Everytime Pathfinder seems to have a cool idea, they scare themselves out of doing something cool with it

    Pathfinder design is designed to make things take actions, take longer, and take time. Every action is met with a consequence. Every reward is limited, and difficult to abuse. Every decision is mitigated, limited edition, and useless unless perfect. It also seems to want to "realistically" spend your time, by making some unrealistic demands of your time.

    Which comes across my latest learning block of character building. Which is Talismans. Talismans in PF2e are single use, items that attach to specific gear and have special boosts to your different skill rolls and attacks. Its like a little safety vest in some cases, or like a glow stick. You get the effect, it gets used up right away or it lasts for a short burst (usually a single fight or event) and then you need to not only put a new one on, you have to take equal time taking the old one off, or else the whole thing becomes muted.

    There are so many other ways to run this to make it more fun, more valuable to players and without even needing to let it be abused. Thing is, that what I'm about to say, can be done for 10 extra minutes and more in game gold. Just let a player spend 10 minutes "recharging" the thing. Maybe as some sort of "focus" procedure, maybe not. Either way, it allows you to pick one up, and just keep using it. It gives great value to the Talisman archetypes and classes, and makes getting two a day that become inert at night much more valuable and not feel like a waste of a feature.

    I consistently feel like Pathfinder 2 is afraid of power. Its afraid of ease of use. It consistently asks me as a player, to suffer for my fun. And that makes it hard to want to build or play the game. Which is hard to feel, when so many GOOD ideas are included alongside these terrible wastes of energy and time. So much good design and effort is paired up so poorly. 

    And I know they have Runes for things that are a much more permanent effect, but this temporary effect didn't have to be a money sink and time sink all in one that also means that the feats for getting them also feel like so much less, when the feat also only gives you talismans of half your level, which is fine at level 2 and way less powerful at higher levels.

    Suddenly though, it makes sense why at level 16 they are willing to let you have... 6 free half level talismans per day for free....which is 600gp for free per day. Or you can also spend 1800gp to get one, that ... helps you confuse a monster that grabs you, once. Maybe for 1 round or less, maybe for 1 minute. That's not bad, but maybe its because Pathfinder 2e actually has a plan on how to give you money, and pays you well, and doesn't have the same issues with money spending that D&D5e has.

    Maybe that's the key. Because they plan for you to have money to spend, so that you can have a stack of 5 1800gp single use talismans. This is why I want to learn more, because its obvious the design is there for a reason. In 5e this is terrible design. But in a game that plans around your gold income as a metric for the functionality of items, maybe that is a lesson to learn. So what is your income like in Pathfinder vs D&D? Does anyone look into that at all?

Trying to Learn Pathfinder 2e

    Over the last few years, as I've been working on Anarchy Realms, I've tried learning several other TTRPGs. I don't want to be talking out my ass about things and then not have experienced different games. But all TTRPGs come with a difficulty to establish. As in, the group is already mid campaign in a D&D 5e game. There already are other groups doing that game (but they are mostly full and play on the same days as your game). There are barriers, and limitations to trying out a game.

    So  when I started learning Pathfinder 2e, I started with online videos. And my goodness are the PF2e creators passionate about their game! Look at this cool thing! This is an awesome thing! Rank this! Talk about that! Mix and match here!

    D&D 5e content creators are always, "Hasbro has doomed the game! WotC is using AI for everything including the DM, which is you! You are now AI!" etc, etc, etc. So there's a lot of attraction TO pathfinder in that way. Not only that, there are certain slices of the game where they REALLY show how much love they put into the game. With design ideas and detailed expansion of concepts.

    But as I learned more, and the more I looked into the math, the more .... worried I got. But hey, I haven't played the game yet, and some of these ideas, rock really hard when used in 5e. So I'm gonna borrow column A and B, leave C and just maybe come back later for the D. Anyways, that is to say, I took what felt good and I experimented. I experimented with a 10 over to critically hit system, but in 5e it ... over power and over guarantees certain things. I tried the Doom condition as a curse (that both high level fear applies and just existing near a powerful elite monster can create). I even converted backgrounds into a ersatz archetype system.

    In the end, some things worked, and somethings didn't but it made me want to explore Pathfinder 2e even more. So, as I started to get ready to do character creation in Anarchy Realms, where some of the steps felt similar to how I had read the character creation for PF2e was, I decided to go to Pathbuilder, and build a character.

