Hey all!
So, I've been playing Pathfinder and DnD for a while, and my group is coming up on a new game. Over my years playing, I have played a LOT of different character, admittedly most of them were martial (other than my brief affair with the Magus when it first came out and my Arcane Trickster stint earlier this year).
Well, today I come to you looking for something different. I'm looking for something that ISN'T a front line martial character...something interesting, but I do ask that it not be a prepared caster...the spell preparation gives me the shakes, because I KNOW I wouldn't prepare the spells correctly. Any and all suggestions are welcome, guys! Look forward to hearing from y'all!
Oracle with the Heavens mystery, which I think we'll be my next character
Inquisitor. Especially something with an interesting archetype, like Witch Hunter.
Not front line, lots of options for social and combat. A few spells.
Bard archer with arcane strike (1-5 extra damage on every hit- melee or ranged) and riving strike (-2 to saves vs spells when hit with arcane strike)
Do damage! Buff! Debuff! Do skill! Plenty of things to love.
Manwolf: Hm...I'm truly intrigued. I've never thought about that Mystery before. How would I go about building that?
Oceanshieldwolf: Also an interesting choice. The Inquisitor has always tickled my fancies
lemeres: That would be an interesting build, but doesn't the negatives from Riving Strike end after 1 round? That would make it end before I have the time to take advantage of it :/
Sorcerer has always been my favorite class, and great if you want supreme arcane power without any of the hard work that usually comes with wizardry.
Dasrak: I HAVE always wanted to play a sort of demonic Sorcerer, but I don't want the bonuses to Strength that come with the Abyssal bloodline. Makes that bloodline like candy for a gish build, but not so much for a dedicated caster
The Brutal Wildblooded option is an archetype for the Abyssal Bloodline that trades away the bonus strength for wings. You do give up your bloodline arcana for a borderline useless one, unfortunately.
A great combo for the Abyssal Bloodline at higher levels is the Superior Summons. Combined with the Added Summonings bloodline power you get a 3 for 1 deal on summon monster spells when summoning fiendish or demonic creatures.
Eltacolibre: Looking at the Shadowcaller's abilities...I really like it. Definitely one of the more interesting archetypes I've seen!
Dasrak: I like the Wings instead of the Strength, but could they have given it a more USELESS arcana? Haha I really wish it wasn't as bad as it is
Manwolf: Hm...I'm truly intrigued. I've never thought about that Mystery before. How would I go about building that?
I haven't started working on how I'm going to do it. There's lots of Oracle advice on the boards I'm reading. It's going to be mental stats with Cha and Int the highest, and it will depend on what curse you select as well. I'm thinking maybe Lame or Deaf, and use some detection/scry, crowd control and party buff spells. Some of the Revelations I would take are Awesome Display, Lure of the Heavens, Interstellar Void. With Awesome Display, Color Spray remains useful for several levels, and spammable for serious crowd control.
Manwolf: I definitely am looking into that now...Color Spray with Awesome Display is DEFINITELY brutal and works out for a while. I'm just imagining wading into battle and vomiting rainbows onto my enemies :P
I just got an interesting idea for a Time Oracle, though: Taking Dreamed Secrets to nab Slow, going Dual-Cursed to grab Fortune and Misfortune. Flavor Fortune and Misfortune as pressing the rewind button on time, and Slow as slowing time down for those buffoons who fail your save.
lemeres: That would be an interesting build, but doesn't the negatives from Riving Strike end after 1 round? That would make it end before I have the time to take advantage of it :/
Yep. It ends in one round.
I never said it was a debuff you would use for yourself. I am saying that you are setting up the battlefield for the party wizard. His fireballs and dominate spells will dearly appreciate your work.
This goes with the general trend that bards work best as support for other characters. In this build, you are giving support to someone that might not have much use for your inspire courage. Instead, you send a different attack against a different enemy, and all the ones you hit get a nice debuff. As an archer, that means you can debuff anyone...and maybe everyone, if you get enough attacks.
