Hi
I'm currently stuck for ideas for an arcane caster for a homebrew campaign with my regular playgroup.
Current info from the GM is that we are running with 25 point-buy, any race we want to play (within reason). GM's still considering our starting level (most likely level 5).
GM also contacted me saying "I highly suggest that you play a Arcane caster of some sort, since rest of the group have already decided on which classes they want to play"
Rest of the Group
-Fighter
-Armor master (Fighter archetype)
-Melee Hunter with wolf
-Ranged Hunter with wolf
With this team of B.S.F'ers (at least from my perspective) what kind of arcane caster would you suggest I should consider?
Arcane casters i'm fairly used to be playing are Wizard, Sorcerer, Arcanist and Bard
Yeah, I second Cavall, especially with two wolves in the party. Most of the time the problem I've seen with running Skald's is that not enough members of the party want rage (because they are ranged, or primarily spellcasters) so it would have been better to be a bard.
With that team, every single member could use it, the wolves have no reason not to accept it. Granted for all I know everyone of them is going ranged, but that seems unlikely. The fighters are probably melee, the Ranger and hunter might not use it (if they want to cast spells for instance) but it's still 5 members of the party likely to use it (counting you).
See my post about how to be the only spellcaster in a party. The fact that you actually AREN'T the only spellcaster in the party takes off some of the divine casting load from your shoulders (at least they can patch you up if you go down due to hit point damage), but doesn't get you fully off the hook -- you still need to be able to cast bad status removal spells. With 25 point buy, even some of the MAD options will be good; go with one of the more arcane-focused options, but make sure you have the bad status removal spells covered.
You don't have much condition removal. I'd go with a witch with the healing patron.
That's a great party to be a skald in. You're missing some good condition removal, as Melkaidor said, but spell kenning can help somewhat with that as well as the hunters if they get the right spells. Just be sure that the party grabs some scrolls as well.
That group is going to get crushed by ability drains and lack of healing. You should talk one of those players into playing a Cleric or War Priest.
Personally, if you're into trying new things, try a Vitalist (Psionics) with the Soul Thief Method
The spell selection of the two Hunters (who select spells known from the druid and ranger lists) can be important. Did they select between them enough curative spells to take care of the party's needs in that area? Your GM's suggestion that you play an arcane caster implies that they did.
To those who are suggesting a healing oriented arcane caster -- what conditions can a bard or witch remove via spells that a hunter cannot?
A skald of level 5+ with spell kenning does gain access to the cleric list, so he would be able to cast Restoration starting at 10th level -- and only a cleric or oracle could access that spell any sooner.
Yeah, I second Cavall, especially with two wolves in the party. Most of the time the problem I've seen with running Skald's is that not enough members of the party want rage (because they are ranged, or primarily spellcasters) so it would have been better to be a bard.
With that team, every single member could use it, the wolves have no reason not to accept it. Granted for all I know everyone of them is going ranged, but that seems unlikely. The fighters are probably melee, the Ranger and hunter might not use it (if they want to cast spells for instance) but it's still 5 members of the party likely to use it (counting you).
Yeah was staring to lean more towards a bard, skald looks interesting since I haven't tried it yet. Might end up going that route
That group is going to get crushed by ability drains and lack of healing. You should talk one of those players into playing a Cleric or War Priest.
Our usual cleric player is the one going to be playing our vanilla fighter and the rest of the group is afraid of playing cleric for some reason
That group is going to get crushed by ability drains and lack of healing. You should talk one of those players into playing a Cleric or War Priest.Our usual cleric player is the one going to be playing our vanilla fighter and the rest of the group is afraid of playing cleric for some reason
Possibly because playing a cleric seems like you have to play a healer, a lot of the time.
A lot of people don't like healing.
BSFers???
Id go for a Witch with a blasty patron, get the group to stump up for scrolls and wands of CLW!
You could do with a Warpriest in the mix....
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Half human or human shaman. You can get cleric spells, shaman spells, and arcane spells lore spirit (wandering).
Two options are:
You can build for channelling if you like. Life spirit witch doctor selective channel + fateful channel. You get some nice spontanious casting and buffing when you heal. You can also use life link and shield other to heal. Make you familiar a protection to increase you hp by 50%. Now use ablative barrier on the person under shield other so they take no lethal. When you heal them they are not healing double and so are you because of your familiar.
Second option:
Just keep you hexes and use them to conserve your spells so you have them exactly when needed.
As far as casting during the skald's song, allies may choose each round whether or not to accept it, so you can drop out of the song to cast, and next round start grooving to the tunes again.
Yeah, Skald is pretty much the perfect support arcane caster for this group. It gets literally everything right for that setup other than the high level utility spells. Just make sure to be ready for UMD.
