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As I browsed messageboards for the last couple of days it was hard not to stumble upon numerous threads commenting on new classes and archetypes introduced in ACG. There are two statements that at some point appear in nearly every single one of them "Arcanist is overpowered", quickly followed by "Exploiter Wizard is even more broken." But is it really so?
I would like you to help me compare Exploiter Wizard to classic specialist Wizard.
As an Exploiter Wizard you give up your Arcane Bond and Arcane School for access to 5 arcanist exploits total (at 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th and 17th level). It is worth noting that you miss out on Consume Spells class feature and you don't gain access to Greater exploits. As far as I understand, RAW you cannot buy additional Explots via Extra Exploit feat.
Quick Study, Metamixing, Potent Magic, Dimensional Slide are certainly powerful, but are they really powerful enough to forgo extra spell slots, school powers and capstone abilities?
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Wizards have always been the quality not quantity class. School powers are really more of a wash since you can pillage their abilities. Dimensional Slide is like the Teleportation school power but better for example.
Quick Study is Schrodinger's Wizard. The Silver Bullet Mage.
The Counterspell exploit on the Arcanist was balanced by having lower spell progression. Tack it onto the best spell progression and it's monstrous. Then at 10th you get the Greater Counterspell and the GM may as well not throw caster baddies at you.
Spell slots have never really mattered much to a player with good system mastery. Between Wands, Peals of Power, and Scrolls, if you run out of spells as a Wizard you're almost certainly doing something wrong.
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Spell slots have never really mattered much to a player with good system mastery. Between Wands, Peals of Power, and Scrolls, if you run out of spells as a Wizard you're almost certainly doing something wrong.
Depends a lot on the game really. PFS or an AP, yeah, resource management should hardly be an issue most of the time. Other games, may be a serious issue.
Anyway, yeah several of the exploits are really powerful. I've actually decided to just ban the entire arcanist class and everything attached to it. It has a nearly unlimited supply of exploits by mid level and just seems to me after much number crunching as a terribly designed class from any kind of balance stand point.
But I think the school arcanist may even be better. Sure up a major weakness and get school powers. Not getting an exploit until 5th does hurt, but extra spells are nice for them.
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Wizards have always been the quality not quantity class. School powers are really more of a wash since you can pillage their abilities. Dimensional Slide is like the Teleportation school power but better for example.
Quick Study is Schrodinger's Wizard. The Silver Bullet Mage.
The Counterspell exploit on the Arcanist was balanced by having lower spell progression. Tack it onto the best spell progression and it's monstrous. Then at 10th you get the Greater Counterspell and the GM may as well not throw caster baddies at you.
Spell slots have never really mattered much to a player with good system mastery. Between Wands, Peals of Power, and Scrolls, if you run out of spells as a Wizard you're almost certainly doing something wrong.
Counter spell is not that good. You have to use a higher spell slot (which you only get one level faster than the Arcanist) and it's not unusual to be fighting a caster that is higher level than you or has spell-likes that are a higher level spell you can cast.
Just tossing this out here, you can get Arcane Bond as a familiar back through exploits.
Wizards have always been the quality not quantity class. School powers are really more of a wash since you can pillage their abilities. Dimensional Slide is like the Teleportation school power but better for example.
To emulate Wizard abilities, you must sacrifice one of your limited exploits. Even then you could use it only 3+CHA (usually meaning 3) times per day. You cannot get passives this way (Divination anyone?). Dimensional Slide is nice but you cannot escape grapples with it (it must be part of your move action).
Quick Study is Schrodinger's Wizard. The Silver Bullet Mage.
Arguably most powerful of the Arcanist exploits. Is it however that much more powerful than wizards discovery? Its combat application is risky at best. Outside of combat the difference is not that painful.
The Counterspell exploit on the Arcanist was balanced by having lower spell progression. Tack it onto the best spell progression and it's monstrous. Then at 10th you get the Greater Counterspell and the GM may as well not throw caster baddies at you.
