'Tome Eater' archetype for Occultist doesn't seem fair for what's asks. Thoughts?

[WitchyKitty]

Paizo's 'Tome Eater' Archetype for the Occultist class, in Pathfinder.

I'm referring to this archetype right here, in Pathfinder's 'Occult Adventures' supplement.

I feel as though I'm missing something here. The Occultist normally gains implements at set levels, meaning more schools, more spells. There are 8 schools. Each chosen implement grants you you 1 spell fo that school at each level.
Normally, the occultist seems to get up to 7 total Implements, and thus spell schools, by level 20.
Tome Eater here seems to get access to 6, total, removing the 6th level implement gain.
What we get in exchange is... immensely lackluster. You can use your mental focus for one point, in a chosen school to either,

'Increase a spell caster level by 1' or
'Increase that spell's DC by 1'.
By level 20, you can literally only do this like.... 4-5 times or so?

Word sense replaces aura sight at level 5. Which is basically just 'constant read magic', and concentrating in a space will tell you the general gist of a tome that's abotu 30 feet away (30ft per 100 pages).
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Devour Books and scrolls; the "big feature" of this archetype.

A tome eater can devour books and scrolls in order to gain various benefits. Devouring a book or scroll is a full-round action that provokes attacks of opportunity. A devoured book or scroll is absorbed into the tome eaterÂ’s body and completely destroyed.

At 4th level, once per day a tome eater can devour a spell scroll or a book to regain mental focus, which she can divide as she likes among her schools of magic, to a maximum of the amount of mental focus she assigned to that school at the beginning of the day. If she devours a scroll, a tome eater regains a number of points of mental focus equal to the spell level of the highest-level spell contained on the scroll. If she devours a non-magical book that contains at least 100 pages of written text and is worth at least 25 gp, a tome eater regains 1 point of mental focus. If she devours a magical book, she regains a number of points of mental focus equal to half the caster level of the item. If the tome eater devours a spellbook with at least 50 pages of spells of 1st level or higher, she regains 4 points of mental focus.

At 6th level, a tome eater can ready an action to devour an enemyÂ’s spell when an enemy within 30 feet attempts to cast a spell from a scroll. This ability works as the counterspell action as if the tome eater were using dispel magic, though the tome eater doesnÂ’t need to cast a spell to counter the enemyÂ’s spell. A tome eater can use this ability once per day at 6th level, plus one additional time per day for every 4 occultist levels beyond 6th. If a tome eater readies an action to use this ability and the readied action never triggers, she doesnÂ’t expend a daily use of this ability. At 16th level, the tome eater can use this ability as an immediate action without readying an action.

At 8th level, a tome eater can devour a book or scroll as a standard action. Additionally, whenever a tome eater successfully uses this ability to counter a spell being cast from a scroll, she can devour the enemyÂ’s scroll without spending any additional actions if she hasnÂ’t devoured a scroll or book yet that day.

At 12th level, a tome eater can devour a book or scroll as a move action. Additionally, whenever a tome eater successfully uses this ability to counter a spell being cast from a scroll, she can choose to turn the spell back on its caster (as spell turning) instead of devouring the scroll. She can do this whether or not she has devoured a scroll or book yet that day.


This completely chops out shift focus, your 6th level implement (as mentioned above). Magic circles. Outside Contact. Binding Circles, and Fast Circles.

You basically get, in essence, what amounts to an over-glorified counterspell and the ability to restore your focus points at an abysmal conversion ratio. The likelihood of which actually being used verges on 'next to none' because never in combat has any DM ever clarified whether a spell is being cast from a scroll or not.
Unless I'm misreading, that is literally all you get. In exchange for giving up what seems like most of the key features of the Occultist class.
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I chose this archetype for my Occultist at first. But when I read up on it, and realized just what I had done, now I feel.... very, very ****ed over. What is the point of this archetype exactly? You seem like you're sacrificing far more than what you're getting. The benefit feels far, FAR outweighed by what you're tossing out.

[Rynjin]

So essentially what you're complaining about here is that your Occultist loses a spell school for the ability to raise their caster level by 1 or spell DC by 1 (two of the most powerful possible things a spellcaster can do) and can get extra uses of this very powerful ability by spending money?

