Dawar’s Guide to the Arcanist

The Silver Bullet Mage

Notes: Last Revised 11/27/2015 ; List of revisions

11/19/2015: Base Guide Complete

11/20/2015: Lots of awesome feedback updates

11/23/2015: Added Archetype Combos and updated the blood arcanist.

11/27/2015: Updated Archetypes, expanded the Races section, updated feats to include Ultimate Magic and added a level 1 build for kana.

Introduction: Welcome to the Arcanist Guide! I’m sure you have plenty of questions, such as “Why am I here!?”,“Who are you!?”, and “Where’s my husband and children?!” I can help you with the first two questions. My name is Dawar and you’re most likely here to learn about the intricacies of the Arcanist. So without further ado let’s jump in!

Disclaimer: This guide is being built in tandem with running my very first Arcanist in my friends RotR campaign. That being said, this guide may feature a fair amount of theorycrafting and may need some future adjustments.

        If there is anything you notice glaringly wrong in the guide or you have opinions that differ, post it in the discussion thread.

Table of Contents

The Guide to the guide

The Arcanist

When to play an Arcanist

Class Abilities

Prepared or Spontaneous

Arcane Reservoir

Consume Spells

Roles in a Group

Archetypes

        Viable

        Not so viable

Ideal Stats

Races Under reconstruction

Skills

Exploits

Feats

General Feats

Combat Feats

Metamagic

Item Creation

Traits & Drawbacks

Equipment 1-20 Unfinished

Characters (Builds) Unfinished

Spells Unfinished

Words and You! The Arcanist and Wordcasting  Unfinished

Guide to the guide        

Since Treantmonk’s style of guides have held so strongly for so long, I will mostly be keeping to that style. There may be some slight variation here and there however. For those unfamiliar with that style here's a breakdown of the color coding:

Blue: Excellent choice, a great pick for almost any build

Green: Solid choice, a decent benefit for most builds or a good benefit to one build.

Orange: Decent choice, though not entirely optimized for most builds.

Red: Trap choice, either doesn’t work as intended or is just really bad. always avoid

Purple: This color is for unfinished sections of the guide

What is the Arcanist?

        The arcanist is an intelligence based arcane spellcaster. This means arcanists are the groups utility caster and knowledges textbook. In combat they’ll identify monsters and use that knowledge to set those baddies up for failure, all while setting up their teammates for success.

        Out of combat, arcanists are problem solvers. As a prepared casters, arcanists have a huge bag of tricks to choose from and can answer almost any problem that arises. From locked door to a stringent king to an undead dragon, they have the answer somewhere in that spellbook, hence the title “The Silver Bullet Mage.”

When to play an Arcanist

        The real answer is: whenever you want. A more appropriate question would be: When is an Arcanist a more powerful option than a Sorcerer or a Wizard? Which is a trickier question to answer.

The arcanist has a lot going for it, but it also has a lot going against it. Wizards have more spells per day and sorcerers have more spells known, and for both of those classes that’s their inferiority, not their strength. If a arcanist tries to match a sorcerer or a wizard spell per spell, they lose. So why, in the nine hells, should you even consider an arcanist.

        The answer is over both the sorcerer and the wizard they are more versatile and potentially more powerful

        An arcanist’s prime strength, is that each spell slot they use can has the potential for maximum impact. When a wizard prepares a dimensional anchor and finds no use for it, that slot is wasted. When a sorcerer learns scorching ray, that slot is wasted. But arcanists are able to change slots daily as a wizard and do it on the fly(thanks to the Quick Study exploit.) Even without the Quick Study exploit, they are still maintain a high versatility changing spells at the worst on a daily basis.  

They also gain an arcane reservoir, which makes his/her spells even more powerful, upping the caster level and the DC to boot. (Perhaps making you a solid blaster mage, perhaps.)

“But, Dawar” you may ask “What about the Exploiter Wizard?” to which I say …well

…I mean

…I guess

…

sh….SHUT UP! (no really, that Archetype makes a wizard better at what you do than you. But, you know, oh well)

Class Abilities

Prepared or Spontaneous

        One very quirky thing about the arcanist is that it’s difficult to discern whether they are a prepared spellcaster or a spontaneous spellcaster. My personal take on it is the former for the following reasons:

1) From the arcanist’s spellcasting ability:

“An arcanist must prepare her spells ahead of time, but unlike a wizard, her spells are not expended when they're cast. Instead, she can cast any spell that she has prepared consuming a spell slot of the appropriate level, assuming she hasn't yet used up her spell slots per day for that level.”

Pretty straightforward

2) While the spontaneous spell casters(Sorcerer/Oracle) and the arcanist have the same “spells known” progression list, they are actually named differently. Sorcerers have a “Spells Known” list and arcanist’s have a”Spells Prepared” list.

        So if my understanding of the rules is correct, then arcanist are considered prepared casters. This means that an arcanist may leave spell slots open in order to prepare them later, as a wizard would. Something every arcanist should keep in mind when preparing spells.

