Need help with coming up with a character.

[Beowulf DW]

My character in a RL game recently got critted by a raging barbarian, and now I'm in need of a new character. Problem is, I can't figure out what to do. The things we don't already have covered are "heavy-hitter" caster (as my DM put it) and melee. We have a rogue that seems to prefer ranged combat, an archivist bard, a tactician (from Psionics Unleashed), and a melee cleric that...well...he does stuff every once in a while, but his player isn't particularly skilled at making a character. He's a friend, and he's good at roleplaying, god bless him, but he struggles to make characters that function properly. His cleric has a wisdom of 12.

But I digress. That's the party composition right now. We're at level 2, and we rolled for stats. The rolls I have for my new character are 16, 14, 14, 10, 10, 9. Advanced races are permitted, within reason.

Any ideas? I've been pulling my hair out trying to come up with something.

[Strormer]

There are a good deal of options at this point, but I would say the best two for you are either a Suli Tetori Monk for the valuable melee applications or a classic Oradin to simultaneously add heavy melee to your party while at the same time supplementing your cleric's healing abilities.

Both are fun to play and have a lot of RP options. Hope this helps!

[13ones]

Okay so I've got a couple suggestions for you. One Melee focused and One"Heavy-Hitter" caster. Ready to be better than the rest of your party and make them cry?

Start off by taking the Vivisectionist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist/archetypes/paizo---alchemist-archetypes/vivisectionist). This drops your bombs in favor of sneak attack damage. As your first discovery at level 2 I suggest you take Feral Mutagen (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist/discoveries/paizo---alchemist-discoveries/feral-mutagen). Feral Mutagen gives you a bite attack (1D8 if Medium sized), and two claw attacks (1D6 per claw, if Medium sized). So at level 2 you have three attacks all at your highest bab and all dealing sneak attack if you managed to get within range of them in the first few rounds. So you're not only attack more often than everyone else, you're also hitting more often and harder. Basically, as I fluff it, you drink a potion or three and turn into a large sized, invisible werewolf. Have fun.


For this one you're going to be an Evocation based Wizard. Take the Admixture Evocations (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/arcane-schools/paizo---arcane-schools/classic-arcane-schools/evocation/admixture)Spell school. I suggest opposing Necromancy and Enchantment. If you get high enough you can pick one of these up later with the Opposition Research (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/archetypes/paizo---wizard-archetypes/arcane-discoveries/opposition-research)Discovery, and both Enchantment and Necromancy pick up later game anyways. Admixture lets you swap your elemental type to whatever you like and you also get a bonus in damage from evocation spells. This is the wizard where preparing nothing but fireballs is a great idea. Huge area, great die, and with the element swap always effective. Just remember that Metamagic is your friend. Your blasts NEED to be Empowered or other such spells to really be effective. Low level blast spell of choice is going to be burning hands. If this game is using PFS rules you get Spell focus evocation for free at level one, you get Alertness from your familiar (pick up a scorpion, +4 Initiate is so good), and pick up spell specialization for burning hands, with the intent to drop it onto fireball later. Burning hands will have a wicked powerful reflex save and you'll be the best thing to deal damage to huge crowds as fast as possible.

These are just a couple of suggestions that really make a solid impact. If you'd rather some other ideas I can always pump them out.

[prufock]

A summoner might be a good choice. Plenty of versatility through summons, plenty of frontline support, buffs, etc.

[Beowulf DW]

Okay so I've got a couple suggestions for you. One Melee focused and One"Heavy-Hitter" caster. Ready to be better than the rest of your party and make them cry?

Start off by taking the Vivisectionist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist/archetypes/paizo---alchemist-archetypes/vivisectionist). This drops your bombs in favor of sneak attack damage. As your first discovery at level 2 I suggest you take Feral Mutagen (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist/discoveries/paizo---alchemist-discoveries/feral-mutagen). Feral Mutagen gives you a bite attack (1D8 if Medium sized), and two claw attacks (1D6 per claw, if Medium sized). So at level 2 you have three attacks all at your highest bab and all dealing sneak attack if you managed to get within range of them in the first few rounds. So you're not only attack more often than everyone else, you're also hitting more often and harder. Basically, as I fluff it, you drink a potion or three and turn into a large sized, invisible werewolf. Have fun.


For this one you're going to be an Evocation based Wizard. Take the Admixture Evocations (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/arcane-schools/paizo---arcane-schools/classic-arcane-schools/evocation/admixture)Spell school. I suggest opposing Necromancy and Enchantment. If you get high enough you can pick one of these up later with the Opposition Research (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/archetypes/paizo---wizard-archetypes/arcane-discoveries/opposition-research)Discovery, and both Enchantment and Necromancy pick up later game anyways. Admixture lets you swap your elemental type to whatever you like and you also get a bonus in damage from evocation spells. This is the wizard where preparing nothing but fireballs is a great idea. Huge area, great die, and with the element swap always effective. Just remember that Metamagic is your friend. Your blasts NEED to be Empowered or other such spells to really be effective. Low level blast spell of choice is going to be burning hands. If this game is using PFS rules you get Spell focus evocation for free at level one, you get Alertness from your familiar (pick up a scorpion, +4 Initiate is so good), and pick up spell specialization for burning hands, with the intent to drop it onto fireball later. Burning hands will have a wicked powerful reflex save and you'll be the best thing to deal damage to huge crowds as fast as possible.

These are just a couple of suggestions that really make a solid impact. If you'd rather some other ideas I can always pump them out.

