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It’s worth it if you have fun. Sorcerer with a bloodline to increase your damage is most popular for blasters. You can still fit in some ok utility spells like haste and fly to go along with your blasts.
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You just need the right combo of spells for your party. If you have a strong back line, a front line with reach becomes preferred since you can force the enemy to come to you and avoid AoE—likewise melees who are able to spread out the damage work better against a pre-softened enemy frontline.
My favorite blaster worked best with a Zen Archer who would pick off the ones who took the worst of the damage but still survived. I was also sure to leave one enemy out of the toppling magic missile spread for them to focus fire on without the prone penalty to their attack.
But a lot does depend on the GM tho. Any* caster can be shut down by a different array of enemies, so like others said, be good at more than one thing.
*cue the sound of keyboards prepared to counter this hasty generalization
I would second that it's "worth it" if you and the rest of the group have fun. It may require some coordination with the other players.
As far as options go, blood arcanist (Orc bloodline) with the School Understanding exploit in Evocation/Admixture probably covers most of the bases for a blaster. Alternately, you can mix archery and eventually area blasting with [cavalier or fighter or ranger]* 1/wizard (Evocation/Admixture) 6/eldritch knight 2/arcane archer 3/eldritch knight +8 for BAB +17 while retaining 9th-level spells. Another option is to go the single target, ranged touch blaster (before arcane trickster 10) with snakebite striker brawler 1/wizard 4/arcane trickster using Accomplished Sneak Attacker to meet the +2d6 Sneak Attack requirement and leveraging obscuring mist and some way to see through it (sylph with Cloud Gazer, Air/Smoke school, etc.) to gain consistent ranged sneak attacks to boost spell damage.
*- cavalier (emissary) if you want to leverage Mounted Archery and phantom steed at some point, fighter for the bonus feat, or ranger for the ability to use wands of cure light wounds, wands of barkskin, etc. without Use Magic Device checks
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There are some ways to boost the damage of your spells as a sorcerer that I've explored, and that you can find on some guides. Some of my favorite are the following:
Raging Blood: Allows you to enter a rage like state as a sorcerer (or anyone with a sorcerer bloodline) and is beneficial but NOT needed for the next feat (just makes it better).
Flumefire Rage: Evocation (fire) spells just hit harder. They hit even harder if you are raging and casting spells, which you can't typically do unless you have...
Mad Magic: Let's you cast spells from any class while raging.
I'd suggest combining the feats together on a Crossblooded Sorcerer with the Elemental and (Draconic, Orc, Solar) bloodlines for the Bloodline Arcana abilities. Now, you can convert any elemental spell into a fire spell as you cast it and do +2 damage per die rolled, and +3 in a Raging state.
If you want to absolutely cheese the damage, you only take a single level of Sorcerer and then multiclass into something else. You can go the route of Arcanist (and School understanding for Admixture, freeing you up to swap away Elemental Bloodline for Draconic or Orc) and letting you take Bloodline Development to progress your Sorcerer bloodlines.
Or, you could multiclass into Witch, and take the Invoker archetype, specifically to invoke the Reckoning ability, which also increase the damage of your dies rolled by +1, and makes you better at critical hits with spells. It also allows you access to witch Hexes. Witch is not the most 'blasty' of the spell casting classes but they have enough to get by and you can change the elements as you wish (if you pick the right patron, you get some blasty spells, *cough*Elements*cough*). I like this option because there are some fun things you can do with hexes, and the Invoke Patron ability can be used for other things, like pumping up the DC of your spells and hexes.
Of course, you can take just enough levels to get enough uses of Invoke Patron and then prestige class into something else if hexes are not something you want to focus on. I'd say five or six uses of 1-minute intervals are more than enough per day.
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The main advantage a sorcerer has as a blaster is the ability to spam a spell until it gets the job done. If I have a spell that can damage the targets or be modified to damage the targets, I can keep using it till the target drops. The wizard cannot do that, so is at a disadvantage. If the wizard only memorized one fireball for the most part that is all he can cast. There are a couple of ways to cast more but they are limited.
An Arcanist has aspects of both a prepared and a spontaneous caster, so they can work well as a blaster. My suggestion would be to go with an Admixture School savant. The extra Evocation spell per day is very useful. Versatile Evocation allows you to alter the damage type to exploit weaknesses and reduces the chance that energy resistance or immunity will render your spells useless. Intense spell may not match some of the bloodline damage bonuses, but it helps, and it boosts all evocation spells.
