warlock casting, can you help me undrestand?

[Zwordsman]

can someone explain the casting to me? I'm having trouble. Paritcularly with spells prepared and spells cast per day..

pg 9 of the pdf.
"warlock
vigilante must prepare his spells ahead of time, but unlike
a wizard, his spells are not expended when they’re cast.
Instead, he can cast any spell that he has prepared by
consuming a spell slot of the appropriate level, assuming
he hasn’t yet used up his spell slots per day for that level"

"A warlock vigilante starts out being able to cast only
two 1st-level spells per day. In addition, he receives bonus
spells per day if he has a high Intelligence score"

"warlock vigilante may know any number of spells, but
the number he can prepare each day is limited.........Unlike the number of spells hecan cast per day, the number of spells a warlock vigilante
can prepare each day is not affected by his Intelligence
score."

I thought for prepared casters, the number of prepared spells is the number of spells per day?
WHen you use the prepared spells they aren't lost though.

so am i understanding it right? I don't think I am. because i'm having some trouble with arcane training.
Which I suspect is actually where spelsl per day come from right?

Can someone tell me how the arcane training 1,2,3 etc work?
arcane training 1 2 first level spells per day
arcane training 2: ability to cast 1 2nd lv spell per day and increases 1st lv by 2
training 3: 1 3rd level spell per day and 2 2nd lv spells per day (lv 8)

So a lv 20, with arcane trainign 1,2,3. He can prepare 6 lv 0,1,2,3 spells
but his spells per day would only be Lv1:3 Lv2:3: lv3:1. Plus the bonus to spells by their int?

Is that how it works?
and they would only have those 3 spell levels per day worth for metamagic. and could never use metamagic that put something to lv 4

[Gisher]

It took me a while to figure it out, too. The casting mechanic is basically the same as an Arcanist. Each day you can prepare a collection of spells that you might want to use. Table 1-2 shows you how many different spells you can prepare that day. So at second level, for example, you could prepare Mage Armor, Shocking Grasp, and Magic Missile from your spellbook. You can also prepare 5 different cantrips.

The number of daily slots available to cast those spells is considerably smaller and depends on the Arcane Training abilities. Cantrips, of course, can be cast endlessly so you don't need any daily slots for them. Here is a breakdown of your total daily slots after each level of Arcane Training.

After Arcane Training I
Level 1: 2 slots

After Arcane Training II
Level 1: 4 slots
Level 2: 1 slot

After Arcane Training III
Level 1: 4 slots
Level 2: 3 slots
Level 3: 1 slot

After Arcane Training IV
Level 1: 4 slots
Level 2: 3 slots
Level 3: 3 slots
Level 4: 1 slot

After Arcane Training V
Level 1: 4 slots
Level 2: 3 slots
Level 3: 3 slots
Level 4: 3 slots
Level 5: 1 slot

After Arcane Training VI
Level 1: 4 slots
Level 2: 3 slots
Level 3: 3 slots
Level 4: 3 slots
Level 5: 2 slots
Level 6: 1 slot

So at second level you only have Arcane Training I which gives you two first level slots. You could use them to cast any of your three prepared spells. You could cast Mage Armor once and Shocking Grasp once, or Magic Missile twice, or Magic Missile once and Shocking Grasp once, or any other combination that adds up to two castings.

[Cthulhudrew]

I think the confusing part is the table is labeled both "Spells Prepared" and "Spells Known." It should probably only be labeled "Spells Prepared," as the Vigilante can potentially know an unlimited amount of spells.

As Gisher notes, his spellcasting mechanic is like the Arcanist. He can prepare up to the number of spells per day on the table for his level from his list of spells known, and (like a sorcerer) can select from among those prepared spells to cast up to that limit each day (so a 1st level caster could cast each 1st level spell once, or one of them twice).

[Zwordsman]

Plus the extra spells via casting stat right?
For spells per day I mean. Not for preparing.

Wow you really don't get a lot of spells per day at all... hum

[Gisher]

Zwordsman, I expanded my previous post a bit. Hopefully it will help clear up your confusion.

[Gisher]

Cthulhudrew wrote:

I think the confusing part is the table is labeled both "Spells Prepared" and "Spells Known." It should probably only be labeled "Spells Prepared," as the Vigilante can potentially know an unlimited amount of spells.

Huh, I hadn't noticed that. It is both weird and confusing.

[Gisher]

Zwordsman wrote:

Plus the extra spells via casting stat right?

For spells per day I mean. Not for preparing.

Yes, fortunately high intelligence still gives you additional slots.

Zwordsman wrote:

Wow you really don't get a lot of spells per day at all... hum

No you don't. With this few slots, it seems to me that casting spells won't be a primary combat option. I think it will more for support purposes like buffing, battlefield control, or utility. But having access to the entire Wizard spell list means that Warlocks will be able to use a wide variety of Scrolls, Wands, and Staves.

