Brewer's Guide To The Blockbuster Wizard: "But... But... Blasting Is Suboptimal!" [PDF]

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Brewer's Guide to the Blockbuster Wizard Did you hear about the new summer blockbuster that's coming out? It's about a civic engineer that uses stoplights to efficiently direct traffic, who erects concrete dividers to make sure cars don't go where they shouldn't. No, wait. Sorry. That’s the movie vying for the Oscar role of “Boring Waste of Time That Nobody Enjoys.” The Blockbuster? That’s about a demolition expert that blows up pretty much everything in the city. That, in a nutshell, is why being a Blaster is better than being a "God" Wizard. Not more powerful, mind you, just better. Because while one spends their time playing with Stone Walls, one passes the time by causing explosions. It's like play-acting in the Avengers and choosing Agent Colson instead of Iron Man - what sort of boring wuss would make that choice? Plus, who wants to go into the tavern and brag, "Yeah... after I cast that Wall of Stone for us to hide behind, I summoned a creature that can actually fight and then cast a spell to make us all run faster"? The Blockbuster Wizard gets to stride up and say, "Five goblins attacked our group outside of town; I created a ball of fire so explosive that the fifth one’s arm still hasn’t landed." Guess which caster gets to go home with the barmaid? "But... but... Blasting is suboptimal!" Yes. Yes it is. But so is Batman's taking on criminals one-on-one instead of using his vast wealth to erect lasting social change through civic programs. But who's complaining about Batman? He's Batman. So, it's about time for the Blockbuster Wizard to get his due - a Wizard Academy's Award if you will, for the sheer Michael-Bay-inspiring destruction he can bring. It's time to stop building walls and start blowing 'em up.

Where the Wall Stood.

A Quick Word About This Guide If you haven't guessed, this article is written a bit tongue-in-cheek. A sense of humor is advised.

‘Splosions: Size or Positioning Back to Batman. In Batman Begins, he needs to take out the public rail system. He doesn't drop a gigantic bomb in the general area - he uses the right type of explosion in the right area at the right time. So should you. This means you need to be flexible. Building your character to have the biggest possible Fireball simply means that when you run into a Fire Immune foe, you have to sit back and sulk. This by itself is merely annoying. But if you happen to have a God Wizard in the party with you at the time? You'll have to put up with them being smug for the entirety of whatever quest you're on. And nothing is more demoralizing than being demoted beneath the guy that spends the battle making fog to hide behind. Short story: Be Flexible. Your explosions should not only be big, but whatever kind does the job best.

Though, yes, you still want big explosions. Don't get me wrong.

A Quick Word About Your Role Action movies don’t end with the hero meeting up with the villain and just “exploding” him. No, action movies almost always end with the hero and the villain slugging it out. Tankers full of gasoline and timed explosives don’t destroy the big bad guy, just his henchmen. It’s important to know that limitation. Your role as demolition aficionado isn’t meant for the final end boss. As sad as it is, if all you’re up against is one climactic enemy, you’ll probably have to mimic one of those silly God Wizards– helping your allies out, hindering the enemy, and so on. No, it’s the henchmen you’re after. They’re practically begging for you to destroy them. En masse. “But… but… why can’t I be the hero that goes toe to toe with the villain? I can do lots of damage!” You know the 2-handed fighter in the party? He’s going to do more damage 1-on-1 than you ever will - because that’s all he can do. The archer ranger? Same thing. You never want to try to win the targeted damage race with your fellow party members. If you’re a 7th level character, don’t pit your 8d6+3 Scorching Ray against the 2-handed fighter’s +15/+10 (2d6+23). You’re not only going to lose that one, but you’re spending your effort trying to cover the one thing he already covers incredibly well. Give the fighter his due – hurting individual enemies is what he excels at. But you know what that Fighter can’t do? Easily fight 6 monsters at once. Why don’t you work at handling that situation instead?

Your School Admixture. Take a look at Versatile Evocation: whenever you cast an evocation spell that deals elemental damage, you can switch it over to a different element of your choice (3+Int times per day.) You know how those God Wizards are making fun of your Fireballs, pooh-poohing that you’ll be sad against foes with Fire Resistance… or useless against foes with Fire Immunity? This is your answer; this is what gives you the flexibility you need to pit the right type of explosion against the right type of enemy. You do need to time the usage right, though. Just announcing that you have this ability it is for novices. What you’re after is something like: You: “Shoot! My fireballs can’t hurt this devil!” Fog Wizard: “Now, see, this is why good wizar…” You: “Guess I’ll just cast it and do Ice damage instead.” Aside from the ability to switch elements pretty much at will, Admixture also has a nice ability: Intense Spells. Basically, it adds ½ damage per level to your evocation spells. That might not sound like much, but the difference between an 8th level spell dealing 8d6 and 8d6+4 is actually 14% more damage. This is the only good school/subschool for Blasters. Because this ability to switch elements is absolutely crucial for a blaster.

