Playtest - Kingmaker 10th Level Arcanist


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Lantern Lodge

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Background - Our play group alternates between two GMs running two APs. One of them is Kingmaker in which the group is 10th level, and consists of:

Samsaran Wizard (Admixture) - my character
Small Tiefling Paladin of Saranae mounted on a Boar
Human 2-Handed Ranger
Human Mad Dog with Badger Companion
Rogue Swashbuckler using a 2-handed Elven Curve Blade

As you can see we have 4 melee characters and 1 arcane spell caster. Samsaran wouldn't be my first choice for a Wizard, but I went Samsaran to get Cure Spells and was the party "healer" until I hit 7th level and took leadership to get an Oracle of Life Cohort.

So the playtest comes out and I ask the GM if I can re-build my character (the Wizard) as an Arcanist, and she says OK. In rebuilding the character, I keep the same stats and spell books, but changed my class and equipment (e.g. my pearls of power don't work with Arcanist). The character remains the same person, same name, same place within the campaign, just a new class. Also, the intent is the finish the AP with the Arcanist.

Note 1: The Paladin also elected to re-do his character, but unlike me, he chose to essentially retire his existing character and build a new one. So, for the playtest, we lost the Paladin and gained a Swashbuckler.

Note 2: I was playing the "Revised" Arcanist as posted to the web by Jason, not the version from the 2nd playtest document. So I didn't have access to all the exploits. Now that I've seen the 2nd playrest document, I'll probably re-select my exploits for the next time we play. It also appears that there were some small changes I'll have to incorporate.

SPOILER ALERT - I forgot to ask our GM what book we're in, but our group had just snuck into a castle in a fortified city looking to depose the Duke who ruled the city. I hope that didn't spoil anything for anyone, but if you're familiar with the AP that should let you know where we were in the AP.

Here's the basics of my character build (we use 25 point buy):

Samsaran
STR 10
DEX 12
CON 14
INT 25 (after +4 Headband)
WIS 10
CHA 16 (after +4 Headband)
Note: These are the same stats my Wizard had, except I swapped out my +6 INT headband for a +4 INT/CHA Headband when I rearranged my equipment.

Traits: Valashmai Veteran, Magical Lineage (Fireball)

72 hit points

AC 11 (15 with Mage Armor)

+10 Fortitude, +9 Reflex, +12 Will (+5 Cloak of Resistance)

Craft/Alchemy 20, Craft/Cooking 11, Diplomacy 13, Fly 14, K/Arcana 20, K/Nature 18, All other knowledges at 11, Linguistics 11, Perception 14, Profession/Ruler 13 (I'm the King), Spellcraft 20, Perform/Stringed 5

I chose the following Exploits:
Potent Magic
Spell Tinkerer
Metamixing
Force Strike
Metamagic Knowledge

Feats: Spell Focus (Evocation), Mage's Tattoo (Evocation), Craft Wondrous Item, Leadership, Spell Specialization (Fireball), Intensified Spell

Prepared Spells: 0-bunch of cantrips; 1-Burning Hands, Cure Light Wounds, Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Shield; 2-Burning Arc, Create Pit, Knock, See Invisibility; 3-Dispel Magic, Intensified Fireball, Fly; 4-Dimension Door, Greater Invisibility; 5-Animal Growth

Magic Equipment includes: Headband of Mental Prowess +4 INT/CHA, Ring of Freedom of Movement, Ring Of Sustenance, Cloak of Resistance +5, Blazing Robe, Quick Runner's Shirt, Handy Haversack, Bunch of Scrolls & a couple potions, Metamagic Rod Lesser Rime, Metamagic Rod Selective, Metamagic Rod Extend, A couple of minor wands (Magic Missile, Burning Hands). I also carry around some group magic items like a Wand of Cure Light Wounds, some more scrolls and more potions.

We had several combats. Most were against non-spellcasters - basically soldiers and melee characters, some hill giants. One with a high level Wizard (I'm going to guess 11+ level as he cast several 6th level spells).

My Arcanist performed well. I let the 4 melee guys do most of the fighting (so they had fun), but when I saw an opportunity to hit a lot of opponents, I did toss in a 14d6 fireball or two (10th Level + Intensified + Specialization + Mage's Tattoo + Blazing Robe). As I did with my Wizard, I cast Mage Armor (Extended) at the beginning of the day. During the typical melee combat, I cast Greater Invisibility on myself and the Oracle, and See Invisibility on myself.

