Solid caster class to go with for main character?

[RichRuzz]

Played on release as a Cavalier and it was pretty buggy and after finishing up at the first part wasn't appealing since most of my attacks, charges and such would glitch out or get stuck so took a break. (and health issues didn't help lol)

Looking to start up a playthrough and still going in a bit blind trying to not spoil myself on whats "OP". Would anyone suggest a good Archetype class for a caster that can be pure, or suggested how it could or should be mixed? Pretty much would be selecting spells on my own and figuring things out, so might mess up a bit unless it would be suggested to play as a caster that can scribe spells easier. (I'll be playing on core so no respec)

[wendigo211]

Arcanist might not be a bad choice. Assuming you aren't doing a blind unfair run, you can keep it pure. They learn spells from scrolls like Wizards and cast them spontaneously like Sorcerers, so best of both worlds while you learn the ropes. There are a lot of enemies with SR, so you probably want an elf or elf/2 that has the Elven Magic trait and Potent Magic would be a good choice for your first exploit.

[Morgian]

Try a pure wizard, if you want to play a caster. I prefer sage sorcerer, but I have no doubts about which spells to take or not, which may not be the case with you.
Leave archetypes alone, unless you knw exactly what you want from them. They are often worse than the class and not an improvement - the 2H fighter archetype is an example of that. A basic fighter that picks up heavy blades is better, as he doesn't give up one of his best features for nothing.

Important feats are spell penetration/spell focus and it's big brothers, and you want to stack the bonus items on him. There is a unique dagger for force damage, a pair of gloves for 1st level spells, a belt, and so on...you can acquire more DC or special effects for your spells that way, and you need to. Some races get special bonuses, like elves with their heritage feat, which gives them DC +1 with enchantments. Pretty useless, if that isn't your specialty, but if it is, you want it.

[XartaX]

If you want to scribe spells, then wizard or arcanist, as they can scribe spells into their spellbook and thus have a much larger selection. Both are strong option for a pure build.

Arcanist probably more beginner friendly.

[Mork]

The wizard spell master is a solid ''safe'' choice. Focus on buffing and crown control.

[Agent]

Sage Sorcerer is probably the most powerful potentially but like Morgian says you have to know what you are doing so you dont screw up the spells (though respeccing can help fix mistakes). Pure wizard is not-quite-as-potentially powerful but still suuuuper powerful and in some ways more fun since you can get every wizard spell in the game in your spellbook.

[XartaX]

Wizard is stronger than sorc.. just harder to play. There's a reason it's always considered a better caster. Sorc suffers from limited spell selection and slower spell progression. But it's a good class for new players since it's relatively simple. Exception would be lich where it's more even because of sorc using CHA and lich using CHA as their con stat later on.

[Agent]

Wizard is clearly a better caster in pen and paper, but sorcerer strengths are played to in a massively combat-focused game like this one!

[XartaX]

Still better due to larger spell selection and faster spell progression. Spell slots is a nonissue with mythic path giving a metric ton of them anyways. Plus, scribing scrolls and the game throwing a ton of them at you. Even in the best possible light, scroll savant blows sorceror out of the water due to the thousands of scrolls you are buried beneath by the end of the game.

[Agent]

Ah, true, Wrath is different than Kingmaker because of the mythic abundant casting feats making up for the lack of spell slots. That is one of the main advantages Sorcs got in Kingmaker.

[ShivaX]

Yeah Vancian casters get a lot out of Abundent Spell Mythics.

[Morgian]

They still have it here. Since you actually don't need many spells in a computer game (as opposed to p&p, where the wizard is better with his bandwidth), more spells per day are good, and they have the advantage of being able to hammer home whatever spell is needed. Wizards are limited to whatever the brought...if they have memorised 2 fireballs in their 4 slots, then that is all they have. Sorcerers can cast 5 spells chosen between whatever they know. The flexibility is a huge advantage even in p&p. My players all agree that a sorcerer is often mightier than a wizard, but they still play wizards as they want as many spells as they can lay their hands upon :)
One of the selling points of the sage sorcerer is the DC +2 bonus at level 15, and that he uses INT instead of CHA, which gives him a good number of skillpoints.

As wizard I prefer to stay universalist and avoid the school problem. With abundant spells you have a lot of bonus spells anyway.

[Gracey Face]

If you're going to play wizard, which if you want optimal power isn't best as sorc is better, exploiter wiz is the best class due to it being able to get extra DC from the arcane pool. You then have half the strength of an arcanist alongside the feats a wiz has.

If you download the "tabletop tweaks" mod which adds a lot of feats and such that Owlcat forgot to add to the game, then this makes it even better.

This is assuming they have fixed the "permanent 0 arcane points" bug however.

The actual absolute best caster is some wierd thing where you take 3 fighter levels, 3 sorc/arcanist levels, 4 dragon disciple levels and 10 eldritch knight levels then take the lich mythic path so you can get full level 9 casting. You end up with a bunch of fighter feats, 17 BAB which can be raised to full 20 using transformation, and a 25 caster level so you can use the two 24 hour spell feats to get any buff up to 24 hours.

Kind of "gamey" though, so I don't like it. I just saw a video about it.

[Agent]

I'll admit I try to limit myself to relatively non-gamey multiclassing. Having like 4-5 different classes at level 3 hurts my soul.

Even taking the one level in Monk to get the crane style feats for melee classes hurts me a bit but I can live with it.

[Venator]

Do you have any preference for mythic paths? You can try sorcerer+lich or wizard+arzata. Keep in mind that you usually need to plan far ahead for casters, especially with mythic paths. I would suggest to focus on CC spells in the early game, and transform into a damage dealer in the late game. One way you can do this is by picking spell focus: conjuration first for spells like grease, and later choosing Expanded Arsenal: Evocation, Ascendant Element and elemental barrage for you mythic paths.

There are more complicated builds like melee sorcerers or dragon sorcerers but these are usually prebuilt so you can't really go blind.

[Andante]

Originally posted by Agent:

I'll admit I try to limit myself to relatively non-gamey multiclassing. Having like 4-5 different classes at level 3 hurts my soul.

Even taking the one level in Monk to get the crane style feats for melee classes hurts me a bit but I can live with it.

what about prestige classes? they are pretty much meant to be multi classed