[PFS] Low level spell selections

[Jiggy]

So I'm finally planning to play my GM credit baby tomorrow night. I'm almost done building my 2nd-level sorcerer - I mostly just need to settle on my first two spells known.

I'm a 20 CHA human Elemental (Primal [electricity]) sorcerer, level 2. I'm planning to use the alternate FCB for extra spells known starting at 4th level. At 3rd level I get another spell known as well as my first bloodline spell (electric burning hands), but for now, what would be a good pair of spells?

I know eventually I want magic missile, shield, liberating command, mage armor, silent image... Possibly others I'm forgetting. But what about now?

I have 8/day elemental rays, plus daze and disrupt undead, so for this little time before hitting 3rd level I don't feel like I *need* to have a purely offensive spell yet, but I'm just not sure.

Ideas?

[Nails]

I'd recommend Identify. It will come in handy time and time again. If you want to help in combat take Sleep.

[Jiggy]

Nails wrote:

I'd recommend Identify. It will come in handy time and time again.

Are you serious?

[Flintas]

Minor Image or Color spray are always good choices.

[Drejk]

Nails wrote:

I'd recommend Identify. It will come in handy time and time again. If you want to help in combat take Sleep.

Identify spell is useful but with a high Spellcraft score one can identify items with detect magic alone. I don't know how often magic items of note are found in PFS so it might be better to wait for higher levels, except then high Spellcraft score might render identify obsolete.

Jiggy, consider color spray and already mentioned sleep as crowd-controlling spells.

[Jack Rift]

Sleep is good until around 4th or so. But by then you can ditch it. Color Spray is great and still useful at higher levels.

[Jiggy]

Around what level do folks usually take mage armor and shield?

[ArmouredMonk13]

Jiggy wrote:

Around what level do folks usually take mage armor and shield?

The level they plan on starting play. Also, mage hand is really useful for triggering traps because you can pick up a pebble and drop it on the location. It also can help with a lot of other things. At first level, you may want an AOE (colorspray, burning hands, etc.) and a buff spell (mage armour, shield, etc.)

[Jack Rift]

Normally I take shield at first and in a level or two take mage armor. My reasoning is against other arcane (wizs and sorcs) magic missile will be common, at least in my experience. In a few levels you cast mage armor once before adventuring and shield before a fight.

[Crosswind]

ArmouredMonk13 wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Around what level do folks usually take mage armor and shield?

The level they plan on starting play. Also, mage hand is really useful for triggering traps because you can pick up a pebble and drop it on the location. It also can help with a lot of other things. At first level, you may want an AOE (colorspray, burning hands, etc.) and a buff spell (mage armour, shield, etc.)

Color Spray is a big winner at low levels. Silent Image (Minor Image is 2) is amazing utility. Grease is also excellent.

I wouldn't waste a spell slot on Mage Armor at early levels unless you know you're going to be dungeon crawling. It's easy enough to buy a potion of it, and it doesn't scale with your super-awesome casting stat. Pick it up at level 2 or 3.

-Cross

[Jiggy]

Hmm... How does this look?

Level 2: Silent Image, Sleep
Level 3: Mage Armor, Bloodline:Burning Hands
Level 4: FCB:Protection from Evil, Swap:Sleep-->Magic Missile
Level 5: Shield, FCB:Liberating Command
Level 6: (nothing)
Level 7: .....?

[Rory]

Jiggy wrote:

So I'm finally planning to play my GM credit baby tomorrow night. I'm almost done building my 2nd-level sorcerer - I mostly just need to settle on my first two spells known.

...

Ideas?

If you are a sneaky sorcerer, Reduce Person can add +5 stealth, +2 AC for a combat, and +2 to hit at range.

Cause Fear is a great debuff on a save and a decent crowd control spell on a failed save. Obviously, you'll want to trade this one out at level 4 as the plan.

Unseen Servant is a nice caddy for lots of out of combat things.

Your feat and trait selection might key in on much needed spells. Example: Magical Lineage Magic Missile just screams to get Toppling Spell as a feat and Magic Missile as one of the 1st level spells.

Don't sweat the 1st level spell selection too much. Not only can you swap it out at 4th level, etc., but a level 1 Page of Spell Knowledge is only 1000gp. A Ring of Spell Knowledge (1500gp) is very, very nice for sorcerers.

Mage Armor and Shield are great from wands, so there isn't a big rush to get these. Mage Armor trumps Shield as a spell known because Shield will almost always take a combat action and Mage Armor gets to be fire and forget. Level 4+ is a good time for Mage Armor (you can start to cast your level 1 spells at whim with the advent of 2nd level spell slots). Level 10+ is a good time for Shield (for a Quickened Shield spell).

