Good to haz some free PF1e Sorcererin' guide stuff out there. ;)
The 4th level bonus spell(gained at 9th level) for the Unicorn bloodline is neutralize poison. It's missing because of a miss print.
Some random commentary for you to look at or ignore.
Half-elves have another trick. If they want to sacrifice most of their racial abilities they can get +2 Cha, +2 to another stat of choice (Kindred-Raised). It's not quite a no-brainer but it is good.
The +50% to some duration bloodline arcanas run hard up against 4 minutes being no different from 6 minutes 95% of the time in game. You need a bigger difference to matter, like that shapechanger bloodline power's +900% or at the least extend spell's +100%.
I'm not impressed by the argument that exotic heritage and the sylvan bloodline work together. There's a FAQ on eldritch heritage which outright mentions 'a fey sorcerer with the wildblooded archetype trades out both her bloodline arcana and her 1st-level power to gain a new 1st-level power'. The fun thing with shadow well is that it isn't just undispellable, it's un-see invisibility-able.
Cause fear is actually workable as your starter offensive spell in a group. OTOH ray of enfeeblement...kind of sucks at low levels, though it's nice once you have empower spell it's still against fort, which is likely the best save on someone you want to enfeeble. Bestow curse is melee.
Deceitful is worthless on its own, but it's the prereq to cunning caster which can be worth 2 feats in the right game. I have no freaking idea why people like echoing spell (it's not just you Iluzry), +3 spell levels is crippling and sorcerers generally have more than enough spell slots 3 levels below their max.
very nice guide.
i'd like to point out something about the unicorn bloodline capstone.
you mentioned being immune to all unholy weapons, but there might be something a bit more common. (depand on how gm rule)
the capstone give immunity from "weapons with the evil descriptor" -
and in evil subtype rules it state :
" A creature with the evil subtype overcomes damage reduction as if its natural weapons and any weapons it wields were evil-aligned"
some gm might not allow this, but i have seen a lot that consider the attacks of evil subtype (and other sub-types per their own) creatures to be evil in all respects. in that case you can go into a bareknuckle fight with a pitfiend and actually win...
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Unlimited Mageworks: Iluzry's Guide to the Pathfinder Sorcerer
I haven't yet had the chance to read this yet (work, you know . . .) but I'm Faving it pre-emptively. But don't leave out your spells and spellcasting guide (maybe the link is in a part of the main guide that I haven't gotten to yet?).
want to add something about harrowed bloodline.
the 15th level power 'harrowed home' ? we used it in our campaign to trap the ultimately bad boss with a planeshift spell and a fork attuned to it.
since "As long as you are not in your harrowed home, time ceases to pass for anything and anyone still in your pocket dimension" even though he could have used planeshift, since time doesn't move as long as the caster is not there he doesn't have time to cast it.
later on we just kinda used it as a jail for anything we didn't want to see light of day.
we referred to it as the 'Phantom zone' ;)
i mean the sorcerer had "mage’s magnificent mansion" as a spell beside that, we didn't really need two of them..
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on a diffrent matter, in the salamander bloodline capstone you seem to make the mistake of mixing between 'DR 10/adamantine and magic.' (which the capstone gives) and 'DR 10/adamantine OR magic.' which is not it.
anyone with a magic weapon which is not +4 or made out of adamantine is not passing this dr...
My previous comments were based mainly off the bloodlines where e.g. the vestige bloodline has echoing spell as a possible bonus feat and for some reason it's coded green rather than red. Maybe you're taking some of those from a previous guide if that's not your opinion?
want to add something about harrowed bloodline.
...Hahaha Okay well these are good to know thank you very much!!!! This helps me out a lot
Edit: Updated Salamander bloodline capstone rating AND made a mention of time prison because thats hilarous
you might want to add the part about using planeshift to get inmates into the prison, for people reading your guide but not this forum. As opening the hatch might not work so good. (as time inside doesn't move, you might not even be able to push people in - once part of them is in it's kinda frozen in time).
a little typo correction i noticed. in the oracle multiclass (don't remember if it was vmc or normal multiclass section)you mentioned getting cha for ac. but said it will replace using cha for ac (should have been instead of dex).
