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Hi,
I've been playing an unchained monk in a home game where I found an item that only interacts with those who are arcane casters. My monk theme was about pretending to be a caster without actually knowing spells so I took the Serpent-Fire Adept archetype and a host of other feats and such to flesh out my 'Spell casting'. At any rate, I was the only character with any arcane casting ability so the item interacted with me. About a year later in game (currently last session), I sat in my observatory and pondered the nature of the heavens and the mysterious object I held- it then burrowed through my palm and arm and stopped once it was imbedded in my chest.
The gm then informed me that I was probably about to be very unhappy and that my next level gained had to be in the sorcerer class and that I could choose between these bloodlines: Psychic, Stormborn, and Starsoul. I am allowed to use my wisdom modifier for spellcasting and (I believe) class features that normally require charisma.
I already have Eldritch Heritage with the Stormborn bloodline selected from that. I just hit 7th and 8th level (I was 1 exp away from 7 before we started) so I haven't selected my 7th level feat yet. How do I keep this sorcerer level from becoming a burden or can I turn it into a benefit? At the moment tattooed wild blooded sorcerer for a familiar and selecting void touched to cause save vs silence on all my evocation type sla's seems like a salvageable option but I wasn't expecting this and could use some opinions and advice to help me out here. I feel like this could be an opportunity for something cool rather than a 'level tax'.
Would your GM let you make a modified "Storm Disciple," "Void Disciple" or "Mind Disciple" PrC , on the model of the Dragon Disciple? With extra abilities related to surrendering spell slots to make your chakras easier to open, instead of related to natural attacks, breath weapons, etc.? Even just feats for the latter would help.
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That's just not cool. GM forced plot aside... Mage Armor, Shield, and Vanish? Enlarge Person maybe?
Are the retraining rules allowed? Why can't you dig the item out? You could also say your character retires to meditate on his new found magic and make a new character, but I don't think that's cool either.
This might be an option, and is more thematic for something gained by an item.
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Yeah, I'd tell the GM to eat me.
Anyways, the level in sorcerer will open the Raging Blood, Arcane Strike, and Blooded Arcane Strike feats for your character, that's what I'd pursue.
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Not cool of the GM. Never force somebody to take a class. Maybe suggest it to him OOC that you don't want to do this. If he's making you unhappy, you probably don't want to play with him anymore.
The "best" options is probably to suck up the level loss, get two utility spells (mage armor, enlarge person or true strike if you are into combat maneuvers) and start looking for a way to retrain the sorcerer level back into monk after you get the item out of you with remove curse or whatever.
Agreed. Don't let him railroad your character design. Get rid of it and be happy. Have fun in the game.
Look at some of the Positives?
Can use spell trigger/Completion items without UMD as a skill. Low Level wands are great. Mage armor, Long Arm, Protection from Evil, Shield, Mount (Highly usable, Detect secret doors, Moment of Greatness, Ray of Enfeeblement, Expeditious Retreat and unseen servant.
There are a few good Cantrips which you should rejoice about:
Breeze (1 Hour per casting)- +2 bonus on saves against very hot conditions, severe heat, breath weapons, and saves against cloud vapors and gases (such as cloudkill, stinking cloud, and inhaled poisons)
Read Magic- Now you can understand the scrolls your going to start buying. When you start buying scrolls of Limited wish your DM will hate himself for the Forced Dip.
Mage Hand- You can push 5 pounds across a floor looking for a trap. Good RP uses too.
Open/close- Never touch a door/chest again. Has it's benefits.
Dench- Nice to put people/Item on fire, out with and the spell does not mention the water disappearing after it rains down...thus it leads me to believe you could collect the water for drinking. ALso nice for putting out the camp fire.
My last few thoughts are:
Your stuck at 1 CL so Arcane Strike and Spells that rely on a High CL (Like Magic missile, vanish, and such) will be of no good to you. So avoid those types of spells for your spells Known. How good is your Wisdom as a caster stat?