[Crosswind]

Jiggy wrote:

Hmm... How does this look?

Level 2: Silent Image, Sleep
Level 3: Mage Armor, Bloodline:Burning Hands
Level 4: FCB:Protection from Evil, Swap:Sleep-->Magic Missile
Level 5: Shield, FCB:Liberating Command
Level 6: (nothing)
Level 7: .....?

Looks pretty good to me.

-Cross

[andreww]

I would avoid Sleep, it has a casting time of 1 round so you really risk disruption. Colour Spray is better but it requires you to be right up close to the action. If taking Colour Spray I would grab Mage Armour, 50g a pop potions will eat into your available cash especially early on.

What Feats have you picked?

[andreww]

I also wouldn't start with a 20 Cha. Given PFS caps out at level 12 you are only going to see 3 level boosts so starting with a 19 will get you to the same place at the end and leave you a lot of points to boost other stats.

[andreww]

If you know your party will regularly have a major melee character as a target then I would also consider Enlarge Person for them. Other than that Grease is always a useful spell, Cause Fear is OK but you will want to train out of it at level 4 and Charm Person is great for a number of PFS scenarios which often have social encounters in them.

[andreww]

Finally one to note, there is some disagreement about whether or not you can cast Liberating Command on yourself. A strict reading of the rules suggests not which may affect whether or not you want to grab it.

[Jiggy]

@andreww:
You make some good points, deserving of thorough responses.

Re: Sleep vs Color Spray - I'm thinking Sleep because of the safety of range (I've never seen a PFS table without melee characters), and because I'm a little sick of Color Spray locally. ;)

Re: Feats - Toughness and Combat Casting. Planning on Improved Initiative at 3rd.

Re: Stats - I have a gish addiction. Having 7 STR and 20 CHA means less... temptation. :) Also, it gets me more spells per day at low levels than a 19.

Re: Liberating Command isn't for me, it's for keeping my meatshields from getting swallowed whole. Because if they get eaten, I'll be next!

[Crosswind]

andreww wrote:

Finally one to note, there is some disagreement about whether or not you can cast Liberating Command on yourself. A strict reading of the rules suggests not which may affect whether or not you want to grab it.

There isn't any disagreement, really. You don't have 2 immediate actions, so you can't use it on yourself. Rather, you can use it on yourself, but you won't have a spare immediate action to use to get your ass free afterwards.

DO NOT SWEAT THIS, however. You are a wizard. Some other dude will be the guy getting grappled, because he will be in the front lines with the Kraken. He will be super happy that you basically saved him a wasted turn of trying to escape.

-Cross

[andreww]

Jiggy wrote:

Re: Feats - Toughness and Combat Casting. Planning on Improved Initiative at 3rd.

That's fine for level 1. I would strongly consider dropping toughness for something else with retraining when you reach level 2. At that point you should have enough HP to survive one round at least and give you time to get away if you do fine yourself in trouble.

Combat Casting is a feat which loses a lot of value as you level and casting defensively becomes easier. I would be tempted to grab Improved Initiative straight off to make sure Sleep goes off immediately at the start of round 2.

Quote:

Re: Stats - I have a gish addiction. Having 7 STR and 20 CHA means less... temptation. :) Also, it gets me more spells per day at low levels than a 19.

It gives you one extra first level spell per day at level 1 until level 4 when the 19 catches up. At level 8 you get 1 extra second level spell which the 19 catches up with at 12. Starting with a 17 allows at 14 con and dex which will help significantly with survivability.

[Crosswind]

Jiggy wrote:

@andreww:

Re: Feats - Toughness and Combat Casting. Planning on Improved Initiative at 3rd.

Combat Casting is a trap feat. Don't take it. Improved Initiative at level 1 is better. =)

Improved Initiative has a 20% chance of basically giving you an extra action, every combat.

Combat Casting has a 20% chance of making your action work, every time that you have somebody in melee and can't take a 5-foot step back.

Early levels, with your positioning (sleep is long range), you shouldn't end up in melee and unable to 5-foot-step back. Which makes Combat Casting a waste of a feat.

-Cross

[Jiggy]

andreww wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Re: Feats - Toughness and Combat Casting. Planning on Improved Initiative at 3rd.

That's fine for level 1. I would strongly consider dropping toughness for something else with retraining when you reach level 2. At that point you should have enough HP to survive one round at least and give you time to get away if you do fine yourself in trouble.

I'm starting at 2nd level, actually. I took Toughness because my FCBs aren't going into HP (at least, not after 3rd level).

Quote:

Starting with a 17 allows at 14 con and dex which will help significantly with survivability.