    Now this was my first deep dive, and making a level 1 character is EASY, FUN, and consistently gave me results I was excited to explore. But then I made the mistake of trying to plan the character. I tried to level up. And that's where all my glittery eyed optimism for Pathfinder started to fall apart. When I started to actually dig and brush away the sand of this beautiful dinosaur bone, I realized that what I was coming across was coprolite.

    So, first of all, the class that caught my eye was the Thaumaturge. In the end its not perfectly what I wanted, but it was super close to perfect (to be fair, there's no single class in d&d that is perfectly what I want, but between the broadness of d&d and multiclassing, I can usually get the character done).

    So first things first. I build characters to be a pun, reference or joke. For example, making an Orc Pirate Sea Druid for a forest campaign. Too niche? How about designing a Wild Magic Sorcerer named Kows M Waldo (Chaos Emerald) who uses Chaos Control to create wild magic surges. The game is taken seriously. The actions are done to be included with the group. But the character is designed to be a joke. If I go for funny, I'll end up with serious.

     So I read through some things, and I saw that the Thaumaturge had the ability to fly on their implement, and use a whip and bell and I could choose to play a Minotaur (love Minotaurs). So here I am designing flying bullshit and I get feats (skill feats, general feats, class feats etc) all the time! So many decisions! But, with few exceptions, the decisions don't feel good. Not only that, but without reading the books and referencing things, its hard to see that a decision I'm planning at level 1 or 2 or 6 suddenly locks me out of something. How I have to pick what will be a legendary skill for me, even if my design wants both. But that's fine, cause I believe that a game is a series of interesting decisions, and so planning this level up, is itself a game, and part of the game.

     But that's the thing. Most of the time, my decisions weren't interesting. And if I didn't get Acrobatics, or reach Master in a skill on time, I don't get to actually do some of the interesting things there are. Furthermore, so many skills are so limited, that they are boring. Then you start getting your class feats, but not all the class feats are fun, but some feel "essential" to how the class to work. But then you don't get them all, so you start adding archetypes to find that hole your character is missing, but that also gets complicated between all the options. But again, they aren't "good" options. They are slanted this way and that, compared to the other option. So, I can't just pick what I want. Sometimes, I have multi level gaps of useless feats, that don't do anything, may never come up, or should have just been a thing, cause why is this minor feature a feat?

    While in D&D5e, once I level up a class, all the necessary features get added, and my decision is in feats and multiclassing. So I have to decide if getting my ability score up is worth not getting some feats, and in many cases, with the all feats now having an ability score improvement with them, the decision is often easier to pick the feats. As for multiclassing, because of how the game gives you all your class features at level up, you can easily split focus and even plan around good cut off points.

    Pathfinder player choices are instead leaning more towards gritty realism, incremental improvements, and quirky funny choices, that aren't quirky or funny. Every increment and edge helps because the game is designed to keep you at a 50% hit rate (if you don't upgrade your stuff, upgrading and magic items are vital to pf2e).  Magic items in d&d5e are all, boosts and fun. You don't NEED them for a build to work, or to have fun.

    I kept not having fun after the first level of making characters in Pathfinder 2e. But this experiment is still ongoing. I just wanted to get some of my thoughts out there.

Game Companies: Don't do Micro-Expansions, instead do shareable DLC!

The Evolution of DLC:
From Traditional to Shareable

Introduction

To begin, let us understand what a micro-expansion, aka micro-DLC, actually is. Micro-expansions are a subcategory of micro-transactions. In many cases, a micro-expansion, much like a larger game expansion or DLC, asks that every person buys it to gain access to it. This can include a wide variety of game aspects, such as dungeons, battlegrounds, areas or zones, and even other typical micro-transaction staples such as characters, classes and aesthetics.

The issues with micro-expansions are similar to the issues with micro-transactions when looked through the lens of what social damage it does to players in a game. This includes pay-to-win concerns from players who cannot participate in the dungeon to get loot from it, and therefore it is similar to a loot-box in the resulting benefits for the person who bought it. It fragments the player base, meaning less people can potentially play together. It becomes what the game design leans into, so that money can be excised from the player base instead of earned. All of these leads to upset players, who may stop playing because they cannot find the fun in the game anymore.

Which is where my proposal comes in: If you sell DLC for single access dungeons, then allow the person who bought it so share that access with anyone in their group. It gives access to the content to people who cannot afford to buy the DLC, and yes for some people even that $2.99 can be too much, and it helps with the problem of fragmenting player bases. If you have a free vs monthly/battle pass model, you can even give one free dungeon to those who buy a battle pass, and that way those in guilds could cover all the seasonal content by working together on what free dungeon they pick.

