D&D: breaking a Geomancer?

Post by **Kuja** » 2007-12-07 11:45pm

For those of you who play D&D and have either Masters of the Wild or the Complete Divine, I think I need a little advice. I DM a game and one of my players has a bad habit of breaking classes to excess. Well, earlier today, he approached me about making a character using the Geomancer prestige class. This really came out of nowhere and I don't know much about the class other than what I sped-read earlier. Can any of the D&D vets tell me if there is anything inherently broken, or easily breakable about it that I may have missed?

Duckie · Post by **Duckie** » 2007-12-08 12:03am

As far as I know and remembering from the years where I still played 3e D&D, Geomancer is total weaksauce. You're giving up spell progression for goodies, ne? That means you suck ass.

If you're not giving up spell progression it means you aren't getting that much goodies anyhow. IIRC you get minor cosmetic or random worthless crap.

Yogi · Post by **Yogi** » 2007-12-08 02:16am

It falls into the Mystic thurge trap of needing arcane AND divine magic. That means at level 6 he's still casting level 2 spells. If he tries to use Precocious Apprentice, he can make it at level 4. However, then he's stuck with not even dual progression, but HALF progression. If he's smart, that means he advances one class and ignores the other. So, he's down anywhere from 1 to 3 caster levels depending if you allow Precocious Apprentice to satisfy prestige class reqs.

What he can do is to cast arcane spells in full armor if he chooses the arcane path, or use CoDzilla combined with his geomancer form to be a melee machine if he chooses the Divine path. The thing is, the "Drift" section of the Geomancer's abilities are pretty much whatever the DM and the Player agree on, so he might be trying to milk that for everything he can. It'll all depend on how much you let him get away with.

CoDzilla = Cleric or Druid - zilla. It's essentially a Cleric or Druid buffing himself (as opposed to the fighters) and engaging in melee combat, making him a tougher fighter than the Fighter, while still being able to cast spells.

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » 2007-12-08 12:02pm

A Geomancer is probably capable of being decent.

If he wanted to break your game he wouldn't be looking at it. (Or he has no clue how to optimize.)

RIPP_n_WIPE · Post by **RIPP_n_WIPE** » 2007-12-08 02:03pm

If you want really good help you need to check the character optimization boards at wizards. They pretty much have everything you'd need to min/max any build. They've even managed to have a half-decent MT and TR.

lance · Post by **lance** » 2007-12-08 04:39pm

The only thing that I could think of is that he could try wraithstrike with power attack and arcane strike.

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » 2007-12-09 02:02am

^ Anybody with 2nd level spells and decent base attack can rock that combo. There's no reason for a geomancer to be particularly good at it. That's a gish trick.

lance · Post by **lance** » 2007-12-09 05:12pm

Anguirus wrote:^ Anybody with 2nd level spells and decent base attack can rock that combo. There's no reason for a geomancer to be particularly good at it. That's a gish trick.

Geomancers can get about 6 different attacks through the drifts. 2 claws, a rake, a gore, and a bite, and then use armor spikes as the base weapon.

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » 2007-12-09 06:25pm

Hmm. Good point, that is a very nasty full attack, and a good way to exploit the wording of Arcane Strike. BAB suffers as a geomancer though, limiting what you can throw on from Power Attack.

Post by **Kuja** » 2007-12-09 09:14pm

What's wraithstrike and where is it from? Never heard of it before.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2007-12-09 09:25pm

Kuja wrote:What's wraithstrike and where is it from? Never heard of it before.

A spell that, IIRC, gives you a round where your attacks are treated as Touch. Frequently tied to Power Attack or the ToB Avalanche Of Blades.

lance · Post by **lance** » 2007-12-09 11:29pm

Its from Complete Adventurer.

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » 2007-12-10 12:36am

^ Made it into Spell Compendium too. There are a lot of easy ways to get touch attacks now but that is the most effective because it gives a whole round of them.

One proviso is that technically, you can Arcane Strike and wraithstrike. But the only reason why Arcane Strike is not a swift action is because it predates the widespread use of swift actions in the rules...it is a free action you can do once a round. I think an extremely reasonable houserule is to call Arcane Strike a swift action.

lance · Post by **lance** » 2007-12-10 06:14pm

Actually you can use Arcane strike as many times you want in a round. If your TWF you can do it once for each weapon for example.

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » 2007-12-10 11:54pm

Actually you can use Arcane strike as many times you want in a round. If your TWF you can do it once for each weapon for example.

You can't TWF (though you COULD use a double weapon) because of the wording. It applies to one weapon or your natural attacks, and it is only one free action.

lance · Post by **lance** » 2007-12-11 06:03pm

Anguirus wrote:
Actually you can use Arcane strike as many times you want in a round. If your TWF you can do it once for each weapon for example.
You can't TWF (though you COULD use a double weapon) because of the wording. It applies to one weapon or your natural attacks, and it is only one free action.

It doesn't say once per turn. As such you can burn 20 spell slots charging 20 daggers if you so chose. With the only stipulation that you have to be wielding them.