Character Creation - Tengu Sorcerer... Swordsman?

[Axle-Gear]

Bit of backstory - as an interim campaign to my own, I proposed letting two of the other players switch between DM'ing a game where we generate characters in a sort of round robin format. With four of us at the table, each of us picks a race for one player, a class for another, and up to 2,000 gp worth of gear or a +1 weapon for the last other player. The end result is each player ending up with a blindly picked race, class, and item to build their character around. Character creation is 20 point buy, starting level 3, starting wealth of 2,500 gp plus the item received from the round robin.

Our results:

A Dwarvern monk with Deathwatch lenses
A Strix Shifter with Boots of the Cat and Quickrunner's Shirt
An Aasimar Hunter with a Robe of Needles and a Concealing Pocket

Actually solid stuff, and with one of these players being a great optimizer I'm sure they'll turn out well.

And then there's me:

A Tengu Sorcerer with a Bladed Belt.

Now, theoretically I could just pretend the belt isn't there at all and focus on spellcasting, but I was the one who proposed this format, and also the one who proposed actually trying to incorporate the items chosen for you into your character so we weren't just pawning off sub-optimal gear the first chance we got.

Also, I'm terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE at optimizing, and now I'm saddled with the task of making a 1/2 BAB character work for melee.

There's -some- things to work with, here. My current plan is to take advantage of the Tengu's 'proficient with all swords' trait and manifest my belt as a scimitar for use with the Blade Dancer feat, and once 5th level rolls around take arcane strike. For sorcerer, I wanted to go Celestial-Empyrean bloodline to use my WIS for spellcasting to make myself less MAD by putting that racial bonus to work, and going with the Arcane Brawler archetype to rope in extra combat feats as I need them. But, all told, I just don't see myself being able to keep pace with a party that already has two dedicated melee combatants, and a third that's probably going to take a pet that will be better in combat than I will ever be.

Can this even be done? I know I won't be as good as an all-out fighter, but I would like some way to make this work. Are there more creative ways I could be using my bladed belt to do things a non-sorcerer can't at this level? Is there just an obscure archetype/bloodline/feat that I'm missing that will make swinging a blade in melee worth it?

[Florian]

Hm, tricky. I´d use the Arcane bloodline and pick the sword as a bonded object, so you can keep enhancing it without needing item creations feats. I´d further go for VMC Magus and use the Arcana Pool to offset the 1/2 BAB and Spellstrike will add some serious hitting power later on.
I´d dip one or two levels of Inquisitor and then aim straight towards HellKnight Signifer. The Warrior Priest feat works with the catechism class feature to enable scaling of domain powers and judgements, making the Destruction domain a solid choice and, again, off-setting the lack in BAB.

Edit: Naturally, Empyreal helps as WIS is flat-out the more useful attribute and it makes going cross blooded way easier.

[Geddy2112]

For weapon options, you can get any slashing weapon Dex to damage with slashing grace, and a rapier with fencing grace. Also consider the alt racial trait where tengu are proficient with 3 eastern weapons. Things like katanas, tiger claws, and other fun options show up. If you worship desna make it a starknife and use her divine fighting tech to get cha to attacks and damage if you wanna not go Wis casting bloodline, or starry grace for Dex to damage.

For combat though, it will be secondary to casting and without vmc magus or something you won't really use it much. I guess you can get combat reflexes and at least threaten AoOs

[Kurald Galain]

This can certainly be done.

You're basically looking at a melee-based sorcerer. This means that your most important stat is your attack stat (str or dex) and you only need a moderate charisma score. Your spells should go to self-buffs and party buffs, not anything with a save DC.

I'm not so sure if it's worth two feats to use dex as your attack; I suggest starting with 18 strength (assuming point buy) and an attack routine of nine-ring broadsword / claw / bite. Using buffs like Enlarge Person should keep you at a decent damage level. With your claw attacks, the Tengu gets improved unarmed strike for free, meaning you qualify for the Sorcerous Strike feat. Now take any bloodline that gives you a debuff, and you can tack this debuff for free on your attacks. For example, Fey bloodline.

Ghoul bloodline is also interesting because paralysis is nasty. Spells like Monstrous Physique make you a much better combatant. Be sure to use spells like Frostbite to boost your melee damage, and long-term defensive buffs like Defending Bone.

[Daefos]

With your claw attacks, the Tengu gets improved unarmed strike for free, meaning you qualify for the Sorcerous Strike feat.

