Lelomenia's page

No. At least I don't think so.

However, as a GM, I would allow an Arcanist access to arcane discoveries. They're a hybrid class of wizards and sorcerers.

I'd probably let anyone access to them if they had the focus to learn it (and maybe role play the process). It just it comes naturally to wizards.

Arcanists already have access to Arcane Discoveries through the Arcane Discovery Arcane Exploit. The problem is an Arcanist would need to be 22nd level to qualify for Staff-Like Wand. Most campaigns end before that.

An Arcanist with VMC Wizard could get Staff Like Wand. So there’s that. I can’t imagine not going True Name there though barring GM Hard No.

All the Stars in the Sky would work if consuming magic ammunition was allowed. Obviously a bit niche.

What Stranger said.

That said, there are lots of mechanics and options in the Pathfinder system to create whatever character you envision, just happens that ‘multiclass full caster’ is a really bad one.

Consider “variant multiclass” for example; you could be a fully-leveled Druid while obtaining some Cleric abilities and flavor, for example. Or vice-versa. Plenty of archetypes on both sides as well.

If i was going to try to ‘fix’ it, i would make the Max Dex scale with caster level.

I don’t mind it being a valuable effect, but the fact that a wand is basically just as good as a wizard for using/abusing it is a negative to me.

Melkiador wrote:

I’d expect most to just go with a standard quadruped build. Bite,claw,claw at level 1. You would have to pay evolution points for a weapon build so I wouldn’t expect that to be a big improvement over a standard natural attack build.

And i would have...if the shadow eidolon didnt qualify for like none of the natural attack evolutions. I'm not even joking. Honestly weapon build is all the shadow eidolon's got.

if Shadow doesn’t qualify for Bite, Claw, and/or Tail Slap,

Are those evolutions non-functioning in the Shadow base forms that grant them (like feats you get but then lose prereqs for)?

You can also get an animal companion via, e.g., Exotic Heritage feat line.

Your point was that if you got an Animal Companion through the Animal Ally feat, Share Spells is a dead feature. And that’s a valid comment no matter how obtuse people want to be.

Lelomenia wrote:

he said you can’t take Animal Ally if you have a class that grants an animal companion.

You are saying you can take Animal Ally if your classes don’t grant an Animal Companion.

I don’t see a real disagreement/contradiction here.

With respect, “you can’t take the Animal Ally feat unless you do not have levels in a class that grants an animal companion” and “must not have an animal companion” are two different things.

they are very different. But, if you have an Animal Companion from a class (which is a practical requirement foe Share Spells to work), you generally don’t qualify for Animal Ally because of the prereq. If that sounds really obvious, it is.

Animal Ally doesn’t care about whether the Companion is granted by a class, but Share Spells does.

Are we reading the same feat? Alternately, has there been a FAQ to the feat in question? I'm asking sincerely, because what you are positing here conflicts with the way my GM and I have handled an active character of mine.

Faiths and Philosophies wrote:

Prerequisites: Nature Soul, character level 4th, must not have an animal companion or mount that advances as an animal companion. (emphasis mine)

Benefit: You gain an animal companion as if you were a druid of your character level –3 from the following list: badger, bird, camel, cat (small), dire rat, dog, horse, pony, snake (viper), or wolf. If you later gain an animal companion through another source (such as the Animal domain, divine bond, hunter’s bond, mount, or nature bond class features), the effective druid level granted by this feat stacks with that granted by other sources.

I don't see anything in that description that disqualifies a Paladin who chose to take a Divine Bond with his weapon, or a Ranger who (for whatever reason) chose a Hunter's Bond with his companions, from taking the Animal Ally feat.

he said you can’t take Animal Ally if you have a class that grants an animal companion.

You are saying you can take Animal Ally if your classes don’t grant an Animal Companion.

I don’t see a real disagreement/contradiction here.

I guess you could look at it as either

“All Animal Companions have an ability called Multiattack that grants some Animal Companions the Multiattack feat”

Or

“Some Animal Companions get the Multiattack feat/ability”

The Ultimate Wilderness authors probably viewed it as the latter situation, and felt that language was essentially just reminding people that that’s how it works. Where I think most people would interpret it the former way.

AwesomenessDog wrote:

... /anyone who finds some way to have weapon training ...

