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Hello again folks.
I'm working on rebuilding a character for society play. That being said, my friends have said that I need to break out of my usual safety zone.
Typically, I'm one of those folks who have been cursed with the curse of eternal DMing, and when I end up on player side I tend to veg out a little and usually end up playing a variant of LN Human Fighter with Shield.
During my introduction to PFS they handed me a Two-weapon half-orc fighter, it stuck me outside of my zone a little, and it got me thinking about really goign whole hog and 1.) Not playing a human and 2.) Not playing a fighter.
So at the moment I've got an idea for a LG Half-Orc Wizard (Earth Elementalist) built around making himself a little bit on the beefy side, or even focusing on arcane combat manuevers, and I was wondering if you folks have suggestions for wizard builds.
Now I've got a lot of skill on putting together NPC Wizards, but like Fezzig from the Princess Bride said 'You use different moves when fighting a lot of people as opposed to just one person.' Building feats and spell lists for a guy who'll appear in a few encounters, is different from one who has to live all the time.
I'd also want to know if you guys think the entire concept is intrinsically flawed. I'm not looking for super effective optimized, but I want to avoid being a millstone for anyone who ends up in my group in society play.
there are very few combo's that are wrong (bad, not just conceptually... like ranged, sneaky paladin...)
Earth is an interesting choice, I think. rp wise, but also depends on your spell selection, which is what alot of wizards/sorc come down to.
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Sorry to take so long in responding, but I wanted to crank on the numbers and stats a little. So at the moment I'm looking at...
LG Half-Orc Wizard (elementalist: Earth)
Str 10
Dex: 14 (additional +2 from racial) 16
Con: 13
Int: 16
Wis: 14
Cha: 8 (ever the poor dump stat)
I did have an idea of beefing up strength to about a 15 by realigning dexterity and the +2 racial bonus, and then taking a greataxe for whalloping to benefit from the +1 bonus on damage and attack when touching the ground, but it seems like a huge investment for litle payback.
Standard Half-Orc Abilities.
Feats:
Spell Focus (Conjuration)
Dodge (Alternatively considering toughness)
Traits as of yet undecided.
Spells:
0: All, but does this mean we also gain all 0-levels from UM, APG?
1: Grease, Mage Armor, Stumble Gap, Sleep, Magic Missile, Burning Hands
Spells:
0: 3 + Elemental
1: 2 + elemental
Skills:
Appraise: +7
Linguistics: +7
Spellcraft: +7
Knowledge (Arcana) +7
Perception +7
Now obviously, I'm not aiming for supreme powergamer stuff with this guy (half-orc spellcaster).
But if you guys spot anything glaring in this, or things you might consider tightening up, or worse something that isn't society-legal. I'd appeciate constructive criticism.
Not entirely sure if its pfs legal, but the Half-Orc Scarred Witch Doctor is redic good.. All u need is a decent dex and the rest all con.. 20 point but: min/max
str-8
dex-16
con-18+2=20 at first
int-9
wis-10
cha-7
20 point: not so min/max
str-10
dex-14
con-17+2=19 at 1st
int-10
wis-12
cha-10
to answer spells: all nonrare cantrips not of opposed school. i dont know about PFS.
any reason why Earth ele? (RP and mechanic-wise?)
I wouldn't worry about realigning your stats, but a greatax isnt a bad idea.
toughness i've usually found to be a meh.
could go arcane strike if you wanna be half/melee.
could go with a small meta magic and the trait that allows -1 +level from metamagics. one major benefit of prep caster instead of spot
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Hmm, I'm actualy shying away from the witch concept. Both because it seems like what every other half-orc ends up doing, and because I don't think it quite 'fits' my vision of the character.
I chose the earth focus because my idea was the character was basically abandoned and raised by people faithful to Abadar from Golarian, instilling in him a strong moral ethic, and 'love of the earth,' but his talents came to the fore and they decided to send him for appropriate training instead of just leaving him for the standard farming hardscrabble.
In general I view him as being a teetotaler, very self-controlled, chaste, but also a bit of a spoilsport and a pain in the ass with his constant commentary on whether a course of action is appropriate. I actually base this on how he kind of behaved during Severing Ties, resulting in what the DM described as one of the least rollicking playthroughs of it since my character (then a half-orc fighter) kept everyone monomaniacally focused on mission and we spent no time at all 'playing.'
I also would like to play up a little 'lost generation' angle with him, in that he has a signfiicant distaste for the standard half-orc mindset and society.
