Hi guys,
I'm wondering about what to do if one of my two PCs should die: I though that, instead of always being the damage dealer of the party, I could focus on buff, debuff and battlefield control.
I've already played a high level sorcerer which did a bit of those things but, being a terribly effective damage dealer, I always had the temptation to put an end to the fight by myself.
What I'd like to do now is concentrate solely on what I said above, but I'd like to be able to do ALL of those things, even if nothing else. On this point: I'd really like to NOT be able to fight alone (no animal companion/eidolon and no summons. I'd also prefer not being able to use buff on myself effectively as a battle cleric would do).
Another important note is that I'd like to be effective all the way through level 5 to level 12 or so, since this is the range we usually play in.
My best bet right now is the wizard. I believe it has strong battlefield control capabilities, good debuffs (slow, enervation, bestow curse, ray of enfeeblement, feeblemind etc.) but I don't see a lot in term of buffs (expect for haste and greater magic weapon). I'd also like that they have skills. Could I make an effective buffer as a wizard?
I'm also considering other options:
Bards: I've played two but only for a little while; I believe they have great buffs and some debuff, but not the battlefield control that I seek.
Clerics: the next best bet right now. I never played one, but if I remember right they can buff pretty well with the right domanis, have nice debuffs but I'm not so sure about battlefield control. Moreover, I fear that they could have some potential as warriors with self buffs and I'd like to avoid that.
Druids: I'm not interested in animal companion, I don't want to summon and don't want to fight in wild shape. Seems a bit of a waste to me, even if the spell list is not so bad.
Witch: I don't know much about it, but hexes seems very good for debuffing, and I believe it has some buff and battlefield control too. Could this be an option?
Oracle: No idea, should I look into it too?
Mystic Theurge: I've always believed them to be useless until high level, is this true? I don't think we'll go past level 12 and I'd like to be effective throughout the 5-12 level range.
Other options?
Thank you in advance for any insight you may give me, please remember that fighting capability is a malus for me and not a plus (except durability).
EDIT:
I also value action economy: being able to use buffs on the whole party means a lot to me, since I'd both hate to increase existing disparities within the power of other PCs, and equally to devote an action to make a PCs badly built suck less.
My best bet right now is the wizard. I believe it has strong battlefield control capabilities, good debuffs (slow, enervation, bestow curse, ray of enfeeblement, feeblemind etc.) but I don't see a lot in term of buffs (expect for haste and greater magic weapon). I'd also like that they have skills. Could I make an effective buffer as a wizard?
I would check out Treantmonk's Guide to Pathfinder Wizards: Being a God
I'm not saying you should optimization your character but I find that reading over an optimization guide helps avoid buyers remorse.
Witch: I don't know much about it, but hexes seems very good for debuffing, and I believe it has some buff and battlefield control too. Could this be an option?
I have heard that the Witch class could be considered another tier one class. It's apparently good at debuffing. I would look into it.
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If you value action economy over battlefield control, go bard.
If you value battlefield control over action economy, go evangelist cleric.
No one can get close to touching the buff-ability of bards. Have everyone pitch in for a rod of lesser quicken spell. It's about 7k a person in a 5 person party. It'll do more to help everyone else out than any other item worth 7k will. Then cast Good Hope, Inspire Courage, and Haste in one round.
People will say the Evangelist cleric will come close (ok, the sane people only say that Iomedaen ones do). While they are the next best thing, the bard is still so far ahead of him, it's ridiculous. The cleric does not have the bard spell list, which is the other half of the bard's awesome ability to support. The main things clerics have over bards in the buffing department is Greater Magic Weapon.
Personally, I haven't seen many great battlefield control spells of the Cleric, other than say...Stone Shape and Blade Barrier. And the summons, which with a feat they can cast as standard actions. But other than those spells, I don't see anything that really sticks out to me as "wow, they're good at battlefield control!"
But I've found that focusing on summoning tends to marginalize the contributions of others.
So, back to the bard. Which I am heavily biased towards.
