[PF] Lets build an Evocationist!

[13ones]

Afternoon folks.

So I've been tapped for an upcoming game (like next five months upcoming) and I've decided to go back and recreate the first character type I ever played, an evocation based sorcerer. First time I did this I did it so poorly I was an active danger to my group so I'm committed to doing it right this time.

I'll be splitting this into two post. First post will cover all the rules that I'm following for this game, where as second post will contain all of the stuff I've stated thus far for critique.

Here are the rules for character generation for this upcoming game.


Rules:
"Allowed Books:
• Pathfinder Core Rulebook
• Advanced Players Guide
• Advanced Race Guide (NO RACE BUILDER)
• Ultimate Magic
• Ultimate Combat
• Ultimate Equipment
• Bestiary 1, 2, and 3 (for familiars, animal companions, mounts and feats)
Characters are made with 25 point buy.
• Races may come from the Core Rulebook or the Advanced Races Guide (NO RACE BUILDER), and optional racial features may be taken from the Advanced Players Guide or Advanced Races Guide.
• Classes can be drawn from any of the available books, except the Gunslinger from Ultimate Combat or any of the related Archetypes as firearms are not permitted for flavour and mechanical reasons.
-The level for the first module is 4.
• Characters receive 6000gp for the first module. At most 1500gp may be spent on any one item, this is calculated based on the market value of the item, not any crafting costs. For Armour, Shields, Weapons, etc., the total cost of the item + the enhancement bonus under the maximum that can be spent on one item
-Items such as potions and scrolls must have a caster level equal or less than your character level, so no potions with a caster level above 4 are available for purchase in module 1.
-Characters can ONLY BE OF GOOD OR NEUTRAL ALIGNMENT.
-The Leadership feat (and any other method of gaining a companion other than a class feature) is not allowed. This includes purchasing hirelings or buying a simple animal to be your mount.
• NO variant or additional rules are allowed, INCLUDING Firearms. This includes but is not limited to:
• Hero Points
• Armour as Damage Reduction
• Traits"

[13ones]

So here is what I have thus far.

Human Sorcerer - Level 4
Str - 7
Dex - 12
Con - 14
Int - 14
Wis - 10
Cha - 21 (+2 from being human, +1 for level 4)

Favoured class: Extra spell per level, below highest caster level.
30 HP
16 Skill points. (4 Perception, 4 Spell craft, 1 bluff, 1 diplomacy, 1 fly, 1 intimidate, 1 knowledge Arcana, 1 Knowledge Planes, 1 Linguistics (picked up Draconic), 1 UMD).

Feats: Toughness, Alertness (debating on this), Spell Focus: Evocation

Blood line: Arcane (boring but effective, open to suggestions). Took a Fox familiar for now. Looking at Greensting Scorpion and Compsognathus as well. Not really looking at improving familiar.

Spells: Cantrips - (does it matter?) 1st - Magic missle, Mage Armor, Enlarge person, colour spray, Identify[Bloodline]. 2nd - Scorching Ray.

So the idea behind this character isn't to be pure blast but rather to use all of Evocation. I'll eventually get some of the force spells in here and some of the other stuff. If I wanted pure blast I'd be going crossblooded.

The way I see this character working is following these steps 1- Buff party. 2- Go invisible (greater when I get it) 3- Debuff the thing 4- NUKE/FORCE BUBBLE/PRISMATIC SPRAY ALL THE THINGS! 5- Win the game.

I'm looking to work up to spell perfection as well with the idea of spell perfecting chain lightning. Metamagics I'm looking at are Heighten, Maximize, Quicken, and Dazing. A spell perfected, Dazing chain lightning with arcane bloodline and the right feats gets SILLY.

I do have a character in mind for this but I figured the character itself wouldn't be important in the mechanical discussion.

So input is most welcome! Let me have it!

[13ones]

There we go. hope I got everything across properly. Anything I'm missing I can fill in.

Current items:

+1 Mithril Buckler
+1 Cloak of Resistance

[Fouredged Sword]

Ok, what is your cheese tolerance, and are you willing to look at other options than sorcerer?

Sorcerer 1 / Wizard 19

Sorcerer 1 (cross blooded tattoo'd sorcerer, Orc and Dragon blooded) nets you +2 damage per die with one element of spells.

Wizard 19 (Generation evoker)

Feats - This is a metamgic build, so you are going to take low level spells and turn them into cool effects.

Here are the metamagic spells you want
Intensify spell - You do lots of extra damage per die, so why not add bonus dice to spells damage?
Lingering Spell - Now your spells hang around for 1 round, providing concealment. Nice with the next feat for the combo...
Selective Spell - Now you can drop that fireball right on the fighter and he doesn't care.

What more, he isn't effected by the concealment caused by the lingering spell, so he can hit things inside the cloud of fire just fine. What's more, that fireball lingers for half your class level EXTRA ROUNDS due to the generation school of evocation.

You make it hard to kill your allies while dropping a heavy hitting damage spell directly into the fray. You can target out of the cloud (you ignore the concealment due to selective spell) but you have total concealment to everyone more than 20ft away, and partial concealment VS everyone more than 5ft away.

