The Arcanist

I was thinking of making a spellcaster that was sort of a mix between a Wizard and a Sorcerer.
He would get Wizard's Spells per day +1.
for example, a 1st level wizard gets 3 0th level spells and 1 1st level spell.
A 1st level Arcanist would get 4 0th level spells and 2 1st level spells.

He would gain spells as per the Wizard, except he cannot scribe spells in a spellbook.

He would cast spontaneously, but give up the wizard's bonus feats and have no familiar.

What do you guys think?

Tidus4444 said:

He would gain spells as per the Wizard [ ... ] He would cast spontaneously

Click to expand...

Way. Over. Powered.

That's the two best class features of Arcane spellcasting: Sorcerer's lack of preparation + Wizard's unlimited "arsenal" (and you even eliminated that big Wizardly issue of scribing costs).

-- N

You forgot to mention the one blaring restrictino on that: the Wizard cannot add spells to his spellbook. In my experience, this is where the Wizard gets the majority of his spells. Certainly any wizard would be foolish not to scribe 2 or 3 spells of every level of spells he has. A Wizard can theorhetically cast all the spells from a given spell level- assuming he always puts his new spells to his highest spell slot, the Arcanist will be able to cast 4 of any given level. Better than the Sorcerer, but not nearly as big as the Wizard's repitoir. Which was really what I was shooting for in this class to begin with.
You also forget the lack of feats and familiar.

EDIT: relooking over your post, I believe you may have misunderstood the way an arcanist recieves new spells. They get 2 new spells per level, like the wizard, but they cannot learn new spells through scrolls.

Ah, now I see. It's got less Spells per Day than a Sorcerer, but knows more spells.

Eh, I dunno -- very mechanically similar to Sorcerers.

Perhaps the "middle ground" would be a Wizard-like class that gains spells one level later (per the Sorcerer's progression), but can pick 1 or 2 spells at each level to spontaneously convert prepared spells into.

-- N

I think it would be better to change the spells per day and spells list instead of saying "gets two spells every level-up", for the latter will result in a very high number of 9th-level spells.

2 spells learned per level sounds fine. Just require that an arcanist may not know more spells of lv x, then of lv x-1 (i.e. if you know 3 4th level spells, you can learn no more then 3 5th level spells until the # of 4th level spells increases). At the cost of a familiar, go ahead and keep the spell level rate of increase (2nd lv spells at 3rd, 5th lv spells at 9th....). It would work - but lacking the familiar, it has less flavor then a base wizard with a pet at least. Also - wouldn't this give you the same # of castable spells per day as a specialist wizard?