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The initial flaw to this build is the sorcerer skeleton (1/2 Base Attack Bonus, d6 Hit Die, low Fort save) making melee combat, even support, a potential liability. Con score is lower than most melee builds, even by the standards of d8 and d10 classes. Even with toughness.
Claws are going to miss more often than not, and even with an Agile Amulet their damage won't hold a candle to even a TWF rogue. Low Str means until you get that amulet the'll hit for 1 nonlethal.
Spell selection seems fine. Shock8ng grasp is pretty much your bread and butter DPS. Consider an early Reach Spell feat to use it while protecting your squishy, squishy body. Besides that, bring a light crossbow. You'll be using it a lot.
Going dragon disciple is technically an upgrade to what you want to do, but that class is a bit weak thanks to its spread-thin focus. The best DD build I've seen actually involved a full BAB class with a dip into Sumoner for the great spell list. Claws are limited, but weapon swings are not.
Anyway, 3.5 stuff if swingy. Also, how do you have 4 traits?
Do it without the 3.5 material if you want it to be taken seriously here. Otherwise people won't take this though exercise seriously. You should also not multiclass at all. There is a difference between you make ___ do X, and it is intended to do X. If it is intended to do X then it won't need the extra support.
Paizo has melee options built into bloodlines. If the "intended" for it to really work then you can do it with the CRB alone. I don't even know if you can show than it can work, and it will be much harder to prove they intended for it to work. More than likely it is another trap option to go melee with a d6 character past level 5.
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It's not bad, but there are issues.
I wouldn't recommend casting debuff spells, but only putting a 14 in your primary spellcasting stat with NO feats devoted to increasing your save DCs. You're looking at a save DC of 13 for 1st level spells and it barely scales up from there, which is okay, but you're better off sticking to buff spells for a long, long time. If you're starting at a level where you have your Amulet of Mighty Fists (Agile), it's ALMOST bearable, but by the time you get it you're still WAY behind a melee combatant in terms of accuracy/damage. Most of your damage comes from your spells anyways, and it seems to be where you've focused your feats, so why bother with it?
I've found that in the early game Sorcerers can actually be pretty decent melee combatants if you give them a decent strength score (like ANYONE can), and CAN get better with a touch of multiclassing if you go into Dragon Disciple and combine it with something like Bloodrager or Ranger. The problem with that for this build is that part of the draw into Dragon Disciple is the increased Strength score at multiple levels, and your build gains NO benefit from that.
Basically, in the early levels your claws don't hit hard enough to matter (via weapon finesse), and in the later levels there are better ways to function as a primary combatant that you miss out on with a dexterity-focused build. Now, I don't mind Weapon Finesse (it lets you use Dex for Touch Attacks like Shocking Grasp), or the rest of your feats, but if you're gonna pick Caster feats, you need to play your character like a caster, and if you're goal is melee damage, you need to pick feats/abilities that allow you to do that well, and I just don't see it going well with this build.
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Some of you have read my other thread 'Problems with Sorcerers' and since then I decided to make a melee based Sorcerer to test out the theory that Paizo intended them to be support fighters. This is the theory one of my gaming friends put out and there seems to be alot of evidence to support his theory. I used a little 3.5 material. Here it is, please critique.
Halfling Sorcerer [Blue Draconic Bloodline]
Str 5
Dex 19
Con 12
Int 14
Wis 12
Cha 14Traits: Magical Lineage (Shocking Grasp), Vagabond Child (Escape Artist), Rice Runner (Acrobatics), Umbral Unmasking
Skills: Max points in Perception, Escape Artist, and Acrobatics. The extra point will be picking up class skills.Feats: (1) Weapon Finesse, (3) Elemental Spell, (5) Empower Spell, (7) Quicken Spell, Intensify Spell, (9) Arcane Thesis (Shocking Grasp), (10) Improved Initiative, (11) Maximize Spell, (13) Arcane Strike, Toughness (15) Spell Perfection (Shocking Grasp)
Cantrips: (1) Detect Magic, Caltrops, Prestidigitation, Light (2) Message (4) Ghost Sound, (6) Drench
Spells: (1) Shocking Grasp, Reduce Person (3) Mage Armor, Vanish, (4) False Life, (5) Expeditious Retreat, Resist Energy, Cats Grace, (6) Vampiric Touch (7) Protection from Evil, Glitter Dust, Fly, Heroism (8) Enervation (9) Web, Lightning Bolt, Fear, Greater Invisibility, (10) Undead Anatomy II, (11) Monstrous Physique II [Derro Fetal Savant], Spell Resistance, Teleport, (12) Undead Antatomy III, (13) Form of the Dragon, Cloak of Dreams, (14)Items: Wand of Shield, Grease, [4k] Amulet of Mighty Fists (Agile), Anklet of Translocation, [1k] Page of Spell Knowledge
Thoughts? Basically this will guy will be a knock out artist. He will constantly be using reduce person, shield and expeditious retreat. The shield wand will be his first purchase. The really nice thing is he doesn't need any equipment.
