Advanced Class Guide Preview: Arcanist

MagusJanus wrote:

Cthulhudrew wrote:

zergtitan wrote:

I think the main thing we can all agree is that we all need to see the final release before we can make our individual "final" opinions on these issues.

If we could all agree on that, these threads would be half as long (or shorter).

But yeah, I think it's premature to start decrying anything.

Yeah, they would, but the complaint threads would be three times as long and the resulting fighting going on even longer.

yeah but that'd be more alright over all. Threads like these are more for discussing what's known and such. Some people want to discuss opinions, and some want to discuss what's been released; but these two things don't really overlapp very well. Like this and others, it ends up being two threads in one, not very useful for either disucssion. But then again I heavily lean towards having seperate entities for everything with no overlap for ease of reference and such. not that there isn't benefits to the hodgepodge. just not my style

but in that kinda case in particular only those who had opinions about the complaint/opinions/fighting would be involved.

Unfortunately, this class has to be compared it what's released. And without expressing opinions, no one would have anything to say on this topic at all.

That kinda makes one wonder what point there is for these topics.

This news from the PaizoCon banquet seems relevant. :-)

Spring 2015: Pathfinder Unchained: 256 pages of WTF? Uhm..."what if the rules team could do whatever they wanted". It's a new set of rules and different things they could do stuff they wanted to do. New Summoner. Fixed Rogue. Full BAB Monk.

See too:

In spring 2015.... Pathfinder Unchained. Rules team goes wild, backward compatibility be damned! New rogue, monk with full BAB, summoner....

It's always so much fun when you can 1-2 round encounters! /sarcasm

I don't need a caster to 1-round encounters.

I can deal enough damage with a fighter or barbarian to manage that.

Tels wrote:

It's always so much fun when you can 1-2 round encounters! /sarcasm

I don't need a caster to 1-round encounters.

I can deal enough damage with a fighter or barbarian to manage that.

I said encounters, not single opponents. Some spells can 1-round whole swaths of people, or they are so detrimental to the enemy that the enemy is no longer a threat.

Martials can 1-round nearly every enemy in the game (I say nearly on the off-chance there is one that takes 2 rounds for some reason). That's not in doubt, but when a Martial is facing 3-4 level appropriate enemies, he can't kill them all in a single round.

Zwordsman wrote:

MagusJanus wrote:

Cthulhudrew wrote:

zergtitan wrote:

I think the main thing we can all agree is that we all need to see the final release before we can make our individual "final" opinions on these issues.

If we could all agree on that, these threads would be half as long (or shorter).

But yeah, I think it's premature to start decrying anything.

Yeah, they would, but the complaint threads would be three times as long and the resulting fighting going on even longer.

yeah but that'd be more alright over all. Threads like these are more for discussing what's known and such. Some people want to discuss opinions, and some want to discuss what's been released; but these two things don't really overlapp very well. Like this and others, it ends up being two threads in one, not very useful for either disucssion. But then again I heavily lean towards having seperate entities for everything with no overlap for ease of reference and such. not that there isn't benefits to the hodgepodge. just not my style

but in that kinda case in particular only those who had opinions about the complaint/opinions/fighting would be involved.

Unfortunately, this class has to be compared it what's released. And without expressing opinions, no one would have anything to say on this topic at all.

That kinda makes one wonder what point there is for these topics.

This thread was for the release hints to talk about that, opinions are fine, the bashing portions are not. As for what I was thinking in specific in this thread itself there was a lot of talkinga bout archetype guesses, what people heard, and in general the blurb they released.

Drogon was kind enough to share words and pictures of Paizocon announcements in another thread. Of particular interest to this thread, although it's blurry, one of the pictures of the Advanced Class guide shows the archetypes for the Arcanist, and if I'm not mistaken, it mentions under the Unlettered Arcanist archetype something about Witch spells.

Well i clearly see spontaneous healing under white mage in that picture. Not that there was any real doubt of course.

9mm wrote:

It's been six years, and being nice has never got the point through. Insanity is doing the same thing over again expecting a different result. If the Paizo staff can't take the lumps they rightfully give themselves they shouldn't be in this business. Treating them like precious little snowflakes is, at this point, both insulting and a waste of time.

If things are so bad, why are you still playing Pathfinder?

because that's all people in my area are willing to play. I'll take PF over no gaming at all.

There are plenty of other systems out there, or else there's houseruling your own version of the game.

Oh I know there are other systems, I'VE WRITTEN SOME OF THEM.

Berating people and hoping that they will kowtow to you and make the changes you want to see isn't going to help anything, especially when you aren't contributing meaningful criticism and dialogue, but just browbeating them. Lordy.

Lol you think I'm browbeating people, that's cute. maybe I should start sometime?

You've never actually been to a full blown critique in your life have you? You'll have your work, things you've spent months to years working on teared down in seconds.

thing is, all you have to do is ask the following question; "So how can I make it better?" and 9 out of 10 times the guy who you thought was the vile person in the critique will give you the best answer.

