Dasrak's page

Your number of spells per spell level are slightly off. A 12th level crossbood sorcerer would have 23 spells excluding bloodline spells and 5 bloodline spells.

I did not say Crossblooded.

I'd agree Crossblooded is completely inappropriate given what OP has stated they want. It only makes sense for min-max builds willing to make deep sacrifices for every last scrap of power. If that's not what you're building, it's not worthwhile.

Dasrak, once you're at 12th level you are already at the high levels, and it is difficult to afford this sort of thing before 12th level. A Ring of Spell Knowledge (Type 4) costs 24,000 gp and a Mnmemonic Vestment costs 5,000 gp. At level 10, your wealth by level should be 62,000 gp

For a 10th level Sorcerer a Ring of Spell Knowledge type III would be level-appropriate equipment. That means the ring covers your 1st-3rd level spells, and 4th and 5th are covered by the Mnemonic Vestments. It's basically the same dynamic as exists at 12th level, just for a lower spell level.

Now, if you're willing to invest in Forge Ring, then Type IV is realistic by 10th level. It's a relatively easy craft, only DC 12 with no prerequisites you need to bypass, so accelerating it is trivial. However, I wouldn't consider Forge Ring to be a standard choice.

Sorcerers really don't need that many items. Headband of Charisma, Cloak of Resistance, Ring of Spell Knowledge, Mnemonic Vestments, and some magical writings. Other items are nice to have, particularly if you get them as treasure (definitely not saying no to a metamagic rod!) but you're not going to go out of your way to get something like a stave.

it is trumped by the following text from Magic Item Descriptions

That text does not trump it. There is a difference between the prerequisites of crafting the item and the requirements of the crafting feat you are using. The magical item creation rules deal with the ways of meeting item prerequisites, they don't let you get around additional restrictions imposed by your feats.

Dasrak, that doesn't really close the gap with an Arcanist. You can only use the Mnemonic Vestment once per day and the Ring of Spell Knowledge only goes up to 4th level spells. They are very good items, but it's really not closing the gap with the Arcanist's spellcasting.

I completely disagree.

"It only goes up to 4th level" is really only a problem at very high character levels. For most of your career, the ring is covering the majority of your spell slots. For a 12th level Sorcerer, having Ring of Spell Knowledge for spell levels 1-4 and Mnemonic Vestments for 5-6 will usually give more versatility than what a 12th level Arcanist can get with Quick Study. Yes, there will be some cases you need to swap between multiple high-level spells, but in the vast majority of cases you'll only need one and Mnemonic Vestments will have you covered. It will be far more often that the Arcanist runs dry on reservoir while the Sorcerer can just freely swap those lower level utility spells. For a blaster, you're mostly using the higher level slots for metamagic anyways.

And that's not to mention the Sorcerer's higher baseline thanks to human favored class bonus. Even presuming your bloodline spells are useless junk (which, to be fair, they often are), a 12th level Sorcerer with human FCB gets 29 spells known as compared to an Arcanist getting 20 spells prepared. That's a lot of extra spells baseline, and it means that in a lot of practical situations the Sorcerer just already knows the spell that the equivalent Arcanist would need to Quick Study to get.

There will be cases the Arcanist can swap spells around those higher level slots to do things a Sorcerer can't. But there will also be cases where a Sorcerer's higher baseline and free lower-level swap with the ring let the Sorcerer do things the Arcanist can't. It's not a matter of system mastery, both classes are offering different ways of completely breaking spell preparation wide open with different limitations. Some situations will be better for the Arcanist, some will be better for the Sorcerer, and that has more to do with your GM's style than your system mastery as a player.

And if you would like to use magic items like Dasrak mentioned, you will essentially need a spellbook as a Sorcerer (or a large collection of scrolls)

The key difference in this respect is the Sorcerer doesn't need to spend downtime scribing, you just acquire the magical writing and you have it. Ring of Sustenance gives you the time to scribe overnight, but that still represents a significantly delay in time-sensitive situations where you need the spell today not tomorrow, and a Sorcerer may very well be using that time to craft anyways.

It seems to me that you have not really witnessed a Wizard (or Arcanist with Scribe Scroll) who loves to go around asking people to provide a single use of a SLA or spell to fulfill a spell prerequisite which he will use to make a scroll which he will later scribe into his spellbook, for instance.

This doesn't work; the Scribe Scroll feat specifically stipulates that you must know the spell. So you can't just use another spellcaster or SLA to get around the requirements like you would for a wondrous item.

More often, you'll just buy used spellbooks or barter for permission to copy from an NPC's spellbook which is a cost-effective means of acquiring new spells.

Arcanist blasters are great for 10 minute adventuring days, but they have serious problems with daily resources if it has to stretch them over multiple encounters. Spell slots actually aren't their biggest problem (and to be clear, spell slots are a problem for Arcanists) but literally everything an Arcanist wants to do consumes reservoir. Potent Magic and Quick Study on their own are going to be perpetually leave you tapped reservoir. You can Consume Spells, sure, but you're already really tight on spell slots too.

While the baseline Sorcerer has a pitiful number of spells known, it is trivially easy to rectify this. The Human favored class bonus is +1 spell known per level, and the Ring of Spell Knowledge is essentially Quick Study in item form except it has unlimited daily uses and you don't need to spend downtime learning the spells (you just need to own the scroll or someone else's spellbook). At higher levels, there's also the Mnemonic Vestment. For most of their spell levels, a Sorcerer can easily match or even exceed the versatility of an Arcanist. And if you're a blaster, your higher level slots are getting spent primarily on metamagic.

Sorcerers really aren't locked in a specific element, either. Orc Bloodline is pretty much strictly superior to any other blaster bloodline, since you really only care about the bloodline arcana and will just be trading out the other features for mutations. You don't need different elemental spells at every spell level, just a selection of options across different levels that you can apply metamgic to in order to get the effective slot level you want. There's really no need to know more than one or two blast spells per level.

The DC isn't really relevant until you're adding in Dazing spell. A +2 damage bonus per die is roughly equivalent to a +14 bonus to save DC. I'm not joking, here's a quick spreadsheet showing expected damage for 10d6 and +1, +2, and +3 damage per die. 10d6 with only a 5% chance to save has about the same expected damage as 10d6+20 with a 75% chance to save.

Overall, I'd always recommend to play what you want. I know there are lots of people who love the Arcanist's spell preparation style, and if you enjoy that then play it. Same deal for Evoker Wizard, if you like Wizards it's great. But Sorcerer is undoubtedly the most powerful blaster by a country mile, and most of the downsides that people cite are ones that Sorcerers have easy ways to ignore. The powers it offers are frankly overpowering, and it is the default blaster for a good reason.

Break-even for the Blessed Book has less to do with your character level, more to do with how much downtime you have.

An 11th level Wizard has a WBL of 82,000 gp. If you craft it yourself, a blessed book costs 6,250 gp. If you have a month of downtime (pretty common for a mid-campaign interlude) you can easily justify crafting a blessed book and going on a spell-learning spree. It's not uncommon during long spells of adventuring for a Wizard to build up a backlog of scrolls and spells he's acquired but hasn't had time to learn, so when you do finally get that nice stretch of downtime you may already have all those spells lined up and the blessed book is just pure cost savings.

On the other hand, if you're in a campaign that is experiencing constant action then you face the problem that learning new spells can take practically an entire day of downtime. A 6th level spell requires 7 hours of downtime to learn, so if you don't have long stretches of downtime then it can take quite a while before a blessed book has paid for itself and it's probably not a priority for you. You might level up a few times before the blessed book pays off under these circumstances.

So the value and break-even of a Blessed Book really comes down to downtime in your campaign and what you expect in the near future. An 11th level Wizard with lots of downtime on their hands will find it a profitable investment, a 15th level Wizard who is in a frantic adventure may not. Though I will say if your GM doesn't give you any signfiicant downtime opportunities for a 5 level stretch then they're being a bit unreasonable...

Do adventure paths include all the loot you should be receiving?

Adventure paths should be including all the loot you are receiving. That's the point of an adventure path, a lot of the busy-work is done for you.

However, not all adventure paths do a good job of this and some provide too little treasure. I would advise keeping tabs on your party's overall wealth and if you feel it's getting too low then add some more treasure to the adventure. I personally think being a little bit above guidelines is better than being a little bit below.

I personally dislike preparing spellcasters. I think the Arcanist is much stronger than the Wizard. I find the Cleric rather weak, even though most people seem to think otherwise. But that might just be due to our play style.

Preference can definitely play a role here, and prepared casters definitely need more system mastery to reach their full potential, but it is very powerful.

I've already stated my position several times in this thread, and I feel the main power difference comes from prepared casters getting new spell levels a level earlier, and otherwise they are pretty equitable.

The Dragon Disciple is my favorite prestige class, and I’ve always disliked when people say you should only take four levels in it.

It really depends on your build. For those going into Eldritch Knight afterwards, taking more than 4 levels of DD means you're locking yourself out of EK's capstone. So I can understand why a lot of builds stop at 4. I don't think the 5-8 levels are as bad as people make them out to be, but they definitely are high commitment and not every build can afford them.

