I'm looking for a little advice build wise on my first Character for Pathfinder and D20 in general. My gaming group is took a break from Shadowrun (3rd Ed) which is the only tabletop RPG I really have any experience with and we started Rise of the Runelords. We've just finished Burnt Offerings and everyone has just hit level 3 if that makes any difference. Our party consists of a Halfing Paladin, Half-Ork Fighter (Weapon Master-Rapier), Halfing Rogue, Elf Druid, Half-Elf Cleric of Sarenrae (Fire/Healing), Human Ranger (Archery) and an Elf Sorcerer (See below).
I know blasting is not the most effective use of spells or an arcane caster, I've read the GOD wizard guide and a few other things; however, it's fun and the rest of my group likes having what amounts to magical artillery with the cleric and druid doing most of the buffing. So blasting it is.
Specifically I'm looking for advice on feats.
Danu Elf Sorcerer 3
Brass Dragon Bloodline
HP 20
Str 8 Dex 16 Con 12 Int 14 Wis 10 Cha 16
-----
Feats:
Combat Casting
Breadth of Experience (Freebie Flavor Feat)
Eschew Materials
Elemental Spell (Fire)
Traits:
Ease of Faith
Warrior of Old
Skills:
Bluff 3
Diplomacy 2
Intimidate 1
knowledge Arcana 3
Knowledge Planes 1
Linguistics 2
SpellCraft 1
UMB 1
Spells:
Level 0:
Detect Magic, Light, Acid Splash, Mage hand, Ray of Frost
Level 1:
Burning Hands, Magic Missile, Hydraulic Push, Mage Armor
----
First 2nd level spell is probably going be Scorching Ray. 4D6 +4 is pretty nice looking until stuff with fire resistances shows up.
The are feats I'm considering for later; Elemental Spell (Cold/Acid, not sure which one); Empower Spell; Leadership (Maybe? How useful is this, how much of a pain will it be for our GM?); Spell Penetration + Gr SP, Spell Focus (Evocation); Blind-Fight, Quicken Spell or Imp Initiative as Bloodline feats; Weapon Focus (Ray), Dodge, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot (GM hasn't really enforced the shooting into melee rules for casters) maybe Doge?
My GM has also suggested Improved Natural Armor.
What books are you allowed to use?
What books are you allowed to use?
Core Rules, APG and stuff from Rise of the Runelords and it appears on a case by case base a couple of the monster feats from the Beastiary.
|
What books are you allowed to use?Core Rules, APG and stuff from Rise of the Runelords and it appears on a case by case base a couple of the monster feats from the Beastiary.
Switch race to human. Take human sorcerer alternate FC bonus starting from level 4. Take selective spell as soon as you can. Also make sure you learn sirroco...it's really powerful with selective spell.
I can see some benefits to being elf, namely the bonus on overcoming spell resistance and bonus to dex, so if it's a part of your concept, don't worry too much about it.
For feats, I'd recommend reach spell. First of all it can be applied to scorching ray when you're fighting from far away, and it can also be applied to melee touch attacks do make them ranged to work with point blank and precise shot, so you don't have to get up close. Scorching ray is the only ray spell you'll have for quite a while so making some of your own with metamagic is pretty good for variety.
I know a lot of people aren't fond of empower spell but I've found it works well with scorching ray, which looks like it's going to be your signature spell.
Happy blasting!
Some suggestions:
Get the shield spell at first opportunity, once you are secure in your AC with mage armor and shield you can actually dare to go into meele.
Intensify Spell will work wonders for you, allowing you for example to get 10d4+10 burning hands from your second level slots.
Spell Perfection os the feat you will want to take at level 15, its just to awesome.
Weapon Focus: Ray could very well be worth the slots, especially considering spell perfection.