There's a trait that lowers the metamagic cost? Any idea on the source?
its on pfsrd. past that i cant remember, is a few of them i think.
What's wrong with a half-orc caster?
its on pfsrd. past that i cant remember, is a few of them i think.
Magical lineage from advanced players guide.
Half-orcs made awful arcane casters back in 3.5, when they had -2 Int -2 Cha. In PF they're fine casters - not usually super-optimized like an elf wizard or magus (exception: the witch doctor) but they work well. Yours looks like a solid character - hope you enjoy playing with him.
I would say that half-orcs don't make optimized wizards. Half-Orcs make highly optimized sorcerer 's. My son plays one in PFS that does 1d3+3 on his acid splash. It also gets better as the spell levels increase.
Frankly I think the half orc is no less a good spellcaster than a human or most other races. You always gain the benefits of the orc ferocity regardless of class, giving you one extra turn to pop on the killing spell, and you aren't delegated to fighting with just daggers and quarterstaves.
...
Str 10
Dex: 14 (additional +2 from racial) 16
Con: 13
Int: 16
Wis: 14
Cha: 8 (ever the poor dump stat)I did have an idea of beefing up strength to about a 15 by realigning dexterity and the +2 racial bonus, and then taking a greataxe for whalloping to benefit from the +1 bonus on damage and attack when touching the ground, but it seems like a huge investment for litle payback.
Standard Half-Orc Abilities.
Feats:
Spell Focus (Conjuration)
Dodge (Alternatively considering toughness)
...
I don't think the scarred witchdoctor is legal for PFS anyway.
For a wizard, I would recommend con and toughness over dex and dodge. I rarely take toughness, but it is a solid choice.
Early levels (say 1-3) it is about 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. Everything has pretty crappy to hit bonus so misses can be generated.
But medium levels (say 4-8), any decent martial and even most sneakies will probably hit you on the first attack no matter what your dex is (unless you are spending all your spells on really pumping your AC, but then you aren't attacking).
Above that, martials will almost never miss you at least on the first attack. (And you shouldn't be staying next to them long enough for a full attack.)
Since you are taking spell focus conjuration anyway, consider augment summoning. You should never try to outdo a summoner, but sometimes your fighter or rogue would love a flanking buddy. Or summon a rat to chek for traps since the group that day didn't have a rogue. Or an eagle to distract the opposing caster. Etc... Take all the elemental languages and maybe UMD a wand of speak with animals so you can get the critters to something other than just fight.
If you are considering using the greataxe. Consider 1 level of the lore warden fighter archtype. Then eventually going into a few levels of eldritch knight. Otherwise I probably would not bother with the axe. Your HP's will be too low to take chances like that. But you might take a long spear or whip and try to stay out of reach. But generally after a few levels you will have enough spells that it isn't usually needed for you to pick up a weapon that you are not very good at using.
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Half-orcs made awful arcane casters back in 3.5, when they had -2 Int -2 Cha. In PF they're fine casters - not usually super-optimized like an elf wizard or magus (exception: the witch doctor) but they work well. Yours looks like a solid character - hope you enjoy playing with him.I would say that half-orcs don't make optimized wizards. Half-Orcs make highly optimized sorcerer 's. My son plays one in PFS that does 1d3+3 on his acid splash. It also gets better as the spell levels increase.
What makes them better as sorcerers than wizards? Race traits or feats that only apply to sorcerers? Synergistic bloodline abilities?
What makes them better as sorcerers than wizards? Race traits or feats that only apply to sorcerers? Synergistic bloodline abilities?Half-orcs made awful arcane casters back in 3.5, when they had -2 Int -2 Cha. In PF they're fine casters - not usually super-optimized like an elf wizard or magus (exception: the witch doctor) but they work well. Yours looks like a solid character - hope you enjoy playing with him.I would say that half-orcs don't make optimized wizards. Half-Orcs make highly optimized sorcerer 's. My son plays one in PFS that does 1d3+3 on his acid splash. It also gets better as the spell levels increase.
I should probably amend my statement to being, Half-Orcs make highly optimized sorcerer's if your going for damage.
Actually its a combination of synergistic bloodline abilities along with the favored class bonus as well as traits and feats. There are so many ways to manipulate energy damage, you can easily do more average damage as a sorcerer than a wizard.
Earth seems a poor choice for a wizard who is focused on dex. They seem focused on pits, elemental touch, stone fist, etc. I don't think it would be so terrible to have a reasonable strength. Just my opinion