There are no other VMC options that I’m aware of but as it’s an optional rule set anyway perhaps discuss with ur GM and you can come up with some homebrew options. As for the “all or nothing” feat for class feature swap I think that is the case but again ur GM may allow for skipping some features or swap them out for something more useful or appropriate. Note that not all of the VMC options are created equal. Some are bad and some may be a little too good but it all depends on the classes combined. VMC monk is usually a bad choice but if you combine it with Elemental Ascetic Kineticist for example it can be a good combination. In my opinion VMC summoner is just bad no matter how u look at it but others may feel differently.
I really like the VMC options for character builds. There are some to avoid that really don't offer anything worth the feat it costs you at the level you gain the ability (Fighter and Gunslinger, for example) and some that are good but their 11th level ability to get a cantrip is underwhelming (Wizard and Witch, Oracle at level 7), though that is probably a balancing factor.
For your, needs I can recommend a few:
Cavalier is pretty good, provided you pick a complimentary order. Two I recommend often are Order of the Flame and Order of the Eastern Star. The former is reckless and able to challenge opponents in sequence during the fight. The later is more defensive and offers the ability to boost their AC and get damage reduction in light/no armor, while ignoring penalties from Combat Expertise at higher level.
Cleric is self explanatory. You get the domain you want and channel energy (stunted but eventually catching up).
Ranger will get you that monster hunter feeling but will be most useful against a single creature type.
Lastly, Sorcerer will get you bloodline abilities that can be fire themed. You won't get the Bloodline Arcana (sadly) but the bloodline powers. You also can get access to bloodline mutations, whether through giving up a bloodline power OR trading out the bloodline feat you get. If you are a spellcaster, that can be a great option. There are two bloodlines that I would recommend: Solar and Salamander. Solar has some neat healing abilities built in while also bumping up how much healing you receive when you are in contact with fire (flaming weapon). Salamander helps with crafting, auto buffs your weapons with flaming if you cast another buffing spell on the weapon, and eventually gets does fire damage to anything you hit or that tries to grab you. You also get a free crafting feat.
The Martyred bloodline is also pretty good, though its flavor may not match the idea you are going for.
All that said, I do like the idea of the character using the Cavalier (Order of the Flame) variant multi class option. I tweaked my Immolator build from earlier with it as an addition, leveled up to level 7 and made it strength based rather than dexterity due to the limited feats (which are needed to make dexterity to hit/damage viable). See below:
Ifirit Immolator VMC
Male ifrit inquisitor (immolator, infiltrator) of Sarenrae 7/cavalier*
N Medium outsider (native)
Init 9; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +12
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Defense
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AC 23, touch 13, flat-footed 21 (+7 armor, +1 deflection, +2 Dex, +1 natural, +2 shield)
hp 55 (7d8+14)
Fort 7, Ref 6, Will 9; +7 vs. abilities that detect lies or force the truth
Resist fire 10
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Offense
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Speed 40 ft. (30 ft. in armor)
Melee +1 scimitar +11 (1d6+9 S/18+) or
. . flame blade +10 (1d8+9 F)
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 7th; concentration +8)
. . 1/day—efreeti magic (Enlarge/Reduce Person)
Domain Spell-Like Abilities (CL 7th; concentration +10)
. . 6/day—fire bolt (1d6+4 fire)
Inquisitor Spell-Like Abilities (CL 7th; concentration +10)
. . At will—detect alignment
Inquisitor (Immolator, Infiltrator) Spells Known (CL 7th; concentration +10)
. . 3rd (2/day)—flame blade, heroism
. . 2nd (4/day)—blistering invective (DC 15), instrument of agony, lesser restoration, shared training
. . 1st (5/day)—cure light wounds, divine favor, lend judgment (DC 14), litany of weakness, wrath
. . 0 (at will)—acid splash (at will), brand (at will) (DC 13), create water (at will), detect magic (at will), disrupt undead (at will), stabilize (at will)
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Statistics
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Str 16, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 13
Base Atk +5; CMB 10; CMD 21
Feats Flame Blade Dervish, Outflank, Precise Strike, War Blessing(Fire/Wildfire)
Traits fiery glare, reckless
Skills Acrobatics +17, Bluff +8, Climb +7, Diplomacy +8, Disguise +5, Intimidate +11, Knowledge (planes) +5, Knowledge (religion) +5, Perception +12, Perform (dance) +3, Sense Motive +7, Spellcraft +5, Stealth +8, Survival +11, Swim +7
Languages Common, Ignan
Other Gear +1 lamellar (steel) armor, +1 buckler, +1 scimitar, amulet of natural armor +1, cloak of quick reflexes +1/+2, headband of mental prowess +2 (Wis, Cha), ring of protection +1, 3,230 gp
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Special Abilities
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Burnt Offering (flaming, 7 rounds/day) (Su) As a swift action, grant weapon flaming ability. Slain opponents burn to ash.
