So I'm playing in a Rise of the runelords game as a character who decided to go with a merfolk sorcerer (5) paladin (3). I wanted to build this character for flavor and concept first and then performance secondary, with an emphasis at being a balanced and able to cover major flaws.
I love casters, and loved the idea that I could go spontaneous caster and work with a Mnemonic Vestment x2 and a small spellbook for 2 unknown spells per day to try and at least cover a little bit of the utility that a wizard would provide since our party is Ranger, Fighter, Gunslinger, Oracle/Swashbuckler and myself.
However, I did not want to make a super fragile character and wanted the concept of him being a big, hardy, and of course incredibly lovable charming merfolk to stand out. So i went 3 levels in paladin to get that Charisma save bonus, once per day smite, immunity to fear, armor and weapon proficiency and all that jazz.
20 point buy and as a merfolk, so my stats are really solid and my limited movement speed is the least of my concerns, but I still feel like I'm suffering from being a jack of all trades and a master of none... We just did the whole Fort Rannick thing for those of you who are familiar and I felt like i was just a healbot that couldn't heal and a tank with no armor and an incompetent sorcerer.
Some specifics: I went with the Seeker sorcerer archtype with the Psychic Bloodline that allows me to wear armor, carry a Bardiche reach weapon and just stand in the fray getting off AOO here and there while spending my turns casting spells, and I went with the Sacred Shield paladin archetype for a team friendly defensive smite that allows me to reduce damage to all allies and split remaining damage with my familiar.
Str:14 Dex:15 Con:15 Int:14 Wis:9 Cha:20 with some stat gear.
my AC is 22 normal, but can get up to 29 with my smite and protector familiar. (Yet i was still getting clobbered and knocked below 0 in almost every combat)
I also took Fate's favored as trait, and have an item that grants me the +2 luck to attack so my melee/ranged/CMD bonus is 10/11/9. They aren't terrible numbers and I haven't really tried to abuse FF yet, But I can't even hit anything unless I roll a natural 20.
I have magical knack to help keep up with loss of caster levels and my spell progression hurts a bit, but in that whole fort I cast 17 offensive spells and only once!! did an enemy fail to pass a DC 16 or 17.
My saves are dope though: 11, 10, 11
I get it that the Encounters might need to be buffed because of the 5th player, but our combats essentially are.. everybody gets bashed and and wastes actions until our fighter rolls a crit or our gunslinger chips away at touch AC. So before I actually go and discuss this with my GM (whose initial response to my "you gotta be kidding me" was "you shouldn't have made a bad character", I'd like to see what my other options are, just to make sure that I'm really giving everything a thorough mechanics approach. We are probably going to level up to 9th next session, and I'm open to suggestions on magic items, feats, even retraining feats, spells, etc. I just feel like these adventure paths were designed so that you didn't have to build a totally optimized character to have a little success.
So, as an 8th level character, the highest level spell your caster character can cast is level 2. That is the problem.
I'd say the secondary problem is that your group as a whole seems totally unbalances, all strikers no support or control (with the exception of you apparently doing a poor job of support.)
If it were me, I'd drop at least 1 level of Paladin (2 for the chr save bonus is arguable, the aura of courage and the mercy just isn't worth it.
The main thing though is figure out your job in the party and build toward being good at that. You can do this while keeping plenty of flavor.
So, as an 8th level character, the highest level spell your caster character can cast is level 2. That is the problem.
If it were me, I'd drop at least 1 level of Paladin (2 for the chr save bonus is arguable, the aura of courage and the mercy just isn't worth it.
Thanks Dave. I went with 3 levels for the fear immunity. Mostly because fear effects would be a disruptor of my psychic casting, I could care less about the mercy, or my lay on hands in general for that matter. I'm definitely open to dumping it, but I think the BAB hit would hurt with my whole attacks of opportunity thing.