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you're welcome, it's a very nice and enlightening guide.
excellent work!
my only dispute would be on the leadership feat.
it's an old kink of mine -
i believe most people just don't play it in the way the rules allows them to.
since it mentioned that both cohort and followers are NPC - as in non player characters.
in my games if i allow players to take leadership. i inform them that they get to order the npc around to some extant, but it is an npc. they do not get to play it like a companion or familiar ,nor do they get to call up it's state's and abilities. they can seek out a cohort who fill up some list of demands, say a paladin who specialize in archery etc, but they do not get to call out how his attributes or feats (or class abelites that he pick) are chosen. and they certainly do not get to add it's gear to their own party loot. (well unless they kill him and loot his body).
i would ask them what kind of cohort they would be looking for. then make a list of possible candidates for them to test and pick from (sometimes i won't even show them the npc character sheet. the same way i wouldn't show them other npc's sheets) .if they are not satisfied with the list they can keep looking and a new batch would be available to pick from after they spend some more time and effort. the same as any head hunting.
it's still a very powerful feat, mind you, it's jut doesn't allow people to get their own 2nd character to play with. (and more by the way some people make it, with deciding that their cohort also take the leadership feat etc)
^It is good to temper Leadership this way as the GM. On the downside, this does create more work for the GM.
Hey IluzryMage, thanks for your guide.
Out of curiosity, how come you haven't included any discussion about Traits in your guide? It's surprising because of the level of detail you go into in other parts of the guide (racial traits, feats, even VMC). Traits are so endemic and some of them have significant impact on a build (such as Magical Lineage) that I was expecting a section on them.
I get all that, sure. I don't even like traits as a sub-system, personally, but if they're used in a campaign, I'm not going to ignore them.
As for including them in a guide, I'm not the sort of guide user who's going to reference more than one guide for a PC I'm building. It's fine if people do want to do that, but for me, I'm using a class guide as a time saver so that I don't need to review multitudes of options. So, I think a brief section on Traits could be helpful in that regard.
In my specific case, I'm trying to decide what spell I should use with Magical Lineage and eventually the feat Spell Perfection. I'm leaning towards fireball, mainly because it's iconic and would be fun, but it would be nice to know some other effective options.
Hey IluzryMage, thanks for your guide.
Out of curiosity, how come you haven't included any discussion about Traits in your guide? It's surprising because of the level of detail you go into in other parts of the guide (racial traits, feats, even VMC). Traits are so endemic and some of them have significant impact on a build (such as Magical Lineage) that I was expecting a section on them.
SO traits are something that are super huge and I have had....MASSIVELY different opinions on how many you should get, rulings on them so on and so forth.
Not to say they aren't important. On the contrary!!!! I mention in my spell guide how powerful they can be, I just...dooon't want to touch them because A.) There already exists a traits guide and B.) they feel sorta like an optional subsystem in a lot of cases.
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If you mean the general guides this guide (last updated in 2014) and this guide (last updated in 2012), they are good guides, but an update is badly needed. A couple of more recent guides exist (one last updated in 2017), but they are very specific to certain purposes.
What I have been using as a workaround is going to the Archives of Nethys (1st Edition) Search page and unselecting all categories except Traits, and then typing in what I'm looking for, but properly looking through all the results is really laborious.
(And I haven't forgotten about reading the Sorcerer guide -- just been not getting a chance -- had to sleep about 13 hours yesterday to catch up from some LONG days at work . . . .)
If you are trying to make fireball your go to spell, definitely a good idea.
No, I'm trying to decide what my go-to spell is.
I'd say look at my spell guide under I think metamagic rules???? I think i listed a bunch of traits that I thought were good there.
I'll take a look, thanks.
