Novack's page

Okay, we're all thinking it anyway so I'm just going to put it out there: Novack, your avatar's face is incredibly handsome.

Thank you so much. I think I have no other option than to simply return the compliment ;).

Counterspelling makes him the best against the scariest bad guys in the game, other casters.

It was already discussed. Counterspelling as an Arcanist isn't really that powerful, especially before 11th level (so for vast majority of games). Slower spell progression of Arcanists and common level advantage among "the scariest bad guys in the game", severely limits Arcanist's capability to counterspell anything crucial.

As an example you can consider effectiveness of Counterspell exploit in fight of 6th level party with Arcanist vs. 9th level Wizard BBEG. Hell, even 7th level Wizard would be pain in the #%$.

Juda de Kerioth wrote:

I agree with you, but, there is a clear point in fact: The monsters are so weak.

Check the 3.0 rules (the chimera was nerfed twice [3.5, PFRPG]), there is no real change in the monster rules. Check the monsters in those bools!!

Im afraid that the Tarrasque could be soloed at 10h lvl, i have seen the builds, the idea itself is so munchkin and now the rules allow that build to happen without breaking any kind of rule [regardless the unclarity and the subjetivity from the rules].

Um, aside from dragons almost every monster was buffed from 3.5 -> PF and I think most monster also got a buff from 3.0 -> 3.5.

Although I agree with you that a lot of them are still terribly weak, especially as we get into the higher CR's. Player characters got a lot more powerful between editions and monsters (especially high level) haven't really kept up with that.

As my personal experience goes, at higher levels I rarely fight with standard printed-out versions of monsters. Such opponents are mostly just mooks used to drain some of party's resources before final showdown which usually inludes some high level NPCs and/or advanced/customized monsters set up in environment unfavorable for PCs.

This is honestly more of a problem with Exploiter Wizards, who get Scribe Scroll for free and can use Pearls of Power to refill their points pretty much indefinitely for the cost of 500 GP per point/day if they craft. This has the potential for very serious abuse for the Exploiter, and that could roll downhill to the Arcanist.

Exploiter Wizards don't get Consume Spells class feature, so I don't see how they could directly recover AR points with Pearls of Power.

Munching 2nd level scrolls (75 gp apiece) seems like the cheapest way to get AR points at the moment. You can also use some custom staves, but the price tag on them is much higher and you can still regain only 1 charge per day, so some downtime is needed anyway.

Metamixing is really nice later on. Spontaneously applying Metamagic Feats to your spells adds much to the versatility.

For example, you can combine Persistent Spell with Potent Spell and Foresight School Power (for beating SR) for nearly guaranteed success with some really nasty SoDs.

Quick Study is also there... Risky combat uses aside, you won't ever have to prepare utilty spells anymore. In vast majority of out of combat situations 6 seconds to swap your spell won't make much of a difference.

If my DM allows it, I will try playing EW in my next campaign and see how it works compared to classic Foresight Universalist style Wizard :D.

Playing thrown out of wizardry school anarchistic prodigious magic-junkie, who breaks all the rules when it suits him (even laws of magic) seems like a lot of fun :D... Someone a bit similar to main character from "Good Will Hunting" but a magician.

When you can use swift action to spend AR point and bolster your School Understanding in order to get Divination passive it usually means that Initiative has been already rolled :(.

1) Start as Elf

I would go with Human. Addtional Exploit (e.g. Foresight Power, Arcane Bond)is IMO better than elven Spell Penetration, especially at low levels.

As I read Dimensional Slide, it must be used as a part of actual move actions (i.e. including movement). That would imply it cannot be used as Get Out of Grapple Free Card.

On the topic of Shroedinger's Wizard itself:
I would add, that besides having perfect spell for every occasion a true Schroedinger's Wizard should be able to win Initiative every single time. Spells aren't that useful if you cannot get them up in time.

Schroedinger's Wizards were easy to build in DD 3.5 with Versatile Spellcaster and Celerity spell. PF is still pretty far away from this sort of cheesyness :).

- It's only 75 GP for 2nd level scrolls you scribe yourself. It's quite affordable, and the scrolls, themselves are useful. Plenty of extra circumstantial spells at 2nd level you might want on a scroll, anyway.

True. My mistake. I mixed up scroll and potion crafting costs... But that proves my point even better - snorting scrolls is the cheapest way to recover AR points via Consume Magic Item. As an added benefit you can use inscribed spell instead.

- The text in the Arcana Bloodline power says it can't be used to give characters a bonded item and a familiar at the same time, so this limits the A/E just as it does the Sorcerer. It's still either/or.

A bit of rules lawyering: What if u acquired Bonded Item via Bloodline Development first and then picked up Familiar exploit on top of that?

- I see no reason, RAW or RAI, why an Arcanist or Exploiter couldn't craft onto his bonded item.

I expressed my thoughs inappropriately. What I meant to ask was: Do you need relevant item creation feats in order to enchant your Bonded Item since your default level for that power is 1st?

