Help me build my Archivist!

[Wolfswift]

So my group is preparing to start a 3.5 version of the Birthright setting. I decided I wanted to make a divine caster I am referring to as a Holymancer, a divine spell caster focused on holy judgement, fire and light and so forth. I had been planning to build this character for a future Pathfinder game as an Oracle of the Solar mystery, but I decided to try this out in 3.5.

I settled on Archivist because I like intelligent characters and they are capable of having a very wide array of divine spells available to them. I've decided on a Gray Elf as the race for intelligence, favoring the pale golden hair and violet eyes for a holy look.

I rolled pretty good stats, 18, 17, 16, 16, 15, 11, I was putting the 11 in strength as I figure as a casting focused character I wouldn't melee much. But now I'm up to feats and spells and am feeling a lot overwhelmed. I know I want fire and light attack spells, I was considering Spell Focus (evocation) but I'm not sure. Any suggestions?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Two classes leap to mind for fixing the losses going from cleric to archivist; sovereign speaker from faiths of Eberron will get you some domains, assuming you can use it, and sacred exorcist from complete divine to makeup turn undead. If sovereign speaker is out because of its admittedly close ties to its setting they contemplative is a weaker version of the same from complete divine. These are useful for getting into common cleric PrCs.

That out of the way, the cleric Handbook is floating around this forum somewhere, at least in link form, so searching that out should be your first step.

[Wolfswift]

Ah, I didn't really have much plans to bother with multi classing or prestige classes much, I don't miss turn undead or domains too much, an archivist can learn domain spells anyhow if they're on a divine scroll. I just mostly want help deciding on feats and spells to go with my holy judgement, fire and light offense casting idea.

[Anthrowhale]

One minor thought: as an archivist you can wear heavy armor, unlike a wizard. As such, you might consider having a modestly large strength and investing in armor, at least if you are starting out at first level.

'holy judgement' sounds quite a bit like turning which does make Sacred Exorcist seem reasonable. You might also look into Church Inquisitor.

W.r.t. fire, you should invest in Searing Spell which make fire bypass fire immunity. You'll generally want to invest in metamagic reduction to inflict serious fire damage. The most relevant way to achieve this is via Dweomerkeeper 10 at character level 15 which can be qualified with by worshiping a deity with Spell and Magic then taking Church Inquisitor at level 4 and using Substitute Domain to get access to the Magic Domain and the ability to cast arcane spells via Anyspell (on the Spell domain). Dweomerkeeper also has Supernatural Spell which you could get by level 9 and could be thought of as a form of 'holy judgement' since it creates undispellable and unresistable spell effects.

The real trick with fire is doing sufficient damage to be relevant. It's possible, but you'll need to play with metamagic reducers to succeed. If you can get southern magician or Alternative Source Spell, then you can qualify for Arcane Thesis which is a huge help in metamagic cost reduction.

Offensive use of light is typically focused on blinding effects with Celestial Brilliance, (Greater) Luminous Armor, and Blinding Glory really standing out to me.

One other thought is that another way to get at this concept (holy light/fire smart) is via Wizard 7/Sacred Exorcist 1/Silver Pyromancer <n>.

[flappeercraft]

Actually as an Archivist you will eventually get access to Divine Power so you shouldn’t dump strength since you could melee pretty well.

Also a personal preference of mine is to use Lesser Tiefling over Grey Elf. You get +2 Int, +2 Dex and -2 Cha rather than the hit to Con and Str. Also you don’t get the LA of being a normal tiefling.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Ah, I didn't really have much plans to bother with multi classing or prestige classes much, I don't miss turn undead or domains too much, an archivist can learn domain spells anyhow if they're on a divine scroll. I just mostly want help deciding on feats and spells to go with my holy judgement, fire and light offense casting idea.

That does simplify matters. The cleric, druid, and other divine caster handbooks all have sections on spell and feat selection. If you want to do the blaster thing, the mailman build guide has some useful metamagic advice.

[lolcat]

Playing an Archivist follower of Lathander currently myself (God of Light and Life), i have found that the Feat "Initiate of Lathander" gives me tons of flexibility since it lets you cast all spells with the light descriptor spontaneously.
Only hiccup: The prerequisites would demand you be a cleric, which was hand-waived by my DM but might not be by yours.

(also, if you get to have this feat, you technically also qualify for Versatile Spellcaster, which is very good.)

