I was interested in making a warmage, but I was curious on how warmage EDGE worked. I had seen some pictures of insanely high damage from the test server, so I did some research on how warmage EDGE worked and what spells were good for exploiting EDGE.
So please, read the whole post or don’t read it at all.
I love that the extra damage is called EDGE. I love that there is a feat called EXTRA EDGE.
I love warmage. I haven’t played one yet and already I can see that there’s no reason to play any other caster if you just wanna blow stuff up.
But…just how much better IS warmage?
First, we have to discuss HOW warmage EDGE works. The basic equation is
(Int Modifier + EXTRA EDGE modifier) * Spell level = Bonus damage
And the way EXTRA EDGE works is an additional 1 + 1 per 4 levels EDGE modifier, so at level twenty the warmage receives an EDGE bonus of 6 from EXTRA EDGE.
Additionally, meta-magic also affects the spell level for the purposes of EDGE damage. So, a sixth level spell maximized counts as a ninth level spell. This is important.
Also important, however, is that the EDGE bonus damage cannot go over the maximum damage the spell can do. This means if a spell can only do 20 damage, regardless of how high the EDGE bonus would be, the spell will only ever do an extra 20 damage due to EDGE.
So, the total bonus damage per spell level a warmage could produce goes quite high. In fact, I made a chart for this with a few example builds.
Build one is human with 17 int starting and a +5 from Fox’s cunning. Build 2 is a +2 int subrace with 20 int starting and a +5 from Fox’s cunning. Then, the third build is to be referred to “Intmaxed” as it will be a +2 int subrace with 19 or 20 int starting, and +12 int score bonus from greater and regular fox’s cunning (available from potions). All these builds will be level 20 with the EXTRA EDGE feat.
As you can see here, even a regular human with 17 int starting can do as much damage with bonus EDGE damage as casters can do with maximized spells. An INTMAXED build can do more damage with its bonus EDGE damage than warmages do with entire spells!
This becomes especially important once taking into account meta-magic.
See, when you empower a spell as a warmage, not only does the damage of the spell go up, but so does the maximum EGDE damage. As an example, if a 10d10 spell is empowered it effectively becomes 15d10 damage, then the bonus EDGE damage goes from 100 to 150. For many spells, even a human warmage might hit the EDGE damage limit, but once empowered, any build but especially the INTMAXED build will be able to use their maximum EDGE damage.
Now that we have the background information, here is the real meat and potatoes of warmage.
This class does a stupid amount of damage like did anyone test this before putting it out onto the server?
So, the main example we will be looking at is Blade Barrier. This is a 20d6 damage spell (120 Maximized) with a reflex-half save and a duration of 1 round/level. As it is a ‘ground’ spell, it cares only about the reflex of a character and disregards saves vs spells. Reportedly, it also does damage before the effect is clearly visible on the floor.
The maximum bonus EDGE damage is 120, but when empowered the EDGE damage can go up to 180.
As you can see here, the warmage does, without meta-magic, a little over double base damage. Empowered, he does even more damage – triple damage over a regular caster! Now, a human warmage cannot hit the max-damage bonus with an unempowered or empowered blade barrier – but he can with a maximized blade barrier. That is 240 damage per round in a 30-foot-long wall! As an aside, I also included empowered INTMAXED damage. As you recall, the damage bonus for them is 152 at 8th level. This means it does even MORE damage that a human’s maximized blade barrier on average – three and a half times as much as a regular caster!
As a side note, the damage values in this graph are all generated from 20 to 30 rolls of 6 dice (or random number locked to 1-6) and then added and collated into a table. So, unlike some other graphs in this post, the damage here is realistic and shows the actual range of damage a warmage will see.
Like, wow, that is a lot of damage! This is just one ROUND of damage in one CAST. A warmage has sorcerer spell amounts too, so they can throw out who knows how many.
Now we have a comparison of the builds possible for warmage (and a non-warmage).
This just shows us again the ranges of damage depending on the dice roll of each spell empowered for each build. Unless INTMAXED most warmages will want to maximize, not empower, their blade barriers. Empowering is for spells where the warmage has more EDGE damage than the spell would allow.
“But remnar, that’s just one spell at level 20! No one will be at that level!”
I hear you; I hear your cries of anguish and despair. And I will answer them.
So I looked at how much damage a human warmage would do with various spells at various levels.
The spells I chose are Combust, ice storm, fireball, polar ray, force orb, meteor storm, lesser sound orb, and everyone’s favorite acid fog. I mostly picked these at random, aside from Combust.
Combust is an interesting spell because it lights the target on fire until they pass a reflex save. Even at a low level, the DC of this save can be about 22. Normally it is okay but with a warmage it becomes a real humdinger of a spell.
These next graphs take the maximum damage that a spell can do, which normally is only do-able by maximizing it, but for ease of creating the graphs and for looking at them (and compressing them into only two) that’s the way it is.
This first graph is the damage a regular caster can expect.
This second graph is the damage a human warmage would get (if he could auto-maximize) at all levels these spells are available.
These two graphs have the same x and y axes. As you can see, warmage just does so much more damage that, I mean, why do regular casters even try? This is all without empowering or truly maximizing (as otherwise the warmage will get a higher EDGE bonus). Both graphs have a maximized warmage blade barrier as a comparison.
As a little extra treat, warmage is an int caster, so they have plenty of skill points!
A human warmage with 17 int starts with six skill points, which allows them to take the 4 good class skills: Parry, discipline, concentration, and spellcraft. This allows them to invest into two more cross-classes, one of which will probably be tumble.
Then, at level 4, they get another skill point. Then at 12, another, and finally at 20, another but they cannot really use this one very well.
In conclusion, this stuff wack, yo. I didn’t even talk about how they have an armor that gives auto-quicken 1 and 2. For those that don’t know, that’s all spells up to 6th level that are automatically hasted!
I love warmage. I love how much damage it can do. I love how every damage spell at its disposal can do floor shaking amounts of damage. I love how because of this it can use spells people might not use that much. I love that it gets chain lightning – and makes it good! This is not a call to nerf it. I just wanted to bring attention to it – and to also show off the graphs I made in my madness to find out just how warmage worked. They are very nice graphs.
I'd be happy to answer any questions or making more graphs for different spells or variations on build or level or whatever. This actually kind of helps me get back into practice a little bit with excel. And, so everyone can see that I didn't make up these numbers and graphs, I will also provide my excel sheet I used to make this to any who ask because I don't know how to just embed it here so whatever.
