Feats for an Abjurer?

[WrathMage]

Hi all:

I am starting a casual Pathfinder game this coming weekend and one of my players wants to play a specialist Abjurer (sp?). Its a pretty low optimization game, as there is only really myself and one other who really get the idea of optimization (and I'm not great, I'll be honest). However he has chosen to take Spell Focus (Abjuration) as one of his feats, and to me this seems to perhaps be not such a great choice. I wanted to check with those of you who know more about this (read: everyone) than me.


The game is starting at 4th level and his other feat choice is Combat Casting. What are your thoughts?

TL/DR: What feats are good for an Abjurer?

[Xerlith]

Well, Combat Casting may be good at low levels, but not Spell Focus (Abjuration).

Improved Initiative is always good.

Extend Spell is often useful.

Have a guide. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xjPIOH8F8a0l74BdDF7Q23nCfZ-YX68Xr6JmmtznMw4/edit)

[WrathMage]

A, why thank you very much! I'll have a scan and show it to the player in question too. Thanks for the help :D

[HammeredWharf]

Treantmonk's guide is a good starting point. One reason to have SF: Abjuration is the excellent Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil PRC, which has it as a prereq. Unfortunately, you can only take your first IotSV level at lvl 10. Other than that, Abjuration is mostly a caster hate and antiteleportation school, both of which can be really powerful options if your campaign has plenty of caster enemies. He could focus on counterspelling, but Clerics are better at it.

[RedMage125]

If he takes Spell Focus, he could qualify for Master Specialist by level 3 (taking it at lvl 4). Then could progress there until level 9, start taking Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil at 10.

And a grandmaster of counterspelling would be such an abjurer, who also took a level of Archmage as soon as possible (Master Specialist gives Skill Focus: Spellcraft for free, and also boosts Spell Focus into Greater version for free), and picked up Mastery of Counterspelling as his/her first High Arcana, before returning to Initiate of Sevenfold Veil. Then I'd suggest at least 1 more level of Master Specialist (level 7 of that class), because the Abjuration Moderate Spell Esoterica is pretty nice. But feats are important, taking Improved Counterspell, Improved Initiative, and then Reactive Counterspell.

Such a character can counterspell without readying an action to do so, gets half his MS level as a competence bonus on dispel checks (allowing him to exceed to +10 and +20 limit bonuses to Dispel and Greater Dispel, respectively) as well as an additional bonus from IotSV if the spell being countered is abjuration, and auto-reflects any spell that they DO counter back on the original caster. The dispel bonus is pretty key, because as a specialist, you've got 2 schools of magic that you could not counter without using the dispel option of counterspelling. This could be accomplished as early as level 13.

[stack]

Pathfinder tag. Didn't see a mention of 3.5 allowed.

[HalfQuart]

No clue about Pathfinder, but Combat Casting is a prereq for Abjurant Champion (CM), a pretty good full BAB/full spellcasting prc. Only downside really is that it has a +5 BAB prereq, which is pretty hard to get until level 9 (with 3 levels of the Ruathar [RotW]).

There are VERY few abjuration spells that have a save, so Spell Focus: Abjuration is pretty useless except as a prereq for something.

[StreamOfTheSky]

There's not much... I know of the following feats:

Dispel Synergy

By tearing away an opponent's magical defenses, you leave your enemy vulnerable, making it difficult for him to resist your spells.

Prerequisite: Spellcraft 5 ranks.

Benefit: If you successfully dispel an ongoing magical effect on an opponent, that opponent takes a –2 penalty on saving throws against your spells until the end of your next turn.


Destructive Dispel

When you dispel an enemy’s magical defenses, those defenses crash down with debilitating effects.

Prerequisites: Ability to cast dispel magic or greater dispel magic, caster level 11th.

Benefit: When you successfully make a targeted dispel check against an opponent, that opponent must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC equals the DC of the spell used to dispel) or be stunned until the start of your next turn. If the save succeeds, the opponent is instead sickened until the start of your next turn.