In short.
So when we started the 6p game, no one was initially going to play an arcane caster. The GM believes in the archaic paradigm of party balance, so this was important enough to where I decided to fill that gap, and started to roll a gnome earth elemental sorcerer with a ranged touch bias. If I had it to do over again, I would have gone arcanist with the sorcerer bloodline archetype and still chosen earth elemental, because I had a background in mind for it.
While I was doing do, one of the players, who had declared for Swashbuckler, switched to bard in order to "free up my options." However, this didn't help because of two factors:
- The party definitely didn't want me to play a cleric because we have a druid;
- I interpreted "arcane caster" as being full, not 2/3, so bard didn't actually free me up at all.
But I stuck to my guns and built my character.
Level 3 just rolled around, and the bard and druid both took point-blank shot, going straight into my character's design space. Neither has shown any signs of playing a buff/support playstyle (and the other three, being martials, literally can't do so.) In fact, the bard explicitly ignored a battery of support options for his Level 3 L1 spell gain, and took chord of shards so that he could be "more useful in combat." He's got CLW, summon 1, and hideous laughter otherwise.)
So now I'm feeling extra redundant.
Still, I like my character - her mild naivete, her epic pillow punches (seriously, 1d2-3, folks,) her amazing ability to come up with short-sighted plans with the best intentions, and her ongoing search for the mysteries of her bloodline's past and a lifetime of stories to repay her adventurous parents for a wonder-filled childhood. (Yeah, she's got parents who are alive, and occasionally drink potions of minor dream for short, usually irrelevant messages. Or maybe that's just wishful dreaming.)
I'm just not sure that the ray-mage build is the way I should be building her out mechanically. So in a party where you have three martials, a druid and bard who don't want to support, and a sorcerer played by someone who actually likes the support role... what would you do?
(Note that the GM is not using the metagame artifacts, either from being unwilling or unaware.)
Heading off the build question:
Stats - Str 4, Dex 18, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 9, Cha 16. 4d6k3. 20 point equivalent.)
Derived - hp 16, AC 15, CMB -3, CMD 11, melee -1, ranged +6
Saves - Fort 2, Ref 5, Will 2
Feats - combat casting (considering retrain), ???improved init.
Combat casting was something I thought I would need, but it has not turned out that way so far, making the feat feel wasted.
Spells L0 - acid splash, ray of frost (-> spark at level 4), detect magic, mage hand, message
Spells L1 - magic missile, grease, ???mount. BL acid burning hands.
Gear - mwk light crossbow, assisting gloves, 1 vial acid, 2 smokesticks, 380g. ~370g stake in party's collective pool, plus a stake in the party's wand of CLW which still has 40 charges. (WBL is low because we had no treasure-gaining encounters in level 2, at all, and could only grow wealth by sports wagering)
I'm assuming you have a very high charisma if your strength is all low, so dont buff, debuff If the bard at least uses inspire courage, thats all the buffing your martials really need
take resist energy and swap it to communal when you have space
Take slow
Take stinking cloud
Take things like baleful polymorph and disintegrate.
Debuff the enemies, and take spells that screw over things that will make your martials lives hard
Alternately, ignore party balance, play as you wanted to originally and use saturation to overcome.
Honestly, give it time.
Early level challenge can mostly be fixed with smashing things.
As you level up, the fact that you are a 9-level caster will start to shine and the full breadth of your utility will be clear.
Combat Casting is a terrible feat in general, so no point in banging yourself up about it.
So my advice:
IF YOUR GM IS GENEROUS: Retrain from Elemental to Deep Earth. It's much better suited for support roles.
IF YOUR GM ALLOWS ONLY SOME RETRAINING: Replace Combat Casting with Toughness because you seem pretty frail.
IF YOU CAN'T RETRAIN: Just get spells that don't require you to be up in the action. I imagine that a big part of your frustration is simply having Burning Hands and being unable to use it well.
I'm assuming you have a very high charisma if your strength is all low, so dont buff, debuff If the bard at least uses inspire courage, thats all the buffing your martials really need.
16 Cha, 18 Dex. Str is 4 because we rolled our arrays rather than point-buying (mine was 18/14/14/10/9/6 = 20 equivalent, or 22 if made point-buy legal.)
The bard does "sing" when he remembers, though I suspect he'll remember a lot more based on his rationale for taking chord of shards.And yeah, I have ideas on some spells I want to get later on.
oof....ok maybe you are better off as a buffer. If you're a blaster you really needed your highest in the casting stat. +1 save dc is expensive to come by.
Lets follow the cheap path to making your character a bit more versatile.
Save money, buy a Mnemonic Vestment and talk the group into letting you keep any Spellbooks and scrolls of spells you can cast. That will let you cast one spell you don't technically know a day. Not a serious support build, but should be good enough. Especially since most prep casters only have one copy of support spells prepared.