Could you quote a source for this? I've never heard this rule before.

[grarrrg]

With your claw attacks, the Tengu gets improved unarmed strike for free, meaning you qualify for the Sorcerous Strike feat.Could you quote a source for this? I've never heard this rule before.

It's an Alt-Racial option:
"Claw Attack Tengus with this racial trait have learned to use their claws as natural weapons. They gain two claw attacks as primary natural attacks that deal 1d3 points of damage, and are treated as having the Improved Unarmed Strike feat for the purpose of qualifying for other feats. This racial trait replaces swordtrained."

Note that you do not actually have Improved Unarmed Strike, you just get to ignore it as a requirement.

Sorcerous Strike lets you add [bloodline effect] to your Unarmed Strikes, but says nothing about Naturals, so this doesn't quite work as suggested.
You'd need Feral Combat Training (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/feral-combat-training-combat/) to apply [bloodline] to Claws.

[Axle-Gear]

I was about to post my current build, but I realized shortly beforehand that getting Wild-Blooded: Empyreal and Eldritch Scrapper required overlapping prerequisites. So... back to the drawing board. :smallfrown:

As for the responses, I'm happy for the input, but there's two big points I'd like to address:

1) I want to use the Bladed Belt as my primary melee weapon, since it was part of the theme I was given. If I'm ignoring it to use natural weapons, I may as well eschew melee entirely and focus on casting.

2) The slashing/fencing grace feats are neat ideas, but unless we can get around that feat hurdle of requiring Weapon Focus, I think I'd rather stick with Dervish Dance, unless someone can suggest a similar feat with lower prerequisites.

Without Eldritch Scrapper, I'm feat-starved, and without Empyreal bloodline I'm not making any use of that wisdom bonus. I'm strongly considering just dumping wisdom as hard as I can to use the racial bonus to soften that blow and cast using charisma like an old-fashioned sorcerer.

In the meantime, I'm trying to do more research into bloodlines to see which one will make me the best at sword'ing at enemies. Please, throw more suggestions at me, cause at this point I'm kind of aimless.

[Kurald Galain]

1) I want to use the Bladed Belt as my primary melee weapon, since it was part of the theme I was given. If I'm ignoring it to use natural weapons, I may as well eschew melee entirely and focus on casting.
The idea is to use natural attacks in addition to your sword, not instead of your sword.


I'm strongly considering just dumping wisdom as hard as I can to use the racial bonus to soften that blow and cast using charisma like an old-fashioned sorcerer.
You should do that, and get a better bloodline. Since you're not optimizing for save DCs, Empyreal isn't great for you.

[Axle-Gear]

The idea is to use natural attacks in addition to your sword, not instead of your sword.


While I technically could, using natural attacks in addition to a manufactured weapon entails a -5 on the natural attacks, and I'm already swinging at 1/2 BAB. At that point, I'm just chucking dice and hoping for natural 20's.



You should do that, and get a better bloodline. Since you're not optimizing for save DCs, Empyreal isn't great for you.

I'm trying and trying, but nothing really seems to stick out. The best I can possibly come up with is going with the Scorpion bloodline to apply poisons to my weapon to make my attacks matter a smidgen more, but that requires a higher CHA for effectiveness (and before you ask, the Nanite bloodline is right out, since their poison is CON based), and the delayed onset power is so... MEH. It would be great if I were an unscrupulous assassin and had lots of setup for it, and even then it's usefulness is VERY circumstantial.

As much as I want to make the sword-mage thing work to stay in the spirit of the round-robin character generation, I'm afraid I'll have to just pretend it's not there and go straight spellcaster. No one knows any other obscure sources that would make a sorcerer decent in melee without necessarily having to sit for a minute casting buffs on yourself?

EDIT: Realized, with a bit of lateral thinking, that using the sword doesn't necessary mean wielding it in melee. I'm already looking at the variant multiclassing to bring in a cleric domain to get Hand of the Acolyte to start chucking a transmuted elven longblade. So in that vein, is there any way for a Sorcerer to effective USE a bladed belt in whatever manner?

[Peat]

Are you open to PrCing? It seems the obvious thing to do if you want your Sorcerer to be half-decent in a melee.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Are you open to PrCing? It seems the obvious thing to do if you want your Sorcerer to be half-decent in a melee.

Dragon Disciple might even be worth it for once

[Axle-Gear]

I already looked into prestige classes, and nothing really seems to do the trick quite like how I want it to.

