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Hi all.
Next week I kick off the RotR adventure path. One of the players wants to play an archivist and hope to eventually go archivist/focused specialist wizard/paradon human/mystic theurge.
All good as I am enforcing the restricted schools from acrane across to divine spells. Not that twinkie...
Though I am unsure how dark knowledge works exactly. Most the effects state it works on allies but no mention of effecting the PC. Does things like tactics effect the whole party including the archivist or just the archivists' allies?
Hi all.
Next week I kick off the RotR adventure path. One of the players wants to play an archivist and hope to eventually go archivist/focused specialist wizard/paradon human/mystic theurge.
All good as I am enforcing the restricted schools from acrane across to divine spells. Not that twinkie...
Though I am unsure how dark knowledge works exactly. Most the effects state it works on allies but no mention of effecting the PC. Does things like tactics effect the whole party including the archivist or just the archivists' allies?
To my knowledge the benifits are only granted to his/her allies. All abilities say somthing along the lines of "Allies within 60ft gain..." or "..granting his allies.." but no mention of granting the abilities to the archivist themselves.
Not that it's needed anyway, the archivist is a primary caster with poor BAB and most of the abilities effect attack or damage rolls.
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That is how it reads Nero and I think it is wrong. None of the dark knowledge effects will benefit an archivist. Seems silly as for the higher level effects they can not get the bonus to Saves...
I think it is a typo myself though there is no errata. I am seriously considering letting the effects work on the archivist. It is the same as Bard except in the PHB the state in brackets once that it effects the bard as well.
I'm trying to dig through and see if it is in the SRD, but I could have sworn you are considered your own ally for all spells and similar effects.
I know that's they way I have always run things in general (beyond just the archivist), but I'm still trying to find the specific reference.
Edit: Best I can find online is this glossary entry for "ally":
A creature friendly to you. In most cases, references to "allies" include yourself.
So I would take that to mean unless otherwise stated, you are your own ally. I know they ran into some serious problems with lax use of the term in "Book of 9 Swords", but I'd say it's safe to assume Dark Knowledge and other abilities that aren't from Bo9S that apply to allies also apply to the archivist as well.
I will say that from what I have seen the archivist effectiveness depends on the DM. While the dark knowledges are nice I think their main benefit is the varity of spells they were allowed to access with research and scroll aquisition. I played in a game where we had an Archivist and the DM only let the new spells he learned at each level be from the Cleric base list and we hardly found any other scrolls. The ones we did find were evil spells which didn't help at all. Needless to say the archivist dropped the character after not too long because is was no fun to play. Make sure you give them a nice scroll or two every once in a while that they can learn from.
I'm playing an archivist now. Whether Dark Knowledge benefits the Archivist is NOT a moot point, if the Archivist in question is going to cast Divine Power. But since the idea is that the Archivist has some sort of knowledge of the weakness of the creature, it strains the imagination to think how he or she would be able to convey this information to his or her allies, yet not be able to use it himself. If their armor is weak around the shoulders, for example, and he tells his friends to aim there... what, does he then forget this information?
Some people rule that the use of domain scrolls is overpowering, but I haven't found it to be so. The DM can still make them difficult to come by. Honestly, making it a challenge for the player to find them just makes it that much more rewarding when you finally do get a divine scroll of knock or fly.
I think the real kicker about dark knowledge is that (IIRC) it only works once against a given creature. So, when you encounter that vampire, and it turns to gaseous form and escapes to its coffin, you can't use dark knowledge on it the next time you fight it.
Also, if the DM throws a group of mixed creatures at the party, the effectiveness of dark knowledge is greatly reduced. If, say, you're fighting 2 zombies and 2 small fire elementals, a single use of dark knowledge will only be useful against half the enemies.
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It can be limited Purinadragonchow.
The example of the vampire is not strickly true as a DM could take some liberities.
Thanks for the ally definition. The difficulty is that the effects of the bard are very similar but in the PHB they clearly stated that it affects the bard... they omitted that for the archivist.
I am making a ruling for the group that dark knowledge affects the archivist.
As for the spells... the PC is going to multiclass to a focused specialist wizard (Conjuration). He also is going paragon human to take the class skill gather information... so it makes it easier to find magical items. He will get a good selection of spells.. just can not cast that many.
He is thoroughly looking forward to playing the archivist. Should be fun!