Potent Magic can either increase the caster level (damage in most cases) or the DC of the spell by 2. Either of those are very useful to a blaster. This should be your first Arcana. After that Dimensional Slide would be my next choice.
You can change out your spells like a wizard but can spam out spells like a sorcerer. You will get less spells per day but have more flexibility than either a sorcerer or a wizard.
The school savant will deal slightly less damage than a bloodline arcanist with a damage per die bonus, but not much. A 12th level blood arcanist with Draconic bloodline will do 12d6 +12 damage with a fireball (assuming fire is the bloodline energy type), the school savant will deal 12dd +6 damage and be able change the energy type. The school savant will also deal 5d4+11 damage with magic missile vs the 5d4+5 from the blood arcanist.
The problem with arcanist is spells per day. They have 1 to 2 fewer per spell level than the sorcerer, and they don’t get spells a level early as the wizard. They make up for this with amazing versatility of the spell slots, but a blaster spends most of its spells blasting anyway. A sorcerer burning 4th or 5th level spells on fireball isn’t strange.
The sorcerer also has the ability to up the damage per damage die with bloodlines and blood havoc. That amounts to a significant difference in damage per round.
I’m not saying you can’t make a wizard or arcanist blaster. But there are good reasons that sorcerer is the popular option.
The arcanist does get fewer spells per day than a sorcerer, but the sorcerer also encounters situations where his spells are completely useless. What happens to the fire based draconic sorcerer that runs into a creature with high fire resistance or worse immunity to fire? They probably have other spells they can use but those are going to be a lot less effective. The Arcanist can change out his selection of spells every day and in some cases even faster.
Quick study allows an arcanist to change spells as a full round action. A wizard that makes a poor choice of spell selection must wait a day to change them. A sorcerer that made a bad choice on spell selection for the most part is stuck with it. They can make one correction at 4th level and every even level after that. So, a 20th level sorcerer can change 8 spells in his life. With enough arcane points and advance warning, the arcanist can tailor their spells for each encounter. This can allow the arcanist to be much more efficient with their spells. So, while they get fewer spells, they can utilize them better.
As to the sorcerer doing more damage that is not always the case. The school savant with the Admixture school gets ½ his level to the damage of any evocation spell. At higher level the damage from Intense Evocation can match or even exceed what the bloodline can do. At 12th level the sorcerer will do 10d6+10 when casting a fireball, the Admixture School Savant will be doing 10d6+5. If both characters cast burning hands instead of fireball both characters do 5d4+5. If the characters are 16th level the sorcerer is still doing 5d4+5 but the arcanist is doing 5d4+8. At this point arcanist is also doing 10d6+8 with the fireball, so is only 2 points behind.
In reality the Admixture School Savant is not that far behind the sorcerer when it comes to blasting especially at higher levels. I will concede the sorcerer can cast more spells than the arcanist, but that does not mean they will necessarily do more damage. Your Red/Gold Draconic sorcerer going up against a devil is not going to do any damage with his fireball. But the Arcanist is going to do a lot of damage with his fireball when he changes the damage to electricity.
Benthic metamagic is how a sorcerer generally gets around elemental resistance. Spontaneous metamagic is way better than it often gets credit for. Since most spells are ranged, you often don’t miss the move action you lose by taking a full round action.
And this isn’t to say that arcanist is a bad class. It simply isn’t the most optimal choice for a blaster focused caster. Where it excels is amazing versatility. The arcanist also has an advantage in save-or-suck spells, where they can easily raise their spell DCs by 2.
The arcanist with the school savant archetype can choose the evocation or better yet the admixture school to get extra damage. Being able to add half your level to all evocation spells is in some cases better than the +1 per die a sorcerer gets. Most of the time the sorcerer’s bonus is limited to one type of energy with fire being the most common.
The arcanist also can increase the caster level of his spells by up to 2 (with potent magic). This can increase the damage of his spells. Take a 6th level sorcerer with the orc bloodline vs a 6th level school savant arcanist casting fireball. The sorcerer does 6d6+6 damage for an average of 27 damage. The arcanist is doing 8d6+3 for an average damage of 31. The extra caster level also increases the other level-based aspect of the spell including longer range and more importantly being able to overcome spell resistance.
The arcanist is also an INT based caster which means that elf is actually a good choice for them. Elves get a +2 bonus on their caster level to overcome spell resistance. This stacks with potent magic. At higher level spell resistance becomes a major problem for a blaster. The elf favored class bonus for arcanist is +1 to their arcane pool.
