Arcane Reservoir and Favored Class Bonus


Rules Questions


2 people marked this as FAQ candidate.

I'm confused about what the elven favored class bonus does for the arcanist.

Favored Class Bonus, Elf wrote:

Increase total number of points in the

arcanist’s arcane reservoir by 1.

Is this supposed to affect the number of points the arcanist gains in his arcane reservoir every day? Or does it only affect the maximum number of points in the reservoir, and have no effect on how many you start with?

At first I thought "total number of points" would mean the number of points you gain each day, but then I saw the gnome favored class bonus.

Favored Class Bonus, Gnome wrote:
Add 1/6 to the number of points the arcanist gains in her arcane reservoir each day.

So is "total number" meant to read "maximum number"?

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

Well gnomes are 1/6 the size of elves so it makes sense.

I was looking at this as well. If the Elf bonus works to increase just max its kinda limited but I can see in some builds how that could be useful. The gnomes seems very underpowered as they get the equivalent of 1 first level spell that you could burn for every 6 levels compared to something like what magus gains for Tieflings, 1 every 4.


It's very bizarre to me.

For one thing, increasing the maximum amount of your arcane reservoir seems almost pointless. It makes little sense to use Consume Spells or Consume Magic Items unless you've used up part of your reservoir. Eventually you can get Counter Drain and Siphon Spell, but by that point your maximum reservoir is already 5 points higher than your starting reservoir. Especially because you must expend reservoir points for both of these effects that regenerate points, it seems unlikely that you'd ever get to 5 above your starting daily limit.

And the gnome bonus is so weak! The feat Extra Reservoir gives you 3 extra points in your arcane reservoir. So you'd need to take the gnome FCB 18 times (!) in order to add up to one feat. Compare that to other gnome bonuses like 1/6 of a shaman hex or 1/6 of a slayer talent, which you only need to take 6 times to add up to a feat.

Grand Lodge

Unless it was clarified the Extra Reservoir feat may only add to your total. Here are a couple of links to other posts on this subject:
Link 1
Link 2

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