Er, I've already got a 14 CON, and a 12 DEX. Here, have a look:

STR 07
DEX 12
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 10
CHA 20

So, what do I gain with a lower CHA? A single point of AC/init?

[Jiggy]

@andreww/Crosswind - You're making some rather compelling arguments against Combat Casting...

[andreww]

Jiggy wrote:

So, what do I gain with a lower CHA? A single point of AC/init?

And reflex save. Personally I would probably dump wisdom as well and grab a 14 Int for extra skill points. Something like:

Str7, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 14,Wis7, Cha 17

Actually personally I would go with the Sage bloodline to use Int as my casting stat and dump Cha to 7 and have a 14 Wis.

[andreww]

You might also want to consider Traits. Magical Lineage is an excellent trait but you would need to decide what spell to attach it to with the obvious issue that the higher the level the less use you will get out of it.

[Jiggy]

Took Reactionary and World Traveler (Diplomacy) for traits. Those I'm pretty settled on.

[andreww]

Both are great options. I am often tempted by a Perception one but Diplomacy is pretty much the other essential PFS skill.

[Jiggy]

Yeah, starting with a +10 Diplomacy feels good. :)

[Rory]

Is the "theme" of the character to be a blaster type? With the elemental wild-blooded archetpye, it sounds like a blaster (+1 to all electric spells).

However, the feats Toughness and Combat Casting (which isn't worth it, I agree) don't help to boostrap a blaster. They sound like the character is meant to be a melee mage (which you are avoiding).

You could go a long ways to bootstrapping the character with these two initial feats.

Example: Blaster
- Spell Focus Evocation (human)
- Mage Tattoo (1st)

This would give you a 4d4+4 Lightning Hands spell at 3rd level. You could pick up Shocking Grasp for a nice 3d6+3 damage attack at 2nd level (instead of Sleep, and swap out Shocking Grasp for Magic Missile at that point).

If you don't have a roleplaying theme behind the elemental bloodline, the draconic bloodline will do much the same, except you gain +1 AC @ 3rd, and can grow claws to "threaten" (which saves you a hand when wielding a wand instead of a dagger). You lose your lightning blast, but that's beat by a simple Wand of Magic Missiles (which I think is really nice at levels 2 and 3). You'll also get Mage Armor @ level 3 automatically, and can pick up Burning Hands at level 2 to get you a fun 3d4+3 AOE.

You'll then attack short range with Burning Hands and long range with Magic Missile at level 2 (as opposed to Lightning Blast short range and Sleep long range). Your spells will affect a far broader set of foes and you won't suffer a -4 to -8 for casting a ranged attack into melee.

Just some thoughts...

[Jiggy]

I'm not familiar with Mage Tattoo. What is it, and what's it from?

The idea with the bloodline is not to focus on blasting, but more because it assists a generalist by taking the handful of blasting spells I'm going to end up casting from time to time anyway and making them not suck so bad. ;)

Basically, I felt like most bloodlines worth taking were either just plain bad or sort of forced a flavor I didn't want. Primal lets me just play a non-freak of whatever personality I like and get a decent benefit. So it's the best fit for my concept.

[andreww]

I think he means Varisian Tattoo which has spell focus as a pre=req. It will give you +1 caster level for your evocations which means you do more damage with your bloodline ability.

So at level 2 your evocation caster level would be 3 allowing for 2 magic missiles or 3d4+3 burning hands damage.

Finally yes most of the bloodlines are terrible with a small number of exceptions (Arcane mostly, Fey or Infernal for certain builds, Draconic or Primal for damage but often combined with Orc).

[Ninjaiguana.]

On the mage armour front, you should probably either plan to have both it and shield, or just skip both spells entirely. Many of my mage builds (in general not just PFS) utterly ignore AC buffs on the grounds that AC 16 (for instance) isn't much better than AC 12. I'm getting hit either way (especially as my level increases) and I can use my spells for more useful things if I'm not prepping AC-boost magics. That goes double for sorcerers and their limited spells known. Of course, YMMV... ;)

[Rory]

Mage Tattoo (it might be called Varisian Tattoo in PFS) is from the Inner Sea Guide. It adds +1 to your caster level for a school of magic.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/varisian-tattoo

Sorcerers make better specialists than generalists. Even if you wanted the generalist feeling, it might still be good to pick one thing you are better at as a prime thing. If you dabble in a little of everything, you'll fall short of everything, so the theory goes.

It's interesting that you picked something different than the all too typical Arcane bloodline (the best generalist I imagine). I like that.

