I Made a Transmutation Specialist: Gaiden
Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2022 11:33 am
I am once again bumping this topic to talk about Trasmutation specialists outside a vacuum and why I think that, with the recent updates to classes that do similar things, it is now fair to call Transmutation Specialization a trap option. That is to say, an option that dangles one very interesting thing in front of you, but doesn't give you enough for what you invest into it. I'm not trying to be salty here. I am currently working on doing some broader numbers for all of the specialists to see if I can or cannot recommend a few of them,(Illu and Enchantment remain pretty good choices. The tradeoffs are harsh, but what you get in return is good for RP and can be decent for mechanics.) but here goes:
A Transmutation Wizard focused on Tenser's -- Difficult, but doable thanks to your zoobuffs, you can have a full +15 attack stat -- Dex or Str -- and have access to 9th level spells and have AB in the 48-53 range (I'll elaborate on the math a little later). Plus CL*6 Temp HP every time you hit the Tenser's button.
This looks really decent if you take it at face value. However, Shaman and Spellswords can hit similar ABs. Battle Favored Souls & Clerics blow those numbers out of the water. On top of this, these classes often have better base HP and/or access to regen. Finally, barring spellswords, all of these classes can cast while using their analog to tensers.
Furthermore, with Spellsword having access to Mordekainen's Disjunction and Timestop, the notion that Transmutation Wizards are powerful wizards and therefore, shouldn't be able to do anything martial as well as a martial class starts to feel a little silly.
Finally, in order to get the numbers above, you have to have a significant feat investment to do well with them, which follows; For melee variants: Weapon Focus, Blind Fight, Expertise, Improved Expertise, Epic Weapon Focus, Epic Prowess. Optionally, or not optionally depending on whether you want to do decent damage, Improved Critical. There's also Knockdown and Improved Knockdown to think about, but those are both optional. That's seven or more feats! That's seven feats worth of stuff you could put into wizard feats that you are instead putting into martial ability. There are ways to take the edge off, namely, dipping Fighter becomes very attractive, but for every level you dip fighter, your CL drops. In order to remain in tenser's, you need to have a decently high CL, which makes Spell Focus: Abjuration and Arcane Defense: Abjuration both a must.(Which'll eat two of your pre-epic wizard feats.)
For ranged variants -- which work well with Ranger because of this -- you need Weapon Focus, Epic Weapon Focus, Rapid Reload or Rapid Shot, Point Blank Shot, Blind Fight, Epic Prowess and optionally Improved Critical. Called Shot is nice to have, but not a requirement. That's an investment of six feats to seven feats, so slightly less.
Here's the math for the AB range above:
15 BAB at 30(10 from wizard, 5 from epic progression)
14-16 STR or DEX modifier
12-13 From Transmutation Specialist Tenser's(It gives you slightly more AB if you're a transmutation specialist)
4-5 Weapon Enhancement Bonus
3-4 Weapon Focus, Epic Weapon Focus, Epic Prowess
48-53 AB in Tenser's.
Because of the way the soft AB cap works, you can't ever go above +20 soft AB. Factored into this is all of the Tenser's Bonus, and the Weapon Enhancement Bonus. Here's what a Tenser's Wizard chugging a TS pot looks like:
15 BAB
20 Soft Attack Bonus
14-16 STR or DEX
3-4 Weapon Focus, Epic Weapon Focus, Epic Prowess
52-55 AB in Tenser's with the Soft AB cap maxed.
Epic Prowess is almost essential specifically because it counts as hard AB. You can see why here. Again, while you're in Tenser's -- which takes at least half a round to enter, and which you'll have a limited number of uses of every three minutes, and which you'll have to dispel in order to cast any spells -- your AB'll hover around 48-53. Potentially 55 if you've got a bard friend. This is enough to deal with some rough PVE stuff, but it's contingent entirely on whether or not you get dispelled. I don't have confirmation on this, but some testing suggests the signature spell version of Tenser's Transformation casts at a lower CL than it's supposed to, making it even more susceptible to dispels.