The Problem with Traditional DLCs

So why did companies leave making traditional DLCs, large patches of content that often times feels like a sequel within the same game engine. The player base often looked forward to such expansions every two to three years. People would renew accounts, start preparing for the expansion, and often play through the game quickly and drop their subscriptions again after a few months. Even though many players would continue to leave subscriptions on while not playing or even would actually continue to play after these rushes, the growing amount of players and the need to adjust to the size of the rushes meant that companies would have to invest in extra servers that they would end up no longer needing or would need to continue to operate after it was no longer profitable to their margins.

Producers have been seeking out how to diversify their monetization so that they do not have to be stuck in one model. Producers have pushed Developers to decrease the space between one expansion and the next, which begins asking players to pay for a new expansion every year.

There are benefits to faster smaller DLCs for developers as well. It helps keep player engagement up, since the space between DLCs is smaller, and therefore people who only play for new content stay subscribed longer. It has less risk of being wrong in a design choice, as in making a mistake in design did not waste multiple years development time and money, and is instead less impactful to the bottom-line.

This all leads to the current state of games, which are Battle Passes over the traditional monthly subscription. Battle Passes offer rewards over the top of the free to play model. They reward players coming back to the game daily, and therefore generate player engagement. They often allow you to earn in game currency or other rewards for playing and doing daily check ins. This model often sells other micro-transactions, but allow you to earn the next battle pass, or at least earn more value based on in game currency than normal in game currency purchases would.

This all leads to the new problem games are heading towards, which is, selling where you can play. Lands to explore, arenas to fight in, dungeons to delve, are all being sold piecemeal and are not being included in the purchase of the subscription or battle pass. These micro-DLCs are going to magnify the issue of traditional DLCs in that you will start to see hyperfragmentation of the player base. Leading to a point that someone could buy the DLC, and have no one to play it with.

My Proposal: One DLC for the Whole Party

The idea is simple: If you want to sell a dungeon individually to people, allow them to share it with their group. The idea behind this is similar to Dungeons and Dragons having a DM who usually has all the books and the players join and get to participate and use the book content without having to buy the book themselves. Most of the people who would take advantage of this would not have bought the DLC themselves, and the player gets to enjoy what they purchased without worrying that no one else bought the DLC. Because the benefits are higher for those who do spend the money, and the loss of monetization to the company is minimal, since most people taking advantage of this would not have made the purchase, there is little worry of missing out for the company.

You could even give out a free dungeon for taking up a battle pass or paying a subscription. That way with this model, players can coordinate with their guilds or friend group to cover their bases. It increases the desire for people who play in groups to join guilds or invite friends.

The issue of dungeons being glorified loot boxes can also be resolved this way. Usually selling a dungeon is like selling a loot box, but you have to play through it first. This allows a reason for players to want to run the dungeon with the player who bought it. Sharing the dungeon could also increase their drop rate of materials or non-equipment goals. It makes sharing worth it, and makes purchasing the DLC worth it as well.

Developers can target people who do not have the micro-DLC in other ways, to help build monetization. Playing in a shared dungeon can lead to earning points to purchasing the dungeon for free, and therefore cascade dungeon runs out across the population. As people earn the dungeon, the dungeon sharing rewards naturally decline, incentivizing recruitment of outside players, "Come on! You can play for free and I can share the dungeon with you!" as free advertising. Not to mention that such models are viewed so favorably with players that it fosters an extremely positive view of the company.

Actual Real World examples of not using Shareable Content DLC

One of the major content companies using shareable DLC is actually tabletop gaming. Even in a digital space, places like Roll20 ask only that one member of an adventure of the DLC to be able to share it with others for that adventure.

Companies focused on short term monetary gains over the life long monetization of their product are moving away from that into the realm of individual micro-transactions and micro-DLC. Wizards of the Coast and by extension Hasbro is looking to follow Blizzard into the hellpit of micro-DLC to nickle and dime every player out of money, despite making billions of dollars already, and having HAD one of the most profitable games in their respective market.

And the same way that Blizzard Activision has lost its ability to earn trust in their player base to the tune of being bought out by other companies and having their entire team disbanded for failure of the executives, so too does Wizards of the Coast have the specter of doom looming over their future business model.

Already evidence has shown that people left WoW for FF14, and people have migrated from D&D to Pathfinder, with 4 more major D&D-a-likes coming out that address the issues with the game, and have the promise of freedom of creation to 3rd party makers.

