Spellcasters are kind of useless

[Elepuff]

Just want to add my two cents into viable character classes

There are certain classes that are just not viable. At present, mages are kind of useless. The utility of martial classes just outweighs the magic characters by a significant margin. The clerics companion can easily fulfill the buff/debuff duties
I list some of the arguments below

1. For a vast majority of the game, they are pathetically weak and are only useful for buffs.
The debuffs rarely hits due to high saves on the enemies. People say that they they get higher end spells later on, which is true but for 80% of the game, you will be playing the nanny for the rest of the party.

2. Due to the insane number of enemy engagements in this game. A mage can use up nearly all his useful spells every quickly before needing a rest. And when there are time pressures and non-restocking merchants, playing mages become a chore. All the theory crafting about getting 500+ damage on a sneak hellfire ray sounds good in theory, but useless in actual gameplay. You can only in theory do those damage at high levels, which is towards the end of the game - so unless you want to feel useless for 60 -70 hours - play a pure mage class.

3. Even if you can do those insane damages, provided the spells hits, you are still like a one trick pony - remember you need to rest a lot and the loading screens is insane. So if you want to have a game over - kingdom destroyed - or don't mind the loading screens...yea...rest as much as you want. In dungeons, where there is like at least 10 + encounters per map, you are probably as useful as a random NPC.

4. In order for mages to do some decent sustained damage, they need to multiclass to get some sneak attack or animal companion - and that limits the mage class growth and its usefulness even further. Don't even talk tanking sorcerors - the AC requirements not to be hit in this game is extremely high. Anyone who puts Harrim into the frontlines can tell you that and he is suppose to be a tank/cleric.

Whereas martial classes (except monks) deal sustained damage and sustain throughout the entire game. A few front line martial classes can nearly finish a fight before a mage completes one spell. E.g fight starts - I will chuck a fireball - martial and archers rush over - fireball hits for a measly 30 - 50 dmg maybe. Before I can chuck another spell...fight is over

Look at the damage screen - what did my mage do? Absolutely nothing......

[Will]

Arcane casters, especially sorcerers, are capable of some impressive burst damage, true. But if you're relying on spells for your damage output frankly you're doing it wrong.

The role casters truly shine in, is as force multipliers. Battlefield control spells are where it's at. Play around with Glitterdust and Stinking Cloud.

[TaurusBully]

This guy plays story mode, hence why he thinks hitters land more than mages...

[Humble]

Don't forget many quest had timer limit, so rouge and fighter is way more useful as they need less rest while can fight more number of battle, wizard do not, only good for one or 2 battle then rest again to recover spell again, like I said, action is count, that is all matter. While Wizard had spell that can be cool, but good only by limited, once they used that, then become useless after that and next battle if they can't rest to reocver spell, worse case spell fail and lost, enemies still standing and useless, it's better off add rougue with sneak attack or fighter or cleir with healing but bearable fighting with mace and armors. People would not find fun to play wizard class if they try to hold and don't use wizard spell in most battle and depend on fighter to get job done almost every battle because limited number of spell cast and can't spam spell every battle without rest like fighter and rouge do. Troll? No problem fighter got fire weapon, enemies need magic weapon, no problem fighter had that too, no need wizard, so go on.

[palathas]

I've been playing through with a Sylvan Sorcerer with a Leopard pet and he's going well so far. I wanted to up my average dmg output though and am considering an Aasimar Magus (Eldritch Archer).

I find these are useful spells: Ear-piercing Scream, Ray of Enfeeblement, Acid Arrow, Mirror Image, Hideous Laughter, Haste, Slow, Fireball, Ice Storm, Stoneskin.

Some of these spells work well to either decrease enemy dmg or increase party dmg. Others have handy side effects on top of the damage.