This is supposed to be a BAD trade?

[icefractal]

It's not that great for something you can do 4/day at 20th level.
For comparison, an Arcanist with Potent Magic has twice this ability (+2 CL / +2 DC) usable at least 13/day, more if they're willing to spend spell slots. TBF they're probably wanting to use their pool for other things too (but so might an Occultist want to use that mental focus elsewhere).

You don't get more uses by eating scrolls, you get more mental focus (which it also uses), but the uses/day limit remains. The scroll eating would be pretty useful if it were more than 1/day, but as is it's going to be either a minor boon or expensive.

I've tried looking at Occultist before but always end up bouncing off it - more complexity than its capabilities justify, IMO, but it's possible I'm missing some gems.

[Rynjin]

One of the benefits of Occultist is they can be a full BAB 6 caster if you build them that way. (https://aonprd.com/OccultistImplementsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Trappings %20of%20the%20Warrior)

[WitchyKitty]

What I'm criticizing is not necessarily the ability to raise caster level/ spell DC, but rather, all of the other things you lose by taking this archetype; the ability to contact outsiders, magic circles, spell school of course, etc. I'm not number-crunching minded;
And, like I said as well, that the ability to devour books and scrolls, I don't think will ever see any use. Because no DM I have /ever/ encountered has ever specified whether a spell was cast via scroll or by 'natural' casting (i.e. nonscroll, example wizard, sorcerer, cleric, etc). Let alone unsure whether they would even consider the distinction.

Maybe I don't see the full picture, and I'm fully willing to admit that. I've played both PF and D&D before but I do not have much experience with them; I don't get into the nitty-gritty of statistics, so maybe that's where I went wrong in my thinking, which might also play into why 'increasing spell DC/ caster level' sounds underwhelming to me; perhaps solely because I've not seen it in active practice. Maybe being only level 6 (which as far as I know, is relatively low level..?) also plays into it. I'm not sure.

I should mention. I also do not have any gauge or metric to use when it comes to what's considered 'powerful'. ANd when I say I don't have a gauge or metric, that means I literally do not know and do not have a scale to reference for what's considered powerful, aside from 'big damage numbers'

[Darg]

While I've never played pathfinder beyond the kingmaker video game, the psychokineticist also gets shafted with weaker abilities, mind burn is effectively more harsh than normal burn (penalties at twice the rate of benefit while not letting you get the 3 extra burn normal burn has; burn has total equal to your stat bonus + 3; vs mind burn which neuters every benefit other than the stat score and ability DCs, burn only takes away HP which you don't get anyway as a psychkineticist; and doesn't provide sneak attack fortification), and doesn't let you be immune to emotion altering effects or lose access to class features.

It sort of sounds like they tended to overly penalize certain things because in very specific circumstances could get out of hand a little.

[Gnaeus]

PF archetypes aren’t necessarily balanced any more than 3.5 classes are. Certainly there are archetypes that are stronger and weaker than the base class. The big equalizer is that at least you can comparison shop for them in one place.

Occultist tends to be either
1 a backwards way to get a full bab 6 level caster
Or
2 an arcane caster in a play environment that rejects 9 level casters as too strong.

I tend to think of focus as spell slots of one to two levels below your top casting level. There’s a lot of things you can do with it, but basically when you cast 6th level spells, your focus will more or less emulate strong 4th or weak 5ths.

So if you have scribe scrolls, once per day you can spend 800 GP (halfed cost of a 6th level spell), to get 6 extra 4th levels. Or once per day you could spend 4000 gold (shop price for a 9th level scroll) to get 9 extra 4th level spells. That’s not setting the world on fire, but on really long days when you won’t have enough spells, it isn’t the worst thing.