However, I don’t understand why you’ve given it 3/day for hours per level. Why not do something like the Armor of Bones from the Bones Mystery, where it’s for hours per level in 1-hour increments?

I like the suggestion! It's a lot smoother, and I'm definitely implementing that.

Adjacent to differences of opinion in power levels, how do you foresee this homebrew being used? I can’t imagine many GMs are going to want a player playing one of these in their campaign over the default sorcerer. Is anyone planning on adding this to their own campaigns?

I'd be curious to hear about if it anyone uses one of these options in any capacity.

My current campaign probably won't finish until 2026. If one of my players want to use this they're welcome to, but it'll be a while before they're back to character creation.

And that a Sorcerer doesnt really need to be unchained.

As I've stated before, there are several points I find problematic with the Sorcerer:

1. The progression dichotomy between prepared and spontaneous casters
2. The human favored class bonus putting most races at a severe disadvantage
3. The overpowered options of the Sorcerer that needed reining in. Yes, there are pretty significant nerfs in unchained.
4. The severe bloodline imbalance; the vast majority of sorcerer bloodlines are very low quality and offer immaterial bonuses

Does it deserve special distinction among the problems of all classes? No, probably not. Did I want to write something to address it? Clearly I did.

You: "No its not [with arguments]"

And just as often I agreed and made changes to dial things back when they were pointed out. I acknowledged right in the original post that some of the stuff might be overtuned or undertuned, and have been taking the feedback I received accordingly.

The one back-and-forth has been with Tom Sampson, and the vast majority of things he pointed out I went in and dialed back. I may not have gone as far as he wanted, but you can't say I was ignoring his points when I was very clearly making revisions in light of the feedback.

And ALL of your changes make him stronger

There are lots of nerfs in there if you stop to look, and they're targeted at the strongest options. But let's just focus on two enormous ones:

1. Spell damage increases no longer stack
2. Ring of Spell Knowledge is 1/day rather than at-will

For min-max blasters, unchained represents about a 30% drop in damage output. Even for builds that don't use Crossblooded, it's about an 18% drop in damage. This is a pretty substantial nerf to one of the areas where Sorcerer is most powerful. It is dialing back one of the Sorcerer's specializations. One of my objectives was equalizing support for different playstyles, and this was achieved equally through nerfing blasting as it was with buffing support for other options.

The Ring of Spell Knowledge is such a broken item that flies under the radar. It's functionally at-will quick study for 1st-4th level spells for a Sorcerer, except you don't need to spend gold or downtime learning them you just need to own the scroll or someone else's spellbook. Unchained limited it to 1/day and has attunement requirements to teach it new spells so you can't hot-swap rings to get around that issue. This is an immense nerf to one of Sorcerer's staple tools.

These are not small nerfs at all.

I am well aware of all these things. It is not enough of a drawback for what you gain. And with Pearls of Power one can re-cast the same spell multiple times regardless.

While true, I don't think Pearls of Power are a particularly good item for the Bookworm Sorcerer.

Part of what makes them good for a Wizard is the ability to recover the spell you need. So if you've cast 4 different spells, you have a choice of 4 spells to recover with the pearl. This gives it a lot of flexibility. That's not the case for the Bookworm, and this is not the kind of item they will go out of their way to acquire in the same way a Wizard would.

Needing to start with 13 int will not severely harm a Sorcerer.

No, it's not severe. It's one of many drawbacks that add up. Just like the costs in GP and downtime of scribing spells into a spellbook. It's not the end of the world, it's a fairly small expensive relative to your total character wealth, but it is a meaningful cost.

Not particularly. Yuelral's Blessing, Faith Magic, and True Name (which can be selected multiple times) are at least good enough. Other discoveries like Alchemical Affinity and Resilient Illusions, among others, also have their uses. All you really need is one discovery and then use True Name the rest of the way for a potent selection.

Yueral's Blessing and Alchemical Affinity are okay, but there aren't actually many spells that call for a saving throw in the first place that are affected by them. An extra caster level is nice for a bit of extra duration on stuff like Resist Energy, but not worth a feat-equivalent. Spell Focus is going to be a better pick than these discoveries in most cases.

Faith Magic is pretty niche, mostly used for cheesing prerequisites. It's not something I'd be inclined to take as a feat for its own sake. It's especially limiting for the Bookworm since you get exactly one prepared slot at each spell level so there's a big opportunity cost to using it.

True Name is extremely double-edged with an explicit sword of Damocles hanging over your head for taking it. It's extraordinarily powerful, but the counterbalancing threat is so severe that it's not a pick most Wizards touch. I've never seen anyone even consider it (and I have had a Worldseeker Wizard who has used planar ally; he used it sparingly and cautiously)

You could also simply use prestige classes if you do not like what further progression in the Sorcerer class is bringing you, especially since you no longer have to worry about losing out on the spells known favored class bonus and further progress on your bloodline spells.

I think there is a bit of a point here about the Bookworm and PrC's. Sorcerer Unchained is already much more PrC-friendly due to not being beholden to the human FCB. The Bookworm spellbook feature is gained at 1st level and progresses automatically with spellcasting ability, whereas bloodline spells are not gained if you use a PrC to advance spellcasting. While you still lose the arcana, it is losing less than it's supposed to be going into a PrC.

Hmm... perhaps that might actually be a good way to deliver a more restrained nerf while addressing that issue. The ability to prepare spells might be delayed a bit later, and just having the ability to cast spells of that level is not enough. So you'd need to be 5th level before you can prepare that 2nd level spell slot. This would mean the prepared slots would be a level behind for most of your career, weakening the bookworm's highest spell level options. This would also mean the progression of the bookworm's ability would no longer scale automatically with spellcasting ability, which makes it basically useless with a prestige class.

I notice you're not really amending the Sage or Dreamspun bloodlines either.

I significantly nerfed both based on your feedback. They are more restrictive and have fewer uses per day. Sage's 1st level ability is now 1/day to start and gets only a couple extra uses at higher levels. Dreamspun's ability now replaces a spell known, so you have to sacrifice something to gain something else.

There is some concern about making Sorcerers the best warriors in addition to everything else they are good at making other classes feel redundant for, especially since your Titan Sorcerer can make a Barbarian feel inadequate for the first few levels

It's a balancing act, to be sure. Finding the right balance point to give support to a gish sorcerer without letting them outshine martials.

Okay, I'm back. Been very busy for the past week but finally feel like I have a moment to breathe and give a proper response that is carefully thought out.

Being able to reselect your entire bloodline's worth of bonus spells each day is very, very powerful and oftentimes the best possible selection of bloodline spells.

I do think you are overlooking many of the drawbacks and limitations this archetype incurs. You are losing bloodline spells and the bloodline arcana. And the spells you prepare aren't like bloodline spells, you get to cast them once and that's it. There's also the issue of needing both Intelligence and Charisma, which is an expensive proposition. Losing bloodline feats is also a problem; while arcane discoveries are a flavorful option, it is usually going to be worse than what you could choose with the bloodline feats.

I agree it's strong, but I don't think it's a straight upgrade. I also think it would be very underpowered with your suggestion of losing an additional spell at each spell level. If you end up preparing the same spell most days to compensate for not having room to learn it as a spell known, then you aren't really benefiting from the archetype much.

You left this thought unfinished, and I get the idea. It's basically 3.5's Favored Soul that you're creating, but with even fewer restrictions.

Yes, I must have gotten distracted when drafting that. The point is something more akin to say the Dark Urge from Baldur's Gate 3 where unless you come face to face with your divine forebear and piss them off, they're not going to hunt you down and smite you.

As for Cleric casting, a number of Cleric spells can indeed be gained through domains. But being a divine spellcaster still feels like an unneeded upgrade. Perhaps you should only make the domain spells count as divine spells while the rest still count as arcane.

I don't think being a divine caster is that big of an upgrade. It opens up some new possibilities, and closes others. I think this is fine for a bloodline arcana.

I'm surprised you didn't mention the Titan bloodline given how strong you seem to feel armored casting is.

Plane Shift is more potent than you take it for. For many enemies it is tantamount to a will save or die as you forcibly plane shift it to a plane it cannot survive, but this does require you to make an attack roll (which is to say that wearing full plate armor and a tower shield without proficiency would render the spell infeasible to land without a casting of True Strike beforehand). It can also be used to plane shift to any extraplanar shopping destination where virtually everything is for sale.

It's a melee touch save negate spell at 5th spell level. This is not at all remarkable for a 5th level spell. Things like Dominate Person and Baleful Polymorph are examples of single-target save negate 5th level spells, and they're both fates worse than death. And they're not even considered aprticularly strong since single-target save negates is pretty bad for a 5th level spell to begin with.

I did mention the Fate subdomain, which gains Augury and Borrow Fortune instead, in addition to being able to force allies and enemies to reroll any roll with the domain power. With the False Focus feat, a Sorcerer can easily cast as many auguries as he pleases, even with leftover spell slots at the end of an adventuring day, making the spell quite a bit more useful than people take it for.

Augury is a decent spell, but it's nothing amazing. I honestly don't think it merits its material component costs. And there are two bloodlines that get Augury as a bloodline spell so it's completely precedented.

Borrow Fortune is excellent, though, and there are no bloodlines that give. No arguments there, that's a top-notch pickup.