The school savant archetype also allows the arcanist to memorize an extra spell from his specialized school. This means he has one extra spell known for each spell level he can cast. The crossblood archetype reduces the number of spells known, so compared to the crossblod sorcerer the arcanist has two extra spells know for each spell level he knows. In some cases, this means the arcanist can cast a higher-level spell than the sorcerer. The sorcerer will get bloodline spells, but those are delayed and often have spell that are not good choices. The draconic bloodline has no good blasting spells, and the orc has only one. The arcanist on the other hand can fill all of his spell slots with blasting spells if he so choses.
Which makes a better blaster a sorcerer that can cast burning hands or one other evocation spell 8 times per day or an arcanist who can cast 6 spells per day chosen from 6 different evocation spells? Now add in the fact that the 12th level crossblooded sorcerer cannot cast 6th level spells while the 12th level arcanist gets 3. That is what a 12th level character with a 25-casting stat will be able to do.
The OP also wanted to have some utility with his spells. The arcanist can easily achieve this, but the sorcerer is going to be hard pressed to have any kind of utility. If he goes with crossblooded sorcerer, it is nearly impossible to have any kind of utility and be a decent blaster.
My recommendation would be to go for an Elf School Savant with the admixture school. Take enchantment and necromancy as you opposed schools. Take spell focus and greater spell focus with evocation, and at higher levels pick up spell penetration and greater spell penetration. Take potent magic as your 5th level exploit and pick up quick study next. It might even be worth it to use a feat to pick them up early.
+1 per damage die is basically the baseline for all sorcerer blasters because of blood havoc. A bloodline can give an extra +1 on top of that. Go the extra step for cross-blooded and you can pretty easily have +3 per damage die. Personally, I don't like cross-blooded either, but the career damage increase is obvious.
I'm really not a fan of school savant, because it limits your options by giving you two opposition school. The sorcerer is free to cherry pick whatever side spells it wants, without that concern. Getting an extra spell known per level isn't meaningless, but the sorcerer has favored class bonuses to really pad out their spells known if that's your desire.
A bonus against SR is nice, but never guaranteed to help in a given situation. You could just as easily say that the sorcerer makes up for the spells that were resisted by spamming more spells per day. But the sorcerer also has its more spells per day when facing off against enemies who don't have SR.
People are focusing on damage per die too much. There are other things that can affect damage including saving throw, spell resistance, energy type. I do not care how much extra fire damage the sorcerer does when fighting a devil, it will not matter, but turning the damage to electrical will matter.
The ability to bypass a creature’s defenses will often result in more damage getting through even when the damage rolled is less. The amount of damage you roll is less important than the amount of damage the target takes.
The sorcerer has an obvious advantage in the amount of damage they can do, and often that is enough to get by. Most of the time the sorcerer will be able to dish out more damage, but the sorcerer is also more likely to have his spells rendered useless. The arcanist will probably deal less sheer damage but is often more effective in delivering his damage.
The OP asked if there were any alternatives to a blaster sorcerer and the arcanist fits that description. The sorcerer is a one trick pony relying on massive damage. The arcanist especially the admixture school savant has more options on what he can do.
They also have the option of taking an attack discovery like arc of flame and using that to deal damage. It might not do as much as a fire ball but it still can do decent damage and with enough arcane points can be use quite a bit.
There is also no reason the arcanist cannot use those feats to boost his caster level. From what I can see they would stack with Potent Magic.
Admixture (evocation) wizard
Change the element of your blasts 3+Int times a day spontaneously.
+1/2 level to damage. Not as good as +1 damage per die, but it's something.
At 5th level you can grab Heighten Spell as a bonus feat, qualifying you for Preferred Spell with your regular feat that level. Now you can spontaneously convert any spell you have prepared into your chosen spell (fireball is a classic is for a reason, battering blast is also very strong). As a bonus, you can apply any metamagic you want to that spell for no increase in casting time.
I am not sure why the ability to cast fire ball using any of your higher-level spells slot is such a big deal. The arcanist and the sorcerer can already do this, even if they cannot apply a metamagic feat for free. Spending 2 feats to apply a metamagic feat for free is not a good investment.
The ½ level to damage vs the +1 per die depends on how many dice and what your level is. A high level caster casting burning hands it is better. 5d4+5 does not do as much damage as 5d4+10 (at 20th level). Spells that have low dice maximum benefit more from the +1/2 per level than they do +1 per die.
