[Kay's Musings]Thoughts on Continuing To Pursue Sorcery

[Zen]

[OOC: My intention all along had been to dual class at a 3/1 Sorcerer/Rogue ratio, leading to a 15/5 Sorcerer/Rogue in the end. That puts me at the point where I would start dedicating myself to sorcery pretty much exclusively, with one more level of Rogue along the way at some point (which will increase the Sneak Attack by another D6, but that's about it.) However, Kay has started to feel the impact of being dual class in terms of her spells. They aren't quite as effective as she wishes they would be and she just doesn't have that many. She realizes that she truthfully spends the vast majority of her time in melee, not casting spells. She has started to doubt whether dedicating more of her life to sorcery is the right thing to do...

This is the internal thought Kay is having as her Sorcerer powers surge and she realizes she has gained in power yet again... ]

There is a crackle in the air and it has nothing to do with the stench from that cauldron or the Thunderstaff powers on my rapier... No... It's happened again. My power... my skill with sorcery has increased again. I can feel my hair slightly stand on end and smell a faint hint of ozone in the air around me. I reach a tendril into the depths of my mind and feel... OH MY! That! I can ... OH!!! Somehow... The way my spell did nothing earlier... I don't know a lightning bolt would help either... And Transforming... WOW! Kind of like El... But different... So strange... and foreign... Yet not... Because it's part of me... It always has been... I feel that now...

Yes, It is my nature... But is it right? Is it what is best for me? I just feel like my spells fizzle out far too often. I'm not nearly as effective as Anna or Sam or Dothan... But I've been getting more effective in combat. Maybe I'm thinking about things the wrong way? Maybe I should be concentrating more on my blade skills... But I FEEL right as a sorcerer... But I also feel I am really who I am meant to be with a sword in my hand! This sword... Oh how I'd love to get it to be able to have spells stored in it! Maybe there's a way I can do both... Improve my sword skills AND my sorcerer abilities... All at the same time? Am I too greedy?

BAH! Focus, girl! If you don't get your head in the game, you won't have the opportunity to find out if you can do that! You'll die in the ancient tunnels under Jorgenfist!

[Most likely, starting as soon as she can, Kay will start taking levels of the Prestige Class:

This will require a bit of retraining once we have some time off. She needs to get two more levels of Escape Artist in order to qualify for the Prestige Class. This looks to be ideal for Kay because she keeps getting her sorcerer spells slots, spells known, and spells per day as if she were adding on sorcerer levels, so at 1st level Arcane Trickster, she will functionally be an 8th level sorceress, which means I add 4th level spells, etc... I just wouldn't get my bloodline powers, which, from this point on, aren't that impressive in my opinion.

9th level, Thunderbolt 1 time per day. It hits the ground in a single spot and deafens people who fail their reflex save, but it does the same damage as a lightning bolt (except that it isn't capped at 10D6 like Lightning bolt) and lightning bolt can hit multiple opponents in a line. You don't get a 2nd Thunderbolt until 17th level. I'll never get there...

Next power: Level 15, Ride the Lightning - This is cool. You basically take that thunderbolt, make it horizontal, and it is YOU. You move at 10x your normal speed, don't provoke AoO, and blast everything you touch with your sorcerer level XD6 in damage. You can only move in straight lines, but you can use it once, for up to your sorcerer level rounds per day. [This is basically the ARMY DESTROYER SPELL. "See that army standing over there, all bunched up and waiting to attack us? Watch this!" A minute and a half of lightning streaking through the ranks of armored men later, the army is a smoldering wreckage with a few men moaning and the rest just dead with well cauterized wounds. "Let's go get a beer! You're buyin!"]

That said, I won't get that until we are at our penultimate level. It is a long ways off. Sure, it would be absolutely awesome to have, but hey, if I switch to Arcane Trickster, by that time I'll have:

Sneak Attack of 6D6

Four times per day I'll be able to cast spells without Verbal or Somatic components. (I already don't need material components for most.)

That means I can just stand there, say nothing, do nothing, and a lightning bolt will just mow somebody down with no indication that I cast it other than the fact that it originated in front of me

Twice per day I will be able to declare that I'm using a sneak attack without having the normal conditions.

Just say, this is a sneak attack and the person loses their DEX bonus for that attack.

Oh, and I can pick locks at a distance... That's kinda cool in and of itself! Need that lock picked? No Hal! Don't move... [lock picks float up and pick the lock] Go ahead... open the door now... (I'll never have a trap go off in my face again!)

The biggest drawbacks I can think of are not advancing in the current bloodline powers I have.

Thunderstaff gets the ability to do a Shocking Burst at level 9. If I do this, I'll never get there.

Tempest in a Teapot have bigger and better forms, but they don't start until level 12. If I do this, I won't be able to ever be anything bigger than a small lightning elemental. But I can still do a whirlwind, and I can still do disarm, trip, and overrun maneuvers in that form, and I can still move extremely fast and cast spells in that form. (I would still get sneak attack damage as well, I assume...)

So that is Kay's current plan... She'll probably sit down and talk about it with Eldthor soon after we survive this ... That it... think positive...]

[Zen]

So, I guess I need to check with DmDarcs if retraining two skills into two ranks of Escape Artist before we level up to 12 is OK, or if I need to take my 5th level of Rogue, which I probably will anyway at some point, and retrain one skill to Escape Artist?

[I've already got the opening of the scene written in my mind... It involves manacles...]

(The only thing I lose by taking the extra level of thief instead of going all Arcane Trickster that I'd never reach 16th level as a Sorcerer, which means no 8th level spells... Which, for me, would pretty much mean the spell . An awesome spell, no doubt about it... But by taking that extra rogue level at some point, I add an extra 1D6 to my sneak attacks, taking the end-game sneak attack to a total of 7D6 instead of 6D6, add in the ever present Thunderstaff and you get +8D6 damage for most of my attacks with my Keen Rapier, which will have Crit Chances 25% of the time... Since we're angling to get situations to have me in flanking position a lot (eventually... I mean, I already have Gang Up, so all I have to do is have somebody else flanking the guy and I get the bonus.) Most of the time I'll do 9 or 10 D6 worth of damage with my rapier... Sure, with Stormbolts as level 16 Sorcerer/Arcane Trickster I'd do 16D8 damage to EVERYONE AROUND ME (in the directions that I chose to do harm to... from how I read it...) But, you know... You can't have everything... And Anna will be able to take that one! I can just watch and drool...)

[Mike]

Darcs has always been generous with the retraining. And I think Arcane Trickster is ideal for Kay. In fact, if you ask him, I bet he'd let you take Arcane Trickster for THIS level and just add the two extra points out of the skill points you're already gaining.

Kay loves her magic dearly, but she so desperately needs to be able to mix it up in melee as well. This is the perfect path to that end.

And if you start now at 11th level, you have the chance to top out this prestige class.

[Zen]

But then I don't get to this level's bloodline power or free spell (lightning bolt) So I have one fewer 3rd level spell and can't turn into a lightning elemental... And I can get the same number of Sneak Attack dice by adding that one extra level of rogue along the way... which gives me some MUCH NEEDED skill points to toss around. (Sorcerer skill points are so lame... Arcane Trickster are only a bit less so...)