| CritMagnon |
Had the opportunity to playtest the new arcanist last night. Not some mock encounter test but in an actual campaign with each character controlled by a different person and no information on the enemies other than what the GM would tell us. While this means I have less numerical data, I think this is better for analyzing more subjective characteristics such as "flexibility."
Male (really) CG Elf Arcanist (Not a wizard I swear), Level 5, Init +8, HP 31/31, Speed 30 ft. 6 sq.
AC 13, Touch 12, Flat-footed 11, CMD 12, Fort +4, Ref +5, Will +6, CMB +0, Base Attack Bonus 2
Dagger +0 (1d4-2, 19-20/x2)
Light Crossbow (20 Crossbow Bolts) +4 (1d8, 19-20/x2)
Haramaki (+1 Armor, +2 Dex)
Abilities Str 7, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 23, Wis 10, Cha 14
Note the statblock is for level 5, the active character sheet is in the proces of being leveled to 6.
Conditions
Allowed materials were anything on the SRD. There were three encounters, all enemies were humanoids, a mix of various classes. The first was 6 CR 5 or so enemies, the second three CR 12 enemies, and the last was 7 CR 8 enemies. For the first two encounters the party was a bloodrager, a brawler and my arcanist, for the third encounter a shaman joined us. All of us were level 5, meaning this is an early-mid game analysis.
Spellcasting
As far as the spellcasting mechanic goes, the experience was more or less identical to a sorcerer. Since we only did one day of combat, I didn't get a chance to take advantage of being able to switch spells from day to day. I didn't know what direction the campaign was going at the beginning of the day, so I didn't get much of an advantage in that spell selection. At this level only one spell is lost compared to the sorcerer, so it's not a huge disadvantage in that respect either. I didn't need the extra first level spell, but I didn't use the extra flexibility.
Bottom line: Nothing greatly over or underpowered, but I didn't really get to fully test it.
Exploits
Dimensional Slide - This has been compared a lot to the Shift ability of the Conjuration (Teleportation) Specialist Wizard. I personally think the wizard ability is stronger for a couple reasons. As I understand it, this can only be used as part of a move action to move yourself, meaning that using this would interfere with move action directed spells such as Flaming Sphere. This could be an advantage in terms of not consuming an immediate or swift action, although the only use that comes to mind immediately is Counterspell. A Quick Runner's Shirt is a good way to get the best of both worlds. The wizard also has a separate pool for Shift by itself, so the wizard doesn't have as much of an opportunity cost. The arcanist can refill its pool which the wizard can't, but how often does a wizard run out of uses of Shift? Regardless, the ability is still powerful as a contingency, but limited arcane reservoir made me only use the ability once for non-emergency repositioning, which in hindsight I shouldn't have done.
Bottom line: Arcane reservoir is too valuable to use this to reposition so much as get out of an awful situation.
Counterspell - Many people have complained that this is overpowered. While indeed a strong ability, it is limited by spell slots, arcane reservoir, and two checks. I never failed an identify check - DC 15 + spell level is easy. I did fail every single dispel check however, although on paper 11 + spell caster level shouldn't be terribly difficult against a caster level check. Someone could probably run the numbers and determine the average probability of succeeding both checks against an equal CR enemy. Since there's not enough arcane reservoir to simply spam this ability, you have to pick and choose which spells to counter. Unfortunately with sorcerer spell progression, many of the spells I wanted to counter I simple couldn't, such as the lightning bolt that killed the bloodrager and knocked out the shaman.
Balance aside, I would like it clarified at what point in the entire proces the arcane reservoir point is consumed and when the spell slot is consumed.
Bottom line: Obviously this is powerful, number crunching is required to see how much so. Definitely more difficult to execute at lower levels than with level 15/20 test builds due to spell progression and CL checks.
Potent Spell - Absolutely amazing. Combined with Spell Focus (Conjuration), enemies were being destroyed left and right. To be fair, a lot of this is due to Web, Glitterdust, and Grease just being ridiculously powerful spells, but being able to lock down multiple high CR enemies might be the reason the part didn't wipe. I didn't get to use this to overcome SR, which wasn't encountered.
