I'm playing in a Rise of Runelords game starting at level 11, and I believe start of book 4. My group is made up by a Ranger/Sorcerer/Arcane Archer, an Inquisitor, and an Evoker.
We are definitely needing some frontline beef, and added divine support, so I've pulled up this guy, but I'm not sure if he is beef enough for first line, and if he will dish enough damage to be focused on - here's what he looks like with Divine Favor, Shield and Magic Vestment (cast in the morning) running. Combat Expertise can push his AC to 32.
Garrosh
Half-orc shaman 11
CG Medium humanoid (human, orc)
Init +0; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +3
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Defense
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AC 29, touch 14, flat-footed 29 (+11 armor, +2 deflection, +2 luck, +4 shield)
hp 99 (11d8+41)
Fort +10, Ref +7, Will +14
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft. (20 ft. in armor)
Melee +3 adamantine longspear +16/+11 (1d8+22/×3)
Special Attacks hexes (eyes of battle, fetish, flight[APG], secret), wandering hex (arcane enlightenment)
Shaman Spell-Like Abilities (CL 11th; concentration +14)
. . At will—feather fall (self only)
Shaman Spells Prepared (CL 11th; concentration +14)
. . 6th—; mass bull's strength[S] or mass owl's wisdom[S]
. . 5th—; contact other plane[S] or righteous might[S]
. . 4th—; legend lore[S] or wall of fire[S]
. . 3rd—; locate object[S] or magic vestment[S]
. . 2nd—; fog cloud[S] or tongues[S]
. . S spirit magic spell; Spirit Battle Wandering Spirit Lore
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Statistics
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Str 20, Dex 10, Con 16, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 16
Base Atk +8; CMB +14; CMD 28
Feats Combat Expertise, Craft Wondrous Item, Furious Focus[APG], Heavy Armor Proficiency, Power Attack, Quicken Spell
Traits dangerously curious, fate's favored
Skills Acrobatics -5 (-9 to jump), Diplomacy +17, Fly +9, Heal +13, Intimidate +5, Knowledge (nature) +15, Spellcraft +10 (+14 to identify magic items), Survival +17, Swim +4, Use Magic Device +18; Racial Modifiers +2 Intimidate
Languages Common, Giant, Goblin, Orc
SQ battle spirit, enemies’ bane, monstrous insight, orc blood, spirit animal
Combat Gear extend metamagic rod, jingasa of the fortunate soldier[UE]; Other Gear +2 full plate, +3 adamantine longspear, belt of physical might +2 (Str, Con), cloak of resistance +2, headband of mental prowess +2 (Wis, Cha), ring of protection +2, 150 gp
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Special Abilities
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Arcane Enlightenment (Su) Add Charisma bonus wizard spells to your spells known list.
Arcane Familiar Nearby You gain the Alertness feat while your familiar is within arm's reach.
Battle Spirit +2 (6 rounds/day) (Su) As a standard action, allies in 30 ft gain bonus to attack and damage.
Combat Expertise +/-3 Bonus to AC in exchange for an equal penalty to attack.
Darkvision (60 feet) You can see in the dark (black and white only).
Deliver Touch Spells Through Familiar (Su) Your familiar can deliver touch spells for you.
Empathic Link with Familiar (Su) You have an empathic link with your Arcane Familiar.
Enemies’ Bane (6/day) (Su) As a swift action, grant one weapon bane ability of choice for 1 min. Stacks with normal bane.
Eyes of Battle (11/day) (Su) As a swift action, +10 perception to pinpoint invisible for 1 rd or ignore cover on next att.
Fetish (Ex) +4 bonus to Spellcraft to identify magic items.
Furious Focus If you are wielding a weapon in two hands, ignore the penalty for your first attack of each turn.
Monstrous Insight (6/day) (Su) As a standard action, attempt know check to ID monster and gain +2 to att & AC vs. that foe.
Orc Blood Half-orcs count as both humans and orcs for any effect related to race.
Power Attack -3/+6 You can subtract from your attack roll to add to your damage.
Quicken Spell Cast a spell as a swift action. +4 Levels.
Share Spells with Familiar Can cast spells with a target of "You" on the familiar with a range of touch.
Speak with Animals (Ex) Your familiar can communicate with animals similar to itself.
Speak with Familiar (Ex) You can communicate verbally with your familiar.
Spirit Animal If spirit animal is slain, cannot use spirit magic or prepare new spells.
