Is Technomancer worth it?

This is for a Sorcerer (Impossible bloodline) character in Iron Gods. Is going Technomancer (at level 7) better than staying with Sorcerer through the whole AP?

I think it's a pretty nice prestige class. Not super easy to get into for a sorcerer but once you do, the rewards are quite big. More skill points, more versatility, bonuses to skills.

This is for a Sorcerer (Impossible bloodline) character in Iron Gods. Is going Technomancer (at level 7) better than staying with Sorcerer through the whole AP?

Always depends on what you mean by better. You are losing one level of caster progression, which is rough and for some players is an absolute no go in terms of powergaming.

BUT, I think it offers great roleplay opportunities, especially if your character showed great interest in technology or crafting technology. Getting levels of technomancer shows that your understanding of technology reached a level, where you could rival the knowledge of a member of the technic league and that you are a serious threat to them.

On a mechanical level I would advise to take it, if your character uses a lot of technological items, especially if they are timeworn. I found that my group shied away from using timeworn stuff, because they were afraid of what might happen, but as a technomancer you can bypass that problem.

I think it's a fantastic choice for Iron Gods.

The Recondition ability in particular opens a lot of doors.

The Recondition ability in particular opens a lot of doors.

Recycle Technology is amazing (in conjunction with Recondition). Presto, the technomancer can craft any technological item they have the feats for (except constructs, cybertech, pharmaceuticals, or nanite tech items) without paying the full cost; being able to "convert" all the tech they find that they don't want into items they do want is really nice, especially when trying to maintain a low profile (hard to do when selling a bunch of technological items at once).

Thanks for all the advice. The campaign starts in a few weeks and I am looking forward to a good one.

A prepared caster would be much better as a Technomancer, as they would only be one level behind with the first level Technomancer hit. A spontaneous caster would fall two levels behind, which is a huge decrease in power.

If you do, be sure to take Magical Knack as a trait, so at least your caster level will be the same as your character level.

However, as someone whose group is halfway through, that archetype would be greatly useful.

@MadGnome Thanks, I agree that losing one caster level is the biggest trade off for Technomancer. But from what you and the others have said, it sounds like Technomancer would be a good fit for the AP's overall storyline.

I kind of like spontaneous casting over prepared casting... it just seems like less micromanagement.

Thanks for the tip on Magical Knack. I forgot that... I've never seriously considered losing a caster level before.

Losing a caster level is annoying, but not the end of the world. Lagging behind a spell level is more annoying, and since the campaign is intended to finish at level 17, that might mean missing out on L9 spells as a wizard. But given that sorcerers wouldn't have those anyway, it stands to reason the AP can be finished without them, so it's annoying but not catastrophic.

The other trade off for levels in Technomancer is not getting the favored class feature. For human sorcerers that is getting extra spells known which is significant.

For this AP, is it worth it to take all 10 levels in Technomancer? or is there a cutoff point somewhere before level 10?

The current plan would be Sorcerer 6 / Technomancer 10 by the end of the AP.

Well, Field Improvization basically accelerates your item crafting 8x. That's a very heft ability, nice on an end sprint. And after getting Recycle, it's nice to get as many Recondition slots as possible.

The idea is basically, rather than get versatility form having many spells, get your versatility from having many tech items.

Applied Learning also looks like a sweet ability. It's kind of wide-range Evasion.

Command Robot could also be handy to defuse some encounters. Big surprise: the later books feature quite hefty robots.

@Ascalaphus Thank you. That makes sense about the versatility of the tech items (particularly ray guns... pistols, rifles).

I'm also looking at the Impossible bloodline in order to cast enchantment (such as confusion, dominate) on robots (and androids?). Any thoughts on the bloodline for Iron Gods? My alternative is the Sage (wildblooded Arcane) for maximum skills points.

They're both good choices I think. I'd personally go with the Sage because I'm a sucker for skill-heavy characters.