]]

My first level spells were going to be ray of enfeeblement

Ugh. Why? That spell is total ass. It can't drop any opponent or set up an opponent to be dropped by another effect. It just reduces their melee damage output, but not even enough to turn the tide of battle.

Because it's a ray.

K, great post as usual. Where would I find spell matrix?

[Username17]

Like all broken metagame spells, the Spell Matrices are found in the Spell Compendium. You spend a 5th level spell and a 2nd level spell (for the false life you cast right before the spell marix) and then you reprepare a 3rd level spell as a Quickened spell. It's very weird, but extra hillarious because the prepared spell in the spell matrix doesn't count against your spells per day.

So Wizards can abuse the crap out of this spell by casting it a bunch of times and then going to sleep in an antimagic field. But it's pretty decent for Sorcerers too because it will technically hold spells based on their level not based on their spell slot - so you can lesser spell matrix a massively metamagic modified scorching ray).

-Username17

[Save_versus_Stupid]

I'm not sure if my conscience will allow me to use this spell now that i've read it.

So what do you think about Arcane thesis, frank and everyone? I read it as -1 with no minimum limit to meta magic costs, and it applies to any metamagic added.

I seriously doubt that was the intent though.

[User3]

1150757407[/unixtime]]
So what do you think about Arcane thesis, frank and everyone? I read it as -1 with no minimum limit to meta magic costs, and it applies to any metamagic added.

I think that if you find a DM who allows it as such, then you are likely gonna need to find a new DM. As boring as it would be for it to be used by players as such, it would be even worse when the NPCs get to abuse that trick back on you.

[Username17]

Here's the deal on Arcane Thesis:

1. That is what it says that it does.
   
2. I don't think that's what they meant.
   
3. I don't even care, nd the feat is still underpowered in the big scheme of things.

It affects only a single spell, which is fine for scorching ray because it actually is the rockstar of the Evocation School until the advent of prismatic spray. But that's mostly because Evocation is a bullshit school that noone cares about.

If you want to use evocations to do damage to an opponent, the best you can hope for is slapping Metamagic on scorching ray and the ability to do that better is a godsend. But that's not a ringing endorsement. Metamagic is feat intensive and single-target damaging spells are ass. By the time you get this up and running as a 4th level spell you're ignoring Energ Resistance, and you're empowered and possibly maximized. And you've jacked your caster level on this spell up by 4. You're an 8th level character shooting 3 rays that do 36 damage each and inore ER. And all you had to do was spend six feats. You don't even have six feats, so you had to pull flaws and crap just to get this far.

And it's 108 damage (halved if your opponent is Fire Immune). At short range. A straight throwing Ranger/Rogue can only put out 16d6 (repeated next turn) of an energy type of his choice with 2 feats, and he probably isn't willing to invest more than that.

That will kill pretty much anything of your level (if it hits), and it takes less time to kill things than the Rogue does. But I don't care. After setting your entire character on fire to be good with evocations, you'd better be pretty good with evocations, and 108 damage isn't even all that impressive.

Listening to:
"Whoa! Chinese Ninja Warrior... with your heart so cold... Subzero."
-The Immortals, "Subzero"

[Save_versus_Stupid]

K - I checked the build a while ago and noticed one thing, it doesn't look like Fire Heritage adds +1 to caster level to fire descriptor spells. Am I missing something?

Edit - It looks like elemental spellcasting was the feat you meant to suggest

Edit Edit - Chain spell, it applies to rays? As much sense as it would be to use fireball to clean out mooks, i'm thinking it's extra stylish to have a ray zipping around doing the job.

[Crissa]

If Chain Spell actually took out mooks, sure. But it'd literally have to be rewritten to do so.

-Crissa

[josephbt]

If you're going raywise, it'd be a shame not to take Ray of Stupidity from SpellComp. d4+1 INT dmg to anything hit, no save? Yes please. Now lets talk about all those anoying bears and animals and crap like hydras and fighters and most other 1-5 INT opponents.