Spells are not fully selected, but bottom line I am trying to go for a Divine chassis (with all round access to cure and removal spells) that can tank, adding a sprinkle of a few choice arcane spells to add exactly in that role. I hesitated a lot between this crunch and an Elven Ancient Lorekeeper Oracle, but in the end this guy seems to pack much better saves.
What do you think? Will he be able to carry out what is expected?
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I think you'd do better as an ancient lorekeeper battle oracle. Skip combat expertise, you won't hit jack with that and power attack on. Use mirror image if you don't want to get hit.
Id switch dangerously curious for reactionary. If you're busy beating stuff in the middle of the fight, you don't have the time to fiddle with wands.
Or you could do the whole thing on a cleric chasis, reach cleric style. If you weren't that MAD, you might even be able to get enough dex for combat reflexes.
For serious condition removal, prepared casters are best. Spontaneous casters - human FCB or no, you wouldn't want to waste it on removal spells. I think you're best off as a half orc cleric, actually.
If you want arcane spells go worship one of the great old ones(I heard madness and chaos domains are pretty good), then switch combat expertise for dreamed secrets. You should be able to make the DC 20 will save pretty easily.
Thanks for the feedback Just a Mort - why do you think I would do better as an ancient lorekeeper? :D
The wands I mean to use out of combat, or just immediately before getting into one - it can go a long distance with a few choice spells (like Shield - 1 minute duration should be enough for a combat), and frees some slots to fit in other arcane spells that are more level dependent.
I understand that spontaneous casters are already hard pressed for available spells to be adding cure and condition removal to their known ones (it is not an issue if taking oracle), but I couldn't really find a valid reason to be a cleric. Of course the spell list is more vast and versatile, and they have spells that the shaman does not, and big ones too like Divine Favor and Blessing of Fervor, but I can pick those up with human Shaman FCB.
And the spells granted by MAdness or Chaos domain are far from what I was looking for (which are more combat oriented, like Mirror Image, Displacement, Stoneskin, etc).
Dreamed Secrets only allows me 2 Arcane spells a day, correct?
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Ancient lorekeeper you don't need int, so you can have higher dex, then abuse combat reflexes. Battle oracles have some nice revelations to boost weapons, I.e get weapon focus, improved critical all with one weapon. Maneuver training gives you ability to get full bab on one maneuver. You can use it for greater trip, or greater grapple line. Skill at arms saves you a feat on heavy armor, you gain access to some of the higher crit range weapons, like the glaive. Though if you want hard core, switch out half elf skill focus to gain exotic weapon proficiency - fauchard, which is the best reach weapon ever, with a 18-20 crit range. Ancient lorekeepers also get to steal more arcane spells then a shaman with arcane enlightenment.
Fort save issues - I can't say much for things like blindness, flesh to stone, but if poison is an issue, just keep delay poison running 24/7.
If you want only 2 defensive spells, displacement and mirror image, dreamed secrets is more then enough. Stoneskin - you have an evoker, go bug him for it. There's things called conductive weapons that can channel your domain abilities as you smack people up.
I don't recommend you put mirror image and displacement up during combat, you're wasting time. Put mirror image, call it a day. It's also a little tricky for the GM adjudicating, how do you count the effects of both mirror image, and displacement, at the same time.
The only issue is how you feel about worshipping a great old one or an outer god.
Also, unless you really have good intelligence gathering, expecting to walk into a fight fully buffed..is not really possible. Each round of combat you spend buffing is one round you're not doing damage, so just get down to whacking baddies.
That's the point of reach builds, you buff as he comes to you, and you don't lose damage because you're still dealing it via AOOs because of enemies stepping into threatened spaces (assuming they don't have reach).
You sure do make a compelling argument there :D
I'll restat my Ancient Lorekeeper when I am at home, and give a second look at what he looks like at level 11.
Displacement and Mirror Image were just examples - but you are right, I would be hard pressed to get as many arcane spells on a Shaman as on an Ancient Lorekeeper.
Now I just need to select exactly which spell will make most difference for a melee frontliner. At level 11 I am looking at 4 Arcane spells of level 4 or less, so:
- I think Shield and Fly I should get on Wands, since on 1min/level duration, I am almost certain I can grab them at the lowest possible CL and still use them effectively?
- (Level 1) Enlarge Person
- (Level 2) Mirror Image scales nicely with level and is amazing in Combat, so I think I will grab that;
- (Level 3) Heroism? (I would rather a defensive spell actually)
- (Level 4) Stoneskin same as Mirror Image;
What do you think?
The only issue is how you feel about worshipping a great old one or an outer god.