Benthic spell metamagic only raises the spell level by 1 and switches the damage to bludgeoning. You do lose the bloodline bonus to damage that way, but the bonus from blood havoc still applies
Sorcerers have very few spells known per spell level. Which means they will have trouble knowing 4 evocation spells per level to deal different damage types. If they take the crossblooded archetype it gets even worse. In addition, you will also need spells dealing force damage to harm incorporeal creatures.
There are things that can help like elemental spell but those use up higher level spells. Using up a 4th level spell to cast a third level spell is not as efficient as using an actual 4th level spell. For one thing the saving throw is based on the original level of the spell. When you add in the arcanists ability to boost the DC of the save that means the spell cast by the arcanist will have a DC that is 3 points higher. Also taking those feats means the sorcerer will not be able to take things like spell focus. If that is the case the difference in the saving throw goes even higher. The arcanist on the other hand has no problem having spells that deal different types of damage.
If you really think the sorcerer bloodline is so powerful the arcanist could simply take the blood Arcanist archetype instead of the school savant. That would give them the bloodline arcana and bloodline powers. The arcanist could also pick up the exploit school understanding and chose the admixture school. Now the arcanist gets both the +1 damage per die and t+1/2 level to damage. They can also change the damage type of the spell and boost either the caster level or the DC of the save by 2.
I am not saying that a sorcerer is not a good choice for a blaster, obviously it is. But it is not the only choice for a decent blaster.
Benthic spell also means your target gets DR unless the DR is DR/bludgeoning. DR is even more common than energy resistance. This means amount of damage getting through is often going to be less than normal.
Arcanist does have an advantage in a number of casting categories, but a sorcerer with very high system mastery can achieve similar results when cherry picking all of the best options.
What I really like about Arcanist is how forgiving it is. "Did you make a bad spell decision this level or adventuring day? Fix it the next day or the next round with quick study." It's great versatility, but also combats selection paralysis that effects a lot of caster players.
The arcanist will be interested in both increasing his caster level and the DC of his saves. It really depends on the circumstances. When casting spells that scale with level that are not maxed out the caster level will be more important. For spells that are already maxed out increasing the DC of the saves will often be the better choice. This type of versatility is what allows the arcanist to compensate for the raw power of the sorcerer.
I ran the numbers on a sorcerer and an arcanist with the school savant archetype damage on a fire ball and while the sorcerer does have an advantage it is not a big as it seems. At low level the sorcerer is only ahead if he has both a bloodline that gives +1 per die and blood havoc. If he has only one of these, he does less damage due to the extra caster levels of the arcanist. At 9th level the sorcerer with just blood havoc pulls slightly ahead, and the sorcerer with both gets an even bigger boost. At 10th level when the spell maxes out, both increase the advantage. At that point the arcanist will be probably switch to boosting the DC of the save which will mean more targets fail the save and end up taking more damage.
The Arcanist can use intensify spell of the Magic Trick Feat. If they do this then they will still be 2 levels ahead until they reach the new maximum. If there is no maximum the sorcerer with both a bloodline bonus and blood hex slowly increase their advantage to 23 points at 20th level. The sorcerer with only one of these breaks even at 13th level and gains an advantage of +1 damage at 15th level and by 20th is doing 3 more points of damage. Bloodline intensity and bloodline piercing are also limited uses per day.
As far as I can see the only bloodline that gets a bonus of +1 per die on all types of damage is the orc bloodline. All others that get the bonus per die are restricted to a single type of energy with fire being the most common. When your extra damage is limited to a single energy type it is very easy for your opponents to neutralize you. All they need to do is to gain energy resistance vs your type of energy and your ability to deliver damage drops. That means it is not the sorcerer that makes a superior blaster it is the orc bloodline and all other bloodlines are inferior blasters.
If the orc bloodline is what it takes to make a superior blaster the arcanist can still achieve this. Instead of going with the school savant the arcanist takes the blood arcanist archetype. Now he gets the +1 per die bonus of the orc bloodline. If he takes the school understanding exploit, he can also gain access to the admixture school including intense evocation. He can still take the potent magic exploit to boost his caster level by 2. At this point he is doing more damage than the orc bloodline sorcerer with blood havoc until 17th level. 19th and 20th level the orc bloodline sorcerer with blood havoc does 1 point more damage. The extra damage is actually not that much at 6th level when fireball becomes available it is only 6 points, but it is more damage. This also does not factor in the fact that the arcanist can still change the energy type to the most favorable.
The sorcerer will get more spells per day, but the arcanist can change out his spells almost at will. To me that is more valuable than more spells per day.