[Psyren]

Tome Eater advantages:

1) Only one implement needed to enable all your casting and resonant powers
2) Convert unneeded scrolls and mundane books into bonus mental focus - some of these effects can be quite powerful
3) Spend mental focus to power up some of your spells (while this doesn't scale well, the CL boost on a 10 min./lvl or hours/lvl spell is valuable early on).
4) Negate/reflect enemy scroll use (situational)
5) Constant read magic

Tome Eater disadvantages:

1) Single point of failure for disabling your magic. Also not as easy to wear on your person (hands-free) and still present, as some of the other implements.
2) 1 fewer implement school (i.e. up to 6 fewer spells known, 7 if you count the knack. You also won't be able to cover all 7 schools of magic as far as focus/resonant powers.)
3) Can't shift focus during the day
4) No circle abilities - depending on the campaign these could be very useful or you could barely notice.
5) Lose aura sight

The lost implement and circle powers are a clear negative, but these are offset by the ability to potentially get substantially more focus during a day than a normal occultist, and do so extremely cheaply - low level scrolls cost a pittance, and you have a pretty good shot at finding some your party won't want in randomized treasure. If however scrolls and books are rare in your campaign, this archetype drops in value considerably.

Having just the one implement can be good or bad depending on your campaign.

[Rynjin]

What I'm criticizing is not necessarily the ability to raise caster level/ spell DC, but rather, all of the other things you lose by taking this archetype; the ability to contact outsiders, magic circles, spell school of course, etc.

Magic circles etc. are ironically features so good, they're bad. When used to their full potential they can be gamebreaking, so you don't want to use them to their full potential at a real table.

When not used to their full potential...they're borderline useless so you may as well trade them away.


I'm not number-crunching minded;
And, like I said as well, that the ability to devour books and scrolls, I don't think will ever see any use. Because no DM I have /ever/ encountered has ever specified whether a spell was cast via scroll or by 'natural' casting (i.e. nonscroll, example wizard, sorcerer, cleric, etc). Let alone unsure whether they would even consider the distinction.

Well, a big hint is that to cast a scroll you need to actually pull it out and read from it, so it's kind of obvious when someone is casting from a scroll. If your GM doesn't know this rule, you should probably remind them of it. Scrolls don't give you the ability to cat them just form them being on your person.

Also remember you can eat your own scrolls, not just use the counterspell ability. A 1st level scroll only costs 25 gp. 12.5 gp if you take Scribe Scroll and make your own (which you probably should).

This is VERY cheap for what you're getting.


Maybe I don't see the full picture, and I'm fully willing to admit that. I've played both PF and D&D before but I do not have much experience with them; I don't get into the nitty-gritty of statistics, so maybe that's where I went wrong in my thinking, which might also play into why 'increasing spell DC/ caster level' sounds underwhelming to me; perhaps solely because I've not seen it in active practice. Maybe being only level 6 (which as far as I know, is relatively low level..?) also plays into it. I'm not sure.

So, as a caster, everything about your spell is determined by one of two things: caster level, or its DC (sometimes both).

So boosting those is nice. It will almost always have some major effect. If you're casting Hold Person, then you're making it more likely to just straight up kill a dude. If you're casting Fireball, it's dealing an extra d6 of damage, or you're lowering the chance they take half damage. If you're casting Greater Magic Weapon, you're getting a full extra hour on the DC.

Boosting CL or DC is a very flexible ability. It's perhaps a bit worse on a 6 caster who's incentivized to mostly cast buff spells, but still quite good.

[Psyren]

The +1 CL / DC boost on a single spell isn't bad, but mental focus is precious and I find the Focus Powers to be a much better use of those points most of the time. For that same point of mental focus, an Occultist can do things like move-action teleportation, swift-action speed boost, perfect flight for minutes/level, summon a shadow beast that functions like summon monster all the way up to SM9 (50% reality on disbelief), boost their AC/saves by half their level as an immediate action, create a barrier that reactively absorbs any kind of energy attack on the fly, and more.

The most powerful ability of the Tome Eater by far is their ability to recover mental focus during the day by gobbling down cheap scrolls and books, thus allowing them to use focus powers like the above more often, as well as replenish their resonant powers to full strength even after having done so. Again, this is only as valuable as your access to these items, but I personally view the Focus Powers as stronger than what you give up if you can add these objects to your diet. You can only do this once per day though, so to get a lot of mileage out of it you'll want a higher level scroll to eat each day.

[Rynjin]

True. I just think adding another universally powerful option for Mental Focus is pretty darn good, in the grand scheme of things. And even at a minimum level, getting a single extra point per day for 25 gp is not bad at all.