Turning a Sorcerer into a melee character.

[tadkins]

I'm currently enamored with the idea of a "Void Knight", a character exploring the cosmos and calling upon the darkness in his blood to fight the various nasties he encounters. As such I'd like to take the Void-Touched wildblooded Sorcerer and make him into something that doesn't look too bad with a sword.

For the most part I want to keep everything about the Sorcerer, as all the spells and features are too enticing to give up. I'm also aware that the Starsoul bloodline isn't exactly the best for a melee character. Nevertheless I'm sure there are spell/feat choices that might make the concept work, I'm just not too certain of what they might be.

Thoughts/comments? Thanks in advance.

Edit: I've also toyed with the idea of being a debuff-focused sorcerer, weakening my foes to the point that even the most pathetic sword swing looks like godly melee power. Would that be a viable tactic? xD

[(Un)Inspired]

I think a Dark Tapestry Oracle might be more in line with what you want to do.

Its a Cha powered spontaneous caster with fluff that can boil down to the Hot Topic in his blood lets him fight blah blah blah (oracle fluff is suuuuuuuuper mutable).

Unlike the sorcerer, it's got medium bab to better fuel power attack (or piranha strikes) and spells like Divine Power to back up being a "Gish"

With the combination of the Dark tapestry Mystery and the right curse oracles have access to an unbelievable number of Wiz/Sorc spells so you won't just feel like a cleric without the wisdom.

I recommend VMC magus so you can Spellstrike with Harm for acceptable Standard action damage.

[tadkins]

I think a Dark Tapestry Oracle might be more in line with what you want to do.

Its a Cha powered spontaneous caster with fluff that can boil down to the Hot Topic in his blood lets him fight blah blah blah (oracle fluff is suuuuuuuuper mutable).

Unlike the sorcerer, it's got medium bab to better fuel power attack (or piranha strikes) and spells like Divine Power to back up being a "Gish"

With the combination of the Dark tapestry Mystery and the right curse oracles have access to an unbelievable number of Wiz/Sorc spells so you won't just feel like a cleric without the wisdom.

I recommend VMC magus so you can Spellstrike with Harm for acceptable Standard action damage.

Truth be told I've never really looked at the Oracle, always kind of assumed it was like a Cleric in that I have to RP as being beholden to a god (not a fan of that). But after doing some reading, Dark Tapestry Oracle seems like it might be right up my alley. Thanks for that suggestion. :)

Looking at the Curses now. Any particular ones you might recommend?

[Kurald Galain]

There's also a cha-based spontaneous caster archetype for the Magus...

[tadkins]

There's also a cha-based spontaneous caster archetype for the Magus...

Magus doesn't have all the spells I'd want though, namely scrying and planar traveling.

[(Un)Inspired]

I love love LOVE the Haunted curse. The downside is your character will always fumble a little bit when trying to get out his pack of cigarettes. The upside is you get a ton of additional spells know and they're all great. Levitate, Minor Image, Telekinesis and Reverse Gravity.

Legalistic lets you buff a d20 roll if relates to a vow you make (I vow to stab this enemy), a plus to a bunch of face skills and at 15th level it lets you brutalize anyone who breaks their word to you.

Lame isn't terribly exciting but is a nice little trade off. It cuts you ground speed in exchange for giving you immunities to fatigue and exhaustion (additional armor doesn't further cut your speed so feel free to slap on some Full Plate.

The Hard limit that Clouded puts on your vision never seemed even remotely worth it to me

Wasting is like Lame in that's it gives you a few immunities in exchange for a very minor debuff (-4 to Cha skills except for intimidate). Your character is gonna be somewhere between The Elephant Man and Beastly is terms of ugliness though.

[tadkins]

Oh, quick thing!

Spellstrike: At 11th level, he gains the spellstrike class feature, but he can use it only with spells that are on the magus spell list, even though he can cast them using another class's spell slots.

Am I missing something? Harm isn't on the Magus spell list, so I wouldn't be able to use that tactic as a VMC Magus, right?