You cannot take Greater Counterspell as exploiter Wizard.
Spell slots have never really mattered much to a player with good system mastery. Between Wands, Peals of Power, and Scrolls, if you run out of spells as a Wizard you're almost certainly doing something wrong.
Depends on the campaign and GM. In later levels spell slots aren't that much of a problem but earlier in the game every spell counts. Especially since you have not that much resources to spare.
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Novack: I don't see why an Exploiter Wizard couldn't get the Extra Arcanist Exploit feat. Could you explain that?
I can jump on that one. Extra Arcanist's Exploit requires the Arcanist's Exploit class feature as a prerequisite. Exploiters get Exploiter's Exploit instead.
Quite honestly, that's about the only thing that keeps the Exploiter from being flat-out perfect.
Spell slots have never really mattered much to a player with good system mastery. Between Wands, Peals of Power, and Scrolls, if you run out of spells as a Wizard you're almost certainly doing something wrong.
Funny because the big argument people make about schools is the extra spell slots...
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It has a nearly unlimited supply of exploits by mid level and just seems to me after much number crunching as a terribly designed class from any kind of balance stand point.
I'm seeing this said a lot, but rarely is it backed up. Therefore, I shall be following this thread very closely in the hopes that somebody provides some supporting evidence.
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I haven't seen an exploiter wizard in play yet and I wager most people haven't either, so any comments are purely speculative at this stage.
The exploiter wizard does not have the "consume spells" class feature, so they are limited to just the pool they start with, which is (3 + 1/2 level) each day.
1st level wizard: 4 points
5th level wizard: 5 points
9th level wizard: 7 points
They've given up arcane bond, which is arguable one of the most powerful things for a wizard to have at any level. They also gave up their arcane school, which is the other most arguably powerful ability they have. I hopefully don't need to enumerate a cherry picked list of arcane school abilities. The access they get back via an exploit pales in comparison to what the actual school itself grants in most cases.
A wizard in their level 1-10 career is going to get three exploits, at 1st, 5th and 9th level. What will they use them on that is better than their arcane bond and arcane school?
At 1st, you're probably not going to take consume magic items yet, so your pool is absolutely fixed at 4 points. In any world, your arcane bond and arcane school are better than any exploit you'd take in your level 1-4 career. What do you take? Dimensional slide is one of my favorites. The elemental damage abilities are okay, but nothing exceptional that you'd give up your bond + school. Counterspell doesn't make a lot of sense here either, since even as a 5th level wizard, you don't have the spells to counter the 4th and 3rd level spells being lobbed at you by the level 7 plus enemy wizard. And quick study isn't as practical as your arcane bond was. Honestly, there's not a lot of things where this will make sense for a wizard who is planning to see a lot of play time from level 1 to 4, so I don't expect to see a lot of exploiter wizards being created at 1st level.
We can jump all the way to 10th level and see how the wizard feels who has a whole 3 exploits to their name. What do they have? Consume magic items so they can recharge their pool seems almost required. Dimensional slide and counterspell for the remaining two? Dimensional slide is nice, but they could've picked up something similar and slightly less powerful from their school. Counterspell still isn't going to negate any powerful BBEG spells as the wizard has 5th level spells but at this level of play still isn't countering 5th-7th level spells being lobbed about by the BBEG wizard.
Honestly, I don't see the exploiter as that great. Until I see someone show me a 1st, 5th and 10th level wizard that is markedly better than a vanilla wizard, I doubt I'd be building an exploiter wizard.
Dotting. I had considered retraining into exploiter, but the thing that would hold me back is the loss of spell slots and to a lesser extent the loss of my arcane bonded item. I like me some spontaneous spell off my entire list needed at last second. It has saved me and the party a few times.
The exploits I looked at were counterspell, which seems ok until you run into a same or higher spell level caster enemy.
Quick study. Since it lets you switch out prepared spells instead of studying in another one quicker, I feel it's a little better since I can prepare all or most of my slots and just switch one out.
