Making a Gish (Fighter / Wizard) character at lvl 1


General Discussion


Since the action economy makes any character a potential gish, that's fine, but also means that the magus/spellblade is not gonna be a priority when the rulebook is finnally released.
There are multiple ways to make a suitable magus/spellblade, this is my attempt on bring the class to the playtest:

Ancestry: Human
Background: Warrior
Class: Sorcerer -> Bloodline: Imperial

ABILITY SCORES

STR 16 (+3)
CON 12 (+1)
DEX 14 (+2)
WIS 10 (0)
INT 10 (0)
CHA 14 (+2)

FEATS

General Training (Ancestry Feat)
Weapon Proficiency (General Training, taken from de ancestry feat)
Quick Repair (Skill Feat)

SPELLS

Daze (Cantrip)
Detect Magic (Cantrip)
Electric Arc (Cantrip)
Fear (1st lvl)
Light (Cantrip)
Mage Armor (1st lvl)
Mage Weapon (1st lvl)
Shield (Cantrip)

Bloodline Power: Ancestral Surge


Your stats seem wrong:
Human: +2 str/+2 cha
Warrior: +2 str/+2 dex
Sorc: +2 Cha
free: +2str/+2dex/+2con/+2cha

so, you should be:
Str: 16
Dex: 14
Con: 12
Int: 10
Wis: 10
Cha: 16

If you're going melee:

pick up True strike.

it's one of the best spells in the game atm (even for full casters) and it's even better for Gishes. (only 1 action, gives like a +4-5 effective to hit, which is also equally +4-5 to crit threat range, doesn't provoke, etc)

Also, I think Draconic bloodline would be much better for Gish than Imperial:

Claws are "free" scaling magic weapons (unlike magic weapon), and activating them enables Arcane striker (which should be your goto feat to activate each round)

so, from level 4 (that you gain arcane striker) and onwards, you could easily do something like:

move->claws->arcanestriker-Stirke (round 1)
move->true strike->arcanestriker-strike (round 2)
and etc

without maximized Cha i wouldn't personaly go for blasting routines, but more for buff->arcane striker routines.

If you're going ranged:

Get bow proficiency
dump Str, go for 16 Dex/18 cha/Imperial bloodline
get true strike
Routine would be more like: Blast->arcane striker bow strike.


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shroudb wrote:

Your stats seem wrong:

Human: +2 str/+2 cha
Warrior: +2 str/+2 dex
Sorc: +2 Cha
free: +2str/+2dex/+2con/+2cha

so, you should be:
Str: 16
Dex: 14
Con: 12
Int: 10
Wis: 10
Cha: 16

If you're going melee:

pick up True strike.

it's one of the best spells in the game atm (even for full casters) and it's even better for Gishes. (only 1 action, gives like a +4-5 effective to hit, which is also equally +4-5 to crit threat range, doesn't provoke, etc)

Also, I think Draconic bloodline would be much better for Gish than Imperial:

Claws are "free" scaling magic weapons (unlike magic weapon), and activating them enables Arcane striker (which should be your goto feat to activate each round)

so, from level 4 (that you gain arcane striker) and onwards, you could easily do something like:

move->claws->arcanestriker-Stirke (round 1)
move->true strike->arcanestriker-strike (round 2)
and etc

without maximized Cha i wouldn't personaly go for blasting routines, but more for buff->arcane striker routines.

If you're going ranged:

Get bow proficiency
dump Str, go for 16 Dex/18 cha/Imperial bloodline
get true strike
Routine would be more like: Blast->arcane striker bow strike.

Thanks for the advice, much apreciated.

I'm gonna take true strike, definitely. But the bloodline is more thematical than practical/mechanical for me. So, I'm visualizing the character as a chelish fallen noble, whose family have a bad reputation of practice intercourse with demons (if I take the infernal bloodline), or maybe one of his acestors was a infamous warlock from thassilonian times (if I take the imperial bloodline).


luy wrote:


Thanks for the advice, much apreciated.
I'm gonna take true strike, definitely. But the bloodline is more thematical than practical/mechanical for me. So, I'm visualizing the character as a chelish fallen noble, whose family have a bad reputation of practice intercourse with demons (if I take the infernal bloodline), or maybe one of his acestors was a infamous warlock from thassilonian times (if I take the imperial bloodline).

well, infernal bloodline doesn't exist.

there's only demonic, but demonic is Divine list, not arcane, so you would lose access to True strike.

on the flip side, Demonic has the jaws power which is even better than the claws due to giving temp hp (claws is better though if you go fighter multiclass and grab double slice)

Divine list also has the regular nice divine buffs for a gish.

but since it's your concept, for an arcane Gish I would stick with Imperial, and go with a bow build instead of a melee one.

