Archmage Path Playtests and Opinions

[Darkorin]

Hey everyone, I'm seeing right now a lot of different thread of people that speak their mind over different path abilities of different path, but it will soon be kind of hard to find and summarize different opinions and playtest experience.

I want to start that thread for the Archmage(and hope that other thread will soon follow for the other paths, and maybe a last thread for dual paths) and see if we all can make it into a reference thread for playtesting the Archmage.

I know there already is a thread about questions on some of the archmage path features, but it doesn't feel like the place to summarize the opinions/playtest of everyone.

I know that the people at paizo want playtest experiences and not opinions, but I do think that opinions are important too since it can help us to playtest the limit of some features.

I would like to propose that everyone tries to follow the same kind of presentation in their post, that would probably help a lot, it will only take a few seconds to organize your text, and it will probably help a lot.

For now I will only post one opinion and one playtest experience, in order to have that thread up and running.

Playtesting: Metamastery:

Last night, I tried DMing a few combat with some friends. One of them was a Wizard 12 / Archmage 6, with Metamastery, maxed. Let's say that the fight was short... for one use of mythic power, the wizard quickened all of his spells for 10 rounds. But 10 rounds were not needed... in his first turn could cast 3 spells(standard+move action used to cast 1 spell, + 1 bonus standard action from the 4th option of the Amazing Initiative alternatives), and if the other players did not finish the monsters before he could act a second time, he could have cast 3 spells per turn.

The possibility to apply quicken to ALL of your spells for 10 rounds is really really powerful. It means that in those 10 rounds, you can cast 29 spells. You could say that it's not that powerful because you will have a limit to the number of spell you can cast each day, but let's not forget that there is the possibility to get all of those spell slot back with recuperation.

Or you could use Endless Power in conjunction.

Opinion on Competent Caster:

Well... First thing first... Why competent? Does it mean you're an incompetent Caster if you're not Mythic? The name is kind of weird. a name like War Caster or Combat mental training would be better, but I'm quite sure someone will find an even better name.

Even if I like the ability, it does seems to render Combat Caster and Uncanny concentration a bit useless, and fighter specialized in Disruptive and Spellbreaker will be rendered powerless against such a caster. But it does go in the way that "Mythic characters bend the rules" so I kind of like it.

[Darkorin]

Darkorin wrote:

** spoiler omitted **...

Eww, my bad here, We used the move can be converted to swift action thing, which is not legal in pathfinder (we must have picked it up from another game). But well Metamastery still allows you to cast two spell per round which still is a lot...

[Tels]

You know, I was theory crafting by myself when the PodCast came out awhile back. Metamastery and Amazing Initiative was announced then, and I was like, "WoW! Caster's gonna dominate!"

If you get two full turns a round (by spending MP) and you use Metamastery, you would be casting 4 spells each round.