Dimensional slide, but it doesn't get you out of grapples as mentioned which to me is the biggest selling point of the wizard class ability.
Potent to me is pretty nice though. Make my 17 DC stinking cloud into a 19 DC stinking cloud and such seems quite nice.
I suppose one could still get the Divination school power and a familiar, even a sorc bloodline.
I am interested in seeing more opinions on the title matter though.
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Novack: I don't see why an Exploiter Wizard couldn't get the Extra Arcanist Exploit feat. Could you explain that?
I can jump on that one. Extra Arcanist's Exploit requires the Arcanist's Exploit class feature as a prerequisite. Exploiters get Exploiter's Exploit instead.
Quite honestly, that's about the only thing that keeps the Exploiter from being flat-out perfect.
A change in ability name does not prevent the ability from qualifying for feats as long as the underlying ability is the same.
Link
Link My favorite post of all time, back when SKR was a developer.
The second link addresses questions that were raised about Oracles qualifying for Channel Energy feats. A question identical to the issue being raised regarding exploiter wizards qualifying for additional exploits.
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I’m aware we’re discussing the exploiter wizard, but for context let’s compare a school wizard and an arcanist of equal level at some fairly key character levels (5th-8th). This example ignores bonus spells from stat scores, and also assumes since the wizard is a school wizard he or she will have 1 extra spell per day from his or her school.
Fifth character level
Both have 4 first-level spells and 3 second-level spells. The wizard has 2 third-level spells whereas the arcanist has none. The wizard has a moderate advantage.
Sixth character level
Both have 4 first-level spells and 4 second-level spells. The wizard has 3 third-level spells whereas the arcanist has two. The wizard has a modest advantage (i.e. one additional third-level spell).
Seventh character level
The wizard has 5 first-level spells whereas the arcanist has four. Both have 4 second-level spells and 3 third-level spells. The wizard has 2 fourth–level spells whereas the arcanist has none. The wizard has a moderate advantage.
Eighth character level
Again the wizard has 5 first-level spells whereas the arcanist has four. Both have 4 second-level spells and 4 third-level spells. The wizard has 3 fourth-level spells whereas the arcanist has two. The wizard has a modest advantage (i.e. one additional fourth-level spell).
So when compared to a school wizard, the arcanist experiences a noticeable “lag” in spells per day, with odd numbered levels being greater than even numbered levels. (Other threads have noted this.) For the player the question is whether the access to exploits and increased casting flexibility compensate up for this? (Also factoring in the loss of arcane bond etc.)
Important: The exploiter wizard does not get the bonus spells of the school wizard, which makes the difference between the two less significant, at least in terms of spells per day. Plus he or she has lost arcane bond (as noted above), and does not have the consume spell feature to refill his or her reservoir. Arcanists and wizards (school, generalist, and exploiter) are arguable all top-tier caster classes. But I think it can be argued that they all have strengths and weaknesses.
It has a nearly unlimited supply of exploits by mid level and just seems to me after much number crunching as a terribly designed class from any kind of balance stand point.I'm seeing this said a lot, but rarely is it backed up. Therefore, I shall be following this thread very closely in the hopes that somebody provides some supporting evidence.
There's two major points to this claim:
1. You can eat spell slots for {spell level) Arcane Reservoir points.
2. With a specific Exploit (Consume Magic Item), you can drain unwanted scrolls, potions, 5 charges from wands (1/2 spell level), or a charge from a staff (1:1 based on highest level 1 charge spell).
Assuming no other increases, a level 6 Arcanist has a maximum reservoir of 9 and 6 points to start. If they have an Int of 16+, they have 3 level 3 slots, 5 level 2 slots, and 5 level 1 slots. Since pretty much all staves are beyond the standard level 6 starting gold, we'll assume they don't have one, but that they do have a level 2 wand of some sort (4500 of 16000 on starting gold).
