I currently have a 1st level wizard character who likes to summon things. Not master summoner type summon-spamming, but more like max-once-per-battle summoning. I was toying around with taking the feat Acadamae Graduate. It allows you to summon as a standard action instead of a full-round action, at the cost of requiring a DC-15 fort save to avoid becoming fatigued. Now, fatigued isn't too terrible, but exhausted is, which is what would happen if I failed such a save twice. So, I began looking for ways to cure fatigue between battles.
I started toying with the idea of a 1 level cleric dip at 2nd level, with the Community and Travel domains. I didn't dump Wisdom, so I currently have a +1 wis mod. This one level dip would give me the following:
- The ability to heal fatigue 4 times per day (should be enough to allow for all-day summoning at once-per-battle, even if I fail all the saves)
- A 40-foot move speed, with the ability to ignore difficult terrain for 4 rounds per day
- Longstrider domain spell for getting 50-foot move speed for one hour a day
- 3 extra 0-level spells known off the cleric list
- 2 extra 1-level spells known off the cleric list
- Ability to use cleric wands, including CLW, without needing UMD
- A +2 boost to fort saves
- Emergency healing (a 1d6 Channel Energy once a day due to dumped Cha, and spontaneous casting of a couple of CLW)
Downsides would be a 1-level slower wizard progression, and losing out of the 11th level of wizard at the end of my career.
Seems to me that this is a valuable dip at low levels, eventually getting less valuable over time. Is that an accurate assessment? Overall, does it seem worth it? I am new to PF, so still trying to figure out all the things. Thanks!
Rather than slowing down your spell progression, you'd be better off packing some scrolls of Lesser Restoration, and investing in UMD. 2 PP gets you a set of 5 scrolls, so it's pretty cheap. Or even without UMD, there's a good chance you'll be in a party with someone who can use the scroll on you anyway.
I thought about that, but the math didn't seem to work out too well. Figure an average of 4 battles per scenario, and assume (because fort saves tehSuck for the wizard) fatigue after each battle. That means you need to cure the fatigue 3 times (last battle will get cleared out by sleeping) each scenario. That means I am basically spending 1 PP per scenario on average (needing a new set of 5 Lesser Restoration scrolls every other scenario). That is fully half of my career prestige points, possibly more if I don't always get the secondary, which seems like a steep cost to me. Again, though, I am new to all this, so maybe that's not as bad as it seems?
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There is certainly a lot to be gained from a cleric dip, but that loss of a level of casting can be quite crippling, especially for a summoning-orientated character.
Given that the quality of your summons is more or less exclusively determined by the level of the spell used, this means that you're going to be a level behind on every odd level.
At level 5, a regular wizard could summon a Leopard, which can instantly pounce and smite for five attacks. You'd still be stuck with like, a small earth Elemental. Which is good, but not nearly as lethal.
Summoning will still be a very useful trick, but it's far more powerful if you get your full spell progression. It's the same for other spells, too - you're getting Haste later, Dimension Door and Black Tentacles later, and so on.
I would maybe consider the Occultist Arcanist as in-between. It admittedly has the slightly slower spell progression anyway, but you still get those juicy standard action summons on odd level ups without the fatigue penalty.
Thanks for the advice, I will look into Occultist Arcanist - looks interesting!