Is there some way I don't know about for a non-fighter to get weapon training?

there are some archetypes that give it. Don’t think there are feats that do it in a topical manner (there is a feat that counts as it for prereq purposes, but that doesn’t help here).

to the wielder as long as the weapon is drawn and in hand.

Weapons cannot possess the same special ability more than once.

(1) no

On the Ki side of things, it’s not an easy “dip” because monk doesn’t get Ki until 4th level. That’s a huge investment. Hungry Ghost’s Ki refill ability is at 5th. So with that, seems likely for most of your character’s life, he’ll be more a “monk with some Samurai flavor” than the other way around. You could get Ki with 2 levels of Ninja, but not sure that’s the flavor you are looking for.

I’m going to suggest you take a look at the Sohei Monk archetype (as a single class character, though a dip for Flurry of blows and Mounted Skirmisher could be a strong option too). It is basically a Samurai monk, focused on mounted combat but with conventional weapons, monk flurry, Ki, and so forth. It’s weirdly one of the strongest archetypes in the game, but not ‘broken’ because (1) core monk is a weak chassis to start with and (2) the overpowered abilities don’t synergize, e.g., Flurry of Blows with a bow + mounted ‘pounce’ (move then Full Attack) into Flurry of Blows at 1st level (Mounted Skirmisher) are both great amazing, but they don’t work together at all. But for you, depending on what you want out of Samurai, it could hit the target of an Eastern themed knight with some monk mystical abilities.

On the other direction, dipping into spellcasting classes, i would comment that shallow dips into casting classes tend to be unrewarding.

Arcanist Occultist was the Critters 10 for me. It’s not just standard action summoning which is huge, and it’s not just minutes/level, also a big deal as you can frequently enter combat with a summon on hand,

It uses Arcane Reservoir, which can be refilled at need by Consume Spells, so Occultist can reliably work from highest-level Summon all day every day (often higher than allowed by spontaneous caster progression) where other classes are limited to a 1-2 highest level casts/day.

I think Neriathale’s recommendation to use the spell Phase Step and don’t put yourself into the firing line is the right answer for this specific question. Toss a Fog Cloud out there and the Golems will have to get within attack of opportunity range of your fighter to shoot at him.

And i can’t help but note, as you list out offensive spells in search of something to use on Golems,

that Golems are immune to all magic (at least, all magic effects that are affected by spell resistance), although specific Golems have exceptions to this (e.g., Rusting Grasp on a Clockwork Golem “deals damage normally”).

Temperans wrote:

Surprised no one has mentioned the iceplant hex which gives +2 nat armor and endure elements, no dip required.

Well, they're already using an amulet of natural armor +3. Iceplant is still a good option if they give up their neck slot for something else.

Another option to use if you have a free hand and if you have an immediate action to spare is the Mirror of Guarding Reflections. When you are targeted by an attack, you can summon a mirror image to have a 50% take the attack in your place. That's not the AC bonus asked for, but I thought it's worth mentioning.

Iceplant stacks with Amulet of Natural Armor.

But Natural Armor bonus, along with Armor bonus to AC and Shield bonus to AC, has no impact on touch AC, which is what matters against gunfire.

Well OP asked how to increase AC and be more survivable after dimension door into melee and a one level dip into Fey or Style shifter does exactly that. So I don't see why a level dip to do exactly what OP wants to do would be bad.

What OP wants from Fey Shifter is just the first level where they get AC and concealment for practically every fight. Not the fey form, that they can just get via spells.

I used what my player does as an example of "its a lot stronger than people give it credit".

the Shifter AC bonus is at 2nd level. And as it is based on Wisdom, it probably wouldn’t help much.

It’s really impractical to get a full arcane’s AC high enough to be relevant at higher levels, and even if you somehow managed, gun touch AC attacks would just snicker. For other classes, i’d just say vanish/invisibility/mirror image, but none are on your list. The spell you might be looking for, Protection From Arrows, would do wonders against non-magical gunfire. Also not on your list. I guess you could craft a Talisman (Lesser) of Arrow Protection (or a few), but that’s not cheap.

Clearly the right answer is to Disguise skill yourself as a golem. Beep Boop. They have terrible perception (+0, and only get to roll if you ‘draw attention to yourself’), don’t sweat it.