Dragon Disciple precludes I pick the draconic bloodline, and focuses around natural attacks and not the bladed belt I want to use.

Eldritch knight -almost- seems right, but for a sorcerer I'm looking at not making it into that class until level 8 at the earliest, at which point the gap between me and the other melee users will be too wide to close, even if we progress to high levels. And for the record, most of our campaigns tend to peter off around level 10-12, so that's about as far ahead as I plan.

That's just my thoughts on the basic prestige classes. There's quite the library of others, but I doubt the results are gonna be much different from above.

But like I mentioned earlier, I would like to USE the bladed belt, but that doesn't preclude using it like a traditional melee weapon, as mentioned with getting Hand of the Acolyte above. Is there any low-level option for wielding a weapon magically or telekinetically for a sorcerer?

[Kurald Galain]

While I technically could, using natural attacks in addition to a manufactured weapon entails a -5 on the natural attacks, and I'm already swinging at 1/2 BAB. At that point, I'm just chucking dice and hoping for natural 20's.
Throw up some buff spells first, then do the math on that and you'd be amazed how much extra damage these do.

[Axle-Gear]

Throw up some buff spells first, then do the math on that and you'd be amazed how much extra damage these do.

Phew! Took me a while to respond. And on my phone, so pardon me being terse.

Technically, yes. I can compete with dedicated melee characters given several rounds of buffing. But that hinges on the party being able to lay an ambush while my character spends half a minute speaking loudly to himself. And I've tried a self-buffer in another campaign - if I have to spend more than one round casting spells on myself after the fighting is underway I may as well just sit combat out entirely.

I've brought up the impossibility of optimizing this build to a workable state with the group, and none of them objected to me writing off the belt as dead weight. So I might just go dedicated caster anyway.

[Kurald Galain]

It's a shame that you get a threadful of advice and decide to not even TRY any of it and just assume, a priori, that none of it is "viable" or "workable". Or is this one of those groups where every character has to be theory-opped to the max before it's considered acceptable?

[Peat]

I already looked into prestige classes, and nothing really seems to do the trick quite like how I want it to.

Dragon Disciple precludes I pick the draconic bloodline, and focuses around natural attacks and not the bladed belt I want to use.

Eldritch knight -almost- seems right, but for a sorcerer I'm looking at not making it into that class until level 8 at the earliest, at which point the gap between me and the other melee users will be too wide to close, even if we progress to high levels. And for the record, most of our campaigns tend to peter off around level 10-12, so that's about as far ahead as I plan.

That's just my thoughts on the basic prestige classes. There's quite the library of others, but I doubt the results are gonna be much different from above.

But like I mentioned earlier, I would like to USE the bladed belt, but that doesn't preclude using it like a traditional melee weapon, as mentioned with getting Hand of the Acolyte above. Is there any low-level option for wielding a weapon magically or telekinetically for a sorcerer?

You don't have to be Claw focused to be a Draconic Disciple. There's nothing stopping you from using those STR bonuses to throw around a big stick in a threatening manner (I don't see anything about Bladed Belt needing to be one handed, correct me if wrong?).

There's some decent options elsewhere in the greater pantheon too.

Evangelist is great if you're really attached to your original bloodline as you get to advance all class features for 9 levels (unless your GM's a ****), only with BAB 3/4, d8 hit dice, skills, and a few other nice bits and pieces, plus quick advancement of the Deific Obedience feat.

Dawnflower Anchorite is another bard chassis, only it comes with a nice self-buff, access to Dervish Dance as a feat and some other useful stuff. Both are accessible at level 5 and only lost 1 spellcasting level.

[Axle-Gear]

It's a shame that you get a threadful of advice and decide to not even TRY any of it and just assume, a priori, that none of it is "viable" or "workable". Or is this one of those groups where every character has to be theory-opped to the max before it's considered acceptable?

It's not necessarily that characters HAVE to be theory-opped, but I know at least two melee combatants are already going to exist in this party. Our Dwarvern Monk is REALLY good at building effective characters, and the Strix Shifter's player can't really build his own characters, so the Dwarvern Monk's player ends up doing the build which ends up just as effective. And the Aasimar Hunter isn't bad at building characters, either.

