Spellslinging Havoker (Witch) - Advise please

[Eldonauran]

Looking for some outside eyes on my newest character concept. I posted at the paizo fourms but haven't receive any interest.

Classes:
Wizard 1 (Spellslinger (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/archetypes/paizo---wizard-archetypes/spellslinger)) / Witch 19 (Havocker (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/witch/archetypes/paizo---witch-archetypes/havocker-witch-archetype))

Race:
Gnome

Favored Class:
Witch (+1/6 Hex ea level)*

Alt. Race Traits:
Blended View (low-light & darkvision)
Fey Magic (Detect Magic, Detect Poison, Purify food/Drink, Produce Flame)
Fey Thoughts (Perception, Stealth)
Poison Minion (scaling poison to anything that bites me)

Ability Scores: 15pts INT>DEX=CON>WIS>CHA>STR (Level up bonuses go +4 Int, +1 Dex)
Str: 6 (pump to 7 if 20 point buy)
Dex: 15
Con: 14
Int: 16
Wis: 12
Cha: 9 (pump to 12 if 20 point buy)

*I know the official ruling is that you need to have the class feature (hex) in order to take the +1/6 hex favored class bonus. Our table is not enforcing that rule. So, I will receive my first Hex at 7th level and qualify for the extra hex feat. I will not be able to get major or grand hexes. I plan on taking at least two extra hex feats.

Traits:
Magical Lineage (Snowball)
Wayang Spellhunter (Vampiric Touch)
Tarnished Halls Runner (+1 attacks with firearms after moving at least 10ft)
Vain (Drawback)

Feats: (in no particular order)
Interweave Composite Blast (if another kineticist in group)
Extra Hex (Evil Eye hex)
Extra Hex (Cackle Hex)
Spirit Talker (to cherry pick a shaman spirit hex, recommendations?)
Intensified Spell
Reach Spell
Elemental Spell

End Goals:
Well, I plan on using the Conductive (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons/magic-weapon-special-abilities/conductive) weapon property to deliver my kinetic energy blast (Electric) at the same time as firing a spell through the weapon. Any advice on what good spells to use would be appreciated.


1st level:
Burning Hands (cone) [damage]
Mudball (ranged touch)
Ray of Enfeeblement (ray) [STR penalty]
Ray of Sickening (ray) [sickened]
Snowball (ranged touch) [damage/staggered]

Reach Spells:
Touch of Fatigue (touch) [fatigue]

2nd level:
Flurry of Snowballs (cone) [damage]
Rovagug's Fury/Tremor Blast (cone) [trip manuever]

Reach Spells:
Chill Touch (touch) [damage/str damage]
Frostbite (touch) [non-lethal damage/fatigued]
Inflict Light Wounds (touch) [damage]
Touch of Blindness (touch)

[b]3rd level:
Ray of Exhaustion (ray) [exhausted or fatigued]
Silver Darts (cone) [piercing damage (silver)]
Spit Venom (ranged touch) [blindness/poison]

Reach Spells:
Death Knell (touch) [death/buff yourself]
Disfiguring Touch (touch) [curse debuff]
Inflict Moderate Wounds (touch) [damage]
Pernicious Poison (touch) [-4 vs poison] *no saving throw*
Stricken Heart (touch) [damage/stagger] *no saving throw*
Touch of Idiocy (touch) [Int/Wis/Cha penalty] *no saving throw*

[b]4th Level:
Enervation (ray) [negative levels]
Fear (cone) [panicked]
Hallucinogenic Smoke (cone) [nauseated or sickened]

Reach Spells:
Bestow Curse (touch) [curse]
Disable Construct (touch) [helpless construct]
Excruciating Deformation (touch) [hp, Dex, con damage, movement penalty per round]
Flexible Curse (touch) [cursed armor/shield]
Healing Thief (touch) [steal half target's healing]
Imbue with addiction (touch) [addiction]
Irregular size (touch) [shrink arms, legs, or wings]
Isolate (touch) [invisible to allies]
Sands of time (touch) [age living, damage non-living] *no saving throw*
Touch of Infection (touch) [sickened]
Trial of Fire and Acid (touch) [damage per round]
Vampiric Touch (touch) [damage, temp HP]

5th Level:
Waves of Fatigue (cone) [fatigue] *no saving throw*
Wracking Ray (ray) [Str/Dex damage]

Reach Spells:
Black Spot (touch) [curse, +2 to hit target, daily Con damage]
Fleshworm Infestation (touch) [HP, Dex damage, & staggered, or just sickened every round]
Inflict Serious Wounds (touch) [damage]
Poison (touch) [Con damage]
Touch of Slime (touch) [Con damage]