The Fate domain's 8th level power is good, but you're gaining it as your 10th level bloodline power. This is not out of line with other 10th level bloodline powers, as reroll effects do exist for these.

I'm not convinced that any of these domains are overpowered. There are strong options out there - as there should be - but none of these look out of line for a Sorcerer bloodline.

In the previous you've assumed the human loses a skill point and learns a equivalent rather than lower spell level spell. The HP is the higher penalty.

You are mistaken about the spell level, I did take that into account. We can debate whether the skill point or hit point is better. Personally I think the skill point is the better bonus for a Sorcerer, but they are starved for both. However, the spell known bonus is vastly better. I'd sooner take both the Cunning and Toughness feat to compensate, as getting 17 extra spells known over the course of my career is vastly more valuable.

As for the favored class bonus, this is how it would go:
4th level: +1 1st level spell
5th level: +1 1st level spell
6th level: +1 2nd level spell
7th level: +1 2nd level spell
8th level: +1 3rd level spell
9th level: +1 3rd level spell
10th level: +1 4th level spell
11th level: +1 4th level spell
12th level: +1 5th level spell

This means 2 additional spells known at 1st-4th spell levels, and one additional at 5th level. This means human sorcerer is identical to sorcerer unchained at 1st-4th spell level. The difference is that unchained is one spell known ahead at 5th level and two ahead at 6th level (one is a bloodline spell) so those are the levels of the pages of spell knowledge I calculated for. So yes, the highest level slots were the ones I was calculating on.

PoPwr is the standard while Runestone carries the Sor price penalty.

Yes, and the page of spell knowledge is also at a price penalty. Both are exceedingly overpriced and I have literally never seen a PC purchase either item. The pearl of power is a very well-priced item that gets frequently used by wizards. The page of spell knowledge is an overpriced item that is rarely used by sorcerers. This is not a meaningful comparison.

If you don't believe me look up the cost of a Page of Spell Knowledge and add up the cost, subtract the appropriate pearl of power cost, then add 1000/Lvl for the skill points.

The number of spells known is very close to what a human sorcerer would have. This is less about giving the sorcerer more spells, and more about bringing non-human sorcerers up to parity with their human counterpats. A 13th level human sorcerer with their favored class bonus would have 38 spells known, while the Sorcerer Unchained would have 41. The unchained is only slightly ahead.

But secondly, you aren't accounting for the fact that the unchained sorcerer's spell slot progression was reduced to compensate for spells known being accelerated. In fact, unchained is nerfed at 20th level when compared to a human sorcerer, both of which get the same number of spells known (60 in both cases) but with unchained losing a spell slot at each level.

So let's actually run that math and see if the gold equivalency is really out of whack like you say it is. Let's go with 12th level as a mid-range number to look at. Unchained has one extra 5th level spell and two extra 6th level spells. That's 97k gp in pages of spell knowledge. You're getting 3 more skill ranks per level (two more from baseline, one from your FCB being freed up) so that's 18k gp. That brings the total to 115k gp in benefits. But you also lost one spell slot at 1st-5th level. If we value them by Runestones of power, that's 120k gp in detriments.

So by your own methodology, unchained is actually offering a pretty balanced tradeoff here. Fewer spell slots, but your spells known progression is faster. I would personally say that's a positive trade (spells known tends to be more of a limitation than spell slots for a sorcerer) but if we value them by runestone of power and page of spell knowledge they are an equivalent trade even if we also account for the skill points. Now, I would say runestone and page are both exceedingly overpriced, but I would say they're both overpriced by about the same margin so for a relative comparison like we're doing here it works.

The wizard is generally considered to be the most powerful class in the game. That kind of makes comparing the wizard vs the sorcerer a bad idea.

The wizard and sorcerer directly compete for the same niche. There are marked differences in their playstyle, but they are both fundamentally spellcasters casting off the same spell list and a lot of the time will be casting exactly the same spells.

Second, much of the internal balance of the bloodlines isn't against the wizard but against other sorcerer bloodlines and mutations. And that balance did have some nerfs; even though the majority of bloodlines got significant buffs, the strongest bloodlines actually took small nerfs.

Instead of coming up with an unchained sorcerer to make it equal to the wizard, a better approach would be an unchained wizard that weakens the wizard. They did that with the summoner.

Much like the summoner, the main problem with the wizard is the spell list. It's not the class features that make the wizard the best class in the game, but rather having full prepared casting off the best spell list. If you nerf the wizard, you'd do it by targeting the spells. And that would nerf the sorcerer and arcanist in lock-step.

If you're going to do it, I think Bookworm should also pay a price in spells known like the Crossblooded Sorcerer does and that it should lose 1 spell slot per level perhaps

He does, he trades bloodline spells as one of the features he loses for the power. The value of that will vary based on the bloodline, but most have pretty decent spells after the buff that I gave the weaker ones. Many bloodlines are kinda obligated to pick up their bloodline spells as their features directly synergize with them (Draconic's features are all about Form of the Dragon)

As for the divine bloodline, if we're going to make a divine Sorcerer (which I still find inappropriate - this is the Oracle's niche), I would render it beholden to their deity's code of conduct with a need for atonement as Clerics do and add the same restrictions against casting spells of opposed alignments that Clerics have.

I can understand the Oracle comparison, which is one of the reasons why divine bloodline doesn't have any abilities to pick spells off the Cleric list. If it's not getting it from the domain, it's not getting it at all.

I wanted to avoid the divine sorcerer being constrained by the cleric's code of conduct or the deity's ethos. The concept here is
more "divine nepo-baby", and opens up roleplay options where your character isn't exactly in line with your deity's ethos. The Clerics are employees, if they don't tow the line they're outta there. The divine sorcerer is the nephew, so long as he's not actively

Liberation offers a host of valuable spells and useful powers, and its Freedom subdomain even gives you Sanctuary and Plane Shift 2 spell levels early.

It's a great domain, but I'm not seeing it as overpowered. Most of the domain spell list is already on the Sorcerer spell list. Sanctuary and Freedom of Movement are great pickups, but I'd disagree on Plane Shift. It's the kind of spell that's very campaign specific, and even then tends to only come up during downtime.

Paragon Surge irrespective of race is very nice, but there's nothing stopping you from just playing a half-elf Sorcerer. This really isn't anything a Sorcerer couldn't have by other means.

Miracle is a great 9th level spell, but honestly I'd say Freedom of Movement at 4th is the better pickup on luck domain. The rest is pretty mediocre. Sorcerers have better 2nd level spells to be casting than Aid.

I'm seeing a lot of good options here, but you are paying your 1st and 10th bloodline powers for them

The arcane sage bloodline doesn't give the sorcerer the means to make their own spell books. I think it would be handy to not have to rely on a wizard to write spell books for them.

This is intentional; the Sage bloodline can use arcane writings, but doesn't create them. If you want to scribe your own spellbook, that's what the bookworm archetype does (which does have natural synergy with sage, but isn't locked to it)

I'm honestly a bit dubious of this sort of ability in general. It pushes the Sorcerer easily out of the domain of spellcasters restricted to their spells known, and the Mnemonic Vestment is a bit too good of an item in my view. I'd also sooner give him the ability to add spells to his spells known as part of a spell preparation ritual than grant him the ability to on-the-fly cast any spell he has on hand, but all in all this too strong, especially for a 1st-level bloodline power.

...

The Dreamspun bloodline does this too. I feel like you are trying to have Sorcerers gain the ability to just cast any spell from their spell list and just be able to cast whatever they would like each day in the same vein Wizard are, but while being spontaneous spellcasters on top of that. Design like this risks making the Wizard class largely pointless.

Yes, I gave this kind of ability to two out of the 60 bloodlines plus the archetype, so it is something that was handed out very sparingly. But I do agree it's a powerful ability that stands out due to directly competing with the Wizard. I know what you mean about Mnemonic Vestments; there's a reason that Ring of Spell Knowledge is one of the things that got nerfed in my Sorcerer Unchained.

So, here's my thoughts having considered your feedback:

1. Nerf Dreamspun; it's now only one spell, and it comes with a cost for using the ability.

2. Nerf Sage; the ability is now 1/day at 1st level and improves to 3/day at 18th.

3. Bookworm is limited to 1 prepared spell per day at each spell level. After they cast it, they can't prepare another.

There are domains that give you animal companions, domains that give you paragon surge always matching your race, domains that give you access to Miracle along with a lot of other good spells, even something like taking Good with the Archon subdomain has a good bit of value. There are plenty of good options when you obtain an entire domain's worth of of spells and powers.

But there aren't domains that do all of these things. You have to pick one with all its pros and cons.

Animal Domain is a pretty meh pick; yes, you eventually get an Animal Companion, but it's delayed until 10th level since the bloodline doesn't get the full domain powers until then, and the spell list is pretty poor. There are some domains that give great spells, but their powers are mediocre.

Point me towards a singular domain that is clearly out of line, because I'm not seeing it.

The AC bonuses are very high even before perhaps using a domain that gives you Magic Vestment to raise the AC bonuses further, and yes you would be losing out on spells that make attack rolls, but you don't really need those as a spellcaster.