Just now finally got a chance to start reading the guide:
The Chassis: Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: I would give this an Orange (2/5) rating, because a few classes have even worse proficiency -- Wizard(*), I'm looking at you. At least Sorcerers get all Simple weapons, of which a few decent ones exist, such as a Longspear if you didn't dump Strength and want to make Attacks of Opportunity -- or even just threaten for the benefit of your Rogue/Slayer/Vivisectionist ally(**) -- at a bit of distance in the early levels, without detracting from your spellcasting. You can also use a Cestus in case something gets inside your Longspear reach. Honorable mention goes to the Kunai and Kumade; which are handy tools for breaking and entering, the Switchblade Spring Blade, which is easy to conceal; and to any Simple weapon that is designed to be thrown. With the exception of a subset of the thrown weapons, the above weapons are a no-go for a standard single-class Wizard.
(*)And 2nd Edition DIDN'T upgrade the Wizard's proficiency, so if you suddenly get abducted by wormhole aliens into 2nd Edition, you're still ahead.
(**)You don't have to do much damage yourself to enable quite a bit of damage from your allies; if you're mostly using your Longspear to threaten squares instead of making Attacks of Opportunity, you could even get away with dumping Strength.
Roles and Ability Scores: Alternate and outright better link for "take over their body" (and www.d20pfsrd.com version thereof).
Not sure where to put this (Races or Shapechanger Bloodline or Paragon Surge spell(*)): Half Elf + Paragon Surge + Shapechanger Bloodline = Weapons-Grade Cheese (Limburger) with Magenta (6/5) topping composed of material that is very tasty but bad for GM cardiovascular health. The 3rd level Bloodline Power extends the duration of Transmutation spells of normal duration 1 minute/level that you cast on yourself, eventually (at 9th level) getting to 1 hour per level. Paragon Surge is a Transmutation spell of normal duration 1 minute/level that you cast on yourself. It lets you get ANY feat you qualify for, which by the time you get to 9th level includes the majority of Item Crafting feats, AND lasts long enough for you to do a full day's worth of Item Crafting, meaning that you never have to actually invest your limited feat slots in Item Crafting. Half-Elven non-Sorcerer spellcasters and even Half-Elven Sorcerers of other Bloodlines getting this by way of Improved Eldritch Heritage (requires good Charisma(**)) or VMC Sorcerer (doesn't require good Charisma) also take note, but know that Skill Focus (Disguise) and the first rank of Eldritch Heritage are usually just feat taxes.
(*)My inclination would be to put it under Shapechanger Bloodline and then reference this in the other 2 places.
(**)If you are a Half-Elven Sorcerer of some other Bloodline snagging this and you AREN'T of the Empyreal or Sage Wild-Blooded Bloodlines, you will easily have the Charisma for Improved Eldritch Heritage. Same for almost all Bards and Skalds, most Mediums, and some builds of Arcanist and Bloodrager. Same for a few builds of Cleric (and note that the Self-Realization Subdomain of Strength or Liberation removes the Half-Elf requirement for being able to cast Paragon Surge) and a few weird archetypes of other spellcasters that are Charisma-based instead of whatever they normally are (Eldritch Scion Magus gets a special mention because they also get Tactical Adaptation that gives you a bonus Combat Feat that you qualify for, thus letting you snag 2 Combat Feats or 1 Combat Feat and 1 other feat).
Races: Half-Orc: If you're going to invest in Intimidate, this has Intimidating for you.
Races: You left out Halfling: Perfect stat spread, usually lousy FCB (unless you pick one of the rare Bloodlines that actually has a good 1st level Bloodline Power) (same problem as Gnome). Unlike Gnome, can get Fleet of Foot to have average movement speed instead of slow movement speed; or can instead get Creepy Doll if you want to Intimidate no matter how big your opponent is if they are Humanoid (sounds like it could be be useful in Rise of the Runelords or Giantslayer).
Races: Dwarf 5/5 Blue -- WAIT, WHAT? Has UnArcaneElection gone nuts? Well, perfect stat spread for the Empyreal Sorcerer; FCB isn't very good, and the Empyreal Bloodline isn't great, but Dwarves are hard to kill and hard to mind-control, and hard to knock over, and qualify for some unique feats to make them even tougher. Just make sure that you either keep the Hardy out-of-the-box trait or trade it only for Unstoppable; otherwise, trade as you like to build what you need.