The simple fact is these boards have been filled with how the arcanist is broken beyond belief being a straight better caster than the others due to the simple mechanic of "oops all the spells." Meanwhile (insert batman logo) Marshal characters are told with a straight face that a feat they could have gotten at 3rd level at the very latest is comparable with These tricks in the face of all common sense. All because DMs remember the barbarian critting for 200 more than a wizard dealing the same amount to 6 creatures with a fire ball because of the high spot nature of critting.

@9mm, you've said your piece and you've clearly stated your position. Since it doesn't look like you're willing to be persuaded on the value of being polite, and since it doesn't look like you'll persuade your interlocutors here that your abrasive tone is helpful or healthy, then I suggest we let the conversation move on to other things. It doesn't look like the current line of discussion will go anywhere except in circles. :-)

@Everyone else, same suggestion. :-)

You've never actually been to a full blown critique in your life have you? You'll have your work, things you've spent months to years working on teared down in seconds.

The correct word usage in the above sentence is "torn" not "teared."

I dont Think there is any Reason to keep saying that 9mm or any others is out of Line or whatever. Folks that post here are all interested in that the game get as good as it Can be and some May be blunter than others. But all this polite talk is just derailing the thread. I realize i Will have to see what goodies the other classes get before knowing if the Arcanist Will out perform them. But since we dont have a wizard goodies preveiw we dont know if he Will get to change spells in the middel of the Day. So we have to talk about what we know.

MagusJanus wrote:

Zwordsman wrote:

MagusJanus wrote:

Cthulhudrew wrote:

zergtitan wrote:

I think the main thing we can all agree is that we all need to see the final release before we can make our individual "final" opinions on these issues.

If we could all agree on that, these threads would be half as long (or shorter).

But yeah, I think it's premature to start decrying anything.

Yeah, they would, but the complaint threads would be three times as long and the resulting fighting going on even longer.

yeah but that'd be more alright over all. Threads like these are more for discussing what's known and such. Some people want to discuss opinions, and some want to discuss what's been released; but these two things don't really overlapp very well. Like this and others, it ends up being two threads in one, not very useful for either disucssion. But then again I heavily lean towards having seperate entities for everything with no overlap for ease of reference and such. not that there isn't benefits to the hodgepodge. just not my style

but in that kinda case in particular only those who had opinions about the complaint/opinions/fighting would be involved.

Unfortunately, this class has to be compared it what's released. And without expressing opinions, no one would have anything to say on this topic at all.

That kinda makes one wonder what point there is for these topics.

This thread was for the release hints to talk about that, opinions are fine, the bashing portions are not. As for what I was thinking in specific in this thread itself there was a lot of talkinga bout archetype guesses, what people heard, and in general the blurb they released.

I was mostly referring (in my big block portion there) that when it goes off the rails from "arcanist centric" to the point where it goes all the way to everything broken, "paizo doesn't give a crap" or the "martials vs magic users" kind of stuff shouldn't be included; they belong in their own discussion. losing the original topic of discussing what was released was the aim I was referring to.

Unfortunately, the same things you complain about are still opinions related to the class. Some of the talking about "Paizo not giving a crap" and "martials are weaker than magic users" tend to revolve around people explaining their opinion on this class and some of what has gone into it, typically by showing the position they are coming from and, to a degree, the logic that has led up to it. Which, on this site, is unfortunately necessary.

Why is it necessary? Your own post demonstrates that. This is a gamer site; people do not leave opinions alone. They like to dictate what opinions are acceptable, just as you are doing, and challenge the basis behind other opinions. The game designers have a very unenviable position because of this.

And, no, I am not saying one side is better or worse than the other. Both do it.

This news from the PaizoCon banquet seems relevant. :-)

Painlord wrote:

Spring 2015: Pathfinder Unchained: 256 pages of WTF? Uhm..."what if the rules team could do whatever they wanted". It's a new set of rules and different things they could do stuff they wanted to do. New Summoner. Fixed Rogue. Full BAB Monk.

See too:

Wolfgang Baur wrote:

In spring 2015.... Pathfinder Unchained. Rules team goes wild, backward compatibility be damned! New rogue, monk with full BAB, summoner....

YOU HAVE MY ATTENTION.

This news from the PaizoCon banquet seems relevant. :-)

Painlord wrote:

Spring 2015: Pathfinder Unchained: 256 pages of WTF? Uhm..."what if the rules team could do whatever they wanted". It's a new set of rules and different things they could do stuff they wanted to do. New Summoner. Fixed Rogue. Full BAB Monk.

See too:

Wolfgang Baur wrote:

In spring 2015.... Pathfinder Unchained. Rules team goes wild, backward compatibility be damned! New rogue, monk with full BAB, summoner....

So, the rogue was not Ok after all.

Cthulhudrew wrote:

9mm wrote:

It's been six years, and being nice has never got the point through. Insanity is doing the same thing over again expecting a different result. If the Paizo staff can't take the lumps they rightfully give themselves they shouldn't be in this business. Treating them like precious little snowflakes is, at this point, both insulting and a waste of time.