[Darkfireslide]

Vancian magic is one of the things that makes D&D/Pathfinder so special. Yeah, Wizards and Sorcerers can only cast so many spells per day, but often their top level spells literally solve encounters.
For example, the Ancient Wisps are a really tough set of encounters unless you have Communal Resist Energy. Then it's a cakewalk.
Fear spells and other status effects can eliminate half an enemy group in one round of casting for the melee characters to clean up. Encounter solved, including those ridiculous Owlbears.
I had a damage mage outrun a giant venus flytrap and pepper it with lightning bolts and other spells until it died. No danger to the party, encounter solved.
Even blaster type casters can carry their weight. Against even 4 enemies a single fireball can usually outdamage 2 full rounds of damage from a similar level fighter. And these are just the early spells.
And if not, there are plenty of incredibly useful arcane buffs. Pretty much no matter how you play a caster it will be useful so long as you give them abilities that can solve the encounter at hand.

[TEMPIEST]

Two things that I have dont see in this chat, Metamagic and AoE. My Driud Can cast floor spells that slow, debuff and damage AoE. Sometimes the enemies are all dead before reach my group who is waiting for them to arrive, plus the Range characters will pick them fast too because the enemies are debuffed. Plus there are alot of wands that give you alot of spells.

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by palathas:

I've been playing through with a Sylvan Sorcerer with a Leopard pet and he's going well so far. I wanted to up my average dmg output though and am considering an Aasimar Magus (Eldritch Archer).

I find these are useful spells: Ear-piercing Scream, Ray of Enfeeblement, Acid Arrow, Mirror Image, Hideous Laughter, Haste, Slow, Fireball, Ice Storm, Stoneskin.

Some of these spells work well to either decrease enemy dmg or increase party dmg. Others have handy side effects on top of the damage.

Leopard was a mistake. Smilodon gets 5 attacks, Leopard gets 3. Stats are similar, so there's no contest in which is better.

[AzureTheGamerKobold]

Originally posted by Sotanaht:

Originally posted by Shadenuat:

What do you mean by "maybe"

It's not Pillars of Eternity, you can 1-shot enemy groups with spells if you want before they even react. Web > Fireball. It's as simple as that for low level encounters.

I absolutely HATE web. I can't argue that it can be effective for cheesy strats, but it's so annoying for my own team. It lasts 1 minute/level and because the sorc has such insanely high DCs there's basically no way for my own teammates to get out of it. If I need to solo something with the sorc web would be good but I'm not putting that spell anywhere near my team OR the loot, I'd rather blast them with sirocco, at least that only lasts 15 rounds.

Step 1: cast freedom of movement on party
Step 2: cast web
Step 3: laugh as you aren't effected by web
Step 4: murder everything...

If i can garner a guess people hate micro managing mages p

Originally posted by Voodoo:

Originally posted by AzureTheGamerKobold:

my 40d6 disentgrate says hi

my 8 x 10d8 sneak attack rogue says hi...
4 attacks at full ab, 2 at -5, 2 at -10

if you read earlier i already acknowleged that knife master rogue can actually do more damage then a straight up mage in kingmaker, but only with a sneak attack. Granted those are pretty easy to do and you put yourself in danger to do it. The discussion was more along the lines of " are mages useless " and answer is no, far from it. Also the fact that well just as an example...

Great Wyrm Red Dragon CR 22

XP 615,000
CE Colossal dragon (fire)
Init +2; Senses dragon senses, smoke vision; Perception +38; Aura fire (10 ft., 2d6 fire), frightful presence (360 ft., DC 30)

DEFENSE

AC 39, touch 0, flat-footed 39 (-2 Dex, +39 natural, -8 size)
hp 449 (29d12+261)
Fort +25, Ref +14, Will +24
DR 20/magic; Immune fire, paralysis, sleep; SR 33
Weaknesses Vulnerability to cold

OFFENSE

Speed 40 ft., fly 250 ft. (clumsy)
Melee bite +37 (4d8+24/19-20), 2 claws +37 (4d6+16), 2 wings +35 (2d8+8), tail slap +35 (4d6+24)
Space 30 ft.; Reach 20 ft. (30 ft. with bite)
Special Attacks breath weapon (70-ft. cone, DC 33, 24d10 fire), crush (Large creatures, DC 33, 4d6+24), incinerate, manipulate flames, melt stone, tail sweep (Medium creatures, DC 27, 2d8+24)

Spell-Like Abilities (CL 29th; concentration +35) [/bold]

this is the stats for a great wyrm red dragon if you had to hit this guy in pen and paper his AC is a wooping 39 in this game it would be WAY higher but it serves as a pretty good example. However as a fighter you have to hit his 39 when you roll...