Races: Most +Int races -- 3/5 to 4/5 for the Sage Sorcerer. Sadly, you will lose the Familiar 1st level Bloodline Power for a lousy 1st level power that you won't be able to swap out for a Bloodline Mutation (due to explicit text therein); I think you can still trade it out for a Bloodline Familiar, but that delays getting your bonus spells.
(Next stop: Bloodlines.)
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Bloodlines A - D and their associated Wild-Blooded Bloodlines (regardless of starting letter)
Aberrant/Warped: Long Limbs: Note that while this DOESN'T increase your threatened area, it does let you deliver Touch spells from further away, so I'd be inclined to bump it up to 3/5 (Green) -- just be careful of unusual enemies that might be able to retaliate against your stretched attack (most won't be able to). Note that the Bloodrager version of this Bloodline Power is better -- it actually increases your threatened range. This also applies to Eldritch Scion Magi, but only if they actually have the Aberrant Bloodline rather than getting it from Eldritch Heritage.
Aberrant/Warped: Alien Resistance: This is definitely a mixed blessing, since normally Spell Resistance is normally non-selective and takes a Standard Action to turn off (you can't even do it reactively), in a fight you are stuck between eating an action while also making yourself vulnerable to an enemy perceptive enough to see when you need a friendly spell cast on you, or accidentally throwing off an ally's spell that you need. So this is really good only if you don't have an opportunity to receive friendly spells other than your own -- in that case I would rate it as you do, but in the case that you frequently need to accept spells from allies in a fight, this goes down as low as 2/5 (Orange). If you can somehow get an ability to make your Spell Resistance selective or at least Immediate Action, this goes back up in rating.
Abyssal/Brutal: Feats: Power Attack is just bad on a 1/2 BAB character, even if you are planning on doing something that needs to do some melee like becoming an Arcane Trickster.
Boreal/Rime-Blooded: Bloodline Arcana: Only works on 1 target, and is partially redundant with Rime Spell Metamagic, which increases the spell level and casting time but works on any number of targets that the spell can hit. Also is worded to work only with Cold spells, not other Cold powers (see below).
Boreal/Rime-Blooded: Freezing Bolt: Unfortunately doesn't say it works with your Bloodline Arcana.
Boreal/Rime-Blooded: Blizzard: I think you meant "Sleet Storm", not "Sleep Storm", or this would be really broken. Unfortunately doesn't say it works with Rime-Blooded Bloodline Arcana, whereas the wording of Snow Shroud does mean that it works with Blizzard.
Celestial/Empyreal: VMC Sorcerer for Domain and horribly scaling Channel Energy -- don't you mean VMC Cleric? Although VMC Sorcerer could at least work to effectively spending only 4 feats, since the Celestial/Empyreal bonus feats (of which you will get one) include a few that you might actually want.
Deep Earth/Bedrock: Strength of Stone: You get the Combat Maneuver immunity as long as you are standing on the ground, not for standing in your group. Although if you're having to stand your ground alone, you might be in trouble anyway . . . . Also, Strength of Stone makes Bedrock's Iron Hide completely obsolete, since neither power's text says that they stack, so see if you can retrain to Blood Piercing.
Destined/Karmic: Bloodline Arcana: Something got chopped up in the description here.
Draconic/Linnorm: Draconic Claws: Typo "Estoterics".
Draconic/Linnorm: Power of Wyrms is just busted with the breath weapon/energy tables as written with Etheric/Forest/etc. Dragons listead as having Bludgeoning or Piercing breath weapons -- even the Dragons of these types don't get those immunities.
Dreamspun/Visionary: Dreamshaper: Typo "modifier memory".
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Before I do the next group of Bloodlines, I wanted to expand on what I posted about Weapon and Armor Proficiency: If you have Claws or a Bad Touch Attack from your 1st level Bloodline Power, and you are doing the Longspear area threatening schtick, you can use said 1st level Bloodline Power to punish enemies who get inside your minimum range.