If things are so bad, why are you still playing Pathfinder?

because that's all people in my area are willing to play. I'll take PF over no gaming at all.

Quote:

There are plenty of other systems out there, or else there's houseruling your own version of the game.

Oh I know there are other systems, I'VE WRITTEN SOME OF THEM.

Quote:

Berating people and hoping that they will kowtow to you and make the changes you want to see isn't going to help anything, especially when you aren't contributing meaningful criticism and dialogue, but just browbeating them. Lordy.

Lol you think I'm browbeating people, that's cute. maybe I should start sometime?

You've never actually been to a full blown critique in your life have you? You'll have your work, things you've spent months to years working on teared down in seconds.

thing is, all you have to do is ask the following question; "So how can I make it better?" and 9 out of 10 times the guy who you thought was the vile person in the critique will give you the best answer.

The simple fact is these boards have been filled with how the arcanist is broken beyond belief being a straight better caster than the others due to the simple mechanic of "oops all the spells." Meanwhile (insert batman logo) Marshal characters are told with a straight face that a feat they could have gotten at 3rd level at the very latest is comparable with These tricks in the face of all common sense. All because DMs remember the...

Actually...as someone who has nearly ten of year of teaching experience, active involvement in the peer review process for at least 3 major scientific journals, and has provided tons of editorial critique on papers and talks of colleagues...your tone is pretty much the exact tone used if you want to ensure no one ever takes you seriously or ever asks for any opinion ever again.

Pathfinder Unchained is pretty much what I've been looking for. Some acknowledgement of weaker classes and issues (magic item design?).

So wooh! Of course, they'll have to be compatibility- and rebuild-minded when writing the new rules, but that's something Paizo can do.

I've been watching this thread for a few days now and I have been seeing people saying that Quick Study is not that good, and how it is compared to Fast Study (or whatever it's called) for wizards. I would like to give my thoughts on this.

1) To utilize Fast Study, a wizard has to have an open spell slot. Arcanists are not bound by this, meaning they can have a spell already in that slot and can change it out later.
2) Fast study takes one minute. That's 10 rounds in combat. Arcanists do Quick Study in a full round action.
3) Many people have said that a full round action to use Quick Study is an actual detriment. Yet, in my opinion, it's just like using a summoning spell or casting a buff spell upon yourself, which people think is AMAZING. For example, you cast Righteous Might upon yourself, but you don't get the benefits of the spell until the next round. Same with summoning spells, and the same with using Quick Study. Spend a full round (or a standard) action to do something so that next round you're amazing.
4) Finally, people keep mentioning that pulling out a spell book is a HUGE detriment, yet for the past 3-4 years I've been playing PF and reading these forums, it is considered terrible practice to target a spellcaster's spellbook, to the point of saying that if a GM was to target, destroy, steal etc a wizard's spellbook, they are a bad GM. Which is it? You can't say a GM should never target a wizard's spellbook but then use that as your primary argument as to why Quick Study is bad.

Finally, I pointed out a long time ago in a thread that under the rules portion of the sorcerer, sorcerers have the ability to learn basically any spell. "A sorcerer casts arcane spells drawn primarily from the sorcerer/wizard spell list." And then, "These new spells can be common spells chosen from the sorcerer/wizard spell list, or they can be unusual spells that the sorcerer has gained some understanding of through study." Most people have said that this refers to spells from other books that are labeled sorcerer/wizard, but I disagree due to that those books treat those spells under that heading as an expanded table to be included in the original list from the core rulebook. If they are considered sorcerer/wizard spells, why are they headed in that way? Anyways, to get back to my point, this to me means that with the right amount of role play and reasoning, a sorcerer could learn healing spells, but others would argue that this isn't how it works or that this is broken. Yet, now the Arcanist will mot only get the sorcerer/wizard spell list, but will also get healing spells? And people say the sorcerer getting those spells is broken but this class getting this is not? I don't understand how this is so.

It seems many people are saying they love this class because they are getting the best of both worlds but it is very unfair to wizards and sorcerers and I thin these people are either power gamers, people who have already made similar changes to sorcerers/wizards to have similar casting styles like the arcanist, or both. I understand that people say, "let's see the full class first," yet I don't think there will be any major changes to it, otherwise they would have been at least mentioned/listed. Instead, we got new abilities they can do and the assurance that the class is having some of its previous exploits increased power wise. I'm just not seeing how this isn't a problem.

Fnipernackle, that line about Sorcerers is dealing, primarily, with the Bloodlines of Sorcerers who sometimes get Clerical spells (Celestial Bloodline gets several cleric spells if I recall).

It also may refer to the section on 'independent research' that allows players to invent their own spells, possibly inventing arcane version of divine spells.

Fnipernackle, that line about Sorcerers is dealing, primarily, with the Bloodlines of Sorcerers who sometimes get Clerical spells (Celestial Bloodline gets several cleric spells if I recall).