I'm definitely seeing it as a good option, but not an overpowered one. You're paying for that AC, getting around the encumbrance issue isn't free, and stuff like Magic Vestments requires you to further invest your options to double down on it instead of getting other things.

Glove of storing makes the spellbook easily accessible. It’s very important to arcanists with quick study. 10,000g isnt super cheap but you are still likely to have it by mid levels if it is useful to you. And craft wondrous item is very common if you have crafting in your game, making it available much earlier.

That helps, but your spells will probably be split across multiple spellbooks. The Sage is likely to get most of its spellbooks as treasure, and has neither the ability nor need to transcribe them into a book of their own.

As a magical item comparison, the Mnemonic Vestment are a 5,000 gp item that gives this effect of being able to cast a spell using written sources 1/day.

I don't see the need to buff the Arcanist to keep up with a buffed Sorcerer, to be honest. The Arcanist is frankly an excessively potent class design and one that tends to crowd out the Sorcerer's niche for no good reason.

While I agree the Arcanist is a very powerful class, the Blood Arcanist archetype is the main culprit for it infringing on the Sorcerer's niche. The Arcanist has a very limited number of spell slots per day, and has to guzzle through its reservoir if it wants even a handful more spells prepared per day, and I feel people don't give these limitations enough credit for keeping the Arcanist in check. Again, it's still one of the best classes in the game, but so are Wizard and Sorcerer.

Runestone of Power pricing will affect a lot of classes, but there is an argument to be had that the problem is that Pearls of Power are too cheap rather than Runestones of Power being too strong

There's a fair argument over whether Runestones of Power are overpriced or Pearls of Power are underpriced, and the right balance point may very well be somewhere in the middle. But there's no question that the Pearl is the objectively superior item. The runestone is doing nothing for you until you've expended your final spell slot of its spell level, and even then you need the item in hand at the time of casting which can be a pretty big imposition in combat situations. The Pearl can be used before combat, and allows a Wizard to recover a spell that's already spent and thus is very useful even when you still have slots remaining.

So whatever the "right" pricing is, runestones shouldn't be a single copper piece more than pearls. If you were to Pathfinder 1.5 this, I would say just eliminate the runestone entirely and let pearls be usable by spontaneous casters so they're both using the same item.

As for the bloodlines, the Sage's new Sage Spellcaster bloodline power is excessively powerful. You have essentially turned the Sage into a superior Arcanist as far as his spellcasting is concerned. The existing Sage bloodline can already be used to obtain a bloodline familiar instead of the 1st-level power which is a good enough trade for him, not to mention it is possible to use a bloodline mutation.

One of the key limitations of the Sage is the need to have to spellbook or scroll in hand in order to cast, which creates a lot of in-combat action economy issues even with the 4th level power to help alleviate that. But for out-of-combat utility (which is probably where this ability is at its strongest) that's not a big limitation. I wanted it to have its own unique 1st level power rather than swapping for an identical familiar to the default arcane bloodline. Perhaps instead of Intelligence modifier per day uses, it's 1/day with a few extra uses at higher levels? Should keep it powerful, but limited.

Bookworm sacrifices a lot, losing both the bloodline arcana and bloodline spells. I don't think it's too powerful given what it's sacrificing; this is a far cry from Quick Study. But I can definitely see the criticism that it is stepping on the niches of other classes.

The Divine bloodline is also excessive, giving a long list of potent benefits. The Sorcerer gains access to an entire domain's worth of spells, gains all the domain powers of that domain, gains a familiar, gains a HD 18 outsider of his choosing as a minion, and gains divine spellcasting, which means our Sorcerer can now equip full plate and a tower shield without worrying about spell failure, so long as he is indifferent to making attack rolls where the lack of proficiency would actually prove a hindrance. It provides far too many powerful benefits.

The domain spells replace the bloodline spells, so it is the same number of bonus spells as usual. While I do agree that this gives an absolutely huge selection of lists to pick from, I don't think there are any that are unreasonable. There are certainly some good off-list spells a Sorcerer can grab, but probably the best is the Healing domain which is giving almost the same bloodline spell list as Unicorn bloodline.

I agree that the 16th level power is quite strong, it is replicating the effects of the True Name arcane discovery which is a really strong power that is held in check by explicit threat of roleplay consequences for abusing it. I think with already having a familiar at 4th level, it's probably best to do something else here and I'll brainstorm an idea.

I think you are overrating the power of armored spellcasters. Psychic bloodline already allows this as well, and very few Psychic bloodline Sorcerers actually avail themselves of this because of all the drawbacks. The carrying capacity issue is a very real limitation as tower shield + fullplate is nearly 100 lbs of gear, so you'd need at least 14 Strength (probably 15 since you'd have other gear too) just to be in medium encumbrance. That's a pretty high Strength investment for a Sorcerer! Your movement speed would be reduced. You're effectively locked out of any spell with an attack due due to huge non-proficiency penalties, and the gear itself is really expensive.

I would counter that the disparity between a 1st level wizard and a 1st level sorcerer is equally noticeable, but in the sorcerers favor. The extra spell at that level is very significant as is the extra cantrip.

Wizards get Scribe Scroll as a bonus feat, giving them the ability to make half-priced scrolls. A Wizard's extra spellcasting power is in the form of scrolls he's prepared ahead of time. At character creation a Wizard should have 2-3 more scrolls than an equivalent Sorcerer, and will be making more as soon as you get some money. Scrolls are a pretty huge part of the spellcasting power of low-level Wizards and Sorcerers, and the Wizard has a pretty decisive advantage here.

And that says nothing of the advantages of prepared casting; with only 2 spells known, a Sorcerer doesn't really get much spontaneity. If you decide to pick up an out-of-combat utility spell, that leaves you one combat spell. Wizards have the flexibility to actually use those utility spells. You can learn and prepare Charm Person while still having 3 different combat spells.

So no, I strongly disagree with the notion that Sorcerer outclasses the Wizard at 1st level. The only place the Sorcerer really dominates is in blasting, and that's true from 1st-20th. But outside of that one aspect, the Wizard is as good or better than a Sorcerer.

The sorcerer also proficiency in simple weapons so can start with a long spear. That means that anyone approaching him provokes an AoO.

It's an advantage, but not a big one. It's highly unlikely you'll hit anything unless you're Strength invested, and doesn't help against ranged attacks or ambushes which are the big PC-killers at 1st level play.

Bloodline spells often give sorcerers spells from other spell lists.

Yes, every bloodline gives unique benefits. The Sorcerer class doesn't get very many archetypes, and in practice their bloodlines are their equivalent of archetypes. In modern Pathfinder, archetypes that give access to a limited number of off-list spells are fairly common and most classes have at least a few. There are very few bloodlines that give off-list spells, and if anything the Ring of Spell Knowledge is the main way Sorcerers get off-list spells (and if you scroll down far enough in the Sorcerer Unchained doc, that item actually got a modest nerf)

They are also a CHA based class with UMD as a class skill which gives them the ability to use magic items the wizard cannot. Wizards may be better at making magic items but sorcerers are better at actually using them. How many wizards can use a wand of cure light wounds, or a druid scroll?

UMD is a good skill, but it's not some uber-skill. The chances of a successful UMD activation at 1st level are pretty bad even with 20 Cha and class skill.

As Mudfoot mentions, Sorcerers have better skills to be investing in. Even non-class-skill Diplomacy will come up a lot more often. Meanwhile, Wizards get a boat-load of skill points. Their class skill list is bad, but their skill situation is more quantity over quality. They may not be great at anything outside of Spellcraft and Knowledge, but they can invest so broadly that they're reasonably good at a lot of skills.

You are focusing only on the negative parts of the sorcerer and ignoring the positive parts.

That's untrue; there are also nerfs in the sorcerer unchained, with many of the more powerful options toned down. However, the vast majority of bloodlines are on the weaker side, so there are far more buffs than there are nerfs. But that's just it, the goal is to bring those weaker options up to speed so there are cool alternatives.

As for the spell levels, I'd just give the bloodline spell (and ONLY the bloodline spell) at 3rd/5th/etc. It's always seemed off that it should come in after the others. This makes odd levels meaningful but not overpowered, while emphasising the bloodline flavour.

I agree with you on emphasizing bloodline flavor, and it's one of the big reasons why I wanted bloodline spells obtained immediately. However, I don't think this is really appropriate for every bloodline, as many have more thematic spells that have more limited application. Ensuring that you get one selected spell to complement them means they're still a very significant part of your kit, but doesn't completely lock you in. And it also emphasizes the fundamental spontaneity of the Sorcerer by having two options to choose between, which I also feel is an important aspect.

But comparing straight spells per day with a wizard isn't the whole picture. The wizard has to prepare spells ahead of time and it's very likely that spells will be "wasted" every adventuring day, because they got prepared, but were never needed. The sorcerer has a big advantage in being able to use up its spell slots, even if that's just spamming some blasting spells.

This is one of the downsides of prepared casting, but there are lots of upsides and ways to alleviate this. The Pearl of Power is a very cost-effective item that lets you recall a spell you've already spent for the day. A lot of good spells are very flexible and even if they're not the perfect spell for the job will still do just fine. And Wizards can also leave slots open to prepare them later in the day when they have more information of what they will likely need. I'm actually playing a 5th level Wizard in a play-by-post campaign and I am a huge fan of the Fast Study arcane discovery.

