Apologies ahead of schedule, but I am just hitting a wall comprehending and trying to conceptualize a build looking at the optimization guides.
I wish to be a Conjurer, first and foremost, possibly a secondary focus in Transmutation, and do not wish to rely on Evocation or Necromancy for flavor purposes (the latter will always be a moral convention in any PC I RP). I wish to deal damage/down the enemy (does not have to be fatal, but a guaranteed out short of DM Fiat) without being that maniac evocaphile constantly crooning about their sweet Fireball.
My goal is to create a Wizard, obviously, and I do not feel an archetype is necessary at this time.
The one Metamagic feat I wish to utilize (currently) would be Quicken Spell. My desired goal for feats is to enhance the DCs of saves to make against me, force re-rolls against opponents' successes, and if at all possible, raise my caster level. I am used to playing with groups where loot is rare, and the DMs are unable to deal with crafting and opt out (oh well, I don't mind, just one less thing to worry about, really). A focus on SR and succeeding on Concentration would be nice if it does not end up taking away crucial feats.
My eventual desired playstyle is to cast a spell using the Standard Action or Full Round Action, then utilize a quickened spell. If there's a way to convert the Move Action into another spell of action that a Wizard can perform, please lemme know!
Are there any Metamagic Feats, Arcane Discoveries, regular Feats that would help me guideline this character to being a character able to solo an equivalent level CR if possible?
In effect, I believe in constant, passive abilities versus many options all sharing the same finite resource.
And this is before I dive back into researching conjuration to make dem summons hit harder, laster longer, and wow... I'm setting myself up for a double entendre.
In Summary:
*No Item Creation because groups/DMs not familiar/comfortable
*Primary Focus on Conjuration, Secondary in Transmutation
*Abstaining from Evocation and Necromancy (current persona deems them blatantly destructive and wrong)
*Currently will only use one Metamagic Treat in Quicken Spell
*Wishes to raise DCs of saves and effects that sabotage those saves
*Wishes to boost Caster Level
*Peripheral interest in SR and Concentration
*Ability to maximize usage of Action Economy without tapping into Mythic.
*Peripheral interest on what to do when low on spells (Spellslinger, perhaps?)
Anybody have input/opinions?
I loved being the tier-9 mage in 3.5, but in current groups I feel my playstyle needs to evolve past just happy-spamming one spell a round while relying on teammates to protect me. All I had to do then was happily drop one effect a round and project color commentary on the conflict. Divine casters I have a lot of fun with because of how durable they are, but there's a whole new world of arcane fun to explore.
Get spell focus, greater spell focus (raise DC), spell specialization (raise caster level). Persistent spells is a metamagic feat (at +2 spell slot, enemies must save again if the first throw is successful).
Spell penetration and greater spell penetration help with SR (you are focused on conjuration so this isn't so much important). To maximize action economy you either cast Contingency or you cast Borrowed Time. It hurts your constitution but it gives you a second swift action that cannot be used as an immediate action; quickened spells are okay. By the time you'll be able to pull the majority of those tricks you should never be low on spells. If that happens then buy some scrolls and use them.
I'm reviewing the spell list for conjuration and wow... my character would be a walking hypocrite because he ends up having direct damage effects a la evocation himself lol. I think I'll work that into the persona. "But something came of it..."
Spell Focus + Greater, & Augment Summoning has been a core staple, and I do not wish to throw every feat slot at Evolved Summoned Monster. Augment Calling I'll stay away from because I don't enjoy the coercion/bribe side of summoning at all. Acadamae Graduate seems useful too, and now I need to look at the direct damage side of the school.
Did not know about Borrowed Time.
Anyone have opinions as well on Idealize and Tenacious Transmutation for my secondary focus? Its a lot of feats invested, and I am leaning towards mono-focus towards Conjuration.
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I wish to be a Conjurer, first and foremost, possibly a secondary focus in Transmutation, and do not wish to rely on Evocation or Necromancy for flavor purposes (the latter will always be a moral convention in any PC I RP).
