Battle Mage?

[chongowrap]

Aight guys saw a build on one of the forums...but alot of what they were saying was confusing as s***. So.... with a 32 pt WF build here is what i have...
str 18
dex 15 for twf
con 16
int 13
wis 6
cha 6

took twf and bludgeon dmg....as well as extend....what i want to know is am i on the right track? if anyone can give me some pointers in thigs to go with let me know. BTW im lvl 5 at 1 monk/1 ftr/ 3 wiz..... does good dmg and took fighter for hp and boosts.

[ColdNapalm]

That depends on how deep you wanna go into wizard.

[chongowrap]

either finish up in wiz or go 12 wiz 6 monk 2 ftr.....any suggestions

[ColdNapalm]

With that many monk levels why bother with TWF?!? I mean the dex is okay because your gonna be quite a bit of monk. With 12 wizard, I assume you wanna cast offensive spells? If so, re-roll now. If you plan on just doing buff, then it's okay...but otherwise your int is too low. Also 12th level = no 7th level spells. 7th level spells are awesome. I would drop a level of fighter for 7th level spells at the very least. Also...why a monk? Your wis is too low to add to AC. Your monk's fighting abilities isn't as good as what 6 levels of fighter will net you. TWF is a trap. Requires a high stat you don't really want and doesn't do as much damage as THF unless your have ways to generate a lot of bonus damage pre hit...which you really don't.

[Kriogen]

With starting stats and levels you have now, you could go: Wizard12/Monk6/Fighter2 or Wizard12/Fighter6/Monk2.

Which one you'd like more?

[Kriogen]

With that many monk levels why bother with TWF?!? I mean the dex is okay because your gonna be quite a bit of monk. With 12 wizard, I assume you wanna cast offensive spells? If so, re-roll now. If you plan on just doing buff, then it's okay...but otherwise your int is too low. Also 12th level = no 7th level spells. 7th level spells are awesome. I would drop a level of fighter for 7th level spells at the very least. Also...why a monk? Your wis is too low to add to AC. Your monk's fighting abilities isn't as good as what 6 levels of fighter will net you. TWF is a trap. Requires a high stat you don't really want and doesn't do as much damage as THF unless your have ways to generate a lot of bonus damage pre hit...which you really don't.

TWF is Good Stuff.

With Wizard12 you can buff good, self repair good (Quicken Reconstuct) and add some nuke (wall of fire, cone of cold, archmage force based nuke). NOT DC based spells, damage spells.

Monk is for 2 bonus feats and Evasion. If centered (handwraps, vorpal kama, dreamspitter, staff of shadows) you can also use monk stance for a small extra boost.

AC at high levels is kinda blah anyway.

I think OP wants "battle mage", "spellsword", not "caster that can fight".

[JasonJi72]

With those stats, I would suggest taking no more than 7 wiz for stoneskin, elemental shield, haste, blur, and resist energy 20/. 3 monk / 10 fighter, or a 6/7 fighter monk combo. 7 fighter and 7 monk give decent enhancements; choose which you like better and/or which one you want to end with.

If you have your heart set on a melee caster, I would suggest 3 options:

1. Warforged sorc/wiz max casting stat with high con and str; just beat on the enemies you cast hold on in between charm and firewall.

2. Play a warchanter.

3. Play a melee fvs or a battle cleric.

If you wish to play a monk... play a monk.

[wax_on_wax_off]

TWF is Good Stuff.

With Wizard12 you can buff good, self repair good (Quicken Reconstuct) and add some nuke (wall of fire, cone of cold, archmage force based nuke). NOT DC based spells, damage spells.

Monk is for 2 bonus feats and Evasion. If centered (handwraps, vorpal kama, dreamspitter, staff of shadows) you can also use monk stance for a small extra boost.

AC at high levels is kinda blah anyway.

I think OP wants "battle mage", "spellsword", not "caster that can fight".

Ignore everyone but this guy.

To make this build work you will be a divine power clicky junky but 12 wizard, 6 fighter or monk, 2 of the other is a good mix. Quickened recons are great and the buff spells and no save damage spells up to this point are great.

Consider the palemaster in undead form unarmed with 6 monk levels as well

[Stonen]

Ignore everyone but this guy.

To make this build work you will be a divine power clicky junky but 12 wizard, 6 fighter or monk, 2 of the other is a good mix. Quickened recons are great and the buff spells and no save damage spells up to this point are great.

Consider the palemaster in undead form unarmed with 6 monk levels as well

True.

Go palemaster if you are a fleshy. Reconstructs dont work when you are undead, so you would loose your biggest advantage as a warforged.

[Lycurgus]

You might want to consider 2 levels of rogue instead of monk and THF instead of TWF? That would let you dump the dex for more str/con/int and you'll have an easier time whacking things for more damage at higher levels.

