Back in 3.5, it was possible to build a ray monkey spellcaster. In PF, it's harder, in part because there aren't a lot of ray spells. I've tried to come up with a list, and here's what I have:
Disrupt Undead (Lvl 0)
Ray of Frost (Lvl 0)
Ray of Enfeeblement (Lvl 1)
Ray of Sickening (Lvl 1)
Admonishing Ray (Lvl 2)
Blinding Ray (Lvl 2 cleric only)
Scorching Ray (Lvl 2)
Ray of Exhaustion (Lvl 3)
Dimensional Anchor (Lvl 4)
Enervation (Lvl 5)
Disintegrate (Lvl 5)
Hellfire Ray (Lvl 6)
Prismatic Spray (Lvl 7)
Polar Ray (Lvl 8)
Energy Drain (Lvl 9)
With the exception of Ray of Sickening, these are all okay-to-good spells; they're either blasts or debuffs, and you could get a fair amount of use from them. That said, I'm not seeing enough spells here to make a ray specialist really attractive.
There is of course Reach Spell. IIUC, however, Reach Spell does not officially turn a touch spell into a ray. This means you can't use feats like Weapon Focus (Ray), Weapon Specialization (Ray), Improved Critical (Ray), and so forth. (Unless there's been a FAQ/rules clarification on this? Don't think there has.) Personally I'd house rule that it does, since these feats are pretty worthless otherwise, but it doesn't seem to be RAW.
There are also a LOT of third party ray spells, many of which seem balanced and pretty reasonable. It looks like the 3P designers are responding to the shortage of ray spells in PF... but, again, under RAW it's the short list given above.
Finally, there are the ray "abilities" of the Aberrant and Elemental bloodlines, which can charitably be described as weak. 1d6 + level/2 damage, range 30', can't apply metamagic... this is what you do when you have run out of spells, or can't think of anything else to do, or just don't care any more. But they are rays, so the above-mentioned feats would work with them.
Okay, so: have I missed any? Or is this all the ray spells that there are?
Doug M.
Spell perfection + enervation + quicken, empower and maybe maximize = one trick pony from hell!
Other than that: make a snowball throwing blaster.
Wasum wrote: Spell perfection + enervation + quicken, empower and maybe maximize = one trick pony from hell!
If you're a fan of "The Order of the Stick", this seems to be Xykon's strategy. (As was made particularly clear in the Start of Darkness book.)
That said, I'm looking at plausible, playable PC builds here.
Doug M.
Here is a blaster wizard that uses revolvers for shooting damaging rays to his opponents. Could work pretty well with other rays as well, as they would hgave increased DC. Too bad that you have to drop 4 schools for the archetype, limiting drastically your spell choices. Necromancy is banned, so no Enervation for you. Maybe not a terrible loss, since in order to optimise Enervation you need to plan your whole build around it. If you really want Enervation ban Illusion instead. This is primary a blaster build.
Elf Sorcerer 1 (Crossblooded Archetype) / Wizard 19 (Spellslinger Archetype)
(School: School of the Gun) Sorcerer Bloodlines are Orc and Draconic (Gold Dragon).
Opposition Schools are Abjuration, Divination, Enchantment and Necromancy.
Elf Trait: Fleet-Footed
In short, the bloodlines add damage to spells with fire descriptor and Spellslinger makes rays, cones and lines more accurate and/or tougher to save against (also make bullets more deadly if he gets around to shooting one).
STR 7
DEX 18 (+1 at 8, 12, 16, 20 lvls)
CON 12
INT 17 (+1 at 4 lvl)
WIS 8
CHA 11
Traits: Magical Knack; Reactionary
1 Point Blank Shot
2
3 Precise Shot
4
5 Spell Focus (Evocation)
6 Spell Specialization (Scorching Ray, at 13th change to Contagious Flame)
7 Greater Spell Focus (Evocation)
8
9 Empower Spell
10
11 Spell Penetration, Dazing Spell
12
13 Quicken Spell
14
15 Spell Perfection (Contagious Flame)
16 Greater Spell Penetration
17 Improved Initiative
18
19 Maximize Spell
20
Essential spells include: Snowball, Burning Hands, Scorching Ray, Fireball, Dragon's Breath, Cone of Cold, Contagious Flame
A rod of selective spell and a rod of elemental spell are necessary. You cold substitute a feat like Greater SF for Arcane Strike if you find yourself auto-attacking a lot.
Douglas Muir 406 wrote: Wasum wrote: Spell perfection + enervation + quicken, empower and maybe maximize = one trick pony from hell!
If you're a fan of "The Order of the Stick", this seems to be Xykon's strategy. (As was made particularly clear in the Start of Darkness book.)
That said, I'm looking at plausible, playable PC builds here.
Doug M. Actually this is pretty playable. You just have to invest some feats - maybe even spell penetration and some more stuff, but most of these featsq are worth it even without that "trick" so you still have a great wizard on top of that "I oneshot every single BBEG I see"
Before we jump into builds and all: does anyone have any additions to that list? Or does it seem complete?
(Also, "dip one level of crossblooded orc/dragon" seems to be the go-to for blasty wizard builds these days.)
Doug M.
