Need help with Battle-Mage

[Chick3n]

Hi, I'm currently part of a 5 man roleplaying group using the Pathfinder core rule book system.

I wish to make a battle mage that's capable of holding his own in the middle of combat focusing mainly on buff spells for myself and the party.

My character is starting at level 4 and we have been given 20 points to purchase on stats and I've come up with the following, note that this uses a +2 bonus on any stat(Human, Half orc etc) and 1 point added at level 4.

Str 14
Int 12
Dex 14
Wis 7
Con 14
Cha 18

This is obviously geared towards a Sorcerer as I really like the bloodline abilities.

I don't want to massively multi-class and am thinking of only going Fighter/Sorcerer with the possibility of prestiege classes if it makes sense.

Can anyone suggest a path I could consider, feats that make sense and any other information I might need.

Many thanks,

[Spacelard]

Screams Paladin2/Sorceror8/Dragon Disciple10 to me.

[LilithsThrall]

Chick3n wrote:

Hi, I'm currently part of a 5 man roleplaying group using the Pathfinder core rule book system.

I wish to make a battle mage that's capable of holding his own in the middle of combat focusing mainly on buff spells for myself and the party.

My character is starting at level 4 and we have been given 20 points to purchase on stats and I've come up with the following, note that this uses a +2 bonus on any stat(Human, Half orc etc) and 1 point added at level 4.

Str 14
Int 12
Dex 14
Wis 7
Con 14
Cha 18

This is obviously geared towards a Sorcerer as I really like the bloodline abilities.

I don't want to massively multi-class and am thinking of only going Fighter/Sorcerer with the possibility of prestiege classes if it makes sense.

Can anyone suggest a path I could consider, feats that make sense and any other information I might need.

Many thanks,

If you're focusing primarily on buffs, why not play a cleric?

And if you are focusing primarily on buffs, it'd help to know what the other players are playing.

Also, what books/source material can you use?

[Frogboy]

If you are playing a Sorcerer who specializes in buffs to make your fighting better, you don't need to start with an 18 CHA and you certainly don't want a -2 on your Will save (at least, I wouldn't). I'd go with a CHA of 14 to start with and pump your STR, DEX and CON reasonably high based on the type of melee (I assume) combatant you want to be. You will probably never cast 9th level spells and can always get a Headband of CHA +2 to gain access to 5th and 6th level spells.

With that high a CHA to start with, it won't be long before you end up falling back on your casting in order to be effective.

[Fake Healer]

I'd suggest dropping Charisma by 2 points to a 16 and upping either Strength or Dexterity, depending on whether you want to do a bit of melee or ranged. Or bump up your Con for HP.
You won't be needing too high of a Charisma because you don't really need to have high DCs if you want to mostly buff.

[Fake Healer]

Yeah, actually I would put a 15 in CHA, up my DEX to around 16, pick up a bow and have some fun. Aim to put the bare minimum into a fighting class(ranger or fighter probably) and make sure you get into Dragon Disciple. The ability boosts for DD will give you good strength to add to a bow's damage and get you some good HPs among other decent abilities.

+4 str, +3 con, +2 int, +3 Nat Armor, continued bloodline feats, breath weapon, dragon form, wings, and blindsense + a d12 HD is pretty sweet. Unfortunately you will lose 3 more caster levels going this route but really you are not trying for ultimate caster, you are trying to be a decent caster that buffs and contributes in combat....mission accomplished.

[Cold Napalm]

What you just described is a cleric...

However if you must have arcane, then you will need a prestige class to make it work...at the very least you´ll need the EK. I´ll warn you that a sorcerer gish is pretty rules mastery intensive if you don´t wanna utterly suck. If you wanna get your feet wet, do a fi 1/wiz 5/EK 10/fi 1/wiz 3 progression first. You´ll get a better idea of how gish builds work.

[Dragonborn3]

Well, for melee with buff spells, Paladin2/Dragon Bloodling Sorcerer4/Dragon Disciple10/Eldritch Knight 4

For ranged fighting, Fighter4/Sorcerer6/Arcane Archer10.

Toughness, Weapon Focus, Dodge, Improved Critical, Arcane Strike, Arcane Armor Training/Mastery, and Weapon Finesse(if you are going for a Dex build} are decent feats for Battle Mages.

