Resilience for Archivists

[lolcat]

As the title says, i'm building a mid-level Archivist and am concerned about the sheer multitude of things the character plain can't deal with effectively.

Hidey-rogue? Spot is not a class-skill. Grapply-monster? Without heart of water, i'm toast. Gropy-Undead? not with my fort-save, AMF-suckage? whelp...

Long story short, what are your strategies (outside of "that's why you have a party dumb*ss") to make your Archivist a bit less squishy?

Thanks for the advice :)

[Zaq]

Long-duration buffs go a long way. Even if you’re not using Persist, you should have access to enough hours/level defensive spells to cover a few weaknesses. Pearls of Power and Rods of Extend help your buffs not cut into your daily operations so much. If you’re not in a super-high-op group, you don’t have to get outright immunity to the stuff you’re afraid of—you just have to get enough of an edge to reach your turn and take control of the situation. Don’t feel like you need to invest in a perfect defense over a reasonable defense if the perfect defense costs too much.

I will mention that if you’re concerned about Spot/Listen, one of my very favorite feats is Fell Conspiracy in Exemplars of Evil. (Edgelord name, edgelord book, but it’s not an evil feat.) For a mere 50 gp/day (split across the party, if you like), you can give the entire party a gigantic typeless bonus to Spot and Listen as long as you aren’t completely on your own. It’s good stuff

What resources do you have free to spend? Are you able to invest a feat or two? Skill points? Gold? Racial choices? Got a PrC yet? Everything comes with a cost, so knowing what resources are available will help us keep the suggestions reasonable.

[lolcat]

Thanks for your input!

Starting level will be 10 with a very lenient approach to materials allowed (essentially everything 3.5 first party, including dragon magazine).
What i'm thinking of is going Archivist 5 Runecaster 5, though i'm not married to that idea. This gets relatively nice at lvl 13, when permanent runes and lvl 7 spells come online at the same time. Until then though it's difficult to be sturdy...

At the moment i've invested my feats in intimidation, poison use & poison spell + the feat taxes.

So any input concerning specific spells, items, combos etc. is greatly appreciated. I will look into fell conspiracy right away :)

[Saintheart]

If you're starting at Runecaster 5 there's a couple of tricks you can already pull, specifically around runes that trigger when read or passed and which can be set to fire on almost any condition the caster specifies. Worried about a grapply monster? Pass-activated rune of Freedom of Movement, set to activate when something attempts a grapple check on you. Want to make sure of at least one crucial hit? Rune of True Strike, which is a divine spell via the Elf domain. All of the verging-on-abuse functions of a Runecaster are available at your starting levels, the only control on them is that they're not permanent or use-per-day ... and indeed once you hit level 8 in Runecaster, even that control is removed, leaving only gp. You've got explicit access to Dragon Magazine, so you have access to a great feat: Alternative Source Spell, which allows you to prepare arcane spells as divine spells. Combine with Anyspell from the Forgotten Realms Spell domain and go to town.

In essence Runecasters get the BAB, Saves, and hit dice of a cleric; therefore for the most part your combat tactics are going to be similar to those of a cleric. The main thing you need to overcome is the weapon and armor proficiency, because the archivist gets practically zero and Runecaster doesn't add anything to it. A single level in some martial class or even in Cleric will sort that issue out. From there your ownage is, as with a cleric, in Divine Power and all the de rigeur spell choices out of the cleric handbook or similar.

There are two modes of thinking to get into with the Runecaster: Contingent Spell abuse, because with read-or-pass activated runes you can pull off something very similar at half the price, and the Batman Wizard, because the Runecaster does much the same trick. Your runes only take 10 minutes to craft and they last until interacted with. If you craft a rune every day out of your spell preparation routines, you'll soon have enough spells on you to meet a lot of possible situations.

[Ramza00]

Tyche's Touch is a 24 hour Cleric 2 spell. It gives a +4 sacred bonus to the first saving throw you make, then it downgrades to a +3, then a +2, then a +1. For 24 hours and a 2nd level spell slot it pays for itself with a pearl of power, or a wand, or an eternal wand.


With this spell you will have a better fort save than a fighter with a higher con.

Conviction is a Cleric 1 spell that lasts 10 mins / level (or you can use Mass Conviction for Cleric 3). It gives you a +2 moral bonus to saving throws at caster level 1, +3 at caster level 6, +4 at caster level 12, and +5 at caster level 18.

Benediction (Cleric 2) can't be used on yourself, but that is what magic items are for, it gives an ally a +2 luck bonus to saving throws. Furthermore it can be discharged, ending the spell as a free action, but discharging it allows the subject to reroll a single attack roll, saving throw, skill check, or ability check after seeing the result of the initial roll, but before finding out whether it succeeds or fails. The higher of the two rolls applies.

As you can see saving throws are not a problem for Archivist for spell slots (and cheap spell slots) allow you to get bonuses to your fort, reflex, and will save that stack with magic items resistance bonus.

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Magic Items will help you escape a grapple for there are several magic items that do not need somatic components to activate that are super cheap teleports.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?187851-3-5-Lists-of-Necessary-Magic-Items