Blade Adept Arcanist melee challenge

[Oridian]

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?

[Athaleon]

The Elf Favored Class bonus definitely helps (+1 to Arcane Reservoir per level). But I still think it's not really doable without a Dex build and Eldritch Knight.

Also, Dimensional Slide should have been a Magus Arcana. Full-progression casters have no business being able to evade melee that easily.

[Ekkias]

Oridian wrote:

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.

I don't read where Sentient Sword indicates the black blade doesn't have it's own arcane pool to work off.

Spoiler:

Sentient Sword (Su): At 3rd level, the blade adept’s bonded sword becomes a powerful, sentient black blade. The blade advances as a black blade (Ultimate Magic 47) using the blade adept’s class level in place of the magus’s class level and points from her arcane reservoir in place of the magus’s arcane pool. A blade adept with this class feature cannot have a familiar of any kind, even from another class. This ability replaces the arcanist exploit gained at 3rd level.

I think the bolded text simply allows the black blade to effect points in the arcane reservoir that normally effect points in the magus' arcane pool, such as from Teleport Blade, Transfer Arcana, and Life Drinker.

[Oridian]

I think you are right.

[Sevus]

Note that the elf favored class bonus applies only to the maximum number of points in your arcane reservoir, if you wanted extra points at the start of the day, you'd need to go gnome instead. I also agree with Ekkias' assessment of the Black Blade, it still gains its own arcane pool as normal.

[Oridian]

Yeah, that is is only reasonable reading of the elf FCB. I imagine that many misread it and go give a load exclamation.

[James Gibbons]

I would very much like to see this build.
Is there any way to give an arcanist divine power?

[Zwordsman]

I had a decent one. .but to be honest he focused more on delivering touch effects with his blade.

it was heavy heavy dex based prettty much.
and a lot of the spells were eatin to provide points.
and it still wasn't better than doing something like eldrtich knight.

oh, but its not really legal for pfs and such. Since i was allowed to use Black blade and the witch archetype. i also went slashing grace since i wanted weapon focus' to hit

[Bladelock]

You can't use Arcane Strike and Arcane Accuracy in the same round. Both eat up swift actions.

If you're making a blade adept, I think a str build will work better than a dex build. Personally, I prefer other Archetypes or no archetype for a melee arcanist, with a fighter(mutation warrior) dip. However for a 20pt blade adept build, I would go with something like this:

Human
str 15+2race (18 lvl 4)
dex12
con13 (14 lvl 8)
Int 14
Wis 8
cha 12

Weapon:Scimitar(crit range and can be gripped 2h)
1st lvl Wpn Focus (scimitar), Exploit(Arcane Barrier)
3nd lvl Power Attack
5th lvl Furious Focus, Exploit(Arcane Weapon)
7th lvl E.Exploit(Arcane Strike:chill touch), Exploit(school understanding:divination)
9th lvl E.Exploit (Arcane Accuracy)

at lvl 9 with a +4 enhancement bonus to str, to hit and damage will be:
BAB - +4tht
WpnF. +1tht
str - +6tht, +9dam
power att +6dam (2h grip, no minus tht with first swing)
bb - +3tht, +3dam
bb strike - +3dam

+14to hit (+16w/accuracy) and crit 15-20(A.Wpn Keen) 1d6 + 1d6 +21damage +1str dam with one spell being cast first.

Of course a full Arcanist will be walking around with an extra spell or 2 up most of the time, so this is bare bones.

[Zan Greenshadow]

Minor Point: in your build, 1st level looks like it should be using Extra Exploit, since the Level 1 exploit is applied to the archetype.

[Bladelock]

Zan Greenshadow wrote:

Minor Point: in your build, 1st level looks like it should be using Extra Exploit, since the Level 1 exploit is applied to the archetype.

Yes, you're correct. I did forget to mention that the first exploit came from the Extra Exploit feat. I used the extra feat humans get at first lvl to pick it up.

I do think there are better ways to do this, even as a pure caster, but this is still not bad if a player wants the flavor of the Blade Adept. If errata comes out that the Black Blade template adds to enhancements given to a blade adept's sword bond, then it actually becomes decent.

[Paladin of Baha-who?]

A blade adept arcanist does not get the Arcanist Exploits class feature until level 5, and so does not qualify for the Extra Exploit feat until level 5.

Sorry.

[2ndGenerationCleric]

So then retrain a mundane feat.

[Azten]

Bladelock wrote:

You can't use Arcane Strike and Arcane Accuracy in the same round. Both eat up swift actions.

The only way I can see around that is a level of Bloodrager and Bloodied Arcane Strike. You'd need the Metamagic feat that lets you cast spells while raging though, so it's probably not worth it.

[Undead Thread]

Two years of peaceful rest.