Can Sorcerers be effective offensive casters at 18/2 or 17/3 multi-class?

[KoobTheProud]

I'm thinking about making a Drow Trapsmith as a Sorcerer instead of a Wizard. I like the idea of the synergy that Cha has for UMD and also Will saves with Force of Personality. The question is whether or not I can get away with 18 or even 17 levels of Sorcerer and still have decent offensive casting ability at 20? I wouldn't be skimping on Cha much, if at all, so it really comes down to whether or not -2 or -3 levels of Sorcerer is enough to keep spells from landing on endgame mobs?

I kind of doubt that the idea is feasible but I thought I'd ask people who have tried to get their input on it. Any help is appreciated.

[Trillea]

I'm thinking about making a Drow Trapsmith as a Sorcerer instead of a Wizard. I like the idea of the synergy that Cha has for UMD and also Will saves with Force of Personality. The question is whether or not I can get away with 18 or even 17 levels of Sorcerer and still have decent offensive casting ability at 20? I wouldn't be skimping on Cha much, if at all, so it really comes down to whether or not -2 or -3 levels of Sorcerer is enough to keep spells from landing on endgame mobs?

I kind of doubt that the idea is feasible but I thought I'd ask people who have tried to get their input on it. Any help is appreciated.

One of the main problems is that Sorcs don't even GET 9th level spells until level 18, and then they only get 1. Your spell selection will be gimped, as well as your spell penetration. The spell pen can be somewhat made up for with gear, feats, and enhancements, but the spell selection cannot. Also, since you will not be maxing INT most likely, your trap skills will be VERY hard to keep up.

[Auran82]

As said above, even with a starting cha of 12 (assuming eating a +2 tome at some point and wearing a +6 Cha item) your UMD on a 18/2 wizard would be something like:

23 Base
5 Charisma
6 Shroud item
3 Cartouche
4 GH
----
41 Total

Which is more than enough, you only need 40 to use heal scrolls, and this isn't considering luck bonuses, feat bonus (if you needed it) etc

A Wizard will also have a much higher Int which would be needed to keep all your trap skills maxed having to pay 2 points per rank for the most part.

[Crazyfruit]

The only class I'd really recommend multi-ing with Sorc, and even then only if you know what you'll be losing, is two levels of Paladin. They get an amazing bonus to all saves (+15ish at endgame) and your lay on hands will practically heal anyone up to full health until level 10 or so. It can be fun but it's still "gimped" in most player's views and will get rejected from groups for it.

Only one level 9 spell means you can't have both energy drain & wail of the banshee

Multing 2 levels of sorc will lose:

- Spell pen
- Spell points
- Damage on several spells based on caster levels, or getting them slower than usual
- +10% bonus damage capstone if it's ever fixed
- Spells for level 8 & 9s
- Something else I can't remember

[Dretharis]

The only class I'd really recommend multi-ing with Sorc, and even then only if you know what you'll be losing, is two levels of Paladin. They get an amazing bonus to all saves (+15ish at endgame) and your lay on hands will practically heal anyone up to full health until level 10 or so. It can be fun but it's still "gimped" in most player's views and will get rejected from groups for it.

Only one level 9 spell means you can't have both energy drain & wail of the banshee

Multing 2 levels of sorc will lose:

- Spell pen
- Spell points
- Damage on several spells based on caster levels, or getting them slower than usual
- +10% bonus damage capstone if it's ever fixed
- Spells for level 8 & 9s
- Something else I can't remember

I went 18 Sorc/2 Monk for evasion and a pretty nice save bonus, and I'll have to say I'm very happy with the decision so far.

The spell pen, points, and damage are a tradeoff. Spell pen can be made up for with feats and items, while spell points aren't usually a huge deal, given the large pool you already have to work with. The most significant damage loss would be polar (and DBF if you go that route), but I don't see it as a terrible sacrifice; there are very few situations in which you're spamming Polar, and in most of those there's at least a half dozen other people DPSing as well.

The capstone is currently a non-issue; Turbine hasn't even recognized it as an issue yet, meaning it's a complex issue likely to take some time to fix.

As for spell slots, you lose out on an eigth slot and two ninth slots. Eigth is negligible; the single ninth slot you're left with is a bit restrictive, but the two arguably most popular spells, wail and energy drain, seem a little mutually exclusive. If you're doing raids on hard/elite and need the edrain to land instakill, it's highly unlikely you'll be wailing as well - there's no spell pen IX. If you're wailing in easier content to kill multiple enemies simultaneously, you shouldn't need an edrain. If you don't mind switching back and forth every once in awhile, it's not much of a loss.

