Dedicated Utility Casters?

[GrandMajora]

How effective would you say a dedicated utility caster is in this game?

Utility basically meaning somebody who focuses more on crowd control, or summoning minions, as opposed to just blowing the crap out of people?

And as a follow up question, what kind of utility spells would you say are the most effective?

Transmutation has always been my favorite school of magic in D&D, and I suppose that means Pathfinder as well. But I also like Necromancy and have a passing interest with Enchantment, too.

[Beldr]

Enemy saving throws are high enough to make crowd control the weakest form of magic by far, unless you play on a really low difficulty.

Summons on the other hand are really good.

[Cinna]

The usefulness of utility is vastly reduced from Tabletop because most of the good utility effects can't possibly translate as meaningfully to the CRPG. Things like Scrying, Teleport, Charm Person, Suggestion, that would normally be the bread and butter of out-of-combat RP utility casters simply aren't present in the game or are adapted to a gameplay-friendly version that can't facilitate the utility uses it once had.

[Selvokaz]

That's usually what a Cleric does, their spell list isn't the most offensive for that very reason.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by Beldr:

Enemy saving throws are high enough to make crowd control the weakest form of magic by far, unless you play on a really low difficulty.

Summons on the other hand are really good.

I'm playing on Custom difficulty, modified from Story mode (I turn off the auto level).

I'll try a higher difficulty mode after I beat the game at least once. For now, I'm just sick of the automatic game overs.

I had to delete my Alchemist who had JUST BECOME KING, because I didn't have any advisors free to handle a bunch of Fey Pranksters. I was too busy researching how to get to Armag's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ tomb!

[Graygan]

In short?

Extremely effective.

Longer reasons...

You can buff every stat, raise AC through the roof, make your tanks Gods of the battlefield. Then, you can make them go faster while the enemies go slower and fall over to the ground.

Or you can just freeze the enemies in place so your tanks can beat them down.

Etc.

Utility casters can be awesome. Whether it's a Cleric, Wizard, or Bard... You can really make a difference. Druids and other casters can be utility casters as well, but not as much as Wizards and Bards or even Clerics.

[Shadenuat]

Web, summons, Confusion, Haste, Heroism are all very powerful. You'd have to focus on improving your DC as caster though.

Also you get very high level scrolls in this game. Like, you can cast 5th level spells and get 8th level scrolls worth of loot. So Scroll Sage is very interesting kit.