Forging my Paragon Path
We recently reached 11th level in our campaign, marking our transition to paragon. Â This was a tricky moment for me with my wizard, Eaerenel. Â She has always focused on fire spells, but there was not a paragon path before her that fit her fiery nature. Â So, working with some existing paragon paths and with the blessing of the DM, I developed my own paragon path.
Achieving Balance
I wanted to make sure that my paragon path was balanced, and I considered altering an existing paragon path to ensure I had that balance. Â At the same time, I wasn’t satisfied with just taking an ice path and changing the keywords; some elements don’t transfer from ice to fire well. Â So I selected two different ice paths (Spellstorm Mage from PHB and Bralani Wintersoul from Dragon 384) and blended elements from each.
Introducing: Flamespark Mage
After cherry-picking and adjusting the elements from the previous two ice-y paragon paths, I developed the Flamespark Mage paragon path. Â I reviewed it with Dante prior to calling it complete, and we did make a few minor adjustments. Â In the end, I have exactly the paragon path that I want: fiery and balanced, with interesting spells to look forward to learning.
Is the Aftereffect of the encounter power adapted from the one of the originating paragon paths, or is that new? It seems odd, since only daily powers usually have “(save ends)” effects.
The aftereffect is adapted from the Winter’s Kiss power from the Bralani Wintersoul paragon path. The original aftereffect was: the target takes 5 cold damage and is slowed until the end of your next turn. I opted to drop the slowed (since that didn’t seem to fit with fire element) and instead changed the damage to ongoing save ends.
There is another Wizard encounter power — Fire Shroud — that has ongoing 5 fire save ends, so I felt that it wasn’t too much of a stretch for my Pillar of Flame, given that I dropped the slowed.
The Wintersoul paragon path was a good choice. It seems rather adaptable, plus it gives you a more role play ability, as it taps more into the essence of the element. That is one thing I like about 4e. The different powers and paths help give a PC more character.
I actually used that Paragon path when developing an Epic level Eladrin Wizard for a short campaign a friend was running. Basically we were in a newly discovered unformed realm, where there were no gods. Our PCs became involved in a battle royal of heavy hitters trying to ascend and become the governing pantheon. Our battle cry was “Die Vecna Die!” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Vecna_Die!) My character was to become the essence of Winter in this new land.
The real surprise in all of this is why hasn’t there been an adequate Fire paragon path created? Perhaps you should send this off to WotC and get published.