With a monk splash, you gain evasion, two free feats (one of which I'd use for toughness, freeing up a leveling feat for Greater Spell Pen or focus), and +3 to saves (+5 if you're centered and in water stance).

If you can afford to get greaves and a shroud crafted absorb item, it's probably not worth it to splash. If you don't see those items coming in your immediate future, I'd think about it.

[Chimaira]

2 Monk is a big waste on a sorc. Even on a wizard. The only MC options for Wiz/Sorc is 2 Rogue and 2 Paladin. Paladin cause sorcs get saves, rogue because a wizard actually has too much skill points, and a caster thats also a trap disabler is actually one of the best uses for a party slot possible. Combine that with the Wizards bonus feats and they easily have a feat slot for insightful reflexes, boosting their reflex up high making evasion very useful.

2 Monk on a sorc gets you feats and evasion which you probably can't use half the time because a sorc is stuck with low reflex save and low DEX. Your better off going 2 paladin and ALWAYS getting 1/2 dmg from anything that gets thrown at you, with elemental protection spell you should maybe get damaged for 40 damage tops.

[Thriand]

If you plan on making a trap smith caster, then wizard would be a much better choice as their high intelligence has a lot of synergy with trap skills as well as modifying their reflex saves for evasion via the insightful reflexes feat. I generally would not recommend multiclassing a sorcerer at all because the loss of known spells really hurts compared to a multiclassed wizard.

[Samadhi]

I agree that making a sorc that does traps seems to stretch yourself too thin. TBH, I don't recommend force of personality either, there just is not enough necessity to have your will save be THAT high that the loss of a feat is worth it.

Now on the other hand, my favorite of my casters right now is an 18/2 Sorc split. Although I occasionally have spell pen issues, it is rare, and my primary crowd control is web (conjuration focused sorc) where spell pen is not an issue anyhow. As for spell selection, I don't have Wail - which is certainly a fun spell - but for Shavarath type stuff nearly everything is saving anyway. The rest of the level nine spells don't strike me as a major loss at this time. I have Energy Drain and that's what counts.

But to primarily agree with the others, if you want trap skills, go Wizard, otherwise you are just stretching yourself too thin.

[drachine]

I don't know what to tell you to do really. I have a 18/2 sorcerer/rogue drow now and i love her, but by no means is she a trapsmith. Don't get me wrong, if I get every buff in the game and prayer and bard song and house deneith intelligence skill potions with all the normal maxed out rogue gear i can disable traps in "A Vision of Destruction" on elite, but I don't want to do that.

Also, Xanndria can sneak around with Dustless Boots and the Deepwood Sniper necklace on the floor near the red area and not be detected. She can sneak up most of the time and hit that switch is well that opens the way to "A Vision of Destruction"

She has absolutely no Spot worth discussing and can open average difficult locks.

Cons:

1) I started off as a Rogue at level 1, therefore, I am missing a sorcerer feat as sorcerer at level 1 you get a feat to start. I have a useless rogue feat I really don't need. I took Skill Focus: Concentration to boost that since I wasn't boosting it for two rogue levels. You could start Sorcerer first which is what I would advise so this does not happen.

2) Being down a feat left me with the following casters feats: Heighten, Maximize, Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Penetration, Spell Focus: Necromancy and Greater Spell Focus Necromancy which I believe were my only choices. This has allowed me to be a devastating Sorcerer. If I could take another it would be Empower. Not a huge loss, instead, I got a helluva a lot of skill points with my rogue levels.

3) Missing 3 spells. Because I only advance to level 18 as a Sorcerer, I only get 1 9th level spell and 2 8th level spells. I took:

9th - Energy Drain
8th - Otto's Irresistable Dance, Polar Ray

I took Energy Drain because it enhances all of my other spells. I can energy drain and cast Suggestion, Disintegrate, etc. If I could take 2 more I would take Hold Monster, Mass and Wail of the Banshee. Not huge losses in my opinion as there is no level 9 spell penetration to use with wail of hold monster, mass so, I think I made the right choice. So far, I haven't run into any place I have needed either.

If I had a 3rd level eight spell I would take Repair Critical Damage, Mass just so I could heal two or more WF on a boss. Also not a huge loss. Level 8 spells are slim pickens as far as quality in my opinion so no one will really notice any loss.

