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I was looking into the Arcanist when I suddenly realized that, if I'm understanding them correctly, they are hellishly broken.
So here is the set up, Human with a 15 point buy. Stats of
7, 14, 12, 18, 10, 12. Human uses bonus feat to go straight into spell specialization Burning Hands.
Spell Specialization raises your caster level by two, so does using your Reservoir with the Potent Magic exploit. This means a Level 1 Human Arcanist can cast Burning Hands as a 5th level character dealing 5d4 damage in a 15ft cone with a reflex DC of 16 to take half damage.
Same Arcanist levels up to 5, taking the Intensify Spell feat through Metamagic Knowledge. Now can cast Burning Hands as a level 9 Arcanist dealing 9d4 damage. If they took Spell Tatoo and Greater Spell Focus the DC of that Burning Hands is up to 18, probably 19 if the Arcanist bought a Headband of vast Intellect.
Next level? Spell Specialization switches over to Fireball, Arcanist can now cast a 10d6 fireball at level 6 with a save DC of 21. Heck, they still have a free Exploit left over meaning they can grab School Understanding Admixture to get around resistances.
Am I understanding this right, have Arcanists unseated Wizards as the blaster master?
And then you fight anything immune or moderately resistant to Fire, and notice you've put all your eggs into one easy-to-resist basket.
I would say the best blaster is probably Admixture Wizard 5+X/Crossblooded (Orc/Draconic) Sorcerer 1.
But Admixture Wizard 5+X/Tattooed Orc Sorcerer 1 is not bad.
But arcanists are amazing in basically all forms yes.
And then you fight anything immune or moderately resistant to Fire, and notice you've put all your eggs into one easy-to-resist basket.
Admixture at level 3, suddenly your burning hands are ice, acid, or lightning. :/
I was looking into the Arcanist when I suddenly realized that, if I'm understanding them correctly, they are hellishly broken.
So here is the set up, Human with a 15 point buy. Stats of
7, 14, 12, 18, 10, 12. Human uses bonus feat to go straight into spell specialization Burning Hands.Spell Specialization raises your caster level by two, so does using your Reservoir with the Potent Magic exploit. This means a Level 1 Human Arcanist can cast Burning Hands as a 5th level character dealing 5d4 damage in a 15ft cone with a reflex DC of 16 to take half damage.
Same Arcanist levels up to 5, taking the Intensify Spell feat through Metamagic Knowledge. Now can cast Burning Hands as a level 9 Arcanist dealing 9d4 damage. If they took Spell Tatoo and Greater Spell Focus the DC of that Burning Hands is up to 18, probably 19 if the Arcanist bought a Headband of vast Intellect.
Next level? Spell Specialization switches over to Fireball, Arcanist can now cast a 10d6 fireball at level 6 with a save DC of 21. Heck, they still have a free Exploit left over meaning they can grab School Understanding Admixture to get around resistances.
Am I understanding this right, have Arcanists unseated Wizards as the blaster master?
Without widen, Burning Hands sucks a little (15 ft cone doesn't get too many).
But I'll admit Fireball exploit is useful.
Take the same arcanist with your over-cheesed 1 level sorc dip and you are trading 1 cl for +2 damage per die rolled. Yea, nothing particularly new.
For some melted cheese on top of this:
Finagle yourself being a Alternate Peri-Blooded Aasimar, racial trait of Pyromancer, for a total of +3 per die rolled.
Nothing you said is actually Arcanist stuff aside from Potent Exploit, and that is not really good compared to an Admixture Wizard with a Sorcer dip that at level 6 can have +20 damage on said fireball.
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And then at Lv5, a wizard throws out an Empowered Fireball. Blasting isn't hard to do by any means.
At level 6 a Wordcasting Sorcerer(crossblooded Orc/Draconic) adds +1 damage per die rolled for damage spells, or +2 for fire spells. 5d4+10 electricity and 5d4+10 fire in a cone, line, burst, single target(which means no saving throw), or brief barrier. As a third level spell. It gets better at lv10 when they spend the round to Intensify to the spell and it becomes 10d4+20 fire and 10d4+20 electricity.
And then you fight anything immune or moderately resistant to Fire, and notice you've put all your eggs into one easy-to-resist basket.Admixture at level 3, suddenly your burning hands are ice, acid, or lightning. :/
Do you have enough Feats left over to do that, after spending them all on Spell Specialization and Spell Focus?
I do worry about this kind of 'look what I can do' build. Because when for some reason it doesn't work (because you fight Devils, Demons, or something else with a swath of elemental resistances) or doesn't work very well (because you're fighting a bunch of tieflings and all your bonus damage is going into their resistance) you haven't invested in any alternatives. And when it DOES work, it can get repetitive and boring. ("Oh, huh, it's my turn? What are we fighting? Doesn't matter, cast fireball.")
And then you fight anything immune or moderately resistant to Fire, and notice you've put all your eggs into one easy-to-resist basket.
There's an archetype that lets him pick up the Admixture Wizard ability to change energy descriptors, I'd imagine it'd be a good option for this type of build.
The wizard goes Exploiter wizard and as one of his exploits takes school understanding for admixture. Now he has the faster progression, can be done by any race, and still can do any element types.
At first level, 5d4 sounds like a lot, but it's only an average of 12.5 damage in a fairly small cone. A fighter with 20 strength and a greatsword would be doing 2d6+7 damage per swing for 14 avg damage per hit. Assume the fighter has power attack, and that becomes 17.
9d4 is an average of 22.5 damage for the pumped up burning hands. At 5th level, the fighter should have weapon focus, weapon training and power attack for an average of 23 damage per hit. If you assume the fighter also likely has a +1 greatsword and +2 strength belt then the damage rises to 26 average damage per hit.
Now when we start talking about fireball and/or crossblooded shenanigans, things finally start to look bad for the fighter, though the fighter's damage is still much more easily increased by outside sources than the arcanist.
The wizard goes Exploiter wizard and as one of his exploits takes school understanding for admixture. Now he has the faster progression, can be done by any race, and still can do any element types.
You're not wrong.
There are a lot of dumb things an exploiter wizard can do.| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
First 6 levels of a build...
Peri-Blooded Aasimar, traits Pyromancer (racial) and Magical Lineage (Fireball)
1st - Sorcerer. Orc/Draconic cross-blooded. Level Feat: Spell Focus Evocation + Class Feat Eschew Materials.
2nd - Wizard. Exploiter Mage. Class Feat: Scribe Scroll. Exploit: School Understanding Evoc (admix - versatile evoc)
3rd - Wizard. Level Feat: Great Spell Focus Evocation
4th - Wizard.
5th - Wizard. Level Feat: Spell Spec. Fireball
6th - Wizard. Class Feat: Mage's Tattoo (+1 CL Fireball). Exploit: Dimensional Slide
Add in a Blazing Robe (+1 CL), Orange Ioun stone (maybe, +1 CL) and toss in the Goblin Fire Drums (+1 per die/damage, max 10). All available within WBL for a 6th level character.
All told, you should be able to pump out a 10d6 Fireball at +4 per die within 30 feet, thanks to the goblin drums.