Feat Advice / Build Advice for Arcanist

[RumpinRufus]

The arcanist's Dimensional Slide ability has enchanted me. I am tinkering with an arcanist focused on force-based abilities and teleportation-type abilities. Ideally he should control space and force.

What feats would be good for this? Besides Toppling Spell, I'm having trouble thinking of good feats. Any suggestions?

I'm thinking Toppling Magic Missile + Magical Lineage gives him nice low-level power. Eventually I like the flavor of Dimensional Agility, even though Dimensional Slide seems much stronger in most cases.

And what exploits, besides Dimensional Slide and Quick Study?

To get an idea of what spells I'm looking at:

Spells:

cantrips: Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, Detect Magic, Daze
1st level: Magic Missle, Unseen Servant,Floating Disk, Expeditious Retreat
2nd level: Create Pit, Pilfering Hand, Knock, Levitate, Twisted Space
3rd level: Magic Circle Against Evil, Spiked Pit, Hold Person, Battering Blast, Chain of Perdition, Force Punch, Displacement, Blink, Fly, Haste, Hostile Levitation, Slow
4th level: Dimensional Anchor, Dimension Door, Telekinetic Charge
5th level: Hostile Juxtaposition, Hungry Pit, Teleport, Hold Monster, Interposing Hand, Wall of Force, Suffocation, Echolocation, Overland Flight, Telekinesis

[Mergy]

Toppling Spell is a bit of a trap once you hit mid levels. If you plan to use it, use it with a rod (3000 gp to use it 3/day!).

If you're looking at controlling space, the Occultist archetype has that well in hand with easy summoning. That leaves you free to prepare whatever spells you like without having to worry about having an easy way to contribute.

Going into summoning-based feats also improves the DCs of spells like create pit and stinking cloud, which means you can both summon and control, all while Dimensional Sliding around.

Keep magic missile, but use rods.

[andreww]

Fir exploits you might want to grab School Understanding for the Divination school. You will get a small initiative bonus but also the ability to always act in the surprise round which you can theme as a bit of precognition.

For exploits the metamgic one and potent spells are both excellent. You are using a fair amount of save or suck so Persistent Spell is always handy. With the number of pits you have I would consider spell focus conjuration. Improved Initiative is pretty much a must for any offensive caster.

Unfortunately Toppling Spell rapidly loses power as your bonus will not keep pace with monster CMD. You might want to consider switching to dazing spell later on. I would definitely pick up the feat that allows you to prepare additional spells, quite possibly I would take it all three times.

[RumpinRufus]

I don't want to go the summoning route with this character, partially because the last character I played was a summoning-heavy wizard, and partially because I want a more "psychokinetic" feel.

The "psychokinetic" flavor is also why I am preferring not to use spells like Fireball or Stinking Cloud. I would rather use Create Pit-type spells since they involve controlling extradimensional space, or spells like Hold Person, Haste, and Chain of Perdition.

A rod of Toppling is not a bad idea, but 1) I don't know what other feats to take and 2) I could retrain it later.

[RumpinRufus]

Andreww, what is the feat called that lets me prepare additional spells?

Also, does School Understanding let you pick subschools? The Foresight ability is pretty tempting.

[andreww]

Expanded Preparation. You may want to retrain it as you level to shift what spell slots it gives you access to.

[andreww]

RumpinRufus wrote:

Andreww, what is the feat called that lets me prepare additional spells?

Also, does School Understanding let you pick subschools? The Foresight ability is pretty tempting.

It just says you can pick a school so I don't see why not.

[TGMaxMaxer]

It does let you pick subcschools, but it makes the uses/day based on charisma.

[RumpinRufus]

I like the idea of being able to Dimensional Slide to the other side of a door. Is there any way short of Clairvoyance to use Dimensional Slide to bypass a locked door or something similar?

[RumpinRufus]

And is there any good Improved Familiar to add to the mix?

Is there anything crazy about getting a homunculus that can use Jester's Jaunt 1/day?