Pros:

1) We have all seen how powerful evasion can be, but to me, there is no greater defense then evasion on a caster. I am playing a pure sorcerer now and she is level 14 and she has a much harder time staying alive. Pure sorcerers have to devote some spells to personal defense. Many take Stoneskin, Protection from Elements, to name a few. I don't have to take hardly any defense spells. I have a few, but I don't need them. Evasion on caster allows you to almost completely ignore Blade Barrier which most casters cannot do. You can also sit and chat with fire elementals. I also try to start with as high a decterity as possible, usually 16 and wear a dex items just to make sure my reflex saves are good. Most casters have to find a pair of Firestorm Greaves (absorbs 33% fire damage) to deal with Arretreikos or Ring of the Djinn (absorbs 33$ electral damage) to deal with undead Sorjek.

2) Live longer. In most situations because of your high evasion, you will live where a lot of casters will not. In demon queen on elite for example. My caster will sometimes be forced to jump off the platform to avoid the moving blade barriers. If she is caught between the queen and the moving blade barriers I will not hesitate to leap off the platform and attemp to feather fall (have it hotkeyed) to a portal to come back to the top. A lot of traps that kill casters do not kill you outright and so on.

3) More skill points which you can throw into anything. My caster can tumble easily away from most any situation. Good UMD and stealth as well and open locks which proves useful in Shroud and other situations.

Personally, I don't notice issues with Spell Penetration too much. My stuff dies if I need it to.

[ddoer]

Pros:

1) We have all seen how powerful evasion can be, but to me, there is no greater defense then evasion on a caster. I am playing a pure sorcerer now and she is level 14 and she has a much harder time staying alive. Pure sorcerers have to devote some spells to personal defense. Many take Stoneskin, Protection from Elements, to name a few. I don't have to take hardly any defense spells. I have a few, but I don't need them. Evasion on caster allows you to almost completely ignore Blade Barrier which most casters cannot do. You can also sit and chat with fire elementals. I also try to start with as high a decterity as possible, usually 16 and wear a dex items just to make sure my reflex saves are good. Most casters have to find a pair of Firestorm Greaves (absorbs 33% fire damage) to deal with Arretreikos or Ring of the Djinn (absorbs 33$ electral damage) to deal with undead Sorjek.

"We have all seen how powerful evasion can be" - evasion is so mod 8. It was powerful in mod 8 for those Dex build and especially when everyone else die in Enter the Kobold except the evasion types, and when the non-evasion melee has to stay in the back when fighting fire elementals in SoS, but I don't see it could be very powerful for a sorc. First, we don't usually get intensive attacks that need to save; second, against any fire-based attack, our cold shield offer a no-save evasion already; and we can keep re-casting protection that reduce any elemental damage by 120.

evasion reduces your damage by a half when you successfully make a reflex save. Many sorc do not focus on Dex and for those who put ability points in it may get to mid-20 that is far from making reliable saves over time. A top notch dex-based ranger has 40+ reflex save, and most evasion type has 30+. what exactly is yours?

2) Live longer. In most situations because of your high evasion, you will live where a lot of casters will not. In demon queen on elite for example. My caster will sometimes be forced to jump off the platform to avoid the moving blade barriers. If she is caught between the queen and the moving blade barriers I will not hesitate to leap off the platform and attemp to feather fall (have it hotkeyed) to a portal to come back to the top. A lot of traps that kill casters do not kill you outright and so on.

DQ2 elite does not seem to be a good example to me because unless a sorc stand still or fooling around in the center of the circle, he won't get killed by the bb anyway. On elite, my initial dex 10 with no dex tome sorc, equipped with my best gears to boost reflex save to 19 or 20, could stand still in the edge of the platform to keep shooting the DQ and seldom need to self-heal or get heal. Getting a few hit from the bb won't get you killed and you can easily self-heal. btw, I actually have never seen anyone jump down for the purpose of avoiding bb, and if you are going to jump down to avoid the blades, why you need reflex save and evasion?

when you fail a reflex save, evasion help you nothing.

I have no doubt your fight will last longer if you could stay alive. IMHO, for sorc, the best strategy to stay alive longer is to get a better casting power and destroy the enemy sooner.

Personally, I don't notice issues with Spell Penetration too much. My stuff dies if I need it to.

for example, when using energy drain against CR19 Orthon/Barbazu that exists every where in Shavarath has SR28, your build fails 10% more in spell penetration than a pure build with full spell-pen spec. Your failure rate is 15%.