Maybe I should press upon you the disparity in my ability to make effective characters versus the rest of my group: In a previous campaign, I played a tower shield fighter, with a magic shield, shield focus, full plate, a good DEX score, and a ring of protection. I had the second lowest AC of anyone in the group, with the only character with an AC lower than mine being the Arcanist who didn't even bother to wear armor. On top of that, the other characters had better to-hit and better damage, with one of them being just as effective at range as in melee, and the other still being able to get sneak attack on top of that higher base damage. In another campaign, we were playing gestalt and I played a ninja musketeer with a double hackbut, with the idea being that I would mosey on up while invisible and blast someone for massive damage on a single shot with sneak attack and vital strike - another player in that campaign (who admittedly was quite the power gamer and doesn't play with us anymore) used pistols and was able to pump out around 4-6 shots a turn that EACH dealt MORE damage than my hackbut-up-the-nose sneak attack technique. On a regular basis, I will spec the crap out of a character for X, and most other characters in the group will also have X as a tertiary ability and do it just as well or better than I do.

So I'm sorry if I come across as dismissive to a lot of this, but that fact of the matter is that my 'optimized' only barely jogs behind the rest of the party's 'goofing around' builds. And with a setup that is less than optimal to begin with I need all the sharp cheddar, Limburger, and provolone I can get my hands on, lest I become irrelevant from the word 'go.'

So... I'm gonna take a breath, and try and do a quick pro/con list of the different options brought up in this thread, just to lay out all the pieces to see where I'm at:

GOAL: Build a Tengu Sorcerer that makes use of a Bladed Belt, and keeps pace with dedicated melee characters.

Eldritch Scrapper Archetype:
+ Grants access to fighter feats, and can gain new ones as a move action
- Gives up lots of bloodline powers, not compatible with wild-blooded Empyreal, which makes build more MAD

Arcane Bloodline:
+ Making Bladed Belt a bonded item allows easier upgrading without item creation feats
- Losing the belt would hurt even more. CHA for spellcasting is MAD.

Empyreal Bloodline:
+ Use WIS to cast, takes advantage of racial bonus
- Few abilities are particularly great for sword-fighting, gives up access to other archetypes.

Magus Variant Multiclass:
+ Gain arcane pool to buff attacks in a cinch
- Gives up every other feat in a build that is already feat-starved

Prestige Classes:
+ Grant access to unusual abilities not found in Sorcerer class
- Would probably come into play too late in the campaign to matter

Scorpion Bloodline:
+ Ready access to poison on weapons makes attacks matter more. Can apply poison to ally's weapons within 30 feet.
- CHA spellcasting/poison DC is MAD, other powers are rarely useful.

Give up:
+ Full caster role fills slot needed within party, no need to agonize over unusual builds.
- Bladed belt is dead weight, defies theme of round robin character generation.

Of the above, I feel like the Scorpion bloodline -would- be the most useful for the ability to slap poison on allies' weapons... if it weren't for the fact that I just remembered my allies consist of two characters using natural weapons, an animal companion, and another character that only MAYBE will be using a bow.

[Axle-Gear]

You don't have to be Claw focused to be a Draconic Disciple. There's nothing stopping you from using those STR bonuses to throw around a big stick in a threatening manner (I don't see anything about Bladed Belt needing to be one handed, correct me if wrong?).

There's some decent options elsewhere in the greater pantheon too.

Evangelist is great if you're really attached to your original bloodline as you get to advance all class features for 9 levels (unless your GM's a ****), only with BAB 3/4, d8 hit dice, skills, and a few other nice bits and pieces, plus quick advancement of the Deific Obedience feat.

Dawnflower Anchorite is another bard chassis, only it comes with a nice self-buff, access to Dervish Dance as a feat and some other useful stuff. Both are accessible at level 5 and only lost 1 spellcasting level.

And this one appeared while I was typing my other post earlier!

On STR bonuses - that's all fine and dandy, but remember that my racial bonuses are DEX and WIS, and the build with a 20 point buy is already quite MAD as it is. I would love to take a high STR and not have to worry about weapon finesse, but without taking advantage of at least one of my racial bonuses I just can't imagine the build working at all. My stats would be spread too thin to be effective at anything. Theoretically, I could dump DEX and use the racial bonus to compensate for an 8 to get the points for a worthwhile STR, but I somehow doubt the d6 hit die, 14 AC with mage armor melee combatant is gonna stand for very long.

On the classes mentioned - Evangelist would not be accessible til level 10, as it requires a +5 BAB and I'm playing a 1/2 BAB class. And the Dawnflower Anchorite... I can't seem to find any information on that. I found a Dissident of Dawn which ALMOST sounds right, in that it's using the Dervish Dance feat as a prerequisite, but that one also requires the ability to cast Daylight as a divine spell. Can you point link me to more info on that class?

