How Would You Build A Souldrinker?

[Allistar]

So, I've been compulsively generating characters to deal with my lockdown and came across the souldrinker class. It seems really cool, but I have no idea what this class should really be doing. I was thinking of doing a stupid energy drain melee crit fisher or vital strike build using a conductive weapon, but I don't know how I would really set it up in any good capacity. I know clerics, magus, etc, are versatile, but they don't get a whole lot of BAB or HP and in a melee character you kinda want both of those in spades. Other classes can give BAB but not spellcasting, and in a class that gives a good amount of caster level that's just wasted resources.

I dunno... Maybe I'm thinking about this class all wrong, but I still want to make this work. So how would you suggest building a Souldrinker

[Akal Saris]

Personally I'm inclined to go for a wizard gish character, for a few reasons:

• The soul gem mechanic for crafting is busted. 500gp for every negative level you inflict? Get a Life-Drinker weapon (crafted by yourself for 20k) and you can inflict 2 negative levels per hit (though you'll need immunity to negative levels yourself with that approach). Even if you don't abuse the "creature" mechanic to gain 'free' gold every time you smack a squirrel or rat or whatever, this can basically power your low level spells infinitely through regular combat.
• Sorc/Wizard is the only class that gets the 2nd level spell Languor, which inflicts 1 negative level. Lvl 2 is low enough to metamagic (quicken), etc.
• Similarly, wizard gets free crafting feats for the above strategy
• A gish build will make the cacodaemon familiar a fearsome opponent in its own right, and you can share spells like Lash of the Astradaemon with it for even more negative level fun

So, just as an idea:

Human Wizard 6/Ftr 1/Souldrinker 10/Eldritch Knight 3
>> CL 16, BAB +12
>> Feats: I would go for crafting feats early on to help boost your entire party. Make lots of whatever helps you drain negative levels. Around the mid-levels start putting in the key melee feats that you would want.

Realistically, I think your gameplan with the build above is going to be raising the single strongest undead that you can, and then possess it with Magic Jar and fight as it while your cacaodemon watches over your unconscious body. If you're undead, the familiar could even stuff you into a portable hole and fly around invisible with you in it. The low BAB means that you'll need to plan to use normal wizard tricks against foes with a high AC, while threatening in melee against softer targets.

The playstyle shifts over time with the build:
- Levels 1-5: Normal wizard play
- Levels 6-10: Weak spot for the build, lots of dead caster levels, you're basically coasting along on 3rd-4th level spells here.
- Levels 11+: From here on you can live the magic jar possession dream and switch over to more of a melee combat playstyle.

Aside from the above, there may be some terrific optimization opportunities among the different obediences for the class, but I'm not really familiar with them. I might look more into it soon though since it's definitely a cool PrC :)

[Allistar]

Human Wizard 6/Ftr 1/Souldrinker 10/Eldritch Knight 3
>> CL 16, BAB +12
>> Feats: I would go for crafting feats early on to help boost your entire party. Make lots of whatever helps you drain negative levels. Around the mid-levels start putting in the key melee feats that you would want.

Realistically, I think your gameplan with the build above is going to be raising the single strongest undead that you can, and then possess it with Magic Jar and fight as it while your cacaodemon watches over your unconscious body. If you're undead, the familiar could even stuff you into a portable hole and fly around invisible with you in it. The low BAB means that you'll need to plan to use normal wizard tricks against foes with a high AC, while threatening in melee against softer targets.

The playstyle shifts over time with the build:
- Levels 1-5: Normal wizard play
- Levels 6-10: Weak spot for the build, lots of dead caster levels, you're basically coasting along on 3rd-4th level spells here.
- Levels 11+: From here on you can live the magic jar possession dream and switch over to more of a melee combat playstyle.

Thank you for your input, this helps a whole lot! You bring up a great point with wizard and both being able to cast early negative level spells and using magic jar in switch into a more melee oriented form! I do have a few questions though.

I'm interested in the idea of a Vetala-Born dhampir taking sin magic for necromancy and the Cruoromancer archetype. Stat wise I was thinking of doing the normal Int/Dex/Con/Wis/Cha/Str that I usually do for the wizard although I'll have to play with the specifics of where I spend my 20 points. Does that sound semi reasonable for this strategy?

Also you mentioned making my familiar into a combatant. How would you suggest going about that?

[Akal Saris]

Thank you for your input, this helps a whole lot! You bring up a great point with wizard and both being able to cast early negative level spells and using magic jar in switch into a more melee oriented form! I do have a few questions though.

I'm interested in the idea of a Vetala-Born dhampir taking sin magic for necromancy and the Cruoromancer archetype. Stat wise I was thinking of doing the normal Int/Dex/Con/Wis/Cha/Str that I usually do for the wizard although I'll have to play with the specifics of where I spend my 20 points. Does that sound semi reasonable for this strategy?

Also you mentioned making my familiar into a combatant. How would you suggest going about that?

I this your plan for stats is sound. Since you're only entering melee combat using magic jar, you would want to have the standard wizard stats for a build otherwise. Maybe a higher Cha than Wis to boost Command Undead checks though.

The nice thing about cacodemons is that they are pretty survivable with DR, fast healing, and lots of elemental resistances, plus it will get half your HP and your full BAB as a familiar. So the key to using it in combat is to have high HP on your character (toughness feat, high con) along with high BAB, or otherwise buffing it. This thread has some feat/spell ideas that could be helpful, though cacodemon can't take the mauler template: https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2szz3?U...Familiar-build

[Heavenblade]

Out of all things, I would actually go with a bloodrager. Right, he cannot use the crafting abilities etc. for the fullest, but he can definetly pack a punch with those nasty nega-level debuffs, and regaining spell slots is super helpful for a min caster like the bloodrager.