6th level:
Banshee Blast (cone) [damage/panicked]
Cone of Cold (cone) [damage]

Reach Spells:
Alanzist's Jinx (touch) [force concentration checks on spells] *permanent
Banish Seeming (touch) [target dispel illusion/polymorph
Blight (touch) [damage to plants]
Blood boil (touch) [fatigue then Con damage then HP damage]
Dayak's Release (touch) [confusion + rage]
Inflict Critical wounds (touch) [damage]
Siphon Magic (touch) [steal ongoing spell]

7th level:
Poison Breath (cone) [poison]
Umbral Strike (ranged touch) [damage/blind]
Waves of Ecstacy (cone) [stunned and/or staggered]
Waves of Exhaustion (cone) [exhausted] *no saving throw*

Reach Spells:
Epidemic (touch) [contagious disease]
Sabotage Construct (touch) [confusion]
Slay Living (touch) [damage]
Wither Limb (touch) [permanent HP loss, arm/leg/wing]

8th level:
None

Reach Spells:
Bestow Curse, Greater (touch) [curse]
Harm (touch) [damage]

9th level:
Massacre (line) [death or damage]

Reach Spells:
Irresistible Dance (touch) [dance!]

[Geddy2112]

Snowball is an incredibly good spell for your build, and is going to be bread and butter for one shot stopping. Even at higher levels when things have juiced fortitude saves, you always have a 5% chance to stagger and you are still doing a ton of damage with intensified spell. That said, cold is probably the second most common resistance/immunity behind fire, so consider the elemental spell metamagic feat(more useful since you have magical lineage for snowball) and have a variety of elemental snowballs to not only bypass resistance/immunity, but to exploit weaknesses. You can prepare versions of it from your wizard book as well-the damage will be weaker, but the save against stagger will be the same.

At low levels, nauseating dart is a pretty harsh save or suck. Burning hands is a good low level AoE cleaning spell. I would suggest getting spells like snowball-damage is fine, but you should generally be picking up things that can do more than just damage-things like umbral strike and banshee blast do damage, but they also come with very nasty side effects if saves against them fail.

Although you probably want 1 or 2 spells per level that you can shoot from your gun, you will still be primarily using non damage spells or other things you cannot shoot. The witch spell list lacks some of the more oomph spells that wizard/sorcerers get, as well as some of the awesome support spells, but you still should have things like dispel magic, buff spells, summons etc etc.

[Eldonauran]

Thanks for the input, Geddy.


At low levels, nauseating dart is a pretty harsh save or suck. Burning hands is a good low level AoE cleaning spell. I would suggest getting spells like snowball-damage is fine, but you should generally be picking up things that can do more than just damage-things like umbral strike and banshee blast do damage, but they also come with very nasty side effects if saves against them fail.
I could use Nauseating Dart as a normal spell, but I won't be able to cast it through the gun. It requires a require attack roll to hit (as if shot by a blowgun) and I am limited to ranged touch, ray, line or cone effects.


Although you probably want 1 or 2 spells per level that you can shoot from your gun, you will still be primarily using non damage spells or other things you cannot shoot. The witch spell list lacks some of the more oomph spells that wizard/sorcerers get, as well as some of the awesome support spells, but you still should have things like dispel magic, buff spells, summons etc etc.
Oh, most definitely. I plan on preparing quite a few non-damage spells to for utility purposes, and to also feed to the gun via Mage Bullet, to increase the enhancement bonus (and thus the DCs of the spells).

I'm putting together a list of decent spells for the gun to fire (i'll add to my first post too).


1st level:
Burning Hands (cone) [damage]
Mudball (ranged touch) [blind]
Ray of Enfeeblement (ray) [STR penalty]
Ray of Sickening (ray) [sickened]
Snowball (ranged touch) [damage/staggered]

2nd level:
Flurry of Snowballs (cone) [damage]
Rovagug's Fury (cone) [trip manuever]

3rd level:
Ray of Exhaustion (ray) [exhausted or fatigued]
Silver Darts (cone) [piercing damage (silver)]
Spit Venom (ranged touch) [blindness/poison]

4th Level:
Enervation (ray) [negative levels]
Fear (cone) [panicked]
Hallucinogenic Smoke (cone) [nauseated or sickened]

5th Level:
Waves of Fatigue (cone) [fatigue] *no saving throw*
Wracking Ray (ray) [Str/Dex damage]

6th level:
Banshee Blast (cone) [damage/panicked]
Cone of Cold (cone) [damage]

7th level:
Poison Breath (cone) [poison]
Umbral Strike (ranged touch) [damage/blind]
Waves of Ecstacy (cone) [stunned and/or staggered]
Waves of Exhaustion (cone) [exhausted] *no saving throw*

8th level: *pending*

9th level:
Massacre (line) [death or damage]


Hmm, based on the quantity of spells I found (not very many, actually), I suppose taking Reach Spell metamagic feat will be a good idea. That will turn all of the Witch's MANY touch spells into weaponized gun blasts. I'll work on a list of those too.

