Skeletal Champion: Spell Casting?

[GrandMajora]

Just moments ago at the time of writing this, I realized that the Skeletal Champion granted to the Lich path has a base score of 10 on their Intelligence and Wisdom.

Why is this important, you ask? Well, because I decided to make them into a Cleric as one of their mythic upgrades.

If you're familiar with the rules, you know that in order to cast a spell, you need a casting attribute of 10 + the spell's level. But with a base score of 10 Wisdom, this means the skeleton is only able to perform cantrips, and can't cast spells of 1 or higher, without getting bonuses from potions, spells, scrolls, or magical equipment!

I was forced to remove his really good helm that gave him 10 resistance to most energy types, in order to replace it with a Headband of Mental Perfection.

[Chronocide]

Originally posted by GrandMajora:

Just moments ago at the time of writing this, I realized that the Skeletal Champion granted to the Lich path has a base score of 10 on their Intelligence and Wisdom.

Why is this important, you ask? Well, because I decided to make them into a Cleric as one of their mythic upgrades.

If you're familiar with the rules, you know that in order to cast a spell, you need a casting attribute of 10 + the spell's level. But with a base score of 10 Wisdom, this means the skeleton is only able to perform cantrips, and can't cast spells of 1 or higher, without getting bonuses from potions, spells, scrolls, or magical equipment!

I was forced to remove his really good helm that gave him 10 resistance to most energy types, in order to replace it with a Headband of Mental Perfection.

yeah....it's annoying, very annoying.

I feel like they just lost focus developing the lich path, at some point.

Anyway, yeah, only solution is items to improve stats.

[reidj062]

The skeletal companion is garbage. Thing goes down as often as Bismuth. I get it's not supposed to be as powerful as a companion, but it's just useful as an arrow magnet. It's got 108 hp when my tanky companions have over 200.

[Chronocide]

Originally posted by reidj062:

The skeletal companion is garbage. Thing goes down as often as Bismuth. I get it's not supposed to be as powerful as a companion, but it's just useful as an arrow magnet. It's got 108 hp when my tanky companions have over 200.

Any chance you are giving it Con stat bonuses to improve it's HP?

Undead use CHA for HP.

The 4 variants have different stats, with the Tank variant having the most CHA (20) starting. Pretty substantial differences in HP.

[Deo]

Lich got nerfed super hard many times, Owlcat hates Lich. End of story.

Use Skeletal Marksman-caster and pick "Magic Devourer" Lich power. Since Skeletal Marksman doesn't have any chance to beat your Spell Resistance - he will make your next spell Quickened, always. Free metamagic rod, of sorts.

[GrandMajora]

I'm currently running my skeletal champion as a Fighter / Cleric. He's also wielding the corrupted version of Radiance.

Can't find a head piece to bump his Wisdom up to 15, so he can't cast his 5th level spells.

[reidj062]

Originally posted by Chronocide:

Originally posted by reidj062:

The skeletal companion is garbage. Thing goes down as often as Bismuth. I get it's not supposed to be as powerful as a companion, but it's just useful as an arrow magnet. It's got 108 hp when my tanky companions have over 200.

Any chance you are giving it Con stat bonuses to improve it's HP?

Undead use CHA for HP.

The 4 variants have different stats, with the Tank variant having the most CHA (20) starting. Pretty substantial differences in HP.

Using the skeletal fighter. Gave him a +6 headband from toybox to try and help him keep up. His AC is decent, attack is pretty good, but HP is still way below the companions'. And he should only be using a d8 hit die instead of a d10, so I'm not sure why he's so HP poor. Might be like a pet where his level is -4 compared to my own.

[Chronocide]

Originally posted by reidj062:

Using the skeletal fighter. Gave him a +6 headband from toybox to try and help him keep up. His AC is decent, attack is pretty good, but HP is still way below the companions'. And he should only be using a d8 hit die instead of a d10, so I'm not sure why he's so HP poor. Might be like a pet where his level is -4 compared to my own.

[/quote]
He's a free extra for the party, which by itself is useful.

The tank version has 20 CHA, which with the typical +6 headband combines to a +8 mod to cha. Lord beyond the grave furthers it with another +6 CHA at mythic rank 10, so they got +11 mod to CHA. And the tanky version has toughness too, by default.

So at like level 20 and mythic 10, they'll have at least 200 HP (likely closer to 300 hp). Meanwhile, my lich had like 500 hp...

Have you looked at the lich spell "restore undead"?
https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/Restore+Undead

Don't really need high health when you can instantly restore it. Just needs to survive a single round of being damaged.

Furthermore, the big kicker is if you take the cleric upgrade, since cleric has channel, and channel heals based on CHA, of which the tank has in spades.

There's a heavy mace that adds to negative energy channel and a helm too. I took the broken trickster mask for the skeleton for the +6 wis and +6 cha.

Heals pretty well. Not amazing, perhaps not as good an extra merc, but definitely better than nothing and he costs nothing.

[reidj062]

I'm doing lich slayer, so the lich spells aren't a huge thing this time around. Also, by your own math, assuming you're going lich wizard, you just admitted that the skeleton is 200-300 hp short of what your d6 caster is getting. That's not great.

[GrandMajora]

Undead use Charisma for their HP pool, and by the end of my most recent playthrough, my Skeleton Champion had about 39 Charisma.

[Veronica]

I always use energy protection communal spells before a fight so I dont think it is that much of a big deal if u have a party member that can cast it.Daeran and sosiel was able to cast it so maybe skeletal champ can do tho I didnt try it before.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by Veronica:

I always use energy protection communal spells before a fight so I dont think it is that much of a big deal if u have a party member that can cast it.Daeran and sosiel was able to cast it so maybe skeletal champ can do tho I didnt try it before.

Yeah, but even with the Mythic Abilities extending the duration to 24 hours, the spell wears off after absorbing a certain amount of damage. Plus, you have to waste multiple spell slots in order to protect you from more than one element at a time.

This helm just gave its wearer 10 resistance to all the elemental types for as long as they wore it.

Was a really good helm. :-)