Because you can use scrolls of fly now...Feather Fall would be on my list of spells known.
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Why were you hanging on to the item for a year? Were you getting something out of it?
We're there any foreshadowing moments that something like this might happen beyond the initial "I need an Arcane Caster, and I guess you will have to do" at the very beginning.
My apologies to all those that want to assume that the GM is being a dick, but I think this was likely an avoidable event. It also is hardly the end of the world.
It just appears that the item provided a benefit, and as far as our info goes, it doesn't appear to have hinted at this. The GM is being a dick, because the GM shouldn't decide how the players build their characters.
I understand that optimizing is an issue to some GMs, but this guy doesn't sound like a powergamer to me, so I see no reason for the GM to force him to take levels he doesn't want to. Is everyone else in the party being told to take levels in classes they don't want to?
Look into the eldritch scrapper archetype, meshes nicely with being a primary combatant.
OP?
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Eldritch Scrapper may be your best bet here since Draconic isn't an option.
Still, this seems a kinda weird move on the part of the DM. If you trust your DM, go with it for now, see if it leads somewhere cool. If your DM hasn't built that trust yet, then there is no right to do this to you and you might want to challenge it.
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Cursed items, trapped items, strange/wierd effects are part of the game. We players tend to forget this as we plot out our "perfect" character advancements, but unexpected stuff does happen, and its part of the game. We also don't know the full backstory, did hte party ever try to identify/legend lore, or otherwise research the object in question? The burrowing effect may have been preventable, or even predictable.
The suggestions by the previous posters are probably your best bet. Having the ability to use wands/scroll is always nice, and as a monk, combining that with touch attack spells can be fun. Its always nice to deliver touch attacks through a punch, and remember you can always hold a charge if you miss. Some spells may even allow you to set off multiple touches through utilization of flurry of blows.
Lastly, perhaps you could cinvince your DM to let you take a level in any arcane class. Bloodrager or Magus could work, especially if you wish to fool around with unarmed combat and spell strike.
Yeah, Eldritch Scrapper seems like your best bet. If you trust him, ask if the archetype is okay.
Otherwise, as Nitro says, he has no right to do this.
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Sounds like one of those old timey D&D artifacts that made you switch to a different class / alignment to basically re-create the original owner (e.g. Vecna).
Lighting yourself up with constant castings of Remove Curse, Break Enchantment, Atonement and the like until it goes away would seem the appropriate response.
I don't know if one level in Magus with the Kensai archetype would do any good, but it would be worth looking at to see if you want to dangle it in front of your GM.
{Added: I doubt the GM would accept Bloodrager, because it takes so many levels before they can actually cast spells.}
As Kassegore said, it is probably a cursed item.
Dig it out & light yourself up with remove curse. Break Enchantment should work if it isn't technically a curse, but a benefit.
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Cursed items, trapped items, strange/wierd effects are part of the game. We players tend to forget this as we plot out our "perfect" character advancements, but unexpected stuff does happen, and its part of the game. We also don't know the full backstory, did hte party ever try to identify/legend lore, or otherwise research the object in question? The burrowing effect may have been preventable, or even predictable.
I agree, and in fact I actively avoid plotting out my characters long-term. However, this isn't just a curse or a trap, this is a possibly-permanent change to the character that will almost certainly cause this character to become much less powerful as the levels go on. It's an outright punishment with a permanent effect unless the DM allows for expensive retraining.
On the other hand, if there is trust with the DM, it might well turn out to have some hidden really cool benefit depending on what bloodline is taken. There are two possible sides to this, and we don't know the player/DM relationship here.
You're GM's being a jerk. I would never "force" a player to take another class. I might suggest one, but ultimately it's their decision.
If we could learn the dynamic, I could give him a much better response for what he should do. For now, I'm just shooting suggestions out.
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It just appears that the item provided a benefit, and as far as our info goes, it doesn't appear to have hinted at this. The GM is being a dick, because the GM shouldn't decide how the players build their characters.