Consider a War Priest with Healing Blessing and Greatsword Battler Divine Fighting Technique + Vital Strike/Devastating Strike, Greater bull rush and Bull rush strike.... Step up & Strike, improved Overrun, Corgunon Strike, Imp Critical...
Go Human and do 1/6 skills for added combat feats.
You can use Fervor to swift cast owl's wisdom to increase your save DC then use standard action to cast blindness/hold person. So they're okay-decent at control.
Improved Overrun, Bull Rush Strike, Step Up & Strike. Great at pushy shovy.
Greatsword Battler, Power attack, vital strike/devastating strike. Tons of damage.
Corgunon Smash + a high Intimidate skill. Good at debuffing.
Swift Healing Blessing + any Cure spell (which are spontaneous casts). Great at healing (+50%).
Cleric Spell list....
Get Fates Favored for a trait (Luck Bonus to a lot of crucial war priest buffs)
War Priests are insane for a BSF group.
And War priests can haste themselves... They're a 1 man BSF group with swiftcast self heals...
Well, nobody's suggested battlefield control yet. If you get good at it as a specialist wizard, you can use grease, web, wall spells, and fog/clouds to divide the enemy, allowing your party filled with damage dealers to gang up on individual enemies and destroy them in one round or less.
The best way to heal is to never need to cast cure spells. And, when things go wrong, max out your Use Magic Device to use the cure wand afterwards. Or have a monkey familiar do it during combat when people go down.
If you want battlefield control, witch hands down.
If you want battlefield control, witch hands down.
And with a Witch, you also get the full set of bad status removals(*) if you get the Healing Patron (without it, you are missing the Restoration series -- Endurance also gets you Greater Restoration eventually, but that's very expensive). Remove Blindness/Deafness and Remove Disease are already on the Witch spell list. And while you won't match someone who specializes in Channeling(**) for healing hit point damage, you still will be not too shabby.
(*)Might be missing a couple of offbeat ones -- not sure.
(**)The Hex Channeler archetype even gives you that, but I wouldn't recommend it for healing hit point damage, because you have to trade out nearly all your Hexes to make it good for this -- instead, put riders on it like Turn Undead and/or Variant Channeling for bad status removal and/or inflicting a bad status on your enemies; even if you invest no additional Hexes in boosting the damage healed or inflicted, your Channeling DC scales properly with your level.
Edit #1: The Witch spell list also has Remove Sickness, Delay Poison, Neutralize Poison, and Stone to Flesh, as well as more general bad status removers like Dispel Magic/Break Enchantment/Greater Dispel Magic.
Edit #2: Skald is also good for this party, but DON'T trade out Spell Kenning. For instance, Spell Warrior trades out Spell Kenning.
Spell Warrior Skald could be a great choice as well. Instead of the str/con bonus when you rage song you give Weapon Enhancement bonuses (or their equivalent). Facing some ghosts? Sing for ghost touch weapons. Uncrittable foe? Don't sing for keen. Give different elemental bonuses based on who you're facing. Or just give a straight +# enhancement increase. Even the wolves would benefit from these.
It won't inhibit spell casting and can let you easily do a ranged build since you're already melee heavy.
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Hi guys thank you all for all of the suggestions on what to play, Went ahead with vanilla skald and managed coordinated spells known with the two hunters in the group.
All the other suggestions looks interesting and I might use them for some of the other campaigns that I will be playing in.
I know you're done, but, just as an afterthought/consideration for others:
Half orc or Human shaman: Heavens
You get the all important restoration spells, use FCB to pick up the more fun cleric spells you're missing, use Lore wandering spirit to pick up different wizard spells, get a Sage archetype spirit animal/familiar and they can be your knowledge librarian (or pick up improved familiar and get something badass like a faerie dragon, or the telepathic pseudodragon to sniff out invisible stuff on the DL).
I Recommend heavens due to overall strength of its spells and abilities. but also for one fun hex (can't recall name) that will let you teleport another player - basically free pounces for your martials.
Plus you have some fun buffing and debugging abilities, can pick up a witch hex, etc. you can pretty much cover almost all casting bases, and, if shit ever really hits the fan and multiple players are messed up - swap wandering spirit to life the next day and make use of those bonus healing and restoration spell slots.
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How about an Illusionist?
They're underrated all too often, and I really enjoy mine. They really give you a lot of opportunity to actually play creatively.
You could 'minor' in Enchantment (which features a wide array of blessings and curses) and Necromancy (quite simply lots of fun and useful tricks that can be bent to all manner of purposes).
Evangelist Cleric. Solve the condition removal and healing problem, give everyone inspire courage buffs, and once you get to move/swift action bardic performs you can also do some battlefield control to mitigate your parties damage.