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Greetings, so in all my PFS career- of 16 characters, including a Core Cleric and an Emerald Spire Fighter, I only have one dedicated caster class- my gnome sorcerer. I have a druid, but he mostly uses his magic to support himself and his dino companion.
My other caster classes are more support than dedicated casting- I have a GM Baby shaman whom i have no real plan for, and a Spiritualist who's more melee with his Bloodrager dip.
So, my plan is to make an Arcanist. Spell selection of a wizard, versatility of a sorcerer, and some nifty tricks themselves.
Further more, I like building flavorful classes.
So what's the caveat with this build? Wayang Harrowed Society Student arcanist, and I'm thinking taking the Nidalese Shadow Veil exploit at one point to give me psuedo-Displacement with my Scion of Shadow Alt. Racial Trait.
I also plan on taking the Shadow Speaker Alt. Racial Trait for that +2 bonus.
Statwise- i'm not a fan of dumping stats, unless it's necessary- so:
10 Str/14 Dex/12 Con/18 Int/12 Wis/13 Cha
I may pick up a few shadow spells, but i want to focus on being more a blaster type with a few support spells.
So, what feats should i consider taking aside from the typical Spell Focus/Spell Penetration; likewise with Exploits. The Shadow Veil exploit isn't necessary, but would add to a bit of flavor.
My current character is an arcanist, Potent Magic, Quick Study, Dimensional slide & Familiar are all great, and need little to no explanation IMO
However two to take a look at for a blaster type is School understanding:Admixture and bloodline development: orc
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I had a thread last year figuring out my Wayang Arcanist. this post has the last version of the build. He is shadow focused, but I do a fair amount of blasting. To me, the power of Arcanist is in Quick Study and Potent Magic. Being able to swap to blasting spells when illusions don’t work out has been great. And boosting CL and DCs as needed helps a lot, too.
Dimensional Slide is powerful as well. And I’m going with Metamixing for increased flexibility applying Metamagic feats.
A few things to watch out for... most PFS GMs I’ve run into have rules that you have to have your spellbook out to use Quick a Study. So it goes from a 2 round proposition to a 3 round one. Round 1 move action to take the book out. Whatever you want with your standard. Round 2 full round action to change spells. Round 3 actually cast the spell.
Also, expect possible table variation on Nidalese Shadow Veil. While it grants concealment, it never actually says it’s from dim light. This is good and bad. The good is that Darkvision shouldn’t negate it. The bad is that abilities that trigger off of being in dim light, like Scion of Shadows, won’t be guaranteed to work, depending on how the GM reads it. For that reason, I avoided taking Nidalese Shadow Veil, even though in theory it would have also helped me pull of Tenebrous Spells.
Yup, forgot about metamixing (Due to build reasons I am waiting on taking the meta-magic till class level 9, I have a 1 level dip, and want to take it at Character level 10 to get selective) but Highly recommend the two metamagic exploits
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I was hoping for more advice then "my character did this and this" as i find that kind of "advice" more as bragging. I don't like making characters similar to others. That's why my magus doesn't do the Empowered Shocking Grasp schtick.
I understand the power of Orc bloodline with the Bloodline exploit, but imo, it doesn't fit this character.
Since this is a Harrowed Society Student, and i do have a Harrow Deck, i was actually looking at the Harrow bloodline and the Harrowed feat.
Being able to confuse an enemy could be entertaining and hilarious in some circumstances.
In regards to familiars, unless a character got them naturally, i don't see much of a point in wasting character utilities to get a familiar.
I don't plan on being too focused in shadow spells, as most of them are not very impressive- Shadow Barbs will be very entertaining for my Zu-Kuthon Inquisitor.
I was looking at the Metamagic exploits.
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Harrowed and harrowed summoning seem like decent enough choices.
Work toward deadly dealer eldritch knight?
As for the harrowed bloodline there is some ok stuff in there but the confusion effect is really bad. One round, save, confusion is only sometimes useful. It's worse than daze in my opinion. It could be fun though.
Take any of the harrow traits Fortunate, Harrow Born, Harrow Chosen
Deadly deal, harrow born, sense vitals may be fun as an eldritch knight or card caster magus (not suggesting the magus for you just a thought I had).
