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I'd agree if it weren't for consume spells. Unfortunately that was built in as a class feature and not an exploit, making the class broken for either PFS or AP's. If you do the long adventuring days its more balanced, but since you have to use published material as the baseline, its probably the least balanced class.
I think you're overestimating the capability of 'consume spells'.
At 1st level, an arcanist can expend an available arcanist spell slot as a move action, making it unavailable for the rest of the day, just as if she had used it to cast a spell. Doing this adds a number of points to her arcane reservoir equal to the level of the spell slot consumed. She cannot consume cantrips (0 level spells) in this way. Points gained in excess of the reservoir's maximum are lost.
That's... Pretty bad for the Arcanist's poor progression and spells per day. Assuming at 20th level arcanist even, that's only a baseline of 4 of each spell level, totaling 180 potential arcane reservoir a day, not counting bonus slots from a high int.
(Note about Magical Supremacy: at 20th level capstone, you require 1 + the spell level of the spell you're casting if you're going to convert reservoir points into spells. Not as powerful as it seems on paper, and you should only really be playing at 20th level for a little while anyway before the campaign reaches it's conclusion. APs don't even get you to 20th, I might add.)
That sounds like a lot... Consider, however, how many spells will be cast during an adventuring day. Naturally this changes from table to table, and I've seen anything from fifteen-minute, one combat adventuring days with no spell necessities to solve out of combat problems... To long days, where the spell casters are lucky if they have even 1 slot left. I'd assume there's an average in there somewhere.
So, that naturally slashes the usefulness of consume spells. At lower levels, your spell slots are extremely precious, no matter what class you are. For the arcanist, I'm just not seeing any exploit, or even archetypes, that would warrant me feasting on my spell slots.
Come mid levels, you'll probably eat your first level slots for probably five or six more points, your second levels would likely be used for the atypical buffs (Cat's Grace, Eagle's Splendor, ETC), and your 3rd slots for blasting/control, same as your 4th and 5th.
Higher levels, sure, you'd chow down on your first or second slots. Maybe even your third level slots. Your higher level slots are typically far too important to blow just so you can use some of your exploits.
Are the exploits good? Sure, they're good. Some could even be great under the right circumstances. Are they better than the spells you're giving up to use them? I'd say about 75% of the time, no way.
Oh, plus the entirely better infinite arcane points exploit that someone has found in another thread. It does take 3 exploits, but 2 of them are REALLY good anyway, and BAM unlimited arcane points.
I'd encourage you to read that thread a bit more. Even just skimming over it, math has been proven that it's statistically unreliable.
Better yet, here's Quatar's math:
I'm sorry, I don't see that math work. At least not till you get ridiculous Charisma scores.
(Sorry, lots of math following)
You need to cast Dispel Magic against a spell of equal of higher caster level than you. Since you cast it yourself, it's your CL. Making the DC for the Dispel Magic 11+(your caster level). It's caster level of the spell, not the spell level!
Your roll for the dispell is 1d20+(your caster level)+(your charisma mod)
You always have to expend one Arcane Point to even try this.
If you fail the role, it's gone.
If you succeed on the dispel, but fail to exceed it by 5 or more, it's gone.
If you succeed on the dispel by 5 or more, then you get your point back. You just get it back, you don't get more.
Only if you succeed by 10 or more, do you actually make a profit in this.Now lets look at the numbers. At level 11 we're looking at the following DCs:
To simply dispel: 22
To actually get your Arcane Point back: 27
To in fact get another Arcane Point on top of that: 32Opposed to that we have your roll to dispel:
1d20 + 11 + Cha ModSay Cha Mod of 5 (bit on the low side for level 11):
Results in a roll of 1d20+16Need a 6 to hit the DC 22, though that doesn't really help.
Needs a 11 to hit the DC 27 and get your points refunded (50% chance for that happening)
Needs a 16 to actually gain an extra point (25% chance)So 50% of the time you have a loss of 1 Arcane point.
25% of the time you come out even.
25% of the time you make a profit of 1 point.Ok, it clearly doesn't work with just Cha of 5.
Each increase in Cha reduces the total failure chance by 5%, and increases the chance for the +2 return by 5%.
The tipping point is a Cha mod of 8 (mathematically 7.5, but you can't have that):
35% for losing 1 point (anything below 8)
25% for just coming out even (8-12)
40% for gaining 1 point (13+)You now have a tiny average profit of 0.05 points per attempt. That's still pretty bad and fairly unreliable.
At Cha Mod 10 we'd look at a profit of 0.25 points per attempt. That's better already, of course, but still nowhere even close to the 1.6 the OP claimed.
I suppose he meant "I get 1.6 back, but still have to pay the 1" making it a net profit of 0.6.A Cha Mod 13 is required to get a net return of 0.65, but I'm not sure how realistic a Cha of 36 really is at level 11.
The CL doesn't even matter in this equation at all, since it's the same on both sides (DC and check), it hinges alone on the Cha Mod.
Plus...