Bloodlines E - H and their associated Wild-Blooded Bloodlines (regardless of starting letter)
Efreeti: Bloodline Arcana: I get the argument that Fire is the most commonly-resisted energy type, so changing the damage type of your spells to Fire isn't the best thing. But I wouldn't rate it Red -- since you aren't obligated to change the energy type of the spells you cast, what this means is that you can choose damaging spells that aren't Fire (other than the 3 Bloodline Spells that are Fire, that are on your core list anyway, so I would rate them lower). Then, when you run up against something that is immune to whatever it is you chose, then you change the damage type to Fire. And make sure you know some non-elemental spells, because things that are resistant to both Fire and whatever else you chose will probably resist all energy types and have Spell Resistance -- like Outsiders. I'd bump it up to Orange (2/5).
Elemental/Primal/Lifewater: Bloodline Spells: If you didn't choose Fire, I wonder if you can also learn Burning Hands and/or Scorching Ray separately from your Bloodline Spells and NOT change the damage type? Naah . . . probably too cheesy for most GMs. Although that's nowhere near as cheesy as the shenanigans a Half-Elf can do with the Shapechanger Bloodline without needing anything other than Rules As Explicitly Written . . . .
Elemental/Primal/Lifewater: Bloodline Arcana: I'd bump fire up to Orange (2/5) for the same reason as for Efreeti.
Elemental/Primal/Lifewater: Lifewater Stream: This isn't terrible when considered in a vacuum, but you get it awfully late compared to when a Cleric or Oracle can remove these conditions (Remove Sickness is 1st level, and Lesser Restoration and Remove Paralysis are 2nd level; also, Druid, Shaman, and Witch can get a subset of these spells), and just like them, you can't use this ability to save yourself from the Nauseated condition (which won't let you take Standard Actions), and the above spells will remove some bad conditions that this ability can't remove. You also can't use it very often, so if it comes up often, you're better off having Wands of these spells in the party, that your Cleric or Oracle can use without needing UMD, and that YOU with your eventually awesome UMD score can use. The only really big advantage of Lifewater Stream is that you could affect all of your party at once IF you can get them all lined up right AND you aren't Nauseated yourself. Granted, this could be useful to un-debuff your party after an enemy just cast Waves of Fatigue (or eventually Waves of Exhaustion) on your party, but it's going to be tricky to use this without putting yourself or a party member in a bad position, and might mess up your (and maybe even your party's) action economy for the enemy caster to be still able to call it a win. So I would rate this Red-Orange (1.5 of 5).
Fey/Sylvan/Dark Fey: Bloodline Arcana: I wouldn't rate this above Green (3/5), because an awful lot of things will be immune to Compulsions, due to so many of these being Mind-Affecting. Also, typo "aight".
Fey/Sylvan/Dark Fey: Laughing Touch: This pairs well with a Longspear, as noted above, although enemies becoming immune thereafter for 24 hours hurts; on the other hand, having this be no-Save is pretty good, and Rules As Written, even Constructs, Undead, and Mindless creatures are not immune.
Fey/Sylvan/Dark Fey: Animal Companion: Recommended house rule rewrite of the Sylvan Wild-Blooded Bloodline to allow Exotic Heritage to work properly while having the actual Sylvan Wild-Blooded Bloodline work almost the same as officially written:[list]*Bloodline Arcana: You count as having the Nature Soul feat for the purpose of meeting prerequisites of feats that give you Animal Companions.
*Animal Companion: At 1st level, you gain Animal Ally as a bonus feat without needing to meet its level prerequisites, although you must still meet the Nature Soul prerequisite, either from the actual feat or from your Bloodline Arcana; however, you can pick any animal companion available to a Druid of your level - 3 (minimum 1) instead of being restricted to the list under the normal Animal Ally feat. If you have both the Sylvan Bloodline Arcana and the Nature Soul, your effective Druid level is your full Sorcerer level instead of your Sorcerer level - 3.