In the combat against the enemy Spell-Caster, I used Dispel Magic to good effect a couple of times. The enemy Wizard ended up teleporting away and that was the last we saw of him (at least that night, but who knows?).

Impressions:

I found the Arcanist to be fairly well-balanced. I know some predict the doom of the Wizard or Sorceror, but I think I can honestly say that I rate all three classes about the same. Wizards are my long-time favorite, and I still see myself running Wizards. I sometimes run Sorcerors because, after 30 years of playing, I sometimes get lazy and don't want to manage spells - the bloodlines are nice, but usually not the reason I go Sorceror. Arcanist blends the spellcasting of Wizard and Sorceror, but in a way that makes it different. Sorcerors still have the most spells per day and Wizards, in their way, still have the most flexibility in spell selection. Some might find that a bit odd for me to say, but what I experienced in switching the character from a 10th level Wizard to a 10th level Arcanist, is that my spell selection for the day was more restricted in terms of variety, but what spells I did prepare I could use alot. For example, here is my Wizard's typical prepped spells:

0-bunch of cantrips; 1-Burning Hands, Cure Light Wounds, Mage Armor, Magic Missile x2, Shield, Snowball (Note that I had 4 1st level Pearls of Power); 2-Burning Arc x2, Create Pit, Knock, Mirror Image, Resist Energy, See Invisibility (I also had 1 2nd level Pearl of Power); 3-Blacklight, Dispel Magic, Fly x2, Mass Feather Step, Pellet Blast (no Fireball prepared as my Wizard could spontaneously cast them using Spell Prodigy); 4-Ball Lightning x2, Black Tentacles, Dimension Door, Greater Invisibility x2; 5-Animal Growth, Icy Prison, Overland Flight, Wall of Force

So I had more spells to select from as a Wizard, but I wouldn't be able to cast multiples of these spells. For example, when we faced the enemy spellcaster, I used two Dispel Magics, which I could not have done with my Wizard (who normally only memorized one). But as a Wizard, I'd have (at 5th level) 4 different spells available versus 1 spell as an Arcanist (but the Arcanist could cast that 1 spell 3 times). This can make for some hard choices. It also tends to make you focus on spells you know you will use versus spells that are good to have in case you need them (e.g. Fireball must have, but Mass Feather Step too situational to select as one of my 3 prepared spells. Now I am NOT saying this is bad, just that it's different.

As to the specific exploits...

Potent Magic is very nice. Combined with Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus, you can get a very high DC. I used this with my Fireballs.

Spell Tinkerer. I like the concept, BUT actually never got to use it during the session. I guess I could have used it to extend my Mage Armor from 20 hours to 30 hours, but I'd still have to cast Mage Armor once per day. As for tinkering with other people's spells, I tend not to like to get within melee touch range with my arcane casters, so that's kind of scary! I'll have to read the new rules as I think they changed this exploit a bit, but we'll see. Actually, Spell Tinker was taken as I couldn't find anything else I liked. With the new exploits, I'll probably swap it out for our next session, not because it's bad, but more because it doesn't fit my character and play-style too well.

Metamixing is good for my character as he uses metamagic feats.

Metamagic Knowledge is also good because I've built this character around Metamagic feats, and could use another.

Force Strike and the other "Attack" exploits are ok. I don't see them as necessary, but if you look at them as super-cantrips they are ok. In the action-economy, however, I would usually just fireball or magic missile an opponent. I found the other Attack exploits a bit weak due to the saving throws, which is why I took Force Strike. Now that more exploits have been introduced, I'll probably drop Force Strike and select one of the new exploits for the next playtest session. But if I had to select one, I'd personally go with Force Strike.

Overall I was happy with the Arcanist. I'd readily run one again. In fact, our Kingmaker GM is planning to run an Arcanist in Reign of Winter (which the Shattered Star GM plans to start running in January).

Power-level I think the Arcanist avoids over-powering the other full arcane classes, so power creep is minimal. The Arcanist can exist side by side with Sorcerors and Wizards (and Witches and the Summoner).

I hope I covered everything. I kind of feel like I didn't do a good job because I can't think if anything particularly problematic with the Arcanist, or identify any problems I had with the class. It just worked great as far as I was concerned.

I'll post again after our next session, which will probably be the last before the end of the playtest.

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