Letric |
How do I play an Arcanist at low levels?
I've always played either Rogue or Cleric.
These are my spells known, I can only prepare 2 of level 1, and cast 3 times total, however I want.
0 - ALL Acid Splash, Ghost Sound, Mage Hand, Message
1 - Color Spray, Grease, Mage Armor, Enlarge Person, Protection from Evil,
*Burning Hands, Ray of Enfeeblement > might learn, not learnt yet.
Feat > Scribe Scroll
DEX > 14 and I'm a small Ratfolk
I only have 2 spells. I was thinking of preparing Mage Armor and Color Spray.
I can't find any reasons to prepare other spells. Mage Armor will put me at 17 AC, I think it's a decent AC at level 1.
Should I do damage using a Crossbow, light or heavy?
Thanks for any advice.
I don't have other feats, special abilities, familiar, nothing. That's it.
CampinCarl9127 |
Mage armor and color spray are pretty solid choices. That's what I would pick.
Light crossbow is a solid backup weapon. Use it when you don't want to waste spells or you're out of them. Or if something is very hard to hurt with magic (high will saves).
As an arcanist you should have an exploit at 1st level.
Letric |
I went School Savant, I won't get my first exploit until level 5, and it will be Familiar Valet Archetype.
So, the only think I can do with my Arcane Reservoir is to up +1 DC or CL.
I was thinking maybe heavy crossbow was better, in case I hit, I will do more damage. Being small I'm only doing 1d6 on my light crossbow, 1d8 on heavy.
Athaleon |
I went School Savant, I won't get my first exploit until level 5, and it will be Familiar Valet Archetype.
So, the only think I can do with my Arcane Reservoir is to up +1 DC or CL.
I was thinking maybe heavy crossbow was better, in case I hit, I will do more damage. Being small I'm only doing 1d6 on my light crossbow, 1d8 on heavy.
Reloading a Heavy Crossbow is a full round action, vs a move action on a Light Crossbow.
Takhisis |
A school savant also should get both of the school powers of it's specialty school, if I'm not mistaken. Since you went conjuration, unless you chose a sub-school that gets 0 attack powers you should have a passive bonus that boosts summoning, and an acid-based attack that you can use 3+ int mod per-day. The crossbow can be used against enemies who are not currently engaged in melee (I.E. Archers, casters etc..) and for those in melee you can use said acid attack if you don't want to take the penalty with your crossbow. Likewise, you should abuse you intelligence to be useful outside of combat. Also, depending on your DM, your party may very well need all your knowledge skills to figure out the weaknesses, immunities/resistances etc... of the monsters you face, so you can be an extremely valuable asset in combat due to your intelligence and knowledge alone if your DM enforces "no metagaming" at their table.Even further, that knowledge you have can often be critical outside of combat...so if you feel your combat contributions to be rather restricted at low levels, perhaps try to look at ways to be THE MOST useful outside of combat.
As for actual combat, as a seasoned caster player, I can give you some advice...
A) YOU ARE NOT THERE TO DEAL DAMAGE. I repeat, you are not there to deal damage. While some Arcane casters can be made into "Blasters" this is generally an inferior role for an arcaneist, wizard etc.. to take. As an arcane spellcaster, you will be most effective as a support character, and I don't mean a healer/buffer. You see, unlike MMOs where the "support" role is almost always a healer, in Pathfinder there are two kinds of support characters. The first is the traditional buffer/healer road that you see in most videogames, which in pathfinder is usually the realm of divine casters such as Clerics and Oracles, what I will refer to as the "Arm" in reference to the "forge of combat" concept(which if you have not read that thread, you should, as it breaks down PF combat, and how to optimize your party for it, quite well.) You, as an Arcanist, however, excel at being a different kind of support character: a controller, or what I will call an "anvil"(Again in refrence to the forge of combat.)