Conclusion

So often companies start off with passion about their games. They make games in service of gamers. In turn those gamers create huge buzz and talk about the game that it reaches the general zeitgeist. Gamers grow up and become content creators: artists, writers, directors, producers. They make content for people, which references these games in sacred terms, and popularizes them.

Then the companies abandon the gamers, and target the average consumer. The average consumer, not having time to game all day, loves the shortcuts and purchases they can make with real dollars to shortcut their advancement so they can enjoy the game. Which is exactly where micro-transactions have value to those casual gamers.

This abandons future gamers, people who would love that original game experience like their parents had had 15 years earlier, but who now cannot enter the game without micro-transactions. They abandon the game, and suddenly future revenue drops as the casual gamers pay-to-win themselves out of content and migrate to another game.

Mitigating that migration, requires treating your game as if people could leave it at any time. If you realize that you do not have perfect control of people's desire for your game, then you have to design it in a way that it engages them. Things that remove people's ability to engage, can be managed with sharing. You can strive for engagement with rewards for sharing, and create natural endings to it so that in the end, you have received enough engagement from all those participating in your game, and those who pay to play, have enough people to play with.

New Mounted Combat for D&D5E

You can purchase the pdf on my Ko-fi shop for $1.

It covers the following categories:

• Mounting and Dismounting

• Controlling a Mount

• Untrained Mount

• Trained Mount

• Special Actions for Trained Mounts
  

• Intelligent Mount

It also puts what used to be in different sections all in one place. There were small bits of mounted combat information that you had to guess or gleam from other areas and what other items did. This puts it all together organized and adds details such as how to handle untrained mounts, and getting more out of a trained mount, or even an intelligent mount.

Currently, if you ride a dragon in 5e and share initiative with it so you can have its movement, the dragon is not allowed to attack. These updated rules allow for better, more realistic, and cooler fights on top of exceptional mounts.

Pangoria and Pumpkin - Conversations with your DM

Half of the conversation, this part focusing on talking with your DM about the size of your character, and how every species should probably have a built in small size option.

Pangoria and Pumpkin - Calendar Episode -

Low Level Character Concept - Swashless Roguelock

I couldn't DM this weekend and one of the players ran a one-shot. Another player needed a temporary one-shot character and doesn't have experience building characters whole cloth. So I offered my services, and built him the Swashless Roguelock.

Now the build I gave the player was meant to work on a ship one-shot. So I made choices that I wouldn't have made otherwise. I'll skip the basics of levels, and focus on what I did for this specific build.

Level 1-4

We went with a Swashbuckler Rogue build. Now I had a huge internal debate about going to Rogue 5 for additional sneak attack dice, or going Warlock 2 for the spell slot and evocations. The extra spell slot won out.

Our focus on Swashbuckler is to get Fancy Footwork and Rakish Audacity. This lets you green-flame blade later, and run away to reposition yourself better if you were out of position, and it lets you add your higher charisma (because you want high charisma for a warlock) to your initiative, allowing you to be more likely to go first in a fight.

Level 5-6

We then proceed to Fathomless Warlock. This gives a powerful ranged, bonus action attack, and also allows for swimming and water breathing in case they fell overboard.

Now, the main choices here were of course to get Agonizing and Repelling blasts. You should be pushing people off boats whenever possible.

Racial and Background Choices

This I went with something basic, I gave them a Sailor background, so they could take sail enemy ships if needed, and had them go as a Tiefling of Levistus. Legacy of Stygia gives them the Ray of Frost cantrip (slow down option since we didn't get that evocation) and Armor of Agathys (at 2nd level) and Darkness. These options are just great combat tools. Had them take the Flame of Phlegethos feat at Rogue 4, so that Green-flame Blade and Armor of Agathys causes a strong set of retributive damage to anyone attacking them.

In the end, they didn't get into melee at all (they weren't meant to TRY, the melee portions were there in case things went bad), but it also means they could have skipped the rogue levels completely.

In a longer campaign, I feel like these choices would come up more. But as of right now, I have no testing proving so.

Thanks for Reading!

If you like this build, let me know over on twitter @PangoriaF

You can also support me on Ko-Fi where I sell dnd PDFs.

You can also gain exclusive access to other things I'm working on over on my Patreon.

I'm planning to do videos of these builds on my youtube channel.

If you need any special work done for your business or personal projects, check out Fiverr! It's a great place to get character drawings for your campaign!

Low Level Character Playtest - The Armored Mage - D&D5e

 So I played the armored mage that I wrote about last week.

