Archivist/Alienist

[Zurai]

Thanks for the feedback so far.

I'll look into the Rapid Summoning variant, but I'm not hopeful about my chances of getting DM approval for that. What's a good substitute? Rapid Spell is a +1 metamagic; perhaps a metamagic rod?

Any suggestions for the two open feats?

 

[frankthedm]

I'll look into the Rapid Summoning variant, but I'm not hopeful about my chances of getting DM approval for that. What's a good substitute? Rapid Spell is a +1 metamagic; perhaps a metamagic rod?

What I recomened is to sit down with your DM and talk over how much the Alienist loses from his summon monster spells and suggest that giving the Alienist the Rapid Summoning as part and parcel of summoning Pseudonatural creatures may actually help the class be less of a handicap.

Alienists lose all creatures that are not fiendish or celestial from their summon monster lists. At higher level spells that is a horrific loss of power for a summoner, which the Alienst class was built around being. Many of the non templated summonable mosters have useful spell like abilties. Loosing those completely is a painful hit.

 

[Zurai]

The problem is that our current party is sixteen people. That's 16 people that show up nearly every session; there's actually more like 20-22 if you count the "occasionals"*. The DM is sticking to "by the rules" because adding in house rules with that many players gets sticky real fast.

Nonetheless, as I said, I'll talk to him about it. He can't agree if I don't ask, after all, and the worst he'll do is say "nope, I have 16 players, I can't afford to house rule all their classes". That's the response I'm expecting, though, which is why I'm looking for alternatives

I agree with you that it's perfectly fine from a mechanics/balance point of view to allow the substitution of Archivist class features for Wizard class features in the Rapid Summoning variant, I'm just not optimistic that it'll be allowed.


* - well, technically, it's 2 parties of 8, now. DM split the group into two groups last session because it was getting insane. It's an "Open D&D" game run by the owner of my FLGS, for the record.

 

[GQuail]

We have an Archivist/Alienist in our group: a player who is very fond of Call Of Cthulhu seems to have rolled up the character to sort of subvert the whole D&D game, since he's not as big a fan of D20 as the rest of them. ;-) He modelled him a bit on Giles from Buffy, gentlemanly and intellectual if a bit strange.

It is indeed a good combination, the Int/Wis split of the Archivist allowing the Wisdom losses from Alienist to not sting so much. Rather than summon just Pseudonatural critters, though, I gave him access to monsters from the D20 Call Of Cthulhu book: so sometime he brings forth a Star Vampire or a swarm of Mi-Go, rather than just "a blobby shark thing" or whatever. I find that's a lot more flavourful, and because he's already up on Cthulhu mythos it enables him to come across as appropriately "Far Realms expert"-ly. Plus, as others noted earlier, you otherwise lose access to more potent high level summons, which might sting if the game goes on for any length of time.

He also uses his Dark Knowledge (combined with ace skill points, partly due to a very high) to serve as the party's generic "what the hell is that?" guy. This allows him some small, bard-like buffing power, whilst also having a handy tool for me as the DM when players could use a hint. Combine all that with his broad spell selection (being theoretically able to pull such strange spells as Reincarnation or Lightning Bolt into his collection, from Druid and Adept respectively) and he's a funky char. His biggest flaw is HP, since his Con is awful and Alienist don't give out that many HP.

As for feat choices: my party don;t use metamagic feats all that much, although I think the player was angling towards a Sudden spell or two for the future. He's not necesarilly an "optimizing" player, so his choices here wouldn't help you that much anyway. ;-) But certainly, his main contribution to each combat is to summon critters to fight, using his spell slots to buff them: focus on getting those as useful as possible, and when stuck, Skill Focus to your most useful Dark Knowledge skill will help. (The feats that let you expand Dark Knowledge's uses to other races may be worth checking out depending on campaign)

 

[Rackhir]

The problem is that our current party is sixteen people. That's 16 people that show up nearly every session; there's actually more like 20-22 if you count the "occasionals"*. The DM is sticking to "by the rules" because adding in house rules with that many players gets sticky real fast.

Well, see what you can do to make your DM's life easier if that's the case. One big thing (especially if you are going to be a summoner) is to make sure you have cheat sheets for your potential summons, ideally with Augment Summons already added in.

Study the rules on things like flanking and AoOs, since your summons will likely be utilizing them.

 

[IanB]

Good lord, 16 people?

I would seriously reconsider playing a summoner *at all*. Combats take long enough with 4 to 6 players; going through 16 players has got to be excruciating, and I have my doubts that your fellow players will appreciate you slowing down the process by throwing a bunch of summons into the mix!

 

[Zurai]

Well, see what you can do to make your DM's life easier if that's the case. One big thing (especially if you are going to be a summoner) is to make sure you have cheat sheets for your potential summons, ideally with Augment Summons already added in.

Study the rules on things like flanking and AoOs, since your summons will likely be utilizing them.

Already done I didn't post that section of the character sheet since it's pure derivitive work. I have summons picked out from all the lists and levels I have access to, with and without the Beckon the Frozen cold subtype added in.

I would seriously reconsider playing a summoner *at all*. Combats take long enough with 4 to 6 players; going through 16 players has got to be excruciating, and I have my doubts that your fellow players will appreciate you slowing down the process by throwing a bunch of summons into the mix!

Trust me, even with a full loadout of summons, I won't be the one slowing things down. I'm the only player in the group that actually has my entire action ready before my initiative comes up. I'll just be rolling more dice ahead of time, that's all. Even if I'm forced to change my action because of shifting circumstances, I have a summoner's cheat sheet with quick stats.

 

[sckeener]

I must be the only person that views the loss as not a loss. I view from the alienist description that the pseudonatural is just swapped to the fiendish and celestial creatures. The reason the howler can't have the pseudonatural template added is because it would kick it up to the next monster summoning spell level. In my view you can still summon those creatures as long as they fit the prereq of being corporal, which all (I think) do qualify, as long as they are summoned with the next higher summon spell level.

admittedly they probably would be a weak summon since the gain is marginal, but with the right abilities it might be worth it.

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

I started making a list, but on further reading I'll just say Libris Mortis has a ton of stuff you might like. There are feats that allow you to add negative energy, fear effects, ability damage or the ability to raise dead to your damage dealing spells. There is also an entire tree of spells dealing with infecting people with living cysts that allow you to deal damage, dominate, and a number of other things. Lords of madness also has feats allowing you to gain a set of tentacles (natural weapons), gain reach, and even darkvision.


Transdimensional Spell allows you to affect incorporeal opponents normally.

For a theme, take spells that allow you to see differently, such as see invisibility or true seeing. There are a number of new spells that are old spells with a twist. Like reaving dispell. It just like dispell magic, but also does damage based on the spells undone. Bestow curse is good, too. Tounges when you get 4th level spells.

 

[Zurai]

I started making a list, but on further reading I'll just say Libris Mortis has a ton of stuff you might like. There are feats that allow you to add negative energy, fear effects, ability damage or the ability to raise dead to your damage dealing spells.

I'll definitely look into taking the Fell <foo> metamagics, thanks. Most of the other Libris Mortis feats are focused on undead, which really isn't Hugin's cup'o'tea.

For a theme, take spells that allow you to see differently, such as see invisibility or true seeing. There are a number of new spells that are old spells with a twist. Like reaving dispell. It just like dispell magic, but also does damage based on the spells undone. Bestow curse is good, too. Tounges when you get 4th level spells.

This is a neat idea that I like. I won't ever get high enough for Reaving Dispel, though - that's a 9th level spell and the campaign won't last that long. Oh, and Tongues is a 2nd level spell to an Archivist