Arcanist Needs Guide to Best Course of Action

[5w337x7007h]

I'm attempting an Arcanist, and from what I've seen, I can make a pretty effective character. My DM requests that I not make my character broken, but the stats are 4d6 drop the lowest, reroll 1s. I can reroll the whole set a max of 3 times.
My idea is to focus on conjuration as it's an amazing school. I doubt my DM will allow the archetype School Savant, so I won't try going there. Main goal is battlefield control, using metamagic. I'll also be getting Craft Wondrous Item to aid the party, maybe scribe scroll too?
I'd like to run with a familiar so I can have a wand caster sidekick, scrapping this idea for the priors if necessary.
Any help would be most appreciated on this path, as I'm not exactly sure where to go, besides boosting metamagic.

[Abd al-Azrad]

Well I'm not wholly sure what your DM considers broken, but typically, a good way to keep from getting too close to that line is to play party support - just like you're suggesting. Stay out of the spotlight, layer battlefield control, debuffs and buffs, and back off once you think your party has a good handle on things.

Quick Study, Dimensional Slide and Potent Magic are all going to be amazing options for you at lower levels. These are, respectively, your go-to options for utility (any spell you know, you can prepare as a full-round action), defense (avoid AoOs as you move) and offense (+2 DCs or CLs). I imagine these will continue to serve you well throughout your career, although I suspect the +2 DCs might start to level out eventually.

EDIT: Thinking about it, I'm not sure how much metamagic you'll need for BFC. I've been playing around with this myself, and I keep on running into weird little problems, like how most BFC doesn't require saving throws or SR. Which is great, but it invalidates most of the good metamagic, and the rest of the good metamagic applies to damage effects primarily.

Persistent Spell, Quickened Spell and Still / Silent Spell are still going to be very useful in their ways. Conjuration attacks largely ignore SR so you won't need Penetrating Spell or similar effects. Widen Spell is way too costly for its effect.

Rime Spell is quite powerful, but finding a good BFC to use it with can be a challenge. I might suggest Ice Storm - guaranteed damage, difficult terrain, and an easy way to Entangle a large number of people with no save for 4 rounds.

DAZING WALL OF FIRE. PERSISTENT DAZING WALL OF FIRE.

[Ssalarn]

The Arcanist isn't actually any more powerful than the Wizard, he just has training wheels on. Dimensional Slide, as mentioned, is a really solid low level exploit. Avoid the Counterspelling exploits, as they're actually pretty useless unless you're running into lots of 1/2 and 2/3 casters; the level restrictions of the low level iteration mean you'll probably never even get an opportunity to use it and the greater version is prohibitively expensive in resource to opportunity costs.

If you're going to go conjuration, build it basically just like you would a wizard but customize your exploits to wherever your biggest holes in the build are.

[5w337x7007h]

Great, thanks! And the benefit of not dealing with opposition schools helps.

[5w337x7007h]

Well I'm not wholly sure what your DM considers broken, but typically, a good way to keep from getting too close to that line is to play party support - just like you're suggesting. Stay out of the spotlight, layer battlefield control, debuffs and buffs, and back off once you think your party has a good handle on things.

Quick Study, Dimensional Slide and Potent Magic are all going to be amazing options for you at lower levels. These are, respectively, your go-to options for utility (any spell you know, you can prepare as a full-round action), defense (avoid AoOs as you move) and offense (+2 DCs or CLs). I imagine these will continue to serve you well throughout your career, although I suspect the +2 DCs might start to level out eventually.

EDIT: Thinking about it, I'm not sure how much metamagic you'll need for BFC. I've been playing around with this myself, and I keep on running into weird little problems, like how most BFC doesn't require saving throws or SR. Which is great, but it invalidates most of the good metamagic, and the rest of the good metamagic applies to damage effects primarily.

Persistent Spell, Quickened Spell and Still / Silent Spell are still going to be very useful in their ways. Conjuration attacks largely ignore SR so you won't need Penetrating Spell or similar effects. Widen Spell is way too costly for its effect.

Rime Spell is quite powerful, but finding a good BFC to use it with can be a challenge. I might suggest Ice Storm - guaranteed damage, difficult terrain, and an easy way to Entangle a large number of people with no save for 4 rounds.

DAZING WALL OF FIRE. PERSISTENT DAZING WALL OF FIRE.

I was honestly thinking of those core Metamagic feats, and using greater metamagic knowledge as an ability to adapt. Metamixing is most-definitely going to aid me too.