Do spell casters serve any purpose?

[Jeff Kaos]

I'm in the middle of Act II and so far the biggest liability in my party seems to be the spell casters since they have extremely low hit points and if they manage to hit anything with their spells they either do almost no damage or the enemy just resists the spell. Right now I'm using Ember as my primary caster but she's pretty much dead weight. I usually don't play magic users as my main character but with WoR I was considering going outside my comfort zone and doing a spell based MC but I'm really glad I didn't because magic seems really underpowered. I don't remember it being so weak in Kingmaker.

Do magic using party members get better? Or should I just dump them all together and go with a melee and archer party? So far the only person in my party pulling their weight is Lann. He's doing so much damage compared to everyone else I wonder if he's extremely OP or everyone else is just weak? Serious question: if I made a main character a Zen Archer would they be as powerful as Lann? Or is scripted/programmed to be as strong as is for story purposes? For real, he has 4 attacks that never miss and can 1-shot pretty much everything so far. Him plus an MC built identical seems like they could solo the whole game.

[Moo]

In my games, spellcasters are there to support the martial characters. You really have to make them specialize in a certain role for them to shine. If you aren't very familiar with the game, casters are harder to play especially early on.

[Gracey Face]

The things that make spellcasters good are their ability to buff your party comparatively cheaply (ie sleeping is cheaper than a scroll) and their ability to cast wierd utility spells like summoning a house out of nowhere for you to safely sleep in while traversing hostile territory.

This game, and most games like it, remove both of these. You have so much money and loot you can cast whatever you want from scrolls endlessly without worry and those utility spells don't exist and the way you can approach situations is limited to whatever the writers came up with.

So in this game they don't really serve any purpose no. You can make them functional if you hyper focus on something like DC casting (which you should look up builds on how to do that since you're not familiar) but if you're just playing "naturally" then they're going to be garbage whereas people who just hit things with swords or shoot things with bows start strong and stay strong (which is why Lann is carrying you, and Lann isn't even really strong).


As for whether your MC will be as strong as Lann, they'd actually be stronger because your MC gets a lot of extra buffs especially later on, but Lann isn't even a particularly powerful class. A nice simple class for you to play that'd make you more powerful than Lann would be a Paladin for example, as long as you keep raising Charisma you'll have all of the to-hit and damage you need and good enough saves that nothing will touch you.

Really though if you're unfamiliar with the ruleset and want powerful characters you need to look up build guides. The ruleset is fairly complicated and it is easy to stumble in to bad or even non functional builds, especially with spellcasters due to their incredible weakness and especially in this game since this game's primary enemy type are demons and they're essentially the worst case type of enemy for spellcasters due to them all having spell resistance, decent saves, and elemental resistances and immunities.

[Adeptus Stark]

Casters are healers/buffers at the start, but once they gain a decent amount of levels they can start doing a lot of damage to one or multiple targets at a time.

Just make sure you are giving your casters items/abilities that increase their ability to beat the enemies Spell Resistance.

I suggest looking for some caster build hints on YouTube if you're not familiar with Pathfinder as they take a little more loving than just equipping your high strength fighter with a high damage weapon.

[mk11]

As you progress you will come up against enemies whose AC is so large that your martial types won't be able to fight them without some magical assist or who have special abilities that you need magical assist for. You need (except if you are really skilled) a mix.

Ember's main offensive magic in acts 1 and 2 is slumber.

Magic users need micro so work better in turn-based.

[Xhal]

Spellcasters are generally just good for buff bots with some cc thrown in for act 1 and 2, if you built your party right in act 3-4-5 you buff before starting a dungeon and just delete everything in the first 1-2 rounds and nothing can touch you, so spellcasters are great but not for actual combat spellcasting.

[swordfish]

First it depends on what difficulty you are playing on seconds. Second, until level 10 most spell casters are for buffing, debuffing, and crowd control. So they are not useless. Grease, web, slow, haste, and pit spells are needed on high difficulty and a must.
Spells damage will need to be worked on from level 1 to almost 10. Then spells will start doing damage. Ray spells is a different path. Different magic school will require specialization and nurturing until they do good damage. As well there are many crap spells, you have to research on spells

[fox5s]

As people have already said, casters need time to grow into their roles. And in the mean time, provide a ton of buffs to allow your other characters to do some heavy lifting.

Using Ember as an example. Her initial usefulness will be using the Sleep Hex to enemies out of combat.