That poor hellhound...

Sorcerers Vs Wizards “But Sorcerers are better blasters than Wizards!” Really? Why? Let’s take a look at some common Sorcerer builds: Fire Maximus: Let’s go all out! A Primal + Draconic cross-blooded half-orc sorcerer. This bad boy, at the 8th level, deals an impressive 48 damage (8d6+20) fire damage! Smart Fire Maximus: A Fire Maximus pimped out with Spell Specialization. Sure, they had to drop their Charisma so that their Intelligence was good enough… but they deal 59 (10d6+24) fire damage!

With a name like Fire Maximus, how can you go wrong?

Fire With Backup: This cagey half-orc sorcerer can take down Fire Immune foes, because they’ve got the ability to turn any blast into Acid damage – between Draconic (Fire) + Elemental (Acid) bloodlines, an 8th level sorcerer deals either 36 (8d6+12) fire damage or 28 (8d6) Acid damage. Smart Fire With Backup: Same bloodlines as before, but now tricked out with Spell Specialization. This mage can deal either 49 (10d6+14) fire damage or 35 (10d6) Acid damage. So, how do those compare to the Admixture Wizard? The Admixture Wizard deals 39 damage (10d6+4) with whatever elemental damage type they choose. “59 is more than 39 – the Sorcerer is clearly better!” First glance, yes. But take a look at the hidden weaknesses. The Fire Maximusi? The pitter-patter of tears you hear is what happens when they run into a Fire Immune foe. Which, to their sorrow, isn’t that uncommon (everything from elementals to dragons to devils to hellhounds.) When that happens, they have to make do with bad blast shapes (go Lightning Bolt!) with bad damage (go 8d6+0!) Oh, and those players love to forget about the drawbacks of Crossblooded. That poor 8th level half-orc doesn’t even know a single 4th level spell yet. You know what they call 8th level casters that only have 3rd level spells? Mystic Theurges. What about the Fire with Backup? Not too shabby… except they actually do less than the Admixture Wizard does – even with their specialty element (fire). Think about that for a second. You’ve got a half-orc sorcerer, who chose a bloodline to get extra damage per dice on fire spells – and their fireballs do less damage than an Admixture Wizard! And the final one, the Smart Fire With Backup? If everything goes right, they deal 25% more damage… but that hinges on them connecting (their Save DC is 1 lower), running into a foe that doesn’t have resistances to both their elements (like an Imp) and that doesn’t have energy vulnerabilities to a third element (like a Fire Elemental.) That’s an awful lot of if’s to be banking on just to eke out a bit more damage. This isn’t to say Sorcerers make bad blasters – they don’t. But if you think “Blaster Wizard” is just a worse version of them, you need to think again.

Instant Gratification: Your Friend Or, in other words: Haste Versus Fireball Haste deals more damage over time. You know what also deals damage over time? Your enemies! Let’s say you’re part of a 10th level party, and you run across three CR=8 monsters – not too dangerous, but it’s still a CR=11 encounter. Those guys will have about 100 hit points and have reflex saves good enough that they’ll succeed 1/3 of the time. A plain vanilla Fireball will deal 40 (10d6+5) damage to each of them. A 10th level wizard is capable of a lot more than a vanilla fireball, but we can use it as our baseline. Between one or two fireballs, and the rest of the party doing their thing, do you think the encounter is going to last more than 2 rounds? Nope, those twerps are going down, and going down fast. Casting Haste probably won’t do any extra damage that first round (you’d have to be going before your party mate, who in turn is somehow already in position to do a full attack.) In the second round, it might give everyone an additional swing… but are those few extra swings really going to clock in over a hundred damage in one round? And that’s just with the baseline fireball – the wizard could easily be throwing Intensified Empowered Fireballs at the enemy for 68 (12d6 + 50% + 5) with the right feats and traits. Oh, sure, if the battle dragged out for 10 rounds, that Haste might end up wracking up more damage. And, who knows, maybe that cardigan-wearing God Wizard might have time for boring protracted battles – but we’ve got more things waiting to be blown to smithereens. And as a side perk? Not only did you have more fun than the Wizard of Fogs, but you did better at protecting the party because you've killed the danger. And thanks to Admixture, the whole issue of Immunities and Resistances is moot: you just turn the Fireball into an Acidball, or Frostball, or whatever element they're susceptible to.

Pictured: Instant Gratification

Your Race Elf. I know what you’re thinking: what could a race of uptight pantywaists know about the finer arts of demolition? Surprisingly, a lot. Besides the obvious stuff (a bonus to Intelligence and Dexterity), they get a very important ability: piercing Spell Resistance. SR is for blasters what AC is for fighters: a bar that absolutely has to be overcome. You don’t beat your foe’s Spell Resistance? You do nothing. “But… a human could just take Spell Penetration as their bonus feat!” Yes, they could. Just be aware that Elves will sometimes want to end up taking both Spell Penetration feats anyways (especially if they dip a level of Sorcerer.)

