Good spells for Sorcerer

[Roody]

Going with a Kitsune Keen Trait Nine tails sorcerer and so far its been...eh...kinda weak tbh. Cantrips REALLY suck. Like...okay cool I can do 1d3 damage to an enemy while this crossbow I have can so possibly 1d8. HMMMMMM hard choice.

For real tho, My character just feels WEAK compared to my other companions. Melee heroes seem to be beasts so far. I just got to Level 4 and took molten orb as my first 2nd spell but would like to hear some suggestions on spells for the future. Been hearing acid attacks are really good so might get one of those sometime. I think having a force of 3 spell casters, 1 zen archer and 2 frontlines isn't really dishing out as much damage as I thought it would. Might sacrifice ember cause, tbh, shes an even weaker version of me somehow.

Unless she turns god mode later lol.

[Kasa]

Yes, this is exactly why I said it's better to CC and buff as oppose to Damage.
Which is why I'm also saying SoD is worse then SoS and literally everything you said about saves applies to CC and SoS and vice versa.

And as you showed with the listed spread sheet your more likely to succeed on a save or suck or CC vs a SoD effect.
I think your mistaking me for some one else that was arguing damage.

As some one who has also been playing about as long as you (lets have a stupid age pissing contest ya? lol)

You might remember the adage, a purple worm is just as dangerous at 1 hp as it was at 200.

[Naked Granny]

Escrito originalmente por Kasa:

Yes, this is exactly why I said it's better to CC and buff as oppose to Damage.
Which is why I'm also saying SoD is worse then SoS and literally everything you said about saves applies to CC and SoS and vice versa.

And as you showed with the listed spread sheet your more likely to succeed on a save or suck or CC vs a SoD effect.
I think your mistaking me for some one else that was arguing damage.

As some one who has also been playing about as long as you (lets have a stupid age pissing contest ya? lol)

You might remember the adage, a purple worm is just as dangerous at 1 hp as it was at 200.

And I think you're confusing SoD with being binary.

There's only a few CC or SoS spells that aren't binary. Cause Fear for example inflicts shaken on a successful save, but... like... It's a level 1 spell with a HD limit. Most are binary. Like Confusion.

Being binary doesn't mean they're bad spells.

Averaging all the saves in the bestiary together doesn't really tell you much about real, practical combat tactics since you aren't blind: you can know what your enemy's saves are by pressing "Y" to inspect them (assuming you have the knowledge / lore check to identify the creature...). So in practice, you aren't targeting the enemy's strong save. You're basically always targeting their weakest save.

If you're worried about enemies making saves against your spells, well, this is Pathfinder. They will get to make a saving throw no matter what. That's fair. You can mitigate their defenses in various ways. If you don't want to rely on allies, you can just use a rod of Persistent spell to mimic the Misfortune hex. For example. The mathematical effect of Misfortune is difficult really explain since the equivalent numerical bonus varies depending on the relative comparison between the save DC and your target's save bonus. It's basically somewhere between +3 and +5 depending. All in one round since it's a rod.

If you don't like binary saves because they're not guaranteed to do anything, well... maybe tabletop games aren't for you if you aren't comfortable with having a chance to fail.

Having the risk of failure doesn't negate an option. It's just life.

[Kasa]

Non Binary save or suck spells:

Ray of Enfeeblement
Grease
Cause Fear
Touch of Gracelessness
Glitterdust
Scare
Web
Stinking Cloud (They keep having to make saves each round they're in there)
Fear
Enervation
Phantasmal Killer (SoD, but at least if it fails it deals damage. Better then nothing)
Obsidian Flow
Cloudkill (Another SoD that also does something if it fails)
Icy Prison
Waves of Fatigue
Banshee Blast
Cloak of Dreams (Like stinking cloud lasts several rounds forcing a save each time)
Sirocco
Finger of Death (Pathfinders FoD is a SoS)
Waves of Exhaustion
Death Clutch
Prediction of Failure
Energy Drain
Weird

So.... That looks to be about 24 save or suck, really I think I'm using the wrong word and it's save and suck since they do something regardless.
All from level 0 to level 9 on the wiki.

idk about you but 24 sounds a bit more then "There's only a few CC or SoS spells that aren't binary. "

Note on Finger of death:
If they fail their save they take 130 damage (wizard) but if they pass there save due to dice average they on average will take 150 damage.
For a sorcerer it's 160 on a fail and 184
So no It's not the instant death of D&D 3.5 and dead is better then damage but that's still nothing to scoff at damage wise.