The big limitations on Suggestion are that it has to be described in one or two sentences and the GM has to think it sounds reasonable. PCs of course are always going to feel that any course of action that doesn’t involve smiting enemies and protecting allies in the most efficient way possible is unreasonable. And from a certain interpretation of ‘unreasonable’, that’s true.

I would put it in context with Charm Person.

In Charm Person, you can cast it on someone “you are currently attacking” and convince them to do things “it wouldn’t ordinarily do” that are clearly “very dangerous” but not “obviously harmful.” Charm Person is a 1st level spell, Suggestion is higher; Charm Person has extra limitations on those situations, but still. And as it is drawing a clear difference between “very dangerous” vs. “obviously harmful”, I would interpret “obviously harmful” acts as ones that directly hurt yourself (“stab yourself in the foot”) vs. “very dangerous” being acts that leave yourself more vulnerable to attack.

As for “reasonable”, there’s no way to objectively determine that other than to say “GM discretion”, which goes back to the start. If you want to control your actions during combat, make your Will saves.

I might try a Trip build if all style feats were taken away.

Awkwardly, you probably want to wait until 6th to take Improved Trip to get it as a bonus feat. But if you are already 5th, may not be much of a wait.

(1) Power Attack, Combat Reflexes
(2) whatever
(3) Vicious Stomp
(5) Dirty Fighting (needed for Greater Trip)
(6) Improved Trip
(7) Greater Trip

So at 6th you’ll be
Attack/Trip=>Extra Attack if successful/Attack

And then at 7th
Attack/Trip=>2 extra attacks if successful/Attack

Then at 9th, you get Leg Sweep and you no longer need to forgo an attack to get your Trip.

Lelomenia wrote:

(4) If dazing spell is counted as debuff, it’s one of the strongest debuff effects. And shaman are one of the beat classes to abuse it, based on having good spells to carry it and good class features to, again, make it stick.

Tell me more about the shaman's "spells to carry it" and making it stick. By the latter do you mean misfortune or evil eye? Those are great, but hard to justify in the action economy by the time you're casting 4th and higher level spells.

And for spells, do you mean thorny entanglement? Maybe fireball (thanks Arcane Enlightenment) or others from the wizard/sorc list?

for Dazing, you tend to want spells that are at least 2nd level (spending a round to daze someone for one round isn’t much of a win, but two rounds without actions is forever in pathfinder), but not much higher than 4th or so (Dazing Stormbolts requires fairly uncommon 11th level spell slots).

So focusing on that 2-4 range. Ball Lightning is sort of the standard “Best Spell” for Dazing, hitting multiple targets each round and able to force repeated saves round after round. And heaven help you if you are wearing metal armor. Here, combining with Hexes to cripple saves (Evil Eye) isn’t an action
economy conflict, you can cast spell Round 1 and whack some people with electricity, then Round 2 (and on) Evil Eye whoever isn’t dazed and take them out.

Beyond Ball Lightning, as you note Thorny Entanglement might be the best 3rd level spell for Dazing, and is limited to Druid/sham/witch(/ranger). Fireball’s area isn’t great, and it only forces a single save, so nothing special for Dazing.

Other options at 3rd could be Burning Entanglement and maybe Flashfire (depending on how it actually works), at 4th also Spike Stones. Again, action economy option to cast and then next turn Hex targets that aren’t yet dazed but will likely be making saves next turn for the Entangling spells.

2nd level spells aren’t as strong. I like Burning Arc on the Wizard list better, but mostly because it serves as an adequate single target damage spell as well (where the shaman damage spells all have terrible damage, which is why i rate them as basically the worst blasting class). That said, specifically for Dazing Spell application, Pinecomb Bomb is better, with larger area, more targets allowed, and more difficult saves for the additional targets. Winter’s Grasp is Fireball area one level lower, etc.

Spotted Owl has made a list of good debuff spells in the google doc; do you feel there are spells missing, or spells listed that shouldn't be there? If we want to measure the quality of (e.g.) the shaman spell list, at least where it comes to debuffing, it makes sense to base it on that tab.

The catch is that evil eye / misfortune is fairly weak compared to the spells in that tab; so this is not somehow the gold standard of debuffing. Just having access to evil eye doesn't make a class good at debuffing; it needs good class features and/or a solid spell list for that.