Lower Cha for a Gish means that your spells won't connect that much (you'd need to ancestral surge just o keep even)

but if you want to stick to melee, i would still:

maybe go for a 12 Dex and 18 starting Cha.

either way, "true gish" doesn't come online until like level 4 (with arcane striker) and by level 5 you:

would be at 14 dex, and (even with the Fighter archetype changes that are coming) you'd be able to wear at least medium armor (grab light armor proficiency instead of weapon proficiency, gain weapon proficiencies from fighter, and fighter will advance light to medium).

Medium armor with 14 dex is only 1 less than "optimal" and it will be at "optimal" at level 10.

At 5, with human, you would also be able to pick up Dangerous sorcery and boost your spell damage even futher, OR pick up widen (or reach, but since you're already melee not that much need) spell which will pair nicely with Metamagician's shortcut that you'll gain for free at 6.

The MAIN problem of Imperial Bloodline for a Gish is that Surge is an action.

So, surge->blast is already all of your 3 actions of the round.

So, you'd need to always open up with a Haste on yourself just to be able to also strike in a round that you use Surge.


Probably I'm going to go with the demonic bloodline after all. Thanks for the feedback.


You're usually better off taking fighter dedication at 2nd instead of taking weapon and armor proficiency separately as general feats. While Sorcerers are extremely feat-starved, as a human you can take natural ambition to alleviate that.

With regards to the draconic vs imperial debate, I feel that draconic is better at low levels while imperial is better at high levels. You don't have the ability to trigger magical striker with imperial bloodline powers until 6th (unless you want to trigger ancestral surge just for magical striker... which is actually viable IMO, but obviously inferior to any other 1-action bloodline power), and the fact that you need a metamagic feat to actually make use of that power just exacerbates the sorcerer's feat starvation. However, the draconic bloodline powers just don't scale very well, and once you have a +2 weapon the claws are simply too weak to be worth using anymore. The wings are pretty good, though (decent fly speeds are really hard to get this edition).


Dasrak wrote:

You're usually better off taking fighter dedication at 2nd instead of taking weapon and armor proficiency separately as general feats. While Sorcerers are extremely feat-starved, as a human you can take natural ambition to alleviate that.

With regards to the draconic vs imperial debate, I feel that draconic is better at low levels while imperial is better at high levels. You don't have the ability to trigger magical striker with imperial bloodline powers until 6th (unless you want to trigger ancestral surge just for magical striker... which is actually viable IMO, but obviously inferior to any other 1-action bloodline power), and the fact that you need a metamagic feat to actually make use of that power just exacerbates the sorcerer's feat starvation. However, the draconic bloodline powers just don't scale very well, and once you have a +2 weapon the claws are simply too weak to be worth using anymore. The wings are pretty good, though (decent fly speeds are really hard to get this edition).

the claws scale like a magic weapon. At level 9, when you get your first +2 weapon, they are also heightened to +2 weapons, and etc. And they are effectively 2 magical weapons as well, so with fighter dedication you can even pick up double slice and truestrike->double slice in a round where you don't need to move.

imperial will always need 1 free hand to cast, so they can't use a two-handed/dual-wield as well.

lastly, fighter dedication is getting changed in next update, not exactly sure how, but i think it's mentioned that it will only advance your armor proficiencies by 1 step, not grant you all of them simultaneously. So, in most cases, you'd want to pick up light and have it advanced to medium at least.


Double slice is apparently good enough to find a place on the to-be-nerfed list. Don't count on it working as is forever.

It'll be interesting to see the other multiclasses when they come out. Paladin will be an obvious one to look at for a sorcerer gish.


shroudb wrote:
the claws scale like a magic weapon.

The claws don't scale as well as magic weapons do. If we compare the level of potency runes to the levels at which the claws advance:

+1: 3rd/4th
+2: 5th/8th
+3: 13th/12th
+4: 17th/16th
+5: -/20th

Notice that the claws are actually ahead of the weapons at low levels, but fall behind at high levels. This is exacerbated by the fact that the claws are d4 weapons while a martial weapon will be a d8 weapon, so each potency level benefits the d8 weapon more and widens the gap further. The elemental damage of the claws doesn't get heightened, so they just fall further and further behind.