So let's talk AC. EMA gives you a +5 Armor Bonus, +5 Deflection Bonus, +5 Natural Armor Bonus, and +5 Dodge Bonus to your AC. It's pretty cool.
Dex Option:
10 -- Base AC
5-6 -- Shield(If you dip for it.)
20 -- EMA
14-16 Dex
1 -- MA(Dodge bonus stacks with EMA for some reason)
1 -- Dodge Boots
3-6 -- Tumble
2 -- Armor Skin
4 -- Haste
60-66 AC(Or +1 if you're small-sized) This is actually pretty good with Improved Expertise,(76 AC? Wow!) but it hinges on using a shield or parry, and falls apart when you can't do that.
Strength Option:
10 -- Base AC
8-9 -- Armor(Between Dex Bonus & Armor Bonus. If you dip for it, you'll need still spell to compensate for Arcane Spell Failure. Edit: Or use Spellthief's & A Greensteel Large Shield. Whoops.)
5-6 -- Shield
20 -- EMA
1 -- MA
1 -- Dodge boots
3-6 -- Tumble
2 -- Armor Skin
4 -- Haste
54-59 AC(Or, again +1 if you're small-sized) This looks great, but you'll need still spell or automatic still spell to make this work, which further eats into your feats. Curiously, the signature spell version of Tenser's is not affected by ASF. I played around with making something like this work, and I couldn't make it work in a way that made any amount of sense to me. If you can get it to work, you can potentially have a strength build with 69 AC in IE(Nice.)
High AC is great, but a ranged Tenser's wizard will make a lot more sense, since your damage is less dependent on your attack stat. However, if you want to make a ranged full-caster, it's still recommended to make a zen archer shaman or cleric, as they have access to spells that will allow them to out perform your tenser's wizard easily.
Caster-focused Transmutation Specialist
So let's talk about taking the specialization to be an actual caster. Losing conjuration sucks just, a lot. There are plenty of spells in conjuration aside from summoning monsters that are pretty great. Mestil's Acid Sheath and Acid Fog come to mind.(Mage Armor and Flame Arrow[Which is Conjuration!], you can get back through Shadow Conjuration/Evocation, but you can't empower or max a shadow conjuration flame arrow.) Even so, you can still summon undead, and you can buff them pretty dang well since your Transmutation specialist boon affects all consumable versions of the zoobuffs. However, a clever generalist wizard'll with transmutation spell foci'll be able to do the same thing just fine with pots & empowered zoobuffs. And again, so can shamans, so can favored souls, and so can clerics.(Who also get access to Aura of Vitality.) You're not actually getting much special. In a well-equipped party, you won't act as a particularly more canny support either. Your zoobuffs will help your allies hit the caps they're already trying to hit with their equipment. So while +8 auto-maxed zoobuffs sound really attractive, in practice, its uses v. the standard empowered trans foci zoobuffs are edge-cases. They might help your undead be slightly better than the competition.
The point is, even as a caster, it's luke-warm, and if you're a surfacer, it's going to be a hell of a struggle until you get access to EMA and Planar Conduit.
Additionally, I never really did get an answer on whether or not Planar Conduit or EMA are cheating for Transmutation Specialists, since both of these are technically rooted in Conjuration -- Transmutation Specialist's banned schools. But if they are, then there's going to be a lot of changes up there.
Maybe Tenser's Transformation is supposed to be used by a caster-focused wizard as a PVE tool then, right? Here's what the AB looks like for that:
15 BAB
9-10 Attack Stat Mod(Dex or Strength.)
12-13 from Tenser's
4-5 Weapon Enhancement Bonus
40-43 AB at ~ 4-5 APR with Tenser's & Haste. 43 AB isn't near enough to be impressive against a lot of PVE enemies at 30. It might help you clear road-trash.
