So I have a crazy idea of making a cqb sorcerer and for this to work I'll need some serious AC and DR but there are a dozen different spells and feats that seem like they might do the trick like Arcane shield, reactive arcane shield, wall of stone, wall of iron, shield, wall of force, emergency force sphere, etc. I'm very new to the game keep that in mind but I could use a little push in the right direction as I've been reading all the books for hours comparing spells, any other advice for my build you might have is greatly appreciated ^-^
cqb?
Generally non front liners don't rely on AC or DR - that's more for Fighters or Barbarians. Wizards and Sorcs want Invisibility, Mirror Image, or Displacement.
And for that matter, most try to avoid getting to close to the monsters anyway. You don't have very many hp and your poor fort save will get you killed.
If you still want to do this ... look at the bonus types. Shield and Mage Armour give +4 to AC, but Shield gives a SHIELD bonus, while Mage Armour gives an ARMOUR bonus. If they're of different types, they stack. If, however, you tried to Mage Armour Barbie the Barbarian in her breastplate, it'd still go ... and entirely not stack with the +6 armour bonus she gets from the mundane metal. (And note how magic can risk being redundant with non-magic, like here.)
Also look at durations. You don't want to spend too much time dropping spells on yourself in the first few rounds, but some spells just don't last long enough. Again, Mage Armour (1 hour per level) and Shield (1 minute per level) gives a good contrast. Mage Armour can eventually be cast-and-forget, while Shield is something to do if you know a fight's coming soon but not on you yet.
Finally ... look at how much magic you're spending. Mage Armour and Shield are both level 1 spells. Say you're a level 1 sorcerer. Do you want to burn two spell casts on a single battle to get those things? You only have so many spells per day. And don't forget actions spent -- you're doing this while your friends are doing more useful things like shooting or swording. That +8 to armour class won't do any good if by the time you get it the party's either mopping up the battlefield, or being USED as mops ...
One.
If you really want to be a sorcerer/wizard doing the fighter's job, I'd strongly suggest the draconic sorcerer/dragon disciple route.
CQB/CQC is short for close quaters battle or close quarters combat, I played this class in a custom pathfinder rule set and I've been charged with the task of moving it back towards true pathfinder. The character had a 10 damage (being base health) 10ft range whip spell and a wall spell that could be used to instant sheild myself or another creature and it was nearly indestructable for the purpose of it being the only thing keeping me alive as I had no armor and there was no ac in this campaign just increased health from armor and we rolled reflex for everything (you can see why we are moving back to original rules) I'm basically trying to find a replacement for my arguably OP sheild wall spell as well as something to keep me from being one shot when I eventually get caught by something or shot
CQB/CQC is short for close quaters battle or close quarters combat, I played this class in a custom pathfinder rule set and I've been charged with the task of moving it back towards true pathfinder. The character had a 10 damage (being base health) 10ft range whip spell and a wall spell that could be used to instant sheild myself or another creature and it was nearly indestructable for the purpose of it being the only thing keeping me alive as I had no armor and there was no ac in this campaign just increased health from armor and we rolled reflex for everything (you can see why we are moving back to original rules) I'm basically trying to find a replacement for my arguably OP sheild wall spell as well as something to keep me from being one shot when I eventually get caught by something or shot
This may be difficult. After all, if you're trying to move from 'overpowered homebrew' to 'stock Pathfinder', you're going to drop a little and just not have replacements.
dot, I've done this sucessfully, I'll come back another day to help (it's late). Quick question, do you plan on doing damage with weapons or spells? From what you said probably weapons, but you could have meant spells.
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Shield bonuses don't stack, they overlap, so only the strongest work.Guys, read the original post not just the title.
He's talking about spells that provide some sort of defense, not just the Shield spell. Many of them do stack.
And? Half of those are shield bonuses, the title question was about shield (and so shield bonuses), so replying about that was right.
Before I posted Vaellen had already given the best reply about defensive options for a spellcaster:
"Generally non front liners don't rely on AC or DR - that's more for Fighters or Barbarians. Wizards and Sorcs want Invisibility, Mirror Image, or Displacement."