From what I can see the only way to get more than a +2 damage per die on a regular basis is with the crossblood archetype. The loss of one spell per level known weakens the sorcerer too much for it to be worth it.
Favored class options for sorcerer for additional spells known help blunt the cost of the Crossblooded archetype. Not the entire cost, but you'll have pretty much all the spells known you want.
I did not factor in the feats like Varisian Tattoo or other feats and items because an arcanist can also use those, and they will stack with potent magic. So, while those all help the sorcerer be more effective, they will also help the arcanist. The only thing they cannot use are bloodline mutations.
The extra spells known from the favored class bonus must be one level less than you highest level. That means it does nothing about the fact the crossblooded sorcerer will be delayed a level in gaining access to higher level spells. A crossblooded sorcerer does not get access to 2nd level spells until 5th level. At 4th level they know 8 cantrips, 4 1st level spells including their bloodline spell even when getting extra spells known from the FCB. The wizard will be getting 3rd level spells when the crossblooded sorcerer gets 2nd level spell. They can use metamagic feats to cast improved low-level spells, but they are do not get access to the higher-level spells. It is kind of hard to spam out fireballs when you cannot cast them.
Crossblooded sorcerers also take a -2 penalty on all will saves. So, at 1st level the crossblooded sorcerer has worse saves than a rogue. I have to stand by my opinion that the crossblooded sorcerer is a trap.
If it is not a trap nothing prevents an arcanist from dipping 1 level of crossblooded sorcerer to gain the +2 per die. If you take the orc and solar bloodline and choose sunsight for your bloodline power you would get both darkvision and lowlight sight, and the immunity to being dazzled from sunsight would counter the light sensitivity of the orc bloodline.
Arcanist does have an advantage in a number of casting categories, but a sorcerer with very high system mastery can achieve similar results when cherry picking all of the best options.That is a common myth but very untrue. At high system mastery the Arcanist is superior because people will actually use a lot more spells, including many you would commonly overlook, and use them a lot more creatively to take care of things. They do not just gravitate towards a small list of high power general-purpose magics.
That's a bit of a misrepresentation of what I said. Yes, the Arcanist is the king of versatility, but at the same time, niche things are niche for a reason. For the vast majority of your adventuring career it won't matter if you have the "perfect" spell for the situation. You can usually get by with your cherry picked good-in-most-situations spells. At a certain point you can just teleport out, buy a scroll of whatever is needed at the closest big city, and be ready to face that super specific challenge. And since the sorcerer is strongly charisma-focused with use magic device as a class skill, they can often use a scroll of whatever they want to use. And sure the scroll costs money, but it's not like the arcanist getting all of those niche spells is free. Scribing spells into your spellbook costs time and money.
You could really remove cross-blooded from the equation entirely. One damage bloodline combined with blood havoc is already +2 damage per die. Even more damage is always nice, but there are annoying tradeoffs that have been discussed here. So, compare the non-crossed sorcerer to the arcanist and you see the sorcerer is unequivocally ahead of the arcanist on damage.
The arcanist has other ways to deal damage besides just his spells. There are a decent number of exploits that give the arcanist a scaling attack. In some cases, they also can hinder the target. Ice Missile is actually very good for this. While the damage might not match what he can do with a spell it will often be adequate especially if the target fails his save. Since it only cost 1 point form the arcane reserve to use it can be used a lot. If the character is an Elf or other races that gets points to his arcane reserve as a FCB it can easily compensate for the lesser number of spells. This allows the arcanist to save his spells for tougher opponents while at the same time contributing to combat in a meaningful way.
At 12th level an Elf Arcanist with a 14 CHA will be doing 6d6+2 points of damage per hit with an Ice Missile and the target will need to make a DC 18 save or be staggered for 1 round. If he puts his FCB into extra points for his arcane pool, he will have 27 points. The arcanist will have to split the points between boosting his spells and the Ice Missile but with that many points he should not have a problem.
This also allows the character to use some of his spells for defense and utility. Considering that was one of the goals of the OP that makes it a very good option.
I wouldn't say it's a misrepresentation. You just agreed that your conception was that of a spellcaster who does not bother casting the "perfect" spell but rather someone who casts "good-in-most-situations" spells after all, and yet we are discussing "very high system mastery" spellcasting. These are not playstyles that settle for good-in-most-situations spells unless they have no better options. Very high system mastery means making the most of spellcasting and other capabilities.
