Indecision Woes (blaster)

[threemilechild]

I have come up with way too many options and possibilities for my upcoming sorcerer in a Kingmaker game. Does anyone have insights?

My original plan was a crossblooded elemental/X sorcerer who used her bloodline to make all her blasts cold, and then Rime Spell and Sickening to make them entangled and sick for spell level rounds. The X would be either draconic (for extra damage), or starsoul (free dazzle along with the Entangle and Sickening) or arcane (because I love familiars).

Then I noticed that Waves Oracle gets Freezing Spells, where her cold spells slow victims for 1 round if they fail the save, and I thought that was worth a level dip. (Plus I'd be able to use divine wands.) I looked around for archetypes, and noticed that Stargazer archetype has some nice class skills and takes Guiding Star (normally a Heavens revelation), which seemed ideal for a wisdom-challenged fortune-telling travelling Varisian settling a new country, and well worth the Extra Revelation feat, and I liked the parallel of Elemental-Water/Starsoul bloodline and Waves/Stargazer archetype.

But then, here's the hitch: "You've got to be dual-cursed," says boyfriend, "Misfortune is awesome!" It isn't quite as awesome as it could be -- my DM has ruled that since it's called "Misfortune" I can't use it on my allies, even though all it does is force a reroll. (It is different from the witches' hex.) But it's still pretty awesome, especially since I'm a flimsy caster with crappy AC, who could die from one crit. (DM does consider 20s to be valid targets for a reroll, even if it's obvious they hit.)

However, the Dual-Cursed archetype replaces mystery skills with nothing, and they both replace a few bonus spells, so they can't be taken together.

On the other hand, I could take the Heavens mystery instead of Waves, and get Misfortune, Guiding Star, AND Awesome Display, which means I'd be a Color Spraying genius.

So as it stands, I can have two of the three:

Misfortune:

Misfortune (Ex): At 1st level, as an immediate action, you can force a creature within 30 feet to reroll any one d20 roll that it has just made before the results of the roll are revealed. The creature must take the result of the reroll, even if it's worse than the original roll. Once a creature has suffered from your misfortune, it cannot be the target of this revelation again for 1 day.

This would come with an extra curse that would never improve, but there are several I think will be fun for this character, either way. Worse, I miss out on class skills, including Perception or Swim. (I'm paranoid about drowning since we're going to the River Kingdoms, I'll have no strength, and a movement of 20'.)

Guiding Star:

Guiding Star (Su): Whenever you can see the open sky at night, you can determine your precise location. When the night sky is visible to you, you may also add your Charisma modifier to your Wisdom modifier on all Wisdom-based checks. In addition, once per night while outdoors, you can cast one spell as if it were modified by the Empower Spell, Extend Spell, Silent Spell, or Still spell feat without increasing the spell's casting time or level.

This is the least combat-focused of the three, barring the free Empower Spell. But it makes me plausible as a gypsy fortune-teller because of the Charisma to Wisdom checks (which would also help during night watches), and knowing where I am while exploring and surveying new territory seems nice.

Freezing Spells:

Freezing Spells (Su): Whenever a creature fails a saving throw and takes cold damage from one of your spells, it is slowed (as the slow spell) for 1 round. Spells that do not allow a save do not slow creatures. At 11th level, the duration increases to 1d4 rounds.

If this were rounds per level like the rest of the debuffs it'd be a shoe-in, but the differing durations might get complex, and they do have to fail the save.

---

As for sorcerer bloodlines, again I'm feeling indecisive. Since I'll be taking Craft Wondrous Items instead of Craft Wands, I could give up a familiar, I suppose... I could take Starsoul; Dazzle isn't that exciting an effect, it's just an extra -1 to hit over the Entangle and Sicken, but it does last as long as the other effects and it would be totally free. Plus some of the other abilities are cool, and I like the spells well enough. I'm really not feeling draconic -- it's kind of out of nowhere, and although it would be extra damage, we will have an archer and a bard who plans on using some blasts too, so it's not like we'll lack for ranged damage potential.

