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Here. I've only gone over races and exploits at the moment. Feats are a whole different kettle of fish that I'll get to later.
Christ, it's 1:09 AM.
Looks like a good start. Did you forget to rate Humans? The FCB isn't as good but the extra feat is nice.
When you come to rate feats and archetypes it might make sense to rate things seperatly for control, blasting, summoning or any other distinct build types.
Except for occultists most of the archetypes don't look that strong but there might be some niche builds that are worth examining such as blade adept into eldritch knight, and a 1 level sorcer or wizard dip plus blood arcanist / spell savant for blasters.
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20 pt buy:
Str 7, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 18, Wis 8, Cha 14
will be honest I agree a 14 cha is more then plenty. I actually recommend this point buy
Str 7, dex12, con 12, int 18, wis 10, cha 13
A trait I highly recommend on an arcanist is Transmuter. Its better then a lot of feats.
Core feat choices of: improved initiative, toughness, improved familiar (if taken), spell penetration
Then do as Quiz said and do feats based on what kind of caster your playing:
Summoner: spell focus conjuration, augmented summoning
Blaster: spell focus evocation, spell specialization, empower spell, dazing spell, spell perfection
Enchanter: persistent spell, spell focus enchantment, Greater SF,
Crafter: craft wonderous item, scribe scroll, craft rod
Necromancer: spell focus necro, hieghten spell, preferred spell, spell perfection,
Just some examples
Your recommendations for Charisma are pretty terrible. Very few of the Exploits actually use much charisma and it generally tends to be the terrible elemental blasts. Charisma can very easily be a dump stat for Arcanists and even one using stuff like the dispel probably dont need more than a 10 to start with.
For the first four levels at least, acid jet and ice missile are actually somewhat good. They don't scale as well as spells, but at the early levels they offer a bit of flexibility. The stagger effect of ice missile is pretty effective, for example.
I'd be interested in low-level arcanist advice, especially. At first level, you have few spells, fewer than almost any full caster, and you can't yet afford much for wands and scrolls.
Dotting.
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Per request, I included some alternate point buy recommendations:
One set for those who want to use Charisma-based class abilities.
One for those dumping everything into Intelligence.
Also, is it just me, or does the guide display with no margins whatsoever? If it's not just me, how do you fix that?
And is the font change distracting?
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It looks like you messed up the font in the Exploits section. All of the text is the same font as the headers (unlike the previous half of the document), and I find some numbers difficult to read in that font.
Otherwise, looks neat. I look forward to you going over feats and archetypes!
“It moves 30 feet as a move action, then charges 30 feet as a standard action. What is your AC?”
Except that doesn't happen, because charge is a full-round action.
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It was a Fine zombie under the effect of augmented mythic haste. I assumed that would be clear from context.
What does "FCB" mean?
Dotted and thanks Thelemic!
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Observe, the power of Scroll Dust addiction!
(Gor is a blast to play, built for Crowd Control and Spell Swapping, if you go this route Cha can be a dump stat and tbh unless you're building for one of the Cha based Exploits the Charisma is a trap)
With a side focus in linguistics and the feat from the new ACG that lets you use Linguistics for nearly every social application of Diplomacy, Intimidate and Bluff. Its a couple of feats but it really brings out the
"V for Vendetta" in a Pathfinder!
Prerequisite: Skill Focus (Linguistics).
Benefit: You can use a Linguistics check in place of a
Bluff check to tell a falsehood or conceal information,
in place of a Diplomacy check to change the attitude of
a creature, or in place of an Intimidate check to force a
creature to cooperate. You must deliver your attempt in a
language the target understands.
As far as I can tell you can pick subschools. That opens up the teleport subschool which will give you Shift. You wont move very far but you don't care much about that, Shift is generally just used to get you out of grapples as they will shut you down. If your GM rules that Dimensional Slide cannot be used to escape a grapple this is a great option.
