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The ULTIMATE War Weaver

A bold title to give the thread I'll admit, but I think it's justified.

When you put it all together this is far and away the most powerful thing I've ever come up with on my own. Anyone who has been following the War Weaver Guidebook will be familiar with the basic trick (as will my fellow players in fil kearney's pbp game), but it's only recently I've realised just how much potential this has.

The Build(s)

Wizard 5 / War Weaver 5 / Spellguard of Silverymoon 5 / Legacy Champion 5

Or

Sorcerer 6 / War Weaver 5 / Spellguard of Silverymoon 4 / Legacy Champion 5

Feats are pretty open. You'll need Enlarge Spell and Combat Casting for prereqs, as well as the Magic of the Land feat from Races of the Wild. The rest are up to you.

If Legacy Champion isn't kosher in your game then the trick detailed here is still very good. Consider Abjurant Champion 5 as one possible closer to quicken and enhance abjuration spells.

Step 1: How To Cast Personal Spells Through The Weave

What this all revolves around is using the Spellguard of Silverymoon's 4th level Spellguard ability to change the range of Personal spells to touch, thereby making them eligible to be cast through the weave.

Player's Guide to Faerun, p. 75]Spellguard (Su): At 4th level, the spellguard of Silverymoon may cast any personal range defensive arcane spell on another character with a touch. For this purpose, a defensive spell is one that improves AC, increases a saving throw modifier, or grants additional hit points (either by healing wounds or by bestowing temporary hit points).

Now, just from that ability there are a number of excellent spells that can be put into the weave:

• Alter Self
  
• Bite of the Wereboar (Rat and Wolf as well)
  
• Draconic Polymorph
  
• False Life
  
• Heart of Earth
  
• Ruin Delver's Fortune
  
• Shield
  
• Wings of Cover (for all my fellow Sorcerer lovers)

I'm sure there are many more good choices, but you get the idea.

Step 2: Making More Spells Eligible

But what about that limit on what spells you can use Spellguard on, isn't there any way to extend my options I hear you ask?

There is.

The Magic of the Land feat in Races of the Wild lets you make a Knowledge (nature) check whenever you cast a spell in a natural environment. If you pass the check (DC 15+spell level, so not a problem) then the spell also heals any targets of 2hp/spell level.

Which means, the spell can now be made a touch spell with Spellguard and cast through the weave. Whenever you're in a natural environment you can cast any personal range spell of 5th level or lower through the weave.

For example:

• Assay Spell Resistance
  
• Blink (and Greater Blink)
  
• Disguise Self
  
• Dragonsight
  
• Fist of Stone
  
• Heart of Air/Fire/Water
  
• Overland Flight
  
• Mirror Image (and Greater Mirror Image)
  
• Scintillating Scales
  
• See Invisibility
  
• Tremorsense
  
• Wraithstrike

Again, not a complete list, but impressive nonetheless. Let's just take Wraithstrike as an example. Using it for massive Power Attacks on full-attacks is one thing, using it to let your entire party execute massive Power Attacks on full-attacks and still have swift actions of their own to spend, is a whole other level.

Step 3: The Environment Conundrum

But there's a problem with Magic of the Land. It only works when you're in a "natural setting", and the monsters aren't always accommodating in where they make their lairs.

Here's what you do - you buy yourself an Acorn of Far Travel and then as long as you've got it on your person "you are considered to be standing under that oak tree's canopy (and thus within an area of forested terrain)." Now you can do it all the time.

The spell lasts 1 day/level, so taht's plenty. With a Druid or Ranger in your party they can restock you when it runs out. If there isn't a Druid, I'd suggest you get some UMD and a wand, or Leadership and a Druid cohort.

Step 4: Legacy Champion Cheese

Okay, so we all know Legacy Champion is cheesy, and the source of more rules debates than you can shake a stick at, but if you really want to push this trick then this is the way to do it (Bloodlines or Uncanny Trickster as well).

We've got 5 levels of it. That gives us +4 levels of advancement to our War Weaver abilities, meaning we can cast spells of up to 9th level through the weave (not to mention we can now store 8 spells in the Quiescent Weave prior to combat).

In itself, that's huge already. There are plenty of touch spells that the Legacy Champion trick opens up for a "normal" War Weaver (e.g. Mind Blank, Greater Heroism, Energy Immunity, Superior Resistance, etc). But when we combine it with Steps 1-3 we can do more:

Defensive Spells (the ones you don't need Magic of the Land for

• Bite of the Weretiger/Werebear
  
• Foresight (Personal version for everyone)
  
• Iron Body
  
• Shapechange

With Magic of the Land

• Elemental Body
  
• Stone Body
  
• Spell Turning

Impressed yet?

Coz I'm not done.

Step 5: The REALLY Broken Bit

There's a Personal range spell I've left off that last list.

Time Stop

Yes, that's right, make the check for Magic of the Land and you can cast Time Stop through the weave and give every member of your party 1d4+1 rounds of apparent time.

Broken? I th wrote:

JaronK wrote:

Thing is, I don't buy the Legacy Champion can take you over the end of the class, because it adds as though you added a level of the class. You can't do so, ergo it does nothing.

Bloodlines, however, work differently, and should be okay, enough to give you 8th level spells through the weave. It means no time stop, but the rest is good to go.

JaronK

Yeah I know, I don't really want to make this another Legacy Champion debate tbh.

Which is why I stripped out steps 1-3 as separate lists so it would still be a useable resource for anyone making a sane build, coz until now the idea is only on here buried in the Guidebook which doesn't seem to get updated anymore, and I think it deserves to be publicized more widely to prospective War Weaver players.

I think war magus is at least comparable to this.

Very nice. I'd missed magic of the land.