Pathfinder arcanist optimisation

[Trandir]

Well time to get a new character started. I was thinking to play an arcanist with the occultist archetype.



The rest of the party (please don't question their choices I don't know why they did this but everyone has the right to suffer I presume): TWF chained rogue n°1, TWF chained rogue n°2 and double cursed life oracle (healer with some debuffs and buffs)

For the race I was looking at the sylph but I haven't decided yet, a lot of the published races under 20 RP are allowed so there is quite the choice.

Since the occultist gets an easier time with summoning I think I should support it a bit, but that's not the core. The arcanist is very versatile class (but I need to drop some damage sponges in the battlefield otherwise our DM will risk a TPK constantly).

I get: 20 point buy, start at 5th level with 8.000 gp to get starting gear, 2 traits and up to 1 drawback.

The campaign is a homebrew setting and we can expect to fight any kind of monster on the road to the late game.

No cheese, I'd like to avoid the DM pulling me aside to tell me that I have to change build.



This seems to be all the relevant info. If anyone has any advice about anything it would be greatly appreciated.

[Kurald Galain]

Occultist strikes me as problematic, because the pool cost of your speedy summons gets prohibitively expensive at higher levels.

Of course, if you want to summon, you'll want SF:Conjuration, Augment Summoning, and Superior Summoning feats. Throw in other conjurations for battlefield control and you're good. Personally I like the dimensional slide and counterspell exploits.

[Trandir]

Occultist strikes me as problematic, because the pool cost of your speedy summons gets prohibitively expensive at higher levels.

Of course, if you want to summon, you'll want SF:Conjuration, Augment Summoning, and Superior Summoning feats. Throw in other conjurations for battlefield control and you're good. Personally I like the dimensional slide and counterspell exploits.

Kinda. To me it looks like you can just use 3 exploits per day+1 summon monster (or 2 if you have more than one day of rest), and since I've never played an arcanist it looks resonable to me. Maybe a normal one just spams exploits.

The feats are a good array and so are the exploits even tho I don't know what to think of the counterspell one.

[Kurald Galain]

1 summon monster

More to the point: a summoner build wants to cast multiple summons per day.

[Trandir]

More to the point: a summoner build wants to cast multiple summons per day.

It's not like I don't have spell slots or that I can only summon if I have the occultist archetype

[Kurald Galain]

It's not like I don't have spell slots or that I can only summon if I have the occultist archetype

That's precisely my point. Picking a different archetype makes you a better summoner.

[Thunder999]

There's the fiendish proboscis to just refill your reservoir, but that's incredibly cheesy since it's literally infinite reservoir.
You could go for a really high charisma and consume your best spells to fuel the summoning, not the worst trade, but makes you more MAD and costs you your best non-summoning spells.

Other than that you can go for normal arcanist and put up with 1 round cast time on summons or pick a different class, master summoner archetype summoner and monster tactician inquisitor are both very summon focused classes.

[Akal Saris]

I think an occultist is a great idea since your summons can tank and flank with the rogues in the party!

Feats to take, approximately in order (I'd go as far as superior summoning at least):
- spell focus: conj
- augment summoning
- improved initiative (you want to summon monsters ahead of your rogues' actions in combat so that they can move to flank immediately)
- superior summoning (lets you summon more small monsters - great to help the rogues flank)
- Versatile Summon Monster (lets you change their templates on the fly)
- summon good/neutral/evil monster (adds new creatures to your list, depending on alignment)
- expanded summon monster (adds new creatures to your list)
- evolve summon monster (lets you customize 1 summoned monster with an additional trait)

Other optimization notes:
- Elf is great for the favored class bonus since occultists will burn quickly through arcane reservoir points
- keep in mind that your arcane reservoir summons are a standard action and last minutes/level but you can only have 1 instance of those summons active at a time. Meanwhile, you can also cast the spell directly, which is a full round and lasts rounds/level, but you can summon through the spell in addition to having that arcane reservoir spell active at the same time
- you can consume your spells to add to arcane reservoir. Since the summons from the reservoir are better than your normal summoning, it's usually a good idea to refill your reservoir with your spell slots so that you can always summon from it at least once per combat
- 'wyroot' is a special material that lets you recover arcane reservoir on a critical hit, so you could hit unconscious foes after a fight to recover some points. up to you if it's too cheesy, but it is pretty affordable (1-4k)

Good luck! I played an occultist once, but the character died before really getting too powerful.

[Trandir]

That's precisely my point. Picking a different archetype makes you a better summoner.

I kind of doubt that. Or is there an archetype I'm unaware of?


There's the fiendish proboscis to just refill your reservoir, but that's incredibly cheesy since it's literally infinite reservoir.
You could go for a really high charisma and consume your best spells to fuel the summoning, not the worst trade, but makes you more MAD and costs you your best non-summoning spells.

Other than that you can go for normal arcanist and put up with 1 round cast time on summons or pick a different class, master summoner archetype summoner and monster tactician inquisitor are both very summon focused classes.

That exploit stinks of cheese from miles away.
That's true and I'm considering wether or not is worth to invest there since it really only matters if I get more than 13 Cha. I am considering (pre racial) Str 8, Dex 14, Con 12, Wis 10 and either Int 18, Cha 8 or Int 16, Cha 14

I don't want a summoner I just want a class that can summon well among other things and the arcanist can fill that pretty well.



I think an occultist is a great idea since your summons can tank and flank with the rogues in the party!

Feats to take, approximately in order (I'd go as far as superior summoning at least):
- spell focus: conj
- augment summoning
- improved initiative (you want to summon monsters ahead of your rogues' actions in combat so that they can move to flank immediately)
- superior summoning (lets you summon more small monsters - great to help the rogues flank)
- Versatile Summon Monster (lets you change their templates on the fly)
- summon good/neutral/evil monster (adds new creatures to your list, depending on alignment)
- expanded summon monster (adds new creatures to your list)
- evolve summon monster (lets you customize 1 summoned monster with an additional trait)

Other optimization notes:
- Elf is great for the favored class bonus since occultists will burn quickly through arcane reservoir points
- keep in mind that your arcane reservoir summons are a standard action and last minutes/level but you can only have 1 instance of those summons active at a time. Meanwhile, you can also cast the spell directly, which is a full round and lasts rounds/level, but you can summon through the spell in addition to having that arcane reservoir spell active at the same time
- you can consume your spells to add to arcane reservoir. Since the summons from the reservoir are better than your normal summoning, it's usually a good idea to refill your reservoir with your spell slots so that you can always summon from it at least once per combat
- 'wyroot' is a special material that lets you recover arcane reservoir on a critical hit, so you could hit unconscious foes after a fight to recover some points. up to you if it's too cheesy, but it is pretty affordable (1-4k)

Good luck! I played an occultist once, but the character died before really getting too powerful.

All good advice.