I am looking to make a Geomancer character; a caster that deals primarily in bludgeoning/thunder damage. What I can't decide on is the best Class/Subclass to get it done.
My thoughts so far are a Transmutation Wizard with Artificer Initiate to get Magic Stone and Catapult or Grease, a Land (Mountain) Druid [but this doesn't get me Maximilian's Earthen Grasp which I think is pretty essential, or a ??? Sorcerer.
Any thoughts on a Sorcerer subclass or something that I am missing?
Easiest non-M.A.D. class combo for Wizard is Artificer/Wizard. Just one level of Artificier can help you out. Gives you Magic Stone as well as healing spells, Faerie Fire, etc. Most importantly once you get past 3rd level Wizard, you can use your Art. spells for 1st level, freeing up more spells prepared for higher levels.
Wiz/Sorc and Wiz/Warlock have problems with needing Charisma. I would not take it, Charisma is usually a Wizard's dump stat. Either Druid/Wizard or Cleric Wizard are better choices. A lot of people prefer Cleric/Wizard, in large part to get the Cleric's sub-class abilities because they appear at 1st level. You only need to take one level of that.
Rarely do you want to take more than one or two non-wizard levels. If you take 4, you have forever lost 9th level spells, and even 3 can be a real burden.
As for Subclass, being Earth based Transmutation has the most earth like spells, and has a couple of nice abilities.
Well, the Druid has a couple more earth and stone based spells than other classes. The only one they do not have is Maximilian's earthen grasp. There isn't really a sub-class (in any class) focused on "Earth" or "Stone" per se, to my knowledge, in large part because it has no direct damage 'type' connected to it (besides bludgeoning). Thunder damage usually revolves around 'storm' descriptions.
Storm Sorcerer would probably cover all the spell needs but for maximum benefit I think your DM would need to allow a small homebrew effectively changing any reference in the subclass from Lightning to Bludgeoning.
Problem is that resistance to magical bludgeoning is much rarer- than resistance to sonic or lightning.
At best I would declare that any spell you learned as bludgeoning would have to count as non-magical bludgeoning. I.e. you use magic to pick up non-magical rocks and throw them at people rather than creating a lightning bolt using magic.
One of the best multi-class combo's in the game is Sorc/Warlock. With that you go for:
Warlock - Genie - Dao (Earth). Adds prof bonus to your magic stone attacks (and anything else with an attack role, once a round), bumps up your cantrips so you can still take some other useful stuff along with you Geo themed ones. A one level dip will do ya, 2 level for Invocations of which Armour of Shadows/Mage armour could be "Armour of Stone". Lvl 3 dip with the 'Tome' Pact lets you pick another 3 cantrips from ANY class, so you could be a veritable cantrip monkey.
You could also switch it and only go 3 lvl sorc for its 1st/2nd lvl spells, or even go full on Warlock as the Dao spell list has Spike Growth / Meld into Stone / Stone shape / wall of Stone for flavour, and a 9th lvl Invocation will let you cast Conjure Elemental so you and rock an earth elemental buddy.
Divine Soul Sorcerer - Cleric spell list, hence also gives access to Meld Into Stone & Stone shape, but also you could flavour Spiritual Weapon being a big rock hitting folk, Spiritual Guardians as lots of little rocks bobbing around and Guiding Bolt just being your magic stone with some extra juice from your secret earth god/being/Dao admirier.
Clockwork soul sorcerer would give you the ability to swap out the additional spells with transmutation spells which Earthen Grasp and a few other spells that would fit. You would just have to flavor the subclass class features to the theme.
Druid circle of the land mountain would be my second choice after warlock genie dao.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Not sure why but it seems like rather than actually having earthen earth based stuff WotC has seemingly defaulted “earth” to acid. So you might want to look at adding a bunch of acid spells to your Geomancer. Another option might be to have a talk with your DM about converting many/most/some fire based spells to “lava/magma” based. Melf’s meteors would be a good example - instead of meteors it’s blobs of magma that then splatter onto folks doing damage. All the same mechanics but a bit different flavor.
I am looking to make a Geomancer character; a caster that deals primarily in bludgeoning/thunder damage. What I can't decide on is the best Class/Subclass to get it done.