Fey/Sylvan/Dark Fey: Exotic Heritage: Rules As Written, it's not clear if this actually works (or if it does, it's overpowered), since the Animal Companion replaces both the 1st level Bloodline Power and Bloodline Arcana, and someone who is taking Eldritch Heritage instead of having the actual Bloodline doesn't have the Bloodline Arcana to replace. See recommended house rule above. Also, typo "Slyvan".
Ghoul: Ghoulish Claws: This pairs well with a Longspear, although it doesn't really get online until level 5 (level 7 with Eldritch Heritage) unless you get a Robe of Arcane Heritage (but you're very unlikely to get that before 5th level anyway).
No time to do any more Bloodlines tonight, but I want to try to do a better job of the recommended Sylvan rewrite, because after I logged off last night I realized that I accidentally created a situation in which you get BOTH full Druid choice of Animal Companion AND progression (even if delayed if you don't have all the feats) with your full character level. So here goes again (and trying not to mess up the list formatting this time):
Fey/Sylvan/Dark Fey: Animal Companion: Recommended house rule rewrite of the Sylvan Wild-Blooded Bloodline to allow Exotic Heritage to work properly while having the actual Sylvan Wild-Blooded Bloodline work almost the same as officially written:
- •Bloodline Arcana: You count as having the Nature Soul feat for the purpose of meeting the prerequisites of the Sylvan Bloodline 1st level power; this does not give you any other benefits of Nature Soul, nor count towards any other feat prerequisites.
•Animal Companion: At 1st level, you gain an Animal Companion as a Druid of your Sorcerer level - 3 (minimum 1), but only if you have Nature Soul. If you have both the Sylvan Bloodline Arcana and the Nature Soul feat, your effective Druid level is your full Sorcerer level instead of your Sorcerer level - 3. This stacks with the effects of feats like Boon Companion that improve companion level, but still does not allow your effective Druid level to exceed your total hit dice.
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Before I do some more Bloodlines, a note in favor of Human for those wanting to go into the Eldritch Heritage feat chain: The Powerful Presence alternate racial trait that replaces the Human Bonus Feat not only gives you Persuasive as a fixed bonus feat, but also treats your Charisma as 2 points higher for meeting feat prerequisites, making the Charisma for Eldritch Heritage almost trivial to afford, making the Charisma for Improved Heritage easy to afford, and even putting the Charisma for Greater Eldritch Heritage tantalizingly within reach. This alternate racial trait only appears in the Archives of Nethys page for Human, and not on the www.d20pfsrd.com page; it comes from Heroes of the High Court. This is not available to Half-Humans/Mostly-Humans.
Bloodlines I - M and their associated Wild-Blooded Bloodlines (regardless of starting letter)
Imperious: As far as I know, this Bloodline is also available to Half-Human/Mostly-Human characters as well (Half-Elves, Scion of Humanity Aasimars, etc.).
Imperious: Heroic Echo: My understanding of this is that the +1 increase to Morale Bonuses (and eventually Competence Bonuses) for yourself is not limited in uses (it is constant), and only the sharing with allies is limited in uses per day. Is this correct? The way they worded the last sentence (at least as it appears on both Archives of Nethys and www.d20fsrd.com) is confusing.
Imperious: Eldritch Heritage: This is a great idea . . . except . . . Skill Focus (Perform (Oratory)) is usually a lousy feat tax, so this ends up eating 2 feats. You might be better off just getting Additional Traits to get traits that give you skills in class.
Impossible: Disorienting Touch: If you want to use this (or some other Bloodline's Bad Touch Power) without putting yourself in harm's way, Long Arm is the spell for you. (At low levels, most of the enemies able to retaliate will be obvious, like Large creatures, creatures wielding Longspears/Polearms, and creatures with long tendrils/tentacles, and even then you may be able to do your Bad Touch Power and then 5' step away.)
Impossible: Relativity: Completely outclassed by the Fly spell. Red-Orange (1.5/5).
Infernal/Pit-Touched: Corrupting Touch: See Impossible: Disorienting Touch, above.