As for the truestrike + double slice combo, a similar combo can be done with the bastard sword: true strike + change grip + attack. By increasing to d12 damage dice, you're still ahead of the double slicing claws if you want to spend two actions on the attack. Dropping back down to one-handed is a free action, so it won't interfere with spellcasting on subsequent turns. Basically claws have their last hurrah at 7th or 8th level. As soon as you have a +2 martial weapon, there's really no reason you'd bother using the claws anymore.


Dasrak wrote:

You're usually better off taking fighter dedication at 2nd instead of taking weapon and armor proficiency separately as general feats. While Sorcerers are extremely feat-starved, as a human you can take natural ambition to alleviate that.

With regards to the draconic vs imperial debate, I feel that draconic is better at low levels while imperial is better at high levels. You don't have the ability to trigger magical striker with imperial bloodline powers until 6th (unless you want to trigger ancestral surge just for magical striker... which is actually viable IMO, but obviously inferior to any other 1-action bloodline power), and the fact that you need a metamagic feat to actually make use of that power just exacerbates the sorcerer's feat starvation. However, the draconic bloodline powers just don't scale very well, and once you have a +2 weapon the claws are simply too weak to be worth using anymore. The wings are pretty good, though (decent fly speeds are really hard to get this edition).

Grabbing Fighter to snag heavy armor will likely be a thing of the past come tomorrow. It is supposed to just upgrade you one step, ie Medium to Heavy, Light to Medium, and I'm assuming it grants only Light. I guess Paladin will grant heavier armors, so maybe the new Paladin archetype will grant Medium armor. Not sure what the granting of weapon proficiencies will change to.


Dasrak wrote:
shroudb wrote:
the claws scale like a magic weapon.

The claws don't scale as well as magic weapons do. If we compare the level of potency runes to the levels at which the claws advance:

+1: 3rd/4th
+2: 5th/8th
+3: 13th/12th
+4: 17th/16th
+5: -/20th

Notice that the claws are actually ahead of the weapons at low levels, but fall behind at high levels. This is exacerbated by the fact that the claws are d4 weapons while a martial weapon will be a d8 weapon, so each potency level benefits the d8 weapon more and widens the gap further. The elemental damage of the claws doesn't get heightened, so they just fall further and further behind.

As for the truestrike + double slice combo, a similar combo can be done with the bastard sword: true strike + change grip + attack. By increasing to d12 damage dice, you're still ahead of the double slicing claws if you want to spend two actions on the attack. Dropping back down to one-handed is a free action, so it won't interfere with spellcasting on subsequent turns. Basically claws have their last hurrah at 7th or 8th level. As soon as you have a +2 martial weapon, there's really no reason you'd bother using the claws anymore.

true strike change grip bastard sword is less damage than 2 full attacks from double slice.

also, while ITEM level is indeed 1 lower for magic weapon, characters usually get only 1 level lower item level or 0.5 item level.

so, if you start, as an example at level 8, you don't get a level 8 item, you get a level 7.
if you were at 7th level and level up to 8, a full party of 4, only gets 2 items of level8.

and etc.

basically, in general, your best item is about item level =character level -1. Which so happens to be exactly the spell level of claws progression.

same thing with a +5 weapon, it's not guaranteed to have it at 20th level.

you're supposed to get it while playing AT 20th level.

plus, and more importantly, you still get a "level 8 item" at level 9 if you use claws. As an example, it's virtually impossible to get both spellduelist gloves and weapon at their max level if you're getting the magic weapon.

ps: it's actually quite NICE that the two options are competitive with each other and not one blatantly over the other


Zman0 wrote:
Grabbing Fighter to snag heavy armor will likely be a thing of the past come tomorrow.

I'm actually kinda concerned this may make Elf and Goblin too good for Wizard and Sorcerer respectively, since they're the only ancestries that can put their ability score bonuses into a Str/Dex/Mental combo. This lets them keep their dexterity score high enough that they can get by just with light armor, while still being strength-based.

It remains to be seen what Paladin Dedication looks like, and I definitely will be spending the day experimenting with multiclass builds.

shroudb wrote:
true strike change grip bastard sword is less damage than 2 full attacks from double slice.

Once you have a +2 weapon, the two-handed bastard sword does more. If both are at +1 it's pretty close. The claws are only better when they're actually ahead in terms of enhancement. True Strike and Magical Striker only apply to your next strike, while Double Slice says you make one strike with each of your weapons. So only the first one gets the benefits, and the second one doesn't get magical striker or true strike. After accounting for this, the two-handed bastard sword is indeed ahead provided it has the same enhancement bonus as the claws.

