I've got CRB, APG, ARG, ACG, OA, UM, UC, UE PU, and the other UC to work with. I'm still kinda new to Pathfinder, so I'm still not sure about what I like in a PC. So, any ideas for a fun full caster?
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Just about any full caster can be fun...
Since you don't know what you like in a PC yet, let's list some of the things that casters can do...
What do you like to do most?
- Buff other players
- Debuff or curse the enemy
- Heal
- Blast creatures
- Perform Battlefield Control
- Have an animal friend (or something else) fight for you
- Use weird fun (or creepy) powers
- ?
What appeals to you in this list? If we know that, we can give better suggestions!
Well, I suppose for this I wouldn't mind doing a mix of Buffing other players and Performing Battlefield Control.
It's not either. It's a Living Campaign, on Roll20.
Is that taboo or something?
Do you know if you will be playing with the same group of characters each session? Or will they be different each time?
Just for the sake of simplicity, it will essentially be a different group each time.
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Okay, so you will be playing with random groups of players? Is that correct?
If so, then you want something flexible. A human sylvan sorcerer with a pet tiger can cover a lot of ground, giving you a protective buddy and lots of bonus spells known. The downside is that you'll have to put precious skill points into handle animal skill and a feat into boon companion.
Otherwise you can go with just about any bloodline. Arcane is the strongest, but it doesn't have the interesting story flavor of the others. Still, it can be a good place to start, and you can get a familiar or a bonded item.
Otherwise, a heavens oracle can heal, bless, provide good battlefield control.
What sort of personality do you like to put on your characters? Would you enjoy playing with an oracle curse?
Hmm
I second the sylvan sorcerer. The first handful of levels is kind of dull for full casters, so getting an animal companion is great. I have one who is a kitsune, taking the Realistic Likeness feat for unlimited human disguises from level one, and grabbing Boon Companion at 3rd. It gives plenty of in-combat and out-of-combat options. Tiger is definitely strong. Wolf is good if you want something that will blend in a little more.
Druid is a nice choice, too. You get an animal companion and eventually the ability to transform. Your spell list will focus on buffing your companion more than anybody else, but that's all right. Good battlefield control right out of the gate, too.
Well, I can put any personality on my character, though I don't like playing jerks. And thanks for the advice, I'll go take a look them.
Oracles are really fun too. They have built in flavor, and the combination of curse & mystery can lead to some really fun characters.
Druids are great at buffing and battlefield control. And they have animal companions. They're VERY versatile, too. They can buff, blast, battlefield control, tank, transport, heal, divine, scout, and do some utility too. Summoning can be very versatile, too.
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Buff + battlefield control = evangelist cleric. Feather domain, but get an anklyosarus with combat reflexes instead. On hit fort save or daze :)
Extended tongues, command everyone to hold.
If you had some other books, like inner sea world magic, or mummy's mask book 2, you could make a hangover cleric.
Standard wizard can as well, use glitterdust for battlefield control, and cast haste (buff). Heroism is a good buff too.
Witch, elements patron going for dazing spell.
Druid buffs tend to be more animal companion/monk based.
Well, I suppose for this I wouldn't mind doing a mix of Buffing other players and Performing Battlefield Control.
Looks like somebody wants to be master of the universe. Try playing a god wizard. They're a lot of fun and extremely effective. Guide
Well , im having fun playing a sorc , arcane blooline for the familiar , focusing on increasing CHA and spell focus (conjuration) to increase the save DC of spells like grease , gliterdust , pit fall... for battle field control , while i buff with enlarge person , haste...
I went for the sorc so i could get a great CHA score and be good at social rolls personally.
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Well, I can put any personality on my character, though I don't like playing jerks. And thanks for the advice, I'll go take a look them.
Yes, you can put any personality on a character... on the other hand, the personality that you put on the character will probably affect the fun that you and your team have at the table more than any other build decision you might make.
For an example of how this can affect your play, here are the personalities of two very different life oracles that I've seen in play locally:
Lyric the Singing Paladin: Bubbly, trusting, raunchy sense of humor. She assumes that everyone is nice and likes her, because everyone DOES. Even goblins, trolls, and one baffled quasit that kept trying to talk her into to joining the forces of evil and becoming an anti-paladin. (They had to have a temporary alliance against a greater evil in one scenario I was in. We came to the agreement that I would send him home at the end, and I did.)
Boris the Masochist [speaking in thick Russian accent]: "I am Boris from Ustalov. In my country, we understand two things, BLOOD and PAIN. I love them both! Give them all to me!" When others got wounded, he'd shriek, "Yes! Yes! It hurts so good!" If they didn't get wounded enough, he'd call out, "You call that blood? You call that pain? Bah! Boris have no use for you!"
Both fun. Both doing exactly the same thing for their allies. But so different!
Thank you all for the advice, it is appreciated.
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Instead of making a super tactically appropriate character and casually rolling with that, you could also try to figure out what 'fun' really means to you in a PF game in general, and then build a spellcaster that sort of creates 'fun moments' for you as much as possible. Although that sounds like 'Arcane Clown' to some... that's not necessarily what I mean.
In my personal experience, playing a highly mechanically effective character is only 25% of the fun. So what defines 'fun' the other 75%? Well, it's hard to define. In my mind, the ideal 'fun' position while playing PF is a position where you are actively contributing to the progress of the game and the campaign, and do your best in and out of combat, but still have fun when you fail at it.
If you're just going to play a 'battlefield-control optimized spellcaster' you're going to expect your character to succeed most of the time. But what if you're simply having bad luck and have a session filled with bad rolls? What if your GM has an unfortunate taste in enemy creatures and characters that happen to have a lot of magic resistance? Poop happens sometimes, but you might end up sobbing that your uber optimized character just ain't cutting it.
So I always try to figure out for myself what "kind" of character I'd want to play and what "kind of stuff" it would be cool to have him do and be good at as much as possible. For me, that's step 1. Numbercrunching is step 2.
Not too long ago I made a Dwarven Wizard called 'Rustbeard' who had a Goat Familiar named 'Gertrude Ophelia Ann Theodora". He used the Improved Spell Sharing teamwork feat to make himself and the goat both shoot fire from their eyes (very satanically of course) with the Burning Gaze spell, or send enemies flying with the Force Punch spell. His craft skills were so amazing that he could make rare masterwork goat cheese and cashmere and sell it for stupendous amounts to aristocrats. He'd also take spells like Strangling Hair but instead call it 'Strangling Beard'. Meanwhile, he cast a lot of [earth] descriptor spells, which I thought was flavourful for a dwarven wizard, and even if there aren't many spells in that category, there are enough good choices like Tremor Blast, Shifting Sands, Transmute Rock to Mud / Mud to Rock, to make it fun and worthwhile.
Even if sometimes I failed to strangle a creature to death with my beard, I was definitely having fun trying. Even if the goat sometimes couldn't burn down a bad guy by staring at them very angrily, I still had fun imagining the situation. When I was busy crafting magic arms and armour with aid of my familiar, I imagined the goat would headbutt the armourplates into shape. I had fun when I saw the look on the face of my GM and party members when the goat sent a BBEG flying into a crevasse with a Force Punch.