Your conclusion doesn't seem to follow from your arguments. From the beginning I stated "similar results" meaning not identical. Having a good enough spell 99% of the time isn't much different than having the exact spell 100% of the time. Even then, the arcanist isn't guaranteed to have the "right spell" as adding spells to your spellbook requires time, gold and access. The system mastery part is in knowing what those good-enough spells are and cherry picking them into your spells known. Also in knowing when and what to pick to expand your spells known further.
Scribing spells into a spellbook does cost time and money, but with a Ring of Sustenance it is possible to scribe while others are sleeping and with a Blessed Book you can remove the cost of scribing spells into the spellbook
Honestly, you are just front loading the costs in those cases, and only getting a discount if you manage to access a very high number of spells for scribing. The sorcerer could spend that same wealth and time buying and crafting a large number of magic items to boost his power further.
Very true, except I should like to add that the Arcanist with a dip of Crossblooded Sorcerer will in fact do more damage when using the Potent Magic exploit (but less damage when not using that or when forced to settle for less from a lack of spell slots).
Sure, that's an option, but in that case the arcanist is slowing his spell advancement. This might be acceptable if you are starting at a high level, but leveling, especially in low to mid levels, is going to feel like a slog. Waiting till level 5 just to get your 2nd level spells is terrible. Honestly, waiting till level 4 is already painful. A regular old wizard would be getting fireball the same level your dipped arcanist is finally getting flaming sphere.
I've played both sorcerer and arcanists, and I've played with others playing those classes. I'm very familiar with how each feels and what they can "normally" do. Now, your experiences could differ if you are playing with unusual amounts of wealth or downtime, but some of what you are saying just doesn't align with my "real world" experiences. It sounds more like theorizing or a Schrödinger's wizard.
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Arcanist blasters are great for 10 minute adventuring days, but they have serious problems with daily resources if it has to stretch them over multiple encounters. Spell slots actually aren't their biggest problem (and to be clear, spell slots are a problem for Arcanists) but literally everything an Arcanist wants to do consumes reservoir. Potent Magic and Quick Study on their own are going to be perpetually leave you tapped reservoir. You can Consume Spells, sure, but you're already really tight on spell slots too.
While the baseline Sorcerer has a pitiful number of spells known, it is trivially easy to rectify this. The Human favored class bonus is +1 spell known per level, and the Ring of Spell Knowledge is essentially Quick Study in item form except it has unlimited daily uses and you don't need to spend downtime learning the spells (you just need to own the scroll or someone else's spellbook). At higher levels, there's also the Mnemonic Vestment. For most of their spell levels, a Sorcerer can easily match or even exceed the versatility of an Arcanist. And if you're a blaster, your higher level slots are getting spent primarily on metamagic.
Sorcerers really aren't locked in a specific element, either. Orc Bloodline is pretty much strictly superior to any other blaster bloodline, since you really only care about the bloodline arcana and will just be trading out the other features for mutations. You don't need different elemental spells at every spell level, just a selection of options across different levels that you can apply metamgic to in order to get the effective slot level you want. There's really no need to know more than one or two blast spells per level.
The DC isn't really relevant until you're adding in Dazing spell. A +2 damage bonus per die is roughly equivalent to a +14 bonus to save DC. I'm not joking, here's a quick spreadsheet showing expected damage for 10d6 and +1, +2, and +3 damage per die. 10d6 with only a 5% chance to save has about the same expected damage as 10d6+20 with a 75% chance to save.
Overall, I'd always recommend to play what you want. I know there are lots of people who love the Arcanist's spell preparation style, and if you enjoy that then play it. Same deal for Evoker Wizard, if you like Wizards it's great. But Sorcerer is undoubtedly the most powerful blaster by a country mile, and most of the downsides that people cite are ones that Sorcerers have easy ways to ignore. The powers it offers are frankly overpowering, and it is the default blaster for a good reason.
If you look at the original post it was asking if there are alternatives besides sorcerers that make “decent blasters” the OP did not say he wanted the best blaster, just decent. The sorcerer can easily excel as a blaster, but they are not the only ones that make decent blasters.
The blaster sorcerer is without doubt very good at blasting. The post in this thread only reinforces this notion. All those favoring the sorcerer assume a standard build of a corssblooded sorcerer with the Orc bloodline and another bloodline that gives a bonus per die. They also assume the following feats Bloatmage Initiate, Flumfire Rage, Intensify Spell, Spell Focus (Evocation), and Varisian Tattoo. That means the build does not fully come online until 9th level assuming you are human. If you are not human, the build is not fully online until 11th level. To me this does not prove the sorcerer is a better blaster it proves this build is a better blaster.