You can do decent battlefield control with just a Whip as a bard.
Dirge of Doom works wonders. -2 to all saves, with no save? Awesome. Use one of those spells that lets you have 2 performances up.
Spell-wise?
Grease.
Wandering Star Motes is nice against groups.
Oh, what's that? Shadow Conjuration? Nice. I'll drop a shadow pit right about...there!
Discordant Blast.
Slow.
Fear.
Pied Piping.
Got ambushed in a horrible position? Nope! Bard's Escape means you get to choose the battlefield.
Between Timely Inspiration and Gallant Inspiration, you can ensure that your group hits.
If you value action economy over battlefield control, go bard.
If you value battlefield control over action economy, go evangelist cleric.
No one can get close to touching the buff-ability of bards. Have everyone pitch in for a rod of lesser quicken spell. It's about 7k a person in a 5 person party. It'll do more to help everyone else out than any other item worth 7k will. Then cast Good Hope, Inspire Courage, and Haste in one round.
People will say the Evangelist cleric will come close (ok, the sane people only say that Iomedaen ones do). While they are the next best thing, the bard is still so far ahead of him, it's ridiculous. The cleric does not have the bard spell list, which is the other half of the bard's awesome ability to support. The main things clerics have over bards in the buffing department is Greater Magic Weapon.
Personally, I haven't seen many great battlefield control spells of the Cleric, other than say...Stone Shape and Blade Barrier. And the summons, which with a feat they can cast as standard actions. But other than those spells, I don't see anything that really sticks out to me as "wow, they're good at battlefield control!"
+1
I'll add UMD skill monkey as well. Loot and shoot. Its what makes up for the slower spell progression.
Battlefield control, confusion, song of discord and cacophonous call both can really mess up the field of battle.
Being one of the best party faces around is gold as well.I played a bard as a lark once. You'll fast become the most popular chap at the table.
Another thing is ask about being a summoner (bear with me) that replaces Summon Monster SLA for the inspire cool s&$* line of abilities. You are replacing what is probably the single most powerful ability in the game with something that makes everyone more awesome. And the spell list fits quite well.
Make the eidolon something really cool and awe inspiring.
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A Summoner Cleric with Sacred Summons, Augment Summoning, Liberation Domain and 1 other Buff domain like the say... Glory/Heroism = Turn 1: summon 1-4 monsters + buff all allies within 30 feet with Heroism.
You got total battlefield control with super-powered summons and if they get stuck etc, you can use Liberation domain's aura to get them out of trouble.
This build really shines at lv 8 when you get both your auras, before that you are a summoner cleric.
In addition to be potentially more survivable then a wizard, you can heal and have more freedom with spells, as you get them all straight away. The differences with a Buffer wizard, would be you lack skills, and the differences in spell selection.
What a compelling character concept; seems like a great way to have the party luv you.
Note that the Druid has many battlefield control spells, can at least buff Monks or friendly animals with Magic Fang, and cast Longstrider for hours of plus ten feet move fun. Wild Shape need not be about clobbering your foes- you can be a small air elemental flying around casting spells or scouting. And the animal companion can be substituted for a Cleric Domain/ sub-Domain, perhaps one from the Adv. Player's Guide could fit with your character concept.
First of all, thank you for your answers!
Now, I'm considering primarly bard and wizard.
Clerics seems more appealing than I first thought, but I'm not really bent toward the whole "religious thing". I fear the religious type is not really in my string, but a neutral cleric somewhat related to a god of thief and trickery could be a lot more interesting. Was there an archetype int-based? I fear that 2 skill per level with low int would make for a pretty boring character out of combat. Bard is ahead on this aspect but wizard is not so bad either, I'd focus mostly on knowledge skills.
I'll now look up and list here all the spells for buffing, debuffing and bfcontrolling up to 13 level and see what's good (it will take a bit of time since I should be working right now...), at least for wiz, bard and cleric, probably witch too.
