2 Feats to choose for Archivist

[lolcat]

Greetings!

Since my DM has decided to rule that Venomfire causes the poison-secreting creature to take the damage as well, i have no choice but to re-think a part of my Archivist build and now have 2 feats i no longer need.
Those are Master of Poisons and Poison Spell (unless you can point me in a direction of making a use of those feats without the BoVD and Web-based resources. both are not available in this campaign).

The feats i have otherwise are:
Residual Magic
Reach Spell
Sudden Empower
Obtain Familiar (Houseruled to apply to divine casters)
Improved Familiar

Thanks a bunch!

[MisterKaws]

Get immunity to acid and you can use it regardless. Lots of guides for that.

[lolcat]

Get immunity to acid and you can use it regardless. Lots of guides for that.

The point is the DM does not want the ability to make d6/caster-lvl acid flasks around. So even if i'd do that, he'd rule that the flask could not contain it, or that making the flask is too expensive, or have a random psion walk by and delete the spell from my head. Or just delete the head.
One way or another, i don't want the campaign to be DM vs. players so i'll have to find an alternative ability and alternative feats.

[Venger]

your dm should just ban the spell, not try to make it annoying to use. if he doesn't want you to overcome idiotic limitations, he's perfectly well within his rights to say "no venomfire" under the gentleman's agreement.

you'd likely be better off investing resources elsewhere. what does your build look like and what's your general party role? what does a typical combat look like for your guy? hard to go wrong with just picking metamagic for a generalist caster tbh

[MisterKaws]

your dm should just ban the spell, not try to make it annoying to use. if he doesn't want you to overcome idiotic limitations, he's perfectly well within his rights to say "no venomfire" under the gentleman's agreement.

you'd likely be better off investing resources elsewhere. what does your build look like and what's your general party role? what does a typical combat look like for your guy? hard to go wrong with just picking metamagic for a generalist caster tbh

This I guess. Also better change that Sudden Empower into a real Empower. You can buy Metamagic Rods for ad-hoc metamagic... unless your DM hates casters that much.

Maybe get Arcane Thesis... again, if your DM doesn't flare up.

[lolcat]

your dm should just ban the spell, not try to make it annoying to use. if he doesn't want you to overcome idiotic limitations, he's perfectly well within his rights to say "no venomfire" under the gentleman's agreement.

I'd agree, but he doesn't want that. No use debating that, it is as it is.



you'd likely be better off investing resources elsewhere. what does your build look like and what's your general party role? what does a typical combat look like for your guy? hard to go wrong with just picking metamagic for a generalist caster tbh

My combat-ability is limited due to low spells/day. I mostly do debuffing and battelfield-control. I can create runes to buff the party, but as of now there's no coherent strategy to it or any standardised gameplan. Last combat, i buffed the tank with a pre-prepared rune of bite of the wereXY (cant remember which one), which probably saved her life.

My build, at the moment, is Archivist 5 Runecaster 5, Race is Unseely-Fey Elf.

Rest of the party is:
Human, Healer 7, Combat Medic 3
Lesser Aasimar, Warblade 10
Feral Changeling, Warlock 1 / Cleric 3 / Eldritch Disciple 4 / Warshaper 1
Changeling Sorcerer 10

The combats we had up to now were something like this:
Trouble overcoming SR or high saves / other immunities as well as lack of spells/day. Summoned big bruisers. In total been killed twice within 5 sessions, once due to SoD & failed fort save, second time by tripple-digit damage from undetected reinforcements.


I'm wondering if there is another niche i can open up for my character with two feats. I can't do intimidation since the key feats need another race or region, poisoning/venomfire to buff damage output will be closed come next session... yeah, i'm a bit lost what i can coherently do with two feats now.

[Anthrowhale]

It looks like you are partway down the line to a combat familiar. To complete that path, you want "Enspell Familiar" from Dragon Compendium allowing you to share spells out to a 1 mile range. Something like Fly(via travel domain)+Polymorph[Annis Hag](via Transformation domain)+Improved Invisiblity(via Slayer of Domiel list)+Divine Power to turn both you and your familiar into fairly potent battle form. Precast long-lasting effects (e.g. Magic Vestment, Greater Magic Weapon) to prep for this.

How are you avoiding having Inscribe Rune (Runecaster prereq?). Not having that seems bad since you can't use the features of a runecaster.

[Bphill561]

You seem to have a strange combination of feats. You have Residual magic, but only sudden empower and reach spell. Sudden empower can only be used once, twice at best with Residual magic. Are you casting the same touch buff/heal spells repeatedly to get much use out of Residual magic and Reach spell? This requires the Dragon Compendium but Easy Metamagic might be a better feat. It reduces the cost of another metamagic by 1 if you want to cast lots of Reach spells with an adjustment of 1, then they don't have to repeat the same spells two rounds in a row and each would be at a +1 adjustment. Another option is to pick up more metamagic if you had more ideas for Residual magic. Overall though, if reach spell and Residual magic were to cast venomfire on summons several rounds in a row, you might have more than two feats to trade out.

Also are the feats retro active? If you are good and having trouble getting access to spells, I like the feat Ancestral Relic from the Book of Exalted deeds. You basically pray and sacrifice anything of value to enchant on pre-selected item. Sacrificing a pile of kobold spears to make a divine scroll of any spell you want is a good trick (in your magic ancestral book of knowledge), then copy into your spell book. Only useful if spell access is a problem.

Sounds like you are summoning creatures and are using at least one forgotten realms book. The Greenbound Summoning feat (Lost Empires of Faerun) just requires you to have summon nature's ally spells. It slaps a pretty beef template on any animals you summon. The summon nature's ally spell chain is pretty good too for party healing, as groups of unicorns you can summon have healing spells. Anyway, if summoning is a thing you are doing already that could be a potential new focus. Likewise there is Ashbound summoning from Eberron depending on your campaign setting (or mixture of books). Take a look at some summoning guides for more feats like augmented summoning if you are interested in going along that route. You just might have to feel out the DM to make sure that won't become the new nerf target.

[Malphegor]

You probably should be able to make a case that Academic Priest from the Dragonlance Campaign Setting book is applicable to an Archivist since they're arguably an academic priest.

Normally a cleric feat, it makes your bonus spells key off your intelligence rather than your wisdom, which means you can pretty much ignore wisdom. :)