You forgot Bards and Witches.
For shame! I love my witch.
Do not like, do not play them.
I always preferred wizards over sorcerers,love knowledge,and PF added so many options to wizards (via the school powers) that i can ignore the superior spell slots availability of sorcerers.
I also like to melee, so magi became an obliged choice for me, currently playing one.
I've only ever played a witch as a PC (I've run other as NPCs but it's not quite the same).
The Witch is hands down my favorite one. While their spell lists is perhaps more limiting than the Wizard one, they're all spells I can see myself taking, and the Hexes are INCREDIBLY useful. I never run into a situation where my Witch can't do anything because I always have at least one Hex available, and if not them, cantrips.
I invest in magic items to help with stealth and try to hex my foes without them noticing, since hexes only require somatic components. Having a small chance to make your enemies pass out with Slumber before combat even starts gives the Witch a lot of usefulness.
|
You forgot Bards and Witches.
For shame! I love my witch.
* Looks at Marthian funny. * Good, maybe she'll change. :)
In all seriousness, though, I left out bards and witches as classes because I wanted to keep the title short. :) The purpose of the thread is to see how popular the arcane casting classes are. I've lots of ideas to go with them in my world, and I've enjoyed reading Magic of the Inner Sea.
I'm a huge fan of Magi, but I was also a fan of Duskblades from 3.5 as well. I'm not really partial to Sorcerer or Bard, simply because they use charisma as their casting stat and I'm not a fan of it flavor-wise.
Currently playing a Magus in a Homebrew campaign that a friend is GMing where I managed to hit a Red Dragon with a called-shot "Heart" for a critical strike with a Shocking Grasp through a Bastard Sword. made for a fun bit of role play.
Been playing a Witch for a good while now and.. while I like it alot I think Misfortune is just about ready to have the DM hurl a book at me.
Its very fun to play, what with the familiar and spells and hexes and such but some of the abilities do tend to torque the system abit.
-S
Love the Wizard. Playing a conjurer (teleportation) guy at the moment.
Don't like the summoner, why is he stepping on the conjurer's toes? Eidolons are a headache in particular (but I dislike pet based classes in general).
Don't like the magus, he's only got a few 'duh' builds and I would prefer gish builds to rely on multiclassing.
I have a love-hate relationship with the bard. Like many people, I would like to see a spell-less variant.
Witches are alright, I suppose... I could see using them a lot in a fairy-tale style game I want to run eventually. Witch Hexes are poorly balanced, imho.
Alchemists are kind of fun... I find they require a lot of suspension of disbelief (only they can use their mutagens, how bombs work, etc.,).
Sorcerers are easier to play wizards, and I could see encouraging someone who hasn't played a wizard to play a sorcerer first.
For me its:
Master Summoners
Summoners with eidolon mounts.
Void Wizards
A host of Bards (Arcane Duelist, Lotus Geisha, Archeologist)
And one Kitsune Sorcerer with the Fey Bloodline.
I do make great use of the Eldritch Heritage feats though for a wide variety of charactrs. Never had the urge to play a Magus though.
|
Alchemist, Summoner, Wizard. Am about to play a sorcerer.
The one thing I've noticed is that each of them have their own style of spellcasting. With the Alchemist and Summoner there are a lot of buff spells while my wizard does more to disrupt others. Also, the summoner is very good for switch hitter if you choose to do so.
Universalist wizard almost exclusively. Summoner second.
I never touch master summoner (i hate a battlefield of beasts just as much as my gm)
I never touch clerics or druids or bards or sorcerers...
I highly reccomend that people give the Void Mage a long look... so many things you can do with it. Definitely my favorite Wizard option, though admittedly the 'favored spells' needs to be significantly re-worked. I've made a pretty nice list for them myself.
Remember that elves can gain many more uses of that level 1 power as a favored class option.
I'm currently playing my second Magi and i love them. i have played sorcerers and found them a bit underpowered (compared to other spell casters) if simpler characters to run. I have had a couple of friends run diviners both a bit differently but both finding them fun to play.
Since 3.0 and the advent of the sorcerer class, roughly half my characters have been sorcerers. (Technically, two were warmages and one was mostly abjurant champion, but it amounts to much the same deal.)
Prepared casting is fantastic when you know what you'll be facing ("I love it when a plan comes together"), and I really enjoy my magus, but I think there's just SO MANY SPELLS a wizard could have or could prepare that I often prepare the generically useful spells anyway. It depends so much on the DM and whether you get hints about what you'll be doing or facing, as well as on whether you get time to scribe (one scroll a day, of a spell I prepared but didn't use, hooray!). Most of the folks I play with hate taking time off even if they're allowed to, and that makes sorcerer the far safer bet.
I'd agree that Summoner doesn't have the arcane caster feel -- although my summoner has two levels of barbarian.
|
I loves me my arcane spellcasters. Of them, the ones I prefer more, in order of most liked to least, are Summoner, Sorcerer, Witch, Alchemist, Magus, Bard, Wizard. I love the idea of the summoner, of someone being able to twist the very aether in order to create spirit beings, and I've loved the sorcerer since 3.0, except in Pathfinder they are much more balanced and interesting. I don't tend to like wizards as much, but only because my GMs tends to run resource-poor campaigns, and anyone who has too few spells to contribute usually dies painfully...
|
I've just started playing a pair of Alchemists (one in a PbP game, another in PFS) and I'm thoroughly enjoying them so far.
I have a Synthesist Summoner in another PbP game that hasn't really gotten to do anything yet, but she looks like she'll be fun, too.
I've been !dying! to give a Half-orc Scarred Witch Doctor or a Tiefling Vivisectionist Mindchemist/Evoker/Arcane Trickster a try, but no luck yet.
Summoner: I love eidolon customization. 'Nuff said.
Sorcerer: I'm a big fan of spont-casting in the first place, so I definitely enjoy the sorc. Bloodlines make them that much cooler.
Magus: I do like a mix of martial and magic, so Magus seems rather boss. Spell combat is very cool, imo.
Wizard: Haven't played one. I'm not a huge fan of prepped casters, but I can see them being pretty cool. I'll probably try one eventually if I get the chance.
Witch: Haven't played one of these either, but hexes seem pretty awesome, and the spell list looks cool too.
Bard: Haven't played, but I'm considering multiclassing a ninja I've got into one, mostly for flavor. On its own merits though, Bardic Performance looks really awesome, and some of the skill bonus/substitutes seem cool too.
Currently playing my first wizard (Wood) and enjoying it quite a bit, even if we're still at level 1.
If I ever get the chance, I'd probably try out a witch next. They seem fun.
Sorcerers are by far my favourite, with summoners second (I am not at all a fan of prepared spellcasters)
Crossblooded sorcerers and synthesist summoners are good times :)
Wizards by far