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Want to play a card throwing character with some hexes, evil eye really. Just wonder if it worth taking both classes. The cartomancer adds the hex and the ability to throw the cards without destroying them. If I take three levels will this detract from the card caster magus?
Also can I make a dervish dancing card caster. The spell combat seems to work with melee still, while the spell strike becomes card only.
Similarly since the cartomancer works on touch spells do they need to be the witches spells? Can I use my touch magus spells this way?
You could also play a Aetherkineticist with VMC Witch to eventually give you Evil Eye, this build path would more emphasize your Card Throwing over your hexes, giving you a pretty solid damage progression and when you get Expanded Element you can go Gravity to get both Aetheric and Gravitic boosts, letting you really beef up one of those playing cards for only the price of 3 burn to use both at once, then when you get your second Expanded Element you can grab Aether again for the Force Blast
The Cartomancer thrown cards are only touch attacks when you are using them to deliver touch spells. And when you deliver touch spells with them, you do not also do damage from the card attack. If you throw the card to just do damage, then you are basically attacking with a +1 returning Dart.
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That is one up on the card caster though, since they can also deliver touch spells but do so as normal ranged attacks, not touch. How much extra damage can the cards actually do I any practical sense, perhaps another d4+6-7 depending on build?
If you can use the witches ability to deliver any touch spell, not just the witch ones, then it's a step up. Since I'm not 100% sure you can actually combine the card casters spell strike with spell combat, one is specifically ranged, the other melee.
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Since I'm not 100% sure you can actually combine the card casters spell strike with spell combat, one is specifically ranged, the other melee.
Oh that, you can clearly do. You make your full melee attacks and cast a spell (per the spell combat ability), then you throw your card as part of casting the spell (per the card caster archetype).
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One thing that rarely gets mentioned with card caster and cartomancer is that it eats your swift action each round. To throw a card you have to be using the arcane strike feat. Just something to watch for off you ever plan to quicken spells.
At the moment I am enjoying card caster, since I can bestow curse at range.
I would like to try a cartomancer witch , ihave a lv 4 character to build, i thinked i would go something like this:
Feats: point blank ,preciseshot, extra hex
Hex: fortune, cackle, slumber
What do you think?
Haven't really looked at the occult classes. I've heard Kineticists are supposed to be quite poor. I shall look into this option, it sounds interesting
Kineticist is not poor at all; there are a lot of naysayers that claim the class is terrible, but have never actually played it. They see the Burn in the kineticist and immediately say it's worthless without ever playing it. An Aether-based kineticist would be a cool option with VMC witch.
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Haven't really looked at the occult classes. I've heard Kineticists are supposed to be quite poor. I shall look into this option, it sounds interestingKineticist is not poor at all; there are a lot of naysayers that claim the class is terrible, but have never actually played it. They see the Burn in the kineticist and immediately say it's worthless without ever playing it. An Aether-based kineticist would be a cool option with VMC witch.
Kineticist is quite poor indeed. There are a lot of yea-sayers that claim the class looks amazing, but have never actually compared it to other classes. They see the flavor of the kineticist and immediately say it's awesome without ever seeing that other classes can do much better with the exact same fluff. An aether-based kineticist would be a cool option, it's just also a weak option. After all, liking a class says nothing about the power of the class.
I would like to try a cartomancer witch , ihave a lv 4 character to build, i thinked i would go something like this:
Feats: point blank ,preciseshot, extra hex
Hex: fortune, cackle, slumberWhat do you think?
As a person playing a Cartomancer, I don't feel Precise and Point-Blank are worthwhile. When someone is engaged in a melee, you can always Hex, Cast a Spell, target someone else, or hold for a 5 foot step. You always have options other than deliver touch through a card, and the two feats are generally better spent elsewhere.
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I've decided on a rat folk witch (cartomancer)/mesmeriset (cult leader). At level 4 he's witch 3, mesmest 1. I ignored point blank and far shot because you're targeting touch AC, which is generally poor. At level 4 he has slumber and evil eye. Feat wise it's extra hex, elemental spell (so my snowball can be acid, how do I get shocking grasp as a witch?) and accursed hex (because someone always seems to make that save). The rat folk FCB extends one hex to 35', the other 40' (although I'm not certain that's a correct interpretation), next hex will be cackle and then the rat folk FCB goes to that so he can hex and move out to 60' to avoid combat.
Haven't really looked at the occult classes. I've heard Kineticists are supposed to be quite poor. I shall look into this option, it sounds interesting
I'm still not sure about Kineticists, but one thing that I'm fairly sure of is that VMC Witch is terrible -- as far as I can tell, the only thing saving it from being the worst VMC option is that VMC Gunslinger is even worse.
At 1st level, you get a Patron, but it doesn't do anything for you; you also get forbidden from using Extra Hex.
At 3rd level, you get a Familiar (at least you get this, which puts it ahead of VMC Gunslinger in utility).
At 7th level, you get a Hex that is stuck at 1st level effectiveness until you get to 15th level, so you will be extremely limited in your choice of Hexes, to something that doesn't permit a Saving Throw and doesn't depend upon a scaling effect.
At 11th level, you get a Cantrip (but only if you have Intelligence at least 10), as with VMC Wizard, except that it's from the Witch spell list instead of the Sorcerer/Wizard spell list; on VMC Wizard, this is a lousy 11th level ability to compensate for how good the other VMC Wizard levels are; on VMC Witch, it's another contender for consolation booby prize relative to VMC Gunslinger.
At 15th level, you get a 2nd Hex that is stuck at 1st level, and your first Hex finally gets to advance to 8th level, and then is stuck there -- see the 7th level description for how limiting this is.
At 19th level, you get a Major Hex that is stuck at 10th level -- see above for how limiting this is; for some weird reason, it can't be Ice Tomb (is Ice Tomb really that overpowered?).
Again, I'm still not sure about how good Kineticist is, but I am sure that you are going to want to spend 5 feats on something better than VMC Witch.
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With respect to the question of how much damage you will do as a Cartomancer Witch compared to a Card Caster Magus, if you're going to be a Witch, your primary role is probably not going to be to do hit point damage, because you have better things to be doing, whether with spells or Hexes (even though it is possible to build a Witch to be a blaster) -- that's the job of the Magus (although if you go Hexcrafter, then you can do some of the Witch's job as well). So which one you want to use depends upon whether you are going more for control or damage.
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Yeah, I've come to the same conclusion regarding VMC witch. Not a great choice. TMy ratfolk witch is definately a debuffer/controller, not a lot of damage dealing in there. I'm still going to go cartomancer, but i'm also contemplating hedge with for the spontaneous healing, it appears like we are not going to have a dedicated healer this time round but rather two part timers (my witch possible included).
^Fortunately, the two archetypes are in fact compatible (you can't rely on the www.d20pfsrd.com archetype tables -- sometimes they miss changed or replaced features, and occasionally they mark features as changed or replaced when they aren't). Just beware of potential for catastrophic user error at level 2 (and only level 2) -- Cartomancer gets Deadly Dealer at level 2, but doesn't get the Returning ability or ability of cards to avoid destruction when used with Deadly Dealer until level 3 (yes, you're supposed to use a backup deck, but it would be all too easy to do a Yosemite Sam type of error with this).