The problem is, it works like dimension door, so you can't move any further away or do anything else that turn, such as cast an incapacitating spell. You would have to take the Dimensional Agility feat to make this escape plan viable.
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The feat is better than the trait since you get the class skill, one skill to get your points into, and one skill focus (plus intimidate for fun). Back to the post.
I think it should be noted that the arcanist is the best enchanter and/or illusionist in the game.
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The brown-fur transmuter is hilariously powerful.
The polymorph effects line up nice and neat: monstrous physique I, II, III, IV, giant form I, II, and shapechange).
Some of the other stuff is less obvious:
Long arm, see invisibility, resinous skin, expeditious retreat, transformation, paragon surge, resilient reservoir, echolocation, overland flight, fluid form, ice body, iron body, frightful aspect, angelic aspect, ethereal jaunt, fiery body, and time stop are all fair game.
If the party beatstick is a brawler rather than a fighter, they can tailor their feats after the spells take effect, allowing them to pick up things like Awesome Blow and other natural-weapon-enhancing abilities.
So is it an 'optimization guide', or a 'kinda okay build for the first four levels guide'?For the first four levels at least, acid jet and ice missile are actually somewhat good. They don't scale as well as spells, but at the early levels they offer a bit of flexibility. The stagger effect of ice missile is pretty effective, for example.Your recommendations for Charisma are pretty terrible. Very few of the Exploits actually use much charisma and it generally tends to be the terrible elemental blasts. Charisma can very easily be a dump stat for Arcanists and even one using stuff like the dispel probably dont need more than a 10 to start with.
Hard to be optimal when you're dead.
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A staggered creature may take a single move action or standard action each round (but not both, nor can he take full-round actions). A staggered creature can still take free, swift, and immediate actions
Staggered is a powerful condition. The Ice Missle -> Icy Tomb is probably the best of the elemental exploits. I would rank it green. Acid jet and flame would be orange. And lightning would be red.
What make the Ice Missle good is it is a fortitude save. Early game you can shut down rogue types (goblins) and later game with Icy tomb becomes a mage hurting ability. Staggered, entangled, strength check to break out, and dex damage. All those things hurt a caster. No full round action means no summon spells...really puts a hurt on conjuration wizards. also choosing between positioning or a single spell is a difficult choice when a fighter is getting close.
Now if your DM optimizes his encounters I would avoid it completely because emergency force shield laughs off the fighter and allows him to just choose standard casting. But for APs i believe it would be a green ability.
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Im not saying its the strongest. Im saying its useful. Its not blue worthy which is the more optimal pick. Im just saying if you want to pick th ed elemental expliots then Ice Missle is the best of the 5. Its more optimal to use your arcane pool to up the DC of a spell then Ice Missle. But not everyone optimizes. They just go and see guides on what optimizers say are bad picks and avoid those. Hut if a player wants a elemental exploit then they should grab Ice Missle over the others.
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Oh I agree. Giving it the word optimized seems lofty for a class that just came out. I doubt many of the guides authors played every feat/exploit/ability/archetype. They just pull from feedback from the community. The title should be Guide to the arcanist. But I guess that OP in this guide is learning that most the community here is very much into details such as choice of words.
Choice of words is very important with the english language where the same word can mean three different things.
I like the way the discussion is going; Cha is pretty much a trap if you're "optimizing" yes?
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Depends on the game you're playing in. Some GMs will certainly encourage or even require diplomacy, which in turn requires CHA.
Keep in mind, Gandalf was a only a level 5 character and didn't use many spells, instead relying on wits and diplomacy to win the day when he could, and many see Gandalf as the ultimate wizard. Even against the goblins in the Hobbit, he used intimidation to slow them up and buy time for the dwarves to gain distance from their pursuers. He most certainly didn't go slinging magic left and right.
That's crazy! Not sure sure I'd allow those myself. Influencing people is more then just the words you use. You say you will kill a man to his face, but it isn't the words that will make him believe it. Kinda like how a song can be sad without a single spoken word, so to words are not the important part of talking.
