I've been thinking about a fun new character for an upcoming campaign. Pretty much my plan is to build a Nikola Tesla. I've narrowed it down to it having to be a spellcaster and I was thinking he should be an Intelligence based caster. I was thinking an Alchemist but the bombs and mutagens just feel too weird. I'm pretty much just looking for any and all suggestions for classes, feats, items I guess too. Arcane casting seemed the clear choice but I'm open for any suggestions.
There you go !
Ah... well, I should have given a personally overlooked limitation. No homebrew or 3rd party. Thank you anyway.
Aeromancer Wizard or Stormborn Sorcerer.
Dazing Spell feat with Ball Lightning and the trait that reduces metamagics on a chosen spell by 1 level* (Magical Lineage I think it's called) seems like a good start.
*There's also Wyang Spell...whatever, but that's limited to a 3rd level or lower spell.
Can you use 3.X materials? Because an Artificer would be the best fit. This wand of lightning bolt you just created, it is not really a wand: it his, in fact, a lightning thrower gun. :)
It's a non-intuitive way to go, but you might have some luck trying a Arcane Trickster that focuses on mechanical devices.
If using 3E material, there's a Storm Caster PrC that is perfect for this. And the Spell Thematics feat to give electric flavoring to other spells. Like, my storm caster had it and had the theme be a harmless zap of electricity for thematic spells. So he casts Prestidigitation and cleans up a mess by zapping it.
Alchemist with cognatogen rather than mutagen, lightning bombs.
This. Tesla was the archetypal "mad scientist."
There you go !Ah... well, I should have given a personally overlooked limitation. No homebrew or 3rd party. Thank you anyway.
Really, the whole "no 3rd party" thing is really limiting. There is some excellent third party stuff out there that gets ignored by a blanket blacklisting of all 3PP material. Also, the machinesmith is a great class.
I understand the various reasons, it just makes me sad.
Limited to Paizo products, I'd go with an air elementalist wizard, take a lot of electricity spells, and a load of craft feats.
I feel like Alchemist should be a great class. Lightning bombs would be great, see if the DM will let you follow the creation rules for making your own spells in UM.
I think you should also probably put points in Craft (machines) or something and create like clockwork soldiers and stuff.