Spell Focus: this is a tricky one. Either go all in or not at all. So its spell focus and greater spell focus evocation as well es elemental focus and greater elemental focus fire. They stack on you evocation fire spells for a total of +4 to the spell, if you have spell perfection and your perfect spell is evocation (and maybe fire, even if you have to use elemtal spell) for +8 DC.
Leadership: I advise against it, your group is already rather big, add in the occasional summon and bookkeeping eats up more and more time (how long will that haste last on the summoned owlbear?...)
Quicken Spell: Yes. get it once you have access to level 5 spells, sometimes a quickened true strike is worth the level 5 slot.
Just for the record, Human is currently the premier option for sorcerers if you value a bigger spell selection, they are IMO not the only option.
Recommended spells in the next levels:
Scorcing Ray: Your intuition is grade A here.
Invisibility: Keeps you alive when everything goes wahuni shaped, very usefull since you can still buff and stay invisible.
Haste: Not a blasting spell, but considering your party, no spell at this level will do more damage than this one, at least till level 9.
Even the bonus to AC and movement speed will save more healing over the course of an adventure than you would think.
Dispel Magic: Another spell that deals no damage, on the up side you can dispel that annoying fire resistance spell from your enemies.
At the point when you will be getting your first 3rd level spells you magic missile and scorcing ray will kill things just fine. Fireball seems to be the logical choice, but resist für some more levels.
Fly: Important fact, most land bound monsters can rip you apart with 3 hits when you are flying, preferably invisible.
Level 4
Strong choices are Ice Storm (no save ^^, and ice on the ground), black tentacles (good damane potential, and can so many hentai fans be wrong? :P) resilient sphere ( removing one enemy from the battle, so your party can kill it later)
Most of your blasting needs can be fulfilled by magic missile and scorcing ray - especially if you invest in empower spell, and/or metamagic rods.
I hope my insane ramblings helped a bit.
If you're planning on using Scorching Ray, you should prioritize Point Blank Shot; +1 to hit and +1 to damage. I'd take it over Elemental Spell.
Generally, as a Sorcerer, you're going to stick with one or two damage causing spells (total), generally at your highest levels.
You are clearly planning on your Sorcerer getting hit. This is sub-optimal. Getting hit is the job of the fighter.
I'd pick the following feats and spells:
Feats:
Improved Initiative. No feat is more important to an Arcane caster.
Point Blank Shot: This adds +1 to hit and +1 to the damage of your ranged touch attacks. This is more important than Weapon Focus (Ray).
Spells:
0: Acid Splash, Mage Hand, Mending, Prestidigitation, Light
1: Mage Armor, Shield, Burning Hands, Color Spray
2: Scorching Ray
Mage Armor lasts long enough that it's a 'cast and forget' spell. Shield on top of that gives you a total AC of 21. Plus "shield bonuses" to AC are hard for mages to get.
Burning Hands with your bloodline ability averages about 14 points per target to multiple targets. 7 if they save.
Scorching Ray does 18 points to a single target.
Color Spray is a great 'take out small HD clumps' spell, but the save DC is merely 14.
The human favored class bonus is pretty awesome, unfortunately the game started and the character was made before the APG was out. Our GM has allowed some minor tweaks thanks to it but race change is out and can't bring in a new character unless this one dies.
I hadn't thought about intensify spell on things like Burning hands and shocking grasp. That is pretty amusing and I think I've found my 9th level feat. 5th will probably be Reach Spell.
So few other questions about spells;
Mirror Image, Blur and Displacement: Are they worth it and if so which one is more useful as a self buff?
Touch of Idiocy + Reach spell and Touch of Gracelessness + Reach Spell: Both of these seem like really good debuffs. I'd consider taking one, which might be more useful?
Shocking Grasp: It looks to be good candidates for intensify spell and reach spell as well. Don't get the bloodline damage bonus but would it be worth to have an easily beefed up damage spell that's not fire for those pesky critters with fire resistance/immunity?
Point Blank Shot vs Elemental Spell... We haven't finalized all the level up stuff.. I'll talk to my GM about swapping before we start tomorrow as that would probably be more useful for the time being.
