Need help for some battle magic user

[Taldan35]

Hello everyone

I have recently been inspired by a game of p&p pathfinder where I played a magus. To those who don't know, magus is a kind of magic user that also focuses on melee fighting. He can channel some of his spells in one hand, wielding a sword in the other. Sometimes even channel a spell through his sword.

 

I was thinking about a battlemage or a cipher/warrior, but I'd like to avoid fighter/druid, because I don't want to spiritshift into an animal.

 

What would you guys recommend ?

[Phenomenum]

You can play even with single class melee wizard. Or Wizard/Assassin (Trickster subclass) which gives you additional single target melee power and some free defensive spells.

[Taldan35]

Oh thanks

Also, is one handed combat style worth it ?

[Boeroer]

Not really. Early game it's good but it falls behind rather quickly.

There are some special builds where it can be good, but generally it's an inferior pick.

[Phenomenum]

38 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Not really. Early game it's good but it falls behind rather quickly.

 

39 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

but generally it's an inferior pick.

Some builds/classes are just about fun and roleplay, not about math and effectiveness.

[Boeroer]

Sure, but it didn't sound as if Taldan35 was asking for fluff worth but powergaming worth.

[Taldan35]

TBH my question was vague. Ofc i'm interested in numbers, but fun is the most important part of any game for me. Even though most of the time, for me, beeing highly effective is fun

I'll narrow it down. I want to play POTD upscaled with the 8 characters mods, in order to bring everyone along with me. For this, I plan to play turn based, even though I always played RTWP for this kind of games, I'm willing to try that out, if that's the price to bring everyone aboard in one run. I don't see myself micromanaging 8 characters, especially with 2 of whom I won't even see the portrait (yeah interestingly enough, the UI supports 6 characters)

So the game won't be THAT hard, because of the numbers of character I'll have in my team, but I don't want to shoot a character in the foot either, because I don't want him to be ineffective in combat.

What I imagined for my character was mostly someone who fights melee with 1 handed weapon (or maybe 1h & shield), and who is also able to cast some spells in and out of combat. Buffs, but also fluff like fire, sparks, etc... or even some CC maybe.  Any way to make that work ?

I was thinking about cipher, because it's the relatively natural choice with fighter psyblade, but it looks a bit boring... Farm focus, spam the high burst special cipher skill... I'd like to do more stuff with my character than this. I also don't really like the whole soul manipulation stuff. I'm a dude who wants to save souls, and prevent enthropy, so I'm not going to shatter everyone's soul or deplete their essence by using it for my spells (especially not those of my allies to buff them !!). From a RP standpoint, the cipher is really not the type of magic I want to use.

Druid looks really really nice, but it seems like it's really highly dependent on the spiritshift, and would hinder myself highly by not using it. And I don't like the spiritshift gimmick. So wizard is the one I'm going for, I guess.

Edited February 23, 2020 by Taldan35

[Phenomenum]

2 hours ago, Taldan35 said:

I want to play POTD upscaled with the 8 characters mods

In this case grab whatever you like - melee wizard will be fine.

+ 3 characters is the HUGE advantage and even with unoptimized builds you barely fall into troubles. If you learn some game mechanics of course.

Edited February 24, 2020 by Phenomenum

[Haplok]

IMO go melee weapon main hand + ranged weapon (blunderbuss/pistol/scepter/wand) offhand.

Gives you the attack speed of dual-wielding, but when close to the enemy you always strike with main hand, when at range you shoot at him.

Works really nice for ciphers and many of their multiclasses, as they have great active powers and great passives, but lack physical "special attacks" - and Full Attack abilities would be fairly poor with this combo.

Plus you can use two weapons that have 1-per-encounter abilities that provide massive Focus when used. The extreme case is Thuderous Report of Kitchen Stove blunderbuss (HUGE cone aoe, HUGE damage + Daze CC).

I used to couple it with Grave Calling saber (can create party friendly Chilling Fogs when you kill a vessel - even your summoned skeletons; those Chillfog aoes damage & Blind enemies, generate Focus for you and with proper enchantment can even freeze - paralyse enemies), but now I love the rapier Seeker's Fang from SSS DLC. Does a very strong Focus scaling DOT on crit, lesser DOTs on hits, has fast attack speed & bonus accuracy (like all rapiers) and it's Spider's Flurry per-encounter special is a cone aoe 3-hit combo - that reliably applies these DOTs to multiple enemies aaaand provides a ton of Focus in the process.

So my Transcendant Ascendant at the beginning of combat instant-Ascends after firing the Thunderous Report and can freely spam his powers and afflict enemies with deadly DOTs. When the enemies are nicely bunched OR Ascension runs out, he can use Spider's Flurry to typically instant-Ascend again.

Edited February 24, 2020 by Haplok