Relying on AC bonuses for a wizard and going frontliner isn't a good idea in Pathfinder.
If you're not 100% set on using the sorcerer class, you might consider playing a magus instead. That class has most of the defensive spells you mentioned on its class list, and the spell blending arcana can add some of the missing ones from the sorcerer's list.
With its ability to channel offensive spells through a weapon (such as a whip - you may also want to look at the Bladebound magus archetype for this), it seems to fit the flavour you're going for.
If you want to mix magic with swordplay, you have to look at the magus and psychic warrior (3rd party psionic class). A true sorcerer playing at being a fighter is a dead sorcerer.
And here are your problems as sorcerer:
- Attributes: in a typical campaign you cannot afford the stats to shine in melee and spellcasting. Especially you cannot afford the STR.
- Choice of armor and weapons: using only simpe weapons is underwhelming, as I well know (divine caster here).
- Hitpoints: your hitpoints are not really good enough when crits and multiple attacks start to fly. In level 10 you see 35 damage on a hit regularly and crits around 70-90.
- You have a bad fortitude save. This is important as frontliner because many monsters employ poison besides other things that require fortitude saves (negative levels, disease, petrification, etc.).
- Lack of feats: you get no melee related bonus feats and with your basic stock you cannot do much, if you want to spend at least some on your magic.
- Lack of class features for melee: all melee classes have their shtick: weapon training, preferred opponents, backstab, rage, and so on. You have nothing.
- BAB: having the worst BAB progression is not helpful. Even the medium BAB is bad, when I see what I am not hitting with it. At the end you are looking at three attacks (hasted) while your fighter has eight of them at double the BAB and thrice the damage.
Now for defense. AC is cute, but overrated. DR is good, but hard to get. You have actually pretty good defense spells, which do more than AC for you. Mirror Image, Displacement, Stoneskin or Forceful hand will achieve more than a set of mithril armor.
For example, I have an AC of 34 (mostly +3 gear), but many of our opponents have an attack of +30 (and don't even ask about the big ones our DM loves so much). So my AC usually means zip. Many opponents aim at touch AC, which is like 12 for me...you get the picture. Now, when the enemy is attacking me six times at +30/+30/+30/+25/+25/+20 for 1d6+15 he will hit me 3-4 times for 4d6+60 (74), force possibly 4 saves vs poison, and if he crits (likely with 6 rolls at 17-20 crit range) fur will fly. If I had instead displacement, he would lose 2 of the 4 attacks hitting me on average. If I had stoneskin, he would hit me for 1d6+5 effectively, also much better.
So better check out what spells you have that play with miss chances, cover and forcing re-rolls. They are way better than armor.
Next stop: spells that grant immunities. Those are typically high level, but there are a few. Take Dustform for example; it grants you the incorporeal status, meaning that everything will miss you with 50%, be it spell or weapon. Anything that can change your creature type is good (and very rare in Pathfinder), like becoming an elemental with it's immunity to crits.
As someone has mentioned above: buffing yourself in battle is a huge problem. The typical battle lasts 4-6 rounds. Most of the powerful spells last rounds and minutes, no more, so you cannot keep them up. You have to decide how much time of the battle you want to spend doing something and how much buffing yourself. Giving yourself two buffs means the fight is already mostly over when you reach the first enemy. You might have been better off firing two offensive spells during those rounds instead of buffing.
If you are dead set on the sorcerer instead of one of the hybrid classes, your best route is to take one level of paladin and then go sorcerer, using a 2H sword for preference. That one level of pally gives you the much needed proficiences, and if you take a second level the +CHA to saves ability. If the DM allows it, pick elan from the psionics book as race (again for the save power), otherwise stay human (for the feat) or check out the races with combat-related stats.
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Stone Shield is a spell that sounds similar to your shield. It creates a small stone wall next to you that gives you cover. Unfortunately it's only one round, so .. there's probably better ways to avoid attacks, like teleport.
The Shaman (Wind Spirit) has a hex called Air Barrier that is like Shield but increases with level and at later levels has some Wind Wall functionality to it, making it somewhat decent.