Wasum wrote: Douglas Muir 406 wrote: Wasum wrote: Spell perfection + enervation + quicken, empower and maybe maximize = one trick pony from hell!
If you're a fan of "The Order of the Stick", this seems to be Xykon's strategy. (As was made particularly clear in the Start of Darkness book.)
That said, I'm looking at plausible, playable PC builds here.
Doug M. Actually this is pretty playable. You just have to invest some feats - maybe even spell penetration and some more stuff, but most of these featsq are worth it even without that "trick" so you still have a great wizard on top of that "I oneshot every single BBEG I see" If you do it with a Sorcerer, Piercing Spell becomes a great deal.
XMorsX wrote: Wasum wrote: Douglas Muir 406 wrote: Wasum wrote: Spell perfection + enervation + quicken, empower and maybe maximize = one trick pony from hell!
If you're a fan of "The Order of the Stick", this seems to be Xykon's strategy. (As was made particularly clear in the Start of Darkness book.)
That said, I'm looking at plausible, playable PC builds here.
Doug M. Actually this is pretty playable. You just have to invest some feats - maybe even spell penetration and some more stuff, but most of these featsq are worth it even without that "trick" so you still have a great wizard on top of that "I oneshot every single BBEG I see" If you do it with a Sorcerer, Piercing Spell becomes a great deal. I'd definitly do this as sorcerer - arcane bloodline.
Was even crazier before they fixed the echoing spell loophole:D
Wasum wrote: XMorsX wrote: Wasum wrote: Douglas Muir 406 wrote: Wasum wrote: Spell perfection + enervation + quicken, empower and maybe maximize = one trick pony from hell!
If you're a fan of "The Order of the Stick", this seems to be Xykon's strategy. (As was made particularly clear in the Start of Darkness book.)
That said, I'm looking at plausible, playable PC builds here.
Doug M. Actually this is pretty playable. You just have to invest some feats - maybe even spell penetration and some more stuff, but most of these featsq are worth it even without that "trick" so you still have a great wizard on top of that "I oneshot every single BBEG I see" If you do it with a Sorcerer, Piercing Spell becomes a great deal. I'd definitly do this as sorcerer - arcane bloodline.
Was even crazier before they fixed the echoing spell loophole:D Which was...??
As a sorc you should have enough cha to add the flagbearer feat.
And if you take flagbearer and are a dwarf or orc (or count as one) you can take one of the two traits that give you +1 weapon damage if you get a moral bonus to hit.
mindlessly cruel (orc) or zest for battle (dwarf).
If you play with words of power you can create ray spells that do damage.
Selected
Level 0
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target ...If the wordspell deals energy damage, this word creates a ray that requires a ranged touch attack to hit,
Boost: ...affects up to one target per caster level ... If used with an effect word that deals energy damage, the wordcaster must make multiple ray attacks ... This boosted target word increases the level of all the effect words in the spell by 3 levels.
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The problem with ray spells is that "effect: Ray" is not used consistently.
For example Continuous Flame doesn't have Effect Ray it has Targets 3 or more rays. and the Text says you fire Rays... But at no point do you target rays, you target creatures....
Ray as a category is extremely poorly designed category. I feel like it should be weapon focus (Touch Spell) or (Ranged Touch Spell) would be more applicable due to the fact that spells are not categorized well in terms of Rays or similar effects. Weapon Focus (Ranged Touch Spell) would include a lot more spells.
Additional ray spells
Contiguous Flame
Blinding Ray
Elemental Assessor
Heatstroke
Searing light
Firebrand
Gloombolts? --- it reads like a ray - like scorching ray but it is called bolts. What are bolts....? Lightning bolts and call lightning are aoes.. this is a ranged touch attack... does it count as a ray?
Deafening Song bolt? are these rays?
Blood Crow Strike? bolts again..
Shards of Chaos - bolt and shard
Then there are spells like...
Vengeful Comets
Fiery Shurikens
Mechanically all of these spells are ranged touch attacks that result in damage or a condition and are weapon like bolts, rays comets, shurikens.... you should be able to get a weapon focus for ranged touch spells.
Golo
The Arcane Blast feat lets you convert spells into ray attacks. That might be a good start. Use that for ray versatility or use your spells normally when necessary.
Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
If you want to (mostly) maximize damage with ranged touch spells, then multiclassing with rogue (sniper) 3/arcane trickster 10, rogue 1/assassin 1/arcane trickster 10, or possibly even alchemist (vivisectionist) 3/arcane trickster 10 works pretty well with the Magical Knack trait (+2 CL). Adding an extra +7d6 of damage when able to Sneak Attack (i.e., surprise round, attack vs. flat-footed opponent, greater invisibility, etc.) is nothing to sneeze at. Eventually, you'll want sniper's goggles, of course.
Reach Spell, Intensified Spell, Empower Spell, and Maximize Spell are useful metamagic feats. Admixture specialist wizard (to change energy types) may be almost as good as an Arcane bloodline sorcerer (for the metamagic benefits). Ultimately, Weapon Focus (Ray) is pretty meh compared to a metamagic feat; or even Point Blank Shot, which gives the same benefit as Weapon Focus within 30 ft (i.e., most of Close spell range) and a +1 to damage as well.
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