Mesmerist Handbook: Pathfinder Class Guide – RPGBOT (2024)

Introduction

The Mesmerist does two things: It talks to creatures, and it stares at creatures. In a party it serves as a Face, and with a little bit of help it can serve as a Scout. It can also do some support stuff, but can’t compete with a normal spellcaster. Hypnotic Stare is the Mesmerist’s signature ability, allowing the Mesmerist to significantly debuff enemies. Unfortunately, the Mesmerist is capable of doing very little on its own, so if you play one you’ll need strong allies to do the heavy lifting in combat.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Disclaimer
• Mesmerist Class Features
• Abilities
• Races
• Skills
• Feats
  • Stare Feats
• Weapons
• Armor
• Magic Items
  • Armor/Shields
  • Staffs

Disclaimer

We support a limited subset of Pathfinder’s rules content. If you would like help with Pathfinder options not covered here, please email me and I may be able to provide additional assistance.

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks. Also note that many colored items are also links to the Paizo SRD.

• Red: Bad, useless options, or options whichare extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
• Orange: OK options, or useful optionsthat only apply in rare circ*mstances. Useful sometimes.
• Green: Good options. Useful often.
• Blue: Fantastic options, often essentialto the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

Mesmerist Class Features

Hit Points: d8 hit points is probablyenough as long as you’re smart. Hypnotic Gaze locks you into fighting within30 feet, but you’re in light armor with no shields and mediocre Dexterity, soyour AC is going to be terrible.

Base Attack Bonus: 2/3 BAB is fine,especially since you only need to attack when you have nothing better to dowith your turn.

Saves: Two good saves, but you’ll want toinvest in your Fortitude save.

Proficiencies: Light armor, simpleweapons, and a handful of other weapons. Except to spend a lot of time in achain shirt wielding a sword cane.

Skills: While not so versatile as the Bardor the Rogue, the Mesmerist gets 6+ skill ranks and has good skill list with agood mix of knowledge and face skills.

Spells: 2/3 spontaneous Charisma-basedcasting. The Mesmerist’s spell list is almost exclusively mind-affecting likeother psychic casters, and at only 2/3 casting you’ll have issues with saveDCs. Fortunately, Hypnotic Stare applies a big enough penalty to offset the DCgap between you and a full caster.

Consummate Liar: The bonus to bluff isreally nice, but the Mesmerist has absolutely no reason to feint.

Hypnotic Stare (Su): -2 to Will saves issignificant, and upgrading to -3 at 8th level is even better. For a classwhich focuses so heavily on mental effects, this is absolutely essential.Anything with a high Will save might be out of your reach, and this penaltycould make or break you. This ability also sets the target for Painful Stare,Bold Stare, and Stare Feats, which are the bulk of how you’ll contribute incombat.

Knacks: Cantrips are fantastic regardlessof their name. Unfortunately your list of options is very short, but you stillget essentials like detect magic and prestidigitation.

Mesmerist Tricks (Su): Most Trick options are terrible,and the limitation of one implanted trick at a time makes the ability reallydifficult to use in any meaningful way until you get Manifold Tricks at 5thlevel. See myMesmerist Trick Breakdownfor help selecting tricks.

Painful Stare (Su): It’s a bit like sneakattack, but you can only do it once per round and the damage is terrible.

Towering Ego (Su): Will saves are important,and putting your Charisma bonus on top of your high Will saves should make younice and resilient.

Bold Stare (Su): You need Psychic Inception.You will die if you do not take it. I cannot emphasize that enough. The otheroptions are cool, and some of them are even worth taking, but PsychicInception is too important for you to not have it. Take that first, and justpretend that you didn’t actually get a choice because any other choice is likeleaning on the point of a sword and hoping it’s not sharp enough to run youthrough.

• Allure: Unless you manage to get this goingbefore combat starts it’s largely useless. It can help you sneak around dueto the Perception penalty, but that seems situational.
• Disorientation: Combined withDemoralizing State and Excoriating Stare, you can apply a total of -7 toattack rolls, dramatically handicapping your target.
• Psychic Inception: For a class sodependent on mind-affecting abilities, this is absolutely essential. A giantbug can easily kill you at most levels without this ability.
• Sapped Magic: As you gain levels, enemieswill gain more special abilities like spells and breath weapons, andreducing those DCs will keep you and your party alive.
• Slugishness: The speed reduction isworthless, and reflex saves don’t help you much since you can’t castanything like fireball.
• Susceptibility: Very helpful as theparty’s Face, but optimizing your Charisma-based skills is really easy andyou don’t get enough Bold Stare options to make this an obvious choice.
• Timidity: The penalty isn’t big enough tomatter for most foes.