But I will admit that pathfinder screwed up finger of death since they removed the instant kill effect it's actually BETTER on average for your target to pass their save.


The "Best" save or die spells don't actually have saves, like power word kill. If the target is under 201 hp it just dies no save involved.

[Balekai]

Some unsolicited Nine-Tailed Trickster notes to the players planning on one from earlier in the thread. In no particular order of importance this is what I noticed from theorycrafting my own build with cheats:

1. The magical tails and Trickster "spellbooks" are a GREAT source for your buffing spells. This is one of the advantages of having separate spell books. Tails + Trickster book = almost all low level buffing spells that are not abjuration/heroism line. In combination with Enduring spells and Improved Enduring Spells, you almost completely free up your level 1-4 spell slots for communal buffs and more low level CC/utility to ramp up with heighten/extend meta.

2. Arcane bloodline seems to be the best one for this build since all the other lines are heavily gimped by tails. Getting a DC boost from metamagic and the flat bonus to one school is great. A good way to stack DCs for enchantment spells is by picking arcane bloodline for DC bonuses and doing spell focus in Conjuration (to qualify for summoning feats) + spell foci in another third school while skipping the enchantment spell focus feats. Why? Because there's a mythic feat that allows you to apply the spell focus feats of other schools to your enchantment school and they all stack. That way you're getting like 4-6 spell foci + the DC increase from Arcane bloodline shenanigans, while still increasing the effectiveness of your other scholls too. It takes a lot of efficiency with feat selection and i'm still trying to wrap my head around the nest way.

3. One of the special feats from Perception 2 trick gives you a metamagic called something like "just your normal average metamagic." It allows you to reduce the spell level of a spell by one. So now you can start loading up higher level spells one level lower. In combination with moving all your buffs mostly over to trickster spell book, You can move everything in your spell book down one level for ever more spell availability. It's kind of nuts. This is perfect for powerful buffs, summons and no save spells.

4. I was playing around with Perception 2 trick which again give you/party special feats and world 3 which allows you and all party members to ignore skill requirements for all normal feats. This is cheat mode and is like using Bag of Tricks etc. First off you can give your Kitsune Fast Learner which is a free max skill (you're full human now!). This goes for a lots of racial feats like Wings etc. Secondly, all those annoying feat chains you have to follow on yourself/ companions which made some builds impossible? Now you can basically skip to the end of a lot of them for maximum effect. Just watch out that the bonuses are additive (sometimes you do want all the feats ina chain). Then use that room to pick up improve improve improve criticals feats. Honestly you have so many options, I can no longer wrap my head around optimal party builds. I just know that Trickster party members will be fighting gods.

5. A good combo with nine-tailed "will be" to take master shapeshifter and stay in human form while dumping STR and some WIS for 16-18 INT (allocating 15-17 in creation +1 from a level). Master Shapeshift (stacks with other bonuses) will give you a pseudo perma +4 STR/DEX/CON. 4-5 maxed skills in combo with Fast Leaner with no real hit to your martial stats. I said "will/should be" because human form of Kitsune seems to be getting checked and dispelled by the character. I think it has something to do with Trickster path or the shape being seen as hostile (or both). Obviously overlooked because when its dispelled it says [[DRAFT]] Kitsune Shape successfully dispelled by player" lol.

6. To make up for the heavy investment in INT, you can take athletic rank 2 and pump the skill up. This essentially turns your athletics skill into one master saving throw, which if pumped high enough, means you no longer even care about CON/DEX/WIS for them. Another thing I did was take the Farmhand background. It made athletics a class skill and possibly better yet: Gives access to Scythes. I was looking at Deskari's weapon and if we get it endgame for the expansion, its Godly for summoners. It allows you to pump out small demon hordes every 60 seconds, conjure rifts and make earthquakes. That's "if" we get it.

7. More on the actual topic (spells): The combination of Enchantment, Conjuration and Illusion seems to be awesome. Tons of spells that are powerful and don't have any spell resist checks, combined with some of the most powerful save or suck/die spells. Then when all else fails, just pump out a million summons.