Darkvision (60 feet) You can see in the dark (black and white only).
Detect Alignment (At will) (Sp) Detect chaos, evil, good, or law at will.
Efreeti Magic (1/day) (Sp) Cast enlarge person or reduce person 1/day.
Energy Resistance, Fire (10)
Fiery Glare: You can always take 10 on Intimidate checks, even in combat.
Fire Bolt 1d6+4 fire (6/day) (Sp) As a standard action, ranged touch attack deals fire dam to foe in 30 ft.
Fire Strike Weapon deals 1d4 fire damage for 1 min. Does not stack with Flaming weapon.
Flame Blade Dervish With flame blade, +10 speed, +4 acrobatics, add Cha mod to dam and ignore some fire resist.
Flame's Challenge +5 (1/day) (Ex) +5 to damage target, -2 AC vs. others when used, can issue glorious challenge.
Foolhardy Rush (Ex) When roll init of 11+ (on die), as an imm action move speed but subtract from next rd's move.
Forbidden Lore (Ex) May cast spells of alignment opposed to own or deity alignment.
Glorious Challenge If drop challenged foe, free challenge vs. new foe in 15 ft with stacking -2 AC & +2 dam.
Inquisitor (Immolator, Infiltrator) Domain (Fire)
Judgment (3/day) (Su) Variable bonuses increase as the combat continues.
Judgment of Immolation -10 (Su) Reduce target's fire resistance by listed amount.
Leaping Flames +10ft speed, +1 dodge ac for 1 minute.
Misdirection (Lawful Neutral) (Sp) When prepare spells choose an alignment to count as for magical detection.
Necessary Lies +7 (Su) Gain bonus to saves vs. abilities detecting lies or forcing truth.
Outflank Increase flank bonus by +2 if flanking ally has same feat. If you crit, ally gets an AoO.
Precise Strike +1d6 precision damage for melee attacks if you and an ally with this feat flank the same target.
Reckless Acrobatics is a class skill and gets +1.
Solo Tactics (Ex) Count Teamwork feats as if your allies had the same ones.
Wildfire Heart +4 racial bonus on initiative
Just to add a class you haven't mentioned to the list, have you considered an infernal blooded Bloodrager? Can use swords, has innate fire abilities and your racial background is more than just flavour text.
5. Immolator Inquisitor -- I was really excited for this one. It seems to fit the concept quite well. The one concern I have, Inquisitors get very few fire spells, (at some levels none) and they don't gain spells from domains. This makes it nearly impossible for me to play with fire all day. Any workarounds? A way to steal some cantrips/orisons from other classes, without sacrificing the archetype? That aside, strong contender here.
There are a few fire based options for the Inquisitor depending on the deity they worship. Sarenrae, for example, offers the Sun Metal (1st), Flameblade (3rd), Sunbeam (5th), and Sunburst (6th) spells for inquisitors to add to their spell list. There may be other deities that offer fire spells but there are a lot of them to dig through.
