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I have a 1 level dip into Occultist on my Magus, and I realized tonight I might be cheating myself out of a focus power.
At 1st level, an occultist learns the base focus power from both of his two implement schools (see Implements below) and can select one more focus power from the list of those available to him through those schools.
Each time the occultist invests mental focus into a divination implement, the implement grants the following resonant power. The implement's bearer gains the benefits of this power until the occultist refreshes his focus.
I have the Divination and Transmutation implements. So if I'm reading all of that right, with 1 level of Occultist and 6 Mental Focus, if I put 2 MF into Divination and 4 into Transmutation, I'll have 5 total Focus Powers:
Divination:
Resonant Power: Third Eye
Base Focus Power: Sudden Insight
Transmutation:
Resonant Power: Physical Enhancement
Base Focus Power: Legacy Weapon
And I still get to choose 1 addition focus power from either Divination or Transmutation, like Sudden Speed?
It's that last power I wasn't including.
Occultist really is a phenomenal dip. It costs a BAB and slows down spell and class ability progression, but you sure do get a lot in return.
You are correct - you still get to pick one of the available Focus Powers. It really is a great dip, even if all you're grabbing is the Transmutation option to Legacy Weapon whenever you need it.
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Occultist really is a phenomenal dip. It costs a BAB and slows down spell and class ability progression, but you sure do get a lot in return.
Yep. I've recommended it as a dip for a number of Magus builds. Two Resonant Powers, two Base Focus Powers, and one Focus Power is pretty nice. You can even take Extra Focus Power once if you want another.
Legacy Weapon is awesome for adding things like Agile or Bane, and it keeps getting better as they publish new Weapon Special Abilities. Just consider some of the things you can do with Training, for example.
I like using Eyes of the Eagle for my Divination Implement. The +5 Competence Bonus will stack with your +1 Insight Bonus from Third Eye. Who couldn't use a +6 Bonus to Perception?
You get Appraise (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disable Device (Dex), Disguise (Cha), Knowledge (engineering) (Int), Knowledge (history) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Linguistics (Int), Perception (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), and Sleight of Hand (Dex) as new Class Skills. (Note that that is another +3 bonus to Perception.)
You also get proficiency with medium armor which is useful if you want to wear a mithral breastplate before level 7. As a Magus you aren't likely to use the shield proficiency, but you've got it if you need it.
And as a psychic caster, you get a few little extras like the Psychic Skill Unlocks.
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Bane and Ghost Touch have been the main things I've used Legacy Weapon for. I was excited to try out Training, but my Magus is a PFS character, and Training ended up not being legal. I can certainly understand why. Brawler is a great dip thanks to Martial Flexibilty, and Training combined with Legacy Weapon is basically Martial Flexibility for a standard instead of a move.
I like the idea of Eyes of the Eagle as an implement. I haven't picked them up yet, but I don't think I have anything else planned for the eyes slot.
My build is a Kapenia Dancer, so the armor proficiency doesn't do much for me. I generally have Mage Armor from a wand, or a haramaki since I still have to deal with arcane spell failure if I wear anything else. Getting Martial Weapons back, though, let me pick up a longbow.
The spell access is nice. Being able to use a Heightened Awareness wand without UMD saves some time. And Lead Blades as well. Divination also adds things like See Invisibility to your Occultist class list, which makes carrying a scroll of it a lot more practical. Even with a caster level of 1, you only need to roll a 5 on a CL check to use the scroll instead of a DC 23 UMD roll.
And yes, the new class skills are very nice.
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My build is a Kapenia Dancer, so the armor proficiency doesn't do much for me.
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Actually, for PFS it does a lot.
Page 10—Replace the last sentence of the kapenia dancer's weapon and armor proficiency with the following. "A kapenia dancer is not proficent with armor or shields. He does not have the magus's ability to ignore arcane spell failure from armor; however, if he becomes proficient in light armor, he automatically gains the magus's ability to ignore the arcane spell failure chance from light armor. If he becomes proficient in medium armor, at 7th level he ignores medium armor's chance of arcane spell failure. If he becomes proficient in heavy armor, at 13th level he ignores heavy armor's chance of arcane spell failure. This replaces the magus's normal armor proficiencies, including those gained at 7th and 13th level."
So go buy some armor. :)
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Oh wow. I completely missed that update. I'm actually the one who asked for a clarification for the archetype in the PFS boards. The post got moved to the player companion board, so I figured nothing would come of it.
So would Mithral Medium Armor work with canny defense, since it's considered light for everything but proficiency? If so, I'm one scenario away from Magus 7/Occultist 1 and could upgrade AC big time.
Yes, Canny Defense will work with mithral medium armor. It is considered to be light armor for everything except proficiency (which you already have) and Armor Special Abilities. According to the FAQ, class features that require you to wear light armor will also work with mithral medium armor.
This means that mithral armor allows its wearer to use it when her own class features or special abilities demand her to wear lighter armor; in other words, the character wearing the armor is less limited. For example, a bard can cast spells in mithral breastplate without arcane spell failure, a barbarian can use her fast movement in mithral fullplate, a ranger can use his combat style in mithral fullplate, brawlers, swashbucklers, and gunslingers can keep their nimble bonus in mithral breastplate, rogues keep evasion in mithral breastplate, a brawler can flurry in mithral breastplate, characters without Endurance can sleep in mithral breastplate without becoming fatigued, and so on. It does not change the armor’s actual category, which means that you can still store a creature one size category larger in a hosteling mithral fullplate, and you can’t enhance a mithral breastplate with special abilities that require it to be light armor, like brawling (though you could enhance it with special abilities that require it to be medium armor), and so on.
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Awesome! Mithral Kikko armor would fit the character concept very well, and I happen to have enough gold on hand for it. 8th level's going to be a big upgrade for the character. 3rd level spells (well, spell, thanks to Diminished Spellcasting), Knowledge Pool, Medium armor, and a Faerie Dragon familiar (from a boon). Looking forward to it.
Sounds like fun. I'm glad your request for clarification is working out for you.