[vuron]

Gimping your will save is always a bad move IMHO. Even with a good will save progression that -2 means that you are probably going to fail the occasional SoS spell. Considering you have a crappy AC and crappy HPs, adding yet another weakness to your build is really problematic.

I think the Barbarian 2/Sorceror 2 on the way to Barbarian 2/Sorceror 3/Dragon Disciple 10 is a good build for the type of character you are looking for.

Str 18 (15 Base +2 Race +1 Level)
Dex 13
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 14

If you don't mind playing dumb PCs you can even dump int like crazy

Str 18 (15 Base +2 Race +1 Level)
Dex 12
Con 16
Int 7
Wis 10
Cha 14

Go with a big pointy stick, cast enlarge on self, listen to your enemies wail in pain. Your HPs are good, your buffing isn't horrible, you can do alot of damage especially when enlarged, and you've got fairly decent saves. Use javelins for ranged throwing and big pointy thing (falchion is okay but you'll probably not have enough feats to maximize it's use, 2handed sword or greataxe is probably okay especially with vital strike chain).

Paladin 2/Sorceror 2 is also good because of the divine favor boost to saves plus smite but I think the rage + higher HD + increased movement makes the Barbarian/Sorceror/Dragon Disciple a potent melee/buffing combatant.

[Viletta Vadim]

Frogboy wrote:

If you are playing a Sorcerer who specializes in buffs to make your fighting better, you don't need to start with an 18 CHA and you certainly don't want a -2 on your Will save (at least, I wouldn't).

Depending on the allowed sources, Force of Personality (Complete Adventurer, IIRC) can fix the will saves thing.

[Fergie]

A Bard is much better then any Dragon Disciple, and probably better then most arcane/melee combos. A bard gets decent BAB, full caster level (although slow spell progression), can cast in armor without a feat, and is by far the best buffer in the game.

Go for a high strength, decent charisma, dex and con, and keep wisdom and intelligence at 10. You will be decent in melee, fantastic at buffing the party, and also a knowledge and skill monkey.

[Frogboy]

Viletta Vadim wrote:

Frogboy wrote:

If you are playing a Sorcerer who specializes in buffs to make your fighting better, you don't need to start with an 18 CHA and you certainly don't want a -2 on your Will save (at least, I wouldn't).

Depending on the allowed sources, Force of Personality (Complete Adventurer, IIRC) can fix the will saves thing.

True. I was assuming only core though.

[Lord Magus]

Fergie wrote:

A Bard (...) is by far the best buffer in the game.

For example, the Savage Bard 9/Barbarian 1 in the campaign I am currently DMing typically casts Haste then starts to sing, getting the party up to something like +7/+7 in 2-3 rounds. And I'm pretty sure that's not the very best he could be.

[Ardenup]

Even if it's core only BEG your DM to allow the extra smite feat (2x extra smite/day)

Then go Pal2/Soc8/EK10 for BAB +15, 8th level spells.
With Arcane Bloodline take a Falchion as your focus and take crit feats.

Stuff like Arcane Armor Training, Wpn Fcs: Falchion, Extra Smite, Heighten Spell, Extend Spell, Empower Spell, Power Attack, Arcane Strike, Gtr Wpn Fcs: Falchion, Wpn Spl:Falchion, (melee wpn mastery: slashing, PHBII if allowed) crit focus, staggering crit.

This way your BAB is same as cleric, learn stuff like Heroism, Giantform etc. And 3/day you can add your CHA for smitey goodness.

If more melee orientated then Ftr 1/Sorc5/DD4/EK10 will give BAB +16, 8th level spells. Is all core and with 2 nice STR Boosts to help.

Cheers.

[Princess Of Canada]

A class presented in Dragon Magazine like Battle Dancer can be found also in the Dragon Compendium, Vol.1, hardcover 3.5 book that took all the best parts of the popular magazine series and published the best material.

Battle Dancer is a Chaotic variation of a Monk, uses Charisma instead of Wisdom for the AC bonus but it functions identically to that of a Monk but it does NOT gain Flurry of Blows but DOES gain the Unarmed Strike damage like a Monk does. Its worth a look. The skills do need some conversion but the special abilities granted by the class are pretty impressive and can be kept as is (most of it has to do with Perform (Dancing) and Acrobatics (Tumble)).

Paladin would be good for Saving Throws without a doubt.

Sorceror naturally to keep with the theme of the character.