A mage has to roll --- a zero... because his touch AC is zero, meaning you will probably spend most of your combat wiffing every attack. But a wizard or sorc will hit 90% of the time if not more. This is why cantrip that does 1d3 isn't nearly as terrible as it sounds. A good example of this is valarie whom my sorc can hit almost without trying this is because...

A sorcerer or Wizard totally ignores armor, shield and natural AC entirely so later on down the road when you are struggling to hit things a sorc can still peg you with 1d3 cantrips all day and never break a sweat. So on the topic of disentegrate...

1: i dont need the target to be flat footed
2: i only have to hit there touch AC which is often very easy to hit
3: getting huge DC's is pretty easy and i've yet to have issues getting stuff to stick

The idea that a caster is useless is absurd... that's the only point i was trying to make, and none of that really matters when you factor in things like baleful polymorph and wail of the banshee.

[solthusx]

Originally posted by AzureTheGamerKobold:

Originally posted by Sotanaht:

I absolutely HATE web. I can't argue that it can be effective for cheesy strats, but it's so annoying for my own team. It lasts 1 minute/level and because the sorc has such insanely high DCs there's basically no way for my own teammates to get out of it. If I need to solo something with the sorc web would be good but I'm not putting that spell anywhere near my team OR the loot, I'd rather blast them with sirocco, at least that only lasts 15 rounds.

Step 1: cast freedom of movement on party
Step 2: cast web
Step 3: laugh as you aren't effected by web
Step 4: murder everything...

If i can garner a guess people hate micro managing mages p

In my case, its not so much that I hate micro managing mages, I'm just bad at it (at least in games like this. No issues in tabletop). And if you say 'Spellcasters are weak' to any experienced D&D/Pathfinder player, they'll laugh at you, a lot*.

*Exceptions being the rare case who only ever plays at low levels.

[Sild]

My lvl 13 Sorc outlasts my Cleric in terms of spells per rest.. so if the cleric needs rest.. well everybody needs rest.. really your whole point of not efficient per rest is basically invalid at this point.. with about 8 casts per day of level 2-level 5 and 5 casts of level 6. That's like 8 casts of fireball/lightning, 8 casts of dragon breath, 8 casts of fire snake, 5 casts of chain lightning/disintegrate and others... most spells are AoE so it's going to take some good positioning and aiming to get the most out of your sorc.

Also being able to mow down a dozen enemies with one spell would qualify as being a badass in my book.. but hey to each their own

[Esmian]

Okay but can we talk about the guy saying he was going to beat a red dragon by spamming acid splash? Or I guess ray of cold to get that sweet vulnerability damage.

[Shadenuat]

Originally posted by Elepuff:

And how long of the game do you have before you acquire this level of stats and equipment?

No amount of time is too great on a path to arcane power.

[DwarfLivesMatter]

<is dead from "mages are useless>

[solthusx]

Originally posted by Esmian:

Okay but can we talk about the guy saying he was going to beat a red dragon by spamming acid splash? Or I guess ray of cold to get that sweet vulnerability damage.

I don't know how effective spamming cantrips is, but hitting their Touch AC is generally the best way to deal with dragons.

[palathas]

Originally posted by Sotanaht:

Originally posted by palathas:

I've been playing through with a Sylvan Sorcerer with a Leopard pet and he's going well so far. I wanted to up my average dmg output though and am considering an Aasimar Magus (Eldritch Archer).

I find these are useful spells: Ear-piercing Scream, Ray of Enfeeblement, Acid Arrow, Mirror Image, Hideous Laughter, Haste, Slow, Fireball, Ice Storm, Stoneskin.

Some of these spells work well to either decrease enemy dmg or increase party dmg. Others have handy side effects on top of the damage.

Leopard was a mistake. Smilodon gets 5 attacks, Leopard gets 3. Stats are similar, so there's no contest in which is better.

I had no idea what a Smilodon was at the time.

The Leopard is also supposed to get Dex bonus added to dmg instead of strength but that is bugged and doesn't work.