8. Hideous Laughter combined with Best Jokes is a possible beast on things it works against. At least for taking out trash with one lowish spell. If your DC is high enough every enemy that's vulnerable is effected by the massive chain.

9. Lastly, because I have hijacked this thread enough, the Persuasion trick ranks seem really useful save against total immunities. This is basically a free cast, AoE with instant initiative on battle start (save you a lot of slots, time and energy). I experiments with taking weapon focus + dazzling display + mythic dazzling display. It seems like it will be very nice as an infinite "replacement/emergency spell" (mythic gives the option to use display as s standard or swift action but w/ increasing penalties).

I wish I could do a proper TLDR, but the info is too much to get into a couple sentences. Nine Tailed Trickster has an insane amount of CC for a RPish setup
--

My opinion on the actual topic is like others, the best spells for sorc are save or suck/die or plain "die if" spells, combined with CC/summons with no need for spell penetration. You just exploit your massive pool of spells to control the battlefield, while trying some save or suck on a boss and if that fails, let your teammates/summons do all the heavy lifting. I still love summon alpha strikes. :p

[Naked Granny]

Escrito originalmente por Kasa:

Non Binary save or suck spells:

Ray of Enfeeblement
Grease
Cause Fear
Touch of Gracelessness
Glitterdust
Scare
Web
Stinking Cloud (They keep having to make saves each round they're in there)
Fear
Enervation
Phantasmal Killer (SoD, but at least if it fails it deals damage. Better then nothing)
Obsidian Flow
Cloudkill (Another SoD that also does something if it fails)
Icy Prison
Waves of Fatigue
Banshee Blast
Cloak of Dreams (Like stinking cloud lasts several rounds forcing a save each time)
Sirocco
Finger of Death (Pathfinders FoD is a SoS)
Waves of Exhaustion
Death Clutch
Prediction of Failure
Energy Drain
Weird

So.... That looks to be about 24 save or suck, really I think I'm using the wrong word and it's save and suck since they do something regardless.
All from level 0 to level 9 on the wiki.

idk about you but 24 sounds a bit more then "There's only a few CC or SoS spells that aren't binary. "

Note on Finger of death:
If they fail their save they take 130 damage (wizard) but if they pass there save due to dice average they on average will take 150 damage.
For a sorcerer it's 160 on a fail and 184
So no It's not the instant death of D&D 3.5 and dead is better then damage but that's still nothing to scoff at damage wise.

But I will admit that pathfinder screwed up finger of death since they removed the instant kill effect it's actually BETTER on average for your target to pass their save.


The "Best" save or die spells don't actually have saves, like power word kill. If the target is under 201 hp it just dies no save involved.

A lot of that is completely ridiculous.

Having to keep making saves each round against Stinking Cloud while you stay in it does not mean it's not binary. And you pull that kind of lie often on that list there. For example Enervation and Energy Drain are not non-binary - either you hit the target or you don't. If you don't hit the target, they don't suffer any ill effects. Or Cloak Of Dreams. Once you go through and strip out that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, the list gets a lot smaller. And when you compare it against the full size of the arcane spell list... I don't think you could claim that it's more than a few. Those four spells alone are 1/6th of your list. Then we come to Grease and Web. Being slowed does not significantly disable a victim. You're intentionally stretching meanings here.

Also, you've completely - completely - gotten Finger Of Death's calculations wrong. It does 10 damage per CL if the victim fails the save. If they succeed, it only does 3d6 +1 per caster level. Which is 3d6 + 15 up to 3d6 + 20 which is something close to 25 - 30 damage. Just ask yourself, how would it make any sense whatsoever for a spell to do more damage on a victim who succeeded their save...? So... allllllll kinds of completely wrong going on up in there. I have no idea where you found that information, but it's just wrong.

I also find it bizarre that you'd extoll the virtues of PW:Kill because I thought you didn't like binary effects? And it is binary, by the way, despite not allowing a save. Because a target is either below the threshold or they aren't. The spell doesn't have any effect if they are not below the threshold.

[Dominemesis]

All spellcasters are kinda rough at low levels, prior to getting 3rd level spells, its a bad time for damage dealing with them compared to martials. After, they win the rest of the game. For sorcerers, with their limited spells known, you might get really good mileage out of shadow conjuration and shadow evocation lines, pretty much locking down those evocations and conjurations into a handful of spells allowing you to pick up more utility and CC spells as well.