I was level 10 though, so it wasn't the level 5 build, but it did bring in quite a bit of information for how I would want to change things.

So let's start with what I did, what worked, what was lacking, and what I would change.

What I Did

So I built this as a Minotaur. Since this was a one-shot, we had a bunch of magic items, so my focus was more on having an action economy. My DM let me use Hammering Horns after Booming Blade. So that I could boom someone then toss them over my head. I also had a belt that increased my strength, and a way to fly. While those helped keep me in play with everyone else, I really felt like there were things missing in the build.

What Worked

Booming Blade as an attack was just perfect. I could focus on my Intelligence almost exclusively and used a magic item to enhance my strength. At 5th level, you'll be doing weapon+str/dex+1d8 damage. It's nice and consistent. You also add those extra psi-warrior d6s for a few attacks per fight.

Leveling up as Artificer gave me access to Sanctuary, which is surprisingly a great tank spell when you have a support build in your group. Actually Artificer gave a lot of options for the character and was a great 3rd class to step into. I would definitely try to go, full Artificer, if I were to go into it though.

I never got hit, as for my saves though ... Arcane Deflection almost never came up by 10th level, because either I rolled too low or too high. I don't want to say no to it just because of these 5 fights though. But this does lead me to:

What Was Lacking

This build is very reliant on Reactions and had almost no Bonus Actions except for an Artificer spell and a racial ability.

The power level of spells wasn't very high, so you can really just hold on to Silvery Barbs (again a reaction!), and having magic missile as a ranged attack option, that you know will hit is very useful.

The build also wants so strongly to attack with Booming Blade and has no synergy with the extra attack from Fighter or Artificer in that regard. Which is why I started thinking:

What I Would Change

As far as subclass recommendations, I feel like Psi-Warrior leaves you over filled with reaction possibilities and didn't interact well with the spell casting aspects of the build, while it worked fine with Booming Blade, which is your focus. So, if you are not going past level 3, I would have to change the recommendation of Psi-Warrior, to perhaps Battle Master (for additional Maneuvers).

You really want to get a bonus action attack. My DM allowed my Minotaur to use hammering horns with Booming Blade, though the wording does make it less likely for other DMs to approve it. Eldritch Knight lets you do a bonus action attack after the cantrip, and later on, after casting a spell.

Either way, if you only go 3 fighter levels and don't go to a full 8 or 18, you will not get enough benefit from the Psi-Warrior aspect of the build.

The Armorer suggestion worked great, but like I said earlier, the spell levels never reached high enough, and so you were mostly sitting on reaction spells like shield, silvery barbs and feather fall. Actually, because of how this actually played out, getting Arcane deflection wasn't worth it even as a free mini shield spell. Instead, I think going with the new Bladesinger (which is open to more races and gives you an extra attack with a cantrip) is actually the stronger option, even though you literally can't bladesing in heavy armor. This would be my recommendation if going deeper into wizard levels.

In the end, I played with the Artificer 3rd class option. You really don't want to use your spells for attacking with this playstyle. While the Artificer class gave things to do, it also takes too long to gain the cool benefits, especially when it's your third multiclass and it doesn't really kick off with cool stuff until 6th and 10th levels.

This build is one of the few that I would say should focus on certain racial abilities. If your DM allows it, I'd go with a Centaur or Minotaur for bonus action hoofs or horn toss. Goblin also has a benefit that you can run up, Booming Blade, then disengage making them have to chase you and trigger the boom.

Thanks for Reading!

If you like this build, let me know over on twitter @PangoriaF

You can also support me on Ko-Fi where I sell dnd PDFs.

You can also gain exclusive access to other things I'm working on over on my Patreon.

I'm planning to do videos of these builds on my youtube channel.

If you need any special work done for your business or personal projects, check out Fiverr! It's a great place to get character drawings for your campaign!

Low Level Character Concept - The Armored Mage - D&D5e

 I love DnD5e and I keep thinking about one of my first character ideas, the armored mage. The point of it is to be incredibly tanky. The build didn't actually work out. So let's look at the build concept and go from there.

Please forgive me if I gloss over some things that don't relate to the build at a level up. I assume you have some knowledge with the classes already.

Level 1 - Fighter

Whenever you're building a multiclassing build that has fighter, you usually go with the fighter 1 for the heavy armor proficiency.

So what stats do we need for our end goal and what do we get from fighter 1?

Strength: 15

Dexterity 10

Constitution 14 + 2 = 16

Intelligence 13 +1 = 14

Wisdom 12

Charisma 8

I recommend getting +2 to Constitution and +1 to Intelligence.

