Magaambyan Arcanist - Arcanist or Wizard?


Advice

Sovereign Court

Specifically:

Would a traditional Wizard 5 entry be better for going into Magaambyan Arcanist or would I be better off taking what appears to be the newly-designed for route of Magaambyan Initiate Arcanist 5?

I can see pros and cons for both routes, but I can't decide between them and would value your collective thoughts - thanks! :)


Arcanist uses Sorcerer progression, which means you won't get the prestige class until 6th level if you went Arcanist, since you can't cast 3rd level spells until 6th level.

Wizards don't get all of the neat tricks, but can go into the prestige class ASAP, and have the better spell progression. They also aren't as MAD, meaning their spells will most likely be stronger.


I' Think he talked about the new Magaambyan Arcanist ARCHETYPE not PC


He's talking about how to enter the PrC I think.

The Magaambyan Initiate is not on Archives of Nethys or pathfindercommunity.net nor is anything with a similar name on pfsrd.

The archetype is probably meant to completely supersede the prestige class, though. Paizo decided a few years ago that they hate prestige classes and want them forgotten.

Sovereign Court

Forcy wrote:
I' Think he talked about the new Magaambyan Arcanist ARCHETYPE not PC

Both actually, though I wasn't particularly clear. There's a new archetype for the Arcanist base class that seems designed for entry into the prestige class.

I'm considering whether it's better or worse than the Wizard class for entry into the prestige class.

Sovereign Court

Atarlost wrote:

He's talking about how to enter the PrC I think.

The Magaambyan Initiate is not on Archives of Nethys or pathfindercommunity.net nor is anything with a similar name on pfsrd.

The archetype is probably meant to completely supersede the prestige class, though. Paizo decided a few years ago that they hate prestige classes and want them forgotten.

The Initiate archetype is from Arcane Anthology, which hasn't gone up on AoN yet I think?

I felt like the section in the Anthology was about supporting entry into that prestige class, actually, and I've seen some of the freelance writers talking about how they want to support some of the less-loved prestige classes in the player's companions...

Sovereign Court

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Arcanist uses Sorcerer progression, which means you won't get the prestige class until 6th level if you went Arcanist, since you can't cast 3rd level spells until 6th level.

Wizards don't get all of the neat tricks, but can go into the prestige class ASAP, and have the better spell progression. They also aren't as MAD, meaning their spells will most likely be stronger.

Didn't think about the slower spell progression (the Arcanist class confuses me a bit generally, partially hence my questions to a wider audience) so thanks for catching that.

I'd assumed that because it gets free and special Spell Mastery at 5th level that it could go into the prestige class at 6 - that's a bit weird, now that I think about it.

I'm leaning towards Wizard for the pros you cite in your post - any particular school you'd recommend? Wood, maybe?


I debated this in my own mind at one point, as I'd really like to use the PrC at some point.

While the new archetype did seem to ease the path into the PrC, my conclusion was that Wizard was still probably better than Arcanist for this.

Spell progression is the biggest part. I recall reading somewhere an anlysis between the spells per day of an Arcanist vs Wizard, and after accounting for the enhanced progression and school spells, Wizard actually had more per day than an Arcanist (which seemed counterintuitive to me until I thought about it).

The Wizard bonus feat @ 5th didn't hurt either, given the feat taxes for getting into the PrC. As an Arcanist, you're left to use at least half (or more than half, if not Human) of your feats to Level 5 on Scholar and Spell Mastery. That was very important for me because part of the appeal of the PrC is getting the Aura and focusing on some summoning goodness via Sacred Summons, and there are a host of other good feats to boost that potential.

In stating all of the above, I actually personally prefer Arcanist over Wizard in most cases, because I like the mix of flexibility and fun exploit abilities. But for this particular application, I thought Wizard was better.


Leandro Garvel wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Arcanist uses Sorcerer progression, which means you won't get the prestige class until 6th level if you went Arcanist, since you can't cast 3rd level spells until 6th level.

Wizards don't get all of the neat tricks, but can go into the prestige class ASAP, and have the better spell progression. They also aren't as MAD, meaning their spells will most likely be stronger.

Didn't think about the slower spell progression (the Arcanist class confuses me a bit generally, partially hence my questions to a wider audience) so thanks for catching that.

I'd assumed that because it gets free and special Spell Mastery at 5th level that it could go into the prestige class at 6 - that's a bit weird, now that I think about it.

I'm leaning towards Wizard for the pros you cite in your post - any particular school you'd recommend? Wood, maybe?

I personally feel Elemental Wizards suck. Being elementally selective really bites when you're forced to face enemies who are usually immune to it. I'd stick away from them if you can.

Otherwise, I'd take a look at Treantmonk's Guide; he has a lot of solid options here.


Personally, I think that Wizard is stronger for the PrC, though the Arcanist archetype is pretty enticing, just because it ties the abilities to your character from the start.