You can't drain off spell slots either, since that's very specifically a separate Arcanist class feature. You're effectively stuck with the staves and wands if you want more points in the pool.

Wands are too expensive. The most efficient way to regain Arcane Reservoir points are 2nd level scrolls made by yourself with bonus Scribe Scroll feat gained by Wizard at 1st level - 150 gp apiece.

I got even idea how to visualize consuming scrolls. You turn them into magic dust and then snort it like cocaine, because nothing beats junkie Wizard literally addicted to arcane power :D.

Wow... More than 30 replies already - that escalated quickly ;).

I agree that rulings concerning Greater Exploits and even more so Extra Exploit feat availability could significantly impact further analysis.

Personally, I think that Greater Exploits should be considered as separate class feature (they are listed separately in the table an rules text) and as such they shouldn't be available to Exploiter Wizards. On the other hand, I'm inclined to agree that mechanical equivalence of Exploiters' and Arcanist Exploits should allow their exchangeability for the purpose of fulfilling feat requirements.

If that holds true, I could see possibility for Exploiter Wizard being on par or even better than specialist wizards.

Human Wizard with Quick Study, Potent Spell and Improved Initiative (?) at 1st level seems pretty neat.
At 3rd level you pick up Consume Magic Items to utilize scrolls you scribe as portable source of Arcane Reservoir Points (75 gp for 2nd level scroll).
At 5th you can grab Familiar, Craft Wondrous Items (bonus feat) and Some additional feat (Persistent Maybe to complement Potent Spell?)
At 7th you can Improve your familiar (or if you don't fancy little critters just use feat and exploit for something completely different).
At 9th you get Metamixing to easily combine Persistent and Potent Spell for some really nasty BC or SoD spells.

@Under a Bleeding Sun
Staves are good source of Arcane Reservoir but only in the long run. Cheapest custom staff with 1st level spell to consume would costs 2560 gp to craft (2 x 2nd level spell for 10 charges and 1st level spell for 1 charge), so it would break even after 35 points (or at least double that number for purchased staves)

BTW: When I had looked at the Bloodline Development Exploit, two questions came to my mind:
1. Can you enchant Bonded Item acquired via Arcane Bloodline without apropriate crafting feats (probably not)?
2. Can you combine aforementioned Bonded Item with familiar from Familiar Exploit (probably not)?

Wizards have always been the quality not quantity class. School powers are really more of a wash since you can pillage their abilities. Dimensional Slide is like the Teleportation school power but better for example.

To emulate Wizard abilities, you must sacrifice one of your limited exploits. Even then you could use it only 3+CHA (usually meaning 3) times per day. You cannot get passives this way (Divination anyone?). Dimensional Slide is nice but you cannot escape grapples with it (it must be part of your move action).

Quick Study is Schrodinger's Wizard. The Silver Bullet Mage.

Arguably most powerful of the Arcanist exploits. Is it however that much more powerful than wizards discovery? Its combat application is risky at best. Outside of combat the difference is not that painful.

The Counterspell exploit on the Arcanist was balanced by having lower spell progression. Tack it onto the best spell progression and it's monstrous. Then at 10th you get the Greater Counterspell and the GM may as well not throw caster baddies at you.

You cannot take Greater Counterspell as exploiter Wizard.

Spell slots have never really mattered much to a player with good system mastery. Between Wands, Peals of Power, and Scrolls, if you run out of spells as a Wizard you're almost certainly doing something wrong.

Depends on the campaign and GM. In later levels spell slots aren't that much of a problem but earlier in the game every spell counts. Especially since you have not that much resources to spare.

As I browsed messageboards for the last couple of days it was hard not to stumble upon numerous threads commenting on new classes and archetypes introduced in ACG. There are two statements that at some point appear in nearly every single one of them "Arcanist is overpowered", quickly followed by "Exploiter Wizard is even more broken." But is it really so?

I would like you to help me compare Exploiter Wizard to classic specialist Wizard.

As an Exploiter Wizard you give up your Arcane Bond and Arcane School for access to 5 arcanist exploits total (at 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th and 17th level). It is worth noting that you miss out on Consume Spells class feature and you don't gain access to Greater exploits. As far as I understand, RAW you cannot buy additional Explots via Extra Exploit feat.

Quick Study, Metamixing, Potent Magic, Dimensional Slide are certainly powerful, but are they really powerful enough to forgo extra spell slots, school powers and capstone abilities?

If you want I can credit you

No need... Being mysterious "someone" suits my nature more ;).

Regarding Samsaran:
They could be fun and powerful, but they are rare race in first place, making them subject to GM approval for most of campaigns.

Considering this fact, using their class feature to gain early access to Wizards spells strikes me as a thing that will most likely urge your GM to take out The Good Ol' Ban Hammer and hit your character concept so hard, that it will end up in previous incarnation :P.