But for every long adventuring day where the Wizard becomes depleted and their options more threadbare, there will be short adventuring days where they only scratch the surface of their powers. Yes, on those long days where the Wizard runs out of options the Sorcerer has an edge because they never lose access to any spell they know until they're down to their last slot. But on short days where you go in fresh, the Wizard has their full arsenal and doesn't need to worry too much.

Bear in mind that the overrun attempt takes a standard action, so if you knock your enemy prone you don't have a standard left to attack with.

The Charge Through feat is a good way to alleviate this problem

You are fixing a problem that does not really exist

I'd disagree; the disparity between Wizard and Sorcerer (and Arcanist, for that matter) at odd-numbered levels is quite noticeable. While this is less impactful at high levels, at the lower odd-numbered levels the Sorcerer and Arcanist are just not the equal of the Wizard. The power increase of going from 1st->2nd, 2nd->3rd, and 3rd->4th is pretty enormous.

Moreover, Sorcerer spontaneous casting is purely hypothetical when you first get a new spell level. You get one spell known. Being able to spontaneously pick which spell you can cast hardly matters when you only have one spell known. Not every Sorcerer build is spamming metamagic, and you generally don't want to use lower-level spells with higher-level slots. So Sorcerers really end up feeling like they're just behind the curve.

As I mentioned, it gets less problematic at higher levels. The gap between 6th->7th level spells isn't nearly as big as the lower levels. But that also means getting that new spell level a level earlier isn't as big of a power spike either.

Sorcerer is for the player who wants to play a blaster

Sorcerer is far more than that. Yes, there are bloodlines that boost blasting, but they are outnumbered ten to one by bloodlines that do other things. There are cool bloodlines that have abilities focused on polymorph, gish, bad touch, support, divination, crafting, disease, curses, mind-affecting shenanigans, and just about whatever else you can imagine under the sun.

But most of them suck. There are only a handful of non-blasting bloodlines that are really competitive. There are a few that shine, like Arcane and Astral, but the vast majority have powers that are significantly weaker than what you get from bloodline mutations. Even if you aren't building a blaster, +1 damage per die on blast spells you use occasionally is vastly more useful than 95% of the 1st level powers.

This is one of the biggest parts of my sorcerer unchained, bringing those other bloodlines up to speed so they are offer meaningful support for other kinds of playstyles. And that wasn't just done through buffing, Blood Havoc got nerfed and no longer stacks with bloodline arcanas. You can still create a really good blaster with this, there's no shortage of great support. But other stuff is good now, too.

I definitely understand that criticism, and I have been grappling with it myself throughout this process.

The biggest and most obvious factor here is the new spells levels coming a level earlier. This is an unambiguous and significant buff, I fully acknowledge that. But at the same time I've always felt this has been a major problem with the class balance especially at lower levels. A 3rd level Sorcerer is just a sad creature compared with a Wizard. And although it's not quite as severe at higher levels it's still true at every odd-numbered level. The Wizard just feels like he's always a level ahead of the Sorcerer, and this is the one place where I disagree with there being a good balance between the three main arcane casting classes. The Wizard is just plain ahead of the other two at odd-numbered levels.

As far as bloodlines go, a lot of these abilities are still weaker than bloodline mutations, and are still liable to be traded out. But I do agree that by bringing 1st level powers into the ballpark of things like blood havoc or a familiar it really does give the Sorcerer a huge plethora of powerful abilities to choose from. Even with blood havoc being nerfed, I still feel it's stronger than most of these 1st level powers. And for what it's worth, blood havoc got nerfed in my unchained version (it no longer stacks with bloodline arcanas that boost damage) and I would still say it's one of the strongest 1st level powers.

Edit: you know what? I'll slightly reduce the number of spell slots. It won't be an enormous change, but it will be a noteworthy compensatory nerf.

So over the past few months I've been tinkering away on a Sorcerer Unchained. Ideas for this have been simmering in the back of my head for a few years now, and I decided to finally commit it to paper and address every bloodline. The sorcerer is my favorite Pathfinder 1E class, and I've long had a laundry list of nitpicks ranging from small to fairly significant. This is my attempt to implement a comprehensive fix to them. I'd be curious to hear any feedback people have.

>>> Sorcerer Unchained <<<

There are lots of changes here, some buffs and some nerfs. The sorcerer in general has a faster spell progression with more spells known, more support for various playstyles, but a lot of the more powerful options have been toned down or no longer stack or in a few cases removed. Almost every bloodline has been rebalanced to try and bring them all into line with each other and the bloodline mutations. I was very much threading a needle on these to get them strong enough without being overpowering, and with 60 bloodlines I'm certain there are some I've overshot and undershot on. And I know there are a few abilities that would be potentially problematic on other classes if grabbed with Eldritch Heritage; I'm still thinking about a good solution, and if anyone has any ideas I'm all ears.

1. Can I sacrifice my magus spells for Mage bullets or I'm limited to my wizard spells?

Yes, although both your Magus arcane pool ability and the Mage bullets ability are limited by the +10 maximum enhancement bonus limitation, so at higher levels they will become redundant. At lower levels, the duration is a bit short for what it does, but it can be a nice way to boost damage output. Remember that you want special abilities, not just plain enhancement bonus (you have better ways of getting a simple attack buff).

2. If I cast a Spell with Ranged spellstrike can I add the Mage Gun bonuses to my magus spells?

Yes, you can use these together. The Mage Gun ability can be used whenever you cast a spell, and the Spellstrike is still casting a spell. Both of them require the spell to be cast through a weapon, but it's the same weapon so that's fine.

For example, I cast fireball, which I learned as a magus, if my Gun is +1 can I add this bonus to the dc of the Spell?

No, Fireball is not a legal choice of spell for either Ranged Spellstrike or the Mage Gun. You will need to use a ranged touch attack spell such as Scorching Ray or Battering Blast if you wish to use both.

I would also caution not to use area of effect spells with the mage gun. The chance of an overload is really high if you use area of effect spells, and you do not want that.

One feat I would highly recommend for a build like this is Spell Cartridges. This allows you to reload as a swift action, and causes your attacks to deal force damage. This gets around reloading issues (though you can still reload normally if you need your swift action for other purposes) and also means you ignore DR. It's a really strong and underrated feat; people are right to question its requirement of using a swift action every round to activate it, but it's totally worth it. I saw a similar Magus build use it in my last campaign, and it was really dominant. It was like a Paladin, except no daily limits on smites and it also worked against golems.

How many EXP would that 1st level cost?

Experience points are only relevant for player characters. In which case, use the monsters as PC's guidelines:

http://legacy.aonprd.com/bestiary/monstersAsPcs.html

So a Great Wyrm Solar Dragon is CR 21, so the amount of experience points required to gain one level of Sorcerer is the same amount that would be required for a hypothetic level 21 character to reach level 22. This is outside of the scope of the actual rules for leveling up, but it should be significantly higher than the amount of experience required to go from 19->20.

As a rough estimate, this should be about 2,000,000 experience.

While it is accurate to say Mythic is "broken", it's a little more complex than that. Mythic turbo-charges the offensive side of the system, but does not counterbalance it on the defensive side very effectively. This creates very fast-paced and deadly combat, where battles can swing wildly in a single turn. This is further exacerbated by the system leaning heavily on swift/immediate actions, which has a number of consequences. Because immediate actions are one per turn, it's much easier to overwhelm a target's defenses since they can only use a mythic defense once. It makes being flat-footed more brutal than usual. It also creates class-based balance issues, as some classes run into action economy issues because of this. Something like a Fighter doesn't normally need swift or immediate actions so it's no problem, but something like a Swashbuckler runs into issues.

Now, it is absolutely possible to create challenging mythic campaigns, but it is very difficult and requires a lot of GM experience since the sweet spot is very narrow. It also requires players to understand that this is a very lethal rules variant where offensive power is high and PC's are relative glass cannons. A good or bad roll at an opportune time can always shift the tides of battle, but these shifts are far more dramatic in mythic and can easily result in a player death. It's a very unique style of campaign, one I found very interesting and challenging to GM effectively, but also one I can't recommend. It was too over the top, and I needed to overcompensate to challenge my PC's.

This brings us to Wrath of the Righteous. As others have already mentioned, AP's are designed to be accessible for players of all skill and optimization levels. They aren't meant to be hard, and if played as written should not result in PC deaths. This runs completely counter to what mythic is, and when you try to force that design philosophy into a mythic campaign you get a boring slog where the enemies are completely and totally outclassed by the PC's. I don't think Paizo had a good option here, and while it's debatable as to whether they took the right path in the circumstances it's understandable given the lack of expertise with the mythic system at the time that the erred on the side of caution and created an overly-conservative difficulty level.

Now, with all that said I do think the Mythic rules really excel in one place: When you use them on antagonists. When used carefully by an experienced GM, a mythic enemy is one that breaks the rules and surprises players and presents a truly dangerous foe. Mythic is a great tool to mechanically communicate to the players that their adversary is another league, that the rules that apply to them are merely guidelines to this opponent. It's an alternative to big numbers as a means of intimidating the players mechanically. Moreover, with only one enemy being mythic the action economy advantage doesn't break the bank. It's a great tool to have, and I've taken to using mythic opponents fairly regularly in my campaigns where it's merited.