As she gain levels, pick up Protective Luck, Evil Eye, Cackle, and eventually Fortune. That will allow her to always have something useful to do during combat. You'll probably lead most fights at that point with Protective Luck and Cackle. Then either Evil Eyeing something or casting a spell followed by another Cackle to keep the Protective Luck up.

The easiest build for her spells is to make her a Ray Caster. Just pick up Ascendant Element Fire and she'll have no problems. Eventually you will want Bolster, Empower, and Maximize and the Favored Metamagic for them and she'll be able to Hellfire Ray things into oblivion. Oh! Don't forget Spell Penetration Feats.

Or do something completely different. Build her how you want. I usually turn her into a summoner. Yeah it competes with her Hexing a bit but the Sorcerous Reflex Mythic Feat lets me get one in when I need it. Or I can double Cackle for a turn to make space for it. But you do you.

Here's an example Nenio build I stole from an expert on the subject:

https://pastebin.com/RbdQQSqx

Yeah, that an effective 82 DC enchantment and 59 DC conjuration.

Lann does fine but he's actually the weakest of the three Archers they give you access to. Specifically, he needs more support to do his job. Wenduag is THE best archer because Fighter archers are the best, her stats are good for that role, and you get to build her from level one. Arueshalae comes in a close second but also has options to support the rest of the party via spreading her Favored Enemy bonuses to the group and some minor spells.

So, all this to say, yes. Casters have many purposes. Buffing, debuffing, CC, damage. But at the point in the game you are at, they are best at buffing. They'll start coming online, assuming you are building them well, when you get to Act 3. There will also be items available in Act 3 that can push them beyond their normal limitations. Some of the items called for in that Nenio build are from Act 3.

[Jonkler]

The casters serve as sort a multiplicative boost to your party unless you wanna rest after every other encounter. Thus if your party doesn't have good martial characters than they want help much, but if you have them, even a single caster would boost your party's capabilities tremendously.

So even though martial classes are "better" and never feel like liability, on harder difficulties/further in the game they would become pretty much obsolete without the support that casters provide.

[fox5s]

Originally posted by Jonkler:

The casters serve as sort a multiplicative boost to your party unless you wanna rest after every other encounter. Thus if your party doesn't have good martial characters than they want help much, but if you have them, even a single caster would boost your party's capabilities tremendously.

So even though martial classes are "better" and never feel like liability, on harder difficulties/further in the game they would become pretty much obsolete without the support that casters provide.

That's a much better way to say what I was trying to say. They are a force multiplier especially at the stage of the game you are at. They continue to be so for the whole game.

And, with work, they can do other dangerous things but that was more what my previous post was about.

[fox5s]

Originally posted by Gracey Face:

Nah. Specifically in this game they're actually a liability because you have functionally infinite scrolls (you get enough supplies to scribe something along the lines of 1000 scrolls, on top of all of the ones you just find). Using a caster is actually worse than just giving all of your guys UMD since UMD unlocks access to personal range spells whereas casters except brownfurs can't apply personal range spells to other people.

Casters only become useful if you're either A) unwilling to abuse UMD or B) don't want to spend the time spamming rest on the campaign map. Except I am not sure if you actually end up losing time due to B) compared to the time you save in encounters by having an extra martial.

Peddling that theory again. Barkskin alone disprove what you are trying to say here. Scrolls and potions of it give +2 Natural Armor and last 30 minute. That sounds pretty good on the surface. But, if you actually have a dedicated caster using it, you'll have +3 by level 6, +4 at level 9, and it will cap out at +5 at level 12. And the duration will be MUCH higher and can even be easily taken to 24 hours by the Enduring Spells Mythic. Sure, Amulets of Natural Armor exist. But the spell FAR outstrips them for a LONG time. You won't even have found a +3 Amulet by the time you complete Act 2. And in all of Act 3 I think I saw one +4 amulet.

But sure, UMD that Resist Energy for 10 resistance. You'll be missing out on the other 20 you could be getting by having an actual caster put it up.

And let's talk about all the minute per level spells. UMD that Bulls strength. That will last three minutes. Enough for one fight, maybe two. Then you need to stop and cast a new one. Are your scrolls gonna hold out? Is it worth the annoyance of stopping to recast all the time? You could have one of your casters use it for much more time. Or maybe you'd like to pick up a favored metamagic in Extending that spell potentially doubling their already better duration. Or maybe you'd prefer to work up to Greater Enduring Spells and make it last 24 hours. And that's just one buff. There are dozens of spells you could be augmenting everyone with. Yeah, UMD works. But it's also more work for less return.

