Once again it might be time to start the fight again for the Practiced Spellcaster feat. Here is the feat for those that might not know/remember.

Practiced Spellcaster

Choose a spellcasting class that you possess. Your spells cast from that class are more powerful.

Prerequisite: Spellcraft 4 ranks.

Benefit: Your caster level for the chosen spellcasting class increases by 4. This benefit can’t increase your caster level to higher than your Hit Dice. However, even if you can’t benefit from the full bonus immediately, if you later gain Hit Dice in levels of nonspellcasting classes, you might be able to apply the rest of the bonus.

For example, a human 5th-level sorcerer/3rd-level fighter who selects this feat would increase his sorcerer caster level from 5th to 8th (since he has 8 Hit Dice). If he later gained a fighter level, he would gain the remainder of the bonus and his sorcerer caster level would become 9th (since he now has 9 Hit Dice).

A character with two or more spellcasting classes (such as a bard/sorcerer or a ranger/druid) must choose which class gains the feat’s effect.

This feat does not affect your spells per day or spells known. It increases your caster level only, which would help you penetrate spell resistance and increase the duration and other effects of your spells.

Special: You may select this feat multiple times. Each time you choose it, you must apply it to a different spellcasting class. For instance, a 4th-level cleric/5th-level wizard who had selected this feat twice would cast cleric spells as an 8th-level caster and wizard spells as a 9th-level caster.

My argument would be with many of these class abilities getting fixed to use class level and not character levels (hit dice) there is a need for Practiced Spellcaster. Maybe with some minor changes to also help with some of the monk abilities….

So here is my old post wondering what would make this feat too good?

❤

The Winds of Change are once again with us. And we all know what that means, DOOOoooM. Well odds are that is the impression you would get if you looked at the forums for any amount of time. So yep once again I crawl in to my doom shelter and get ready to weather the storm. Can you tell I live in Kansas with imagery like that?

Lets take a quick look at what is on the list for today.

Acid Rain – Release Notes Correct? Will Acid Rain become the new Wall of Fire? Maybe I hope you have your 30 acid item already. Okay maybe a less doom in the original post then the follow up posts. But I have never seen Ghoste go full on doomie on us. Cooler heads and all that. But some of the math being stated …. wow. I have always liked Acid Rain, and its little brother Acid Arrow but if this math pans out I might have to leave my wife and marry Acid Rain. Or at least see about a threesome. Come on baby you, me and Acid Rain. You know it will burn just right.

New spells makes existing Wizard upset. We we have a few new spells. Looks a lot like Acid Arrow but doing cold or electric damage. But there are no scrolls for these new spells, DOOOOOom. Come on we all know that scrolls for new spells will be in chests. Get a character in to the right level range for the and be happy when your scrolled. Oh looks like these new spells are level 5, good to know.

The last one for today.

Multiclass casters and enhancements not using the proper class levels change. This change will not kill multi-classed builds. Well maybe it will hurt those so deeply splashed they are almost built around using a loop hole in how some abilities were working. Do I like this change? Yes and no. It is hard to see a few fun builds get “nerfed” to death. But at the same time if this opens the way for us to get the Practiced Spell caster feat and/or a way to get some Mystic Theurge like builds to work I am game.

All right guys, always it is only a doomy out as you want it to be.

Will there be changes you don’t like? Yep.

And I bet there is a long list of ones I won’t/don’t like on the way.

But I bet there will still be a game once they are here. And I bet update 10 will also be full of Dooom and gloom.

❤

So I have started and stop todays post 3 or 4 times. Each time I have started I have tried to write a new post I have swapped topics and got I don’t know a few lines of content and run out of steam. So today scatter shot.

Break:
I have been on the TR grind for the last few weeks. And the last few nights I have taken a kind of break from Xp by knocking out a few epics. I have a ton of Cove Items to slot up. And last night I logged off after an hour or so.

Some times you need a break, a change of pace as it where. So now that I took some time off it is back to XP per hour baby. Back to Giant Hold.

Drama: So Tobril and I have gotten in to some drama. While on my break we ran BoB and Tide on Epic over and over (other epics as we felt like it). First one then the other, and swap Pcs and post a new Lfm. The first few runs we just take whoever. But soon we noticed a trend. At least one pugger per run was not a helper. And we hit myDdo and we noticed a pattern. People loaded up with cove epic items and lacking other important items/stats, like Hps and fort. So he posted a comment.

Believe me folks. All the gear in the world wont make you great if your skill level is shitty. If you need help, say something. Most people will try to help you out. If they don’t you don’t want to play those people.

