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Good morning. :)
I'm building a Sorcerer for PFS and planning out my spell list level by level, though for brevity's sake, I'll just list my final spell list at 11th. I haven't played PFS beyond 6th (and then only once), so any thoughts or suggestions would be most welcome.
Some spells like Daze, Color Spray and Create Pit are taken but are eventually swapped out. I plan on taking Toppling Spell with Magical Lineage early on to get more utility out of Magic Missile.
FWIW, This is not a character focusing on outrageous spell DC's in one particular school nor trying to go all in on a single spell loaded with ridiculous metamagics (i.e. Quickened Dazing Fireball). Rather, he's trying to be more of a generalist, focusing on spells that provide utility, buffs for his allies and battlefield control. As a Wildblooded (Sylvan) Sorcerer, he will have an Animal Companion and as a Human, will be gaining bonus spells as his FCB, 4th - 11th level.
0 level
Arcane Mark
Dancing Lights
Detect Magic
Ghost Sound
Light
Mage Hand
Mending
Prestidigitation
Read Magic
1st level
Alarm
Entangle*
Featherfall
Magic Missile
Mage Armor
Silent Image
Shield
Vanish
2nd level
Bull’s Strength
Glitterdust
Hideous Laughter*
Invisibility
Locate Object
Mirror Image
Communal Protection vs. Evil
See Invisibility
3rd level
Clairaudience/Clairvoyance
Deep Slumber*
Dispel Magic
Fly
Haste
Communal Resist Energy
Stinking Cloud
4th level
Greater Aggressive Thundercloud
Black Tentacles
Dimension Door
Emergency Force Sphere
Poison*
Scrying
5th level
Animal Growth
Communal Stoneskin
Treestride*
* - Bloodline spell
Venture-Agent, Minnesota
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Humans are an excellent choice! My sylvan sorceress, Zahra is level 11 with just one and a half XP to go before reaching seeker level. Because of the human FCB, she has an excellent set of spells, and between those and her utility wands, she feels as versatile as a wizard.
By the way, you are likely to wind up with far more level one spells than the ones listed because pages of spells known are fairly inexpensive at first level. Unseen servant is a good addition utility spell, with lots of uses. I almost always cast it at the beginning of the day now.
Humans also qualify for Eye for Talent at first level, which you could use to buff your animal companion with a higher int. A higher int means more tricks, and access to a better range of feats.
Humans also get another skill point per level, which you will need for handle animal. You will want to devote enough ranks to handle animal to be able to easily retrain your animal if you lose it in the heat of battle. UMD is also a good investment, so that you can trigger ranger and druid wands to help your beastie! Finally, diplomacy is always needed in a PFS party, and you will have the charisma for it. These skills might influence your trait choices.
Your list is fairly solid. Bull’s strength I think might be a waste, though. By the time you can get it, your fellow PCs will have strength enhancers that will partially cover the spell, and a lot of your party members will be using deterity to damage options. Heroism is solid choice to consider. It buffs everything.
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Bull’s strength is probably to put on the animal companion?
The list looks pretty good to me. Stinking Cloud and Black Tentacles stand out. Both are great spells, but both also tend to complicate things for party members. I think they work much better for enemy casters than PCs in most PFS encounters. And the higher level you go, the higher fort saves and CMD become for creatures. Unless you have some way to keep those from affecting your allies, you probably won’t use them in most encounters. And probably not more than once a scenario.
My suggestion would be to pick up a Mnemonic Vestment sometime around 6th Level. Then keep some scrolls on hand of the situational spells like stinking cloud or black tentacles. That way if you get into a situation where one of those spells would be perfect, you use the vestments to cast it at full CL/DC. If for some reason you need a 2nd one during the scenario, you have the scroll. Maybe take one or the other so you have one big area control spell, not two. Then take Wall of Fire to have a way to section off the battlefield.
I’d have the same suggestion for locate object, clairvoyance, and scrying, unless you have a plan to use those often. The divination spells are tricky in PFS. Locate object seems like it would be great, since so many of the scenarios involve finding an object, but in order to find a unique object you have to have personally observed it. Caliraudience/clairvoyance isn’t mobile. It could be useful in some investigation scenarios, but typically not once it turns to a dungeon crawl. Scrying probably has the most potential, because there’s at least a chance it works. Similar to locate object, though, finding someone specific you’ve never met can be tough.
