Advice for helping create a pyromancer

[Zahariel]

Hi all.

I'm GMing and a new player came up with a really interesting character concept. After I explained what the game was about and lending him The Worldwound Gambit to read, he wants to play a pyromancer. I explained that while it can be a fun to go about blasting things there will be many things that firecasters have difficulties with, because most mid- and high-level enemies have some way of resisting energy damage (the campaign will most likely go all the way up to level 18 or so and I wanted him to get a heads-up, but did my best not to outright discourage him). He thought about it and came up with a brilliant backstory for his character, and summed his intentions for it in one sentence:

"I want to be the pyromancer that red dragons are afraid of."

And well, that's just too friggin' cool a concept to shut down.

I'm thinking that maybe going the sorcerer way might be better for what he wants but I have to admit I'm not on familiar territory. Is there any way for a blaster caster to overcome energy resistances and immunities? Would anyone care to offer some advice on how to go about creating the ultimate flame-wielding bad@$$?

I have no problem with 3PP material as long as it's Pathfinder. No 3.X books, that's the one rule I have that's absolutely set in stone.

Any advice is very welcome. Thanks!

[joriandrake]

I don't know how a fire spellwielder could work that ignores fire resistance and immunity, I think there are a few options which would make half the damage divine or fiendish thus that would get past the defenses, but a whole class built on that ... hmm

Honestly, I would try to tackle the problem differently, get the Elemental(any of, except fire) sorcerer bloodline for its bloodline arcana.

Bloodline Arcana: Whenever you cast a spell that deals energy damage, you can change the type of damage to match the type of your bloodline. This also changes the spell's type to match the type of your bloodline.
Not sure how "pyromancer" would be like, if it is a class of its own my suggestion may not work, if it is just a named idea for the concept it is a different issue

Now, instead of focusing on a single element, you actually have a Pyromancer who is multitalented, and capable of not just burning down a village but to freeze it (as example, I like the fire-ice concept due to the flavor of the opposites)

this would let his "fire"balls as ice spells hurt also Red Dragons, and of course you still have the spell resistances to go through and that eats up some feats if you want to make the spells easy to break through it

in addition, if he likes to wear armor he could get both this bloodline and armor if he advances as a Cabalist Magus

[wraithstrike]

You just have to do enough damage to make the fire resistance not matter. As for overcoming immunity I don't think that is possible in PF. Maybe a 3pp might have something, but I am not too familiar with 3pp material.

Look at Spell Perfection, Dazing Spell, Empower Spell, Quicken Spell, and Intensified Spell.

I almost forgot spell focus, and elemental focus are not bad either.

[Alitan]

Um, all my thoughts are house-rule solutions, but...

You can steal the idea of the Penetrating Strike feat, but apply it to resistance instead of DR; require Spell Focus (Evocation) instead of Weapon Focus, use same level requirement as prerequisites?

Or a metamagic feat that allows a caster level check against the hit dice+(?) of a creature with fire immunity, kinda like overcoming spell resistance? Raises spell level by, oh, say 2 levels, so his highest-level firestorms won't be available, but his low-mid-range fire spells still work? Let him make a major metamagic rod to apply to those meteor swarms?

Finally, the Pyromancer could be a prestige class, with reductions in resistance=class levels and a capstone ability that ignores immunity? (And a 5th level ability to deal half-damage through immunity, maybe).

It really depends on how much rule-bending you're willing to indulge.

Hope the above is helpful.

[Zahariel]

Thank you, these are all great ideas. I'm not too keen on houseruling something as I've always said no to that and it'd feel unfair to the rest of the guys, but I'll think about it.

His idea is to make a caster that pretty much focuses on burning everything that moves. I'm calling that a pyromancer because that's the best name I could come up for that.

Again, thanks. I'll see what I can come up with.

[Broken Zenith]

This guy seems to be what you are looking for. He gives up versatility to become awesome at fire spells, and deals tons of damage with them. It's hard for me to think of a more optimized build in terms of a nice fireball.

[deuxhero]

3.5 material has sanctifyed one of Kord (or was it Cord?) to make fire unresistable. PF is much more limited on that front

[Azten]

Fat Goblin Games has a Pyromancer base class that is perfect for burning things to death.

[Bigger Club]

Well if reflavoring is an option you could take one of the options mentioned that let's you do half divine/fiendish damage. (I do not know what these are) And reflavour it to similar to searing from 3.5. What was that the fire burns so hot it ignores even immunity(again just half). It would not be as good as having other elements at your disposal but very much fits to the concept of making fire that red dragons fear.

Couple that with dual blooded sorceror with two bloodlines that give bonus damage. I would personally use 2 of these in any combination elemental, dragon, orc. Elemental+dragon would probably be the most fitting to the theme. That gives +2damage per die to fire spells which still makes even with half damage to immune creatures pretty noteworthy. Then add in all the metamagic goodies to ramp up the damage. I would recomend human to offset the penalty from dual blooded by the favored class bonus.

[AeonsShadow]

Okay, what you're looking for it the 20 level baseclasss PYROMANCER.

Luckily for you, I still have it on another site and so shall link you to it from the place I posted it just today. Pyromancer

It's MAIN abilities you will want to look at are as follows.

Piercing Heat (Ex): From the 5th level onward, a Pyromancer’s Fire can cut through Fire Resistance, Fire Immunity, and Hardness. No more than ½ of the damage inflicted by his fire damage (spells and abilities) can be negated by hardness, immunity, or resistance to Fire.

Master of Flames (Ex): Every time a Pyromancer inflicts Fire damage on a target, either with a spell or another source of fire (class abilities excluded), he inflicts an amount of extra Fire Damage equal to his Charisma modifier.

And

Improved Piercing Heat (Ex): A 15th level Pyromancer’s Fire ignores entirely any Fire Resistance or Immunity a creature may have (this does not include defence against overall magic)

[Grey Lensman]

I think SGG has a guide to Hellfire as well.

[Serisan]

From the sidelines of the magic world, Words of Power actually excels at this over standard casting. You can utilize the Fireblaster that Broken Zenith posted, but swap to WoP and get some very interesting effect options, including the option of tying in other Words into your fire spells.

It even gets a friggin' cantrip fire damage spell, which means you can stack it up on damage with the bloodlines and Half-Orc alternate racial. A cantrip that deals 1d3+2 at level 1 is pretty amazing, but it scales up nicely as you level to stay somewhat relevant.

If you're looking at homebrew, AeonsShadow's Pyromancer is brutal.