Alright, so what's my conclusion here? Transmutation Specialist actually had some strong, unusual, and really cheesy synergies back before the monk nerfs and a few other things were shuffled around, especially as a wizard-focused melee. But with the advent of the new Spellswords -- which are wicked cool -- it's become more than obvious that the niche that Transmutation Specialists have been trying to muscle into is just something they were never meant to. Maybe it's time to re-think how these specializations work, and how wizard, in general, functions outside of a vacuum.
My whole big archetypal fantasy for Transmutation wizards is this: You have a wizard that obsesses over magic not for the sake of the pursuit of knowledge, but for the perfection of themselves through magic. Physical, mental, emotional perfection through magic that they rigorously study to change themselves rather than the world around them. Whether they do this to take idealized forms, or obssessively, vainly improve their own form, it is something they single-mindedly focus their studies on. The martial prowess that comes from this should be secondary -- less a focus of their work, and more the fruit of it. While they should never be as skilled as someone who has dedicated their mind, body, and soul to the very real and physical pursuit of martial combat, they should be terrifying in their own right -- something you approach with apprehension, and the knowledge that the fight with a transmutationist wizard is best ended before their transformation can take hold. I think that's a cool idea. Maybe you think it's just more wizard goofin'.
But.
Arelith doesn't currently have a space for it, and maybe it shouldn't. Not every casting class should be able to fill every niche, and maybe wizard's don't -need- to also be able to do martial combat. Especially not with spellswords around. So if there's anything I'd like to ask the developers to do for transmutationist wizards, it's don't try to make them subpar fighters. Make them more interesting casters. Forget Tenser's Transformation. Make their specialist boons worth losing what they lose, and make them feel like transmutationists who dabble in changing things. Changing themselves. Changing others, etc.
That's my final take on Transmutation Specialists. For now, don't play them. It's a trap.
If you want to play a character who's obsessed with the transmutation school, pick a generalist wizard and nab all the foci and just roleplay it out. Alternatively, the illusion spec is rock solid. Losing out on enchantment sucks, but you can almost entirely ignore the school, it nets you an extra spell of every spell level a day, the illusion spec bonuses are great for roleplay and QoL, and the bonuses to bluff and perform synergize with the idea of a transmutationist that alters themselves in little ways.
If you disagree with my numbers or I left anything out, feel free to correct me. I tried to be thorough, but I always forget a bonus here or there.
A Transmutation Wizard focused on Tenser's -- Difficult, but doable thanks to your zoobuffs, you can have a full +15 attack stat -- Dex or Str -- and have access to 9th level spells and have AB in the 48-53 range (I'll elaborate on the math a little later). Plus CL*6 Temp HP every time you hit the Tenser's button.
This looks really decent if you take it at face value. However, Shaman and Spellswords can hit similar ABs. Battle Favored Souls & Clerics blow those numbers out of the water. On top of this, these classes often have better base HP and/or access to regen. Finally, barring spellswords, all of these classes can cast while using their analog to tensers.
Furthermore, with Spellsword having access to Mordekainen's Disjunction and Timestop, the notion that Transmutation Wizards are powerful wizards and therefore, shouldn't be able to do anything martial as well as a martial class starts to feel a little silly.
Finally, in order to get the numbers above, you have to have a significant feat investment to do well with them, which follows; For melee variants: Weapon Focus, Blind Fight, Expertise, Improved Expertise, Epic Weapon Focus, Epic Prowess. Optionally, or not optionally depending on whether you want to do decent damage, Improved Critical. There's also Knockdown and Improved Knockdown to think about, but those are both optional. That's seven or more feats! That's seven feats worth of stuff you could put into wizard feats that you are instead putting into martial ability. There are ways to take the edge off, namely, dipping Fighter becomes very attractive, but for every level you dip fighter, your CL drops. In order to remain in tenser's, you need to have a decently high CL, which makes Spell Focus: Abjuration and Arcane Defense: Abjuration both a must.(Which'll eat two of your pre-epic wizard feats.)
