It's not figured in that way, Rav.
I doubled Spell Spec's +2 levels to +4, Spell Penetration from +2 to +4, and Varisian Tattoo from +1 to +2. That was it. That's +6 Caster level, +10 vs Spell Resistance. I didn't amplify a reduction to metamagic costs. Now, if they had Arcane Thesis, the good lord help the bad guys...
==Aelryinth
And of course an enemy who knows that you mostly use a single spell will have his friendly local cleric cast Spell Immunity on him for that spell.
One-trick ponies are fun to build, but a pain to play.
:)
Which is why you take Greater Spell Specialization. You actually never memorize your 'one trick pony' spell unless you want to, giving you tons of options to choose from.
The metas you have can be effective for your low level spells. It's the sorceror blood scheme which gives your spells so much damage ...specializing in a spell gets you CASTER LEVELS.
So, if you think someone's being cute and armed up against your favorite spell, don't use it, and really mess them up with something else cute.
==Aelryinth
RD, spell perfection allows you to apply one metamagic feat to the spell as you cast it for free as long as you do not take the total spell level over 9th.
so a cast (ie not swift) firesnake is intensified via magical lineage as a 5th level spell, then spell perfection allows you to empower it (+2 spell level) for free so it still uses a 5th level slot.
when you then cast the spell again as a swift action (via quicken) it still uses a 5th level slot since the quicken is free due to spell perfection.
if your going to use a rod of quicken you might as well empower both was the point i was trying to make since the quicken is free due to the rod you get an extra feat for free from spell perfection (empower for both castings if your using a quicken rod).
I'm pretty sure you already knew all that as well.
tonyz, as aelryinth said you never actually memorise fire snake once you pick up great spell spec. so you can have a load of buffs/debuffs and controls memorised and happily use those, use your spare blasts that you have in your evocation slots (which still benefit from most of your feats and class abilities). you can carry a few dispel scrolls with you (which you can use because they are on the sorcerer spell list and you can cast with your caster level as you are a scrollmaster) to just remove the pesky immunity if you really want to fire snake someone.
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One other thing which i recently thought of, i'm not sure if its RAI but it certainly is RAW.
Greater Spell Specialisation...
Benefit: By sacrificing a prepared spell of the same or higher level than your specialized spell, you may spontaneously cast your specialized spell. The specialized spell is treated as its normal level, regardless of the spell slot used to cast it. You may add a metamagic feat to the spell by increasing the spell slot and casting time, just like a cleric spontaneously casting a cure or inflict spell with a metamagic feat.
Wizard School Specialisation...
...In addition, specialist wizards receive an additional spell slot of each spell level he can cast, from 1st on up. Each day, a wizard can prepare a spell from his specialty school in that slot. This spell must be in the wizard's spellbook. A wizard can select a spell modified by a metamagic feat to prepare in his school slot, but it uses up a higher-level spell slot.
So if you were to make a diviner with a crossblooded sorcerer dip in the way described above you would lose the ability from the admixture school to change the element of your spell at your whim (you could use a feat insted) as well as the +1/2 wizard level damage from the school power (+9 at level 20 is minor, +1 at level 3 is still a tiny ammount of damage compared to your overall 5dx+10+1) and gain a huge bonus to initiative which comes in very handy for blasters, the ability to always go in the suprise round, the reroll ability from the foresight school and apparently the ability to drop a divination spell prepared in a speciality spell slot and cast your specialised spell.
No more moaning about foresight being the only 9th level spell you can use, say hello to an extra fire snake, probably not RAI but seems to be RAW.
RD, spell perfection allows you to apply one metamagic feat to the spell as you cast it for free as long as you do not take the total spell level over 9th.
This is wrong. Spell Perfection doesn't let you take its EFFECTIVE level over 9th. To my knowledge, metamagic rods and magical lineage get around this somewhat, but Spell Perfection does not.
RD, spell perfection allows you to apply one metamagic feat to the spell as you cast it for free as long as you do not take the total spell level over 9th.This is wrong. Spell Perfection doesn't let you take its EFFECTIVE level over 9th. To my knowledge, metamagic rods and magical lineage get around this somewhat, but Spell Perfection does not.