He will cast Shocking Grasp (modified with one or more metamagic feats) and blast the dude. Elemental Spell will allow him to hit creatures vulnerable elements or get...
Unless I am missing something I predict a quick death before level 3.
You are starting with 7 HP and an AC of 16. You speed is 20 and trying to dart in and out of combat will still require you to stay in threatened areas regularly.
One hit later you are down and dying, now the party is on trouble. If lucky they can succeed a couple of times, but it only takes one time.
I keep trying to insert something in here but it keeps coming out as a full-on guide, and I don't want to do that.
Anyway, long story short, take Toughness at level 1. Put your FCB into hp until level 3 at the very least, with level 4 allowing you to choose an extra level 1 spell or hp, or whatever other racial FCB you gain. Pick up Draconic for the resists and the natural armor bonus. Form of the Dragon isn't a bad line of spells either. Other bloodlines are fine, as long as they're not strictly casting bloodlines. Just gotta make up for the shortfalls of not going a full-BAB class, like lack of health, armor, and strength. Your Sorcerer will always be squishy, but can stand up with, say, a Rogue in combat.
Remember also that Paizo's published adventure paths are meant for 15 point buy characters with varying levels of optimization, so a Muscle Wizard isn't completely and totally lost.
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You really don't want to be using reduce person. That will make you tiny, meaning that you need to enter your opponents' spaces to make melee attacks. Your speed really isn't high enough to use acrobatics reliably without buff spells, and your abysmal HP means that one lucky attack of opportunity can kill you. You definitely caught the memo on monstrous physique, although it'll probably be best to stick to Paizo material and stay at small size as a charda.
I've played a melee wizard in Wrath of the Righteous through level 14 and in PFS through level 11, and I can promise you that it's impossible to underestimate the importance of Constitution. Those two characters are at 18 and 20 Con, respectively, both have absurdly high ACs, and both use false life and greater false life to great effect, but both have gone within a few points of death on multiple occasions. Your mediocre saving throws are going to be the primary means by which the damage leaks in; your Fort save will be tanked, exposing you to all kinds of nasty crowd control. Bump that Con up to 14 at a minimum and trade out cat's grace for bear's endurance. You'll be getting a belt of incredible dexterity sooner rather than later, and more Constitution (for you or your buddies) never goes out of style.
As stated above, your 3.5 and 3pp material really undermine the credibility of your experiment.
All that said, good luck on your experiment, and I hope you have a good time with the character. Feel free to PM me for more melee caster discussions.
Do it without the 3.5 material if you want it to be taken seriously here. Otherwise people won't take this though exercise seriously. You should also not multiclass at all. There is a difference between you make ___ do X, and it is intended to do X. If it is intended to do X then it won't need the extra support.I didn't multiclass
I was not saying you did, but I did see a mention of dragon disciple, so I was just mentioning it up front.
The reason is that sometimes a player will try to make a point with a class, but then have another class do the heavy lifting.
I don't understand what you mean at later levels. At later levels I will likely have enough spells to last several fights and I will put out more damage then anyone in the game
At level 12 I will be able to two shocking grasps in a round and do an amazing amount of damage. The biggest drawback, I think, to this build is the full round action to apply metamagic drawback. That is really annoying.
Let's see if I casted a maximized empowered intensified shocking grasp, and held the charge. Next round I charge in, attack, and then cast a quickened empowered intensified shocking grasp. Delivering these attacks via my claws mind you. I would do 1d3+1d6+100, twice. I can do that attack 4 times per day.
maximized empowered intensified=60+ (10d6 x .5)= 60+17(average rolls)=77
quickened empowered intensified=35 x 1.5 = about 52
total 129
Not bad if it was sustainable, but 4 times a day does not make you a real melee combatant. It means you have a character that can do burst damage, and what is your AC at level 12?
Using that combo lets you take out one CR=APL opponent. Even if the opponent is a CR 10 he can survive the 95 hit points.
You are also doing this over a course of 3 rounds so your DPR is about 43. Even a non min-max DPR build should be doing 60 points of damage per round on average by level 12, and many will say that is on the low end.
I did not any claw damage but I dont think it is going to push you into "I am a melee guy" range.
I don't know exactly how you got your numbers so I only accounted for the metamagic feats that are from PF. Arcane Thesis is from 3.5, so you might not even be able to do this 4 times per day.
Arcane Thesis is the best feat for blaster-casters ever. Using it to prove that the PF Sorcerer is good up close sort of invalidates the entire point, because yes, a feat that turns Maximized Empowered Intensified Shocking Grasp into a 4th level spell (third after Lineage, first after Spell Perfection) is ridiculously good. But it sort of destroys your own case, because what I'm seeing is "the Sorcerer works up close if and only if I have a ridiculously good feat that's not actually from this game".
Also, wraithstrike, his damage off an Intensified Grasp is going to be 10 higher, 15 with Empowered, due to the bloodline. Not that it really affects your point.
<facepalm> Somehow I forgot to empower the 10 dice.
maximized empowered intensified=60+ (10d6 x .5)= 60+17(average rolls)=77
quickened empowered intensified=35 x 1.5 = about 52
You forgot the bloodline boon it looks like. I should have an extra 10 points of damage before the empowered, making it an extra 15. Maximized removes the roll, so it is 105 points of damage plus the claw. That would be an average of 110.