[(Un)Inspired]

Oh, quick thing!

Spellstrike: At 11th level, he gains the spellstrike class feature, but he can use it only with spells that are on the magus spell list, even though he can cast them using another class's spell slots.

Am I missing something? Harm isn't on the Magus spell list, so I wouldn't be able to use that tactic as a VMC Magus, right?

There's a magus arcana you can pick up as part of the VMC that lets you spellstrike with nonMagus spells

It's called Broad Study. My phone won't let me embed the link however...

[tadkins]

I was originally considering Friendless or Forsaken, to reinforce the idea that this guy is a crazy emo dude that no one likes. xD

Haunted looks quite solid though.


There's a magus arcana you can pick up as part of the VMC that lets you spellstrike with nonMagus spells

It's called Broad Study. My phone won't let me embed the link however...

Oh, perfect. That brings the concept together quite nicely. Thanks. :)

[Thanatosia]

Play an Illumin Sorcerer with a 1 level dip into a class that provides Turn Undead (simplest being Cleric). Use the Naenhoon Illumin Word to be able to persist 2 spells per day via burning Turn Undead attempts. This works very similar to the common Divine Metamagic feats, but with one big and one minor difference. The Big difference is that it is not limited to working on Divine spells, so you can effectively DMM Persist your Sorcerer spells, and it's a bit cheaper, only burning turn attempts equal to the metamagic's spell level adjustment, rather then adjustment+1 as per DMM.

There are any number of combat buff spells you can persist to make your sorceror a capable melee character. One personal favorite is Thunderlance, a lv4 spell from spell compendium that will give you 20ft reach, lets you use your cha score in place of str for both to-hit and damage purposes, can function as either a 1h or 2 weapon as you need, hits things that can only be hit by force effects, and can dispell some defenses such as shield or mage armor.

If you are willing to give up some more caster levels for more melee power 2 options are

1) Instead of dipping 1 level into cleric, dip 3 into paladin. This will let you also add your cha mod to all your saves, and once per day let you smite evil to add your cha to your hit roll and add 3 damage when striking an evil foe. Or whatever foe if you go paladin of Freedom/Tyranny/Slaughter instead of a standard paladin. Also props up your BAB a bit.

2) Dip a level into Monk and pick up the Aescetic Mage Feat, which will lot you add your cha mod to your AC when not wearing armor. Also lets you make use of a weaker version of the arcane strike feat with your unarmed attacks. Dip an extra level for evasion. If you go cobra fighting style, you can grab Dodge and Mobility as bonus feats which can get you qualified for the Swiftblade prestige class (that also lets you add cha to your initiative rolls - add cha to everything!).

[(Un)Inspired]

I was originally considering Friendless or Forsaken, to reinforce the idea that this guy is a crazy emo dude that no one likes. xD

Haunted looks quite solid though.



Oh, perfect. That brings the concept together quite nicely. Thanks. :)

Be sure to check with your DM if you do end up going with Friendless or Forsaken as they are 3rd party.

I'm glad you found my advice useful.

Other things that might be cool for your character:

The spell Holy Ice Weapon. It has a pretty big chunk of bonus dage built into the spell and you could flavor it as a weapon created out of the coldness of space itself. With a Magus Arcane pool enchanting it is super simple as well.

Bane Blade and Devoted Blade Magus Arcana both let you tag specific Bane and Holy/Axiomatic/Anarchic onto you weapon as needed effectively adding 4d6 extra damage on every attack you make.

At 18 level you can Quicken Harm for an addition Swift action Attack+150 damage. If you have divine Power up you could be making 5 Attacks per round (at the cost of a 9th level slot); the same amount as a full bab class under haste and you get 150 bonus damage out of the deal.