Regarding Thassilonian Specialist:
Even if the Opposition Research is allowed (and as you have said it's not working RAW), your character is still severely gimped up to level 9.

Yay! I made it to the front page :)...

From now on I will introduce myself as someone who "recommended getting Eldritch Heritage to get your Item bond back with the Arcane Bloodline" (just to be strict: you can get back your Familiar too :)).

I think this is a good place to express my utmost respect for your effort. The amount of work you had to put into the guide is absolutely stunning. Building on strong foundations (Logicninja's and Treantmonk's concepts), you compiled many different resources and brought a lot of additional insight to create a trully Complete Guide to Wizards. You deserve full credit for that.

Best Regards,
Novack.

A lot of people online seem enamored with the Spellbinder archetype, and it even appeared in a thread started by someone about what they thought were the top three most overpowered abilities in the ARG. However, I find it to be about on par with a bonded item (slightly weaker, I'd say, though it depends on if you have a nicer than usual spellbook).

The reason is action economy and versatility. With this archetype you get basically 1 spell per spell level and you can switch out any legal spell slot into that spell. If this was spontaneous and instant, like the Preferred Spell and Greater Spell Specialization feats, this would be a very powerful ability. But the fact that it requires a full round action is problematic. Why? Well, what are you going to pick as your solitary spell of each spell level that you can swap into? Probably something you want to cast all the time, and you don't want to spend a full-round action every time to do so, especially in combat (and if you are prepping the spell you can swap into, then you're not using the power). Now, it's true that you can pick a neat out-of-combat utility spell at each level, and then you don't have to prep it ever. Then again, those are usually what you buy scrolls of.

But with Fast Study, you can always just take a minute to prep that utility spell if you keep a slot empty. Often if you have time that a full-round action isn't a major turn-off, then you have a minute. So with Spellbinder, you might be able to leave fewer slots open (but only if you weren't worried you would need something that you didn't pick as a swap spell) or save a little bit of money on scrolls (at the cost of spell slots). With a regular bonded item, you instantly cast any spell you want from your entire library of spells. That's an additional slot per day of up to your highest level and it's extremely flexible, particularly if you have a huge spellbook.

What if you consider Spellbinder a mean to partly circumvent restrictions of arcane specialization (which could be really neat for Foresight Wizards)? Once you fill the the specialization slots, you can swap them for your bonded spells :)... What's more, the way the ability reads it enables you to choose spells from opposition schools as bonded spells, which enables you to cherry-pick some spells from these schools (Enervation someone?).

Seems pretty solid to me, especially taking into consideration a fact, that if you really want, you can still get access to Arcane bond via Eldritch Heritage (Arcane Bloodline).

On top of this, the archetype is so badly written, that a lot of questions are bound to come up.

I can certainly agree, that description of this archetype is quite vague.

Let's have a look:

After looking at this text for some time, I would say that as far as the rules go, a Diviner with Evocation as his opposition school can choose Magic Missile as his bonded spell, since there is no restriction regarding school of the bonded spell (present for example in bonded object description).

What's more, from the description of Arcane School I understand that Diviner is only restricted to preparing Divination spell in the specialist slot (e.g. True Strike). Once the spell is prepared, it's equivalent to any other spell available to Wizard. As he can choose a spell to be replaced with his bonded spell, he chooses aforementioned True Strike to swap with his bonded Magic Missile.

I would also assume that similar mechanic would be valid for swapping specialist spells for spontaneous casting via Preferred Spell and Greater Spell Specialization, even if they are from different school than the original spell.

As for my third question I would probably have to agree with Forgottenprince. If something's not explicitly pointed out, it should be assumed not possible.

So, to sum up, if I read the archetype correctly, for the price of Arcane Bond (certainly high price to pay), you can partly circumvent your specialist restrictions. You create your quasi-domain, with spells from which you can fill even your specialist slots (swapping right after preparation). What's more, you can cherry-pick some spells from you opposition schools and include them in this quasi-domain. It shifts the focus of the archetype from "2-rounds for casting right spell" function, more to "screw the weak Diviner spell list and finally fully embrace Foresight Wizard" option :).

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think it's true as far as the RAW goes. I only wonder if that was designer's intent or is it some kind of overlook.

Since this is my first post on these messageboards, I think that some greeting may be in place, so "Hello" :).

I would like to ask your opinion about interference between Arcane School and Spellbinder archetype (presented in Advanced Race Guide - ARG).

Firstly, I'm curious how the Spell Bond works with the "specialist slot" restrictions (e.g. Can diviner swap his True Strike prepared in specialist slot for bonded Magic Missile?).

Secondly, I wonder if you can bond with a spell from an opposition school and be able to circumvent a "two-slot" requirement by exchanging it with your other memorizations (e.g. with spell in your specialist spell slot to spice things up :P).

Finally, I would like to know if you can exchange spells for metamagiced versions of bonded spells (e.g. swap True Seeing for Empowered Maximized Magic Missile :)).

Looking forward to see your answers.

Cheers,
Novack.