For ranged variants -- which work well with Ranger because of this -- you need Weapon Focus, Epic Weapon Focus, Rapid Reload or Rapid Shot, Point Blank Shot, Blind Fight, Epic Prowess and optionally Improved Critical. Called Shot is nice to have, but not a requirement. That's an investment of six feats to seven feats, so slightly less.
Here's the math for the AB range above:
15 BAB at 30(10 from wizard, 5 from epic progression)
14-16 STR or DEX modifier
12-13 From Transmutation Specialist Tenser's(It gives you slightly more AB if you're a transmutation specialist)
4-5 Weapon Enhancement Bonus
3-4 Weapon Focus, Epic Weapon Focus, Epic Prowess
48-53 AB in Tenser's.
Because of the way the soft AB cap works, you can't ever go above +20 soft AB. Factored into this is all of the Tenser's Bonus, and the Weapon Enhancement Bonus. Here's what a Tenser's Wizard chugging a TS pot looks like:
15 BAB
20 Soft Attack Bonus
14-16 STR or DEX
3-4 Weapon Focus, Epic Weapon Focus, Epic Prowess
52-55 AB in Tenser's with the Soft AB cap maxed.
Epic Prowess is almost essential specifically because it counts as hard AB. You can see why here. Again, while you're in Tenser's -- which takes at least half a round to enter, and which you'll have a limited number of uses of every three minutes, and which you'll have to dispel in order to cast any spells -- your AB'll hover around 48-53. Potentially 55 if you've got a bard friend. This is enough to deal with some rough PVE stuff, but it's contingent entirely on whether or not you get dispelled. I don't have confirmation on this, but some testing suggests the signature spell version of Tenser's Transformation casts at a lower CL than it's supposed to, making it even more susceptible to dispels.
So let's talk AC. EMA gives you a +5 Armor Bonus, +5 Deflection Bonus, +5 Natural Armor Bonus, and +5 Dodge Bonus to your AC. It's pretty cool.
Dex Option:
10 -- Base AC
5-6 -- Shield(If you dip for it.)
20 -- EMA
14-16 Dex
1 -- MA(Dodge bonus stacks with EMA for some reason)
1 -- Dodge Boots
3-6 -- Tumble
2 -- Armor Skin
4 -- Haste
60-66 AC(Or +1 if you're small-sized) This is actually pretty good with Improved Expertise,(76 AC? Wow!) but it hinges on using a shield or parry, and falls apart when you can't do that.
Strength Option:
10 -- Base AC
8-9 -- Armor(Between Dex Bonus & Armor Bonus. If you dip for it, you'll need still spell to compensate for Arcane Spell Failure. Edit: Or use Spellthief's & A Greensteel Large Shield. Whoops.)
5-6 -- Shield
20 -- EMA
1 -- MA
1 -- Dodge boots
3-6 -- Tumble
2 -- Armor Skin
4 -- Haste
54-59 AC(Or, again +1 if you're small-sized) This looks great, but you'll need still spell or automatic still spell to make this work, which further eats into your feats. Curiously, the signature spell version of Tenser's is not affected by ASF. I played around with making something like this work, and I couldn't make it work in a way that made any amount of sense to me. If you can get it to work, you can potentially have a strength build with 69 AC in IE(Nice.)
High AC is great, but a ranged Tenser's wizard will make a lot more sense, since your damage is less dependent on your attack stat. However, if you want to make a ranged full-caster, it's still recommended to make a zen archer shaman or cleric, as they have access to spells that will allow them to out perform your tenser's wizard easily.