Quote:

Deserves to be up with witch,

Shaman appears to have a WAY worse spell list than the witch, in addition to having worse hexes, so I don't understand why it would deserve to be at the same rating as witch.

as above, part of my issue is that i’m not clear on what is being called Debuff vs. BF Control. But I would comment that:

I could see the low end of range for shaman being pretty low, as by default they don’t have relevant abilities or spells. But optimized? In the past five or so years, I’ve seen all of one instance of a PFS GM having an issue with an overpowered PC build. Came here hoping he could rule differently against a PC, as there wasn’t even a point in having combats vs. the BBEG with the shaman cakewalking over everything without blinking. Response was “yes that’s overpowered. But that’s a shaman for you.” And it was a debuff shaman (again, counting dazing).

Two levels of Pathfinder Savant prestige class could add Bladed Dash. Could be fun for a while.

I’m going to agree with an earlier comment; in a big (weapon-oriented) group, generic bardsong for Inspire Courage is a big deal, and going archaeologist there hurts a lot. Slayer can take trapfinding if it’s important.

On a different topic, I think it’s (highly) misleading to suggest wizards can consistently target weakest saves using highest level slots benefiting from greater spell focus. For one thing, the schools (focus affects one school) tend to have particular saving throw focuses: evocation usually has reflex saves, enchantment generally will, necromancy hits fort, etc. So if you want to benefit from greater spell focus, you won’t be able to switch what save you are targeting between encounters. More problematically, reflex saves are the most common bad save, and reflex saves are generally damage based, and the damage is piddly unless you specifically build for blasting. Which is all a long winded way of saying if you plan to go after saves, plan for beating strong saves unless you build for dazing spell on evocations.

There’s an argument Cha casters gestalt better than Int classes, because there are a few martials that get big benefits from Cha (Paladin, Dragonscale Monk, possibly etc.).

For Arcanist, the ‘Class Feature Synergy’ second class path might be through Magus, at least up to Broad Study (can go full BAB after that if you want and are allowed). For a ‘Generic Stat Synergy’ build, Ranger and Slayer will give you a lot more hitpoints, all good saves, lots of skill points, full BAB, and a lot of other nicenice.

I guess I’m used to a breakdown of “Debuff: effects that weaken enemy offense and defense” and ‘crowd control’ where “Crowd Control: effects that prevent enemies from taking relevant actions in combat, whether by directly removing their actions, by preventing them from moving to position to attack, or by other means.”

And was viewing ‘Battlefield control’ as more or less ‘crowd control’ effects, as walls etc do exactly that. So ‘dazing’ would be 100% battlefield control.

But am i understanding the breakdown is viewed as it not mattering what effects you have on enemies, only whether or not the effect puts observable junk on the battlefield? (‘Yes’ = ‘Battlefield Control’, ‘no’ = ‘debuff’)

I’m not sure if there’s any campaigns, evil or otherwise, that are okay with a zombie army PC.

And I’m also not sure that zombie army is generally useful for any particular purpose other than making good guys feel powerful when they hack through them with ease.

Duergar have Type: humanoid (dwarf), so yes, they meet dwarfy prereqs.

This is an archetype i would’ve wanted to see. You’d have to home brew pretty heavily to compensate for the restriction though. Or you can always just ignore your larger spell access, but that feels pretty unrewarding.

If treated as Baleful Polymorph, having a pre-existing polymorph doesn’t matter, because Baleful Polymorph doesn’t care. If treated as Flesh to Stone, having a pre-existing polymorph probably doesn’t matter, because Flesh to Stone isn’t a Polymorph effect (though as PAO is a polymorph spell, one could weirdly argue that Flesh to Stone becomes a polymorph spell when cast through PAO).

So not all that straightforward.

Everything OmniMage says is true.

But other point is you need the Scribe Scrolls feat in order to make any scrolls (which witches do not get automatically). Once you have that, crafting is half the cost of buying at market price.

It’s not clear.

I would take my lead from Flesh to Stone (which PAO can mimic) for living creature ==> inaminate object transformations.