An Anvil's combat role is like the reverse of that of an Arm. An arm makes combat easier by improving their ally's numbers/power and giving them more options. An anvil, meanwhile, makes combat easier by hurting the enemy's numbers/power and denying the enemies options. As an Arcanist you are VERY well set-up to fill the "anvil" role, with "Arm" as a strong secondary role. If you play with the mindset that your main contribution in combat will be to tilt the fight in your party's favor rather than deliver the killing blow yourself, then playing an arcane spellcaster(Or any "caster" character focused on a support role, really) becomes much easier a thing to get a grasp on.
B) AT LOW LEVEL, YOU ARE STILL THE MOST POWERFUL PERSON IN YOUR PARTY...JUST NOT CONSISTENTLY. The bad news is, most fights, you will be the weakest member of your party. The good news? In anywhere from 2-3 fights a day you are, bar none, the MOST POWERFUL person in your party. What do I mean? Simple. At low level, an arcane caster can outright trivialize encounters with just 1 well-timed spell. A simple sleep spell at 1st level is a literal save-or-die that can and will lead to death for entire mobs..and there are plenty of other spells which are just as encounter-trivializing at this level. The fighter has to swing and swing to just kill one guy. You can take an entire group out of the fight, AND make it so they drop immediately in one hit...with one..single...spell. In that fight where you win initiative, and sleep that mob before you act, you are out and out, THE most powerful person in the party. Now, what the fighter has over you in the low levels(and really only the low levels, as you become far more consistent the higher level you are.) is consistency. While you will be the most powerful person in the one fight where you sleep a whole mob, the fighter will be able to do his thing(hitting people) consistently, while you, due to being so limited at low levels, will generally only be able to be god in 1-2 fights. Most people look at this and say spellcasters are "weak" at low levels and have can't fulfill their intended jobs, but this is again a matter of looking at a caster through a martial's eyes.
As a person who plays almost nothing but casters, I can say that while your not able to trivialize encounters consistently, the fact you can do so is enough of an asset to a party to be useful at low levels even if your contributions to other fights where you don't cast is minimal. Each fight you trivialize is resources saved for your party. By outright trivializing a fight you save the party HP damage, and thus expenditure of resources to make up for that HP damage in the form not only of potions, wand charges and items, but also strategic resources I.E. the hassle that comes with trying to start another fight with depleted HP. Also, if you have a divine caster, such as an Oracle or Cleric, you save them their valuable spell slots and/or channel energy uses as you usually don't start to get wands and consumables for healing until you gain a level or 2. When looked at through this lens, you can see WHY casters are so limited at low levels in regards to their spellcasting. At low levels, a single spell is enough to totally trivialize a fight if it's the right spell, so if a caster was allowed to spam his magic all day at low levels he'd be saving so many resources and making things so easy for his party, that the game would be too easy...the caster would simply dominate every encounter.
So yes, for a lot of low level fights, you will be standing back, pinking away at things with your crossbow that are not in melee and spamming your conjuration school acid attack otherwise, but for 2-3 fights a day, if built right, you should be trivializing those fights and saving your party a substantial amount of resources. Your 2-3 "big moments" will be more then enough resources saved on your party's end to warrant your existence, and while your contributions may not be all that dramatic in every fight at low levels, those saved resources, those 2-3 trivialized fights...mean a world of difference. If you've made even one fight trivial at level 1, you've fulfilled your purpose as an anvil...you've made your party's life that much easier for the day...and all with a single casting of sleep or color spray.
Kaboogy |
Well, you have your acid dart school ability. Less damage than a crossbow, but hits touch AC. This also means you probably don't want the acid splash cantrip, since it's a weaker version of it, and you won't use it enough to run out of uses. The crossbow is mostly useful before your group reaches the enemy. Oh, and if you don't mind being adjacent to enemies, you can always use the aid another action.
Letric |
I don't have Acid Dart, I took Conjuration (Teleport), so I get Shift and the 8th Teleport Ability as well.
I'll spam Acid Dart, I think it's better than Crossbow I think, maybe more chances to hit?
I'm gonna try and stay back so I don't have to waste 1 Spell to cast Mage armor and I have more combat-ending spells (color spray).