Now, a selective lingering fireball is a 5th level spell, but it does
10d6+20 damage and lingers for 4 rounds, providing concealment for the party.

This build DOES work with pure sorcerer, but you have to eat the cross blooded penalties and full round action metamagic. You don't get spells any faster ether, and they only linger for one round.

[Raven777]

Cantrips matter. Be sure to be able to Read Magic and Detect magic. Prestidigitation doesn't hurt either. It will allow you to clean yourself and not smell like a peasant.

Improved Familiar is cool. You can pick up a Faerie Dragon (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/dragons/dragon-faerie). According to the Improved Familiar Table, they come in any flavor within one step of Chaotic Good, with yourself allowed to be within two steps from your familiar, so the only alignment who is not allowed to bind a Faerie Dragon would be Lawful Evil. Faerie Dragons have 100 ft telepathy, so they can act as your group's silent radio comm officer. Plus, you can bum off their very decent +8 Perception and Sense motive skill instead of putting ranks in your own, freeing up space for your own UMD, which you should crank. There's also something hilarious about your familiar possibly being smarter than yourself.

Since the Advanced Race Guide is in play, might I suggest being a Half-Elf instead of a Human? A Half-Elf is still allowed to take the Human FCB (http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fn#v5748eaic9r7c). But over all, a Half-Elf will be able to know Paragon Surge (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/p/paragon-surge), which you can use to know any feat on the fly. This is tremendously useful on its own, but then there's the synergy with Expanded Arcana (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/expanded-arcana), which literally allows you to know any spell you like on a whim.

[Khosan]

What's more, that fireball lingers for half your class level EXTRA ROUNDS due to the generation school of evocation.

I'm not sure if it actually works that way by RAW. Lingering Spell doesn't actually change the duration from instantaneous, and Lingering Evocations only works on spells with a duration longer than instantaneous.

In any case, Admixture Evokers are a strong choice. Changing the elements of your damage spells is a huge boost in versatility when you start encountering immunities and/or vulnerabilities.

EDIT: There's also good ol' Toppling Spell (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/metamagic-feats/toppling-spell-metamagic) + Magic Missile for fun. Helps out your melee and can be a real nuisance when used against enemy casters (or anyone else with low CMD).

[13ones]

Those are both really great builds but I'm not really looking to do blasting and nothing else. I'd like to be able to do more than that. And i've played wizards before and while I admit they are powerful I just don't enjoy them on the same level as sorcerers.

As far as the half-elf paragon surge stuff I'm not certain if that is allowed. I know they have talked about pre-banning some silly things and I THINK they mentioned paragon surge shenanigans. If that is the case, while a fantastic idea it probably wouldn't work.

Keep it coming guys!

[Bigbeefie]

Human Sorcerer - Level 4
Str - 7
Dex - 12
Con - 14
Int - 14
Wis - 10
Cha - 21 (+2 from being human, +1 for level 4)

I recommend switching your Int and Dex. I recommend 14 dex and 12 Int. the reason is Initative, Saves, and AC.


Favoured class: Extra spell per level, below highest caster level.
30 HP
16 Skill points. (4 Perception, 4 Spell craft, 1 bluff, 1 diplomacy, 1 fly, 1 intimidate, 1 knowledge Arcana, 1 Knowledge Planes, 1 Linguistics (picked up Draconic), 1 UMD).

If you take my ability point adjustment advice here are my reasons:
A Sorcerer Has a small Skills list to begin with and you really only need 3 mandatory skills to begin with. UMD, Spellcraft, and Know Arcana. As a human with a 12 int you will have 4 skills a Level thats 16 skill points @ 4th Level. Here is my suggestions on skills:

Skills: (16 skill points) 2-Perception, 4-Spell craft, 1- UMD, 1-fly, 2-know arcane, 2- Know Plane, 1- Bluff, 1-Intimidate

Don't Cross Class too many skills like perception, diplomacy because you want to be good at a hand full of things and not spread your usefulness too thin and suck because your skills are spread too thin.


Favored class: Extra spell per level, below highest caster level.
30 HP

I recommend First 3 levels to just Take the Extra Health per level. At 4 you can start picking up the Extra spell per Level, Below highest caster Level. When ever you don't feel like you want a new spell Grab the Health...otherwise after Level 3 then start snagging up spells.

Also if your a new player don't be confused. As Favored Class Bonus you can choose between the 3: 1 HP, 1 Skill Point, 1 Spell, Below highest.

With 3 levels of HP and your Con at 14 you will get +11 added to your health rolled....I don't know how you determine Health. If you get max you will have 35 Health Without toughness. 39 with toughness.


Feats: Toughness, Alertness (debating on this), Spell Focus: Evocation

With a Familiar near you you Automatically get Alertness as a feat as long as he is 10 feet of you. So you have an empty feat. Allow me to make a suggestion on Feats and an explanation.