Arcane Reservoir

        An arcanist’s arcane reservoir is one the most powerful edge he/she has over his/her fellow spellcasters (except exploiter wizards, grr.) whenever you cast a spell you may spend one point from your reservoir to increase the caster level and DC of  that spell, and that’s just the most basic use of your reservoir. This ability allows you to juice your spells in even more ways through exploits (which I’ll get to in the exploits section.)  

You have access to 3 points + your level and gain back 3 + half your level a day (note that there is no minimum of one, meaning that at level one you only have 3 starting points a day, something to keep in mind when throwing points around on spells.) Note: Don’t be stupid like me and think the points roll over to the next day.

Consume Spells

        Since you will never recover enough reservoir points by resting you need another way to gain them. This is where consume spells comes in. You can sacrifice a spell level slot and gain a number of points equal to its level. This means arcanists need to keep a close eye on resource management. So they don’t run out of spells or points.

Pre-errata you could use this ability to your hearts content, now you can only use it a number of times per day equal to your charisma score modifier, yuck =(.

Roles in a Group

The arcanist can do a few things better than your average run of the mill wizard (not Exploiter Wizards though.) A few of the arcanists best roles are:

The Silver Bullet:  The namesake of this guide. With the Quick Study exploit An arcanist has the ability to change their spells on the fly, meaning that for every fight you can have just the right answer, without need for much preparation.

If you have a solid scout in your party then this role isn’t too important, and wizards will always have the edge over you. However I’ve never played in a group with a good scout or a DM who wasn’t clever enough to get around a good scout.

Blaster Mage: The Potent Magic exploit really gives you the ability to push your CL and DC’s hard, good news for blasting spells. Standard use of Dazing Spell and other metamagic feats. School Savant (Admixture) is a must have if you plan to focus in this.

Save or Die: Like with the Blaster Mage, Arcane Reservoir and Potent Magic gives you the tools to really push your spells. While this is still a mediocre choice (after all your group members should be the ones to kill things), you can do this better than most other classes.

Buffer: While I’m not saying you shouldn’t ever buff your comrades (you should), you simply don’t have the spell slots to be a fully fledged buffer. The hardcore buffing arcanist will find the average adventuring day very short indeed. Grab wands of buffs to fulfil this role better.

Summoning: To borrow a quote from another excellent guide “The default Arcanist manages to combine all the reasons wizards don’t make good summoners with all the reasons sorcerers don’t make good summoners.”  With not as many slots to cast them, and no potent ways to buff their summons, or a way to change them to a standard action arcanists are substandard compared to other casters. However even with all these deficiencies, summoning is still a powerful and versatile option and should be utilized.

Some of this changes for the Occultist archetype.

Out of combat Utility: As a prepared caster you’re the queen/king of this. When a problem arises just thumb through your spellbook.

Viable Archetypes

        The arcanist has access to some fairly powerful archetypes. So much so that I would strongly recommend picking an archetype as opposed to running just the vanilla arcanist.

Possible Archetype Combos

Unlettered Arcanist: All, except Eldritch Font and Occultist

White Mage: Brown-Fur Transmuter, Eldritch Font

Blade Adept: It’s a cute start to a gish type character, with access to the Magus’s Blackblade and Spell Strike. This build is very different from most others. for that reason, I’ll come back to do a guide for this in a later update.

Blood Arcanist: The thing that  makes this archetype really solid is that it grants the arcanist the bloodline arcana. Not many ways of getting those without dipping into sorcerer. The best bloodlines for the arcanist are Arcane (for general casters), Fey (for the enchanting types), and Orc  (For the blasting types. Don't forget to pick up School Understanding [Admixture] with this bloodline!)

The Occult Adventures book gives the arcanist an interesting option (actually the sorcerer and then by extension, the arcanist) to pick up the Psychic Bloodline. If you ever wanted to play a pseudo-wizard with the new psychic rules, this is how you do it.

        Avoid the Draconic and Elemental bloodlines. What you would want from those bloodlines can be handled by the Orc bloodline or the School Savant (Admixture School) in greater ways.

Replaces: 1st/3rd/9th/15th Exploit and Magical Supremacy

Brown-Fur Transmuter: Ever since the nerf to Consume Spells this archetype is not as good as it used to be, but it’s still fairly powerful. The real gem of this archetype is the level 9 ability that allows you to polymorph your friends.

Powerful Change: This ability is fairly useless now as a point from your reservoir is far more valuable than a +1 to hit and damage.

Share Transmutation: The reason to take this archetype. For one reservoir point you can give your friends beast shape and the like, lot’s of utility.

Transmutation Supremacy: Word of advice: when looking at classes, never care about the capstone ability. 99.92348% of campaigns never get there. That being said this is pretty okay. A bunch of buffs that at level 20, realistically, won’t matter too much.

Replaces: Exploits 3rd/9th, and Magical Supremacy

Occultist: Brings you back in league with the wizard for summoning, maybe even makes you a little better.

Planar Spells: Take that Wizard! You can never have this (unless you use a scroll.) That being said this is a powerful ability, but be careful, particularly crafty DMs can screw you over on this.