But the last consideration is that we'll (probably) be travelling around in a wagon, and animals never really last long in the wild, it seems. So I can either know Mount/Phantom Steed, or take the Sylvan bloodline to get an animal companion. The horse would also provide some melee support, which it seems we might need (4 person party: me, archer ranger, pacifist cleric with 7 Str, and the bard). The bard will take mounted combat feats, so the horse should be fairly survivable when he's not being used for vehicular overruns. Sylvan replaces Laughing Touch, but the Fey bloodline is still pretty cool, with some fun spells.

This is way too long anyway, but I do have a backstory, written for the original iteration of the character:

Spoiler:

Anastasia Yefimivna, currently known as Madame Violetta, was born in a caravan in Varisia and raised by her mother, Romana, and her uncle Sandro; sometimes her family traveled by wagon, often they traveled by river boat, but home was wherever she found herself, from Riddleport to Galt. They tinkered and harvested when they could find work, but they also gambled, traded, entertained, and sometimes outright stole. As a child, she learned to tell fortunes and faith heal, but also to distract guards and shop owners, and to swim underwater to cut the moorings of boats and barges. She was always a bit strange, and learned to speak Common late, after spending years mumbling to herself in another language. Although her fortune-telling was the same cold-read trickery as most of her family's, she learned astrology before she learned to write, and when on land, she'd ride up with the driver and watch the stars, and the caravan never took a wrong turn or got lost. Her healing "treatments," as her family called
them, were strangely effective, at least in the short term -- which is all that mattered, anyway.

As she grew up, her mother would occasionally mention that her father was a nobleman, but she rarely paid much attention, and assumed that such claims were the same as other tales, myths, and cons she'd hear around the fire. But, as a teenager, when trading through Chesed and Port Ice, she noticed a Surtovan nobleman whose insignia looked suspiciously like a necklace worn by her mother. On asking her mother, she discovered that yes, according to her mother -- her father IS Surtovan, and fairly highly placed. She decided to try to meet him whether he was really her father or not, and perhaps broker a trade deal between her travelling family and the Surtovans; this went very, very badly. At first, the Surtovan nobility laughed at her, but when she met the man her mother had called her father, the resemblance was, although not uncanny, certainly possible. Upset at the possible scandal or hold the gypsies might have over them, they used magic and trickery to age her, turning her overnight from a teenaged girl to an old woman.

Or, so she claims.

She's happy enough to visit the river kingdoms; she's been through there before and she remembers the general lawless air to be amenable. She is, however, also happy to do what she can to assist Rostland against Issia, at least temporarily, because of her hostility towards the Surtovans of Issia. If it would annoy them to have her sitting on the (travelling) throne of a new and more powerful kingdom, that is even better.

[james maissen]

threemilechild wrote:

I have come up with way too many options and possibilities for my upcoming sorcerer in a Kingmaker game. Does anyone have insights?

Keep it simple. Trying to go in too many directions will get you nowhere.

What's the rest of the party going to look like? What do you need to deliver damage or control?

-James

[threemilechild]

james maissen wrote:

threemilechild wrote:

I have come up with way too many options and possibilities for my upcoming sorcerer in a Kingmaker game. Does anyone have insights?

Keep it simple. Trying to go in too many directions will get you nowhere.

What's the rest of the party going to look like? What do you need to deliver damage or control?

-James

The rest of the party is an archer ranger, a pacifist cleric with 7 str, and a soundstriker/dirge bard who's decided to half-tank in melee. I don't know what the cleric is planning to do, but with 7 Str I imagine the answer is "heal." Between the ranger and the bard I figure they have ranged damage down.

I'm... not exactly good at simple.

[Scray]

Misfortune is nice, but I'm not tempted by guiding star or freezing spells. At least, freezing isn't exciting to stack with Rime, but I guess its nicer when you don't want to use the metamagic. Guiding Star is so situational.

So I'd go with Misfortune and Freezing Spells. That's just an opinion, but I think you considered all the options well so its just a matter of preference.