It also may refer to the section on 'independent research' that allows players to invent their own spells, possibly inventing arcane version of divine spells.

I can see where you are coming from and I don't necessarily disagree with you. We could sit here all day and argue that point, but I was primarily using it as an example to set up my thoughts on the "white mage" archetype.

Joe M. wrote:

This news from the PaizoCon banquet seems relevant. :-)

Painlord wrote:

Spring 2015: Pathfinder Unchained: 256 pages of WTF? Uhm..."what if the rules team could do whatever they wanted". It's a new set of rules and different things they could do stuff they wanted to do. New Summoner. Fixed Rogue. Full BAB Monk.

See too:

Wolfgang Baur wrote:

In spring 2015.... Pathfinder Unchained. Rules team goes wild, backward compatibility be damned! New rogue, monk with full BAB, summoner....

YOU HAVE MY ATTENTION.

MINE TOO

Orthos wrote:

Joe M. wrote:

This news from the PaizoCon banquet seems relevant. :-)

Painlord wrote:

Spring 2015: Pathfinder Unchained: 256 pages of WTF? Uhm..."what if the rules team could do whatever they wanted". It's a new set of rules and different things they could do stuff they wanted to do. New Summoner. Fixed Rogue. Full BAB Monk.

See too:

Wolfgang Baur wrote:

In spring 2015.... Pathfinder Unchained. Rules team goes wild, backward compatibility be damned! New rogue, monk with full BAB, summoner....

YOU HAVE MY ATTENTION.

MINE TOO

i made some rather un-manly squeeling noises when i read that.

4) Finally, people keep mentioning that pulling out a spell book is a HUGE detriment, yet for the past 3-4 years I've been playing PF and reading these forums, it is considered terrible practice to target a spellcaster's spellbook, to the point of saying that if a GM was to target, destroy, steal etc a wizard's spellbook, they are a bad GM. Which is it? You can't say a GM should never target a wizard's spellbook but then use that as your primary argument as to why Quick Study is bad.

My opinion on spellbooks is the same as it is for familiars. Out-of-sight = Out-of-mind.

However: as soon as you start actively using either during combat, the bad guys are going to notice.

@9mm:

I'm in agreement with MMCJawa, and have some experience with editing and critiques myself, though not nearly as much as he apparently does. The issue is tone, not how harsh the critique is. Your attitude and posts come off as personal, and as personally attacking the people involved, not just their work. That comes up in serious critique, but it's unprofessional and ineffective. Harsh critique of the work is fine 'only an idiot would write this' or similar snide and contemptuous remarks are not.

For example, you used 'marshal' instead of the correct 'martial', and had several other typographical errors in your last post. That sentence is a critique, a statement of fact. What you're doing is the equivalent of adding "So you clearly can't spell." on the end of that critique. It's superfluous, unpleasant, and damages the message.

And, with that, I'm pretty much done talking about this.

@The Rest Of The Discussion:

I, too, am really looking forward to Pathfinder Unchained. I might well not use all of it, but I can't imagine not at least strongly considering the alternative Rogue, Monk, and Summoner rules. Let's hope Fighters get the same treatment, too.

@The Rest Of The Discussion:

I, too, am really looking forward to Pathfinder Unchained. I might well not use all of it, but I can't imagine not at least strongly considering the alternative Rogue, Monk, and Summoner rules. Let's hope Fighters get the same treatment, too.

Yeah! I'm hoping Unchained, with the "backwards compatibility be damned!" slogan, does some serious work on the "caster v. martial" issue by giving the martials some serious love. The mention of a "fixed" Rogue and a full-BAB Monk have me hopeful.

I'm pretty hopeful for the future of PF 1.0 between the Advanced Class Guide, the Strategy Guide, and Pathfinder Unleashed. I wish they could just scrap it and go to 2.0 but I understand why that would be a terrible business decision (the same continuity reasons that give rise to the caster/martial problems). Still, these projects seem like excellent choices for shoring up some of the weaknesses in PF 1.0 and laying a solid foundation for the future.

In any case, the Unchained playtest is sure to be all sorts of fun. :-)

Unfortunately, the same things you complain about are still opinions related to the class. Some of the talking about "Paizo not giving a crap" and "martials are weaker than magic users" tend to revolve around people explaining their opinion on this class and some of what has gone into it, typically by showing the position they are coming from and, to a degree, the logic that has led up to it. Which, on this site, is unfortunately necessary.

Why is it necessary? Your own post demonstrates that. This is a gamer site; people do not leave opinions alone. They like to dictate what opinions are acceptable, just as you are doing, and challenge the basis behind other opinions. The game designers have a very unenviable position because of this.

And, no, I am not saying one side is better or worse than the other. Both do it.

Oh it's certainly used and should be. I'm mostly talking about when it goes from how that class fits in, to the more general system wide issues. WHen it's all mixed together it gets too messy for any clear distinctions without spending an 30mins to an hour going through the whole thread trying to pick out the different topics and their own supporting evidence. Versus giving support then having it's own place for the wider discussion. Since the people we want to see the issues (paizo staff etc) probably can't spend their work day doing that, so if they do a fair chunk is likely going to be non paid time. So it lowers the chances of that occuring and well it's their free time.