Skills I'm not going to talk about the typical, boring skills. Yes, you should have Knowledges and Spellcraft - knowing how to better blow stuff up is good. Yes, you should have Perception, for otherwise you might not see what you need to blow up.

“It's impossible to be a fire mage and be overweight” - Google Image Search

No, this section is devoted to the skill other wizards scoff at before they go to their Annual Glitterdust Appreciation Society meetings. See, that familiar that wizards get has more uses than "Gets upgraded by Improved Familiar and gets handed some wands." And one of the criminally underused ones is Intimidate. Intimidate. Everyone loves it when the Bard whips out a Dazzling Display. Demoralizing foes is a great debuff – it makes the monsters less likely to hit them, and makes them less likely to resist spells cast at them. While our Mephit can’t use Dazzling Display, there’s nothing stopping it from intimidating a single enemy, causing them to be shaken. So how well can the Mephit intimidate? An 8th level character is looking at around a DC=22 check – less if it’s a mook, more if it’s a BBEG. This might sound pretty imposing, but the Mephit would get +10 to the roll, making it just shy of a coinflip. Then again, raising skills is pretty darned cheap. You can get a +5 weapon for 50,000 gp… or get a magic bonus to a skill for 2,500 gp. And that’s even on top of a “Masterwork Tool”. For 2,550 gp, you can give your Mephit a total of +17 to their rolls, which isn’t far from auto-success. “So what? You spent skill points and money, just so you can demoralize a single foe in battle? Pffft.” Yep. But keep in mind, this is your familiar doing it, your lackey. You’re not wasting your own precious actions on making this stuff happen – basically, every turn of every combat, there’s going to be an enemy that’s shaken. An enemy that’s dealing less damage, and less likely to evade your spells. That 8th level wizard deals 13% more damage on average to a shaken foe than a non-shaken one.

A Quick Word on Traits Magical Lineage. This is one of the holy grails of a Blaster Wizard, especially higher-level ones. You will be surprised how much this trait will actually affect your spellcasting and character planning. One big example is Spell Perfection. Spell Perfection lets you add a single metamagic feat for free, as long as the final level of the spell wouldn’t be above the 9th level. So you can prepare a Quickened Empowered Fireball as a 5th level spell… but you can’t do anything more with it – because it would go over that 9th level limit (3rd level for Fireball + 2nd level for Empower + 4th level for Quicken.) Magical Lineage changes that. Suddenly you’ve got one free level to play with. You can now make it a Quickened Maximized Fireball or a Quickened Intensified Empowered Fireball. But even before 15th level, this trait is amazing. It’ll let you sneak in Dazing Fireballs as a 9th level character, or Empowered Fireballs as a 7th.

Feats Spell Focus. Each DC bump translates to more average damage. In other words, your ‘splosions are better. Spell Specialization. This feat is so ridiculously neon blue that it will be your feat as soon as you can possibly grab it. If you’re a Human, that’s level 1. If you’re in Pathfinder Society, that’s level 1 (because you get Spell Focus instead of Scribe Scroll.) If you’re anything else, it’s level 3. This feat is absolutely ridiculous for a Blaster. At level 1, this basically says Burning Hands does 3d4+1 damage. That’s an area of effect spell that pretty much auto-kills everything you’d face. At level 6, it turns your Fireballs from 6d6 to 8d6 (a 25% bonus to damage!) This feat is a sizable bonus to your damage all the way until level 14 – all without changing your spell’s level! Greater Spell Focus. Yes. Only reason I didn’t list it with Spell Focus was emphasize that this spell should be taken after Spell Specialization. Intensified Spell. This feat keeps Burning Hands going strong up until you can shift Spell Specialization to Fireball. A 5th level character deals as much damage with a Specialized, Intensified Burning Hands as they would with a vanilla Fireball (and the Intensified Burning Hands is a spell level lower!) However, even if you’ve got plans to shift away from Burning Hands early, you’ll want this by your 9th level feat – it’ll help Fireball’s damage keep scaling upward. Quicken Spell. This is almost certainly your 11th or 13th level feat (you can use it on Fireball as early as the 11th level, thanks to Magical Lineage.) You know what’s better than crippling a mook so the fighter can kill it? Crippling it, and then killing it yourself. And a few levels later, Spell Perfection joins the party and lets you throw out explosions faster an IRA reunion. Dazing Spell. You have to be very careful with this feat. Don’t get me wrong – it’s amazing, and you’ll probably want to cast one or two each battle. It’s just that… if you’re not careful, you’ll start walking down that dark path, the slow tempting road towards becoming a God Wizard. Sure, it’ll start out with something innocuous – a recreational Fog Bank or two. But before you know it, you’ll be mainlining Black Tentacles. Sicken Spell. This isn’t as good as Dazing Spell – it’s better to incapacitate than to debuff. That said, adding Sicken to a quickened blast spell can be devastating – it makes it more unlikely that the victims will be able to save against the upcoming Dazing spell right afterwards. Empower Spell, Maximize Spell. These feats are actually pretty much identical. One increases the spell level by 2 and adds 50% more damage; the other increases the level by 3 and adds 74% more damage. The best advice is to get one of these as a feat and the other as a metamagic rod. Later, though, Spell Perfection makes having both a good idea.