Touch Treatment (Su): Having the option toremove status conditions is nice, but spending a standard action to removemost of the conditions from an ally is usually a waste of your turn.

• Minor Conditions: Fascinated almost never happens toplayers (although in a occult campaign it might be more common). I have noidea why Shaken is on here, but Sickened is on the Moderate list. They dobasically the same thing, but Shaken is objectively more dangerous becauseof the fear stacking rules.
• Moderate Conditions: Mostly conditions that areannoying or partially debilitating.
• Greater Conditions: Ifg you have these conditionsyou’re in a really bad situation.

Manifold Tricks (Su): Without this, Tricksare garbage. It’s just too hard to predict both what trick you need and whatfriend you need it on.

Mental Potency (Ex): This might be ahelpful way to squeeze some more usefulness out of your low-level spells, butthe scaling is too poor to be meaningful.

Glib Lie (Su): Extremely situational.

Masterful Tricks (Su): See myMesmerist Trick Breakdownfor help selecting tricks

Rule Minds (Su): Permanent Dominate Person.Find a big, important enemy and enslave them.

Abilities

You need Charisma, and you need to stay alive.

Str: Dump to 7 and use a ranged weapon.

Dex: In light armor you need Dexterity toboost your AC.

Con: Fortitude is your only bad save, andyou’ll need hit points to compensate for your light armor.

Int: More skill points can be reallyuseful depending on your party makeup.

Wis: You need a bit for Will saves, butTowering Ego allows you to apply your Charisma as a bonus so you don’t need toinvest heavily in Wisdom.

Cha: Your spells and abilities are allCharisma-based.

Races

Charisma bonuses are hard to find, but they’re basically the only thing you need. Small size is nice because it makes you harder to hit, but it’s not crucial.

Dwarf: Charisma penalty.

Elf: Nothing useful for the Mesmerist.

Gnome: Bonuses to two important scores and apenalty to your dump stat.

Half-Elf: The flexible bonus goes intoCharisma. The favored class bonus sucks, and humans and half-orcs provideother bonuses that work well for the Mesmerist, so they’re better options.

Half-Orc: The ability score bonus goes intoCharisma, and the bonus to Intimidate helps with your face skills. The racialfavored class bonus improves your Painful Stare damage. It’s not a ton, butthe damage from Painful stare is so poor that it’s a significantimprovement.

Halfling: Bonuses to two important abilitiesand a penalty to your dump state. The favored class bonus gets you extra trickuses per day, but I think most mesmerists will have trouble going throughtheir existing pool of uses.

Human: The ability score bonus goes intoCharisma, and but there really aren’t enough feats to make the feat important.The favored class bonus will improve your Will saves, which isn’t veryexciting but it’s still useful.

Skills

• Appraise (Int): Pay an NPC.
• Bluff (Cha): Important fort any Face, andmesmerists get a nice bonus from Consummate Liar.
• Diplomacy (Cha): The most important faceskill, and you have the Charisma to back it up.
• Disguise (Cha): Cast Disguise Self.
• Escape Artist (Dex): Too situational, andas a psychic you don’t need to worry about somatic/verbal components, whichmakes being restrained much less problematic.
• Intimidate (Cha): Important for anyface.
• Knowledge (Arcana) (Int): Identifyconstructs, dragons, and magical beats. Fairly few classes get access tothis, so you need to step up here.
• Knowledge (Dungeoneering) (Int): Identifyaberrations and oozes. If you spend any time underground or in dungeons,this is worth maxing. Otherwise, spend one rank and ride your intelligencebonus.
• Knowledge (History) (Int): Situational,and very dependent on the campaign.
• Knowledge (Local) (Int): Definitely wortha rank, maybe more if you don’t have a rogue putting ranks in this.
• Knowledge (Nobility) (Int): Situational,and very dependent on the campaign.
• Knowledge (Religion) (Int): Identifyundead. More easily available than Knowledge (Arcana), but still veryuseful, especially since your cleric probably dumped intelligence.
• Linguistics (Int): Cast Tongues.
• Perception (Wis): The most rolled skill inthe game.
• Perform (Cha): You are not a bard.
• Sense Motive (Wis): Important for anyFace.
• Sleight of Hand (Dex): Too situational.
• Spellcraft (Int): You’re notIntelligence-based, but you
• Stealth (Dex): Many of the mesmerist’sabilities are indirect and won’t break stealth, so you can do a lot ofthings while hidden.
• Use Magic Device (Cha): The most powerfulskill in the game, and you have the Charisma to back it up.