Interestingly, my original post was to point out that "optimization" could have different requirements for different campaigns/GMs.
Honestly, having traits and feats that completely undermine the entire purpose of one of the primary attributes of a character seems ungodly broken to me. Not only does it make investment in the attribute pointless even for RP characters, but it throws off the expected balance of everything else because everything that might've been invested in it are now invested elsewhere plus some that were taken from the now useless attribute.
I didn't realize such ridiculous things existed, and wouldn't really allow them in my games.
Dotting. :)
When you only have a +50% to begin with, 15% can be a big deal. Sure at higher levels the difference shrinks, but by then you are demigod in all but name anyway.
And if you are playing in a diplomacy heavy game, that extra 15% can be very important at any level. Besides, it is more then just the numbers, but what also what the numbers represent. I could easily have a cha 7 character forbidden from a town because the local nobility finds the character detestabley ugly, regardless of their diplomacy score, after all they have to listen to your words before your words can achieve anything.
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When you only have a +50% to begin with, 15% can be a big deal. Sure at higher levels the difference shrinks, but by then you are demigod in all but name anyway.
And if you are playing in a diplomacy heavy game, that extra 15% can be very important at any level. Besides, it is more then just the numbers, but what also what the numbers represent. I could easily have a cha 7 character forbidden from a town because the local nobility finds the character detestabley ugly, regardless of their diplomacy score, after all they have to listen to your words before your words can achieve anything.
Eh. Cha 7 means you're 10% less likely to succeed at Charisma related tasks than an average individual with the same level of training. It's not very significant, even at low levels, and is totally overcome by a masterwork tool. A first level character with a rank in Diplomacy, Diplomacy as a class skill, and Cha 7 has a Diplomacy modifier of +2. They're 10% better than most people are at interacting with others (and can trivially get simple advice from indifferent people, and detailed advice/simple aid from friendly people).
And your charisma doesn't affect people's initial opinion of you in any way. If you want to house rule it to do that, go for it, but you should be up front with your players.
In regards to Arcanists- these are the abilities they have that actually care about Charisma:
Energy Blast Exploits - Save DC: All fairly weak. If you're burning actions to use them, you've pretty much run out of relevant stuff to do in a fight, and are sacrificing points that could be used on better effects (like amplifying your spells).
Arcane Barrier - Temp HP: Cool, but the increasing cost renders it pretty useless outside of activating it once before a significant fight. Probably not worth an exploit slot.
Arcane Weapon - Duration: 1/2 BAB.
Bloodline Development - Duration: Decent. At the level where you might want to access bloodline powers for more than a round though, you'll be able to artificially boost your Cha to decent levels (7 starting + 5 inherent + 6 item puts you at 18).
School Understanding - Uses/day and Duration: Probably the biggest draw to invest in Cha. Lets you build a decent blaster arcanist using the Admixture school, plus some other cool options (like Teleportation).
Spell Disruption - Duration: Requires a touch attack, dispel check, and allows a will save. Could be used to remove debuffs from allies, but would require you to move to them when you could just prepare dispel magic.
Spell Resistance - Duration: Spend standard actions to be resistant to your allies trying to help you and less resistant to enemy casters trying to kill you.
Alter Enhancements - Duration: See above; 1/2 BAB.
Greater Spell Disruption - Dispel Check: More attractive, due to the higher odds of successfully dispelling stuff. Has the same crippling drawbacks, unfortunately.
Suffering Knowledge - Duration: The odds are extremely low that any spell you could steal with this ability is better than one you already had. Even if it is, one round is probably plenty to throw it back, if you even want to burn an exploit on this.
There's about as much attraction for an arcanist to invest in Cha as there is for a wizard, aside from the potential coolness you could acquire from Bloodline Development and School Understanding. If you really want to get uses out of those exploits, it could be worth Cha. Otherwise, ignore it.