I'm really wanted to get some battlefield control, debuffs, and even some blast spells, but I didn't really want to be a total buff support character. Like i plan to add haste to my flexible spellbook, but I don't want to be casting it every combat.
It looks like you are on the verge of qualifying for the Eldritch Knight prestige class, and when I initially saw your class breakdown, I thought that might be where you were going with your character.
From my perspective, I would say that if you wanted to create a gish, you invested too heavily into your casting stat and not enough into your physical stat, either dex or str. I do also question choosing a merfolk with a base movement speed of 5 on land for an all land adventure path...
What spells do you use for crowd control? What party buff spells do you use? At level 9, you will have access to 3rd level spells, i.e. haste, which will dramatically change combat for your party.
If your role in the party is to be support, maneuver yourself to always flank someone, buff your party members to enhance their fighting capabilities, and think about spells such as grease to web for battlefield control.
I've heard that RotRL is terribly unbalanced/outdated so that can explain the breezing through encounters and TPKs at boss fights. Our party wizard decided that he wanted to play inquisitor instead and had his character walk away with his share of the party loot. Pretty annoying but I guess you could try the same thing if you wanted to.
As for a not so fragile caster, Eldritch Knight should cover that without being full gish. You just sacrifice some caster effectiveness for durability, just don't try to wade into melee if you can't actually melee. Because you have the Mercy class feature, you could eventually take the Ultimate Mercy feat for some dead raising goodness. I'm currently playing a Dwarven Sorcerer / Monk in RotRL and I plan to go into Eldritch Knight. Another option is to ask your GM is you could Cross Blood into Draconic so that you could go Dragon Disciple. DD gives a bonus to str which should increase your melee effectiveness if gish is your plan. Well the BAB is lower, that d12 and str boost should drastically increase your effectiveness. Throw in some Prestigious Spell Caster feats and you're set.
Part of your problem is you chose a terrible race. The stat buffs are all well and good, but it takes you 6 seconds to move ten feet.if you all-out run, you cover slightly less ground than any of your companions on a leisurely stroll. That severely cuts down on your maneuverability, and a reach AoO machine isn't really effective when most of your opponents equal or exceed your reach. You fell into the trap that playing for flavor means making a character as incapable of contributing as possible. Where did your mermaid even come from? Why did it choose to adventure on land?
He has his own story that fits well to our party with a particular attachment to another PC, and my movement isn't really any issue. I took the strong tail alternate trait and have an affordable wand of longstrider which I use before every possible dungeon crawl/ encounter. I'm moving 30 feet.
The idea was to center myself as a tanky, reachy, all around caster, who can use his smite ability to half the damage of all allies within the 10 foot aura.
The problem is, when my AC does shoot up to 29, the monster's 3 attacks were 34, 36, and 29... to that I'm like "what's the point of even having armor in the first place?"
I can't hit or trip on a natural 19, and even the slow stupid ogres are rolling 18-24 on their will and reflex saves to pass my spell DCs. I'm not super familiar with paizo's APs, but again, I just feel like they were generated so that you could essentially find success on virtually any character concept, not just optimized ones.
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APs don't pull a lot of punches at mid to high levels. It's basically get good or roll a new character until you make a good one.
Combat maneuvers after level 6 are a joke most of the time. Can't disarm monsters with natural weapons, most are too big to grapple or bull rush or overrun. Trip fails most of the time due to multiple legs or flying.
If your AC isn't 25+level then it's not gonna be super useful. Just get fortification on the armor to help prevent getting one shotted. Get % miss chance (blur, displacement).
Get consumables. Wands, scrolls, potions. Walls and pits. Protections.
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Since you say you want to focus more on the martial side, you don't really need to be immune to fear. If you get demoralised, just whack enemies with your weapon. Therefore, I suggest you drop 1 level of Paladin and substitute it for an extra level of Sorcerer. This would not only allow you to cast 3rd level spells, but also to qualify for Eldritch Knight next level, which gives you full BAB and bonus feats, while having almost full spellcasting progression.