[Anthrowhale]

Playing an Archivist follower of Lathander currently myself (God of Light and Life), i have found that the Feat "Initiate of Lathander" gives me tons of flexibility since it lets you cast all spells with the light descriptor spontaneously.
Only hiccup: The prerequisites would demand you be a cleric, which was hand-waived by my DM but might not be by yours.

(also, if you get to have this feat, you technically also qualify for Versatile Spellcaster, which is very good.)

Being able to spontaneously cast all light spells is on your list (= all cleric spells + all divine spells you scribe) is pretty awesome.

An Archivist should be able to legally qualify for Initiate of Lathander by taking a level of Morninglord of Lathander using the revision to initiate feat qualifications in Dragon Magic(?).

[ColorBlindNinja]

Two questions for the OP:

1. Is your DM allowing Dragonlance material? If yes, pick up the feat Academic Priest, ASAP. It allows you to get bonus spells based on your INT instead of your WIS.

2. How easy will it be to find scrolls of the spells you want? If your DM frowns on magic mart, you might not want to play an Archivist, since they depend on access to magic items.

[Wolfswift]

Actually as an Archivist you will eventually get access to Divine Power so you shouldn’t dump strength since you could melee pretty well.

Also a personal preference of mine is to use Lesser Tiefling over Grey Elf. You get +2 Int, +2 Dex and -2 Cha rather than the hit to Con and Str. Also you don’t get the LA of being a normal tiefling.

I'm fine not really going into melee. And I specifically avoided Lesser Tiefling because while the antithesis might be interesting, I was really going for a holy sort of vibe, much more celestial, Tieflings are fiendish, I had been considering Lesser Aasimar when I had been considering Cleric previously. With a golden haired Gray Elf, I can kind of play him up like he's almost Aasimar like.


That does simplify matters. The cleric, druid, and other divine caster handbooks all have sections on spell and feat selection. If you want to do the blaster thing, the mailman build guide has some useful metamagic advice.

I will look into those, I forgot about handbooks and wasn't thinking Cleric ones would help me anyhow, but you're right, that is a good option and I will look into them, thank you.


Playing an Archivist follower of Lathander currently myself (God of Light and Life), i have found that the Feat "Initiate of Lathander" gives me tons of flexibility since it lets you cast all spells with the light descriptor spontaneously.
Only hiccup: The prerequisites would demand you be a cleric, which was hand-waived by my DM but might not be by yours.

(also, if you get to have this feat, you technically also qualify for Versatile Spellcaster, which is very good.)

That feat is quite good, I will have to ask my DM about it. It'd have to be refluffed to a different deity of course, but could work... Of course I was going for more spirituality than directly following a god, but I could if I need to.


Two questions for the OP:

1. Is your DM allowing Dragonlance material? If yes, pick up the feat Academic Priest, ASAP. It allows you to get bonus spells based on your INT instead of your WIS.

2. How easy will it be to find scrolls of the spells you want? If your DM frowns on magic mart, you might not want to play an Archivist, since they depend on access to magic items.

1. I don't really know if he's allowing much from the Dragonlance setting, but that is one of his more favored settings, so potentially, I'll ask. I didn't even realize Archivist was split on casting stat, I thought they already utilized Int for all their casting needs, but it does appear they use it for all but bonus spells, wow. I might get that feat then...

2. Well, magic items are supposed to be rarer and more expensive, BUT! Since we're doing the Birthright setting, we're all noble and starting out as regent to a chunk of land, the "castle" of my town being a library research tower my elf has reserched at for centuries. I asked if it would contain many scrolls and he said sure.

We're going to essentially roll for if my character just already owns any scrolls, the rolls being harder the more obscure the divine version of a scroll would be, like if I'm trying to get bard spells which had been scribed by a divine bard or something it'd be really hard, the more divine spell lists the spell appears on the more common and easier the roll would be and so forth. I think he may regret this heavily, but I will try not to abuse it and just carry infinite scrolls of any and all spells and so forth and just use them for learning spells, but I think he may still regret it. Because I know if I abuse it too much, a great fire may hit my library. <.<

[ColorBlindNinja]

1. I didn't even realize Archivist was split on casting stat, I thought they already utilized Int for all their casting needs, but it does appear they use it for all but bonus spells, wow. I might get that feat then...