I am looking to have access to Magic Stone, Mold Earth, Earth Tremor, Maximilian's Earthen Grasp, Erupting Earth, etc. It doesn't seem like any class does this with any useful subclass benefits (and I don't want to go Scribes Wizard and just make everything deal bludgeoning damage).
My thoughts so far are a Transmutation Wizard with Artificer Initiate to get Magic Stone and Catapult or Grease, a Land (Mountain) Druid [but this doesn't get me Maximilian's Earthen Grasp which I think is pretty essential, or a ??? Sorcerer.
Any thoughts on a Sorcerer subclass or something that I am missing?
Easiest non-M.A.D. class combo for Wizard is Artificer/Wizard. Just one level of Artificier can help you out. Gives you Magic Stone as well as healing spells, Faerie Fire, etc. Most importantly once you get past 3rd level Wizard, you can use your Art. spells for 1st level, freeing up more spells prepared for higher levels.
Wiz/Sorc and Wiz/Warlock have problems with needing Charisma. I would not take it, Charisma is usually a Wizard's dump stat. Either Druid/Wizard or Cleric Wizard are better choices. A lot of people prefer Cleric/Wizard, in large part to get the Cleric's sub-class abilities because they appear at 1st level. You only need to take one level of that.
Rarely do you want to take more than one or two non-wizard levels. If you take 4, you have forever lost 9th level spells, and even 3 can be a real burden.
As for Subclass, being Earth based Transmutation has the most earth like spells, and has a couple of nice abilities.
Ah, sorry.
Well, the Druid has a couple more earth and stone based spells than other classes. The only one they do not have is Maximilian's earthen grasp. There isn't really a sub-class (in any class) focused on "Earth" or "Stone" per se, to my knowledge, in large part because it has no direct damage 'type' connected to it (besides bludgeoning). Thunder damage usually revolves around 'storm' descriptions.
Storm Sorcerer would probably cover all the spell needs but for maximum benefit I think your DM would need to allow a small homebrew effectively changing any reference in the subclass from Lightning to Bludgeoning.
Problem is that resistance to magical bludgeoning is much rarer- than resistance to sonic or lightning.
At best I would declare that any spell you learned as bludgeoning would have to count as non-magical bludgeoning. I.e. you use magic to pick up non-magical rocks and throw them at people rather than creating a lightning bolt using magic.
One of the best multi-class combo's in the game is Sorc/Warlock. With that you go for:
Warlock - Genie - Dao (Earth). Adds prof bonus to your magic stone attacks (and anything else with an attack role, once a round), bumps up your cantrips so you can still take some other useful stuff along with you Geo themed ones. A one level dip will do ya, 2 level for Invocations of which Armour of Shadows/Mage armour could be "Armour of Stone". Lvl 3 dip with the 'Tome' Pact lets you pick another 3 cantrips from ANY class, so you could be a veritable cantrip monkey.
You could also switch it and only go 3 lvl sorc for its 1st/2nd lvl spells, or even go full on Warlock as the Dao spell list has Spike Growth / Meld into Stone / Stone shape / wall of Stone for flavour, and a 9th lvl Invocation will let you cast Conjure Elemental so you and rock an earth elemental buddy.
Divine Soul Sorcerer - Cleric spell list, hence also gives access to Meld Into Stone & Stone shape, but also you could flavour Spiritual Weapon being a big rock hitting folk, Spiritual Guardians as lots of little rocks bobbing around and Guiding Bolt just being your magic stone with some extra juice from your secret earth god/being/Dao admirier.
Plenty to play with.
Priest of the Forge.
Clockwork soul sorcerer would give you the ability to swap out the additional spells with transmutation spells which Earthen Grasp and a few other spells that would fit. You would just have to flavor the subclass class features to the theme.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Druid circle of the land mountain would be my second choice after warlock genie dao.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Warlocks have the Dao genie
As others have mentioned, Dao warlock is good. Have you considered earth-themed graviturgy magic wizard? After that, I’d do a land Druid.
Not sure why but it seems like rather than actually having earthen earth based stuff WotC has seemingly defaulted “earth” to acid. So you might want to look at adding a bunch of acid spells to your Geomancer. Another option might be to have a talk with your DM about converting many/most/some fire based spells to “lava/magma” based. Melf’s meteors would be a good example - instead of meteors it’s blobs of magma that then splatter onto folks doing damage. All the same mechanics but a bit different flavor.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.