Wandylocks

[altpersona]

I was wandering about a wand using warlock...

most stuff i find for wands dont synergize well with warlock, hell they are pretty lacking overall.

you can burn extra charges to get a couple more d6 or get a bland ray from them but not much that i see beyond that.

So this guy is using Item Familiar and Legacy stuff to mod his toy.

for the most part the idea is the wand is a prop, you point it and fire your EB or invocations as if they are from the wand.

you never gonna run out of EB charges... so why bother draining your wands battery.

iv not decided on the other theurge side of the build, i charted up wiz / socr / duskblade progressions.

despite the lack of spell levels, duskblade and warlock both get light armor usage. handy but not vital.

i was hoping to find something for the second Arcane X spot that wasnt just lvl 2 of x class. but most cl advancing prestiges require either more skill ranks or higher spell level.

i didnt bother with BAB or saves on the chart, bab is terrible... something like 11 - 13 depending...

saves are something like 5/5/14 before the Arcane X adjustments.

so, suggestions?

 

[altpersona]

now that im back home, i see that i can drop the second practiced caster since it gives little gain for warlock and move the spell linked familiar up.

it also probably needs eschew materials, need flaws for that or a second flaw if not human...

[altpersona]

the more i look, and ya... i know im the only one looking, the more i need an extra third level feat. 


little bit of train of thought here...

so i ditch practiced caster, replace it with a limited use +1 or 2 cl feat and maybe be a specialist to get my lvl 1 caster level to 3 so i can take craft wondrous item at level 1. not 100% on the legality or limitations on what i could 'craft' with that setup. seems very much a ymmv (check w/ the dm first).

So, assuming that works, best case. take +CL feat X and Craft Wondrous Item.

inline with the theme / goal of the build craft a ''Wand'' that gives a +X spellcraft or concentration bonus.

skill bonus squared x 100gp cost? +1 x 1 x 100gp x 1.5 non slot affinity and 6xp? (yes aiming for cheap initially its just a prop for now)

human wiz 1 spec / domain wiz (what ever for your +1 cl) Precocious (X), craft wondrous item,  + cl feat (flaw)

at level 3 retrain the flaw away (if thats an option) or drop your wiz spec and retrain the flaw feat for practiced caster.

so level three is human wiz 1 / warlock 2, precocious, craft wi, item familiar and possibility practiced caster.

invest spell slot in the familiar, give up your 2nd lvl spell to the wand and gain a cantrip for now.

im not 100% clear on some stuff w. precocious. you have a second level slot. if your int is high, you dont get the bonus spells per day? if your a specialist it doesnt add a school slot for 2nd lvl spells? i see it as 3 slots (2 at least), but i doubt thats correct. seems like a big boon for a simple feat.

initially i was sold on using the Legacy material to buff the wand and dual progress the classes, but i suspect its not really worthwhile compared to getting the 9 w/ wizard. i may just want to use escalation mage for the free meta effects or ab.champ...

looking over the creating a legacy item bit, lots of nice stuff to be had but it seems i can save all the trouble and make my own items to the same result and less hassle.

rambling done for now.. more tomorrow, i think im almost done with it.

[nijineko]

reading, but nothing comes to mind directly.

[altpersona]

 sidebar for Wondrous Items and their creation / improvement.

I do not see any limits on what can be done with them, the only thing I see that remotely implies a limit is

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Wondrous_Items

that has a list of Epic WI's, these cost 217kgp+.

thats not really a limitation so much as a descriptor of power.

back to the uncheapened craft formula : skill bonus squared x 100gp cost? +10x10 x 100gp x 1.5 non slot affinity =15000gp. correction, 10kgp cause this isnt necessarily a wand, it could be eyeglasses and not have the affinity penalty.

add another 15k to give a second +10 to a second skill.

i know custom items can have issues, but i didnt think skill bonus was it.

[nijineko]

normal magic (ie: non-epic) items cannot have a base cost of over 200,000 gp.