Caster-focused Transmutation Specialist
So let's talk about taking the specialization to be an actual caster. Losing conjuration sucks just, a lot. There are plenty of spells in conjuration aside from summoning monsters that are pretty great. Mestil's Acid Sheath and Acid Fog come to mind.(Mage Armor and Flame Arrow[Which is Conjuration!], you can get back through Shadow Conjuration/Evocation, but you can't empower or max a shadow conjuration flame arrow.) Even so, you can still summon undead, and you can buff them pretty dang well since your Transmutation specialist boon affects all consumable versions of the zoobuffs. However, a clever generalist wizard'll with transmutation spell foci'll be able to do the same thing just fine with pots & empowered zoobuffs. And again, so can shamans, so can favored souls, and so can clerics.(Who also get access to Aura of Vitality.) You're not actually getting much special. In a well-equipped party, you won't act as a particularly more canny support either. Your zoobuffs will help your allies hit the caps they're already trying to hit with their equipment. So while +8 auto-maxed zoobuffs sound really attractive, in practice, its uses v. the standard empowered trans foci zoobuffs are edge-cases. They might help your undead be slightly better than the competition.
The point is, even as a caster, it's luke-warm, and if you're a surfacer, it's going to be a hell of a struggle until you get access to EMA and Planar Conduit.
Additionally, I never really did get an answer on whether or not Planar Conduit or EMA are cheating for Transmutation Specialists, since both of these are technically rooted in Conjuration -- Transmutation Specialist's banned schools. But if they are, then there's going to be a lot of changes up there.
Maybe Tenser's Transformation is supposed to be used by a caster-focused wizard as a PVE tool then, right? Here's what the AB looks like for that:
15 BAB
9-10 Attack Stat Mod(Dex or Strength.)
12-13 from Tenser's
4-5 Weapon Enhancement Bonus
40-43 AB at ~ 4-5 APR with Tenser's & Haste. 43 AB isn't near enough to be impressive against a lot of PVE enemies at 30. It might help you clear road-trash.
Alright, so what's my conclusion here? Transmutation Specialist actually had some strong, unusual, and really cheesy synergies back before the monk nerfs and a few other things were shuffled around, especially as a wizard-focused melee. But with the advent of the new Spellswords -- which are wicked cool -- it's become more than obvious that the niche that Transmutation Specialists have been trying to muscle into is just something they were never meant to. Maybe it's time to re-think how these specializations work, and how wizard, in general, functions outside of a vacuum.
My whole big archetypal fantasy for Transmutation wizards is this: You have a wizard that obsesses over magic not for the sake of the pursuit of knowledge, but for the perfection of themselves through magic. Physical, mental, emotional perfection through magic that they rigorously study to change themselves rather than the world around them. Whether they do this to take idealized forms, or obssessively, vainly improve their own form, it is something they single-mindedly focus their studies on. The martial prowess that comes from this should be secondary -- less a focus of their work, and more the fruit of it. While they should never be as skilled as someone who has dedicated their mind, body, and soul to the very real and physical pursuit of martial combat, they should be terrifying in their own right -- something you approach with apprehension, and the knowledge that the fight with a transmutationist wizard is best ended before their transformation can take hold. I think that's a cool idea. Maybe you think it's just more wizard goofin'.
But.
Arelith doesn't currently have a space for it, and maybe it shouldn't. Not every casting class should be able to fill every niche, and maybe wizard's don't -need- to also be able to do martial combat. Especially not with spellswords around. So if there's anything I'd like to ask the developers to do for transmutationist wizards, it's don't try to make them subpar fighters. Make them more interesting casters. Forget Tenser's Transformation. Make their specialist boons worth losing what they lose, and make them feel like transmutationists who dabble in changing things. Changing themselves. Changing others, etc.
That's my final take on Transmutation Specialists. For now, don't play them. It's a trap.
If you want to play a character who's obsessed with the transmutation school, pick a generalist wizard and nab all the foci and just roleplay it out. Alternatively, the illusion spec is rock solid. Losing out on enchantment sucks, but you can almost entirely ignore the school, it nets you an extra spell of every spell level a day, the illusion spec bonuses are great for roleplay and QoL, and the bonuses to bluff and perform synergize with the idea of a transmutationist that alters themselves in little ways.
If you disagree with my numbers or I left anything out, feel free to correct me. I tried to be thorough, but I always forget a bonus here or there.