Siphon Spell (Su): When the arcanist uses the greater spell disruption exploit, she can siphon some of the power of the targeted spell to restore her arcane reservoir. If the caster level of the spell is equal to or higher than that of the arcanist, and she exceeds the DC of the dispel check by 5 or more, she adds 1 point to her arcane reservoir. If she exceeds this check by 10 or more, she instead adds 2 points to her arcane reservoir. This has no effect on magic items. The arcanist must have the greater spell disruption exploit to select this exploit.
Notice that you have to roll... Now, to quote a bit of text from the Dispel spells.
You automatically succeed on your dispel check against any spell that you cast yourself.
There is no rolling. Therefore, there is no ability to pass the check by 5 or 10. Congratulations, you just blew 1 reservoir point to auto-dispel your own spell for no reason.
So... No, there is no 'infinite reservoir point' exploit. And your concerns over Consume Spells are reasonable on paper, but impractical and even debilitating in play.
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First off, I want to apologize to you for becoming rude and snippy. It was 3am, you offended some of my sensibilities and I went on a warpath. Sorry about that. >_<
When I heard you wanting to ban the Arcanist from your games, I took the position of a whiny player caterwauling to his GM about losing his favorite toy.
No worries. Without the context of what else is banned at my table, it probably looks like I am picking on the Arcanist. Generally speaking, I tend to be tough on casters and spell mechanics because of meta-level balance issues with the game. This is not the Arcanist's fault, specifically, he just contributes to an ever-growing problem, in my opinion.
Not that you asked, but I don't allow Druids or Summoners in any form, and have strict rules on summoning magic in general, to include visible effects for the full turn as the magic is being activated (giving the monsters a chance to react and/or target the caster), no same-square summoning, and no open-list summoning (meaning, wizards have to prepare to summon a specific creature, not any one from a list...though sorcerers retain their flexibility).
There is not any one thing about the Arcanist that I feel is broken, not even Quick Study or his mythical-level counterspelling, but rather the fact that he gets a whole lot of very strong abilities all at once combined with the best casting mechanic in the game. It's not going to affect my table because I simply won't allow the bloat, but it will affect the culture of the game, which ultimately affects me at least indirectly, no matter what I do.
The Arcanist is bad, imo, but really the Exploiter Wizard, who is Schrödinger's Mage on steroids, is the bigger problem, even without greater exploits (which I'm still not sure about, RAW). The combination of Quick Study, Potent Magic, Dimensional Slide, and Metamixing, alone, is better than any school of magic, even counting the bonus spells, the loss of which is basically cancelled out by not having any opposition schools, which is what you'd want for a wizard capable of Quick Study shenanigans, anyway.
I think people really underestimate the disruptive potential of Quick Study in the hands of a player with much in the way of system mastery. Of course, you have to know what niche spells are out there in order to have them available in your spellbook in the first place, so true noobs and chowderheads aren't going to benefit that much from Quick Study, but it makes Schrödinger-type effects extremely easy to muster in the hands of a halfway decent player. I don't like it. Wizards are hard enough to challenge, as it is.
Stuff...
Using published material as the baseline (AP's, Scenarios and Modules) by about level 12 you have plenty of resources to burn out probably 1/3 your spells in points. The flexibility of spontaneous casting also helps this a ton. My level 11 wizard ends nearly every day with about 2/3 of his spells left, while my level 13 arcane trickster (whose lost 3 caster levels) ended a run of eyes (which is extra long) with 1/3 his spells left. The last AP I played a caster in I had about half my spells left(probably a little more) by the end of the final dungeon, including the boss, and that was the longest one in the game.
So lets say standard arcanist, with no bonus to Int (I know this doesn't work but lets just see). You have 72 Spell levels/day. Assuming my math is wrong and you can only cannibalize 1/6th those slots thats 12 points/day.
Assuming your the wizard archetype with an Int of 28 (Nearly all my casters have Int 28 by 11, usually by 9 or 10 really) thats 130 spell levels. 1/6th of that is now 21 points/day. You start with 9 each day so your looking at 30/day at not real noticeable cost to yourself. Even on an 8 encounter day your running nearly 4 points/encounter.
I do tend to run long adventuring days so its less of an issue at my tables usually, but you have to have a baseline to run against, and I always use published material as that baseline.
More Stuff
Thats good at least! Thanks!
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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HereThis is rather difficult to run a search on; Link please.
Oh, plus the entirely better infinite arcane points exploit that someone has found in another thread. It does take 3 exploits, but 2 of them are REALLY good anyway, and BAM unlimited arcane points.
You may have missed the part of that thread where the math used to back up the engine was torn to pieces - The OP of that thread was using some very wrong rules for dispelling. When you use the correct dispel rules the engine requires a ~30 Cha to function properly. Effectively you are making a DC16 Cha check to break even, DC21 to gain a point. Until you get a +6 Cha modifier you're more likely to lose points than gain them.
30 Cha is not impossible but certainly unlikely for a level 11 arcanist.