Ooh unchained does sound grand. I wonder which version will end up prevalant in PFS? I gotta imagine most hoem games will default with the stronger versions.

So does anyone who was at PaizoCon have anything to add about the archetypes that were discussed at the banquet?

So does anyone who was at PaizoCon have anything to add about the archetypes that were discussed at the banquet?

The blog mentions several other Arcanist archetypes that we didn't know or weren't sure of. It also mentions some discussion about the Shaman, so hopefully someone there could tell us more about that (since it will be at least two weeks until we get a Shaman preview).

MagusJanus wrote:

Unfortunately, the same things you complain about are still opinions related to the class. Some of the talking about "Paizo not giving a crap" and "martials are weaker than magic users" tend to revolve around people explaining their opinion on this class and some of what has gone into it, typically by showing the position they are coming from and, to a degree, the logic that has led up to it. Which, on this site, is unfortunately necessary.

Why is it necessary? Your own post demonstrates that. This is a gamer site; people do not leave opinions alone. They like to dictate what opinions are acceptable, just as you are doing, and challenge the basis behind other opinions. The game designers have a very unenviable position because of this.

And, no, I am not saying one side is better or worse than the other. Both do it.

Oh it's certainly used and should be. I'm mostly talking about when it goes from how that class fits in, to the more general system wide issues. WHen it's all mixed together it gets too messy for any clear distinctions without spending an 30mins to an hour going through the whole thread trying to pick out the different topics and their own supporting evidence. Versus giving support then having it's own place for the wider discussion. Since the people we want to see the issues (paizo staff etc) probably can't spend their work day doing that, so if they do a fair chunk is likely going to be non paid time. So it lowers the chances of that occuring and well it's their free time.

If that makes sense. Drawing that sort of line is difficult though.

I think they could improve it a bit. I admit that the current atmosphere is way, way too hostile at times. Perhaps, instead, they have a blog post about how all of the new classes tie together with the old ones? Then if anyone wants to discuss it, they can do so there and have an ongoing, evolving conversation while blog posts like this are devoted solely to talking about the class and only the class.

Ooh unchained does sound grand. I wonder which version will end up prevalant in PFS? I gotta imagine most hoem games will default with the stronger versions.

Unchained is one where I'm having a bit of difficulty. I normally try to keep low expectations (this is not to disparage Paizo's work; I've been told before my expectations, when high, are not even remotely reasonable), but this book is getting me giddy. I'm having to moderate my own comments on it while I sort out the dichotomy :P

That said, I'm thinking that book is what Pathfinder has been needing for awhile now. And I would say the timing of it is perfect.

Orthos wrote:

Joe M. wrote:

This news from the PaizoCon banquet seems relevant. :-)

Painlord wrote:

Spring 2015: Pathfinder Unchained: 256 pages of WTF? Uhm..."what if the rules team could do whatever they wanted". It's a new set of rules and different things they could do stuff they wanted to do. New Summoner. Fixed Rogue. Full BAB Monk.

See too:

Wolfgang Baur wrote:

In spring 2015.... Pathfinder Unchained. Rules team goes wild, backward compatibility be damned! New rogue, monk with full BAB, summoner....

YOU HAVE MY ATTENTION.

MINE TOO

AND MY AXE!

You know, I can't help but think, that this book will make or break the future of Pathfinder for some people. If the rules team is no longer held back by backwards compatibility, then we will finally get to see how the rules team envisions some of those classes and things without some of the hang-ups of the previous game.

Frankly, when I look at classes like the Magus, or, especially, the Inquisitor, I get excited. The only two concerns I really have is the original Summoner and the Gunslinger (more of a concerns with guns...). So overall, I'm feeling positive about this upcoming book.

@9mm:

@The Rest Of The Discussion:

I, too, am really looking forward to Pathfinder Unchained. I might well not use all of it, but I can't imagine not at least strongly considering the alternative Rogue, Monk, and Summoner rules. Let's hope Fighters get the same treatment, too.

That would be cool, but I doubt it.

We will however get "completely redesigned versions of the barbarian, monk, rogue, and summoner classes."

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Pathfinder Unchained (OGL) Hardcover.

Now we can take any discussion on this subject in that thread. :)

edit:

Players will love the book's new resource pool for martial characters, allowing for exciting new tactical options, as well as the robust new system that allows spellcasters to modify their spells with powerful spell components.

I tend to heavily dislike resource pool for actions that a martial should basically be able to try everytime he wants, hopefully this will not be the case.

Although I was being slightly rhetorical, it is in fact very close to the same thing. The costs for scribing spells are very low (see blessed book), and it's very easy for a wizard or arcanist to maintain a spellbook with all relevant and useful spells of levels they can cast. So yes, it serves the same function of allowing the arcanist to, as a standard action, gain access to a wide variety of utility spells that would normally be questionable as a slot prepared/spell known. This was previously one of the biggest strengths of the sorcerer over the wizard, and it's a bit worrisome to see the arcanist one-up both classes so thoroughly.