Even if it's only usable once per month under certain conditions, this is still a 7th level spell-like ability with 1500 gp of material components for free. The entire point of the race point system is to give a rough approximation of how valuable a given racial feature is so you can estimate of the power level (and I want to stress, RP are an estimation, you can create overpowered races with under 10 RP budget, and underpowered ones with over 30). But this ability is just priceless, you can't put a price tag on this because it's just on a completely different level from any other racial ability.

If you want to create something that has this limited wish as a spell-like ability, I'd recommend looking into the monster creation rules rather than the PC race creation rules, targeting somewhere around CR 8+. Just as a comparison, the Marid Genie is able to grant a Wish once per year, and it's a CR 9 monster.

As my Wizard in a long-running play-by-post game once said: "Is it really cheating to use a Charm Person spell to ace an Enchantment exam?"

I think the key thing is that you have to make sure the Wizard being tested doesn't know the security measures being used against them. Because especially once you get to the mid levels, Wizards have too many tools to guard against.

Plenty of people are still playing. It's no longer actively developed, but there's such a huge wealth of content for what is essentially a complete game that it still works great. And yes, I'm still playing. I'll be GM'ing a session in 45 minutes.

This is very much a "talk to your GM" situation.

Alignment as a game mechanic and narrative mechanic only holds together as a coherent concept if everyone agrees not to go poking at it. If you start doing something like "non-evil necromancer" and challenge the conventional notions of alignment, it can easily fall apart for the thinly-veiled narrative conceit it is. The alignment system is arbitrary BS written from a specific cultural perspective at a specific time and place in our real-world, and it exists to facilitate simple stories of good vs evil. If you expect more than that from it then it's going to fall apart.

If you are in a campaign where the story and narrative presumes that necromancy and undead are evil, and moral nuance is kept to a minimum, then your necromancer concept will be disruptive at best and immersion-breaking at worst. If you are in a campaign where those premises are not necessary then the GM can simply let you play a non-evil necromancer.

Mh, well then my character creation app made a mistake with the archetypes being compatible.

Definitely an issue with your character creator. Possibly due to Scroll Scholar being a little bit unusual in that it only modifies part of the Arcane School class feature rather than the entire feature.

I'd go with only poleiheira adherent then, as I really like the flavor of the binded infinite spell-/notebook, the mount and the (I admit pretty niche, but very favorable) ability to control a ship on my own.

Yeah, it is a very flavorful archetype. Just such a shame it trades off so much for what is essentially flavor.

In the original post, I already included the racial gnome bonuses (-2 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Cha), as mentioned.

Those are the Halfling racial bonuses. Gnome is -2 Str, +2 Con, +2 Cha

And would you consider allowing poleiheira adherent and scroll scholar to work together (as a home rule, after counseling with the DM) to strong?

I'd allow it, Poleiheira is mostly flavor and shouldn't have to trade away nearly as much as it does. Trading off the Arcane Bond is enough, having to give up Arcane School as well is just incredible overkill.

The goal ist not the optimized Min/Max build, but rather a thematically fitting and we'll working one.

That's fair enough. I would still recommend raising that Intelligence score if you can afford it. 16 is a little iffy for a Wizard, especially since Poleiheira loses the arcane school class feature and gets fewer spells per day. You really need all the bonus spells you can get.

Wizard (poleiheira adherent, scroll scholar)

These archetypes are incompatible. The Scroll Scholar requires you to have either the Diviner or Universalist school feature. The Poleiheira Adherent loses the Arcane School class feature in its entirety, and therefor cannot take either Universalist or Diviner. Therefor they are incompatible. You must choose one or the other, you cannot have both.

(as an aside, Poleiheira Adherent trades away way too much for what it gives you. This creates compatibility issues with other archetypes that it really shouldn't have, but losing arcane school really cuts your options for mixing in other archetypes)

Abilities (after racial)

Str 8
Dex 15
Con 10
Int 16
Wis 12
Cha 12

This seems to be a 19 point buy. That's a little weird, did you forget a point somewhere?

Possible Feats/Discoveries

Discovery: Knowledge is Power
Careful Reader
Extend Spell
Toppling Spell (for use with Magic Missile)

Given how low your Strength score is and the penalty for being small-sized and being a 1/2 BAB class, Knowledge is Power probably isn't doing enough for you to be worth taking. Your CMD is still going to be terrible, and this Discovery just makes it slightly less terrible. If you're going to fail anyways, you may as well pick something else. Knowledge is Power is something I generally only see used well on Eldritch Knight builds that are using it to boost a CMB/CMD that is already decent.

Careful Reader is really specific and the kind of thing that may never come up in a campaign. Taking feats for flavor is all well and good, but if it literally never comes up then you may as well have not had it at all.

For spells I'd like some suggestions of the "non-standard" variety, which would fit the theme (for example Create Treasure Map.

I suggest Mad Monkeys. As a wise gnome once said, when you have that many monkeys anything is possible.

The greater caster's shield ability, on the other hand, is probably underpriced.

Honestly, these items are hard to price. There's a lot of practicality issue with respect to the downtime and feat requirements of scribing scrolls. Wizards do get scribe scroll for free, but they don't really want to be using shields. Divine casters like Clerics, Druids, or Oracles can use shields just fine but rarely if ever take Scribe Scroll and the item is of questionable value if you don't have that feat. And even if the shield does work for you and you do have the crafting feat you may have better uses of your downtime than scribing scrolls. Further complicating this, the Blessed Book does give precedence that magical items that give cost savings can give enormous savings over your adventuring career. Overall, this item's value is just completely subjective and it's really tough to pinpoint what it should be.

I strongly suspect that the text was submitted by a freelancer and ruthlessly cut by Paizo staff in order to fit everything in the book. That's a problem with a fair number of the softcovers.

I'm definitely not blaming any individuals here. There were clear problems of quality control with the Player Companion product pipeline that go beyond any one person and were more structural as to how the product was produced. The Player Companion line produced some of the best content in Pathfinder, but also some of the worst, and I think the way it was produced contributed to both the good and the bad.

I don't think the HHH Pact Wizard is even that hard to fix. Make it give up the Arcane School class feature, remove a couple of the more excessive abilities (it doesn't need a free Fast Study at 1st level, and the 20th level ability is dysfunctional as already mentioned), and reduce the uses per day of its 10th level ability. That would almost certainly bring it into balance. It'd still be a great archetype, but no longer a free buffet of class features with no opportunity cost.

d20pfsrd.com lists it as available under Create Undead, and Animate Dead clearly has it noted as a possible combination. However, d20pfsrd.com isn't exactly clear on which source added it (likely an adventure path at some point). I'm just trying to figure out the correct CL required.

Yeah, it is unfortunate that D20PFSRD doesn't correctly source this stuff. I'm actually very curious as to what the sources are for some of those things. There are some I'm aware of, like the Huecava's description in Bestiary 3 says you can create it with Create Undead. But I don't know where the Skeleton Champion and Juju Zombie options come from. Which is a shame, because I think they are really positive additions from a world-building perspective by explicitly specifying how a necromancer might create these kinds of creatures.

As to the question at hand, though, there is no way to create a Bloody Skeleton Champion. It's GM fiat as to whether such a combination is even possible.

Elixirs shouldn't require Craft Wondrous Items in the first place, they should be under Brew Potion. It's not so much that the Alchemist was explicitly barred from crafting Elixirs, it's more that Elixirs were misclassified.

I think the reason this doesn't get talked about much is two-fold. First, most Elixirs just duplicate effects you can already get with Extracts for free anyways. And secondly, it's one of the things a GM would just agree to handwave. If a player pointed out that Elixirs cannot be crafted by an Alchemist, I wouldn't have any problems waiving that rule and just letting him craft them.

I use the PFS rules in general so that archetype is out of scope.

Yeah, that's because this is one of the most poorly-designed archetypes in all of Pathfinder and a prime example of the poor editorial oversight of the Player Companion product line. It should have never been published in this state. There are so many problems with this archetype:

1. There was already a published archetype called the Pact Wizard.
2. It is unclear at which level the metamagic cost reduction is obtained, as both 10th and 15th level are mentioned in the same paragraph with respect to other abilities, but this one is not explicitly addressed as to what level it is obtained.
3. The archetype just doesn't trade away enough class features relative to what it's gaining. You're only losing 5 bonus feats, which isn't nearly enough when you're getting extremely powerful abilities in exchange. This also means it has too much compatibility with other archetypes (like Exploiter)
4. The 10th level ability is usable way too many times per day given how strong it is, and it becomes so powerful at 15th level that it really shouldn't be usable more than 1/day.
5. The 20th level ability allows for degeneracy, like retrying a perception check until you successfully overhear a whispered conversation happening a mile away in a secret fortress 60 feet underground. It's not "impossible" per say, it just that the DC in the 1000's. Skill checks don't auto-succeed on a natural 20 for a good reason.

