Arcainist / Colegiat Arcainist

[NikolaiJuno]

Collegiate Arcanist wrote:

Spontaneous Spell Mastery (Ex)

At 4th level, a Collegiate arcanist can “lose” any prepared spell to cast a spell of the same spell level or lower which she has mastered with the Spell Mastery feat. She can use this ability once per day, plus one additional time per day at 8th level.

How does this ability work with with the Arcainist's special casting?

Do you lose a prepared spell to cast a Mastery spell effectively gaining a free spell? Would it have to expend a spell/day, or simply be a dud ability?

[Elicoor]

RAW : You need to be a wizard to take spell mastery.

After that... it would be on the world of homebrew. But if you want to do something balanced, you'd have to expend a spell slot.

[NikolaiJuno]

Elicoor wrote:

RAW : You need to be a wizard to take spell mastery.

True RAW you must be a 1st level Wizard, the feat and prestige class however do not refer to the Wizard class any further.

It's a bit of a waste but by RAW a Wizard1/Arcanist1 can take Spell Mastery for the Arcanist class. So this can by RAW come up.

[Elicoor]

Plus, Pearls of Power don't seem to work for arcanists, because there's no "expending prepared spell" in that class. So I think it would probably work the same way here.

[NikolaiJuno]

So RAW it's just a dud ability in this case?

[Elicoor]

The collegiate arcanist is originally made for wizards, and wizards only. The FAQ for Spell Mastery clearly explains that the feat can be houseruled for witches, magi and alchemists, but it is still a houserule.

I do think the class was made with the assumption nothing like the Arcanist would appear later as a base class. Don't forget Paths of Prestige is 2012 whereas the ACG is 2014.

For your question, RaW you can't expend prepared spells so it's a dud ability. (plus, having levels in two different arcane classes is generally not a good idea in terms of spell progression).

[Senko]

I disagree actually the ability says you lose a prepared spell to cast a lower level one. The arcanist prepares spells they can then cast spontaneously. While the pearl of power doesn't work because the prepared spell isn't used up this ability comes from the other direction, that is you lose a prepared spell to then cast a lower level one.

Look at it this way.

Arcanist has prepared
1) Magic missile, mage armour and grease.
2) Scorching ray and knock.

They can cast any combination of the first level spells up to four times in a day and any combination of the second level ones 3 times a day.

They then fall off a cliff and sacrifice grease to cast feather fall. Now they can cast any combination of magic missile and mage armour 3 more times that day but the grease spell has been lost. It's not a dud ability but it is one you need to be very careful using because unlike a wizard the prepared spell you lose is one you can normally cast repeatedly whereas for them its just one memorized spell if you see what I mean? In the above example the wizard would have lost one memorized grease but the Arcanist has lost the ability to cast grease for the rest of the day.

Of course this then raises the question of whether you do this can you then turn around and use a pearl of power to recover that spell bit that's another debate.