[RPG] Should I take Sorcerer or Warmage for a Kobold Ultimate Magus

character-creationdnd-3.5eoptimization

I'm trying to build a Dragonwrought Kobold Ultimate Magus, but I'm having trouble deciding whether I want to do it based off a Wizard/Sorcerer or Wizard/Warmage. On one hand, Sorcerer is a Kobold favored class and lets you choose what spells you want to know as you level up (including some decent-looking Sorcerer-only spells from books like Races of the Dragon and Dragon Magic), but doesn't seem to have very many spells known. On the other hand, Warmage allows for use of light armor and the application of your INT modifier to spell damage (being a Dragonwrought wizard with some very good dice rolls, I have quite the INT modifier) as well as a decent-sized list of spells known, but with the downside of having a pre-selected list of primarily offensive spells with little room for customization.

Anyone have any information or experience that may help me decide?

Best Answer

Warmage: Just a bad class

The warmage spell list is pretty awful, and Warmage Edge just doesn’t add enough damage to be worth it.1 Armored spellcasting is much too easy to do to get excited by it as a class feature.

Finally, note that warmage class features frequently don’t help wizard spells:

Armored Mage (Ex): [...] Nor does this ability apply to spells gained from a different spellcasting class.

and

Warmage Edge (Ex): [...] The bonus from the warmage edge special ability applies only to spells that he casts as a warmage, not to those he might have by virtue of levels in another class.

Neither of them is worth much in general, but they’re worth much less to you.

Long and short: adding wizard to a warmage certainly helps the warmage, but it doesn’t help the wizard much.

1 In fact, Warmage Edge isn’t even worth investing in Intelligence for a single-classed warmage above, say, level 5; the damage just isn’t enough to justify diverting resources from Charisma, Constitution, and Dexterity. At very low levels, it can be a kind of significant amount of damage, possibly justifying some investment.

Sorcerer: Far more powerful, broken with dragonwrought shenanigans

Sorcerer gets a far better spell list than the warmage, and with Greater Draconic Rite of Passage, you can make up one of your missed levels. With Loredrake (which you arguably might qualify for but a DM would have to be insane to let you), you can make up a lot more.

Ultimately, I recommend sorcerer, but not the shenanigans. They aren’t necessary and just break the game.

Beguiler: Not mentioned, worth considering

The enchantment/illusion version of the warmage, but without a lot of the problems. Like the warmage, the beguiler comes with a more-or-less static list of spells, but knows all of them. Unlike the warmage, that list is quite good, and moreover beguiler spellcasting is based on Intelligence, which works quite nicely for a wizard. Finally, it’s a 6+Int skill class, so it makes a great choice for ECL 1 when you get ×4. Just throwing it out there. Ultimately, you can probably do more with the sorcerer because the sor/wiz list is so great, plus there’s always dragonwrought shenanigans uniquely available for sorcerer, but beguiler is in many ways easier (less diving for spells) and more elegant (all Int-based).

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