Not bad if it was sustainable, but 4 times a day does not make you a real melee combatant. It means you have a character that can do burst damage, and what is your AC at level 12?4 times a day I can do the big double hit, but I can still throw quite a few single hits after that.
With maximize plus empower you maximize the normal dice and then you roll and take half.
Maximize Spell (Metamagic)
Your spells have the maximum possible effect.Benefit: All variable, numeric effects of a spell modified by this feat are maximized. Saving throws and opposed rolls are not affected, nor are spells without random variables. A maximized spell uses up a spell slot three levels higher than the spell's actual level.
An empowered, maximized spell gains the separate benefits of each feat: the maximum result plus half the normally rolled result.
This is not a new Pathfinder ruling. It was that way in 3.5 also.
The reason is that empower only affects variable dice. If they are being maxed out then they are no longer variable so empower now only gets you 50%, while the maximize gets you the 100% damage.
4 times a day I can do the big double hit, but I can still throw quite a few single hits after that.
4 times a day is basically only 4 opponents at that level. Other than that you are not a serious threat in melee. Even with the double hit you are behind other dedicated meleer's. If you are ok with that, that is fine, but it is not something many people here are going to count as a "melee attack threat".
The goal of being up front is to protect the softer party members by doing melee damage and trying to keep them focused on you.
Real life example: By level 12 a barbarian can easily put out 100 points of damage per round. By the time you are getting warmed up he is already 100 points ahead. Fighters are in the same range.
While you are getting ready he might be moving on to another party member or attacking. If the monster was made for melee, and your con is still low he might kill you after the first attack you get off. Giants and elementals tend to hit pretty hard for their CR's.
CR 12 monsters are supposed to do 55 damage on average if every attack hits. A cloud giant does about 45 per hit if it hits while power attacking.
PS: Once again, if this is ok for your game it is fine. I am doubting it will be accepted here as "supposed to be in melee".
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And that's the main problem.
Sure, you can throw out some impressive shocking grasps, but:
1) That's Magus bread and butter right there, so you're going to have to compete with the stuff they regularly do.
2) You're doing something that's decently effective at dealing damage... a few times a day at low levels, and that scales pretty poorly into higher levels. That's not to say that the damage isn't appreciated, it's just that there are probably better things to do than to focus on a single low-level damage-dealing spell as a sorcerer. Where are you leaving room for spells like Haste? If you prepare Reduce Person as a debuff for enemies, that's eating into your spell slots at low levels, which means time spent not doing much of anything besides using that precious crossbow. And that's where my biggest problem lies.
3) You're dropping your Charisma score REALLY low to accomplish something almost well. The problem isn't the shocking grasps; it's that you've taken your chassis (the sorcerer) and devoted the entirety of your resources to it to the point of neglecting the other things sorcerer can do well. With that low of a Charisma score, and precisely 0 feats thrown into making your spells more difficult to resist, you're stuck relying on touch spells for damage, the rare few spells that also ignore Spell Resistance, and buff spells for allies, but the later, while being very effective, eats into those precious spell slots you need for your big, flashy Shocking Grasps.
In addition, delivering your Shocking Grasps via your claws is a terrible idea at low levels, and might be only MARGINALLY worth it at higher ones. At low levels, your claws hit for 1d4-3, thanks to that 5 strength score. Until you get your Amulet (Agile), they only add a single point of damage at BEST, but require hitting normal AC instead of Touch AC, which is the best part of touch spells. At higher levels you'll have a big Dexterity score, but again, you're going up against enemies that have AC in the 30+'s with 1/2 BAB and 0 feats devoted to increasing your accuracy, not to mention dealing with Hardness and Damage reduction. You won't be hitting them with your claws, at least not often enough by the time they start dealing 1d6+7+1d6(lightning) damage. You could do that... or get a +10-20 to your attack roll with just the Shocking Grasp (which is what hitting touch AC is like at higher levels).
Don't get me wrong, your spell damage will be fine... but that's just the problem: It will be fine. It will have its moments of shining glory where you roll really high and solo an encounter and make you feel great, but I have a Magus in my home game that does that, and the turns where he doesn't or CAN'T do it he feels weak compared to everyone else that just does decent damage without relying on spells. You're devoting every resource at your disposal to being a one-trick burst pony, but sometimes that trick is still poorly executed.
My advice? Forget about the claws. You can still do your little shocking grasp schtick, but instead of focusing on shocking grasp alone, pump up your Charisma and take a few debuff, control, and buff spells you'll definitely be using, saving that uber shocking grasp for when the going gets tough and you absolutely MUST kill an enemy. Spend fewer feats on improving the damage for a single spell, and focus on improving your survivability at lower levels. Take Improved Initiative and Toughness sooner in your feat tree, and devote your Amulet money to a Mithral shield and get it enchanted.
Otherwise, focus on making a melee brute sorcerer, not a nuker sorcerer that likes to pretend that he belongs in melee.
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