Conjuror’s Focus: Spend reservoir points to summon monster as a standard action, and it  keeps your summons in line with the wizard. Yeah keep the good stuff coming. Even though reservoir points are harder to come by now, this is still insanely good.

Planar Contact: Get a GM clue every once in awhile, not bad

Perfect Summoner: Read Transmutation Supremacy for how I feel about capstone powers. But as far as capstones go this one's friggin awesome. Still can only use one summon at a time though.

Replaces: Exploits 1st/7th, and Magical Supremacy

School Savant: Probably the most powerful arcanist archetype. gain more prepared spells from your chosen school, not to mention school powers. Teleportation, Admixture, and Foresight are the best choices.

School Focus: Gain 1 extra spell prepared at each level for the chosen school. A few things to keep in mind when you pick a school: Make sure the school has spells you want to prepare. Your spells prepared is special retail space, even more so than a normal arcanist since quick study is inaccessible to you until level 5. Also make sure you pick a school with fairly good powers like the Conjuration (Teleportation subschool,) Divination (Foresight subschool,) or Evocation (Admixture subschool.)

        Secondly prohibited schools aren’t as big a drawback for you as they are for a wizard. If a wizard prepares a spell from his prohibited list, he loses spells per day. For you on the other hand, preparing one spell from an opposed school simply sets you back to having as many spells prepared as a non-archtyped arcanist.

I would recommend prohibiting from the Abjuration, Enchantment, Illusion, or Necromancy schools. Never pick Conjuration or Transmutation as prohibited schools as they are the most useful and varied lists.

Sidenote: It seems you can pick from the elemental schools as well meaning the Void school is a viable choice, but you still have to choose 2 opposition schools (it’s unclear if the elemental schools are also applicable for prohibited schools, talk to your GM about it.)

Replaces: Exploits 1st/3rd/7th

Twilight Sage: Due to the errata nerf, this archetype became super good in comparison to the default arcanist. However I’m not sure how your party paladin will feel about you eating the souls of the fallen for power, and if you don’t have a paladin in your party CONGRATULATIONS kill to your hearts content.

Consume Life: Hell yeah, Restore reservoir points from downed enemies. Most groups remove enemies when they drop to 0 however, talk to your GM if your group does this and you want to use this class. Sadly you give up Consume spells, but since it’s bad now, whatever. Do note the HD restrictions, they can be painful for the first couple of levels (but get progressively easier.)

Necromantic Focus: This is supposed to be a “drawback.” It’s not hard to find one good necromancy spell to prepare each day.

Twilight Barrier: Now this is a drawback. I guess it’s a good backup if combat comes to you, but it’s essentially a wasted exploit.

Twilight Transfer: With this and the Dimensional Slide exploit, you can be really handy in a pinch. Just make sure your B.S.F. friends don’t overkill anything on the battlefield.

Death’s Release: Never plan on dying, but this is a cute ability if you do.

Replaces: Consume Spells, Exploits 1st/11th, and Magical Supremacy

Unlettered Arcanist: Cool concept, poor execution. less powerful than the normal arcanist, but the witch spell list isn’t so bad and hey, free familiar!

Familiar: You got a free familiar, good on you.

Witch Spells: An alright list of spells, Sorcerer/Wizard spells are better however.

Replaces: Spellbooks, and alters Spells

Not so Viable Archetypes

These are archetypes that fell short of the mark for the arcanist. They’re either worse than the  vanilla arcanist or offer nothing redeemable for what they take.

Eldritch Font: NO! BAD! AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE! (real review: giving up spell slots is not great for the arcanist, one of the few 9th level caster classes that already has the smallest amount of spells per-day. The archetype gives no redeemable reason for the trade off.)

Elemental Master: Underwhelming to say the least. It forces you to choose one of the arcanists worst blasting exploits and let’s you prepare more spells from a very restrictive list. The School Savant beats this in every way.

Spell Specialist: Again really underwhelming. It forces you to wed one of your spells prepared to a new spell at each new spell level, restricting the arcanist’s already too small spell list even further. Would be better if the archetype gave your favored spells more power, but as is it’s just meh.

White Mage: Cure spells become outdated very quickly, after level 3 using them in combat should be restricted to healing fallen comrades, so they don’t die of bleeding out. And at that level the arcanist should have a wand of CLW and an awesome UMD score. Using the already limited amount of reservoir points AND a spell slot is a high price to pay just to heal xd8+x points of damage. I don’t really see it as worth it. Breath of life is a neat bonus, but a scroll and UMD accomplishes the same for less.

        If you really want Cure spells on your list consider the Unlettered Arcanist archetype.

Stats

        Now to the grime and grit of the guide, numbers.

Strength: Dump stat, unless your DM is exceptionally harsh on carrying capacity.

Dexterity: You need to go first, and to not get hit, and to hit with your ranged touch attacks.

Constitution: More HP and Fortitude means less dying, and that’s a good thing

Intelligence: Main stat, push to 18

Wisdom: Don’t need it, but it does govern will saves so, maybe don’t dump it.

Charisma: This is either a 14 or a dump, there is no difference between a 13 and a 7 for an arcanist. For most arcanists it’s ideal to dump this.