So, there are actually two possible ways to look into this build - the grappler, and the charger.

The build begins with a tiefling with the maw racial trait, demon-spawn. an abyssal primalist blood conduit bloodrager who replace all their power except for the fourth level one, and then multi into souldrinker at 12th level and stick there till the end.

This build uses the blood conduit archetype in conjunction with the tyrant totem line of rage powers, and the raging grappler rage power (they can take back one of their regular powers but not the 12th level one, unfortunately). Using the regular chain of grapple feats for any normal grappler, and then taking the special ingridient feat - consume essence.
That is a monster feat so it might not fly with all GMs, but a tiefling totally qualifies due to being outsider.

Now, the build kicks off at 12th level - the grappler gets into grapple as fast as possible, casting his spells as a swift at the target in order to hamper his enemy's ability to resist the grapple, and then swallow them whole as fast as possible. each turn they are inside they need to roll, or get 1 negative level, which you can then use to refuel your spells and abilities, and redebuff against the next enemy.
as a horseman, a biter guy would obviously go for Famine as a patron, which would also give him a very nice bestow curse ability to further debuff his enemies.

While you dont have the abusable crafting abilities of a full casting souldrinker, you can gain just enough negative levels to regain your spells in order to play the bad touch rager all day long

[Kurald Galain]

I know clerics, magus, etc, are versatile, but they don't get a whole lot of BAB or HP and in a melee character you kinda want both of those in spades.

You are underestimating these classes. Cleric effectively has full BAB due to its long-term buff spells, Magus effectively has full BAB due to its enchant weapon ability. Both have plenty of hit points (and other tricks) to be a powerful melee combatant.

Now you haven't actually specified what level you'll be playing at, but I'm guessing that it's not actually level 20. Suppose your campaign ends around level 10, do you really want a build that has a weak spot of the entire second half of your career?

[Heavenblade]

I just want to add that you can ditch blood conduit on the aformentioned bloodrager, snag a gore attack somehow

And go for daemon totem + boar's charge rage powers, and you just charge again and again at people and draw their energy each time you hit them

[Allistar]

Now, the build kicks off at 12th level - the grappler gets into grapple as fast as possible, casting his spells as a swift at the target in order to hamper his enemy's ability to resist the grapple, and then swallow them whole as fast as possible. each turn they are inside they need to roll, or get 1 negative level, which you can then use to refuel your spells and abilities, and redebuff against the next enemy.
as a horseman, a biter guy would obviously go for Famine as a patron, which would also give him a very nice bestow curse ability to further debuff his enemies.

While you dont have the abusable crafting abilities of a full casting souldrinker, you can gain just enough negative levels to regain your spells in order to play the bad touch rager all day long

Forgive me, but I don't actually know a whole lot about the usual grapple feats or the rage powers used to make these builds work. What kind of levels and feat plan were you thinking about for this style of play, and how does this work late game when spells like Freedom of Movement become a thing?

(Also nice job nailing the famine theme for this one, after hearing this I'm thinking about making one for each of the horsemen)

[Heavenblade]

Ill start with the second question - using the belt of impossible action lets you bypass the big (pun intended) restriction on grapplers - size restrictions
As for FoM...from my experience, it isnt THAT common that you wouldnt be able to adventure around without countering it. If the guy in front of you has FoM, you are still a bloodrager with a bite attack, spells, etc.
IF you are worried about FoM, you can switch out raging grappler for the superstition, withc hunter, spell sunder rage power line in order to dispel enemy's FoM.

as for level breakdown, it is basically Blood conduit 12/Souldrinker 8.

Feat distribution would go something like
as you will see there are a lot of empty spaces to costumize this build, and since I am not an expert on grapplers, etc., I'd leave it to those more proficient than me to fill them up.
However, I would suggest distributing the following in the non critical levels, which I will mark with "blank" so Youll know you can move these around

1 - Weapon focus (bite) - Blank
1 (bonus) - Improved unarmed strike
3 - Feral combat training - Blank
5 - Imptoved natural attack (bite) -Blank
6 (bonus) - Improved grappler
7 - Greater grapple
9 - rapid grappler
9 (bonus) - Power attack
11 - Fiendish obedience
12 (bonus) - G. fortitude
13 - Consume essence
15 - Blank
17 - Blank
19 - Blank

And the last three slots can be used to finish up your build with a prereq-light style feat chain of your choice, or the extra rage feat once or twice if you are worried about running out, since everything you do works only as long as you rage.


As for rage powers - you need to use the primalist archetype to switch the 8th and 12th bloodrager powers for a total of four rage powers, with a potential for more if you are worried about those pesky casters and FoM users. The claws dont do you any favor since you are a bite user, so you might want to switch them anyway

So the essential rage powers are the tyrant totem line. The Lesser version boosts up your bite attack damage die size, the regular gives you the grab ability with your bite - letting you do stuff like charge, maybe full attack, etc, all while making your grapples. The last one is the most important since you get from it the swallow whole ability which is used as prereqs for consume essence.

Now, for the other rage powers - the good ones I found are
1. Raging grappler - allows you to make enemies fall prone when you grapple with them, in addition to dealing damage when you start a grapple.
2. If you are worried about FoM, then the superstition - witch hunter - spell sunder will let you, once per rage, dispel the FoM on someone, at leas t for long enough to grab him and swallow all his tasty levels away!


As a general rule, finding ways to boost your natural armor is important, since this is what will prevent enemies from just cutting through you when you eat them.

AAAAnd thats it, basically, I think

Did I miss something?