Hello everyone. My group will be starting a new game soon, so I'm tinkering with some character ideas. I'll share them here, as well as my build ideas and see what help you might offer towards fixing them.
My character will most likely be human. He's a cemetary worker who found himself being haunted by the spirit of a vengeful necromancer, demanding retribution against those who killed him. Overall, he will be a common worker, with no real martial weapons training at all. His will be a character walking the fine line while trying not to ultimately succumb to the evil that is plaguing him, so his alignment will most likely be Neutral. All he wants is to be free. Because he works in a cemetery, I was considering making his only melee weapon of choice to be his shovel. Now that you have an idea of the story, let's go into builds.
At first, I was considering a Wizard or Sorcerer for the mix, as his primary casting will be necromancy type spells.I wanted to focus more on necromancy style spells early with maybe some minionmancy flare later on. Given the nature of his backstory, however, I started looking at Shamans and Oracles. At the moment, I'm leaning towards a shaman. Here's why:
1. A shaman spirit fits the backstory better. I was considering a Lore Shaman first, opening up the access to wizard spells early, focusing more on necromancy that could stray towards minionmancy later on. For wandering spirit, I'd probably go Bones, giving me additional access to higher necromancy spells later on, and I can keep developing and rotating spells from Lore.
2. A lore shaman can be a more versatile caster than an Oracle, and even though his spell casting is divine in nature, the lore build grays the area between divine and arcane a bit.
For Feats, I was considering Catch Off Guard as one of his, given the shovel would be an improvised weapon, and possibly using Rough and Ready and/ or Surprise Weapon to give him some melee capability early on. Granted, He will become more of a caster as the story progresses, but I'm trying to build according to character rather than for OP class.
I'm leaning human for the extra feat so I can focus on casting, but I'm unsure where to go. I've even considered cross classing at least one level of Wizard to arcane bond with his shovel, so he can store a spell in it (though it will have to be masterwork), and through the necromancy school, he can gain an extra feat to improve the necromancy and channel energy for control later on. It would also open a lower Wizard spell slot for casting once I start replacing the low Wizard spells for higher ones with Arcane Enlightenment.
I know this will require some good stats, but it could be an interesting build. Any ideas or critiques would be appreciated. I have some time before this game kicks off, but I like to prepare early so I can shape my characters well.
Based off the background you Should look at a medium. If you are going a necromancer I would think like a necromancer...you should go bones right away
The difficulty with choosing Lore as your main Spirit is that when you're then limited to switching only one spell per level.
If Lore is your Wandering Spirit you get to rechoose *all* your Arcane Enlightenment spells daily, unless you have a particularly harsh GM.
Just glanced at the bones...not too impressed with the hexes, maybe I'm missing something. But as Corvino mentioned arcane enlightenment should hopefully allow you to change per day (but make sure with the gm)
I would see him having a 10-12 str due to digging (min) but for adventuring I would say the necromancer should carry him most times (with his trusty shovel in a pinch) I would check with the gm and see if he would allow proficiency with the shovel (Maybe a reflavored shortspear?)
But anyways as I mentioned check out the medium, sounds like what you are aiming for. Maybe make him really down on his luck and multiple spirits hit him up for their vengeance...could be fun to roleplay his mornings when 3 spirits are fighting for the chance to get in :)
I assume you are referring to the Possessed Shaman archetype. Granted, if I started with Lore, I'd lose access to all the spirit magic spells, which (aside from perhaps identify) I'd rarely use anyway. The problem, however is I couldn't take Arcane Enlightenment as a Hex bonus until much later, unless I spent a feat for Extra Hex. I'm not even sure if I could take the feat until I gained access to hexes.
I hadn't considered making Lore the Wandering Spirit, but it could be viable. I could even take Spirit Talker to bypass DM discretion and just choose it as my daily hex. In the long run, that might be a better option. If the DM is accepting of the wandering spirit hex to reset what spells I can use daily, I could snag it at 5th with the Extra Hex feat anyway, and still possibly take Spirit Walker to add a little more versatility to the class.
I had already planned on the spirit being more active than simple spell preparation. I had considered having him always try to sleep near people who snore loudly or near rooms with passionate lovers to drown out the constant agony of a nagging spirit.
I'd already considered Rough and Ready as one trait. I've considered Surprise Weapon for better melee combat, or perhaps Possessed to build the character flair a bit more.
Actually no, I'm talking about the medium class from Occult adventures. I wouldn't mention another class but that seems to to fit your idea pretty closely. It is pretty versatile a necromancer would be the archmage spirit. Occult adventures relies a lot on spirits, it might be worth looking at.
Losing spirit magic might be bad, especially for bones. The hexes are kinda meh and the spells really make you a necromancer
I looked an the unsworn archetype. I like the build, but I don't care for losing my hex capability in the tradeoff. I also looked at some of the Occult classes. To be honest, I forgot they even existed. There some good ideas for character building, but they fall a little short with spell progression. Shamans unlock new spell tiers every two levels, wheareas many of the other options unlock new spells tiers every 3 or 4 levels.
True Shaman is very cool, but based on concept I wanted to point out the medium as being a pretty close to concept class.
Personally I love debuffing with the misfortune/evil eye/chat but really not sure what your plan is. Do you plan to melee at all or just as a backup means? I think at level 3 you could pick up divine favor if you go the melee route