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Having 2 rolls on a skill never hurts. At the very least, you can aid another each other.
I'm in high school, and of course every player plays some sort of pseudo rogue. We have a Slayer, Swashbuckler/Shadowdancer, Rogue, Summoner (played like a rogue), Trickster (homebrew full 20 level Arcan Trickster), and Ranger/Magus (who likes to go invisible). We also have a Barbarian and he gets to be special. It's pretty usefull because we can all Stealth together usually (someone just casts invisibility on the Barbarian), but we do step on eachothers' toes.
So how do the Paladin and the Bloodrager keep from stepping on each other's toes? I figure those classes are as similar (Str and Cha oriented full BAB, d10, 4 level casting classes) as the Arcanist and the Wizard.
I mean, with a Wizard and arcanist with 22 Int, you have 8-10 skill ranks/level, which is a lot but there are 14 different Intelligence based skills, both of you are going to want spellcraft, and there are some non-Intelligence skills (perception?) you're going to want to max.
So if you want to divide up stuff so you both have your niches, nobody's toes are going to get stepped on.
A party can never have too many Wizards, because Wizards can specialize into so many different things. One guy could blast, the other could summon, there is battle field control, buff spells, scrying, scouting, utility, and etc
One Wizard doesn't have enough spell slots to do everything, two can cover most options. Just discuss your spell selections on a day to day basis and work together. Having 2 Wizards is like being able to quicken an extra max level spell every round. This is a GOOD thing, even when there is overlap. Nothing roasts a room like a fireball, except 2 consecutive fireballs.
Now, outside of combat, there are a huge supply of utility spells. Just learn different utility spells.
Yay! --You have a dedicated blaster in your party who never runs out of those spells. Which means that now you never need to memorize Fireball ever again.
In light of this, you're going to hole up for a few weeks (i.e, Retraining) in front of your books and switch your specialization around (taking Evocation as your forbidden school) and some of your feats as well.
When you return from your tower (don't forget to shower and trim those nails!), you're a God Wizard who doesn't mess around.
I tell my players to work it out amongst themselves. Coordinate skills, spell selections, etc, or put up with their inefficiencies and stop complaining.
I feel like basically none of the people in this thread read the OP? Differentiating themselves in combat isn't the issue here, out of combat utility is the primary overlap. Which is pretty much the expected result when you put a Wizard and an Arcanist in the same party since they have the same skills and the same spells - while there's more than enough potential to differentiate two Arcane casters in combat, there's really just a select set of spells that are super useful for those out of combat scenarios.
The best thing you can do here is coordinate with the Arcanist. Talk to them when you're preparing for the day and organize who's going to take which utility spells. The overlap in skills isn't really something you can do anything about, but Monster Lore is one of those things that's crucial enough that there is absolutely no problem with double dipping on it. It's not going to hurt your party to have two people who can potentially roll high on that check, especially since you're otherwise diverse enough to have the other core skill checks covered.
We have a big group, so our niches sometimes overlap if everyone can play, but in reality only about half the group shows to our monthly games. I play one of two wizards in the party. This came after a TPK and a misunderstanding that the original wizard was still alive, and the player was able to pick him up again after I had already rolled up another wizard. I play a universalist/loremaster while the other plays a conjurer. We share spells as we find them, and coordinate our free spells each level so we can learn the most. In-combat he summons critters while I blast away. Out-of-combat, we usually have different utility spells prepared.
The real question is: Is there even a problem? Is this "overlap" actually diminishing your or the other player's fun? Do you really feel awkward, or do you think you might, or maybe that you should?
After all, desired redundancy is totally a thing. You want the tower and the flight crew to both check that everything's in order when you're sitting in a plane, don't you? So why should having two people check if an item is cursed be different?
I mean the thing about Arcanists is that they are sort of tight up on spell slots. Another thing about Arcanists is that, aside from slot limitations, they are absolutely the best blasters (you can get admixture and the orc bloodline arcana without losing caster progression).
So the Arcanist is probably going to want to save as many slots as possible for casting whatever they're going for spell perfection on (e.g. fireball). So every utility spell the arcanist needs to spend which competes with an explodey option, is one less group of baddies you can explode.
So it makes sense to sort of have the wizard specialize in doing everything else. As far as skill checks are concerned, one person shouldn't be doing all the skill checks anyway.
And then I realized we do pretty much the same thing when out of battle. When a wizard spell is needed out of combat, we have two selectives to copy that spell in his/her spellbook. When a int-based skill check is triggered, we are accustomed to ask the Wizard when the Arcanist can do just as well.Thus, I'm currently worried that the similar awkward situations might happen more frequently in the predictable future. Knowing this, I decided it's time to swap my character, but our DM, who wishes no one leaves the team, doesn't like it.