As far as i can tell we both said the same thing but you put an unneccessary caps word in your sentence. But yeah with magical lineage and spell perfection you can cast a quickened intensified firesnake as a fifth level spell but you cannot apply more metamagic to it unless you use rods as without spell perfection it would be a 9th level spell.
If you wanted to cast a quickened dazing intensified firesnake you would need to use a greater metamagic rod for the dazing but it would still only use a 5th level spell slot.
Tom, you can't have magical knack and magical lineage so tbh magical knack is just not worth while. Bear in mind with varissian tattoo and spell specialisation you get +3 anyway, when you pick up spell perfection you get +6 due to doubling.
Great thread. My recap so far is that we have a Word of Power specialist from the DPR Summer Olympics and a Optimized Human Multiclassed Evoker that uses one level of Crossblooded Orc/Draconic Sorceror with Varisian Tattoo and the Magical Lineage trait followed by many levels of Wizard Evoker-Admixture Specialist.
Does anyone have a non-multiclassed Sorceror to rival Ravingdork's sample PC he kindly shared? That seems the next sub-goal of this topic.
RD, spell perfection allows you to apply one metamagic feat to the spell as you cast it for free as long as you do not take the total spell level over 9th.This is wrong. Spell Perfection doesn't let you take its EFFECTIVE level over 9th. To my knowledge, metamagic rods and magical lineage get around this somewhat, but Spell Perfection does not.As far as i can tell we both said the same thing but you put an unneccessary caps word in your sentence. But yeah with magical lineage and spell perfection you can cast a quickened intensified firesnake as a fifth level spell but you cannot apply more metamagic to it unless you use rods as without spell perfection it would be a 9th level spell.
If you wanted to cast a quickened dazing intensified firesnake you would need to use a greater metamagic rod for the dazing but it would still only use a 5th level spell slot.
Tom, you can't have magical knack and magical lineage so tbh magical knack is just not worth while. Bear in mind with varissian tattoo and spell specialisation you get +3 anyway, when you pick up spell perfection you get +6 due to doubling.
Not greater metamagic rod, a normal one would do the trick.
Yeah, a quickened dazing intensified firesnake is still a 5th level spell. You can use a regular metamagic rod (6th level or lower) to quicken/intensify/dazing that spell. The metamagic rods change the spell slot level that the spell goes in, but they don't change the actual level. Note that Heighten Spell actually changes the spell level -- if you heighten firesnake to 7th level, you can't use a regular metamagic rod to enhance it.
Dot
It was a lot easier to make a good blaster in 3E. PF nerfed Energy Substitution (which NO ONE thought was broken) to cost +1 spell level in its PF update. As of now, there still is nothing like Searing Spell to simply cut through resistances and most immunities like a hot knife through butter. There are no prestige classes like Force Missile Mage to make certain types of blast spells do more damage, either.
The other side of the coin is just how ridiculously non-blasters have been buffed. Look at Persistent Spell and Bouncing Spell. Why did save or lose spells need the help? Look at the Teleportation Conjuror school or the divination ones. It seems like blasters are the only types of casters PF DIDN'T buff up.
If I were to make a blaster in PF, I would probably base it around the Dazing Spell metamagic feat. It wouldn't be about doing damage, it'd be about debilitating lots of foes with reflex saves, with the fact that the spells used are "blasty" merely seeming like a coincidence in the end.
In 3E, blasters could be easily broken by experienced players. You could do sorcerer-->incantatrix, get rapid metamagic and some other crap, and end up at ~1000/round damage. I played a deliberately nerfed version of one of these mailman-like builds once.
You can't do that in pathfinder, but the general principle is similar: gearing the build to stack damage and/or save DCs over the course of it (persistent spell can be good for blasts), and doing most blasting by metamagic-ing the hell out of mid level blast spells. Dazing spell is helpful but optional. Personally I find it a bit flavorless and unconvincing (rime spell seems a more convincing & flavorful option for combining a control aspect in blasts).
Regarding save-or-suck, I honestly suspect that while also very viable, it's actually the most difficult one to do correctly. Upping DCs is probably even more critical than for blasters.
My sense from the controller-favoring folks so far is that they prefer...
They were talking back in 2012 about Evocation, and you are demonstrating powerful necromancy magic.
But this thread was dead for a reason. Best to just start new threads after it has been dead for a few months.