Ok, so I think I'm pretty much done with the shaman and I know what I want to do with the rogue so I'm down to the last member of this family - the Fetchling Sorcerer. As I mentioned in the other post, I was originally going to have the shaman have Inscribe Magical Tattoo and a calligraphy wyrm familiar but then saw the Tattooed Sorcerer archetype. So I will be putting those onto this guy instead.
Now sorcerers make great blasters but I already have one blaster in the family so I'm not sure if I need a second. I could probably go with a bloodline that gets some other creation feats and have this guy be the one that makes builds all the magic stuff for his family. Or just lean into blasting and take the Elemental Bloodline.
For a Fetchling sorcerer the alternative racial trait shadow magic seems appropriate. That would mean you want to focus on shadow spells. The shadow or umbral bloodlines would make the most since for that. You might also want to go with the umbral scion archetype for this character.
Unfortunately the archetypes don't stack with each other. They both replace the first level power and 7th level feat.
You can still take the shadow bloodline and focus on illusions. The Shadow spells are often the most versatile spells in the game so work well for a sorcerer with limited number of spells known. You get Shadow Conjuration, Shadow Evocation, Greater Shadow Evocation and Shades as bloodline spells. Take spell focus, greater spell focus and shadow magic to boost the DC of those spells by +3. Solid Shadows can boost the realness of the spell by 20%.
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Having a crafter as part of the party is always helpful. But there aren't many sorcerer bloodlines that directly give you help with crafting. Impossible and Salamander give you a bonus feat and Impossible lets you ignore some spell prereqs while crafting. It's really not that much of an improvement over just taking the feats. Both also have craft feats on the bloodline feat list, so that's a little extra. I'd go Impossible if you want to got that way.
I do second the idea of the shadow focused sorcerer. Fetchlings make good shadow spell casters. (Especially arcanists). As Mysterious Stranger said, the best thing is the sheer versatility of shadow spells. Even moreso since shadow enchantment makes a pretty good buffing spell in addition to attacks. "Hey buddy, I want you to really believe that you are heroic. And by really believe, I mean deliberately fail this saving throw." There are lots of feats and gear that can make shadow spells more real or boost the DC.
You may also want to give your familiar an archetype. Unfortunately very few of them are legal for advanced familiars, so you'd lose it when you got the calligraphy wyrm.
A sorcerer is going to be very limited as a crafter. Sine spell craft is an INT based skill his roll and the sorcerer is a CHA based caster his bonus will be lower than normal. He is also a spontaneous caster so will often lack the required spell and have to take a penalty to create many items. You could take the feats Magical Aptitude and Skill Focus, but that leaves you less feats for other things.
Unless you want the sorcerer to be extremely focused on the items it can create the only real alternative is an Impossible bloodline sorcerer and even then, you will struggle with potions and spell-trigger/spell completion items. If you do go with an Impossible bloodline sorcerer the character will be highly focused on item creation and will lack the versatility of the illusion focused sorcerer. So, what you need to do is to decide what you want from the character?
A sorcerer is going to be very limited as a crafter. Sine spell craft is an INT based skill his roll and the sorcerer is a CHA based caster his bonus will be lower than normal. He is also a spontaneous caster so will often lack the required spell and have to take a penalty to create many items.
You can get around the second problem by getting hold of a Mnemonic Vestment and using scrolls. The Mnemonic Vestment is very good even if you never use it for crafting. Unfortunately I don't have another idea to get around the first problem.:(
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A sorcerer is going to be very limited as a crafter. Sine spell craft is an INT based skill his roll and the sorcerer is a CHA based caster his bonus will be lower than normal. He is also a spontaneous caster so will often lack the required spell and have to take a penalty to create many items.You can get around the second problem by getting hold of a Mnemonic Vestment and using scrolls. The Mnemonic Vestment is very good even if you never use it for crafting. Unfortunately I don't have another idea to get around the first problem.:(
If your GM allows it the Voices of Solid Things trait can swap Spellcraft to a Charisma check for you. But honestly you don't really need it. I played a ranger who was the party's crafter and didn't have any problem making crafting Spellcraft checks.
