How do you properly play a Mesmerist?


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Just curious. I haven't seen any guides to the class and just by looking at it, it's not clicking how one "properly" play a mesmerist.

At first I thought it was about the Mesmerist Tricks, but they seem fairly limited overall, so I doubt that's the case. Is it more about using the stare to debilitate then along with bard-esque skill and martial fighting? How would a battle generally play out for mesmerists?


The mesmerist strikes me as a sort of psychic bard or inquisitor in that there's no one way that's the best way.

The way I do it though is play up the magic more and use hypnotic spell in conjunction with my save or suck spells to hamper the foe. A nice combo I like is to chain my Spells with the spell déjà vu to force them to continue laying on the rebuffs for several rounds.

I'd focus more on debuffs and enhance them with your hypnotic stare. If you need to use combat though, painful state gives a nice damage bonus for those who want to get up close and personal.


he's like a bard

but just that instead of buffs you bring debuffs.

you can focus more on his casting side, or more on his martial side, again similar to a bard, you can offer a bit of circumstancial support (tricks) and instead of bringing a whole lot of skills and knowledges you instead super specialize in all forms of social things.

painful stare is like a damage over time or something. even if you do absolutly nothing on your round, you are guaranteed to at least get a BIT of damage in, and probably a debuff (for free) attacked on said damage.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Third Mind wrote:

Just curious. I haven't seen any guides to the class and just by looking at it, it's not clicking how one "properly" play a mesmerist.

At first I thought it was about the Mesmerist Tricks, but they seem fairly limited overall, so I doubt that's the case. Is it more about using the stare to debilitate then along with bard-esque skill and martial fighting? How would a battle generally play out for mesmerists?

The mesmerist plays a bit like the reverse-bard, as others have already stated. Painful Stare coupled with Bold Stare makes one enemy a very enticing target, and due to the Will Save penalty your spells have similar DCs to full casters at most levels (and higher at early levels) if you wish to focus on it. You could build as a support/debuff caster with high CHA, or you could build a melee Mesmerist since Painful Stare deals more damage if you trigger it yourself. The Intense Pain feat increases the damage by a good amount too, and it's worth taking for either build.


LuniasM wrote:
Third Mind wrote:

Just curious. I haven't seen any guides to the class and just by looking at it, it's not clicking how one "properly" play a mesmerist.

At first I thought it was about the Mesmerist Tricks, but they seem fairly limited overall, so I doubt that's the case. Is it more about using the stare to debilitate then along with bard-esque skill and martial fighting? How would a battle generally play out for mesmerists?

The mesmerist plays a bit like the reverse-bard, as others have already stated. Painful Stare coupled with Bold Stare makes one enemy a very enticing target, and due to the Will Save penalty your spells have similar DCs to full casters at most levels (and higher at early levels) if you wish to focus on it. You could build as a support/debuff caster with high CHA, or you could build a melee Mesmerist since Painful Stare deals more damage if you trigger it yourself. The Intense Pain feat increases the damage by a good amount too, and it's worth taking for either build.

i don't "get" intense pain, but i see a lot of people picking it up:

at lvl7 (when you can get it) it's +1d6 damage/round if it's you hitting, or +1 damage if it's another.
basically (best case scenario, for you) it's +3.5damage/round, which is... not great (imo)
at that lvl, it's basically comparable to a fighter picking up weapon specialization, (+2damage, 2 times/round) which again, isn't one of the feats that i value too high.

later levels it loses even more steam, 7 damage at 12lvl once /round is well... meh (fighter at that lvl, with the same weapon spec would be doing +2damage, 4 times/round, so 8 damage, same scaling as before)

if you DON'T use it yourself, it's even worse, i mean 3 damage/round at lvl 12 is just... lol.

for the same cost and opportunity cost, you could inflict -2str, -2dex, can't charge, can't run, can't rage, which imo is much superior


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
shroudb wrote:
LuniasM wrote:
Third Mind wrote:

Just curious. I haven't seen any guides to the class and just by looking at it, it's not clicking how one "properly" play a mesmerist.

At first I thought it was about the Mesmerist Tricks, but they seem fairly limited overall, so I doubt that's the case. Is it more about using the stare to debilitate then along with bard-esque skill and martial fighting? How would a battle generally play out for mesmerists?

The mesmerist plays a bit like the reverse-bard, as others have already stated. Painful Stare coupled with Bold Stare makes one enemy a very enticing target, and due to the Will Save penalty your spells have similar DCs to full casters at most levels (and higher at early levels) if you wish to focus on it. You could build as a support/debuff caster with high CHA, or you could build a melee Mesmerist since Painful Stare deals more damage if you trigger it yourself. The Intense Pain feat increases the damage by a good amount too, and it's worth taking for either build.

i don't "get" intense pain, but i see a lot of people picking it up:

at lvl7 (when you can get it) it's +1d6 damage/round if it's you hitting, or +1 damage if it's another.
basically (best case scenario, for you) it's +3.5damage/round, which is... not great (imo)
at that lvl, it's basically comparable to a fighter picking up weapon specialization, (+2damage, 2 times/round) which again, isn't one of the feats that i value too high.

later levels it loses even more steam, 7 damage at 12lvl once /round is well... meh (fighter at that lvl, with the same weapon spec would be doing +2damage, 4 times/round, so 8 damage, same scaling as before)

if you DON'T use it yourself, it's even worse, i mean 3 damage/round at lvl 12 is just... lol.

for the same cost and opportunity cost, you could inflict -2str, -2dex, can't charge, can't run, can't rage, which imo is much superior

First off, Painful Stare can be used to increase an ally's damage by 1/2 your level once a round, and if you trigger it yourself it adds 1d6 damage per 3 levels - you get both the dice and the static bonus. Intense Pain essentially multiplies your Painful Stare damage by 1.5, which is definitely worth a feat for a Martial Mesmerist and is probably worth the feat for a Caster Mesmerist, though obviously more valuable for damage builds.

And that "opportunity cost" allows a save. Intense Pain doesn't. Plus you can take Compounded Pain at 13th level to get both.


I know what painful does, but intense pain adds nowhere near 50% to it's damage:

Lvl7 you go from 2d6+3 (10) to 3d6+3(13.5) (35%)
And from there it goes downhill:
Lvl 11 (before it's bump) it would make:
3d6+5 (15.5) to 19 (22%)
And after it's bump it makes average 20 to average 27 (35% again)

In general though, the state doesn't do a lot of damage. So for me, it's best utilizing it as a debuff carrier. So fatigue+sickened with compound pain seems to be the optimal

Scarab Sages

Bleeding Stare is likely more useful of a damage boost (especially if you are a kuthite), and you can get it earlier.

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