Tatical Nuker

[DetectiveJabsco]

I am about to start a new campaign where the need of tactics that involve any thing other then direct damage will be at a minimum.
Based on this fact I thought that a Nuker would be the best damage dealer. This is where my thought train stalls, I don't know if a Psion or a Wizard or a Sorc would be best, but i have no idea what to use a PrC to use

I was thinking that maybe

Evoker 6/incantrix 10/arch 4

any ideas on prc or spells?

or a DFA 20?

[Ubernoob]

Psions have endurance issues.  I say go wizard base.

[DetectiveJabsco]

thanks mate any thought on prc
and would wiz or sorc be better?

[Lycanthromancer]

What level are you? If you're starting off at higher levels, I know how to get lots of stamina off of a psion-blaster.

[JaronK]

Shadowcraft Mage does it best.  Your build should start with Gnome Illusionist 7/Shadowcraft Mage 5... after that it's totally up to you.  Residual Metamagic and Echoing Spell mean you can blast all day long without any problems, and of course you'll need Earth Spell.  Other useful PrCs would include the Anima Mage (free metamagics, vestiges) and Mindbender (Mindsight makes sure you know where your enemies are).

JaronK

[DetectiveJabsco]

sorry mate starting at level 5
all 3.5 wizzy books, including eberron and fearun but not dark sun,
party is a factotum focusing on skills and and something
a noob druid focusing on being a noob and me focusing on not dieing and killing things,
the druid has never played before and sucks at normal life so. no high hopes.

any ideas would help my plan for early on is alter self to dwarven ancester and firey blast or something, not 100% but retraining is allowed

alos, mindbender was wht i forgot, I would do shadow but illusions early on with my dm will be mediocer at be i think.

any thoughts

[Ubernoob]

Shadowcraft Mage does it best.  Your build should start with Gnome Illusionist 7/Shadowcraft Mage 5... after that it's totally up to you.  Residual Metamagic and Echoing Spell mean you can blast all day long without any problems, and of course you'll need Earth Spell.  Other useful PrCs would include the Anima Mage (free metamagics, vestiges) and Mindbender (Mindsight makes sure you know where your enemies are).

JaronK

SCM doesn't get full damage until level 15ish.  Before that actually casting the spell is better.

[JaronK]

That depends on whether flaws are allowed (OP didn't specify).  With flaws, you can do Spell Focus Illusion, Heighten Spell, Earth Sense, Earth Spell, Residual Metamagic, and Echoing Spell by level 9... that's enough for greater damage (add 1+caster level to the CL of all shadow spells) and FAR more spells per day.  Even without flaws, you get that same huge bonus, just without the insane number of spells per day (since you won't have the last two feats).  That said, my impression from the OP was that the level was higher than 5 originally, since he gave a 20 level build.

JaronK

[DetectiveJabsco]

understandable, we run 5-25's you all have been a help though i have an idea

[anomalousman]

Actual nuking, I would have said a well built sorcerer.  Or a focussed specialist conjurer.

But I'd lean towards a sorcerer with at least one reserve feat.

[Rebel7284]

Sorcerer into incantatrix into spellwarp sniper?  Wings of Flurry rays ftw!

[Runestar]

Warmages make good nukers, IMO, since you can choose the best damage spell for the job (and keep spamming that). Sorcs have the problem of too few spells known, so you may run into problems such as resistances.

[RobbyPants]

Actual nuking, I would have said a well built sorcerer.  Or a focussed specialist conjurer.

But I'd lean towards a sorcerer with at least one reserve feat.

I would suggest focused Conjurer if you want the spells per day of a sorcerer with added versatility.  Plus, starting at level 5, you'd get 3rd level spells this way (and that's when blasting starts getting fun).

Of course, you might not want to drop Evocation if you really want to blast, which makes picking three other schools tough.  I'd suggest dropping Enchantment, and any two of Abjuration, Illusion, or Necromancy.

Focused Evocer could work, but Conjuration's advantage comes from typically bypassing Spell Resistance.  What type of blasting are you looking for?  Massive AoE or more single target?  Evocation handles AoE better, but you'll still have to deal with SR when you encounter it.

The other advantage of Conjurer is the Abrupt Jaunt ACF from PHB2.  Honestly, I don't even remember what the Evocation Immediate Magic feature does.

[Prime32]

Honestly, I don't even remember what the Evocation Immediate Magic feature does.

IIRC, it lets you fire a weak beam of energy once per round at someone who has just attacked you.

A recaster could be good.

[Hezor]

Ummm, wouldn't Tactical Nuking be something for Explosive, Born of 3 thunders, energy switched snowcasted Locate City nuke? For endurance issues - you can easily throw it more than 5 times per day

[skydragonknight]

I had an arena wizard built at one point who was level 8(?) which focused on abusing the Manyjaws spell in the Spell Compendium. Note that the damage from each jaw is rolled separately. I used Knowledge Devotion and an Eager weapon(which provides a bonus to ANY damage roll on round 1) to get a +5-7 bonus on damage per die depending on my knowledge check. Also was a Recaster so I could cast one of these as a swift action and another as a standard.

[Negative Zero]

Hezor, I think you misunderstand the 'Tactical' part of the nuking.

And Skydragonknight, are you sure that Knowledge Devotion and Eager apply to each die, and not just to the total damage?

[skydragonknight]

Hezor, I think you misunderstand the 'Tactical' part of the nuking.

And Skydragonknight, are you sure that Knowledge Devotion and Eager apply to each die, and not just to the total damage?

It's a quirk of how the spell works. Each "jaw" cane be directed seperately and have seperate(1d6) damage rolls. It's very much like magic missle in that sense-another spell that can be more than doubled in damage by knowledge devotion + eager, which by definition add to any and all damage rolls.

Scorching ray, Melf's Unicorn Arrow...it works for anything where there's seperate damage rolls. Just that Manyjaws can get up to 10 seperate damage rolls at CL 10, so it's the preferred one of the group in my opinion. The downside of Manyjaws is Reflex(half), which is why my arena character had Magic Missle with an Empowered Spellshard(MIC) as a backup for rogues and monks.

I'll admit that the best use of this is for arena mages, which is likely why it fell off of the optimization radar. I was going to share knowledge of it after the arena fight, but it got cancelled so I forgot about it.

[Ubernoob]

Warmages make good nukers, IMO, since you can choose the best damage spell for the job (and keep spamming that). Sorcs have the problem of too few spells known, so you may run into problems such as resistances.

I second this at low levels.  At higher levels we get the ever so tasty wings of flurry which is hardly ever the wrong tool for the job.

[Operation Shoestring]

Warmages make good nukers, IMO, since you can choose the best damage spell for the job (and keep spamming that). Sorcs have the problem of too few spells known, so you may run into problems such as resistances.

2 Good blast spells, 1 utility spell and 1 good defensive spell is better than 1 good blast spell, 3 mediocre blast spells, and 13 useless spells per level.

And to whoever suggested it: Locate city bomb is TO only.