The wand is potentially worth 10 points, but we'll assume that the player wants to be conservative about it (after all, each Consume is 450g!) and won't do more than 2 Consumes/day, which is a last resort.
If we assume 8 combats in a day (a challenging dungeon crawl day, perhaps), the Arcanist can reasonably utilize 1 non-cantrip spell and 1 reservoir point per combat without tapping the wand by eating a level 2 spell slot.
Seems reasonably close to infinite to me. Most adventuring days I see in PFS are closer to 4-5 combats, where you can literally double the usage numbers I put together.
Novack: I don't see why an Exploiter Wizard couldn't get the Extra Arcanist Exploit feat. Could you explain that?
I can jump on that one. Extra Arcanist's Exploit requires the Arcanist's Exploit class feature as a prerequisite. Exploiters get Exploiter's Exploit instead.
Quite honestly, that's about the only thing that keeps the Exploiter from being flat-out perfect.
A change in ability name does not prevent the ability from qualifying for feats as long as the underlying ability is the same.
Link
Link My favorite post of all time, back when SKR was a developer.The second link addresses questions that were raised about Oracles qualifying for Channel Energy feats. A question identical to the issue being raised regarding exploiter wizards qualifying for additional exploits.
That is how thing should be, but it also depends on how different they are. If the wording is not exactly the same, and they want both features to qualify with regard to other features they can see the latter counts as former for _______.
Also SKR did not quote a rule, not even an unwritten rule. He listed how game design should be, which is different from "this is how we at Paizo always do it".
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I guess I should also clarify that in order to gain access to greater exploits you only need to count as an 11th level arcanist, and wizard levels count as arcanist levels for exploits in all ways most likely as RAI.
A strict reading of the RAW may disagree, but for the purpose of the rules I think the wizard qualifies.
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A change in ability name does not prevent the ability from qualifying for feats as long as the underlying ability is the same.
I don't read that FAQ as suggesting that Exploiter's Exploit == Arcanist Exploit for the purposes of feat prerequisites.
The FAQ says:
"Archetype: If an archetype replaces a class ability with a more specific version of that ability (or one that works similarly to the replaced ability)..."
In the exploiter wizard's case, exploiter's exploit is replacing arcane school. It is not replacing a class ability with a more specific version of that ability.
In fact it's replacing a class ability with an extremely different class ability. All of the examples show "within class" narrowing of abilities, not examples where one class got the ability of another class with a very different name via an archetype.
I'd think you could press your GM for a house rule here, and in most cases you'd get it, though.
Until we see a definitive ruling from Paizo developers, I consider the questions of the Extra Exploits feat and whether or not Exploiter Wizards get greater exploits very much open. I suspect, as wraithstrike said, that RAI, they are meant to have access to both. If that is the case, then the only thing the Exploiter is really lacking is the consume spell ability, which is not insignificant, but still...stupidly powerful class if it gets the goodies mentioned above.
Surprised no one here has complained about Potent Magic yet. That is one hell of a nice offensive ability. Is it so that Dimensional Slide cannot be used to escape grapples on account of it being part of a move? As a supernatural power, it should have no material, verbal or somatic components, so I don't see what's stopping you from using it to slip out of confinement, but maybe this is a corner of the rules that I don't know well enough.
Personally I find Sin Magic Much more powerful... you end up gaining a Sorcerer's number of spells per day easy wiht it..
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Until we see a definitive ruling from Paizo developers, I consider the questions of the Extra Exploits feat and whether or not Exploiter Wizards get greater exploits very much open. I suspect, as wraithstrike said, that RAI, they are meant to have access to both. If that is the case, then the only thing the Exploiter is really lacking is the consume spell ability, which is not insignificant, but still...stupidly powerful class if it gets the goodies mentioned above.