To use the example of 10th level where both of these would be expected to be at +2 and strength would be expected to be at 18:

Bastard Sword with magical striker deals 4d12+4 (avg 30)
Claw with magical striker deals 4d4+4+1d4 (avg 16.5), claw without magical striker deals 3d4+4+1d4 (avg 14), for a total of 30.5

So the damage is about the same, but since the claws aren't getting true strike on the second hit their accuracy is much lower. The comparison only gets worse for claws at higher levels, as they fall further and further behind.

shroudb wrote:
also, while ITEM level is indeed 1 lower for magic weapon, characters usually get only 1 level lower item level or 0.5 item level.

Have you checked out the crafting rules yet? I strongly suspect that any party with a Wizard or Alchemist will be churning out the next level of potency rune the instant the party levels up.

Liberty's Edge

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Given the new ruling on Fighter Dedication, grabbing Armor Proficiency at 1st via Human is a pretty solid call. That'll give you Medium at 2nd due to Fighter Dedication, which is enough for most characters, IMO. And likely better for AC than the +2 Dex from those Ancestries that grant it.

And if it isn't enough, you can get Heavy via another Feat at 3rd.


Deadmanwalking wrote:

Given the new ruling on Fighter Dedication, grabbing Armor Proficiency at 1st via Human is a pretty solid call. That'll give you Medium at 2nd due to Fighter Dedication, which is enough for most characters, IMO. And likely better for AC than the +2 Dex from those Ancestries that grant it.

And if it isn't enough, you can get Heavy via another Feat at 3rd.

I almost worry that this will become the go-to mage build. Now, I don't have much of an issue with armored mages, but I do worry that this doesn't solve the issue that the changes to the fighter dedication were meant to solve, but simply pushed them to be of a certain ancestry instead. Personally, I think making Mage Armor more appealing might help, but regardless, I think getting heavy armor at 3rd level might be too much. It's a rough balance, I'll grant that, as making a gish and a non-gish reasonably distinct, and not having the gish prioritize caster features, and not having the non-gish prioritize non-caster features, is a bit of an issue, but I'm not entirely sure that the current mechanics are correct.


Dasrak wrote:
Zman0 wrote:
Grabbing Fighter to snag heavy armor will likely be a thing of the past come tomorrow.

I'm actually kinda concerned this may make Elf and Goblin too good for Wizard and Sorcerer respectively, since they're the only ancestries that can put their ability score bonuses into a Str/Dex/Mental combo. This lets them keep their dexterity score high enough that they can get by just with light armor, while still being strength-based.

It remains to be seen what Paladin Dedication looks like, and I definitely will be spending the day experimenting with multiclass builds.

shroudb wrote:
true strike change grip bastard sword is less damage than 2 full attacks from double slice.

Once you have a +2 weapon, the two-handed bastard sword does more. If both are at +1 it's pretty close. The claws are only better when they're actually ahead in terms of enhancement. True Strike and Magical Striker only apply to your next strike, while Double Slice says you make one strike with each of your weapons. So only the first one gets the benefits, and the second one doesn't get magical striker or true strike. After accounting for this, the two-handed bastard sword is indeed ahead provided it has the same enhancement bonus as the claws.

To use the example of 10th level where both of these would be expected to be at +2 and strength would be expected to be at 18:

Bastard Sword with magical striker deals 4d12+4 (avg 30)
Claw with magical striker deals 4d4+4+1d4 (avg 16.5), claw without magical striker deals 3d4+4+1d4 (avg 14), for a total of 30.5

So the damage is about the same, but since the claws aren't getting true strike on the second hit their accuracy is much lower. The comparison only gets worse for claws at higher levels, as they fall further and further behind.

shroudb wrote:
also, while ITEM level is indeed 1 lower for magic weapon, characters usually get only 1 level lower item level or 0.5 item level.
Have you checked out the crafting rules yet? I...

Dragon claws, as written (and I assume as intended* as well) scale their elemental damage as well.

The claw BASE damage is "1d4 slash + 1d4 element", the element is NOT a property rune, it's base weapon damage.

So, a +2 claw deals 3d4 slash+3d4 element.

So, your averages are off by 5d4, +12.5 damage for the claw

*at 2d4 Base, they are about in between as every single other natural attack class feature, with most of them averaging d8 (4.5)


^ Very plausible but the text "and adding a damage die" isn't precisely accurate for them then,
probably best to just state damage directly i.e. 2d4+2d4 etc for each tier if that is intent,
although it should probably also spell that out so people know exactly what to use as base damage for other mechanics.