In my experience (YMMV) the biggest advantage of having a crafter in the party is the huge savings on weapons, armor, and wondrous items. With the ranger I didn't take the other feats and we didn't really miss them. So an Impossible Bloodline Sorcerer would do that job just fine even without the Vestments and a scroll to reference.
Even if you take Voices of Solid Things sorcerers don’t get many skill ranks per level. That is going to mean you are using up half your skill ranks per level to craft. That means this is about all this character is going to be able to do.
Using Mnemonic Vestments assumes you can get access to the appropriate scrolls, it also increases the cost of making items. They also only work once per day, so any item with multiple prerequisites will still cause problem.
Rangers are prepared divine spell caster so know every spell on their spell list. That gives them a major advantage on creating items. The sorcerer will not have this so will often need to use the option of increasing the DC of the spell craft roll by +5 per missing prerequisite. Rangers also get 6 skill ranks per level so maxing out spellcraft is less of a problem for them.
If the character is willing to focus on item creation it can be made to work, but keep in mind that it will take a lot of the characters resources to do this. Do you want item creation to be this character's main focus, or do you want to be more focused on actually being a spell caster? Personally, I think an illusion focused fetchling with Shadow Magic, spell focus and greater spell focus illusion is a lot more interesting than a crafter.
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Mysterious Stranger:
Neither I nor Joynt Jezebel is arguing that the sorcerer is the best option for a crafter. You don’t have to convince us! All we are saying is that if Heather wants to have a crafter in the party (and this is the last PC she’s building for the group) there are ways to do it and still do other things. Specifically the Impossible Bloodline - which gets Craft Wondrous for free, has Craft Arms&Armor as a bloodline feat, and gradually can ignore more and more spell prerequisites when making most items other than scrolls, potions, wands, and staves - and Mnemonic Vestments for those.
My personal opinion is that being an Impossible sorcerer and taking just Arms&Armor as a bloodline feat and the free Craft Wondrous can add up to huge cost savings for the party for very little feat investment. And I agree that Shadow is a great utility path. There are lots of Shadow-Boosting options such as the fetching alternate race trait, Shadow Stencils, and Rod of the Wayang. Combine the two of them and you become a force multiplier for your party as well as being capable of offensive casting.
Crossblooded does stack with Tattooed and would let me get the shadow spells but impossible powers, but the reduced spells known and the will save penalty makes me nervous about it.
Of course, I could always just slide Craft Wondrous Items onto the shaman. Since I took two feats out of the build I had originally planned for it, there's enough room to add one back in there.
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Crossblooded does stack with Tattooed and would let me get the shadow spells but impossible powers, but the reduced spells known and the will save penalty makes me nervous about it.
I wouldn’t do that, even if the GM allows it. One less spell known per level? Keep one bloodline and use those spells known slots you would have lost to take the shadow spells instead.
Actually, a shaman looks like it would make a good crafter. Sprit magic gives them a way to expand their spell list to meet the prerequisites of making items. As a prepared divine caster, they know every spell on their list.
A shaman can use a hex to pick up a witch hex. Since there are a couple of witch hexes that grant you item creation feats you could gain the item creation feats that way. Cauldron grants you brew potion, and Fetish grants craft wondrous items. If you used your wandering hex for this that would allow you to change the feat out when you don’t need it. Having access to both brew potion and craft wondrous items without having to spend a feat or reduce your combat ability when adventuring is pretty good. That would leave you with an extra feat after picking up craft arms and Armor. Taking Craft wands or Scribe scroll would allow you to make even more items.
Shamans also have 4 skill points per level instead of 2 so you can max out spellcraft and still have a decent number of skill points left for other things.
I actually don't need either the shaman or the sorcerer to take Craft Arms & Armor. Big brother Skald gets that one from his archetype. Forgot about that one for a bit. So with him, the shaman doing Craft Wondrous and Brew Potion, and the Sorcerer doing Magical Tattoo, I think the basic crafting is covered.
So there are still some attacking spells in the shadow subschool, and I'll probably take a few regular attacking spells as well just to cover my bases. So I'll probably still need to take Point-Blank Shot and Precise Shot to help me not miss. As well as Spell Focus as mentioned.