Bottom line: I didn't see the DM rolls, but this is likely a numerical exercise to balance.
Arcane Reservoir
I'm slightly tempted to bold this entire section.
Consume Spells - I didn't use this, spells are too valuable at this level, as powerful as the above abilities may be. This might be more relevant to balance at a higher level.
Arcane Reservoir - I believe there's a good reason most abilities are 3 + something uses per day rather than 1 + something. At low levels this isn't enough points to do anything with. Sure the abilities are strong, but the class already gets stronger as it levels from acquiring more exploits. At every 5 levels, 1/3/6/8/11 is much worse than 4/5/8/10/13 for not making the beginning of the game completely boring. The only way I was able to test the exploits was because I misread how many points I start the day with. Honestly all the above playtesting can be thrown out the window because you won't get to use them anyways. Combined with my observation on Consume Spells, and this class may have the worst power curve out of all the full arcane casters when it comes to actually using class features. With only 3 arcane reservoir points, my recommended strategy is to simply try to boost the DC of Glitterdust as high as possible and try to nail as many enemies as possible. I would honestly just 5-foot and not use Dimensional Slide and only try to Counterspell if something crazy like your entire party being subjected to Create Pit is happening. Then pray you didn't waste the point by failing your rolls. Which is unfortunate, because while Potent Spell is indeed potent, it's probably the least interesting of the three exploits I picked up.
Building
Stats
I picked up 14 charisma and the trait Extremely Fashionable only because beyond that the only party face is the brawler's fists. As far as class mechanics go however, I see absolutely no reason to pick up charisma. The blasting exploits honestly just aren't good enough to justify investing charisma, especially with the need to make ranged touch attacks with 1/2 BaB. I believe in the main discussion thread someone made a table of the average damage of the exploits compared with Force Strike. The numbers were incredibly low, especially considering miss chance and reflex saves weren't taken into the calculation.
Feats
I don't see anything special that would cause deviation from a fairly typical caster build other than acquiring a familiar is probably too feat intensive to be worth it.
Skills
UMD is nice, although I didn't use it. No social skills as class skills makes charisma a dubious investment, although I was stuck being the party face. (Which is fine, just in case charisma does do something for playtest purposes it's good to have.) Other than that, I'd imagine this would be similar to most wizards.
Brief Thoughts on Other Classes
Brawler
Swapping out feats on the fly is cool and fun if nothing else. He did complain about uses per day being too limited, although I think he was satisfied with the duration.
Bloodrager
His bloodline is whichever one gives reach. He doesn't have Lunge or Combat Reflexes yet, but he was still excellent at controlling space and dealing damage. Casters got smacked any time they tried to cast a spell.
Shaman
His spirit is whichever one gives Wis to AC, and his wandering spirit was Life. Severe weakness to reflex saves seems to balance the ability to dump dexterity. Ability to switch wandering spirits is a neat mechanic. He spent a lot of time doing battlefield triage and I only got to see the Life Siphon hex, so I don't have many observations on that aspect.
Conclusion/TL;DR
This is a low-mid level playtest. I didn't do much with the casting mechanic. The exploits are strong, but I think the reservoir is too small at low levels if only for the Rule of Fun than for balance. Number crunching can determine the strength of the exploits, although I think Dimensional Slide is best left for emergency use only and that Counterspell can be difficult to make use of. I see zero reason to not dump charisma, UMD is more compelling than any of the blasting exploits.
We are planning on running next week with the same people, I might make a level 6 playtest post if that occurs. Not expecting a lot different from level 5.
Please tell me why I'm right or wrong. Particularly if anyone can determine the odds of Counterspell working against an equal CR enemy, clarify when the arcane point and spell slot are used, give a compelling reason to not dump charisma, find the discussion thread link to the average damage of blasting exploits, or come up with an alternate solution to an extremely low level arcane reservoir (or tell me why I'm wrong) that would be awesome-sauce.
Thanks for reading.
EDIT: I had no idea I wrote this much o_o