[Zwordsman]

I was mostly looking at building a elemental ray+force spell guy.
but that looks unlikely sadly.

a VMC with rogue, and some abilities of the main class amde for an amusing version of arcane trickster

[Gisher]

Mystic Bolt looks like could be pretty good.

VMC Rogue would be nice, especially for a DEX build. VMC Magus also has some possibilities since you will likely have a pretty high INT.

[Zwordsman]

Yea magus is also a really damn cool idea.
I only wish you could use arcane weapon on mystic bolt..
as it is. I don't think its valid? it sounds like it's only "made" when you use the ability and i don't think you can hold the charge

[Brew Bird]

Zwordsman wrote:

I was mostly looking at building a elemental ray+force spell guy.

but that looks unlikely sadly.

a VMC with rogue, and some abilities of the main class amde for an amusing version of arcane trickster

It's still early in the playtest. They may expand on the casting options in the final version of the class.

[Zwordsman]

yup..

Would be nifty to get a bit more

THough I already have a VMC rogue idea. Dex based with a knife. Conductive property on it. mystic bolt taken. though might work better out of magus due to arcane weapon.. but less.. neat sounding? the rogue version i could make Ayame from Tenchu.. and love it

so it's not like there aren't really neat builds of course. but a little more spell casting innately would be nicer. Since you really have to invest heavily towards casting if you want it. or almost not at all if you don't want it. So it's not like it would be abit sideways if they got abit more casting.

[Gisher]

Zwordsman wrote:

Yea magus is also a really damn cool idea.

I only wish you could use arcane weapon on mystic bolt..
as it is. I don't think its valid? it sounds like it's only "made" when you use the ability and i don't think you can hold the charge

From what I have been able to gather, opinions on whether Arcane Strike works with Rays are pretty evenly divided. I'm guessing that it will be the same for Mystic Bolt.

But in another thread I raised the possibility of using Mystic Bolt with a Conducting weapon. You could use Arcane Strike on your weapon, and once each round you could also channel a Mystic Bolt through your weapon.The damage from both would stack for that attack. It would work with melee or ranged weapons.

Edit: I'm having connection delays, so I keep getting ninja'd. :)

[Gisher]

Brew Bird wrote:

Zwordsman wrote:

I was mostly looking at building a elemental ray+force spell guy.

but that looks unlikely sadly.

a VMC with rogue, and some abilities of the main class amde for an amusing version of arcane trickster

It's still early in the playtest. They may expand on the casting options in the final version of the class.

I think they mentioned that a lot of Vigilante Talents were left out of the playtest because they relate to Ultimate Intrigue mechanics that haven't been revealed yet. And I can't wait to see the Vigilante archetypes.

[Zwordsman]

Yeah. Should have some neat stuff

I'm willing to bet there wil be a heavier caster version. Preferably a redmage kinda way

Basically like this. but letting you spend all your talents to get 6lvs of arcane and divine.
maybe only one per costume type but honestly that would be so painfully restrictive on usages.. though flavorful

shame there won't be any extra talent feats. or highly unlikely.

Arcane strike should work perfectly fine with mystic bolt..
since it expplicitly allows weapon focus mystic bolt. Meaning it's a weapon when used (and by proccess you should be able to take weapon specializatin in it if that somehow came up).
So arcane strike empowers all weapons in a round so it should charge up each one you fire.

So really i am really enjoying the static damage on this class.
it would make a funny teammate to a kineticsits honestly.
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Honestly i hope there is some sorta enchantable item for mystic blast.. but i kind of doubt it'll happen.
though probably should make a mention though. for how static the weapon is. Is it always there or is it only when used?
that seriously needs to be addressed purely for all the weapon powering up spells.

It is certainly classified as a weapon by the weapon focus thing. So people will want to greater magic weapon it, or VMC magus's arcane weapon. and all that stuff.

I kind of hope they're just allowed to work.
----

speaking of weapons. That conductive mystic bolt would make a great weapon those folks who want a single shot style
(like double xbow with vital strike or musket 1 shot gusy etc).
So thats always a neat idea.

Warlock specializing in something like that, only enough spells per day to cast himself reloading spells and ammo spells etc.
--

I utterly love how this class is modular though and you can make specific versions of things you want

[Zwordsman]

now if only i had a place to try this out haha.

[Gisher]

I thought I'd try to organize the Spells Per Day in a table format. I think it is a lot easier to understand the Arcane Training progression when it is organized this way. It might be a way to reduce the word count too.
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Warlock Spells Per Day

____________________1st____ 2nd____3rd____4th____ 5th____6th________Prerequisites__________
Arcane Training 1_______2______0______0______0______0______0________1st level Warlock, Int 11
Arcane Training 2_______4______1______0______0______0______0________4th level Warlock, Int 12
Arcane Training 3_______4______3______1______0______0______0________8th level Warlock, Int 13
Arcane Training 4_______4______3______3______1______0______0________10th level Warlock, Int 14
Arcane Training 5_______4______3______3______3______1______0________14th level Warlock, Int 15
Arcane Training 6_______4______3______3______3______2______1________16th level Warlock, Int 16

[Zwordsman]

Yup it's helpful..

but boy oh boy
I wish that they had a spells per day amount, similiar to a bard or something, that grew on it's own.

and you needed to take thet talents to unlock spell levels... but if you only had 1 talent at lv 20 you'd still have a lot of spells per day instead of just 2 or some crap.