Inscribe Magical Tattoo can't be taken until level 5 and Improved Familiar at level 7. That's about half the build covered right there.
if you take spell focus(illusion) you might be interested in also taking Shadow Gambit.
it let you weaponize figment spells as shadow attacks (which should fit the shadow caster theme).
With the right spells (programmed image and permanent image for example) you can have the spells cast days before (so you save on spell slots, just heighten them to your max spell level for max damage) and used for damaging effects that can be both:
A: tailored to focus on the target's weak spots -can be set to effect with ether a touch attack (from the figment side, not you), require a ref save or a fort save. As well as pick the damage kind '..can deal acid, bludgeoning, cold, electricity, fire, piercing, or slashing damage' (hovering weapons\orbs of energy figments that can be sent flying on command for example)
B: If set up right can hide the fact that you are the one who made the attack. this is not a spell being cast, there are ways to make it seem like that 'wall' fell on the target without getting blamed for it.
(I made an npc hitman once who would take out his targets this way. programed image of flock of birds in the sky that when the feat is used goes baresark and going after it as per Hitchcock's Birds movie)
Mysterious Stranger:
Neither I nor Joynt Jezebel is arguing that the sorcerer is the best option for a crafter. You don’t have to convince us! All we are saying is that if Heather wants to have a crafter in the party (and this is the last PC she’s building for the group) there are ways to do it and still do other things. Specifically the Impossible Bloodline - which gets Craft Wondrous for free, has Craft Arms&Armor as a bloodline feat, and gradually can ignore more and more spell prerequisites when making most items other than scrolls, potions, wands, and staves - and Mnemonic Vestments for those.
I must say this thread is being very civil when people disagree.
You are right of course that sorcerers don't have the easiest time being good crafters. Of the arcane casters wizards have it easiest, being int based and getting to add his int mod to spellcraft and skill points/ level and potentially knowing every spell on the sorcerer/ wizard list.
But that does not stop others doing it and it can still be extremely useful. Mnemonic vestment helps, as does your idea of the Impossible Bloodline and the Voices of solid things Trait mentioned by Belaphon.
I had a sorcerer who was sufficiently impressed with her Mnemonic Vestment that she put the same enchantment into the vestment a second time, at 150% cost. That is how useful I think the item is, even if you never craft a thing.
Shadow Gambit sounds pretty useful.
I'm a little confused on how that vestment thing works. It's written kinda weird. I spend a spell slot to use a scroll without needing UMD? But it needs to be a spell on my class list? Which would mean I don't need UMD anyway, right?
Not to use a scroll that is on your spell list in the normal way no.
But to cast a spell from a written source using mnemonic vestment is something else, which allows you to keep the scroll but uses up a spell slot. To do that you must follow the rules as stated for mnemonic vestment including understanding the written source with spellcraft or read magic.
What nobody has mentioned, including me, is you can use a spellbook or a scroll. Which makes the vestment even better.
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But to cast a spell from a written source using mnemonic vestment is something else, which allows you to keep the scroll but uses up a spell slot.
This is the big advantage. Especially when you are crafting. If you want to make a bunch of potions of fly, but don’t know the fly spell, you can buy/find one scroll of fly and then use a 3rd-level slot while crafting.
Mnemonic Vestments are an incredible useful item for any spontaneous caster. They are really useful for an Oracle to allow them to use rarely needed but important spells. With the vestments and some scrolls of condition removal spells the oracle can handle the condition removal duties. In some way doing this is better than a cleric because they can do it without having to rememorize spells. The drawback is they can only remove a single condition per day.
Someone suggested Tenebrous spell as a feat I could take. It looks pretty handy. It leads to the Shadow Grasp feat that would let me entangle people in a spell area but I'm not sure how I'd avoid getting my teammates caught up in it too.
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Someone suggested Tenebrous spell as a feat I could take. It looks pretty handy. It leads to the Shadow Grasp feat that would let me entangle people in a spell area but I'm not sure how I'd avoid getting my teammates caught up in it too.