This build while great a blasting it is severely underpowered for everything else. The crossblooded sorcerer has even fewer spells known than normal. The character will need more than a single fire-based blasting spell per level or will be too easy to shut down. He will also want some defensive spells to protect himself. The Orc Bloodline has very few good blasting spells, nor do any of the other bloodlines that offer bonus damage per die. That means the blasting sorcerer will have very few slots for anything else. The favored class bonus of a human can help but locks the build into a single race and only applies to lower-level spells.
The big advantage the arcanist has over this build is that is not limited to blasting. It can do a decent job of blasting even if it is not the absolute best but can do other things.
Would anyone tell the player who shows up at their table wanting to play an arcanist that favors blasting not to bother with it and to play a fighter or rogue instead?
Dasrak, that doesn't really close the gap with an Arcanist. You can only use the Mnemonic Vestment once per day and the Ring of Spell Knowledge only goes up to 4th level spells. They are very good items, but it's really not closing the gap with the Arcanist's spellcasting.
I completely disagree.
"It only goes up to 4th level" is really only a problem at very high character levels. For most of your career, the ring is covering the majority of your spell slots. For a 12th level Sorcerer, having Ring of Spell Knowledge for spell levels 1-4 and Mnemonic Vestments for 5-6 will usually give more versatility than what a 12th level Arcanist can get with Quick Study. Yes, there will be some cases you need to swap between multiple high-level spells, but in the vast majority of cases you'll only need one and Mnemonic Vestments will have you covered. It will be far more often that the Arcanist runs dry on reservoir while the Sorcerer can just freely swap those lower level utility spells. For a blaster, you're mostly using the higher level slots for metamagic anyways.
And that's not to mention the Sorcerer's higher baseline thanks to human favored class bonus. Even presuming your bloodline spells are useless junk (which, to be fair, they often are), a 12th level Sorcerer with human FCB gets 29 spells known as compared to an Arcanist getting 20 spells prepared. That's a lot of extra spells baseline, and it means that in a lot of practical situations the Sorcerer just already knows the spell that the equivalent Arcanist would need to Quick Study to get.
There will be cases the Arcanist can swap spells around those higher level slots to do things a Sorcerer can't. But there will also be cases where a Sorcerer's higher baseline and free lower-level swap with the ring let the Sorcerer do things the Arcanist can't. It's not a matter of system mastery, both classes are offering different ways of completely breaking spell preparation wide open with different limitations. Some situations will be better for the Arcanist, some will be better for the Sorcerer, and that has more to do with your GM's style than your system mastery as a player.
And if you would like to use magic items like Dasrak mentioned, you will essentially need a spellbook as a Sorcerer (or a large collection of scrolls)
The key difference in this respect is the Sorcerer doesn't need to spend downtime scribing, you just acquire the magical writing and you have it. Ring of Sustenance gives you the time to scribe overnight, but that still represents a significantly delay in time-sensitive situations where you need the spell today not tomorrow, and a Sorcerer may very well be using that time to craft anyways.
It seems to me that you have not really witnessed a Wizard (or Arcanist with Scribe Scroll) who loves to go around asking people to provide a single use of a SLA or spell to fulfill a spell prerequisite which he will use to make a scroll which he will later scribe into his spellbook, for instance.
This doesn't work; the Scribe Scroll feat specifically stipulates that you must know the spell. So you can't just use another spellcaster or SLA to get around the requirements like you would for a wondrous item.
More often, you'll just buy used spellbooks or barter for permission to copy from an NPC's spellbook which is a cost-effective means of acquiring new spells.
Your number of spells per spell level are slightly off. A 12th level crossbood sorcerer would have 23 spells excluding bloodline spells and 5 bloodline spells. They do not get their 6th level blood line spell until 13th level. The bloodline spells for the Orc bloodline are not that useful, nor are those form the other bloodlines that give bonus per die. You might get 3 spells that are not garbage by 12th level. So, figure that the crossblood sorcerer has at most 26 worthwhile spells.
An arcanist with the school savant archetype would get 20 spells of any school (Excluding his opposition schools) and 6 spells from his specialty school. That puts the arcanist up to 26 worthwhile spells. The sorcerer will have a couple of extra lower-level spells. The arcanist will have 2 6th level spells compare to 0 for the sorcerer.