Quandary wrote:

^ Very plausible but the text "and adding a damage die" isn't precisely accurate for them then,

probably best to just state damage directly i.e. 2d4+2d4 etc for each tier if that is intent,
although it should probably also spell that out so people know exactly what to use as base damage for other mechanics.

Well, I can only assume, that if it didn't get affected by potency scaling, it would have a separate scaling by spell level (like a "and +1 elemental") like every single other dual damage effect that I've read so far.

Also, if sometime in the future, pure elemental weapons (like the ones that already exist in pf1) get printed, wouldn't their elemental damage scale with potency runes as normal?

Liberty's Edge

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Tholomyes wrote:
I almost worry that this will become the go-to mage build. Now, I don't have much of an issue with armored mages, but I do worry that this doesn't solve the issue that the changes to the fighter dedication were meant to solve, but simply pushed them to be of a certain ancestry instead.

Eh. Even without Human you can have Medium Armor by 3rd with Fighter Dedication and a General Feat. Heavy isn't so much better than Medium that Human seems required (though grabbing Dex is a very good idea if going the Medium Armor route).

Tholomyes wrote:
Personally, I think making Mage Armor more appealing might help, but regardless, I think getting heavy armor at 3rd level might be too much. It's a rough balance, I'll grant that, as making a gish and a non-gish reasonably distinct, and not having the gish prioritize caster features, and not having the non-gish prioritize non-caster features, is a bit of an issue, but I'm not entirely sure that the current mechanics are correct.

I think it'll require some experimentation to see. I must admit to being a little concerned with Mage Armor not being good enough myself. Making it the equivalent of Studded Leather rather than Leather (and thus +2 AC) seems like it'd probably be enough, but it's a tad lackluster as is.


Thank you for all your answers, and know that I will keep them in mind :D
This week we would be starting the test.


shroudb wrote:
Dragon claws, as written (and I assume as intended* as well) scale their elemental damage as well.

Interesting, because my read is exactly the opposite. The phrasing of the text is just reiterating the benefits of potency runes, and if we cross-reference the potency rune rules it's very clear that potency only gives you additional weapon damage dice and doesn't multiply other damage dice (the elemental property runes would be pretty OP if they did). Quandry's point on the text saying you get a singular damage die is also a good one. This comes together to tell me that both RAW and RAI are that dragon claw elemental damage does not increase with heighten level.

The fact that we came to completely opposite conclusions based on the same text does indicate that the rules need some tightening there, though. In any case, that would explain why we have vastly different opinions on the power. I do agree that the claws should scale both weapon and elemental dice (because without that they fall behind pretty hard, even with feat investment in double slice) but that's not what they're doing right now in my view.


Dasrak wrote:
shroudb wrote:
Dragon claws, as written (and I assume as intended* as well) scale their elemental damage as well.

Interesting, because my read is exactly the opposite. The phrasing of the text is just reiterating the benefits of potency runes, and if we cross-reference the potency rune rules it's very clear that potency only gives you additional weapon damage dice and doesn't multiply other damage dice (the elemental property runes would be pretty OP if they did). Quandry's point on the text saying you get a singular damage die is also a good one. This comes together to tell me that both RAW and RAI are that dragon claw elemental damage does not increase with heighten level.

The fact that we came to completely opposite conclusions based on the same text does indicate that the rules need some tightening there, though. In any case, that would explain why we have vastly different opinions on the power. I do agree that the claws should scale both weapon and elemental dice (because without that they fall behind pretty hard, even with feat investment in double slice) but that's not what they're doing right now in my view.

frankly, i can see both readings.

one relies more heavily on the weapon potency sidebar (specifically the part about extra damage).
the other relies more heavily on the dragon claw description (to be precise in the absence of any indicator that the elemental damage is "extra" damage and not "base" damage)

I mean, if that's the case, what's stopping me for saying that the base damage is the elemental damage and that the "extra" damage is the slash one?

it's just, that as I mentioned before, every single "double source of damage" spell/power that comes to mind, offers scaling to BOTH in some form or another (even if it's just a +1 on the secondary) while there's an absolute absence of said text in the "claws" power that tilts me much more heavily on the interpretation that potency scales BOTH damage types.

But yeah, a clarification would be great (like a dozen other things that need clarification, just add to the pile)

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