Spell Perfection. This is your ultimate goal. At 15th level, you transform into the living embodiment of Michael Bay and become a veritable beacon of destruction. Picture this: you’ve chosen Fireball for this feat (and it’s also your spell for Magical Lineage.) Turn 1, you can throw out a Quickened Intensified Empowered Fireball as a 5th level spell, plus a Maximized Intensified Dazing Fireball as a 6th level spell. That’s 183 points of damage plus a wide area crowd control effect – which last I heard, is decent for an opening round action. Oh, yeah… and it does it to every enemy caught in a sphere 40 foot across. (And that’s still not our upper limit… just wait until we get to metamagic rods!) Quick Number Crunch: Those numbers above might not make sense (“A Quickened Intensified Empowered Fireball as a 5 th level Spell?!”) Spell Perfection lets you apply a metamagic for free, as long as it wouldn’t bring the final spell level above the 9th level. Magical Lineage adjusts the spell level down by one. So the Quickened Intensified Empowered Fireball has “Quickened” applied for free. The Intensified Empowered Fireball would ordinarily be a 6th level spell, but Magical Lineage drops that down by one to 5th. Lastly, Quicken can be applied because it wouldn’t take the spell over the 9 th level (since it adds 4 to the level.) While this would be a problem for a regular Intensified Empowered Fireball (which would be 6 th level), Magical Lineage lowers it enough for Quicken to get added.

This feat is what you’re aiming for from the mid level onward. My recommendation would be to choose Fireball – or if you’re feeling adventurous, Dragon’s Breath. Don’t be tempted by any 5th level spells or higher. It’s better to choose a 3rd level and be able to tack other metamagic feats onto it. Why do Cone of Cold when you can use Intensified Fireball and have it be a level lower? As a final note: make sure you don’t miss the part where it doubles the effectiveness of some feats that apply to the spell – the notable two being Spell Focuses and Spell Penetrations. Getting an extra +2 to the Save DC and +4 to caster checks to overcome SR is absolutely amazing (though it does say feats; don’t expect your elven +2 bonus on overcoming SR to count double.)

Artists Rendition of Spell Perfection

Persistent Spell. A lot of people overestimate the effect of “Roll twice, take the better/worse result.” On average, that sort of effect increases/decreases the average roll by +3 – so this feat makes your saving throws +3 harder. Which would be great, except we had to increase the spell slot used by 2. We could get almost the same effect with Heighten Spell – and you won’t find anyone recommending Heighten Spell for blasters. Rime Spell. This feat isn’t bad, but you have to be careful. It tries to push you down the road towards a specific element – something you should try to avoid. That said, it only increases the spell level by one yet it puts a decent debuff on the opponent – and one that will make future spells connect more reliably (it reduces dexterity by 4, so it reduces their reflex saves by 2.) Improved Initiative. The only thing better than big explosions is getting off those explosions while the opponent hasn’t moved. Improved Familiar. This really amplifies a familiar. You’ll get a Mephit that can use magic device, and be better at Feinting and Demoralizing than any bird familiar. However, before you autopilot this, just know that getting a Greensting Scorpion for another +4 initiative bonus is not something to ignore – especially since it doesn’t take an Improved Familiar feat to get it. Toughness. Hit points are good. Keep in mind, being a Blockbuster Wizard means, frankly, that you’ll be a walking avatar of Awesome. But being Awesome has a downside: you’ll draw more attention (that’s right: even enemies have more respect for the man creating explosions than the one making fog.) So hit points will be very useful. Still, before you take this, check out the Prestige section. Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Penetration. An enemy making their reflex save often isn’t a huge deal. Unless they have Evasion, they’re still taking half damage. An enemy’s Spell Resistance coming into play? That is indeed a big deal – suddenly you’re not dealing any damage at all. This isn’t something you want to skimp on. As soon as you’re running into times where your spells aren’t connecting due to SR, you want to plug the hole. Additional Traits. This is orange if you already have Magical Lineage. It’s neon blue if your GM wouldn’t let you take traits at character creation (but will let you get them if you spend the feat.) Quick Draw. This only becomes relevant once you’ve got a few metamagic rods to play around with. It’s probably not worth it, because you can generally get by with whatever rod is in your hands (except for a Selective Rod, they’re all basically “Do More Damage” rods.)