Infernal/Pit-Touched: Eldritch Heritage/Exotic Heritage: Actually, this would be pretty good on a non-Sorcerer who wants to do BaD Touch Attacks and also be good at Diplomacy -- not an impossible combination by any means. Green (3/5). On a highly Constitution-dependent class like Barbarian, Bloodrager, or Kineticist, the Exotic Heritage version gets even better to get that juicy scaling Constitution bonus, although apart from the Bloodrager (Blue, 4/5), they are going to have a hard time being able to afford the Charisma for Improved Eldritch Heritage, unless they are Humans with the Powerful Presence alternate racial trait (Blue, 4/5). Even for other classes that have a potential use for the high Charisma to qualify for Improved Eldritch Heritage, having the extra Constitution never hurts, especially if your base Fortitude Save is bad (I'm looking at you, Rogue/Ninja/Swashbuckler) -- Green-to-Blue (3.5/5). Either way, if you make it to 17th level and have enough Charisma, Greater Eldritch to snag On Dark Wings would be not too shabby (Green, 3/5) if you don't have some other reliable means of flight.
Kobold: Trap Rune: Note that the surface has to be 5 foot square, not 5 square feet. This is still doable, but not as easy as you might think (a plank isn't going to cut it -- you'll need something like a wide solid door or a decent-sized table). Also, typo "Nothing says it can be the same 5 foot square".
Kobold: Trap Sense: Normally I would agree with you on the Red rating, but if you are going to be a Sorcerous Arcane Trickster, you might actually want this (bumps it up to Green, 3/5).
Kobold: Arcane Ambush: This gets better on an Arcane Trickster. Also, despite the name, nothing says that the spell you sacrifice actually has to be arcane, so if you get this ability on a non-arcane caster (by Improved Eldritch Heritage or VMC Sorcerer), it will still work.
Kobold: Eldritch Heritage: If you don't have the Charisma for the feat chain, but you are some kind of spellcaster who does breaking and entering, go VMC Sorcerer instead -- all of the Kobold Bloodline abilities will suit you except for the 20th level ability, which the Eldritch Heritage feat chain and VMC Sorcerer don't give you anyway.
Maestro: Nope, I can't think of a way to rescue this one either.
Marid/Shazada: Nope, I can't think of a way to rescue this one either -- even if you want to do Rime Spell abuse, other Bloodlines are better.
Martyred/Retribution: Bloodline Arcana + Sacrificial Boon: You don't have to wait for an enemy to damage you to activate your Bloodline Arcana -- just do 1 point of damage to yourself with Sacrificial Boon. It's not great, but it's reliable. Orange (2/5)
Martyred/Retribution: Bloodline Arcana: Since Empowered Spell has a level cost of +2, this Bloodline Arcana only gets it down to +1.
Martyred/Retribution: This sounds good until you see that it's once per day. Get Blood Intensity instead.
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^That's what I thought, but it looked weird when I read it, because "this ability" could refer to the last thing described or to the whole Bloodline Power. (For the way you interpret it and what I'm leaning towards, I wish they would have said "You can share your increased bonus once per day, plus one time per three levels after 3rd.")
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Bloodlines N - R and their associated Wild-Blooded Bloodlines (regardless of starting letter)
Naga: Bonus Feats: They don't include Toxic Spell in these feats? Boooo!
Nanite: Bloodline Arcana: Not bad . . . except unfortunately completely outclassed by the 3rd level Bloodline Power of Shapechanger.
Nanite: Nanite Strike: Actually, this isn't too bad for us. Use a Longspear and/or the Long Arm spell (and you can combine these for even more effect, although only the Longspear increases your threatened area) to stay out of melee range of most opponents at low levels. Since it lasts for 1 round after you activate it, if you have activated it and done your actions, but then you get to make an Attack of Opportunity, it will also work on that.
Nanite: Nanite Surge: If you're going to get Extra Surge, but you're in a combat-heavy campaign, consider Sorcerous Bloodstrike instead.
Nanite: Nanite Resurgence: . . . AND it's Extraordinary, which means it works even in an Antimagic Field.
