Cheeseball Optimization: Ray of Frost

[EgyptFanatic]

Quote:

Ray of Frost

School evocation [cold]; Level magus 0, sorcerer/wizard 0

Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S

Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect ray
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance yes

A ray of freezing air and ice projects from your pointing finger. You must succeed on a ranged touch attack with the ray to deal damage to a target. The ray deals 1d3 points of cold damage.

Frost Ward Gel: Can act as a focus or material component for more damage, using it as a focus only adds +1 Damage but is more inexpensive in the long run.

Winter Witch's Frozen Caress hex: +1d4 cold damage added to a cold descriptor spell.

I'm curious how else to optimize a simple 1d3 damaging cantrip that currently is dealing on touch 1d3+1+1d4 which on even the lowest of rolls is still three cold damage per usage of the cantrip up to a maximum on the opposite end of the spectrum for eight cold damage.

[andreww]

Rime blooded Sorcerer bloodline means it will also Slow with a fortitude DC of 10+Cha.

Combine Heighten and Rime Spell for potentially many rounds of being entangled with no save, only a touch attack is needed.

[Graeme]

Include a level of Sorcerer with the Draconic (White) bloodline. That will do an extra +1 damage per die rolled (as per the Bloodline Arcana).

[Dekalinder]

Sorc crossblooded to get both.

[doctor_wu]

I don't think this is that good at a low levels from expirence. I have a winter witch in my lastwall campaign and touch ac is higher than you would expect at low levels. You will want precise shot otherwise shooting into melee gets really annoying which means human to get the bonus feat.

Although ray of frost stops a cheesy way to make a giant patch of brown mold is get a skeletal champion that can cast spark cantrip then keep casting spark to light the brown mold on fire and it will keep doubling in size.

[Ashram]

Alchemical power components from Adventurer's Armory lets you use a flask of Liquid Ice as a focus to increase the damage of RoF by 1, or use it as a material component to change the ray into an icicle that deals 1d3 piercing damage and 1 point of cold damage.

[Wiggz]

Point Blank Shot? Weapon Focus: Ray?

[MC Templar]

One level of Sorc for the bloodline and the cantrip, one level of witch for the hex and the rest rogue and try to catch things flat-footed for extra damage dice?

[I Hate Nickelback]

If you go into arcane trickster, can't you sneak attack with RoF?

[Drachasor]

Yeah, Arcane Tricksters are how to maximize Ray of Frost. That said, it is never going to be impressive damage.

[EgyptFanatic]

This little idea has becoming quite fun.
I noticed when checking the other wildblooded options for the sorcerer that there is the Primal (Elemental) one which is effectively the same thing that the Draconic one gives. If stack able, that is possibly a +2 damage per die rolled. I don't see innately why they wouldn't stack since they are from two different bloodlines.

So right now there is the damage possibility of a Witch 1 (Winter)/ Sorcerer 1 (Primal Elemental + White Dragon)/ Rogue 1
who has Point Blank as a feat and is using a Frost Ward Gel as a focus. (1d3+3+1d4+2+1 = between a Min of 8 or Max of 13.)

At 3rd level with range touch with a level 0 cantrip called Ray of Frost.

Possible Weakness:
+0 BAB at Level 3 (I would argue that with making such a character, you just need to roll good enough to hit the touch AC consistently, which tends to be but not always lower than actual AC.)

prestige class)

Actually making your touch spells hit (Lots of DEX and bonuses to hit remedy it)

Late Game makes "Pea Shooter" damage irrelevant (Well its a good thing then that the makers of the Winter Witch prestige class thought of this as well and added the Hex Numbing Chill)

Numbing Chill wrote:

Whenever the winter witch casts a spell that deals cold damage, she can imbue the spell with a debilitating eldritch chill as a swift action. She chooses one of the spell’s targets or a creature within the spell effect. If that creature takes cold damage from the spell, it must also succeed at a Fortitude save or take 1d4 points of Dexterity damage and be staggered for 1 round. The creature need only make this saving throw once per spell, even if the spell deals damage multiple times. If the target saves successfully, it is immune to this hex for 1 day. This is a cold effect.

Plus there is also the possibility of taking the Elemental Focus and Greater Elemental Focus feats to make just in general all the cold spells you can cast have a higher DC.

EDIT: Nice catch on Arcane Trickster.

[graystone]

magic trait Havoc of the Society, +1 force damage to spells.
Msgic trait Volatile Conduit, 1/day add +1d4 damage to elemental damage.

[EgyptFanatic]

So after factoring it in...

a 3rd level Ice Mage (2 Ice Witch/ 1 Sorcerer (Mixed Breed) has the potential to deal quite a bit wit ha couple of cheap spells.