Yep, you're right. The rest of this article will be punctuated by pictures of explosions.

The Blasts This section is not “The Spells”. Yeah, yeah, okay, maybe Haste is something you should throw in your spellbook somewhere; a few battlefield controls aren’t a terrible idea. You just can’t let it get in the way of having some actual fun – plus, if you’re reading this guide, chances are you want to learn about some blasts… Level 0: Ray of Frost. Ordinarily, 1st level Wizards skip this in favor of a Crossbow. Not you. That Intense Spells ability upgrades this from 1d3 to 1d3+1 – which is actually pretty huge (50% more damage!) Combined with not requiring a special reload and going against a Touch AC instead of a regular AC, this usually works out just as good (if not better) than the mundane weapon. Consider this your “basic attack” spell for the first few levels. Level 1: Burning Hands. Ah, Burning Hands, who owes so much to Spell Specialization. Know what’s funnier than a 1st level character killing four Dire Rats in the first round? Seeing the GM’s face when he finds out you still managed to kill them even though they made their Reflex Save. Magic Missile. Basically, a single-target blast. Early on, Burning Hands will do more damage and do it in an area. Later on, you won’t be using 1st level spells for blasts (they don’t do enough damage, and you get more use out of preparing utility/control spells.) Shocking Grasp. Preparing this is basically conceding that you expect your wizard to close in with the enemy. Even though the damage is better, force yourself to NOT prepare this spell - that way you won't be tempted to get close to a foe. That said, if you want to live on the dangerous side in the early levels, this is absolutely insane with Spell Specialization. 3d6+1 damage without a save at level 1? Level 2: Flaming Sphere. This one seems like it should be blue. If you’re a 4th level wizard, wouldn’t putting Spell Specialization on this mean you deal 18d6 damage? Yes… to one enemy, and over time. You’ve got “Instant Gratification” working against you, as well as your role (killing henchmen, not the BBEG.) When it comes to doing your part, an Intensified Burning Hands is where you want to be, not trying to race the fighter with singletarget damage. Scorching Ray. For the most part, this is a single-target Fireball. The good news is that this will often be an auto-succeed in the mid to late levels. The damage is pretty decent, capping at 12d6 (which is actually higher than the blast spells one level higher.) Still, remember your role: you’re not out to kill the BBEG, you’re out to mass-kill the minions. Which this spell fails pretty hard at. Level 3: Fireball. The classic - and for a reason. It's a large area of effect that can hit something 2 football fields away with an ever-increasing amount of damage. It’s at the sweet spot in terms of damage and low level – which means that you’ll be able to add an assortment of metamagic onto it. This is the spell that you want to commit to – it’s what Magical Lineage, Spell Perfection, and Spell Specialization will go towards. Lightning Bolt. Same damage as Fireball, but with an awkward area – it’s a lot harder to pick off hordes with a line effect. Still, if you’re looking for a blaster with a different feel, you might consider replacing Fireball with this spell. It’ll have the same damage output, but it’ll have a lot different flavor.

Level 4: Dragon’s Breath. It’s a short range blast, and Admixture takes away its biggest perk (regular blasters can use it for whichever elemental damage they need; you can already do that anyway.) That said, it does have a higher damage cap than Fireball. It’s circumstantial, but if you want to live on the edge, you can eke a little more damage. Generally, though, you don’t want to have to get close enough to have the bulk of your enemies in the range of this thing. Level 5: Cone of Cold. The area is big. The problem is, you can get the same damage cap with an Intensified Fireball – and that’s a level lower than this. Making it worse, it’s not nearly as good with Spell Perfection as Fireball. Acidic Spray. The supposed draw is the extra 50% damage on the subsequent round. The problem is, you’re not going to have this spell for Spell Specialization, Spell Perfection, or Magical Lineage. An Intensified Empowered Fireball will deal at least an extra 50% damage, and it takes up the same spell slot as this spell. Lightning Arc. It's a cool effect – a lightning bolt originating from some other point. The big problem: it’ll do so much less damage than what you can get out of your regular blast. Level 5 and Beyond No. At this point, your higher level blasts are better spent on low level spells with metamagic. Sure, you could prepare a 7th level Delayed Blast Fireball for 56 (14d6+7) damage. But in the same slot, you could prepare an Intensified Maximized Fireball for 97. You could prepare Cold Ice Strike for 1d6/level as a short line effect with a swift action… or just throw a Quicken on a low level blast to get the same level of power. The same is true even with the 5th level spells – Cone of Cold, Acidic Spray, and Lightning Arc just don’t compare with metamagic’ed up Fireballs.