Overall, the build would be Paladin 2 / Battle Dancer 2 / Sorceror 6th / Dragon Disciple 10th. That'd give you Charisma to AC and saves, reasonable base attack, pretty nice saves, decent spellcasting ability and plenty of other abilities and such besides.

[Chick3n]

Ok, thankyou for all your opinions.

To clear a few things up;

Going into Paladin class has been ruled a once in never out type scenario by our DM and I have to say I agree with him. Essentially being a Paladin is a calling not just a quick way to cherry pick some abilities.

I've decided to go 2 levels of Sorc and 2 levels of Barbarian with a view of DD later on if I get that far.

I've taken onboard the fact I won't need such a high charisma and put the points in strength instead, our group has a fighter in it but he spends most of his time on his ass.

I am using ONLY the core rule book as I tend to find splat books are usually ill thought out and have yet to really get to grips with everything the core book has to offer.

As for begging the DM for extra smite.. that would be wicked if it wasn't for not only the above fact but also how he's gimped the Smite skill anyway.

I can't remember what he did to change it but it ended up something like you had to pick a target to smite against, your smite run out as soon as it was dead or you got a total number of rounds equal to your charisma modifier or something like that, with some other minor annoying changes it really put a crimp in what I view as being the best weapon for a Pally.

I decided to go with Vurons advice, gimping my will save probably won't help.. even though I won't look like the fighter type.. (Maxium ranks in bluff and skill focus) (Also disguise self on constantly to look like a mage) I know how they are the quickest way to put someone out of action.

Str 18 (15 Base +2 Race +1 Level)
Dex 12
Con 14
Int 11
Wis 10

I've taken one point from dex and put it in INT as I need certain skills and skill points aren't really a Sorcs thing.. so will have less than most classes later on when I need them!! :)

Cha 14

[jadedhaze]

Originally, I played in a game where I started out as a fighter and eventually multi-classed into a battle mage. However, we are switching the game to the pathfinder system which does present issues, but none-the-less can still be done.

It is going to depend on how you want to work your character. With mine, I'm right in the brunt of fighting so I need strength and the hp to hold up in a fight. However, the spells come in handy, but I am careful on how I use them. Though we haven't played in a while, my strength was quite high at an 18 I believe and my lowest stat was my charisma coming in at a 13 or 14. I rolled really good stats when we first started the game so I was fortunate on how the GM presented the character creation.

You really need to have well balanced stats if you're going to be right in the battle. If you're going to stand back and just cast spells, I would recommend keeping the high charisma, however you will be at odds with the fortitude saves as formerly mentioned. Then again, taking the stat down a bit to bring up your modifier may help with that. Play around with the stats yourself and do a test run to see how it would work out. Maybe ask your GM if they could offer any advise to you as well.

[james maissen]

Chick3n wrote:

Hi, I'm currently part of a 5 man roleplaying group using the Pathfinder core rule book system.

I wish to make a battle mage that's capable of holding his own in the middle of combat focusing mainly on buff spells for myself and the party.

Here are some questions that you should ask yourself:

1. What levels am I going to be playing this character? You're starting at 4th, do you think you will advance slowly or quickly?

2. What do you imagine your character doing?

3. What is intrinsic to this vision, if anything?

For example, people have suggested a cleric to you. This can really fit or not fit depending how you are seeing things. I wouldn't get too tied up with the labels and mechanics at first, but think on how you envision the PC. It could be that the medium armor prof of the cleric coupled with support spells that a cleric would have would fit exactly into your idea of a 'battle mage'.

As to the paladin 'once in, forever in' while I agree with that, I don't agree with it meaning that a paladin could not take levels in other classes. They still ARE a paladin. They just have different abilities than the normal mechanical paladin class.

Heck I could make a BARD and play them as a PALADIN. And to the 'real' world that's how he would be perceived. Now he might do somethings or not do somethings that paladins have/don't have. But his character would be 100% paladin.

Its easy to confuse mechanics and roleplay. Separate the two and I think you'll be happier in the long run. They are not competitors, but rather exist orthogonally to one another.

-James

[Marc Radle]

I know you said only core, but if you change your mind, the Vanguard class from Super Genius Games is probably exactly what you are looking for! The class has be very well recieved and reviewed and Super Genius Games is know for putting out very high quality well balanced Pathfinder stuff.

Check the class out - I don't think you'll be disappointed! ;)

LINK