Manwolf: I definitely am looking into that now...Color Spray with Awesome Display is DEFINITELY brutal and works out for a while. I'm just imagining wading into battle and vomiting rainbows onto my enemies :P
I just got an interesting idea for a Time Oracle, though: Taking Dreamed Secrets to nab Slow, going Dual-Cursed to grab Fortune and Misfortune. Flavor Fortune and Misfortune as pressing the rewind button on time, and Slow as slowing time down for those buffoons who fail your save.
I was looking at Time as well, but I have an OWoD Mage character focused on the Time sphere, so for me I've already been there done that. I may revisit it in the future. You've got lots of good choices here, good luck settling on just one!
Do you want no prepared spells at all or is it just that you fear you'd always pick the wrong spells and end up little useful?
If the latter you could look at the druid with an archetype that gets domain casting to spontaneously transform prepared spells into domain spells like the storm, tempest or if I remember right urban archetype.
The storm druid even gets a second domain eventually and from then on has more options for his spontaneous casting. Once you have wildshape you can polymorph into some animal, look innocent and rain spells on your enemies. If you want even from up in the air.
Edit: If you don't want to prepare spells at all, sorry. Just ignore this post.
For sorcerers I like the tattooed archetype. It has a familiar but can put it away safely as a tattoo and has some neat abilities.
Rope Dart Ninja.
Death Drummer
Gnome Bard, Sound Striker and Dirge Bard Archetype. Fel Magic alternate Racial Trait.
Use your FCB to get more performance rounds. Then use performance rounds to buff your party and sonic boom your enemies.
Perform (Percussion) with masterwork drums to intimidate your enemies when you don't want to use spells. Get Greater Spell Focus Enchantment. You can affect undead with enchantment spells, negating like 75% of enemy mind immunities in most campaigns. Against stuff that's still immune use weird words* or just buff your party.
*Note the Weird Words FAQ, clearing up the ability and making it better (imo).
Dasrak: I HAVE always wanted to play a sort of demonic Sorcerer, but I don't want the bonuses to Strength that come with the Abyssal bloodline. Makes that bloodline like candy for a gish build, but not so much for a dedicated caster
I have been itching to try a daemon bloodline sorc (Blood of Fiends) moderately nasty SoD caster. But it just hasn't worked out yet.
Classic bow focused Ranger, embrace the simplicity of it and enjoy.(bonus points if you play an elf or half elf)
Do you want to play a caster?
Oracle with the Heavens mystery, which I think we'll be my next character
One of my favorite characters was (sort of) an Oracle with the Heavens mystery. She was a sorceress, but she started out her career with a level in Oracle and one in Diviner wizard. She almost always avoided melee.
She was an old Varisian fortune-teller who couldn't find her keys (Haunted & Lame curses), had an animal companion from the Sylvan bloodline to pull her vardo, and spent most of her feats on crafting magic items because she wanted to eventually animate it and also create mechanical fortune-telling boxes that looked just like her.
She was played in Kingmaker, and I think in a game with less than Kingmaker's almost infinite downtime, it might be better to focus less on crafting. But even if you choose different feats and a different sorcerer bloodline, I think the basics could still be pretty viable, and she certainly had enough different abilities that she could usually do something useful.
Madame Violetta
Dual-Cursed Oracle of the Heavens 1 (Lame, progressing & Haunted)
Revelations: Misfortune (Everyone knows about this. It's awesome. It was awesome for me even though my DM ruled I couldn't use it on my friends.)
Diviner Wizard 1, with the Foresight alternate school; You only ever get +1 initiative, but that's not too bad and always acting in the surprise round is awesome for a caster. The Foresight school swaps Diviner's Fortune (which is useless for a level dip) for Prescience, which lets you roll a d20 at the beginning of your turn and use it for anything you want until the beginning of your next turn, 3+Int mod times a day. You get a familiar. You get a spellbook and the ability to prepare a small number of 1st level spells you might not want to bother knowing, like Identify or Comprehend Languages. You get Scribe Scroll.