… punctuated by explosions, but not just fire explosions. Blockbusters can mix it up 3+Int times per day.

Prestige Classes and Dipping Loremaster Dipping Loremaster is exceptionally easy. You’ll already be pretty close to qualifying – the only thing you probably wouldn’t be doing anyway is a Skill Focus feat. What do you gain and lose? Each level you take in Loremaster, you lose a hitpoint and a point of damage on all your blasts. In exchange, you get two extra skill points, along with additional perks depending on how many levels you dip: 1 level: Any feat you like 2 levels: +1 to all your knowledge checks 3 levels: Your choice of Toughness, Dodge, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Great Fortitude, or an extra 2nd level spell per day. 4 levels: An additional +1 to your knowledge checks, a free language 5 levels: Another choice from the options in the 3 levels section It’s up to you whether this is worth losing blast damage (and hit points.) If you’re considering it, 3 levels is probably the spot you want to be at. You’re basically trading 3 points off your blasts, 3 hit points, and a semiuseless feat for two good feats, 6 skill points, and +1 to all those knowledge skills. Also, if this is what you’re looking at, make sure you plan ahead: taking Toughness as a regular feat is probably a bad idea if you could get it on your third level of Loremaster. Another option is to take a single level of Loremaster. You lose 1 hit point and 1 point of damage from your blast spells in exchange for a free Skill Focus feat. Sorcerer Dip This is a two-edged sword. On one hand, you can really enhance the damage you deal with one element – heck, depending on how your GM rules Crossblooded and Wildblooded interacting, you can get Draconic + Primal and get +2 damage per dice (a 57% boost!) On the other hand, if you run up against enemies immune to the element you choose (and at the higher levels, immunities are pretty common) then you effectively lost a caster level for nothing. Also, you’re lowering your chances of overcoming Spell Resistance – remember, you need to crush the SR of your enemies. Overall, I would not recommend this unless you’re playing a low-level-only campaign; even then, I’d wait until after the 5th level of Wizard, so you don’t delay your progression to getting Fireball.

Sorcerer dips. Explaining since 2008 why your -2 CHA wizard is somehow ruggedly handsome.

Other Notes Metamagic Rods. Absolutely! And the best part is: the “Big Three” rods that everyone recommends (Still, Silent, Quicken) are the ones I’m going to recommend you not bother with. No, the rods you’re looking at are: Metamagic Rod of Selective, Lesser. At 3,000, this rod is an absolute steal. Sometimes things don’t go your way, and you can’t throw a fireball out because you’d hit your allies. This gives you three blasts a day that don’t have that limitation. Trading up to the regular version is pretty cheap as well. Metamagic Rod of Empower, Lesser. Only 9,000 to get 50% more damage from 3 fireballs a day? That’s a pretty solid bargain. But it gets even better. Once you hit level 15, this becomes amazing – it lets you throw out Intensified Empowered Quickened Fireballs while only using your 3rd level slots (with Magical Lineage.) While 86 damage isn’t backbreaking at that point, getting it as a Swift Action using a 3rd level slot is absolutely amazing. Still, it’s something you should try to upgrade later so you can use it on 6th level spells. Metamagic Rod of Maximize, Lesser. This one is only 14,000, and instead of a 50% boost you get a 74% boost. Other than that, it has the same uses as the Empower Rod – in this case, instead of 86 damage as a 3rd level spell as a Swift Action, it deals 97. Metamagic Rod of Selective, Regular. This item is, by cost, the best item a high-level Blockbuster Wizard can get. It’s your “Get Out Of Your Teammates Being Stupid” card, letting you throw your most powerful blasts amid your allies without hurting them. It’s very easily worth the 11,000 gp price. Metamagic Rod of Empower, Regular. This clocks in at 32,500 gp – so it’s not chump change. This is something you’ll want to get at 15th level, because it will enable you to do some truly disgusting spells. Ever seen a Dazing Maximized Intensified Empowered Fireball? That’d ordinarily be a 12th level spell; you’re casting it out of a 6th level slot. Metamagic Rod of Maximize, Regular. Same thing as the Empower rod. At 54,000 gp, this is certainly not cheap. That said, you can do even more disgusting things. Ever thrown out a Quickened Maximized Intensified Empowered Fireball? That’s the equivalent of a 13th level spell coming out of a freaking 5th level slot! That’s 123 damage as a swift action. Any Metamagic Rod, Greater. No. You’re not going to be preparing blasts higher than your 6th level slots (Spell Perfection will make that almost impossible.) So what would you be using the rod on?

Just checking. Goblin arm: Still Airborne.

