| TatterdWings |
I'm currently running an OP Gunslinger, we are on fast exp going through the children of westcrown campaign, but my DM designed his own campaign modeled somewhat after kingmaker, in terms of the maps and kingdoms and such. He says we will be level 20 at the end of our current campaign, and that we can continue with what we are building (currently going gunslinger/alchemist) OR we can change to anything we want after the final boss battle. I'm considering going with a sorcerer, but if im making the sorcerer lvl 20 right off the bat then I have no idea what to do from that point. do i take a few cleric levels and then make a mystic theurge? do i take a few rogue levels and make an arcane trickster? do i take a few pally levels and make an eldritch knight? I have no clue what direction i'd be taking it in after level 20 :( any suggestiong would be fantastic, up to and including just sticking with the alchemist slinger. :)
| TatterdWings |
Also, i was only considering a sorc because our current "party face" bard is going to be a kineticist and be our DPS since I plan on leaving the DPS slot open by switching away from gunslinger.
I realized a gunslinger 20/alchemist 6 would be GG basically all the time because with my build i'd be able to "hypothetically" do approx~36 points of stat damage to any physical stat every round. But he is starting to feel too much like a 1 trick pony at this point.
I should also mention we are in high fantasy, but we are also adding in tech gear, we're building a tech-base demi-plane and our party, currently gunslinger, bard, inquisitor, are all wearing powered armor... So things are going to get interesting really quick after 20.
| Avoron |
Starting out with Sorcerer 6/Oracle 4/Mystic Theurge 10 could be fun.
You have 8th level arcane spells and 7th level divine spells right off the bat, and by level 26 you'll have 9th level spells for each.
Edit: Actually, there's another route that might work even better:
Sorcerer 5/Oracle 4/Mystic Theurge 1/Evangelist 10 (advancing mystic theurge)
Like before, but with evangelist goodies.
| Avoron |
One unusual issue you'll encounter with a setup like this is deciding on what levels to take after level 30 (31 with the evangelist build).
You could theoretically continue in oracle or sorcerer for higher level class features, but your spellcasting will already be maxed out, so I think you have better options.
This won't be an issue for quite a while, but here are a few random ideas for dips:
Arcane Archer (2 levels) - allows you to deliver debilitating area spells from an incredible range, from antimagic field to emergency force sphere to mage's excellent enclosure.
Spellslinger Wizard (1 level) - a fantastic option, providing a +5 bonus to the DC and attack rolls of all your ranged touch attack, cone, line, and ray spells. Such spells can also get a x3 critical modifier, handy if you end up using Cyclops Helm shenanigans.
Bard (1 level) - taking a single level of bard, putting 4 ranks in perform, and spending a feat allows you to get Pageant of the Peacock, which instantly makes you better at item creation and knowledge checks than any wizard.
Enlightened Paladin (2 levels) - a classic for sorcerers and oracles, if you're Lawful/Good. Who can resist adding your casting stat to all saves? +2 AC is just a handy perk.
Unlettered School Savant Arcanist (1 level) - handy if you're dying to have a school but had to give it up for the Spellslinger archetype. I'd probably go with Foresight to act in the surprise round. Also provides a familiar.
Mindchemist Alchemist (1 level) - lets you make a cognatogen that gives you +4 Cha for 10 minutes, but is otherwise pretty worthless. I'd only take this if you don't have anything better to take and need the DC boost, or if you're particularly Charisma-monkey-ish.
| TatterdWings |
Thank you so much, I'd been wondering what to do after i finished those options, and if going back to sorcerer levels made sense or not. I might get some cool perks if i pick up a useful bloodline, but otherwise it looks like it wouldn't make sense. I'll most likely not be lawful good, however i haven't yet looked into which god i should pick if i go the evangelist route.
For now dipping into any of those sounds like a great option, though i would probably pass on the alchemist. I hope not to need the cognatogen bonus when my character is that high of a level.
If you have any advice about which gods provide the best bonuses that would be fantastic, but thanks again for all the help either way :)
| Avoron |
Here's some nice options, somewhat in order of quality.
Desna (CG)
Desna's obedience is simple and her evangelist boons are absolutely fantastic.
First of all, you add your Charisma bonus on all caster level checks to overcome spell resistance. This has the added effect of allowing those checks to be improved by a Circlet of Persuasion, so your bonus will be through the roof.
When in starlight, you get further abilities. Every damaging spell you cast deals 2d6 extra points of damage, and all of your spells have a range as if you were one level higher - both great for offensive spellcasting.
Other than that, you get darkvision 60 ft, some mildly useful spell-like abilities, a +1 luck bonus to initiative that sadly won't stack with your inevitable luckstone, and a +4 sacred bonus to Perception checks to act in the surprise round.
Rovagug (CE)
Rovagug comes with some nasty alignment restrictions - you can be chaotic/neutral at best. But if that's okay with you, there are significant benefits. I mean, you get to gain holy power by smashing things.