I feel kinda funky :P
If you want a more battle focus + divine support... this guy is pretty hard to beat IMO
Dwarven Cleric of Mhar - Earth (Cave) and Fire (Ash)domains
- Boosts to WIS and CON
- Great spells and powers from the domains
- Innate dwarf tank ability
- Dump CHA
- Steel soul + Glory of Old.... Hello magic immunity!
- Dreamed Secrets....with a DC20 WILL save, a cleric will be able to get to a point where he is saving this quickest. Oracles due to being CHA based will definitely need heavy investment in Cloak of Res. By 8th level this guy should be able to get a +19 WILL save without even any Cloak of Res!
A Lorekeeper Oracle could work well though....
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Yeah, I'm pretty familiar with the stuff in the dark tapestry...
Azathoth for non evil deities. You can RP him as not bothering about what you're actually doing, which wouldn't be far off.
"Despite Azathoth's seeming indifference to everything, including any folk mad enough to worship Azathoth, the Primal Chaos has and does have cultists. "
Spell choice is fine, though for lv 4 I might try dinension door to qualify for dimensional agility chain.
I'm starting to think that trying to get a few arcane goodies on a Divine spellcaster means giving up too much for it :P
Though the Dimensional Agility chain is THE BOMB.
The thing with Ancient Lorekeeper is that it's elf only. You'd likely need to switch to Half-Elf to make the character work.
Wouldn't half-elf qualify for Lorekeeper?
And I was thinking... What about a Skald? :D
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Half elf should qualify for ancient lorekeeper unless some errata I don't know about occurred.
If you want to skald, rather you did evangelist cleric. Still 9 levels of casting, but light armor only, so just use the inquisitor for cover.
Someone still needs to do condition removal, I doubt the inquisitor is going to put remove blindness, remove disease, neutraluze poison as his spells known as inquisitors don't have FCB to gain more spells.
Armor expert trait lets you wear a mithril breastplate without penalty. Cheesy, yes I know.
I'd take Azathoth over Mhar, rather have an indifferent god then have one who wants to come to Golarion via living sacrifice.
Half-Elf works, I mentioned it because you listed your character as a Half-Orc in the OP.
I'd take Azathoth over Mhar, rather have an indifferent god then have one who wants to come to Golarion via living sacrifice.
If you are of a feint hearted nature, I would suggest you dont worship Outer Gods/Great Old Ones full stop!
There are no cuddly Ovaltine options......!!
I dont see the prob with Mhar.... you could even RP it as a CG cleric.
End of the day if you cant trust PCs to RP in a way that is non disruptive then thats a player problem not a deity problem.... I once was in a group with a cleric of Iomedae - complete pain in the ass! Had the most evangelical definition of honor and valor going.....
And Mhar has much better domain options than Azathoth and would actually be interesting to RP rather than a deity that basically didnt care what you did!... The very definition of boring AND potentially very disruptive.
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For serious condition removal, prepared casters are best. Spontaneous casters - human FCB or no, you wouldn't want to waste it on removal spells. ...
In my experience, when you need a removal spell you need it for multiple castings and at a good CL, and need it time sensitively, so they're great for a spont caster, especially a battle oracle that doesn't need to cast much in combat and can save their spells known for utilities outside of the couple of favorite buffs you'll have time or quickens to cast. As a prepared, you either don't have enough iterations memorized, or the afflicted have to wait too long for help.
It's also a little tricky for the GM adjudicating, how do you count the effects of both mirror image, and displacement, at the same time.
Read here: Blur / Displacement and Mirror Images
Lots of discussion on how they interact, and how you determine a 'hit'.
/cevah
3 pages of discussion, no clear conclusion at the end. And the maths gave me a headache, pass.
You don't need to deal with it, the GM does.
Remy Balster summed it up nicely, I thought:
Normally we follow these steps for Mirror Image:
Roll. If miss by more than 5, then miss. If miss by 5 or less, destroy image. If hit, then roll image/caster is hit. If image, then destroyed. if caster, then damage.But when we add in concealment, this triggers immediately after we determine that we might have an actual hit on our hands... it looks almost the same, but concealment squeezes in like this:
Roll. If miss by more than 5, then miss. If miss by 5 or less, destroy image. If hit,[then roll d% for hit or miss. If miss, then misses. If hit,] then roll image/caster is hit. If image, then destroyed. If caster, then damage.
/cevah
Didn't want to let you guys without an update - I am still intent on making this build work, but I have changed my mind for the specific game at hand - am going Warpriest (actually started another thread here) - I would obviously welcome your input.