EDIT: Hmm, I've been looking into the Mage Bullets ability and I noticed that the Spellslinger is able to apply three weapon abilities to his gun that are limited to melee weapons. Dancing, Vicious, and Wounding to be exact. That is pretty good, especially if you choose to have two bonded weapons. Use one to channel your spells & kinetic blasts through, and the other to fire at other opponents (preferably loaded up with a stored spell) all by itself.

[Geddy2112]

Thanks for the input, Geddy.

I could use Nauseating Dart as a normal spell, but I won't be able to cast it through the gun. It requires a require attack roll to hit (as if shot by a blowgun) and I am limited to ranged touch, ray, line or cone effects.
You are welcome.

Nauseating dart does say it is a dart as if shot by a blowgun, but it also specifies that it is a ranged touch attack in the sentence after. Would be worth checking with your DM on that one as I can see a ruling both ways. I would say that because it is a ranged touch, it can be delivered despite the part about being identical to a blowgun dart.






1st level:
Burning Hands (cone) [damage]
Mudball (ranged touch) [blind]
Ray of Enfeeblement (ray) [STR penalty]
Ray of Sickening (ray) [sickened]
Snowball (ranged touch) [damage/staggered]

2nd level:
Flurry of Snowballs (cone) [damage]
Rovagug's Fury (cone) [trip manuever]

3rd level:
Ray of Exhaustion (ray) [exhausted or fatigued]
Silver Darts (cone) [piercing damage (silver)]
Spit Venom (ranged touch) [blindness/poison]

4th Level:
Enervation (ray) [negative levels]
Fear (cone) [panicked]
Hallucinogenic Smoke (cone) [nauseated or sickened]

5th Level:
Waves of Fatigue (cone) [fatigue] *no saving throw*
Wracking Ray (ray) [Str/Dex damage]

6th level:
Banshee Blast (cone) [damage/panicked]
Cone of Cold (cone) [damage]

7th level:
Poison Breath (cone) [poison]
Umbral Strike (ranged touch) [damage/blind]
Waves of Ecstacy (cone) [stunned and/or staggered]
Waves of Exhaustion (cone) [exhausted] *no saving throw*

8th level: *pending*

9th level:
Massacre (line) [death or damage]

I am not a huge fan of ray of enfeeblement normally-it really shines against BBEG's, taking some of the punch out of brute style bosses, and against feeble arcane types it can be a one shot kill. Snowball is still going to cover more all purpose work, so only prep it for boss fights.
Ray of sickening should be prepped from your wizard pool, as it is in min/level so one minute is more than enough-leaving things like snowball and other spells to use your higher witch levels.
Early game, grab color spray from the wizard list-it won't be as useful at higher levels but at lower levels it is killer.
Which patron are you choosing? You can nab some more cones/rays/ranged touch from those. For example, boundaries gives you dimensional anchor, decodance gives waves of ecstasy, and elements grabs freezing sphere. That said, patrons like deception/trickery and anything else that gives you all those incredible buff/utility spells you don't have are hard to pass on.


Hmm, based on the quantity of spells I found (not very many, actually), I suppose taking Reach Spell metamagic feat will be a good idea. That will turn all of the Witch's MANY touch spells into weaponized gun blasts. I'll work on a list of those too.
This is a great idea, as witches have some really nasty touch spells-you could almost put magical lineage on touch of fatigue and constantly reach spell it, giving you at will fatigue dakka. Not as good as intensified snowball, but it is at will.


EDIT: Hmm, I've been looking into the Mage Bullets ability and I noticed that the Spellslinger is able to apply three weapon abilities to his gun that are limited to melee weapons. Dancing, Vicious, and Wounding to be exact. That is pretty good, especially if you choose to have two bonded weapons. Use one to channel your spells & kinetic blasts through, and the other to fire at other opponents (preferably loaded up with a stored spell) all by itself.
Dancing is great once you can get it, and wounding is a nice trick to bloodlet other casters and force concentration checks. I would stay away from vicious-you are a fragile arcane caster, and all it adds is damage, which you will have no problem doing. Plus, you don't want to completely overshadow the poor martial classes :)

[Eldonauran]

Nauseating dart does say it is a dart as if shot by a blowgun, but it also specifies that it is a ranged touch attack in the sentence after. Would be worth checking with your DM on that one as I can see a ruling both ways. I would say that because it is a ranged touch, it can be delivered despite the part about being identical to a blowgun dart.
That's odd. My copy says "must succeed at a ranged attack to hit your target".


I am not a huge fan of ray of enfeeblement normally-it really shines against BBEG's, taking some of the punch out of brute style bosses, and against feeble arcane types it can be a one shot kill. Snowball is still going to cover more all purpose work, so only prep it for boss fights.
Good idea. I will be investing in many low level pearls of power, so I may prepare one of each and recharge the slots as needed. If I don't need Ray of Enfeeblement that day, I could always just use it with Mage Bullets and empower my gun.


Ray of sickening should be prepped from your wizard pool, as it is in min/level so one minute is more than enough-leaving things like snowball and other spells to use your higher witch levels.
Early game, grab color spray from the wizard list-it won't be as useful at higher levels but at lower levels it is killer.
Very good advice. Once I give the enemy my Evil Eye and hit them with a ray of sickening, that's a -4 to their saves, on top of the bonus my gun grants the DC of my next spell. I will be a debuff master. I will be choosing Illusion as one of my many opposition schools, so using Color Spray will be rare but possible.


Which patron are you choosing? You can nab some more cones/rays/ranged touch from those. For example, boundaries gives you dimensional anchor, decodance gives waves of ecstasy, and elements grabs freezing sphere. That said, patrons like deception/trickery and anything else that gives you all those incredible buff/utility spells you don't have are hard to pass on.
Unfortunately, the Havocker does not receive any patron spells. "At 1st level, rather than selecting a standard patron and gaining patron spells . . ." I forgo patron spells entirely for the kineticist abilities.


This is a great idea, as witches have some really nasty touch spells-you could almost put magical lineage on touch of fatigue and constantly reach spell it, giving you at will fatigue dakka. Not as good as intensified snowball, but it is at will.
Yes, that's a great idea! I might even be able to take that other trait to lower the effective spell level of Touch of Fatigue (the regional one). Once I get conductive on my weapon, I can even do damage with my blast while inflicting a debuff.


Dancing is great once you can get it, and wounding is a nice trick to bloodlet other casters and force concentration checks. I would stay away from vicious-you are a fragile arcane caster, and all it adds is damage, which you will have no problem doing. Plus, you don't want to completely overshadow the poor martial classes :)
Oh, no worries about overshadowing the martials. My group usually has two dedicated heavy hitters, one ranged and the other melee (think bloodrager with vital strike and kineticist artillery). This character will fill the slot of artillery/controller, with the option to backup heal (cure spells on spell list). I pull out the big guns (pun intended) when we get an OP fight tossed our way.

[Eldonauran]

Wow, its been a while since I made this thread. I've finally gotten the Havoker Spellslinger off the ground and gaining altitude. We have reached level 5 in the Skulls & Shackles campaign and, I am quite impressed with my character's adaptability.

As it stands right now, our party consists of the following:
Gnome Unchained Rogue 5 (TWF)
--Pretty much dances in to get sneak attacks, great skill monkey
Human Ranger 5 (TWF: Sword & Board)
--Flanking assistant/bodyguard for the Rogue, combat maneuvers via shield bash)
Human Bard4/Fighter1 (switch-hitter)
--Buffs with song, dazzling Display, party face, etc
--Gave up bardic knowledge with his archetype
Halfling Bloodbender[Hydrokineticist] 5
--Kinetic Healer (backup), partial battle field control, obviously ranged damage
--Has Elemental Whispers (mauler familiar, hedgehog for that +2 will), will get greater whispers and better form later
Gnome Havoker 4/Spellslinger 1 (me, obviously)
--Healer (backup), combat support (Mascot Familiar)
--Ranged support (entangling shot, neat)
--Dedicated debuffer
--Ranged damage (1d6+1 bludgeoning, +2d6+1 elec blast [conductive], +ranged spell delivery)
--Knower of things (investing many skills in knowlege, since I have the highest Intelligence)

I've pretty much locked down my feats for the first ten levels:
1) Benthic Spell (metamagic) [no need for elemental spell now]
3) Improved Familiar
5) Reach Spell
7) Extra Hex (see first post about houserule)
9) Extra Hex (ditto)
11) Split Hex

Looking for alternative feats to pick up. Do note that the DM is allowing me to trade off kinetic infusions to pick up a wild talent (at -2 level), and allowing my Havoker levels to count as kineticist level (again, -2) in order to qualify for kineticist feats (like Extra wild Talent). The following is a list of talents that I am considering: Air's Reach, Air Cushion, Wings of Air, Ride the Blast, Windsight.