Caravan Bond (Su): At 1st level, by leading a group prayer for 1 minute, a Varisian pilgrim can select a number of traveling companions equal to her cleric level + her Wisdom bonus. She may use her domain-granted powers on any of these traveling companions as if they were her. She can use these abilities on her traveling companions at a range of up to 30 feet, even if the ability normally requires her touch.

varisian pilgrim doesn’t grant your companions your abilities (and assumptively additional uses that would come with that).

You can spend uses that normally only target you on others. Which is nice with the right ability, but And Copycat isn’t Mirror Image; you only get 1 duplicate, vs. an average of 3.5 to 8ish depending on CL for a casting of Mirror Image. Good Fortune goes from being one reroll per day for you to one total for your group.

On the Blaster topic, Shaman is particularly bad. Basically, if a spell appears on at least two of the oracle/druid/witch lists, shaman gets it, but at the higher level. Flame Strike at 5th (druids get it at 4th), Harm at 7th (clerics get it at 6th), firestorm at 8th (druids get at 7th), but no lightning bolt (witch 3rd), explosion of rot (druid 4th), or hellfire ray (cleric 6th). And almost no shaman class features for blasting. I would rate them below cleric, probably for both unoptimized and optimized.

Northern Spotted Owl wrote:

I appreciate your passion, but please treat folks' opinions with legitimacy whether you agree or disagree.

- A Varisian Pilgrim has some pretty great buffs
- Samsaran/Mystic Past Life applies to every class
- Dreamed Secrets isn't necessarily available widely, since it require Lovecraft's gods
- Asmodeus is even less widely available since the vast majority of campaigns aren't set up for evil characters. Are those contract spells available to worshippers of any neutral or good gods?

Cheers

You dont have to be evil to worship Asmodeus.

Although MPL is available to any class, the Cleric makes better gains from it than most others and certainly vs the Arcanist.

The fact that GOO/OG worship is required for Dreamed Secrets is completely irrelevant since that is the entire point of optimising!! You pick the optimal choices..... fairly simple really.

Share Transmutation (Su)' is only gained at 9th level which significantly reduces it worth.

it’s not irrelevant even when those deities are allowed; you cite Deity specific spells, Dreamed Secrets, Asmodeus worship, and Varisian Pilgrim as key options for optimizing Cleric for buffing,

But if you have any deity specific buff spells, you can’t get Dreamed Secrets, and if you have Dreamed Secrets, you can’t worship Asmodeus, and if you worship Asmodeus, Varisian Pilgrim isn’t a good option.

The guide does a good job of citing many different useful options, but the problem cleric has is that you only get one deity. And once you pick one, 99% of those options go away.

Anyway, the other big issue is that Cleric gaining access to some of the arcane list’s better spells doesn’t make the Cleric better than the arcane caster, it makes her worse by a smaller margin.

Trokarr wrote:

Mammoth Spirit Shaman True Spirit Megafauna Companion combines your spirit familiar with an animal companion (at level 16 unfortunately).

Interesting if sadly limited not only in what you have to be to get it (mammoth shaman lvl 16) but also in what you can have since it must be a megafauna not say a cute labrador or black cat.

shaman nature spirit gets the same ability but without the restriction on what animal you can select for the companion. You could have cat familiar’s spirit in the body of a cat.

Ring of Spell Knowledge
Arcane Bloodline (extra spells known theough the bloodline powers)
Expanded Arcana feat
Paragon Surge spell to take the Expanded Arcana feat

I agree with Diego, it has to be a sorcerer spell slot. To use a very blatantly incorrect analogy: “I looked really closely at the sorcerer class in the CRB, and nowhere does it say that I can only cast sorcerer spells known with sorcerer spell slots!”

Like other spellcasters, a sorcerer can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. Her base daily spell allotment is given on Table: Sorcerer.

the text never uses the term ‘slot’, it just says the maximum number of spells per day is on the table.

I get your view, but there is a FAQ that says that view is wrong, unless there is a reason it doesn’t apply.

Flesh to Stone.

You will need to optimize for Save DC either way, but FtS dodges all the challenges with landing a touch range spell (mirror image, touch AC, displacement, etc). Disintegrate does average 7 damage/level on failed save, where enemies have ~12-15 hp/CR. You can push your damage up without much effort, but all the resources that go towards increasing damage are resources that aren’t available to push up your save DC. You can still use disintegrate for utility whenever you need. I do think immunity to petrification is more common than immunity to disintegrate, but other than that, pretty easy FtS victory.

