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I’ve been tinkering with a gnome illusionist as a sorcerer or wizard for my next campaign. But yesterday I found the prestige class Veiled Illusionist. It’s awesome!
Besides gnome magic, the main benefit of the gnome illusionist is Effortless Trickery. With a gnome’s +2 Cha, you would want to go sorcerer. However, I haven’t found an illusion improving bloodline. On the other hand, my primary reluctance to a sorcerer is spell selection. However, the first power of this prestige class, which one can start at 6th level, gives the illusionist a bonus spell known for every illusion spell known at whatever spell level. As opposed to one level lower, like the human favored class bonus. Plus, it gives the ability to hide spell casting like Arcane Trickster and reroll a spell resistance check!
Please review and advise my build, especially feat and spell selection. I’m concerned about his tactics when Color Spray becomes ineffective and before he gets Shadow Conjuration. He would have his illusions, pits, and magic missiles, but is there something better? Thanks
20 point build and 2 traits, and only Paizo-published game mechanics
Str 5, Dex 14, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 18
Traits: Excitable & Trickster
Levels:
First five levels as Sorcerer (arcane bloodline – bonding a ring)
Next ten levels as Veiled Illusionist
Feats:
1st level – Effortless Trickery
3rd level – Craft Wondrous Items
5th level – Spell Focus (illusion)
7th level – Greater Spell Focus (illusion)
9th level – Piercing Spell
11th level –Persistent Spell
13th level – Quicken Spell
15th level – Spell Perfection (Shadow Conjuration)
Spells
0th level – Detect Magic, Ghost Sound, Daze, 2nd Mending, 4th Mage Hand, 6th Message, 8th Light, 10th prestidigitation
1st level – 1st Color Spray (at 6th Windy Escape), 1st Silent Image, Identify (Bonus 3rd), 3rd Grease (at 8th Shield), 5th Magic Missile, 7th Illusion of Calm
2nd level – 4th Create Pit, Invisibility (Bonus 5th), 5th Glitterdust (at 10th See Invisibility), 7th Minor Image, 9th False Life, 11th Mirror Image
3rd level – 6th Haste, Veiled 6th Displacement, 7th Fly (at 12th Slow), Veiled 7th Major Image, 9th Magic Circle against Chaos/Evil/Good/Law, 11th Shrink Item
4th level – 8th Dimension Door, Veiled 8th Shadow Conjuration, 9th Emergency Force Sphere, Veiled 9th Phantasmal Killer, 11th Stone Shape, 13th Ride the Waves
5th level – 10th Teleport, Veiled 10th Shadow Evocation, 11th Overland Flight, Veiled 11th Mirage Arcana, 13th Permanency (at 14th Wall of Stone), 15th Communal Stoneskin
6th level – 12th True Seeing, 12th Veiled Mislead, 13th Contingency, Veiled 13th Permanent Image, 15th Greater Dispel Magic
7th level – 14th Statue, Veiled 14th Greater Shadow Conjuration, 15th Spell Turning, Veiled 15th Phantasmal Revenge, 17th
You can save yourself from using a feat on effortless trickery if you can wait a while for one of the features of the veiled illusionist to kick in:
Gnome: At 6th level, a veiled illusionist can spend 1 point from her veil pool to concentrate on a glamer or figment as a swift action, rather than a standard action.
11th level may be a long wait though.
Also, I've always wanted to do a Shadowcaster Wizard and I think this prestige class may be a good compliment to it. Shadowcaster makes your "Shadow" spells a bit more "real" to the enemy. Might be worth looking into.
The Veiled Illusionist is one of my favorite PrCs, but I haven't gotten into the PrC in any of my builds yet. Your build looks good to me though.
I'd take 6th level of sorcerer before entering the VI, though, as 6th level is very good for wizards and sorcerers saves, BAB, etc.
I almost forgot about the Shadow Gambit feat. It allows you to do a small amount of damage to them with your illusion spells. Add Dazing spell to the illusion and suddenly you have an illusion that if it fails to fool the enemy, you can instead immediately end it and have the illusion do damage and daze the enemy.
So if it were me, I would swap effortless trickery (since you get that as a class ability) with your spell-focus: illusion at level 1 and then take Shadow Gambit at level 5 or 3. Then I would strongly suggest Dazing spell as your first meta-magic feat and push the rest of them back a bit.
