dwilhelmi |
I currently have a 1st level wizard character who likes to summon things. Not master summoner type summon-spamming, but more like max-once-per-battle summoning. I was toying around with taking the feat Acadamae Graduate. It allows you to summon as a standard action instead of a full-round action, at the cost of requiring a DC-15 fort save to avoid becoming fatigued. Now, fatigued isn't too terrible, but exhausted is, which is what would happen if I failed such a save twice. So, I began looking for ways to cure fatigue between battles.
I started toying with the idea of a 1 level cleric dip at 2nd level, with the Community and Travel domains. I didn't dump Wisdom, so I currently have a +1 wis mod. This one level dip would give me the following:
- The ability to heal fatigue 4 times per day (should be enough to allow for all-day summoning at once-per-battle, even if I fail all the saves)
- A 40-foot move speed, with the ability to ignore difficult terrain for 4 rounds per day
- Longstrider domain spell for getting 50-foot move speed for one hour a day
- 3 extra 0-level spells known off the cleric list
- 2 extra 1-level spells known off the cleric list
- Ability to use cleric wands, including CLW, without needing UMD
- A +2 boost to fort saves
- Emergency healing (a 1d6 Channel Energy once a day due to dumped Cha, and spontaneous casting of a couple of CLW)
Downsides would be a 1-level slower wizard progression, and losing out of the 11th level of wizard at the end of my career.
Seems to me that this is a valuable dip at low levels, eventually getting less valuable over time. Is that an accurate assessment? Overall, does it seem worth it? I am new to PF, so still trying to figure out all the things. Thanks!
RainyDayNinja RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16 |
Rather than slowing down your spell progression, you'd be better off packing some scrolls of Lesser Restoration, and investing in UMD. 2 PP gets you a set of 5 scrolls, so it's pretty cheap. Or even without UMD, there's a good chance you'll be in a party with someone who can use the scroll on you anyway.
dwilhelmi |
I thought about that, but the math didn't seem to work out too well. Figure an average of 4 battles per scenario, and assume (because fort saves tehSuck for the wizard) fatigue after each battle. That means you need to cure the fatigue 3 times (last battle will get cleared out by sleeping) each scenario. That means I am basically spending 1 PP per scenario on average (needing a new set of 5 Lesser Restoration scrolls every other scenario). That is fully half of my career prestige points, possibly more if I don't always get the secondary, which seems like a steep cost to me. Again, though, I am new to all this, so maybe that's not as bad as it seems?
The Dandy Lion |
There is certainly a lot to be gained from a cleric dip, but that loss of a level of casting can be quite crippling, especially for a summoning-orientated character.
Given that the quality of your summons is more or less exclusively determined by the level of the spell used, this means that you're going to be a level behind on every odd level.
At level 5, a regular wizard could summon a Leopard, which can instantly pounce and smite for five attacks. You'd still be stuck with like, a small earth Elemental. Which is good, but not nearly as lethal.
Summoning will still be a very useful trick, but it's far more powerful if you get your full spell progression. It's the same for other spells, too - you're getting Haste later, Dimension Door and Black Tentacles later, and so on.
I would maybe consider the Occultist Arcanist as in-between. It admittedly has the slightly slower spell progression anyway, but you still get those juicy standard action summons on odd level ups without the fatigue penalty.