We had a Wizard 5/"Collegiate" Arcanist (as it's referred to on PFSRD) X for our Wrath of the Righteous campaign, and he was just an outstanding fit, thematically. It's the Gandalf PrC, it's just fantastic. Tons of flavor, great abilities, and somehow not totally OP.

While the Arcanist archetype is not yet up on AoN, it is up on d20PFSRD as "Collegiate Initiate"

Link HERE.


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Leandro Garvel wrote:

Specifically:

Would a traditional Wizard 5 entry be better for going into Magaambyan Arcanist or would I be better off taking what appears to be the newly-designed for route of Magaambyan Initiate Arcanist 5?

I can see pros and cons for both routes, but I can't decide between them and would value your collective thoughts - thanks! :)

I've approached this question from a slightly different approach awhile back; specifically I was decided on Magaambyan Initiate and was trying to decide if the prestige class was worth taking with it. After looking at at a full Magaambyan Initiate vs. a Magaambyan Initiate to Magaambyan Arcanist, I ultimately decided that full initiate was better. To take advantage of the initiate's unique features, you need a pretty decent arcane reservoir. It adds a lot of flexibility to the spells available on demand to an Arcanist. But to the point you build for that, you really want to also get additional exploits as you level up. On balance, I found the Initiate just made a better "Magaambyan Arcanist" than the actual Magaambyan Arcanist since you have a wider depth of access to the Druid list, still had the good aura for sacred summons if you wanted it, and also had the rest of the Arcanist toolset.

So in that regard, if you had to choose between Arcanist and Wizard for a base for the prestige class, I'd agree that the Wizard is probably the way to go.


cavernshark wrote:
Leandro Garvel wrote:

Specifically:

Would a traditional Wizard 5 entry be better for going into Magaambyan Arcanist or would I be better off taking what appears to be the newly-designed for route of Magaambyan Initiate Arcanist 5?

I can see pros and cons for both routes, but I can't decide between them and would value your collective thoughts - thanks! :)

I've approached this question from a slightly different approach awhile back; specifically I was decided on Magaambyan Initiate and was trying to decide if the prestige class was worth taking with it. After looking at at a full Magaambyan Initiate vs. a Magaambyan Initiate to Magaambyan Arcanist, I ultimately decided that full initiate was better. To take advantage of the initiate's unique features, you need a pretty decent arcane reservoir. It adds a lot of flexibility to the spells available on demand to an Arcanist. But to the point you build for that, you really want to also get additional exploits as you level up. On balance, I found the Initiate just made a better "Magaambyan Arcanist" than the actual Magaambyan Arcanist since you have a wider depth of access to the Druid list, still had the good aura for sacred summons if you wanted it, and also had the rest of the Arcanist toolset.

So in that regard, if you had to choose between Arcanist and Wizard for a base for the prestige class, I'd agree that the Wizard is probably the way to go.

Interesting -- I hadn't looked at it from that perspective. My focus had been getting into the Prestige Class, not on whether that even made sense versus just using the archetype straight-up.

Having said that, on further reflection, my initial reaction is that I'm not sure I agree with your conclusion, though I can see your perspective on it.

There are two reasons I think I disagree: (a) the relative lack of arcane reservoir points isn't really an issue (see excerpt from the Spell Mastery archetype feature below); and (b) the Collegiate Initiate archetype loses a lot of their exploits in exchange for class features, which diminishes that rationale for preferring more archetype levels over PrC levels.

While the latter problem can be addressed to some degree via the Extra Exploit feat, that solution applies equally for both the archetype and PrC. Don;t get me wrong -- with the archetype you still get more exploits and don't 'waste' a feat on Scholar to get into the PrC -- but the trade-off is not getting some of the other cool and flavourful PrC stuff.

EDIT: I think we agree, however, that if the plan is to go Magaambyan Arcanist PrC, Wizard is probably the better entry point.

----------

Spell Mastery

...

In addition, if the Collegiate initiate gains levels in the Collegiate arcanist prestige class, her prestige class levels stack with her arcanist levels for the purpose of determining the number of points in her arcane reservoir (though not the effectiveness of arcane exploits based on class level).

...

Silver Crusade

I have a sylph wizard (air element spec) 10 level / Magaambyan Arcanist 1 in Pathfinder Society role playing guild.

I am quite happy with my character. For the Hayclon magic I picked Freedom of Movement as my character's spell. I feel the added druid spells like call lightning will go nicely with my character's cyclone ability.

When I started out with this character a couple of years ago the Magaambyan Initiate didn't exist.

If I "had to do it over again" and had to pick between a wizard 5 or Arcanist (Magaambyan initiate) 6 to get into the Magaambyan Arcanist prestige class, I think i would still pick wizard 5.

To me it seems that the Maagambyan initiate archtype gives most everything at first level. As it was posted up thread, I think it would be interesting to play and arcanist withe the archtype and skip the prestige class.

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