[tadkins]

Play an Illumin Sorcerer with a 1 level dip into a class that provides Turn Undead (simplest being Cleric). Use the Naenhoon Illumin Word to be able to persist 2 spells per day via burning Turn Undead attempts. This works very similar to the common Divine Metamagic feats, but with one big and one minor difference. The Big difference is that it is not limited to working on Divine spells, so you can effectively DMM Persist your Sorcerer spells, and it's a bit cheaper, only burning turn attempts equal to the metamagic's spell level adjustment, rather then adjustment+1 as per DMM.

There are any number of combat buff spells you can persist to make your sorceror a capable melee character. One personal favorite is Thunderlance, a lv4 spell from spell compendium that will give you 20ft reach, lets you use your cha score in place of str for both to-hit and damage purposes, can function as either a 1h or 2 weapon as you need, hits things that can only be hit by force effects, and can dispell some defenses such as shield or mage armor.

If you are willing to give up some more caster levels for more melee power 2 options are

1) Instead of dipping 1 level into cleric, dip 3 into paladin. This will let you also add your cha mod to all your saves, and once per day let you smite evil to add your cha to your hit roll and add 3 damage when striking an evil foe. Or whatever foe if you go paladin of Freedom/Tyranny/Slaughter instead of a standard paladin. Also props up your BAB a bit.

2) Dip a level into Monk and pick up the Aescetic Mage Feat, which will lot you add your cha mod to your AC when not wearing armor. Also lets you make use of a weaker version of the arcane strike feat with your unarmed attacks. Dip an extra level for evasion. If you go cobra fighting style, you can grab Dodge and Mobility as bonus feats which can get you qualified for the Swiftblade prestige class (that also lets you add cha to your initiative rolls - add cha to everything!).

This info will be helpful for making a 3.5 iteration of the character if it comes to it. I'm bent on making this character human however, so Illumian tactics are out, sadly.


Be sure to check with your DM if you do end up going with Friendless or Forsaken as they are 3rd party.

I noticed like half the curses were 3PP. Since they're all available as a reference I can't picture many DMs being opposed to allowing it though.


I'm glad you found my advice useful.

Other things that might be cool for your character:

The spell Holy Ice Weapon. It has a pretty big chunk of bonus dage built into the spell and you could flavor it as a weapon created out of the coldness of space itself. With a Magus Arcane pool enchanting it is super simple as well.

Bane Blade and Devoted Blade Magus Arcana both let you tag specific Bane and Holy/Axiomatic/Anarchic onto you weapon as needed effectively adding 4d6 extra damage on every attack you make.

At 18 level you can Quicken Harm for an addition Swift action Attack+150 damage. If you have divine Power up you could be making 5 Attacks per round (at the cost of a 9th level slot); the same amount as a full bab class under haste and you get 150 bonus damage out of the deal.

I did, thanks! Got this thread bookmarked as a reference for when I get to play this character in an actual game. Sounds like it's gonna be a lot of fun. :)

Not too experienced with the actual gameplay (haven't really played any games yet, done far more reading on the subject), so I'm not too familiar with many of the mechanics. Any other such cool tactics like the one you posted would go far to helping me out.

[Slithery D]

I'm currently enamored with the idea of a "Void Knight", a character exploring the cosmos and calling upon the darkness in his blood to fight the various nasties he encounters. As such I'd like to take the Void-Touched wildblooded Sorcerer and make him into something that doesn't look too bad with a sword.


There's a void element kineticist in the new Occult Origins book. Uses gravity and negative energy effects.

Sample character here:

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=BE45A5E31B322825!19409&ithint=file%2cpdf&app=WordPdf&authkey=!AAVhtc9jjDglhno

[Spore]

The Hard limit that Clouded puts on your vision never seemed even remotely worth it to me


After 5th level clouded vision isn't so empairing and it is in fact one of the better curses for someone who wants to get up close and personal anyway.

[Anlashok]

Edit: I've also toyed with the idea of being a debuff-focused sorcerer, weakening my foes to the point that even the most pathetic sword swing looks like godly melee power. Would that be a viable tactic? xD

Sort of. Debuffing someone to make your attacks stronger makes sense on its face, but the fundamental problem is one of action economy. You want a standard or full action to attack, but most of your good debuffs are also standard actions, so you can't do both at once. It's why most warrior-mages in D&D tend to buff themselves ahead of time or have special mechanics (like the magus' spellstrike) to allow them to beat the action economy issues.