[grarrrg]

On the classes mentioned - Evangelist would not be accessible til level 10, as it requires a +5 BAB and I'm playing a 1/2 BAB class.

Evangelist requires
"one of the following:
base attack bonus +5,
5 ranks in any skill other than Knowledge (religion),
or ability to cast 3rd-level spells."

With skills you can get in at level 6, with spells you're in by level 7


And the Dawnflower Anchorite... I can't seem to find any information on that
If you're looking on the d20pfsrd, they have to 'file the serial numbers off' (deity-specific stuff if a legally iffy area), so I'm not sure what it would be under.
Nethys on the other hand... (http://www.archivesofnethys.com/PrestigeClassesDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Dawnflower%20 Anchorite)

[Peat]

What Grarrrg helpfully said - and fair enough if you want to do Dex based.

One use you could find for the Bladed belt while going fairly straight Sorcerer is Dazzling Display. You'll have a sky high CHA anyway so intimidate will be fairly useful, and that gives you a nice short range debuff for when not spellcasting. Its not the greatest use ever, but its better than nothing. And it allows you to use it in a ranged way, which is helpful if you're worried about being as useful as the melee people. Which you're probably not going to be without going all in on the concept and accepting a lot of early pain.

[Lapak]

What Grarrrg helpfully said - and fair enough if you want to do Dex based.

One use you could find for the Bladed belt while going fairly straight Sorcerer is Dazzling Display. You'll have a sky high CHA anyway so intimidate will be fairly useful, and that gives you a nice short range debuff for when not spellcasting. Its not the greatest use ever, but its better than nothing. And it allows you to use it in a ranged way, which is helpful if you're worried about being as useful as the melee people. Which you're probably not going to be without going all in on the concept and accepting a lot of early pain.
I kind of love this idea. If it were my character, I’d run with this and rather than building a melee character I’d build a character around intimidation and illusions so the enemy never knows what the true threat is or where it is coming from. Battlefield control in both direct and indirect forms, using illusions to make the meleers looks like casters and vice-versa, and so on.

[Azoth]

This gets so much easier if you can use the Mage Guild Rules from Inner Sea Magic. For some gold + skill checks you can negate caster level loss (including spell progression) for a total of 3 levels. So You could afford to take a Paladin 2/Scaled Fist Mon 1 dip to get Charisma to AC and Saves. Desna's Divine Fighting Technique feat would also give Cha to hit/damage if you used the belt as a Starknife.

The end result is a Sorcer that uses their main attribute for nearly everything.

[Axle-Gear]

Ok! So I took in some of this stuff, especially regarding Dazzling Display, and I've devised a new build:



Iori Hikosaburowashijiko
Tengu Sorcerer Level 3 (Eldritch Scrapper, Draconic Bloodline - Blue)
20 point buy, 2,500 gp
Starting item: Bladed Belt

STR 10 - 0 pts> 10
DEX 14 - 5 pts> 16
CON 14 - 5 pts> 12
INT 13 - 3 pts> 13
WIS 10 - 0 pts> 12
CHA 15 - 7 pts> 15

Traits:
Axe to Grind: +1 on damage against foes only I threaten

Skills: 9 points
Perform (Dance) - 3
Knowledge (Arcane) - 3
Intimidate - 3

Feats:
Weapon Finesse
WF Scimitar

Spells
0th - 5 known - Detect Magic, Mage Hand, Mend, Prestidigitation, Light
1st - 3 known - (Mage armor, through bloodline), Shocking Grasp, True Strike, Stone Shield


The plan is to use Eldritch Scrapper to grant me feats mid-combat to unlock more tricks (particularly Dazzling Display), and later on pursue Performing Combatant and combat performance feats - this will require a relatively high roll to unlock the performance feat in an ordinary combat, but considering it's a swift action to attempt and I can do it every turn it might just be worth it.

Later on I'll go after Dragon Disciple for the stat boosts and natural armor. I already talked with my GMs, and they're cool with Martial Flexibility advancing when Disciple would normally grant me more bloodline powers as appropriate for the Eldritch Scrapper archetype.

I still need to ask how spending gold works: normally when starting at higher levels we implement a rule that you can't spend more than half of your starting gold on a single item, but in this case 1250 gold doesn't really get you anything worthwhile.

What of the stats and spell selection? I picked stone shield since it's an immediate action and can make a nice little wall in a pinch, especially if I'm using my other actions to use a sword.