[Uska]

"We have all seen how powerful evasion can be" - evasion is so mod 8. It was powerful in mod 8 for those Dex build and especially when everyone else die in Enter the Kobold except the evasion types, and when the non-evasion melee has to stay in the back when fighting fire elementals in SoS, but I don't see it could be very powerful for a sorc. First, we don't usually get intensive attacks that need to save; second, against any fire-based attack, our cold shield offer a no-save evasion already; and we can keep re-casting protection that reduce any elemental damage by 120.

evasion reduces your damage by a half when you successfully make a reflex save. Many sorc do not focus on Dex and for those who put ability points in it may get to mid-20 that is far from making reliable saves over time. A top notch dex-based ranger has 40+ reflex save, and most evasion type has 30+. what exactly is yours?



DQ2 elite does not seem to be a good example to me because unless a sorc stand still or fooling around in the center of the circle, he won't get killed by the bb anyway. On elite, my initial dex 10 with no dex tome sorc, equipped with my best gears to boost reflex save to 19 or 20, could stand still in the edge of the platform to keep shooting the DQ and seldom need to self-heal or get heal. Getting a few hit from the bb won't get you killed and you can easily self-heal. btw, I actually have never seen anyone jump down for the purpose of avoiding bb, and if you are going to jump down to avoid the blades, why you need reflex save and evasion?

when you fail a reflex save, evasion help you nothing.

I have no doubt your fight will last longer if you could stay alive. IMHO, for sorc, the best strategy to stay alive longer is to get a better casting power and destroy the enemy sooner.




for example, when using energy drain against CR19 Orthon/Barbazu that exists every where in Shavarath has SR28, your build fails 10% more in spell penetration than a pure build with full spell-pen spec. Your failure rate is 15%.

Incorrect evasion will reduce this damage to ZERO if they fail their save they take full all of us take half if you make you save, not saying good choice but dont make it out to be worse then it is.

[ddoer]

Incorrect evasion will reduce this damage to ZERO if they fail their save they take full all of us take half if you make you save, not saying good choice but dont make it out to be worse then it is.

you are right. but i still hold the view that evasion is not useful for sorc because:

• we generally do not have enough reflex save to make the save
• with reasonable HP, a half damage when making the save won't kill us (and won't drop our HP significantly in DQ elite), and sorc generally have enough UMD to self heal.

[Uska]

you are right. but i still hold the view that evasion is not useful for sorc because:

• we generally do not have enough reflex save to make the save
• with reasonable HP, a half damage when making the save won't kill us (and won't drop our HP significantly in DQ elite), and sorc generally have enough UMD to self heal.

yeah didtn say it was a good choice I might do it on a wizard but never a sorc.

[Dretharis]

you are right. but i still hold the view that evasion is not useful for sorc because:

• we generally do not have enough reflex save to make the save
• with reasonable HP, a half damage when making the save won't kill us (and won't drop our HP significantly in DQ elite), and sorc generally have enough UMD to self heal.

For an 18/2 Sorc/Monk split, taking Toughness and L Reflexes for the two monk bonus feats:

1 Base 12 Dex
1 Tome
3 Dex Item
2 Feat
4 GH
2 Luck
9 Base
5 Item
1 Alch Bonus
1 Haste
-----
Brings us to a 29.

With an abbot staff/woo stick/kamas,

2 Water Stance
-----
Up to a 31

If you're a Human, you can also get a burst reflex save of 33-35 with human versatility. If you're not, you're either a drow with higher base dex and dex enhancements, or you're a WF with quickened reconstructs.

Should be good for the vast majority of hard endgame content, if not most elite.

You mention DQ Elite - what about DQ Epic?

[Merlocke]

splash rouge if you like evasion. its awesome.

[Dretharis]

splash rouge if you like evasion. its awesome.

I'd probably prefer the monk splash for the reasons outlined above; rogue does offer UMD as a class skill, but you can get it high enough with your charisma and a shroud item, maybe a UMD item as well. Otherwise, you'd gain very little over the monk splash; trapsmithing skills will fairly nonfunctional in comparison to the Wiz/2 rogue build, due to lack of intelligence. I suppose you'd pick up diplomacy, but if that's a priority why not go 2 pal instead?

[Merlocke]

depends. you can make dex a dump stat and focus on int with a tome nom nom for skillpoints and take insightful reflexes just like a wiz does, since you know youll be wearing the napkin neways.

[Dretharis]

depends. you can make dex a dump stat and focus on int with a tome nom nom for skillpoints and take insightful reflexes just like a wiz does, since you know youll be wearing the napkin neways.

I'll admit, hadn't considered that. Interesting thought. It does consume an extra feat though.