Pazuzu Demoniac

[Eltacolibre]

I've always been a fan of Pazuzu and was curious if you could make a demoniac of Pazuzu with 10 levels and possibility of progression in a dungeoncrawl, what class would you go for? and yeah it's in Golarion, if that makes any difference.

Look like at level 10, I would only be able to get 3 levels of it.

Boons include: flying, enthrall, charm monster, magic jar like effects.

[Douglas Muir 406]

The Demoniac is a challenging PrC: you can do some interesting things with it, but it's hella situational. It works best with clerics, though other full casters can have fun with it too.

Energumen has a bunch of different uses: boosting your spell DCs most obviously, but also emergency hp, a little AC/Init boost, and so forth. If you're a cleric 7 / demoniac 3 with 24 Wis, a +1 save boosting item and Iron Will, you'll make the save 50% of the time, meaning you usually won't have to endure more than a round or two of confusion. Of course, if you're an arcane caster with a miserable 14 Will, you'll only make the save 1/4 of the time. Well: if you have an ally, cohort or fellow party member who can cast Protection from Evil or Chaos on the round the spell ends, you don't even have to worry about that. If you have a familiar, consider throwing a feat at Improved Familiar, getting a quasit, and giving it a wand to cast on you.

Pick up an Orb of Foul Abaddon; it gives you +1 ECL when you cast spells with the evil descriptor. Why? Because whenever you cast with your demon mark, the spell acquires the evil descriptor. Ta da, one more die of damage on flame strike or whatever your best blast is.

The obedience benefit is "a +4 profane bonus on all saving throws against effects from flying creatures and compulsion effects", and that's actually better than it sounds. That's +4 against (for instance) dragon breath and dragon spells and dragon frightful presence, banshee wails, the energy drain of spectres, wyvern poison, harpy songs, spells from a sphinx, spells and SLAs from all kinds of outsiders from angels to vrocks... the damn bestiary is full of flying things that want to kill you. (A fun side question is whether you'd get this bonus against an enemy wizard who has Fly cast on himself when he throws a spell at you.) Throwing in the bonus against compulsion is pure gravy. It's really one of the better obediences, so make sure you fill the bird feeder with fresh intestines every day.

One more level and you'll get the free demons. Sadly, they don't stick around very long... but pay attention to their SLAs and special abilities; a succubus isn't just a pretty face, she's a mind-reader with great face skills and a bunch of free Suggestions and Dominates, while the babau are fine scouts and flankers.

I don't think it's one of the stronger PrCs, but you can have fun with it. I'd role-play hell out of it, myself -- you've come to town to spread pure chaos, baby, and then feast vulture-like on the aftermath.

Doug M.

[Eltacolibre]

That's actually a very neat advice, yeah going mostly for roleplay reason on this PrC and getting to play a class like that is pretty rare.

[Douglas Muir 406]

What class are you playing? Is this for PFS play?

If you're a Cha-based caster, definitely throw a feat at Divine Protection: it lets you add your Cha bonus to all your saves, like a paladin. I think this is sick overpowered, myself, but it's RAW. You do need to be able to cast 2nd level divine spells. If you have just a 14 Cha it's like three feats for the price of one, and if you're an oracle or something it's just ridiculous. And of course it helps with your Energumen saves.

Improved Iron Will is worth considering if you have an open feat slot and you don't have someone to cast Protection from Whatever on you.

If you're a tiefling, the Dark Magic Affinity racial trait gives you +1 ECL to spells with the evil descriptor, same as the Orb of Foul Abaddon above. (That should stack, so if you have both the trait and the item, that's +2 ECL.)

Doug M.

[Douglas Muir 406]

And, oh yeah, check out the Damned feats from Champions of Corruption. If memory serves, Maleficium ones can give you +1 DC and (yet another) +2 ECL to every spell with the evil descriptor that you cast. The drawback is that you become even harder to bring back from the dead, so if you're planning to play this character through a long campaign, think carefully.

Doug M.

[Eltacolibre]

I will go with a cleric. Well as a damned with demoniac coming back to life is not really my main issue at the moment.

[Douglas Muir 406]

Okay, a cleric is the best choice for this PrC. Pazuzu's domains are kinda meh IMO, but he does have longsword as a weapon which means that you can be okay in melee.

Alternately, you can play a blaster, in which case I'd say consider a demodand or demonspawn tiefling for the Dark Magic Affinity trait; go with the Theologian archetype; take two of the Maleficium Damned feats; and invest in the Orb of Foul Abaddon. Together these will let you use your demon mark once/day to throw a Bouncing Boneshatter at +1 DC for 14d6 of damage at 10th level... and when you've done that, you'll still have a plain vanilla Bouncing Boneshatter left to throw for 10d6 on the next round.

Oh, and if you're going to be playing around outsiders a lot, invest in the tiefling cleric favored class. +1 per level to overcome spell resistance is one of the best favored class options out there -- if you take it at every level, it means you can pretty much laugh at SR. It does mean that you'll probably be starved for skills a bit, but such is the life of a cleric.

Doug M.

[Douglas Muir 406]

I'd be curious to hear how this worked out in actual play, BTW!

Doug M.