Extend Spell, no doubt at all. You will love increasing the duration of your summons and buffs.
To raise caster level, use Heighten Spell.
To make them reroll saves, take Persistent Spell.
To succeed on concentration rolls, try Combat Casting and Uncanny Concentration.
Heighten Spell increases spell level, not caster level.
Spells like flaming sphere, aggressive thundercloud, and ball lightning can be controlled as a move action after they're cast, which might help.
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Your dislike for necromancy needs to be addressed as it is one of the most powerful schools and your "flavor" dislike probably stims from the idea its all about undead. It is about the study of life and death magics. Not just death magic. Tho it might be this characters moral issue you as a player should not keep that philosophy. Necromancy is the only school of magic that gets stronger the longer the adventuring day goes on. Unlike other schools that the wizard gets weaker.
But I digress.
On all my wizards I take Quicken spell at 13.
I tend to take persistent spell at 5th or 7th depending on the build.
-dazing spell comes to mind for spells like Acid Arrow.
Since you like transmutation the Extend spell is a good one but might be best on a rod. The trait Transmuter will give you +1 CL to all transmutation spells.
Funny as much as you love transmutation yet hate Necromancy your missing out on one of the best combos. Marionette possession + self buffs like undead anatomy and giant form. Giving your bad will save fighter undead anatomy can help boost his combat prowess.
As a long time player I tend to never oppose necromancy...if I'm not specializing in it. (My favorite school followed close by conjuration) I tend to oppose enchantment and Divination as my go to opposition. Enchantment is a all or nothing casting...either it works or you just flat out wasted a spell. You need to really specialize to make it work. Only spell of note I miss that I put on a scroll is heroism and its greater version. And for divination I just eat the 2 slots for detect magic and scroll everything else situational.
If the GM doesn't allow you to scribe scrolls, that's not fair to arcane casters. You might want to give them a pocket calculator as an early christmas present.
If the GM doesn't allow you to scribe scrolls, that's not fair to arcane casters. You might want to give them a pocket calculator as an early christmas present.
I guess all the PFS players and GMs are getting free electronics this year, then!
==Aelryinth
Not allowing crafting is a pretty common houserule. A lot of GMs don't understand all the intricacies of the crafting system and a lot of others simply don't want to deal with it. As long as you give them another feat to substitute for it (even PFS does this, and though they lock you into a certain feat it's a pretty damn good feat) I don't see it as unfair.
If the GM doesn't allow you to scribe scrolls, that's not fair to arcane casters. You might want to give them a pocket calculator as an early christmas present.
As a Gm I go with PFS item creation rules. So you get spell focus for free instead.
I tend to blur lines between mechanic and moral fields, favoring the moral (I have no plans to become a lich). The defining trait of Necromancy is Undeath; it IS Death Magic. The only way it interacts with Life is how it cheats it and hastens its conclusion. The Cures and Raises belong to Conjuration. Even Evocation can be used for benevolent benefit.
The only time I make exceptions for Negative Energy afficianados is when the characters can't help it. As in, yeah, I'll hold the wand just so I can heal my Dhampir associates. As far as using Negative Energy to kill or the wonderfully effective curses and other debilitators, I view as equal-opportunity ways to fight, its the moment undeath is broached that I'd go off the rails unless it was cultural -case in point Undying Court from Eberron but I'd happily send any Karrnathi undead to its proper place in the afterlife.
Forgot about Extend Spell, thanks!
Also, @Finlanderboy: did not know about free Spell Focus from PFS. Nice.
Flaming Sphere and Ball Lightning are hilarious. Nothing like asking the DM what happens when you direct your ball 'o fun into the water where the enemy is (Fantasy Electrofishing). The only part is that you can only move one instance of the spell at a time or can you move ALL your balls/Move effects simultaneously by sacrificing your one move action?