So are my worries unnecessary, or are there some solutions to this matter other than changing my character? Your opinions would be of great help to me.
If you or the arcanist are not enjoying it then it's a problem, but since this seems like a new situation you still have time to explore the dynamic.
I think this would be a great opportunity to role-play things out. Your 22-INT wizard probably gets a little bored talking to all the dullards he normally has to spend time with, but now with another smart person around he has an equal to convers/argue with.
"Do you have any tips on improving my somatic techniques for evocation spells?"
"See those birds? They're a mated pair. Did I ever tell you about my dissertation on migratory birds?"
"Do you have any cleaning tips to get this Bat Guano off my fingers? You know what, how about I leave the Fireballs to you."
And every time you and the Arcanist level up and get a new spell that the other hasn't seen before you can nerd-out at one another about your new spells.
The real question is: Is there even a problem? Is this "overlap" actually diminishing your or the other player's fun? Do you really feel awkward, or do you think you might, or maybe that you should?
After all, desired redundancy is totally a thing. You want the tower and the flight crew to both check that everything's in order when you're sitting in a plane, don't you? So why should having two people check if an item is cursed be different?
This is a good point too, a lot of wizard/arcanist spells are things that you really want someone to pass. Having 2 rolls on those skills isn't going to be terrible ...
"I'm afraid my dear collegue that THIS variety of Troll can only regenerate while in water. I think you'll find that fire has very little to do with it."
TLDR: I say ham it up and see how you enjoy playing similar characters. If you find you don't enjoy it then you can try something else, but there's plenty here to try.
(If you DO find you don't enjoy it then talk to the GM. This is a game, and if someone isn't enjoying themselves then something needs to change.)
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You know, you really missed an opportunity there MrCharisma - you should've made a "MrIntelligence" alias for that post!
"I'm afraid my dear collegue that THIS variety of Troll can only regenerate while in water. I think you'll find that fire has very little to do with it."
As long as you don't talk like those two guys in Sin City...
You know, you really missed an opportunity there MrCharisma - you should've made a "MrIntelligence" alias for that post!
Lol.
I should have, but I don't know how to change my alias =P
Mouseover "My Account" up top, klick "Account Settings", then on the left Site, under "Messageboard Aliases", there a "Create New Alias" box.
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This isn't a character problem, this is a player problem and, like most of those, can't be solved by a 'build' or anything like that. The key is to communicate, both with the other player in particular and the group as a whole.
There are lots of ways to make sure that every player gets a chance to have the spotlight. How you choose to do it doesn't really matter, and as long as everyone has a reasonable amount of social skills and is working to make sure that everyone at the table has a good time it usually insn't too difficult.
Mouseover "My Account" up top, klick "Account Settings", then on the left Site, under "Messageboard Aliases", there a "Create New Alias" box.
Elemental My dear Derklord ;)
And then I realized we do pretty much the same thing when out of battle. When a wizard spell is needed out of combat, we have two selectives to copy that spell in his/her spellbook. When a int-based skill check is triggered, we are accustomed to ask the Wizard when the Arcanist can do just as well.Thus, I'm currently worried that the similar awkward situations might happen more frequently in the predictable future. Knowing this, I decided it's time to swap my character, but our DM, who wishes no one leaves the team, doesn't like it.
So are my worries unnecessary, or are there some solutions to this matter other than changing my character? Your opinions would be of great help to me.
I’ve just finished playing Strange Aeons where two of our three-man party were a witch and a wizard/mystic theurge, and we could have had a similar problem, but got around it in a number of ways:
1. Different spell selections - for starters, my witch became the transport specialist, the wizard went heavily into summonations. We could have shared, but preferred to focus on our specialisation. Then it allowed both to memorise some weird spells, as we knew between us we could cover the essentials, and still have space for a favourite niche option (swarm skin, conjure carriage, and slave to sin for example...)
2. Different role play, with one character being sociable and empathic, the other being cold and academic. This allowed them to take different approaches to situations.
3. As a house rule, when both characters rolled a knowledge check (we both had ridiculous scores in all the knowledges), the higher was the successful check and the other the assist, so ‘the expert’ swapped between the two all the time.
Best way to avoid overlap is to take different specializations, for instance the wizard is a buffer/controller while the arcanist is a pure blaster/combat mage/utility caster... of course, some overlap in practical spells might be desirable when it comes to utility spell, so one can do them while the other is similarly treating other areas or objects, or when you want to give a given buff to the whole party.