Getting back into DnD, need advice on a sorc

[Jolly]

It’s been a few years since I’ve played DnD, and I had no idea about CO when I was playing. I usually played rogues, and this will be my first entry into 1. Arcane casters 2. Optimization. Here are the parameters of the campaign.

Pre-made standard DnD campaign.

Starting at level 5.

Stats generated via rolling dice not point buy, and I rolled very well.

20k gold starting buy in, limited magical item availability afterwards.

Any PHB or DMG spells/items accepted, most SpC spells accepted and MIC items on a case by case basis. Mage’s Circlet and Healing belt already accepted but at too high of a cost to be practical.

The rest of the party: a druid (not sure on build) and a barbarian/fighter BSF. Possibly another char or two.
The rest of the players are both inexperienced and far too busy taking care of small children to spend hours learning about CO. I realize that’s like heresy around here, but they’re just not going to invest a ton of time into builds etc and I don’t blame them.

My goal is to make folks more awesome while being able to pull my own weight. I don’t want to be the only optimized char and totally outshine everyone, but I want to be powerful in a way to makes everyone else’s char’s better while still being able to kill some baddies.

I’m aiming for versatility in spell selection, which is helped tremendously by the custom runestaff. I’m trying to cover a few emergency bases with scrolls. I’m hoping for a critique of spell and item selection as well as feats. I don’t want to get too cheesy, no polymorph/alter self shenanigans, no kobold nonsense etc. Hoping to stay in core and the two compendiums, DM doesn’t have a ton of books.

Here’s a link to the char sheet, be gentle. http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=557806


Edit: oh, and I'm hoping to spend the last 2k gp on a Ring of Silent Spells, waiting on DM approval.

[mthor]

Just as a quick note before things start rolling. If versatility is your major goal, wizard will be better. It kind of frowned upon to suggest a class change instead of optimizing the character, but since you mentioned versatility was a major goal then i figured it was ok.

Edit: Also I figure I'd better post this. This is actually the guide that brought me to bg and it is a good read if you have the time. Solo's Sorcerer

[Jolly]

Yeah, I understand wizard would be both higher tier and more versatile. I just don't care for them though, and if I don't enjoy the class them how powerful it is doesn't make much difference.

I am planning on pretending to be a wizard though (a halfling one at that) partly as protection if I need to change identities, partly for the lulz if I get taken captive. Always a possibility with our DM.

[mthor]

Indeed. So just curious are all sources allowed for feats and other such nonsense?

[Jolly]

Anything outside of Core is a case by case thing. And he'll google whatever I tell him so of it shows up on a list of "zomg most broken stuff evar!" I probably can't have it.

Edit: I love Solo's guide, read through that several times as well as the spell analysis parts of the God Wizard guide.

[mthor]

Well there is always the option of getting Arcane Preparation now and then going into mage of the arcane order. It is probably the top of the line for versatile prestige classes though it does require you to be in an organization, not sure how that would work out in your campaign. There are a couple different routes you could go with this sorcerer. If you want to be a blaster type then the mailman guide will probably be your best friend. I personally have been working on a sorcerer/incantrix for the Worlds largest dungeon and that has been pretty fun (free persisted spells are nice). So what do you see yourself doing at level 20?

[Jolly]

Oh man, that is a great point and I totally should have mentioned it in the first post. Thanks for reminding me.

This is kind of a time limited game. With schedules the way they are we'll be playing once maybe twice a month. And one of the group is pregnant so in about 8 months we'll be taking a long break if not ending the campaign. I'd say this char will top out at 12-15, so I'm not as worried about the long term or higher levels as I won't see them.

[mthor]

Well that part of the bigger question but the other one is what do you want to do with the character? Is he a point and die or is he a save or suck. With the high charisma you have you could take spell focus (conj) and rule the first couple levels before going into incantrix(im on an incantrix kick, can you tell?).

[WarlockLord]

So what do you see yourself doing at level 20?

No. No. NO!

What you want to do is plan out for the here and now.  You have 15 levels of play, and you are a full caster, but it's extremely unfun to go through a bunch of levels qualifying for PrCs and waiting for the Supa Ultimate Kombo to come online only to have the game end before that. 

If you want a versatile spell list, Mage of the Arcane Order works as others have suggested.  If Dragon's allowed you can look into the bloodline feats. 

I'd drop ray of clumsiness and lesser orb of cold for charm person and maybe nerveskitter.  You have no actual support for dealing heavy spell damage.

[Rebel7284]

If you want to make other people awesome, focus on buffing your allies? War weavers are good at buffing especially with that "silverymoon " prestige class that makes more spells touch

[Jolly]

Well that part of the bigger question but the other one is what do you want to do with the character? Is he a point and die or is he a save or suck. With the high charisma you have you could take spell focus (conj) and rule the first couple levels before going into incantrix(im on an incantrix kick, can you tell?).

I'm hoping to be more about enhancing the party, without totally sacrificing offensive output of my own. So haste+enlarge person on the barbarian, grease+web+ray of clumsiness on the baddy etc. I realize that's not terribly specific, but I'm trying to avoid being overly focused.

So what do you see yourself doing at level 20?