[andreww]

Ninjaiguana. wrote:

On the mage armour front, you should probably either plan to have both it and shield, or just skip both spells entirely. Many of my mage builds (in general not just PFS) utterly ignore AC buffs on the grounds that AC 16 (for instance) isn't much better than AC 12. I'm getting hit either way (especially as my level increases) and I can use my spells for more useful things if I'm not prepping AC-boost magics. That goes double for sorcerers and their limited spells known. Of course, YMMV... ;)

At higher level yes. At lower level the difference between 12 and 16 is still fairly significant.

Personally I would always know Mage Armour and use Shield from a wand later on as an emergency buff. Wand Mage Armour will only last an hour so you may well be eating through charges a lot.

[DesolateHarmony]

Mage armor in a wand lasts for an hour, and is really cheap at 15 gold per casting. An hour is good for several encounters close together. Shield only lasts a minute from a wand, but that is most of a fight. It just takes the action to use it. Both of these from wands let you use your spells known for more important spells. But, as Ninjaiguana said, AC isn't a primary defense for many casters.

[Ninjaiguana.]

andreww wrote:

Ninjaiguana. wrote:

On the mage armour front, you should probably either plan to have both it and shield, or just skip both spells entirely. Many of my mage builds (in general not just PFS) utterly ignore AC buffs on the grounds that AC 16 (for instance) isn't much better than AC 12. I'm getting hit either way (especially as my level increases) and I can use my spells for more useful things if I'm not prepping AC-boost magics. That goes double for sorcerers and their limited spells known. Of course, YMMV... ;)

At higher level yes. At lower level the difference between 12 and 16 is still fairly significant.

Personally I would always know Mage Armour and use Shield from a wand later on as an emergency buff. Wand Mage Armour will only last an hour so you may well be eating through charges a lot.

It's true that at low levels there's more of a difference, but I mostly try not to take hits. I've got a level 3 wizard in PFS with an AC 11 and no AC improving spells and he's done ok so far, for instance. That might be a slightly unequal example, though, as he's got the swift action teleport power of the Teleportation subschool ('shift', I think?), which does wonders for keeping you out of trouble.

[Rory]

andreww wrote:

At higher level yes. At lower level the difference between 12 and 16 is still fairly significant.

Personally I would always know Mage Armour and use Shield from a wand later on as an emergency buff. Wand Mage Armour will only last an hour so you may well be eating through charges a lot.

A level 3 halfling sorcerer with a 16 DEX of the draconic bloodline will have a 19 AC with Mage Armor. Use a Wand of Shield to achieve a 23 AC. That's relevant for quite a while.

Anecdote...

My son (9 yrs old) is playing just that. My favorite quote so far from his sorcerer is one he said in response to me trying to teach him casting strategy.

Me: "If you walk up to the monsters to hit all three of them with your Burning Hands spell, you can cast defensively and not get attacked while casting the spell."

Son: "I'm not going to cast defensively, I'm going to cast OFFENSIVELY."

(he spoke quite passionately and stressed the word "offensively" as he spoke, which made the delivery utterly hilarious)

He proceeded to cast the spell. The AOO missed his 19 AC, and he scorched three foes for good damage. Call it positive or negative reinforcement, he shined in that fight. And I got a good laugh!

[Marc Radle]

Might this thread not be better in the PFS forum? :)

[andreww]

Rory wrote:

Sorcerers make better specialists than generalists. Even if you wanted the generalist feeling, it might still be good to pick one thing you are better at as a prime thing. If you dabble in a little of everything, you'll fall short of everything, so the theory goes.

This is only sort of true. As a sorcerer you really want to find ways to maximise the versatility of your known spells so you want spells that do multiple things. In addition you really want to be able to target any of the three saves, ideally both as AOE and single target eventually.

Where you need to make sure you have focus is in feats, particularly picking metamagic which benefits your known spells and also with stuff like spell focus.

A blaster sorcerer who picks nothing but blasts and never thinks about the powerful control or information spells is providing much less benefit than one who does as they will have lots of spell overlap.

[Ferious Thune]

Your spell selection looks good to me. I'm also a fan of taking Toughness so that you can use your favored class bonus for spells.

I'll add another vote against Combat Casting. I took it (and Focused Mind!) with my PFS sorcerer, because i didn't know Pathfinder at the time. It has mattered once in that character's 10 levels (in his 26th session), and that time was only because I forgot to say I was casting a touch spell then moving and delivering it at the end of the move. And even then it only mattered because the enemy had spell breaker or some such feat that increased the DC. Elemental Focus or Spell Focus would be better, as would many other feats.