Take haste or slow when you get access. Taking both is probably overkill. Slow does more, but DC will become an issue. Haste never goes out of fashion.
I don't think taking single target defensive spells is a good idea for a sorcerer (unless it is to save your own hide). Wait an extra level to get communal. Spend your 2nd level slot on Mirror Image.
Yeah, was definitely looking at haste for level 6 (when my L3 spells come online.) And I'll look into the mnemonic vestment. Thanks! (:
In a party with 3 martials Enlarge Person would probably be a useful buff.
In a party with 3 martials Enlarge Person would probably be a useful buff.
That's pretty rough to use(A full round of casting means if something even tickles you until your next turn you could lose the spell) and to take as one of your limited spells known as a Sorcerer. Imo, the best way to support your martials is to go a debuff/control route and serve the enemies up on a silver platter to your party.
Blood Havoc is a fun option to look into alongside Spell Focus Evocation.
In a party with 3 martials Enlarge Person would probably be a useful buff.That's pretty rough to use(A full round of casting means if something even tickles you until your next turn you could lose the spell) and to take as one of your limited spells known as a Sorcerer. Imo, the best way to support your martials is to go a debuff/control route and serve the enemies up on a silver platter to your party.
Blood Havoc is a fun option to look into alongside Spell Focus Evocation.
@Valandil: We do have three martials, but there's only one I would target because the other two get harmed by enlarge - the rogue has finesse and the paladin prefers mounted. The barbarian would love being enlarged, so potions seem a better route.
@Scavion: I would consider Havoc + SF Evo, but it's a first level decision for sorcerers, so I can't really go back and retcon / retrain to it.
As for everything else, level 3's going all right so far. The druid isn't with us though (the player can't make for a couple weeks.) Combat went well; improved init is certainly proving itself so far.
@Mark Hoover 300 That's a lot to keep in mind, but all very good. Some more specific responses:
1. Not worried about the bard remembering to be social - more about his tendency to overextend social encounters or commit mind-boggling faux pas in the name of "being chaotic." His combat action economy can get weird sometimes, when he's not sure whether to start cheerleading or attack early in a fight; he's starting to get better at it though.
2. For the Knowledge skills I know we have as a group (based on roll20 chat log):
- Rogue: Local
- Druid: Geography, nature
- Barbarian: Nature
- Bard: (None ranked. Then again, bardic knowledge makes that less relevant.)
- Paladin: (None)
- Me: Arcana, history, planes, religion.
That's what happens when some ancient warrior's ghost (whose bracers of armour +1 you DIDN'T loot out of his grave) calls you "earth's daughter" and you become convinced that his long-forgotten culture might have clues about your bloodline. It hasn't so far, but the actual lore's been enticing in its own right.
3. I don't want to abuse the dream talks too much. The GM had pokeballed the druid whose player would be out for two weeks - but without metagaming, we'd likely end up blaming one or more of our three enemy factions, then not travelling in favour of going revenge-murder-hobo. The dream talk became my proposal to the GM (which he accepted) for avoiding that and continuing the adventure.
4. Items and item crafting: Craft wondrous was quite tempting as a level 3 choice, and I'll likely revisit at level 5. As for scroll and pot, it's something I can talk to the druid (or, soon enough, the paladin) about - they feel awkward for me to take directly.
Meta rods, I'm actually looking at. Widen will probably be a future goal (since +3 lessers are 14k), but extend and reach look good.
As for pearls of power, I thought those were only valuable for prep casters? And runestone of power seems a bit expensive for only an extra casting slot.
Mnemonic vestment + gathering spellbooks = sounds wonderful. "Once a day, you can spontaneously cast one spell that you've book-wormed, as long as the source material is on hand."
5. Spells:
Yeah, the paladin's mobility requirements do make field control a bit tricky, but otherwise I'll certainly be taking those suggestions to heart. Already looking at options in summoning (especially after talking to the GM after last session - the subject of discussion was battle pets, not summons, but similar principles apply.)
6. Have I considered multiclassing into druid? Sadly, I think my 9 Wisdom might make that idea a bit silly. (:
2CP requested. 2SP tipped. Thanks :D
Pages of spell knowledge are too expensive past 1st or maybe 2nd, but 1 000 gp for an extra 1st level spell can solve a lot of problems relating to which spell to get. Depending on what friendly (or paid) spellcasters you can access, 6 000 gp for a ring of spell knowledge II may be well worthwhile. More expensive than consumable items but spells from your own spell slots don't require getting items out of your pack and have better saves when that's relevant.
A selective spell metamagic rod is one more to consider. BFC's easier when you can exclude the barbarian who charged in early. Also rime spell because it may entangle enemies even if they make the save.
@Sandslice :
The bard being chaotic for the sake of it irks me to some point. Even that should be controlled in the sense it should be balanced with the impact this has on the party. That said, hesitating on the actions to take in combat is fair enough, the inherent problem of a versatile character.