Intelligence Build

10-Point Buy

str-7, dex-13, con-12, int 18, wis-7, cha-7

15-Point Buy

str-7, dex-14, con-13, int 18, wis-8, cha-7

20-Point Buy

str-7, dex-14, con-14, int 18, wis-11, cha-7

Intelligence/Charisma Build

10-Point Buy - It isn’t really possible to do an effective charisma arcanist on a 10 point buy

15-Point Buy

str-7, dex-11, con-10, int 18, wis-7, cha-14

20-Point Buy

str-7, dex-12, con-12, int 18, wis-8, cha-14

//Future Update: I’ll explain when the Intelligence/charisma build  is more appropriate over a straight intelligence build//

Races

        Note: This is being changed

Core

Dwarf: Only a bonus to the arcanist’s tertiary stat and a minus in a stat they might care about, pass

Elf: Elves are so cool they get their own Guide!

Gnome: Being small is a nice bonus, however Gnomes don’t give int so it’s pretty sub-optimal

Half-Elf: +2 in any stat is a great boon, not much else stands out for the half-elf though. If you want Eldritch Heritage down the line then their free Skill Focus is a solid boon.

Halfling: If only they gave +2 to int they could be blue. Maybe consider them as a charisma arcanist as they have some solid defenses.

Half-Orc: Gives the arcanist a bit more survivability with orc ferocity or raplace that with sacred tattoo for a +1 to all saves.

Human: The variety of humans causes them to get their own Guide.

Featured

Aasimar(Peri-Blooded): You want peri-blooded here, makes a really solid Int/Cha arcanist and you get some nice resistances on the side. On a side note I kind of hate Aasimar, only because they have no minus to their ability scores. They’re just too perfect, bleck.

Dhampir(Jiang-Shi,Vetala): The biggest issue of about the dhampir is that positive energy harms them. Infernal Healing get’s around any need for healing up, so make sure you keep that spell prepared for the first couple of levels. Also Make sure to pick up the Dayborn alternate trait (I know, I know, you give up your super awesome SLA’s that break the game, but I promise you it’s worth it.)

Jiang-Shi: Really solid options for the arcanist. +2 int, darkvision and you get to be the descendant of a dark, brooding, bunny hopping ancestor! (Look it up.)

Velata: +2 to the most needed stats. Also the concept of the velata seems to really connect with the idea of the arcanist.

Kobold: These guys are kindof the underdogs of all D&D (and by extension Pathfinder) and I have a lot of sympathy for them, sadly they don’t have anything going on that would make them great arcanists.

Ratfolk: +2 int and small size, pretty good

Sylph: +2 to the most needed abilities, trade out Air-Affinity for anything else.

Tiefling(core): Being too cool for just one paragraph, Tieflings get their own Guide.

Uncommon

Android: I love this class with the android. It serves to make this race feel even more alien. On the mechanics side +2 to stats you need and -2  a stat you might not care about is great. Not  to mention pseudo-construct benefits.

Changeling(Witchborn):

Kitsune:

Samsaran: Guide

Lashunta(Either): Females are great for Int/Cha builds, while with the Males you can fully dump strength safely.

Vanara: Normally I would never consider a race without a +2 int, however this race has prehensile tail a powerful tool for the would be mage. This makes it the only non +2 int race I’d rate above orange (note:tieflings also have prehensile tail and a +2 int.)

Wayang: +2 int, +2 perception, small size, AND darkvision! not too shabby.

Skills

        You only gain 2 skill points a level, however being an int based class means you get a lot more. Pick 3 knowledges to max and make sure you put at least one point in each.

Appraise: Never used it in 10 years of playing 3.5 & Pathfinder

Craft: Personally never used it

Fly: Make sure you you put at least 1 point into this before you cast Fly

Knowledge: Grab more than a few. Use it in combat to identify baddies and win fights. Use out of combat learn all you can to progress the plot (and learn things to defeat baddies and win fights)

Arcana: Your number one skill, max out always

Dungeoneering: Useful for identifying aberrations and the like.

Engineering: Only applicable in the Iron Gods campaign

Geography: Never seen it used, ever

History: A fun skill to learn about the story (and possibly gain some insight to future encounters.)

Local: There are a lot of important humanoids in most campaigns, and generally The BBEG belongs to this category. Used for important plot points as well.

Nature:  One of the big 4 knowledges, have at least 1 point in it.

Nobility: What do you learn from this that you can’t with local

Planes: You’ll fight more than a handful of extraplanar enemies max it

Religion: Undead be everywhere so learn to fight ‘em, even if you have a cleric or oracle in the group you probably want to max this.

Linguistics: Has some fun role-playing aspects (forging documents and the like) otherwise get a wand of comprehend languages when you need it.

(Cross Class)Perception: The god stat. keep it maxed if you plan to get a familiar, otherwise it can be safely left to your party wisdom using character/investigator.

Profession: Your profession is adventuring, you make a lot more money doing it

Spellcraft: Required for the coveted Spell Perfection feat

Use Magic Device: Considered the best skill after perception. Consider picking up the Pragmatic Activator or Clever Wordplay trait if you dumped charisma.