[Quarterling]

32-point WF

Str: 16
Dex: 8
Con: 16
Int: 18
Wis: 6
Cha: 6

*Level-ups into Int
*Take Archmage PrE all the way to Tier V and go Enchantment
*Get all five Enchantment spells perma-memorized
*Cast haste and rage
*Now fascinate entire groups of mobs for only 1 sp
*Individually hold person/monster for up to 15 sp each
*Beat down held monster with heavy picks with autocrit
*Once monster is dead, hold the next

This works very nice in epics for my Enchantment-specc'ed AM wizard. Pros are that it's cheaper than insta-kill spells, the DC's are higher, it's more fun, you can use it in epics (whereas insta-kill spells you can't).

Cons are that it takes longer to kill enemies as opposed to insta-kill spells.

[ColdNapalm]

TWF is Good Stuff.

With Wizard12 you can buff good, self repair good (Quicken Reconstuct) and add some nuke (wall of fire, cone of cold, archmage force based nuke). NOT DC based spells, damage spells.

Monk is for 2 bonus feats and Evasion. If centered (handwraps, vorpal kama, dreamspitter, staff of shadows) you can also use monk stance for a small extra boost.

AC at high levels is kinda blah anyway.

I think OP wants "battle mage", "spellsword", not "caster that can fight".

Wiz 8 pretty much gets all the good buff spells that wiz 12 gives you. The ONLY reason to reach wiz 12 is for self healing purposes...but that comes at a cost a whole lot of wizard levels that won't give you much else. And if your a warforge, it's not like you don't have the repair spells. But yes wiz 8 or 12 is kinda a meh point...but since your gonna solo a lot with either splits of wizard, maybe 12 is better...you may have swayed me on this point.

Monk 2 is for feats and evasion...what is monk 6 doing for this particular build? I just don't see it. Honestly I'd just dump dex and gain 6 levels of rangers...you gain TWF and ITWF no matter what your dex is...and tempest 1 adds 10% which is only 10% lower them GTWF anyways.

And yes I know AC becomes pretty useless unless you build for it...hey guess what going deep in monks are used for. Having 15 dex with 6 wis is counter productive. Either dump your AC (see above for how) and put precious stat points elsewhere or raise wis and go for an AC build.

[ColdNapalm]

32-point WF

Str: 16
Dex: 8
Con: 16
Int: 18
Wis: 6
Cha: 6

*Level-ups into Int
*Take Archmage PrE all the way to Tier V and go Enchantment
*Get all five Enchantment spells perma-memorized
*Cast haste and rage
*Now fascinate entire groups of mobs for only 1 sp
*Individually hold person/monster for up to 15 sp each
*Beat down held monster with heavy picks with autocrit
*Once monster is dead, hold the next

This works very nice in epics for my Enchantment-specc'ed AM wizard. Pros are that it's cheaper than insta-kill spells, the DC's are higher, it's more fun, you can use it in epics (whereas insta-kill spells you can't).

Cons are that it takes longer to kill enemies as opposed to insta-kill spells.

That is 18 levels of wizard...that at best is a character that that swing a sword around at trash mobs.

[Quarterling]

That is 18 levels of wizard...that at best is a character that that swing a sword around at trash mobs.

Picks, not swords. Because picks have a x4 crit instead of x2 or x3, they are favored in epics especially because you will easily hold monsters and get auto-crit situations.

If you are trying to make a wizard that can do well for red/purple named end-game bosses (Amrath/Epics), you will just want to go full melee class. It's pointless to try to balance otherwise because you would in the end have too few wizard levels to make yourself useful as a wizard, and not enough melee levels to make yourself useful as a melee.

If you don't want to go pure wizard, try going 18 wiz/2 ftr and use your bonus feats on TWF (you may need to drop str, con, and/or int some to get as well as use a +2 tome).

And why even take 12 levels of wizard? Your save DC's are horrible, your spell damage is minimal, and as for buffs, they will be short and if a pure wizard joins, he will make all your buffs obsolete.

[ColdNapalm]

Picks, not swords. Because picks have a x4 crit instead of x2 or x3, they are favored in epics especially because you will easily hold monsters and get auto-crit situations.

If you are trying to make a wizard that can do well for red/purple named end-game bosses (Amrath/Epics), you will just want to go full melee class. It's pointless to try to balance otherwise because you would in the end have too few wizard levels to make yourself useful as a wizard, and not enough melee levels to make yourself useful as a melee.

If you don't want to go pure wizard, try going 18 wiz/2 ftr and use your bonus feats on TWF (you may need to drop str, con, and/or int some to get as well as use a +2 tome).

And why even take 12 levels of wizard? Your save DC's are horrible, your spell damage is minimal, and as for buffs, they will be short and if a pure wizard joins, he will make all your buffs obsolete.

And yes that is exactly my point .

Wizard 8 is useful because of fireshield mostly (self only spell)...but false life (self only temp HP) and icestorm (no save slow down area) are also somewhat useful...everything else will be done better by the party arcane...which is NOT you. This leaves enough levels free to pick up kensei 2 for str surge. However as a counter point, wizard 12 gives self healing to fleshies and reconstruct for WF...so I'm kinda tossed on that. I do think that the healing ability doesn't really make up for losing kensei 2 from a melee PoV...but with such massive wizard investment and not going to 17, I can't see one in groups very much so the healing ability maybe somewhat vital then.