[lubed_assassin]

a double bloodline fire sorcerer is pretty crazy, but you still need a few levels under your belt where it will actually do something. +2 to each dice is like 2-4 damage in the beginig, level 3 casting is where it starts to get easy. Have someone get entangle so you can fireball and arc fire them.

[peterebbesen]

@Aunt_Tony

I won't have the game until the weekend, so I am basing this only on the publicly available information, but I would not be surprised if an AOE nuker build sorcerer will turn out to be just as ridiculously powerful in Wrath of the Righteous as it was in Kingmaker, for the simple reason that most of the downsides of sorcerer nuking compared to e.g. kineticist or party support in a pen and paper setting either don't apply in the game or are partly compensated for with equipment - once you start reaching the middle levels, that is. Nuker sorcerer is always rough in the early levels.

Example: When you have a balanced party and are fighting balanced encounters, the best your DM can do - best use of the sorcerer is in most cases to be versatile (even if less versatile than a batman wizard) and supporting the party with CC, debuffs, buffs, and the occasional SoD or SoS. Game: Party can be tailored to support the sorcerer nuking rather than the other way around and have buffs and debuffs useful against boss-level encounters offloaded on another character (who might be a healbot/support build few humans would like to play in PnP), and you will encounter situations where you face hordes of medium-to-strong enemies where AOE is god far more frequently than you do in a PnP setting, where such encounters can be a great annoyance for both players and DM alike as well as deeply problematic if the party does not have any nukers along.

Example: kinetist can go on forever, nuking sorcerer limited by spell slots. Game: Comparatively frequent resting and the sorcerer don't need to either burn spells at maximum rate and power (2/round, 1 rod boosted) or use the best spells on trivial encounters - what matters is dealing with the hard ones and being able to wipe out most of the board in 2-3 rounds using 4 or 6 spells respectively, then doing your part nuking the hell out of the boss while the single target melee and ranged probably do most of the damage to the boss.

Example: Adventure has lots of Demons! Fire resistance all over the place! Kinetist deals fairly easily with elements, but what's the standard fire-nuker to do? Game: Spend his first mythic ability on taking Ascendent Element (Fire) and forget about resistances and immunities thereafter, that's what.

And so on.

That said - if the composite deadly earth + cloud with tripping works as ridiculously well as it did in Kingmaker, it will probably take something like Kingmaker's Grandmaster Rod or access to Meteor Swarm for nuking sorcerers not to feel outclassed . :D

Oh, well, just my musings, because if the last 32 years of CRGPs based on D&D from Pool of Radiance and onwards has taught me anything on the subject, it is that nuking wizards and sorcerers generally work very well in CRPGs, despite the sensible reasons for considering these to be inferior builds in PnP. So it'll be funny to put my hands to building a strong nuker sorcerer build once I get my hands on Wrath of the Righteous.

Key Question: Does Wrath have the Prestigious Spellcaster feat which Kingmaker lacked (barring mods, that is)? If it does, so many more options for making things silly.

[Naked Granny]

Escrito originalmente por peterebbesen:

Key Question: Does Wrath have the Prestigious Spellcaster feat which Kingmaker lacked (barring mods, that is)? If it does, so many more options for making things silly.

I haven't seen it.

No Traits either.

And... just between us pigeons... If you haven't even played the game, maybe wait until then to make up your mind about how useful nukesorcs are in the campaign.

For example: demons are immune to poison. Stink Cloud doesn't work on them.

Also, they are worthless trash in Kingmaker as a build design. Especially by comparison once Kineticist was implemented. I wouldn't have given such a build any share of the xp if experience points were divided like that, which they weren't. They literally do not contribute to the party's performance at all.

I find your suggestion to be virtually offensive because of how tone deaf and ignorant it is.

Did you play Kingmaker?

[peterebbesen]

Escrito originalmente por Aunt Tony:

Escrito originalmente por peterebbesen:

Key Question: Does Wrath have the Prestigious Spellcaster feat which Kingmaker lacked (barring mods, that is)? If it does, so many more options for making things silly.

I haven't seen it.

No Traits either.

And... just between us pigeons... If you haven't even played the game, maybe wait until then to make up your mind about how useful nukesorcs are in the campaign.

For example: demons are immune to poison. Stink Cloud doesn't work on them.