The main advantage comes from Destructive Spell. The damage increase is trivial, but the +4 bonus to DC whenever you cast a damaging spell as a full-round action is pretty spectacular. Oh, and that bonus gets doubled to +8 with Spell Perfection, so your favorite spell will be a sight to behold.
You also get to cast a spell from the Chaos or Destruction domain once per day, and you can change your pick daily.
Last and also least, you get a bonus for attacking and damaging objects (that can be doubled with Spell Perfection), as well as some spell-like abilities.
Iomedae (LG)
Your deity is honorable and whatnot, and your obedience is just praying. Pretty easy to deal with.
Against chaotic or evil creatures, you get a +6 bonus on caster level checks to overcome spell resistance. Against chaotic/evil creatures, this bonus increases to +12. That's almost as good as Desna's benefit, and it can be doubled by Spell Perfection.
You can also make half of your spell damage holy three times per day to bypass immunities. Plus you get some spell-like abilities and skill bonuses to help with being the party face.
Calistria (CN)
Once per day, you get to reflect a spell back at its caster as an immediate action by succeeding at a Perform check against the spell DC. That's pretty awesome in itself.
The +4 bonus to Cha-based checks against creatures that could be attracted to you can help out a ton with both social skills and planar binding.
The required obedience can make things...interesting.
Shelyn (NG)
Deific Obedience for Shelyn doesn't have the raw power of some of the others, but I really like it anyway.
Versatile Performance helps out with skills (Cha based Sense Motive is excellent), and its even better with the +4 bonus you get to Perfom checks.
Being able to turn artwork into free symbols of persuasion will stay relevant for a long time, and is just plain fun.
Even the obedience itself is wonderful - you create a piece of art and give it to a stranger with a compliment. You can't get more Shelyn than that.
| TatterdWings |
So far the planning stages are coming along splendidly, mostly thanks to your help :) I've narrowed it down to Iomedae or Desna, Still debating that one for the moment. The one thing i'm not sure about now is the math. I'm just trying to wrap my head around how the levels stack to net me 9th level spells in both arcane and divine. If i go with the 5/4/1/10 then i'll have 6 levels in arcane and 5 levels in divine, because mystic theurge adds to both, but unless i was reading it wrong, i think the evangelist only adds to one. so once i max MT, i'd have 15 levels toward arcane (7th level spells), and 14 levels in divine (also 7th level spells), but then i'd have to pick which one to put the evangelist levels towards, and the first level doesn't count apparently so that's only 9, so at level 4 or 5 E i'd have access to all of either divine or arcane spells, and then the other half of the levels would be wasted? The wording might just not be clear to me, and i'm also not used to multi-classing, I've only played 3 characters so far all of which were single class characters at least up through lvl 20, So I might just be wrong :(
I also realize in my example I added the levels backwards but the logic is still there. @ lvl 20 I'd have 5+1+9 levels of sorcerer and 4+1 levels of oracle? for the purposes of spell availability.
I just want to make sure I understand it because my DM would be asking me about how i came up with the numbers to make sure i'm not too broken :)
| Avoron |
Ah, that's the beauty of it.
Evangelist requires you to pick a class to advance. But the chosen class can be a prestige class. So you can use your Evangelist levels to advance Mystic Theurge up to 10th level, which in turn advances the spellcasting (but nothing else) for both sorcerer and oracle.
In terms of spell progression it's actually a level slower than plain Sorcerer/Oracle/Mystic Theurge, but you get all of the benefits of the Evangelist class on top of the rest.
So at level 20 you could be a
Sorcerer 5/Oracle 4/Mystic Theurge 1/Evangelist 10
with the class abilities of a level 10 mystic theurge (1 base + 9 from evangelist aligned class)
You could cast spells as a 15th level sorcerer (5 base + 10 from mystic theurge) and a 14th level oracle (4 base + 10 from mystic theurge).
This lets you cast 7th level arcane and divine spells right from the start.
Since you've already gotten your Mystic Theurge level as high as it can go, from then on you'd just have to take one class at a time, whichever one you want to get better.
So at level 25 you could cast as a 20th level sorcerer and 14th level oracle, or a 18th level sorcerer and 16th level oracle, depending on how you split up those last 5 levels between oracle and sorcerer.
This continues until level 31, when you're a
Sorcerer 10/Oracle 10/Mystic Theurge 1/Evangelist 10
and you can cast spells as if you were a 20th level sorcerer and a 20th level cleric (10 base + 10 mystic theurge)
At that point, you can't advance your spellcasting any more.
Hope that's not too confusing.
| The Dragon |
What sort of epic rules is your GM going to be using? You might be able to progress MT or Evang beyond 10th level.
| TatterdWings |
Im not sure about specifics, but some rules he's already implementing are that we get a feat at every level regardless of class and race, and levels where we get bonus feats we also get those. That's the next thing i need to look into, 30+ feats to take. That's going to be a lot of work.