Feats:
Human Extra Revelation (Guiding Star: It's good for not getting lost, important for a wanderer, but the once-a-night free metamagic is pretty cool and Perception is a Wisdom-based skill that it's nice to get your Charisma bonus for when you're on watch.)
1st Extra Revelation (Awesome Display)
I took Improved Familiar at 7th; technically you qualify, because you have a familiar and an arcane caster level, although they don't come from the same source. Your DM may be squeamish about this, however, and prefer you get your familiar with feats or the alternate multiclassing rules.
I took Craft Rods at 9th level; I really recommend metamagic rods for casters missing levels. I was only missing two, and the trait makes up for that in caster level, but the rods make up for that as far as higher level spell slots go. PLUS I made my faerie dragon a Rod of Wonder, and that's just wonderful mayhem.
The Awesome Display+Color Spray combo works for quite a while (though it's not as godly as some make it out to be, because of the short range cone and the randomness of saving throws at low levels), and then after that the pickings are more sparse for Illusion Pattern spells. Still, the sorcerer spell list is better for that than the cleric one.
Back when I was planning, I remember there being some interesting synergy between a Waves Oracle and certain cold-themed sorcerer bloodlines, too. (Entangle everything!)
Lemeres: Ah, I misunderstood. Sorry about that! Definitely a smart idea, but I already know that I would be the only caster in the group...we seem to have done a weird flop: normally I'm the only melee focused character with everyone else rolling up Bards, Clerics, Oracles, or what have you.
Just a Guess: I've looked at the Storm Druid before, but I've never thought of rolling one up because of the preparing piece...looking at it now, I'd get a lot of nice spontaneous spells to use in case I screw up with preparation, AND some nice melee capabilities in the form of Wild Shape.
Blave: Sound Striker in general is an interesting archetype...I'm being overwhelmed with possibilities now lmao
ElterAgo: I didn't know that the Daemon Bloodline existed...hmm...interesting
master_marshmallow: I'm definitely looking for a caster. Sorry, I shoulda been a bit more upfront on that!
threemilechild: Now THAT is an interesting build...I never multiclass, so I never look at those possibilities...I find the sorcerer/oracle to be very interesting in concept, and have played a Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer going into Dragon Disciple//Oracle in a gestalt game in the past, and had a BLAST with it
Easiest casters to start with are full blown blaster sorcerers. Doesn't require a lot of tactics, just a good understanding of your own spells and DCs.
There are plenty of strong bloodlines to choose from. Ultimately DCs and crippling effects on your spells are more importing than damage.
Personal recommendation: Arcane bloodlines. Very strong options. Good metamagic options, extra spells, and a strong DC boost later on. Sage will give you a s*&%ton of extra skill ranks and boost important checks like Spellcraft and knowledge.
Best race is human or bastard, to gain access to the human racial favored class bonus, which lets you learn an extra spell every level.
Best blasting spells are fireball and eventually chain lightning. Avoid burning hands and other spells that require you to be close to the enemy. Good spells are ones that you can cast from a distance.
Best defensive spells are blur, displacement, and mirror image. Don't forget about shield and mage armor. Extend spell works well with those.
Good utility spells are invisibility, detect magic, identify, rope trick, fly, overland flight, teleport, and knock.
Best buff spells are haste, and your first two defensive buffs.
Go to metamagic feats are Quicken, Dazing, and Empower.
Scribe Scroll is a godsend, Improved Initiatives important, and you definitely want Spell Focus and Spell Penetration as a blaster.
Also Dispel Magic is nigh mandatory.
Inquisitor or Paladin Archers can be really fun. You get good armor, good saves, good damage, spells, etc.
As an Inquisitor you get plenty of skills, Bane, judgements. Dwarf is an excellent choice for Fav Class option to improve Judgments.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say Kineticist or Psychic from Occult Adventures. Depending on availability you could use the playtest until you got the finished book (If you are one of the lucky people maybe next week).
I always take new games starting with such propinquity as signs to give a new classes a shot.