Surprised no one here has complained about Potent Magic yet. That is one hell of a nice offensive ability. Is it so that Dimensional Slide cannot be used to escape grapples on account of it being part of a move? As a supernatural power, it should have no material, verbal or somatic components, so I don't see what's stopping you from using it to slip out of confinement, but maybe this is a corner of the rules that I don't know well enough.
Are you also going to tell life oracles they cannot take channel feats?
That was the issue resolved by the second post I linked.
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I agree that FAQ does not help. The FAQ's logic is inconsistent with its examples. Expert archer replaces weapon training, works like weapon training, is a specific choice in weapon training, yet doesn't get credit like dragoon spear training? Makes no sense.
Allowing life oracles access to channeling feats while disallowing exploiters wizards access to extra exploit would also be logically inconsistent.
Why would you allow the post I linked to resolve the first issue, but not the second.
Are you also going to tell life oracles they cannot take channel feats?
That was the issue resolved by the second post I linked.
I happen to agree with you position on the question, but I still don't consider the question resolved. Call it skepticism about the consistency of rules interpretations.
Less sure about the greater exploits thing, though if the writers really didn't mean for Wizards to get greater exploits, you'd think they'd have been clever enough to spell it out clearly. It would have cost them, what, six words: "Exploiter Wizards cannot gain greater exploits." If they really meant for Exploiters to be left out of the greater exploits, but left it up in the air for people to do strict RAW rulings rather than print an extra six words...eh, I've got six words for that design decision, but they'd come out of the filters as jibberish.
It has a nearly unlimited supply of exploits by mid level and just seems to me after much number crunching as a terribly designed class from any kind of balance stand point.I'm seeing this said a lot, but rarely is it backed up. Therefore, I shall be following this thread very closely in the hopes that somebody provides some supporting evidence.There's two major points to this claim:
1. You can eat spell slots for {spell level) Arcane Reservoir points.
2. With a specific Exploit (Consume Magic Item), you can drain unwanted scrolls, potions, 5 charges from wands (1/2 spell level), or a charge from a staff (1:1 based on highest level 1 charge spell).Assuming no other increases, a level 6 Arcanist has a maximum reservoir of 9 and 6 points to start. If they have an Int of 16+, they have 3 level 3 slots, 5 level 2 slots, and 5 level 1 slots. Since pretty much all staves are beyond the standard level 6 starting gold, we'll assume they don't have one, but that they do have a level 2 wand of some sort (4500 of 16000 on starting gold).
The wand is potentially worth 10 points, but we'll assume that the player wants to be conservative about it (after all, each Consume is 450g!) and won't do more than 2 Consumes/day, which is a last resort.
If we assume 8 combats in a day (a challenging dungeon crawl day, perhaps), the Arcanist can reasonably utilize 1 non-cantrip spell and 1 reservoir point per combat without tapping the wand by eating a level 2 spell slot.
Seems reasonably close to infinite to me. Most adventuring days I see in PFS are closer to 4-5 combats, where you can literally double the usage numbers I put together.
Lets Just Bar Consume Spells for a second and look at staves, as they are rechargeable and don't eat other resources. Ok, so the important text is "If used on a staff, it loses 1 charge and the arcanist gains a number of points to his arcane reservoir equal to the level of the highest-level spell the staff can cast using only 1 charge; if the staff has no spells that require only 1 charge, the arcanist cannot consume that staff’s magic."
Staves are rechargeable so we can assume this only eats up initial wealth, not on an ongoing basis. If the campaign has no downtime this may not be an issue, but even most AP's I've played have plenty of down time, and games I run tend to take place over years. Oh, and staves fully recharge in PFS. So its pretty safe to say time is not too much of an issue.
So what do we have then:
Staff of Minor Arcana - 8000 Gold - Shield - 10 arcane points per day
So for 800 gold/day you get 10 charges. 2-4 of those and your pretty much set no matter how long your day is. That is a nominal fee and can even be afforded in something like PFS.
Staff of Swarming Insects - 22800 - Summon Swarm - 20 arcane points per day
This one comes in a little higher at 1140 per charge, but adds a little bit of versatility if you don't want 4 wands that do the same thing.