My feat suggestions:
Human feat: Improved Initiative, 1- Toughness, 3-Extra Traits ,5-Intensify Spell,7-Bloodline-Spell Focus Evocation, 7-Empowered, 9-Spell Penetration, 11-Dazing Spell ,Bloodline 13-Iron Will,13-Quicken Spell, 15-Spell Perfection, 17-Greater Spell Focus, 19 bloodline-?? Improved Counter Spell ???, 19-?? Greater Spell Pen ??

Initiative is most important thing to a caster. Toughness will keep you alive, Extra traits.....You want 2 Magical Lineage Fireball and Chain Lightning. You will Also want Reactionary as Initiative is everything. Your last Trait is completely up to you But I recommend either upping your Fort save, +2 to Concentration checks, or another Magical lineage possibly Enervation.

Quickened Enervation followed by a Empowered+maximized Enervation will strip 6+ levels off a target and render a single target useless. Giving it huge negatives and shrinking its HP pool.

Allow your free bloodline feat to pick up Spell focus at level 7. Most evocation spells are Reflex anyways so they will be landing rather well pre 7 anyways.

Empower>maximize. Buy a rod of Maximize. Maximize is a +3 and Empower is a +2 level adjustment. That number really matters...also just try rolling a empower fireball a few times and match it to Maximized numbers and you will only be a few points off typically damage wise....such a little number in fact you will hardly notice the difference until you start hooking up More meta magics to the spell and using higher spell slots.

The way I laid out the Meta magics is thus. Intensified spell +1>Empower spell +2, Dazing Spell+3, and Quicken spell +4 Notice the slow increase in spell level to add the meta magics....makes these meta magic feats come online the moment you take them. So you will get immediate use and see a spike in your Damage Per Round.


Spells: Cantrips - (does it matter?) 1st - Magic missle, Mage Armor, Enlarge person, colour spray, Identify[Bloodline]. 2nd - Scorching Ray.

Cantrips matter. Detect magic, Read magic, Prestidigitation are important...I also like ghost sound.

1st Magic Missile, Mage Armor, Enlarge person, Burning Hands, Identify. (if you take intensify with my other feat suggestions Burning hands will stay online for the campaign since low level blasts with meta magics are usually better then high level base spells.)

2nd Level- scorching ray

Only suggestion is drop the color spray and buy 1-2 scrolls of it as it is good up to level 6 then drops off like sleep does.


Current items:

+1 Mithril Buckler
+1 Cloak of Resistance

Cloak good....Buckler Bad. 3k for a Buckler the avoids Spell failure...I can think of lots of consumables, items, and wands you can spend the 3k on and become stronger caster. I strongly advise against it.


Took a Fox familiar for now. Looking at Greensting Scorpion and Compsognathus as well. Not really looking at improving familiar.

I recommend Compso as he can drop caltrops and other alchemical items from the air. Since you are not going to take Improved Familiar to get a wand user to add an extra blast spell to your rotation I at least recommend boosting your Initiative and Having something for him to do. Caltrop patrol is good first 8 levels usually and Sudden swoop allows him to deliver a touch spell if you ever send him out to do so...a shocking/frigid/vampiric grasp spells jacked up on meta magics can do some good damage and add effects.


Those are my thoughts on how to make your Character stronger and more optimized.

[13ones]

Thank you for the suggestions.

Just a couple things I noted as I read through:

-As Sorcerers only get 2+int mod per level skills 12 int would only give a +1 mod, meaning 3 skill points per level so for 4th level I'd be stuck with 12 points.

-Traits are banned in this particular game so the suggestion of traits and trait related feats doesn't apply.

Aside from those two things it does offer a lot to look over.

[Bigbeefie]

Your a human you get an extra skill point per level

[Bickerstaff]

Also, one of my favorite 1st level spells is Vanish. It's great for tactical invisibility in combat (at later levels it's a good one to Quicken, because 1st-level), and at low levels it' a good way to keep yourself alive.

[13ones]

Your a human you get an extra skill point per level

I...I forgot that was a thing!

[AttilaTheGeek]

Also, one of my favorite 1st level spells is Vanish. It's great for tactical invisibility in combat (at later levels it's a good one to Quicken, because 1st-level), and at low levels it' a good way to keep yourself alive.

Seconding this. I've actually had Vanish save characters' lives.

Again recommending the orc bloodline, which gives all damaging spells +1 damage per die rolled, equivalent to upgrading all your d6s to d8s. It also gives you Burning Hands as a free spell known.

For your three feats, if you want to go as blasty as possible, I think the optimal answer is Improved Initiative, Spell Focus, and Greater Spell Focus. I'd again recommend swapping your INT for DEX because that'll give you a bonus to initiative, AC, and aiming your Scorching Rays at the low, low cost of four skill points.

[Spore]

I actually like derivations of Elemental Bloodline Sorcerers, like this: http://thefoolscourt.zxq.net/other/she%27er.pdf

Not overpowered, not weak but streamlined and focussed. Also I like the use of Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus as well as Elemental Focus and Greater Elemental Focus. If you're not forced to use the original element but are able to use "your" element, you push the DC another 2 points up.

Another great idea is Draconic/Primal or Orc Crossblooded since this gives a great bonus to base damage (and thus successful saves don't matter as much).

Sorc/Wizard Evoker is also possible. So just pick your poison I guess.