Making an arcanist. Opinions on 'school understanding' if NO void school?

[Odessa333]

Looking for some feedback on this one. Void seems to be the clear winner by the pro's, the guide's, etc, but it's sourcebook isn't allowed at our DM's table. I feel like there should something else worthwhile with all those powers, right? I think the Divination 'forewarned' ability is nice, but I'm not even sure if that's allowed by school understanding as worded.

Any thoughts?

[Extra Anchovies]

The legal School Understanding choices are as follows.

Abjuration: Protective Ward
Banishment: Unstable Bonds
Counterspell: Disruption
Conjuration: Acid Dart
Creation: Create Gear
Infernal Binder: Assume Control
Teleportation: Shift
Divination: Diviner's Fortune
Foresight: Prescience
Scryer: Send Senses
Enchantment: Dazing Touch
Manipulator: Beguiling Touch
Evocation: Force Missile
Admixture: Versatile Evocation
Generation: Wind Servant
Illusion: Blinding Ray
Phantasm: Terror
Shadow: Binding Darkness
Necromancy: Power Over Undead
Necromancy: Grave Touch
Life: Share Essence
Undead: Bolster
Transmutation: Telekinetic Fist
Enhancement: Augment
Shapechange: Battleshaping
Universal: Hand of the Apprentice

Air: Lightning Flash
Earth: Acid Cloud
Fire: Fire Jet
Metal: Iron Skin
Void: Reveal Weakness
Water: Cold Blast
Wood: Splintered Spear

Of those, I'd say Protective Ward, Unstable Bonds, Disruption, Acid Dart, Assume Control, Dazing Touch, Beguiling Touch, Force Missile, Versatile Evocation, Wind Servant, Blinding Ray, Terror, Telekinetic Fist, Augment, Hand of the Apprentice, Lightning Flash, Acid Cloud, Fire Jet, Iron Skin, Cold Blast, and Splintered Spear are all not worth taking for various reasons. That leaves the following powers as maybe worth spending an exploit on.

Create Gear: Create a simple object weighing up to 1 pound per level which disappears after 1 minute, or after 1 round if it leaves your possession. Being able to call up various tools on demand is nice, especially when you don't even need access to your spellbook to do it.

Shift: Teleport 5 feet per 2 wizard levels as if using Dimension Door, as a swift action. Swift-action teleportation is awesome. Take it.

Diviner's Fortune: +1/2 level to attacks, checks, and saves is a pretty hefty buff, even if it takes your action and only lasts one round. Could be worthwhile if your allies don't already use insight bonuses.

Prescience: Roll a d20 at the start of your turn, and use it as the result of any one d20 roll you make until the start of your next turn. Use it for saves, use it for initiative, use it for everything. A definitely good choice.

Send Senses: Medium-range remote viewing or hearing for a few rounds. Not the greatest because it requires line of sight and line of effect, but it's useful for taking a close look at guarded or trapped locations.

Binding Darkness: Entangle a creature for 1 to 5 rounds (based on level), creatures gain concealment against the bound target if the target doesn't have darkvision, but the target also has concealment against other creatures without darkvision. If you have a sneak attacker with Darkvision, they will appreciate you having this power. Otherwise it's probably a bit situational, but the no-save entangle isn't something you see often.

Power Over Undead: If you want to turn or command undead, take it. If not, skip it.

Grave Touch: Render a creature shaken with a touch; it's only a few rounds, and the HD cap makes the frightening effect usually not worthwhile, but it's a no-save shaken which could be useful for fear-stacking.

Share Essence: Take 1d6+1/2 level nonlethal damage to grant another creature the same amount as temporary HP. Nonlethal damage is healed every hour, so this could help your party frontliners take a few more hits over the course of a day.

Bolster: Touch an undead creature to give it a +1 to +5 (based on level) profane bonus to attacks and saves, 1 temporary HP per HD, and +2 turn resistance for a few rounds. If you have a single powerful undead buddy, this could be worth taking to power them up in tougher fights.

Battleshaping: Take a swift action to grow a claw, bite, or gore for 1 round, with a +1 enhancement bonus per 4 levels. If you're some weird sort of melee arcanist, this could be useful.

Reveal Weakness: Standard action to apply half your caster level as a penalty to the AC and saves of a creature within 30 feet. Lasts for 1 round, but it doesn't allow a save and has no descriptors. If you have another caster in the party you can pin some nasty save-or-lose effects on even the biggest of bads.

If you're going to take only one (which I think is the limit, right?), it should be Shift, because Shift is amazing.

[Kurald Galain]

The best powers here are,

Prescience as clearly the most powerful one.
Versatile Evocation is an excellent pick for a blaster caster.
Protective Ward is a very good pre-combat buff at higher levels.
Dazing Touch is downright amazing as it gives no saving throw.
Summoner's Charm is decent on a low-level summoner, and more importantly opens up the Augment Summons line of feats.
Void schoool is great, but you already mentioned it's not allowed.


Pretty much everything else is a standard action and weaker than your actual spells, meaning that except at very low level you won't be using it ever. The problem with the shift power is that it ends your turn immediately, which sharply inhibits its usefulness. Aside from that, its range is very low. The arcanist's Dimensional Slide arcana gives a much better teleportation ability.

[Extra Anchovies]

Protective Ward is a very good pre-combat buff at higher levels.

Really? Being a 10-foot radius, it's probably not going to benefit more than one, maybe two other allies, especially if you try to stay away from melee range, and it won't stack with the deflection bonus from a Ring of Protection or the Automatic Bonus Progression.


Dazing Touch is downright amazing as it gives no saving throw.

It would be, but Paizo decided that school powers aren't allowed to be useful and added the "Creatures with more Hit Dice than your wizard level are unaffected" bit. Given that there's no way to determine an unfamiliar creature's HD without using an HD-dependent effect on them, that most monsters have HD well above their CR, and that the enemies worth spending a standard action to daze are the more powerful ones, you may well waste a standard action and end up in melee range with someone who's going to chop your arms off.


Summoner's Charm is decent on a low-level summoner, and more importantly opens up the Augment Summons line of feats.

This one's not usable 3+Int times per day, and I don't see how it meets the Spell Focus (Conjuration) requirement of Augment Summoning :smallconfused:


The problem with the shift power is that it ends your turn immediately, which sharply inhibits its usefulness. Aside from that, its range is very low. The arcanist's Dimensional Slide arcana gives a much better teleportation ability.

That's definitely a good point, I hadn't thought to check to exploit list for similar abilities. Looks like Prescience is the frontrunner.

[Kurald Galain]

This one's not usable 3+Int times per day, and I don't see how it meets the Spell Focus (Conjuration) requirement of Augment Summoning :smallconfused:
Whoops, I hadn't played a wizard in some time. Yes, those feats are based on spell focus, not on your specialty school.

[Topaz]

When I played my Arcanist my DM ruled that Shift qualified the character for the Dimensional Agility feat, which is arguably not RAI but certainly did make the ability a lot more useful!