Building a Twilight sage Arcanist


Advice


Hello all, I'm designing my 2nd character for Rapan Athuk and its themed with Magdh the first world Eldest. Three characters all sisters representing the triple goddess from Celtic mythology. In the coming weeks I'll build the middle sister the 'mother' whom I'm stuck so far on concept other than fertility.

Nightshade will be a created Fey humanoid that counts as fey and elf. A +2 dex, cha and -2 str. stats wont be rolled till playtime starts but priorities are Int>Dex>Cha>Con>Wis>Str so far. She has the Elf weapon familiarity, point blank shot as a static bonus feat and GM is giving us a bonus feat for back stories. She has a +10 bonus speed and +1 DC to enchantment spells and SLA.

She represents the crone and arcane knowledge. I want to play her similar to the succubus Bo from Lost Girl. When her reservoir is low she will be 'hungry' and want to consume life to feed.

for exploits the best options look like: school understanding (elemental -void) reveal weakness, dimensional slide, potent magic, familiar, item crafting and lepidstadt shifter.

Greater exploits perhaps greater metamagic knowledge and redirect spell.

What feats, traits, spell selection for necromancy school and in general? I saw clever word play, magical lineage and transmuter suggested. I had found a partial guide on the class but any insights would be appreciated.

Sovereign Court

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Arcanist is already optimized, mostly why most people don't bother making big guide about it.

The usual stuffs:

Traits:
Reactionary

Magical Lineage (if you already know there is a spell that you are going to use often)

feats:
Heighten spell, Dazing Spell, Preferred Spell, Persistent Spell, Improved Initiative, Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Penetration, Piercing Spell (Don't pick all of them but do consider these feats).

Spells:
Persist necromantic spells that you really want to succeed (Magic Jar, Chill touch), make your favorite damage spells dazing spells when you can or even spells that stay useful Persistent Glitterdust has a big chance of blinding a group of foes. Use heighten spell to bump up the levels of your favorite spells. Mix and match so you have a bit of everything, really that's all.


Quick Study is also a very good exploit. Sometimes you just won't have the right spell prepared & this lets you change that. Familiar seems less appropriate; the crone is quite solitary.

A trick I saw mentioned recently is to share personal-only spells by casting Marionette Possession first. Only works when you have time in advance to buff, but it looks fun.

Re the mother goddess, besides fertility motherhood is about taking care of people, with dashes of personal strength, power over others and lust. Hopefully one of those will help your inspiration.


avr wrote:

Quick Study is also a very good exploit. Sometimes you just won't have the right spell prepared & this lets you change that. Familiar seems less appropriate; the crone is quite solitary.

A trick I saw mentioned recently is to share personal-only spells by casting Marionette Possession first. Only works when you have time in advance to buff, but it looks fun.

Re the mother goddess, besides fertility motherhood is about taking care of people, with dashes of personal strength, power over others and lust. Hopefully one of those will help your inspiration.

I had only looked as far as 2nd level for necromancy spells but marionette possession looks like a lot of fun. for the buffing you mentioned you'd cast the possession, cast the buffs then end the spell?

I am completely new to arcane spell casters in paper games but have played them in pc games. I have always avoided metamagic feats because they are confusing. I've been copy pasting spell and feat selection from guides and hoping it works out for me *chuckles*

Thank you for input on my mother goddess =)


avr wrote:

Quick Study is also a very good exploit. Sometimes you just won't have the right spell prepared & this lets you change that. Familiar seems less appropriate; the crone is quite solitary.

A trick I saw mentioned recently is to share personal-only spells by casting Marionette Possession first. Only works when you have time in advance to buff, but it looks fun.

Re the mother goddess, besides fertility motherhood is about taking care of people, with dashes of personal strength, power over others and lust. Hopefully one of those will help your inspiration.

I'm getting the impression I should read the wizards guides for help on spell feats, at this point I sadly know very little like if they apply to only one spell or all of them etc. For a crash course can you recommend anything?


Okay so we had a TPK except the one person that didn't show up for that day inside Rappan Athuk and I now get to put this character concept into motion! A mixture of sad and excitement to be sure.