An Example Progression To help illustrate the guide, I’m going to take a sample character (Sampy McSplosion) through the levels, demonstrating what she’s capable of. She’s a PFS-legal Elf with a starting Intelligence and Dexterity of 19 and 18 respectively (after racial modifiers.) For everything beyond the 1st level, I’m going to be getting the “average mook” stats – something with a CR two below the current character’s level. This will be pretty good at representing a decently formidable bunch of enemies – whether it’s an encounter with multiple similar enemies, or a gaggle of henchmen/minions of a BBEG. Also, the guide will often be referencing fire spells (Burning Hands, Fireball, etc) – but it’s assumed that Sampy will be using Versatile Evocation when needed to turn this into the element best suited for taking down the enemy. 1st Level Feats: Spell Focus (Evocation), Spell Specialization (Burning Hands) Gear: Nothing appreciable

Sampy. Wearing gear that would look inappropriate in real life, she's somehow the most modestly dressed fire mage in fantasy.

Misc: Sampy decided to start out with the Greensting Scorpion for a familiar. This will give her a hefty +8 to initiative, even without taking the Improved Initiative feat. With the six skill points she gets, she picks up Spellcraft, Perception, and 4 knowledge skills. She also has the Magical Lineage trait set to Fireball (even though it’ll be awhile before she can take advantage of it.) Typical Spell Loadout:

1st Level – 3/day: Burning Hands x3 Synopsis: Sampy’s generic attack is a 3-damage Ray of Frost. With a ranged touch attack of +4, it’s probably going to be connecting a decent amount of the time. But the big show-stopper is the 3d4+1 damage Burning Hands. Dealing 8.5 damage on average and having a DC=16 reflex, she’s probably going to kill pretty much anything but a BBEG in a one-shot. Most CR appropriate foes at the 1st level have 8 or less hit points.

4th Level Sampy had a decision to make: did she want to shift Spell Specialization over to Flaming Sphere, or keep it on Burning Hands and pick up the Intensify Spell feat? She decided to stick with Burning Hands. Feats: At the third level, Sampy picked up Intensified Spell (so she can keep scaling Burning Hands) Gear: Nothing appreciable aside from a 1st level Pearl of Power Misc: For her 4th level ability score upgrade, Sampy choose INT, going up to a natural 20. Sampy has now got at least 1 rank in every Knowledge skill and is maxing out Perception, Spellcraft, and Knowledge (Planes). Typical Spell Loadout:

1st Level – 7/day: Mage Armor, Burning Hands x4, Mount, Grease 2nd Level – 4/day: Intensified Burning Hands x3, Summon Monster II

Average Enemy Mook (CR=2): The average enemy has 20 hit points and a reflex save of +3. Although the Imp has various resistances, only the Dretch is Resistant/Immune to all four element types. Synopsis: Sampy has seven blasts available each day. Four do 5d4+2, and the other three do 6d4+2. All seven of them have a Reflex DC=17 to halve the damage. This means her blasts only have a 1-in-3 chance of being successfully saved again, and deals more than half a creature’s life in damage – so they’ll be dead in two blasts (or, more likely, one blast plus a swing at each enemy from the martials.) For the encounters where her blasts won’t work well (BBEGs, or Dretches) she has a Grease and a Summon spell at the ready. 8th Level Feats: Greater Spell Focus (Evocation), Empower Spell, Improved Familiar Gear: Headband of +2 Intelligence (raises it to 22, 23 after ability increase), Rod of Selective Metamagic, Rod of Empowered Metamagic, three 1st level wands (for her new familiar), 1st Level Pearl of Power Misc: Sampy got a new familiar – a Mephit, which she gave a nice set of wands. She switched Spell Specialization to Fireball at 6th level – and it now deals a full 10 dice. Magical Lineage kicked in, letting her prepare Empowered Fireballs in her 4th level slots. Her 8th level ability increase went to INT (which is now 23.) Typical Spell Loadout:

1st, 2nd level: Utility, plus a stray Flaming Sphere or two 3rd Level – 5/day: Fireball x3, Haste x2 4th Level – 4/day: Empowered Fireball x3, Summon Monster IV

Average Enemy: Mooks at this point (CR=6) have an average of 68 hit points and a reflex save of +6. Spell Resistance starts cropping up – the Babau and Kyton both have SR 17 – and while Sampy only needs a 7 on her d20 roll, that means she still has a 30% chance of her spells not working on them. The Babau has resistances against every element, but everything else is smooth sailing. Synopsis: Sampy’s Fireballs deal 56.5 points of damage (10d6 * 1.5 + 4) with a Reflex DC=21. This is verging on being able to destroy CR=6 mooks in one shot – and with them needing to roll a 15 on their d20, they’re probably not going to be saving very easily. Three times per day, Sampy can toss out a Fireball without worrying about it hitting her party-mates. The main blip on the radar are the few enemies with Spell Resistance, since she only gets +2 to her checks to overcome it (which means she has about a 1-in-3 chance of failing, thus not doing any damage at all.)