Let me start by saying that I do indeed appreciate the suggestions. However, the rest of the party (and the GM) are people I have known for years now. So making them cry is kind of off table. However, I'll see what I can do about toning them down a bit, and see how I can work them into the campaign.

Thanks.


A summoner might be a good choice. Plenty of versatility through summons, plenty of frontline support, buffs, etc.

Summoner is always a decent choice, though I have doubts about bringing a summoner back into the game so soon. Though, being able to bog down that barbarian in summons would have been nice.

[13ones]

I'm not familiar with the Rune Lords material but if you're looking for some other suggestions that are less "oh my god he just vaporized an entire room!" I can suggest a few other builds. But those builds really depend on how effective Debuffing and Mind-effecting spells go.

So this is a Necromancy based build. I like to play Necromancers and I've been trying to build a 'white' Necromancer for some time. This is the fruits of my labor I like to call the gravewalker. Rather than taking any of the normal arcane schools pick up the Earth School (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/arcane-schools/paizo---arcane-schools/elemental-arcane-schools/earth). This means you can't prepare a bunch of schools of the air, lightning, and wind type but it gives you access to a bunch of really iconic spells anyways. It also gives you a nice little ability that does acid damage and sickens on a failed fort save as well as a nice +2 to being moved around against your will. The Necromancy schools are pretty crap if you want to do anything other than minions and generally playing nice with parties means minions are a bad idea. Just grab necromancy focused feats and you'll be fine. SF:Necromancy is a must. I'd also suggest Heighten Spell (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/metamagic-feats/heighten-spell-metamagic---final) as your first spell with the intent to throw it on Ray of Enfeeblement (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/r/ray-of-enfeeblement). This will be your bread and butter for awhile with the intent to work towards Preferred Spell (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/preferred-spell) for the big necromancy spell Enervation (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/e/enervation). For story line it really depends on what your motivation is. I don't know RL too well so I can't forge you something. This build's big strength is debuffing and making the rest of your party have an easier time.

Where as the above wizard is all about directly debuffing this one is just about causing chaos to the battlefield. For this one you will need the Illusion Arcane School (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/arcane-schools/paizo---arcane-schools/classic-arcane-schools/illusion) or the Shadowcaster Archetype (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/archetypes/paizo---wizard-archetypes/shadowcaster) in order to get the full effect. I've always wanted to try the Shadowcaster but the lack of true familiar seems a little off putting, though the bonus to the Shadow Evocation and Conjuration schools are what is really tempting. The entire build is about using Illusions, summons, and Enchantments to support the battlefield. I honestly suggest Evocation and Necromancy as opposed schools for this one. Most of Evocation gets more effective with Shadow Evocation later anyways (fireballs get higher DC, for example as opposed to being 5th level spells over 3rd level). A big combo that I find effective is casting a Summon Monster spell and then the next round when the monster appears casting a Silent, Minor, or Major image to 'copy' the summon and add more of them. So the bad guys think that you summoned in 30 Celestial Lions as opposed to just 4. With this one you're looking to get at least a couple of the summoning bonus feats like Augment Summoning (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/augment-summoning---final) and Superior Summoning (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/superior-summoning) outside of that you just need things to make you're illusions and shadows stick. Persistent Spell (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/metamagic-feats/persistent-spell-metamagic)being my metamagic of choice for this build, usually on one of the shadow spells to make sure it sticks.

This one uses the Abyssal Bloodline (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/sorcerer/bloodlines/bloodlines-from-paizo/abyssal-bloodline) In order to make a really powerful Summoner. You'll be looking at boosting your summoning effectiveness with the standard summoning feats. You'll be able to crank out monsters a little more effective than most summoners since they get DR/Good = 1/2 your level. The bloodline starts weak but only gets stronger. This is a real Conjuration focused school and you'll be looking to crank it up as best as you can. Not as heavily metamagic focused since you'll be summoning more things so that frees up a lot of feats, which is usually a problem for Sorcerers.

This build uses the wonderfulBeastmaster (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/ranger/archetypes/paizo---ranger-archetypes/beastmaster)Archetype. Why is it so wonderful? Pick any companion from the Druid's list as opposed to the restrictive hunter one. At level 12 your companion is equal to your level. Yes you lose your 6th level combat feat and camouflage but the ability to grab a T-Rex, Raptor, Roc, Giant Scorpion, or Mammoth is just too good to pass up. You can go one of three ways with this as far as I see it. The Sniper build is you sitting atop a Roc and sniping from a distance, this works with any pet but the Roc really makes it special as flying is just soooo good for a Sniper. Then you've got the straight Melee ranger, this is the guy who uses broadswords or dual wields. I honestly suggest Wolf, T-Rex, Scorpion, or anything else with Grab as part of its basic attacks. Scorpion is my favourite for this with good grab, good attacks, and really nice armor bonuses to help it stay alive. Then you've got the Skirmisher. This guy uses bows until combat gets to close then he drops the bow in favour of a broadsword. Works well with high mobility pets like the Raptor or Roc. The Sniper is a Dex heavy build, the Skirmisher and Melee ranger are heavier with Strength and Con, lighter on Dex. And honestly how awesome is the idea of riding into battle on the back of a giant scorpion/t-rex (Animal Growth is a spell) and killing EVERYTHING!

These are just a few more ideas for you to put to use. I'm more comfortable in the realms of magic so if you have any magic builds you want to try let me know. I've got a dozen.

[Barstro]

Summoner will provide you and your team with a decent front line fighter and battlefield control. It also gives you the option of dismissing the eidolon and using summoned monsters for lengthy periods of time for versatility.