Could I just play an Arcanist with things like Improved Initiative, Touhgness, Skill Focus UMD/Bluff and still be effective?
I'd like to play an Arcanist with focus on Evocation School. Taking Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus, even Spell Specialization. But I don't want to take 1 trait for exclusively Fireball for example.
I just want to be a generic Blaster who can blast with whatever spells.
I know I need School Savant for Admixture.
But back to my question, could I be of use even if I'm not dealing 10510+1510 fireball damage?
Sure. Just using your highest level spells to blast with is OK, you don't have to keep using fireball. Without metamagic or sorc bloodlines your lower level spells are going to fall behind but you can use those slots for other purposes.
Sure. Just using your highest level spells to blast with is OK, you don't have to keep using fireball. Without metamagic or sorc bloodlines your lower level spells are going to fall behind but you can use those slots for other purposes.
I'm gonna have the proper Spell Focus, just don't want to take something that is permanent, like Magical Lineage Fireball, so I can switch freely without feeling guilty.
Also I'm playing Rise of the Runelords, and so far everything has been inside dungeons, where Fireball isn't ideal honestly.
Yeah, focus on feats that boost your overall damage with blasting spells like metamagic feats or blood havok. You don't really need to speialize if you don't want to and, frankly, as a full caster you'd have to actively try to make something that wasn't useful.
Optimal? No. Useful? Yes. The game doesn't need to be played at an optimized level, fortunately.
Throw in a spell focus and greater spell focus evocation in there, maybe some spell penetration feats, add a dash of metamagic and you're good.
Note that Arcanist is pretty much the worst of the Wizard/Sorceror/Arcanist trio in terms of blasting. Exploits are nice, but you're lacking in staying power. (one spell per level behind the equivalent wizard, two behind an equivalent sorceror)
SF and GSF are taken already. Deciding whether Spell Specialization is worth or not.
Why 2 levels behind a Sorcerer? I thought Arcanist got spell levels the same rate as Sorcerers.
I'm trying to deal damage without going full nova with Intensified Burning Hands.
Also choosing Arcanist because previous class was Mage, and there's nothing similar to Arcane caster except Bard (but I can't play that class at my table because it was denied to 1 guy, so it would be bad for me to play 1).
Wizards and Arcanist are incredibly flexible. If you do choose to specialize in something in particular there's nothing wrong with that, but one of the huge assets of the class is that you're never locked into a narrow specialization. Want to be great at hucking fireballs? You're still good at everything else a Wizard can do. This gives you a lot of flexibility with Wizards (and Arcanists) since you can specialize as much or as little as you like and you'll be just fine.
One thing to note is that the Wizard specialist schools are actually make you more versatile, rather than less versatile. This is because the bottleneck for Wizards isn't the number of spells you can learn, but rather the number you can prepare per day. You're almost always going to be more rounded and versatile by choosing a specialist school as a Wizard.
I personally like specializing in the spell dragons breath or telekenesis for damage casters. Don't know what level Rune lords goes to but both of those spells are flexible specialization picks. But no you don't have to really pick a spell to spam till lv 15 with spell perfection. Rather than going school savant just take the school understanding exploit. Your better off with blooded arcanist if you want to be blasting. Status effect metamagic will make you useful as well. Rime and Dazing are probably the best in that category. Also yes you are still useful
I'd take a bunch of metamagic feats with an arcanist. Using your exploits, metamixing I think, you can prepare and spontaneously add metamagic. That's where you'll really shine compared to a sorcerer or wizard.