If you are missing gear or need something explained, ask for help.

Okay that is plenty for today. I hope tomorrow my muse is a little more helpful.

<3s

I don’t have ALL the answers. I know. Go ahead and keep on disbelieving. I am willing to be a minor god in your eyes. But that really is the ugly truth, I don’t have all the answers right the second you ask me. I may have to do that “research thing” to learn the answer.

Why am bringing this up? I was asked about a building a melee wizard/monk with the new undead forms.

You know I never found a good way to feel like a wizard and add monk levels and do good melee damage. Sure I can use rouge and get fair damage in melee mode. But monk levels and wraps? My TR layout is 3 monk/ 6 ranger/ 11x with my main weapon as wraps so how come I can’t get behind a 18/2 wiz/monk? I thing it all comes down to stats and feats BAB.

Lets look at my 2nd life wiz/rog stats:
Strength 14
Dexterity 8
Constitution 14
Intelligence 18
Wisdom 13
Charisma 8

So do these stats say monk? Not to me…. Not enough str or con and where is the dex for the two weapons chain? But I guess you could use an staff but doesn’t that remove the reasons for a cool monk splash?

Feats: This is my basic layout for feats for a Wiz.

Power Attack (can be a monk bonus)
Extend Spell
Toughness (can be a monk bonus)
Maximize Spell
Spell Focus: Necromancy
Insightful Reflexes
Heighten Spell
Spell Focus: Necromancy
Quicken Spell
Empower Spell
Past Life: Arcane Initiate
(Past Life) Past Life: Wizard

I guess we have two bonus feats. So if we did get our stats up enough we have a few open feats for twf and Itwf. But our BAB will never be good enough to get Gtwf.

Now I am not saying that we can’t make something work just it starts to loose wizard levels and picks up fighter or Ranger levels and by then you turn to a melee/caster and less of a caster. I love those builds too. But they are not Wizards. I will share with you Samyus or Javabot some time, they have a Wiz symbol but are melee builds. No really.

So once again the sky it falling. Time to TR into a melee or I guess +5 hearts are back time to buy 4 and move to not a caster.

If your one of the people that are freaking out because Wall of Fire is changing just go a head and find a new game, die in a fire or you can take a breath and relax. From what I have read these spell changes are not the end of the world. Are some spells getting a little nerf? Yes. But is WoF really one of them? Not really. Not that its not getting a nerf. Just that it is not that big of a deal. The spells I am worried about are the ones where the cool down timer as shot way up, aka Wail of the Banshee.

My gut feels is that the devs want us to use a wider selection of spells per quest. Always be doing something. Melees are always in motion. Sure some times you turn on your auto attack and go afk, but most of the time swing, swing, some attack option, move, next target… You can look at the wizards PREs and see that they are trying to get us doing something all the time. So making some spells have a set timer is fine.

Also I think a lot of of changes lately is to reduce pathing calculations. Seems like making kiting less attractive would also help with lower those

Okay now that that is done, lets take about how a few ways to adjust. We can cast a lot more spells per rest, now that the costs are being reworked. Also now that both arcane classes have PRE lines people will have access to cheep spell like abilities, all arcanes have something “magical” at do. And you know you can always cast attack with a weapon. I think shield blocking and taking it will become more popular. So mobs wont get extra saves.

So lets look at the shields I am looking at for blocking.

Fanion my go to shield. 0% Asf, magi and GFL, blocking DR 2. It is a good level 12 shield.

Epic shield X. Most epic shields have blocking DR 12, and a way to add a blue slot for -15% asf. I like the epic Kundarak Warding Shield just so I could get a spare slot.

But I think the best shield if your shield blocking with right now is the epic Swashbuckler. +6, Superior Parrying , Doublestrike 6% , Guardbreaking, Riposte, Exceptional Dexterity +2, Blue Augment Slot for the -15% with blocking DR 8 To me it feels like the right shield for for the time investment.

So I don’t know about you but I will be standing in a WoF, with my Death Aura ticking, spaming my nerco attacks while blocking or using my lighting 2 maul. It is all about clearing mobs and getting to the end and the XP!

I don’t know about your pencil and paper game but mine from a long long long time ago would have your standard cookie cuter magic items. But from time to time this strange magical item would fall into our laps. I bet all you old time pnpers have a favorites list. Here is a few from mine and a possibile version of them for DDo.