Oni: Bonus Spells: These aren't bad . . . but every single one is already on your spell list.
Orc: Touch of Rage: Unfortunately, this uses a Standard Action to give a buff for just 1 round (particularly bad if a martial wanted to snag this for themselves with Eldritch Heritage or VMC Sorcerer).
Pestilence: Nope, can't think of a way to rescue this one either.
Phoenix: Skill: Knowledge (Arcana) -- Red (1/5) because this is already a class skill for Sorcerers.
Protean/Anarchic: Protoplasm + Eldritch Heritage: Actually not too shabby on an Alchemist at low levels (their super-Throw-Anything gives Intelligence to Damage), but the effectiveness will drop off rapidly with increasing level.
Psychic: This should have been an archetype rather than a Bloodline (whereas the Wildblooded Bloodlines other than Empyreal and Sage SHOULDN'T have been archetypes, but just variant Bloodlines -- go figure).
Rakshasa: If you need to do infiltration, this Bloodline is at least Green (3/5). Would be Blue (4/5) if only it didn't have such a lousy selection of feats -- Deceitful, Detect Expertise, and Stealthy are not bad for an infiltrator (Green, 3/5), but you might not want to wait until your Sorcerer Bonus Feat levels to take these (see if your GM will let you take them with general feats and then move them to Sorcerer Bonus Feat slots), and none of the other feats are of any help.
Rakshasa: Bloodline Arcana: If your main thing is infiltration, this could be useful.
Rakshasa: Silver Tongue: If your main thing is infiltration rather than blasting (and blasting would just get you killed), this becomes very good -- at least up to Blue (4/5).
just wanted to point out that beside the OP of the Razmiran priest class itself. it's also a good way to sneak in (story-wise) one of the most OP traits ever - Strength of Submission pick it by being a true believer, then use a scroll of sow thought (or invest one of your very few 1st level spells slot in this spell if you think your going to use it more). and unless dispelled, you just nabbed a permanent +1 trait bonus to attack and damage. just perfect for the blasting type out there.
my option for a sow thought is "Razmir is just the best 'god' ever"
If an arcane caster learns a spell from outside of their class' spell list, isn't that new spell an arcane version of the spell they learned?
I had always assumed as much, but I don't know if that's spelled* out in the rulebook.
* (Pun not intended)
So nothing in the item description seems to specifically say arcane spells...just that its only useful to arcane spellcasters. Moreover, we know that you can cast any spell so long as you know it and its on your spellcasting list, which this ring does. So...idk seems like a silly raw thing but hey if you can find something for me that says it only arcane spells, I'll take it.Hi, thank you for your guide!
First, just a point of detail: a Ring of spell knowledge works only on arcane spells.
Then a question. You have rated the Shapechanger bloodline pretty high, notably for its amazing 3-rd level power. Now, polymorphing is good for utility, but if you're in beast or elemental form you can't cast as far as I know (unless you have Silent and Still Spell). And then I was looking at Razmiran Priest, so someone who can UMD. Any ideas or I should just dismiss the polymorph spells?
I think this comes from it being incompletely written -- it doesn't say "only arcane spells", but it does say that arcane spells not on your list are treated as 1 level higher; the next logical would be that non-arcane spells would be treated even more severely if you could do anything at all, but attempting to read the text of this entry for what to do with non-arcane spells just comes up with Error: Undefined.
Also I have because transmutation spells include A LOT of great buffs. Moreoever, you CAN cast so long as the form you take a.) has limbs to perform somatic components and B.) can speak A language to perform verbal components, so elemental body, Form of the Dragon, Fey for, Undead Anatomy, Monsterous Physique??? All of those spells fly and you can still cast in those forms.
Also, for (mostly) non-flying Transmutation spells that this is nevertheless good for: the humble Alter Self, and if you are a Half-Elf the not-so-humble Paragon Surge (see several posts up). More on this later when I get a chance to do my comments on Bloodlines S (so many of them -- may have to do it in at least 2 sections(*)).