Does the School Understanding exploit give a choice of which 1st level power to take?

[Rabscuttle]

Does an arcanist with the School Understanding exploit get to choose which first level power they get from a given school?

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School Understanding wrote:

The arcanist can select one arcane school from any of the schools available to a character with the arcane school wizard class feature, but does not have to select any opposition schools. The arcanist gains one ability of that arcane school as though she were a 1st-level wizard, using her Charisma modifier in place of her Intelligence modifier for this ability. The ability must be one gained at 1st level and is limited in its use per day to 3 + the arcanist's Charisma modifier.

All schools give an activated power (3 + int mod uses per day) and a passive power (always on) at 1st level. eg the Illusion School gets Extended Illusions for the passive ability and Blinding Ray for the activated ability

Does the bold part mean that the power has to be the activated one? (ie, It must be 1st level, and it must be limited to 3 + modifier uses per day.) It's worded loosely enough that you could argue that the second half of the sentence isn't another restriction but a description (which is a little weird because the previous sentence just said to replace INT with CHA, plus it doesn't apply on the passive ability)

Wasn't able to find anything concrete on a search (looks like people are assuming a choice), please let me know if there was any official word on it that I missed.

[Ragoz]

Quote:

The arcanist gains one ability of that arcane school as though she were a 1st-level wizard.

Go ahead and pick which you want.

[thorin001]

It says that it must be the one with limited uses per day. You have to spend Arcane Reservoir points to use the other ability.

For example if you choose Conjuration you get the energy Acid Dart (as a 1st level Wizard no matter the Arcanist level). To make use the Summoner's Charm power (and to increase effective Wizard level for Acid Dart) you must spend an Arcane Reservoir point.

[thorin001]

The real question is can an Arcanist select a focused school power? E. g. creation or teleportion from Conjuration.

[Rabscuttle]

Ragoz wrote:

Quote:

The arcanist gains one ability of that arcane school as though she were a 1st-level wizard.

Go ahead and pick which you want.

The question is whether the subsequent text restricts that choice to a single ability.

thorin001 wrote:

The real question is can an Arcanist select a focused school power? E. g. creation or teleportion from Conjuration.

I'd say yes, because focused schools are still schools - they're not like wildblooded bloodlines which you need to take the archetype.

hmm... except maybe the Arcanamirium school, which is a focused school of Univeralist. It replaces the universalist's only 1st-level power (Hand of the Apprentice) with a passive ability. (Metacharge)