Hi Folks,

first of all: I am really sorry, that I cannot spend as much time on Dump Shock as I want to. Unfortunately real life comes first and especially during December, business covers most of my living-time. Even more unfortunate is, that our group wanted to try something new and we just started a round in Pathfinder. Because classic fantasy seems to be more attractive to most people, we could add 2 new players to our group, that haven´t been really satisfied with SR in the past. They want to be “heroes”, which is not really the intention of a dystopian setting. Although I think that Pathfinder is quite a “low-cost” (in sense of primitive) RPG, compared to Shadowrun, the bigger group balances out the loss of fun easily.

So what does this mean to me? I have to do my Power gaming in Pathfinder for a while. I already got some good tips from you, but I am not as experienced as I need to be, to see the long-term-consequences of my decisions. I prefer magicians in SR, I like powergaming (the general consensus was, that wizards are the most powerful class, after the druid got nerfed), so I decided to play a pure mage. Treandmonks Guide you quoted to me was very helpful, and I sticked to it as much as possible. So far so good, but in the meantime we are level 3 and the character development is not really satisfying. Our GM made a mistake, so I received ALL available spells, that I would be able to cast, what (of course) is a great benefit, but I am missing a lot of other things that make me feel uncomfortable in PF.

My main problem is, that I have (basically) no chance to raise my attributes. I dumped charisma and strength to 7, because everybody said they are not needed. But now I cannot even carry my clothes and a bag of gold or other loot at the same time, because I am encumbered practically immediately. Spells that fix that problem only last minutes or (worse) rounds and would be a waste in my spellbook, if I use them on myself. Charisma that low as mine, affects the game a little less for me, except that I am constantly called “ugly witch” and everybody laughs at me, because even the half orc is prettier. Body is on 11, because I thought I can raise it later. Now I see that I “saved” 1 point but on rating 12 I would get a +1 on hitpoints. Because I had no chance to raise it, I “lost” 1 HP on every level-increase, isn´t it?

So I thought if a witcher wouldn´t be better. I see, that because his main attribute is charisma, he gets less skill points, but honestly, what shall I do with a mage that has skills on level 15, if his 4 spells a day are used up. I have access to a TON of spells (theoretically), but I can only cast them a few times a day. The witcher can cast a lot more often and the only drawback is the smaller number of spells? I dunno, but acc. to Treantmonks guide, 90% of the spells are crap already. So after all this text, I want to know the following: if I skip all the crap-spells, and if your planning is good, shouldn´t a witcher be much better than a wizard?

The "witcher" is called sorcerer, BTW.

In my experience, the sorcerer becomes the powerhouse of classes around level 10 or 12, where the number of spells known starts to be big enough to cover most situations.

At that point, their ability to cast single spells again and again, becomes quite handy.

Also, I think in Pathfinder there is a magic item, that allows you to add more spells known, which is a godsend for a sorcerer.

The wizard, OTOH, wants Pearl of Power (lots of them ).

The wizard's biggest advantage is the huge flexibility, having a spell for every situation. But it often comes into play only, when you can prepare for an upcoming situation (otherwise, while you might have that spell, you might not be able to cast it, because it is not prepared). If that (ability to plan ahead) rarely is given (in your game), the sorcerer might be the better choice.

As for skills... Knowledge skills can be quite useful, actually. It all depends a bit on the DM, of course.

Also... Constitution is quite vital (literally) for classes with low hit points in general. A 14 is a good choice here, usually.

As for permanent attribute bonuses... that is where magic items come into play (not at level 3, mind you, but later on you can get items that grant +2, +4, or even +6 to an attribute).

And, yeah, even is better than odd, when it comes to attributes. Especially, since you will never raise any other than your spellcasting attribute during level-ups, anyways.

Bye
Thanee

It is still too early for you to make up the deficits that those low attribute scores represent. As you level, there are attribute boosting magic items, and you also gain attribute points to put into your stats every 4 levels. It is somewhat vital that you always dump them into INT as a wizard, but you can still use +str or +CHA magic items to make up for not carrying anything.

For now, spend 8gp on a mule and make it carry everything for you