Are you thinking of the divine spellcaster (who prepares spells from a prayerbook, similar to a Wizard) in 3.5 from WotC's Heroes of Horror book?
If so, I don't recollect anything quite like that in the APG. However, the APG has a new base class called the Oracle which can be built with the Lore mystery. (Oracles have a variety of different mystery options, like the Sorcerer bloodlines in the PFCR.) Oracles are also similar to Sorcerers in that they cast spontaneously from a limited list of spells known (taken from the Cleric's class spell list, plus a few additions based upon the Oracle mystery chosen).
|
Tell me what you think.
Role: The archivist is a more academic profession than the cleric or paladin but hardier and more worldly than the average cloistered wizard. Due to the exploratory and often dangerous nature of their work, archivists develop techniques for safeguarding themselves and their allies from the foul taint that so often surrounds and accompanies the lost or forbidden lore they seek. Archivists are thus exceptional support characters, bolstering the efforts of those who aid them in their scholarly pursuits.
Races: Elves tend to make the best archivists, due both to their longevity and to their natural proclivity for magic. Humans and gnomes can be drawn to the class as well, often becoming the most ambitious of seekers. Dwarves make fine archivists but tend to view the entire profession as a little too morally gray for their liking. Halflings and half-orcs rarely take up the mantle of the archivist.
Alignment: Characters of any alignment can become archivists, but the class does require some measure of academic detachment. As a result, archivists of an ethically lawful bent are quite common.
Hit Die: d6.
CLASS SKILLS
The archivist's class skills are Appraise (Int), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Heal (Wis), Fly (Dex), Knowledge (all), Linguistics (Int), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int)
Skill Ranks per Level: 6 + Int modifier.
TABLE: Archivist
Level Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Ref Save Will Save Special Spells per Day
0 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th
1st +0 +2 +0 +2 Orisons, Scribe Scroll
3 2 — — — — — — — —
2nd +1 +3 +0 +3 4 3 — — — — — — — —
3rd +2 +3 +1 +3 4 3 2 — — — — — — —
4th +3 +4 +1 +4 4 4 3 — — — — — — —
5th +3 +4 +1 +4 Bonus feat
4 4 3 2 — — — — — —
6th +4 +5 +2 +5 4 4 4 3 — — — — — —
7th +5 +5 +2 +5 4 5 4 3 2 — — — — —
8th +6/+1 +6 +2 +6 4 5 4 4 3 — — — — —
9th +6/+1 +6 +3 +6 4 5 5 4 3 2 — — — —
10th +7/+2 +7 +3 +7 Bonus feat
4 5 5 4 4 3 — — — —
11th +8/+3 +7 +3 +7 4 5 5 5 4 3 2 — — —
12th +9/+4 +8 +4 +8 4 5 5 5 4 4 3 — — —
13th +9/+4 +8 +4 +8 4 5 5 5 5 4 3 2 — —
14th +10/+5 +9 +4 +9 4 5 5 5 5 4 4 3 — —
15th +11/+6/+1 +9 +5 +9 Bonus feat
4 5 5 5 5 5 4 3 2 —
16th +12/+7/+2 +10 +5 +10 4 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 3 —
17th +12/+7/+2 +10 +5 +10 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 3 2
18th +13/+8/+3 +11 +6 +11 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 3
19th +14/+9/+4 +11 +6 +11 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4
20th +15/+10/+5 +12 +6 +12 Bonus feat
4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
CLASS FEATURES
The following are class features of the archivist.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Archivists are proficient with all simple weapons, light armor, medium armor, and shields (except tower shields).
Spells: An Archivist casts divine spells which are drawn from the Divine Spell lists presented in Spell Lists. Her alignment, however, may restrict her from casting certain spells opposed to her moral or ethical beliefs; see chaotic, evil, good, and lawful spells. An Archivist must choose and prepare her spells in advance.
To learn, prepare, or cast a spell, the Archivist must have an Intelligence score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against an Archivist's spell is 10 + the spell level + the Archivist's Intelligence modifier.
An Archivist can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. His base daily spell allotment is given on Table: Archivist. In addition, he receives bonus spells per day if he has a high Intelligence score (see Table: Ability Modifiers and Bonus Spells).