If you want to REALLY, really, REALLY lean into the Fire spells ... there is a subsystem of magic from the Ultimate Magic book called Words of Power. The Inquisitor has its own Spell List and Burning Flash is a 2nd level fire word that you can use to make any combination of words into a fire spell. You can dive entirely into that subsystem by replacing your entire spell list (chosen at 1st level) with it, or you can dabble by taking the Experimental Spellcaster feat to pick up a few words. You can select the Burning Flash as early as level 5 and then use it to burn your foes from that point forward with any spell slot you have. There is a level 5 fire word (Cinder Storm) available for the Inquisitor as well, but that's a long way off.
If you choose to use the Words of Power, its an all in option or a dabble only. You don't get the fairly specific and niche spells available to the Inquisitor, only more general scope effects. You still get access to specific spells that are granted to you via class features, deity allocation, or other sources (say if you got bloodline spells as a Sorcerer), so worshipping Sarenrae will still allow you to cast those specific spells. If you use Herolab Online, I would caution you beforehand that it no longer supports the Words of Power subsystem because it simply made the character creation too complex to keep up with (or so says the response I got from them when I noticed the Experimental Spellcaster feat was missing). Herolab Classic is still good though.
If I may offer some ... direct ... advice on the matter. If you want to play with fire and actually do damage to most of the things you come across across all levels (except, of course, to those immune to fire), Immolator is your best option as it has a built in way to reduce the fire resistance of their enemies.
If you manage to make it through some (all? . . . Ha!) of my above post, I'd appreciate any tips, thoughts, or probing questions to help me sort myself out. Thanks again, everyone. :)
It is no bother at all. You are welcome.
The Inner Sea Gods book introduced options for Variant Spellcasting for certain divine casters under certain deities that allowed them to cast spells not normally found on their spell list. Any of those options will appear on archives of nethys under the specific deity entry.
As for the low level fire options, it is only for the first few levels where you don't get any spell based fire attacks. You can more than make up for it with domain powers (fire bolt) and igniting your weapon with fire for the first three levels (or four if you chose experimental spellcaster route).
Since your game is a home brew setting, work with your GM to tailor whatever fire deity or patron to work similar to Sarenrae with their variant casting for inquisitors. Precedent already exists in the game system for it.
I was being quite sincere when I said that Immolator is probably your best option in checking most of the boxes you've outlined with what you want for your character. There are other options that can pull off some things better, but you'd be forced to drop your racial choice (such as Calamity Caller archetype for the Warpriest), or you'd have to dedicate a lot of resources towards strengthening martial/sword work (like Kineticist). Oracle can be what you want martially with the Battle mystery but you lose a lot of the fire flavor, or you get the fire flavor but have to bend over backward to just get mediocre with martial abilities.
It is your choice, either way. I'd advise taking what you can get from the Immolator Inquisitor and work through the first few levels until it gets fully "warmed up". Haha
I truly appreciate all your advice and effort on my behalf. I hope you're enjoying this at some level.Thoroughly enjoying it, actually. I quite enjoy using my system mastery to help people find something they want to play.
From what I'm currently finding with my weak searchfu, I need to look at the Spirit Guide Oracle a bit closer. Somebody mentioned this up thread, so thanks again. No cross mystery Oracles.
Spirit Guide archetype page. It basically trades away some revelations for access to a Shaman's wandering spirit class feature, which is very much similar to an Oracle's Mystery. You could combine Battle Mystery with Flame Spirit, the reverse with the Flame Mystery and the Battle Spirit. They do very similar things. They just do not do it quickly, and you are looking at waiting till at least 4th level before it begins to really blend the two concepts together and I'd say 8th before they gel really well.
Now that I think of it, Spirit Guide Oracle would be a fair pairing for your concept as well, though you'd have to be patient for it to fully encapsulate what you want.