Also, they are worthless trash in Kingmaker as a build design. Especially by comparison once Kineticist was implemented. I wouldn't have given such a build any share of the xp if experience points were divided like that, which they weren't. They literally do not contribute to the party's performance at all.

I find your suggestion to be virtually offensive because of how tone deaf and ignorant it is.

Did you play Kingmaker?

First, as I made clear, I have not made up my mind about how effective a nukesorc is in Wrath of the Righteous. I merely stated my expectations based on previous experience, my doubt at the idea you propagate that it would not work well, and expressed my interest in discovering the truth.

Second, of course I played a nuke sorcerer in Kingmaker. It was highly effective. Decidedly weaker in the early game and not as effective as my optimized Kineticist for sustained AOE damage throughout the game, but strong from the early middle-game onwards and and quite a bit better for handling the end-game encounters. The ability to stack several +1 dmg/die equipment (and bloodline) and those atrociously powerful metamagic rods and some highlevel AOE like stormbolts not affecting friendlies (and targeting the Wild Hunt's worst saves) made the difference in nullifying the threat in boss encounters.

I regret that you consider my post to be tone deaf and ignorant, but in return I consider yours to be arrogant, overgeneralizing, and unmoored from reality where the usefulness of a sorcerer in Kingmaker is concerned, so my best guess is that it is due to very different play styles and group compositions.

[Blackdragon]

Escrito originalmente por Aunt Tony:

Even maximized, your nukes are guaranteed to not be able to do more than 40% of a target's total hp in damage. If you stack empower with maximize, you're only doing about 60% of their hp in damage.

As usual, you are completely wrong. Here's a level 2 (!) Scorching Ray with no metamagic doing 392 damage to a CR18 demon and killing it instantly:

https://imgur.com/Rp4ZnFh

This spell reliably does 300 damage per cast, and it's only level 2.

Reminder: a CR20 monster only has 350 average hp according to your own spreadsheet.

Reminder 2: Sorcerer gets over 60 of these and more powerful spells per day by endgame.

How much more powerful? Well, here's a Hellfire Ray doing 632 damage to a CR18 demon:

https://imgur.com/kyCYQTV

And here's a Chain Lightning doing 621 damage to a group of demons (would have been over 1000 if most didn't make their save this time):

https://imgur.com/38swgRc

Still not enough? Caustic Eruption doing 1127 damage:

https://imgur.com/gM57EpP

This is all from one casting. Quicken (by feat, rod, or ability) allows to basically double that output per round.

All elemental resistances and immunities are nullified by Ascendant Element mythic ability. Element conversion by Elemental Fire Arcana through Second Bloodline (but it's not really needed as fire spells are enough).

Escrito originalmente por Aunt Tony:

Past level 4, doing 20 damage per spell is not sufficient.

A sorc can do 60+ damage per spell at level ONE.

Burning Hands with Spell Spec and double Draconic Arcana deals 4d6+8 = 22 average damage per cast in a cone AOE, 5 times per rest. The damage is sufficient to kill an average CR1 foe (12 hp) even on a successful save (and 2/3 of the time they will fail their save according to the spreadsheet). The cone has enough AOE to catch about 3 enemies, more if crowded.

Assuming basic positioning, a level 1 sorc can thus reliably kill 2-3 enemies instantly every round, adding up to 12-15 or more over the course of a battle, without even resorting to cantrips. Not to mention AOE spells are great vs. swarms, which are a nuisance at lower levels.

Escrito originalmente por Aunt Tony:

And damage doesn't matter until the target hits zero.

Damage always matters because if one party member takes half of all enemies' hp and another takes the other half, enemies are all dead despite nobody taking 100% of their hp in one strike. Or even simpler: take 50% with regular spell, then remaining 50% with Quickened spell, all in 1 round.

Regardless, a nuker sorc can output enough damage to one-shot tough opponents or clear rooms full of enemies. Squandering this deadly potential on meagre debuffs is a waste.

Escrito originalmente por Aunt Tony:

Crowd control is not "support".
It's literally the only thing that arcane spells are useful for.

Escrito originalmente por Aunt Tony:

nukesorcs are worthless trash
They literally do not contribute to the party's performance at all.

You're literally spouting nonsense. You very obviously have no idea how to play a Sorc damage dealer.

[Kasa]

Or magic user in general I'd imagine.
In general it seems like they are arguing in bad faith and so nothing we can say will change their mind.