The exact number of spells that are different are going to be really dependent on the level of the characters. But once the characters are above 4th level the crossblood sorcerer will always be behind in his highest level spells.
What it really comes down to is what type of character does the player want to play and is the character able to pull his own weight in the party. The OP said he wanted a full caster that leans into the blasting aspect. He also wanted to have some utility options. The crossblooded sorcerer does not meet the utility criteria. A regular sorcerer not focused on blasting might be able to pull it off, but not the build that has been suggested here. The school savant arcanist on the other hand fits his criterial. Since his spell selection is variable, he can also use other combat strategies besides straight blasting. Throw in some battlefield control and buffing and the character will be quite useful even if he cannot match the raw damage of the blasting focused sorcerer.
What this character will excel in is the ability to exploit any weakness of his opponents. When I have brought up the school savant’s ability to change the energy type it has been dismissed and unimportant compared to the extra damage the sorcerer can do, that is a huge mistake. Being able to negate a creature’s defense is often more important than the amount of damage you do. If you are fighting a bunch a fire elemental the ability to change your fireball to do cold damage is devastating. The sorcerer may be able to use ice storm or frostfall instead of fireball, but those spells are not as good as a fireball doing cold damage. The arcanist is also an INT based class with all knowledge skills as class skills. This gives him much better chance to identify a monster's weakness.
Your number of spells per spell level are slightly off. A 12th level crossbood sorcerer would have 23 spells excluding bloodline spells and 5 bloodline spells.
I did not say Crossblooded.
I'd agree Crossblooded is completely inappropriate given what OP has stated they want. It only makes sense for min-max builds willing to make deep sacrifices for every last scrap of power. If that's not what you're building, it's not worthwhile.
Dasrak, once you're at 12th level you are already at the high levels, and it is difficult to afford this sort of thing before 12th level. A Ring of Spell Knowledge (Type 4) costs 24,000 gp and a Mnmemonic Vestment costs 5,000 gp. At level 10, your wealth by level should be 62,000 gp
For a 10th level Sorcerer a Ring of Spell Knowledge type III would be level-appropriate equipment. That means the ring covers your 1st-3rd level spells, and 4th and 5th are covered by the Mnemonic Vestments. It's basically the same dynamic as exists at 12th level, just for a lower spell level.
Now, if you're willing to invest in Forge Ring, then Type IV is realistic by 10th level. It's a relatively easy craft, only DC 12 with no prerequisites you need to bypass, so accelerating it is trivial. However, I wouldn't consider Forge Ring to be a standard choice.
Sorcerers really don't need that many items. Headband of Charisma, Cloak of Resistance, Ring of Spell Knowledge, Mnemonic Vestments, and some magical writings. Other items are nice to have, particularly if you get them as treasure (definitely not saying no to a metamagic rod!) but you're not going to go out of your way to get something like a stave.
it is trumped by the following text from Magic Item Descriptions
That text does not trump it. There is a difference between the prerequisites of crafting the item and the requirements of the crafting feat you are using. The magical item creation rules deal with the ways of meeting item prerequisites, they don't let you get around additional restrictions imposed by your feats.
Both Blood Intensity and Blood Piercing have limits on how often they can be used. Blood Piericing also does nothing against a target with immunity and only reduces the amount of energy resistance by the sorcerers CHA modifier. If the target only has 5-10 points of energy resistance it is fine, but anything with 20-30 points it hardly puts a dent into it.
Casting another spell only works if you have that type of damage in a spell. Battering Blast is limited to 5d6, and its base damage is only 1d6 per 2 levels. That means it deals significantly less damage than most. It will get the bonus from the orc bloodline and blood havoc but that still is only 5d6+10 to a single target.
Mnemonic Vestment is only good for one use per day. Expanded Arcana is using feats which the sorcerer only has a limited amount of. As I pointed out the suggested build on this thread is already using up its feats.
Many of the suggestion you are giving add a single utility spell to the sorcerer’s portfolio. While that does give them a tiny bit of utility it cannot match the ability to choose different spells daily, much less what quick study can do. When the arcanist need to travel in cold or hot weather they can take endure element, on the day they need to sneak into a place they can take disguise self, When they need to gather information they can take ears of the city, if they need to figure out what the magic items the party found they can take identify, if they need to travel mount can provide a way to move quickly, and the list goes on and on. They can also do more than one of these a day if needed. When they are down in the dungeon and they don’t need any utility they can memorize all combat spells, but when they are in downtime, they can memorize only utility spells. The sorcerer is mostly locked into what he can do.