I like to take spells I might need to cast repeatedly as my known spells. So buffs I’m almost certain to cast every scenario. Combat spells that are used frequently or that I might need to cast multiple times. Things like that. Your only direct damage spell seems to be magic missile. That’s fine until you face someone with shield. And SR is a concern. Scorching Ray is a good blasting spell that scales well for PFS levels. For dealing with SR the answer used to be snowball, but Ultimate Wilderness changes that. Dragon’s breath is an extremely versatile AOE blasting spell. It can be a cone or a line and any of the elemental types.
I’d consider adding at least one summoning spell for versatility. Summon Monster III, maybe. But you can probably get away with a scroll and the vestments.
Things like haste, dim door, mirror image, fly, dispel magic, see invisibility are all good choices that you’ll have plenty of opportunities to use. And the spells to buff your animal make sense.
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Venture-Agent, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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How do you handle swarms?
You are going to need something to handle them. I would recommend working up to Dragon’s Breath because it allows you to pick your elemental damage, but you will need something before that.
I am speaking from bad experience, having hit a very nasty swarm in PFS at level 6. No one else had a way to deal with it either. The results were less than optimal.
Thank you very much for the responses1
Our homebrew games tend to be low-magic in nature an d I never consider the simple utility and versatility of scrolls and wands when building a character - a mindset that I will clearly have to change for PFS.
Yes, the buffs are as much for my AC as my party members. I tended to shy away from damage-dealing spells, though I thought Toppling Magic Missile would have a ton of playability in the earlier levels and at later levels the Thundercloud would let me deal 6d6/round while casting other spells or 12d6/round which isn't bad at all for an 8th level caster. I was worried about Electricity Resistance and AoE, but Dragon's Breath seems like an ideal inclusion, one I didn't even know existed, so thanks for that. Scorching Ray is definitely worth working in as well for the reasons mentioned.
Since I have you guys here, care to weigh in on some other parts of the build? This is what I'm planning at the moment:
Attributes:STR - 10
DEX - 14
CON - 14
INT - 12
WIS - 8
CHA - 18 (+1 @ 4th & 8th)
Traits:
Adopted (Gnome): Animal Friend (Handle Animal is a class skill; +1 Will saves when within 30' of an Animal that is indifferent or better)
Magical Lineage (Magic Missile counts as one level less for purposes of Metamagic feats)
Feats:
1st - Toppling Spell
1st - Improved Initiative
3rd - Boon Companion
5th - Additional Traits (Reactionary & Irrepressible)
7th - Lightning Reflexes* or Skill Focus: Knowledge (Nature)*
7th - Great Fortitude or Eldritch Heritage: Arcane Bloodline (Bonded Item)
9th - Persistent Spell
11th - Quicken Spell
I'm really torn regarding the 7th level feats, in large part because I'm not entirely certain how improving a Bonded Item works in PFS. Solid saves are important to me, but the value of the bonus spell alone is worth serious consideration. Persistent Spell is another feat that I'm really on the fence with.
I've never taken the Additional Traits feat on a character before, but all of those options seem to offer superb value. What do you guys think?
Bluff (even levels)
Fly (1 rank @ 3rd)
Handle Animal (1 rank @ 1st)
Intimidate (odd levels)
Knowledge: Arcana (even levels)
Knowledge: Nature (odd levels)
Profession: Guide (1 rank @ 2nd)
Spellcraft (1st - 11th)
Use Magic Device (1st - 11th)
I know that I'm dumping Perception which is generally a no-no, but without it as a class skill and with a poor Wisdom, is it really worth the investment, especially considering that everyone else will probably have it maxed out already?
I'm thinking about dropping Buff entirely to go full on Intimidate, even though it doesn't fit the character concept as well.
Is just 1 rank in Animal Handling adequate, considering that I've got the class skill bonus and such high Charisma?
Thanks again for the responses already offered and in advance for any future thoughts. They're very helpful and much appreciated!
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Venture-Agent, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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On your skills, you can’t put a rank into Fly skill until you possess a reliable means of flying every day. If you have Ultimate Combat, you could buy a glider which would then allow this.
