| abstract
| - This is a primary arcane caster build, and easily one of the most powerful possible, since it combines both Arcane Scholar and Red Wizard. Further to this, it goes down the armored caster route, which grants it a few extra AC, but more importantly gives it the option of using Stone or Iron Body for a large chunk of immunities and uncapped damage reduction. This is one of the few builds that can consistently beat the Iron/Obsidian Sorcerer in Battle of the Builds, but primarily due to the limits of the AI routines. Roughly, the sequence of events is as follows:
* 1. Both Obsidian Sorcerer and Blood Scholar cast Quickened Greater Breach at the same time removing each other's spell mantles
* 2. Both Obsidian Sorcerer and Blood Scholar cast Quickened Forceful hand at the same time knocking each other down
* 3. After 30 rounds, the Obsidian Sorcerer's Forceful hand wears off. The Blood Scholar can then get up and finish him off (because his Forceful hand lasts 35 rounds). In an actual PvP match, an Iron/Obsidian Sorcerer player can Quicken additional Spell Mantles and Breaches to get his defense back up, so the Fight could go either way.
* Ultimate Magical Power: Including access to level 9 spells. Easily among the most Powerful Casters possible, with an effective caster level of 35 in your school of specialization.
* However, keep in mind that Ultimate Magical Power alone won't win fights. The loss of AC and Shadow Simulacrum compared to the Iron and Obsidian Sorcerer, means that this will have problems against Semi-Divine Tanks who have Death Ward (can't Energy Drain them) and spell mantles (because you can't spontaneously cast more Breaches than they have Mantles).
* Effectively ignore Spell Resistance (SR) for your School of Specialization: With +5 bonus RWoT caster level and +6 Epic Spell Penetration, your Caster Roll against SR is 41. which means that you automatically bypass Drow and Deep Gnome SR of equal level!
* This advantage however, is not that great if you are going up against something whose primary Magic Defence is NOT Spell Resistance.
* Relatively tough: The Rogue and Bard Variants have moderate AC, due to Tumble class skill, monk boots, and light armor/shield. And if that isn't enough, you have a whole range of protective buffs on top of that. Autostill lets you walk around in Stone/Iron Body for a whole range of immunities.
* The Bardic Blood Scholar is a specialized Anti-Stealth caster, with a buffed Listen score of over 70.
* The Druid Blood Scholar can buff himself with Foundation of Stone (and Mind Blank) for immunity to Bigby's Forceful Hand, giving him a huge Advantage in Mage-Duels.
* The Rogue Blood Scholar has the Skill points to double as the Party Lock Opener / Trap Disabler
* Low BAB: You are no warrior, and you can't hit the broad side of a barn.
* Comparatively Low AC: You lose the Obsidian Sorcerer's Divine Shield, and have nothing to make up for it.
* Comparatively Low Saves: You lose the Obsidian Sorcerer's Cha bonus to saves as well. Your fortitude is especially bad. You may have Evasion, but you don't have the Reflex saves to back it up. However, as long as your protective buffs are up (Shadow Shield, Iron Body, Protection from Alignment, Energy Immunity), you don't need to worry too much, as these protective buffs essentially negate needing high saves. But if they are removed, you are in trouble.
* You lose TWO schools of magic.
* You can still learn up to level 8 spells in your RWoT second forbidden school before losing it.
* For Anti-Tank combat, this is especially painful, since most of the better specialist schools (Necromancy and Abjuration/Evocation) lose Illusion as 2nd school, thereby denying you access to the extremely powerful Shadow Simulacrum.
* You must Memorize your spells before you cast them
* For fighting anything with Spell Mantles this is problematic, as they can negate a lot of your spells simply by memorizing more Spell Mantles than you have Breaches.
* For everything else, it means that you are in trouble if you prepared the wrong set of spells for the wrong situation.
* In BoTB, the Blood Scholar is an Evoker specialist.
* Evocation Pros
* Your main Duelling offensive spells are all Evocation (Bigby's Grasping Hand, IGMS). Specializing in Evocation lets these spells effectively ignore Racial Spell Resistance of equal level.
* You retain Divination and Clairaudience/Clairvoyance for Stealth detection
* Evocation Cons
* You lose Conjuration, and the such useful spells as:
* Flame Arrow: a great PvM Fodder killer
* In PvP, this is less of an issue as Fire Immunity is relatively common. All primary Divine and Arcane casters can get it, and all RDDs (pretty much all the warrior builds) have Fire immunity as well. Anything that isn't an Arcane/Divine Caster or an RDD tends to be a stealthy build with evasion.
* In BoTB and any high magic gear setting, Fire Damage Resistance on equipment is the final nail in the coffin
* However, for Campaigns, I would normally recommend specializing in Necromancy.
* Necromancy Pros
* You retain Conjuration and the Fodder killing Flame Arrow, which is essential for any non-melee primary caster (such as this) to get through long dungeons with lots of monsters.
* Necromancy Cons
* You lose Divination, and the following key spells:
* Clairaudience/Clairvoyance: The loss of this is not important as few campaign enemies use stealth.
* True Seeing: You still have Blindsight as a substitute.
* Premonition: As an Autostill caster, you have Iron Body as a substitute
* Power Word: Useful spells, but by no means essential
* In the Schemes below, we use a few abbreviations. ASoCK stands for Arcane Scholar of Candlekeep, and RWoT stands for Red Wizard of Thay
* The Red Wizard loses another spell school as soon as he takes his first level of this prestige class. He will no longer be able to learn spells from this new opposing school, but those he had learnt previously will not be lost. Because of this, you want to delay taking Red Wizard levels until as late as possible, so that you can learn as many spells as you can from this school, before you lose it. Therefore the Red Wizard levels are taken as late as possible in these progression schemes.
* There are 3 possible level progression schemes, depending on what you pick as your last class. There are seperate schemes for Bard, Rogue, and Druid.
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