What is the benifiet of the Arcanist?

[anondragon]

Hi All,
I've been playing with the EOM system and have been really pleased with the results in game play. While an EOM evoker doesn't stand up to a non-EOM evoker all of the spell effects seem to work well with everything else.

The one thing that I've had trouble understanding was why the arcanist is a desirable class. If I understand, they exploit the ability to memorize spells. The give up 1/2 of their lists but they gain a couple of feats to help them cast spells (+2 to the check). I've looked over it again and again and all I have to say is that I don't get it. Am I missing something. It seems like the arcanist receives very little to insure that his spells don't fizzle, especially with fewer spell lists.

Thanks,
AnonDragon

 

[RangerWickett]

Looking at it now, I can't quite figure out what I was thinking. I must've mucked up a number or two in there. I mean sure, right now it's still pretty easy for a 5th level arcanist to cast any spell he wants if it's in his spellbook (D20 +7 vs. DC 16), which is a 60% chance of success, but yeah, that's not too good. Maybe the Arcanist should gain a +10 bonus instead of a +2 bonus.

That would make it impossible to fail to cast a spell you prepare (1 MP = DC 12 vs. d20 +11).

Hmm. You raise an interesting point. I need to look at this more closely.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

I saw an idea somewhere to replace the Max MP='caster level limit with Max MP=HD, and give the Mage a +1 bonus to max MP per 4 levels of some such. If you used that, would you give the Arcanist the bonus Max MP, too?

 

[RangerWickett]

Yes, the MP Limit = HD option will be part of the core rules whenever we release a full revision. You also get +1 MP Limit for every 5 levels of Mage (or Arcanist).

Here's the current arcanist changes I'm proposing.

Arcane Student: The Arcanist gains Arcane Student as a bonus feat at 1st level. If the Arcanist already has this feat, he instead gains a bonus feat from the Arcanist bonus feat list. Additionally, the Arcanist can take 10 on his caster level check to cast prepared spells or spells from spellbooks.

Arcane Mastery: The Arcanist gains Arcane Mastery as a bonus feat at 10th level. If the Arcanist already has this feat, he instead gains a bonus feat from the Arcanist bonus feat list. Most Arcanists keep multiple spell books of high-MP spells.

Additionally, the Arcanist may add his Intelligence modifier to caster level checks to cast prepared spells. Since he can take 10 when doing that, a typical 10th level arcanist (Int 18) with the arcane student feat has a +16 bonus to his caster level check, letting him safely cast 15 MP spells.



How's that look?

 

[Thomas5251212]

Yes, the MP Limit = HD option will be part of the core rules whenever we release a full revision. You also get +1 MP Limit for every 5 levels of Mage (or Arcanist).

Here's the current arcanist changes I'm proposing.

Arcane Student: The Arcanist gains Arcane Student as a bonus feat at 1st level. If the Arcanist already has this feat, he instead gains a bonus feat from the Arcanist bonus feat list. Additionally, the Arcanist can take 10 on his caster level check to cast prepared spells or spells from spellbooks.

Arcane Mastery: The Arcanist gains Arcane Mastery as a bonus feat at 10th level. If the Arcanist already has this feat, he instead gains a bonus feat from the Arcanist bonus feat list. Most Arcanists keep multiple spell books of high-MP spells.

Additionally, the Arcanist may add his Intelligence modifier to caster level checks to cast prepared spells. Since he can take 10 when doing that, a typical 10th level arcanist (Int 18) with the arcane student feat has a +16 bonus to his caster level check, letting him safely cast 15 MP spells.



How's that look?

It certainly would help; I was somewhat puzzled by why anyone would play an Arcanist as written too.

While we're on the topic, can I ask a related question?

Arcanists seem pretty heavily dependent on acquiring outside written spells; but the text on spellbooks and the like is a bit vague on how common they are.

In addition, its somewhat hard to figure out from what's written if they're whether they're either too useful or not useful at all to a routine mage. I went back over this last night but might have missed it; is there any reason for a normal mage to bother to write his Signatures in a spell book? He doesn't seem to need the books (and seems capable of putting together new Signatures in just a few minutes as far as I can tell) so why would he bother?

And if there isn't a good reason to other than to bootstrap less skilled mages, how available can one presume they'd be?

As I said, the confusion is that on one hand there doesn't seem much reason for most mages to make them; on the other hand, they're cheap to make and not clearly time consuming, and once you write them down, as far as I can tell any scribe could duplicate them.

Am I confused here somewhere?