I'm having trouble finding the rules for the extra spells from deities on AoN or D20. Probably I'm looking in the wrong places.
You have to look directly in the entry for the deities in question: Here is the one for Sarenrae, just scroll down to see the 'Unique Spell Rules' section near the bottom of the page.
I was digging around a bit more, just because I'm determined to actually play an Immolator Inquisitor in my next game, and found a few more things that might be useful for anyone else. I am not the first to find these, just posting them here for ease of reference.
Scabbard of the Lost Kiss is a fairly decently priced wondrous item for what it does. On command (twice per day), you can draw out a weapon identical to a flame blade, treat it as a scimitar, and you get to deal half of the damage as divine if you worship Sarenrae. If you don't, you still get a Flame Blade without having to expend a spell slot.
Divine Fighting Technique - Sarenrae's Mercy: lets you deal nonlethal damage with scimitars (scimitar-like weapons included), and with some spells, without taking the hit penalty. You can even trade away your 1st level domain power to get the feat for free. The advanced ability (requiring Great Fortitude and Weapon Focus, which we'll take anyway) lets us heal once per round whenever we hit something with nonlethal damage, more so if its with a scimitar.
Using the variant multiclass options for Magus lets us buff up our weapons and use the Inquisitor Spells with Spellstrike (which we'll get around level 11). You can also opt for Flamboyant Arcana if you wanted to go the Dervish Dance route and use dexterity instead of strength. That will buy you some swashbuckling tricks to use as well.
8. Kineticist -- Looked this one up in detail last night. Obviously fire for days, but really doesn't do that well with actual, physical swords. Also not much in the way of skills, monster lore, and/or tactics. I really like it, but I don't know if race, feats, traits, and a few skills can fill the non-fire gaps. I kind of want to be talked into this one, but the mechanics just may not support the concept.
Not to take you back to the drawing board or anything, but Kineticist is really great. :P I mean, if you want to be a bad-ass with a fire sword, it's the class...
Now, you have your concept, so I'm not gonna bug you on that, just show you what a Pyrokinetic is capable of... The key is both size and Attacks of Opportunity, and the realization that you get to attack Touch AC instead of AC. ;)
Your goal as a Pyrokineticist is to get the Kinetic Whip going with the lunge feat, and the elemental form (So your reach is 25') and works well with the Stand Still feat. The tough part is that you need level 5 to get a 'free' kinetic blade, and level 8 for the free kinetic whip. Combat Reflexes works well for a guild that focuses on Dexterity and Constitution... and when you're whipping that 'blade' around at a 25' range, and with Charge provoking AoOs, you get a lot of battlefield control going on, in addition to damage.
As for the 'utility' of a pyrokineticist, they do get a lot of skill points, but it's true that they can't do as much as the Aether element, or Air or Earth even but they do get some nice toys, like the ability to fly (Flame Jet), Wall of Fire, etc.
With a 25pt spread, you could start with an 18 Dex, and 16 in Con and Int. That's enough to put your level's worth into all the skills you might be interested in (7pts per level, possibly more if you choose to Favored Class it).
Feats (in order): Point Blank Shot (1), Precise Shot (3), Weapon Finesse (5), Dodge (7), Combat Reflexes (9), Lunge (11), Stand Still (13)
Infusions (in order): Fan of Flames (1), Burning Infusion (3), Kinetic Blade (5), Kinetic Whip (7), ...
Utility (in order): Fire's Fury (2), ...
Just saying, if you really do "really like it", it works nicely. The hardest part is the same as for most classes... bit of feat starvation early on, but unlike other classes, you lose that starvation at mid-high levels.
Of note: At the time you get Stand Still (level 13), your Whip will either be doing 14d6+3 against Touch AC, or 14d6+21 against regular AC (I recommend expanding into Earth at level 7, instead of fire... magma as a 'whip' is so demonic it's scary). This is because your theme will be to not move, so you use your move action to Gather Power, making your Composite Blast 'free'. 14d6+21 against everything that moves, casts or does any other thing, in your threatened area, and by then, you should have +7 on your Dexterity modifier. ;) And if you have the burn to spare, you can Empower it for 21d6+31 for the whole round.
