Mike-Man1978's page

Personally: I would build a conjuration focused wizard with a penchant for calling denizens of the desert: djinn, air elementals, etc.

That certainly fits the concept.

I'll look into what creatures are made available and that fit his native homeland.....they might not end up being the most powerful creatures to summon, but role-play has to fit in somewhere, right?

Create Mr. Pitt wrote:

Take Dimensional Agility and move, cast, move and you can use shift on either side of it.

This does not work. Using Shift ends your turn, full stop. Dimensional Agility does not give any benefit to Shift.

So I guess you could move [move action], cast a spell [standard action], and then shift away from danger [swift action], right?

Nahh, as a melee synthesis they'll barely be summoning anyway. In any event, the ability to summon 2-4 Hound Archons heck even before battle with summoner's charm class feature you've suddenly given everyone flanking buddies and protection from evil all at the cost of a level 5 spell.

Well alright then, sounds like a good idea.

Not sure if anyone here would recognize these characters, but they were the inspiration for this character.....although, he's chaotic good [not evil].

Khemsa [character from "People of the Black Circle", by Robert E. Howard], and Thoth Amon [one of Conan's chief adversaries].

I loves' me some Conan....

The latter. Shift is basically immunity from grapple and with all those feats you'll be able to take spell focus in quite a few different schools (including evocation for dazing spells) and get your conjuration DCs sky high. No SR on things like create pit and stinking cloud.

Take Dimensional Agility and move, cast, move and you can use shift on either side of it. Take Craft Wondrous Item and, perhaps, Craft Rod if you have enough downtime. You can definitely grab enough metamagic to get to Spell Perfection. Take at least Persistent, Heighten, Dazing, and with this many feats I would consider taking Silent, Still, and Eschew Materials, this will let you cast in fraught social situations (though you'd still be subject to spellcraft checks and only works if you prepared ahead of time).

Augment and Superior Summons, also maybe Summon Good Monster, and possibly Evolved Summon Monster. Improved Initiative, Toughness, Spell Focus (Conj), Augment should be your first four though.

I had thought about taking the spell focus: conjuration, augment summoning, superior summoning feat chain....but I worry about stepping too heavily on the summoner's toes...might do it anyway.

Thanks.

Now I'm torn:

Do I play a Human Sorcerer with the Arcane Bloodline?

or

Do I play a Human Wizard specializing in Conjuration [teleportation]?

I shouldn't be given this many options.......

Mike-Man1978 wrote:

]Therein lies the problem; these characters will, more than likely, not have the benefit of a competent build. More likely, they will have feats and spell selections that are unfocused and that ignore/overlook synergy.

At low levels, when spell slots are few, it's very hard for a spellcaster/turned fighter to be useful for very long......,"spells are nice but, three feet of steel never fizzles",....

Don't worry about it. A synthesist doesn't need to pick good spells or feats to kick ass in combat. It helps, but they'll be just fine even with 0 feats and 0 spells (just playing at a lower tier). Much more important are the evolutions he picks, but even if those choices are terrible, he'll still have more HP+temp HP than anyone else in the party.

I hope I am pleasantly surprised. Although, now I am hearing that this person is thinking of turning her Eidolon into nothing more than a glorified mount for the purposes of charging into melee with a lance....and isn't going to take the synthesist archetype....every fiber in my body is telling me to play either a cleric or a paladin to help keep these people alive.....but I don' wanna'!

For crafting feats, consider Craft Magical Tattoo. It gives you a large number of extra item slots at double cost, but without the need to draw them. I'm particularly fond of metamagic tattoos.

That's a good suggestion, and fitting with my Arabian theme.

Thank you.

Where did you get that impression of gishes? They are generally stronger and more useful to the party than typical fighting classes, not weaker. There is no particular reason your party should suffer unusually from PC deaths, though a random crit is always possible. A synthesist, in particular, is especially tanky if built reasonably competently.

"especially...if built reasonably competently"...

Therein lies the problem; these characters will, more than likely, not have the benefit of a competent build. More likely, they will have feats and spell selections that are unfocused and that ignore/overlook synergy.

At low levels, when spell slots are few, it's very hard for a spellcaster/turned fighter to be useful for very long......,"spells are nice but, three feet of steel never fizzles",....

With so many combat characters, I'd be VERY tempted to play a bard.

The beauty part is, with that many feats you can actually be extremely effective with the otherwise-prohibitively costly whip feats. (Greater/Improved) Whip Mastery, Improved (Trip/Disarm/Grapple), Weapon Focus, all that jazz.

I like the sorcerer idea with Expanded Arcana as well, just make sure to take mostly different spells from the other guy and you'll be fine.

Bard could be fun, but I've got this Arabian Spellcaster theme driven deep into my "want to play" section of my brain.

I've tried to communicate the need to compare our spell lists [to avoid too much overlap] with the other sorcerer, but he isn't going to pick his spells until it's time to level his character. No one in this group plans more than 1 or 2 levels ahead.

In campaigns with this kind of house rule, Wizards beome even more Tier 1.

You are correct. I warned the DM that this type of rule could break the game....unless he balanced it by giving all the NPC's the same bonus feats.

His reasoning is, with this many extra feats you can afford to take those circumstantially useful feats that might never show up on your character sheet otherwise.....but no one is adhering to that [can't really blame them].

I gave him the opportunity to restrict my character in however he saw fit, and he declined. Even after I told him point blank that, given my experience, my character will be considerably more powerful than any other at the table.