I would also redistribute the stats to increase your martial abilities and better fit your racial bonuses. Something like 13 16+2 12+2 10 10 14+2. Add the +2 from level progression to either Cha or Dex, if you want to improve martial abilities or spellcasting respectively.
Get Weapon Finesse, a +1 Agile Elven Branched Spear (later improved with the Fortuitous enchantment) and a Cracked Opalescent White Ioun Stone (or Exotic Weapon Proficiency) to be proficient with it and use Dex on both attack and damage rolls. This also better reflects the concept of a mermaid, usually being more agile than raw-strong, also allowing you to make more AoOs. Unfortunately you won't be able to add 1.5xDex to damage, but compared with 14 Str, it would still be much better (of course you can skip the Agile enhancement altogether and rely on Power Attack and other bonuses to do damage).
You might want to consider a build on the lines of this:
1 Paladin, Weapon Finesse
2 Paladin
3 Sorc, Combat Reflexes
4 Sorc
5 Sorc, Power Attack
6 Sorc
7 Sorc, Favoured Prestige Class [EK]
8 Sorc
9 EK, Prestigious Spellcaster, Lunge
10 EK
11 EK, Quicken Spell
12 EK
13 EK, Weapon Focus [Elven Branched Spear], Weapon Specialization
I love myself Eldritch Knights but they're unfortunately incompatible with the Psychic bloodline. Not an arcane caster anymore.
I love myself Eldritch Knights but they're unfortunately incompatible with the Psychic bloodline. Not an arcane caster anymore.
That disqualifies them from a lot of PrCs
Ask your GM if your can rebuild your character into a Warpriest of Desna.
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I love myself Eldritch Knights but they're unfortunately incompatible with the Psychic bloodline. Not an arcane caster anymore.
Right! I completely forgot about that.
How about changing the bloodline then? Being able to wear armor doesn't really help that much given the existence of Mage Armor, so psychic spellcasting isn't that necessary in my opinion. With the Arcane bloodline you would get a familiar (which you have already mentioned), better spellcasting and you would qualify for the PrC without changing the overall flavour of the character.
Ask your GM if your can rebuild your character into a Warpriest of Desna.
LOL. From Paladin/Sorcerer (so LG aligned) fighting at reach with a polearm to Warpriest of a chaotic deity fighting, I bet, with star-knives. Why not changing race, name and background too?
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A seasoned veteran such as yourself knows perfectly well how ruthlessly and pitilessly the mechanics of this game will blind-side the less-experienced player not yet hip to the realization of how just quickly underpowered a mishmashed gish of 3rd-edition carry-over classes will become, even if they are tweaked with generous dollops of new & improved archetype woo. A character with those charisma minmaxed statistics is going to be vastly superior as either a straight paladin or a straight sorcerer, either of which will still also be better than the application of an Eldritch Knight prestige class bandaid to the existing package -- which, as MageHunter has pointed out and you've already stipulated to, is not possible with the current build.Ask your GM if your can rebuild your character into a Warpriest of Desna.LOL. From Paladin/Sorcerer (so LG aligned) fighting at reach with a polearm to Warpriest of a chaotic deity fighting, I bet, with star-knives.
Why not changing race, name and background too?
I note that Soulgear has already lifted an eyebrow at the choice of Merfolk. It's just obliquely possible that "bringing in another character" will be the most ideal solution. Sometimes a player is just unhappy with their character in toto, and bluntly bring it up in discussion susses out whether or not that is actually the case.
Thanks Dave. I went with 3 levels for the fear immunity. Mostly because fear effects would be a disruptor of my psychic casting
I think this is kind of the core of your problem. You have built with such a focus on defense that you don't have any offense.
Having good defenses and immunities is a fine thing, but if they come at the expense of being able to contribute to putting down the bad guys (not necessarily damage) then it is fairly useless.