Just some random thoughts:
- I'm not so impressed with inspire courage, since I could do almost the same thing what greater magic weapon as a wizard or cleric and make it last all day.
- it seems to me that after having cast hast+good hope and started inspire courage, there is not a lot I could do as a bard all the other rounds. So: what could I use those round for? for those who mentioned a whip, is this related to dazzling display? Or did you mention it for maneuvers? I find really difficult to use maneuvers as a fighter, I can't see how a bard could pull it off...
I'll soon post a list of spells to help myself in getting a better understanding of the options available and help you to give me advice :)
Thanks again for your help!
An important factor in building a buffer is party makeup. For example, Inspire Courage would really shine in a large party of:
- Wizard (Conjuration build)
- Summoner (Archer with Multiattack Pet)
- Druid (with Animal Companion)
- Ranger (Archer, with Animal Companion)
- Rogue (TWF build)
- Bard (Melee build)
- Bard(Sandman)
- Sorcerer(Fire damage build)
- Cleric (Wisdom build)
So, what party makeup are we talking about?
...
So, what party makeup are we talking about?
I play in two groups, one with 4 people, one of with 5.
It's impossible to tell you the composition, as with the group as they are we would not have enough damage dealers: I'm thinking about it because even if our campaigns tend to be quite long-winded we rarely play them all the way through and abandon them after a few months (it's not something we plan for but statistically speaking this is an absolute rule...)
Anyway, this are the current group, which are pretty typical for us:
group A (lev 9)
- paladin sword and board (tank and healer, effective damage dealer when smiting)
- sorcerer (damage dealer and some utility, very few buff and debuff as the player doesn't like them)
- witch (debuffer)
- rogue (going duelist, pretty ineffective right now as he fight single-handedly, urban skill monkey)
- ranger archer (me, main damage dealer and wilderness skill monkey)
group B (lev 5)
- summoner (eidolon created for damage dealing, the summoner use mainly buffs
- cleric (heals but that's pretty much it, he's not built for fighting and try to do so anyway in a very ineffective way)
- ranger sword and board (tank and skill monkey)
- barbarian (me, main damage dealer)
As I said such a character would be a waste in our group as they are: if we start a new campaign (which could be pretty soon) and I play a support caster I would ensure to have at least 2 damage dealer and encourage the other to play maybe TWFs to get the most out of my bonuses. However I don't think well have much in the way of summoning as we all feel that they slow down the game too much
Yea, what is the party make up?
And think of inspire courage as GMW that doesn't use up important resources such as spells or gold. Eventually, it doesn't even use up your standard action. Oh, and it stacks with GMW and enhancement bonuses.
After you use it... You start hitting stuff. How you hit stuff is up to you. You could focus on alchemical items, crafting your own. Or maybe archery with some spells thrown in.
Yea, what is the party make up?
answered above, please remember that those are the current groups that somewhat reflect our preferences. I still don't know the composition of the group in which I'll play this character.
And think of inspire courage as GMW that doesn't use up important resources such as spells or gold. Eventually, it doesn't even use up your standard action. Oh, and it stacks with GMW and enhancement bonuses.
in my groups there is only one player which buffs consistently (the witch from group A, which also play the summoner from group B) but we always decide in advance what to play as not to fill the same role: if I'll play the buffer he won't, so if I'll be a bard there will be no GMW going on (and enhancements cost money).
GMW does not use standard action if you extend it at the beginning of the day, nor does it use money.As a wizard I could actually same money crafting equipment, but I'll have to talk with the GM since we usually avoid crafting.
I was writing that post when you posted the builds :) Typing on phones is slow :(
I'm not sure I can recommend a bard for either of those groups. The group A could make some use of it, since it'd turn the rogue from useless to not-entirely-useless.
I was never a fan of the school of thought that you should just ignore enhancement bonuses, and use GMW to make up for them. 3rd level slots are really good, until about...9th level, in which case you can afford to throw them around a bit.
Plus, it's not either-or. You can stack both :D (and an Evangelist cleric can do both themselves)