It's a really solid choice for the theme.
Been toying and tweaking the build I offered earlier and discovered that the Ravener Hunter archetype stacks and pairs well with the Immolator archetype (and the Infiltrator too...). You trade away your domain for an oracle mystery, which can include the Flame and/or the Volcano. You only end up getting two revelations (and can't qualify for Extra Revelation) but ... you CAN take VMC Oracle and pick up a second mystery, as well as three additional revelations (though these are a -6 character level, min 1).
This is the only instance I am aware of where a character can have two different oracle mysteries and the only thing that comes close is the Spirit Guide Oracle, since the spirits are very similar to Mysteries. If you pair Flame and Volcano, the fire theme goes wild, especially with your ability to ignore some of the fire resistance of enemies... It makes the "Burning Magic" revelation (often looked down on as catching fire does so little damage) meaningful and pairs well with the 'Fiery Conduit' revelation.
The only issue is, as we've seen previously, the Inquisitor does not have a plethora of fire themed spells on their list, and this archetype does not add those kinds of spells to their spell list. Either way, the addition of this archetype is something that gives much more than it takes away.
Here is an exhaustive list of fire spells available to an inquisitor:
1- Sun Metal (Saranrae Only)
1- Touch of Combustion (Ifirit only)
2- Blistering Invective
2- Burning Gaze (Zursvaater Only)
2- Death Candle (Ifirit Only)
2- Flames of the Faithful
2- Stoke the Inner Fire (Zursvaater Only)
3- Flame Blade (Saranrae Only)
3- Trial by Fire
4- Blightburn Weapon
4- Cleansing Fire
4- Healing Flames
4- Healing Warmth (Ifirit Only)
5- Flame Strike
5- Sun Beam (Saranrae Only)
6- Invoke Deity (ie, Fire Domain)
6- Morning Sun
6- Sunburst (Saranrae Only)
Zursvaater is a deity added in by the Giantslayer adventure path. LE Giant, some fire themes.
As for the Ifirit only spells, those are from the Advanced Race Guide. It offers spells that typically originate, and are usually only available to, members of specific races. But they can be learned by others at the GM's discretion.
Can I do Archetypes with Unchained classes? The War Scholar Monk comes back into play if I can go unchained. The ki options on unchained even give me a smidge of fire to play with.
You can use archetypes with the Unchained classes, but only as long as the replaced class features are still present to be altered or replaced. War Scholar is a 3rd party archetype, so I am not entirely familiar with it. However, most of the abilities are still present except for the Unchained Monk lacking the Maneuver Training class feature. That feature was unnecessary after the Unchained Monk was given full BAB. Check with your GM as he might allow the archetype to work anyway.
Started to chart my final three (four?) class options, but hubby just bounced out to prepare for a party this evening, so . . . . . more delay, but hoping to pin this down tonight. I think the last thing holding me back is FOMO with whatever classes I don't choose. Also wondering if true multi-classing or VMC would help fit concept better without crippling the mechanics??
Traditional multiclassing might help but your VMC options are more limited and it will cost you half of your feats leveling up.
If (when?) I finally accept the Inquisitor, I think I've got to overcome the flavor of the class. I'm getting stuck on "Inquisitor" as a concept as opposed to just a mechanical chassis.
At its core, it is a seeker of heresy within the members of their faith for the deity they revere, but not all Inquisitors are entirely set on the road of rooting out these heretics. They will likely still take up that role every know and then but if the religion they follow isn't a measurable part of the adventure path, they could merely be on a specific mission that requires the use of the abilities they have come to master in their training. Sure, you might be an inquisitor but its only your abilities and decision making that is required on this mission or adventure.