Level 3:

Razzy
Chaotic Good Male Human Ulfen Witch (Winter) 2 / Sorcerer 1 (Dual Blooded Primal Elemental and White Dragon bloodlines)
STR: 7
DEX: 18
CON: 11
INT: 20
WIS: 7
CHA: 10

Homeland: Irrisen
Languages: Common, Skald, Hallit, Giant, Azlanti, Jistka, Thassilonian

Skills: Appraise +12, Craft (Charms) +10, Heal +4, Knowledge (Arcana) +11, Knowledge (History) +11, Knowledge (Nature) +11, Knowledge (Planes) +11, Spellcraft +11

Feats: Point Blank Shot, Additional Traits, Rime Spell (Metamagic Feat), Eschew Materials
Traits: Magical Lineage (Snowball), Gifted Adept (Snowball), Havoc of the Society (+1 force damage to spells), Volatile Conduit (1/day add +1d4 damage to elemental damage)

Cantrips: Ray of Frost, Read Magic, Detect Magic, Mage Hand
Level 1 Spells: Snowball
Hex: Frozen Caress
Familiar: Raven

Starting Equipment: Frost Ward Gel (150g), Cold Weather Outfit (FREE)

Ray of Frost: 1d3+3+1d4+2+1d4+2+1 = 9 cold and 1 force damage (MIN) or 18 cold and 1 force damage (MAX)
Snowball: 3d6+6+1d4+2+1d4+2+1 = 21 Cold and 1 Force damage(MIN) or 36 Cold and 1 Force damage(MAX), if the target fails a saving throw from the metamagic they are entangled for 1 round and if they fail their saving throw from the snowball itself they are staggered for 1 round.

[Tactical Monkey]

Try the wizard archetype Spellslinger.
That way you can have like a single hand held gun that can look steampunkish that shoots freeze rays at people. Plus it would allow the Freeze Ray in question to crit for x3 damage which with how this cheese build is going I would say would sting really bad. Plus the drawback of such an archetype is easily covered by the fact if it ever should explode on you... it would deal cold damage to you, something you naturally resist anyway.

[Bigdaddyjug]

I Hate Nickelback wrote:

If you go into arcane trickster, can't you sneak attack with RoF?

A rogue with a wand of ray of frost and sufficiently high UMD could sneak attack with it. Or a multi-classed sorcerer/rogue.

Oh, and Paizo has ruled that Wildblooded and Cross-blooded sorcerer archetypes don't mix. Although you could do Cross-blooded draconic and orc and get the same result.

Imagine this: You've got a level 10 ninja who has the advanced ninja trick for greater invisibility. He comes upon a wand of scorching ray with a caster level of 11. He can swift action to go greater invisible, then UMD the wand to make 3 sneak attacks for 4d6+5d6 on each attack. A ninja using physical attacks there is at best getting 4 attacks (full attack + a ki attack) and has a much lower chance to land all of them.

Of course, that wand of scorching ray CL 11 costs over 15,000 if he wants to buy it.

[RainyDayNinja]

1 level of winter witch, 1 level of cross-blooded sorc (orc and draconic), then evocation wizard from then on. At level 20, you're looking at 1d3+1d4+12, for 16.5 damage per shot.

[TGMaxMaxer]

Add in 2 levels of MoMS monk (if you have enough wis and other synergy) with kirin style and kirin strike and add 2xInt damage as a swift on a single successful melee or ranged attack per round.

My Monk2/witch3 has a couple of cracked orange Ioun stones to get ray of frost, disrupt undead, and acid splash, doing 1d3+12 (1d6 on disrupt undead), and uses the hair hex at +8hit doing 1d4+18, usually charged with an inflict of some kind as a boost for another d8+5.

So... an Evocation wizard 20 would actually do... assuming 34 int(not max possible) 1d3+34 with a ray of frost... with 2 feats spent on it only... and it could apply 1/round to any single evocation spell he casts with an attack roll, not just ray of frost. AVG: 35.5 damage per shot at level 20.

But I actually like the rogue19/wiz1 with a 24 int who does 1d3+10d6+14 better myself, AVG damage per shot 50. With a cantrip. Unlimited. damn.

[Tiny Coffee Golem]

RainyDayNinja wrote:

1 level of winter witch, 1 level of cross-blooded sorc (orc and draconic), then evocation wizard from then on. At level 20, you're looking at 1d3+1d4+12, for 16.5 damage per shot.

So the archmage can smite peasants.

[TGMaxMaxer]

Bah... my archmage does 35/shot with a cantrip... he can clean out most city-guards.

[CWheezy]

Note that sneak attack does not apply to all the rays you get from scorching ray

[igorwolfgang]

if you are invisible while using scorching ray could you make sneak attack apply to all the attacks

[Petty Alchemy]

Adding the Slow effect to it is worth far more than the damage, so don't skip it.

[Nefreet]

FAQ wrote:

Sneak Attack: Can I add sneak attack damage to simultaneous attacks from a spell?

No. For example, scorching ray fires simultaneous rays at one or more targets, and the extra damage is only added once to one ray, chosen by the caster when the spell is cast.
Spell-based attacks which are not simultaneous, such as multiple attacks per round by a 8th-level druid using flame blade, may apply sneak attack damage to each attack so long as each attack qualifies for sneak attack (the target is denied its Dex bonus or the caster is flanking the target).

—Pathfinder Design Team, 06/19/13

[Umbranus]

The flagbearer gives a +1 to hit and +1 to damage. As it is a moral bonus it triggers the mindlessly cruel (orc) or a similar dwarf trait for another +1 to damage.

I once had a similar thread started before the winter witch came out.
What I got was:

So I could start the game with a level 1 human sorcerer with crossblooded Orc/brutal
He has:
-the flag bearer and point blank shot as feats
-the havoc of society and the mindlessly cruel traits
-a flask of liquid ice