[altpersona]

thats news to me 

its not a much of a limitation for building my ubber wand

[JohnnyMayHymn]

needs more cowbell... and bloodlines 

what about warlock, arcane swordsage, jade phoenix mage?    ya prereq's would need to be massaged a little, and it's kinda cheesy, but it could be interesting...

[altpersona]

iv got two versions working up atm

one with escalation mage 5 for 9th lvl spells and one for duskblade with abj champ.

duskblade has better saves and bab, but of course it does.

im a fan of bloodlines, but neither of these is spaming prestige dips, dosnt have much room for it. not to mention bloodlines is a bit of a half finished thought that got published.

i need to look into jpm

hellfirewarlock is a good default if you want to finish out the warlock instead of the caster side. But, warlock is mostly there for the buffs n fluffs since getting a 14?d6 blast is less great than 9th or 8th or maybe 3rd level spells.

my current hang up overall is the prop wand. i was really digging the stuff from establishing it as a Legacy item, but it looks like when compared to a self made wondrous item its a lot of effort for nothing. i need to work up the math just to check, but it dosnt seems worth it.

iv also put a little bit of time into trying to get warlock 12 (imbue item) and 9th lvl spells. 8s are doable about 5 different ways but... 8 isnt 9.

[altpersona]

looking over Legacy again and doing some tinkering;

the cost for establishing a Legacy item are gp cheap but giving up CL and slots sucks, still reading.

JPM, only using the last 5 levels for jpm seems to be less good than escalation or ab.champ. meeting the prereqs, loosing caster level kinda sucks.

initiator lvl 12? 5 maneuvers, 2 stances and no recovery method. i dont know enough about ToB to know if the 'tricks' can be done in such limited confines.

i'll add a jpm version to my spreadsheet, whats one more iteration...

and arcane swordsage, i'll have to read more... overall the Initiators dont flavor to well for the OP purposes... might have to make those versions from duskblade or bard.

[altpersona]

any thoughts on conflicts between your Legacy Item being your Item Familiar?

or having two Item Familiars?

[altpersona]

while i would like to see what a CO/TO Legacy Item could look like, i know im not the one to design it, i dont think LI is gonna work out. at least not with it and Item Familiar.

50kgp is pretty cheap for a single item w/ 6 to 15 features.

a Ring of Three Wishes is 98k, a legacy item can give 4? wishes and 10? other abilities. probably worth the cost.

the more i look at it, i think drop the Item Familiar instead... but it dosnt cost any spell slots or caster level.

doing the workup for the item familiar / Spell linked familiar looks like it'll be 4 cantrips, 3 lvl 1s, 2 lvl 2, 2 lvl 9s and 3x sapience.

could give up a 9 for more spells, but the only thing that will get me is a 6th lvl and more cantrips or two 2s and cantrips. one @1 sounds better, even if they are all coming out of my spells /day.

Item familiar / Spell Linked Familiar works out to about 18? abilities, nearly the same as Legacy.

[altpersona]

done working on this, it works out about like i expected but not better

about as exciting as Spell Thematics....

Items make your character better; is that a surprise?

if your in a low magic item game, then both Legacy and Item familiar can give you a boost.

Item familiar is not bad for a 1 feat cost. you item can cast some of your spells for you, 9s are always nice but its not like they are extra spells. they are just from your allotment and mostly low low level.

Legacy gives some more variety but costs several feats and more.

for my original purpose, any warlock or caster can pick up a stick and act like its important. making that stick important is nice, but the existing term for that is 'magic item'.

it might work out that a Warlock 12+ making funky Wondrous Items most closely fits my OP.

if you can make your own collection of WI's w/ All the best spells, your doing all right. you only need 1 feat for that and you might be able to give that feat to your self via an item and retrain your original feat. 

i might take a bit to work on some WI's, but im not crazy about the grey areas in magic item creation.

so thats my 2c on waving a stick around.

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

needs more cowbell... and bloodlines 

I'm wish we had more space. I'd sig this in a heartbeat.