Exploits

        Your version of [insert class here] talents. Sadly a lot of these could have been something but we’re never fixed to be something useful from the playtest. Weirdly enough the normal exploits, as a whole, are much better than the greater exploits. So don’t be afraid to pick up the normal exploits after you gain  access to the greater ones.

Acid Jet (Su): All of these are terrible, the damage is pitiful, especially now that reservoir points are at a premium.

Altered Shifting (Su): Makes polymorphing more versatile, but costs a reservoir point, and shortens the duration. If you like to cast whatever Shape spells make sure to grab this. Ever since the nerf though these abilities sadly got worse =(...

Arcane Barrier (Su): A cute little bubble to protect the less courageous of arcanists and an exploit tax for the Twilight Sages

Arcane Weapon (Su): Might have been okay if the duration wasn’t based on charisma and reservoir points were easier to come by.

Bloodline Development: It seems like paizo really want’s to hate hard on the sorcerer part of this class.

Consume Magic Items (Su): I thought this was bad pre-nerf, now it’s super terrible. In all fairness though I’ve always hated spending gold on class abilities, so maybe I’m just biased.

Counterspell (Su): This is an interesting ability, I’m not convinced of it’s usefulness however. In most cases, that extra spell slot would go alot further just using your own spells

Dimensional Slide (Su): Teleport 10 feet a level, pure awesomeness. Doesn’t provoke AoO’s and you get to ignore difficult terrain AND you can just vertically. Too many good uses.

Energy Shield (Su): Would be nice if you could give this to others. you shouldn’t be in the line of fire often enough to get a good use out of this.

Face Thief (Su): Get a Hat of Disguise instead, it’s a cool item and it’s cheap.

Familiar (Su): Extra actions and crazy bonuses!? what’s not to love? I’ll do a more in-depth guide for familiars for the arcanist, but for now just search the paizo forums, you'll find a wealth of information on the subject.

Flame Arc (Su): Read Acid Jet

Force Strike (Su): (To be updated)

Ice Missiles (Su): Read Acid Jet

Illusion Catcher (Su): Cool idea, poor execution. If you run into a lot of illusions this might be orange.

Item Crafting: Trade your exploits for crafting. This is a good way to be a team player, just grab the abilities that make you an effective arcanist first.

Lightning Lance (Su): Read Acid Jet

Metamagic Knowledge: Metamagic feats! my favorite! Take this so you can qualify for the the best greater exploit. note: Oddly enough,  you can only take this exploit once.

Metamixing (Su): Let’s you metamagic your metamagic(magiception), adds a whole new layer of versatility to your repertoire. Too bad it costs a reservoir point to activate.

Potent Magic (Su): Makes spending reservoir points to increase CL and DC even better. Should be your first exploit, especially if you plan to be a blaster mage.

Quick Study (Su): The two best arcanist exploits are right next to each other (I’m going to be  heartbroken when they print an exploit with a name in between the two.) This lets you switch out one of your prepared spells for another. This means if you need an answer to a fight, you can get it. This makes you more Batman than a wizard will ever be. It takes a full round action and a reservoir point, so don’t plan to use it all the time. Make sure to keep that spellbook nice and stocked with fringe use spells.

School Understanding: Only use this to get the Void school power, which is based off of caster level instead of wizard level. For everything else just go School Savant archetype.

See Magic (Su): You can already do most of this, FOR FREE.

Shadow Veil (Su): Concealment is awesome, the duration however isn’t

Shift Caster (Su): Natural Spell for arcane casters. Must have for Brown-Fur Transmuters. Would be blue if you didn’t need to spend a reservoir point.

Sonic Blast (Su): (To be updated)

Spell Disruption (Su): Has to be an ongoing effect and can only target one person, limited to say the least.

Spell Resistance (Su): Would be awesome if it had any sort of duration, but since it doesn’t it’s trash =(.

Spell Tinkerer (Su): Spend a reservoice point to retroactively apply an extend spell(or reverse extend spell) effect.

Swift Consume (Ex): Pre-nerf this was blue, but since Consume spells is rarer to use now it’s green, but more actions per turn are always good (and it’s easy to just uses Consume Spell in-between combats.)

Third Eye (Su):  No

Greater Exploits(links to the full list)

Alter Enhancements (Su): An interesting trick to do on your main fighters weapon before a fight, but other than that pretty useless.

Burning Flame (Su): You can now spend 2 reservoir points on a terrible ability now, yay!

Counter Drain (Su): A must have for counter arcanist’s, however I don’t see countering as a solid plan.

Dancing Electricity (Su): See Burning Flame

Energy Absorption (Su): This lets you take damage to power abilities you shouldn’t be using, pass

Greater Counterspell (Su): Makes countering somewhat viable, just be prepared to run out of spells a lot faster

Greater Metamagic Knowledge: The best greater exploit. grab this at level 11.

Greater Spell Resistance (Su): Greater resistance, still terrible duration

Greater Spell Disruption (Su): Just prepare dispel magic

Icy Tomb (Su): See Burning Flame (p.s. why not just use Rime Spell?)