We need at least 13 intelligence to get wizard levels, but we don't need to worry about it for most spells, but we do want to get it up higher to help us hit later.

So we get all the basic fighter stuff (gear, strength and constitution saving throws, hit points and skills).

Get chainmail, martial weapon and shield, hand axes and your favorite of the two packs.

Fighting style we are picking up superior technique with menacing attack.

And we get 2nd wind.

Level 2 & 3 - Wizard 1 and 2

We go multiclassing right away! We want those defenses! We are going with War Wizard at level 2. I like getting Component Pouches when I go multi-classing.

You get 3 cantrips:

Booming Blade (V, M which is your weapon)

Sword Burst (V)

Anything Else, depending on the DM I would choose Mold Earth or Presto (avoid those with material components)

You get 6 first level spells:

Find Familiar (You only ever cast this again if the Familiar dies, and you can ritual cast it)

Silvery Barbs (V)

Shield (V, S)

Magic Missile (V, S)

Feather Fall (V, M) (if you can't get a Gem of the Warmage, just go ahead and get something else that doesn't require material components)

Sleep (V, S, M) (this is usually not always a combat spell, so its okay that it has a material component)

Then 2 more at 2nd level:

Fog Cloud (V, S)

Detect Magic (V, S) (Ritual)

You also get Arcane Deflection (what we are here for!) and Tactical Wit (bonus to initiative).

And that's the build! We are online at level 3. We attack with booming blade, and scare the enemy so they run away from us and trigger the booming blade. We use Arcane Deflection to keep attacks from hitting.

So where do we go from here?

After wizard is online, we don't need too much more from it

Level 4 & 5 - Fighter 2 and 3

We pick up action surge and then become a Psi Warrior fighter. Psi Warrior abilities key off of Intelligence. You get damage reduction ability, which deals extra damage, and the ability to move large to tiny objects from far away.

Future of the Build

Well that's it! That's the build. You are pretty much doing what you wanted to do. Which is Booming Blade with Menacing Attack. You just wait for a critical hit. You get to force the Booming detonation. You also get a reaction bonus to your AC and Saves. And there are a lot of really cool choices for you!

Fighter

You can level up any which way from here, including going 18 levels into Fighter (you get great subclass features from Psi-Warrior all the way up). If you do so, you'll want to use Future ASI to bump up intelligence.

That means Level 4, 6 and 8 gets you to Intelligence 20, which you will want because your attack combo is Booming Blade, Menacing Attack (Fear), Telekenetic Thrust (Prone).

You get War Caster after that. And get more techniques with any other ASIs after.

Now you Booming Blade the enemy to the ground and make them scared of you. They get up triggering the explosion from the blade. They go running away from you, and you reaction attack them with Booming Blade, they immediately trigger it again as they move out of your reach.

Artificer

You can also go Artificer. Battle Smith gives you a Robot Buddy, and you can go 15 levels and get the full Subclass features for it, which can all work with the build. If you go for this build, swap your intelligence and strength starting scores. You will also want to get to Artificer 3 as soon as possible.

Armorer Artificer also lets you do some true tanking, with an actual taunt. If you are planning to go this route, you can just not take Magic Missle for your Wizard level.

Either way, one of your first infusions should probably be Armor enhancement.

Artificer likes getting to level 10 if you don't go 15. This gives you 5 levels which you can use to get to Wizard 6 for extra force damage from War Wizard, or Fighter 8 which gives you 3 ASIs and the 2nd set of Psi-Warrior abilities.

Wizard

You can mix in Wizard levels as well, though I am personally not a fan of War Mage after the first couple of levels, you are still a Wizard, which is just.... amazing. If you go deep into this, you'll be a full caster. The war wizard capstone would give you like 21 damage across 3 targets (7 each) that they don't get a save from, every time someone attacks you. You'd still have 3 levels to get to Fighter 6 or Artificer 3.

If you are planning to take artificer levels (which should be Battle Smith if you are going wizard), I suggest taking those levels first before going 14 Wizard.

You can also take the full 17 levels of Wizard and have level 9 spells.

Thanks for Reading!

If you like this build, let me know over on twitter @PangoriaF

You can also support me on Ko-Fi where I sell dnd PDFs.

You can also gain exclusive access to other things I'm working on over on my Patreon.

I'm planning to do videos of these builds on my youtube channel.

If you need any special work done for your business or personal projects, check out Fiverr! It's a great place to get character drawings for your campaign!