Advice: party face + lots of skills + 9th level spells


Advice

Lantern Lodge

Heyo!

My friends and I have been doing some PFS within our own group for pathfinder 1e (intermixed with some homebrew adventures, so far emphasizing social encounters). The group lacks a full progression spell caster, and a party face, and I have the opportunity to play here soon (we got another GM trained up now). While we don't *have* to have a full progression spell caster, It's been a long while, so I'm wanting to go that route (specifically). I've wanted to play a Kitsune for awhile now too.

I got a laundry list of things I want:

A lot of skills (especially the social skills)
Full fledge spell caster
Wanting to take advantage of Kitune's enchantment specialization

So far, I'm taking a dip into Kitsune Trickerster (I think I can go unchained rogue as well with that, correct me if I'm wrong). That ADDs my intellect to my charisma/wisdom for social stats, which I think is amazing. I'm also picking up the
realistic likeness feat at level 1.

After that, A crossblooded Fey/Sage sorceror would work (getting INT for spells, and a +2 to compulsion spells), but I also kinda wanna aim for the Enchanting Courtesan Archetype (+6 skills per level, plus some other interesting things). That'd put me 2 levels behind in spellcasting, with a sorceror's progression (so 3 levels behind what a wizard would have).

Going wizard instead of sorceror would be awesome, but the +2 to compulsion spell DC is really, really hard to give up. Anyone have any suggestions there?

Also, beyond the feat at level 1, and potentially skill focus: enchantment to qualify for the prestiege, I don't really know what to go for. Any advice on those + traits?

Thanks in advance!


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HI try playing the Feyspeaker druid that has 6+int skills, is charisma based, and is a prepared full caster that gets access to some nice mind affecting abilities.


Feyspeaker Druid sounds like a good bet, as IluzryMage says.

Another option is Arcanist. They're an INT-based 9th level caster who also gets bonuses from CHA. Their INT is likelyhigh enough to have more skills than any non-INT-based class, and the extra CHA will help maks a good face. Also, although their progression is slower than prepared casters, Arcanists otherwise get the best of both worlds.

Also I'm not hugely proficient with Oracles, but I assume there's an archetype or Mystery that gives them more skills to play with, and otherwise they're a 9th level CHA-based caster.

Now aside from those, there are some 6th level casters who do a pretty good job of emulating full casters, even getting 9th level wizard/cleric/etc spells as 6th level spells on their own lists.

Bard obviously comes to mind as the quintessential face, and there are more than enough archetypes to choose something you like. Summoner is a CHA-based caster with a hugely buffed spell list. Investigator would certainly play the face and skill-monkey roles, and their ability to hand out personal-range buffs can help make up for their lack of regular casting. The Occultist gets enough SLAs to potentially make up for their lower spell level, and the Silksworn archetype makes them a much better caster while giving them a CHA focus as well. (I omitted other 6th level caster because my experience with them has them more as a gish or self-buffing martial, but I'm by no means all-knowing.)


FrodoOf9Fingers wrote:
I also kinda wanna aim for the Enchanting Courtesan Archetype (+6 skills per level, plus some other interesting things).

How many skill ranks do you need? At that point, you're at 7-8 per level, not even counting the Rogue level.

You can get the lost casting level back with Prestigious Spellcaster feat, though.


I'd question the point of the rogue level. Sure, it pumps your social DC's and adds some skill points. I'd strongly question if that's a good trade-off for a caster level... especially given you're dropping 1 from the prestige class and already on the slower sorcerer progression.

Lantern Lodge

@Dreklord I don't think Prestigious Spellcaster is legal for PFS? While it's within the group, we decided to stick with PFS strictly.

@Pad300 thats exactly what I'm feeling. But I also love the idea of simply destroying every social encounter with confidence. If I dropped the rogue, I could stick with being charisma focused too.

I find myself leaning towards Blood Arcanist, with the Fey bloodline. Combined with Kitsune and using the Arcane Reservoir and a 18-19 intellect will net a DC 19 for Daze, and DC 20 for sleep at level 1.

I'm going to try and take advantage of poisons (partly because the prestige class has several interesting abilities associated with it). To do so, I'm thinking of picking up Bloodline Familiar, which replaces the 1st level bloodline power. That gets me a familiar, and with improved familiar (potentially need to grab Boon companion), I can upgrade from a centipede (Daze poison) to a Pseudo Dragon (Sleep poison, higher con for more doses, and a racial +2). I won't need handle animal ranks to milk them (I double checked the legality of that already, it's 1/day per con modifier). Since I'm adventuring with general the same characters, I can nab a Poisoning Sheath to hand off to some of the other characters.

I'll get 7 skills per level as the arcanist (using the favored class bonuses), up to 10 when entering the prestige class. I really want to max Disguise/Bluff/Diplomacy/Sense Motive, but I also should support the others with Perception/Spellcraft/Knowledges. I'll want to get a money maker (craft?) and a few points in perform for qualifications. Should I be thinking about grabbing intimidate too?

Still really debating the rogue level. I kinda wish I could see how the homebrew things will go before I have to make the decision, but those won't show up till level 3. Could retrain I suppose.

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