You are also going to want a lot more than a single rank in Handle Animal since you have an animal companion. You are going to want to be able to push your animal buddy at times.
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Why are you dropping Wis to 8, but keeping Str at 10? I'd drop Str to 8 or even 7 and put Wis to 10/12. Worth it for Will saves & perception alone. You can carry everything you need once you have a haversack - just buy a pony at 1st level if you need room/weight for extra stuff.
Persistent spell is good, but situational - likely better off using other spells or just keeping a few Dweomer's Essence on hand
Noble Scion - Scion of War is an excellent feat, but needs to be taken at 1st.
Cosmopolitan is something I used to get Handle Animal and Diplomacy as class skills, freeing up the trait space.
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Venture-Agent, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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Pushing almost never comes up in combat. I have many characters with animal companions and can count the number of times it has happened on no hands.
I would pick up a training harness for your companion for an extra +2 on top of the extra +4 you get to handle them.
I see some need to push an animal about every 4th to 5th scenario. I guess it depends on the GMs and playstyle. I agree with much of the rest of what you wrote, but my experience is that skimping on Handle Animal is a bad idea.
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The way I thought about spell selection on my Seeker Sorcerer was this - my Animal Companion was my contribution to damage for the party. My spell selection went to buffs, battlefield control, and SaveOrSuck/debuffs. Things like Grease, Web, Glitterdust and Haste were my consistent go-to castings in addition to my all-day buffs like Darkvision and Mage Armor(use a wand at low levels, but TAKE the spell as a 10hr Mage Armor is better for your sanity/bookkeeping).
Agree on the Razmiran Priest as well - Ability to cast Greater Magic Fang using your own slots is awesome and saves a TON of gold on upgraded amulet
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If saves are a real issue, look at UMD and scrolls or a wand of bestow grace, which is a paladin spell. A wand is expensive at 6000 gold pieces, but a scroll can be manageable.
As pointed out above, more spells known really help with covering bases. Pages of spell knowledge, mnemonic vestment and human favored class bonus can make you feel like you have most situations covered.
edit: fixed link
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Persistent spell is good, but situational - likely better off using other spells or just keeping a few Dweomer's Essence on handI think you mean Piercing Spell. I would just keep a couple of SR: No spells handy for high SR enemies and especially Golems. Frankly glitterdust and grease will leave the vast majority of constructs or golems largely helpless and allow your allies to demolish them.
I would recommend getting the Persistent Spell feat as forcing people to effectively roll twice on saves is really very good.
Yup - my mistake. I take Spell Penetration over Piercing. I actually like Persistent better on a rod (I miss my pre-nerf staff of the master) as nothing will demolish an enemy like a Persistent Baleful Polymorph.
I neglected to mention it, but Heart of the Metal is another awesome spell & bonus - it affects your AC's natural weapons as well.
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Some people have already hit the highlights of my comments on the spell list, but I'll say them anyway for emphasis.
Communal Stoneskin - this spell is way more expensive than I thought it was when I first looked at it. You need a full-cost Stoneskin component for each person that will be a target of the spell. My abjurer can't get anyone to pay for their own Stoneskin components and never uses the spell. (I keep one component on hand for emergencies) It's not a BAD spell, but Stoneskin is probably better. How many people in the party are you really going to want to spend the money on? Edit: Also, consider the fact that you have a mostly-useless bloodline spell and two buff spells as your only 5th level spells known. What are you going to do with all your other L5 spell slots after you've cast the two buffs?
General lack of area damage spells - lots of arcane casters avoid damaging spells like the plague, thinking it isn't their job. That's fine, broadly speaking, but swarms ARE your job. Do not fail this job. Absent some specialized equipment no one else can handle them in many parties you will play in. Alchemist's fire only works so long. In many home games you can plan on someone else to take care of swarms, but that doesn't apply in PFS.
Communal Spells more generally - I'm not a huge fan of them. Communal Protection from Evil will be very short even at higher levels with the duration split up. By the time you get to high level, you won't care about the difference between casting six Resist Energy spells or one Communal Resist Energy, and third level spells known are always at a premium. Communal Spells can be deployed to the whole party faster and sometimes that matters, however.
I like False Life: sometimes all your fancier defensive spells will fail you. Consider Touch of the Sea because water sucks.