And that's not getting into what a caster could be doing when they aren't buffing. Early game, Woljif is great because he can put up about six arcane buffs and still be ready to Sneak Attack things.

Ember doesn't have the best spell selection, but you can have her Mage armor anyone with too high a Dex for armor or who just doesn't use armor. Then Heroism the whole party. Then, in combat, she'll be laying out the Hexes to make everyone's life easy. And can be a source of Unbreakable Heart when the Confusion hits your party. Not to mention all the heals.

Cam works the same way. Buffing like crazy, and Hexing in combat. Ready to deal with status effects when they come in. Plus, you can easily have her doing at least decent damage with little investment.

But please, tell us again how UMD completely replaces all casters at all times and you should just roll up with martials because they can do everything casters can but better.

[Immortal Reaver]

Conjurations are great early on againts Demons, because spells from that school do not target SR, so it is just one check. Pits, Web and Grease checks repeat every 6 secs so it has higher chance to get them.
For companions.
Ember and Cam have access to Evil Eye hex that debuffs target at least for 6 seconds with Cackle can make enemy 10%/(20% after lvl 8) weaker indefinetly. This does not work againts undead and constructs, but is great source of debuff.
Daeran is buff+heal bot especialy with Crusaders Edge, and if you have Abundant Casting and Boneshaker you can make him cast it all the time as side damage that will deal at least half damage.
During act 3 you can get SR high enough to deal proper damage.

[Duder]

Yes, major ones.
By the late game they are unstoppable tools of destruction
Plus I don't know how I'd survive early on without Blur, Haste, Displacement, mirror image, and all the myriad of buffs casters bring to the table.
Ascendent element eletricity and empower a Chain Lightning bolt, better yet use the grandmaster rod on it and fry your enemies. Stormbolts even better, sphere of electric death

While they are weaker earlier on they still serve a purpose. Damage isn't their strongest suit at that point but buffs and like said conjurations work great.
You don't remember them being as weak because the demons - and many of their cronies have elemental resistances

[Deo]

Spellcasters bad early, because it's demon infested campaign and demons in Pathfinder naturally resistant to spells and elemental damage. To beat that, you have to build properly, and it only comes in act 2 - while melees just facerolling through act 1. So your spellcasters just have to do support duties, like buffing melees and throwing occasional Grease/Glitterdust/Web (Selective).
Witch, on the other hand - is a keystone of every viable party in Wotr. She is kinda like a spellcaster, but she is so much more than that.
Now, enemy spellcasters - that's another story. Vrock Votary sends his regards.

[TamTroll]

Give Ember the Ascendent Element (fire) mythic ability, and any fire-damage increasing feats (Evocation) and items you can find. As well as any that increase spell-penetration, and the abundant casting mythic abilities.

What you'll end up with is a powerful blaster that ignores fire immunity and can leave enemies with DoT burning damage among other things.

In the early game, Ember's "Sleep" Hex is handy for hindering enemy forces. That seems to putter out in usefulness by act 4 though.

[Dynamo Rex (mrrexplorer)]

Originally posted by Jeff Kaos:

I'm in the middle of Act II and so far the biggest liability in my party seems to be the spell casters since they have extremely low hit points and if they manage to hit anything with their spells they either do almost no damage or the enemy just resists the spell. Right now I'm using Ember as my primary caster but she's pretty much dead weight. I usually don't play magic users as my main character but with WoR I was considering going outside my comfort zone and doing a spell based MC but I'm really glad I didn't because magic seems really underpowered. I don't remember it being so weak in Kingmaker.

Do magic using party members get better? Or should I just dump them all together and go with a melee and archer party? So far the only person in my party pulling their weight is Lann. He's doing so much damage compared to everyone else I wonder if he's extremely OP or everyone else is just weak? Serious question: if I made a main character a Zen Archer would they be as powerful as Lann? Or is scripted/programmed to be as strong as is for story purposes? For real, he has 4 attacks that never miss and can 1-shot pretty much everything so far. Him plus an MC built identical seems like they could solo the whole game.

Basically no.
The mages in pathfinder are basically two things. ♥♥♥♥ or Broken.
Infernal Ray? Broken
Transformation? Broken
Full Grease and Stun Mage? Broken
Invocator Mage? Broken
The Rest include the Loremaster (except in the pacifist route) mages? Just ♥♥♥♥.
Magic missile dont make a ♥♥♥♥, and the half of spells based in damage are uselles.
Ah and dont forget you need dex (for some reason) for all in a class who are suppose magic XD.
Yeah stupid dex, is horrible in pathfinder.