A "not particularly optimized, essentially unbuffed Shaman archer" ... with all 6 feats focused on archery, both Bane and Haste up, and a +6 dex belt at lvl 10 ... I see...

“Not particularly optimized” = “optimized, but not aggressively so. generic CRB feats build, with many character options unutilized.” E.g., no traits used, no racial options, no archetype, only one spirit used, and assuming he’s allowed to use his Fetish Hex, only 35K out of 62K allocated for his archery, etc. If you think taking the generically applicable combat feats makes a character “particularly optimized”, that’s fine, but this is what i meant. Unless you read me as saying the unoptimized shaman beats/competes with optimized cleric. Definitely no. I was describing an “optimized, but not aggressively optimized” character.

“Essentially unbuffed” meaning no standard action buffs and no more than one swift action effect. I.e., what you look like full attacking your first round of combat. As noted, spamming Divine Favor before kicking down doors is a no brainer, but numbers are with 0 spell effects active on this full caster.

Also, belt is +4; human racial went to Dex. Maybe (base:17) is the way that’s normally written?

Lelomenia wrote:

... Around level 10, a not particularly optimized, essentially unbuffed Shaman archer is going to fire off 5-6 arrows for around 30ish damage each...

In light of Farshot Fallon here. I'd like to see this... Please post a build.

Archery builds haven’t changed much over the years.

Human, shaman, battle spirit.

Ability scores (Farshot appears to be a 15-point build, which is painful as a 9th level caster focusing on combat, but here goes):
Str: 12
Dex: 22 (15 base)
Con: 10 (on a 20 point build, this would be 14)
Int: 8
Wis: 18 (15 base)
Cha: 10

Feats:
1: Point Blank Shot/Precise Shot
3: Exotic Weapon: Hornbow
5: Rapid Shot
7: Deadly Aim
9: Manyshot

Hexes:
Battle Master (gives Weapon Specialization: Hornbow at 8th)
Fetish (wondrous items are more affordable, e.g., boots of speed)
Etc.

Deadly Aim/full attack, with swift action Bane and free action boots of speed, is:
+3 longbow +14(x2)/+14/+14/+9, 2d6+14+2d6 dmg (x3). At 11th level, several of the wandering spirits give an extra d6 energy damage to any weapon you wield. At 12 level, namekeeper archetype gets an extra attack, but now reading it, it stacks with the haste attack and manyshot, but probably not with the extra Rapid Shot attack.

With a standard action buff, Divine Favor will add +4 to the attack rolls and +4 to damage (Fate’s Favored trait).

But if the original question was “why is shaman archer damage so much better than fighter archer damage”, answer appears to be: (1) that fighter was built before Hornbow (2) Bane adds a ridiculous 9 damage per attack. So that accounts for an 11.5 damage/attack advantage my shaman has.

To me, healing falls under the “Healing” rating, not “Combat.” Buffing falls under the “Buffing” rating, not combat (but self-only spells i would have under combat, not buffing, but worth asking for other opinions). Animal companions and summons i would count towards “Critters”, not Combat.

As for the ranges provided, Shaman 3-6 vs. Oracle (and Cleric) 6-9 is wrong. Around level 10, a not particularly optimized, essentially unbuffed Shaman archer is going to fire off 5-6 arrows for around 30ish damage each. I doubt an optimized cleric/oracle can match an optimized Shaman in archery (Bane is stronger than basically anything available to either, and i don’t know any in-class path for either to get to the Holy Grail of archery, Point Blank Mastery). But the 3-6 vs. 6-9 ranges suggests that optimized Shaman should be compared to Generic Unoptimized Oracle (or unoptimized cleric). Who is likely going to swinging a longspear once a round for 1d8+6 or whatever.

And bottom end of shaman below cleric/oracle seems correct, off fortitude save and lack of shield proficiency. But not 6 vs. 3 difference.

Mysterious Stranger wrote:

The requirement is to present you holy symbol, not to have your holy symbol present.

i'll repeat my question then. how do you present a birthmark on your face?

point at it. Frame around it with your hands. Lean it toward where it is being presented. Lots of great RP options.

Northern Spotted Owl wrote:

Hmm. I hadn't really considered saving throws. Should that have its own category? It's pretty easy to populate if we want to add it, since it's just a combination of which saves you have and whether you'll have a particularly good wis/dex/con. In this case mostly wis.

