Hi there!
I bought the Blood of the Elements Player companion some time back. The Geniekin races all look pretty interesting.
I've tinkered around with some 20 point builds of sorcerers of the appropriate Elemental bloodline (Ifrit/Fire, Oread/Earth, Sylph/Air, Undine/Water). Just to look at how the way cool boost to charisma for class abilities might add up.
I've been told Ifrit make good Skalds because of the Wildheart alternate racial feat. It looks like Suli would make good Skalds because of their higher strength, and charisma.
Otherise, it looks to me like:
- Oreads are good as fighters, clerics, druids or war-priests
- Sylph would be good as rogues, wizards, or maybe slayers
- Undines would make good clerics, druids, or sorcerers
Those are my impressions of those races. But just to me, personally, it looks like an Ifrit would be the more interesting of the lot to try and play.
But has anyone out there had any experience playing Geniekin characters? I'd just like any tips or insights before trying to play one of these cool looking races.
Thanks in advance!
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Oreads make cool monks and rangers, I'm currently playing an Oread Zen Archer and it's a ton of fun. You can really RP up their background at random times for guaranteed hilarity(whenever someone in the party uses a sling, he yells at them for hurling his tiny nephews and nieces. One time we found a catapult and accidentally set it off, and he went ballistic that they had, "launched Uncle Gerald" into a nearby lake).
The Ranger option sounds interesting. Especially if underground or in rocky terrain.
Probably won't play a monk, though, since CN is my usual alignment (just because).
I played a sylph in a campaign that didn't last. Sylphs are cool both flavour wise and game mechanically. And the picture gives me a boner.
The character was excellent. Heading towards being a arcane trickster/ sorcerer.
@Joynt Jezebel: what seemed to work best for you with the Sylph, mechanically? They do seem to have some cool abilities.
Ifrit has Paizos 'typical stats', since it has the set that is reused in about 4 or more other places. Technically, I suppose it can work out well for most builds in point buys (reduce how much you invest in dex, dump CHA while not getting much penalty, use the remaining points to up other stats as you please)
Really, they only suffer if they want to play a wisdom based class.
out of the 4, i personally like the Sylph better than the Undine, Ifrit or Oread. mostly because i like spellcaster types that gain a lot of roguish skills, and because sylphs have that fitting nomad flavor.
@Joynt Jezebel: what seemed to work best for you with the Sylph, mechanically? They do seem to have some cool abilities.
Sorry, my memory was playing tricks.
My character was actually a Suli.
And back then I knew sufficiently little about Pathfinder my build was total crap.
But Sulis seem a natural fir for Arcance Trickster, Eldrich Knight, Hellknight Signifer [or its post-modern analogue, Hellknight Signifier] or Dragon Disciple.
Anything that is a Sorcerer and wants to do damage in melee. Its got a +2 Cha, +2 Str, -2 Int which does little harm and an ability allowing you to increase damage once/day. And nice flavour.
@lemeres: I was tinkering with builds for two Ifrits: a sorcerer (fire elemental bloodline) and skald. The extra dexterity was the next best thing to extra strength for a skald, I think.
Here's the stat block I had in mind (which may or may not be out to lunch):
- Ifrit Sorcerer | STR 12 | DEX 12 | CON 12 | INT 14 | WIS 9 | CHA 18 |
- Ifrit Skald | STR 14 | DEX 16 | CON 14 | INT 12 | WIS 8 | CHA 15|
I could have maxed out the Charisma for the sorcerer, but that would be the only decent stat for that one.
For the skald, I decided to go for a dexterity higher than the strength, since the strength would always get a rage song boost anyway, and this one could take Combat Reflexes as a feat early on. Maybe.
For both, I thought it would be worthwhile to replace fire energy resistance with Wildheart to get +4 to Initiative, which is always useful.
@Auren Rin Cloudstrider: The sylph do look interesting as rogues (and slayers, by extension, sort of). Have you had success playing sylph characters in the past?
@Joynt Jezebel: I was tinkering with a Suli build as a Skald. They do get a boost in both strength and charisma, which is good for that hybrid class. And their magic abilities help too!
Suli Skald | STR 16 | DEX 14 | CON 14 | INT 12 | WIS 8 | CHA 14 |
I thought that would make a good start for well rounded stats for a skald.
I played a Suli necromancer style cleric who owned a small company.
I enjoyed playing an Undine cleric. One of my players is an Undine gunslinger. He loves it.
@Auren Rin Cloudstrider: The sylph do look interesting as rogues (and slayers, by extension, sort of). Have you had success playing sylph characters in the past?
i played a sylph slayer as a timid street magician who was trained in dealing with security systems and dual wielding knives, she even threw cards at people with arcane strike. she was a blast to play, not really optimized, but it was fun roleplaying the fidgeting and acting out the shivering and stuttering with the help of a smart phone word processor, the cards were improvised throwing weapons that dealt 1d4 piercing damage with a range increment of 30 feet and a crit range of 18-20x2 and worked alongside her d4 18-20x2 slashing/piercing melee knives
@Rabbiteconomist: what sort of things make playing Undines fun? I can see how they'd make good druid types.
Just going by the stat modifiers, it looks like Suli would be good fighters, bards, skalds, barbarians, bloodragers, or sorcerers.
@Auren: sounds like a sylph slayer would be interesting. Did you use many Sylph racial feats to make her more interesting?
I also like the interesting role-playing bits more than pure optimization.
@Auren: sounds like a sylph slayer would be interesting. Did you use many Sylph racial feats to make her more interesting?
I also like the interesting role-playing bits more than pure optimization.
the only sylph racial feat she had was cloud gazer, because she used smokesticks to set up sneak attacks. besides that, she was pretty much your typical shy street performer specialized in card tricks. she used sleight of hand to perform card tricks for tips, and often did a sneak attack with cards as she waited for her prey to come closer
@Auren: That sounds, well, sneaky! And fun, of course! Not many would expect to see cards used as weapons!
One day I'm going to play an ifrit Daring Champion and it's going to be awesome.
I wrote up a Slyph Archeologist Bard as an NPC for a game I run. I needed a thief that was near unstoppable and this combination worked out well. She was 9th level and had Wings of Air so she could go invisible while flying. Gaseous Form allowed her to turn into air to make it even harder to catch her. Having a +4 to stealth from Whispering Wind was also nice. With her spells and gear she was able to get+32 stealth without invisibility, so she was able to pull off a +52 stealth with invisibility at 9th level.
I'll be playing an ifrit diviner in the next campaign. He'll have a base initiative of 18/19.
I don't own Blood of the Elements, but going off of the Advanced Race Guide entries:
Ifrits can make good melee characters (with the Efreeti Magic alternate racial trait, as well as the Scorching Weapons/Inner Flame/Blazing Aura feat tree) or summoning specialists (with the Fire Insight alternate racial trait). They excel as Flame oracles (with the synergy between the Burning Magic revelation and the Fire-Starter alternate racial trait, as well as the favored class bonus applied to Fire Breath and Fire Storm).
Oreads can make good monks (with the Crystalline Form and Granite Skin alternate racial traits), other melee-focused characters, or Wis-based casters.
Sulis can make good magi (with the elemental knight archetype and the Extra Elemental Assault/Incremental Elemental Assault feats, as well as the favored class bonus) or monks (especially the monk of the four winds archetype).