A) Gonna have a wizard or arcanist with a slaver crew. His job is not really do do major damage. It is to to control slave casters, incapacitate slaves, capture, intimidate, etc...
Looking for a rough build around 7th level, spell book contents, and which spells prepared for an average day.
B) Need some ideas for a 6th level nobles bodyguard. The guard is a professional from a group that only does guarding of important people form assassination. So guard has to have good saves to not be eliminated by a low level spell. Yet still be able to protect his charge. He has to be able to go anywhere his charge goes. Able to function with little or no warning and support.
If you want to cause fear then a crew member or two who share the Callous Casting betrayal feat can set up a nasty combo - first the leader casts horrific doubles, then something like a fireball (w/merciful spell so as not to kill his ally) targeting enemies and his ally. If there are people still not frightened then he casts a spell which causes the shaken effect even on a failed save.
Feats: Scribe Scroll, Improved Initiative (if human), Merciful Spell, Callous Casting, Spell Focus & GSF (necromancy), Creative Destruction arcane discovery.
Typical spells prepared (as a necromancer wizard 7 w/16-17 Int): Horrific Doubles, Fear, Merciful Fireball*2, Vampiric Touch, Touch of Mercy, See Invisibility, Merciful Burning Arc, Boneshaker, Touch of the Sea, Animate Rope, Cause Fear*2, Interrogation.
Arcane bond is with an item so he can recast one of his 4th level spells if necessary.
Adding a few more spells in his spellbook is left as an exercise for you.
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An unchained monk can function without setup time, using unarmed strikes to do without drawing a weapon, flying kick to move up and full attack, ki guardian to protect his charge from spells and sudden speed to keep up if his charge is fast. Archon Style and Archon Diversion can help protect people (or Combat Reflexes/Bodyguard/In Harm's Way if you prefer.)
I really like Callous Casting and Horrific Doubles! Hadn't seen either of those before.
Not sure about Merciful Spell though. Seems like it might have the opposite effect. "Might as well try to escape since we won't really get hurt."
You can still get knocked out with nonlethal damage. If anything, it's in his best interest to not kill them, as then they don't lose any profit.
If he wants to add torture or killing after recapturing people he's free to do so. And he really doesn't want to kill his abetting crew members who have the callous casting betrayal/teamwork feat.
I'm fairly certain being driven to the frightened state by magic is a horrible experience too.
I agree that Merciful Spell could be effective in making a take down. But it doesn't seem in character for the brutal slaver personality. Also it lacks the fear factor to prevent further escape attempts.
Yes, probably frighten unlettered peasants. But this guy's job is to keep control of experienced and educated prisoners up to and including other casters.
I guess I was thinking things like boneshatter, lipstitch, calcific touch, touch of idiocy, ray of enfeeblement, bestow curse, blindness, etc... Things like that. But that may just be me. I wanted to see if others would come up with the same things.
He doesn't have to use merciful spell every time. But it wouldn't make sense for him to have no way to bring someone under control without killing them. Besides, the spell would still hurt. It just wouldn't kill them. Great for torture.
A lot of those are touch spells which a wizard or arcanist mostly shouldn't be doing. An aberrant sorcerer maybe, though that's risky. Ray of enfeeblement cannot ever take someone down and it's a weak debuff on a caster. Lipstitch and boneshatter have their uses but both are close range - iffy if someone's up a mast, let alone in the water, running away on the shore or on another boat (I have been assuming ship-based slavers). Blindness I'll give you is useful to him.
And again, he can always torture people after recapturing them. In front of others in full view as an example even.
But OK, you want a guy who tortures people during the fight, laughing maniacally as he does so. We can do this. You need two traits on reducing the cost of metamagic on Spectral Hand (which means in turn that you want d20pfsrd's Metamagic Master rather than the original Wayang Spellhunter.)
Feats: Scribe Scroll, Additional Traits (so he can be a little intimidating and maybe be better at some other skill), Improved Initiative (if human), Spell Focus (transmutation), Reach Spell, Blighted Critical, Quicken Spell
Typical spells prepared (transmuter wizard this time): Calcific Touch, Quickened Spectral Hand, Excruciating Deformation, Howling Agony, Reach Lipstitch, Fool's Gold, Mirror Image, Reach Spectral Hand, Touch of Bloodletting, Touch of the Sea, Animate Rope, Vanish, Touch of Blindness, Interrogation.
Howling Agony & Reach Lipstitch don't require the spectral hand. Calcific Touch and Touch of Blindness give multiple touches potentially, Excruciating Deformation and Touch of Bloodletting give one touch each.
Oh! I thought of reach spell, but I forgot about spectral hand. I like it with those spells.
I'll start working up the NPC build this weekend. Thx.