Advice for building a 'meta' Occultist

[Jaguar Fabulous]

After finding the Tome Eater archetype I had an idea for a Pagemaster/Penny Crayon character who pulls all of his powers from the illustrations and descriptions contained in a tabletop rpg rulebook. Need a flanking buddy? He flips to the bestiary section, reaches into the pages and yanks out a Dire Wolf. Archers on the horizon? He turns to the spell descriptions and the words 'fire' 'ray' and '2d6' lift off the pages and launch themselves at his foes. If all else fails he can quite literally throw the book at them. Someone once clocked me with the 3.5 DMG and it was at least a d6 worth of damage.

What I'm looking for is some help from you guys in bringing this ridiculous character to life. I'm thinking Conjuration and Evocation for his main implements but I also love the idea of using the Rough & Ready (profession: rules lawyer?) trait combined with Transmutation shenanigans to clobber people with his hardcover Grottoes & Goblins: 2nd Edition Core Rulebook.

What are your thoughts on this, aside from it being painfully stupid and contrived?

Would you recommend focusing on the martial side of things or something else? How would YOU build it?

[Deadmanwalking]

I'd be inclined to make an Arcanist instead.

Their spellbook can be their 'rulebook', and they can use the Quick Study exploit to shift spells on the fly by ruffling through their tome for a turn. Verbal components can be quoted rules text, while somantic and material ones can involve rolling dice.

It just fits the theme a lot better, IMO.

[Jaguar Fabulous]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

I'd be inclined to make an Arcanist instead.

In terms of optimisation you're probably right, though the IRL rules lawyers I've encountered aren't typically charisma heavy...

[Jaguar Fabulous]

I also think the versatility of the Occultist meshes well with the idea of 'Uuuh we need a healer...' *quick flip to Cleric description* FLESH MEND! etc. I see the character as not being particularly naturally gifted but can approximate the class abilities from the book into something useful.

[Sapiens]

Personally, I'm not a great lover of the Occultist, I'd go with a Living Grimoire Inquisitor, follower of a twisted, weird deity called the Game Master (Goblins webcomic, anyone?). This way you can not only cast spells from the book, but also bash non believers on the head with the book, and anyone who has a physical copy of the Core Rulebook can see the reasoning behind this.

[Jaguar Fabulous]

Sapiens wrote:

I'd go with a Living Grimoire Inquisitor

How have I never seen this guy!? Making me wonder how many book themed archetypes there are and whether I can make a roving gang of furious Librarians for a campaign. Librarbarians! Yes, this is happening.

[Zwordsman]

There is another one I believe.. I forget what class.. but I might also be thinking of a third party since i dont remember it (and i'm a librarian in real life and book obsessed.. so i love teh book based classes). It probably is third party I guess. but given the fluff you want; this isn't like PFS. So could look around for that.

There is also the 3rd party Onmyouji class. Its pretty neat and fun, and I fluffed it rather similiar and book based like you were talking about..

Sadly living grimoire inquistors are hard to build... they can't be magic based, and while they can do melee.... They lose what honestly made the inquistors good. They lost their bane on commmand.

Their version of the warpriest's weapon enchanting does have bane listed on it. however... that ability is "chose the bonus once per day and it is always the same bonus that day" so you could bane the first fight.. but then for any other fight that isnj't the same type you've got a useless add on.
So they end up sadly more like a generic 3/4th bab without any big shiny bits. other than the great fluff of being a book combatant.
If only they hadn't directly pulled Warpriest's....

Tome Eater I've played as. so much fluffy fun. Although instead of me eating the books I had my book eat the books.

Honestly..except it costs so much, I'd almost just dip Living Grimoire then go full Occultist. Fluff vs usefulness problem again.

Well in the end my Tome Eater was based more off Leon's visuals from Star Ocean The Second Story. With the monster/elements/etc coming out of the book whenever I melee attack and it zooms out whenever I spell cast.
In retrospect I would probably dip that Inquistor.. or at least use it as a guide for how to play the improvised stuff if my Gm was amicable.

[Jaguar Fabulous]

Zwordsman wrote:

STUFF

Again, that's why I like the Occultist way of doing it - seems like they have the option of trying a bit of everything rather than being locked into x or y.

I was planning something similar with the 'eating': the book noms down and new stuff appears in it as errata or notes scribbled into the margins.

I'm interested in what you went for build-wise, just to get a rough idea of what works. Would you mind sharing?

[Zwordsman]

Don't have it on hand..
but he went with Transmutation, Evocation and Divination (cause you really only have 3 until higher levels.. )

Most of the daily allotment of MF went to Divination for the wonderfully useful things. Then I had a little in each others.

I did have a real problem though with Evocation... There just isn't much spells there honestly for actual combat wise. They really should have put more force or other psychichy spells. After a while I sort of wish I had chosen something else. but I don't know what I would have considering I wanted to be mostly magic.. It is such a weird oversight.. the evocation spell list. Considering it is suppose to do so many little things.
While the Evocation class abilities aren't the most efficient. They sure are fun.. Just so hard to get enough poitns for the Divination and Transmutation bonuses while having enough to also use evocation abilities.
Though I suppose if you went evo, divi, abjuration you could pull it off.

at higher levels I wanted Abjuration (i think it was) because I absolutely oved two spells. .The level 2 spell Blasting Node, and then later Etheric Shards.

I didn't get to bash people with the books, as that GM dislikes improvised weapons. So he had a back up weapon and with INT mostly, with DEx backed up. Though now days one could dip that Inquisitor for the light mace and Dex that I think. Or go with the Str way. Its just Leon was a tiny one. These days though I'd almost want to use a Rod of Ice with legacy weapon as my backup if I was going Full Int/con.

I had a lot of fun with it, but it did feel pretty muted whenever the situation wasn't calling for a straight up fireball. Wish it had stuff like the nonlethal force based scorching ray like spell, or the other force spells (force punch.. and..blasting ball? blast ball? something like that). If your doing a home game. Look into a few ways to add that to your spell lists somehow.. If they had had more actually useful longer ranged evocation spells it would really be able to do almost any job

Though this depends to an extent on your gm... I managed with mine.. but your miliage will vary.
i liked building up a supply (I used chalk, and or bookmarks (for the book one) of Blasting Node'd items. using mage hand to move to a back etc. Then using Telekinesis I fire a few at targets (I never them just the container holding them) Only works on mentally aware things but still its fun on a bun. Ball Bearings or caltrops work too if you want something you can block an area off with.
one point I had built a version that used a repeating crossbow, that used Noded bolts, that I used mage hand to load into the case. so I never actually touched them. Not every arrow of course. but he carried a few for emergency moments which combod well with Legacy weapon.

Setting up etheric shards, then littering them with fireballs is pretty darn fun though. More so when its fluffing them appropriately

Ah I was stretched thin though. As most of the games i end up in are 3 players+gm.. So I'm never as focused as I could be if the group was actually the size the games are meant for...
So in a more normal group, I think it would be a fair bit useful without trying so many things.

If I can find it again later I can probably post more.

[Varun Creed]

A Story Summoner brings Harrow cards to live.. That's pretty cool and similar to what you want. :D

[Jaguar Fabulous]

Zwordsman wrote:

MORE STUFF

This actually sounds like a blast (no pun intended) and it's nice that there's at least one other person out there who wants to play an Occultist. Funnily enough I stumbled across your post about the Tome Eater while searching for info about the class and have only just realised it was you!

Any more suggestions from anyone assuming I do go Occultist?