I really want to build this character to be really good at mitigating damage in combat, and making the peoples fall down when our "fighters" are proving to be ineffective. I don't want to break the game....but I do want to be awesome.

Thanks again.

Let's see if I can narrow/channel everyone's creative ideas a bit.

Seems a shame to not take at least a couple of crafting feats, given the downtime that seems to be included and the fact that I have so many options:

If you had to narrow it down to two, maybe three crafting feats, which ones would you choose and why?

My picks:

Forge Ring: Rings of Wizardry, Rings of Protection, etc.

Craft Wondrous Item: Headband of Alluring Charisma, Robes of Resistance, Pearls of Power etc.

Craft Rod: Quicken Rod

On the same note, though Pathfinder's metamagic feats aren't as over the top as 3.5, there are still the old standbys and some decent new additions. If you had to narrow it down to 3-4 metamagic feats, which ones would you suggest?

My picks:

Quicken Spell [ill omen, enervation]

Heighten Spell [stinking cloud, glitterdust]

Bouncing Spell [ray of exhaustion, dominate monster]

Empower Spell [enervation, ray of enfeeblement, fireball]

Magical Lineage would seem to work well with enervation [empower], fireball [intensified, empowered]....

Too bad I can't get a Split, Empowered, Chained Ray of Stupidity with a Split, Empowered, Quickened Ray of Stupidity right behind it anymore....

So far, I've got some pretty good general advice from everyone; thank you.

I have a soft-spot in my heart for core classes/races....it seems like most of our party [mostly newer players with less than 2-3 years playtime...I'm the only 10+ year vet] is sold on the fact that non-core classes and races are much better options than the "boring" stuff found in the CRB.

The pathfinder sorcerer, with the human favored class bonus and extra arcana feats, is pretty tempting [makes sorcerers marginally more useful in most combat situations if the list is well planned].

Here's what I'm worried about....everyone seems to be going for "gish" caster builds...and I think that more than one of them are going to die.
These types of builds are typically lacking in terms of effectiveness in the hands of well seasoned players....I shutter to think of how horribly awful these inexperienced players will handle them. I think after a few sessions, one of more of them will die, and hopefully, realizing their mistake, will roll up an actual front line warrior or a cleric/paladin.

The spell lists are similar enough [between 3.5 & Pathfinder], that I could still easily construct a spell list that would confound and lay waste to our enemies....[and sorcerer does seem to fit the Sinbad/1001 Arabian Nights flavor I'm going for]. I just didn't want to steal our sorcerers thunder.

Kingmaker has more downtime than most adventure paths, so item creation feats are worthwhile.

I would be tempted to play an evocation blaster wizard and go nuts with metamagic feats. Get perfected spell and preferred spell.

Oh, it's tempting......but I'd rather not steal "all" the glory....just a good deal of it....

Normally blasting is 4th on my list of things to do...but with all these feats....it is...tempting.

Is wizard set in stone? With a generous set of stats like you have listed and all those extra feats, I'd be tempted to play something more MAD and more feat-starved than your average wizard. An evangelist cleric with a reach weapon would bring a lot to the group IMHO, particularly considering that you already have several arcane casters but no divine caster at all.

I wouldn't say, "set in stone", but I mostly DM'd in my old group, and have never had the chance to play a PC wizard. I agree, this group doesn't have a top-notch divine caster/healer [the alchemist can do a bit], but I'd "prefer" to play a wizard.

All of the above.

But really it depends on what kind of wizard you'll want to be. A blaster? a controller? a summoner? etc...?

probably wouldn't be a bad idea to grab everything that requires spells or caster level. haha. Don't forget you can take the wizard discovery things with feats, if you want some of those and don't want to wait.

I almost always play battlefield control/conjuration specialist wizards, but I'm open to whatever creative coolness people can come up with.

I'd prefer to play a sound wizard, with no glaring weaknesses, that doesn't take too big advantage of this special opportunity.

Thank you.

I've been playing D&D 3.0/3.5 since it's creation [still do]. Though I consider myself very potent when it comes to character builds in D&D, I've recently left my old group to join another. This new group is a sold out, die hard Pathfinder group. So far, I like the game.

The DM wants to build some DM muscle, and has made some major house rules for our upcoming game. We are going to be running through the Kingmaker Adventure Path, and he is going to allow all PC's to take an EXTRA FEAT per character level.

I am playing a Kelishite Wizard [human, CG, with all the Arabian flare that goes with it] with the following scores: STR 12, DEX 14, CON 14, INT 18, WIS 12, CHA 12. I will end up having 21 feats [21 FEATS!], plus the 5 wizard bonus feats, by 20th level [for a grand total of 26 FEATS, assuming we play all the way to 20].

Our party consists of the following:
1. Noble Drow Alchemist [Jekyll & Hyde Build for wading into melee]
2. Lizardfolk Sorcerer [going into Dragon Disciple]
3. Kitsune Summoner [Synergist for melee]
4. Human Fighter [archer, with Weapon Master archetype]
5. Fetchling Rogue [focusing on charisma based skills]
6. Human Wizard [me]

If you were given this opportunity to build with this many feats, how would you more experienced Pathfinder players do it?

All current Paizo books are on the table [everything not 3rd party content on D20PFSRD.COM].

Grab lots of Metamagic?

Grab lots of Item Creation?

Have fun, and give me some ideas.

Thank you.