Overall, this is a poorly written and blatantly broken archetype, and it's no surprise it was summarily banned in PFS. People can do what they want in their home games, of course, but this is right up there with Leadership in terms of stuff that is going to be banned at a lot of tables. It's a shame because it is a very flavorful archetype, and if the author had just toned things back a little this could very well be a great option. But as it stands it's just not going to be allowed at many tables.

For instance, PS: Sailor when climbing into the rigging?

In cases like that, I would allow the Profession: Sailor to be used instead of a Climb check.

In general you are better off being an actual spellcaster and taking just Dimensional Agility and then using Spell Perfection (Dimension Door) to quicken the spell for free. It requires fewer feats, it has no range restrictions, and most builds cannot get Dimensional Savant any earlier than 15th anyways due to how long the feat chain is. I've run Dimension Door builds before, and the gish builds that use the spell proper always work best.

If you really want to be a martial, then your best option is Flickering Step plus Teleportation Mastery which together give you a decent number of uses per day. However, if you're doing anything other than single-class Fighter you're going to be pretty feat-starved. Horizon Walker is a possibility, but it delays your class feature progression in your main class and can cause problems in other respects. Dipping Fighter can just compound that problem. If you're giving up 5 levels of progression in your main class, you may as well just go single-class Fighter at that point.

Using consumables for your defense only works when you can accurately predict when combat will occur.

Which isn't too hard when dealing with a 1 hour duration.

About to enter the villain's fortress? Opening up the sealed entrance to a long forgotten ruin? Found monster tracks and fresh blood nearby? Pass a perception check and notice enemies waiting in ambush on the road up ahead?

I see players use 10 minutes/level prebuffs all the time and have them in effect in the vast majority of combat encounters. If I'm not actively trying to catch them by surprise, they will likely have those long-duration prebuffs active.

Also when you are attacked without warning you don’t get your DEX bonus so that means you are even more vulnerable. In the case of a monk they do get their WIS bonus so are a little better off, but other classes do not have that advantage.

Definitely, surprise rounds are deadly. And as you correctly note, Monks are better off than most in this respect. They also have very high perception (class skill plus Wisdom-based) so they are less likely to suffer a surprise round.

And if we're looking at this holistically, there is a third major category of AC beyond your total and flat-footed: touch. And Monks are unrivaled for touch AC. Mage Armor doesn't help there, but it isn't needed either.

Most of the campaigns I have been in have always had a fair amount of unexpected combat. Fights break out even in social situations, the party gets attacked when resting or otherwise not expecting it.

If the comparison is when resting, then the Monk who needs to take a full round action to pull out a potion and quaff it to get Mage Armor is way better off than the guy in plate mail who needs 4 minutes with someone else helping him to get his armor on. Nobody takes the Endurance feat, it's a bad feat, because the risk of being ambushed while asleep is not worth taking a full feat to guard against. Which kinda backs up my point; yeah, occasionally you will be caught unprepared but it's an acceptable risk.

Unless your campaign only last about 2 weeks a single wand is not going to last anywhere near the entire campaign. Even if you only adventure for 8 hours a day, that works out to 12.5 days of protection.

If you are actively adventuring - as in seeking out and combating antagonists - then 8 hours of adventuring per day is a ludicrous exaggerations. If presume one encounter every 30 minutes on average, which is extremely conservative, then 8 hours per day over 12.5 days is 200 encounters. That's two or three campaigns!

Nobody is going to be using a consumable prebuff during a downtime day, or while traveling overland, or while attending a social encounter where combat is not expected. Sometimes that means you will be ambushed and will have to choose between spending a turn buffing or not having the buff. That is a downside, there will be cases you don't have your +4 Armor bonus. I've played low-level Wizards before, getting caught without Mage Armor active is a real thing and a legitimate downside. But it's very doable to have a 1 hour prebuff proactively active in most combat encounters.

Now, maybe in a wilderness exploration campaign this would be a problem. If you're spending 8 hours a day in dangerous wilderness where a combat encounter could happen at any time, but are often separated by hours, then this might be impractical. But in a typical campaign you're not spending 8 hours a day in situations where a challenging combat encounter could happen without notice.

Full Plate: AC +9

Mage Armor: AC +4

Monks also get to add their Wisdom bonus to AC, and a +5 Wisdom bonus to AC is hardly unreasonable by level 5 (16 + 2 racial + 2 enhancement).

At higher levels that Monk might have a +8 Wisdom modifier, which along with Mage Armor would be equivalent to +3 Full Plate.

But a potion has not only a gold cost and a time limit as a balance.....

The cost of a suit of full plate is 1,500 gp. The cost of a potion of Mage Armor is 50 gp. So for the price of the plate armor you can get 30 potions that last 1 hour each. In a lot of campaigns, that many potions will last you up until like 8th or 9th level.

And that's the expensive way to do it. If you have an arcane caster in the party, buy a wand and have them tag you with it. At a mere 15 gp per charge, you get 100 castings of Mage Armor for the price of non-masterwork full plate, which will almost certainly last you the entire campaign.

Another question. What is the cause of this dex bonus cap? I'm guessing its encumbrance. A medium load has a cap of +3, while heaving is +1.

It's based on the misconception that heavy armor was cumbersome and severely limited the wearer's mobility. In reality heavy armor is a relatively minor impediment to mobility and the dex limit isn't really justified by any realistic considerations.

From a game balance perspective it might be to keep dexterity under control, as stacking a high dexterity with heavy armor could result in extremely high AC's, but a Monk who quaffs a potion of Mage Armor is basically getting the equivalent of full plate without any impediment to their Dex bonus so it's hardly unprecedented.

Barbarian 1 or 2 does not give you enough rounds or rage or other benefits to make it worthwhile.

You can just take the Extra Rage feat, though I admit that is an expense when you already want to be taking two-weapon fighting feats.

With that said, I can see the case for Barbarian 8 / Rogue 4, as it does get you plenty of rounds of Rage per day and +11 attack bonus for that extra iterative, but you do lose Skill Unlock, a lot of Sneak Attack dice (doubly important for Knife Master), and the Advanced Rogue Talent at 10th. I think it really comes down to which Barbarian Rage powers you want and how much you care about them. If not, you can just use your Rogue Talents to shore up your feat selection and take Extra Rage.

I think you meant that Paizo moved away from prestige classes -- they kept on making profusions of archetypes, and then converted archetypes into a thing for 2nd Edition.

Yes, it's a typo. I think most people would recognize what I meant, but it is irritating that I can't go back to fix because of the 1 hour edit limit on Paizo forums.

Mad Magic has awesome potential, which Rage Prophet unfortunately squanders by STILL requiring the Moment of Clarity Rage Power tax

I'd agree, even with the support it now has it's still a very shaky choice, but it's at least tenable now with the support it has. In the grand scheme of viability, it's somewhere below the Spellslinger which is my golden benchmark for "it's bad, but you can make it work if you really want to"

I wouldn't call Spell Critical a way to reliably throw out Quickened spells every round -- you have to threaten a Critical, and then you have to confirm it. It's nice, but not awesome.

Spell Critical on its own isn't consistent, but when paired with Spell Perfection and a few Quickened Spell slots you absolutely can be in a position to use that Swift action cast every round. Any round you don't get the Spell Critical activation, you just use one of the other methods.

Even with a conservative +30/+30/+25/+20 attack routine with a 15-20 crit range and critical focus, you've got around a 70% chance to get at least one crit on a full attack against a typical CR 16 monster. So especially with Dimensional Agility and swift action Dimension Door (a great choice for Spell Perfection for a melee gish) to get pseudo-pounce it's not unreasonable to expect Spell Critical to give you a free swift action cast on most turns.

And Explosive Weapon sounds potentially very dangerous to your allies . . . .

"Area of effect" isn't just spells with a radius, it also includes spells that are cones and lines and those are easily directed away from your party. It's debatable whether this is RAI, and it may well have been intended only for spells with a radius, but as written it's more permissive than that.

Witch gets hurt because Eldritch Knight doesn't progress Hexes

As mentioned, the big draw here is Strength Patron Divine Power on a gish which is very nice. You probably aren't going to be using most standard action hexes anyways. It's going in a very different direction from a regular witch.

This is also true to some extent for Sorcerer and Wizard, but at least those have some options that don't scale with level but are not bad when used as low-level powers at high levels (for instance, the Admixturer Evoker's 1st level power and the Foresight Diviner's 1st level power).

The biggest thing the Sorcerer gives up is actually its favored class bonus. The Human Sorcerer FCB is absolutely huge for Sorcerers, and much more impactful than its bloodline powers, and roughly increases your spells known by 30%. But aside from this, Wizard and Sorcerer both have plenty of front-loaded options that don't rely on class level scaling or scale naturally with spell level (for instance Sorcerers can trade away the 1st level bloodline power for Blood Havoc which scales with caster level instead of class level).

I guess I'll ask how many levels of each class would be in a decent build if I reached level 12?

Either Barbarian 1 / Rogue 11 or Barbarian 2 / Rogue 10 would be ideal.

Should work just fine. Take 1-2 levels of Barbarian (depending on whether there's a Rage Power you want) and the rest in Rogue. You might need the Extra Rage feat as with only 1-2 levels of Barbarian you won't have very many rounds per day of raging available to you. Take two-weapon fighting, and get in position to flank and sneak attack.