As always it would be great if a dev or two take a fancy to an item and pushes it though the development cycle. But I won’t be holding my breath waiting for them.

Vorpal Bunny Slippers: These are cute pink bunny slippers. With a bonus to Move Silently and movement speed. But the really great thing I would like to see is unarmed attacks treated as vorpal when wearing the slippers or at least the kicks. 🙂

Blade of Grass: This is a small shield or a buckler with it’s art work as a big green blade of grass. It has bonuses to Hide and Move Silently but the main purpose of the shield is it casts makes the welder invisible and lowers agro any time the user shield blocks. The Invis ends a few seconds after the welder is done blocking.

“A master thief of my skill can hide in the shadow of a blade of grass!” Every rogue I have ever played with.

Wand/Rod of Blunder: This would be a muilti action or random clickly not unlike the Staff from Demon Queen or Kormor’s Belt. But there is a simi high chance that the effect is not super helpful or even selfgriefing. Example: You fire off a fireball from the item it hits the target and then a fireball shoots out from the target back at the user. I like the this can be really good or really bad depending on the dice roll.

More then once my only weapon was one of these wands/rods and it would never fail to disappoint. But I remember those games the most clearly.

There are many more just off kilter items out there. Heck, there are tons in the DMGs and published campaigns. I always thought that these fun magic item added a lot of spice to a pnp game I bet adding them to Ddo would do the same.

So last time I covered metamagic rods and gnomes. Today I want Instantaneous Fly and a way to move raid loot between characters.

Okay I am not sure if I got the name right. In fact a few quick Google searches and I am simi sure I got it wrong. But that is the name in my head so I am going with it.

I know it is a 3rd level spell from one of the “Complete” books. Arcane or Mage, I am not sure which, but I can explain what it does. First it is a free spell, hence the “Instantaneous” in the title. It is a fly spell. Do I need to point out “fly” in the title? I don’t think so. But what is does lets you fly for one round then you feather fall back down.

Sound familiar?

If your a monk or favored soul it should. That is how the Devs implemented both the Abundant Step and Leap of Faith. I don’t know about you, but I would like to have the option to also have this spell on my arcane casters. Hell, they sold consumable clicklies in the store. Can the classes that should have the option get the spell please?

—————-
Now one of the things I see a lot on the forums or get emails about is raid loot drama. I know in my world I raid until I get the few items I want from a given raid then I stop doing that raid. Or rarely get to 20 for a shot at a tome.

But if there was some way I could make a piece of BtC loot BtA until it is equipped then it could become BtC again that would be gravy.

I know. I know. “No one would ever put raid loot up for roll again”… Shut up, that is a bunch of BS!

One, there will always be a group of people that would rather share then hoard everything.

And two, Once you slap a few TP cost to moving an item there becomes an whole group of people that would rarely if ever move something. These are the people that want to play for as cheaply as possible. I have a few friends that play just like this.

What I see as a possible way to make this happen is sell an “stone/widget/doohickey” in the store for a reasonable price. Some place in the 400 – 500 Tp range. Then place said “stone/widget/doohickey” into the stone of change along with the bound item you want to move, combine, move to the shared bank, move to character X, profit.

Why do I see this is a good thing to add to the store?
Simple, it would sell. And money for Turbine is a very good thing.

Also I know I have lots of great pieces of raid loot that just sit in my bank/s. Stuff I might have hunted for in the past but now have out grown or stuff I lucked sacked into short manning a raid or something no one else wanted but I saw a possible use for but never really developed its usage. If it happens to me it has happened to all of us at one time or another or will sooner or later.

I have been doing the TR thing, I have been really getting into how much fun playing with all this raid loot at their minimum levels can be.

Also I bet I would raid more often if I could share the wealth with some of my own characters. Greed is a good motivator.

You know there is another option possible other then selling an item in the store. Make the loot from a 20th loot list BtA, BtC on equip. There is less money made for Turbine this way. But I think more or the player base would go along with this plan. Your 20th lists can’t be rolled on. But gives a reason to keep raiding.

<3,
Samius

So Fopo as discovered that I might know what I am talking about when it comes to Wizards. And He as asked me for the blueprint for how I would make a Elf Wiz. This is what I think is the best way for now.

2 Rogue 18 Wizard

Abilities Base Stats
(34 Point) (Level 1)
Strength 14
Dexterity 8
Constitution 14
Intelligence 18 (all level ups, tomes eaten at 3 and 7 for sure! You want those skills)
Wisdom 13
Charisma 9

Tomes Used
+1 Tome of Intelligence used at level 3
+1 Tome of Charisma used at level 3

Skills
The idea is to max Search and Disable each level and Intimadate, Concentration when able. We can play catch up on UMD when we take that next Rog level which is at level 9. Let Concentration slip to keep imporant skill maxed, well will be able to add points to it again at level 16.