Lingering Acid (Su): See Burning Flame

Redirect Spell (Su): A standard action to take control of a spell that’s already in effect. By the time you use this ability most spells already have done their damage, you’re better off just casting your own spells for the turn.

Resistance Drain (Su): Would be cool if the arcanist’s spell resistance exploit wasn’t terrible

Siphon Spell (Su): The numbers are always against you on this ability, and it requires your to use bad exploits

Spell Thief (Su): Would of have been an interesting ability if you could steal permanent or personal spells or if you could steal mind control from the fighter and you receive a saving throw. But since you can’t do any of those things with this ability it’s pretty terrible.

Suffering Knowledge (Su): Would be nice if this actually stopped the spell from affecting you, and since planing to fail saves at level 11+ is a really bad plan, you should pass on this

Feats

General Feats

Aberrant Tumor: Slightly better than the average familiar, and a solid way to gross out your fellow party member. Based on class level not sorcerer level, sadly the aberrant bloodline sucks.

Additional Traits: Usually you're too feat starved to take this, but if you can find space there are some really nice traits

Ametuer Investigator: Welcome to ameture hour! No really…

Animal Soul: Keeping this tabbed in case the arcanist gains the ability to gain an animal companion

Augment Summoning: Your first step in polluting the battlefield with bodies. Good on you!

Believer's Boon: You know, all of this nerf is getting annoying.

Blighted Critical/Greater Blighted Critical/Blighted Critical Mastery: You’re not going to be scoring too many crits with your spells, considering they have to be a touch spell and only crit on a 20.

Combat Casting: Sometimes combat comes to you and you need to deal with it.

Create Sanguine Elixir: Once per day you get to give up your use of one of your bloodline powers so someone else can use it for one round, oh and it costs 100 GP to make. yay…

Detect Expertise: Anything you want to detect with this will make it’s save

Disable Dweomer: A weird ability, if it was faster and at range maybe it would be worth it.

Die for Your Master: After a point the damage monsters deal will exceed whatever reflex save your familiar has, and replacing it is an ordeal.

Eldritch Heritage(Improved, Greater): If you have the charisma you should probably pick this up. Arcane is the obvious choice here, but there are other good bloodlines.

Eschew Materials: Most decent DMs don’t care what you carry around in your spell pouch, this feat is for those other DMs.

Esoteric Linguistics: Would’ve been cool if this straight up replaced UMD for more than just scrolls, gods know the linguistics skill could use the love. If your really want Int to UMD then just take the Pragmatic Activator trait instead.

Evolved Companion: See Animal Soul

Evolved Familiar: You can give your familiar +8 to UMD which is generally overkill or Scent for better perception (if it doesn’t have it already)

Evolved Summon Monster: This is solid if you like to just summon one big guy with your summon spells. Sadly no pounce or reach since the nerf =(

Expanded Preparation: UHG NERFSSS!!!!! Only gives you more spells prepared, which is decent and all, but you really need more spells per day, my friend.

Extra Summons: Sadly doesn’t work for Occultists the way it does for Summoners

Favored Enemy Spellcasting: Cool in certain types of campaigns I guess, but Spell Focus will always be better.

Great Fortitude: At high levels, a fortitude save is a matter of life and death.

Improved Familiar: Familiars are cool, they're even cooler when improved!

Iron Will: We have a tendency to dump wisdom, this can help make up for it.

Leadership: The God feat, check out -------- guides to figure out what your doing. Check with your DM to see if this feat is allowed first!

Lunging Spell Touch: It’s rarely ever worth it to get this close, but if you plan to, grab this feat.

Manifested Blood: Not worth a feat, and your charisma shouldn’t be high enough to make it last long enough.

Nature Magic: Well this is...cute. Useful for really in depth campaigns, but most of the people playing those are still playing AD&D...sooo eh

Orator: Wow this actually makes linguistics somewhat solid. This just lets you straight up replace all social skills with linguistics, requires Skill Focus though =/

Sacred Summons: If you can get an Aura as a class feature this is a must have for summoning arcanists.

Skeletal Summoner: Terrible option, true necromancers use necromancy not conjuration

Skill focus: This helps you qualify for Eldritch Heritage. If you’re a human grab the focused study racial trait, and pick up Skill Focus(UMD) later on for free.

Sorcerous Bloodstrike: You’re not the one laying down creatures often. But if you do pull this off there are some really nice bloodline powers with uses per day.

Spell Focus(Greater): Take this to qualify for Augment Summoning, otherwise this is decent if you’re focusing on save or suck. With greater it’s mostly redundant by that point.

Spell Bluff: If your DM likes to turn up the jerk level in games then maybe consider this.

Spell Perfection: Almost always a caster's lvl 15 feat pick. A free metamagic to your favorite spell is a powerful tool.

Spell Specialization(Greater): Auto pick for blaster arcanists at lower levels. at higher levels the extra damage is pretty underwhelming, past lvl 13 feel free to retrain it out if your GM allows. Greater is fairly underwhelming for you, because of the way you prepare spells; Just pick up expanded preparation, as it does the same thing with more options

Spontaneous Metafocus: Arcanists can’t pick this, as they are not spontaneous casters

Superior Summoning: An occultist must have, arcanists with augment summoning should pick this up too.

