Pathfinder 1E A guide to sorcerers

triqui · Apr 10, 2012

I wrote this guide in the paizo's forum. I think I might put it here too.

Inner Power.

You can read the ongoing discussion here:

The complete Sorcerer Guide

JohnnFour · Apr 18, 2012

Cool! This is great timing. I'm prepping my Riddleport game this week and it needs a few more sorcerers.

ryeookin · Aug 24, 2012

In your document:

At 7th level, you could cast a Maximized Empowered Fireball, which does 5d6+75.

Any way I look at this it doesn't add up. Can anyone explain this math?

triqui · Aug 25, 2012

ryeookin said:
In your document:

Any way I look at this it doesn't add up. Can anyone explain this math?

If you take +3 caster levels to fireball, at 7th, you cast 10d6 fireballs. With Draconic bloodline, thats 10d6+10. Maximized, it's 70. If you empower it too, it's 5d6+5, for a total of 5d6+75.

You empower it at +1 level thanks to magic lineage background, making it a 3rd level spell that uses a 4th level slot. With a lesser maximizing rod, you can maximize 3rd level spells (not slots).

Hope this helps

StreamOfTheSky · Aug 25, 2012

Buying a lesser maximize rod at level 7...or any level, really, is flipping stupid. It costs WAAAAAAAY too much!

Spending magical lineage and/or Wayang Spell...whatever traits on fireball is also stupid. I love it, it's iconic. But it's a HORRIBLE spell.

If you *were* going to go this route, for gods' sakes, at least combine Persistent and Dazing Spell instead of Empower and Maximize. Same spell level adjustment. Everyone has to beat 2 reflex saves or ~~instantly lose~~ be dazed for 3 rounds. Of course, I'd use dazing and persistent on a dozen other spells before fireball...

EDIT: 7th level wealth is 23,500 gp. Lesser Maximize rod is 14,000 gp, which is actually lower than I thought it'd be, but still over half your wealth and questionable if you'd be able to obtain so early.

triqui · Aug 26, 2012

StreamOfTheSky said:
Buying a lesser maximize rod at level 7...or any level, really, is flipping stupid. It costs WAAAAAAAY too much!

Spending magical lineage and/or Wayang Spell...whatever traits on fireball is also stupid. I love it, it's iconic. But it's a HORRIBLE spell.

If you *were* going to go this route, for gods' sakes, at least combine Persistent and Dazing Spell instead of Empower and Maximize. Same spell level adjustment. Everyone has to beat 2 reflex saves or ~~instantly lose~~ be dazed for 3 rounds. Of course, I'd use dazing and persistent on a dozen other spells before fireball...

EDIT: 7th level wealth is 23,500 gp. Lesser Maximize rod is 14,000 gp, which is actually lower than I thought it'd be, but still over half your wealth and questionable if you'd be able to obtain so early.

If you read the guide, that was an example about how to maximize the damage soon. 14000 gold means 7000 if you craft it yourself, by the way, and doing 95 hp to a CR7 creature is much better than dazing it. At CR7, most creatures die with 95 damage (go and check your Bestiary, a Young Black Dragon is CR 7, and has 76, and only Elasmosaurus an Black pudding have 105), and "dead" is a far worse condition than "dazed". I think too much people dismisses blasting, because they do it wrong. They just slap fireball in the wrong build, without backup, and say it sucks. Sure, 7d6 at 7th level isnt that great. But 5d6+75? That wipes out the entire encounter at 7th level.

StreamOfTheSky · Aug 26, 2012

SRD said:
Craft Rod (Item Creation)
You can create magic rods.

Prerequisite: Caster level 9th.

Benefit: You can create magic rods. Crafting a rod takes 1 day for each 1,000 gp in its base price. To craft a rod, you must use up raw materials costing half of its base price.

So once again...how are you doing this at level 7?

Ahnehnois · Aug 26, 2012

I don't agree with the first part about socerers having a bad rep; my first 3.0 character was a sorcerer and my players have preferred sorcerers over the years; spontaneous casting beats Vancian any day.

That being said, I think the sorcerer is one thing PF really got right, and I am a guide fan in general, and this is a good guide (couldn't give XP so a compliment will have to do).

ryeookin · Aug 26, 2012

@ triqui: Thanks. That explains it!
I guess what confused me was I always played when using empower, instead of adding dice, just multiply the damaged rolled by 1.5. Both ways work.

Note: In addition to taking Magical Lineage for fireball, if one can also take Wayang Spellhunter for fireball too that'll work even better. You could then take empower spell at lvl 5 or better at lvl 7 and use it for every fireball spell you cast as it only costs you a 3rd lvl spell to use.

(this only gets better as more metamagics are learned).

StreamOfTheSky said:
So once again...how are you doing this at level 7?

So.. a sorcerer waits until lvl 9 for this then? Not that big of a deal.

StreamOfTheSky · Aug 27, 2012

ryeookin said:
@ triqui: Thanks. That explains it!
I guess what confused me was I always played when using empower, instead of adding dice, just multiply the damaged rolled by 1.5. Both ways work..

Multiplying by 1.5 works better for damages like 5d4+5 or 7d6. If it's just an even amount of dice, multiplying the dice themslves by 1.5 works fine and is the "fairest" way to do it. More dice rolled to pull towards average result, rolling less and multiplying creates greater chances of the result skewing higher or lower.

Pathfinder 1E A guide to sorcerers

triqui

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