I have a player that's looking to play an Archivist, but he had a question I don't know the answer to.
Do the Dark Knowledge abilities stack? For example, if an Archivist5 makes a successful Dark Knowledge skill check, does he get the bonus for "tactics" AND "puissance", or does he choose which when he makes the check?
It seems to me that if they are used separately, it is a rather weak ability, especially at higher character levels. If they stack, it is of course more powerful, but is it too powerful?
Does anyone have experience running or DMing this class?
No, Dark Knowledge is a single ability family, like Bardic Music or Knights Challenge, that has multiple, individual, abilities. So only one type of Dark Knowledge per check.
That, and the fact it can only be used once against a given critter, does make them feel rather underpowered.
But consider this: they are based off of knowledge checks. And have tiers for success. Any sane Archivist will be maximizing his potential for checks. At level 20, we can assume 23 ranks, +6 from intel bonus (a very low estimate), +3 from skill focus, +2 class bonus = 34. He can now make most of the highest level checks without rolling. Splatbooks that allow items like a Hat of Lore, or the like, could widen the gap further.
This may not seem like much against some monsters, but consider these points:
All dark knowledge is a move action. Which means if you had to, you could do it twice a round (barring limitations on who your doing it on). It also means you can use Dark Knowledge and attack, or cast a spell. The bards are jealous of you in round 1.
Dread Secret. DC 35 is rather easy, as illustrated above. Being able to stun a creature for 1 round, as a move action, with no save allowed? Priceless, and powerful.
You don't need to see the creature, only know it is there. It is reasonable to allow another character who can see the creature and recognizes it, or perhaps even describes it brefily (as a move action, to be fair) to let the Archivist make his check freely. This can be valuable, when invisible or otherwise disguised creatures show up.
Finally, his bonuses are typeless. They will stack with anything. And, while he may not target a creature more than once per day, he can target all creatures of the same race. If a trio of naga come out of the shadows, his typless bonus on all saves against their spells and poison could be incredible usefull.
Overall, the archivist takes a bit more planning and attention to whats going on to really make shine, but they can be very powerful, and a lot of fun to play. Good luck!
HOH ? What is that? Just wondering?
And would the Librarian be one? ~grins~
I have played in a game with one but we didn't get to very high levels before he was killed. The Dark Knowledge was nice especially if you take the feats that allow it's use on some of the other creature types. He was able to wear decent armor so he could defend himself ok in a fight. The only draw back I saw was the player was a little frustrated with the DM. The Archivist can learn a lot of different type of spells, but the DM was really limiting him as to what we could find or had access to so he felt that that aspect of the class was wasted. Having a DM willing to work with this class benefit makes it a whole lot more fun to play.
I have an archivist in my current campaign. He's an OLD human archivist so really not a fighter. (His STR is 6.)
The Dark Knowledge is handy and I try to pull cool spells from various books for him to get. He has the Bane Magic feat (from Libris Mortis, I think?) so his spells are a bit more lethal (+2d6 to damage) against a particular race (and my campaign is undead-heavy, so you tell me which one it is).
I originally made the character to be an NPC but had another player join the game before I figured out how I was going to use the NPC so I handed the then as-yet-unnamed character to him for play. The player is new to D&D but is familiar with the cliches. I actually think he likes the archivist because it isn't one of the "expected" classes.
The other characters (and players) love him because he's the only character with enough points into Knowledge skills to tell them what they're even fighting half the time.
Played in a PBP where Chris Mortika had an archivist named Lucienne.
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Yep. Lucienne was a fun character to play. My take on the Archivist was that she was drawing on the Great Powers without forging a permanent relation like clerics or druids, so she needed to explicitly petition the gods in question each time she cast a spell. Since I'd written a little poem for each spell, it felt a lot like roleplaying Doctor Strange.
The Archivist is, in some analyses, one of the most broken, over-powered classes, simply because he has access to all the clerical and druidic spell lists.
I don't think the class is all that overpowered, because an Archivist needs to find or buy scrolls of each spell he wants to access, and then loses those scrolls in the act of inscribing his spell book. On any given day, he can have some decent clerical spells, but only if he chooses not to prepare a like number of decent druid spells.
So, like the Wizard, he can be awesome if he chooses spells correctly, and almost useless if he doesn't anticipate the day's challenges.
The archivist in my campaign is kind of poor right now. He hasn't been able to fill massive volumes of prayerbooks yet.
Archivist's not "that" powerful though because he's still limited by his spell slots and archivists need high INT and high WIS so they can gain spell levels and spell slots.
I always thought of Dr. Strange as a wizard.
I'm playing in FR and require all my divine casters to have patrons so even the archivist has to have a commitment to a deity, he just fills a different niche. I like to think of archivists as more like Western monks while the "monk" class is more like eastern monks. Western monks would be sequestered away in their monastaries, copying books and preserving them, praying and in deep study. To me that's a good tie-in to the archivist class.
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I always thought of Dr. Strange as a wizard.
In comic-book terms, he's a wizard, a sorcerer supreme, a master of the mystic arts, ...
... but all his powers extend from pacts he's made with ancient alien beings: the Vishanti, Ikonn, Raggador, and, until he wised up, Dormammu. He petitions them for power, and they give him spells to cast.
(Indeed, during one horrendous story arc in the mid-90's, many of the powers tried to call in all the debts Strange had amassed as their agent, and he refused, so they withdrew their powers from him.)
That's how i played the Archivist.
Heh . . . I always thought Warlocks were the perfect class for Doctor Strange . . .