Steadfast Personality: Your charisma usually isn’t be high enough to make this good enough, Iron Will is almost always be better.

Spell Mastery: KEEP THAT BOOK SAFE, YOU HEAR ME!

Spell Penetration & Greater: Making your CL check matters at high levels, these can be reasonably ignored until 8-11th level.

Toughness: More HP is always good, grab this at level one for the maximum benefit.

Undead Master: A solid boost to the arcanist’s necromantic prowess, though it is a bit underwhelming

Voice of Sibyl: Just take Skill Focus for the one you really want

Combat Feats

Arcane Armor Training & Mastery: Traps, your swift action becomes too valuable later on in the game.

Arcane Strike: Get out of combat

Barroom Brawler: No

Combat Expertise: It’s strange, I’ve never once seen this suggested as optimisation for spellcasters, but since you’re never attacking (or at least you shouldn’t be) this feat translates into a raw AC bonus with no negatives. So unless I’m missing something, I think this is at least a decent choice.

Dodge: If you really need to push that AC (which you shouldn’t)

Improved Initiative: I’d say 9/10, take this at level one. Going first is far more important for spellcasters than ANY. OTHER. CLASS.

Riving Strike: This isn’t for you. If a magus or bard in your group takes this, it can make for some solid set ups against BBEG.

Metamagic

        Do to the strange way arcanist’s work, you may use metamagic feats either by preparing them with your other spells (as a wizard) or spontaneously (as a sorcerer,) adhering rules of each. The metamixing exploit let’s you take this a step further and add metamagic feats to a prepared metamagic spell (which normally, you can’t do.)

It’s usually wiser to prepare spells un-metamagic-ed  and add metamagic to them later (unless you have the Metamixing exploit,) however if you know you’re always going to be using that spell with a metamagic feat (for example Dazing Spell Fireball,) then by all means, prepare it.

Burning Spell: A pitiful amount of damage for a very precious spell slot

Concussive Spell: This spell the afflicts some nasty debuffs with no save. If you can find a sonic spell with a decent area pick this up. +2 spell level seems like a fair trade

Dazing Spell: Oh fireball, what a beautiful monstrosity you have become.

Echoing Spell: the price is way too high

Empower Spell: +2 spell levels is harsh, but could be justified.

Enlarge Spell: Hitting from further away is a valuable tool for you, though the use of a valuable high spell slot hurts.

Extend Spell: You shouldn’t be buffing too often, but this is useful for the times you do.

Flaring Spell: Lot’s of meh, -1 to attack rolls and perception isn’t anything to write home about, even if there’s no save.

Heighten Spell: Useful if you really need to push a DC and some spell level shenanigans, otherwise pass.

Maximize Spell: Not useful enough to justify a slot 3 levels higher

Piercing Spell

Quicken Spell: The true God of the metamagics, action economy efficiency.

Rime Spell

Silent Spell: Could be cool in RP heavy campaigns but for everyday use...eh

Still Spell: Grapples suck, this makes them suck a little less

Thanatopic Spell: Increases the amount of things that necromancy spells can target. A must have for necromancers in AP’s with lots of undead (like Carrion Crown.)

Threnodic Spell: Another Carrion Crown staple, this let’s you use your enchantment spells against undead.

Toppling Spell: Not too bad against large groups of creatures

Widen Spell: Useful in campaigns against armies, other than that it’s generally overkill

Item Creation

        Treantmonk equated Item Creation feats to trading away feat slots for gold and I don’t necessarily disagree. There useful if your GM is a hardass on getting certain items though.

        Note: N. Jolly brought this to my attention, it’s important to note that according to the Ultimate Campaign book that having an item creation feat should increase your character's wealth per level by 25% (up to a 50% max.) This can be a really solid boon, as 50% extra is a lot of gold.

Brew Potion: You have access to the best spell list in the game, therefore you make the best potions/wands/scrolls.

Craft Magic Arms and Armor: Your B.S.F. friends will love you for this (and ensure their loyalty and obedience.)

Craft Rod: You love rods! especially metamagic ones.

Craft Staff: Most staffs are on the super expensive side, crafting multiple takes too long to reasonably consider for the standard campaign.

Craft Wand: See Brew Potion

Craft Wondrous Item: The best item creation feat, lets you make a wide range of items and you will be using a lot of them.

Forge Ring: Rings aren’t nearly as powerful or varied as the other magic items you could make

Scribe Scroll: See Brew Potion

Traits

        As per the rules of traits you may only select two traits and only one trait of any given category. So choose wisely.

Combat

Deft Dodger: +1 Reflex, less important than fort or will, but still important

Reactionary: The goto combat trait for all not fighters

Resilient: +1 Fortitude

Faith

Ease of Faith: Diplomacy as a class skill. for arcanists who want more screen time and cha isn’t a dump stat, or if you took clever wordplay

Indomitable Faith: +1 Will saves if you dumped wisdom

Irrepressible: Useful for charisma arcanists that dumped wisdom

Unnatural Presence: for those who took Bruising Intellect, now you can terrify puppies!

