Ice Ice Baby! (Water / Ice Themed Caster)


Advice


So hey I have tried my search-fu, and found some interesting threads but I am posting this looking for some specifically PFS viable options.

I scored myself an Undine (thank you boon trade thread) and am hoping to throw together an ice/water based caster. I'm thinking probably sorcerer but that isn't set in ice.

I'm not looking for (but have no objections to) complete build ideas, rather I'm just wondering if people have any cool ice/water themed tricks, spells etc. It doesn't have to be arcane or even a caster thing, post anything cool with that theme, maybe you will sway me to change class! (eg the Cleric subdomain Ice giving Ice Body at level 8 is pretty cool).

For anyone curious about my current leanings its sorcerer with:
S 8
D 15
C 10
I 10
W 12
C 18

Going for Elemental Water bloodline for the +2 Cha bonus to sorc spells and abilities (possibly going for two bloodlines). Taking the higher dex for ranged touch spells and possibly going for a bit of a blaster. Thinking of going for as my bread and butter Rime Spell and Snowball with magical lineage.

TLDR? Looking for cool Ice/Water tricks,spells or feats!

The Concordance

<= Take a glance at this profile.


I already did, yours was one of the posts/profiles I came across when searching, its pretty damn cool :)

I was just throwing this out there for other ideas or maybe dips or other classes that could also be cool.

You have any other options you were leaning towards or other spells etc that you didnt go with in the end?

The Concordance

Indeed. Consider the Wildblooded archetype for Sorcerer. The Empyreal bloodline allows you to use Wisdom in place of Charisma as your casting stat.

Liberty's Edge

If you have an Undine boon, the water singer bard archetype is really cool.

Scarab Sages

Shaman (Waves) 2 / Wild-blooded (Rime-Blooded) X
Or
Wild-blooded (Rime-Blooded) 1 / Shaman (Waves) X

Obtain the Crashing Waves hex
Get the Rime Spell feat
Learn the Snowball spell

Fort save or Slow for 1 round (Bloodline Arcana)
Fort save or Staggered for 1 round (Snowball spell)
Fort save or knocked Prone (Crashing Waves hex)
Entangled for 1 round for taking damage (Rime Spell feat)

Fun times.


@ Blub - I was looking at that but I'm not sure if choosing that bloodline is worth it. If I choose water I effectively get a +2 to casing stat anyway PLUS the ability to convert spells to cold PLUS still open to crossblooding.

@ Andrew - Watersinger does look awesome and I've never played a bard before, but I was just worried about how often you would find enough water near a fight that a GM would allow you to control it.

@ Cao - Some cool synergies there, one thing though I believe (though I could be wrong) that the shaman is one of the classes getting a big rewrite so I'd be apprehensive about relying on it.


CathalFM wrote:

@ Blub - I was looking at that but I'm not sure if choosing that bloodline is worth it. If I choose water I effectively get a +2 to casing stat anyway PLUS the ability to convert spells to cold PLUS still open to crossblooding.

@ Andrew - Watersinger does look awesome and I've never played a bard before, but I was just worried about how often you would find enough water near a fight that a GM would allow you to control it.

@ Cao - Some cool synergies there, one thing though I believe (though I could be wrong) that the shaman is one of the classes getting a big rewrite so I'd be apprehensive about relying on it.

The watersinger adds create water to his spell list. Its an orison. Just make sure you have enough strength, or an ant haul belt or something, and carry a huge amount of water on your back in a container like Gaara does sand.


I've been tinkering with cold based casters for a bit. Currently I'm on wizard, certainly there are better races but for this case let's use a dwarf because I like having con and hp.

Str 10
Dex 14
Con 16 (14 + 2 racial)
Int 16
Wis 12 (10 + 2 racial)
Cha 8 (10 - 2 racial)

Let's start with schools of magic. While the admixture subschool does look tempting let's try the elemental school of water.

At level 1 You should take Spell Focus (Evocation) or SF (Conjuration) because some of the most powerful cold spells deal a lot of damage. For your level feat I recommend Elemental Focus (Cold) so you can crank up your snowball saving throw DC by a lot. For a familiar I like toads for the hp bump but that's my preference.

At level 3 take toughness because why not, water elementals have a high constitution score so let's make a bag of hit points mage. Rely on spells such as snowball, frostfall, and Ice Spears to alter the battlefield and punish your opponents. At 5 take Greater Spell Focus and obviously another feat of your choice.

Note: You will want to have Resist Energy if you want to use Detonate for massive damage.

The Exchange

For an ice-based Sorcerer I'd always go Rime-Blooded: even your ray of frost cantrips are capable of slowing a target for a round.

EDIT: BTW I don't know if the Irrisen Icemage Feat from the Cities of Golarion book is allowed for PFS but if it is, then you want it.

Shadow Lodge

For a Sorcerer, a Snowball Specialist could be really fun. It might be a bit annoying for GMs [because Snowball is functionally a ranged Shocking Grasp with a debuff or two to stack on]. And the Elemental[Water] bloodline could make a really fun blaster, with Fireballs that do Cold damage or Fire damage to help with resistance.

Or the Watersinger looks like a really cool archetype that, when used w/Create Water, or on the various boat-themed adventures or river-themed adventures, could be very very useful. And furthermore, in adventures that aren't themed like this, you still have buffs to fall back on, and a few nice offensive/control spells from the archetype.

Silver Crusade

I played in the same party with a [cold] focussed water-aspected caster who made especially good use of Rime Spell, particularly at low levels. She used it explicitly to give the multiple reach weapon wielders in our party extra attacks. Her Rimed AoE ice blasts would deal only 5-10 HP damage, very little, but then each targeted foe would take massive HP damage from AoOs that the martial PCs would not otherwise have got. Also, and more importantly, it prevented the enemy from taking Full Attacks. Note that there is no saving throw vs the Rime effect.

It took her some trial and error to get this working. How this eventually worked:

1. We martial PCs understood her technique and cooperated. We knew what was coming, and were eager to exploit it. E.g. We would sometimes hold initiative to let her go first, would designate a 'killing field', form a defensive line when possible, etc.

2. She would wait until the foe crossed the killing field, took AoOs from the front line, and closed base-to-base with our front line (who all used a reach weapon). She would then Rime blast the foe. Our front line would 5' step away & full attack. Normally a foe would just 5' step in, but Rime spell prevents the 5' step. As a result, foes could rarely land a full attack, and would have to run the AoO gauntlet again to get even one attack.

This took a little while for the party to get working smoothly, but it eventually worked really well. Rime spell acted as damage mitigation by preventing enemy attacks, and caused additional damage to the enemy by generating extra AoOs. Actual blast damage from the spell was inconsequential compared to these other effects.


Why not play a Winter Witch with the prestige class? You get a lot of water/ice themed abilities and the ability to bypass cold resistance/immunity.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / Ice Ice Baby! (Water / Ice Themed Caster) All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.