That is not an accurate outlook on necromancy (neither traditionally or currently).
Traditionally spells such has the cure (X) wounds and raise dead, resurrection, heal and remove disease were in the necromancy school as it is the study of life and death.
Even when 3.0 moved those to conjuration (a very stupid move that I always adjust back in my games), spells such as disrupt undead, bed of iron, cause fear, restore corpse, life pact, false life, companion life link, fear, and many others point out that necromancy is not simply death.
And even if it was simply 'death' it's still a much better approach at it that other methods. For one death is a natural thing, so the association of death with immorality is incorrect. Death may not be desirable to the individual but that does not make it bad, incorrect, evil or immoral. Indeed using a fear spell to disperse a mob in town would be better than using a fireball for the same effect -- the fireball is going to set buildings on fire and kill people, fear will simply make them run away.
I see more moral ambiguity with enchantment and divination that I do with necromancy. Granted necromancy's is more in your face, but much more easily avoidable for it.
Traditionally. The setting I'm in now and learned in is 3E, 3.5, and its current final development/evolution through OGL is PF. Which pretty much sidelines Necromancy to Death Effects and friends.
Argue the ambiguity and morality of using Necromancy effects, because most Arcanes won't hesitate to use its utility aspects because blinding/deafeaning/cursing a target is optimal for debuff/neutralize purposes versus a hard kill and sometimes its the only mechanical way to make a threat manageable, but they aren't true Necros are they? I've rocked an Oracle where the curses came with the Archetype Dual-Cursed and I figured it came with the afflictions, and alongside Witches whose whole schtick was debilitation, but I notice we stayed away from going all the way Undeath.
The Rez' effects seek to restore the living, and I wonder how Pharasma feels about a soul being pulled back to the Material Plane for a direct subsequent chance (and eventual later judgment), versus the Raises where said soul is cut out of Golarion's cycle entirely and cheats the system.
The usage and utility of curses isn't in doubt, but morally becomes a slippery slope as every Necro player I've run alongside, from the "Neutral Chaotic" Cleric (of Olidammara... yeah he was a troll) to the Dread Necromancer who eventually had to raise something and crossed that threshold, and the player who opted to become a Graveknight just to gain that edge they felt they needed. Jerks. Every. Single. One.
Come to think about, aren't the majority of Necromancers in the fluff the reason why a lot of adventures begin? Like, as in stopping them, or they were the BBEGs in the backdrop/direct cause of conflicts that weren't gray?
Granted, us Arcanes all have the potential to be great Evils ourselves, as evidenced by Thassilon and Razmiran in-setting. Evocation is destructive, a Conjurer can enslave. Trasmuters can make monstrosities. Abjurers can persecute. Enchanters and Illusionists can dominate. Even Diviners can violate privacy...
As a Conjurer, I'd have to RP the morality of having summoned creatures pulled in to do my temporary bidding and have already decided to never bind a creature, but in my experience of having familiars & animal companions, I've never viewed my buddies as expendable assets. I'm going to play Conjurer and perhaps a little bit of Transmuter from the perspective of positive creation.
Got it, you're an old-schooler who was there back when White Necromancers prolly roamed Greyhawk, but the examples I encounter now are just great billboards of what Necromancy is about.
BTW, this debate is fun, and I hope I'm not being antagonizing, but I feel we are having a classic Nerd Wank debate over Skub, where we are arguing parallel lines of thought.
If you're banning evo, spellslinger is not a sensible option. Too many of the spells it affects are in that school. Also losing arcane school really hurts. If you want a desperate fallback option carry a bunch of alchemical weapons in your handy haversack and/or get a familiar with the mauler archetype.
BTW, don't casually throw your familiar into combat, but if you max your intimidate it shares your skill ranks & can try to demoralise enemies without getting too close, and it may be able to use some magic items.