An Archivist may know any number of spells. He must choose and prepare his spells ahead of time by getting a good night’s sleep and then spending 1 hour studying his prayerbook. The archivist decides which spells to prepare while studying.
Prayerbook: Unlike a cleric, an archivist does not receive his daily spell complement from whatever deity or cosmic force he worships. Rather, he must seek out and collect new spells much as a wizard does, but from such esoteric sources as holy tablets, ancient steles, or other magical scriptures. He cannot prepare any spell not recorded in his prayerbook except for read magic, which archivists can prepare from memory. An archivist begins play with a prayerbook containing all 0-level cleric spells plus three 1st-level cleric spells of the player’s choice. For each point of Intelligence bonus the archivist has, the prayerbook has an additional 1st-level cleric spell. At each new class level, the archivist gains two new cleric spells for his prayerbook; these can be of any spell level or levels that he can cast (based on his new archivist level). At any time, an archivist can also add spells found on scrolls containing divine spells to his prayerbook, but he must make any rolls and spend the time required (see Adding Spells to a Wizard’s Spellbook on page 178 of the Player’s Handbook). The archivist can learn and thus prepare nonclerical divine spells in this fashion but the two free spells he gains for advancing in class level must be selected from the cleric spell list.
Orisons: Archivist can prepare a number of orisons, or 0-level spells, each day, as noted on Table: Archivist under “Spells per Day.” These spells are cast like any other spell, but they are not expended when cast and may be used again.
Bonus Languages: An archivist’s bonus language options include Celestial, Abyssal, and Infernal (the languages of good, chaotic evil, and lawful evil outsiders, respectively). These choices are in addition to the bonus languages available to the character because of her race.
For such a bookish class, the good progression for Fortitude saves looks a bit strong.
Similarly, I would have given the class only light armour (obviously with the option of spellcasting in medium armour and buying the Medium Armour Proficiency with a character level feat).
The table says "Bonus feat", your written description mentions only "Bonus Languages". Are they supposed to be the same thing or two different points?
I haven't taken the time to look at the number of spells per day (the table is a bit difficult to read), nor have I put any serious thought yet into the fact that the class not only uses the Cleric's class spell list, but can also "poach" from the Druid's, Ranger's, and Paladin's lists. Taking the APG into account, the poaching would also include the Inquisitor and some normally non-divine spells from various Oracle mysteries, not to mention the Cleric's subdomain spell lists.
I'm playing a 3.5 HoH Archivist in a Pathfinder game right now and I'm actually regretting it a little right now. I've basically, in the effort to keep my own power level down, have kept myself to the cleric list whenever possible. If a spell appears on two lists, I default to the cleric first, then the oracle, then the druid, then the inquisitor and finally the ranger and paladin lists (in that order). Because cherry picking the good early entry spells is just cheap, basically. I've also stuck only to spells that buff the party so that anything I do makes them better at what they do, which keeps me from feeling like I'm stealing the show, which you can easily do with a CoDzilla Archivist.
I did a rewrite of the class when we started playing Pathfinder. Archivist Redux. It doesn't offer substitutions for the Dark Knowledge abilities, but I feel that it does better fit in the Pathfinder power curve.
I would consider removing Dark Knowledge and giving it a cleric's Channel Energy to be a reasonable trade off.
@Bellona: The reason for the high Fort save progression is because in the book that the Archivist was presented (Heroes of Horror) everything had corrupting influences and all of them required Fort saves. Since the Archivist was designed to work in a "taint magic" system (with Fort saves rolled all the time) it made sense to give it a high Fort save. In a regular campaign, with normal magic and creatures, it is a bit much.
Oh, it's completely unfair. You basically get all of the goodies of a wizard (which is a pretty good package) and all of the goodies of a cleric (which is also a pretty good package) with almost none of the drawbacks. And, on top of it all, you can do useful things with your move actions (Dark Knowledge), whereas a wizard or buff/debuff cleric who does it right mostly just stays in one spot.
Like I said earlier, I have done my best to keep my power level no higher than that of the rest of the players, but it's almost too easy to abuse the class. My rewrite does a little to tone down the power, but it still sits firmly near the top of the Tier 1 classes. Making Dark Knowledge a standard action, combined with my changes, would basically make it a specialist wizard. I might do another rewrite and put that in.