No, it isn't. This is Demonstratively Untrue.

Can people stop repeating the same trite and inaccurate talking points about how cheap it is to have every spell?

So, I'm going to be blunt: Unless you had munchkins on your playtest team for the final version to make certain it's not significantly more powerful, you failed. Because I guarantee this class will be optimized in ways no game designer ever thought of inside of a week of the book being released. Because that's what optimizers and munchkins do. If there is even the slightest possibility of this class being broken, they will break it and ride the shattered remains all over the site....

Honestly, the day they start balancing the game around munchkin designs is the day I move on to greener pastures. I'm sure I could care less about how some munchkin breaks the game in theory, but I'm not sure how.

I tend to heavily dislike resource pool for actions that a martial should basically be able to try everytime he wants, hopefully this will not be the case.

This is not a martial class. What are you referring to, exactly?

Stark_ wrote:

Although I was being slightly rhetorical, it is in fact very close to the same thing. The costs for scribing spells are very low (see blessed book), and it's very easy for a wizard or arcanist to maintain a spellbook with all relevant and useful spells of levels they can cast. So yes, it serves the same function of allowing the arcanist to, as a standard action, gain access to a wide variety of utility spells that would normally be questionable as a slot prepared/spell known. This was previously one of the biggest strengths of the sorcerer over the wizard, and it's a bit worrisome to see the arcanist one-up both classes so thoroughly.

No, it isn't. This is Demonstratively Untrue.

Can people stop repeating the same trite and inaccurate talking points about how cheap it is to have every spell?

I do wish you would stop posting the link to your trite strawman nonsense. No prepared arcane caster needs to learn every single spell. Even if they did as soon as the Blessed Book becomes available all of those scribing costs go away for the low low cost of 6250gp. Each book has 1000 pages and can therefore hold 1000 levels of spells.

If you fill it with nothing but level 9 spells, assuming you could find 111 level 9 spells, then you save yourself over 80000gp in scribing costs alone.

At the end of the day it is trivially easy for a prepared arcane caster to have access to a very wide library of spells available for any potential situation. Pretending that it isn't is not fooling anyone.

I have done spread sheets that show exactly how much it would cost to scribe every core wizard spell into your spellbook, and how a blessed book might effect that cost.

I recently made another one to see how much it would cost to buy or scribe a scroll of every core wizard spell.

The former is quite affordable, even dirt cheap with blessed books (you'll need two by the way), while the latter is impractically expensive (and I hadn't even accounted for the expensive material component costs).

MagusJanus wrote:

So, I'm going to be blunt: Unless you had munchkins on your playtest team for the final version to make certain it's not significantly more powerful, you failed. Because I guarantee this class will be optimized in ways no game designer ever thought of inside of a week of the book being released. Because that's what optimizers and munchkins do. If there is even the slightest possibility of this class being broken, they will break it and ride the shattered remains all over the site....

Honestly, the day they start balancing the game around munchkin designs is the day I move on to greener pastures. I'm sure I could care less about how some munchkin breaks the game in theory, but I'm not sure how.

The munchkin over-optimized builds is not what the game should be balanced around.

But the game should be balanced assuming the people playing are intelligent and aren't going to select toughness, run, endurance and vital strike as feats. Assume that combat classes are going to select intelligent combat feats. Keep an eye on the 'Guides to X class' threats and see which selections are rated the best, and which ones are rated the worst. Look for more info to back those claims up and see if it's a widely popular belief that X feat is trash and Y feat is automatically the best.

Keep all of this in mind and keep revising the game. Some feats should be better than others and that's ok. But if one feat is so absolutely mind-boggling good you'd be stupid to consider not taking it, then that feat needs to come under review, unless it's something that just patches up a hole in mechanics or is necessary to make something work.

A feat like Mythic Power Attack, for example, is a 'mandatory' feat if a group is using Mythic and one of their characters uses Power Attack. Yet the feat is so g*@ d&~ned powerful I've seen many, many groups so far having to nerf it because it's so obviously better than all of the other feats. Increased damage, increased damage before crits, and the option to negate the penalties for 1 minute? Hell, it's like 3 feats rolled into one!

The point is, they don't need to balance the game around munchkins, but they should balance the game around intelligent, maybe even mildly optimized, choices.

As it stands, my current understanding, based off various posts, is that the game, especially APs, is balanced around the idea that the average gamer has either a single adventure path under his belt, or 6 months of play experience.

Think about that, they assume that the average player has only 6 months experience. Almost as if once people get more than 6 months, many of them just stop playing, or never get any better. But we know this is categorically untrue and the average player isn't that bad.

In fact, with the help of these forums and the abundance of guides on the internet (plus with a more internet-savvy player base willing to Google How-to for games), we know that even new players can have a real leg up by reading the guides. So they come into the game with some already pre-built characters based off some guides, meaning they're playing with the help of vastly more experienced players.

