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I want to run a very blasty kind of character who focuses alot on scorching ray, fireball, etc. I saw a character posted months ago who was a "Iron Man" esque character who used an Arcane Bond: Amulet and made it into a Folding Armor Amulet which is just plain genius and I would love to incorporate that kind of flavor into this guy. Considered Eldritch Knight for this or heck even a Magus but really not sure of the full direction I want to go yet. Though as of now I thought it would be cool IF this was an Arcane Bond to play it off as if combat is going wrong and for some reason teleportation is not viable kind of flavor the armor to self destruct ala explosive rune in hopes of that being the last viable option. But opinions and ideas are much needed as this is a very rough sketch of a concept.
Well the main issue you're going to run into with most classes suited to blasting is that nasty 35% spell failure chance. Even a Magus can't cast in Heavy armor until level 13.
I think your options might be a divine caster (Flame Oracle?) or an Alchemist (no spell failure, though you'd have to buy Medium/Heavy armor proficiency) besides Magus. Though even then Alchemist doesn't have Scorching Ray and such. His Bombs do pretty well though.
Flame Oracle with the Blackened curse would give you a large number of fire spells. A 1 level dip into Sorcerer with the Elemental or one of the Genie themed Bloodlines would give you more versatility with elements used, while Orc/Draconic Crossblooded would boost your damage.
Air Elemental and Shaitan Crossblooded might be interesting since you could turn all your Fire spells into lightning OR acid, letting you cover 3 elements with all your spells, which could be quite cool.
But opinions and ideas are much needed as this is a very rough sketch of a concept.
How high level is the campaign going?
I'm currently in a RotRL game and am building a character to mimic Iron Man, but it won't actually kick in until around level 12, at least not at full power. That's when he'll be getting Staff-Like Wand, which is how I'm dealing with ASF.
I'm also making the armor into an animated object Construct Armor, which my GM has okayed for use with Folding Plate, using the longer of the two don and removal times.
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Celestial Plate (Armor) + Comfort (Enchantment) + Arcane Armor Mastery (Feat) + Armor Expert (Trait) + Fighter (3-5) = Full Plate Armor, 0 ACP, 0 ASF, 30 Speed, 3-5 lvls of Fighter (+3 BAB, Weapon Focus (Ray), Weapon Specialization (Ray), Weapon Training (Ray?)),
Just pick a couple of ray spells from lvl 7 and below, and invest all of your feats into them. Use maximize and empower, etc metamagic and you will be godlike.
Still Spell metamagic feat only adds one level to the spell, and then you don't have any chance of failure. Still Spell metamagic rods are also an option.
Another thing to consider would be having a few scrolls on hand for those times when you didn't want any chance of failure and hadn't memorized the spell as a still spell.
Still spell is where it's at. Forget any build that entails spell-failure chance at all. It's not worth it.
Mechanically you may actually want to go druid. By default they pick up a good number of blast spells, can wildshape into various forms, and you can use a domain such as weather which grants you various abilities, including an at will blast (albiet one that won't really scale with level).
Would be difficult being Iron Man when you can't wear metal armor, though. Dragonscale Man doesn't have the same ring to it.
Celestial Plate (Armor) + Comfort (Enchantment) + Arcane Armor Mastery (Feat) + Armor Expert (Trait) + Fighter (3-5) = Full Plate Armor, 0 ACP, 0 ASF, 30 Speed, 3-5 lvls of Fighter (+3 BAB, Weapon Focus (Ray), Weapon Specialization (Ray), Weapon Training (Ray?))Is further enchanting a specific magic item (such as celestial plate armor) allowed? I thought it was not, but I could be wrong.
There is nothing prohibiting it, so yes you can do it (Except in the Pathfinder Society - no custom magic items allowed). However, since the specific magic armors (and weapons) don't necessarily follow any pricing formulas, it can be hard to figure out out much it would cost to upgrade.
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Pick up mithral armor (-10% spellfailure), Arcane Armor Mastery Feat (another -10%) and you're already dropping the fail chance in full plate to a measely 15% with a swift.
Define your acceptable level of risk; a 3 in 20 chance of failure to blast foes while wearing full-plate like a badass might make your game very enjoyable. :)
Either that or I second the choice of still-spell meta magic.
Are you permitted 3rd party material? the Battle Scion is a heavy armor 4 level caster with a blast ability built in to the class. You wouldnt be able to cast scorching ray untill 7th level (when you get second level spells) but if you take the force blaster archetype you can blast away rather effectively with the force blast ability.
Multiclass with synthesist summoner. You can make the eidolon's AC bonus an armor bonus, describe it how you want, and there you go.
You could really just make some golem armor, and make the whole thing out of mithral? It works like a breastplate for eumbrance and similar things, and when made of mithral will significantly reduce spell failure chance.
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Will cost just 2 level, because after 1 fighter level its eldritch knight costing only 1 additonal and who can select all fighter feats anyway.
Even so, those 3-5 levels of fighter will really hurt you, especially at mid levels. Even if you can compensate for the damage lost with those ray feats (which you probably cannot, if you compare to an intensified spell) you are way behind on spell levels and spells per day. And you can only pull this off once you can afford a rather expensive magic armor.
The real necessity comes at lvl 3, which is armor training 1, giving you 30 speed in fullplate, and dropping your ACP to 0 if you follow my formula.
As for levels in fighter hurting, I'm not so sure they will. Considering all the bonus damage as well as the increased to-hit from full BAB, your ray spells will be just as effective. For every bit your DPS drops from damage dice, it goes up for accuracy and fighter features.