Ajores, I agree that you have to intentionally abuse the class to make it "broken". The problem isn't that the class is abusable (as you say, all classes are) but rather that it takes almost no effort to abuse it. You basically have to look through the divine spell lists and pick the spells you like. Do you want Lesser Restoration? Get it at level 1 thanks to the Paladin list. How about Heal? I'll take it at level 5 because of the Adept. A quick glance through the domain spells for the cleric gives you even more early entry options and spells that are otherwise only on the wizard/sorcerer list.
Okay, so having the most diverse and useful spell list is nifty, but not super game breaking. And, as you said, you only have one standard action per round, so you cast just like any other full caster. Well, every other full caster has nothing useful to do with their move actions except maybe move out of the way of stuff or grab something from their pack. As an Archivist you have the option of basically casting another spell. Yes. You heard me right, the Dark Knowledge abilities are basically another spell you cast. Roll an almost trivial knowledge check and you can further buff your allies and hinder your foes. Also, take a look at this one:
Dread Secret: By speaking aloud a dread secret of the target creature, an archivist of 11th level or higher can dazzle a target creature for 1 round. Unlike other dark knowledge, this ability can be used only against a single creature. If the archivist succeeds on his Knowledge check by 10 or more, then the target is dazed for 1 round. If the archivist succeeds on his Knowledge check by 20 or more, then the target is stunned for 1 round (if the target is immune to being stunned but not immune to being dazed, such as most undead, then the archivist can choose to daze the target instead of stunning it).
Keep in mind that this is a level 11 ability, so an Archivist would reasonably have a +21 or more to his knowledge checks. This means that he only needs to roll a 4 to daze a target (completely unable to act) and a 14 to stun the target (hello, coup de gras). You might think this isn't a big deal, but put that with being able to cast pretty much any 6th level spell in the book, and follow it up with a quickened 1st or 2nd level spell.
If you think a limitation on a prepared caster is needing to write his spells in a book, you might consider looking at the Blessed Book. For a mere 6,250 gold an Archivist can craft his own.
Also, with the Archivist, there is very little reason to continue in the class past level 11. My character plans to roll over into Loremaster, since it's an incredibly easy class for an Archivist to qualify for. The only feat I had to take that I wouldn't have normally was Skill Focus (Knowledge:Religion) but even that isn't a terrible waste as it powers my Dark Knowledge checks against undead. So now I'm basically getting the best casting in the game, the best move-action abilities in the game, and a free "feats" every other level through the secrets. This isn't a problem of the Archivist, but I just thought I'd mention it for full disclosure.
If you read through the Archivist that I posted, there are some specific things that I've done that let it remain the same basic class (though it might now need to be renamed with the APG Bard archetype) without being intrinsically more powerful than the wizard, cleric or druid.
The first is that, though you can still pick spells from the various divine lists, you have to take the ones off the Cleric list first, so you can't get early entry spells. You then have to take them from the Druid and Oracle lists (if there are any Oracle only spells), then the Inquisitor, and finishing with the Ranger and Paladin. Basically, you have to take the spell from the class with the highest level of spell casting first. I also restricted them to spells that did not oppose their alignment, the same as a cleric.
Second, I reworked Dark Knowledge to stop being a static DC, which doesn't make any sense to me. Rather, the DC is based on the monster's CR, just like normal knowledge checks are. Also, these checks only apply to INT Mod number of creature types from a small list. Only when an Archivist reaches an intelligence of 26 can he use his abilities against all 8 types, rather than all 8 right out of the box.
Third, Dark Knowledge bonuses are now typed as Insight bonuses. Previously they were untyped and therefore always stacked. Even though Insight is a less common bonus type, it still represents a small curb in the power of this ability.
If I were to make another change to the class, I might turn most of the Dark Knowledge abilities into standard actions, or at least do so for a certain number of levels. Maybe downgrade them to move actions at level 10 or so.
As suggested above, if I were to make Archivist archetypes, I would give one of them the option to swap out Dark Knowledge for Channel Energy. It probably wouldn't be at full cleric level, maybe Cleric -1 or simply gaining 1d6 each time he would have gained a Dark Knowledge ability (giving a total of 7d6). I'd also give archetypes that focus on each of the creature types, with specialized Dark Knowledge abilities tailored to the creatures in question.