Magic

Desperate Focus: Making a concentration checks is often a matter of life or death

Focused Mind: See above

Gifted Adept: +1 CL on one spell, take magical lineage instead

Hedge Magician: Mostly for cohorts

Magical Knack: A must have for those Bladebound arcanists

Magical Lineage: If your want to push fireball, this is how you do it.

Pragmatic Activator: Int to UMD, super useful if you dumped cha

Two World Magic: You already have access to most of the best Cantrips, but I guess create water has it’s uses.

Social

Adopted: Awesome trait, look at the racial section for what to pick

Bruising Intellect: You have the int for it. If you want to have more influence on the social side of the game, this is a good way to do it

Clever Wordplay: Grab this for UMD if you wanted to use your magic trait slot for one of those other awesome traits.

Campaign

As a rule of thumb, most campaign traits are really good. I’ll come back to these much, much later and talk about how an arcanist would fit into different adventure paths as well.

Racial

Human - Auspicious Tattoo: Take if you want a sweet tattoo. Otherwise take carefully hidden, it’s better in every way

Human - Carefully Hidden: +1 Will and other goodies

Human - World Traveler: If you want diplomacy as a human, grab this trait

Tiefling - Dark Magic Affinity: Makes a Tiefling Occultist fairly powerful (and super cool) and summoning at level one feasible

Half Elf - Elven Reflexes: As good as Reactionary and doesn’t use the combat trait slot

Elf - forlorn: +1 fortitude

Elf - Warrior of Old: It’s Reactionary in a racial trait slot, yay!

Regional(This list is rather large, I’ll get back to it at a later date)

Religion(This list is rather large, I’ll get back to it at a later date)

Equipment

Extremely Fashionable: If you want social screen time this is a solid approach, and it only takes up an equipment trait slot. You should usually gain the +1 benefit, considering you should be avoiding melee combat like the plague.

Heirloom Weapon: For the Bards and rogues, not you.

Improvisational Equipment: You Mcguyver with spells, not equipment.

Iron Liver: Poisons are rare, and you shouldn’t be drinking in a combat zone (Remember kids don’t drink and cast spells.)

Power of Suggestion: Hilarious for dicking with NPCs, not much use otherwise. Leave this to the Kitsune Rogue.

Prehensile Whip

Quick Learner: No...no…

Rough and Ready: Cute for NPCs not adventurers

Stage Magic: Waste perfectly good items on a skill that doesn’t matter, yay…

Stealthy Escape: You should have a spell for this

Equipment 1-20(To be filled out later)

Characters

        Here are some characters that highlight the strengths of the arcanist. Feel free to take these characters into your own games or modify them as you see fit.

Kana - TN Human School Savant (Admixture)

Kana used to study in a highly respected school in cheliax, however one too many arguments with her masters over proper spellcasting techniques saw her expelled. It was probably the leveled 2nd floor of the observatory that did it. Fleeing the city as fast as she could, kana now lives her life as a merc for hire.

20 Point-Buy: str-7, dex-16, con-14, int-20, wis-7, cha-7

Builds: Level 1, Level 7, Level 15

Edrin - LN Tiefling Occultist

For Edrin the call of evil was always strong. She always managed to resist however, though just barely. Her taint has always been a point of shame for her, and was only heightened by how she was treated by others. Over time Edrin discovered her natural talent for calling and binding demons and devils. Repulsed at first, an idea eventually dawned on her. What if she could use this power to aid the cause of justice, sacrifice evil to evil instead of good. To this day she practices her art, always at the brink of tipping over to the dark side.

20 Point-Buy: str-7, dex-18, con-14, int: 20, wis-7, cha-5

Builds: level 1, level 7, level 15

Zafrien - CE Elf Twilight Sage

Zafrien was always been a vain man, obsessed with youth and immortality, specifically his. Capricious, even by elven standards, he does what he pleases without adherence to anyone but himself. He travels with a group of adventurers who are fairly indiscriminate in what they are sent to kill.

20 Point-Buy: str-7, dex-16, con-9, int-20, wis-7, cha-14

Builds: level 1, level 7, level 15

Spells(There are a lot of spells to go over, this will take time)

0-Level Spells

Abjuration

Resistance

Conjuration

Acid Splash

Drench

Divination

Detect Magic

Detect Poison

Read Magic

Enchantment

Daze

Evocation

Breeze

Dancing Lights

Flare

Light

Penumbra

Ray of Frost

Scoop

Spark

Illusion

Ghost Sound

Haunted Fey Aspect

Necromancy

Bleed

Disrupt Undead

Touch of Fatigue

Transmutation

Jolt

Mage Hand

Mending

Message

Open/Close

Root

Universal

Arcane Mark

Prestidigitation

-Level Spells

Abjuration

Conjuration

Divination

Enchantment

Evocation

Illusion

Necromancy

Transmutation

Universal

Words and You! the Arcanist and Wordcasting