Agree. I've looked at Spellslinger and you just give up so much. The Haversack has been so convenient as well in my game that its worth delaying the NA amulet that is almost a mandatory in all my progressions. It made me give up 4 schools... talk about an Elitist Arcane Hipster build.
I've been having so much fun on Hero Lab toying around with the design that I ended up toggling on Mythic and Gestalt and scrambling it with Arcanist... such joy.
Asides from key touch spells, typically to downed/distressed allies, my Familiar is usually for Sentry duties or RP purposes. Example: we have to protect/escort a VIP. Why not always have the familiar with the VIP while the DM does his/her best to distract us away from the VIP because that is how that kind of scenario usually develops.
I modeled a weasel inspired by Chamo from Negima and subsequently subverted. Made him chocolate-furred with odd patterns mimicking tattoos a la Lil Wayne; called him Weezy. The familiar drank, smoked, snorted, and injected anything under the sun... moon, and stars for that matter. The best was transitioning from his Lil Wayne snicker-laugh to the Count (Sesame Street) after he just did a line of Vampire Dust from an enemy we just defeated. I made a play of my PC always being oblivious to Weezy's antics, no matter how obvious his substance abuse sprees became.
To think, I chose weasel at the time just for the reflex bonus... Rollplay meets Roleplay lol. It was doubly funny because the DM is Law Enforcement IRL and it visibly affected him everytime I figured out a way for Weezy to have fun, making him guess if I was just being random as a PC, or having the familiar reflect the inner nature/alter ego of my character.
The ability for a familiar to spit out horrible puns in lyrical form in the middle of a session that slows down is priceless. Basically it enabled me to pull freely from R&B/Hip-Hop culture into D20 for some shenanigans.
Let me put it another way.
I would not play a wizard at all if I could not bank some spells in scrolls. If a dungeon starts with a thick stone door and some writing in a language nobody took, the wizard is just going to say, "Sorry, I didn't memorize comprehend languages." The riddle is wasted, the dungeon is wasted, and the whole friggen adventure path might be cancelled.
Try again next game session with an archeologist rather than a Wizard.
The lack of scroll support is gonna hurt me, I know! But the DMs I play with just do not or are unable to support item creation. I'm not mad at that fact, but I have learned to deal with it on my own way. Looking at spell lists takes me forever before a match, and I end up having to build a Primary and scenario-based listings based on what I anticipate what I will encounter, kinda why Wizards have to be Batman in preparation. Thankfully, I've never run into a DM that will target prepared casters' books.
We've run into those scenarios before, and then it's up to the DM to give us another route/clue. Or not; we tried with what we had, oh well.
Kind of like a group that does not have a class that can deal with magical traps. If we spot it, good, if we don't... oops, I usually tank the traps or prod them till they off. That DM eventually adapted away from direct magical traps into puzzles/environmental hazards the group had skills/resources for because eventually we would fail our perception checks, and after that, our saves. If we had to obligate to specific roles the game loses some of its fun and every game would be the quintessential Cleric-Fighter-Rogue-Wizard quartet. I've insisted on type guidelines before as a DM, and the players resented the restrictions -everybody then wanted a hard hitter and the most magical player in a group of six was a Bard. Heck, I play with a lot of casuals and the majority of them favor melee/ranged direct combatants, I grew used to being the mage to provide some party variety and it stuck.
We've gotten a little inundated with relying on drops for additional magic goods. I've also run into DMs who as a stylistic choice will limit magic/items without stating it out loud, particularly the E6 variety -will never stop me from my tendency to play full-caster. It just means the group has to deal with me having to stop after two or three encounters. Heck, about that time is when their HP is down enough for the day to put a dent in healing items (ironically magical to facilitate daily delving) and require protracted time to rest and recuperate.
No matter, I play the class that can turn an encounter sideways, upside down, and ways I'm sure would be illegal in the state of Georgia. Let the melee types cast Full-Round Attack ad infinitum, ours is the ability to go "Oh really?" and pull it off with a series of smart choices.