And everything we've been doing had been based on a 4 PC campaign with only 3 PC's so he's adjusted things around a bit.
I've never DM'd and this is only my 3rd campaign, but really only my first if you consider that we ended the first 2 campaigns a book or 2 early because my DM likes to incorporate the "Deck of Many Things" and it tends to break the game...Like when i became a half angel half demon were-bear Aasimar magus type character who had 2 lvl 18 greater fire elementals following me around as pets because i got married to an Ifrit princess or something.
I'll ask him what his plans are tomorrow when we meet up though :)
| Shiroi |
I'm not sure why the evangelist build isn't pushing to level MT to 10 as well. Evangelist 10, MT 10, sorc 10, oracle 10. Now you're a level 30 caster in two styles of sponcast. If you can find another prestige class that advances spellcasting in a class, do that too. Sorc 5, oracle 5, MT 10, EV 10, x 10 could theoretically hit level 35 caster of two lists. Sure you don't get many other class features... but your hour per level spells are now semi permanent and you cast at a dc of don't try this at home.
A heightened intensified fireball is now fluffed as briefly teleporting your opponent into the jaws of a primordial and popping their ashes back shortly after. And if that's the most creative thing you can do with this many spells, you need more help than I can provide. Looks like a variant multiclass into rogue can get you the sneak attack to qualify for arcane trickster, which will advance your MT furthest that I can see on a quick search. If your DM allows variant multiclassing, but if he's going to level 40 I'd say he's fine with things being blown well out of proportion.
| Avoron |
I'm not sure why the evangelist build isn't pushing to level MT to 10 as well. Evangelist 10, MT 10, sorc 10, oracle 10. Now you're a level 30 caster in two styles of sponcast.
Under normal rules, it can't be done, because mystic theurge only goes up to level 10 and can never pass beyond that, even with evangelist shenanigans. It just can't get any abilities beyond 10th level, because it doesn't have any.
But if TatterdWings is lucky, their GM will let mystic theurge advance past 10th level, and they'll be able to be even more spectacular.
| TatterdWings |
I have another question. I've never made a divine caster, ever. With the oracle, does it have a "best" mystery? for instance most people seem to agree that the sorcerer's arcane bloodline is the "best" bloodline. And if not than if there are any mysteries that pair particularly well with the build i'm going with?
I'm looking into the oracle stuff now because I've done basically everything else, except narrowing down a few arcane spells and picking a handful more feats. I still have at least 4 weeks i think before having the character complete and switching to it from my current character so i'm trying to focus on one aspect every 2-3 days so ill have time to check over everything and make adjustments in the final week if i need to, like if my DM decides i can't make a Drow Noble and have to stick with Human etc.
Which brings me to another question, is there a place where i can search spells filtering by descriptor? i need to pick one spell per level as my favored class ability for sorcerer but because i'm going with drow noble it needs to have the descriptor of curse, evil, or pain. And since i'm attempting a weird-ish lawful good character i'm pretty sure i can't cast evil spells, at least not for flavor, but correct me if i'm wrong :)
| TatterdWings |
I'm also looking through the curses for the oracle, and i kind of like forsaken, I'm starting at oracle 14, so the nest level after i'll be unable to die apparently? If not then I can make the branded curse work. Since drow are typically chaotic evil and i'm going for lawful good, i can say that i was tricked by a fellow noble and cast out and as i wandered i was approached by a vestige of Iomedae and was branded on the arm by her as she touched me and for her blessing I work for her now or something along those lines.
plus fire resistance and the negative buffs i can put on opponents by branding them is interesting
| Avoron |
You can find what you're looking for with the Spells DB or the Advanced Spell Search.
I believe the alignment restrictions only apply to clerics and the like, not sorcerers and oracles.
| DM_Blake |
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Build an insane asylum. For the GM. He'll need it.
Seriously.
But up to the point where he goes crazy, it sounds like fun.
LazarX
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I have another question. I've never made a divine caster, ever. With the oracle, does it have a "best" mystery? for instance most people seem to agree that the sorcerer's arcane bloodline is the "best" bloodline. And if not than if there are any mysteries that pair particularly well with the build i'm going with?
And you will find people that disagree with you on both stances.
What is "best" depends on what you want from the character. The Life Oracle is "best" if healing is the prime focus of what you want to base your character on. It's barking up totally the wrong tree if want your focus on a different area.
The Arcane Sorcerer bloodline is popular for players who want their sorcerers to be wizard knockoffs. Bloodlines for sorcerers and mysterys for oracles allow for a lot of variety and differences in roles. So the answer really comes down to Mr. Morden's standard question.
"What do you want?"
| TatterdWings |
Well I typically have been making "1 trick pony" characters, so my goal was to make as diverse a character as i could find. Something that is effective in all situations, whether they be on the battlefield or playing the party face. And less about damage and more about control of the battle. Right now i'm playing a gunslinger that basically just picks a target, blows it away in 1 round, rinse-and-repeat.