Hey there folks,

This thread is wandering dangerously off into unproductive territory with all sorts of different discussions being dragged into the mix. A couple of points..

1. We realize there are some FAQ issues that need to be addressed, a fair number of them in fact. We've been short staffed in this regard for a while but as we get back on schedule, we are hoping to take a look at some of these. This issue is not relevant to this thread.

2. The tone from some of the posters here is entirely inappropriate. Criticize the design all you want, we welcome feedback on our work. When you start arguing about each others tone or make your attacks personal (either at staff or other posters), you have crossed the line. Please drop it. After this post, I am just going to start suppressing such posts. If they continue, we will bounce it up to customer service for possible "time outs" to be delivered.

3. We do understand your concerns about some elements of this class. We've had a fair number of discussions on this point, but we are going to wait until folks see the entire class before commenting further. At this point, it is just not a very productive use of our time to argue with incomplete data. The book releases in just over a month and I think opinions may shift a bit when you get a look at the entire thing.

Thanks everybody. I am going to leave this open for the time being, but if it continues to be off track, we may need to revisit that decision.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Isn't another issue with having a large spell library that it literally starts to become a Library? A spellbook has 100 pages. It takes one page per spell level to record a spell. A wizard start off knowing all 0-level spells (which still take up one page each) and 3+INT first level spells. Assuming a 20 Intelligence, a first level wizard already has 30 of his 100 pages used up. Then he gets two spells each level by normal advancement. Assuming you take the highest spell level possible each level, a wizard will fill his first spell book at level 11 and will have 2 and a half spell books worth of spells at level 20, just with normal level advancement. If a wizard wanted to know every wizard spell (just in the RPG line, minus the ARG), I came up with 3078 pages worth of spells. That's 31 spellbooks. Each spellbook is only 3 lbs., so that's just 93 lbs. total, which isn't a big deal if you use Bags of Holding, but it does cause a major hit to a Handy Haversack's capacity. I suppose you could use traveling spellbooks instead. They hold half the spells but only weight 1 lb. each, so that would be 62 lbs. worth of spellbooks which is a bit more manageable in a Handy Haversack.

Are the rules for spellbooks something that is commonly hand-waved or is there some magic unlimited page spellbook that I don't know about? If these rules are followed, the Glove of Storing/Quick Study in combat arcanist trick wouldn't be that powerful unless every spell you would need for every combat situation is in one spell book.

I thought 0-level spells took half a page? It's been awhile since I played a wizard.

Also, you're thinking of the blessed book. It isn't unlimited, but there are a lot of people who round up 'a thousand pages pages' to 'as many pages as I need'.

Oh, nice. Thank you for pointing that out. I didn't know what Ravingdork was talking about when he mentioned that. Surprised I never noticed it. Carry on. ^_^"

Isn't another issue with having a large spell library that it literally starts to become a Library? A spellbook has 100 pages. It takes one page per spell level to record a spell. A wizard start off knowing all 0-level spells (which still take up one page each) and 3+INT first level spells. Assuming a 20 Intelligence, a first level wizard already has 30 of his 100 pages used up. Then he gets two spells each level by normal advancement. Assuming you take the highest spell level possible each level, a wizard will fill his first spell book at level 11 and will have 2 and a half spell books worth of spells at level 20, just with normal level advancement. If a wizard wanted to know every wizard spell (just in the RPG line, minus the ARG), I came up with 3078 pages worth of spells. That's 31 spellbooks. Each spellbook is only 3 lbs., so that's just 93 lbs. total, which isn't a big deal if you use Bags of Holding, but it does cause a major hit to a Handy Haversack's capacity. I suppose you could use traveling spellbooks instead. They hold half the spells but only weight 1 lb. each, so that would be 62 lbs. worth of spellbooks which is a bit more manageable in a Handy Haversack.

Are the rules for spellbooks something that is commonly hand-waved or is there some magic unlimited page spellbook that I don't know about? If these rules are followed, the Glove of Storing/Quick Study in combat arcanist trick wouldn't be that powerful unless every spell you would need for every combat situation is in one spell book.

The Blessed Book has 1000 pages and is only 6250gp to craft yourself.

Also nothing prevents you from carrying more than one Handy Haversack, they are only 5lbs each. Ant Haul also exists which as a level 1 spell lasting 2 hours/level solves any such problems rather easily.

1) To utilize Fast Study, a wizard has to have an open spell slot. Arcanists are not bound by this, meaning they can have a spell already in that slot and can change it out later.

2) Fast study takes one minute. That's 10 rounds in combat. Arcanists do Quick Study in a full round action.

Most combats last 2-5 rounds so casting a spell to prep a spell is 20-50% of the arcanist's actions. That's pretty huge and enough of a deterrent it won't be used often. It's fewer actions to just carry a scroll. Even fewer actions for the wizard with arcane bond to cast any spell from his spell book, or even a sorcerer with mnemonic robes to cast from a scroll or book in his possession.