Level 1 (Rogue)
(Half-Elf Dilettante) Half-Elf Dilettante: Cleric / swap to Monk when Umd is high enough and enjoy a fair amount of healing amp.
(Past Life) Past Life: Wizard
(Selected) Power Attack
Level 2 (Wizard)
(Wizard Bonus) Extend Spell
Level 3 (Wizard)
(Selected) Toughness
Level 4 (Wizard)
Level 5 (Wizard)
Level 6 (Wizard)
(Selected) Maximize Spell
(Wizard Bonus) Spell Focus: Necromancy
Level 7 (Wizard) Pale master 1
I layed out Enchments at 7 so you can see how I get started.
Rogue Haste Boost I
Human Improved Recovery I
Human Versatility I
Human Versatility II
Racial Toughness I
Racial Toughness II
Rogue Sneak Attack Training I
Improved Disable Device I
Improved Intimidate I
Improved Search I
Wizard Lineage of Elements I
Wizard Elemental Manipulation I
Wizard Elemental Manipulation II
Wizard Energy of the Scholar I
Wizard Intelligence I
Wizard Wand and Scroll Mastery I
Wizard Wand Heightening I
Wizard Pale Master I

Level 8 (Wizard)
Level 9 (Rogue)
(Selected) Insightful Reflexes
Level 10 (Wizard)
Level 11 (Wizard)
Level 12 (Wizard)
(Wizard Bonus) Heighten Spell (?)
(Selected) Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy
Level 13 (Wizard)
Level 14 (Wizard) Pale master 2, to be clear here I like Lich
Level 15 (Wizard)
(Selected) Quicken Spell (?)
Level 16 (Wizard)
Level 17 (Wizard)
(Wizard Bonus) Empower Spell (?)
Level 18 (Wizard)
(Selected) Past Life: Arcane Initiate (?)
Level 19 (Wizard)
Level 20 (Wizard) Pale master 3

Have you ever been playing a character and realize with a few simi quick pieces of gear it would be, at least for now, done?

Let me explain with Samius in the TR grinder when I have been called to help with the cove farming I have turned to another to help, As400. A.S. Is a Warforge wiz/rog 18/2 pale master. And while not as good as Samius was before starting this last batch of TR, A.S. is right up there.

We were coving on Friday, then after finishing up a set of runs the 3 of us decided to hit up the DQ raid. And I noticed it is A.S.’s first DQ. It is a quick run, two wizards and a FvS but we are caped and knocking out a quick normal so we can get back to the cove.

And Boom!

Torc. Now, while a Torc doesn’t complete a build by itself. It is one of the harder pieces to get and I would say it is a must before any caster build is complete.

So luck sack in to torc, complete. And back in to the cove.

Then I started to notice something. He is handling really well. Torc is procing, DoD is procing, damage is about right. The stars seamed to align.

Other then slotting some epic slots (mostly from the cove even), and bothering to run the shroud enough to make a few simple shroud items. I can’t think of an item he really needs. Oh a ToD ring, maybe a belt, tome never hurt…..

Werds,

So I want to talk about some things I want added to the game. But I am having a hell of a time writing an solid opening. So F -it lets start in the middle. I want…

With the new Ornamented Dagger and its clicky, I think we have a good start to adding metamagic rods to the game. All we have to do now is grant and “activate” the feat while the the clicky is counting down and boom metamagic rods. There are tons that they could add. maximize, empower, heighten, enlarge, etc.. Often you really have to time your feats selection, your metas are empower and extend and then use a metamagic rod/clickly to add say quicken or maximize when casting. It could be sweet.

Gnomes, okay City/ Arcane gnomes not Rock/Dirt gnomes. I don’t want the hillbilly gnome I want the rocken gnome race.

-2 str +2 int int ap line
ac and attack bonuses for being small
umd as a class skill
maybe have a little bonus to umd and wand scroll usage
+1 bonus to DC for illusion spells
+2 bonus to saves vs illusion
+1 racial bonus on attack rolls against kobolds and goblinoids.
4 dodge bonus to Armor Class against monsters of the giant type.

If you really want to go nuts, gnome hook hammer.

More soon. Okay mostly spells and other item but more is more.

❤
Samius