 

[RangerWickett]

Magic's like a martial art, and a spellbook is like a martial arts training manual. Someone who knows how it works doesn't need it, but he might want to share his knowledge with others, maybe to get students, or to make money, or to spread his name.

In the core rules, buying a 9th level spell and scribing it in your own book costs 1350 gp. EOM spells aren't nearly as valuable, so I'd cost spells at 10 gp per MP, as a rough guideline.

 

[anondragon]

As written your arcanist looks pretty good. Of course there is a good
incentive to take only one level of Arcanist to get the automatic 10
on the rolls, maybe there is a way around that? A class level bonus
to spell casting. i.e. you may take 10 for any spell that uses MP
equal to or less than your class level (plus feat and class bonuses?).

 

[anondragon]

bigger picture

When I first saw the rules for memorizing spells in EOM I was pretty excited. After reading them further I discovered that they were practically useless (I did like the reading high level spells from spell books though). As written with a DC of 11+spell level it makes it difficult for any but high level mages to use this technique. And that was at the cost of devoting MP to the spell for the day.

The feats to improve this were not very impressive. How did they fair in play testing? I imagine that the threat of losing a spell would be pretty large penalty for anyone to try using them.


I've been playing with new systems for the past day, those that seem fair (ability to cast mp spells 1/2 your level with little failure and then a rapid increase) were too complex to use. But I have a small rule change that might make memorizing spells a little more worthwhile. (whether this should be a new rule, an addition to a new feat or an addition to the arcane student feat is for discussion. I favor adding it to the arcane student). The exact numbers might need to be tweaked as I haven't worked out the math (value of the cummulative penalty, max number of rounds).


Proposal:

If you fail your DC to cast the memorized spell, you may retry that roll the next round with a +2 penalty to cast the spell. A
spellcaster may attempt a number of retries on consecutive rounds equal to their intelligence bonus (if positive). The +2 penalties are cumulative for each round. If the spell caster initiates a spell and fails to cast it (by choosing to stop or by attempting the spell for a number of rounds equal to their intelligence bonus) they suffer the ill effects mentioned in the book.

Special: Due to the strain of trying to re-control the magic
threatening to break loose, the spellcaster must make concentration checks for damage taken before and during their next round.


Example: A 4th level mage, Dar, attempts to cast a 4MP spell the DC is 15. Dar rolls a 7 on his first round(a total of 11) and is now in danger of losing control of his spell. Dar chooses to try to wrestle control of the spell. As his Int is 17 he has a +3 bonus and can attempt to cast the spell for 3 more rounds. The next round, the DC is 17, Dar rolls a 10(total 14) and grimly decides to try it next round. Meanwhile he is attacked with an arrow. Dar must make a concentration check for the damage of the arrow in order to keep the spell from failing and backlashing on him. The next round the dc of the spell is 19. Dar rolls a 12 (total 16). Dar can choose to try one more round to cast the spell but he decides not to as the DC would be 21 and it would consume another round that he could use toward
another spell. At that point he takes damage as specified in the
book.


Variations: The cumulative penalty applied to the concentration check and damage received for failing to cast the spell.

The premise of this is to allow casters a way to (almost) ensure that lower power spells are cast while providing an exciting component to fighting off the possibility of a failed spell.

 

[anondragon]

Yes, the MP Limit = HD option will be part of the core rules whenever we release a full revision. You also get +1 MP Limit for every 5 levels of Mage (or Arcanist).

This is meant as a replacement for the feat that allows a caster to do this for one spell list?(sorry don't have the book with me right now) Or as a general revision to the rules on MP limit. The main problem with this is that it would invalidate a lot of the neat tricks of the 1/2 casters (godhand and longwalker) that make them able to cast higher MP spells.

As just a feat it looks very tempting to my spellcasters. An
adjustment that each feat applies this rule to (1 + intellegence
bonus) spell lists would make it look very nice.

 

[Thomas5251212]

When I first saw the rules for memorizing spells in EOM I was pretty excited. After reading them further I discovered that they were practically useless (I did like the reading high level spells from spell books though). As written with a DC of 11+spell level it makes it difficult for any but high level mages to use this technique. And that was at the cost of devoting MP to the spell for the day.

As far as I can tell, the big advantage to prepared spells is it extends your Signature capability; rather than tying up a Signature slot with a spell you'll likely need in a hurry when you need it, but probabily won't need many of, you can prepare one of them and save your Signature slots for things you may need repeatedly. For example, I can see using it to prepare a single countermagical effect if you don't expect to run into an enemy spellcaster, but want to have at least one ready if you get suprised.