Each of the existing classes has the ability to pull something awesome out of his/ her hat when needed and none of them have seriously broken the game. Each of them have a unique control on that power. The wizard and sorcerer are more or less constrained to once/ day. The arcanist is constrained by a pretty big delay. Often casting two less ideal spells is going to be just as effective as casting the perfect spell.

3) Many people have said that a full round action to use Quick Study is an actual detriment. Yet, in my opinion, it's just like using a summoning spell or casting a buff spell upon yourself, which people think is AMAZING. For example, you cast Righteous Might upon yourself, but you don't get the benefits of the spell until the next round. Same with summoning spells, and the same with using Quick Study. Spend a full round (or a standard) action to do something so that next round you're amazing.

Abilities have a cost. An arcanist spends a point of her arcane pool and a full round action, as I mentioned above, a full round action during combat is a big chunk of an encounter. She also must take the exploit which means she is giving up other potential powers.

It is a powerful ability, but it has a commensurately high cost.

4) Finally, people keep mentioning that pulling out a spell book is a HUGE detriment, yet for the past 3-4 years I've been playing PF and reading these forums, it is considered terrible practice to target a spellcaster's spellbook, to the point of saying that if a GM was to target, destroy, steal etc a wizard's spellbook, they are a bad GM. Which is it? You can't say a GM should never target a wizard's spellbook but then use that as your primary argument as to why Quick Study is bad.

As far as I'm aware, there aren't a ton of times when a wizard uses his spell book in combat where this would have come up for debate. If an intelligent creature sees a caster break out her spell book in combat, it's fair game.

This is a whole other ball of wax than stealing a wizard's spell book while he sleeps.

I'm curious as to whether many people posting here have actually played an Arcanist using the playtest rules for any significant period of time, or whether most of these arguments are purely hypothetical.

That was my question as well...

Back on target, however: The thing that I find interesting about the arcanist (granted I'm talking about the current playtest) is that they seem to have abilities that are different from both sorcerer and wizard without being (imo) much more powerful than either of them. It does have options targeted towards the types of class features that I like, but I could say the same thing about both sorcerer and wizard (and witch for that matter). I'm definitely excited to see the final version of the class, and I will probably try to build the same character using each of the four classes I just mentioned to see the comparable differences.

While I can't speak for anyone else, I've been playing an Arcanist in a weekly 6-hour session for the past six months and while I don't think the base class is overpowered per se, I have some serious reservations about the Quick Study exploit. As long as Arcanists can use Consume Spell to eat low level spell slots, at higher levels the Quick Study exploit is a massive advantage with a very minor cost. When I'm level 14 I don't really need all my ~7 daily level 1 spells, but being able to swap the one level 7 spell I get each day on a moment's notice is pretty damn useful.

^The above doesn't take into consideration Runestones of Power, which we houseruled did not qualify for Consume Spells. If they however do allow you to qualify (and RAW I don't see why they wouldn't), you can essentially buy arcane reservoir points for 2k gp apiece.

That said, I am going to wait and see the final version of the class and the exploit before deciding whether or not I will ban Quick Study.

And what Prince? This is a guy called 9mm. He has the same avatar as Prince of Knives but does not appear to be the same person.

I actually write for the same 3pp as Prince and I even assumed that that was him based on the avatar and the content of the posts.... Maybe I need to go apologize...

Nicos wrote:

I tend to heavily dislike resource pool for actions that a martial should basically be able to try everytime he wants, hopefully this will not be the case.

This is not a martial class. What are you referring to, exactly?

It was an off-topic response to

"Players will love the book's new resource pool for martial characters, allowing for exciting new tactical options, as well as the robust new system that allows spellcasters to modify ..."

Deadmanwalking wrote:

And what Prince? This is a guy called 9mm. He has the same avatar as Prince of Knives but does not appear to be the same person.

I actually write for the same 3pp as Prince and I even assumed that that was him based on the avatar and the content of the posts.... Maybe I need to go apologize...

Man, I'm honestly hurt at your lack of faith in my sense of class and style. Not to mention ability to correctly spell words in English. What happened, Ssalarn? What happened to our love?

Ssalarn wrote:

Deadmanwalking wrote:

And what Prince? This is a guy called 9mm. He has the same avatar as Prince of Knives but does not appear to be the same person.

I actually write for the same 3pp as Prince and I even assumed that that was him based on the avatar and the content of the posts.... Maybe I need to go apologize...

Man, I'm honestly hurt at your lack of faith in my sense of class and style. Not to mention ability to correctly spell words in English. What happened, Ssalarn? What happened to our love?

I dont know but if you'd like i could FAQ your post and we could see what the Dev Team thinks happened to it.

Ahem.

We are monitoring the issue, but currently we have no plans to reinstate the love between Ssalarn and Prince of Knives.

If there is in-play evidence that this ruling is causing unnecessary conflict, the design team may revisit whether or not to allow platonic co-worker love in the future.

This joke went to the best place. It really did.