I understand that optimizing is an issue to some GMs, but this guy doesn't sound like a powergamer to me, so I see no reason for the GM to force him to take levels he doesn't want to. Is everyone else in the party being told to take levels in classes they don't want to?
Player's builds aren't sacrosanct. If they're in the world, they're subject to the same rules as the rest of the things in the world, and can be f*!@ed with by the GM. To defend the anonymous GM here, it sounds like something being done for the sake of the story, and GM expects OP to roll with the punches, just like the character is going to need to roll with the punches. I'm sorry Xanaver, but nowhere does it say "The GM must be fair."
OP, unfortunately, Sorcerer/Monk is just not a super effective combination, even if you're using Wis as your Spellcasting modifier. But, there are a couple of things you might be able to pull. First, I would argue with your GM that if you take Stormborn as your Bloodline, it should stack with Eldritch Heritage for the purposes of that feat, to make Thunderstaff function at 1/2 your character level. You now have "Mad Shocks yo". Use your Sorcerer spells early on to focus on the good utility, I'm talkin Mage Armor, True Strike, Expeditious Retreat, Shield. You thought your AC was boss BEFORE? Oh buddy, the GM is gonna regret that extra +8 he just stacked onto your head. Wanna keep up with the Storm/Flying theme you've got going? Alter Winds. You now have a 10-ft radius Aura of Anime Powerup.
Additional Traits! Magical Knack! Practically mandatory to make this anything other than a sadness generator. You're essentially going to become very very good at touching things with Shocking Grasp at this point, as well as flying around and basically being a badass with your Chakra unlocking. If you embrace the change, and do your best to add to the story, your GM WILL work with you (if he's a GM worth his salt) to make the transition as painless as possible. You're gonna fall off for a couple levels, but you're clearly not thinking on optimizing. The more levels you get in Sorcerer, the easier your life is gonna be. If you want, dip a level in a class that gives you All Martial Weapons known, (I'd recommend Magus. Your BAB will suffer, but Spell Combat is really nice) and when you hit Sorcerer level 5, start going Eldritch Knight.
If I knew more context about the build, feat selection, Ability Scores, etc, I could provide more insight, but that's good in a pinch.
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One thing you might try is ask him if you can go for Variant Multiclassing instead, since his requirement is apparently that you must become a Sorcerer with one of the selected bloodlines. If you are permitted to do that, you would lose two feats (the one you have yet to select and one older one) and gain the 1st and 3rd level powers from the bloodline. Note that you won't get any spells or bloodline arcana, so the Psychic bloodline should not be the one that you choose. The main advantage of this approach is that you would lose no levels in your primary class, at the cost of half your feats going forward.
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I'm sorry Xanaver, but nowhere does it say "The GM must be fair."
Game Master (GM): A Game Master is the person who adjudicates the rules and controls all of the elements of the story and world that the players explore. A GM's duty is to provide a fair and fun game.
Come again?
Would the GM allow some flexibility in the class you take, as long as you end up with a bloodline? E.g,. could you take a level of Bloodrager or Eldritch Scion Magus? That would at least allow you to remain in a decently martial class while still giving the GM his kicks in imposing the bloodline.
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I'm sorry Xanaver, but nowhere does it say "The GM must be fair."Game Master (GM): A Game Master is the person who adjudicates the rules and controls all of the elements of the story and world that the players explore. A GM's duty is to provide a fair and fun game.Come again?
Well ya got me there, m8. I suppose my only counterpoint is "Fair is Subjective."
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Heh. I was also going to point out that I do tend to agree with your overall point, but I couldn't resist that one.
Anyway, I'm of the school of thought that players should absolutely get to choose what they do with their character, but since we're talking cursed item/artefact, there's nothing wrong with the GM applying some... persuasive negative consequences, shall we say, if the player chooses to act against the specific details of the curse/artefact. But it should be a player's informed choice.
To give the link for the advice already given you: the Eldritch Scrapper (here) archetype has the advantage of being for the Sorcerer class, and it would give you one use per day of the brawler's martial flexibility feature.