12th Level Feats: Spell Penetration, Improved Initiative, Dazing Spell Misc: Sampy has kept Spell Specialization on Fireball, relying on Intensify Spell to keep the damage scaling – an Intensified Fireball deals 14 dice worth of damage. Her ability score bonus at 12th level went to Intelligence. Gear: Sampy has really upgraded her headband, having a +6 Intelligence version now (her Intelligence is now 28.) She’s also upgraded her Selective Rod from a lesser to a regular version, as well as trading in the lesser Empower rods to help pay for a regular Empowered Rod Spells:

1st-3rd – Mostly utility, a few castings of Haste, and a few scattered blasts 4th Level – 6/day: Intensified Fireball x5, some misc spells. 5th Level – 6/day: Intensified Empowered Fireball x3, Dazing Fireball, Summon Monster V x2 6th Level – 4/day: Intensified Dazing Fireball x4

Average Enemy: Mooks at this point (CR=10) have 126 hit points and a Reflex save of +10. One is completely immune to magic (the Clay Golem) but otherwise, the only troubling issue is a Rakshasa’s SR 25 (which is abnormally high – SR is typically 11+CR.) However, with Spell Penetration, Sampy’s success rate goes up by 10 percentage points. Synopsis: All of those fireballs have a Reflex DC=24, which means the monsters will fail their saves about 2in-3 times. Her most powerful spell (an Intensified Dazing Fireball with the regular Empowered Rod) deals 79.5 damage; it’s only 2/3rds of a mook’s hit points… but if they fail their save, they’re pretty much out of the battle.

Sampy, decked out in the distinctive garb of the fire mage, sans any miniscule measure of modesty

16th Level Feats: Greater Spell Penetration, Quicken Spell, Spell Perfection (Fireball) Gear: Sampy has picked up the Metamagic Rod of Maximize (regular), and a plunked down the money for a Tome of Clear Thought +5. Misc: Sampy’s ability increase went to Intelligence (now at 34.) Spells:

3rd,4th Level – 8+8/day: Mostly utility and Intensified Fireballs 5th Level – 8/day: Mix of Intensified+Empowered and Dazing Fireballs 6th Level – 6/day: Mix of Dazing+Intensified and Intensified+Maximized Fireballs 7th Level+: No blasts. Spell Perfection makes it difficult to prepare a high-level blast now anyway.

Average Enemy: They sound intimidating at first: everything has SR, everything has at least one immunity, the average hit points is nearly 200 (193 hp) and the average reflex save is +11. Which, funnily, means they don’t fare very well. Synopsis: SR no longer matters. Since Spell Perfection doubles the feats that apply static bonuses to Fireball, Sampy has a whopping +10 to her SR check. And while everything has an immunity, only 1 has resistances to everything (Nalfeshnee) and it's only Resist 10 – the same as the lowly Dretch. Likewise, the +11 reflex save is going against a Reflex DC=29 save – which means they’ll only halve the damage 15% of the time. As for the damage? Sampy has a boatload of options. She gets to mix and match between: which spell she uses (six varieties), which metamagic rod she uses and what metamagic feat she applies for free (5 options.) So let’s say she’s in a big important battle and she needs to lock the board down while going nova. She starts out with a Dazing Fireball, applies Quicken to it through Spell Perfection, and uses the Maximize Rod while she does so. Then, for her main action, she uses the same rod on an Intensified Empowered Fireball, this time applying Dazing metamagic to it with Spell Perfection. She spent two 5th level spells, and 2 of her 3 uses of the Maximize metamagic rod. What did she get out of it? The swift action (Quickened Maximized Dazing Fireball) deals 67 points of damage. Her standard action (Intensified Empowered Maximized Dazing Fireball) deals 124 damage. If an enemy fails either save, they’re frozen in place for 3 full turns (and since they’ll fail 85% of the time, the odds of one saving both throws is pretty small.) And this is while dealing 191 average damage to something with an average of 193 hit points – so dazing might be moot anyway. Or she could go raw damage. She can toss out two Intensified Empowered Maximized Fireballs (one Quickened) for 247 average damage. Or if she doesn't want to go nova? Just don't use the rod.

Summary

The end. Almost makes up for that earlier image being a “broken link”, doesn't it?

Other Guides by Brewer: Note: You may have to download this PDF to be able to follow the hyperlinks; Google Docs doesn't present the links as clickable on some computers. Shadow Conjuration - Guide and Reference Manual Shadow Evocation: More Than Just Blasts (A Guide) Thus She Spoke: A Words of Power Sorceress Guide Brewer's GM Guide to Campaign Design Brewer's GM Guide #2: Session Structure Brewer's Guide to Undeath - A Necromancer's Handbook