The character gets to start at level 3, so I was considering a level of wizard with spirit binder archtype (the characters dead sibling that died in Rappan Athuk)
Raven familiar that was friends with the one surviving party member.
I'm going to take the void school and probably fire as my opposition.
For my Arcanist exploits I was thinking school understanding, and familiar as my first choices past the mandatory twilight/arcane barrier.

The character is a created race with the stat adjustments as follows: +2 dex, +2 cha, -2 str.

I rolled 12,12,13,15,15,16 for stats.
my best thoughts was to arrange them: 10 str, 17 dex, 13 con, 16 int, 12 wis, 17 cha

I need to take a necromancy spell each level so
0 level spells: detect magic, dancing lights, mage hand, ghost sound, prestidigitation, disrupt undead
1st level spells: (Abjuration)Protection from evil, shield, mount, mage armor, Ray of enfeeblement, vanish, ear piercing scream, comprehend languages, enlarge person, feather fall, chill touch

I get +1 CL to abjuration spells, point blank shot as a bonus feat, elven immunities and weapon familiarity, perception and stealth as class skills. also 2 feats at first level due to a written backstory.

traits are warrior of old and maybe magical lineage but i don't know what to apply it to.
Does this look okay? My first attempt at a pure caster.


I missed your previous post all those months ago. There are a bunch of wizard class guides lying around, most of them touch on feats. An arcanist gets much the same usage.

Multiclassing wizard and arcanist isn't helpful to the power level of your character at all. If it's essential to your concept, fine, but realise you're not going to get a lot out of the wizard level compared to just more arcanist (or a couple or arcanist levels, compared to all wizard.)

It's usually a good idea to have at least one spell which can take people out for more than a round; sleep or color spray, maybe snowball. Debuffs are good but they can't be everything to you.

What spell you'd use magical lineage on obviously depends on which metamagic you want to aim for. Is it rime spell, to entangle the targets of your chilling spells? Try snowball or frost fall. Is it persistent spell, to make your enemies fail their saves? Glitterdust or color spray or something.

+CL on abjuration spells mostly means extra duration, at least until you get dispel magic. Handy, but nothing to build your character around.

Your character's race seems similar to an elf. Given the 17 dex and stealth as a class skill you might see if you can get blend, an elf racial spell. It's better for sneaking around for more than a few seconds than vanish is.


avr wrote:

I missed your previous post all those months ago. There are a bunch of wizard class guides lying around, most of them touch on feats. An arcanist gets much the same usage.

Multiclassing wizard and arcanist isn't helpful to the power level of your character at all. If it's essential to your concept, fine, but realise you're not going to get a lot out of the wizard level compared to just more arcanist (or a couple or arcanist levels, compared to all wizard.)

It's usually a good idea to have at least one spell which can take people out for more than a round; sleep or color spray, maybe snowball. Debuffs are good but they can't be everything to you.

What spell you'd use magical lineage on obviously depends on which metamagic you want to aim for. Is it rime spell, to entangle the targets of your chilling spells? Try snowball or frost fall. Is it persistent spell, to make your enemies fail their saves? Glitterdust or color spray or something.

+CL on abjuration spells mostly means extra duration, at least until you get dispel magic. Handy, but nothing to build your character around.

Your character's race seems similar to an elf. Given the 17 dex and stealth as a class skill you might see if you can get blend, an elf racial spell. It's better for sneaking around for more than a few seconds than vanish is.

The race type does count as elf and fey so i could pick up that racial spell.

The concept for fun is that one level of spirit binder so its her sisters soul in her familiar and then all other levels of arcanist.
Originally i was going to go full arcanist and take the school exploit but then realized i can have it scale plus have the cool familiar tie in and also have that scale.

Enclave Protector: Nemura add +1 to the caster level of any abjuration spells they cast. They also gain the following spell-like abilities:
constant—nondetection; 1/day—faerie fire, obscure object, sanctuary. The caster level for these effects is equal to the user's character level.
Also i get displacement 1/day CL = to character level

for meta feats i was thinking dazing, persistent and heightened. I did read up Q's wizard guide and i forgot snapdragon fireworks had an honorable mention for meta feat fun.
I know the remaining original member is a illusionist halfling wizard with some spells i can nab like colourspray.

Okay i need to take a different opposition school.

Scarab Sages

Remember, three page story for a free feat :p

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / Building a Twilight sage Arcanist All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.