So probably going to be 3rd Point Blank Shot, 5th Reach Spell, 7th Improved Initiative + Elemental Spell (4D4 + 8 always hits could be useful), 9th Intensify Spell , 11-15 Empower/Maximize maybe Arcane Blast or Spell Penetration, GR SP and Empower
Again the character is already built, I was encouraged to plan on getting hit by my GM and the 3 other players in our group that had experience with Pathfinder/DnD. Just looking for advice on feats and spells after 3rd level.
Dispel is definitely on the list as either first or second 3rd level spell and Haste as well.
As a note Mage Armor and Fly are taken care of by bloodline bonuses
The human favored class bonus is pretty awesome, unfortunately the game started and the character was made before the APG was out. Our GM has allowed some minor tweaks thanks to it but race change is out and can't bring in a new character unless this one dies.
I hadn't thought about intensify spell on things like Burning hands and shocking grasp. That is pretty amusing and I think I've found my 9th level feat. 5th will probably be Reach Spell.
So few other questions about spells;
Mirror Image, Blur and Displacement: Are they worth it and if so which one is more useful as a self buff?Touch of Idiocy + Reach spell and Touch of Gracelessness + Reach Spell: Both of these seem like really good debuffs. I'd consider taking one, which might be more useful?
Shocking Grasp: It looks to be good candidates for intensify spell and reach spell as well. Don't get the bloodline damage bonus but would it be worth to have an easily beefed up damage spell that's not fire for those pesky critters with fire resistance/immunity?
Point Blank Shot vs Elemental Spell... We haven't finalized all the level up stuff.. I'll talk to my GM about swapping before we start tomorrow as that would probably be more useful for the time being.
So probably going to be 3rd Point Blank Shot, 5th Reach Spell, 7th Improved Initiative + Elemental Spell (4D4 + 8 always hits could be useful), 9th Intensify Spell , 11-15 Empower/Maximize maybe Arcane Blast or Spell Penetration, GR SP and Empower
Again the character is already built, I was encouraged to plan on getting hit by my GM and the 3 other players in our group that had experience with Pathfinder/DnD. Just looking for advice on feats and spells after 3rd level.
Dispel is definitely on the list as either first or second 3rd level spell and Haste as well.
As a note Mage Armor and Fly are taken care of by bloodline bonuses
Mirror immage is fun, blink has special movement advantages and displacement is just flat 50 % without an escape clause - so displacement would be your choice for ease of play.
Touch of idiocy is in theory great agaist spellcasters but I can´t really advise it with your limited spell selection. Spectral Hand could serve you for quite a long time so I would advise to skip reach spell for some time, after all you are using a spells slot 1 level higher.
But reach spell is still a valid option.
Point Blank shot, Weapon Focus: Ray, Elemental Focus: It depends on your personal tactics:
Point Blank shot helps you till 30 ft, Weapon Focus Ray is good for up to 300 ft (polar ray), and Elemental Focus can help to make an easy save into a hard one.
Most other things seem fine
Since you're using fire, have you considered half-orc? You can add +1/2 per level to fire damage to stack on your bloodline power. You can add enough over time to overcome a huge chuck of fire resistance and saves, although you still have a great deal of fire immunity out there.
As far as traits, the one that reduces metamagic by one level to a single spell would be nice to apply to burning hands (intensify spell) to make it pretty scalable through 10th with your bloodline and the half-orc ability. 10d4+15 @ 10th.
The trait that gives you +1 caster level for a single spell wouldn't be bad or fireball in the same way.
Blasters aren't great, and there is a ton of fire resistance/immunity out there, but this one could be fun.
The primary reason there's no spell ranged greater than 30' is because the original poster is working on a theme.
Otherwise, I'm a big fan of Acid Arrow for that role.
By far the best 2nd level blast is Burning Arc. Get it.