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Work toward deadly dealer eldritch knight?
eh, no. using Deadly Dealer would totally shut down my ability to recharge my Arcane pool via the archetype's ability.
And just because wayangs are small creatures with no str penalty doesn't mean they should ALWAYS be martial classes.As for the Traits- Harrow Chosen is a Human only trait. Unless i take the Adopted trait, i can't take it.
i'd rather not use my deck as a weapon, but more as a tool to mpower my abilities. so Harrowed Summoning could be something i would look into.
I could combine the Harrowed Society Student with the Unlettered archetype, but would that work with the Quick Study exploit?
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No it does not you just have to carry a deck and a weapon deck it limits development.
The lack strength penalty has little to do with a ranged build, though slightly helpful. The reason to not do it is because eldritch knights suck most of the time or are late to come online. The idea was more becuase there are only 3 traits and a few feats related to harrow decks, so if you wanted more mechanical ways to increase your theme you would have to pick from those few. It is one of the very few options to make some of those feats work.
I assumed correctly you knew about it and your playing a character that likely comes from an area that is not Varisia so adopted could make a lot of sense since I have not read much about the wayangs of Minata and harrow decks.
I don't think in pfs the unlettered works with quick study which is unfortunate.
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It's just that investing in Deadly Dealer means investing in Point-Blank Shot/Precise Shot to use it effectively. I have spells. Though, investing in PBS/PS for my own Ray spells would be handy. Deadly Dealer would probably be a late investment.
Adopted into Harrow Chosen seems like a waste of two traits, unless i'm reading Adopted wrong. and honestly, i can see this character running around with a Varisian troupe.
Should Invest in Augemnted Summoning, if I go Harrowed Summoning? I don't really see this character being too summoned focus, but having Summoning as an auxillary source of damage.
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Adopted + the Race trait only count as 1 trait slot. It does count as having taken your social trait, though, so you wouldn't be able to get a second one of those.
Augment Summoning and Harrowed Summoning both add enhancement bonuses. There won't always be overlap, but when you draw a card to boost STR or CON, you won't be getting full benefit out of both feats. Also, devoting 2 feats to a backup plan seems like a lot of resources you won't get to make use of on a regular basis.
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A few things to watch out for... most PFS GMs I’ve run into have rules that you have to have your spellbook out to use Quick a Study. So it goes from a 2 round proposition to a 3 round one. Round 1 move action to take the book out. Whatever you want with your standard. Round 2 full round action to change spells. Round 3 actually cast the spell.
What bothers me most about this is you say “most” GMs. All PFS GMs should require you to have it out since that is RAW:
“The arcanist must be able to reference her spellbook when using this ability.”You can’t reference it if it’s in your backpack
Also, expect possible table variation on Nidalese Shadow Veil. While it grants concealment, it never actually says it’s from dim light. This is good and bad. The good is that Darkvision shouldn’t negate it. The bad is that abilities that trigger off of being in dim light, like Scion of Shadows, won’t be guaranteed to work, depending on how the GM reads it. For that reason, I avoided taking Nidalese Shadow Veil, even though in theory it would have also helped me pull of Tenebrous Spells.
Darkvision never changes the lighting level, so any ability that says requires dim light works in dim light regardless of who has what vision. Just like being immune to fire doesn’t change the properties of flames.
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EDIT: Sorry. You were talking about Nidalese Shadow Veil. That does grant concealment, and I agree with you that Darkvision doesn't affect it. What it doesn't do is cause the square you are in to be dim light, so Scion of Shadows doesn't trigger.
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Scion of Shadows doesn't give you concealment against Darkvision.
This ability doesn’t grant total concealment; it only increases the miss chance.
It increases the 20% miss chance from partial concealment to 50%. You don't have partial concealment against someone with Darkvision, so increasing the miss chance doesn't do anything.
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So, let's attempt to plan this character out-
Wayang Arcanist [Harrowed Society Student]
10 Str/14 Dex/12 Con/18 Int/12 Wis/13 Cha
ART: Shadow Speaker
Traits: Adopted- Harrow Chosen, [Volatile Conduit/Reactionary?]
1> Harrowed
2> -
3> Harrowed Summoning/Spell Penetration, Potent Magic [Exploit]
4> -
5> [Metamagic feat?], Elemental Metamagic [Exploit]
6> -
7> tbd