The only really horrible thing(s) I can remember from my two forrays into the Archivist class are 1)never finding prayerbooks as treasure, and 2) the encumberance of all the backed up scrolls I kept to scribe into my prayerbook.
Hey, does anyone know what the Archivist's starting gold is?
I don't think it is included in the description. I went with the same as a cleric. The weapons and armor that archivists are proficient with are close to the cleric, so that starting gold is appropriate.
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The Archivist is, in some analyses, one of the most broken, over-powered classes, simply because he has access to all the clerical and druidic spell lists.
It gets even scarier factoring in spells from Domain lists, the Adept spell list, Paladin/Ranger spells, Divine Bards (UA) and various other divine spell lists available as parts of Prestige Classes (especially the ones that have only 1st through 4th level spells, as they often squeeze the levels down, with Blackguard being the only core / SRD example, but many others existing in splatbooks).
Threads that might be worth looking at if playing an Archivist;
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Overall, the archivist takes a bit more planning and attention to whats going on to really make shine, but they can be very powerful, and a lot of fun to play. Good luck!
My experiences track 100% with this.
Then only thing to add is that you must ban divine insight if you have an archivist. The synergy is simply too much.
Don't forget that the Adept is a divine caster... so any spell on their spell list is potentially open for the archivist.
This includes:
1st level -- Burning Hands, Cause Fear, Sleep
2nd level -- Invisibility, Mirror Image, Scorching Ray, Web
3rd level -- Lightning Bolt
4th level -- Polymorph, Stoneskin, wall of fire
5th level -- Baleful Polymorph, true seeing wall of stone, HEAL
Please note the heal as a fifth level spell, very nice.
Also any spell that is in a domain of a cleric, or possible to cast by a prestige class with divine casting becomes possible too.
If the party has a Divine bard from Unearth Arcana, many bard spells could be added as well.
** just read the above post by Set... so this would just be an expansion on what he said.
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I made an Arcane version of this as a ten level PrC for my STAP game and it's been great fun so far. I combined it with some Loremaster stuff and haven't had any trouble ... yet. The player is one who likes buffing others and just 'knowing' stuff. Less blasting and more clever support, really. (And no healing) All the powers are as in HoH or the DMG. I gave him full spell progression.
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Level BAB Fort Ref Will Special
1 +0 +0 +0 +2 Lore, Dark Knowledge (Tactics) 3/day
2 +1 +0 +0 +3 Bonus Feat (Wizard)
3 +1 +1 +1 +3 Dark Knowledge 4/day
4 +2 +1 +1 +4 Dark Knowledge (Puissance)
5 +2 +1 +1 +4 Dark Knowledge (Foe)
6 +3 +2 +2 +5 Greater Lore
7 +3 +2 +2 +5 Bonus Feat (Wizard), Dark Knowledge 5/day
8 +4 +2 +2 +6 Dark Knowledge (Dread Secret)
9 +4 +3 +3 +6 Dark Knowledge (Foreknowledge)
10 +5 +3 +3 +7 True Lore, Dark Knowledge 6/day
Lore: Arcane Archivists gather knowledge. At 1st level, a loremaster gains the ability to know legends or information
regarding various topics, just as a bard can with bardic knowledge. The loremaster adds her level and her Intelligence
modifier to the lore check. See the Player’s Handbook for more information on bardic knowledge.
Greater Lore: At 6th level, an Arcane Archivist gains the ability to understand magic items, as with the identify spell.
True Lore: At 10th level, once per day an Arcane archivist can use her knowledge to gain the effect of a legend lore spell or an analyze dweomer spell.
Dark Knowledge: as Archivist
Bonus Feat: An Arcane Archivist can select a free feat from the following list: Skill Focus (any Knowledge skill), Spell Focus, any metamagic feat, or any item creation feat.
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I've play two killer librarians in the last little while and I think they're great! One was a necropolitan doomscribe of Jergal and the other was a Evangelical forge-priest of Torag.
Archivists fill the fire support, buffer and summoner role very well because of the range of spells they can aquire. Don't focus on spells that require hit rolls though; the 1/2 BAB hinders this. Try a lot of blast and cone effects for attacks instead. A reserve feat like firey burst is also a boon since you're going to want to limit your number of attack spells.
Their dark knowledge is a great benefit to the party and I find the scaling to be appropriate for higher levels. My only major criticism is that the bonus feats are too few and far between, and feel tacked on.
Warning note to DM's though -Limit the archivist's spell selection to a pre-approved set of books, otherwise you risk cheese. I always police myself and limit my choices to the PHB and Spell Compendium.
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One was a necropolitan doomscribe of JergalThis is the coolest sounding character, ever. Jergal is one of my favorite Realms dieties!
Yeah, he was neat-o. Deacon was a replacement for a fatality and the party found him chained in his coffin with no memory or any personal information. He'd been imprisoned for centuries before the Time of Troubles. The only hint to his identity was the title engraved on the coffin lid (name was defaced). Because of this, everyone just called him Deacon.
He wore his silver burial mask to conceal his undeadyness (gentle, kindly face -think the king's mask from Kingdom of Heaven) and the typical black robes of a priest of Jergal.
Backstory was that he was a dissenting voice against some of the more evil leaders of the Church of Jergal (LG character of a LN god). He was tried and sentenced to undeath and burial for having the nerve to speak out against the evil being done by his church.
Personality was like that of a kindly scholar, contrasted by his incredible creepiness caused by undeath. He kept asking how the party members slept, what the food tasted like, and if they were cold, hot, etc... He would then sigh whistfully and recall how he used to like sleeping in or eating apples too etc... He also tried to pretend he was still alive by making a point of breathing, but he just ended up sounding a little too much like Darth Vader.