Feats

• Compounded Pain: Stare feats are reallygood for the Mesmerist, but don’t get this until you already have two starefeats.
• Extra Mesmerist Tricks: There aren’tenough good Trick options to justify this, so wait until you can getMasterful Tricks.
• Extended Stare: The 30-foot range ofHypnotic Stare puts you very close to enemies, and with few defensiveoptions that’s a scary place for you to be.
• Intimidating Glance: Making an enemyShaken is a great debuff, and doing it as a swift action is fantastic. Thiscompetes with Demoralizing Stare somewhat, so don’t take both feats.
• Medium Armor Proficiency: Your spellsdon’t have Somatic components, so arcane spell failure doesn’t apply. Youprobably don’t want to invest in enough Dexterity to have a decent AC, somedium armor can be a great option.
• Mesmerizing Feint: You do not need tofeint. You can no significant benefit for doing so.
• Ready for Battle: Initiative bonuses arealways nice, but taking Improved Initiative is almost certainly more usefuluntil you can implant at least two tricks.
• Ready for Pain: I’ve never been in acampaign where nonlethal damage was prevalent enough for this to matter inthe slightest.
• Weapon Finesse: Do not do this to yourself.You do not belong in melee.

Stare Feats

Stare feats are one of the few things that makes the Mesmerist actually interesting. Be sure to pick up at least one, and if you can spare the feats get a second before you pick up Compounded Pain.

• Bleeding Stare: Bleed damage rarelykills anything, and you get too little for this to compensate for your utterlack of damage output.
• Demoralizing Stare: Even if it doesn’twork for fear stacking, Shaken is still a great status condition. Rememberthat the target is taking the Will save penalty from Hypnotic Stare, sothey’ll have even more trouble hitting what should already be a difficultsave DC. This competes somewhat with Intimidating Glance, and since theyboth apply Shaken you don’t want to take both.
• Excoriating Stare: Basically equivalent toDemoralizing Stare, but works on creatures that are immune to fear.
• Fatiguing Stare: Fatigued isn’t alwaysuseful, and even against enemies who care it’s usually not a hugehandicap.
• Intense Pain: The extra damage isabsolutely not worth a feat.

Weapons

• Light Crossbow:Probably the only weaponyou’ll ever use, and even then only when you don’t have anything better todo.
• Sword Cane: You should not be using meleeweapons.
• Whip: A whip is still a melee weapon, andyou should not be using melee weapons

Armor

• Studded Leather: Starting armor.
• Chain Shirt: Probably your permanent armorunless you get medium armor proficiency and upgrade to a breastplate.
• Darkwood Heavy Shield: With no armor checkpenalty, you can use this regardless of your lack of proficiency. You don’treally need your hands for anything, so a shield is an easy AC boost.

Magic Items

Armor/Shields

• Celestial Armor (22,400 gp): Unless youhave heavy armor proficiency and a Dexterity modifier of at most+5, Celestial Armor is the best armor in the game if all you need from yourarmor is AC. For more, check out myPractical Guide to Celestial Armor.

Staffs

It’s difficult to recommend specific staffs without knowing your individual character, so instead I want to make a general endorsem*nt of the concept of magic staffs in Pathfinder. If you are a 3.5 native, go read Pathfinder’s rules for staffs because they have improved dramatically.

Staffs are a reliable, rechargeable source of extra spellcasting that can give spellcasters easy and reliable access to spells from their spell list which they might not want to learn, or which they might like to use so frequently that they can’t prepare the spell enough times in a given day. On days when you’re not adventuring (traveling, resting, etc.) you can easily recharge any staff even if you can only cast one of the spells which the staff contains.