Ask anybody who has played a blasting sorc into high levels, they weren't worried about Spells per Day, they are worried about how much damage their spells per day can do. Save the metamagic for maximizing instead of making your proficient with armor.
Still Spell and the Magical Lineage trait for whichever is your preferred blast spell. You might want to do either a sorceror (more spell slots, easy use of metamagic) or a universalist wizard for their metamagic ability.
Ether way, look for spells without somatic components.
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The logic doesnt add up.
Your path is:
Fighter 3 + Sorc/Wiz rest of levels
My path would be:
Fighter 1 + Sorc/Wiz 5/6 + Eldritch for 10 + then Sorc/WizMine has higher BAB, more HP, Weapon spec and weapon focus 2 and +1 spell level and spells per day, e.g. at lev 10 mine has as wiz 5d6+5+5d10+10*conbonus and BAB +7 and weapon spec, yours has 7d6+7+3d10+10*conbonus and BAB +6 and no weapon spec. Yours has +1 on armor check penalty skills and 30 ft instead of 20 ft. The first advantage is realy irrelevant, the later with flight of minor importance and even if, +1 BAB, weapon spec, +2 HP and +1 spell level and spells per day seem to be better than +10 ft.
The advantage will get bigger with higher levels and with my path one could give up...
Bravo, and, touche. My logic is fine, since my point was that you can get your effective ACP down to 0 with Armor training. It WILL affect your character since you'll be taking a -1 to all your attacks with an ACP in an armor with which you're not proficient.
Your build looks really awesome, and I like it! He just can't use celestial plate without taking ray penalties. That aside, great build!
Also, remember with EK that you lose 1 lvl of spellcasting, which gives you an effective +1 CL over a Fighter 3/Sorc x
Edit: I just noticed that you already addressed the +1 CL.
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But the moment one is proficient in armor,one no longer gets attack penalty. So for that 1 lev of fighter enough.My logic is fine, since my point was that you can get your effective ACP down to 0 with Armor training. It WILL affect your character since you'll be taking a -1 to all your attacks with an ACP in an armor with which you're not proficient.
wonk wonk, haha, you're totally right! Of course fighters are proficient. I don't know what I was even thinking! In that case, fighter/ek is the best option. The question is how valuable is the bloodline? Also, remember Robe of Arcane Heritage Caderyn!
dont be dumb there is a special class for this!
just go Magus use medium from 7 til 13 then go heavy get some blasting spels from the wizard spells list with the arcana's and there you go!
its the most simple way to do it!
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You may also want to consider playing a Psion or Wilder, both of them are Psionic classes. Both can pick blaster powers = spells. Psionics do not have arcane spell failure so no worry there. They are not proficient in amor though, so they would suffer the armor check penalty on attack rolls, though that has no effect on area effects. I think they are much better blasters because they can easily use the psionic point system to choose both a shape like a ball, line, or cone, and energy type to suite the needs on hand. The vancian spell slot system is like trying to fit square pegs into round holes when you need to match both energy type vs resistance and immunity and a shape that will not hurt your allies.
Lastly, be careful walking around with a low strength blaster in heavy armor plus other gear. Depending on how weak you are, you might not be slowed down to 20 feet, you might only be able to move 5!
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Are you permitted 3rd party material? the Battle Scion is a heavy armor 4 level caster with a blast ability built in to the class. You wouldnt be able to cast scorching ray untill 7th level (when you get second level spells) but if you take the force blaster archetype you can blast away rather effectively with the force blast ability.
I was just thinking the very same thing! :)
For those pioneering the black course oracle, remember that the -4 penality to weapon attack rolls applies also to ray, since they are considered weapon-like spells (you can focus them). It's not too hot having -4 on scorching rays.
For those pioneering the black course oracle, remember that the -4 penality to weapon attack rolls applies also to ray, since they are considered weapon-like spells (you can focus them). It's not too hot having -4 on scorching rays.
While this is true it matters a bit less since unlike arcane classes they are 3/4 BaB and not 1/2. Still something to consider yes but not crippling.
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The magus can take weapon specialization, greater weapon specialization and improved critical with rays.
Oracle of battle 1/wizard 5/hellknight signifier 10/eldritch knight 4
[b]Level 1[b]
Feats: Warrior Priest, extra revelation
Revelations: skill at arms(rays), weapon mastery
Catachesis is neat.
5% spell failure in Hellknight Plate with reduced movement penalties. Mithral armor reduces spell failure to 0%.
True seeing as a swift action and the ability to see in magical darkness do not hurt.
Expenditure of 1 feat at 1st level eventually grants weapon focus, greater weapon focus and improved critical.
18 level caster
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Are you permitted 3rd party material? the Battle Scion is a heavy armor 4 level caster with a blast ability built in to the class. You wouldnt be able to cast scorching ray untill 7th level (when you get second level spells) but if you take the force blaster archetype you can blast away rather effectively with the force blast ability.I was just thinking the very same thing! :)
Sorry to jump in again, but The The Expanded Battle Scion is now up to #2 on Paizo's Top Ten 3pp Download list - thanks so much to everyone who has purchased it so far!!!
As Kolokotroni says, you get full armor and full BAB plus a Force Blast ability right from first level. And the Force Blaster archetype lets the Battle Scion really focus on his Force Blasts (allowing more of them per day, making them more powerful, adding combat maneuver-like effects such as bull rush with the blasts etc). With the addition of a few arcane spells beginning at 4th level, you essentially get an 'arcane paladin' style class.
I humbly submit that folks in this thread should find the class well worth a look :)