Staff of Stealth - 36800 - Nondetection - 30 arcane points per day
1227 GP's per charge, but has an excellent assortment of spells as well, so helps in more ways than staff of swarming insects.
Staff of Travel - 54,400 - Dimension Door - 40 arcane points per day
Starting to get up in price at 1360 GP's per arcane point, but has an EXCELLENT assortment of spells. As 40 arcane points should get you through nearly any day, this is about as high as you'd need to go.
Not sure what else to say. By level 10ish for between 32-54k you have 40 points per day and more flexibility. If its an arcane bond somehow, you can do it for half that. This is easily (ok, takes a little cash management, but doable) even in PFS, which effectively ends after 11. If 40+ charges a day isn't near unlimited...well then sir, I am at a loss for words. And this is on top of what you start with and consuming spells if needed.
Wow... More than 30 replies already - that escalated quickly ;).
I agree that rulings concerning Greater Exploits and even more so Extra Exploit feat availability could significantly impact further analysis.
Personally, I think that Greater Exploits should be considered as separate class feature (they are listed separately in the table an rules text) and as such they shouldn't be available to Exploiter Wizards. On the other hand, I'm inclined to agree that mechanical equivalence of Exploiters' and Arcanist Exploits should allow their exchangeability for the purpose of fulfilling feat requirements.
If that holds true, I could see possibility for Exploiter Wizard being on par or even better than specialist wizards.
Human Wizard with Quick Study, Potent Spell and Improved Initiative (?) at 1st level seems pretty neat.
At 3rd level you pick up Consume Magic Items to utilize scrolls you scribe as portable source of Arcane Reservoir Points (75 gp for 2nd level scroll).
At 5th you can grab Familiar, Craft Wondrous Items (bonus feat) and Some additional feat (Persistent Maybe to complement Potent Spell?)
At 7th you can Improve your familiar (or if you don't fancy little critters just use feat and exploit for something completely different).
At 9th you get Metamixing to easily combine Persistent and Potent Spell for some really nasty BC or SoD spells.
@Under a Bleeding Sun
Staves are good source of Arcane Reservoir but only in the long run. Cheapest custom staff with 1st level spell to consume would costs 2560 gp to craft (2 x 2nd level spell for 10 charges and 1st level spell for 1 charge), so it would break even after 35 points (or at least double that number for purchased staves)
BTW: When I had looked at the Bloodline Development Exploit, two questions came to my mind:
1. Can you enchant Bonded Item acquired via Arcane Bloodline without apropriate crafting feats (probably not)?
2. Can you combine aforementioned Bonded Item with familiar from Familiar Exploit (probably not)?
Lets Just Bar Consume Spells for a second and look at staves, as they are rechargeable and don't eat other resources. Ok, so the important text is "If used on a staff, it loses 1 charge and the arcanist gains a number of points to his arcane reservoir equal...
Let's take the staff of minor arcana as an example.
Staff rules state:
Each morning, when a spellcaster prepares spells or regains spell slots, he can also imbue one staff with a portion of his power so long as one or more of the spells cast by the staff is on his spell list and he is capable of casting at least one of the spells. Imbuing a staff with this power restores one charge to the staff, but the caster must forgo one prepared spell or spell slot of a level equal to the highest-level spell cast by the staff. For example, a 9th-level wizard with a staff of fire could imbue the staff with one charge per day by using up one of his 4th-level spells. A staff cannot gain more than one charge per day and a caster cannot imbue more than one staff per day.
So, once you acquire the staff, you can immediately burn all 10 of its charges for 10 exploits. Great.
Now, come the second day, the staff remains empty (they don't recharge automatically after all), so you have to charge it manually. You can only charge one staff for one charge; the charge costs you a second-level slot and will only get you one arcane exploit. Thus, unless if you take 10 days off to diligently recharge the staff, you are now left with a limit of 1 exploit gained per day, at the cost of a level 2 slot.