Shadow Grasp only applies to area spells, so you are probably not going to cast it anywhere that it would affect your teammates anyway.
My personal opinion is that a chance of entanglement isn’t worth a one-slot level bump. Especially with two prerequisite feats. Tenebrous is nice for a focused shadowcaster if you know you can make the concentration check (possible free +1 DC!), but you should only take it after you’ve already taken Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus (illusion). Also, bear in mind that even with no level increase it still counts as applying a metamagic feat so it will take longer to cast.
One way to avoid entangling your teammates is to place the spell so that they are not in the area of effect. Basically, use this more as a battlefield control than a direct attack spell.
The spell Shadow Shape seems like it would allow you to alter the shape of a Shadow or Deeper Shadow spell. If that is the case, you could use it on a Shadow Grasping Darkness to create barriers of darkness that entangle anyone who moves through them. Basically, you create walls of darkness that entangle. If your teammates are aware of this, they simply avoid moving through the barriers.
Selective spell A selective, shadow grasping darkness would be a 4th level spell, but be very effective.
Oh right. I forgot that you can stack metamagic effects.
Selective Spell need to use one spell slot higher and require 10 ranks in spellcraft.
another way to go is with Coordinated blast. it won't rise the spell level nor the casting time and can be taken as soon as level 5. but for that both you and your team mates need to take this feat (and have 5 ranks in spellcrfat as well as racial spell like ability, which a fetching should have).
This also benefit any other AOE ability you use, not just spells.
depend on your build and team the 2nd might be a better option or worse.
another factor to look at is that the "Shadow Grasp" feat you plan on using is mostly for spells with duration longer then instantaneous:
"An entangled creature remains so as long as it is in the area of the spell and for 1 round after it leaves"
instantaneous spells area only last an instant after which it's gone so the feat would only effect for one round after such a spell.
BUT Selective spell metamagic feat is only for instantaneous spells:
"When casting a selective spell with an area effect and a duration of instantaneous...Spells that do not have an area of effect or a duration of instantaneous do not benefit from this feat.".
So if you plan on making a darkness spell that entangle your foes and not your allies, it's most likely not an instantaneous spell.
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I’m not familiar with your Campaign which could affect your choice of bloodline a lot.
Another great option is the Arcane bloodline. You could go with wildblooded “Sage” and use Int as casting stat which will help with item creation as well.
Sage’s weak 1 level bloodline power will be replaced with your tatooed familiar, which is a significant improvement.
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I’m not familiar with your Campaign which could affect your choice of bloodline a lot.
Another great option is the Arcane bloodline. You could go with wildblooded “Sage” and use Int as casting stat which will help with item creation as well.
Sage’s weak 1 level bloodline power will be replaced with your tatooed familiar, which is a significant improvement.
Sorry - I was a bit fast here.
Wildblooded is an archtype and “Sage” replace the first level bloodline power which tatooed sorcerer also replaces, so this will need GM bending of the rules to work.
No campaign as of yet. I like to pre-build characters and if I put them into a game, I can then adapt the build to any houserules. At the moment, I'm making a family of characters and building them as if they're all going to be played together.
Changing over to Int would make skills and crafting a lot easier, but since both Sage and the Tattooed archetype changes the first power, it's not going to work out here sadly. Arcane itself isn't too bad. The 3rd level power would help with casting faster.
Just pointing out that Sorcerers make far better crafters than Wizards, but that requires specific options being taken: Any Paragon Surge-build allows you to have every crafting feat available on any given day without blowing all character (& Wizard bonus) feats on crafting.
Tattooed is a very weak archetype with half of the archetype powers not even working properly (like giving others spell tattoos). Inscribe Magical Tattoo is extremely limited in what it can do, with hardly any good tattoos, and very much paling in comparison to other crafting feats.
And neither Shadow Gambit nor Shadow Grasp are very useful: Shadow Gambit deals weak damage on a standard action: 5d6 for a 10th-level Sorcerer? Just use Magic Missile instead! No attack roll, no save, just (irresistible) force damage XD. And while Shadow Grasp is nice, it requires Umbral Spell as a useless feat tax.