But maybe the Blood Arcanist (here) archetype for Arcanist would be a happier choice for you. Check it out; since you get a bona fide sorcerer bloodline from it, your GM might be happy.
The Eldritch Scion (here) archetype for magus gives you only a bloodrager bloodline, unfortunately, but I'm mentioning it in case it's good enough for your GM. You might like a dash of Magus in your build. Maybe.
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You may want to look at wearing a Robe of Arcane Heritage (here) to get some sort of almost-decent benefit from your dip.
I rather hope your GM is planning on informing you that you get a free feat out of this -- Sorcerous Strike (here). Or you might want to take it anyway.
The GM here may be being a jerk, it may also be a case of cursed magical item and the effects might have been preventable.
We're not getting the full story here I think.
If the character had year worth of in game time after receiving the item, that should have been sufficient time to try to identify what is and how it works before this event happened.
Unless the player was never given an opportunity to do so.
Now, those kind of magic items are pretty harsh, and more a symptom of GMs of a bygone era. However, I wont jump (just yet) to saying the OP's GM is a jerk.
You're a monk so you're not wearing armor. A level of sorcerer has it's benefits.
1. You can make use of any arcane scroll.
2. Mage Armor, Shield Spell + monk means ultra win in AC.
Add cantrips for fun. He's also giving you concessions in spellcasting.
It's a GOLDEN opportunity.
It definitely could have been worse, particularly since the GM is letting you rely on Wisdom instead of Charisma. If you have a big problem with this sort of thing happening, I would talk to the GM about it, but if you're fine as a UMonk x/Sorc 1 I would just roll with it. Being able to use a wide variety of wands without rolling UMD is handy.
Just pick your sorc stuff with the intention of being better at monk stuff, like Drahliana suggested. A lot of Monks want someone to cast Mage Armor, Shield, etc. on them. Now you can do it to yourself.
I know some players that would be okay with this, but more that would be pissed. A couple would rage-quit the game at this.
I think that if a GM wants to mess with player's choices, they should warn the players before the game starts, so that they can decide if that's the type of game they want to play.
I second Azten's recommendation of the monster template sorcerer creature. This would allow something that progresses as they go up instead of something that merely interrupts his progression for low-level spells.
Another option would be to treat it like an implanted intelligent item that can cast certain spells.
This whole thread makes me think of Gamers 2: Dorkness rising.
https://youtu.be/tOUksDJCijw?t=278
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Yeah I don't think we should go over the top here either. I think it's a very very harsh punishment if it's without reason or just because you didn't get the chance to analyse the item (especially since you have no casters), but it's not the end of the world if you go Scrapper.
Unfortunately you can't take Stormborn for Sorcerer if you've already taken it with Eldritch Heritage, but I do love me some Starsoul, and Psychic is very thematic.
If this is how your DM wants to play this, and if it doesn't ruin your fun, it will most likely be better for you to just take the hit to your Monk Levels rather than to try to worm your way into anything more convenient. It is pretty unfair if there's nothing given in return for this, so I'd hope there's some upside at least.
Unfortunately you can't take Stormborn for Sorcerer if you've already taken it with Eldritch Heritage, but I do love me some Starsoul, and Psychic is very thematic.
Why not? I'd have thought that it was exactly the bloodline to take! It's opening up, flowering withing the OP. But he'd get a feat retrained for free out of it.
Unfortunately you can't take Stormborn for Sorcerer if you've already taken it with Eldritch Heritage, but I do love me some Starsoul, and Psychic is very thematic.Why not? I'd have thought that it was exactly the bloodline to take! It's opening up, flowering withing the OP. But he'd get a feat retrained for free out of it.
It seems like since the GM is already making allowances to make this non-painful (Wis-based non-empyreal sorcerer!), making sure that works is going to be no big deal.