Sure, if your adventurers allow 10 day breaks, this method would be awesome, but you'll be hard-pressed to find a DM that will give you this much leeway all of the time.
The only way that you can get 10+ exploits with staves is if you keep on making them yourself AND can convince the DM to make a staff containing only a level 1, caster level 1 spell (for 400g). Since this is not RAW as far as I know, the GM would have to house-rule it in.
Or, I guess you can use a fourth level staff or something, sacrifice the 4th level slot, and get 4/day out of it for much more money.
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The Counterspell exploit on the Arcanist was balanced by having lower spell progression. Tack it onto the best spell progression and it's monstrous. Then at 10th you get the Greater Counterspell and the GM may as well not throw caster baddies at you.
Exploiter Wizard can't take Greater Counterspell. And just like with the Arcanist, every use of counterspell is eating up pool points and spell slots, and is limited to countering a lower level spell, so it really isn't going to matter much against caster BBEGs.
[b]No more than 1 charge can be drawn from a staff each day in this way.[b/]
Ok, that is a pretty solid limiting factor actually. I still think it comes out pretty high on the number of arcane points you get, between spell slots and other things you can drain off of. A higher level caster usually has 2-4 staves depending on build, so thats probably another 10 charges but thats not until higher level play rather than mid. Still feel its poorly executed, but that oversight on my part does help the balance significantly.
[b]No more than 1 charge can be drawn from a staff each day in this way.[b/]Ok, that is a pretty solid limiting factor actually. I still think it comes out pretty high on the number of arcane points you get, between spell slots and other things you can drain off of. A higher level caster usually has 2-4 staves depending on build, so thats probably another 10 charges but thats not until higher level play rather than mid. Still feel its poorly executed, but that oversight on my part does help the balance significantly.
You can't drain off spell slots either, since that's very specifically a separate Arcanist class feature. You're effectively stuck with the staves and wands if you want more points in the pool.
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You can't drain off spell slots either, since that's very specifically a separate Arcanist class feature. You're effectively stuck with the staves and wands if you want more points in the pool.
Wands are too expensive. The most efficient way to regain Arcane Reservoir points are 2nd level scrolls made by yourself with bonus Scribe Scroll feat gained by Wizard at 1st level - 150 gp apiece.
I got even idea how to visualize consuming scrolls. You turn them into magic dust and then snort it like cocaine, because nothing beats junkie Wizard literally addicted to arcane power :D.
A few points, @Novack:
- It's only 75 GP for 2nd level scrolls you scribe yourself. It's quite affordable, and the scrolls, themselves are useful. Plenty of extra circumstantial spells at 2nd level you might want on a scroll, anyway.
- The text in the Arcana Bloodline power says it can't be used to give characters a bonded item and a familiar at the same time, so this limits the A/E just as it does the Sorcerer. It's still either/or.
- I see no reason, RAW or RAI, why an Arcanist or Exploiter couldn't craft onto his bonded item.
- It's only 75 GP for 2nd level scrolls you scribe yourself. It's quite affordable, and the scrolls, themselves are useful. Plenty of extra circumstantial spells at 2nd level you might want on a scroll, anyway.
True. My mistake. I mixed up scroll and potion crafting costs... But that proves my point even better - snorting scrolls is the cheapest way to recover AR points via Consume Magic Item. As an added benefit you can use inscribed spell instead.
- The text in the Arcana Bloodline power says it can't be used to give characters a bonded item and a familiar at the same time, so this limits the A/E just as it does the Sorcerer. It's still either/or.
A bit of rules lawyering: What if u acquired Bonded Item via Bloodline Development first and then picked up Familiar exploit on top of that?
- I see no reason, RAW or RAI, why an Arcanist or Exploiter couldn't craft onto his bonded item.
I expressed my thoughs inappropriately. What I meant to ask was: Do you need relevant item creation feats in order to enchant your Bonded Item since your default level for that power is 1st?
