| Douglas Muir 406 |
Here's the Sorceror of Sleep archetype, from Black Markets.
In theory this could be great. "Drug-powered sorceror" is a classic trope that goes all the way back to Robert E. Howard. Gaining power in return for addiction is an obvious and interesting idea that could go in all sorts of cool directions. Unfortunately, the actual Sorceror of Sleep archetype is... well, let's break it down.
Pesh Expert
A sorcerer of sleep adds 1/2 her sorcerer level (minimum 1) on Appraise, Craft (alchemy), Heal, and Knowledge (local) checks related to pesh and other drugs.
This ability replaces bloodline arcana.
Most bloodline arcana are pretty feeble, so in theory swapping them for bonuses on four skills could be okay. Unfortunately these are four crappy skills, and three of them aren't even class skills for a sorceror. So in return for giving up your bloodline arcana, by 6th level you might be as good at Appraise as a 1st level rogue. Hard to get enthusiastic about this.
Sahir-Afiyun
A sorcerer of sleep gains Sahir-Afiyun as a bonus feat at 1st level, even if she does not meet the prerequisites. A sorcerer of sleep adds Pesh Euphoria, Pesh Healing, Pesh Rejuvenation, and Sahir-Afiyun to her list of bloodline feats.
This ability replaces eschew materials.
Sahir-Afiyun is actually an okay-to-good feat. Anything that adds to your spell list is good, and many of the spells listed are solid. Unfortunately, the pesh feats are pretty crap. They're flavorful if you're deliberately building a pesh addict, but in mechanical terms none of them are worth taking. Pesh Healing, for instance, allows you to gain 1 hp/level of temporary hp for one hour after taking pesh. Yes, or you could just take Toughness and gain 1 hp/level *all the time*, without the complications involved in taking pesh. The only one that's not complete junk is Pesh Rejuvenation, and even it's not very good.
Pesh Touch (Su)
As a standard action, a sorcerer of sleep can make a melee touch attack against a living creature to cause one of the following effects (sorcerer's choice): the target gains a +2 enhancement bonus to Strength, the target is fatigued, or the target takes a –2 penalty on saving throws against illusion and mind-affecting effects. The effects of pesh touch last a number of rounds equal to 1/2 the sorcerer of sleep's sorcerer level. The effects of pesh touch are not cumulative, and cannot make the target exhausted. A sorcerer of sleep can use pesh touch a number of times per day equal to 3 + her Charisma modifier.
This ability replaces the 1st-level bloodline power.
What is it with paizo and sorcerors and touching? -- Well, let's see. You can throw a +2 enhancement bonus to strength. That's almost never going to be useful, because you will almost always have something better to do with a standard action. In theory you could use it as a pre-combat buff in situations where you're setting up an ambush, but only if (1) you had run through all better buffs to cast, and (2) there were no other enhancement bonuses in play (since it won't stack with those). Also, the duration is so short as to make it almost useless anyway: at 5th level you'd be giving the fighter, woo, a whole 2 rounds of +2 Str.
Fatigue is not a particularly strong debuff, and probably not worth putting your squish sorceror right next to a hostile. -2 on saves against illusions and mind-affecting spells could be nice situationally -- team up with some other Will debuffer, like a Mesmerist or a Court Bard, and you could strip an enemy's Will save down pretty far. But, again, takes a standard action and requires you to get up close for a touch attack.
Overall this is... not awful, but not very good. And not as flavorful as one might hope. You don't even have to take pesh, so the whole "drug-powered" thing is not really there. I might imagine using this to build an NPC drug dealer -- throw in a level or two of rogue and you might have something mildly interesting -- but as a PC? Not unless you're in an urban campaign where drugs are an important element, I'd say, and even then it's not all that impressive.
Thoughts?
Doug M.
| andreww |
It's a total downgrade to the base sorcerer.
I actually think that the loss of the Arcana is the biggest downside. Many of the best bloodlines have amazing Arcana. Arcane, Fey, Sylvan, even the damage boosting ones, none of them are worth giving up for a slowly scaling bonus to an extremely limited use of a few skills.