When to take your first Barbarian level is a difficult question. Taking it at 1st level is very attractive, as this gives you a maximized d12 hit dice which means you'll have 2 extra hit points (which isn't a small amount at low levels). This also gets you full martial weapon proficiency, which is always nice. However, going for Rogue 4 first to get Finesse Training and Debilitating Strike as quickly as possible is also very attractive and the key to making your Rogue devastating in melee. I don't think there's a right answer, but you definitely want to be Barbarian 1 / Rogue 4 by 5th level.

There is nothing about the Skeletal Champion that removes racial modifiers, so yes you retain any racial modifiers. Skeleton Champions don't have a Constitution modifier so any racial modifiers to Constitution would be lost, but that isn't applicable for Goblins.

clearly you were never in PFS where the majority of GMs & coordinators opposed early entry for various PrCs via SLAs and thus the loud complaints got things 'clarified'

No, I've always played with my own group. I've had to deal with overpowered PC's in my time, and have "the chat" with players whose characters are clearly causing issues. The early qualification Mystic Theurge is nowhere near the character builds or specific feat or spell choices that caused me to have "the chat".

I can understand and fully agree that the early qualifications were janky, weird, and arbitrary, but at least as far as the Mystic Theurge goes it wasn't overpowered. The Theurge is bottlenecked by its action economy, and has to choose between being really MAD (if it goes the Int/Wis route) or losing a lot of class features (if it goes the Cha/Cha route).

If we compare Oracle 15 to Oracle 4/Sorcerer1/Mystic Theurge 10, you're losing 1 level of Oracle spellcasting progression, 3 attack bonus, 11 hit points, 11 levels of favored class bonus, 5 Mystery spells, and 3 Revelations in exchange for arcane spellcasting ability as an 11th level Sorcerer and a bloodline arcana. Is it good? Yes, this is definitely a good trade. But it's not so good as to break the game in any material way, nor will it completely outclass a single-classed Oracle.

I don't think I've ever seen a PC with more than three classes. Three is pretty common and I've seen it several times, but builds that use 4 or 5 classes are rather rare. They exist, as evidenced by people bringing them up in this thread, but they are rarely seen and tend to be the creation of a certain kind of player.

I almost played a game as a Paladin/Monk/Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple/Eldritch Knight once, but it fell through. Great build, and I used it in the Wrath of the Righteous video game adaptation, but never seen it at the table.

Speaking of PrC's, there are a few that require two classes to qualify for them (mystic theurge, eldritch knight, rage prophet, etc.) but I have yet to play any of those myself except as NPCs.

Mystic Theurge is a fascinating and iconic prestige class, but the Pathfinder version fixed none of its problems from 3.5, and the Combined Spell class feature that got added is borderline worthless. The Theurge is decent enough at high levels, but getting there is a slog and it's just not fun to play.

There was a brief period when there was early qualification cheese that was officially sanctioned in Pathfinder FAQ's, and people were entering Mystic Theurge with combinations like Oracle 4 / Sorcerer 1 and it actually wasn't overpowered at all. The forums were full of people asking advice on how to do it, and not a single GM complaining about the results being overpowered. It really goes to show those high prerequisites weren't necessary.

And it seems Paizo took notice, because shortly after they closed these loopholes the Accomplished Sneak Attacker feat appeared. This feat had one immediate and obvious application: early qualification into Arcane Trickster. Now instead of entering as a Rogue 3/Wizard 3, you could enter as a Rogue 1/Wizard 4 which makes entry much more realistic and only costs you a single level of spellcasting progression and a single feat. Overall it's now a very viable option.

Rage Prophet was a very underpowered prestige class. It trades off too much, has too high of a prerequisite to enter, and doesn't really commit to either melee combat or offensive spellcasting very well. It's very much a product of "early Pathfinder" where Paizo was still trying to figure out the direction they wanted to go, and also didn't have a strong grasp yet of what made something good, resulting in a lot of stuff that overshot or undershot (case in point: Rage Prophet was published in the same book as the Summoner). In the end, Paizo moved away from archetypes and the Rage Prophet was largely forgotten.

But in late Pathfinder a lot of support arrived that incidentally helped the Rage Prophet. The Prestigious Spellcaster feat meant that instead of losing 5 levels of spellcasting progression you were now only losing 2, and the Mad Magic feat gave new options with which to rage and cast simultaneously. While it's still a steep tradeoff, there is enough mitigation of the downsides and support to make the rage+cast approach workable. However, it's still a bit of a one-trick-pony that leans too heavily on its 7th level ability to add Constitution bonus to spell DC's. That's a huge DC boost, and really the only power here that packs enough of a punch to be worth it. Overall it's a janky relic of early Pathfinder that's found a very specific niche due to interactions with other options from late Pathfinder.

Now, Eldritch Knight is the most interesting of these prestige classes because it's the only one that never dropped off. Yes, the Magus stole the spotlight, but its niche was in its action economy efficiency. The Eldritch Knight's niche was allowing you to blend full arcane casting with a synergistic martial class. Especially at higher levels once it had Spell Perfection and Spell Critical to reliably throw out quickened spells every round, the Eldritch Knight was a highly competitive alternative to the Magus. But at lower levels it's understandable that most players preferred the smooth action economy of the Magus that just worked out of the box without much optimization.

But the Eldritch Knight really got some incredible support as Pathfinder progressed. The Prestigious Spellcaster feat was absolutely huge, as that one extra level put the Eldritch Knight decisively ahead of the Magus for spellcasting progression. It also opened up more multiclass options, as you could realistically do a little more dipping on the martial side without completing giving up the spellcasting side. Mage Cartridges added incredible support for firearm Eldritch Knight builds. And the Arcing Weapon and Explosive Weapon feats basically gave it its own alternative to spellstrike.

I think there are a lot of great options for EK out there. The standard Fighter/Wizard entry works well, but you can use Gunslinger to go the firearm route, Witch with Strength Patron can delay entry slightly to wait for Divine Power which is obviously amazing for a gish, Arcanist is a bit iffy since Reservoir doesn't scale with EK levels but there are some really good exploits for a gish, and Sorcerer has amazing options with its synergy with Paladin, Scaled Fist Monk, and Dragon Disciple.

Let me elaborate, if it takes multiple mythic abilities it probably can't (and shouldn't) be done without mythic.

Mythic path powers have wildly varying quality. Some are indeed outrageously good, others are just okay, and some are quite bad and would be just fine as non-mythic abilities. I think this is a particularly bad mythic power, so I don't think "it's mythic" is a good argument for it being overpowered. Similarly, there's an argument to be made that the closest non-mythic equivalent ability (Armor Training) is relatively lackluster. Now, I personally think Armor Training is a bit underrated, but it's nowhere near as good as Weapon Training.

I think this is probably a case of niche partitioning. If the Fighter didn't exist, Paizo probably would have published a better way of handling max dex bonus, but with Fighter being a core class and Armor Training being one of its premier class features they didn't want to create something objectively better.

Most characters wearing light armor wouldn't be bumping up against the max dex of their armors in the first place.

A Dex-based character will be changing their preferred armor over the course of the game with respect to max dex bonus, so I can see the annoyance.

Presuming you start with 18 Dexterity at 1st level, that means you're good with a Chain Shirt. By 5th level you should be around 20 Dexterity so you need Mithral Chain shirt. By 10th level you should be round 24 Dexterity so Darkleaf Studded Leather is your ideal. By 15th level you'll be around 26 so Darkleaf Leather is what you want. But once you get to inherent bonuses at the highest levels your Dexterity could be 30+ at which point you're just using a Harimaki or Bracers of Armor.

Interestingly, a Dex-based Fighter with Armor training doesn't have the same problem. Until the very end of his career when inherent bonuses become available, Mithral Breastplate is his ideal.

It can be done, with the series of 3 Mythic abilities mentioned earlier.

Which is not particularly helpful, as most campaigns do not utilize mythic, and that's a huge part of your build devoted to this.

You need to use a standard action to activate the ability, but otherwise once it's activated you have a Fly speed and can fly with a move action.

The Fly Skill list Hovering as requiring a DC 15 Fly check. If you can succeed that, then you can hover in place without moving, and therefor can hover in place without taking any actions at all.

Because the Fly spell grants Good mobility (+4 to Fly checks) and a bonus to fly checks equal to half your caster level (at least +3) you're already most of the way there. Skill checks to do not automatically fail on a roll of 1, so if you can get to +14 Fly you just automatically succeed

The most popular means of obtaining an armor bonus without a dex limitation remains usage of the Mage Armor spell (perhaps with Ascendant Spell to obtain a +2 AC bonus from its mythic version) or Bracers of Armor, which can provide upwards of a +8 armor bonus without any dex-to-AC cap.

There's also the Haramaki. A +5 Harimaki is about half of the cost of +6 Bracers of Armor. The reason it doesn't get mentioned is because it still disables Monk AC bonus, and many unarmored builds dip Monk since it's really the only class that gives good unarmored support. But if you're not taking the Monk dip, Harimaki has no max dex bonus, no arcane spell failure chance, no armor check penalty, and even no penalty for using it without proficiency (since all that does is double the armor check penalty... which as mentioned is zero).