[Secret Wizard]

For the record: there was a 3.5 Battle Sorcerer variant that was very fun to play. It played more like a Druid than a Sorc.

Here's a PF conversion: https://sites.google.com/site/pathfinderogc/extras/community-creations/ogreslab/battle-sorcerer

[Snowbluff]

Blade Adept (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/arcanist/archetypes/paizo---arcanist-archetypes/blade-adept) Arcanists get spell strike, but they're only half charisma based. You do get all of the spells you want, and options to take bloodlines. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/arcanist/arcane-exploits/bloodline-development)

[SangoProduction]

I was about to say that clerics don't have fluff of being beholden to gods unless you choose to, and could just have strong beliefs about *something* and that grants them powers...but that was 3.5, and not the case in PF. Meh. I guess most people who play cleric did want to be beholden to a god. On the bright side, at least they didn't make it a mechanical need to be beholden to the gods, like 3.5 paladin....well, beholden to a poorly defined alignment, but still.

But you could just refluff it anyway.

[tadkins]

There's a void element kineticist in the new Occult Origins book. Uses gravity and negative energy effects.

Sample character here:

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=BE45A5E31B322825!19409&ithint=file%2cpdf&app=WordPdf&authkey=!AAVhtc9jjDglhno

Wow, she sounds really badass. Especially with that book she has.


After 5th level clouded vision isn't so empairing and it is in fact one of the better curses for someone who wants to get up close and personal anyway.

On one hand, it's a good excuse to add shades to your character's look. On the other hand, it's hard to enjoy the view when you can't see. :(


Sort of. Debuffing someone to make your attacks stronger makes sense on its face, but the fundamental problem is one of action economy. You want a standard or full action to attack, but most of your good debuffs are also standard actions, so you can't do both at once. It's why most warrior-mages in D&D tend to buff themselves ahead of time or have special mechanics (like the magus' spellstrike) to allow them to beat the action economy issues.

So basically it's better to go reverse-debuffing. xD

I just figured a darker-aligned character might be more drawn to the debuff route rather than the buff.


For the record: there was a 3.5 Battle Sorcerer variant that was very fun to play. It played more like a Druid than a Sorc.

Here's a PF conversion: https://sites.google.com/site/pathfinderogc/extras/community-creations/ogreslab/battle-sorcerer

Was looking into that one, but after seeing some back threads it seemed that the general consensus was to go Duskblade if you wanted to actually swing your sword to any level of effectiveness.


Blade Adept (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/arcanist/archetypes/paizo---arcanist-archetypes/blade-adept) Arcanists get spell strike, but they're only half charisma based. You do get all of the spells you want, and options to take bloodlines. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/arcanist/arcane-exploits/bloodline-development)

Oh my...that might be exactly what I am looking for! I will have to read more about that option, thanks. :)


I was about to say that clerics don't have fluff of being beholden to gods unless you choose to, and could just have strong beliefs about *something* and that grants them powers...but that was 3.5, and not the case in PF. Meh. I guess most people who play cleric did want to be beholden to a god. On the bright side, at least they didn't make it a mechanical need to be beholden to the gods, like 3.5 paladin....well, beholden to a poorly defined alignment, but still.

But you could just refluff it anyway.

If you're referring to the deity-less cleric option, that would definitely be a way to go, but based off a thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?302449-Opinions-on-deity-less-Clerics) I made a while back, that's generally seen as cheesy and most DMs won't allow that sort of path. It's a shame too, because a while back I had a concept in mind for a "frost champion". I would love to simply ask a DM if I can use the mechanics of the cleric class with a different fluff, but popular opinion suggests that might be a tough sell to DMs out there.