Yeah, it's one of the few drawbacks of the class. Dragonlance material isn't kosher at all tables, hence why I asked if it was allowed.


2. Well, magic items are supposed to be rarer and more expensive,

:smallfrown:


BUT! Since we're doing the Birthright setting, we're all noble and starting out as regent to a chunk of land, the "castle" of my town being a library research tower my elf has reserched at for centuries. I asked if it would contain many scrolls and he said sure.

That would certainly help. Without ready access to scrolls, you may as well play a Cleric.


We're going to essentially roll for if my character just already owns any scrolls, the rolls being harder the more obscure the divine version of a scroll would be, like if I'm trying to get bard spells which had been scribed by a divine bard or something it'd be really hard, the more divine spell lists the spell appears on the more common and easier the roll would be and so forth.

At the very least, you should aim for Adept, Ranger and Paladin spells. Druid, too.

If you can get those you should get your money's worth (so to speak) out of the Archivist.


I think he may regret this heavily, but I will try not to abuse it and just carry infinite scrolls of any and all spells and so forth and just use them for learning spells, but I think he may still regret it. Because I know if I abuse it too much, a great fire may hit my library. <.<

Having every scroll isn't as abusive as you might think. You still have to pay to scribe them in your prayer book, so you'll be spending a ton of cash learning new spells, in all likelihood.

[Wolfswift]

Having every scroll isn't as abusive as you might think. You still have to pay to scribe them in your prayer book, so you'll be spending a ton of cash learning new spells, in all likelihood.

Wow. I guess I never looked at writing spells to a spellbook for 3.5, I didn't know it was costly. I think I might've been thinking in Pathfinder terms as we play that often too.

Still, we have a treasury for our settlements that is like money we shouldn't tap too much lest our settlements suffer, but we can tap it and it's a healthy chunk of change. Not to mention we get like a monthly allowance sort of thing based in how much our settlements make, so presuming we also find cash or treasures we can sell adventuring, should be covered, however if I wanna learn ALL the spells it may still essentially tap me out.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Wow. I guess I never looked at writing spells to a spellbook for 3.5, I didn't know it was costly. I think I might've been thinking in Pathfinder terms as we play that often too.

Pathfinder has different prices but it still costs gp except for the level up freebies, same as 3.5. 5th levels are the same cost, up to 4th are cheaper, and 6th up are more expensive in PF.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Pathfinder has different prices but it still costs gp except for the level up freebies, same as 3.5. 5th levels are the same cost, up to 4th are cheaper, and 6th up are more expensive in PF.

Really? I wonder why they did that. In 3.5 it's spell level x100 GP to scribe a spell, which is really easy to remember.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Really? I wonder why they did that. In 3.5 it's spell level x100 GP to scribe a spell, which is really easy to remember.

Wait... I was remembering the rental fee. It's cheaper across the board in PF.

[Thurbane]

In regards to taking Initiate feats as an Archivist, there is a section of Dragon magic that gives a bit of wiggle room for those other than Clerics:


Any character of a class that must select a deity and that uses the cleric spell list for spellcasting can treat his level in that class as if it were a cleric level for the purpose of qualifying for an initiate feat.


It's designed with Favored Souls in mind, but with some DM fiat or possibly dipping into a PrC that requires you to select a particular deity, you might be able to use it with an Archivist base.

Already mentioned.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Wait... I was remembering the rental fee. It's cheaper across the board in PF.

Ah, I see. Thanks for clarifying.

[Wolfswift]

Pathfinder has different prices but it still costs gp except for the level up freebies, same as 3.5. 5th levels are the same cost, up to 4th are cheaper, and 6th up are more expensive in PF.

Arright, so I'm just wrong all around. The rare occasions I've played prepared casters either I've rarely if ever aquired the extra spells or my group must have hand waived the fees or forgot because I didn't know about it.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Arright, so I'm just wrong all around. The rare occasions I've played prepared casters either I've rarely if ever aquired the extra spells or my group must have hand waived the fees or forgot because I didn't know about it.

No worries. You get a decent number of freebies anyway and, frankly, being a prepared caster can be more headache than it's worth. Maybe you had a blessed book? 12,500gp for 1000 pages of spellbook that you don't have to pay the scribing costs for. If you go a long way towards filling it, it eventually pays for itself in 3.5 but the cost difference makes it hard to say whether that remains true for PF.