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Why force the next level to be sorcerer? Seems like it would have been better to give him the bloodline class feature and level 1 sorcerer casting, but leave it cha based. Assuming it was meant to be a "reward" for his role-playing a specific character idea well. If it is meant to be a cursed item it sounds like the goal is to have the curse removed before your next level.
Basically, it's fine as a GM to give benefits and penalties, but don't remove a choice as intrinsic to playing a PC as class choice. You might as well just hand him an NPC to run.
Why not ask if, assuming you resolve this curse somehow, if you can retrain your level of sorcerer to a level of UMonk later, in case you decide you regret having delayed monk progression?
Then there's no long-term harm.
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@Azten I truly like that suggestion. I will send it to my gm and see what he says.
@Luoise Bishop I can fly with my chakras and I do have ful caster level via monk that arcane Strike can work with. But you're right about the sorcerer spells suffering. Thanks for the spell suggestions, I never thought about some of those uses. Cool.
@Kassagor & Unspace Man I agree and am trying to roll with the punches here. I had a pretty well planned out build but I am glad that I didn't plan it down to absolute precision. As a result I have some flexibility (in feats) but the level loss hurts. I had planned on being an 8th level monk. Alas.
Also, lol at 'sadness generator'. I may need additional traits, though. Good point with that.
@Xanaver Do you think that Eldritch scrapper outweighs the benefits of tattooed sorcerer for a familiar? Familiar archetypes and improved familiar are possibilities I think can be good. But then so is martial flexibility.
@Drahliana I am trying to be mature about it and not get upset. I want to look at this as an opportunity as well. I've gotten so used to always getting my way about everything that I've forgotten that it doesn't always happen like that.
@Everyone
My stats are: Str 18, dex 12, con 13, wis 18, int 10, cha 13 and I have not yet assigned my 8th level attribute point.
We failed all of our spellcraft checks to identify the item when we found it (very early in the campaign) and it was not intended as a plot device that would do anything because the gm was not aware of anyone having arcane casting ability. It was supposed to be a mystery and curiosity that maybe we would sell or have someone come looking for as a side encounter that would give some extra information about the world. But then he saw my character sheet and that sort of changed everything. He calls the item a sorcerers stone. We know almost nothing about it but out of character I know that it is sentient. We had 8 months of downtime and we were all distracted doing research and building structures in a town. We had bigger issues than the stone which had not yet done anything. We spent our research time and spellcraft checks attempting to crack open a heavily warded book (it had symbol spells in it to protect it once opened).
But that aside, I honestly forgot about the stone until after the downtime.
It is possible that there is a degree of reaction to my character build as we have a two-handed barbarian in the group playing a race with a +8 to str and who bought str at an 18 and I still manage to keep up in damage (just barely) due to flurry of blows and my demonic smith's gloves. Because I have a host of other things I can do in and out of combat (effectively playing a ranged blaster caster when I need to or gaining chakra powers like dr) he may feel that I am stronger than I think I am. But it is a bit too speculative to think that this is a punishment.
I will look at Eldritch Scrapper again. I was considering tattooed sorcerer for the familiar options: bonuses to will saves, ioun stone storage and natural armor boost, +4 initiative, alertness, or an improved familiar.
Anyway, thank you all for the suggestions. I hadn't thought of quite a few of those things.
There needs to be a OOC discussion between you and your DM about the "why" of this whole thing. If I was playing this character I would want a fair amount of explanation before I took that level or anything else. There are plenty of good reasons to throw something like this into a game and at a player, and hopefully he can explain which one.
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Before I approach my gm with the suggestion of the Simple Template Sorcerer creature, how is this implemented in game in terms of my direct experience and needs?
What I mean to ask is: is this in any way like 3.5 where the +2 cr the template provides increases my exp needed to level as if I were my level +2? Or does it simply make me stronger with no penalty while potentially increasing the groups average cr making encounters more difficult?
If it's the later then it seems that the idea of me being a bit too strong would only be exacerbated by adding the template and the suggestion would be less likely to fly and I would much prefer that to the sorcerer level.