If you want a versatile spell list, Mage of the Arcane Order works as others have suggested.  If Dragon's allowed you can look into the bloodline feats. 

I'd drop ray of clumsiness and lesser orb of cold for charm person and maybe nerveskitter.  You have no actual support for dealing heavy spell damage.

I'll look into Mage of the Arcane Order and see if our DM will allow.

As for the spells, that's interesting. I was thinking of the lesser orb just so I'd have a damage dealing spell of 1st level to spam, and with the energy substitution feat it's at least a little less likely to be resisted. Ray of clumsiness I was thinking would go well with grease. I completely agree that I have nothing to buff my own spell damage, but I was hoping to help buff the hacky slashy types damage.

The thing I was worried about with charm person is I don't know what kind of module we're getting into. If it is heavy undead or critters instead of humanoids, I'd feel like that was a wasted slot.

If you want to make other people awesome, focus on buffing your allies? War weavers are good at buffing especially with that "silverymoon " prestige class that makes more spells touch

I was trying to do that without entirely gimping myself. Did you have any suggestions beyond war weaver, which I'll definitely be checking out?


Thanks for all the help everyone, I really appreciate it.

[WarlockLord]

Grease is independantly awesome.

There aren't that many feats I can think of that will help a buffer unless you start breaking out persistence.  Extend is good but rods exist and you don't really have the spell levels to take advantage of it.

I recommend making sure you have some of these.

[Caylin]

Glitterdust in the place of web. Doesn´t hinder the melee as much as a web might and helps against hidden/invisible enemies as well. Remains useful a very long time.

[mthor]

So what do you see yourself doing at level 20?

No. No. NO!

What you want to do is plan out for the here and now.  You have 15 levels of play, and you are a full caster, but it's extremely unfun to go through a bunch of levels qualifying for PrCs and waiting for the Supa Ultimate Kombo to come online only to have the game end before that. 

If you want a versatile spell list, Mage of the Arcane Order works as others have suggested.  If Dragon's allowed you can look into the bloodline feats. 

I'd drop ray of clumsiness and lesser orb of cold for charm person and maybe nerveskitter.  You have no actual support for dealing heavy spell damage.

I feel like you all misunderstand what I meant. Since I optimize much more then I play I only build 20th level characters. And then I scale them back to see if they will be interesting at the level I am playing at. So I wanted to know what he wanted to do with his character. A.K.A. blaste, buffer, bc specialist r. I am pretty sure that you will agree that if you don't plan out your character in advance then you will never prc effectively.
 
As for buffing war weaver is pretty fun. You could combine it with mage of the arcane order, sandshaper or Rainbow Servent for more spells.  I also saw a build recently that focused on using incantrix and chain/ touch spells to give your entire party 24/48 hour buffs. To be fair that relies on a couple of very RAW interpretations ( chain spell makes spells have a fixed range mostly). But these would all be fun imo.
I would also like say that Energy sub is really sub par, you would be better off with spell focus(conj) or something else. You could also replace improved init. with something else like prerec.
P.S. For the record I would Really suggest sandshaper if you are looking for versatility. It adds something like 48 spells to your spells known. listed here

(click to show/hide)

1st—bear's endurance, bull's strength, cat's grace, endure elements, parching touch, speak with animals, summon desert ally I.
2nd—eagle's splendor, fox's cunning, heat metal, owl's wisdom, resist energy, summon desert ally II, summon swarm.
3rd—control sand, desiccate, dispel magic, dominate animal, haboob, slipsand, summon desert ally III, sunstroke, tormenting thirst, wind wall.
4th—blast of sand, summon desert ally IV, wall of sand, wither.
5th—choking sands, flaywind burst, flesh to salt, summon desert ally V, transmute sand to stone, transmute stone to sand.
6th— awaken sand, mummify, sandstorm, summon desert ally VI.
7th—mass flesh to salt, summon desert ally VII.
8th—summon desert ally VIII, whirlwind.
9th—summon desert ally IX.

[Jolly]

Great advice everyone, I appreciate it. Looks like Mage of the Arcane Order isn't allowed, I'll look into Sandshaper. I am still confused about a couple things.

There was a suggestion that I drop the lesser orb, which would leave me with only one spell that does damage, a fire based one. As well as another to drop the energy substitution feat for a +1 to DC for a school. Now, my thought was that fire is so commonly resisted it would be good to have as much variety in the type of damage I could do as possible. I want to avoid trying to be a save or die kind if player as with the limits on prestige classes and equipment I'm worried about being able to get DC's high enough to be reliable. And if I want to be able to buff, debuff, BC, as well as damage my slots to devote to direct damage spells are limited so I should try to get as much versatility in damage types as possible.

Is that poor logic? Would I really be better served with a +1 to DC from a specific school?

[WarlockLord]

You really don't care.  Blasting is pretty much the last resort of "I have nothing else useful so I will cast fireball."  Lesser orb's damage is crap anyway.

As far as DCs go, you need to know your opponent's weak saves and target those.  Or use battlefield control. 

You might try to jack up your illusion saves and grab the image line, than figure out how they are going to be ruled as.  If done correctly they can offer no save.

[Endarire]

At this level, things tend to have lower Will and Reflex saves.