[Rory]

andreww wrote:

Rory wrote:

Sorcerers make better specialists than generalists. Even if you wanted the generalist feeling, it might still be good to pick one thing you are better at as a prime thing. If you dabble in a little of everything, you'll fall short of everything, so the theory goes.

A blaster sorcerer who picks nothing but blasts and never thinks about the powerful control or information spells is providing much less benefit than one who does as they will have lots of spell overlap.

For certain. Being "better" at something doesn't mean "pick nothing else" than that something. I don't think Jiggy will be going overboard on any specialty as he wants to be a generalist.

[Jiggy]

Heh, I've never played a primary caster before, but I do think I'm pretty good at making effective generalists. :)

[Rerednaw]

Just a few thoughts.

I'd advise against taking level 1 spells as a spell learned at level 5+.
Spells known will always be a bane of yours, so I'd take 1 spell at most for your defense for levels 1-3 and use wands of shield/mage armor. Same goes for just about any "it would be nice to have once in a while" if you say that when you look at the spell, then consider a scroll instead. You want most of your spells to be something you're comfortable with having *every* combat.

Since you are a blaster Spell Focus: Evocation and Varisian Tattoo(Evocation) are an excellent combination feat-wise.

A 20 starting cha is a heavy cost in terms of your point buy...while having that extra DC and 1 extra spell is nice...it may be better in the long run to start with a 19 and use the other points in say dex...or even int if you want to pick up the feat Spell Specialization.

If you haven't decided on your first two spells yet...grease and color spray are good contenders. They have multiple uses and scale fairly well for the first few levels. On the other hand, nothing wrong with starting with the old standby Magic Missile, straight out of the gate. At caster level 3 (being level 2 and with the feat Varisian Tattoo), you're looking at 2 auto-hit missiles which is fairly nice. Alternatively 3d4+3 area damage is nothing to sneeze at either if you decide to go with burning hands.

I'd also consider making one of your traits Magical Lineage (or it's equivalent Wayang Spellhunter) with Fireball as your favored spell...having that -1 spell slot for metamagics makes metamagicked spells more useful.

[Esmerelda Lokrien]

Jiggy wrote:

Yeah, starting with a +10 Diplomacy feels good. :)

Yeah, not totally optimal but my druid started at +10 Diplomacy as well. Yep. On a Druid. . .

Anyhow, my favorite first level spells are:

1) Grease
2) Silent Image
3) Color Spray (swap out asap for mage armor after level 4)

[andreww]

So Jiggy how did session 1 go?

[Jiggy]

It went well! I was barely able to play, after an APL 5.3(ish) table agreed to play down into 3-4 instead of up into 6-7 in an old 1-7 scenario. (If any of you guys are reading, thanks again!) We pretty much roflstomped the scenario, though I was able to contribute, mainly by sucking up some enemy actions with silent image creating walls and boxes around enemies.

And now I'm 3rd level, so I'll be picking up my first bloodline spell (burning-I-mean-electrical hands) and one more spell (which may or may not be mage armor).

And a feat! Gotta pick a feat (ended up going with Toughness and Improved Initiative for my 1st-level feats).

[Rerednaw]

Jiggy wrote:

It went well! I was barely able to play, after an APL 5.3(ish) table agreed to play down into 3-4 instead of up into 6-7 in an old 1-7 scenario. (If any of you guys are reading, thanks again!) We pretty much roflstomped the scenario, though I was able to contribute, mainly by sucking up some enemy actions with silent image creating walls and boxes around enemies.

And now I'm 3rd level, so I'll be picking up my first bloodline spell (burning-I-mean-electrical hands) and one more spell (which may or may not be mage armor).

And a feat! Gotta pick a feat (ended up going with Toughness and Improved Initiative for my 1st-level feats).

That's great you had a good time!

Feat? Hurm, I'd recommend that if you still plan on being an evoker consider starting the aforementioned evocation series of feats.

[I Hate Nickelback]

Jiggy wrote:

Nails wrote:

I'd recommend Identify. It will come in handy time and time again.

Are you serious?

Sorry Jigs, identify is a very useful spell, at least in my experience.

[Jiggy]

I Hate Nickelback wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Nails wrote:

I'd recommend Identify. It will come in handy time and time again.

Are you serious?

Sorry Jigs, identify is a very useful spell, at least in my experience.

I guess I could see it in a dungeon-delving, long-term home campaign, but I don't really see the value in PFS. You can identify things with Spellcraft without identify already, and on the off chance that the entire party can't identify something, then all you've really lost is the chance to use the item during the scenario - it'll still be on your sheet at the end. The only items I've *ever* encountered in a scenario that would have been a real bummer to fail to identify have been potions, and those get double the opportunity to ID (Spellcraft and Perception).