True. My mistake. I mixed up scroll and potion crafting costs... But that proves my point even better - snorting scrolls is the cheapest way to recover AR points via Consume Magic Item. As an added benefit you can use inscribed spell instead.
Yes, at 75 GP apiece, 2nd level scrolls are a nice, cheap resource for the EW (I think I will call him the "EeeeeeW" from now on).
A bit of rules lawyering: What if u acquired Bonded Item via Bloodline Development first and then picked up Familiar exploit on top of that?
I am certain this is not RAI, but it is a good example of another slatbook loophole created by the authors not paying careful attention to how new and old rules interact.
I expressed my thoughs inappropriately. What I meant to ask was: Do you need relevant item creation feats in order to enchant your Bonded Item since your default level for that power is 1st?
I'm not at all sure that the level of the item (whatever the hell that actually means) has anything to do with whether or not you can craft onto it. The Arcanist or EeeeeW might face a -5 Spellcraft penalty to their bonded item crafting for the item being stuck at CL 1, but this is likely the only restriction on crafting.
It does seem a little odd that the Familiar Exploit does not explicitly say you cannot have both... seeing as EVERY OTHER WAY THAT NETS YOU A ARCANE BOND (FAMILIAR OR OBJECT) SAYS YOU CANNOT USE THE ABILITY TO GAIN BOTH.
It does seem a little odd that the Familiar Exploit does not explicitly say you cannot have both... seeing as EVERY OTHER WAY THAT NETS YOU A ARCANE BOND (FAMILIAR OR OBJECT) SAYS YOU CANNOT USE THE ABILITY TO GAIN BOTH.
Haven't you been paying attention... it was done on purpose so exploiter wizards can even be more awesome.
It would be suboptimal, but would this not make exploiter wizards one of the better item crafters? Picking up a valet familiar and craft item exploits would let him get more of the crafting feats sooner and not have to wait a level or two for others.
Being an exploiter wizard with a familiar seems....like a waste. Why not just be a vanilla wizard, keep your familiar and all you school abilities?
Being an exploiter wizard with a familiar seems....like a waste. Why not just be a vanilla wizard, keep your familiar and all you school abilities?
Because there is almost no reason to play a vanilla wizard... With 2 exploits you can gain back your familiar, gain back your school powers (albiet temporarily) and STILL have a few exploits for other abilities... there is almost no reason to play a vanilla wizard. Between Exploiter and Sin mage...
Being an exploiter wizard with a familiar seems....like a waste. Why not just be a vanilla wizard, keep your familiar and all you school abilities?Because there is almost no reason to play a vanilla wizard... With 2 exploits you can gain back your familiar, gain back your school powers (albiet temporarily) and STILL have a few exploits for other abilities... there is almost no reason to play a vanilla wizard. Between Exploiter and Sin mage...
You lose school specialization, though, which means one less spell slot each level. Arcane school removes much more than just the school features: it pretty much leaves you a universalist wizard.
Also, you do not gain back your school powers with one exploit. The current two "best" powers are Teleportation (Conj) and Foresight (Div); teleportation requires you to use TWO swift actions in order to teleport for more than 5" as a swift action. For foresight, you're pretty much stuck with +1 initiative instead of +wizard level initiative if you choose that feature.
Plus, taking school understanding will not get you everything from the schools. You can only get a single ability.
For me, personally, school specialization is a significant loss. Sure, quick study and potent magic are excellent (possibly counterspell too, but by RAW you never get the greater version), but you don't get specialization AND all of the school features back with just one exploit. It's trading one powerful thing for another, which makes it a good archetype - but not utterly overpowered.
I'd say sin wizard is the best. Exploiter is actually better for 15 minute days but any time you have >2 encounters per day it's worse.
Actually you could say the Exploiter is actually better off... With the ability to switch spells as they see fit, they can pretty muhc always have silver bullets. They should only need a few spells per encounter...