So few higher level spell levels make it hard for me to figure out what to do with them..

Other than lots of utility spells and focus on mystic bolter. but that might be thte point

---------

THough as someone in another thread pointed out. the wording on spells doesn't state it's arcane just thati t uses wizard/sorc spell lists.

So i guess they don't get ACF (until thats put in)
if they never got spell failure no matter what thtey wear then it makes me a little more ok with the spells per day.
but I do wish everything had at least one more spell per day.
It utterly sucks that you only ever ever ever get 1 lv 6 spell per day; discounting boosts in Int (which should happen but irregardless)

If it stays that way it makes me want to make a spellstrike "bad touch" spell user using magus VMC. Assuming that you can take the arcane discovery thingy that lets you use spellstrike with other spell lists (since your character level is your magus level i think for those so it should meet the prereqs).
It would be a pretty cool one

[Deadmanwalking]

Those numbers are spells prepared the way Arcanists do, meaning they can actually cast way more spells than that per day (6/6/6/6/5/5 by 20th, actually). They can cast that one 6th level Spell they get 5/day by 20th level...and switch it per day.

You can Cold Ice Strike 5/day (before Int bonus spells) at 20th, if you like.

[Extra Anchovies]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Those numbers are spells prepared the way Arcanists do, meaning they can actually cast way more spells than that per day (6/6/6/6/5/5 by 20th, actually). They can cast that one 6th level Spell they get 5/day by 20th level...and switch it per day.

You can Cold Ice Strike 5/day (before Int bonus spells) at 20th, if you like.

No, actually. The 6/6/6/6/5/5 is spells prepared, the 4/3/3/3/3/2/1 is spells per day.

[Mark Seifter]

Extra Anchovies wrote:

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Those numbers are spells prepared the way Arcanists do, meaning they can actually cast way more spells than that per day (6/6/6/6/5/5 by 20th, actually). They can cast that one 6th level Spell they get 5/day by 20th level...and switch it per day.

You can Cold Ice Strike 5/day (before Int bonus spells) at 20th, if you like.

No, actually. The 6/6/6/6/5/5 is spells prepared, the 4/3/3/3/3/2/1 is spells per day.

Anchovies is correct. Of course, with the likely Int at level 16 if you focus casting, you'll likely have 2 more at most spell levels, possibly 3 more 1st (though you'll have to have pushed for the 30 to get 2 more 6th and 3 more 2nd).

[Deadmanwalking]

Mark Seifter wrote:

Anchovies is correct. Of course, with the likely Int at level 16 if you focus casting, you'll likely have 2 more at most spell levels, possibly 3 more 1st (though you'll have to have pushed for the 30 to get 2 more 6th and 3 more 2nd).

Huh. That's not the way I was reading that at all. Interesting.

[Mark Seifter]

Yep. So you're actually extremely versatile in what you can bring to bear, but you're a lot more limited in how often.

[Entryhazard]

I think that the Warlock and the Zealot should employ the Bard/Inquisitor progression of slots, and the Training talents should just unlock the higher level spells and slots. An Unchained Rogue can cast 1-st level spells up to 10 times per day and with a feat and a book can change what spell it is in 10 minutes, semi-dedicated spellcasters should do better than they are now.

[cartmanbeck]

I think the thing that confuses me most about the Warlock's... and along with that the Zealot's... casting is that technically when you're in your social persona you only have [Spell] Training I, so you can only cast your lowest-level spells, but they're not part of a separate pool of spellcasting... yeah it's weird. Mark, care to weigh in on that one?

[Manwolf]

And the warlock ultimately gets fewer spells per day than the zealot.
The zealot ends up with 6/4/4/4/4/4/1 before stat bonus spells but still fewer than the inquisitor that it has to share spell lists with.

[chad gilbreath]

Manwolf wrote:

And the warlock ultimately gets fewer spells per day than the zealot.

The zealot ends up with 6/4/4/4/4/4/1 before stat bonus spells but still fewer than the inquisitor that it has to share spell lists with.

How did you figure those numbers?

[Trekkie90909]

I suppose it's still better than the Adept's 3/3/3/3/2 Spell progression. Assuming you specialize fully into spell casting of course.

[Manwolf]

chad gilbreath wrote:

Manwolf wrote:

And the warlock ultimately gets fewer spells per day than the zealot.

The zealot ends up with 6/4/4/4/4/4/1 before stat bonus spells but still fewer than the inquisitor that it has to share spell lists with.

How did you figure those numbers?

Divine training 1 gives you 1 1st Level spell. Every other divine training gives you 1 spell at that level and +3 spells of the previous level. I don't know why I included the 0 level slot, which is really just spells know, not a daily limitation. Should be just 4/4/4/4/4/1