I suppose "defense" as a whole should cover that (i.e. armor class, hit points, and saves). I'm not so sure that medium armor is actually better than the Mage Armor spell though, considering most arcane casters probably want a decent dex anyway. But that's an easy thing to do math for.

Arcanist has a few defensive exploits that the wizard doesn't get, so he may actually be ahead in defense.

+5 mithral breastplate is +11 allowing what, +6 Dex bonus?

I don’t think most casters would be limited by a +6 ceiling.

“Caster’s Tattoo” is a specific Wondrous magic item that applies Still and Silent spell metamagic feats to 1/day.

I’m going to interpret your question as “I want to create a new custom magical tattoo item, like Caster’s Tattoo, but for Selective and Maximize.”

In that case, looking at Caster’s Tattoo, it gives +2 worth of metamagic. So first thing i look at is +2 Metamagic Rod. And as it happens, Lesser, Normal, and Greater Caster’s Tattoos are each very close to 2/3 of the price their respective Lesser, Normal, and Greater +2 Metamagic Rod counterparts.

So I would, for lack of any other costing info, put your +4 metamagic tattoo at very close to 2/3 the price for a Lesser, Normal, or Greater Quickened Spell Rod (i.e., so about 23,000, 50,000, and 115,000 for the Lesser, Normal, and Greater versions).

And creation costs would be half of those numbers.

In terms of “getting your GM to see it your way”, i think if you buy a few wands of Reduce Person, around the 30th or 40th time you interrupt a play session out of combat to use your wand GM might start coming around.

Yeah, I think the fundamental goal is to be useful, not responsive to irrelevant theorycraft about how bad you can make something.

There is a fair question about how to handle classes with finite spell access attempting to contribute outside their ‘chosen field’. But I think saying “a wizard who doesn’t select any summoning spells can’t summon” is unhelpful. It costs very negligible character resources for an arbitrary wizard to add a summoning spell to his book and prepare it (or multiple instances) in a given day. Given that Generic or Otherwise Optimized Wizard may have selected conjuration as an opposition school or neglected to add any summoning spells, it may make sense to penalize her slightly relative to Generic or Otherwise Optimized Cleric (who has all the spells built in) on that basis, but that would be a very small (half pointish) difference to me. Generic or Otherwise Optimized Sorcerer is slightly worse off than said Wizard, but still slightly. “Can I contribute via summons if I optimize as a blaster?” Answer isn’t “No.”, it’s “Yes, just need a spell to use.”

Northern Spotted Owl wrote:

My general ranking of spell lists is something like:

Really? I would say,

Wizard/Sorcerer
Druid
Psychic
Witch
Cleric/Oracle
Shaman

Because druid is across the board very strong (including BFC, summons, healing, and party buffs), and except at very high level I keep finding the cleric list rather disappointing.

i would have the same, except bumping Druid down below Cleric. I mean, saying “Druid list matches nicely with my preferences/playstyle”, sure, but I’m curious what the case is to put it objectively better than Psychic, which is pretty much wizard minus some elemental blasting. Heck, shaman has a lot of the same BFC and buffs along with the same summons and better healing.

That is good. Even better for anyone with the Fate's Favored trait...

But it's the "next attack roll, saving throw, or skill check", after the Wizard uses a swift action on their turn. The Divination Wizard's turn is likely going to be first in Initiative order, so it will likely be everyone's first "attack roll, saving throw, or skill check" each combat [that the Divination Wizard chooses to use the ability in question].

There is no time limit other than "next".

divination wizard with Inspiring Prediction doesn’t have Forewarned, so not so likely to be high in initiative order.

In general, Divination school spells are weak, so they get the best powers,

And Inspiring Prediction is replacing Forewarned, which is amazing. So it should be very strong.0

If a wizard is only buying 10 extra spells, then he is not that much ahead of the sorcerer. As I pointed out there are ways for a sorcerer to gain more spells known. The 10th level human sorcerer can have 12 0 level spells, 10 1st level spells, 9 2nd level spells, 5 4th level spells, and 1 5th level spell known. To do this requires a human sorcerer with the arcane bloodline putting the FCB into extra spells known and taking expanded Arcana 3 times. This also gives the sorcerer Arcane Bond as well. This means that is the wizard wants to have a real advantage on spells known he need to purchase a lot more than 10 spells known.

