| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Okay, so I'm looking to beat my head against the challenge wall of taking the Blade Adept archtype and creating an Arcanist that can melee competently even if not with the big dogs.
I'm going to try and develop this without going Eldritch Knight or other dips.
Please pipe in and correct anything you think has been misunderstood or if you have ideas to help make the character viable.
SWORD BOND: Okay, get a one handed piercing or slashing weapon that acts
as a Wizard Bonded item. Well, except you can not
actually enchant it as you could a normal bonded item
because it becomes a Black Blade at 3rd level (which
prohibits such crafting enhancements, right?)
What you get is Proficiency and the Extra Spell from
bonded item. You give up 2 Exploits for this.
SENTIENT SWORD: You get a Black Blade that progresses with your
Arcanist level counting as Magus level. It also looks
like the Blade does not get it's own pool but works off
your Reservoir. You give up 1 Exploit for this.
As a matter of leveraging Stats for To hit, Damage, and Defense Dervish Dance may be the way to go.
Weapon Finesse, Dervish Dance, and Arcane Strike are likely candidates for eating up Feats.
Exploits, well Arcane Weapon is pretty much a must and Arcane Accuracy (as magus arcana) would certainly be a boon.
By 9th level a quick calculation would give a conservative too hit around +16 and Damage of +10. This is adding Enchancement via reservoir, Arcane strike feat, Arcane accuracy arcana, Black Blades enhancement, and a +4 BAB with +3 Dex and +4 Int (I said conservative).
Competing demands for swift actions and chewing through limited pool seem to be big problems with this idea as I look at it.
That is of course besides the fact that building the caster to melee is counter productive to its strengths. Like I said, it is intended to be a challenge :)
Thoughts or suggestions?