[SangoProduction]

Hmm....Well, I guess some people just don't trust their players. I personally have a rule before even applying for the game: "Don't *try* and break the game. If you end up breaking the game on accident, laugh it off, and we'll see what can be done after the session's over (if anything does need to be done)."
Along with a small list of others that have accumulated over the years. I've not had any problems so far with any rules (or suggestions) I explicitly state before application - likely because the players who don't like the rules don't apply in the first place...because they see the rules they don't like. Oddly enough, I've not seen many GMs using a list of rules.
Also, from the first page of the form you gave, it seems as though many if not most of those who responded said they allow smudging the deity rules, worshiping "forces", using homemade deities and/or allowing deity-less clerics.

[grarrrg]

I noticed like half the curses were 3PP. Since they're all available as a reference I can't picture many DMs being opposed to allowing it though.

I can.
A few of those 3rd party Curses don't deserve to be in the same sentence as the words "remotely balanced" or "well thought out".
If it's official Paizo content, a DM can sit comfortably knowing that there was a thought process, and you have to TRY to break it.
If it's 3rd party, it could be anything from worse-than-worthless to OMGWTHBBQ, and they'd have to evaluate it themselves, and potentially question facets of your build that might take advantage of any "bonuses".

And as icing on the cake, I don't even have to go past the first entry on that page for a good example of a bad Curse.
Aged (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/oracle/oracle-curses), you are in the Venerable age category, but you take the penalties for being "old" instead.
So right off the bat you get a -3 Physicals, +3 Mentals.
The level 5 bonus? You take the aging penalties for Middle-Aged instead of Venerable. Now you only take -1 Physicals for +3 Mentals.
I could list the other bonuses, but I won't, as this is already ridiculous.

[tadkins]

Hmm....Well, I guess some people just don't trust their players. I personally have a rule before even applying for the game: "Don't *try* and break the game. If you end up breaking the game on accident, laugh it off, and we'll see what can be done after the session's over (if anything does need to be done)."
Along with a small list of others that have accumulated over the years. I've not had any problems so far with any rules (or suggestions) I explicitly state before application - likely because the players who don't like the rules don't apply in the first place...because they see the rules they don't like. Oddly enough, I've not seen many GMs using a list of rules.
Also, from the first page of the form you gave, it seems as though many if not most of those who responded said they allow smudging the deity rules, worshiping "forces", using homemade deities and/or allowing deity-less clerics.

Naw, my idea wouldn't have broken any games. Frost dwarf champion of his people, basically a warrior blessed with ice powers. No deities exist with the domain choices I wanted to go for and I didn't want to roleplay him as the crony of a god. But other than that, the mechanics of the Cleric class would have been perfect. The couple of people I've talked to basically have said something along the lines of "deity-less clerics are bull", which makes me reluctant to try to present the concept.


I can.
A few of those 3rd party Curses don't deserve to be in the same sentence as the words "remotely balanced" or "well thought out".
If it's official Paizo content, a DM can sit comfortably knowing that there was a thought process, and you have to TRY to break it.
If it's 3rd party, it could be anything from worse-than-worthless to OMGWTHBBQ, and they'd have to evaluate it themselves, and potentially question facets of your build that might take advantage of any "bonuses".

And as icing on the cake, I don't even have to go past the first entry on that page for a good example of a bad Curse.
Aged (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/oracle/oracle-curses), you are in the Venerable age category, but you take the penalties for being "old" instead.
So right off the bat you get a -3 Physicals, +3 Mentals.
The level 5 bonus? You take the aging penalties for Middle-Aged instead of Venerable. Now you only take -1 Physicals for +3 Mentals.
I could list the other bonuses, but I won't, as this is already ridiculous.

Ahh, fair enough. Stuff like that can be evaluated on a case by case basis I think. What I meant to say is that most PF stuff is readily available to look at, even the 3PP things, should a player be interested in presenting to the DM. Unlike with D&D and Dragon Magazine material, where that stuff is usually hard to reference due to the obscurity.