I'd say that the Shadow Bloodline from the Advanced Player's Guide, or it's wildblooded counterpart in Ultimate Magic, the Umbral Bloodline, should provide the illusion-focused sorcerer you're looking for.
@DrGrecko
Veil points appear limited. You would have to spend them one per round to do what Effortless Trickery gives you. The power of Effortless Trickery is almost a fire and forget or a permanent illusion, because characters can perform normally while spending swift actions each round.
Your Shadow Gambit feat stacked with Dazing spell looks powerful. I wanted to take Dazing, because of its effectivity. However, damage doing illusions are 4th level and higher. Hmm. How to fit it in.
@Gerald
A bonus 3rd level spell vs. BAB and +1 saves. Good point to consider.
@Chester
Yes. I saw that Heavens Oracle level dip for color spray the other day. I'm concerned that relying on color spray in the mid levels forces this character closer to melee than maybe it can survive.
@Ventnor
The Shadow and Umbral bloodlines underwhelmed me compared to Arcane. This character doesn't want to get into melee or need darkvision. I don't know how to reliably get dim light to make Umbral arcana useful. And this character will not be stealthing. He'll be either right there with Illusion of Calm, Invisibility, or Mislead.
Thanks for the advice. Keep it coming.
cheers
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Have you thought about a Wayang from the Advanced Race guide? they get a lot of bonus for shadow related things
Also I'm pretty sure Shadow Gambit does no damage if an illusion is disbelieved.
Heavens Oracle is actually fairly AWFUL for a dip. You get a +2 to Illusion subschool: pattern. Go and look how many spells fall into that category. Color Spray, Hypnotic Pattern and MAYBE one other spell. Is that worth speaking in tongues or being blind? Probably not.
For my gnome Illusionist I just went with straight sorcerer, fey bloodline (just fey not sylvan) and maxed out his Spell focus on Illusion and Enchantment (giving him a +4 boost to his dominate/hold/confusion type spells). It made him a very effective puppetteer/illusionist/battle field controler.
I reccomend the Sorcerer guides at the top of this forums, if just to have all the sorcerer info in one place while you look at it. They helped my a great deal.
My 2 cents.
Also I'm pretty sure Shadow Gambit does no damage if an illusion is disbelieved.
It does indeed do damage when they disbelieve. It's just halved, which makes it a good dazing candidate.
The shadowy attack deals 1d6 points of damage per spell level. If the target disbelieves or sees through the illusion, reduce the damage by half.
Jubal,
You're right that the veil points are low.. but after the first 1 to set your disquise, its a free action to change without spending a point. At the time you get gnome as an option you will have roughly 11-13 points depending on your chr bonus. That should be plenty for most encounters.
Granted, that may or may not be enough for every encounter, and normally I would take Effortless trickery without so much as an afterthought in most gnome illusionist builds, but the fact it is part of the class makes me hesitate on choosing it for this build.
I think what I like most about this PC is it opens up a way for non gnomes to get a version of effortless trickery. I will definitely have to consider this for an elven shadowcaster illusion wizard build.
Have you thought about a Wayang from the Advanced Race guide? they get a lot of bonus for shadow related things
No. I'll take a look at them. Thanks.
Heavens Oracle is actually fairly AWFUL for a dip. You get a +2 to Illusion subschool: pattern. Go and look how many spells fall into that category. Color Spray, Hypnotic Pattern and MAYBE one other spell. Is that worth speaking in tongues or being blind? Probably not.
Well, I don't think it's AWFUL. Let's examine the pros and cons beyond the curse.
Benefits:
- d8 vs d6 hit points
- +2 skills and different class skills
- +2 Will save
- Several divine orisons
- A couple 1st level divine spells
- Effectively never needing Use Magical Device for spell triggers
- Color Spray (which is fairly powerful) maintains utility to 7th or 8th level, when Shadow Conjuration starts
Trade-offs:
- Oracle curse
- Favored Class bonus loss
- One lower level of spell caster and spells known. The caster level can be offset a trait.
I think it boils down to whether maintaining Color Spray effectivity is more important than the spell level availability.
Thanks for the feedback