Oh, fully aware; I've had more than my share of the player archetype over the years - the one that seems to always need to win the weirdness race both in design and execution, the obligate quirky. Some of it hilarious, some ugh-inspiring.
And to be fairest to the bard, he's a new player. Just one with weird ideas about things; but this is less about him and more about getting my mindset sorted. And this thread is definitely helping, not just materially but also philosophically. (And thanks to all for that.)
The GM shouldn't give a damn about party balance, nor should the players themselves. Either it comes organically, or it doesn't.
I don't quite agree with that - or maybe I do with a qualifier. The GM needs to be aware of the party balance in order to create suitable encounters, but not to seek to control that balance.
What matters most is the players being at peace with their choice, and no complainings. It is possible to do just fine but missing the arcane caster, or a full divine caster as long there's two characters doing a little bit of that. That brings me to imply about redundancy : not a bad thing.
Without being too confrontational, I think you should provoke the discussion about the mindset.
Once the druid's player is back (week after next,) I think the table will have some good discussions about things.
The GM believes in the archaic paradigm of party balance
No, he doesn't - he believes in the "archaic paradigm" that having distinct, seperate party roles makes for a good group. Which is stupid for three reasons:
1) Since that concept usually asks for a pure martial, a non-combat-focussed character, and full casters, it actually makes for the most imbalanced parties you could build, whith some PCs being concstantly overshadowed. So much for "balanced party"!
2) You don't need any of these 'roles'. Psychic casters and alchemy exist, the division between divine and arcane casting is more flavor than mechanics*, and both martial prowess (including strong defense) and the ability to overcome skill challenges can easily be done with characters who're also capable of other things. I recently talked about that in-depth here.
3) You can build groups way more capable of overcoming all kinds of challenges (that's what the "balanced party" concept is all about, right?) by completely disregarding the idea, because redudancy is good. Two PCs attempting a skill check with 60% chance each has a higher chance to end up with at least one sucess than a single PC with an 80% chance. Buffs and debuffs can have positive stacking (e.g. the bonus attack from haste makes damage roll bonuses from Inspire COurage or Good Hope more potent), and each (ranged or mobile) damage dealer in a party makes all the others better (because lowering an enemy's HP by a third doesn't prevent them from doing full damage next turn, but if you have three PCs each dealing such damage, the enemy doesn't do anything anymore).
There are two hundred non-Cleric Wizard spells that are granted by Domains, and over 120 non-Oracle Wizard spells granted by Mysteries. A Witch has access to literally half the Cleric spell list, and over 150 non-Wizard Cleric spells (and that's without Patrons, which grant 135 non-Witch spells form the Cleric or Druid list). But then again, over 57% of spells on the Cleric list are also Wizard spells (616 out of 1083), anyway, and over half the Wizard list (958 out of 1809) is also on the Cleric, Druid, or Inquisitor list. Some options, like a Skald's Spell Kenning or a Lore sprit Shaman's Arcane Enlightenment, allows characters to grab spells as needed from the Cleric or Wizard lists, respectively.
It's also not that all divine spell lists are highly overlapping - both Wizard (616) and Witch (528) have vastly more spells in common with the Cleric than Druid (300). Which makes the idea that a Cleric would be a bad fit ebcause the group has a Druid laughable.
The essence of all this is to stop worrying. The only problem is that you think there was a problem in the first place. I think you're unwittingly affected by the "balanced party" concept (hence my lenghty digression above). So what if you end up with three single target ranged damage dealers (which you probably won't anyway)? You can focus fire to quickly take out key enemies, or play SWAT team and each take out one (weaker) enemy with precision - both helps the team. Take the usual Sorc spells (the likes of Invisibility, Glitterdust, Fly, Teleport) for situations where "hit 'em with a ray" isn't the solution, and you should have enough of a niche in the party.
The GM shouldn't give a damn about party balance, nor should the players themselves. Either it comes organically, or it doesn't.I don't quite agree with that - or maybe I do with a qualifier. The GM needs to be aware of the party balance in order to create suitable encounters, but not to seek to control that balance.
Party balance is about the PCs not being too different in power/usefulness. You don't help that by enforcing playing one of the strongest classes in the game in a group with three martials. What you're talking about, determining the group's overall power level to adjust encounters, doesn't have anything to do with interfering in the character selection.
Sorry to both; what you describe is pretty much what "the GM should be aware of party balance" sounded like in my head, but it evidently didn't translate well.
And I'm also aware of the difference between the four-class model (fighter/mage/cleric/thief) and the three-role (support/control/damage) model - which led to my initial post.
The essence of all this is to stop worrying. The only problem is that you think there was a problem in the first place. I think you're unwittingly affected by the "balanced party" concept (hence my lenghty digression above).
As this goes on, I'm more and more inclined to agree with this. The other ideas will still definitely be helpful, of course - but it is true that the biggest shift needs to happen in my head. I'll do what I can. (: