Boreal Sorcerer?

[Malimar]

So I'm whipping up a sorcerer for a Wrath of the Righteous campaign, and I'm working on reusing an old 3.5 frostmage that I never got to play, as a Boreal bloodline sorcerer, focusing on [cold] spells (primarily, but not exclusively, blasting).

One problem: demons, which I gather are the predominant enemy type in this AP, tend to have cold resist 10.

I could have sworn I saw a thing like 3.5's Piercing Cold feat, something that made a [cold] spell ignore cold resistance on a failed Fortitude save, but I can't find this now. Was I imagining the existence of this thing?

Are there any other tricks I could use to make cold blasting more effective, or should I just abandon this concept and go with a more effective generalized sorcerer?

I'm assuming Boreal is better and more ice-flavored than Elemental(water), but am I wrong, should I be considering Elemental?

[Geddy2112]

If you take three levels in the winter witch prestige class, you get the unnatural cold class ability, which halves the cold resistance of any enemy you target with a cold spell. At level 8, half of your cold damage from cold spells bypasses resistance and immunity entirely, the remainder treats resistance as half.

You could qualify for the prestige class with a dip in winter witch(witch class archetype), but I suggest dipping boreal bloodline and going the rest as winter witch(witch archetype). Having both gets a +2 to cold spell DC's, then slap on elemental focus(cold) and greater elemental focus(cold) and you will have very powerful spells. The frozen caress hex makes all of your touch spells cold spells(juicing their DC) and adding a bit of extra damage. The numbing chill hex of the winter witch prestige class adds a stagger check and dex damage to cold spells. Both very very useful. Witch also gets a familiar and prepared casting vs spontaneous, but the spell list is slightly weaker.

If you go boreal, take the rime-blooded wildblood. It replaces your otherwise garbage bloodline arcana with a much more powerful arcana that inflicts slow.

The big sell about cold spells is not damage, but inflicting slow/stagger/entangle/other forms of debuff. You need the rime spell feat to stick entangle onto enemies-it only takes one damage going through to entangle, which stacks onto the already nasty effect of a cold spell. For example, a rime metamagic snowball with the rime blood arcana will trigger a save against stagger, entangle if damage is dealt, and a save against slow. If you add the numbing chill hex to it, that is 1d4 dex and a second save against stagger. All of this comes with +2 to the save DC from the bloodline and ice magic class feature, for a second level spell slot.

I wrote a guide on the winter witch(base archetype and prestige class) that delves into the boreal dip. It is not focused on sorcerer, but it covers a dip into the boreal and elemental bloodlines, some feat choices for cold casters, and all the cold witch spells(I think all of which are available to sorcerers) and their uses.

[Malimar]

I'm pretty set on sorcerer, or at least something spontaneous. I played a witch through all of Rise of the Runelords with this group, so I'm disinclined to play another witch for awhile, plus I'm tired of prepared casters. Thanks, though.

But confirmation on the goodness of Rime-Blooded and Rime Spell is good, I wasn't sure about taking those but now I will.

[Geddy2112]

I'm pretty set on sorcerer, or at least something spontaneous. I played a witch through all of Rise of the Runelords with this group, so I'm disinclined to play another witch for awhile, plus I'm tired of prepared casters. Thanks, though.

But confirmation on the goodness of Rime-Blooded and Rime Spell is good, I wasn't sure about taking those but now I will.

Rime blooded sorcerer can still do a ton of nasty with a cold spell. Back to the snowball example-at level 4, you have rime spell, elemental focus(cold) and lets say 18 charisma. You are using snowball in a second level slot, it does 4d6 damage, entangles for 1 round if any damage gets through, a DC 17 save against stagger, and a DC save against slow(make this check first as slow is stagger plus goodies). A successful save won't half the cold damage, and on an average of 12-16 at least 2 damage gets through, entangling and almost guaranteeing a stagger.

At higher levels, Resist 10 won't mean crap as you are using cone of cold and entangling everything in sight for the entire combat, and slowing the big bad in the cone. Freezing sphere, ice spears, ice crystal teleport, and other spells become incredibly devastating, acting as a one stop shop for debuff and damage.

[Malimar]

Excellent, that gives me a much better focus on what I want to be doing, I think.