Since a wizard has to memorize each spell, he wants to cast they have to either memorize multiple of the same spell which cuts down on their versatility. The 10th level wizard who wants to be able to cast 3 magic missiles has used up half his 1st level spell slots. The way around this is to purchase Pearls of power. This gives the wizard some of the flexibility of the sorcerer because he can use it to cast any spell of the appropriate level he has already cast.

The sorcerer can already cast any of his spells known so there is less need for him to spend money to gain extra spell slots. The sorcerer’s does not need the ability to cast spells he already cast, what he needs is the ability to cast a wider variety of spells. So, instead of buying Runestones of power he should be buying Pages of spell knowledge. This by the way cost the exact same thing as a pearl of power. So, for each pearl of power the wizard has the sorcerer can get another spell known. There are also other magic items like Mnemonic vestments and Rings of spell knowledge that can further expand sorcerers' spells known.

The thing to keep in mind is that a sorcerer is not a wizard. They have their own strengths and weaknesses and if you trying to build a sorcerer like a wizard it is not going to be that good. Trying to build a sorcerer that works like a wizard is foolish. What you need to do is...

wizard tends to have a massive advantage in top-level spells and low level spells.

Compared to your Sorcerer’s 1 5th level spell and 10 1st level spells, a 10th level Wizard automatically gets 4 5th level spells and could put an extra 50 1st level spells in his book for the price of a Wand of Cure Light Wounds. Second level spells are also essentially free to add.

In between, the gap is a lot closer. Wizard would get 4 4th level from class feature by then, but Sorc might have 4-6 as well between normal progression and FCB (but losing that HP is also a big hit on a d6 class), + bloodline. Wizard can beat that, but those higher level spells cost real money.

At least until he crafts his first Book, at which point everything is cheap to add.

Having spent some time looking at the witch spell list, I think the rating of 6 is maybe undeserved.

Roughly 50% of the wizard spell list is on the witch spell list. For context, druid's have about 20% of the wizard spell list. But the numbers don't say anything about the quality and impact of the wizard spells that a witch has access to. Generally, I think the witch gets many of the best wizard spells.

A witch gets most of the strongest "save-or-die" / "save-or-do-nothing" spells with the exception of icy prison. They have suffocation, feeblemind, baleful polymorph, hold monster, most debilitating enchantment spells, etc...

The witch loses access to a few very good evocation spells such as fireball and freezing sphere. But if that's really a sticking point, these can be obtained through the elements patron. Or a witch can take the shadow patron, and use shadow spells to fill in gaps in their spell list.

I won't keep going, but if we take the whole wizard spell list to be a 10, then I think just the wizard spells that any witch can use would warrant a 7.

Now add spells like heal, resurrection, restoration spells (if you choose the healing patron), and the entire cure wounds line of spells, and you have a very strong spell list.

Basically, I think the witch trades wizard spells for cleric spells at a decent exchange rate, and the right choice of patron really helps. I would give their spell list an 8.

i would rate the wizard spell list at maybe an 8 for this, because there are various archetypes that have much better effective spell lists than Generic List Wizard/Sorcerer. So that might be the disconnect.

Step 1: Take Craft (Alchemy), and either Craft (Siege Engines), Craft (Firearms), or Craft (Weapons)

Step 2: Engineer the coolest Siege Weapon, Siege Firearm, or Exotic Weapon you can think of that can throw/launch 2, 3, 4, 30, or 100 of any of these things, dealer's choice.

Step 3: Get a wand of Shrink Item and carry your doomsday device in your pocket.

Step 4: Whenever you're ready to RunProgram(CurbstompThineEnemies), use a wand of Dispel Magic to return your doomsday device to regular size and pull the trigger.

Step 5: Sing the chorus of the pop song by American singer Britney Spears from her second studio album released on April 11, 2000 called "Oops! I did it again!" while making plenty of eye contact with your GM. A dance is also encouraged, but not required.

Shrink Item can be ‘dispelled’ by a word of command from the original caster, so no wand of Dispel Magic needed. Not sure if giving a word of command is free action speaking or should be treated as standard action as per magic items.